GRIDS Akihabara Capsule Hostel Tokyo

We arrived in Tokyo three days ago and after two nights in a great AirBnB the other side of town, we are now staying in the GRIDS Akihabara Capsule Hotel.

We're in a 30 bed room with loads of these self contained capsules, lockers and shared bathroom.

It's actually really nice, surprisingly private considering you share a room with 30 people and the bathroom is the nicest we've had since arriving in Japan.

There is a laundry room and shared common room upstairs, bar and cafe downstairs and the staff have been great.

Only thing that could make it better would be another pillow but to be fair I haven't asked for one, was too tired and fell straight to sleep!

Kosgoda Turtle Hatchery - Sri Lanka

Tonight we went to the Kosgoda Turtle Hatchery on Bentota beach in Sri Lanka. We arrived at 6:30pm as advised by Lonely Planet and we're not disappointed! We were the only people looking around the hatchery and had a great tour of the whole sanctuary.

Fishermen collect eggs laid by the females on beaches and take them to the hatchery to receive 2,000 rupees (£10). They're collected as otherwise iguana, monitor lizards and mongoose dig up and eat the eggs.

The eggs are buried in nests in the hatchery, covered by fencing and netted over the top to keep predators and birds out.

The turtles hatch overnight as it's cooler and are looked over for deformities, blindness and sexed according to tail length; males go into one nursery pool and females are kept separate.

Males are kept for 3 days while they absorb the yolk sac and fed some fish food pellets before being released into the ocean at night. A much lower percentage of females hatch so they are kept for a few years to grow until they are bigger and stronger to give them a fighting chance at survival.

The hatchery had quite a few large females ready for release as well as some residents - two blind and four with deformities, from one missing fin to all four fins missing. These are all hand fed tuna and seaweed.

After being shown all around the hatchery we collected 15 three-day-old Green Turtle hatchlings and headed down to the beach.

There were two Sea Eagles hanging around so we waited for them to leave and then released the babies into the Indian Ocean.

Sri Lanka; Government Veterinary Hospital

We arrived in Kandy last night on day 8 of our tour of Sri Lanka.

My parents and brother went to the Botanical Gardens but I spotted the Government Veterinary Hospital while we were driving, so walked back to have a look.

 As I was walking up I asked a man if I could take photos, he asked where I was from so I explained I was a vet student from the UK. He introduced me to the Chief Vet Surgeon who gave me a guided tour of the clinic, surgery rooms, pharmacy, dispensary and kennels!

They have four surgery tables which were all in closed rooms behind glass, I couldn't see any gas anaesthetic machines but it all looked very clean and well organised. Surgery instruments looked like they were kept in glass cabinets and autoclaved as needed.

 Consult tables were on the patio around the outside of the building under cover, I guess it's cooler and less stressful for the animals to keep them outside.

There was a price list above the door; Farm animals are free, Small Animal consult 20-30 rupees (10-15 pence) and a Rabies vaccination costs 50 rupees (24p).

The clinician said they see a lot of skin conditions and parasites through the clinic which they manage quite well and mange, which I've seen a lot of when travelling the island.

 I stayed to see a few consults which were Parvo, Distemper and Rabies vaccinations in young puppies, foreign body removal from a puppies ear and some really bad mange.

A big German Shepherd type dog came in on the back of a Tuk Tuk collapsed which they had to immediately put on IV fluids, I didn't get chance to ask what was going on in the rush but it looked like heat stroke which I'm sure they just see a fair few patients for.

They had kennels out the back for monitoring post-op animals, dealing with skin conditions and separate area for Rabies monitoring.

Love their cones of shame which looked like a small plastic laundry basket.

I got some videos on my GoPro so will compile and upload those when I can!

Ski Weekend in Tatranska Lomnica

I've had the best weekend skiing with friends in Tatranska Lomnica, a resort in the Slovak part of the High Tatras mountains.

Four friends from home flew into Košice on Friday, we went for lunch in Napoli and then got the train to the Tatras with six other friends from vet school.

As I'm a student under 26 I get free train travel in Slovakia, the others only had to pay €5 for the ticket, a 120km journey via Poprad.

We booked an apartment called Wili Tatry which was a couple minutes walk from the train station and supermarket, with the ski lift less than a kilometres walk away.

Cable car up to Lomnicky štít

There are 9 lifts and 12 slopes which meet in similar places at the bottom of the mountain meaning people can choose which runs they want to ski and meet the group at the bottom.

I stuck to blue and red trails 1,751m high but Niall and Lena went for the 2,190m high black slope!

Après Ski on the slopes

We went out for food and drinks every night and on Saturday went to Humno Tatry, a club who's main selling point was that they had Madonna's Cadillac suspended from the roof, which ended up being a really good night.
We read online that the locals dubbed it, 'Club Tropicana' 'cos drinks are almost free.

We stayed out until 5am so the planned up and on the slopes by 8:30am became more like 11:30 after I cooked us all scrambled eggs on toast. We still had a good few hours skiing, though Mika and Jasmine only made it down the slopes once on a hangover.

I had a great time and was really nice to have 5 days with friends from home, can't wait for them to visit again and we'll definitely be back skiing next year!

International Falconry Meet

Today we went to an International Falconry Meet near Košice and had an amazing time.

