We have ignition! - April 28 Lagarde

It’s as though Mr Perkins wants to join us in retirement.  Whenever we cross one metaphoric bridge, he tends to create another metaphoric chasm for us to negotiate, so really none of us were expecting miracles this morning, let alone things going like absolute clockwork.

We were barely game to look at one another as each nut came loose without trouble, and the injector came apart and went back together without the need for a visit to the specialist.   There was a slight hiccup on reassembly, but nothing a bit of undoing and redoing wouldn’t fix, and before one could say “Would you like another cup of tea Bill?” our Mr P burst once again into song.

We are only too aware that one swallow doth not a summer make, neither doth a few minutes of idle running give Mr Perkins a lot of time to unleash his bag of tricks on us, but we remain hopeful.  So hopeful that we spent the rest of the day happily bringing the washing up to date, and cleaning things, yes, cleaning things, or giving them a first lick and a promise at least.

Tomorrow, we may just mosey off through those distant fields into the wild blue (but often grey) yonder.  That will test his mettle (and perhaps given his recent behaviour, his metal as well.)

The Awakening - April 27 Lagarde

We think we are experiencing something akin to the feeling that hibernating animals feel when spring is on the way.   

Suddenly one morning one wipes the bleariness from one’s eyes, senses a patch of blue, peels back a curtain to get a glimpse of what the day might offer, gets the fixings out for the morning coffee and baguette and realises the Nutella isn’t frozen solid any more.   Something akin to excitement begins to rise in one’s being, then one realises that the reason it hasn’t frozen is that it was accidentally left in the refrigerator overnight so perhaps today isn’t the day to get out of bed after all.

Royal Post parcel tracking got out of bed first thing though.  It told us we might have a parcel to tomorrow, and then just before coffee it told us we already had it.  Later in the day it arrived, a day earlier than expected, catching us all unawares and pumping renewed enthusiasm through our veins.  We may have started work immediately too, but the thought of slipping spanners and skinned frozen knuckles sent another shiver down an already shivering spine!

This looks very much like a job for Bill.

Send in the clowns. - April 26 Lagarde

The cloud of lethargy that’s been hovering above us lowered itself to just above doona level today, descending almost to the point where it became apathy.  That would never do though, we have places to go and things to do.  Eventually.

When faced once again with the choice of in front of the heater all day watching drops of ice fall intermittently in the water around that poor little naked copse of trees opposite, or getting out there in the wet under a sky that maddeningly refused to go dark enough to be miserable and scrubbing the boat, the decision was easy.  

Besides, for a bit of a giggle we could phone Neil in England to see whether our now long awaited parts had turned up.  Except that Neil wasn’t in today, but John was and he seemed a bit puzzled really because Neil was new you see and didn’t know they didn’t ship stuff to the Continent any more, and now what would they do with these things they’d got in specially?  John then spoke with Allan in the workshop who said if we were in trouble, which we said we were a bit, they would ship them after all, but did we know the best postage price they could get was twice the value of the parts. 

A few phone calls later, and they were on their way, all without us having to leave the warmth of the cabin.  They will take two days by special delivery they said, which if all goes the way these things do, means we can expect them on Tuesday next week we suspect.   We did however get the front cabin curtains in, and filled the water tanks, and installed the new toner cartridge in the printer thereby ensuring we won’t need to print anything in the forseeable future, so the day wasn’t an entirely unproductive one.

The day we took the car back. - April 25 Lagarde

It may not have been quite bleak today, but it almost was.  There certainly wasn’t enough sunshine to lighten the countenance of the characters on the rubbish enclosures in the port.  They are curious figures, she and her mate who rather obscurely point the way to the bins within.  The building was intended to be a bathroom facility, but sometime between getting the outside finished and the signs done was repurposed, leaving some cheery but perhaps not entirely clear graphics to lighten our day.

Even then we had to borrow the sunshine from yesterday to provide that little light.  No word from Mr Perkins’ doctors on the state of play of his much needed vitals left us curiously unconcerned, although  a deliciously late response from Europcar (there I’ve named them!) to a request for assistance with an issue with the rental car may have left us with an expression a of bemusement not unlike that we may have were we destined to be a toilet but ended up as a refuse room.

In reply to our request on the thirteenth of this month, which at last count was exactly twelve days ago, the “customer service” person politely apologised for the delay in response, and suggested we get in touch with the “pick up station” as soon as possible.  Since that note arrived precisely eight hours after our rendezvous with the “drop-off” station, one suspects that a response may be drafted in tones as icy as the night that is still to come!

