I came back from a business trip recently to discover my wife had been to a garage sale and found for our daughter a second-hand "Skydancer", one of the 10 Most Dangerous Toys of All Time..
http://www.radarmagazine.com/features/2006/12/sky_dancers.php |
When you have lunch in Brisbane one day, then suddenly find yourself eating lunch the very next day in Amsterdam, it goes without saying that you're really going to need sleep at some stage to make it work. Unfortunately for me that sleep was not forthcoming during the flight over. Sure, my eyes were closed for a few hours, but it's really hard to get quality REM sleep when the sweet, well-meaning, but incredibly irritating old German lady next to me took it upon herself to let me know every time the 'turbulence / fasten seat belt' announcement was made during night so I would put my seat back up into the sitting position. And she did this without even the ability to speak English - she just poked me, smiled gently, and somehow very forcefully made me do exactly what she wanted. When those %#&$^ lights came on and they started serving breakfast I was a wreck from never quite being asleep for the whole 12 hours from Singapore, but from somewhere found a second wind and actually felt pretty normal by the time the shuttle bus as was making its way to the hotel. This early on a Sunday morning, the streets of Amsterdam were absolutely deserted. Quite eerie. After a tour bus from over the border cut us off, the driver kept going on about 'those Belgians' and how anyone over there could get a license.. :)
Once at the hotel it was, as I had suspected, way too early to check in and I had no choice but to leave my luggage and wander until mid-afternoon. So wander I did. People were slowly filling the streets and shops were just opening and with no particular purpose or schedule, I walked towards central station. I had a very basic city map with no street names, but I could see the tourist landmarks and the station seemed to be the closet thing. I turned left and right at random and explored. In the backstreets I was approched several times by guys offering me drugs.
At 8am.
On a Sunday morning.
Yes, this must be The Dam :)
Breakfast was at a cool corner cafe. Spent time people-watching: Mostly it was a tourist crowd. There was more French and German than Dutch being spoken, with occasional groups of 'lads' from the UK with their collered shirts and shaved heads, trading stories about the night before. It was truly bizarre to be there.
The rest of the day was very pleasantly spent seeing the canals, parks, bikes, more canals, the place where Ann Frank lived (huge line, so didn't go in), Rembrandt paintings and other cultural stuff at the Rijksmuseum. I love the architecture of those buildings along the canals. Photos of my big day out can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/holgatepics/sets/72057594134405431/show/
I'd been holding up well so far, but my jet-lag induced euphoria couldn't last. My batteries were running low. I had lunch - pizza - and crawled back to the hotel where I was surprised to find that my room was actually the smallest I've ever stayed in.
And I've been in Japan.
Still, right now as I write this, I am past caring. It's time to crash.
Tomorrow, Leeuwarden. |
Archaeologists can tell a lot about a society from the buildings and dwellings which they leave behind. So there's no doubt that when some future digs excavate our cities and painstakingly brush away the earth to reveal ancient IPods, latte makers, and inner city apartments they'll know just what sort of people we were. They'll theorize that in the early 21st century there was a shift in the way people thought about the layout of their homes. It was around this time that people realised that it was suddenly ok to somehow shoehorn three - oddly shaped - "bedrooms" into less than 90 square meters of total floorspace, even if one was barely big enough for a beanbag. To have your washing machine in a cupboard, in the kitchen. To put a power and phone outlet in the corridor and call it a "study nook". For people to dry their washing in the living room because you can't hang anything on the balcony (it spoils the "artist's impression" of the development). Or have two bathrooms with showers only, neither with a bath. Of course, an apartment right on the street with a balcony facing directly into an ugly mass of wires on a power pole four feet away was no longer a concern. Nor was converting an old factory into apartments and then rebranding the complex with something witty and urbane like "The Factory". People said, "Hey, we don't even care that our toilet is located awkwardly in the space immediately behind an inward-opening door in the ridiculously tiny second bathroom" And they also said "That is definately worth paying half a million dollars for!"
That came out a little angry. I think this is a roundabout way of me saying "Yes, we're still house hunting. Yes, I'm sick of looking at 'funky' inner city apartments.."
