Come Fly With Me, Come Fly ...

No yet. It's time to move out to the hotel and then get on the bus to Sydney. Then, if the volcanoes don't get us, we jet off to glowing Tokyo. I've checked-in and, fingers crossed, we've got the seats we prefer; last two at the back of the plane. If we're offered a free upgrade we'll take it - always do ...

Packing was a snip ... after re-packing several times my case weights a monster 15 kilos ... maybe I don't need some of the cloths ...

It always surprises me that the carry-on bag is both full and heavy ... camera and all the electrical do-dads and their chargers ... remember when travel didn't require a private nuclear plant to power all the gadgets? We've even got a toothbrush that tells you when to stop brushing and you can listen to the radio while you brush - you have to have amalgam fillings for the reception to be enough to Zumba for the prescribed two minutes. Clean teeth and tight abs all in one session ... the marvels of modern technology ... whatever next ...

Tardis Time

Most people we know have the horrors when you mention packing for a trip. Cases and cases of clothes are humped from car, to bus, to tube, to train, to aircraft, up stairs, down stairs and, finally, into My Lady's chamber.

We have a practiced procedure. If the stuff doesn't fit in a medium size case with a total weight less than 22 kilos - forget it!

We know a person (notice the carefully PC'd use of person) who insists on taking at least 10 pairs of shoes and sufficient cloths to match; "You never know if you will be invited to a wedding, bar mitzvah, funeral or some other social even". Two, or more, gigantic pieces of luggage result. These are, of course, never toted by said person and, amusingly enough, the complaints about the cost of excess baggage is one, if not the prime, feature which dominates their post-trip ramblings.

At one airport someone got to the check-in and, finding that their luggage was way over allowance, they opened their luggage and proceeded to don as much clothing as they could. The Michelin Effect was very funny, especially so when the luggage was still over weight.

Well ... we're all different ...

Tickets Please ...

Now we know where Bilton Central is located I chained my self to the computer for two hours doing a "Mix and Match" with airlines, buses, ferries and train and hotels, in order to come up with a workable set, which got us to and from Venice in September. Firstly, there don't seem to be any "cheap" air tickets only "moderately cheap" ones. Persistence rewarded effort so that I did get a set of tickets and bookings that should, everything crossed, do the job. Rhyair, National Express , Premier Inn and Alilaguna - again!

Option Three ... A Sensible Choice

After a phone call to Blighty HQ our friendly Property Manager gave us the choice of option three; S8, 2B, GFA, B, K, L/D with ORP plus CC, W&E. Who could refuse? Note there is no G, which is a blessing. Also, no worries about stray farm animals and leaking rooves or roofs ...

The snaps seem to underline the choice; so we have somewhere to rest our aged and weary heads in Sheffield.

Phew ... Somewhere To Sleep At Last

At last we have somewhere to hang our hat and spend time in England.

We were a little disappointed with some of the choices but, beggars are seldom choosers. We decided that a roof of some sort was an essential due to the possibility of rain which guided our choice to option two ... maybe option three is better even if it is a little more expensive ...

Option 2

Option 1

 

Tickets, Tickets, But No Home - As Yet

We got our JAL tickets and the Japan Rail Pass voucher by parting with a barrow load of dosh. The tickets had gone up in price due to tax increases - should have paid for them when we booked; a point to remember ...

All that remains, that is important, is to get somewhere to live while we're in England. Fingers crossed the property manager in Sheffield will come up with something soon ...

Here in the colonies, we watch the Royal Wedding; the BBC just can't be beaten when it come to grand telecasts. Say what you like, the event was a lift to the general doom-and-gloom of every day death and destruction. Some folk just seem to be niggards when it come to "royalty"; presidents cost heaps to elect and add yet another level to the insanity that passes for political hierarchy. Nuff said ...

Venice In September ... It's Becoming A Habit

We have been fortunate to book another stay in Venice at our favorite apartment for most of September. The art-fest is on this year so we'll have plenty to moan about ... again!

"No news" is said to be "good news" and we're hoping that's the case in respect of a flat in Sheffield. I suppose it's a good idea to check that the tent is still OK ...

Japan is looking OK so far as our trip is concerned ... hashi crossed ...

Sadly The Oak Has Fallen ...

Sadly, our favorite hotel in Tokyo has closed its doors. It seems that personal and financial conditions which have resulted from the earthquake and tidal wave have had a really bad impact on the people who ran the hotel. They had to let the lease go - for the time being ...

We've booked another hotel which is just around the corner http://www.travellerspoint.com/accommodation/17271-Weekly-Mansion-Higashi-Ueno/ which is a little more up-market. Fingers crossed, we will enjoy the added luxury.

It still astounds us how the Oz local react to the words: "radiation" and "nuclear", while they seem to forget about "tsunami", "earthquake", "homeless" and all that they imply to the Japanese people in the immediate area of the current disaster. Everyone thinks we are totally bonkers wanting to go this year ... we are ...

Hooked On News ...

As you'd expect there is virtually no decent reporting by the media in Oz about the events in Japan. I've been watch in http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/ which seems to give plenty of information and explanation of events.

