Happy Birthday MJ!

MJ 2nd Birthday
Originally uploaded by JohnConn.

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear M.....J
Happy Birthday tooooo yooouuu!

Happy 2nd Birthday to MJ for today (Thursda y 16 Feb). I hope you have a fun day. Be good for Mum and see you for your Party on Saturday.

Lots of love,

Daddy.
xxx

Japan Post 2 : Imperial Palace etc

Electric City
Originally uploaded by JohnConn.

Japan is experiencing unusually warm weather for this type of year and so it has been difficult to work out what to wear. Taking a jacket the last two days has just been a nuisance.

The Imperial Palace grounds tour was quite good (See the myriad of pics on flickr). Apparently only 100 people each day get to do the tour so we were part of the privileged many! The grounds are very impressive - a colossal compound right in the middle of a city of 20 million people. You really get the feeling of power.

After the tour we walked to Electric City which is a paradise for gadget freaks and geeks. Everything you could possibly want and much more. I spent 3-4 hours wandering around but bought nothing - I might pop back on Friday.

Today was the first day of our Workshop and it was quite enjoyable. A pretty full on day and we got through a lot. After the workshop we were invited to drinks a Minister's home on the Embassy compound. We then moved on to dinner at a Japanese restaurant for loads of weird and wonderful, but mostly weird, things. Raw fish, raw steak, cooked rice, sea urchin, raw squid...mostly raw stuff, oh and chicken wings...cooked! It all tasted pretty good, although I won't be rushing back for more sea urchin during the rest of my stay!

Japan Post 1: First impressions

Japan: View from the Hotel
Originally uploaded by JohnConn.

Well, here I am in Japan finally... I got a call at 8pm the night before I was due to depart to say that my Canberra to Sydney flight had been rescheduled to an hour later, meaning that I would miss the connecting flight to Japan. Qantas had said they could get us on the next flight out - some 13 hours later! Instead we got put on a Japan Airlines flight via Brisbane arriving at roughly the same tme as the original plan. The flight was good and very comfortable, the food plentiful and of high quantity. JAL is surprisingly lo-tech - I expected more. Looking forward to sampling Qantas' business class service on the way home as a comparison.

Narita airport is enormous. There were no queues at Immigration or customs.My case was the very first one out – one of the advantages of Business class travel I guess. We caught the Airport Limousine bus to the New Otani hotel in Tokyo, which is about 90 minutes from the airport. The last thing I needed. Checking into the hotel there was some kind of booking mixup so they have put me in one room for last night and today and then I’m gonna be moved to a King room this morning sometime. Off on a walking your of the Imperial Palace at lunch today and the workshop starts tomorrow (Wed).

Tokyo is incredibly busy. The place seems surprisingly quiet this morning, although the streets were heaving last night when I went in search of something to eat. The culture shock is huge too. The money is crazy and so I have drawn up myself a crib sheet for quick ready-reckoning. I struggle to pay 1460 Yen for some noodle soup when I can’t divide by 85 all that easily in my head – esp after 14 hours of travelling! Weather is fine today and it's actually quiet pleasant being somewhere that has a bit of a nip in the air - no pun intended.

Already, it is very clear that the Japanese are incredibly polite and courteous people. The guy who loaded the bags on the bus bowed to me and thanked me for my bags. The lady who took the tickets climbed on the bus before it departed, and said something in Japanese and bowed before she got off. The whole team of bag loaders and ticket lady bowed as the bus pulled off. Walking to breakfast this morning, I must have been greeted and bowed to by 20 or so people saying ‘good morning’ and - very different to what we are all used to... It is difficult trying to make sense of what is what in the shops and restaurants. Luckily pointing seems to work in every language/culture. The only things I recognise are the numbers – everything else is just a mass of characters. People speak only very limited Engrish although everyone at the hotel seem completely bilingual.

Happy Valentines Day to Krys for today. Hope you have a good day. Love you heaps. John

Stay posted for more and some pics as I get the chance.

Tang Family Meet Up

IMG_0486.JPG
Originally uploaded by JohnConn.

The weekend saw a whirlwind trip to Sydney to see all the extended Tang family at Paw Paw's in Earlwood. We headed up Saturday morning leaving Canberra around 9.30. Jessica slept almost all the way and MJ was well behaved too. We swung by Oatley to pick up a new camera bag that Krysti had bought on eBay and arrived around 1.30. We were the first to arrive and throughout the afternoon people from all over converged on Earlwood. MJ didn't sleep that afternoon which is never a good thing and so later he started to get a little sensitive and upset. Lani and the kids flew in from the Gold Coast mid afternoon who were coming down to stay with us for the week while I am in Japan. Around 40 or so people were at the party some of which we haven't seen in many years. It was nice to catch up with everyone. We have plenty of pics in a new photoset we have set up on flickr. When we left around 8.45, MJ fell into a deep sleep almost instantly and didn't wake until the following morning.

We stayed overnight in a one bedroom apartment in Chippendale (Waldorf Apartments) which we shared with Matt and Meredith. The apartment was considerably smaller than the pics on their website, but it was nicely fitted out and comfortable and suited our needs (ie. just somewhere to sleep). A light breakfast was included so we tucked into that before heading off to IKEA.

No trip to Sydney is complete without a trip to IKEA. Krysti and I have an addiction to their furniture and we filled up Meredith's car with hundreds of dollars of flat-packed goodies. When is IKEA gonna open a store in Canberra? Our car was chockas with 'essentials' for the kids - unbelievable the amount of stuff we needed to take for an overnight stay in Sydney!

After IKEA we headed home. MJ and Jessica slept until we stopped around half way home for some fuel. They both woke up - Jessica needed a feed and MJ must have been disturbed and was very upset. We spent about 20 minutes getting him settled and then carried on home. The kids were fine for the rest of the trip home.

Once back in Canberra I started packing for my trip, had some dinner and began assembling a few of the bits of furniture we had bought.

Next, Japan...cya