Not quite time to plant - April 24 Lagarde

If the forecasts weren’t promising a return to sub-zero temperatures for a day or two, we may even have been inspired to get out and start preparing the outside of the boat for a bit of actual use.   

Gardens all over the village are lying expectantly now, waiting for the end of the week when proper spring weather is forecast, the kind that is far more suited to people (and plants) from more temperate climes, and quite frankly so are we.  Lying that is, in a warm berth, reading, pottering about and generally staying unenthused about getting outside with a scrubbing brush and cold water, while the decks resemble more of a vegetable patch than anything vaguely resembling ship-shape.  

In a day or two we will either be better acclimatised and tired of looking at a dirty boat, or simply anxious to get underway and get on with it anyway, but until our little box of parts arrives from England, we may as well continue to feign enjoyment from all this inactivity.    

Joan and Peter on the other hand, having had a few days longer than us to contemplate their own cruising agenda, headed off into the wild blue yonder this morning in a cloud of steam and high spirits searching for a new bolt hole in which to hide from the coming few days of grey.

Blue Skies - April 23 Lagarde

Blue skies returned to Lagarde today, bringing a cheerier if not terribly warmer sort of disposition to things on this election day in France.

It seems if some commentaries are to be believed that the only choice open to the voters is whether should get worse slowly or catastrophically, which seems to be a nice summation of the world’s woes at the moment, but of course this is France, and there is nothing that can’t be fixed with a good lunch, followed by a restorative nap, and then a stroll around the village in which the lunch was partaken.

Since lunch was at Jacques and Maggie’s place, it was very good indeed and since the stroll was around Lagarde it was not terribly arduous, in fact, Sunday was so relaxing we decided there and then to do it again tomorrow.

A great day to be indoors - April 22 Lagarde

A certain reality hit home today, in the greyness of it all, that once again we don’t have an engine, and that the broken part will take some time to arrive, perhaps a week. Therefore, with no particular reason to sort things out aboard, our “rule of ten” was applied and we didn’t get out of bed till temperature cracked double figures.  This turned out to be sometime around morning tea time as it happened, even with both of our heaters struggling valiantly. 

Even then one of us concentrated on the business of remaining completely relaxed, snug under anything he could find worth snugging under, while the other busied herself sorting out things, folding this, packing away that,  and generally moving to keep warm.    The covers did come off the bed and the boat as well eventually, but really, it’s probably not going to get its spring clean out there until there’s just a tad more warmth in the air, just the tiniest weeniest little bit of warmth will do, the sort that allows water to flow through a hose in its liquid form.

In the mean time, it was a nice day to remain indoors, sneaking out only to assist the nice man in the cheese van reduce his vast levels of stock.

The good, the bad and the ugly. - April 21 Luneville

Had the morning not ended with us being serenaded by a Mexican dishing out silent ‘Vee” signs, while we sat at lunch in the restaurant opposite the bank, we may very well have thought we were having a dream.

On entering that very same bank an hour or so earlier we couldn’t be sure if the mushrooms in last night’s stew weren’t having some sort of effect, or whether we’d accidentally stumbled onto a Jacques Tati movie set.   Spanning the two counters that would be where the tellers would normally reside was a rather large cage with an equally large rabbit in residence.  Oh there were eggs on the counters too, chocolate ones, slow moving stock from last week no doubt.

Perhaps it was said rabbit that had erred with our account.  There is little point in speculation, but after almost an hour someone discovered that someone else in a bank far far away had made a teensy mistake when writing “Luneville” in the address on the envelope containing our card, on a whim writing “DIcky Beach” apparently, thereby sending it scurrying off into another less convenient hemisphere.  

At almost the same time news arrived to the effect that Perkins in the UK had made themselves uncontactable for the day, rendering Mr P silent for at least the next week and therefore ensuring that we will remain unmoving for a similar period, hopefully snug until the temperature reaches more than the negative number it was this morning.  

With no better plan for the afternoon therefore, we remained in the warmth and safety of the restaurant with Joan and Peter, as far as we could get from Bankers, Rabbits, Mexicans and Mad Hatters.

Lagarde! - April 20 Wuppertal to Lagarde

There’s probably a clinical term for the sort of anxiety one feels when one must really get going.

Whatever it is, we felt a very strong compulsion to do just that this morning, albeit not so obsessively compulsed that we couldn’t linger over breakfast with Elle and Jörgen for the sort of time that even a Hobbit would be proud of.  After all we had more to catch up on that was possible in just one evening.

