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
