First Words. I’m starting to think that it is in the stars for me to make it an annual tradition to visit the Christmas markets in Austria. Last year I hit Salzburg with a bunch of friends, so this year its sister city, Vienna, has the pleasure of my company. 🙂

More photos here.

First Words. Forgive me the following long and rather convoluted description of my stay in Dubai but I absolutely loved it and I believe that every word is deserved.

Dubai, the second largest of the seven United Arab Emirates, is absolutely dazzling. Believe everything you hear about it and more. It is definitely a great place to get an understanding of the Middle East, granted the Disneyland version, but hey it’s a start. Topographically, you couldn’t get a more varied landscape from the sweeping deserts to the rugged mountains to the golden beaches.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that the UAE are a wealthy federation. Initially this wealth was formed based on the massive oil reserves located in the emirates but it is interesting to see the recognition that this oil won’t last forever and there has been a definite move towards trade and tourism as key activities in the future of the federation. Dubai in particular has made concentrated efforts to cultivate tourism with innovated and imaginative projects such as the Palm Islands (three man-made islands created in the shape of a palm tree) and The World (300 man-made islands representing the world). Both projects large enough to be seen from space! Then there are other novelties also in the pipeline such as Dubailand (UAE’s answer to Disneyland) and Hydropolis (the world’s first underwater hotel.)

For us there was plenty to entertain over our week’s stay – old and new.

