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8 August 2016

Letters to Marlis-The Holiday Edition (July 2016)

Brunswick 2 August 2016

Hi Marlis,

I hope you are doing well and winter is proving not as much as a challenge as the weather reports suggest. As promised, here’s the update on the last 4 weeks, mostly our holidays, but first…some sad news.

Spike passed away
On Thursday the 7th of July our little cat friend Spike passed away, 15 years and 11 months old. Yesterday would have been his 16th birthday. He had been constipated like he sometimes would be and we were keeping a close eye on him with the holidays coming up. By Sunday morning, after finding the downstairs rooms covered in puke and poop, I took him to the emergency room and they patched him up quite nicely, or so we thought when we took him home on Tuesday. The vet was concerned about him being anaemic (low blood cell count), but there wasn’t much else they could do than empty his bowels and wait what happened. He improved a bit, but wouldn’t eat and almost did not drink. By Thursday morning 10.30 he was in such a bad way that we rushed him to the vet again for more treatment, but it wasn’t to be. They calmed him down, made him comfortable, but at 14.00 they called us to come with haste because he was on his way out. We didn’t make it, but had said goodbye that morning anyway. It was the best way for him to go, lots of drugs to keep him happy and calm and no stress. We said our goodbyes, cried our eyes out when we were home and reschedule dour flight to Tokyo to two days later. The next day I cleaned up all the visual reminders and medication, donated his cat milk and most of the food to a nearby cat shelter, didn’t want to have it around any longer. Now we’ve got a really nice urn and some pictures of him on our side table, next to the urn with his mom’s ashes. It’s still weird to only have one cat around, but she doesn’t seem to mind that much, although she does meow a lot more now than she ever did.

On to better and more positive things then…The big trip around the world in 19 days. We started out in Tokyo, then on to the Netherlands and finished up in New York. It was phenomenal.

Tokyo
Tokyo is probably the quietest city I have ever been to. The people are so well behaved, give each other lots of room and nobody talks on the subway (aside from me of course J) The weather was very warm, with 33-35 degrees all day, but add some nice humidity and you’ll be sweating all day. The first day Yumi and I drank about 8 litres of fluids between the two of us, I probably drank 5, trying to keep the backpack light. While it’s a super big city, it never really feels crowded and the subway network is so good you can get anywhere fast, or walk in comfortable air-conditioned tunnels for 100’s of meters at a time. At some point we walked more than 800 meters underground from one point to the next. All in all, during our 48 hour stay I think we walked a good 25 kilometres, trying to see as much as we could. Our thinking back then was that once we arrived in the Netherlands we would take it a bit easier. That did not quite work out as planned, but more on that later. I won’t go into too much detail on what we did, but to give you an idea, here’s the summarized version, not completely in the right order, but it will give you an impression of what we saw:

·       Sensoji and Nakamise market
Sensoji is a very famous temple because it’s really old and completely restored and as it was only a 5 minute walk from our hotel we made a stop here and shuffled along with the other 5,000 visitors. It’s always a bit strange that if you take the time to just walk around the building you’ll see equally beautiful things like parks, smaller shires and gardens without the crowd, so that’s what we did. The lane/road to the temple is one big shopping street, but it’s not all tourist junk, some things were very nice and we bought some Kendo head towels (tenugui) from a man who clearly had lots of love for his products.
·       Tokyo Skytree
This is one of the highest towers in the world, so it goes without saying that I just had to go in and I was not disappointed! The views were stunning and the whole process of going in and up with the 75+ staff members all pointing the way (completely obvious and very unnecessary). Because it was Monday morning, warm and very quiet we had the whole thing basically to ourselves, so I snapped some cool pictures and then we moved on.
·       Hama Rikyu Onshi Teien
This is a less well known and a bit out of the way city park that should be beautiful in spring, but in summer it was still very nice and again, surprisingly quiet when we visited. There’s old tea houses and quiet ponds, shady groves and meandering paths, against a towering backdrop of skyscrapers and the steady thrum of traffic in the background. Peaceful and quiet indeed.
·       Yoyogi park
This park was all about temples and broad paths. Because we did not have a lot of time, we could not visit all the grounds, but it was still very worthwhile and they had really big arches, so I was happy J.
·       Sibuya crossing and Hachiko statue
This is the famous crossing that you’ve probably seen on TV at some point. I thought it was a lot bigger, so in real life it was a bit of a disappointment and honestly, I’ve seen busier traffic in Wagga Wagga and Melbourne, but still, a nice experience and now we know. I thought it was a lot more fun to see the statue of Hachiko the dog. It’s a bit of a sad story about him waiting forever for his owner, who never returned because he died of a heart attack, but he made me think of Rusty, so that was a bit more positive.
·       Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building night views
The city takes on a very different appearance at night, so we ventured to the other side of the city to go to 200+ meters high and see the views. The pictures do not do it justice, but it was very cool. Especially the parks that look like massive black holes in the sea of lights (because the lights are hidden by the trees). Very much worth the walk.
·       Imperial palace
Or should I say, the gardens? No palace in sight. I thought we would at least catch a glimpse of the palace but a rooftop is all we could see through the trees. Still a nice walk through the imperial gardens and a very funny moment when we heard a music recital that sounded like someone was taking a chainsaw to a violin filled with screeching cats, quite horrible in that otherwise so peaceful and quiet environment. It was impressive to see how people back then in the 1600-1800’s lived, but I was of course most impressed with the very big blocks of stone that they used to build very high walls.
·       Mitsukoshi store
There’s only so much culture you can take in before it’s time for some shopping, so we went to the number one warehouse of Tokyo. I’ve been to Harrod’s, Macy’s and other fancy venues, but these people really take the cake.  The building is massive, but we focused on the two floors with just food in the basement. It’s like the Queen Victoria Markets indoors, without the smell and noise and with really beautiful products. Fruit is incredibly expensive and if you buy it here even more. Think $12 for a mango, $100 for a kilo of grapes or $50 for a square (!) watermelon. Insanity, but fun J I could have stayed there so much longer, but we just bought our lunch (best omelette I ever bought!) and went on to the next stop.
·       Nippon Budokan
This is a huge sports complex in the shape of a temple that was closed unfortunately, they were preparing for a big Kendo event so we could not go in. Anyhow, the walk there was still nice and the moat surrounding the premises had some of the most extensive lily fields I had ever seen.
·       Ueno park
Right after Yumi had eaten her signature eel dish in the #1 restaurant in Tokyo for that particular dish, we took a walk in this amazing park. The restaurant had 7 floors and beautiful views, which was great for me, because they only serve 1 fish dish in different varieties. It’s like the T-ford, you can get any car, as long as it’s a Ford and it’s black, haha. The park felt and looked a bit like the Tuilleries Parcs in Paris near the Louvre, with its white/gray gravel paths, but then with temples, buddhas and almost as much Japanese people as there’s tourists in Paris J
·       Yanaka cemetery
Perhaps a bit weird to visit a cemetery while on holidays, but I find them to possess a certain beauty and calm that you cannot find anywhere else. The most interesting features of this cemetery are that it has beautiful blossoms in spring and houses the grave and shrine of Tokugawa Shogun, the last Shogun of Japan, after which the politics and identity of the country and its people changed considerably. This is one of the most noteworthy events in history, so it’s understandable that there were NO tourists here at all, just Yumi, me and a man who seemed lost. Just how I like it.


·       Akihabara Electric Town
We had some time to spare and visited this part of the city during the day where it’s just insanely busy, but at night it’s supposed to be a true sight to behold with flashing lights, video and music everywhere. Now it was just noisy, a bit overwhelming and more than a bit alien. Think JB-Hifi, Harvey-Norman and Domayne all in one, on steroids, 100x as big, with really big loud speakers and every building is just more of the same.

