Nice done, now Marseille and its surrounds

Nice was just lovely. There was a superb cheese taster plate, with other-worldly Camembert, and a superb stinky soft cheese called Reblochon. Please start looking for it in Melbourne for me, and if you don't find it, get the demand started!

My day in St Paul de Vence and Vence was a bit of a disaster. I saw a couple of superb galleries though, the Maeght Foundation had stunning architecture and a great collection including some Miro that I'd seen a couple of years back in Barcelona. Another free one nearby showcased the drawings for concept mega-art - covering rivers with cloth, making monoliths in Saudi Arabia from oil barrels. But the Chagall-designed chapel in Vence was hugely under restoration, and the Matisse chapel was closed. Poo. Then there were too few remaining buses to make it worthwhile going back to St Paul de Vence, shame.

St Tropez had a lovely beach, with a bathing platform moored out in the water and lots of 40 year old boobs.

I've started learning Spanish with an audio CD during my travels, it's going great guns.

Met a crazy-cool woman in a bar in Nice, likely in her 40s, who I drank Champagne with, but I think I was accused of being a gigolo when I was walking with her in the street to a (great!) nightclub nearby - she grabbed my hand and rushed us off, saying she didn't like the people who'd spoken to us.

Been in Marseille a couple of days now. Went to Aix-en-Provence (after a morning spent doing washing, glamour) and hung out with a lovely local there who showed me around the town. Will definitely have to try that again. Spent yesterday in Marseille with three Japanese room-mates, up hill to the spectacular view and church Notre Dame, and gormandised with cakes and almond croissants.

Just off now to Avignon now with the one remaining Japanese guy, Yuuki.

Nice

Hi folks! Brief update.

I spent a month in Edinburgh enjoying the festival, spent a fortune on shows and expensive festival drinks. I met some fun folks, though more toward the end of the month - there was a fair bit of wandering around with two or three hours to kill between shows and not much to do, which dampened my sense of festivity at times. After the Festival finished, the place calmed down a bit, and I happened into some nice circles of friends, which it turned out all interlaced with each other. I hung out at Yasmin and Mat's, Kelly's, Martin's and Axier's, and hung out with Anna, Anna, Helen and Nicci.

I spent four nights in Glasgow at a hostel. Contrary to its international reputation as a gritty industrial city, it's full of beautiful buildings and was lovely. It was interesting to walk around and attempt to pick if people were actually speaking English. The accent has an "I'm throttling myself" element to it. Glasgow hosted two international industry fairs at the end of the 1800s, so the museum was in an extremely glamorous building. The art nouveau design from Mackintosh and friends from the early 1900s was a highlight, and great to see that women's design contributions were well represented. Martin came over from Edinburgh and joined me for the last couple of nights in Glasgow, and we had a blast.

I flew from Edinburgh to Nice on Saturday, and Nice is everything you'd want in a holiday. The hostel is a megahostel, not conveniently located, but otherwise fantastic. They picked me up from the Nice airport, for example, and I didn't even have to speak French to request it. In Nice, the Matisse gallery was a wonderful showcase of his work, and very inspiring. So is the icecream store in the old town - I had two bowls so far, one "old lady" flavoured (orange blossom, lavender, rose) and one novelty flavoured (almond, cactus, Corona beer). I've travelled from my Nice base to Eze Village, Monte Carlo in Monaco, Antibes beach, and am off today to Vence and St Paul de Vence, most visited village in France and home to many Impressionist artists.

I'm planning to head to Marseille in the next couple of days, to explore and then use as a base for Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, and whatever else may come.

Hugs to all!
Luke

Fringe reviewing

Guess who's landed a gig reviewing Edinburgh Fringe Festival events, thanks to a chance meeting? My pal Yasmin advised it's due to good karma, because we travelled out of our way to buy free range eggs.

All the shows you can eat, free! My reviews will be appearing at www.hairline.org.uk.