Dates	Out of Heathrow 5.00pm Saturday, 13 August In to Heathrow 6pm Friday, 19 August
Airline	Alitalia. A first and hopefully last flying with this government-run airline. I don’t know if it was just bad luck on my behalf but every leg (total of 4 for the trip!) had a delay of between 1-2 hours (I had to fly through Milan to get to Dubai) which were particularly frustrating when catching connections! The only good thing about this was that at least on my departing leg out of Heathrow I had a nice cute Italian boy to entertain me. Oh and service on the planes was generally friendly. One thing that was amusing was that on one of the planes my tray table had to be inserted manually into my seat causing my neighbouring American gal to comment it was like we were being fed from high chairs again! We had a good giggle over that.
Why go?	You’d be mad not to! Culture in the City and in the Desert can compliment a nice beach resort-type holiday out on the Arabian Gulf.
Weather	Hot (up to 45°C on most days) and humid.
The experience	We arrived in Dubai around 6am on a Sunday morning. The wall of heat hit us once we stepped out of the air-conditioned airport (by the way, be prepared for a bit of a hike from the plane into passport control!) and it was only very early in the morning, however relief (they do air-conditioning so well in Dubai) was immediate once we got into our complimentary hotel shuttle. Only minutes later we arrived at Le Meridien Fairway, home for at least three days. We were relieved that they let us check-in so early. Many other hotels wouldn’t be so generous though most will offer a left-luggage service. Although tempted to have a nap – we wanted to take advantage of the free shuttle into the city centre so after freshening up, off we went.
Day 1	Our first day was pretty much spent exploring the city of Dubai neatly split into two areas by the Dubai Creek: Deira and Bur Dubai. On the Deira side of the city you will find most of the souks: including the well-known Gold Souk, the Old/Spice Souk, Deira Covered Souk (antiques, pots, textiles and other curios), Fish Souk, and Fruit and Vegetable Souk. As well, in the Gold Souk you will get plenty of offers for you to buy replica handbags or watches, if that is your thing. The amount of gold on display in the Gold Souk is overwhelming and I enjoyed looking at the various colourful spices on display in the Spice Souk. Once we had satisfied our senses we headed over the creek to Bur Dubai on an abras. Riding an abra is a definite must do if you get to the city. Abras are small water taxis used to ferry up to 10-15 people across the river. Trip journeys cost just 50 fils (half a dirham or about 8p) and average about 5 minutes. Alternatively, you will have no shortage of offers for privately hired abras ranging from 30-50 dirham (£4.80-£7.80) for 30-minute journeys up and down the river depending on how good your bargaining skills are. Over on the Bur Dubai side of the creek we entertained ourselves by visiting the Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum’s House (the carefully restored house of Dubai’s former ruler and built in the traditional manner of the Gulf coast) and the Dubai Museum (based in the Al Faheidi Fort – this museum is definitely worth a visit. Displays are creative and at times interactive. At only 3 dirhams (50p) it is a bargain. The shop also contains some good items to take away as souvenirs. Both House and Museum were a welcome respite from the penetrating heat. Next was the Bastakya. It is one of the oldest heritage sites in Dubai and mainly you can see one of the earliest forms of air-conditioning in the form of windtowers. However, more interestingly for us was the Bastakiya Art Café where we sampled some gorgeous teas and yummy sweet light Bakalava. The rest of the day saw us visiting the Dubai Creek Park (where to our disappointment the cable car was not operating for the day but we did get an example of an irate – as far as we could tell as we couldn’t understand her – local woman who thought we were taking photos of her relatives/friends(?) when we were actually taking photos of the Dubai Creek & Yacht Golf club!) A quick visit to Wafi City rounded out the day.
Day 2	Our second day in Dubai saw us re-visiting the gold souks (can’t get enough of looking at all that gold!) and then spending a few hours at the City Central Shopping Centre for lunch. Shopping is one of the main reasons people purportedly come to Dubai – but personally I didn’t see any true bargains that had me overusing my credit card. I guess I’m just not that kind of shopper. The highlight of the day, however, was the Desert Safari with BBQ tour, offered on this occasion by Orient Tours. There are many tour operators that offer the same sort of package so it is worth shopping around for a good tour offer. This particular tour cost 230 dirham (£37) and began at around 4.30 in the afternoon and lasted until about 9.30pm. Orient Tours also filmed most of the tour so you can have some video and still footage for your memories (for an additional cost of course.) The Desert Safari was basically a 4W-drive (to the sounds of Kenny G and Shakira) through the desert dunes, with a number of photo stops including a stop at a camel farm (be prepared to step in camel poo poo if you have any interest at all in getting up close and personal to the camels), to reach your final destination campsite. Once at the campsite, and before the scrumptious BBQ dinner, you have the chance to do some camel riding, sand boarding, shisha or get a free henna design on your hands or feet. Dinner was follwed by the finale of a traditional belly dancer and it is absolutely guaranteed that if you sit around the square … you will be pulled into the show! If there is any tour that you must do in Dubai make this the one. The 4W-driving through the dunes was just crazy. Our driver was “the gun” as one of the Australians in the car exclaimed. I’m not sure if all the drivers were like him but he was mad crazy – even as we were picking up passengers from the respective hotels he was jumping curbs and generally causing quite a stir on the road. Seat belts were a must and boy did my brother and I feel it at the back. The drive through the dunes lasted for what seemed like forever and we were screaming with the joy of it. It was really fun to see the train of 16 4WDs challenging themselves on the dunes. As for the rest of the evening though both the camel riding and sand boarding were short it was sweet. I never realised just how high you sit when you’re on a camel. Driving through the dunes at night to return to the city presented a different challenge as tire pressures were increased, increasing the chances of getting bogged in the sand. It was just as exhilarating as driving during the day … maybe even more due to the lack of visibility. But as I said earlier, our driver was “the gun” and we had little worry about reaching our hotel safely (can’t say the same for our dinners ….)
