Holiday in Japan - help needed!

Posted on November 23, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Holidays, Breaking news, They never should have let me be a mother | 5 Comments

For the past couple of months, my sister and I have been tentatively planning to meet in Japan for a two week holiday together. It seems a bit more interesting that either one of us visiting the others home. If I got to Montreal, I’d …

a) feel like I had to bring the kids too ( tripling the cost)
b) Would spend most of the time hanging around doing nothing - watching DVD’s or the like
c) March - April in Canada is still COLD!

If Sandy came here we’d…

a) double the cost of her ticket and double the flying time
b) spend most of the time hanging around doing nothing - watching DVD’s or the like
c) watch Sandy slowly melt away in the March heat

So it seemed a good idea to meet somewhere in the middle, in a place we’d both like to visit and have a holiday together. This way, we get to spend time together but we also get to see new things and do interesting activities. Japan is one of those places that is about halfway, and Sandy has ALWAYS wanted to go there. I would love to go too, so, destination settled. The end of March is cherry blossom season, something I have always wanted to see for myself so the timing is a bonus as well.

Though I’ve passed through Narita airport a few times, I’ve never had enough time to leave and see anything so I have very limited knowledge of Tokyo or the surrounds. All of my information is gleaned online and there is SO MUCH INFO that I find myself a little overwhelmed by the process of creating an itinerary that we can organize accomodation around.

Sandy and I would like to experience as much as we can in the 2 weeks we’ll be there but obviously have to be realistic about dragging our luggage from one ryokan (hotel) to another. Here’s my dilemna… I don’t know what a central location might be!! We’re not sure about each place we’d like to see, though there are a few we have had picked out for a while. We’ll split the trip into three - 4 or 5 night stays in different areas to allow access to more places and not limit ourselves to the Tokyo area.

So, calling all world-travellers out there!! I would LOVE to hear from people who’ve been to visit or live in Japan to get some suggestions on things not to miss and places to stay that are central to a lot of places of interest. As you can imagine, we’ll be doing a LOT of sightseeing so anything of interest within walking, bussing or training distance from a central point would be ideal.

Anyone?

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Australia censors the fat man

Posted on November 15, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Stupidity and randomness, Breaking news, A "How-to" tutorial of insanity | 2 Comments

I sat in the car yesterday morning listening to the most incredulous discussion about Santa. Apparently, some people in Australia have deemed his jolly “Ho ho ho!” as scary for little kids and offensive to women.

*Pauses here to let the shock and amazement at enormous stupidity sink in*

Ready yet? I cannot even imagine how some little minds out there have managed to influence big companies into regulating what Santa says. In fact, they are trying to replace ‘Ho ho ho’ with ‘Ha ha ha’

??!!?!?!?

What the…? Why is that less scary? And if society managed to drag thier filthy minds out of the gutter for even a nano-second, they might not try to turn the most beloved of all people, all around the world into some fat foul-mouthed pimp.

Here’s the news story running on nine MSN. It’s obviously hit the fan around the rest of Australia and in fact, the world.

Apparently, I’m not the only one flabbergasted by the incredible strides society has taken in this, the new millenium.

Bah! Humbug!

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Back to normal

Posted on November 13, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under | Leave a Comment

Whooo! The temperature yesterday was enough to make anyone sit in the pool under the shade umbrella with a cool drink most of the afternoon… and that it just what I did!

At 39.8 degrees we almost broke the record for hottest day in November set in the 1930’s. Dinner was mostly salad and BBQ (easiest and coolest to cook) and sleeping was, well… it wasn’t easy getting to sleep, that’s for sure.

One of the drawbacks of living with a dinki-di aussie, is that they are used to such temperatures and are not reduced to sweating, over-heated, lethargic whinging po..er..Canucks. *grin*

“Air conditioning is for wimps. We never had A/C and we were fine… blah blah blah..” Or so my darling hubby feels he needs to point out every time he looks at me and I sigh. (Sighing is about all I can manage under these circumstances.)

Today it was a reasonable 35 degrees. Granted, while still warm, it’s infinitely more tolerable in my opinion, hence, the return to the computer chair - which just FYI is leather and very unappealing when really hot.

If there was no other reason for returning to work, I think the nice cool air conditioned office would be good enough.

If the 40 degrees days are going to start in November this year, I don’t know how I’m going to handle December, January, February AND March!

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