Up to Brissy for Chrissy

It's Christmas Day. We are celebrating it alone as a family, the presents were opened yesterday, our lunch was leftovers turned into a salad and our dinner was Hungry Jacks. But the tiny Christmas tree from home sits on the hotel room desk, wrapped with colourful battery powered lights. There's pudding and custard, cherries and mangoes, plus lots of chocolate. And we are on holidays!

Outside the hotel room window is a view of the Brisbane River, with bridges and buildings on the Southbank lit up in Christmas colours. There were crowds of people admiring the tree and lights out the front of the Brisbane Town Hall. I expected the city to be dead on Christmas night, but no, it's buzzing.

I'm exhausted after the drive north. I had a rough sleep, dreamed I was flying and swimming in the South Pacific. Then I cracked a molar while eating Christmas cake! This is totally unfair because I just had a lower molar repaired earlier in the week.

The traffic was moderate leaving Sydney and never entirely let up. B and I took turns driving, which was nice because I had time to nap and look out the window.

We stopped at South Kempsey to eat the leftovers of a pre-Christmas Eve roast lunch converted into a salad. Only McDonalds and KFC were open, no Fredo's Crocodile Pies today.

The rivers were high, the canefields bright green as we headed north, overtaking Kias and in turn being overtaken by Subarus and giant utes.

The weather turned grey and showery once we crossed the border into Queensland. The traffic was also very heavy, possibly residents heading out to Christmas dinner with relatives or home after a long lunch.

Once we had unloaded our luggage we set out to find some Christmas dinner and were surprised that there were places open, despite my fears.

So now, at last, it's time to relax and enjoy what little remains of Christmas.

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A lazy day at the beach

It's 2am and somebody is still setting fireworks off on the beach in front of the hotel. I can't see the explosions as I have the window shuttered, but I can still hear them. I've wanted to have a lazy day and today was the closest I got. I woke up in the night from a very sad dream. Dreams follow crazy paths, but this one resolved itself as so. An entity had been causing disruption of computer systems around the world. It turned out that this entity had emerged from the computer networks and had been struggling to gain access to more computing power so that it could live. The entity had taken on the persona of a woman. The protagonist who had "defeated" the entity discovered that it was alive, spoke to it. Ultimately fell in love with her. But his prior actions would lead to its death. As a gift to her he downloaded his memories so that she could experience life even as she died. I know it sounds like a pulpy sf or technopunk plot, but dreams are about feelings,

Ho Chi Minh to Hoi An

The easy way to get to Hoi An from Ho Chi Minh City is to fly to Danang then go via car for the final leg. Then there's my way. We had to wake at 5.30 am to get ready for a 6.15 departure from the hotel. A hotel car took us the few kilometres to the domestic terminal at the airport, where we checked into our Vietnam Airlines flight to the central Vietnam city of Hue. The airport was nothing flash, but it seemed functional. Alex had sandwiches (refused banh mi) for breakfast, then we went to the gate. Our blue Airbus A321 was parked at a remote stand, which necessitated a packed shuttle bus ride. It was nice to be aboard a full service airline again, even if the service was just a cup of water. We took off over the hazy skies of Ho Chi Minh City and for most of the smooth flight were cruising over a carpet of cloud. We descended over mountains poking their heads through the cloud, across lakes and paddy fields and over the beach. It was lovely scenery.

The sound of running water

We made it home from Osaka. There is a special feeling that comes when your arrive at your house after a holiday. It is utter relaxation. No longer do you need to worry about other language or customs. There is no need to look up directions, to plan out your day, to journey between sights. Then again, you now need to clean up your own mess, to make your own bed. Rather than eat out you need to cook your own dinner. The shower is weak and the toilet doesn't wash your bum. And you need to wake up early tomorrow morning in order to spend a day at work. You are back to your old routine. Looking back upon this holiday in Japan I've decided that the theme of running water has applied to each of the days. Sunday - Arrival in Osaka - washing ourselves Japanese style Monday - Matsuyama - water from the hot springs at Dogo Onsen Tuesday - Takamatsu - waterfall at Ritsuen-koen Wednesday - Tsumago - streams of water throughout the town Thursday - Takayama - the sounds of rushing water eve

travelling allrite

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