Day 3	On this day we embarked on a full day East Coast tour. Mainly it involved driving by various East Coast landmarks such as Masafi, the Hajar Mountains, the ‘Friday market’, the old citadel oasis of Bithnah and Al Badiyah, the oldest mosque in the Emirates. We even left the UAE for a while entering Oman but only briefly. It’s a relatively cheap tour for a day tour but I guess you can see why – most of it is driving through various Emirates such as Sharjah and Fujairah while the tour guide gives you a history of the federation. We did have a stop at a beach resort by the Indian Ocean for lunch and a swim but seeing as how it was smack bang in the middle of the day the sand was burning hot, the water was extremely warm and the most relief from the heat came instead from the air-conditioned restaurant. My brother and I enjoyed a huge Lebanese-style mezze lunch (fit enough to feed 4!) and had a nice conversation with a fellow Antipodean. The tour was unexciting but I guess gives you an idea of what living away from the city is like.
Day 4	Today we transferred from our city hotel (Le Meridien Fairway) to our beach hotel, the Mina A’ Salam at Madinat Jumeirah. Now the Le Meridien Fairway was a lovely hotel – nice and large, great service (free bottled water and fruit everyday) and the usual amenities you would expect at a 4-star hotel but Mina A’ Salam was really a case of stepping up to the major league. The hotel is located at Madinat Jumeirah which is a 42 hectare development alongside the 7-star rated Burj Al Arab consisting of villas and 2 5-star hotels. I chose the Mina A’ Salam over the Burj Al Arab’s sister hotel, Jumeirah Beach Hotel, mainly for its more Arabian heritage theme (we even had a medallion as our key). It was easy to see why it is the number one rated hotel on Trip Advisor. I was in absolute awe of this hotel and its facilities. Situated as it is on the shores of the Arabian Gulf, it really is the ‘harbour of peace’ and despite the fact that the hotel was at maximum capacity the feeling during our entire stay was one of tranquility and sheer luxury. With a km of private beach, 3.7 km of working waterways with fully operational abras (traditional water taxis – I sat on one exactly where Johnny Depp reportedly sat), a bustling souk with 75 shops and 23 bars, cafes and restaurants plus another 45 restaurants, cafés and bars spread throughout the rest of the hotel, a spa, a healthclub, an arena, theatre and amphitheatre and conference hall – I really was regretting that we only had two days and two nights to enjoy and explore the facilities. I could also go on about the opulence of our (basic!) room and how gorgeous it was (loved the fact we each had our own sink in the bathroom!) but you can just check out my pics here. We also had a nice view of the Burj Al Arab and could glimpse the ocean from our spacious balcony. What’s great about the hotel was that even though our room wasn’t ready for early check-in, reception was more than ready with a welcome pack for early check-ins, including vouchers for the spa (if we were so inclined) and suggestions on what to do before the check-in time of 2pm. A golf buggy ride from the hotel would take you to almost anywhere in the neighbourhood, including to the Burj Al Arab (at appointed times unless you had reservations at one of the restaurants), to the Jumeirah beach hotel and to the Wild Wadi water park (entry price was actually included in our hotel rate!). The water park is pretty cool – rides are fairly advanced with many of the slides actually pushing you up hill. We couldn’t exactly work out how many rides there were in the park as there appeared to be one main circuit of rides which was itself a large network of tubes and it was kind of like a make your own choice as to which tube you wanted to follow. Difficult to explain until you’ve experienced it but we had a lot of fun, even returning later that night to experience it in the dark! There were other typical attractions such as a giant pool with generated waves and a giant speed slide. Interestingly there were two flowrider rides which simulated the experience of body-boarding and these rides were extremely popular. What I really liked was the cashless payment system where you can put credit on a watch-like device to pay for souvenirs, food and drink anywhere inside without having to tote around your wallet. We had a fab time at the park. Another highlight of the day was sitting on the private hotel beach watching the sun set and the Burj Al Arab light up for its nightly light show. Spectacular – even if the haze of the day meant we couldn’t exactly tell when the sun hit the horizon!
Day 5	Effectively our last day in Dubai (as the next day we spend pretty much flying back to London) we had a lot on our agenda today including a visit to the Jumeira Mosque, lunch at Al Muntaha (the 27th floor restaurant at Burj Al Arab), relaxing on the beach/by the pool and finally a feast at Al Muna in our hotel. Our visit to the Jumeira Mosque was an enlightening one. Usually you would expect your guide to talk about the building and the architecture, instead what we got was a lesson in religion and culture. Our guide was an unusual person – a Spanish girl brought up in Switzerland but a Muslim for most of her adult life. She exhibited utmost patience and a very quirky sense of humour when giving her talk and no question was too silly for her to answer. It is a tour I would definitely recommend going on again and again. I’d arranged for lunch at Al Muntaha in the Burj simply because I could not go to Dubai and not visit the hotel. You can visit the hotel for free if you are a guest at Mina A’ Salam but hours are restricted and I’m not sure what areas you could freely view. Eating lunch at the expensive (£140 for two courses for two without alcohol!) Al Muntaha was definitely an experience. The food wasn’t all that bad (definitely go for the Crab Linguini topped by two absolutely massive King Prawns) but what was impressive was the outstanding view (we could just make out one of The Palm developments and even The World) and the service. Our waiter definitely entertained us for our nearly two hours of sitting and eating in the restaurant. The Burj is definitely impressive and luxurious to a T but personally I prefer the elegance and tranquillity of the Mina A’ Salam (and I definitely prefer the prices there!). The rest of the day we relaxed pool and beach side and were entertained by the stream of helicopters flying into and out of the air pad at the top of the Burj. Our final meal at the Al Muna restaurant was fitting – an amazing buffet of foodstuffs ranging from Arabian to Chinese to Indian to traditional western foods, not to mention the amazing desert bar (including fruit chocolate fondue and camel products!) saw us pigging out to the max. I’m thinking we had at least 7-8 courses – no wonder we couldn’t sleep that night!
Highlights	There are almost too many to list but here is a decent attempt at it: The extreme courtesy and hospitality exhibited by all we came across The bustline atmosphere of the souks The relaxing rides across the Dubai Creek on Abras The Dubai Museum Tea and sweets at Bastakiya Art Café The Desert Safari with BBQ tour Staying at Mina A’ Salam (and everything to do with this hotel including the pools and the private beach) Eating at Al Muntaha at The Burj The free tour conducted at the Jumeira Mosque Wild Wadi water park The delicious cheap local food (that is, non-restaurant foods)
Lowlights	None really but ladies watch out – you should be prepared to be stared out by the local men, however conservatively you dress.
Final words	How soon can I go back!

