The Temby’s take Japan, days 5-7.

Okay, so I am a couple of days behind. With the transfer to Tokyo, where everything is open until about 10pm at night (or later) we were getting back to the hotel way to late and tired for me to sit up and capture the day’s events. Now we’re on a train back up to Nagano on our way to Hakuba and I have plenty of time to fill you in.

So, Day 5:

We packed up our skis and sent them off to wait for us in Hakuba so that we’d have a little bit less to lug around Tokyo and fit into our hotel room, then packed everything else, took a coupe of photos and jumped on the bus to get back to Nagano.

We were sitting happily on the bus when Sam casually pointed out some snow monkeys sitting on the side of the road. To say that Caroline was excited was an understatement. I felt a huge weight of guilt lift now that it would no longer mean that I had seen them and she hadn’t. The best part was that about half a kilometre on the bus stopped at the next stop, then turned around and went back past the monkeys a second time before heading down the mountain. It couldn’t have been scripted better!

We made it to Nagano with little time to spare before the train was departing for Tokyo. That meant that there was no time for lunch and that things weren’t starting out to well in the ‘eat on time’ department. It was strangely reminiscent of our last visit. We opted to stop short of Tokyo in Ueno as that enabled us to make a connection to the train to Akihabara where we’d booked the hotel. Then there was just the small matter of finding our way to the hotel. I had screen shotted a couple of photos before we’d left to give some clue and fortunately we’d only walked about half a kilometre in the wrong direction before Caroline prompted me to double check that we were following the right train line. I was only ninety degrees out. D’oh. Course corrected, we found the Super Hotel which turned out to be a quite tall, narrow building that was clearly optimising its small space. Tight confines meant for flexible sleeping sleeping arrangements and after only a minor meltdown from the princess, Thomas ended up sleeping in the single bunk that was above our bed, while Emily did the same in the room that Michael and Sam were in. As per usual, Sam elected for sleeping on the floor rather than share with his brother. 

We pretty much dumped the luggage and ran, with food the first order of business. The very first place that we came across appealed to Michael because he saw a picture of Gyoza. We stopped and had a small gyoza feast which sated everyone enough that we thought we’d get through to dinner.

We went for a stroll around Akihabara (Electric Town) and visited a couple of shops, checking out the electronics, models advertisements for maid cafes and the other eclectic offerings of the area before deciding it was time for dinner.

Oh and if you're thinking of collecting some storm troopers, here's a collection that would make a good start: 

The one at the front would have been almost up to my, chest.

The 8th floor of the Yodabashi building is a collection of restaurants and for convenience we decided to eat there. We managed a full circuit before trying a couple of places. Unfortunately a group of six seemed to present a seating challenge at the first couple of options and we ended up at a pizza place. 

There were some interesting offerings. Nothing too over the top, but just different enough to get you to read the menu twice. Sam opted for the one with the ‘salted rape blossom’ (still don’t know what it was other than salty) 

and Thomas opted for the pizza topped with french fries. Emily, not a fan of pizza at the best of times went for the plate of french fries. Given this first picture is of the pizza topped with french fries;

you can imagine Emily’s disappointment, when this showed up as the plate of french fries:

I went for some pizza that had won some competition or other and while it wasn’t offensive, it wasn’t really anything to write home about either. Caroline had a seafood pasta which she enjoyed. 

We retired back to the hotel where they had a selection of pillows on offer, though not quite enough of the particular types to satisfy all of us. We made do though as the only pillow in the room itself was as long ‘body pillow’ that felt like it was filled with small slightly crushable plastic beads. It was like a slightly mouldable concrete log.

Another quirk of the hotel was that it had an onsen, though only one. That meant separate times for Women and Men to bathe. Women had from 0630-930 and then another session that ended at 2050. Men had from 2100 until -0620. When you leave the hotel earlyish and get back late, that wasn’t quite suiting Caroline’s desired bathing times!

We did have an ensuite … it was a fixed until much like the one in the hotel that we first stayed in. A tiny bath, sink and toilet. Functional and space-saving!

Day 6

We awoke having experienced differing levels of sleep, most bordering or failing to meet the acceptable level and after breakfast headed for the first stop of the day. A cat café. We’d seen it the night before and agreed to go back. On the fifth (or there about) floor of the building there was a café full of cats. Caroline, Michael and Emily opted to go in and play wit the cats and have a drink, while Sam, Thomas and I chose to wander around Akihabara a little more. 

The cat café looked impressive from the outside, with a network of suspended platforms for the cats to climb all over and lots of toys to play with. Caroline tells me that there were somewhere in the order of a dozen cats in there and all three participants had a good time. 

The rest of us explored a tower devoted to anime, from posters and figurines to videos and costumes. 

We linked up again after that experience and headed off to the tourist hotspot that is the Sky Tree. 634m high, its 300m taller than the Eiffel tower. There’s two observation decks, one at 35o metres and another at 450 metres (which costs an extra $10 to get to). We opted to be tight arses and only went to the first platform. Sam opted to stay with his feet on the ground. Emily, who keeps telling us she is afraid of heights decided to come up, but wasn’t so keen on more than a cursory glance out the window and was adamantly disinterested in the glass floor section. Possibly the most impressive part of the experience was the elevator ride. 350 metres in about 50 seconds and you could barely tell that you were moving! Probably worth the 40 minute wait to get a ticket and get up there!

Endless Tokyo from the Sky Tree

One of the things that we were going to be forced to do again was go to a Pokemon Centre. I happened to google and find out that there was within minutes of the skytower and so we were forced into a deviation. Fortunately it didn’t take tooooo long. Long enough to be bored, not so long that I felt the need to drag anyone out by the ears.

We had also browsed our way through a TV themed shop where you could buy all sorts of things linked to your favourite Japanese TV show. You could even buy toilet paper so that you could wipe your butt on your (least?) favourite character!

Having seen one tourist spot, Caroline had us headed for Shibuya, a shopping and night-life district. It was also about half way across Tokyo from the Sky Tree but added to our subterranean exploration of the city by subway. 