The draw of home proved too strong too keep us beyond second breakfast time though and this time we had to forego the sights of Wuppertal in favour of getting home by sunset.  One of us hadn’t quite come to terms with the fact that we’d missed snow here by two days, but the residual chill was enough to give us a picture of how it may have felt we thought.

Four or five hours later, with the clear blue sky and yellow of the colza seeming to amplify the siren call of the village, lulling us into a false sense of warmth, we arrived, welcomed by friends as ever to the news that it had been snowing yesterday, and if we thought it was cold now tomorrow was going to be minus two and Mr Perkins has broken again and the toilets leak and you must come up for supper....  

Sigh.   We are home at last.

There be the tulips! - April 19 Lisse to Wuppertal

Anyone with a memory better than that of a goldfish will recall that our original purpose when we set out on this particular part of our adventure was to see tulips.  Most will know that tulips are synonymous with the Netherlands and having got that far, inarguably the best place in the world to see them is at Keukenhof, one of the world’s largest flower gardens and as it happens in a surprising turn of events given our propensity to be there "the day after", with its seven million bulbs at the peak of their full bloom about now.

Keukenhof is located in exactly the opposite direction we needed to travel to get home of course, but it was a great opportunity to introduce Louie to the wonders of nature or perhaps man’s attempts to tame it, and to give him a taste of what it feels like to be outdoors all day in single digit temperature.  After taking several thousand arty photos of stunning tulips grown in even more stunning ways, in forests, in houses in patterns of ever increasing ingenuity and spectacle, and unable to choose just one, we suddenly became grateful for his presence.  The baby photo wins every time!  So there’s one more item ticked off our our list of flowery things to see before we die, and what a glorious bunch of flowery things they were.   

At severe risk of suffering some sort of colour shock, we had barely finished our “hellos” to Marty and Vanessa when we snuck off quite early in the afternoon to continue on our circuitous route home, this time heading to Germany and Wuppertal.  

Say that out loud and try not to smile. 

And now … a Tulip! - April 18 Utrecht

Our rolling sideshow continues, today battling ice and sleet as well as the traffic on the Antwerp ring road.  It’s a bit counter intuitive, heading north through sleet into a climate where the temperature is not expected to reach double digits tomorrow to see the blooms of spring, but we have been assured that they are there.

Today though ti was another kind of bud that we had really come to see.  Louie has been waiting we are sure, for all of his eight weeks on earth, to see us.  Despite a less than stellar day involving a nurse, a bit of nudity in a cold clinic building and a couple of jabs in the legs with sharp objects he put on a great show of enjoying our company. As ever we had a delightful catch up with his mum, dad and nana when he wasn’t watching, all the while looking for a reason not to venture outdoors.

We have had plenty of time to reflect while alone in the car on our great fortune to have “family” scattered throughout the world, but strangely mid reflection, we realised that we had not first met any of the people we had visited on our travels.  In every case so far on this trip, through one circumstance or another our introduction has been at our own house as circumstance has flung them across our doorway!   Perhaps we need to get out more….

Shrimp, Barbie, Belgium. - April 18 Koksijde

Dave had promised he’d make no fuss, that dinner would be home made pasta and Bolognese sauce he’d frozen earlier,  It appears that either “pasta and Bolognese sauce” is Flemish for “shrimp croquettes followed by prawns with white asparagus” or he’d made a terrible mistake with the recipe. 

We’re not sure when the mistake happened, perhaps we’d distracted him in conversation during the morning, perhaps it was while we were wandering round Diksmuide in the chill of the afternoon contemplating whether we might move our respective boats there next winter.  Whatever the case we suffered it in silence (apart from the odd low moan each time we took another mouthful) not wanting to embarrass him by drawing attention to it. 

Last night after hearing we were going to land on her doorstep, Ria sent me a message via social media asking the question “Good food, good internet, what more do you want?”  I did of course make mention in my reply of a washing machine as after a month on the road now, it’s quite possibly that certain items of apparel were in dire need of some attention, but really neither of us had made mention of the obvious, that our friendship is such that we need none of those things. The company of each other is the source of our joy.

But perhaps it's best if we don’t tell Dave that.

Just a bit tired - April 16Saint Omer

We lost a bit of the spring from our step this morning, not in an unhappy way, but some might say the continuous travel of the past month is starting to catch up.

Having driven for fifteen hundred kilometres in the past three days with bodies quite possibly thinking they are in a time zone fourteen hours away may be having a slight impact on our state of being as well.   Whatever the case, we didn’t visit Honfleur as we thought we would, neither did we stop at La Havre, or Calais, or Dunkirk.   Instead, after a long and leisurely breakfast, at which the line for coffee was such that if one went to the back of it with a fresh cup in hand, by the time one got to the front again one was well and truly ready for another, we ambled slowly away.   Slowly being a euphemism of course for travelling at slightly less than the motorway speed limit, taking something less than four hours to travel something less than four hundred kilometres.