We met at 7 and got a coach with the rest of Falconry club to a hotel in Dargov about 40 minutes away from Kosice.
There the Falconers lined up with their birds and had an opening ceremony. We didn't understand what was said but the birds looked amazing; Golden Eagles, Harris Hawks, Peregrine Falcons and even a little Kestrel!

From there they separate into groups and go off hunting. We didn't have cars and the bus couldn't take us so we tried our best to speak to people and jump in cars and get a lift with them.

I went off with the Eagles with Sian, Lucy and Niamh while others spent the day with Hawks or Falcons.
We had nine Golden Eagles with us from all over Europe - Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary - so it was really interesting seeing the falconers speak to one another, mostly in German and English as their common languages, though they all knew a few words of each language.

We spread out along the boundary of one field in a straight line 10 metres apart from each other with two people between every Eagle, the idea being that we flush the field as we walk across it in a line and the eagle closest to the prey or quarry is flown.

Being November everyone layered up expecting winter weather but we had glorious sunshine all day and walking all day everyone was roasting! We stopped at midday to give the birds and everyone else a rest. The birds all sat there good as gold, some of them not even hooded without stressing or trying to bait off the glove so they really were a credit to their trainers.

After lunch we carried on as as the weather cooled down a bit the birds were flying better and had a lot more successful catches.

We saw pheasants, hare and deer but only caught hares - Eagles don't go after pheasants and the deer were a bit too far away for the falconer to run after them and get there should there be a problem.

After the hunt we returned to the hotel for drinks and to talk to people then everyone sat down for a four course meal of soup, chicken with roasties, goulash (which everyone went mad for) and then cake!

I'm so glad we went and it was an incredible experience.

Amazing week in Dubai

I've been in Dubai for a week with friends, Jack and George, and had an amazing time!

We found cheap flights a few weeks ago, via Bucharest on the way there and via Sofia, Bulgaria on the way back, so decided to book it and go!

The flights were £300 return - the Dubai to Sofia was only €20! - and the 4* hotel was £60 each for 6 nights so pretty good deal!

It was 41oC during the day so too hot to stay outside and even at night it didn't drop below 34oC at 3 or 4am!

The first day was a bit of a culture shock with the massive clear divide between wealth and poverty; 5 star gold and marble hotels next to falling down apartment blocks and exploitation of Indian workers doing manual labour in blazing sunshine...

But once we took if for what it was worth, a showy resort in what once was nothing but desert, it was amazing!

The Dubai Mall was like nothing I've seen even compared to New York and America - there's a 10 million litre aquarium, Sega World theme park and Ice rink just dotted around the mall! 

We did Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building, at 7pm on one of the evenings.

It was dark when we were up there but apparently you can see Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan during the day!

We went to Aquaventure waterpark on The Palms, man made islands, which was awesome! 

Some of the slides and the lazy river go through underwater tunnels through the shark tanks and you can see dolphin training as you queue for rides.

Food was amazing and actually quite cheap.

On the first night we went to Just Falafel and had Falafel panini, hummus (not in the photo), chips, extra falafel and a drink which cost about £4.00!

We went to my favourite The Cheesecake Factory TWICE but learnt after the first meal all we needed was starters (Mac 'n' Cheese balls) not mains, to leave room for cheesecake!

Marrakech Photos

Had the best week ever in Marrakech!

We spent 3 days on an excursion to the Sahara desert.

Drove to the town on the edge of the desert and then trekked on camels for a couple hours into the desert and camped there under the stars

Trip to Marrakech

Booked a week in Morocco with Nat (brother); we landed in Marrakech this evening so I've only been here 3 hours and am already completely overwhelmed.

Walking through alleyways and side streets to find the hostel was an experience in itself; 8foot wide passageways with people walking in both directions and motorbikes trying to pass through too!

We're staying at the Riad Layla Rouge hostel and Abdel the manager is really nice. Spoke to us all about Marrakech, some do's and don't and said to treat the hostel like home.

We went for a walk to try and find the Jemaa El Fna square...

First of all we got lost so turned around and went back to the hostel and asked Abdel the way - it turns out it's only a 2 minute walk and we'd just gone the wrong way!

Once we found it I felt completely alien.

It took a while to settle in and get used to being dragged into restaurants by waiters, shouted at to but orange juice and having wooden pythons thrust in our faces.

"Hello Chav, I love to shop at Sainsburys"  "Do you shop in Primark?" were their most common phrases so no idea what they've been watching to learn English!?

We got fresh orange juice for 4 dirham (28p) and a chocolate cakey thing for 5dh (35p).

Probably overcharged compared to what the locals pay but it's pennies!

Weekend in Berlin

Been to Berlin for a long weekend visiting a friend.

We left Luton on Thursday morning and spent the day walking round Berlin.

On Friday went to Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Wall and a museum and went out on the night. Got in about 11am.

Saturday was mainly spent sleeping!

We went to a Mexican restaurant and got Chicken Chimichangas... Was so good!

Went out to a karaoke bar and ended up in Ritter butzke.

Pretty good weekend!

Venice!

Have just for back from a week in Venice with the bro's!

Had a really good time - Venice isn't that big so we saw most of it in the first day and repeated things but was just really nice to get away and spend some time with the bro's after finishing Uni!

Cruise Photos