To Edinburgh! - 31 July to Aug 1

Annie scooped me up out of my predictable last minute rushing around and took me in to the airport, and I had a pop-in visit there from Cheng - not something I've benefitted from in the past! Year-away farewells are hard :(

Cattle class from Melbourne to Hong Kong wasn't fun - surly service and dreadful "food". I was sitting with a 20 year old Scottish boy Chase, and a pouty, grown-up 17 year old northern Italian girl Renata. I took a couple of Annie's over-the-counter sleeping pills and a swig of scotch and drifted off into squishy delirium. Renata hopped off the plane and was sorely disappointed to find that Hong Kong wouldn't accept Australian dollars for the coffee she was determined to get. I took her in as a guest to the Qantas Club lounge for her coffee.

Hong Kong from the air looked remarkable. I only thought to take this picture too late, when most of the best images had flown by. After take-off, the grouped clusters of identical tall buildings around the bay looked like silicon memory chips stuffed into the ground, nothing like buildings I've seen before.


To my delight, at check-in, I found that I'd been upgraded to Business Class for the 13 hour leg from Hong Kong to Heathrow. YES! I had a 50% wider reclining cocoon seat with the electronic works,

noise-cancelling ear-covering headphones, an extensive and delicious wine and spirits list, lip balm and moisturisers in a designer case, would you like some pyjamas sir, will you have the steak or the snapper, can I make you a toasted roast beef and caramelised onion panini...

I arrived at Heathrow feeling much less beaten up than I'd anticipated.

But how DOES your body make that STINK in the air, which infests your clothes so abominably? The first time I travelled to London two years ago, I had thought the English woman next to me was the source of the odour until I got off the plane, and had been cursing her the entire trip.

I treated myself to a guilt-free marathon shower at Heathrow's British Airways lounge. Kevin from Deloitte would LOVE that lounge. I accumulated some fancy biscuits to keep me company on my travels.

The BA plane from Heathrow to Edinburgh was delayed, and I had almost 5 hours to kill from arrival at Heathrow to departure. Yet another meal on the plane - after all this endless eating and only some secretive yoga stretching at each airport stopover for exercise, I sure had my share of the famous Heathrow Injection by the time I'd reached Edinburgh. There were framed pictures of cities hung on the front walls of the plane cabin on the BA flight, and announcements sounded like they spoken in fast forward. My luggage arrived in Edinburgh, yay! Sheesh, ALL the luggage - I had to acknowledge a woman I overheard commenting on it to her partner! :P

The convenient three pound bus from Edinburgh airport to the city centre took me past riches of old buildings, domestic, scholarly and religious. When people had been telling me Edinburgh was beautiful, I had the wrong scale of beauty in my imagination. It's stunning. I was saying, "Wooow!" out loud as we drove. I was glad I had the pamphlet of the bus stops, as, yep, I couldn't quite make out what the driver was saying when he announced them.

I got the WARMEST welcome from Yas and her bright and cheery fiance Mat on my arrival. They talked about the excitement of the pending Edinburgh festival season and how they'd be introducing me to all their mates. I might have a guitar teacher in Yas' best friend Alex.

They made gnocchi, and we cracked open the Whyte and Mackay Glasgow 13 year old scotch. What a fabulous way to start a stint in a new home town.


And this is the shared backyard allotments (vocab?) as seen out their loungeroom window. You don't see this out of windows in flats in Melbourne.


Well, I'm off to see things, after a sound first night's sleep - walkabouts in Edinburgh, some random meetings hopefully. Time to get acquainted with my new town!

Love to all back home.

Leaving drinks photos - Sat 28 July

Photos from the leaving drinks, for those who were able to pop in, and get snapped. I only pulled out the camera when I remembered, and neglected some notable folks.

I'm back! And off!

Having spent a month and a half back in Melbourne, I've had some time to reflect on my Japanese experience. I'm looking forward to posting a highlights and lowlights post in the near future.

I'm booked to depart Melbourne on Tuesday 31 July, arriving in Edinburgh after 28 hours of travel to start a year-ish stay with a working holiday visa. Bring on the pounds, and the close-at-hand wonders of Europe and the UK!

So more posts will be needed soon!
-Luke

Planting and Farmer's Market - Wed 13 Jun

Seven o'clock start, hanging onions to dry. Tried out various ways of hanging to find one that was quick and fashionable.

Took some extra onions to the Farmer's Market - Kino prints price tags at the market.

The Market, inside.


Returned to the fields to do some planting - peppers. The dirt hole punching was fun.

But bloody hot work in the 28 degree heat. I was parched, and none too trendy about it.


