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For the New Year I was in Indonesia at Tuk Tuk on Samosir Island in Lake Toba, Sumatra. Shortly after the New Year I traveled back to Medan and then caught an over night bus up to Banda Aceh on the extreme northern coast of Sumatra. The Aceh province had a more extreme form of Islam than the rest of Indonesia and generally wanted its independence from the rule of Jakarta. Banda Aceh had a beautiful central mosque and a colorful central market, however, I had really traveled up to the province to go out to the island called Pulau Weh. From Banda Aceh's port of Krueng Raja it was a 2.5 hour sailing out to the idyllic tropical island which was famous for it's marine national park and diving.
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1996 Travel Diary (Part 1)

Gjcmcclurg
2005-12-23 14:40:13

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a busy main street lined with restaurants and stores of every kind. It was about 30 minutes on the local Sobu line commuter train in to the the heart of Tokyo. The house was typically Japanese with a tatami mat living room, a futon for the bed, a Japanese style bathroom and built mainly of wood. The bath was certainly different as you filled it with cold water and then put the bath's gas heater on to bring it up to temperature, finally you sat upright in it!

I spent a good couple of weeks living in Mark's house and exploring Tokyo. I had a fun time visiting the various skyscrapers, checking out the stores, negotiating the awesome mass transit system and people watching. The huge Shinjuku railway station has to be seen to be believed with up to 2 million people passing through it every day. Skinjuku together with Tokyo station are two of the busiest and most complicated railway stations in the world. The rush hour on the subway was just as I had seen on TV, with staff employed to push people into the carriages - certainly not for the claustrophobic!

We visited Ginza, the famous ritzy shopping district, did some window shopping and then checked out the latest products on show in the Sony building. Of course we had to have High Tea in the well known Twinings Tea Salon. Looking down on the busy Sukiyabasi crossing I got a real feel for the density of people living and working in this huge city. One Sunday we visited Harajuku where the young trendies seemed to congregate, and Yoyogi-Koen park where we spotted the Elvis look-a-likes and Punk Rockers.

Mark and I visited the famous Meiji-jingu Shinto shrine, which was located in and incredibly tranquil park in the center of Tokyo. The shrine is reputedly one of the finest in all of Japan and was certainly very impressive. At the entrance to the complex were gigantic torri gates of solid Cypress wood. Just by coincidence there was a wedding ceremony going on, ...