Shibuya is home to what I think of as ‘that intersection’. I remember being a little disappointed when I was here last time that we didn’t come across it. From all the lights I had thought that it was perhaps located in Akihabara, but not so. The instant I emerged from the subway I knew where I was and crossing the intersection lived up to everything that I could imagine. Its like 3 armies of foot soldiers all facing off and deciding to charge at the same moment. We were looking for dinner though so didn’t hang around to appreciate it too much. 

What happens when the crossing lights go green!

We opted for local fare, heading into a dark little basement restaurant where something like a Korean BBQ you could choose to cook your food at the table (though in a wok-like bowl, rather than on a BBQ like Korean or teppanyaki. Caroline, Thomas and I opted for that while Emily went for the safety of beef fillet as did Michael. Though he mixed it up with meatballs that were more like a skewered sausage than a ball and were apparently made from beef tongue. In fact at first glance through the menu you could be forgiven for thinking that all the meat on it was tongue as it certainly dominated. Sam was brave enough to order the beef tongue stew which he enjoyed when it arrived. All in all, it was another successful dinner; such a contrast to our last trip here!

After dinner, we decided to take advantage of the Starbucks that over-looked ‘that intersection.’ After lining up for hot chocolate and coffee, we managed to work our way into some seats, because surprisingly we weren’t the first ones to have the idea of checking out the intersection from that vantage point! Hard to believe, but true! By the time that we managed to get there most of the shops had closed and so the foot-traffic was much reduced. A little disappointing, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles. 

Day 7

The day dawned with a list of things that we wanted to accomplish; a mixture of culture and capitalism. I took the time over breakfast to work out which subway stops were nearest each attraction and planned as much of a circuitous route as I could to minimise travel time.First stop was to be the Imperial Palace (the East Gardens to be precise). We mobilised everyone and headed out the door. We even found the right stop without too many hassles. The moat and wall of the palace provide an instant first impression, but it was when we got to the gate that everyone’s jaws dropped. Most of the photos that I took are yet to make it to an internet friendly medium, but I snapped a couple with the phone just to include them here.

The gardens were lovely and would be even more impressive through spring. There were a few blossoms on the tree and they gave just a taste of how it must look in full bloom. I was pleasantly surprised that there were any there for us to see at all. We took a nice leisurely walk through before we headed off to the next part of our day’s adventure. 

Next on the agenda was to find a shop where Emily had bought clothes two years previously that she fell in love with. That had been in Kyoto, but google told me that one of the stores was nearby to where we were the previous night in Shibuya. Back to the subway we went. When we arrived I google mapped our way and found that it was going to be a twenty minute walk. Needless to say not everyone was impressed with the thought of walking for twenty minutes to find a girls’ clothes store. It wasn’t helped by the fact that I’d manage to leave my carefully marked up subway map back in the hotel during a brief stop after the palace. Things got so much better when we walked around for another twenty minutes trying find the shop. In the end we had to concede defeat and assume that they had moved somewhere else.

We had been going to take in the Meiji shrine which wasn’t far from there, but with the time lost in trying to find the clothes store, we gave that up as lost as well. Instead we headed off for a second round of bloody Pokemon because the boys (well, Michael and Sam insisted) convinced us that there were things that they could get at the Mega Centre that would surely send me screaming to the depths of hell they couldn’t get anywhere else. 

That took us to dinner time. We were once again in a shopping metropolis. I was discussing with Emily the fact that I was surprised that we’d walked past so many shops selling cute clothes when I’d been prepared to buy her some just because we hadn’t been able to find the store that she remembered so fondly from two years previous. A light bulb went on and her eyes lit up as she said, “I didn’t know you were prepared to buy me some!” Suddenly the head was on a swivel left and right and we ended up in a shop within about 30 seconds. A couple of skirts and tops later and it really was time for dinner. We found a Chinese place (just to keep rounding out our ‘other cultures in japan’ dining experiences) and it was a winner. We were lucky to squeeze six of us in and everyone left having enjoyed the food immensely (much of it being about 5 variations of fried chicken). 

A stroll through some shoe shops (where they mostly didn’t have our sizes) took us back to the train and eventually the hotel via one small detour for crepes. 

And that my friends sums up the last 3 days of our adventures. Whew! The train is just about to pull into Nagano for us to head to Hakuba and because I’m Shinkasening the right way, this Asahi is just about done as well. More soon

The Temby’s Take Japan (again) – Day 4

There was a slight rum and sake induced delay to the production of Day 4, so here it is. And yes, you can expect similar delays or greater now that we're in Tokyo for a couple of days with less likelihood of being back in the hotel so early.

After the perfect weather of the previous day, it dawned looking overcast and snowy again today. We made sure that we ate breakfast early so that we would be able to hit the slopes as quickly as possible, without any missions like seeking out lonely ATMs hanging over our heads. 

Emily decided that she wasn’t skiing as she seems to be the most recent member of the family to have been struck down by the rolling plague that we brought with us. She didn’t seem all that sick, but it was always going to be more fun skiing without someone complaining about it all day. She thought she might ski in the afternoon, so we arranged to go back to the hotel at lunchtime to see how she was faring. 

There was plenty of powder left over from the dumping of the previous days, though where it hadn’t been groomed on the runs it was mostly chopped up. That didn’t stop the exploration between runs to find some, especially at Ichinose Family which worked well for our combination – Sam made himself some small jumps, the runs weren’t too demanding on Caroline’s knees and there were plenty of ski schools all over the place for the odd game of ski school slalom.

With a few jumps and adventures between the trees, the crash stats went up a little today. Thomas decided to have a yard sale and Carolie and I both managed at times to bury ourselves in powder. Getting out is such fun. The kids don’t seem to understand how much harder it is for us to extricate ourselves from it than them. No respect for their elders I have to say.

