under another sun

A terrible night, where I developed a very rapid pulse, sweating with a temperature and a stomach like fire. Woke Lorraine up after several hours of this feeling rather panicked. Poor girl. She smoothed me down and eventually I got some fitful sleep. I can only think something I ate had not agreed with me at all. Still shaky and weak in the morning, but as the day pressed on I began to feel much improved. A lake breakfast, and Hitomi brought little Hana around. Hana is very cute and two years old, and seemed a bit dubious about dogs. followed by an early lunch at an eel restaurant, where we had our own private room. Hitomi brought little Hana, and there were also an elderly couple who had babysat Romy when she was little, and their daughter who had spent time in Canada. We all sat down to a healthy eel based snack. A deliciously eel inflected miso, a hearty bowl of rice layered on top with strips of cooked eel fillets and some salty salad pickles. After this surprisingly filling ...

A day of wonders Woke in the middle of the night and wrote a poem, then up again at 6 to catch up on my diary, which is eventually making its way to this blog when I get the opportunity. Set off out into Kyoto with Toby and Romy early. Lovely sunny morning. The hotel is near a river and it looked at times like a woodblock print because of all the birds seeming like emblems of Japan. There were big black crows, snow white cranes standing next to dignified herons, black snakey necked cormorants. And scooting about on the water were the odd familiar mallard. Ghosting about above were hawks of some description which our taxi driver said had come to feed on rubbish. Kyoto is a lovely city. We threaded through backstreets which reminded me faintly of Paris until we found a coffee shop run by a very pleasant lady, and dominated by a big stuffed seabass . We returned to the hotel, met up with Hiroko and Jennifer and set off for the historic part of town. The loveliness of Kyoto had not prepa...

Kyoto Karaoke Below charming silver-haired fox of a gentleman who kept calling me my boy, a blurry singer, Hiroko duetting with the s-h f, the charming barmaid posing for the camera.