We popped back to the house for a treat - little icecreams.

There were this many left, and then Kino ate the LOT and there were none for afters that night. But I'm not bitter.


Our finished effort of peppers.


Kino demonstrates that making flowers chains is "one of the basics of being a girl."


We popped back to the Farmer's Market to see how the onions had done - about half had sold. The boss of the market loves roses, and they're everywhere.


We stopped off on the way back and Kino showed me her wheat field. Beautiful!

The wheat is about as tall as I am.

Back at the field, we strung out another couple of nets and Mr Inami chopped weeds down with a mower. He likes machines.


As it grew dark, about 8, Kino and I went to the last field for the day to plant zucchini. The neighbouring field had a scrap heap of coffee grounds which smelt rather good.

Had my Japanese big bath, and swapped some music and photos with Kino before hitting the hay.

Big crop haul and some errands - Tue 12 Jun

Got another early start on my tshirt-tan this morning from 6am, picking snow peas, a TON of brocolli (appropriate to cry out, "GETTO-!" = "Score!", i.e. 'get'), and various salad herbs for three hours at a rapid pace with Kino and her mum. My lower back still bloody kills from yesterday's cropping and weed slashing.

Mrs Inami made chocolate bread for breakfast, yum.

After brekky, we washed and packed the choice brocolli and snow peas and the salad herbs into five boxes, 1800 yen in the pocket each after delivery costs of 700 yen per box. It didn't seem like much per box, considering all the labour gone into it just today in the picking, washing and packing alone, let alone planting and maintaining the crops, but Kino said it was much more than if it was sold at a farmer's market.


After pasta with sweet fresh brocolli and onion for lunch, I had what turned out to be a three hour nanna nap while Kino delivered some the excess snow peas and brocolli to the local hotel restaurant, making 27000 yen. When Kino called me to get up, I felt like I was getting up in the middle of the night. It might well have been the next morning that I'd overslept. I was dopey for ages..

We went to pick onions - Kino's best onion harvest ever -

and also trimmed and trained tomato plants. An earlier finish today, at 6pm.

The courier firm came to pick up the five boxes of vegies as we were bringing back the onions. I love their logo.


Then we all hopped in the family car and went on some errands, many for me. The car has a cool reversing camera plus digital overlay that shows the direction you'll head based on the current turning of the steering wheel. Very useful and a nifty gadget!


One of our stops was a 100 Yen Shop - it's cool cheap thing paradise.

Saw a love hotel with English-style castle walls and turrets, topped by what I think was the Statue of Liberty. It was dark by then.

We had ramen out for dinner. I was still on a quest to have a last meal of delicious super fatty pork slices with noodles in a milky soya broth, because I'd had absolutely delicious ones in Ueno in Tokyo and in Osaka. The two that I'd tried since coming back to Tokyo were nasty, disappointing failures. This third try was pretty good, and I can put the quest to rest.


We went to 'Book Off,' a CD and book/manga store, and I bought a J-pop gift CD for Jason's coming birthday.

We went to a supermarket. I have a particular foodstuff that I want to bring back to Australia. No luck at that supermarket. I did treat myself to a can of Kirin's Grapefruit Chuu-Hai booze, which I've grown quite fond of. For something like a dollar fifty, it gives you a nice little tiddle.

Last stop before home and a soak in the bath was a convenience store, to collect my bus ticket to the airport from a super-ooper-multi-self-service machine called Roppi.

Tomorrow, no cropping. A sleep-in till 7am! Luxury.

Kino Cafe - my final WWOOF host - Mon 11 Jun

On Sunday arvo, had what is hopefully my last multi-transfer train confusion drama for my Japan experience. Made it to my last WWOOF host, which will round out my three months here.

Kino came to pick me up from the station. She runs some fields, primarily by herself, and distributes to some hotels and restaurants locally and in Tokyo. Kino is 27, and at 173cm is very tall for a Japanese girl. After so long here, and being used to the height of Japanese women, I know she must have spent a lot of here life having people tell her she's tall, it's really a noticeable difference.


We started work this morning at 6am, picking organic vegies - snow peas, cabbage, cauliflower, {unfamiliar purple vegetable whose name I couldn't remember}, and brocolli. Picked until brekky at 9.


