Japan & Australia & Japan

It turned out, when booking a flight to Australia, that the best deal i could get involved flying via Japan.

Arriving at Kansai, I had a few hours between flights & managed to get out of customs giving me an afternoon in Japan that I hadn't really been expecting - quite a surreal inclusion in the journey!

It wasn't worth travelling all the way into Osaka in the time I had so I trained it to a town called Kishiwada where I was told I could see a castle. Moseyed around checking out the town and port areas,

It was cherry blossom season.

They're pretty big on cutesy imagery in the pokemon, hello kitty style. Even the rubbish is cutesy.

Kishiwada Castle was really cool.

It was built in 1334 by Wada, one of Masashige Kusunoki's clan, and was the base for Nobukatsu Okabe, whose regime lasted for 13 generations until the Meiji era.

It was also known as Ibuseyama-Chikiri castle for its alleged resemblance to a chikiri, a tool used to warp wind.
The original castle was burnt down in the 1800s and a smaller version rebuilt on the same site, though i guess the moat and island structure is original.
There was a cherry blossom festival on with food stalls and lanterns and whatnot, which was cool to wander around.

Lots of people gather in the evenings to enjoy the cherry blossoms and have a meal together.

Had some amazing grilled molluscs - very tasty and tender!

I was pretty whacked after staying up during my flight redoing all the algebra from our paper so i had a few moments quiet repose by the moat before going forth on my mission to buy some beer from a vending machine, one of the hallmarks of Japan's advanced civilisation.

I couldn't find any beer vending machines, though there were plenty selling cigarettes and some selling Bubble Man!,

but thankfully the supermarket was open, so i could trundle out the few remaining skerricks of my five hard years of Nihongo studies. Wakaramishita ka? Iie. Shitsurei shimashita.

Fortunately the international language of commerce is easier to participate in.

Went for a bit more of a stroll, checked out a temple,

and zipped back to airport.

A litre of Asahi had me on the way - subsequent enthusiastically-received complimentary Kirin Ichibans on top of existing exhaustion was enough to knock me out real good for most of the flight - having three seats was very helpful - so i felt reasonably ok flying into Brissy

for extra inconvenient stopover before last leg to Sydney. I must say i was relieved to note excellent weather and I even got a bit choked up seeing the harbour bridge and opera house and so on. Into Surry Hills and straight to Boy Charlton pool for much-needed sunshine.

then to the old fave, AGNSW, for the Archibald & Wynne prize exhibition.

Emailed back to UK the fruits of my plane-flight algebra labours then Reggios pizza for dinner. A fantastic return to Sydney.

Returned to AGNSW for Self-portrait exhibition, then lunch with Mark & family & caught up with Maddy, Grant & Rebecca in Newtown in the evening.

Busy week: presentation at UNSW, Brett's birthday, mussels at bungalow 8, revisit of old dining staple - the great $5 steak, visit to MCA.

Then off to Melbourne, to see Mama, Mum and Paul for Easter. Went to Melbourne Museum,

(this is me and the commonwealth games mascot, Kaku)

Pissaro exhibition at NGV International,

HMS Cerberus

(check out this totally gross foam - boy did we have some fun rolling around in that!)

(Victorian weather less reassuringly Australian than New South Welsh)

saw cousins Kate & Molly,


NGV Australia

and the old favourite, Charmaignes Ice Cream (but only cos we'd been good little boys).

It was really good to see Mum and Mama and moderately good to see Paul (i'd seen him more recently, you see, which mitigated our respective enthusiams)

Back to Sydney for one quick day about town,

went to S.H. Ervin gallery and MCA,

and wandered around Rocks snapping away at cliched icons (below, not above, sure - we're icons but we are never cliched).

then like that my time was over. Flew back via Japan again. This time I had an overnight stay, though this was at a hotel at Kansai airport which wasn't quite as authentic and amazing as Kishiwada. Still, I managed to down a few Asahis, scored a dinner that looked a little something like this:

(compare the price with that for room service - what an outrage)

and lived out the vending machine beer dream!

Here's my obligatory mispronunciation/translation joke photo.

I had a good time in Japan and it really fired up my enthusiasm for travelling there again, next time for a fair bit longer - maybe I can tie it in with a side-trip to Itary.