Two for One

Part 1.

It’s now rocketing through July so yesterday I picked up my trusty spreadsheet and twiddled with the planning of our holiday.  Not the UK one.  That’s relatively structured and we know where we have to be and who we’re seeing.  I’m talking about the Japan portion.

I had absolutely no idea just how complicated matters can be!  My dearest darling Daughter, HR Manager and denizen at the enlightened end of the gene pool, seems to think it’s all easy.  Turn up, sleep rough, eat dried rice and ask a passer-by for directions to Mount Fuji in broadest cockney.  It’s her opinion holidays are not subject to the normal financial laws of nature and that we’ll sleep cocooned in cherry blossom petals, eating fragrant fugu fish and all the while being serenaded by Geisha.  (And, I know, I’ll be receiving the rough edge of her tongue for that one!)

Rude wake up alarm for everyone.  Travel in Japan is astronomically expensive if you buy over the counter.  Staying, even in Ryokan (Japanese traditional inns), is as equivalent to a 5 star hotel in Sydney.  Only ready-to-eat food bought in a supermarket can be cheap.  I think we’ll come to a compromise.  In Tokyo we’ll splurge.  In Kyoto and Yamagata/Sendai/Matsushima we’ll be literally sleeping at Monasteries, eating Buddhist monk food.  Might even do a bit of rent-boy stuff.  Joking here (I hope).

You know what?  When the possibility of a trip to Japan raised its head earlier this year I had a cherished dream of buying a new katana.  A shinken from Igarashi San from Seki City.  His creations are functional works of art that are a joy to hold and a dream to use.  Tatami matting just falls in neat piles just at the mere mention of a blade made by him.  Well, it’s not going to happen this time round.  I’ll have to make do with my old chinese chunker of a blade and bludgeon the straw into submission.

Part 2 -  A short pictorial story.

We were Home last weekend.  Running repairs to 3 kms of dirt road, some slashing (grass cutting) and general ‘tying down’ of things before we leave for the UK.



Early morning mist in the Far Paddock





Yes, the 'mice' can gnaw through metal lids



What happens when you run out of gas

 



I can't capture the feeling but this one represents three days of bliss