I loved Tokyo, but probably could not live there (aside from cannot afford it J). It’s not that the people are unfriendly or the food is not good, it’s all great. It’s a cultural thing. The whole idea is that everybody gives everybody as much space and respect as possible, at the expense of pushing your own personality so far to the background that you become indistinguishable from the backdrop. The politeness is great, I can now bow my way through conversations like a real professional and it’s not that I need a spotlight all the time, but I’d probably be too noisy, loud, impolite and out of place, so I’ll stay here and leave Japan to the Japanese. I did learn a lot about why my mother in law does certain things in certain ways and even picked up on some quirks that Yumi has. I feel like I understand them better now, so even after almost 20 years, I can still learn some more about her J.

Netherlands

The visit to the Netherlands was, even by our standards, crazy busy. It was a nice surprise that my parents and sister had come to welcome us before we picked up our rental car. Driving in the Netherlands was much less stressful than I thought it would be after 2,5 years driving on the wrong side of the road. We had thought that we would have more time to ourselves, but nearly every single days was filled from 8am to 10pm and we loved every minute of it. We got to spend a good amount of time with Yumi’s parents, had a really nice dinner and then basically crashed into bed for 10 hours straight. The next morning we needed to head to Poortugaal (where we used to live) to meet our friends Just and Marit and their son Jurre to catch up and get the keys to their house where we would stay for the next 10 days. They left the next day, so that night we met with my parents and sister and slept at their house. It was good to be back there again. Last time we left we did not know when or to what situation we would return, but after all that’s happened it was good to see the house, garden and surroundings at least one last time how it used to be. On the Saturday we visited friends in the North of the Netherlands and their kids have grown up so much that we really felt like we had stepped into a time machine. After that visit we drove all the way down to the other end to meet with Hester and Ashwin and their daughter and son Sophie and Nathan (5 months old) and eat the traditional foods of the Netherlands Patat, Frikandel, Kroket, Kaassoufle and pindasaus. No need to translate, it’s all deep fried and really bad for you, but very tasty J

We also started to notice that while everything was different, the relationships were as strong as ever and had virtually not changed at all. Sure, people got older or changed their hair or things in their houses, but 2,5 years is long enough for trees to grow and roads and buildings get built but not for people to really change. That was a good experience for us. I should also mention that from the first day to the last we had the most incredible weather, every day was 25-30 degrees, with two days even 30+, which is rare in the Netherlands.

On the Sunday we had a really nice lunch with Alex and Suzanne and their daughters Julia and Elize before almost all our closest friends and family joined for a garden BBQ that lasted the rest of the afternoon and evening and gave everyone a real good opportunity to catch up, show off their offspring, throw a Frisbee and kick a ball. Good times. The Monday was reserved for the Amsterdam family, we met with Yumi’s brother (who was so ill and is now all good again) and his family and Yumi’s parents for a sunny walk, presents and a very nice lunch in honour of Yumi’s mum’s birthday (68) the next day. The day after we went to Yumi’s parents again to have ANOTHER celebration dinner and say goodbye the next day.

The rest of the week was just more fun and food meetings with friends and family, lots of driving (1,700 km in all) and lots and lots of love and laughterJ. It was just really great to see everyone again, visit the traditional spots we used to visit and take walks. I did an early morning tour of the Rotterdam Harbour and the city by myself for a few hours to just see how things had changed and take some pictures. That was really good and a bit emotional, made me appreciate even more all the good things that happened since we arrived in Australia. Like public toilets. Hard to find in the Netherlands, while they are everywhere in the US, Japan and Oz. J

The time to travel on came around way to fast, but we had one really nice dinner at my parents and then we dropped off the rental car, after which my dad drove us the last part to the airport, which was just lovely and very convenient indeed. What a great visit.

