Letter No.
213
December 2013
Dear all,
DECEMBER 2013 Sunday 8th December was Matthew’s 15th birthday. We let
Matt decide what he wanted to do for his birthday and he asked to go out for
breakfast and then play a family board game! We had a great breakfast at a
coffee shop in the village called “Three Girls Skipping”, where he opened his
presents and we then spent the afternoon playing Monopoly. Sadly (for Matthew) we
didn’t let him win!
Monday 9th December was Jessica’s final Girl Guides night. It was the last meeting for 2013 so they had a sausage sizzle and family campfire and sing-along. Jessica had decided to give up Guides as she won’t have time next year when she starts High School. Her Guides leader was desperate for her to stay on and spent ages trying to convince her to change her mind. We had a nice evening but Jessica was in floods of tears going home at the end of the evening.
The next day Jessica was singing Christmas Carols in the city with the Australian Girls’ Choir. Katie dropped her off and I left work a little early to watch her last performance and pick her up. They had a huge crowd watching them in Queen Street Mall. Jessica had a solo and her singing was lovely. We caught the train home and were chatting so much that we missed our station and had to get off at the next one and wait to catch the next train back. What dummies! Jessica had four carol singing engagements through December, which she really enjoyed.
On the 11th December it was Jessica’s Graduation Evening. Katie, as School Captain’s Mother, had the honour of organising the event. This has consumed her life for several months, with meetings, working parties etc, all culminating in this one evening. She had spent literally hours decorating the school hall working with a team of other mothers. The hall looked really great with coloured bunting, fabric backdrop, balloons and fairy lights. The graduates all had professional photos taken with their parents and there was half an hour for drinks and canapés. Everyone then moved into the main hall, where Jessica and the other school Captain, Tom were the Masters of Ceremonies for the whole evening. They gave a nice combined speech about the school year. Jessica had actually written the speech for both of them and was word perfect, while Tom stumbled a bit. Being School Captain has done wonders for her confidence and public speaking skills. They introduced each of the Year 7 class teachers who each gave speeches about their classes. Jessica told us later that she had pretty much written her teacher’s speech as well! The students all then received their Graduation Certificates, then the lights were turned down and each student held an LED “candle” and they sang Katy Perry’s “Roar” together. It was quite spectacular. We went to a friends’ house for champagne afterwards to celebrate and were home pretty late for a school night.
The next morning we were back in the school
hall for the Handover Assembly, a lengthy three hour occasion, during which Jessie
officially handed over her School Captain duties to the incoming School
Captains for 2014. She delivered her speech from the night before to the entire
school and pinned the new badges on the incoming School Captains. Katie was
given flowers for her part. The ceremony dragged on a bit so I didn’t make it
to work until about 11:00am, meanwhile Katie spent another four hours packing
everything away and tidying up the school hall. That afternoon all the students
went on an outing to a water park and then the next day was their very last
day. Needless to say, Jessie was very sad when her Graceville days were over, and Katie was exhausted! Katie has now
given up her roles on Graceville P&F as Tuckshop Rep and Contact Club coordinator
so it is a big change for her too.
It was my birthday on 16th December. I came home from work a bit early and there was no one in sight; I walked up the stairs and everyone nearly gave me a heart attack by jumping out and yelling “surprise” with party hats and blowers. We had a little party dinner and I opened my presents and we had a heart shaped chocolate cake for desert – Jessica had a hand in that.
We had dinner out at a Pizza restaurant with some BBC friends on Friday 20th December. We didn’t stay out too late as we had to spend the next day preparing for a Christmas Drinks party at our house. We invited about 12 couples and kids around from 4pm for drinks and canapés on our upstairs veranda. The kids all hung out downstairs, playing basketball, ping pong, darts, volleyball, wii etc while we chatted upstairs. We hardly saw them except when they came up to the kitchen for food. It was a pleasant evening. The last couple left about 9:30pm; we quickly tidied up and had a slump in front of the TV for a little while until our friends, Jill and Steve Bottomley and kids arrived about midnight. They had just flown in from the UK via a few days watching the Ashes in Perth. Perhaps I should not mention the cricket score here. We had a brief chat and all went to bed. The next day the kids swam while we chatted. We went for a trip up to Mt Coot-tha to show them the views of Brisbane then came back for before lunch by the pool – seafood and bbq. They had to leave about 4:00pm. It was lovely to see them and hear all the latest Hale and Bowdon gossip.