I’ve been away for the last two weeks on a job in Leeds and am back in London for the weekend for a bit of R&R before going back up to Leeds on Monday for a final week. Leeds lies north of London and driving between the two cities has taken between 3 and 3.5 hours. Leeds seems like a nice enough city. The people of Leeds seem remarkably friendly and genuine. Though its hard to judge what a city is like when the only time you get to spend in it is after business hours, we’ve tried our best to enjoy what the city has to offer. Like typical English cities there are plenty of bars and clubs and I think we’ve visited our fair share of them.

We’ve been staying at the Leeds City Hilton and I must say we are being rather spoilt with a big fry-up breakfast every morning, the gym available for our use free of charge and a generous dinner allowance every night.

So far in two weeks we have managed to hit a number of restaurants and bars without any repeats. The boys definitely enjoy a drink or two and they have been most entertaining. There are also a great number of shopping areas in Leeds, including Victoria Quarter, Granary Wharf and The Corn Exchange which I have not been able to take advantage of due to work.

Our latest adventures involved Halo, a trinity church turned nightclub, and the start of the MTV base tour. Music was rockin’ (right into our ears!) and it was definitely a fun evening. Unfortunately we had to cut it short at around 1am because we did actually have to work the next day (sigh). Still, we saw some new talent in the form of Carmen Reece and Jayme (Usher wannabe) perform before we left. Some Halo pics:

I was last in New York City mere month’s ago celebrating New Year’s 2005 and you all know how much I really loved my time then. I think this visit actually makes it my fourth in the last two years to the fair city and I’m stilled not tired of it.

The weekend saw us spending time with my Connecticut Aunt and her family. I enjoy going to their home as it is absolutely gorgeous and in very a lovely part of Connecticut. We made sure to take my parents up to my Aunt’s lake cabin by Lake Chaffee. I love the fact that they have a summer/winter cabin to go to – to me it seems such an American thing just like in the movies.

On our third day in New York we went to Manhattan’s Chinatown with another of my Aunts. She was going to give us a local’s view point, though she pointed out that this local hadn’t been to Chinatown for quite a number of years! Still, she was an admirable tour guide making sure we visited all the interesting side stores proving that she hadn’t lost her touch. We were also witness to one of the more entertaining sights along Canal Street (where replica products are sold) when a group of people selling pirated DVDs had to pick up their gear and race off to hide around a corner when some cops drove by.

Our fourth and final day saw my brothers and I heading into Manhattan for a little shopping, a little sightseeing and a lot of food!

Our schedule was chock-full and saw us starting the day at 9.30am with an Elvis Doughnut (peanut butter coated doughnut stuffed with banana) from the Doughnut Plant followed swiftly by gelati from Il Laboratorio Del Gelato not 30 minutes later. Doughnut Plant doughnuts are expensive with limited choice but they are big, oddly square and quit delicious. I’m not sure how well placed I was to judge the liquorice and crème freche gelati from Il Laboratorio Del Gelato as I was stuffed from my doughnut and it was an absolutely freezing cold day (maybe 9 degrees at the time?) The liquorice definitely had an interesting bite to it. Lunch was at Brothers BBQ. Oh man – was I ever stuffed after I left! Stephen and I shared a meat platter for two that came with spare ribs, beef brisket, sausages, a half a chicken, pulled pork in a tangy vinegar sauce and to our surprise 4 sides! We had to get Pat to help us out because there was no way we were going to finish it once we saw the size of it. The beef brisket was yummy and a must have if you find yourself at Brothers BBQ.