Michael hit the slopes armed with a series of phrases aimed to impress or please the local girls in the ski school, while I went out armed with one or two to embarrass him. All that was then required was the opportunity to use them. Despite the great pleasure I would have taken in embarrassing him, I chose not to use my phrase. After all, I’m not sure how it would have been taken and no-one wants to go to jail! Michael confessed at the end of the day that he had told one girl she was cute, but that he’d done so as he’d skied off at the end of the lift so that there was no time for him to see a reaction or for her to respond in any way.

Michael’s other effort to be remembered on the slopes came from a penchant for finding groups of kids in ski lessons sitting on the mountain. He took great delight in carving a turn above them such that they’d be covered by the snow that it would throw up. By the time the could would clear he’d be well down the mountain and disappearing into the distance. There was some discussion about how often we’d have to keep changing ski runs so that he didn’t get identified and thrown off the side, but fortunately he didn’t continue for too long and we just enjoyed the skiing.

Off the slopes, Sam has continued to play his Yen game, which basically consists of checking every vending machine you find for unclaimed change. Its not exactly a salary replacing game, but hey, it keeps him happy!

We were split between two different hotel rooms for this portion of our stay. Caroline and I had a western room with beds and an added on en-suite. Well, when I say added on, it was really added in. It was a self-contained little unit that sat within the original hotel room. The bath looked just big enough that if I’d wrapped my knees back behind my ears I could have sat down in it. Fortunately the onsen provided much more space for stretching the legs. You just have to be sure to observe the onsen etiquette, or as advertised around the hotel, the onsen manners. Most of it is straight forward but the one at the bottom of the middle row took a few moments to make sense of as it seemed to be advocating something that I would have thought outside good manners.

For dinner we actually managed to find somewhere new to eat that hadn’t been open the last two nights that we’d walked past. They sold Oden and Bandit Fried Chicken. Well who couldn’t resist a bit of bandit fried chicken after two nights in a row of curry? Caroline was brave enough to try a bit of the Oden which was a bowl of either self-selected or randonly chef-selected different bits and pieces. She went for the recommended favourite – radish and something else that eludes the memory. All I can tell you is that the bandit fried chicken was a winner.

The walk home even saw us treated to a couple of light pillars. It was a cold but lovely night for the trek back to the hotel, even if my icicle collecting did embarass someone a little bit.

Tomorrow sees us head off to Tokyo for the weekend to give the ski-legs a break before we head off to Hakuba for a bit more fun in the white stuff.

The Temby’s Take Japan (again) – Day 3

After a pounding of snow, today was forecast for clear skies and sun. It lived up to everything we could have expected. The day dawned clear and bright with the view from the hotel room window just begging for us to get out amongst it. 

Breakfast was required first and Emily presented me with her first surprise of the day. After years of eating almost exclusively chicken nuggets whenever we’ve dined out, when presented with the chance to have them for breakfast, she chose instead to have a bowl of plain rice!

The first mission of the day though was to hunt down that singular ATM that I mentioned yesterday to ensure that we had enough money to get us through to the next leg of our adventure. After all, when the best source of beer is a vending machine, cash is essential.

Without knowing exactly what we were in for, Caroline opted to stay in the hotel for the morning to preserve the knee and Emily opted to stay with her to keep her company (it couldn’t have anything to dow with a couple of hours of internet access!)

So Michael, Sam, Thomas and I set off to see what we could manage. After all, we’d been promised that it was easy. Just up over that mountain and around a bit and you’ll be there. We headed up the first lift and were presented with the sight of deep powdered runs with almost no tracks through them. It was too good an opportunity to pass up and so we skied straight back down. I for one was trying to work out what the hell I was doing, especially since it was deep enough at one point that my shallow angle of attack brought me to a complete stop! It was conditions that I hadn’t experienced before. 

With that out the way we set about the serious business of finding a cash machine. We were skiing down an access track and Thomas had stopped at a corner. I came in after him and looked up at the fence to find about thirty monkeys sunning themselves on top of the fence. I asked Thomas if he had noticed anything and he looked around in complete surprise. Sam came in next but Michael had skipped the corner to go through some powder and completely missed it. It was a bittersweet discovery. When we came here two years ago, one of the key things on Caroline’s list of things she wanted to do was see the snow monkeys. We were warned at the time that it was over-priced and over-rated and opted not to go see them. We’ve seen the signs all around the hotel warning us about them but hadn’t seen any. I really didn’t expect to. So I was utterly torn between being fortunate enough to see them and disappointment on behalf of Caroline who wasn’t there to witness it, especially as we were within about five metres of them.

Putting that little discovery behind us, we continued the epic adventure that was ‘find the ATM.’ We made it as far as the hotel that we’d stayed in last time we were over here and I asked where it was. He pointed me to a building all of twenty metres away and I happily ran up the slope in my ski boots, amazed that it had actually been as easy as promised. I was wrong. It turned out he had pointed me to a post box, rather than an post office, which was where the ATM was said to be. Fortunately it was right next to the information booth and the kind lady there gave me a photocopied map. Sadly the map was hand written, entirely in Japanese and vague enough to leave me with some concerns. We made it to a point where we were left with a choice of taking a road, a road or a road and nowhere that we could ski (only after I had something of a lame stack into a snow bank as I tried to control my speed down a narrow walking path).

Once again I sought assistance. After finding a completely empty hotel, restaurant and ski school, someone pulled up in a van and we managed to communicate just enough to be told that the post office was a mere ten minute walk down the road ‘in that direction.’ Of course that news the kids were happy to abandon me to the walk and baby-sit my skis. 

Happily, not only did I find the ATM and manage to get cash out of it, but the walk turned out to only be about  four minutes.

That meant the boys had all of about eight minutes to entertain themselves. So why wouldn’t you bury one of them in snow?

We only took one wrong lift on the way back and being the very first one it wasn’t too much of an ordeal. In fact it was just enough to see a gaggle of giggling school girls get all excited about the Australian boys on the slope. I think it may have been the impetus for Michael to start exploring the Japanese language a little. Tomorrow may well turn out to be ‘flirt around the mountain day’.