The next day we went to Currumbin Dog beach for a fun day out with Molly before she went off to the farm. It was a lovely warm day, about 35 degrees, and we felt we needed some warmth before heading to Japan after Christmas!
We had our English-style Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve again. Katie did roast turkey, potatoes, Brussel sprouts and all the trimmings. We had a nice time, played Christmas carols and danced in the living room. Santa decided that the kids had been good and visited them that evening. On Christmas Day we drove to my sister Lisa’s for Christmas lunch. We had a really nice day with my Mum and Dad and all of Andrew’s extended family. There were 22 adults and 14 kids. The kids did a Christmas concert which included a French horn piece from Matthew, singing from Jessica and a combined dance performance from Jessica and her cousins. There was a Secret Santa for the adults and presents for the kids before lunch. I took all the kids swimming after lunch while Katie had a nice cup of tea. It was a lovely day but sad to get home and find Molly gone off with Mum and Dad for her annual farm holiday.
Jessica and I went shopping on Boxing Day morning, so that Jessie could spend her Christmas vouchers. She bought a heap of lovely clothes from Myer with the voucher Uncle Chris sent her. Matthew and Katie met us and we went off to the movies. Katie and I wanted to see the next instalment of The Hobbit, while the kids saw something else and then caught the train home. Afterwards we grabbed some drinks & mince pies and headed straight off to “Leftovers” Boxing Day party at our friends Kylie and Alf Graham. There were about ten couples and kids. The kids swam and played tennis and the men had an impromptu game of Backyard Cricket before dinner. The next day we packed for our trip to Japan the following day. As usual here is a blow-by-blow account.
JAPAN TRIP Day 1 – Brisbane to Osaka, Japan
We set off early and drove to the Gold Coast Airport. The airport was in a bit of chaos when we arrived due to an unattended bag being cordoned off in one corner, taking up most of the area for departing passengers. There were a heap of police standing around gazing at the bag doing nothing. If it had been a bomb and had exploded, we would have all been goners as we were only about 15 metres away queuing for departure. In front of us in the queue were a couple with a young girl having a blazing row about whose fault it was that they had left the little girl’s suitcase at home that morning. The woman must have been a bit of a control freak, as she pulled out her ipad and read aloud a list of everything that was in the missing case. The flight was nine hours and fairly uneventful. When we got off the plane and were in the little airport train, we found ourselves standing next to the same couple. They were still having exactly the same argument about whose fault it was the bag was left behind. Well over ten hours on the same argument. They are going to have a good holiday!
We cleared customs and had a quick dash to the
airport train which was just leaving. It was a 40-minute train ride into Osaka.
During this time one of Jessica’s wobbly teeth came out and there was blood
everywhere! The train conductor was a very petite and pretty Japanese girl in a
very formal uniform who bowed at us every time we caught her eye and offered
tissues. We wandered around like lost sheep for a while at the train terminus
trying to decide if we should catch a taxi or the subway to our hotel. Interestingly, Japanese taxi drivers all wear
black tie, complete with shirt studs. Most looked well over the age they still
should be allowed to have drivers licences. The first two politely declined to
take us, not knowing where our hotel was, but luckily some locals took pity on
us and helped. A good 15-minute discussion with the next taxi driver ensued,
involving a lengthy phone call to the hotel and consulting google maps on ipads,
and eventually the driver decided to take us. It was only a five-minute journey
but he still had to stop on the way and ask for further directions! We had two
nice small Western-style rooms. The kids and I were hungry so we went roaming
looking for somewhere to eat. The best we could do at 9.30pm at night was a
7-11 equivalent for some Japanese sweet pastries.
