travel – dangermouse.net

Final preparation for Japan

There’s not much more to do before my flight to Tokyo tomorrow. I checked in online and got our boarding passes issued. I’m just filling in a health questionnaire for visiting Japan on their government web site. For dinner I used up the last of our perishable foodstuffs. And this evening we took Scully over to a friend’s place for them to dogsit while we’re away.

I did my last four ethics classes for the time being. And I also cleaned the house, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, refilling the damp absorbers, changing and washing bed linen, etc, etc. I did this last time we went on a trip and it was so nice coming home to a clean home that I thought I’d do it again.

Also today, the last Irregular Webcomic! strip went live. I expect I’ll get some emails about it tomorrow, but won’t have time to answer any until I get back from Japan.

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Semi-final preps for Japan

Today in between five ethics classes I did some more preparation for departure for japan on Saturday. There’s only a few minor things left, but I organised some more printed tickets, and figured out what electrical adapters we need for phone chargers and the laptop I’ll use for taking notes during the ISO meetings. This was non-trivial as I’ve updated my phone since our last trip, and it now uses the USB-C charging cable, which doesn’t plug into the old USB chargers we have that have the interchangeable plugs for different countries. We only have USB-C chargers in Australian plugs. But I swapped my convertor from the laptop charger and used a Japan interchangeable plug for that, so I think we’re good without having to buy any extra cables or convertors.

At lunch I walked with Scully over to Naremburn and treated myself to a slice of carrot cake. It’s a longer walk than I’ve been doing recently because of the hot weather, but today was cooler and overcast, so it was a good opportunity.

Oh, I also started writing up the last D&D adventure log from the session we played two weeks ago. I haven’t finished it yet, but got a fair amount written. I’ll see if I have enough time to finish it tomorrow, before my trip.

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Starting packing for Japan

Today I got our luggage out of storage and started assembling a pile of clothing to take on our trip to Tokyo. I also printed out some documents, including the map and directions to get to the ISO Photography Standards meeting place, which is a building I’ve never visited before. Prior meetings I’e attended have been in Yokohama, adjacent to the site of the CP+ camera show, but they’ve moved the meetings to the CIPA (Camera & Imaging Products Association) offices in Tokyo.

I’m packing cold weather gear, which is always interesting when coming from our summer here in Australia. Looking at the forecast for Tokyo, it looks like most days will be colder than an extremely cold winter day here, although it shouldn’t get down to freezing. And no rain, so I won’t bother packing an umbrella.

I did another Darths & Droids comic today, which extends the buffer past when I return from Japan, so that comic will run uninterrupted. And I took Scully for a couple of walks. The weather here is fairly pleasant now, with an easing of the hot summer temperatures towards autumn.

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Board games and Japan prep

Friday was online board games night with my friends. We played Can’t Stop, Ticket to Ride, Just One, 7 Wonders, and then a game of Castles of Burgundy. I didn’t won any, but came second in Castles of Burgundy behind the guy in our group who usually wins everything, so that felt like a victory.

Before that we went up to the fish & chips shop for dinner, eating casually while we walked home with Scully. I didn’t do much else on Friday, except pick up the groceries that I’d ordered online. But I got a surprise message from the supermarket, telling they were sorry my order had been cancelled because of an error in their online system, and saying they’d refund the full amount and give me a $20 gift voucher. A bit later I did indeed get sent a $20 voucher. I’m now waiting to see if they will also refund the total order which they tell me was cancelled, but which I actually picked up.

While walking Scully at lunchtime I spotted a grey butcherbird sitting on the overhead train wires near the station. We were walking on an overpass over the rail line, so I got the photo from a higher elevation, which is unusual for most birds. Its plumage looks a bit dishevelled for some reason.

This species is moderately common around here, but usually seen high in trees where it’s difficult to get a good photo—or more often heard with their distinctive call but not seen at all—so I was excited to get such a good view of one for a change.

Today, Saturday, I went on my usual 5k run in the morning. My times have not been great lately, because of the warm weather and high humidity. I’m looking forward to autumn and cooler weather.