When we arrived at Saint Omer, a destination chosen completely at random on the basis that car parking was available at the hotel, and that it was less than an hour’s drive to Dave and Ria’s place, we decided a short nap might be in order.   Our short nap ended up almost as long as our drive, and every bit as pleasant.  Dunkirk can wait.

Wrong direction again - April 15Mont St Michel

Possibly nothing says “we are in France” more than a church in a castle on a rock, and nothing says “church in a castle on a rock” more than Mont St Michel, which is as it turns out just an hour or so to the south of where we woke up this morning, well three or four actually if one takes the scenic route through “Swiss Normandy”.

Since south is exactly opposite to the direction we need to be heading if indeed we are to see tulips in Holland, and since we really can’t go any further west because of this tiny ocean shaped obstacle, we didn't think just one day heading south would be a problem.  It was a longish day admittedly, and when we arrived pretty much everyone else had decided to make it a day trip too.  Since Mont St Michel attracts a similar number of tourists annually to the Sunshine Coast, but since its area is substantially less, a certain busyness is apparent at major holiday times, like for instance, Easter.

None the less we walked the two and a half kilometre bridge and causeway in blustery weather that was two jumper cool verging on “I do wish I had my beanie” and then climbed to the top of its not insubstantial height.  With skies becoming quite threatening, and queues rather long we chalked “tour the abbey one day” on our list of things to do, and wended our weary way ever so slightly northward snug in the warmth of our leather lined Jeep.

Westward Ho! - April 14 La Ferte Saint Aubin to

The boat is five hundred or so kilometres to our east, the Tulip fields a bit more than that to our north, so does it not seem logical that we should begin our quest to find them by travelling similar distances to the south and then to the west?

Actually we did have an appointment with our bank in La Ferte-Saint-Aubin, and therefore a very pleasant stay with Celine and Manu and a catch up with her mum and Pascal and Dume as well, and while that all took place last night, it was so far into the morning that it was afternoon by the time we stopped at the bakery opposite the chateau to stock up with supplies for our long drive west.

West?  Well yes, in that cack-handed logic that accompanies they who travel at random, it seemed a lot easier to go with the Easter exodus from Paris than fight it all day and night, so Normandy looks like a great place to us to begin looking for Tulips even if they are likely to be shaped like apple trees.

Perhaps I was a little hasty in criticising our not entirely little black car yesterday.  Despite the immediate failure of the on board GPS this morning and with it all things electrical connected to the dashboard, it handled our white knuckled exodus admirably.   It’s not as though we haven’t been stuck in Easter traffic before, three lanes bumper to bumper, but it is the first time we’ve experienced it at 130 kilometres per hour, yet here we are at the end of the day, unscathed.

Baa Baa Black Jeep - April 13 La Ferte Saint Aubin to

When we went to beakfast in the airport hotel this morning it came as something of a shock to find a simple “continental” setup.   No weird fruit made of glutenous substances, no seaweed, no pickles, no chopsticks, no chap in the corner making fresh omelettes, just an array of super fresh pastries, fresh fruit and a delightfully fresh brewed coffee, accompanied by the murmur of people speaking in a language with which we were vaguely familiar.

Let's be quite clear, we have enjoyed our breakfast over these past few weeks, except perhaps the ones "shared" with the larger tour groups, but now, we were home.

Not wanting the magic of our last few weeks on the road to disappear too quickly, we decided to proceed with a plan we’d been hatching for a couple of days.   We’ve seen enough cherry blossoms to last a lifetime but have never been to Holland in Tulip time.  Perhaps it's time for a road trip.

When we went to pick up our Fiat 500 rental car and it didn’t have cruise control we asked for an upgrade to something that did.  So it came to pass that we are now driving quite possibly the single most inappropriate vehicle for manoeuvring anonymously through tiny ancient streets that could ever be devised.  It's a tiny Jeep by Jeep standards and it's got electronic things to help us not hit things or alternatively to tell us that we just have, so it will have to do.

We have people to see, places to go and things to do, and we have a car to do them in.

Farewell Fuji-san! - April 12 and so to Paris

The lobby of our hotel was at the check-in level in Haneda airport, therefore there was no need to stress about making connections this morning, nothing to fear by way delay by traffic jam, no need to set an alarm.  All we had to do was to wake up at our leisure and wander down through immigration and onto the plane.

