I met some Australians in Hiroshima who informed me that there was a Universal Studios in Osaka and that it had a proper full on Jaws ride. After the emotional roller-coaster that I had been through at the A-Bomb Museum and the Peace Park I jumped on an early train over there.

I was a little disappointed with park, although I had just visited the same place in Hollywood which had updated a lot of it’s rides. The jaws ride was great though, you go on a guided tour of Amity Island, then you get a call from another boat in distress. As you go through the rest of the ride Jaws get closer and cloaser to the boat and you get more and more wet. It ends with him chewing on a powerline and being blown up by a nearby oil drum, shot by the guide.

The other problem was that it was so cold, I’ve managed to get this far on my travels just wearing a hoody, and I didn’t really want to buy a coat to last the last 3 days before I head to SE Asia where a coat would definitely not be needed. I ended up mainly going on the rides that where indoors and using the time in the queues to warm up.

That night I met back up with the 2 Australian girls and anther Australian guy back at the hotel. It was decided that we should have a real Japanese night out and go to a Karaoke bar. I managed to murder the pixies, blur and underworld and we all had a go at chanting along to tubthumping.

The next morning the 2 Aussie girls an myself went to the Dotobori district of town which must have been an inspiration for Bladerunner. Lots of industrial buildings covered in neon signs. It looks like quite a trendy place to hang out, it was full of big groups teenagers all dressed up as though they where going out for the night. I head back into Tokyo for the evening and just went straight to bed.

For my last day in Tokyo I decided that I would just catch the subway to Akihabara, then just walk in a random direction until I found something interesting or I got bored. I found a cool market selling all sorts for weird stuff as well as a whole load of fish. They also seemed to sell a hell of a lot of octopus which I’ve never really seen on sale before.

I ended the night at a restaurant with an English guy I was sharing a room with, he showed me Okonomiyaki which is like a pancake, cabbage and whatever other fillings you like. I had shrimp, they also topped it with a special Okonomiyaki sauce which tasted just like HP brown sauce to me. We had a really interesting conversation about how you meet people and have this weird little relationship with them where they become like your best friends and then a couple of days later one of you has moved on and all of sudden your doing the same thing with someone else. I’m sort of looking forward to doing an organised tour where I’ll be with one group of people for a few weeks.

I had to get up early to catch my flight to Singapore where I’ve got an overnight stop before I get to Hanoi. I flew on the new double decker super jumbo A380, Economy class was pretty much the same as on any other plane, but I did walk through business class which looked wicked. You get a double seat and a 21″ TV. Unfortunately I’ve been feeling a little rough since last night and didn’t sleep at all, to top it all off I was sick a few times on the plane. Hopefully it’ll not last to long and I’ll be good for my first Tour starting on Tuesday.

I’ve been in LA for 4 days now and I haven’t seen a single Blood, Crip, drive-by, car-jacking or any police brutality. I have seen a lot of wannabe actors and actresses with scary amounts of plastic surgery.

After a nasty coach ride from Vegas, we arrived in around 8pm on Sunday night. I was too tired to do anything so just popped to the liquor store and burger place across the road for some beer and burger nastiness.

Monday, we used the free tickets for Universal Studios I got from an internet points thing I’ve been saving for a couple of years. I had a great time and got to fulfill my lifetime ambition and go on the Jaws ride – which turns out to be not a ride at all, but part of the 45 minute studio tour you get. It was spoilt a bit because they where filming desperate housewife’s at the time so they had to keep stopping the tour. If you get the chance to go, I’d recommend the tour, the Simpsons ride, Waterworld show, the Mummy roller coaster and the
haunted house. If you don’t have much time, give the Backdraft show
and the special effects show a miss.

On Tuesday we got a bus down to Santa Monica beach, where I am convinced is where The Lost Boys was filmed… turns out it was at Santa Cruz which is about 6 hours north of here. The beach was really well kept and to too busy, but I guess on a Tuesday in late October isn’t exactly high Tourist season. We walked the mile or so north to Venice Beach which is a mix of cool little indie stores, artists, people hastling you to go on tours and the old hippies who have taken entirely too much acid and completely lost there mind, they are harmless enough but it’s hard not to laugh at them.

Yesterday was a quiet one. I’d been given a ticket for a preview screening of Role Models, for that evening by the guy in the bunk beneath mine. Spent the day hanging around Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. We also did the tourist thing and went to the Chinese theatre where all the handprints are.

I’m catching the shuttle back up to San Francisco for a couple of nights now. I’ve got a tour of Alcatraz booked and I can’t wait to see the place on Halloween.