On the Road

When contemplating the enormous task that this move would be, we divided it into four phases to make it feel more managable. Phase 1 was packing up Japan, two was getting back to Oz (an easy one to check off in comparison), three was the house hunt and four settling in. I’m delighted to say phase three is done and four is underway! We have found ourselves a four bedroom duplex in a suburb called Penshurst which is North of the George river but only about 20 mins to Superman’s work.... More...

 Home hunting in Sydney is proving harder than we expected, and we expected it to be difficult. There is a little something extra in it when you don’t have anywhere to live if you don’t find a place before the company funded apartment stops being funded. At the end of the first week things were looking pretty bleak – our dreams... More...

Urgh. Feeling very much in the midst of this at the moment. We are pretty much in the same position as we were when I wrote this post from Sydney in Jun 2008 – the packers are coming on Tuesday morning at 9 (four hours after Brigid will be picked up for her trip to Aussie Quarantine) and we are in preparation limbo. Our days are a blur of... More...

Anyone who cooks even slightly, and probably many people who don’t, gives at least some thought to buying a knife or two when they come to Japan. It wouldn’t be stretching the metaphor too thin to equate a chef’s knives to a Samurai’s swords so it makes sense that many cooks dream of having knives forged using the same methods as those swords.... More...

We’re returning to Sydney January 8th 2010. I haven’t written about leaving Japan yet because, frankly, I’m quite sad about it but some boxes have arrived (for what purpose we aren’t quite sure) and the packing company is coming Tuesday to estimate how much space we’ll need on a container so I guess it’s about time. I can’t quite bring... More...

Considering the ease with which one can get to Osaka from Nagoya and the number of times I have been back and forth to Kyoto and Tokyo, it does seem odd that we had not visited Japan’s second largest city till last weekend. Our only real pull was that we felt we “should” go, so, when Superman’s parents expressed an interest... More...

On the Sunday before the Sports Day public holiday, Oct 11th this year, the All-Japan Ninja Competition is held at one of Japan’s surviving original Ninja training compounds: Koka Ninja Village. As part of our ‘making the most of the last few months’ campaign, we decided to head down on this day and we were glad we did. I’m... More...

The New Zealand retreat was wonderful! I cooked and ate clean, NZ produce, drank and washed in sweet rainwater, chopped kindling and built a fire for my heating each day and I managed to slow my brain right down and get lots of writing done. The Northland winter was astonishing, equally cool, sunny, blue sky days and wild, wind-whipped stormy days... More...

This post has been milling about my mind for a while but particularly this month as today approached. I am sure it will not be worded as well as it could be but you will have to forgive me, you will see why below. There are many wonderful things about being an ex-pat, though perhaps I should say “mobile ex-pat” to distinguish we who live in a new... More...

When we first came to Nagoya to find a home here it was late May and it was the Summer green of the trees in the street, which filled the view from the study window, that sold me on our house. The bark of those trees also filled me with a quiet hope – I suspected they were some kind of stone fruit tree, all of which have beautiful blossoms.... More...