For lunch we went to a Thai restaurant with my wife’s family for her mother’s birthday. Not a large group, just seven of us. We shared some delicious dishes. We used to eat Thai quite a lot as there had always been very good Thai places near us, but the best one closed down some years ago, and there isn’t one we like much nearby any more. So it was good to have some today.

The other thing we’ve been doing is organising for our trip to Tokyo next weekend. I booked another couple of restaurants. Normally we don’t bother booking any eating places in advance of a trip, but Japan is tricky for vegetarians and places that offer vegetarian food are often extremely busy with tourists, because visiting vegetarians all end up going to the same few places.

I’ve also got some things to print out, like our travel insurance details, hotel booking receipt, and other miscellaneous stuff. And I have to double check I have a usable Tokyo train map on my phone. Although I suppose Google Maps will do for route planning.

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Australia Day lunch

Today was Australia Day, the annual day when half of the country celebrates and other half wish that we were celebrating the occasion on a less controversial anniversary.

We hosted a lunch for my wife’s immediate family. We made some salads and roasted some chicken breasts to go on bread rolls. My wife also made a batch of brownies.

Over lunch we discussed our upcoming trip to Japan, and organised some planning details. I booked our tickets to Shibuya Sky, the observation deck to get a view over Tokyo. We wanted to get tickets for a bit before sunset, the best time to be up there. But even though the tickets only went on sale today for the day we want to go, when I logged in to buy them every entry time from 14:40 to after sunset was already sold out. So we settled for a 14:40 entry. Since there’s no time limit to your visit, we can choose to either stay for sunset, or leave a bit early after we’ve had enough.

Lunch took most of the afternoon and I went into ethics classes after that, so didn’t get much else done. Oh, in the morning I did a 5k run and had a shower afterwards, which consumed a big chunk of that time. So that was pretty much my day.

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Moving neighbours, booking Japan, games night

Yesterday I had my usual ethics classes during the day. I was also franticly updating the JR East website to see if I could buy tickets from Tokyo to Kawazu for our upcoming trip to Japan.

We’re planning to go to the Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival, and the only day we can go is Monday 24 February. Which happens to be a public holiday in Japan. And over a million people go to this festival every year. And I’d previously checked about buying train tickets to get there from Tokyo, and seen that the JR East website only makes tickets available one month in advance. So on the 24th of January it was the first opportunity to buy tickets. I wanted to get them as quickly as possible to avoid missing out if the trains sold out.

But when I checked in the morning, I could still only buy tickets up to the 23rd of February. So I was intermittently refreshing the page, thinking it would probably tick over at some time during the day. 9am Japan time came and went, and still no change. I had to teach a couple of ethics classes, but sneaked in some updates. No change. But then after midday Japan time he site updated and I could book tickets!

I chose a train departing Tokyo just after 8am, arriving in Kawazu about 10:30, and a train returning at 15:44, getting back a bit after 18:00. I managed to book the tickets. But I noticed that the next two trains returning to Tokyo (about every half hour) had no seats available already by the time I’d finished! I suspect that given it’s a long weekend, a lot of people want to return to Tokyo that evening.

On Friday evening it was board games night at one of my friends’ place. I arrived while some of the others were playing a game of Landmarks, a new game for us. Since one person was giving clues and the rest of us were trying to solve them together, I could join in. In this game one player is trying to lead all the others across a hexagon map, by giving word clues. It starts with three hexes having words on them, and then the clue-giver attempts to direct the guessers where to place new hexes by writing related words on them. You should put them near hexes with related meanings and far from hexes with opposing meanings. It was tricky and we messed up several times, but ultimately managed to win by the skin of our teeth.

Our host made home made pork, fennel, and apple sausage rolls, which were delicious snacks.

Then we split into two groups since we had seven people. I played Root with two others, while the other four played Ticket to Ride: Europe. In the Root game, I played the Vagabond, with the others playing the Cats and Birds.