Then we washed and wrapped items to be couriered to Tokyo, and crated some others to be used at a local hotel's restaurant. Kino and her mum:


After lunch, we dropped the vegies off at the local hotel. We were required to wear these snazzy overalls and headwear to make sure we didn't make anything nasty.


I was pleased to discover that, unlike most families here, the Inami family have a sweet tooth. Generally, no desserts with dinner in Japan, it's devastating. We had iced fruit poles as a treat in the hot early afternoon. I'm doing a little bit of English teaching to the family, at their request, though they do seem to prefer it when I make out I've forgotten and we can just chatter away in Japanese. Kino has sore insides, so we had half an hour to rest. I had a nap, lovely.

After our break, we set up nets on frames for climbing vegies, then weeded until sunset. Sat another little green frog on my hand for a bit, and decided I love frogs. Saw a long skinny snake. We got back to the house about 8pm. :O Yep, about 14 hours out in the sunshine today, minus lunch and the nap.

A lovely Japanese curry for dinner.

To finish up, must share what may be my best Engrish find so far. I didn't know these were generally available prepackaged, but apparently, in Japan, you can get it by the boxful.

Last days of Tokyo - Sun 10 Jun

I did pretty well on my last-days-of-Tokyo wishlist. Ticks for:
- galleries
- architecture
- awesome nightclubs
- shopping (still more to go - stock changes killed some of my best gift ideas, darno)
- neon
- toystores
- electric city
- views - see below, endless nighttime skyline from Roppongi Hills tower, after a couple of beautiful and superbly curated exhibitions on the 40-somethingth floor.


PLUS
- an afternoon with Kawara, a great friend from Melbourne highschool, topped off by a karaoke trip down memory lane
- finding a magazine full of pictures of male and female bar hosts. It was too heavy for my already overstuffed luggage, but this is just a small taste of some of the fancy hairstyles sported by some young Japanese guys, and not just in magazines:


Missed out on
- live music - didn't have the brain power to figure out all that I needed to to make it happen (who's on, are they worth seeing, where they're on, how to get there).
- a flea market - rain and need of sleep.
- bunraku puppet show or noo dance drama - no bunraku was on, and the THREE HOUR noo show on Saturday would have taken too big a chunk of my schedule/life.

Not a bad effort at all!

I'm getting slack... a little catch-up - Tue 5 Jun

Hi folks!

I've been slack recently with the blog, sorry! Perhaps a quick rundown, so I feel like I've caught up a bit, and can keep up with newer news? No pictures, yukko, but I'll amend and extend a bit later on, will mention when/if I do!

