When I got to the bus station in Kyoto it was very cold, it felt like 5°C. I wrapped myself in a blanket. Our bus was leaving at 10pm. I was travelling with the company Willerexpress and the ticket costed 4650 yen. The journey was comfortable but it was hot inside the bus. I managed to sleep some hours. We got to the Ikebukuro sunshine bus terminal at 7.45am. We had breakfast in a local restaurant, where we ordered noodles sup with egg and spinach and pieces of fried cheese. Then we went to my host's place in Asakusa to put my suitcase. The weather was sunny and warmer than in Kyoto, it was around 18°C. My host bought sweets that were made of red beans and we sat close to the temple and ate them. Afterwards my host took me to the Ueno park with a totem pole and a horse statue. We visited a buddhist cemetary and a street called Rue des arts. My host wanted to show me a modern place in Tokyo and he took me to the Shinjuku station, but we didn't see anything interesting there.
In the afternoon we went to the Hamarikyu gardens which is an amazing place with a pond and a teahouse.

We returned to my host's place in the evening. I was very tired and I slept around one hour before we went to have dinner in a restaurant. The table had a hotplate and my host prepared a traditional food monjayaki and okonomiyaki. Monjayaki is a pan-fried batter with various ingredients. Okonomiyaki is a Japanese savoury pancake. 

I had to go to the Haneda airport after dinner because my flight was departing shortly after midnight. The flight was good, I had a conversation with a Japanese guy sitting next to me and I watched a movie called Her, which I found quite boring and I fell asleep while watching it. We got to Paris around 6am and it was still dark outside. My friend Thomas who hosted me in Paris in April 2012 picked me up at the airport and he took me by car to visit Paris. We stopped at Champs Élysées firstly where we could see Christmas decorations and then we went to my friend's flat to rest for a while. After the sunrise we went to the Notre Dame. It was my first time to visit Paris in autumn because I always used to go there in spring or summer. I didn't have any warm clothes so I had to borrow my host's jacket.

We walked for some time in the center of Paris and then we had a breakfast in the Cafe St. Regis. We ate soft-boiled eggs with bread and an omelette with vegetables. After breakfast we went to the Sacré Coeur and then to the airport.  

I got to Prague in the afternoon around 3 pm on 22nd November 2014. I was tired after a hectic trip but it was a very exciting experience.

I went to meet a couchsurfer in Uji on Tuesday 18th November. I spent more than one hour travelling by train. It was a sunny day and I had to wait at the train station until the couchsurfer came. He was around 56 years old, he was riding a bike and I had to walk next to him. After 15 minutes walking we got to his flat, which was quite messy. I drank one tea and I left because I wanted to visit Kyoto. I hitchhiked to the train station where I ate sushi and I got a map of Kyoto. It was already late afternoon and it was getting dark so I had to hitchhike back to Kayashima. When I got there I went to a local shop with food, I ate soup with noodles, egg and some kind of jelly made from a special kind of potato. Then I went to my host and he also cooked soup with noodles, so we had dinner together and we talked about living in Japan.
The following day I moved to another host in Kyoto. He was 22 years old student and he lived in the center of the town. I met him at noon and we went to his home to put a suitcase. He had to work in the afternoon so I went to visit Kyoto by myself. The daily bus pass costed 500 yen. I saw many people wearing kimono in Kyoto, not only women but also men. Firstly I went to Tofukuji which is a buddhist temple and then I walked to Heian shrine which was nearby.

Then I took a bus to the buddhist temple Kiyomizu dera. I met a Japanese couple there and we walked up the hill together and we took many photos. We saw a geisha on our way. It was the only geisha I met in Japan.