It was a very close game, with all of our points tracking one another closely throughout. But in the end the Cats prevailed. After this we rejoined groups for a big seven-player game of Apples to Apples to round out the night.

Today I went for a 5k run in the morning. I took it easy since I felt a bit tired, but was still pleased with my time. Then I cleaned the bathroom and shower while cooling off afterwards.

I’m making sourdough today and we didn’t have any bread left, so we walked up to the pie shop for lunch. Then later we went out again to do some shopping for lunch tomorrow, when my wife’s family are coming over. We’re just going to roast some chicken and make potato salad and a green salad.

On the way back we passed this brand new public art installation near the shops – it wasn’t there just a couple of days ago:

The bird in the statue’s hand looks like a tiny pelican. I’ll have to take a closer look another day to see if I can positively identify it.

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Planning for cherry blossoms

I slept in a bit this morning, but then got up, had breakfast, and embarked on a 5k run. The weather was far too warm and humid, and it was a real struggle today, with a slow time. But at least I have the virtue of doing some exercise regardless.

Last night while I was watching a movie on Netflix (The Dead Don’t Die), I discovered when I tried to turn the TV off that the batteries in the remote had died, apparently mid-movie. I couldn’t turn the TV off! And AFAIK there are no physical controls on the TV. I could have just pulled the plug out, but I was reluctant since it’s plugged into a power board with a bunch of other stuff and it would have been non-trivial to work out which was the correct cord. So I scavenged batteries from another device, and managed to turn the TV off.

Today I went out to the supermarket specifically to buy new batteries. When I got home I opened the remote to install brand new ones, and discovered that one of the emergency batteries Id installed last night had leaked! Urk! So I removed those batteries and stuck them in my battery recycling pile, and cleaned out the leaked chemicals carefully with cotton tips and isopropyl alcohol. before installing the new batteries.

I also spent time sewing up Scully favourite plush toy. Again. She’s ripped holes and extracted stuffing from it about 20 or 30 times, and I keep repairing it because it’s her oldest and most favourite dog toy.

In travel planning, my wife’s sister sent us this article about cherry blossoms in Japan, saying that we’ll be there around the right time to view the early February-blooming flowers in Kawazu, a day trip from Tokyo. I’m keen to go there and see them, because in all the times I’ve visited Japan I’ve never seen more than the odd single tree with blossoms on it—one time in Yokohama in February I was surprised to spot one blooming that early. But it appears the Kawazu variety always blooms so early. So now I want to try to plan our time to fit in a journey there to see them.

New content today:

Booking Tokyo

Today was very warm, 31°C in the city, 39°C in some suburbs. I did a 5k run in the morning, reluctantly, as it was already almost 25°C at 9am.

Back home, I had two main tasks for the day. First I photographed a new batch of Irregular Webcomic! strips, based on the scripts I’ve been writing the past few days. This is really getting near the end. I wound up a few of the story themes and there’s not much left to do with the remaining ones. I expect I might be able to finish completely with one more batch of comics, probably made late January or early February.

The second task was to book several of the things we’d planned out for Tokyo at my sister-in-law’s place yesterday. We booked a tea ceremony, in Ginza. And a day trip tour to Hakone to see Mount Fuji. These things will be done by the others while I am working in ISO Photography standards meetings. I also want to book tickets to the Shibuya Sky observation deck, but they only open for booking four weeks in advance, so that has to wait until the end of January.

While booking those, I also booked a car rental for Auckland for our short trip to New Zealand in March. This is only a 3-day trip over the weekend to visit my wife’s nephew and his partner there for their combined 30th birthdays. My wife’s sister and mother are going too, but they are arriving several days earlier and spending a week there. We’re going to collect the car from the airport on Friday and go pick them up at their hotel to drive up to the Bay of Islands for the weekend, before coming back to Auckland for departure on Monday.