At first we were a little disappointed to have a room on the opposite side of the building to the runway, thinking it might be nice to watch the planes coming and going through the night, but we watched the taxis instead and this morning as were rising, the haze beyond our large picture window cleared briefly, framing Mt Fuji perfectly as she winked at us and gave us a farewell wave, no doubt wishing us a safe journey and hoping we’d come back soon.

She was gone as quickly as she had appeared though, cosseted once again beneath a thick doona cloud, doing whatever it is that god-volcanoes do when no one can see them, leaving us checking our photos to convince ourselves the visit had been real.

In high spirits we checked in our bags, apologising as we did for their weight and blaming all of our souvenirs. “Ahh” replied the charming young lady behind the counter, “Because you have many souvenirs from my country I’ll mark your bags for priority handling.”

Tonight, Paris you have a hard act to follow. 

The fat lady sings. - April 11 Kanazawa to Haneda

Our numbers dwindled till finally there were just five of us on the train to Tokyo, travelling in a cloud of that particularly numb silence that marks the end of a grand adventure in the continuous company of others.

It was a peculiar feeling to have Robert sitting almost anonymously among us, no longer standing, camera around his neck at the ready, himself ever vigilant out front, like a giant sheepdog keeping constant watch, always one step ahead, always checking that no one is behind nor too far ahead, while the rest of us blather on oblivious, like excited children.  His countenance is serious, but why wouldn’t it be, after all he is thinking for all of us.  Under that cold hard exterior however, there lurks a giant grin and a tiny giggle, trying not to escape until some more appropriate moment.  The rest of us could simply carry on day after day without even the need for thought which was just as well for one or two for whom the very concept of “thought” did not appear to be one with which they had ever been familiar!

We have covered a lot of territory in the past few weeks, seen things that we’d never think to visit by ourselves, things that if we did think to visit we’d never find, and perhaps things that if we did find we’d never have left without his gentle nudge.  What a time we’ve had!  

But it’s over, we’ve gone our separate ways, some of us destined to reunite, others we know we will never see again.  With just one more night to spend, and that at our hotel in Haneda Airport waiting for our flight out, we’ll just sit I’m sure, and try to take it all in.   

And not a cherry blossom in sight! - April 10 Shirakawago

There are mountains in the distance, quite clearly visible from our hotel window and it was obvious from that vantage point through the clear crisp morning air that it had snowed quite a bit in them  overnight.   

What wasn’t obvious at least for those among us who had failed to take any notice of our itinerary was that today we were heading into some of those very same mountains to the World Heritage village of Shirakawa-go, with it’s traditional Gassho-zukuri, or Praying Hands houses named for the steeply pitched thatched roofs designed to easily shed snow.  There we would gain an inkling of insight into just what living conditions have been like over the centuries in a valley which in former times was completely in accessible except in summer.

We should not have been surprised when we arrived in the valley to find frozen rice fields and a liberal cover of snow on anything that thus far had not been warmed by the onset of spring, but the contrast between what we saw and the dare I say it, cherry blossom covered landscape in the town below was a little stark, and we were all suitably thrilled at the prospect of getting our toes cold.  The buildings were fascinating, the village splendid as of course was the company, most of whom, (the ones not with their ever increasingly nasty colds hopefully reaching some sort of crescendo) rounded out their day with a relaxing bath in a traditional onsen or public bath, while the others kept our sneezes to ourselves somewhere safely out of doors, until the bus returned us to Kanazawa, yet again tired, but happy to a man.

After all, we did come to see cherry blossoms - April 9 Kanazawa

Part of the point of coming at this time of year was to find sakura, the cherry in full blossom.  For that to happen, we needed to arrive in a very small window of time, and hope that the blossom co-operated. For a time it seemed as though we may not achieve that, as in city after city the trees seemed to be holding their breath until after we had left, but here things were ridiculous.   The trees, obviously tired of holding their breaths had let them out with a collective WOOOSH!

They more than beautiful now, they are actually quite arrogantly standing in front of everything we want to see, bringing thousands of people to the same places we want to be.  Even the stunning Kenrokuen Garden, one of the three best in Japan has thrown open its gates, amazingly allowing visitors in at no cost for the duration of the blossom, which is tantamount to our western eyes to Woolies giving away free eggs at Easter.   

Lunch under blossom scavenged from the food stands in the park seemed like a compulsory activity, although for a little respite from blossom clad gardens and castles, in the afternoon we did venture indoors to a gold leaf museum for a dose of sparkle of a different kind.