The path was surrounded by many shops with traditional Japanese sweets, there was free tasting so I ate quite a lot of them and also I drank free green tea. We got on the top of the hill when it was almost sunset, there were many people taking photos and admiring red leaves. There was also some fortune-telling, my Japanese friends tried it. Then they went to a Silver pavilion and I went to a Toji temple. It was already dark when I got there, I took some photos and then I had to take a bus to the train station where I also took photos of the Kyoto tower. When I got to my host we went to have dinner in a local restaurant, I had to borrow his clothes because it was very cold. I had miso soup, rice, fried chicken and vegetables and it costed around 800 yen. I put soya sauce on the rice but my friend told me not to do that because only homeless people in Japan used to do that. We had a conversation about Japan, my friend told me it was a westernized country nowadays. He said that it was rude to leave a tip in a restaurant in Japan because people are paid for their job and they considered it offensive if somebody gave them money. When we got to his home we drank some alcohol with little pieces of gold and then we drank also plum liquor. My friend had a typical Japanese heating called kotatsu which is a wooden table covered by a blanket. When I went to sleep I was so cold that I had to sleep under the heating.
The following day I went to the Fushimi Inari-Taisha shrine. I walked on the top and I took many photos there.

Afterwards I went to the Hongan-ji temple. Then I took a bus to Arashiyama where I went to a bamboo forest firstly. I met Japanese girls there dressed in beautiful kimonos and I asked them to take photos with me.

There were also many shops with free tasting sweets in Arashiyama. I went to visit the Tenryu-ji temple and then also the Daikaku-ji temple. Then I took a bus to my host and we went to have dinner in a restaurant. I had fried oysters with rice and it costed around 900 yen. Then I had to go to a train station to catch my bus to Tokyo.

It was sunny and warm during my last day in Hong Kong. I would have liked to stay there longer but my flight was departing around noon so I had to get to the airport around 10am. I had a wonderful view from the plane on Hong Kong. We landed in Osaka around 5.30pm on 15th November and I saw a sunset from the plane. I had to get to my host in Kayashima and it was a long way from the airport, I spent 2 hours travelling. I got in the train at the airport and I had to change at Kyobashi. There was a Japanese girl sitting next to me, she didn't speak English but she had a translator in her phone. She asked me where I was going and then she accompanied me to Kayashima. It was already quite cold in the evening and I didn't bring any warm clothes so she went to a shop and bought a hot coffee for me. I don't like coffee but I warmed up my hands at least. Then she called my host and he came to pick me up at the station. His house was around 15 minutes far by walking from Kayashima. There was a street with lanterns and I ate takoyaki there. Takoyaki are balls made of wheat flour and octopus sprinkled with seaweed and dried fish. My host was a Chinese guy who had been living in Japan 8 years. It was cold in Osaka and people in Japan usually don't use heating at home so I was freezing during my last week in Japan.
My host was busy on Sunday and I left his home in the morning to visit Osaka castle. I got lost on my way to Kayashima and I asked the way some people who I met but most of them didn't speak English. I walked along the motorway and there was a local restaurant where I went to have a lunch. I bought miso soup, chicken and rice for 550 yen. I was already so frustrated for not being able to find a way to the metro station that I decided to hitchhike. After 20 minutes of waiting I was picked up by an elderly couple who took me directly to the Osaka castle. I spent some hours there, it was sunny and around 16°C, but it warm only around noon and after 3pm it started to get colder quickly.

 
When I left the castle I bought milk tea and some chocolate biscuits in a shop and then I walked around the city. Osaka is a modern and industrial city with not many places to visit. I was getting cold and I went to a shopping mall and then I returned to Kayashima. I bought takoyaki again and I met my host. I went to sleep around midnight.
I woke up after 9am on Monday and I went to Nara. It was cloudy whole day. I walked to the motorway again and I hitchhiked, A guy picked me up soon and he dropped me at a petrol station. I waited around half an hour there until two women stopped. They were mother and daugther and they took me to Ikoma which is a city located close to Nara. I took train and I got to Nara around 2pm. I went to a Kofukuji temple firstly and then I walked in the Nara park with the fallow deer.

