Europe 2011 trip – Japan, England & Portugal

Hi family and friends, we have been back in Australia for one week now and I’m over my jet lag (it took 4 days this time) so I’ll post some photos and even some video of our lovely trip here on my blog.

Japan

We really didn’t get too many photos of our 6 day trip to Japan as we seemed to be filming everything on the video camera and leave the digital camera behind in the hotel room, but here are some.

On the way to the hotel in Tokyo from the airport Sanna posed to make a joke of the lady behind her on the bus.

All Tokyo toilets are either a hole in the floor style or the majority super electric ones like this that wash your bits after your done. Click on the photo to zoom in and read the label too as the English is so bad its funny.

We went out to a great restaurant on the first night and got talking to a few people in the restaurant and made some new friends. Some spoke alright English and some not much at all. It was fun comparing Japan culture to Australian/English culture. The guy to the right bought me some Sake’s when I was already a bit drunk and got me really drunk, they were all so friendly. The next day I had a Sake hangover.

A selection of small Japanese drinks we got in the local convenience store. We worked out by tasting them 3 were alcoholic and 1 was an energy drink. We were not sure what was floating in 2 of them, they looked like large olives or cows balls, we think they were apricots maybe.

England

England the main reason for the Trip to Europe for 2011 was for my sister Nicki’s wedding at my families local church with the wedding reception at my parents barn and land.

We organised a local tractor and trailer to ferry the wedding guests from the church to the reception at my parents, it was a unique and fun way to move everyone around and a good idea.

The wedding in the tiny St Mary’s village church in our village of Barnham.

Here is the wedding reception guests in the large marquee that was put up on my families land, this photo was taken during the speeches.

Here is the top table during my dad’s speech, this was taken from my view off to the side where I was doing the wedding MC’ duties on the microphone through the evening.

My sister in her wedding dress on the bucking bronco, other games for everyone to have fun on also were, bungee run, coconut shy, horse shoe throwing, bouncy castle (jumping castle for the Aussie readers) and tug of war (which we forgot to do).

I made a short video slideshow made up of photos of me and Nicki growing up and Michael her husband growing up and lastly photos made up of the wedding day. I showed this video at around 10pm at the wedding reception and it was received well by the crowd.

Here catching up with old mates Dom and Leo in a Chichester pub, Rich Earnshaw was out of town DJ’ing in North America but I caught up with Mark Akky, Claire With’s and Rich Wright also, good times Smile Lovely to see you all.

Leo is now also finally a official stuntman now for Hollywood films. He’s been training for some 6-8 years by memory now and he’s now officially paid to hang out with famous stars and jump off very large buildings with explosions going off. He’s in the latest ‘Pirates of the Caribbean film’ with a short speaking part during a chase down some stairs with Johnny Depp, check his part out in this video.

Portugal

Sanna and I escaped England for 6 days to the south coast Algarve region of Portugal for some beach time and exploring the countryside in our hire car.