Shopping include visits to Century 21 (for some clothes for the boys) and J&R to pick up an MP3 player (my gotta-buy-a-toy item of the trip – what can I say – after seeing all those electronics in Japan I was desperate to pick something up in the States).

Sightseeing involved a free trip on the Staten Island Ferry for views of the Lady (Statue of Liberty), a walk down Wall Street, a visit to the World Trade Centre sight, playing in newly re-opened FAO Schwarz, and walking past the Chrysler building.

A nice family dinner topped our final day for a good finish to our New York trip.

See all my photos here. With the mix of old (the culture) and new (the technology) there is something for everyone in this amazing place. Some impressions:

Still smiling:

Dad found out about World Expo by chance when reading his Reader’s Digest so all credit goes to him for suggesting this wonderful day out. At first the cost seemed to be exorbitant but JTB Sunrise came to the rescue again with an excellent one day package that included transport to and from the Expo plus one-day tickets.

Getting to Expo was relatively straight-forward (once we worked out what our tickets meant!) Firstly a shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo to Nagoya. From Nagoya we had the option of a a relatively tame bus transfer to the Expo, or a train to connect to another station which takes you on a new technology: the maglev which uses magnetic levitation to move the train. Kind of reminds me of the technology portrayed in Astroboy – you know where cars are floating in air. Bullet trains are a heap of fun and I’m not sure if it’s the speed at which they travel (up to 300km/hour) but the ride was so smooth that I kept nodding off to sleep.

One day at the Expo wasn’t nearly enough time to fully explore all the exhibitions, especially when you spend a lot of time either queuing in line or queuing in line for the privilege of queuing in line at a later stage! Welcome to Expo. I think the timing of our visit was fairly good with only about 80,000 visitors a day at that stage. Now (about three weeks later) numbers are up to about 145,000 visitors a day.

The theme of this expo was “Nature’s Theme” therefore many of the exhibits and pavilions were about the environment and related technologies.

We visited many of the Corporate Pavilions including the:

One of the more interesting, and interactive, areas was the Robot Station in the aptly named Interactive Fun Zone. A number of robots were showcased here including one very life-like female robot that followed your movement, cleaning robots, security robots and Papero a prototype of a personal robot that communicates with humans. The one on display was the Papero Childcare Robot.

Because we were so busy lining up for the corporate pavilions we nearly missed the country pavilions but managed to squeeze in a visit to the Philippine pavilion and the rather impressive Australian pavilion.

Nikko is a definite cultural must go for a visiting tourist. Understand that 70% of the Japanese observe Shinto; 60% are Buddhists; 0.8% Christians therefore many are of both faiths – apparently observing Buddhism for ancestral worship and Shinto for business.

The city has been the centre of Shinto and Buddhist mountain worship for many centuries and is therefore home to RyobuShinto: the combination of Buddhism and Shinto. It is also well known for its gorgeous natural scenery including mountainous landscapes, lakes, waterfalls, hot springs, wild monkeys (yes we saw 3!) and hiking trails.

Nikko is most famous for the World-Heritage listed Toshogu Shrine. Unless you have read up on Nikko, it is well worth doing a tour, or grabbing a local in the know, as your visit becomes more meaningful knowing the history behind the buildings in the shrine (although they are also beautiful in their own right.)

Toshogu Shrine honours Tokugawa Ieyasu, founder of the Tokugawa Shogunate. The shrine is home to over 100 structures with the more famous including the imposing Yomeimon (main gate) with over 300 dazzling carvings of mythical beasts, such as dragons, giraffes, and lions, and Chinese sages; the Sacred Stable and its carvings of the three “see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil” monkeys; and the Gojunoto (5-storied pagoda). The Shrine structures are elaborate and extravagant with many buildings covered in gold sheets. Yuki, our tour guide mentioned 8 trillion yen – I’m not sure if this was the cost to establish the shrine or its current worth – either way it’s seems a staggering amount.

The rest of our day saw us drive the Irohazaka zigzag driveway up the mountains. The driveway is an attraction in itself with 20 hairpin curves going up and 28 going down. Each of the curves has a name like “I” “RO” “HA” (A,B,C in the Japanese alphabet, called hiragana).