We finally made it back to our hotel in time for lunch (and won’t mention that brief moment where we lost Sam on the mountain) and picked up Caroline and Emily. Then it was time to hit the slopes again. We spent the afternoon skiing and only split up for a bit to enable Thomas to ski the old olympic men’s downhill course as last time we were here he’d taken Emily on a green-run detour. 

Something happened in the time that we were gone though. We joined Caroline, Sam and Emily in an area where there was a bit of fun for everyone, from skiing in the powder around the trees, to finding small jumps or just blazing down the mountain as fast as you could. I announced to Emily that I was going to follow her down the run on one of the passes and she took off in glee. And when I say she took off, she went like a rabbit before a fox. This was the little girl that didn’t like to go too fast and didn’t like anything too steep. To be honest I actually struggled to keep up with her. Looks like I am relegated another step down the family pecking order! Someone turned my little girl into a speed demon.

She didn’t always go fast though. At one point we were waiting for her at the bottom of the run wondering what was taking her so long. We started to wonder if she’d had a crash when we spotted her making her way along a line of ski-school kids, pulling them to the feet one after another! The number that fell over again almost immediately was rather amusing.

And then there was dinner. We set off to find somewhere to eat. We walked further than we did last night, because surely there had to be more than one restaurant open that we could eat at? Well apparently not. So once again, curry it was. Sadly, given the lack of anything else that we’ve seen, its highly likely that we’ll be back there again tomorrow night!

The Temby’s Take Japan (again) – Day 2

Today was all about the snow. It was snowing went we went to bed last night and still snowing when we woke up this morning. As keen as we were to get amongst it, there were a couple of minor details to sort out before we did so. Like overcoming the lack of large-footed boots in the rather small rental shop associated with our hotel. Apparently its unusual for three teenage boys to show up with feet the size of ours (and we’re only talking size 11’s here, nothing particularly ginormous). We managed to hire one pair from a second shop and went in search of a third, but ended up having to hire ‘performance’ equipment for Michael in order to kit them all out. Clearly the bigger hotels are set up to cater to the swarms of Japanese in ski schools rather than the tourists.

The other thing that doesn’t seem to be set up to accommodate tourists is the access for money. We managed to find someone that spoke enough English to ask at one point today to be told that there is in fact an ATM along the string of the mountains. It’s a the post office. Yep, there’s probably a hundred different hotels and plenty of places to eat (well, possibly. More on that later) but there’s only one ATM. That would be fine if more businesses accepted a credit card, but it seems skiing in Japan is still very much a cash based business. That wouldn’t be the end of the world if it was remotely accessible. Unfortunately the volume of snow that we’ve been seeing was enough that it stymied our attempts to get more cash. The run that we needed to take from the top of the mountain was closed and even the bus that could have run us there wasn’t running. We’ll scrape by, but its certainly frustrating. 

As to the skiing, challenging probably best describes the day. Foggy, snow coming in horizontally at times and deep powder drifts (yeah how horrible) all made for interesting times. By the time that we’d sorted equipment and passes we hit the slopes quite late in the morning, but given that there were only two short lifts operating at the time, we probably hadn’t missed much. 

Thomas getting amongst the powder

Michael as I most often see him when skiing ... leaving me behind

I had my first stack for the trip. The kids had discovered their first ‘jump’ spot and I was lining it up. I was possibly too concerned about that and not paying enough attention to where I was actually skiing and caught an edge and came unstuck. The best thing about stacking in powder of course is that its like landing in a pile of feathers. Thomas claims to have had a stack during the day, but if your dad didn’t see it, did you really stack? Emily had the least challenging stacks of the day, somehow managing to fall over three times and not once while actually skiing! Apparently standing up is enough of a challenge at times. Michael won the prize for best attempt to lose one’s skis when he came undone in some deep powder. It was bad enough that three of us stopped to search around, digging between knee and waist deep in the snow that had buried both skis somewhere. Caroline too had one stack, so I think perhaps Sam is the only one to have escaped unscathed after the first day.

Best caused crash of the day came when the kids, whilst waiting for us to catch up to them at one point, managed to block most of a small path that we were traversing. Apparently someone came in quite fast and in their efforts to get around them, buried themselves deep in a snow drift. It took three of us to help dig him out and get him back on his feet! I’m sure he went of cursing the bloody foreigners invading his slopes.

In the food stakes, we had a win today. Lunch was taken on time and everyone enjoyed their meal and my allowance for non-japanese dining certainly worked in our favour when we walked to the next block of hotels for dinner and ended up eating Indian. It turns out that we were lucky that we’d done so as we ran into some other Australians who had explored the other options and found that the one we were at was the only one open! Chalk that up as a win!

Every dinner should be accompanied by a Violet Fizz .. according to michael at least.

In terms of off-slope action today there were a few memorable moments. We’ve enjoyed the signs around the hotel warning us not to leave windows unlocked or doors open for fear of the monkeys that apparently like to come in and play havoc with your room. Tempting though it is to try it out, we’ve resisted. Of course the way we set up in a hotel room, I’m not quite sure if we’d be able to tell the difference between before and after their visit.

Caroline provided us with some giggles whilst alone in the en-suite. She’d engaged the ‘water jet up the bum’ button and burst out into a fit of giggles. Emily was mortified when this resulted in a conversation whether one should clench or not while engaging the water jet. 

During our lunch break from skiing the kids picked up one of their favourite past-times – who can find the biggest lump of snow;which is almost as good as ‘can I land it on a sibling? On the way to dinner Michael came up with a new game that he likes to call “Snow drift or car?” We were discussing the ATM situation when someone suggested that snow drift or ATM might be a winner other than for the fact that there wasn’t enough ATMs to really make the game fun. That progressed to suggestions that tomorrow a game of snow drift or Emily might get some giggles. Well, for some of us at least. Something tells me that that game isn’t going to happen. The chance of snow drift or Thomas is slightly higher given his propensity for throwing himself at drifts on the side of the road and hoping that he sticks.

There's actually a van in this photo! 

