I find it hard to believe that many photographers regularly use photoshop to clone out dust on their digital photographs. The problem is that few digital camera manufacturers take the issue seriously. Even the most expensive and sophisticated of digital SLR cameras have this problem…apart from Olympus.

I can safely state that having travelled around the world and changed my lenses in all kinds of situations, that I have never ever had any dust on the sensor of my Olympus Camera. I find it truly incredible that other manufacturers do not take this seriously. In fact I have seen some photographers even make apologies for this state of affairs saying things like ‘it really isn’t too much of a chore to remove spots in photoshop, or clean the sensor’ (yeah right!!).

Recently, a number of manufacturers have taken some steps to catch up with Olympus on this, but just simply fail to properly address the issue. Lete me re-itterate, I have never had a single spot of dust on my Olympus sensor. Most of the newer attempts to address this by other companies just do not work as effectively as the Olympus solution, mainly due to the fact that they use a low sensor shake speed compared to Olympus.

So, if you know nothing about digital SLR’s, and want to buy one, just be aware, that you may have to clean the sensor (dangerous and difficult) or spot out spots of dust on every picture you take. You could of course buy an olympus.

I should point out I have no financial connection with Olympus, I just find it dumb that top photographers put up with this. Think about it, a 4 grand camera, and it suffers from this problem.

Many apologies. The Galleries did not seem to work correctly with some computers, but seem OK now……

Have a look at the galleries at www.timbles.org

So, after the ‘official’ world tour, we are now in what might be called the ‘fringe’ world tour. We didn’t really go back home.

No instead, we are now in a Spanish Island in the atlantic ocean, just off the coast of Africa. Gran Canaria is very warm.

One of the great beaches in Gran Canaria

You may notice I’ve deleted the pictures from the blog, as I was running out of free space. I’m going to put hi resolution versions on a web gallery on my own domain. In the meantime, you’ll just have to imagine the pictures…

More updates soon.

When we set off on our trip on 9th December 2006, we had only a vague idea of our plans, and where they might lead. As we sit now, in Tokyo Narita airport awaiting our Virgin Atlantic flight back to London, and then onwards, it really is strange to think back on where we have been.

We travelled westwards around the globe, from Edinburgh in Scotland, and our final stop will be at Teeside airport (Durham valley, or whatever they call it this year). The total distance we calculate via software is 37,228 miles, not including side trips.

The routing was as follows;

EDI-LHR-SFO-JFK-SEA-LAS-SFO-AKL-CHC-DUD-AKL-SYD-SFP-ADL-DPO-HBA-SYD-HKG-KIX-NRT-LHR-MME

Unlike Philleas Fogg, we have taken 82 days to travel around the globe (had we stuck to our original schedule, we now realise we would have done it in exactly 80 days (purely by chance).

It is difficult to point out a specific highlight, we enjoyed all the places we visited. Watching the new year fireworks in Hong Kong, or the Opera house in Sydney, or Albatross in Dunedin, or Hector’s dolphin in Akaroa, or Whale watching in Kaikoura, hand feeding kangaroos in Tasmania, or meeting up close with the famous Tasmanian devil, sailing from Melbourne to Tasmania, travelling on the tranzscenic railway or the overlander or Shinkansen, or looking over the manhatten skyline at night or spending christmas in Seattle, or seeing Elvis at Vegas, or Dame edna at Melbourne, or flying in a seaplane at Geelong, or a Japanese tea ceremony in Japan, or visiting world heritage castles and shrines in Japan

I personally travelled around america some eighteen years ago, and decided upon my return that I would go around the world the next year. It has taken some eighteen years to get to this point.

Round the world air tickets are not so expensive, and if you are savvy and plan ahead (unlike us!!), it may not cost as much as you think

So, if anything, some 37,228 miles, over three thousand photographs, 20 flights, and innumerable hotels, the point I would make is this; if you ever have the faintest chance or glimmer of opportunity to do a trip like this, just do it, you will never, ever regret it.

The famous Torii gate at Miyajiima. Such a gate marks the point of crossing from the secular to the sacred world.

Nikko is a small mountain village 128km north of Tokyo. It took us about 2 hours to get there, by train, but it was worth it. In the early 1600’s a local Shogun requested in his will for a shrine to be built in his honour. This was done, but his grandson wasn’t impressed and ordered something a bit bigger and brighter. Craftily, he made local, rival Lords pay for it.

The result is a compound of shrines, temples and pagodas covering a large area of the mountainside, with dazzling carpentery and beautiful deities. We were there on a fantastic, but cold, spring day – ideal for photographs but not so good for shoeless feet in the temples!!

The orginal ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil’ wood carving ,by Tosh Gu. Highlights three of the princicples of Tendai Buddhism

The buildings throughout are spectacular. The trees in the background, Cryptomeria, were planted as saplings at the time of building, over four hundred years ago. There are said to be over 13,000 of them on the site.
Even better close up

We always knew that we may experience some problems finding things to eat in Japan. It’s a very different culture with some ‘unusual’ culinary tastes. Add to this the fact that one of us is vegetarian, and the other would rather starve than eat anything that ever had a shell, tentacles or valves, and you can see our problem!!

I have to say it’s been a struggle. The difficulty is that most restaurants don’t have English menus. They do have mock-up plastic food, on plates, outside as a representation of what you can get. But, if it’s in a crispy crumb it could be anything! And, we didn’t really want to start munching our way through the cast of Free Willy, morals aside.

