Japan
14 July 2017
Until the end of May I was on long service leave from The Eye and Ear Hospital, so I had some extra time on Thursdays. My time away from St Vincent’s in the second half of 2016 made me realise that I enjoy working there as I was missing my Fridays there by the end of the leave. The time away from the Eye and Ear has been less decisive.
Over the Easter long weekend we went to Sorrento for a few days, taking the opportunity to take Mum there for the day on Easter Sunday. She enjoyed going to the beach and feeding the seagulls even though it was not particularly warm.
The NGV had an exhibition with a large number of works by Van Gogh. Jay’s sister had given us tickets at Christmas and we enjoyed the exhibition very much.
The rowing club celebrated its 15th birthday with a party and dedication of some new boats. It was “Gatsby” themed, so Jay had to get a tuxedo. There was a good crowd, with most of the club in attendance. We have been somewhat slack in missing social rowing on a lot of Saturdays recently as I have been spending more time with my father on the weekends.
I am going to Cambodia in August for an aid trip and Jay and I went to the fundraising dinner for the group organizing the trip. The guest of honour was Cambodian Prince Tesso Sisowath. I also went to the 30 year reunion dinner for my year of secondary school. There was a strong attendance with over a third of the year returning for the reunion. I was surprised how many names I remembered.
The following day we left for Japan. We spent just over two weeks there. First we travelled to Okinawa. It was very different from the depictions of urban Japan. We went to the beach and rode bikes around a small island off the coast of Okinawa Island.
We went to Tokyo for five days. I have been working with a Japanese felllow at St Vincent’s so we were armed with a list of restaurants to eat at and places to see. His advice was very good and we had some excellent tonkatsu.
After Tokyo we caught to train to Kyoto and spent a week there with some side trips to Hiroshima and Nara. It was slower-paced than Tokyo. We enjoyed staying in a traditional ryokan with private onsen.
We were very lucky with the weather. Though June is typically a rainy month in Japan, we had no rain at all for our trip. After we returned to Australia they had heavy rain and flooding. The temples and shrines and traditional buildings were an interesting mix of the genuinely old and the “rebuilt”. I was grateful finally for having been subjected to the history of Meiji Japan in secondary school.
I have posted more photos in an album online.
The weekend after we returned, Beau and Simon came to stay for the weekend. They were in Melbourne to see Book of Mormon and also to catch up since we hadn’t seen them since last year except for the brief visit to Sydney in March.
I have quite a lot of travel planned for the rest of the year: Cambodia, Boston and New Zealand. The first two are work trips without Jay but we will travel to New Zealand together in November.
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Over the Easter long weekend we went to Sorrento for a few days, taking the opportunity to take Mum there for the day on Easter Sunday. She enjoyed going to the beach and feeding the seagulls even though it was not particularly warm.
The NGV had an exhibition with a large number of works by Van Gogh. Jay’s sister had given us tickets at Christmas and we enjoyed the exhibition very much.
The rowing club celebrated its 15th birthday with a party and dedication of some new boats. It was “Gatsby” themed, so Jay had to get a tuxedo. There was a good crowd, with most of the club in attendance. We have been somewhat slack in missing social rowing on a lot of Saturdays recently as I have been spending more time with my father on the weekends.
I am going to Cambodia in August for an aid trip and Jay and I went to the fundraising dinner for the group organizing the trip. The guest of honour was Cambodian Prince Tesso Sisowath. I also went to the 30 year reunion dinner for my year of secondary school. There was a strong attendance with over a third of the year returning for the reunion. I was surprised how many names I remembered.
The following day we left for Japan. We spent just over two weeks there. First we travelled to Okinawa. It was very different from the depictions of urban Japan. We went to the beach and rode bikes around a small island off the coast of Okinawa Island.
We went to Tokyo for five days. I have been working with a Japanese felllow at St Vincent’s so we were armed with a list of restaurants to eat at and places to see. His advice was very good and we had some excellent tonkatsu.
After Tokyo we caught to train to Kyoto and spent a week there with some side trips to Hiroshima and Nara. It was slower-paced than Tokyo. We enjoyed staying in a traditional ryokan with private onsen.
We were very lucky with the weather. Though June is typically a rainy month in Japan, we had no rain at all for our trip. After we returned to Australia they had heavy rain and flooding. The temples and shrines and traditional buildings were an interesting mix of the genuinely old and the “rebuilt”. I was grateful finally for having been subjected to the history of Meiji Japan in secondary school.
I have posted more photos in an album online.
The weekend after we returned, Beau and Simon came to stay for the weekend. They were in Melbourne to see Book of Mormon and also to catch up since we hadn’t seen them since last year except for the brief visit to Sydney in March.
I have quite a lot of travel planned for the rest of the year: Cambodia, Boston and New Zealand. The first two are work trips without Jay but we will travel to New Zealand together in November.
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