The final way the young-uns managed to pass the time was by seeing who could get the biggest icicle from the eve of a roof, something we had to put a stop to before they started chasing something that was likely to impale them. 

Emily ready for a game of softball

The ice queen!

All in all it’s been a good day. The mountain was a hive of grooming activity as we returned from dinner and we’re looking forward to clearer skies and improved visibility tomorrow!

The Temby’s Take Japan (again) – Day 1

In celebration of Sam finishing school and frankly because I wanted to ski again, we’ve set off on another adventure to Japan. 

As always, planning a grand adventure with four kids in tow has its own challenges, but having one of your kids struck down by a virus a week before you leave isn’t one that you need added to the list. Michael spent the early hours of Tuesday at Noarlunga hospital getting checked over. He was on the road to recovery (though voiceless) by the time that we left. Of course the challenge with something like that is wondering how long its going to be before the rest of the family is potentially infected. Thomas woke up Saturday morning and said, “Can you check my temperature, I think I’m getting sick.” With genuine care and concern I passed it off as nothing to worry about and told him he wasn’t allowed to go to the doctor because I wasn’t risking a no fly result. I really do care. He’s slowly improving and soldiering on, though now Sam seems to be having a turn.  Mind you, given we were stuck on a flying incubator of re-cycled germ warfare for 10 hours, there’s always a risk that someone is going to infect you with something anyway. Hopefully everyone else survived our little contribution!

We even survived such little bumps as Michael advising us that he didn’t have any ski-pants the day before we were due to leave! This despite me trying to get everyone organised two weeks early.

Armed with improved knowledge from our first trip, the first thing that we changed this time around was the time allocated to the stop-over in Melbourne on our way out of the country. The first time we were quite rushed through the First Class Lounge and lamented that we didn’t have sufficient time to fully appreciate its splendour. 

This time we booked a 5 hour stop-over. Excessive? Probably. Regrets? Not one. I did momentarily start to think I’d over done it when we were trying to get through customs and were told that they hadn’t opened our flight yet and so we wouldn’t be able to go through. Fortunately they took the opportunity to open it for us at that time and we were only delayed by the time that it took for us to walk from one end of the customs area to the next. 

I’d been a tiny bit worried about how strictly they’d apply the access rules to the lounge given that we travel in a large pack and when the guy at the desk asked how many platinum members there were, I cringed a bit and answered only one, preparing to send two kids off on their own. I can’t be sure if it was the time of day or not, but the guy was nice enough to let us all through and we were close to the only people in there for the first hour or so. So we proceeded to indulge, knowing that we were facing a ten hour Jetstar flight.

When the closed the first class lounge we wandered down to the business class lounge where the girl on the desk did make mention of the fact that I was pushing the boundaries, but given how late it was and how little time we’d be in there for, we were once again allowed in. That was the end of our privileges for the night as we sucked up the fact that we were flying on reward points and therefore had to deal with life’s little first world struggles.

I don’t generally rate Jetstar. Maybe I’m a travel snob, or maybe I just resent the model of having to pay a little bit extra for anything that you can possibly think of (regardless of the carrier). It could even relate to how sore I was after getting off the flight to Bali last year. Regardless, it’s not that there’s anything significantly wrong with the service, I just prefer things differently, like being able to book us all on a single booking rather than having to split us over two. Because when that happens, they do weird things to you like give you seats on the opposite side of the plane to one another. Which is fine if there’s just an aisle down the middle, but moderately annoying when there’s two aisles and another three seats between you!

The main thing is that we arrived safely, though tired, with no-one sleeping particularly well on the plane (given some of the places I’ve slept in my life it frustrates me no end when I can’t have a decent kip on a plane).

We gathered our baggage, passed through the airport and collected train tickets with a minimum of fuss, mostly thanks to Caroline’s pre-trip organisational skills. We took out some cash and needed to break the denominations a bit, so it was straight to the kiosk and vending machines for a random drink and a snack.

The further north-west we headed, the more signs there were that it was winter. Our connections all proved to be very tight, but we managed not to miss any of them. The result of this was that while man-handling all the luggage we skipped two important elements of our planned activities. One, we didn’t get a chance to get any clothes out of our luggage and secondly, there was no time to grab any food for lunch.

The scenery became whiter the further we went. The skies were clear and it was quite simply stunning. There’d clearly been a large dump of fresh snow, because it was pristinely white and even the trees all held decent amounts on their bare branches. It was quite spectacular, especially as we headed into the mountains. 

By the time we arrived it was snowing quite heavily which meant that Sam, in his shorts, and me, in a t-shirt drew some rather funny looks from a few of the locals that were watching us. 

Apparentely there's been about a metre and a half of snow over the last 2 days!

We dashed into the shelter of the nearest hotel and used their lobby to equip ourselves a little better for the walk through the snow drifts to our own establishment. 

Food was another story. I made a commitment this trip that I wouldn’t be quite the same “it’s got to be Japanese food” bastard that I was last time around and that we would actively stop what we were doing to ensure that we actually ate at reasonable hours. Given we arrived around 4pm and hadn’t eaten anything substantial since the night before, things weren’t quite up to plan on that account. We started to set off in search of food, but it was still snowing, the wind was whipping it into our faces and to be honest, we walked in the wrong direction. So we abandoned that idea and decided to have dinner at the hotel.

It turned out to be a set menu, something else of a no-no based on the kids’ experiences from two years ago. Given the choice of the Pork, Chicken of beef fillet meal, we each made a choice only to be told that Pork was actually the only choice. 

It was a nicely presented meal (though I did question the bit where they gave Emily some saki (She didn’t drink it)) but not all the flavours were up our alley. I think its safe to say that the chances of anyone ordering Soba for the rest of the trip are remote. Really really remote. It won’t happen.

We survived though and finished the night off with some games before  Caroline and Emily (at Emily’s insistence no less) headed off to the onsen. Talk about a urn around. Two years ago, it was midnight bathing and dodging the remote chance that someone else might be in there and this time she’s the one insisting on it! There’s hope for her yet.

