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  • Kyran Klazek-Schryer
  • Kyran Klazek-Schryer

South Pacific & Asia

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Marché de Nouméa

    30 marca 2025, Nowa Kaledonia ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    Today I got up early (ish) to catch the local market, which happens every day except Monday, until 11am. It was a cool experience, very much like some other markets I’ve been to in the past few months, with lots of different local produce and some imported produce and baked goods and whatnot. But all quite pricey haha. There was even a busker playing guitar and singing, and some food stands set up. Felt like a cross between a Canadian market and South Pacific market lol.
    I didn’t get any produce, but I did buy a few takoyaki from a stand to snack on. I’ll be having lots of that in Japan soon!

    After exploring around a bit and watching most of the stands close up, I walked back to the hostel to make lunch and then head out to the cultural centre!

    https://strava.app.link/likxdHm9kSb     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Centre Culturel Tjibaou

    30 marca 2025, Nowa Kaledonia ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    Finally today is the day to visit the cultural centre. Except apparently the busses don’t run at all on Sunday! Could’ve guessed that lol.

    So taxi it is, even though it’s a bit pricey. I borrowed someone’s phone at the hostel to call a taxi and caught one over there for about 1500F. My taxi driver was an older French lady who was a big fan of the fact I had a Canadian accent lol. She asked me if I could feel the tension of the country, and honestly I could. You can kind of feel it everywhere. So we got talking about the recent political turmoils around independence and the recent riots.
    As far as I understood, there was a last referendum on independence that happened during Covid, and the kanaks felt they couldn’t properly campaign due to their mourning traditions so decided to boycott the vote. Then the French government said they wanted to unilaterally allow anyone who lived in NC to vote, whereas right now it’s just those who have lived there for many generations or 10+ years. This would have greatly diluted the kanaky vote and so there was riots that turned quite violent in May. The country is still recovering from this and the curfew was just lifted a few months ago.
    But my taxi driver’s take on it was quite interesting to hear. And I think a lot of the white inhabitants of New Caledonia feel this way. But she was basically saying that they’re all liars— there was the possibility to move the date of the vote, they knew they were going to lose the independence vote so boycotted, and basically have just been dishonest about their means etc. Which may be true but there were some very not so subtle tones of racism in all her explanations. The French already think they’re better than everyone. Add racism and generations of civil unrest into it and of course there’s so much subliminal racism and segregation. It’s a very interesting vibe and something I felt from most white people i talked to.

    Anyway, the cultural centre was very cool and a neat highlight of Kanaky culture with different exhibits. It was founded by Jean-Marie Tjibaou, who was a pioneer in creating and promoting a Kanak identity after the atrocities of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in NC. He set up a festival in the 80s highlighting kanaky culture, called Melanesia 2000, which was a huge success and really gave them a joint identity and voice. Politically, he led and helped found the main independentist movement of NC that still exists today and is almost single handedly responsible for the 30 years of peace NC had from the late 80s. But lots of radicals opposed what they viewed as his compromising with the white government, and he was assassinated by a fellow Kanak, disagreeing with an accord he had signed.

    The cultural centre had a nice garden to walk though highlighting some of the 28 indigenous languages of NC, and a Kanak village with very tall thatched roof huts built in a traditional way.

    I caught another taxi ride back, with not such political conversations, and cooked the last of my spaghetti     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    SIN Airport & Travel to Japan!

    31 mar–2 kwi 2025, Singapur ⋅ 🌩️ 26 °C

    After packing up my stuff for hostel check out at 10am, I chilled at the hostel until my shuttle pickup at 8:30pm, as my first flight wasn’t till 12:30am. I got some find penguins done, used the kitchen, showered and had a nice chill day. The shuttle came to pick me up at the hostel and worked seamlessly to get to the airport at 10pm.

    While waiting in line to check my bag at the NOU airport, the first troubles with my water damaged passport happened. I got asked to step out of the line and go to another counter to deal with my passport. Not much was explained to me and I was a little stressed, but it turns out they just wanted me to sign a form saying if anything happened or I was denied entry into Singapore then it wouldn’t be Noucalin’s (the airline) fault. Fine by me as long as they let me on the plane lol. I got my bag checked and boarded the plane at 12:40am!

    First a redeye Aircalin flight to Singapore, with a 7h layover in the Changi airport, and then a couple of Cebu Pacific flights to Clark airport in the Philippines (with a 10h overnight layover) and then on to Tokyo Narita!

    I slept the whole first flight, except for when the food came, which was much needed although was of course still feeling groggy when we landed in Singapore at 7am. Good flight experience with Aircalin, decent food, but not the most extravagant.

    Changi airport was awesome, definitely the fanciest airport I’ve ever been to. They have a butterfly garden in the airport (but airside of not my terminal so didn’t get to see it) as well as a climbing wall and what they call “The Jewel” which is a huge mall with so many food places, multiple interactive exhibits, a sort of suspended trampoline net park, and an indoor circular waterfall that it’s famous for. After finding some luggage storage, I spent my layover walking around the jewel and admiring everything. Very nice ~7h layover.

