I was mugged the other day.

Claire was still in town, and I had dragged her up into the Kowloon Hills. I wanted to experience the views from the trails around Amah Rock and Lion Rock. As we had headed out directly from the beautiful Tsimshatsui hotel in which we were staying, we were badly equipped - instead of a sturdy rucksack, I clutched a supermarket plastic bag containing maps, a guidebook and our water supply. It was probably too hot to go hiking. The air was heavy and trekking up from the KCR station at Tai Wai was hard going. Ten minutes in and I was drenched in sweat. Mosquitoes were circling. The forested hills echoed with the buzzing and clicking of unseen insects. Giant grubs lay twitching in the middle of the paths.

I had been warned about the dangers of hiking in the New Territories. Like gnarled village locals in a ghost story, colleagues warned me not to go into the hills alone. Illegal immigrants from the mainland lie in wait, ready to pounce on the lone hiker and relieve him of his possessions before tying him to a tree and scampering away. I'd never heeded the warnings and had often walked the trails without incident. And this time I wasn't on my own.

We reached a catch-water and walked down the road that ran alongside it. It was as we turned a corner that I first caught sight of them. A family of shabby looking individuals, loitering by the side of the road. They looked slightly malnourished and their bad posture gave them all a vaguely unnerving stoop. They looked up as we approached. Timidly they moved to the other side of the road and started to disappear into the forest. It was then we noticed the mother clutched a baby, whose mouth tugged desperately at her scrawny breast.

But one remained. He had sat down in the middle of the road and was watching us suspiciously. I noticed that his hair was patchy and unkempt. Although it was probably the wrong thing to do, and in retrospect quite rude, I took a photo of him. I thought his behaviour unusual, but put my camera away and carried on walking. As we veered to the left to walk around him, he got up and moved into our path. We changed direction again. This time he came towards me, a menacing look in his eyes. Grunting, he reached forward to grab my plastic bag. Tenaciously I kept my grip. His long dirty finger nails cut into the bag and its contents tumbled onto the road. He looked down disappointed. He grabbed the bottle of water briefly before dropping it as I shouted at him. He ran away into the forest.

Shaken, we gathered our belongings and trudged on. I shall be passing my photo of our assailant onto the relevant authorities:



In other news, the Mercury award shortlist was announced yesterday and I was pleased to see Lou Rhodes' album has got some well deserved recognition. Although she's got brilliant competition in the Thom Yorke and Muse albums, I hope the Mercury judges do their wacko thing again and award it to an outsider (i.e. Lou). And I really hope it doesn't go to Arctic Monkeys (and not because of the experience recounted above) or Editors.

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We hopped on the bullet train to Sendai and within two hours were in a taxi with the Sensei, heading up to the compound where the university installs its gaijin staff.

Although northern Honshu's largest city, Sendai retains a provincial air. Pleasant and laid back, its wide tree lined avenues and spacious malls contrast with the more claustrophobic and intense geography of Tokyo. That evening we paced said spacious malls, ate sushi and fell victim to the arcades once more. Stuffed creatures stared out of glass cases, begging to be plucked to freedom by large metal claws. But all they did was steal more of my yen, and we finally escaped to a tiny pub - so small that that the area behind the bar rivalled that in front of it. We propped up the bar and drank endless Coronas, assuring the concerned barman that, owing to our nationality, we didn't object to their warmth.

On Friday we woke to unrelenting rain, which was to continue for the rest of the day. Our enthusiasm undiminished (Ok, only slightly diminished) we returned to the train station, and eventually, after a missed connecting train, arrived in Hiraizumi. Hiraizumi's splendour apparently once rivalled that of Kyoto. That all changed at the end of the twelfth century after the violent and destructive downfall of the Fujiwara clan. Matsuo Basho, whose statue nestles amongst the trees of the Chuson-ji temple complex, referred to the town's glory days as 'a brief remembered dream'. As we trudged from the station to Chuson-ji, it somehow reminded me of a windswept Cornish or Breton village.

