under another sun

Up early again, drinking tea and packing in our tiny roomed Ibis Styles hotel. It had served us well, however. Leaving our bags in reception, we ended up in the same place for breakfast having coffee, a panini style thing and a little scoop of tasty ice-cream. Then we made our way on foot, a 25 minute walk from the hotel to the Sanjūsangen-dō temple. I had been here before but my second visit with Lorraine the place absolutely blew me away. You enter a massive oblong hall with 1000 life sized golden statues of The Thousand Armed Kannon, it is like an army of Buddhas and quite overwhelming. As well as these there is an enormous thousand armed Kannon as a centrepiece. Additionally there are 28 statues of guardian deities. You are not allowed to take any photographs there,  however some exist on the internet. This done, we crossed the bridge over the river and arrived back at our Hotel and picked up our cases. The shinkansen part of the station could not have been nearer, we simply ...

A Chiswick Tanuki This week is becoming rather lively. Work a bit fraught for the first couple of hours and then settled down. Innocently about my business in the afternoon when Matty called. He'd been in the River Cafe strapping on an expensive nosebag. I met him from work. He is between jobs at the moment, and has a new one starting in the new year. And there was lots to tell each other. As Matt lives next to The Bull's Head we zoomed to Chiswick and had a meal in there. However I was scalded in the mouth by some mashed potatoes which had been microwaved to the temperature of molten lava. When I mentioned this to the Hungarian waitress who Matty had been flirting with, she began to argue fiercely that they did not microwave etc. until it made me briefly very cross indeed. She came back later with an apology and some free wine, so all was well. And Matty and I had a good time chatting. We are planning a tour of Lewes boozers in the not too distant future, as Matt has a wealth ...

Klaudia is three Work uneventful today. I went for a swim, the first of the year and now far enough into January for the new year's resolution people to have thinned out. I am fat at the moment, and it was good to start to do some exercise again especially as limping has precluded much walking lately. Swimming instantly made me feel a bit less antsy, and appreciative of life in general, and Sarah in Florida in particular. Her friendship is a surprising gift. There's nothing like churning up and down for 40 minutes to get things in their proper order. Left work slightly early as there was little to be done and, more importantly, it was Baby Klaudia's third birthday. She was still up late playing with her new doll's house, and also fairy princess Barbies with a horse and carriage when I arrived. Poor little mite has a scuffed nose where she fell over on the seafront at the weekend but otherwise seemed very cheerful. I'm amazed at how quickly those three years have gon...