• Finished up at the bee farm with a fascinating final day, observing the bee sting therapy on a 24 year old male cancer patient. Boss pulled out a sting at a time from a living bee with tweezers, then applied it to the patient's skin as he writhed.
• Spent five nights in Osaka with Byron, a neuroscience researcher from Altanta, Georgia, in town for a conference. Bummed in a fancy room with him at ANA Hotel, Osaka, the best service I've ever had a hotel by a mile. Over the week, infected Byron with karaoke; checked out the view from the Umeda Sky Building at sunset; showed Byron the glittering Dootombori strip in Osaka; went to see ten or so relocated farmhouses demonstrating various historical architectural styles; had a really frustrating day of tourism in Kyoto with a myriad of mishaps, but managed to see a geisha dance performance and go on a geisha spotting tour.
• Returned to my dodgy business hotel in Osaka for one night, enjoyed watching a stream of Japanese guys pick videos from the semi-hidden bookcase of adult videos while I blogged and emailed.
• Had a highly successful day of sightseeing in Kyoto, despite pouring rain all day. Saw the things I'd wanted to and missed a couple of days back - Sumiya, a 400 year old entertainment/tea house; a cool "spy-house"-like Edo period home with secret staircases and hiding places galore; and the palace at Nijo castle.
• Had a last night of karaoke in Osaka with Take and stayed at Kinki Hotel. Yep.
• Narrowly avoided having nowhere to sleep on a Saturday night in Tokyo when my arranged host said I couldn't stay because "the house is a mess", before relenting. :O
• Spent Sunday arvo to Friday arvo at an organic farm with a family where the parents make pottery. Dad is Japanese, mum is Austrian, serious world travellers. Made a sake jug and sake cups, but they won't be baked for 3 months and I'm unlikely ever to get them. Did lots of weeding, and weed trimming with a somewhat scary hand-held rotary blade mower. Was kicked out of the house each day after dinner by tradtion, to my own detached room, in the name of mutual privacy, but it was a bit lonely and I got the keens up to be back with my lovely people in Melbourne. Re-read "Memoirs of a Geisha", looking forward to seeing the movie and spotting places I saw in Kyoto and being a know-all but keeping it to myself.
• Took up an invitation from a guest from my first WWOOF host, Shalom Hutte, Iwasa-san, to stay with her and her husband outside of Tokyo. Spent three lovely nights with them. They are fun, open-hearted folks. Calculated and recalculated my baggage maths after finding out that my Deloitte-legacy Gold Frequent Flyer status will get me an extra 10 kilos. Shopped more. There are kitchy little presents coming! Went to Harajuku, met up with 5 of my co-volunteer staff from Shalom Hutte in Nagano, and checked out what Gwen Stefano kept on about in her last album, GOOD photo ops. Left my luggage with the Iwasas and headed out with a backpack of clothes to meet with Hiroshi Kawara from BGS for dinner, before a little night out in Shinjuku and finally having my stay in a capsule hotel. I was stationed next to THE snorer, eventually gave up on being well behaved and just relocated myself to another capsule in the hope that it wouldn't result in me being woken by the staff and told off, and got away with it.
• Bussed out to Mt Fuji area. Fuji was invisible on arrival behind a not-infrequent modesty belt of clouds, and turns out to have very few buses toward the climbing areas and still fa-reezing temperatures, so not looking particularly climbable for an Oxfam flunky like me. Gave up on that nice plan. Plan B, am staying tonight at an 80s-ish resort with outdoor baths with a view over one of the massive lakes at Fujisan's feet, and Fujisan making occasional dim guest appearances through the mist. If my sleep debt doesn't interfere, hoping to wake to see if the mountain is feeling flashier after sunrise at 4:30 tomorrow. Depending on weather (cloud-muffler) conditions, will either go to a viewing platform by cable car or check out Edo-period inns and a shrine at a nearby area. Then intend to bus up for a hike around one of the 5th Stations (midway along the 10 station mountaineering climb). Apparently, the clouds are below the 5th Stations.

Plans to come:

• scrape in my last of Tokyo. Wishlist includes art, views, cutting edge architecture, megaclubs, live music, walking neon streets, clothes shopping and the last of my gift shopping, a flea market, toy stores, electric city, a cultural show if it's on (bunraku puppety or noo dance drama). I've got bugger-all chance of doing all that between Wednesday night and Sunday night, see how we go.
• Sunday night, off to my last WWOOF host at Yamanashi prefecture, a cafe and little farm. The real selling point for me is experiencing a small village.

Bee payload, lovely dinner out and retiree karaoke - Fri 18 May

Not polite conversation generally, but you're pretty safe with retirees - my innards haven't been done their job for a few days. Mama gave me a teaspoon of spicy bee royal jelly cure-all, a glass of cold milk (it makes her go like a charm) and advised me to "excite my bottom" with a strong jet of water from the Washlet in the loo.

It's also the third day in a row of needing to wear a long-sleeved top to keep me safe from wayward bees, and I only have one. It spent the last two days over a smokey bamboo fire - today, as I put it on, I thought of salami.

Finally, today was the day I'd hoped for in coming to a bee farm - the playing with bees day! Boss, Ono-san and I went out to look at Ono-san's three nests in a back field. Here is the photo-op picture, with thick rubber gloves and a netting hat. I wasn't much practical use for the day, but I was a very interested onlooker.


For those without insecty issues, have a close-up look at the bees:


The main business of the day was splitting the nests - more nests means, when they get to production capacity of about 30,000 bees, more honey. Boss examines the bee hives, looking for frames with lots of larvae to split into empty hives, in order to increase their total. He finds this one lacking bees.


The male bees (one pictured) are useless in the hive except for occasional procreation. They have no sting, don't work or leave the nest to go flower-hopping, but consume precious resources.

As he looked through the nests, Boss ruthlessly dispatched swathes of the unhatched male larvae with a knife, distinguished by being raised and larger, like little cities, than the modest female larvae.