The flights (all 8 of them) were very uneventful. I watched so many movies and tv series (as I cannot sleep in a plane) that my head spun and had difficulty to separate reality from fiction, I guess sleep deprivation will do that to you J. We flew from Melbourne to Gold Coast to Tokyo Narita to Abu Dhabi to Amsterdam to Moscow to New York to Los Angeles and then back to Melbourne again, so it was truly a world roundtrip! And we heard so many Dutch people in New York everywhere we went. In diners, at attractions, just walking in the street, it seemed like they were everywhere. It was good that we could just turn the Aussie accent up a bit more and just pretend that we were not from there whenever they acted embarrassingly (which wasn’t that often).

New York was such a great experience that it would take twenty pages to describe it all. But, as they say, I guess you should have been there, to get the full experience. I felt so at home there that we even started thinking about how it would be to live there, while we love to live in Australia and have no plans to move any time soon J Like with the Japan trip, I’ll limit myself to the highlights and let some of the included pictures speak for themselves in no particular order.

·       Washington square
A beautiful respite of all the busyness with a really big fountain and a quite sizeable arch (not as big as the Parisian Arc de Triomphe, but sizeable none the less. We just sat here for a bit, enjoying the rebellious people who ignore the signs that said you should not enter the fountain to swim. I guess 35 degrees makes people forget how to read J

·       Empire state
This was supposed to be a highlight, but maybe it was that we did it at the end of a long day, or maybe it was just not that great but it basically sucked. We waited for almost 2,5 hours in hallways, security check points, waiting areas, more hallways, got herded through shops and more waiting areas to then finally make it to the 86th floor with about 500 other people. You can go all the way to the 102nd but we were so done with it all that we snapped the pictures and took our tired feet and legs back down again. Perhaps if it was our only skyscraper experience we’d have been more excited, but we had already been to the Rockefeller centre and that was a completely different and much more fun experience.

·       Rockefeller center
The square in front is already a piece of art, with a fountain that reminded me of the Trevi fountain in Rome, but then American style, so basically bigger, more gold and louder J. We had to look around a little to find the entrance, but once we found it, it was an easy 15-20 minute process to get to the top and the views were just spectacular. Because of the sunny weather everything was set out in great detail and stark contrast. There’s still higher buildings being built or available to get a view, but the views from here were some of the best I had ever seen

·       Chrysler building
We visited here on the last day, because you can only go into the lobby as it is still operational as an office and residential area. I cannot imagine how expensive it must be to live there, but just the lobby was very beautifully restored and when you walk up to the building it just looks so iconic.

·       9/11 memorial
Yumi wanted to go here and as in any good marriage, you compromise. I really did not look forward to this at all, but in the end it was a good experience. I think it’s more than a little creepy to walk a site where so many people died in such a short amount of time. The fact that it’s already 15 years ago did not make it any less creepy for me. The whole story is told once more, with even a bit of room for a view from the terrorists’ point of view, but while there wasn’t a lot of new material in the exhibitions, one thing stood out for me. They have this news reel going that shows how many news items are still written and broadcasted 15 years after the fact about 9/11, safe to say it’s a lot and very little of it positive. 

·       Grand central station
I’ve seen it in so many movies and video games and it doesn’t look quite that impressive from the outside, but it is stunningly impressive on the inside. Most of the station is underground, including shops, a market, most rail tracks and a whole food court. The soaring ceilings, big windows and authentic columns just really work together to make this the most beautiful train station I have ever seen, and that includes the one in Rotterdam, so that’s really saying something J.

·       Hudson walk
Manhattan splits the incoming Atlantic into the Hudson and East river and Yumi and I just went for a walk along the Hudson to get a better feel for the city. Despite the heat, the river provides a bit of cool breeze with sea air, lots of entertainment from looking at all the running people and the city provides a photogenic backdrop every step of the way. We made it all the way to the Holland tunnel (which I thought was a nice name) and did some shopping on the side roads.