There were many tourists and also Japanese people in the park, I asked them to take photos of me. Many people admired colorful leaves (koyo in Japanese). It was a spectacular view. 

I went to visit Todaiji temple with the big statue of Buddha. When I finished visiting it was 4pm and it was getting dark already.

I still managed to do some sightseeing but it was getting dark quickly and I had to go back to Osaka. I hitchhiked again but I had no luck firstly, it was dark and nobody stopped for half an hour. Then I met two women from Osaka who were also sightseeing in Nara, they picked me up and they told me we were going to see more places. We were driving in the dark but we got lost on some hill and we had to return. We stopped in a shop and they bought me milk tea and sushi and then they invited me for dinner and we ate ramen noodles in a restaurant. They were so kind with me that they took me directly to Kayashima. I was very lucky to meet many helpful people during my journey.

My trip to Macao lasted only one day but it was an exciting experience. I took a ferry from the China ferry terminal at the Hong Kong island on 15th November. The journey lasted one hour and I arrived in Macao around 10:30am, but there were such long lines at the customs that it took me around 45 minutes to pass it. It was a bad luck because I set up a meeting with a girl called Kiko from CS and she had to wait for me almost one hour. When I met her we rode a motorbike around Macao, it was cloudy firstly but then the weather became sunny and it was around 23°C. Although it remained slightly foggy for the whole day it was a really nice weather. We went to an Italian restaurant at noon, I ate pasta with cheese and then we walked around the city, I saw a small temple firstly and then we visited the Ruins of St. Paul's.

We walked around the historic centre of Macao and we saw several casinos. We took a bus to the Taipa island and we went to the luxury casino and hotel the Venetian. There was a little river inside the building and a guy sailing on a gondoliere. 

After visiting the Venetian we walked to a shop with a durian ice cream, durian cake and jelly. We bought it and we went to a restaurant where we were told not to eat that there because of the strong smell. Then we walked to the Galaxy resort located on the Cotai strip. 

There was a free bus from the Galaxy resort which we had to take to get to the ferry terminal. When we were crossing the bridge the one side of the river was illuminated by the hotels and casinos while the other side was very dark. Kiko told me that the dark side was China. When we got to the ferry terminal I met another couchsurfer but only for 5 minutes because I had to hurry to catch my ferry. I left Macao around 7:30, the journey was a bit scary because there was a strong wind and big waves. The ferry was jumping on the waves and it felt like riding a roller coaster. Some passengers were screeching while the ferry was jumping. When I got to Hong Kong it took only 2 minutes to pass the customs. I went to the Tsim Tsa Tsui promenade, it was an amazing view but the wind was very strong and it was drizzling. Then I took a metro to Causeway Bay and I got to my host's flat at 11pm.

When I visited Hong Kong for the first time in November 2013 I thought that it was probably the most beautiful place I have ever seen, that's why it was very disappointing for me when I got there again on 13th November 2014 and I found out that the weather was bad, it was windy and cloudy. It was around 18°C but the wind made it feel much colder. I had to change money at the airport and I was going to visit the Tai O fishing village which is on the Lantau island. I couldn't leave my suitcase to the airport so I had to take it with me. I took a bus to Tung Chung where I had to change to another bus to Tai O. The journey took around one hour and when I got there I went to a local restaurant where I ordered fried egg with bacon. Afterwards I walked around to see some shops and then I met a guy who was around 65, he was Canadian but his origin was Chinese. We bought wafers with herbal flavour and then we went on a cruise in the fishing village. This village was quite run-down comparing to the fishing village in Brunei, the houses were old and poor.

Then we took a bus to Tung Chung where I drank milk tea and I ate lemon cake. Afterwards I went to visit Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery, but it was already 5pm when I got there and the monastery was just closing, I saw just the road which was surrounded by the statues of Buddha.

Then I took metro to my host in Causeway Bay, he cooked some pasta for me and then we went out, we walked around by night and we went also to the shopping mall. The following day I took a ferry to Macao. 