We'll be visiting Venice again -  just love the place, so why not? At the moment we have nowhere to stay in the UK, which is the same situation as last year. Property managers don't know what properties will be available for renting until someone gives one months notice which means we won't know until the end of April at best. We dusted off the tent just in case ...

Hope Springs ... Two More Months

The Japanese have to be commended for their persistence and ingenuity. I suppose it comes from their recent history (two A-bombs and a complete flattening by our gallant lads). The death toll is expected to reach 28K and God knows how many homeless have to be housed and their lives completely restarted. It's completely beyond proper comprehension for those of us fortunate enough to have all we could want.

We're still hoping to travel as planned. All flights are reported as normal at the moment so we're getting kitted up for the excursion with the latest from D&G - that's Disposal and General.

Labours Love Lost ...

We've endured another election. This time it was for the NSW Government. Mind you, I don't want to give the impression that having the vote is not worthwhile or important. No. It's all the circus performances before the election that needs to be endured. Labour is out and a coalition of Liberal and National Party will rule the roost. We'll see what that portends ...

Eat Your Spinach

The radioactive spinach that was threatening the world turns out to be that which was grown in a research centre and was never on the market ...

"The ministry says the radioactive cesium was detected on Thursday in a leafy vegetable taken from a field in Edogawa ward on Wednesday. The vegetable is called Komatsuna, or Japanese mustard spinach. The radioactive level was 890 becquerels per kilogram, exceeding the legal limit of 500.


The vegetable was grown at a research center, and is not being sold on the market."


Still ... Don't drink the water if you are under 12 months old ...

Radiantly Healthy

We're still hoping it will be OK to go to Japan ... it's not the radiation, but more a question of hotel rooms being taken by the poor souls from the tsunami towns. Flights to/from Tokyo seem to be more-or-less normal, but shuttle services from Narita airport to the city are sometime stopped due to power saving measures.

The very poor reporting on TV and the comics (sorry, that's newspapers to the less discerning) about the radiation problems shows that a headline is much more important than actual fact and explanations. Maybe it is true that, despite most of the population having at least ten years of "education", the general public are too dim to understand real data and its meaning even if said data is interpreted in a simple way by known experts. Sadly, the experts are as guilty as the journalists. We watched an expert from the ANU, a fellow we've know for over 20 years, spouting the most blatant propaganda vis-a-vis Global Warming. It seems that, like the Cheshire Cat, words mean what the sprooker whats then to mean and to the Devil with unbiased logic. Disagreement is tantamount to treason ... (For further entertainment in this vein and a Oscar winning performance of hubris, I recommend the current production, "The Mad Monk", at the local theater in Canberra.)

Back to radiating ...

I think this diagramme, which came from the Japanese government, is useful to explain some aspects of absorbed dosage.

Unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated if you ask, "dosage of what?"  Gamma, X-ray, Beta, Alpha, Neutron radiation? Hence, the use of the Sievert which is a unit of "Equivalent Dose" - Alpha weights 20 times the others. Which part of the body? Hence, the "Effective Dose" - eg: gonads weighted 20 times skin. How long was the exposure? Hence, the "per year" factor.

This page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2922671) seems to do a reasonable job of explaining some of the complications. There are difficulties over unit of measurement and their interrelationships - Rem, Rontgen, Gray, Sievert, Becquerel, Currie, just for starters.

The fact that some of the foods in the area are radioactive comes as no surprise - they ALL are. Trouble comes when there is no comparison with what the "normal" levels were before the earthquake and tsunami. Maybe the foods were not measured before the event - I don't know at this stage. The same comment applies to the drinking water - everywhere (which includes Australian sources of water).

The average nuclear radiation from a person is reported as, something like, 400 microSv per year. You might as well suggest that it is dangerous to go to a football match where you would be surrounded by all those people next to you and all radiating nasties and giving you cancer ... what bollicks!

Interestingly, radon levels have always posed a problem and, not least, in the UK. The building methods in the UK include the wide use of Breeze Blocks which are made, in part, of the ash from conventional power stations. These release radon. The heath authorities in the UK commissioned a detailed study which measured the levels radon in homes in England and Wales. Not surprisingly, the results showed that people living in geographical areas where granite rock predominates were subject to greatest exposure to radon - Cornwall 700% higher than Norfolk. This is a natural phenomena ...

Unfortunately, we don't seem to be able to face up to the simple fact that our civilization is electricity based and we will, inevitably, need nukes to power our iPads ...

Comprehending Disaster

The Japanese earthquakes and tsunami disaster seemed to be beyond my comprehension until I visualized the whole of Batemans Bay, Batehaven and Sunshine Bay being wiped out while we were sat at the cafe.

All the anti-nuclear voices seem to be more concerned for, what they imagine to be, more worthy lives than the tens of thousands that have been killed by this and other natural phenomena which, daily, wreak havoc across our world. I, for one, am pro-nuclear power. If this design for a MOX reactor - note: NOT the ancillary, essential cooling systems - can withstand a category 9 quake and a monster tsunami, I say, build some Pebble Bed units - not near the beach though. Water has the pleasing property of being able to be pumped along pipes.