Lake Chuzenji at the foot of Mt.Nantai was a peaceful lake where we relaxed for a bit after lunch at a local restaurant. Yuki said if we were lucky we would see some monkeys and we did – 3 of them. I took so many photos you would think I’d never seen monkeys before in my life. Before heading back down the zigzag driveway we had a quick stop at one of Japan’s three finest waterfalls: Kegon Waterfall which was 100m in height.

Stephen and I had gone on this same tour when we were in Tokyo last year, but this trip was slightly different – if only because of circumstances outside of our control – such as the weather! The first part of our tour took us to Mt Fuji and, as per all tours, we were entertained all the way by our tour guide. Mt Fuji (or Fuji-san as the locals call her) standing at 3,776 metres is Japan’s tallest mountain. It is one of the best examples of a nearly perfectly shaped volcano and as such it has been worshipped as a sacred mountain. Many Japanese consider that it should be climbed at least once in their lifetime – whatever shape they may be in.

The day before it had snowed so the snow tipped trees and snow-covered grounds made for a gorgeous drive up the mountain to the 4th station. Having said this it was also the snow that prevented us going to the 5th station (which would have taken us to the halfway point) but we took what we could from the 4th station (including views to the Japanese Alps), which was a few hundred metres lower. We had a ball with the snow, Dad most especially, making sure to throw a snowball or two at each other. Watch for the camera!

After a quick stop at the base of the mountain for lunch at the Hotel Highland Resort and a visit to the Mt Fuji Art Museum, we were off for a visit to Hakone. Hakone is famous for hot springs, outdoor activities and natural beauty. A delightful cruise across Lake Ashi delivered us to the Mt.Komagatake Aerial Cableway. The quick ride to the top ensured we soon had sweeping views over Hakone National Park and one of the most difficult golf courses in Japan. (When you see it you’ll understand why.) Last year we had views to Mt Fuji but unfortunately it wasn’t so clear on this visit.

Early, but not too early, morning on our third day in Tokyo saw us heading a few blocks up the road to the Tsukiji Fish Markets. With the market covering many blocks it is one of the biggest markets of any kind in the world. The bedlam of scooters, trucks, sellers and buyers hurrying around and not forgetting for one moment the wide-eyed tourists scrambling out of their way, really gave the market the atmosphere that it’s famous for.

We missed seeing the auctions but the stalls within the market provided all the entertainment we needed. The market seemed to sell every kind of fresh or live-seafood available. Next to seafood, shops and stalls also sell fruit and vegetables (many unique to Japan), knives, ceramics, etc. but we didn’t see these as we had come to see mainly the fish. To my amazement there was hardly any fish smell at all – attesting to the freshness of the seafood – though I could have done without walking into some fish guts.

After seeing some fishmongers deal with rather large tuna and other fish it was time to move on to our next destination, Odaiba.

Odaiba are some man made islands in Tokyo Bay that were built to protect Tokyo from attaches by sea. It was redeveloped (and continues to be) and has become a very popular entertainment and shopping district. There were are quite a few attractions on the island including parks (including a faux beach), theme parks, shopping centres, museums and interesting architecture. We had limited time so we headed to the National Museum of Emerging Science and Technology (MeSci) and Palette Town (which includes the Toyota showcase city: Megaweb and two shopping centres: Sunwalk and Venus Fort.)

MeSci is a very cool place. Housed in a large gorgeously designed open-style glass building the museum is a highly hands-on experience of the latest developments in science and technology. There are robots, virtual-reality rides, life-size models (including of a space habitation module), and other interactive displays such as touch-screens and labs. One of the cooler concepts was the Ride Cam. We mounted a motion platform where the movement of the platform was controlled by a member of the public through manipulation of a robot. What we saw was what the robot saw and how we moved was how the robot moved. Check out the pics here.

After MeSci it was on to Palette Town. Although there was shopping to be had at Sunwalk and the interesting Venus Fort (with ceilings that look like the sky changing over from the blue of day to the black of night at the right time. Just like the ceilings of certain casinos in Las Vegas – although these remain on the blue of day 24-7!) we spent most of our time at Toyota’s Megaweb: a Toyota showcase. Although there were some of the latest models of Toyota’s range of vehicles on display (and I even got to sit in some) to my disappointment there was only one concept car on display. Unexpected treasures included the Fuji Speedway motion simulator (which allowed us to simulate racing a car along the Fuji Speedway) and Drivers Workout which tested your reaction times.