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In the second week of May 2017 our small group of habitual fellow travellers Craig and Sonia; Wendy and I; took a package introductory tour: Discover Japan 2017 visiting: Narita; Tokyo; Yokohama; Atami; Toyohashi; Kyoto; and Osaka.  

As I have remarked several times elsewhere, the down-side of organised tours is that one is first labelled and then shipped about like a package - thus the term 'package tours'.  The up-side is that tours are largely hassle free; the cost is fully defined; everything is prearranged, including visits to the acknowledged 'tourist highlights' and on days when they are actually open;  there is no hiring cars or driving and worrying about hiring cabs or catching trains is minimised, except at 'free times', when out and about alone.  One simply goes with the flow and can even 'catch a nap' on the bus. 

 

Narita

Our first overnight stay in Japan was at Narita.  The main airport servicing Tokyo is here but its 60 kilometres away, over an hour by bus. So we had a free afternoon as our group assembled. Options for dinner were the hotel (boring) or to catch the shuttle-bus to a shopping and eating district (Aeon).  I did my usual trick of getting us off the bus too soon - at the railway station - so we had our first experience of a surprisingly decrepit Japanese black taxi cab - not impressive.  Where was Uber when we needed it?  The shoppers went off and Craig and I found a bar.  Later we all ate a pleasant meal in a local restaurant, more Chinese than local.

That afternoon, at the Excel Tokyo Hotel in Narita, we had our fist experience of the Japanese enthusiasm for 'all singing all dancing' toilets. We soon discovered, at the shopping mall,  that even those in public places are high-tech, with various function buttons on the wall.  Those in hotel bathrooms are even higher-tech with additional functionality, like heated seats; hot and cold running sprays; and air blowers.  While sitting in contemplation I was reminded of the words of the Limerick about the engineer from Racine who invented a similar machine: 'concave or convex it suits either sex, with attachments for those in-between'.

Throughout the trip, breakfasts were included as were several lunches and dinners. So after an early breakfast we were bussed off to Tokyo. This was our first experience of a Japanese expressway and we agreed that it was not unlike travelling on a highway in Australia or the UK, as the Japanese drive on the correct side of the road and there are lots of Japanese cars on the road. Modern highway engineering is much the same the world over.

 

Japan highway Japan highway

A typical Japanese Highway

The most remarkable difference in Japan is a class of smaller cars and little vans that have different numberplates and seem to be second class citizens, frequently overtaken. We learned that these pay lower registration fees due to smaller more efficient engines.

 

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Travel

South Korea & China

March 2016

 

 

South Korea

 

 

I hadn't written up our trip to South Korea (in March 2016) but Google Pictures gratuitously put an album together from my Cloud library so I was motivated to add a few words and put it up on my Website.  Normally I would use selected images to illustrate observations about a place visited.  This is the other way about, with a lot of images that I may not have otherwise chosen.  It requires you to go to the link below if you want to see pictures. You may find some of the images interesting and want to by-pass others quickly. Your choice. In addition to the album, Google generated a short movie in an 8mm style - complete with dust flecks. You can see this by clicking the last frame, at the bottom of the album.

A few days in Seoul were followed by travels around the country, helpfully illustrated in the album by Google generated maps: a picture is worth a thousand words; ending back in Seoul before spending a few days in China on the way home to OZ. 

Read more: South Korea & China

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Writer

 

 

The fellow sitting beside me slammed his book closed and sat looking pensive. 

The bus was approaching Cremorne junction.  I like the M30.  It starts where I get on so I’m assured of a seat and it goes all the way to Sydenham in the inner West, past Sydney University.  Part of the trip is particularly scenic, approaching and crossing the Harbour Bridge.  We’d be in The City soon.

My fellow passenger sat there just staring blankly into space.  I was intrigued.   So I asked what he had been reading that evoked such deep thought.  He smiled broadly, aroused from his reverie.  “Oh it’s just Inferno the latest Dan Brown,” he said.   

Read more: The Writer

Opinions and Philosophy

The demise of books and newspapers

 

 

Most commentators expect that traditional print media will be replaced in the very near future by electronic devices similar to the Kindle, pads and phones.  Some believe, as a consequence, that the very utility of traditional books and media will change irrevocably as our ability to appreciate them changes.  At least one of them is profoundly unsettled by this prospect; that he argues is already under way. 

Read more: The demise of books and newspapers

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