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East Asia

Japan - Osaka and departure

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Osaka and departure

Before leaving Japan we were to visit Osaka Castle at Dotobori.  The fortifications that would discourage a conventional army even today were interesting.  There was potential to get lost among the fortifications on the way out but we all made it back to the bus - eventually. 

 

 

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Osaka Castle and its defences - note the gun apertures - they had gunpowder when the the walls built in the 1620s

 

Later the bus dropped us at a shopping mall, that fortuitously for Craig and I, turned out to have a commodious coffee shop.  We settled while the shoppers shopped.

 

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Osaka shopping

 

Our final bus trip in Japan was to the Stargate Hotel at Kansai Airport.  This turned out to be the best hotel of the entire trip and was a good place to end this very interesting introduction to Japan thanks to SNA Tours.

We then flew to Hong Kong for a few days where we parted company with Craig and Sonia and went into China for one of our favourite indulgences, the five star Hotel InterContinental Shenzhen for a couple of much more luxurious days and nights.

When we returned to OZ and people asked how we had enjoyed the experience I found that I had to reply that Japan was not nearly as 'foreign feeling' as many other countries.  It is after all a first world country a status it quickly attained way back at the beginning of the last century.  There was a bit of a setback in 1945 but by the sixties it was well on the way to being one of the most developed and for us one of the most comfortable countries to visit.

 

 

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Travel

Romania

 

 

In October 2016 we flew from southern England to Romania.

Romania is a big country by European standards and not one to see by public transport if time is limited.  So to travel beyond Bucharest we hired a car and drove northwest to Brașov and on to Sighisiora, before looping southwest to Sibiu (European capital of culture 2007) and southeast through the Transylvanian Alps to Curtea de Arges on our way back to Bucharest. 

Driving in Romania was interesting.  There are some quite good motorways once out of the suburbs of Bucharest, where traffic lights are interminable trams rumble noisily, trolley-busses stop and start and progress can be slow.  In the countryside road surfaces are variable and the roads mostly narrow. This does not slow the locals who seem to ignore speed limits making it necessary to keep up to avoid holding up traffic. 

Read more: Romania

Fiction, Recollections & News

Chappaquiddick

 

 

 

'Teddy, Teddy, I'm pregnant!
Never mind Mary Jo. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.'

 


So went the joke created by my friend Brian in 1969 - at least he was certainly the originator among our circle of friends.

The joke was amusingly current throughout 1970's as Teddy Kennedy again stood for the Senate and made later headlines. It got a another good run a decade later when Teddy decided to run against the incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Read more: Chappaquiddick

Opinions and Philosophy

Sum; estis; sunt

(I am; you are; they are)

 

 

What in the World am I doing here?

'Once in a while, I'm standing here, doing something.  And I think, "What in the world am I doing here?" It's a big surprise'
-   Donald Rumsfeld US Secretary of Defence - May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

As far as we know humans are the only species on Earth that asks this question. And we have apparently been asking it for a good part of the last 100,000 years.

Read more: Sum; estis; sunt

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