Perhaps as a complete contrast to the day, a few hardy souls ventured a visit to the Myoriuji temple known as the Ninja Temple for it’s amazing array of secret passageways, trick doors and pitfalls.  It truly was difficult to believe during our visit that this was a genuine fortified construction and not some sort of sideshow with it’s forty-five rooms and forty-nine staircases.   The special room for Hari Kiri did add a fairly sombre note, bringing us down to earth a bit with its door that couldn’t be opened from within, used historically by those failed warriors whose particular cheery blossoms would never see another summer.

Too many cherry blossoms are barely enough - April 8 Kyoto to Kanazawa

Robbie-san didn’t take any personal credit for the absolute explosion of cherry blossoms that have greeted us on our arrival in Kanazawa, but let’s just say if he had guaranteed we’d see a certain minimum amount of blossom, there’d be no refunds!  

Despite the dazzle, he managed to lead us at at a  cracking pace straight to the Omichi Markets, which specialise in fresh seafood, and once again it was no coincidence that we arrived there spot on lunch o’clock.

With bodies happily sated with fesh sea urchin, octopus and snail we set out to the museum dedicated to the great zen philosopher D T Suzuki which did its level best to help us sort out our minds. It’s a wonderful modern building which oozes tranquliy and is photographable too (but only outside the building please) however as has been the case of late the cherry blossoms continued to steal the show.

We moved much more calmly off to the 21st Century Contemporary Art Museum a circular glass building with some really terrific exhibitions but which perfectly reflected the blossoms, and even allowed them to be visible from inside.

Even our last stop, a visit to the Nomura family Samurai House  with it’s superb courtyard gardens featuring no flowering blossoms (the spectacular bonsai in the entry doesn’t count) served as a reminder of the link between Samurai and blossom.

The samurai was likened to cherry blossom as his life, while glorious, was prone to a sudden end during military service, similar to petals shed by cherry blossoms”

Meanwhile back at the Ranch - April 7 Kyoto

Robert had suggested that we should visit Fushimi Inari shrine and its ten thousand red gates early, so that we would only have to share them with a few hundred thousand people rather than the several brazillion that would appear as soon as the bus tour groups got their act together.  

If only he’d given the same advice regarding the breakfast buffet in the hotel we may not have left it till fifteen minutes past opening time to arrive.  It was perhaps a good thing that our colds had by now rendered us listless and without enthusiasm for food as the place was swarming with Australian and American voices, several busloads of them, the sources of which had descended on anything edible with an enthusiasm bordering on avarice which left the normally abundant offerings looking like the aftermath of a bushfire following a plague of locusts.   

Outside meanwhile, when we weren’t paying attention the cherry trees had gone ballistic, quietly shrouding everything in their wondrous magic.   We walked all day through them and beneath them, oblivious to the cold and the occasional shower of rain, through Gion, the Geisha District where Chinese tourists in rented Kimonos made “V” signs to their selfies, visiting temples and markets as we went until we were pretty much templed out, blossomed out, and only the less blokey among us not marketed out as well.

In the way of Japan, it is the quiet things that speak loudest, and thus it was the house and studio of the renowned potter Kawai Kanjiro with all its personally crafted furniture and finishes and the legacy of his work scattered throughout, that seemed to resonate with all of us, a highlight of the day amid a trove of them. 

On another note, having learned something from our respective countrymen at breakfast time apparently, we were instrumental in giving the happy chap in the tiny and aptly named “Smile Burger” cafe (open 11:00 am till sold out) an early afternoon.  Though we were but a few, we were but a few more than his cafe could seat, perhaps more than he’d seen inside at once in fact. There seemed little point in letting his monster Australian beef burgers with teryaki sauce go stale, and the smiles they gave us lasted all afternoon and well into the night as well.

An even longer ride in the Country - April 6 to Inuyama near Nagoya

Today our schedule saw us travelling during the course of the day on eight trains and a few buses.  To make every connection while travelling alone would be no mean feat and the fact that Robert had even considered it with fourteen children in adult bodies in his charge says something for his fortitude and skill as a tour leader.

Naturally in a group of this size when timing is all, one person will choose to arrive just sufficiently late that all planning must be thrown aside, and so we missed our first train by less than a minute, he accepted that with considerable patience and the sort of diplomacy that I suspect were one in his shoes, one would fail to muster.   Those precious seconds meant that each connection took an extra ten minutes or so, hardly earth shattering in the context of a lifetime, but none the less reducing the time we had at our destination by almost an hour.