    I checked in to my next flight, and successfully managed to walk on with my heavy backpack as a carryon. Cebu Pacific is a decent budget airline from the Philippines. They even had a fun quiz game mid flight where you could win a pencil case lol.

    Everything was going well until I landed at Clark airport CRK in the Philippines. I was all ready to pass through customs and have a little nap in my hotel that I booked for my 10h overnight layover. But when I got off the plane, there was someone holding my name on a card, and they took me aside and told me I couldn’t leave the airport. Because of the ticket I bought, or cebu pacific regulations, the layover had to be spent airside and I couldn’t go through customs. Nowhere on the ticket or online did it say anything about this, and I was quite peeved as I had a nonrefundable hotel booked for the night. I tried to get more info and tried to convince them to let me leave but they weren’t budging.

    Oh well. I guess this was my original plan anyway. And I have my blowup mat and a small blanket and pillow with me. But still annoying for it to be a surprise. After they brought me through to the departure gates, I spent the next hour texting Agoda customer service trying to get my hotel refunded. Thankfully after a lot of back and forth, the hotel agreed to refund me, and so I didn’t have to spend $50 on an empty hotel room! Very thankful to Agoda. I got an email saying “canceled and refunded due to natural disaster” lol.

    I ate some not too expensive airport food, and enjoyed the loud thunderstorm in the spacious clean terminal. I found a corner in the downstairs part that seemed to be under construction and set up my mattress to nap for a few hours before getting up at 3am to catch my 5am flight out of there.

    Because I didn’t pass through customs, to ensure I left the country, a gate agent had to take photos of me all the way until I boarded the plane lol. Very strange experience overall, but finally I got on the plane and had a sleepy uneventful flight to Narita Tokyo airport!

    Finally in Japan!!!     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik
    2

    First Day in Japan!

    2 kwietnia 2025, Japonia ⋅ 🌧 10 °C

    Finally made it to Japan! After a 48 hour journey from New Caledonia I was so so tiredddd but also so excited to finally see Sophie!

    I figured out which train to take, loaded up my Suica transit card, and trained out to our Airbnb in Asaka (suburb of Tokyo) where Sophie was waiting for me. Crazy to be cold again! It’s 10°C and rainy here, something I haven’t felt for a long time!

    This country is awesome haha, exactly like you expect. All the announcements and signs are first in Japanese then English sometimes, everyone is so polite, the trains are dead silent even when packed, there’s vending machines and convenience stores literally everywhere, the tiny suburb streets are so cute, and all the food is so good!

    After a much awaited reunion, we chilled at the Airbnb, got our bearings (Sophie had also spent the night at the airport because her flight landed after the last train), and went out for a delicious conveyor belt sushi dinner where some of the dishes were only ¥100 (CA$1.00) for two pieces of nigiri! And it was all just ordered on an iPad which we could switch to English sometimes we didn’t even have to talk to anyone lol. What an awesome country

    After dinner, we stopped at a konbini (convenience store) FamilyMart, to grab some snacks and drinks. A local came up to us and chatted for a bit in broken English. He was wondering why tourists would come all the way out to Asaka, kind of the boonies of the suburbs lol.

    An early much needed sleep tonight and off to explore Tokyo tomorrow!     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik
    1

    Tokyo Airbnb

    2–5 kwi 2025, Japonia ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    We stayed in a super cute little Airbnb in the suburbs of Tokyo for 3 nights as we explored the city.
    A tiny little apartment, with a loft for the bed, it had everything you needed but was definitely Japan sized lol. It was nice to have a place out of the city, as it was a nice neighbourhood to walk around, and easy to get to and from with the train!

    It had a few vending machines just outside the door and a konbini just a 7min walk away. Maybe it’s because it Japanese, but everything is so cute and quaint here, even the busses and roads lol     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Art Aquarium Museum

    3 kwietnia 2025, Japonia ⋅ 🌧 9 °C

    Today’s our first full day of three to explore Tokyo. We got out of the Airbnb, had a late breakfast a local little chain restaurant where we could order from iPads again and then took the hour long train into downtown Tokyo.

    Sophie wanted to see one of the TeamLabs art exhibits but unfortunately we didn’t book it in time and tickets were all sold out for our days in Tokyo. But apparently the Art Aquarium Museum is similar and not sold out so we went there. It’s a sort of goldfish aquarium/museum with lots of different installations with goldfish swimming around. Very Japanese, and a fun little experience for ¥2700.

    After the goldfish, we walked around a bit, got some takoyaki, and walked around Tsukiji fish market. Although it was quite late in the day so the market was all closed and desolate now, but we’ll come back another day while it’s bustling.