As we came across multiple royal jelly stores on a frame, the only food fit for a queen bee, it would be sucked into Ono-san's mouth. It is meant to beneficial to the health.


This full frame is the seed for one new hive, with lots of ready larvae and the same lineage as their neighbours. Beside the populated frame, Boss and Ono-san inserted some plain frames of wire-supported starter wax, for the coming home extensions for the busy bees.


It was fascinating, and interesting to be so close to insects that might normally get your adrenaline going, while feeling (nearly) totally safe.

Afterward, Boss and I walked deeper into Ono-san's property. We found a serene pond surrounded by foliage, and also various crops growing in greenhouses and fields. I sampled some delicious fresh Japanese strawberries. On our way back down, various large butterflies fluttered around me, one landing on my shirt :) One big black one looked more like a bird than a butterfly.

On the way back to Ono-san's farm after lunch, Boss stopped for me to take a picture of this love hotel kind of in the middle of nowhere. It's called Hotel Snowman's. Click on the picture to check out their riddle of a slogan (above the red and green characters on the building).


In the afternoon, Ono-san and her friend Hirokawa-san returned from digging up bamboo shoots, and prepared them for boiling. They're creepy looking things with their alien roots.


Boss turned up and there was a Boss-man, Boss-rooster photo-op when he picked up the rooster and hugged it till it did as it was told and stopped its squawking.


Boss popped by his own hives on the way home. With around 50 hives, it looks like the Gold Coast.


Must share another picture of lovely Mama with lovely Bohgi.

Mama and Boss' daughter was coming for dinner at theirs, but Ono-san's friend Hirokawa-san's earlier suggestion of a going away barbeque celebration for me morphed into the rest of the crew taking me out to dinner at a fancy local restaurant.

The chef has been on TV and in magazines, and he came and sat with us after the rush was over and chatted with my Japanese hosts. He gave me a little cubed Kobe beef and sesame seed dish over a tealight candle, on the house. The meals were exquisitely presented, but don't ask me what they were in detail.


Afterwards, I had the delight of a night out with my retiree hosts to a local "snack" hostess bar, called Le Petit. Present were Mr and Mrs Ono, Mrs Hirokawa who I'd met that day, and Mr Hirokawa and the chef, who I'd met that night. Here, Ono-san sings karaoke on the little stage resembling a Marilyn Monroe shrine.


Mr Hirokawa sat next to me, and I confess in the loud environment, with a touch of drink under both our belts, and his strong regional accent, I didn't impress with my listening comprehension skills. One that did get through was great - remember to ask me about the hot dog story.

I was encouraged to sing over and over, and my rendition of Japanese songs, learned a decade ago via tapes lent from Japanese highschool friends, went down a treat. (Picture the equivalent, a young Japanese person yawling out retro English songs, and you'll understand why!) My family would probably recognise some of the songs, having suffered through them during my teen years. One of the patrons took a moment to sniff the scent of the flowers during one of my renditions, and afterwards told me it was better than if a Japanese person had sung it. :D Some songs were terribly out of my range, but were still received with gusto - it's a lovely feeling of acceptance when an audience loves your crappy singing.

The machine would rate your singing based on three criteria that remain a mystery to me. If your score was between certain ranges (not necessarily the highest score), the hostesses would cry out and you would be congratulated with a prize from a basket of sweets and treats. As everyone passed their winnings to me, I amassed a small larder of goodies by the end of the night.


By the end of the night, Ono-san was quite tipsy. The chef from the restaurant, who'd supplied a bottle of Japanese shochuu liquor, began to try to throw beans into one of the hostess' cleavage. Ono-san made jokes to another hostess about a tall guy like me likely having three legs, and encouraged me to give her a squeeze. I wasn't sure what etiquette demanded of me, and responded with a good flush of purple.

The full carload dropped me home, driven by the sober Mrs Ono. The two gents hopped out for a pee in the garden, and taught me the phrase 'tsureshon' or friendship peeing.

As it was about 11 by the time I was dropped back, the Komuros were well asleep. They'd left the front door open for me and a light on, and had falled asleep on their futons in front of the TV. I turned it and the light off and headed cheerily to bed.

What a great day.