Another aspect we prepared for this time around was our dependence on electronics for various enternainment, memory capture and well ... to avoid (or cause) war within the family. Charging the myriad devices that acoompany us is a challenge, so we brought a couple of power boards along with our adaptors. The only  problem was that the adaptors weren't quite right. After 24 hours of travel, things were getting desperate. it turned out there was a USB port on the TV that would trickle a feed to one device at a time, but frankly that wasn't going to cut it. Fortunatel some very amatreur electrrical modifications to one of the adapators provided the relief required and everyone will be sleeping easier. Another first world problem averted. 

That’s more than enough for day 1. Further updates will of course depend on how much blog-worthy material and time the family provides me with.

2016

2016

Given the lack of updates over the course of the year and the simple fact that I am on holidays and its raining, I thought I’d take a moment to put together a quick summary of our year. (though I didn’t get too far with it and am finishing it off in January!)

Waaay back in January, our year started with the excitement of a trip to Bali with the Rowlands. It was the 20th wedding anniversary and Jason planned a beach side re-commitment ceremony to surprise Bel. We were lucky enough to tag along. We had an awesome time and the fact that it wasn’t documented in my blog probably comes down to two things: How busy we were and the fact that I managed to spend at least part of the holiday turning myself inside out and couldn’t be bothered sitting down to write. 

The kids had a great time. We went white water rafting, rode bikes down the mountain, saw the monkeys, temples, snorkelled and even ate and drank a bit along the way. Michael took full advantage of the resort’s swim up bar and took on the role of drinking buddy for Bel, going cocktail for cocktail all thanks to my generosity!

The only thing that took the edge off the holiday was spending a couple of days turning my insides into my outsides. That and Cam deciding to get sick to the point of having to go to hospital on the last day and nearly missing the flight home. Alls well that ends well though.

February saw us return to work with no sign of holiday relief on the horizon. So knuckle down it was. 

We all had a good year and the biggest challenge that we collectively faced was probably adjusting to Caroline working full time at the same time that I spent much of the year travelling for work. 

Emily decided to follow in Sam’s footsteps somewhat. With Sam playing what seemed to be almost every sport that was offered, he usually had to be at school either early or late. As he was able to drive, Emily opted to go with him rather than get up almost as early to catch a bus that would get her there just in time for school. So instead she opted for getting involved in more sport herself. She did well at school for the year and all the extra curricular activities earned her her Mercedes Gold colours at the end of the year, something that not a lot of people manage to achieve. She also started playing softball with Sturt Falcons toward the end of the year just so that we don’t get to spend our Saturday afternoons relaxing (not the real reason, but certainly one of the consequences). So far it’s been good with mostly positive results, though she’s going to miss the start of the second half of the season due to other holiday commitments.

Thomas spent the year at a new school, having decided that he’d like to try a different path. He was accepted into the Australian Science and Maths School late in 2015 and so this year has been enjoying a completely different approach to learning. He has certainly revelled in the fact that there isn’t a uniform to wear. His results were pleasing and hopefully have set him up for his next 2 big years as he takes on years 11 and 12. Sport wise, having committed to a school where sport seems to be something of a distraction rather than any sort of priority, he opted to go back to playing club soccer. He went out to Adelaide University and played in their U16 side. The results were challenging, but from a personal perspective it was pleasing to see him improve significantly throughout the season. 

In addition to playing, Thomas continued with his refereeing and spent a lot of his Saturday afternoons assisting at U18 and Premier League reserves games. He enjoyed it enough that he’s planning on only refereeing in 2017 which will no doubt result in us transporting him all over the place (though much of that work load was taken up by Sam.). One more year to go of that as he managed to get his learner’s permit and by the end of 2017 should be onto his P plates. Scary stuff indeed

Sam had a big year with it being his last year of school. He approached it in typical Sam fashion: Organised, dedicated and self-driven. Given some of the horror stories that you hear from some people about how much stress there is around the family when someone is going through year 12, I can only think that we were very blessed indeed. As noted previously, he took on a lot more than just the final hear of IB. He went through the year with a significant sports commitment as well. He did give up his job at KFC so that he could focus on his studies, but other than that, there were few concessions, just a whole of lot of effort. And given that I’m finishing this off in January, I can happily report that the results are in and he has done very well. Sam also turned 18 late in the year, so you can read more about him in the post that I put up for that occasion. 

Michael has spent the year at Uni working towards his double degree (at least when he’s not sleeping or playing a computer game) The biggest change for him was probably taking up hockey. After being prodded and poked to do something physical so that he’d be at least a little bit active he came home from orientation week to announce that he was going to play, much to his mother’s delight. It added another fixture to our winter weekends and we managed to get out to a number of his games. He certainly improved a lot over the course of the season and appeared to enjoy it as well. He’s continued to be employed at Donut King for the year which has resulted in us consuming more donuts than one family really should eat, but I suspect that he’ll be looking for a change sometime soon if for no other reason than the opportunity to earn more money than one shift a week brings in.

Caroline’s biggest challenge for the year was her knees. Having had an arthroscopy during the year before she was torn as to how much involvement she should have in hockey. In the end she opted to coach and play for Uni’s Div 5 team, dropping down in the hope that the demands to run wouldn’t be quite the same and that it might preserve the knee. Sadly it seems that it didn’t pay off quite as much as she hoped and it may prove to be the last year of her career (though there’s talk of filling in occasionally in 2017 just to stay involved). 

Work wise Caroline was made permanent during the year and then later took on a step-up role replacing someone on maternity leave. She continues to enjoy what she’s doing which is always positive. About the only change that she’d really like to make in the work scene is to cut a couple of hours back to see a bit more done around the home front, especially with me travelling as much as I have been.