It’s also customary to put meat into everything, especially sandwiches and salads. Even a certain American burger chain’s garden salad has bacon sprinkles.

Ironically, the best meal we’ve had was in the small mountain village of Nikko. It was a tiny Japanese restaurant on the main street, no bigger than someone’s front room. Outside the sign said ‘Vegetarians Welcome’! We had delicious japanese noodles with vegetables and skewered chicken with rice, and virtually licked the plates clean. All for about six pounds too!!

On 6th August 1945, the busy garrison town of Hiroshima in the south of Japan awoke to another beautiful, clear summers day. The people were on alert for allied bombing, which had occurred in other Japanese cities, and had begun demolishing wooden homes around major buildings to deter the spread of potential flames. Schoolchildren and students were being drafted to carry out this task, and that morning they were ready to begin work.

‘Little Boy’ dropped from the ‘Enola Gay’ bomber, detonated 60m above the town centre near a recognisable T-shaped bridge at 8-15am. Hiroshima and The World would never be the same again.

The initial down blast, and intense heat, from the bomb destroyed buildings and lives for 2km from the epicentre. People simply disappeared. At The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum there is a stone step taken from a destroyed building. The intense heat has changed the colour of the stone to white, except in one area. Something shielded the stonework from the blast – it’s a human shadow.

Following the initial blast, a huge fireball sent fire raging through the crushed streets, burning everything in it’s path. Many not killed by the initial blast were burnt to death. Deadly radioactivity was also released, causing severe poisoning and killing many within a few days.

No one will ever know the true figure of those who died, but it’s estimated that of the 350,000 people living in Hiroshima at the time, 140,000 had died by the end of the year. Up to 20,000 Koreans, forcibly sent to Japan for labour perished, aswell as the schoolchildren and students already mentioned. Thousands of young children, evacuated because of bombing threats, lost both parents and became orphans.

At the museum we saw bottles melted by the heat, crockery and coins fused together, even roof tiles whose surface structure was altered. Amongst all the clothes, belongings and harrowing accounts of the victims, one item really brought it all home to me – a simple rusty, child’s tricycle. It belonged to a three year old boy, killed whilst playing outside his house that morning. His father didn’t want him to be lonely in the family plot and so buried him, with his favourite toy, in his garden. Forty years later he moved his son’s remains and donated the tricycle to the museum.

There is no attempt, by the museum, to justify Japan’s conduct during the war. Many atrocities were carried out by the country, both at home and abroad, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. Equally, it is true that it was not really necessary for the USA to drop the bomb in order to end the war, rather it was for other convenient political considerations, including making the USSR aware of America’s power. Overall, the museum aims to show the horror of nuclear weapons and campaigns vigorously to achieve a worldwide ban. It is after all, the Hiroshima peace museum.

Ironically, following the second bombing of Nagasaki 2 days later and Japan’s surrender, Britain became an occupying force for 6 years in Japan. The press were banned from reporting the bombings during that period and the full horror of what happened remained secret to the world.

We didn’t really look forward to visiting Hiroshima, but felt it was something we had to do. Like The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, or Auschwitz in Poland, we need to be reminded about the horror man can do, so that people don’t die in vain.

The former industrial promotion hall, at the epicentre of the explosion, which was one of the few ruins left standing, as all other building nearby were flattened. It is now re-named the A-bomb dome, and has been preserved in it’s post bomb state for future generations to see

The flame of peace, which will only be extinguished when the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed.

The memorial cenotaph under which lies a single coffin containing the names of all those killed or injured by the bomb

You know, aside from fame due to Global warming (for which their is scant REAL scientific evidence), kyoto is really the home of traditional Japanese arts and crafts. Geisha can be spotted here, and generally, it is very traditional Japan. Do not however think this is a small place, it is in fact a very busy city. We had very little time to really explore Kyoto in detail but were impressed with what we did see. The real Imperial Palace (Kyoto was the home of the Mikado for most of Japans history). The current Emperor lives in the ‘new’ Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

For touring around via rail pass, Kyoto is a good location. Osaka, Japan’s second largest city is not far, but we felt Kyoto was a better base, especially if you have a rail pass (which MUST be purchased before arriving in Japan).

Kyoto is home to more temples and shrines than most places in the world, so even if you only visited Kyoto, you could easily fill a week and not have visited them all.

Here are some pictures, as we are out of time to write in more detail on Kyoto (unfortunately).

Within walking distance of Himeji Castle are nine different gardens, grouped together as The Himeji Koko-en Gardens. Each has it’s own theme, but all are linked by gates and traditional earth walls.

With their manicured shrubs, pruned blossom trees and mossed stoneware it feels like the gardens are timeless as you walk around. In fact they were built in 1992 on the former site of Samurai residences.

Perhaps the most spectacular garden was Oyashiki-no-niwa or The Garden of the Lord’s House which consists of a wooden guest house, with a viewing balcony overlooking a koi pond. The pond is shaped to resemble The Japanese Inland Sea, is fed by a waterfall and crossed by beautiful stone bridges and stepping stones. The fish themselves were a spectacle in their own right – there’s said to be about 250 of them. It was extremely peaceful and we spent a lot of time just gazing across the water!

Some of the other gardens were also pretty fantastic. There was a seedling garden with some beautiful prunus bonsai in full flower, the garden of summer trees which no doubt is full of autumn acer colour and the tea ceremony garden.

This is real Oriental Gardening on a grand scale.