Our destination in this case was the Meiji-mura museum near Nagoya, where a huge collection of buildings from the Meiji Era (no, look it up yourself!) have been rescued and reconstructed on a vast lakefront site in the forest.  We were never going to see all of it, that would take days. The constant drizzle which turned our planned picnic into a bit of gobble’n go would have hampered a lot of our wandering.  We did wander through a few buildings and had a tour beneath the stage of a Kabuki theatre and saw the emperor’s train, but really we were only there to do one thing: to have tea and cake in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel.

One cannot fathom the sort of insanity that was behind the preservation of this building but thank goodness it exists.  Imagine demolishing a complicated brick and stone building, packing it in containers, shipping it several hundred kilometres and rebuiliding it close enough to twenty years later.  Here it sits as far from its original urban environment as one can imagine.   Beautifully preserved, still with remnants of Tokyo smog etched into the facade, the tea room above the foyer in perfect working order.  The detailing was everything those books that I was sure had misled me so badly a week or two ago had promised.

Come back Frank, all is forgiven!    

A long ride in the country April 5 A day in Koka

It was all Allan’s fault apparently. Yes that Allan, the quiet chap over in the corner who earlier in the week had been told by our guide for a day Yoshi-san that he looked like his uncle, and from that moment forward has been known to one and all as Uncle Al.    

Apparently he’s been in communication with Robert for years, with the promise that if ever a tour was to take in the Miho Museum designed by I M Pei, he’d join it.  In a bit of an inspired move, Robert, not being a particular fan of Pei, but always looking for a new adventure chose today to do just that.

So there we went, and what a gobsmacking thing it was too.  Entering through a stainless steel lined tunnel that would have been equally at home on the set of Thunderbirds or Ironman it must be a perfect example of what can be achieved quietly, albeit with what must have been close to an unlimited budget. It was something of a showcase of perfect yet perhaps even understated architectural detailing, museum lighting and display.  Some would say that there’s a tendency for all underground buildings to look the same, and if it hadn’t been for the now ubiquitous “No Photo, No Photo” signs that have been the bane of our existence of late we may have the shots to prove that they aren’t.   

It wasn’t a perfect day it had to be said. Those cherry trees lining our route continue to confound, refusing to bloom though absolutely bursting at the seams with ripe little buds. Perhaps another week they say or perhaps a day or two.

There are one or two sprinkled around which make our evening stroll from our place of sustenance something of a joy, the icing on the cake one may say after each evening of culinary adventure which to our dismay just seems to get better (and less costly to boot) as every night passes.   

When too many temples are barely enough. 4April Tokyo to Kyoto

Kyoto is nothing if not well endowed with temples, shrines and castles, and even those previously as ignorant and ambivalent of and about its history as we, couldn’t fail to take just a little inspiration from each of the places we visited.  It’s not as if we were alone in our quest, selflessly sharing our meditative experience with at least half the population of China and a few thousand citizens of other countries thrown in for good measure as well.

The famous golden temple Kinkakuji was clearly famous and golden and awfully crowded. Perhaps in a remarkable mark of self-assurance it featured a bin on the exit route serving as a repository for “unwanted lucky charms”, while  NIjo castle  with all it’s fortifications and hidey holes is similarly noteworthy, and thinning crowds in the late afternoon enabled us to poke around in perhaps a few more of them than would have been possible earlier in the day.

Earlier in the day, the world heritage listed zen garden at Ryoanji Temple saw several million people or perhaps more accompanying us as we ambled through the space in the same sort of shuffle we experienced on Tokyo’s Sunday shopping streets.  Surely they could not all be in search of enlightenment.  Some did make some pretence at peaceful contemplation, elbowing their way variously into or out of the shuffling hoard, trying to find silence amid the dull  murmur of the crowd despite the public address system roaring to make itself heard above the din. Those who could, sat on the steps searching hopefully in the raked gravel for enlightenment.

Before our very eyes, a fluorescent-clad citizen of a country to the south of Canada, with a voice even more shrill than her outfit, shuffled backwards to better frame a photograph, tripping over as she did, falling into three tiers of seated contemplators somehow landing on some of their number with inches to spare saving what could very well have been a faceplant  into a sea of white gravel quite possibly raked thousands of years before by a blind monk using a toothpick.   Once back on her feet, gathering her breath and even before the dozen steadying hands had withdrawn from her person, she exclaimed in a volume that significantly overrode even the PA system;

"Oh wow! This is SOOOO SPIRITUAL!"

Our search for whatever she had found, continues unabated.