As for me, it could be said that 2016 was the year that I ran. I decided that if I was going to be away from home I was going to keep fit rather than sit in hotel rooms eating and drinking. I think I’ve resolved not to assault everyone with my running on Facebook this year, I’ll just leave it on Strava for those that are interested 

I decided at the end of the previous soccer season that I’d enjoyed things enough that with the team dropping back to division 3 I’d have another tilt in the reserves. After all, I fully expected that we’d take out the Reserves title and that proved to be true. We even had another run deep into the cup competition, falling in the semi-finals to the eventual winner. I was even asked to play first team a couple of times and only missed being best and fairest by one vote. Not bad for an old fart and so 2017 will see me fronting up again. 

Work has been challenging, but seems to be headed in mostly the right direction. It certainly beats being unemployed and I’ve appreciated having the full 12 months behind me 

That’s about it for us over the last year. We managed most of our traditional camping trips as well, Easter and Port Hughes and October in Mannum and will look forward to them again in 2017. Hopefully the year behind was kind to you and 2017 brings you good things as well. 

Eighteen

Its that time of year when things tend toward the chaotic (which is why I am now finishing this several weeks after I started writing it). That's never more the case than when one of the kids is graduating. Add an eighteenth birthday into the mix and well chaos is very much the state of things. 

So Sam has turned 18. With final exams looming it was something of a quiet affair with just the family. Sam hasn't decided that its worth starting drinking at this point in his life, so much so that several days after his birthday he said, "Do you know that no-one offered me a drink on my birthday?" I in return asked whether he would have had one. His response was, "No, I just thought it was interesting." I had sent him off to buy champagne for the sole purpose of making him have to show his ID once on his birthday just as an acknowledgment that there was some right of passage.

It was only a week or so after his birthday that we were at school for his graduation assembly. Being the second time around for us after Michael went through it two years ago, we knew that we were in for something of an emotional ride. That proved to be very true as we swelled with pride and saw Sam's achievements celebrated along with those of his cohort. Having engaged in a plethora of sporting activities (if for no other reason than to avoid wearing formal uniform almost every day), he was recognised for service to a couple of sports and showed off his well-balanced approach to life with a couple of academic awards for topping subjects as well. The icing on the cake was when he was presented with one of the 6 mercy awards for his year. Not a bad effort at all and thoroughly deserved. 

Following on from that we went through the last of the current formalities - Graduation Ball. In a  reflection of Sam's life philosophy - (live it in shorts) the pants that came with the suit we bought him officially became the only pair of pants he owns that extend past the knee. When asked if he was excited about the ball, the response was pretty much a shrug of the shoulders and "Maybe, it shouldn't be too bad." I honestly think that Caroline, Michael and I who all went along to the event were significantly more excited about it than he was. When it came to a close at half eleven, Sam went off home with a friend as he had to get ready for 'schoolies' the next day. Caroline, Michael and I opted to party on. And to be honest, I was floored when I found out that Sam was actually going to schoolies. I was pleased that he was, but completely surprised. I half expect to hear when he returns that he spent two days camping and playing Pokemon. Somehow I think that there's a fair chance that he'll be the only one of the boys that goes through that little ritual of life without having a single alcoholic drink. I seem to remember Sam mentioning that he may have had a drink of orange juice, just to mix things up at some point.

So what is there to say about our Sam in this belated celebratory note to his eighteenth birthday? he is independent, responsible, honest and reliable. He is quite possibly the best of all aspects of us, his parents. His achievements are many and varied and he is an absolute delight to have as part of the family. One day there will be a girl that will awaken him to the other half of the species and if she's lucky enough to snare him, he will be a good catch indeed.

Exams are over and we now get to endure the wait to see how ell he's gone. Hopefully the reward matches the effort and dedication that went into his year. 

Not one to sit idly around, Sam's been busy since finishing school. He's assembled presents for teachers, from baked goods to compressed air powered marshmallow guns and has now set about the task of cleaning out our shed because somewhere along the way in the last couple of years Sam has become a clean freak. It's not a bad thing, not unless you're looking for that bill you were going to pay a couple of weeks ago and find that its already been slipped away somewhere safe so its no 'littering the counter'.

We're looking forward to seeing what comes next for Sam and in the meantime I thought I'd just bestow a couple of titles upon him for fun as a reflection of interests and achievements:

Master of Origami

Washer of dishes

Assembler of computers

Baker of cakes

Fixer of phones

Pokenut

Wearer of shorts

Declutterer extraordinaire

Happy 18th Birthday Sam and congratulations on the completion of school. You'll go far and you'll do well. Have fun along the way.

Sixteen

Sixteen. 

As with so many kid-based milestones, its hard to believe that Thomas has just turned 16. Yet another one on the road. The prankster has his learner's permit. What could there possibly be to be scared about? Maybe the fact that he's the only one of the three boys that has expressed overtly keen interest in driving the Porsche?

Thomas has had a big year these last 12 months. For a start he changed schools. In the process of looking at what measures we might have to take back when I was unemployed, schooling was one of the things that we thought might have to be sacrificed, what with it being one of our significant expenses. In considering what we might do if it came to such drastic measures Caroline unearthed the Australian Science and Maths School at Flinders University. We explored the place and Thomas decided that it presented and exciting and interesting opportunity for him. If nothing else, it presented him with the chance to escape French! So at the start of the year, after getting through the application process he embarked on his new challenge. Its been good for him. He's enjoyed it and so far, he's doing very well there. 

Thomas is the family clown, always quick with a joke and looking for the funny in life. There are times when it feels like he needs to be reminded that there is a serious side to life, but at the same time, why quash that spirit. There'll be plenty of time for serious as he goes through life and hanging onto the fun is important.

He's picked up a couple of hobbies that haven't been too hard to spot over the last 12 months. Juggling, Rubik's cubes and card tricks being the main focus. Where possible, he likes to combine the three, though that's mostly been confined to juggling the rubik's cubes and attempting to solve them whilst doing so. He hasn't mastered it to the point of being able to juggle and solve three completely mixed cubes at once, but the fact that he can even manage to rotate a targeted face of even one cube whilst juggling far exceeds any talent I ever nurtured in the area. Threats have been made of course, because the process of learning to juggle often results in the objects being juggled clattering across the floor. Less of a problem for the wannabe juggler than the other occupants of the room. The juggling seems to have gone by the wayside for now, with cards having taken more of a central role in Thomas' hobbies lately. Its generally a quieter learning process, though at times no less annoying as we're forced to sit through endless riffling of cards. It could, of course, be far worse.