I assembled some of the IWC comics. And then spent a bit of time in the afternoon pondering story details for Episode IX in Darths & Droids, discussing with co-authors, and making notes. It’s quite a shift in mode from normal strip writing in the middle of a movie. I have to switch mental gears and get refamiliarised with the new movie. I’ve spent the past two years viewing scenes from Episode VIII over and over again, and now I have to discard all of that and start on the new movie. I’ve rewatched it twice in the past few weeks, including one time through in slow motion, rewinding and pausing every minute or so to catch details and make notes.

For dinner I made pizza, topped simply with potato and rosemary. I used a couple of tips I saw on a cooking show last week. Because I’m using a domestic oven rather than a pizza oven, the temperature is lower and the pizza cooks more slowly (though still pretty quickly as I use the maximum temperature). So one tip is to add more water to the dough, since it has longer to dry out in the oven. I increased the water from a strict 1:2 ratio with the flour, adding an extra 5 mL to make 130 mL of water to 250 g of flour. And I hand-stretched the dough by first using my fingers to delineate a fatter crust around the rim before flattening and stretching the central area. Overall both changes worked well!

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A nice Italian dinner, planning for Japan

Friday was online games night with my friends, so no blog post. Earlier in the evening, I went with my wife to a new Italian restaurant I’d discovered recently, named Enoteca 128. It’s a short drive from our home and has outdoor tables so we can take Scully. It’s in a relatively quiet alley off the main road, so it was a bit quieter than some of the usual places we go, and Scully could relax rather than bark at everyone walking their dogs past.

The food was delicious. We began with some zucchini flowers stuffed with sweet potato and taleggio cheese, served with a spicy dressing of softened red capsicum and almonds. We both had tagliatelle pasta, with a simple tomato and basil sauce for my wife, while I had the lamb ragu. Then for dessert I had a honey pannacotta with fresh berries and honeycomb. It was all very god and we’ll definitely keep this place in mind for future visits.

Earlier in the day we did a big walk and I worked on some comics stuff. And then after getting home from dinner I played games with friends: Ticket to Ride, Jump Drive, Just One, Azul, Can’t Stop. I won the last game, so finished on a high note, despite not doing so well in the others.

Today, Saturday, I did a 5k run first thing in the morning. The cool weather is heating up again and it was already 25°C when I did my run at 9 am. So I went a bit slowly.

After lunch we went over to my wife’s sister’s place to meet her and their mother and do some itinerary planning for our upcoming trip to Tokyo at the end of February. They want to plan and book some activities, such as a tea ceremony, and a day trip to Mount Fuji. We went through a bunch of options and found some online activities to book. So that’s more organised now. We also discussed our other trip, to Auckland in New Zealand, which is just a few weeks later. For that one we need to book a hire car, as we’ll be doing some driving, up to the Bay of Islands.

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Seeking tea ceremonies

We had a rude awakening this morning, when Scully threw up on the bed, around 6:30. Normally my wife gets up about then but I sleep in a bit – but today I had to leap out of bed and deal with Scully being sick, and strip off the bed linen and get it in the washing machine. Scully seems okay though, she recovered quickly and ate her breakfast with gusto.

I had two ethics classes in the morning, then went for a walk to pick up Scully from my wife’s work (as she’d taken her with her after breakfast). I worked on some more Darths & Droids stuff again, trying to get ahead and start thinking about the start of Episode IX, which is coming up very soon.

I also spent some time searching for a traditional tea ceremony experience that we can book for Tokyo. My wife’s mother and sister are travelling with us at the end of February, and neither have been to Japan before. They are keen to try some cultural experiences, and thought a tea ceremony would be good. So I searched and found a few places in Tokyo that offer this. The range is quite broad, with some offering kimono dressing as part of it, others not, some traditional tatami mat seating on the floor, others table seating. I need to confirm with everyone what they would prefer before narrowing it down.

Last night I started watching Dune Part 2 on Netflix. Since Part 1 is no longer on Netflix, I read the plot summary on Wikipedia to remind myself. I’m very glad I did, because I would have been so confused without the refresher. But with it, I think I’ve followed all the important points of the story. I’ll watch more tonight, but at close to three hours running time I think I’ll have to split it over three nights of watching.

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