Three days into cycling and if you asked my opinion about cycling in Portugal, I would say DONT DO IT!!!!!
OK, lets back up a bit...
We spent our last day in the Lisbon area in Sintra. We took the regional train, which took about 45 minutes. Lovely little town with lots of palaces, pretty parks (with lots of song birds), winding cobbled streets, castles on hills, etc. You could spend days in the area exploring. We hiked up to the castle ruin, 1200 metres straight up! Great fun being able to run around the walls, in NA they would have this all cordoned off for safety, here its go at your own risk. Fabulous views into the hills and valleys.
Will write more about our cycling adventures later as we are going to grab the little bit of sunshine of today and explore Evora...

Guess I came out here to see
some stuff for myself... I mean, why leave the telling up to everybody else? -
Ani DiFranco

Lisbon is like a contradiction to Japan! It is loud, dirty, gritty, old and aged in areas, no-glitz, etc - and it is all part of its charm! The Portugese are so full of life and love of people and food. It is so different from our life, people grow up in the same neighbourhood and all know each other. We have just been enjoying the simple time of getting lost in winding streets, sitting in cafes and pastry shops to enjoy a good coffee, wandering in parks to enjoy the shade from the unseasonable heat, and eating some wonderful meals in tiny, simple restaurants. No agenda, no special plans. We did go up the hill to see the castle, it has some spectacular views of the city. We have been exploring all sorts of neighbourhoods on subway, buses, trams and mostly by foot (boy, do you feel the cobblestones by the end of the end of the day!). Off to get lost again and discover another great place to eat...
Any suggestions from anybody for places to see in the south of Portugal - we will be riding out towards Setebal to start, then along the west coast, to the south (avoiding Faro, etc), and then up into the central/east area, back across to Lisbon... Suggestions and favourites welcome!!

Bom Dia! Hello from Lisbon, Portugal! Pretty crazy...we have now almost travelled around the globe, but doing it the long way by doubling back on ourselves! We got on a flight from Toronto on Sunday night at 5:30pm, it was pretty tight - again, think the flu may have worked in our favour so we could get on. Did a change in Frankfurt to fly to Lisbon - Frankfurt is one of the longest terminals - we must have walked over 3 km to get to our gate - they are all in a straight line. Pretty tired as our body clocks are now completely off, I have no idea what time I am on!
The plan is to spend until Friday here in Lisboa and then get on some bikes and spend 2 weeks cycling through Portugal. Off to bed, even though it is 6:30pm here, we can't stay awake another minute. Due to our strange travelling habits and using credit cards in 3 cities/countries/continents within 72 hours, Scott's card got shut down - all good now and fixed :)

Here's the link for the photos. Click on details to see my notes or watch as a slideshow. Enjoy!

Japan photos

I am a new day rising

I'm a brand new sky to hang the stars upon tonight

I am a little divided

Do I stay or run away, and leave it all behind

- Foofighters

Back in Toronto, and totally messed up for time! Scott was able to sleep on the plane, I couldn't. So he was up until 3AM, then I got up and he went to bed - feels like we are on shifts!

Ladies - if you want to travel somewhere alone, Japan is the place to do it. Have never felt to so safe. And it is easy to get around and everybody is so helpful. There are also special rooms at hotels for women, as well as cars on trains, seats in buses, booths in internets, etc. Unfortunately it is based on old customs in Japan, but it can work to your advantage if you are travelling alone.

We tried to find bikes to rent in Osaka but no luck so we picked up day passes for the subway - more simple system like Toronto vs Tokyo's amazing one. We were seeing the city on April 29th, Showa Day (the birthday of Emperor Showa), it is part of the Golden Week holidays - a full week of holidays that carry into first week of May. The downtown was deserted. Walked through the Tennoji park area, where the zoo, gardens and museums are located - but all behind high walls and fences - the first time we had seen this in Japan. Weaved through Tomeji Nanasaka, seven slopes of the Uemachi plateau, takes you through residential areas, temples and shrines. Jumped over to the Osaka-jo (castle). You get a great view from the 8th floor of the tower, across the city, then visit the museum as you work your way down to the ground. Famous for a collection of painted screens depicting battles from the Civil War era (1400s and 1500s) - the era of samurai and ninjas.

Then a quick walk through the Kita business area, typical downtown, but they have made the walkway along the canal very nice. Osaka used to be filled with canals (referred to as the Venice of the East), but most are filled in. Went by the National Museum of Art, a beautiful modern building of twisted metal that looks somewhat like a sail (or bunny ears from another angle, but that just doesn't seem as romantic!). Not interested in the collection showing, but spent some time in the book shop and library. The galleries tend to have great collections of books that you can sit down and look at, and members can borrow.

Out to the Bay area, a modern amusement type area and developed water front. Famous for the enormous Tempozan Harbour ferris wheel - 112m high and 100m across. While not the largest in the world, it is among the top 5. There is also a new aquarium (Kaiyukan) housed in a blue and red building, shaped like a butterfly, and covered with mosaics of fish; and a modern art museum, Suntory Museum Temporan, housed in a modern new building. Scott and I spilt up here - he went to the museum and I went to the aquarium. While the aquarium is expensive (2000 yen) it was worth every penny! You wind down several levels, past 14 huge tanks, depicting different aquatic environments from around the globe in the "Ring of Life" (Japan Forest, Aleutian Islands, Monterey Bay, Gulf of Panama, Ecuador Rain Forest, Antarctica, Tasman Sea, Great Barrier Reef, Pacific Ocean, Seto Inland Sea, Kelp Forest, Coast of Chile, Cook Strait and Japan Deeps). It was fascinating. Saw otters, sea otters, seals, sloths, penguins, dolphins, all sorts of exotic fish, whale sharks, manta rays, octopi, sea turtles, giant spider crabs and jelly fish - just to name a few. I'm such a geek! Scott didn't have a great experience at the museum/gallery - the collection he was hoping to see was not available (we weren't having much luck with galleries in Japan), but they gave him his money back when he mentioned what he came to see. He ended up in a local bar "chatting" with some locals (he speaks no Japanese, and they spoke only a dozen words of English)! I met up with him and we spent some time getting to know the people - lots of laughing as we worked to understand and be understood. The one  guy kept buying Scott some Schochu (think rice whisky), and his glass was never empty - he was pretty happy! They ended up trading hats by the end of the evening.

We took a bus back to Tokyo, about 8 hours - stopping at least 3 times for stretch breaks and food. Lots of green tea plantation on the south side of the island. We stayed out by the airport in Narita.

Some advantages and disadvantages to the current "swine flu" - the plane was initially oversold by 60 seats - we got on, so many people must have cancelled - but we were delayed 3 hours as the Japanese did a thorough check of all passengers before letting them deplane. So home by 7PM May 1st - we have gained a day, but I sot here at 5AM Toronto time writing...

Watch for picture link coming soon...