·       Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island
You can see Lady Liberty from many angles, but she’s actually not that big, nor very visible from afar, so we booked a spot on the ferry and went to visit her on the island. We did not get to go up in the crown or pedestal (and why would you want that anyway) but she’s still quite impressive close up. She has big really big hands for some reason, but it’s still a marvel of engineering if you consider that’s she’s been out there for so long. The views on Manhattan are possibly the best I captured on camera and trying to imagine that emigrants have been welcomed by her for over 130 years made this a bit more special. Ellis Island is right next door and that was a really worthwhile experience. The atmosphere of hope, fear and anticipation as it would have been is completely gone, replaced with a quiet calm of interest. Millions of tourist visitors will do that I reckon but the exhibits paint a really detailed picture of what the emigrants must have experienced and in the more quiet parts there were photo expositions that captured the history of people and the island at different phases and those were very insightful and educational.

·       Metropolitan museum
If you’ve ever been to museums and saw statues with broken limbs or other damages and wondered if there were any whole specimens left…yep, they all seem to have ended up here. Some of the most beautiful statues I have ever seen, a beautiful Egyptian hall, more knights’ armours than a German castle and the list just goes on and on. Despite the limited time we could spend here, we also made it to the roof and has a great view of 5th avenue, Central Park and the skyline while the sun was bright in the sky.

·       Guggenheim
Another museum, a bit further down the road but this one was exactly what we expected form a modern art museum, incomprehensible. We just don’t get modern art we reckon. There’s people that I can only describe as ‘peculiar’ looking at coloured lines on a big yellow canvas and speak of the artist’s intent and mindset like they actually knew them. Yumi and I think whoever the artist was, they made a really good deal because any 8 year old with too much caffeine in their system could have made the same thing. Anyway, we went there for the building, which is a marvel of architecture, the art just got in the way of the experience really.



·       Brooklyn Bridge  and Water taxi
After a very warm walk and a quick stop at the Supreme Court and some more big buildings, we made our way across the Brooklyn Bridge and I felt back in Melbourne for a minute with angry cyclists trying to clear a way and everybody else just strolling along. The views on both side of the city, the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn lying in front of us was worth all the sweating for sure. We made it safely across, but decided that walking back again was not something we looked forward to so we got on one of the water taxi cruise boats and enjoyed a few more sights cruising up the river, amongst which the Queen Elizabeth 2 cruise ship and a preview of Lady liberty. So much better than walking!

·       Central Park
I love the botanical gardens of all Australian cities, but Central Park is really in a league of its own. Not just the size, but also the variety and how it’s enclosed on all sides by the high energy avenues and streets. There’s so much to see and do that you could vacation here for three days and never be bored. We visited the park on three separate occasions, stopped by the boat pond, the row boats, big fountain, the Jackie Kennedy lake and sports fields. What an experience.

·       Times square
This is the New York I was coming to see, what a mad house. Everybody is moving in all directions, police everywhere, people everywhere, flagship stores everywhere and everything America that you ever imagined is right here packed into a huge square and its side skyscraper side streets. One massive churning cauldron of people that doesn’t slow down, take a break or even pauses to take a breath, it just keeps going. You would probably be scared or at least a bit intimidated by such a big crowd (I’ll admit I had to get used to it too) but what a cool experience.

·       Chinatown
I had high expectations, but I think Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney do a better Chinatown than New York really. It was dusty, dirty and overcrowded with tourists and a lot of annoyed Chinese who were just going about their business. We walked a couple of streets, Yumi ate some dumplings (of course) and then we got the heck out of there fast.

·       National History Museum
We did this one on the last day as well, because the first time we got there the line was outside and as we’d learned, that means that the line inside is not a lot of fun at all. We only had to wait for about 30 minutes in the end, so that was okay and then we got to see huge dinosaurs in displays that rival the best in the world. Halfway through the visit we both got a bit depressed with all the dead animals and decided that maybe this was just not or us anymore. A good stop if you never get out of the country, but somewhat eerie if you consider that most of all these animals were killed for no other reason than just to put them on display in its earlier days. I know, I know, we could have thought of that before, but we didn’t. Well at least the dinosaurs only needed to be dug upJ.