Day 2 - Osaka
We only really had one day to see Osaka so we really had to pack everything in! It was a short walk to the nearest underground train station, but took a while to work out how to buy train tickets. Eventually one of the train inspectors showed us how to work the machine. We caught the train to Osaka Castle (Osaka-jo), which was built in 1583 by 100,000 forced labourers in only three years as a display of power in an attempt to unify Japan. The castle was built to be impregnable with a 2km long moat, 75m wide around the outside, but a mere 32 years later it was totally destroyed by a rival clan! Over the ensuing years the castle has been rebuilt and destroyed several times; it was refurbished in 1997 and it did look pretty splendid. The grounds around the castle are beautiful with thousands of bonsai-like sculptured trees. We had a wander around the moat walls and inner walls of the castle. The kids tried some archery in the stalls around the moat and we watched all the interesting market stall foods being prepared. It was only 7 degrees so afterwards we had to go inside and have coffee and hot chocolate to warm up.
We saw lots of ultra-cute handbag dogs being walked by their owners in the grounds of the castle. Most of them were fully kitted out with clothes, ribbons and bows in their hair. It was really quite bizarre but Jessie was in seventh heaven over the cuteness factor.
In the afternoon we went to the Umeda Sky Building, Osaka’s most dramatic piece of modern architecture. Twin towers, 40 storeys tall. The glass elevators take you up to the 35th floors and the final five floors are ascended by two glass escalators between the two towers. Katie was not keen on this last part as she is not good with heights. The view was worth it though, with a spectacular uninterrupted view of Osaka’s humanity spread in grey concrete boxes as far as the eye could see in all directions.
Afterwards we went to the basement of the buildings to a recreation of a street market in the Middle Ages. There were lots of traditional Japanese eateries which really did not look like they were in the basement of a modern office tower. We found a very quaint and traditional eatery with menu totally in Japanese with no pictures or explanations of what we were going to eat. No one spoke very much English. We worked out that to order we had to choose our number of “sticks”. We still weren’t sure what we were getting but we ordered seven “sticks”. These turned out to be battered and deep-fried skewers (seven each), accompanied by tea, rice, delicious miso soup and seaweed. The skewers themselves were shrimp, pork, some unidentifiable vegetables and an even more unidentifiable food stuff which our chef confidently assured us was deep fried cognac! It was a hearty and delicious meal and even Jessica, who is usually finicky, tried it all and ate almost everything.
After lunch we went on to Osaka train station to organise our train tickets for Hiroshima and Kyoto over the next few days. This was a frustrating and time-consuming exercise but eventually we had it all sorted. In the evening we went to Amerika-mura (American Village) which is a compact enclave of youth-focused shops and cafes selling American brand jeans and other hip clothing. The area is the site of an American village following the Second World War. There are some very bizarre human like street lamps and lots of young Japanese fashion victims wandering around seeing who can dress the more weirdly. One good thing about Japan is that you could wear anything you want and you could be assured no one would bat an eyelid and there would be heaps of people dressed more oddly than you.
We walked on to Shinsaibashi-suji arcade. This was about a kilometre-long covered mall of high-end fashion shops, amusement arcades, street food stalls, restaurants and more neon lights and video screens than you can possibly look at. Stepping into the mall from a side street is like stepping into a human river. Throngs of humanity wash past and over you and it sweeps you down the mall. Crossing to look at shops on the other side of the mall is quite an undertaking! At the end of the mall is a bridge over the river and it got slightly less crowded. We stopped for a breather and took photos of all the lights down the mall and along the river before stopping at street stalls for a traditional Japanese dinner of Gyoza (a kind of dumpling; I am still not quite sure what it is) and some tasty but slightly odd octopus balls which are a speciality of Osaka. After all this walking, we decided to take a taxi back to the hotel. Despite being less than 3km from the hotel and having the hotel address written in Japanese characters in large print (all the taxi drivers are very old and half blind, even if formally dressed), this turned out to be a major problem once again. A good ten minutes of consultation with the street directory and several stops along the way followed, but it eventually found us back at the hotel. Oh for a London cab driver with The Knowledge!
Day 3 – Hiroshima
Having done Osaka in one day, we headed off for a day trip to Hiroshima. An early start and then the Bullet (Shinkansen) train to Hiroshima; it took just under two hours to get there. The train was very very fast and very cool. When a train passed going in the other direction the trains lurches alarmingly due to the air buffer between them.