Thomas picked up club soccer again this year, playing U16s for Adelaide University. It wasn't the greatest season, but he improved noticeably through the season and gave us plenty of moments in which to be proud parents. At this point he's decided to focus on refereeing next year rather than playing. Through the course of this year he generally assisted at premier league reserves and U18 games and enjoyed the experience almost as much as the money that it put in his pocket. I think he's keen to back that up next year and increase the funds coming in by being available two days a weekend instead of one. I'm sure its also driving his desire to get through the license process so that he can reach the point where he is able to get to games off his own back rather having to rely on being transported by semi-reliable family members (we only forgot him a couple of times, honest!)

I've really enjoyed Thomas' growth over the last 12 months (though perhaps not the literal growth that has relegated me to the shortest male in the house) and appreciate the fact that of everyone, he seems to enjoy my terrible humour the most.  I know he was expecting me to put something terrible on facebook on his birthday, but hey knowing he was anticipating it was enough fun without having to really embarrass him. I've written this instead. 

And I didn't even mention the girlfriend ;)

Happy 16th Birthday Thomas.

Fort McMurray

I started to write this last week as I watched, horrified and concerned at everything that was scrolling across my Facebook newsfeed. When I got to the end it was a bit of an emotional ramble, so I decided to give it another go and to give it a bit of structure. I felt compelled to write. I needed to share and what I ended up with was this:

The last couple of days have been very distracting. Its not often that the little city of Fort McMurray, (or as we and most others who have called the place home call it, Fort Mac.) makes international news. Sadly when it does it doesn't tend to be for the right reasons.

Fort Mac generally gets a bad rap. Its the heart of the oil sands industry. Dirty Oil. Drugs, crime and greed are often the things that visiting journalists are attracted to and write about (if not the reason they go there in the first place). Their not entirely wrong. There is crime in Fort Mac; there are drugs too, but possibly no more so than any other small city with a rich resource and a rapidly growing population (at least when we were there) that pushes the city's infrastructure to its limits. 

Mostly the thing that gets focussed on is the Oil Sands though. They say that its destroying the environment. They say that we shouldn't be producing oil from the bitumen-soaked tar sands. Of course they often say so after having flown to town and taking a helicopter tour. Most of those people that criticise the industry and the town at the centre of it still drive their cars though. They still happily take all the benefits that their hydrocarbon sourced lifestyle affords them. Yes, I do mean you, Leo Dicaprio with your luxury yacht holidays and private jets. I often wonder if these people realise just how many products in their day to day life wouldn't exist without an oil industry.

Does this mean that we shouldn't find alternatives? That global warming doesn't exist? That we should ignore it? Of course not. But until we find viable alternatives, we will continue to extract the resources that the earth does have and we'll use them. If anything, it should encourage investment in alternate energy. Now I can't speak for all of the companies that produce oil from the area but I can say that the client that I worked for while we lived there was heavily invested in research, development and production of alternate fuels. To me, they actually cared. They invest in the rehabilitation of the land that they mine and produce from. Was it the exact same environment which they'd started with? No. But it did sustain Bison and other wild life that had previously been almost completely hunted from the area. If we want to continue to breed and populate the world, resources are going to have to come from somewhere and at least from my experience, those companies producing from the Fort Mac area were doing so with a conscience. 

Fort Mac was our home for three years and we took a lot away from our time there. We met amazing people that have become life long friends, even if we now live on opposite sides of the world. 

Over the last the last two days (over a week now that I am finishing this off!) Fort Mac has once again made international news, though this time not because of its industry, but because of the devastating wild fires that have forced evacuation of the entire town. 80,000 people have had to flee, many of them losing their homes. We're no strangers to bush fires here in Australia. They are unpredictable, hard to control and deadly. When you're in a place like Fort Mac, surrounded by forest and not much else, controlling and beating a wild fire becomes a staggering task. Possibly the most amazing thing to date about the fire in and around Fort Mac is that there hasn't been a loss of life (that was true when I first wrote this, but I have since heard of one life lost in a traffic accident during the evacuation). 

As usually happens with a massive tragedy there have been acts of heroism and many people are pulling together to help those in need. I'm far from surprised given our experience in the community.

We found Fort Mac to be an incredibly welcoming and above all, giving community. I learnt a lot about generosity in my time in Fort Mac. Sure, we were there during a booming economic period, but even taking that into account, the money that was raised throughout the community to support local charities, the hospital and anything considered worthwhile blew my mind every time I experienced it.

People worked long, hard hours and still gave up time to volunteer and ensure that the kids of the district had opportunities to learn, play sport, travel and a host of things beside. They came from all walks of life, all corners of the world and in most cases, they brought the best of things with them.

That's not to say Fort Mac wasn't without its problems. There were drugs and homelessness and crime, but that wasn't the day to day experience of living there. Like any place, trouble wasn't hard to find if you wanted to, but it was mostly easily avoidable as well.

So its been with a heavy heart that I've watched the evolving news and the horrifying pictures that have been scrolling through my Facebook feed. Knowing that so many have lost so much in such a small community is devastating, but I also know that the community will pull through. They'll work for each other and will be supported by the enormous numbers of people that have benefitted from the wealth that the industry has generated because that spirit of giving extends through Alberta and beyond, because for all the bad press about dirty oil and and tar sands and environmental destruction, the reality is that the money that flows from the the oil sands supports untold numbers of people. People that have worked FIFO construction from the east coast, people that have managed to find a better, safer life from South Africa and the subcontinent, the Australian contingent of which we were a temporary part, to all of Alberta with their reduced tax rates compared to other parts of Canada.  

So my heart goes out to our extended Fort Mac family and everything that they are suffering through. Stay strong and we'll keep you in our prayers.