Of course, after the wedding came the honeymoon - over three weeks of holiday bliss which of course made us never want to return to work (but unfortunately needs must).  We made no bones about the fact that it was our honeymoon at the check-in desk, but although the lovely attendants attempted to upgrade us, business class was unfortunately full on our Cathay Pacific flight to Victor's birthplace, Hong Kong.  They did however, give us bulkhead seats and brought us champagne and cake.  Score! It was quite amusing seeing the other economy slummers like ourselves look indignantly and wonder why we deserved special treatment. At the airport I treated myself to a new compact camera, an upgrade to my old Canon Ixus - the Ixus 130.  I'm glad I did, seeing as we mainly got raped by the value of the pound to the yen in Japan.  It was far cheaper at the airport.

We arrived at rather sweaty hot and humid Hong Kong, where we almost got ripped off by a taxi driver - we had a huge argument and threatened him with the police, that sorted it out! Last time I was there I never used taxis, so didn't know much about getting one.  We couldn't check into the hotel, so we went off sightseeing and very very jetlagged.  A good kip soon sorted that out though! 

We did lots of cheesy sightseeing, including Ocean Park, afternoon tea at the Peninsula (and then watched the light show sipping expensive cocktails from the top of the building) and also met up with my favourite Aussie, Brendan - who I hadn't seen for three years! It was a nice way to ease in the honeymoon, we just wanted to be proper tourists, but Victor soon realised why I said three days was more than enough.  He got a bit flustered in the humidity and also didn't like all the hawkers everywhere.  I think he's satisfied now he's seen where he was born and lived for two years. 

Then, onwards, to Japan! I loved every second.  It was so good to go back, and I'd go back again and again.  It was great to see more this time, we went from Tokyo down through to Hiroshima, and many places in between.  Some of the highlights included dinner at two of my former students' house, Taro and Jiro (who are brothers).  Their family welcomed us with open arms, cooked us a banquet, showered us with gifts and their 83 year old grandfather (who has a whole book written about his history by an historian - he survived Hiroshima, was in a professional orchestra and much more) played his £35,000 violin for us.  Fabulous!  We also went to karaoke with Jiro and his girlfriend Kayo, which was hilarious, even if they did put us to shame by being much better singers than us. 

Victor wowed people up and down the country with his tattoos, prompting pictures and drunken businessmen trying to start up conversation in broken English.  I'm quite frankly amazed that I managed to drag him away from Akihabara (Electronic City) actually.  The geek was totally at home.  To be fair, I did spend an obscene amount on Studio Ghibli merchandise after visiting the wonderful museum again (and I got to see a new Ghibli short!). 
Hiroshima was a place for reflection and it was so poignant.  It's something that you just have to do and experience, although it reduced me to tears quite frequently.  It's amazing to see how the city has regenerated itself, and how it's transformed into a wonderful city of peace and beauty.  It's also home to their own version of Okonomiyaki, a sort of pancake style dish with eggs, noodles and teriyaki sauce.  The Hiroshima-yaki was wayyyy better than the original ones (found in Osaka). 

Mentioning the food, oh god it was divine.  I think we had some of the best food in Kyoto, including burnt ramen, some amazing tempura and the best udon noodles.  I also probably consumed far too much ume shu (plum wine) than needed! 

We didn't want to come home, that's for sure.  Here's a selection of pictures from Japan on Flickr (it's worth noting that I took over 1,000 pictures during the whole trip.... ooops!).  I gave up uploading them to my own webspace as I wanted to try and get up to date with the blog!

Addendum: I've just realised I've far exceeded the normal quota of exclaimation marks for one blog post.  Oh well.  I'm not a literature student anymore :D