We arrived in Hiroshima at 11am and caught a local train and then a ferry to Miyajama Island to see the very famous Itsukushima Shrine. Miyajama is one of Japan’s most visited tourist sites and the shrine is ranked as one of the top three sites in Japan. The Shrine gate is painted bright orange and is actually in the water and at high tide seems to be floating on the water. We actually arrived at low tide but it was still a fantastic sight. The village around the shrine was very lovely and we just wandered around the waterfront market stalls. It reminded me a bit of Macau before it got really developed. Hiroshima is famous for oysters and I had some lovely fresh oysters for lunch. None of the others were as adventurous but had street market stall food for lunch as well. We also had some delicious Japanese sweet pastries for desert which also seemed to be a speciality of the island. There were several shops with very large and complex machines in the windows of the shops where you could watch the pastries being made right though to buying and eating the warm treats.
We also enjoyed seeing the hundreds of very cheeky deer which roam the streets and snatch anything, especially food, from unsuspecting tourists. They were lovely to stroke and it was quite comical watching them chase tourists trying to grab their food snacks. On the hill behind the Itsukushima Shrine there is a very colourful five-storey pagoda dating from 1407. We walked up to the pagoda and ate our lunch looking at the view.
We wandered back to the ferry and made our way back to central Hiroshima. We caught a short tram ride to the Atomic Bomb Dome, This is the starkest reminder of the destruction of Hiroshima. The building was constructed in 1915 as an Industrial Promotion Hall. It was directly below the atom bomb when it exploded at an elevation of 600m on 6th August 1946. Everyone in the building was killed but it was one of the few buildings around the 2km radius epicentre that was left standing. It was decided to preserve the shell of the building after the war and it was proclaimed a World Heritage site in 1996. There was a survivor of the blast with some very moving books showing details of the destruction. We talked to him for a while and read his book, which showed photographs and papers from the time. He was classified as a Class 4 survivor of the blast as his mother was pregnant with him at the time of the blast. His mother is 82 and still alive and was a Class 2 survivor (5-10km from the epicentre of the blast). Apparently she is one of very few remaining survivors.
We spent an hour wandering around the adjacent Peace Memorial Park to see the Peach Cenotaph, Flame of Peace, Children’s Peace Monument, Korean Atomic Bomb Peace Memorial, Atomic Bomb Peace Memorial Mound, Peace Fountain, Peace Memorial Museum (from the outside as it was closed), Peace Gates, Peace Monument for the A-bombed Teachers and Students, Pond of Peace, Peace Flame, Statue of a Prayer for Peace and even the Peace Memorial Mailbox. There are a lot of Pacifists in Hiroshima, understandably! It was a very moving and sobering experience, akin to the German Death Camps in Belsen Bergen. We had to spend quite some time discussing the history of the Second World War with Jessica and the pros and cons of dropping the Atomic Bomb. She was quite outraged about the War and her solution was that people shouldn’t kill each other and it would be much better if she was in charge of the world to ensure this never happened again. The park was quite big and there was a lot to see and we became quite chilled so had to retire to a lovely little cafe on the side of the river to have hot chocolate, tea and mulled wine to warm up. We spent the whole time we were there trying to make origami paper cranes. There was a story about a girl of ten who was suffering from leukaemia in 1955 and was convinced she would be cured if she could make 1000 paper cranes (Japanese Symbol of longevity and happiness). Sadly she died before completing this task and children from her school and all around Japan completed the cranes. This has continued until today and the cranes we made could be donated to the Peace Monument for display. It was really quite sad. Ours weren’t quite up to the right standard but we left the best ones in the bowl for collection anyway. It obviously takes practice.
We caught the tram and bullet train back to
Osaka. We got back to our hotel by 7:45pm and had dinner at a little Irish Bar
next to the hotel which was the easiest option after a long day. As you can see
we really enjoyed our time in Japan – so much to see and do and culturally so
different and interesting. We went on to Kyoto next but that will have to wait
until the next instalment.
That’s all for this month. Cheers,
Derek, Katie, Matthew, Jessica and Molly
Umeda Sky building - Those are escalators at Level 42.
Eight storey video screens!
So many beautiful sculptured trees.
Umeda Sky building from the top.
This was Jessica's idea.
Osaka Castle.
Five storey temple.
A-bomb dome at Hiroshima.
Friendly deer.
Itsukushima Shrine.
Origami cranes.
