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Showing posts from October, 2008

Memorabilia & Memories

Behind me, on the Japanese noren curtain, the petals of cherry blossoms gently drift to the ground. In front of me a model Narita Express runs past a Shinto temple. Diecast jet aircraft are poised in front of carp streamers to leap off the desk and across the ocean. Above me, posters for Le Chat Noir and the Moulin de la Galette stand astride a black and white photograph of the bridges of Paris. The reminders of holidays past and dreams of journeys to come surround me in the house. Each time we travel we bring back mementos of the journey. Today I was sorting through bags of brochures, maps and tickets, each bag a separate trip, filing and tossing. The maps and guides to cities and sights are useful future references, but it is the little items that stir the memories. Business cards of a Tokyo hairdresser, tickets for the awful train ride from Yichang to Nanjing, the little cards of directions to the Chinese hotels for the taxi drivers, menu cards and boarding passes for flights, an t...

More Canberra, more turbulence

I may not be racing around Europe right now, but I did go somewhere today. Yes, back to Canberra again. How exciting... Well, I would have liked to have seen Canberra, visited Floriade again, the War Memorial, but there was no time for that. Just another meeting at the headquarters. I'm now officially tired of flying to Canberra. Tired of driving there as well. Despite the protestations of my work colleague, who claimed that the buses were far less dingy, I wanted to catch the train, but it was sold out. So I dutifully purchased the Qantas tickets online, ensuring that I was flying by jet. The day outside looked magnificent, a scorcher, but the air was still. Fear lurked, because the weather reports forecast storms and winds in the afternoon. How unfair! The last two times I flew back from Canberra we passed through a storm and a front. No sign of that as I stared out the windows of Terminal 3. I noticed the Qantas A380 sitting out on the tarmac and watched the movements of the ot...