Trip four of five to the land of Japan - I took my mother as late birthday present as she had never left Australia before. It started off well until our airline lost our luggage and it wasn’t until 4 days into our 10 day trip that we finally managed to have it secured.

This time we managed to make our way out to Ashikaga Flower Park (2.5 hr train ride from Shinjuku area) however I don’t really enjoy taking photos of flowers but my mother probably took a thousand pictures. If you’re into that sort of thing you should check it out.

Just a collection of photos from in and around Melbourne

My third trip back (and not my last).

A bit more travel around the Tokyo areas, and to a few places that I normally wouldn’t visit myself (St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sekiguchi).

The first trip of many to the place they call Japan/Nippon or “the sun’s origin” (the land of the rising sun.)

I had quit my job prior to taking this trip, and used it as a chance to get away from the typical 9-5 and, as cliche as it may sound, find myself surrounded by 20 million people.

For a country that has one of the highest suicide rates in the world (19.1 per 100k people - 9th in the world) the people appeared to be content with life and it gave me some perspective that things aren’t so bad.