The rain couldn't dampen the delights of Chuson-ji. Climbing up from the town into a forest, the complex's main path takes visitors past numerous wooden temples, red-bibbed Jizos, tombs and other shrines and buildings. Occasionally, the trees opened up to offer views over the sodden valley below. Souvenir stalls liberally dotted the site offering phone fobs from which Hello Kitty hung, dressed as the cycloptic Date Masumane, the area's greatest feudal lord known as "the one-eyed dragon".

Chuson-ji's centrepiece is Konjiki-do, the golden temple. Housed in a specially built pavilion (to protect it from the elements) the temple contains an Amida Buddha surrounded by gold leaf, exquisite laquerwork and mother-of-pearl. As we passed through the pavilion the attendants thoughtfully played an English language commentary which informed us that generations of mummified Fujiwaras were also stuffed into niches in the temple.

After some warming ramen at a small restaurant below Chuson-ji we took a quick tour through the graceful Heinan gardens at Motsu-ji on the other side of Hiraizumi, before heading back to Sendai. There we stocked up on food and sake, the latter making it fairly hard for me to get out of bed the following morning.

Another train ride, this time through fresh rain-free air, took us to Hon-Shiogama. There, with dozens of Japanese tourists, we boarded a small ferry. As it slowly chugged out of Hon-Shiogama's industrial harbour I noticed the sky was thick with seagulls, swooping and arcing around the back of the boat. The reason soon became apparent, as the tourists bought bags of Wotsit style crisps and started lobbing them at the appreciative birds, which put on a display of dog-fight like aerial acrobatics in order to catch the crisps before they hit the water. The more adventurous tourist stood by the rails, arm stretched proffering the cheesy snacks to whichever gull was brave enough to wheel in and snatch the food before making a sharp turn to avoid the hard metal of the boat. Stocking up on crisps, I only broke off baiting the gulls as the ferry entered Matsushima Bay.

Officially one of the three most scenic views in Japan, Matsushima Bay is an archipelago of around 250 islands. Legend tells that Basho was so overawed by its beauty that he could not describe it in words, his poem on the place reading merely

Matsushima!
Ah Matsushima!
Matsushima!

(Apparently this is a perfect haiku in the original Japanese.)

It is certainly striking. Countless islets sit in the bay, on which fir trees perch over rocks distorted by centuries of the sea's attention. We arrived at the town of Matsushima and walked along the waterfront for a while, before crossing a short bridge to the crowded island that plays host to Godai-do, a small wooden temple. We briefly admired the Shinto shrine. The temple houses the statues of 5 Buddhist deities that are only put on show to the public every 33 years. Fortunately 2006 is one of the years. Unfortunately I didn't realise this until I was back in Hong Kong. I don't remember seeing any ancient statues sitting around there, but then again, it would explain why the island was so crowded, but I don't think that the 2006 display had started.

We also crossed the long red (and scaffolded) bridge to the pleasant wooded island of Fukura-jima before returning to the shore and gorging on unidentifiable raw sea creatures - they could have been Nemo and SpongeBob Squarepants for all I could tell. We then headed up a wide cedar lined avenue to the unfortunately closed gates of Zuigan-ji, Matsushima's most famous temple. All was not lost though, as lining the avenue were dozens of stone Buddhas and Bodhisattvas along with the odd Shinto shrine and mysterious caves carved into the surrounding cliffs.

That evening, back in Sendai, we followed a sign to Eric's Bar, and found ourselves drinking in a room covered from floor to ceiling with photos, magazine covers, posters and album sleeves featuring Eric Clapton. The toilets were wallpapered with gig reviews of Clapton's performances. On the bar's large television, Eric strummed in an interminable compilation of live appearances.

Departure came all too quickly - the following day, after thanking the Sensei for his excellent hospitality, the bullet train rushed us back to Tokyo. After a few nervous minutes trying to locate the correct train (and station) in Ueno, we set out for Narita. At the airport we found that, oddly enough, the only thing in Japan which is utterly disorganised and inefficient is the airport checking-in system. In spite of this we made it onto the plane, which was a pity, as I really fancied staying in Japan for much longer.

Some selected Japan photos can be found here, while some of Claire's are here.

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"They look like Bond villain henchmen," I remarked to Claire as I stared from the plane window onto the runway at Narita airport. Hard-hatted airport workers were driving forklift trucks up to the plane as it disgorged our luggage.