My host in Brunei Darussalam was an Italian guy who was working for a food delivery company. He picked me up at the airport at 2am. He had bought some noodles for me and I ate them when we got home. He shared a house with other people and he also hosted 3 French guys that night. The weather was hot, around 30°C, and unpleasantly humid. In the morning I met a couchsurfer who came to my host's house to pick me up. We visited most tourist places in Bandar Seri Begawan, we went to Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque and Jame'ar Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque.

Afterwards we went to a shopping mall and then we took a boat to the water village. There were houses on stilts, some of them were modern while some others quite old. We went also to a jungle where we saw waterfalls and carnivorous plants. Then we had a lunch in a restaurant, I ordered chicken with rice. We went to the Empire hotel to see the sunset, I swam in the sea and the water had around 30°C. Then we met my host on the beach. The following day my host took me to the port and I took ferry from Muara to Labuan and then to Kota Kinabalu. The journey to Labuan started at 9:30am and it took around 3 hours. I almost missed a ferry to Kota Kinabalu because it was leaving at 1pm but fortunately I managed to buy a ticket quickly and I made it on time. The ferry was comfortable, they showed a movie during the journey, but the air conditioning was so heavy that it was only around 15°C inside the boat and I was cold although I wore my jacket. When I arrived in Kota Kinabalu it rained but the rain stopped soon. I talked to a tour guide in the port until my host came. I didn't have time to eat all day and he bought me sandwiches. In the evening we went to a local restaurant and we ordered a lot of delicious seafood, rice and seaweed.
The following day we visited a local market firstly where we bought some tropical fruit and then we went to waterfalls where we ate the fruit. We went to a restaurant which was called Taliban food centre and we ate bread with dip but it was too spicy for me.

Then my host took me to a beach and we spent nearly 3 hours in the water. I swam and I saw fishes and corals but the water was dim so they didn't look amazing. The water close to the shore was as hot as bath water and we stayed there till sunset, when we were going out we found out that the water was full of jellyfishes. I touched one of them accidentally but I didn't get hurt. My host cooked dinner for me, we had soup, seafood and also a local food called ambuyat which was a starchy bland substance. We drank rice wine called sake. In the morning on 13th November we had to get up very early because I had to catch my flight to Hong Kong.

I was supposed to leave Taiwan on 8th November at 1am, but the flight was delayed and we left around 3:30am. I arrived in Manila at 6am and I took a taxi to my host's flat. It was already 7am when I got there and we were going to the Taal volcano that day so I had no time to sleep. I slept only around 3 hours that night and although I didn't really feel tired while we were visitng the Taal volcano I was falling asleep very quickly in the car. We got to the Taal lake around noon, we had a drink in a restaurant and then we sailed to the island. We had to ride a horse to the top of the mountain, the road was very steep. When we got to the top we took many photos and we admired the amazing view. It would have been possible to go down to the lake and swim in a sulphur water but it would take much time so we decided not to go there.

On the way down it was windy and the road was very dusty. I had to lean back so much that I was almost lying on the horse. There was a traffic jam on the way to Manila and we got there around 7pm. I was supposed to meet my old friend who studied with me at the Wageningen university and we met at the Bacolod Chicken Inasal at Glorietta Mall. The dinner was good, I ordered a fried chicken. Then we went to a bar and my host showed me a food speciality from Manila, it was an unborn chicken which was cooked inside an egg. It looked disgusting because it felt inappropriate to cook a chicken which was already developing, but I tried it and it tasted like egg.
My host was busy on Sunday and I visited Intramuros, I took a metro and then I hired a rikshaw, I paid 200 pesos per half an hour. I went to a cathedral and also the Fort Santiago and afterwards I went to a park to see the Rizal monument. Then I returned to my host and he cooked spaghetti bolognese for me and in the evening he took me to the airport because I had to catch my flight to Brunei. I spent a good time in Philippines and the Taal volcano was a wondeful place.