    We took the train home and stumbled across a temporary installation of a bunch of capsule toy machines. You put in a few ¥100 coins and get a capsule with a toy in it, but you don’t know which one of the set you’ll get. Lots of adorable miniature models including trains, cars, record players, food, etc.
    As we connect through this station everytime we go into or come from town, we told ourselves we’d limit it to one toy per stop. That didn’t last very long haha. We probably had 7 or 8 each by the time we left Tokyo lol

    Another conveyor belt sushi dinner hehe     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Shibuya Crossing & Golden Gai

    4 kwietnia 2025, Japonia ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    After another stop at the capsule toy machines on the way into town, we went to see Shibuya Crossing, the busiest crosswalk in the world. Crazy to see so many people! Especially after being in the South Pacific for two and a half months lol.

    We found a building next to it with a window where you could get a good view for free of the crossing. There also happened to be a store full of capsule toy machines there haha. And a record store where I bought a couple records for ¥100 each! We’ll see how they sound when I get home haha

    After some more sushi for lunch, we took the train to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Buildings, which have an observatory on the 45th floor which you can get to for free! Way better than paying an arm and a leg for Tokyo Skytree lol. And nice to get a vantage point of the whole city. We had to wait in line for a while so missed sunset but nice to see the city all lit up at night

    After that we went to get a drink or two in Shinjuku Golden Gai, a small neighbourhood of tiny tiny bars that seat 6 to 8 people each, sometimes less. This was definitely a Tokyo bucket list item for me and was so awesome to see and experience.
    Some of the bars have a seating fee and some don’t, and there are some that are open to tourists and some that are members only. We went to a pretty tourist heavy one at first and got a drink each, before walking around to find a quieter smaller one with less rambunctious American tourists lol.
    We ended up finding this really cute gin bar, called Kangaroo Court Decision, with only a ¥500 cover. We sat at a table before moving to the bar counter when there was room. The whole place fit max 6 people but it was awesome, every type of gin imaginable crammed into the tiny room. The bartender, Go, had heard of Empress gin but didn’t have any unfortunately. Met a few other people drinking there, including a fellow Canadian from Toronto, and had a couple drinks each. Not super cheap but a super awesome experience!

    Now to train an hour back to the Airbnb and packing things up as we check out tmr!     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Tsukiji Market & Last Day in Tokyo

    5 kwietnia 2025, Japonia ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    We checked out of the Airbnb and walked to the train station to train into town for our last day in Tokyo! In the park near the Airbnb, we had a nice little conversation with an old Japanese man walking by via Google translate. He was very cute and wished us luck on our future travels.

    After taking the train into town, we found a luggage locker to put our bags in as we explored the city. We first visited Tsukiji Market, now that it wasn’t all closed.

    The fish market was super cool, so many little stalls selling high quality sushi and donburi bowls and fried seafood. Sophie got an ikura don for a really good price, and we had some oysters and I found some boiled octopus. Lots of fun food to try.

    After the market we walked around the outer grounds of the Imperial Palace for a bit before eating dinner, picking up our bags from the locker, and taking the long train all the way out to Narita, where we had booked an airport hotel for the night.

    We fly out early tmr morning up to Sapporo in the north!     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Narita Gateway Hotel

    5–6 kwi 2025, Japonia ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    We took a bus from Narita Station to the airport hotel for the night. Our main criteria in booking the hotel was that it had a free airport shuttle for the morning. Still, one of the more expensive accommodations of the trip at CA$60 each for the night.

    But nice to stay in a nice hotel. And the check in was fully automated, we just had to scan our passports in what was basically a vending machine that gave us our room number and keys. The Japanese have everything figured out.

    The hotel room even came with little robes for after our showers! Went to bed a bit late but up at the crack of dawn to get to the airport for our 8am flight to Sapporo in Hokkaido! The weathers been nice here (way cooler than the South Pacific but thankfully so), but it’s gonna be pretty cold up north!     Czytaj więcej

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  • Kyran Klazek-SchryerSouth Pacific & AsiaPodróżnik

    Travel to Sapporo & CTS Airport

    6 kwietnia 2025, Japonia ⋅ ☁️ 0 °C

    Domestic flights in Japan are super cheap, and we booked a flight from Tokyo Narita NRT to Sapporo New Chitose CTS on Japan Spring Airlines for only CA$41! But with no checked bags, a limit of 7kg for carryons, and way too much baggage weight between the two of us, we had to figure out how to finagle the system haha.

    We checked in at the counter one at a time, while the other person waited with the heavy bags, so they only weighed our little bags. Once we got the boarding passes without the big bags weighed, and made it through security, they didn’t double check any weight at the gate. We made it on, albeit with a bit of stress, without having to pay for any more luggageeee

    A very cute green livery for Spring Airlines, it’s a Chinese low cost carrier and this is their Japanese subsidiary.

    We landed at New Chitose Airport, Hokkaido’s main airport about an hour drive from Sapporo, and took the direct bus into town. It’s so cold here, with snow still on the ground in some spots! Feels nice to finally have a taste of real winter as I left Victoria before the big snow dump of the year. Good thing I packed a few warm clothes!

    We were too early to check into our hostel so decided to go for lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant which seemed to be the only place open around there.

    After lunch we checked into our hostel, home for the next five nights as we explore around Sapporo!     Czytaj więcej

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