Although I like to think of my self as fairly well-travelled, a bit cosmopolitan, my comment suggested that perhaps this visit to Tokyo should consist of a bit more than getting pissed in the red-light district and staying in a capsule hotel.

Overland and subway trains took us to Asakusa, a district in the North East of central Tokyo. As we emerged from the bowels of the subway station, the cool bright afternoon was a refreshing change from the heavy humid air we'd left behind in Hong Kong. We found our hotel with ease - a Ryokan down a quiet side street. Our traditional Japanese room at the top of the hotel was authentic down to the rattan flooring and paper screens. Unfortunately its authenticity extended to its lack of a private bathroom - we had to use the very pleasant but small traditional communal baths next door.

After making certain bathroom related enquiries at the reception desk, Claire and I wandered the area before eating at a Shabu-shabu restaurant. Diners cook their own food by dropping thin slices of meat into a boiling broth. We were placed in a room on our own and had to phone for the bill.

The next morning, bathed in the traditional Japanese style, we hit Nakamise-Dori, which was next to the hotel. Nakamise-Dori is a long pedestrianised market street lined with stalls selling tourist tat, Japanese sweets and assorted kitsch. At one end of the street a huge red lantern sits under Kaminarimon (the Thunder Gate) while at the other is Senso-ji, the oldest temple in Tokyo and the location of the pagoda glimpsed from our room. After taking in the temple, we ambled down the busy market and were approached by school children on a field trip. Obviously with orders to stop Westerners and practice their English, they handed us information about the part of Japan they were from, told us their names, asked us where we were from, asked for my signature and then requested a photograph. We asked their teacher, who was loitering nearby, to return the favour, hence this:



Then we dived into Tokyo, starting an energetic and wide-ranging three day tour of the city. It started in Marunouchi, where we took a turn in the Imperial Gardens. It was here we first noticed the preponderance of jungle crows in Tokyo - large, fat creatures, insistently cawing and languidly flapping from tree to tree. Then we struck out for the swanky shopping area of Ginza where we mucked around with camcorders, digital camera and other assorted gadgets in the Sony Centre, which also features a Playstation 3 in a glass box, complete with ineffectual looking security guard.

From Ginza we walked to Zojo-ji temple, a Buddhist centre overlooked by the Tokyo tower. Perhaps the most remarkable (and moving) thing about this temple are the rows of hundreds of small Jizo statues. Jizo is a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva associated with, amongst other things, aborted and miscarried foetuses. Here, each of the red bibbed and hatted statues (which look more like babies than Bodhisattvas) commemorate a deceased baby, and each one has its own plastic windmill, which rattles in the breeze.

I was ambling the around the grounds of the temple, trying to take a photo of a small shrine, when I heard a shriek and an accusing shout. Claire emerged from behind a tree claiming to have been the victim of a crow attack - she had been standing around, supposedly minding her own business (a likely story) when, after only the briefest of warning caws, she was dive-bombed. It transpired that she hadn't actually seen the offending creature, but we swiftly left the temple grounds after that, wishing to avoid an Omen type scenario.

That evening we wandered the neon soaked streets of Shinjuku and ate conveyor belt sushi. It was in Shinjuku that we first succumbed to the lure of the arcades - not the deafening packed pachinko parlours, but the places full of computer games and machines offering cutesy animals teetering invitingly on ledges or large stuffed pigs ready to be scooped up and dropped into the hands of the dextrous deserving. Here I developed a passion for the Taiko Drum Master, and bashed away to various songs including the Doraemon theme tune and YMCA, while behind me, Claire addictively continued her quest to pick up as many winsome trinkets as possible.

We started the following day at the Meiji shrine, a large shrine in the middle of extensive gardens dedicated to the Emperor Meiji, which like so much of Tokyo was destroyed in the Second World War - what's there now was built in the 1950s. Then we crossed the train tracks into Harijuku and wandered down Takeshita Dori, the Tokyo equivalent of Camden market, except with more French maid costumes for sale. We eventually found ourselves at the large Kiddyland toyshop. In the course of the day, at Kiddyland and then department store Tokyu Hands in Shibuya, I ill-advisedly spent thousands of yen on assorted off-the-wall Japanese toys and other quirky collectibles. Studio Ghibli phone fobs, weird Bandai figures and armoured bears now sit in my desk in Hong Kong. I have no idea what to do with them.