Our Best Day at Work Ever 3April Tokyo

The relentless need to travel and discover things in order to spend our retirement productively does have a downside: not every day can possibly be the best day at work ever.  After today perhaps we should accept that we have reached some sort of pinnacle and console ourselves to the fact that some measure of disappointment must eventually follow.

It may have been the residual brain scarring from the visit to the hopelessly overcrowded Fish Markets that made us more receptive to cheery things, but when we arrived outside the National Art Center and saw Yayoi Kasuma staring at us from the posters, her hair a fiery red, on a landscape that seemed to have been personally planted by herself, we began to get the teeniest inkling that today may just turn out to be a little bit special.

There is no way to adequately describe the explosion of colour that engulfed us when we entered the exhibition, nor the overwhelming joy that left all standing giddy with stupid grins etched across their countenance.   None of us could leave, we scurried from one painting to another like stupid school children, overwhelmed by it all.  Perhaps it was the best exhibition we’ve ever seen. Perhaps it was the best we will ever see.  Who knows?

Whatever the case we departed full of ebullience, noticing that every little thing along the way had perhaps just a tinge more colour than it had before. There were the almost equally stunning buildings and exhibitions and sights of course, the brown poodles with dresses and the boutiques that serviced them, their, hairdressers, those Super Mario carts being driven through the city streets, but none of that could truly begin to compare.  Not even the tacos we had for dinner in the German beer hall with Australian friends while lederhosen clad singers serenaded us with Cherry Blossom songs in Japanese to old German folk tunes.    Not even that.

Pineapple Cake 2 April Tokyo

Our man with the plan had us out and about early, arriving at the Tokyo Sky Tree not much past opening time, ensuring we were up to its three hundred and fifty metre observation platform before the madding crowds arrived.   One would have thought that from this incredible vantage point that things could only go downhill from there, but the day went in quite the opposite direction as it turned out.

We weren’t intent on doing anything quietly apparently, so we joined at least ten million of Tokyo’s inhabitants on the streets, walking for miles on endless footpaths so packed that they made Sideshow Alley on People’s Day at the Ekka look like a ghost town.   We did  manage to squeeze (literally) a visit to Meiji Shrine and Park, where it’s almost compulsory to watch the wedding processions and entertainment provided by Japan’s counter-culture afficionados.   We could probably have stayed all afternoon just watching the curious bunch of Rock and Rollers strutting their oh-so corny moves resplendent in leather jackets that bore slogans like “Greaser on the Road”, and curiously exaggerated ducktails, but we didn’t.

Instead we shuffled on, past architectural gems and curiosities taking them in with child-like curiosity until we arrived at the sublime Sunny HIlls Tea House   The newly famous "pineapple building" in which it is located thankfully bears no resemblance to our own Big Pineapple, and it is as much of an architectural delight as the pineapple cake sold there is a gastronomic one.  So certain are the proprietors that visitors will fall under the spell of their magical cake, which is the only product they actually sell, that it is offered with tea as a glorious refreshment at absolutely no cost.  

Thus it was, carrying vast piles of pineapple cake, purchased at well above the cost of a mere light refreshment, our little troupe continued to scale greater heights of enjoyment than even those offered by the ride in the sub-sonic lifts of the morning's adventure.

We have blossoms 1 April Tokyo

Walking seemed to be the only way of keeping warm, which is just as well as  there was a bit of walking to do today and we needed to keep warm a lot.

We have a problem with this journal though.  There can only be one highlight for a day, but that’s not how things appear to be turning out.  We are being force-fed a feast of visual and emotional riches at a pace which seems to have picked up a notch, if not at ramming speed then perhaps just a little below.  Strangely, despite the pace nothing seems to be rushed, perhaps because we have gained a certain level of match fitness over the past few weeks. 

While the weather alternated between a bit chilly to  “quite cold actually” even toes turning blue within sock-clad feet couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm  nor that of our guide as she graciously walked us through every corner and timber detail in the wonderfully preserved yet unrestored Kyu-Yasada house  even allowing us the special privilege of a tour through the garden once we had returned our frigid toes into the relative warmth of our shoes.  

If it were just cherry blossoms we were here to see we would not be disappointed unless we wanted to be alone while we did it.  Unselfishly we shared them among several million others as we soaked in the amazing atmosphere of Ueno Park.  Despite the crush and the drizzle, watching the hanami (cherry blossom parties) under the trees as we wandered leavign us with involuntary silly grins on our faces.

Of course there was more to remember; visits to Sendagi, Nezu Shrine, Kyu-Yasada House, Yanaka Ginza, Maranouchi and Ginza Districts for a start, but it’s cherry blossom happiness that will remain with us for a long time to come..