:)
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2006! New year, a new start. Can't wait! New Years resolutions this year include keeping my journal up to date,excercis..what?
April? You're kidding!
So a big catch up really is in order.
Books I've read so far this year:
海岸のカフカ - Murakami Haruki
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Da Vinci Code (yes, I hate myself. Is it just me, or does it read like one of the crap books which they write based on movies?)
Collected Short Stories - Roald Dahl
Travel so far this year:
January: Florida and New York
Feburary: Hong Kong
March/April: Singapore
Just booked to go skiiing in NZ in July too, which will be excellent! |
I spent a week in Japan again recently for work, basically helping my boss navigate from meeting to meeting, and doing some interpreting on the side.
We were rushed off our feet mainly because the schedule was really, really badly planned: we had accommodation booked in Tokyo for the whole week but were making day trips down to Nagoya and Osaka etc. every day. As it just happened to be the week the Emperor's daughter was getting married, most hotels were full and we had to switch to the posh Westin Hotel in Ebisu, so it wasn't all bad. My room was full of antique furniture and the bathroom was so big you could play raquet ball in it.
Bad experience of the week (don't try this at home): Get no sleep during your horrible economy flight back, arriving v. early in the morning. Go directly to Ikea, revel in the ambiance of the Ikea cafe, select a desk. Assemble.
Good experience of the week: The IPod Nano. The greatest travel item ever invented. |
| » Thump! |
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The building on the corner next to our apartment block is currently being converted from an old woolstore into trendy apartments.
I don't know what sort it is, but some part of the process apparently requires a machine that thumps the ground all day long. These are not minor tremors - I'm not exaggerating when I say that if you put a glass of water down on the kitchen bench, it ripples like Jurassic park, that's how strong the vibrations are. I tried it. And this at the OPPOSITE END of the building to the construction.
I'm working from home now, so I'm have to put up with it all day. At 7:30 sharp each morning it begins, the thump-thump-thump of the machine..
Help me, I might be insane by tomorrow afternoon.
Oct. 11th, 2005 @ 08:45 pm
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| » Infrequent Flyer |
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I'm in Perth this week. Getting here wasn't fun. Let me explain..
After a fantastic four days in Melbourne (my company's Asia Pacific user conference) last week, I faced the misfortune of a flight out at the evil hour of 6 o'clock Friday morning. It was a Qantas frequent flyer seat which I had booked ages ago, so of course there was no option to move it by this stage. Plus, Thursday night was not only the wrap-up staff dinner, but a colleague was leaving the region for Europe as well. With this many liquored-up tourists it was always going to be an all-nighter. Fully aware of this, I packed my suitcase and got everything ready to leave before heading out that night.
All I needed to do was pick up my bags, walk out, and go to the airport. Great plan.
Of course, what actually happened was that we ate dinner and drank and there were speeches then drinking more and then some more after then talking and laughing and somebody says hey I know a great bar a guy I know works there and we go there and wow a special cocktail menu sculling icy spirits brain's numb then jump-cut bbbrr so cold outside damn Melbourne trekking up dark alley stairs a red door and hey another bar warm inside drinking funky music it's shooter time and there's a buzz I'm talking Japanese everyone's laughing loud hot women and jump-cut somehow hours later in a spinning taxi mobile's ringing where are you? casino's the go we're there bad music in darkness busy nightclub shouting words all dancing then shots and tequila shots and dancing and shots and..
..I walk back into the hotel room, the door closes behind me, and I'm alone. It's 3:55am. I'm dog-tired. Extremely drunk. And everything is so quiet now. The only sound that soft ringing in my ears from the big night out. The buzz is gone. No laughing or dancing or drinking here. Dog-tired. Need to leave the hotel at 4:30am to make the flight. Bags are packed, nothing to do. 15 minutes to wait. So tired.
Perhaps I'll just..sit down..on the bed..for a second..
..and one second later I opened my eyes, looked at my watch, and it was 6:30am.
Oct. 7th, 2005 @ 12:06 am
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