·       Coney Island
This used to be the Luna Park of the country and a big deal. Not so much now, very run down, but still worth a stop and the pier walk is still worth the trip all the way down the island. Yumi needed to get a hotdog at the same venue where they do that (disgusting) world championship competition hotdog eating (70+), we kept it to one and some fries J. We wanted to take at least one ride and decided on the swinging chairs merry go round that goes 10 meters up in the air and spins you around. That was the moment the weather decided to change and the sky opened up in a quite spectacular hail- rain- and lightning storm that soaked us completely and flooded the streets for miles around. We called it a day after that refreshing bath and spent a good hour getting back to the hotel with a million other New Yorkers who were just happy that the warm weather had cooled off just a little.

·       Intrepid
The Intrepid used to be a military aircraft carrier ship that is now retired and turned into a museum. As it is huge it was on my list of big things to see and I really enjoyed the visit. Unfortunately Yumi’s stomach was a bit upset after eating big portion of spaghetti and meatballs but I still managed to get a good look at some fighter planes and helicopters, a Concorde airplane, a submarine and they also had a Star Trek (from the tv shows) exhibit going on, because there’s also a Space shuttle on the deck (I did not pay to see it). Again, I had seen it so many movies and tv shows that play in New York that I just had to see it and I was not disappointed.

·       Flat iron building
This building is on Broadway, which is like saying that it’s on Sydney Road here in Melbourne. Broadway is long and changes identity from ultra-busy to very quiet and 5 lanes wide to nearly as wide as a horse and cart track. It’s one of those icons that you’ve seen so many times on tv and postcards that when you see it for yourself you can’t help but compare to your expectations and I apparently thought it was bigger. While it wasn’t that big, it really is beautiful and well maintained. We did not spend a lot of time here, just shot some pictures, as you cannot go in at all and made our way on to the next stop, which I cannot even remember now J.

·       Little Italy
One of the things that looked better on tv really. It felt like a massive tourist trap, really just a few streets of glory of days past. We really tried to get a feel for the place but it just wasn’t there anymore. Like Chinatown, we just made a quick stop, had an ice cream and moved on.

·       High line park
This park is built on old train tracks and they did a really good job of it. It stretches about 5 kilometres from north to south on the lower part of Manhattan’s a very nice experience to walk amongst trees about the streets and cars and make your way through busy traffic while never having to stop for anything else than the occasional photographer making an unscheduled stop. We started at the end and that’s where the park needs to grow out a bit more, but as soon as we moved to the more established parts, we could really appreciate the green shady groves on another very warm day.

Of course we did some shopping, scored a bag and two pairs of shoes for Yumi, lots of eating (the portions really are huge) and I found dr. pepper and coke zero cherry flavour, which was a nice change from the Pepsi Max, Coke zero, Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi and what not.

Another thing that we found remarkable is that American are not THAT fat as everybody seems to think or talks about. They look very normal actually, just like Australians, the Dutch (but shorter) or Japanese (but tallerJ). They also dress quite well. We might be used to the style now a bit more after living in Oz for a few years, but no hiked up pants and white socks in sandals anywhereJ. I am sure they are still out there, just not in Manhattan.
That was the best of the trip, it’s Monday the 8th while I am writing this (I started last week, but it was a lot of writing) and we’ve been back for a bit more than a week now. Time to get back to the diet, start job hunting and watch a bit of the Olympics while I have the chance. We’ve decided to do another intro course for Kendo to get the basics right once more before we grade for the next level in September and I might do a bit of a project for the Salvation Army, which I’ll have more details on by next time I write.

Stay safe, warm and well, speak soon


Gilbert