Part of the joy of coming home from a long trip to new places for me it to unpack and ‘discover’ the little souvenirs that I had collected everywhere I had been. So may I present out of my suitcase – and from the Akihabara store in Tokyo – some ‘spark dolls’ from the Ultra Monster series. These are monsters that battle with superhero Ultraman. From Wikipedia : Ultraman (ウルトラマン) is a Japanese live-action television series that first aired in 1966. Ultraman ultimately became a major pop culture phenomenon in Japan. The show’s success spawned dozens of sequels, spin-offs, imitators, parodies and remakes.
Saturday (Seattle time)/ don’t lost your belonging
I’m home, with all my ‘belonging’ !
I made it into Seattle-Tacoma airport at 5 pm local time.
(So I arrived at 5 pm in Seattle on Saturday after departing at 9.45 pm on Saturday in Tokyo, the result of flying east across the International Dateline. I got the 24 hrs back that I lost when I traveled out in the opposite direction).
My connection in Vancouver was again a little tight, but once more it helped that Canadian customs and baggage claim there were very efficient. Vancouver airport actually does Canadian arrival and USA entry processing right there, so that Vancouver-Seattle passengers do not have to go through United States customs upon arrival in Seattle.
Saturday/ one more day in Tokyo
I arrived at my fancy hotel on Friday night. (Decided I need to ‘upgrade’ my hotel that I had coming in. The Prince Sakura Tower Hotel is a special ‘autograph collection’ Marriott Hotel, and I used Marriott Points so that I did not have to pay $400 for a night’s stay!). I packed it in today, spending most of the time I had in Akihabara and Shinjuku, and now I am at Haneda airport waiting for my flight to Vancouver.
Friday/ the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge
The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge across the Pearl River Delta has been 30 years in the making. ‘When completed, the 42km-long Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge will be one of the longest bridges above water in the world, constructed with the mission to speed up integration of cities in the Pearl River Delta. Will it be worth its staggering cost?‘ asks the South China Morning Post in a November 19 report. Here is a link.
Friday Jan 1/ Happy 2016 !
I’m in Hong Kong, waiting for my flight to Tokyo. We got pushed back from the gate at Perth airport just about at midnight, and arrived in Hong Kong shortly after 7 am this morning. Happy New Year!
Thursday/ 2015, the year that was
Alright! It is almost time to kick 2015 – the-year-that-was – out the back door here in the far eastern time zones of the globe. Sydney is three hours ahead of Perth still, so it will be 2016 in that part of Australia by the time I board my flight tonight to start heading back to the USA. I am actually making a stop in Hong Kong again, and then I will overnight in Tokyo on New Year’s Day evening before heading home.
Wednesday/ Cottesloe Beach
We stopped at Cottesloe Beach today for coffee and a bite to eat before we went down to the beach for a quick swim.
Cottesloe Beach is where Prince Charles got accosted and kissed on the cheek by admirer and model Jane Priest in 1979.
Prince Charles returned there this November for a beachside barbecue for his 67th birthday celebration, and as part of a 12-day visit to Australia and New Zealand.
(The celebrations came to an abrupt end after an unexpected thunderstorm sent guests running for cover as they sung him happy birthday, reported the website WAtoday, here).
Tuesday/ Perth, old and new
Here are pictures from my random walk around Perth downtown on Tuesday. The train ride from Bull Creek Station here in the southern burbs to the Perth downtown station is just 11 minutes.
Monday night/ shark alert
Monday/ Rottnest Island and its quokkas
We got up early on Monday morning to take the ferry to Rottnest Island, and spent most of the day there on Salmon Beach. It was another sweltering day in Perth (41 °C/ 105 °F) but a good ten degrees Celsius cooler on the island.
Sunday/ the Perth Mint
We checked out the Perth Mint on Sunday. (I love shiny coins). The Perth Mint was established in 1899, the last of three Australian colonial branches of the United Kingdom’s Royal Mint – after the now-defunct Sydney Mint and Melbourne Mint. (Yes, there was a gold rush to Western Australia as well; several, actually, with the discovery of alluvial gold at Kalgoorlie in 1893 the most significant).
The tour of the Mint features a display of the largest gold coin in the world : 80 cm (31 in) in diameter and 12 cm (4.7 in) thick, and made of 1,012 kg (2,231 lb) of 99.99% pure gold. The coin’s face value is A$ 1 million, but the bullion in it is actually worth some A$53.5 million. (No pictures were allowed inside the Mint, but here is a link to a picture of it).
Saturday/ Mandurah
We drove down to the seaside city of Mandurah (say ‘MAN-duh-rah’) on Saturday (the day after Christmas, called ‘Boxing Day’ here), about an hour’s drive south of Perth. The Peel-Harvey estuary is heavily used for recreational boating and fishing. It is now mostly salt-water, after the construction in 1994 of a channel that let seawater push in with the tides. Still, the estuary is home to the blue swimmer crab, the western king prawn and fish such as black bream and cobbler, and is even visited occasionally by dolphins.
Friday/ the Perth Zoo
We went to the Perth Zoo on Christmas Day, and here are my favorite pictures.
Friday/ Christmas Day
Thursday/ the Bell Tower
The Bell Tower is touted as Perth’s top tourist attraction (think: Seattle’s Space Needle), and so I had to go check it out. The surrounding area is still a major construction zone though : the $400 million Perth waterfront redevelopment project has been three years in the making and is now at least two years behind schedule. (Mmm. Seems very similar to the Bertha tunnel boring machine & waterfront development project’s delays in Seattle!).
Wednesday/ downtown Perth
My brother and I made a jaunt into downtown Perth with the Transperth* train on Wednesday. Downtown is a mix of old and new buildings, with the tallest ones belonging to the giant multinational mining companies such as Rio Tinto Group and BHP Billiton. (Iron ore is the country’s largest export earner, and lost 43 per cent in market price this year as low-cost miners such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton pressed ahead with production to defend their market share).
*Part of the Perth public transportation network of trains, buses and ferries.
Tuesday/ South Beach
We visited a local beach called South Beach on Tuesday, and I went in for a dip in the Atlantic Ocean (the water temperature was very pleasant). The beach is south of the city of Perth, in Fremantle.
Monday/ arrival in Perth
I traveled due south from Hong Kong for 7 hours to arrive in Perth late on Monday night. It is warm here : last night is was 27 °C (80 °F) at the late hour of 11 pm.
Sunday/ arrival in Hong Kong
I made it into Hong Kong airport late on Sunday night. My layover is so long (16 hours!) that I could leave the airport to go to the Novotel Citygate hotel nearby for some sleep before the fourth and final segment of my travels to Perth, Australia.
Saturday/ shopping & sightseeing in Tokyo
Here are more pictures of my Tokyo experience from Friday and Saturday.