Skip to main content

Rattled by rads, it's Thai-m to go elsewhere

When Jetstar finally announced that they would permit Japan flights to be rebooked or cancelled without penalty I felt terribly depressed. All that hard work planning and researching for nothing. Nothing suggests that the southern areas of Japan are being affected by elevated radiation levels and most experts say there is little threat. Still, with a growing 2 year old in tow it would not be fair to risk his health and the Japanese are displaying a surprising lack of competence and initiative in dealing with the reactor issues.

B especially still wanted to take a holiday on our scheduled leave dates rather than defer travel.

After much agonising we decided to cancel the flight up to Japan with Jetstar and replace it with a flight to Bangkok instead. We'll spend a week in the region and, if the situation in southern Japan has not declined, then fly into Fukuoka in the south, before leaving on our original flight from Osaka. At least I get some of the Japanese holiday then, enjoying cherry blossoms and onsens.

The truth is that our health is probably more under threat from a visit to Thailand than to southern Japan right now, with the former country's tropical diseases, pollution, road transport and internal conflicts. Try explaining that to most people when facing the bogeyman of radiation.

If, after the first week, there is a threat that the south will be affected by radioactive fallout, then we will make our way back to Australia via a different route.

I'm quite excited now to be flying with Thai Airways on their Airbus A340-600, one of my favourite aircraft to look at but one I've never flown on. It will be nice to have the thrill of a little unknown with a new airline and to leave from Sydney's international terminal.

Not long now!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site .  I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch.  The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It'

A selection of jams

We're home now. The last two days of our Brisbane trip involved a lot of driving but not always much movement. On Wednesday we arranged to met Sis and her family at Robina Town Centre, a massive shopping mall. That meant a drive down towards the Gold Coast along the same motorway we'd driven up along. What should have taken an hour took twice that due to the holiday traffic along the 3 and 4 lane road. Lots of people taking the turn-offs to three of the "Worlds" (Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Dreamworld).  The Town Centre hosts Artvo , a trick photography gallery where you use perspectives to make subjects look like they are part of the artwork. It was surprisingly fun, despite the aversion of we males to being the subjects of photos. Afterwards we had a long chat over lunch, which was sourced from a variety of eateries. I had roti and chicken curry from Roti and Buns . Passable, though the curry was more laksa like. We later took Sis to Daiso and she and her h