Shibuya was endlessly fascinating - hundreds of shops, restaurants, arcades, bars and clubs provide the backdrop for some of the best people watching in the world. Disorientated we veered up and down various streets, in and out of shops and past a television studio where an incomprehensible game show was being filmed. We poured more coins into arcade machines and then, as night fell, found ourselves at the Hachiko crossing, the centre of it all, surrounded by bright neon clad buildings and huge blaring LCD screens.

Then, armed with a list of recommendations in the Time Out Tokyo guidebook, we decided to seek out a love hotel, Tokyo's quintessentially Japanese short stay hotels. We ended up at P&A Plaza, one of the best known of these establishments. Shuffling coyly through the frosted automatic doors, we were confronted with a wall mounted electronic menu showing pictures of the various rooms available. It was around 9pm, but many of the rooms we already taken. We chose a room, and pressed various buttons, muddling through the Japanese prompts. Eventually the machine spat out a key card. In many respects the room was like a regular hotel room - bathroom, bed, sofa and television. But in others it was not - the porn menu on top of the TV, the "minibar" of sex toys, the swimming pool...Then again, not many regular hotels have a fish tank full of jelly fish in the lobby.

The following morning was our last in Tokyo. We had reserved tickets on the Shinkansen up to Sendai in order to visit a friend of ours who is a Sensei at the university there.

The trains in Japan never leave late and they never leave early. Apparently if the subway trains are delayed in the morning, the rail operator gives out apology slips for the Salarymen to show their bosses. The Sensei told us of an occasion when he saw the rail staff come onto the platform and bow to the passengers on a delayed Shinkansen in humble apology. Therefore we were conscious that we had to be queuing for the train in the one neat lanes painted on the platforms by 3:02pm.

We headed to Ueno park, and strolled around there, avoiding the crows and visiting the Toshogu Shrine, a beautiful old (17th century - it has withstood wars and earthquakes) Shinto shrine, the grounds of which are covered in large elegant stone lanterns.

Emerging into the quiet and attractive neighbourhood of Yanaka on the other side of the park we made our way to the peaceful cemetery before heading back to Asakusa for lunch in a Korean restaurant (where once again we cooked our own food - this time marbled beef on a grill in the table) and to pick up our bags. But as we made a beeline for the Shinkansen station at Ueno we passed an arcade. In unspoken agreement we headed in, the waiting Shinkansen suddenly losing its importance.

After feeding various machines (including the Drum Master) with cash we decided to give the Purikura booths a go. In our various visits to arcades around Tokyo, large portions of the places were dedicated to Purikura and they were always full of giggling schoolgirls. One arcade had a sign at the entrance to the Purikura section declaring that only women and couples were allowed into the area - no single men. It took us a while to work out how to use the things, which included figuring out that once the initial photos are taken you head into a second booth to mess around with the images - shove hearts all over them, or a cartoon pig's head for example. The end results were colourful, jolly and incomprehensible. Obviously I would post a picture of them here, but sadly I can't get a good enough image to put on Flickr. Shame. However some selected pictures can be found here.

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Cheung Chau is a small island to the west of Hong Kong. Originally a fishing community, the narrow strip of land at the centre of the dumb-bell shaped island is a well developed scrum of narrow lanes and houses, which gives way to forest and cliffs as the land opens up at either end.

Back in 1999 the island experienced unusually high levels of suicides. The doleful and despairing were drawn to Cheung Chau, perhaps attracted by its relative isolation. They focused on one particular block of holiday apartments, and, alone in their rented rooms, lit charcoal, slipping away amongst the fumes. The grim suicide statistics led the local residents and police to launch a Suicide Prevention Scheme and more recently, a councillor to propose the building of a Suicide Theme Park on the island. Given the slightly spooky circumstances of my first visit to Cheung Chau, it's a probably a good thing I didn't know all this back then.

