Skip to main content

Kita: A first night


His little legs scrambled desperately to escape the leash and run back to his owners, who had no choice but to turn their backs and farewell their beloved pet.

And so it was with more than a touch of sadness that a journey in the dog's honour began, though he could not himself follow, trapped by age, quarantine laws and an unwillingness to travel.

Kita means north in Japanese and jaws in Finnish, the choice of name from his Japanese Spitz and Finnish Lapphund ancestry. Our journey will take us north into the icy jaws of Winter, to Finland and the other mainland Scandinavian/Nordic states via Japan.

We leave behind the sticky heat of the Sydney summer.

A few days ago I was wondering if I would have the constitution to begin these 19 days of travel. Mid last week I suddenly developed an inflamed elbow which turned out to be a staph infection. The side effects of the antibiotics felt worse than the bug, putrid in smell and flavour, nausea inducing and requiring a frequency of taking that interferes with sleep.

Fortunately my appetite has slowly returned and the inflammation has mostly disappeared and tomorrow we set out for Cairns and Osaka.


Now I sit here in the Stamford Hotel in a room overlooking the airport. Almost thirteen years ago B and I also stayed here before our very first flight to Osaka, also via Cairns. I sat in the armchair feeling sick with a cold but trying to finish some last minute work tasks on my tiny Zaurus PDA.

I also had to work today, but thankfully my major projects were completed last week and now I can ignore those who are themselves just starting work for the year.

After dropping Kita off at the boarding kennels we finished packing, setting my away message and finally heading off to the bus stop. A train then delivered us to the Domestic Airport station before we walked to the hotel.

A lunch at McDonald's meant none of us wanted fast food for dinner, so we took the easy option of the hotel's Argentinian restaurant La Boca and tried their Asado grill of lamb and pork. But the heavy food sits uneasily in my delicate stomach.


Alex said he saw a magnificent burst of lightning across the dark storm clouds outside our windows, but I have observed nothing since. It will be a very early morning for us tomorrow. Two flights, hopefully smooth though an ex-cyclone approaches the coast.


I should sleep now, wake for medicine and sleep again while I can. Meanwhile our poor old dog relaxes with only other hounds for company. I miss him already.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Down the Oito Line

Riding the length of the Oito Line from Itoigawa to Shinjuku (well, Matsumoto, really, but you might as well go the whole way) has long been a dream of mine. It suddenly gained urgency when I read that the last length of it between Itoigawa to Minami-Otari would be closed once the Hokuriku Shinkansen to Kanazawa and Toyama opens by next year. Now, as mentioned last time, B and Alex are among those that would much rather catch the very fast Shinkansen, but in the end she decided to follow me, despite the very early morning. We rode the Hokuetsu Express from Toyama to Itoigawa, completing a little more of that West Coast for me. Though the coastal stretch was short there were some nice views at times. I should like to see more of Itoigawa one day, explore its geology. But now we had to quickly cross over the platform bridge to catch our train to Minami-Otari. To my great delight it was a KiHa 120 railcar, my favourite. I felt a degree of sadness standing up at the front...

The Kamioka mines: from silver to supernovas

Part of the Kamioka zinc mining and smelter complex Just after posting about the Kamioka Railway another photo from that 2006 set piqued my interest. Up there in the mountains the landscape looked blasted not just by winter but by something more. It was the kind of lonely place where you would not expect to find major industry, so this sight was quite surprising. Even more surprising is the history associated with this photo. According to some sources mining and refining of ores in Kamioka dates back to 710 AD  and only closed in 2001. Undoubtedly the mine was a major reason for the existence of the Kamioka Railway. Refining of zinc still continues to this day under the parent Mitsui Kenzoku zaibatsu . Gold, silver, copper, zinc and lead were all dug out of the rock here. Unfortunately, the process released cadmium into the river, which, when taken up by the rice that was grown in the river, caused the terrible itai-itai disease  - meaning "It hurts! It hurts". Cadm...

To Melbourne on the XPT sleeper

Excited by the prospect of reliving the experience of seeing my very first movie and hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform it I bought tickets to The Empire Strikes Back in Concert in Melbourne back in February. Then I did nothing about actually getting there. Much as I love Melbourne, due to family commitments I didn't want to spend more than the Sunday away. Flights there and back made sense, but  my flight down to Melbourne in late October reiterated the fact that I usually don't enjoy descending into the city. And the concert was in December, a season of summer storms. I really didn't feel like driving the whole route alone and in a hurry, so that left one choice. The train. My very first trip up to Sydney from Melbourne was aboard the luxury Southern Aurora. Or it was supposed to be luxury. I wouldn't know because I spent the whole ride up very sick with the flu lying in the top bunk, unable to stay awake for my whole of night vigil. Now only...