I got an email from Tokyo pals who are shaken and not stirred. The "system" sprang into action - as per plan. Lest we forget, Tokyo was flattened by Allied (US) bombing - far worse than London; more akin to Dresden - and the resilience of the people re-built what we see today. Remember Kobe 1995? Nothing keeps a well organised society down for long ...

So far, the silliest of the comments made by TV reporters went something like, "This is the worst nuclear disaster the Japan has had to face". I wonder if he had ever heard of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Maybe he thought that "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" were just manga characters. Back in 1945 the Allied "success" created something like a minimum of 250,000 dead and hundreds of thousands of radiation casualties - a tad worse than the Chernobyl episode even though some 350,000 people were re-settled.

We'll wait and see how things are in a couple of weeks and the make a final decision which way to fly to Europe.

Donations to the Red Cross Japan Appeal here.

Quaking At The Thought ...

We were glued to the news reports about the earthquake in Japan. Last week it was Christchurch. If we were as paranoid as most the dope-heads down here in Lala Land, we'd be convinced that the Deities have it in for us. After all, we've been to those places several times and are planning another excursion soon. It's not so. Just the usual bit of plate-shifting that puts the whole of mankind (oops, that's a pejorative, sexist noun) in their place. No doubt the Hand Wringing, Anti-Nuclear Brigade will have a field day.

What should we do about the pending trip? We'll sit on our collective hands for a week or two. No flight tickets have been bought yet, so that we'll have a think about alternatives. Singapore, Hong Kong and Bangkok spring to mind as stop-off locations. It would mean we couldn't fly JAL which would  not please the Memsahib ...

Transit Hotels

We have somewhere to rest our weary heads in Sydney on the way out and London when we arrive after 13 hrs of flying time - plus 3 hours before departure and 1 hour after landing - hopefully on time (fingers and anything else that helps crossed).

Using the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" rule, we will be staying at the same hotels we have used over several years.

The Airport Sydney International and The Comfort Hotel Heathrow - nothing flash, convenient and good value.

JAL Just Can't Be Bettered

We've book our flight to the UK via Japan as per usual ... JAL gets our vote every time. The hotels in Tokyo (The Oak; hopefully room 417)and Kyoto (The Palace Side) have confirmed our booking so that we know we have somewhere to rest our weary heads. Even more exciting, is the prospect of having a small kitchen in Kyoto. We already know where there are two excellent supermarkets, around the corner from the hotel, so the taste buds are drooling at the prospect. We have yet to book our JR pass so that we can shinkansen ourselves senseless to, from and around Kyoto.

Nothing booked in the UK means crossed bits-and-pieces until our friend, and property manager, finds an appropriate apartment somewhere in Sheffield - yes, back to Knife, Fork and Spoon Ville. Our friends, who live in the Peak Distric Park, are storing our tent so if all else fails ...

Other plans afoot: Venice (of course) and a list of possibly places as long as my arm - that's the list not the places ...

We'll have some time in Devon and Cornwall this time - family have moved there - and several visits to Lincoln and its shire.

That's all for now ... it's the Life of Riley and no mistake. (Who was Riley anyway ...)

Time For A Sydney Trip

It's that time of year again so I've knocked up a portrait to take to Sydney for a comp. I doubt if it will be sellected, but you have etc etc etc ... It's made from aluminium strips held in place on an an aluminium mesh by beeswax.

We've been experiencing some not-so-typical summer weather in the last few weeks so that the usual pooh-poohing of English weather by Ozers seems unwarranted. Rain seems to be the norm with intermittently blazingly hot days. Still, we have peace and tranquility, which is a blessing when you consider what is the daily round of most of our comrades in other parts of our world.

It's the w/e so we are hoping that the tourists come to town and empty their pockets ...

Hot, Cold, Hot, Cold, Wind, Torrential Rain, Cold ... What To Wear?

After the last few days I'd be astounded if it didn't snow! What weather? Changeable! For those of you who have an idyllic vision of Oz sun and surf, I take great delight in disabusing you of such myths. I've been through my whole, though limited, wardrobe in one day - even Wellington boots! Not that I'd want to be in Qland - poor souls. Mind you I've been an Ozer for long enough to know floods and cyclones are a yearly event; some devastating like this year. Building on floodplains, beaches and estuaries is nothing new. Similarly, taking no regard for the weather, when pitching the tribal tent, seems to be the nature of human migration to far-off climes.

Today I'll brace myself for the rain-sun-wind and go for a stroll in the bush - fingers crossed in the hope a tree doesn't fall on my head!

Hot But Not Cyclonic

It's been a tad warm today 41 C - about 105 F in old money. Well, it makes a change from the snow and ice we experience in Sheffield last year. I can't really make up my mind which is more uncomfortable - cold or hot. I must admit that I really dislike temperatures over 24 C.

I'm glad we don't have the prospect of cat 4 cyclone tonight. Spare a thought for the poor souls in Qland.  Yep, I'll stick with the heat thanks!