The annual Bun Festival, which took place last weekend, hasn't yet been adapted to placate the charcoal infused dead, despite the festival being, in part, a ritual to commemorate islanders killed by pirates and appease their souls which still wander the island's paths. The festival is also a tribute to Pak Tai, a Taoist Sea God, whose beneficence is important to a community traditionally dependent on fishing. For three days the island turns vegetarian, before staging a long and colourful procession which threads past the thousands of day-trippers who descend on the island for the festival, which culminates in the Bun Scramble.

A long night in Lang Kwai Fong meant that, despite my eagerness to get out of my room, I didn't get to Cheung Chau until 3pm. I was just in time to catch a marching band parrumping down the main street, which runs along the front of the harbour. The place was packed, and it was only a height advantage that allowed me to see the band as they wheeled by. I pushed my way through the crowds to one of the narrow back streets and watched as the final third of the procession came through.

Old men in bright red religious robes passed along the street, followed by younger men blowing wildly discordant cornets or banging cymbals and drums to drive away evil spirits. These were followed by whirling dragon dances, believers carrying ornate sedan chairs in which statues of deities resided, strolling Buddhas wearing papier-mâché heads and waving their rattan fans at well-wishers (it was also the big man's birthday) and children, suspended on raised platforms to give the impression that they were floating through the crowd. The children were either dressed in traditional costume or done up to represent more contemporary characters - one hose carrying boy wore blue scrubs and a hairnet to look like a SARS hospital worker. A girl was dressed as a supercilious health official, the base of her platform scattered with chickens - the local government, in an attempt to prevent avian influenza has confiscated poultry from farmers without providing compensation.

After an hour or so, the procession dribbled to a stop, the heads that had been hanging out of windows along the lane withdrew, and the crowd disbursed. I decided to go for a walk around the coast. 20 minutes later, climbing a steep hill into the forest, I realised that this might have been a humiliating mistake. Over the last few weeks the temperature in Hong Kong has been steadily climbing, along with the humidity. Air conditioning units rattle away constantly and a few brave cockroaches have been seen lumbering along the streets of Central. I'd like to have been able to blame the rapidly expanding dark patches on my shirt on its linen material, but the reality is that I'm a sweaty white guy hopelessly ill-equipped to survive in this part of the world. The paths around the island were full of happy Chinese families enjoying the holiday atmosphere, clambering on the rocks and picnicking, not one of them breaking a sweat.

After trudging past the cemetery in the woods I spied a bench and decided to have a rest. I absent-mindedly watched a family of stray dogs optimistically trotting behind each walker who passed by, only to drop back dejected after 20 seconds. I wondered whether it was possible to give up exercise by simply sitting in the sweltering sunshine for half an hour, sweating off fat. I was roused from my thoughts by a slight tickle on my arm. I looked down on it to see about five black thick-bodied mosquitoes grazing. Disgusted I brushed them off, crushing a couple and leaving a smear of blood across my forearm. I stood up as both my arms started tingling and masochistically counted the bites. There were about 15 in all, on both my arms. I had been sitting there for three minutes. Irritated I walked on and was dismayed to see a sign depicting two large mosquitoes and the legend "Beware of Japanese Encephalitis and Dengue Fever".

Back in town I headed to the supermarket and stood over the freezer compartment, pretending to read the back of a packet of peas. Cooled down, I made for the other side of the harbour. Next to some fishing boats the air was heavy with smoke and ash. A large fire was burning before a 12 foot effigy of an angry looking Pak Tai. Old men and women were lighting bundles of incense and bowing before him and the row of cardboard holy men standing nearby.

Across the road on the municipal tennis courts, in front of the Pak Tai temple, stood the 60 foot high bun tower. Up to and including 1978, the bun towers were comprised of a bamboo frame covered with hundreds of sweet buns. Festival goers scrambled up the tower, buns flying, to the top. In competition with each other, they filled bags with as many snatched buns as possible. However, as grainy 1978 TV footage shows, this all ended as the bamboo gave way and the tower came tumbling down in a shower of fluffy dough and broken limbs. About 100 people were injured and the Bun Scramble was history. It has been revived in the last couple of years, but now the towers are made of metal, and only small well trained teams get to grab the buns, all the time attached to the tower with ropes.

Behind the tower, the festival was still in full swing. A small stage played host to Cantonese Opera, stalls sold bun shaped cushions and the temple rang with the repeated chimes of its heavy gong. As night fell queues formed at bakers' shops, stretching down the alleyways. I joined a queue, and watched as the buns were steamed in giant bamboo steamers and then individually stamped with a red Chinese character ("Peace"). Having finally reached the front of the queue, I bought a couple of buns and munched them sitting in the main square, having avoided the TV crews (TVB and MTV) interviewing Western tourists.

And then, I left. Although I was keen to see the actual Bun Scramble, it was scheduled for midnight and after 1am the ferry service back to Central was severely limited. Since it was three hours until midnight and since I didn't have anyone with whom to while away those hours or the ones that would inevitably be spent queuing for an early morning ferry, I jumped on the boat and watched the live broadcast of the Bun Scramble on TV. It looked fun, but I couldn't help wishing that I had seen it in the old days, when it was a free-for-all, without harnesses and crash helmets. It's such a unique and mad idea that, while clearly much more sensible, the sterilised Bun Scramble seems contrary to the spirit of the festival. I think Pak Tai and the itinerant spirits of the dead probably preferred it back then too.

Inspired by Matt, I have put some of my photos on Flickr. Selected photos from the Bun Festival can be seen here.

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Hong Kong isn't known as a cultural hotspot - either for Chinese or Western culture. The common perception is that the latter is almost completely absent from these balmy islands, and that's not a surprise. The residency in Hong Kong of Western music, art and literature depends on the expats from that part of the world, who, along with their professional qualifications and reluctant families, must also bring a demand for it. However, the expat demographic in general doesn't care too much for cultural variety so unless you're fulfilled by U2 and The Da Vinci code (on which topic, what a fucking prick) don't come here expecting too much.

This isn't something of which we, as a group, are ashamed, and nor should we be. European and American culture is for Europe and America. Hong Kong is for making money and getting pissed. This week's issue of HK Magazine (a listings paper, a bit like a 6th form Time Out) opened its interview with a local aspiring poet with, "There's a million things to do in this city. Why bother writing poetry?" Therefore last month, while idly flicking through the pages of the same publication and wondering if I would go to any of the places listed if I had someone to go with, I was surprised to read about the Hong Kong Literary Festival opening in town.

True to form, HK couched the festival in apologetic terms, careful not to alienate its readers. The Nobel Lecture from Seamus Heaney was recommended for "anyone who wants to hear verse read in a Northern Irish brogue" while The Sea, the Booker Prize winning novel of John Banville, the other big name attending, was dismissed as a book no-one has read and "pretty much identical" to anything Kazuo Ishiguro has ever written. Although, I haven't read The Sea either, so perhaps that's fair comment...

Anyway, it turns out that, at least in part, the perception of gweilos as literature-phobes is bollocks, as is the idea of the city as a cultural desert. While I did get a few odd looks when I mentioned to people in the office that I was off to a literary festival event, all the talks I went to were well-attended, albeit mostly by academics, students and publishers. Hong Kong was, it turns out, an ideal city in which to hold this kind of festival. The place is small enough that any of the venues were easy to reach by foot or a short taxi ride. The events were popular but rarely oversubscribed. Entry was either free or fairly cheap. This meant that I could finish up at work, have a quick look on the website to see what was on, and 10 minutes later be sat in a little theatre listening to Ma Jian rattle on about sky burials (OK, so it wasn't all Western Literature), watching a panel of "experts" have a lively debate over what was going on in North Korea or wondering whether Nell Freudenberger only got a publishing deal because of her looks (she didn't).

I would of course feel a little short changed if I didn't come out of some of the events without a slight animosity towards my fellow festival goers, and so I developed an irritation towards the 'nodding-at-no-one' syndrome, which I noticed was endemic in middle-aged academic looking women who nodded knowingly at points although nobody was seeking their approval or checking that they had understood. To be honest, I think I was just jealous, sitting there like a lemon in a suit, realising that the majority of the audience spent their lives thinking about and working on things they were interested in, even had a passion for. For them the event was merely a complement to their daily lives, while I shoehorned it in at the end or very beginning of days mostly consisting of boredom, dull fear and incomprehension.

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