Ballarat

I met my friend Pat for lunch yesterday. I don't think I've actually seen her since Stella and I went to her place for a Good Friday lunch earlier in the year. We play Scrabble online and have text message conversations but haven't met in person.Time flies!

We were going to meet at The Rusty Spud but it's closed on Mondays, so we repaired to The Robin Hood next door. It's a pub that I drive past frequently but haven't paid any attention to. Certainly I haven't been inside. It's enormous! At least, the dining area is. I think it must be primarily an eating pub. And the food isn't bad. Pat had the Apprentice's dish of the week - a chicken sweet and sour; it really is the apprentice's meal. Apparently he gets to choose a dish each week which he then makes and it's sold on the specials list. I played it safe and had a chicken parma - not too big and the chips were properly made.

Pat was looking very good. She'll be 90 in a couple of weeks and you really wouldn't know, if you didn't know. I do know. Lindsey and I are hoping to go to her birthday party. In the meantime, it was a good catch up

While I was in town, I wandered into the Bridge Mall. It's still a mall for now, although they have very nearly finished the transfer back into a road. It will only be a single lane and there will still be lots of space for pedestrians. I called in because I had seen references online to the bridge being reinforced. There isn't a bridge in the Bridge Mall, although there should be, given its name. And it turns out that there is a bridge. You just can't see it. Or not normally. It has been revealed, temporarily, so it can be reinforced to allow trucks to pass over it. The trickle of water is the Yarrowee River, which is usually more robust, and is certainly more river like in places where it is allowed to behave like a creek and not a drain.

You could wish they would
leave it exposed, with a visible bridge over it

Christmas has arrived in Ballarat,
although I didn't go to look at the
decorations on Sturt Street

To Melbourne for A(nother) Market

Lindsey and I went to the Big Design Christmas market at the Exhibition Building on Saturday.

The weather forecast was abysmal! We might have considered going on Sunday instead, except that we had arranged to meet Freyja and Simon and they weren't available on Sunday. Lindsey had plans for Sunday, which could perhaps have been moved to Saturday. But we decided that we weren't going to be outside all that much and we would go on Saturday as planned.

We took the train down. I was gazing idly out the window and watching grazing sheep emerging briefly from the fog, trees looming and disappearing, mountains glowering through the clouds and mist. It was not unlike taking a train through the middle of England at the end of November! Strangely disconcerting, given that we were heading through Victoria at the start of summer, not Derbyshire at the start of winter.

Lindsey's photo, through
the train window

Fortunately, it wasn't raining too badly when we arrived in Melbourne and took the tram to the Exhibition Building.

I enjoyed the Design Market. There was more there that interested me and caught my eye than in the Finders' Market in October, and much more than in the previous Big Design market we went to. It was very crowded in the centre of the building, but not too bad around the edges. There was plenty of seating, in addition to the tables in the dining areas

We stayed for about an hour and a half, then wandered to the John Curtin pub in Lygon Street where we met Freyja and Simon for lunch. On this occasion we did not eat outside! I remembered not to order the loaded fries just for me, although we did order the vegan loaded fries, which we could all share - and very nice they were too. 

Then Lindsey and I came back to Ballarat.

A good day.

We went out to Wendouree yesterday morning so Lindsey could have a hair cut and we could do some shopping. I needed cat supplies and a few bits nd pieces. I did not need vegetables. I have changed the veg delivery from once a week to once a fortnight and it would only let me have a delivery on Saturday, a mere four days after the delivery on Tuesday. I am busy processing vegetables so as not to waste too much.

Brandy, helping me to put my summer night shirts away:

Starting to prepare for Christmas:

A rather large echidna, having its dinner in the Federation University forest on Tuesday, early evening. Fortunately, it wasn't on the road and was supremely uninterested in me watching it from the car. Much too busy concentrating on the tasty morsels it had discovered

Markets, Lunch and Wandering about

I went to Costco on my way home from work on Wednesday and activated my new membership. I have to say that the people in the Costco in Gifu were more mindful of other people than some of the people  in the Epping store, who seemed to be blissfully unaware of the other shoppers!

It was quite hot on Saturday but Lindsey and I went out to the Farmers' Market by the lake anyway. The area around the market has lots of tree cover and is quite shady. Anyway, I wanted some flavoured oils from the Olive Oil Man and some eggs. Tim's Toasties wasn't there but the Kazan Central Asian Kitchen was and Lindsey and I shared a rather nice chicken shish for breakfast.

Sunday morning was cold and wet and very gloomy. It was also the day of the Ballarat Springfest, also at the lake. Lindsey and I went after lunch, when the weather had cleared and even warmed up slightly. We normally go to things like that in the mornings and it was interesting going just after lunch. It wasn't quite as crowded, for a start off and you could see more as you were wandering around. It covers quite a lot of ground, about a third of the way around the lake, plus up into some of the surrounding gardens. I think by the time we got back to where we had left the car we probably had walked the equivalent of the distance around the lake. I had certainly totted up a good number of steps!

I must remember not to wear anything like this next time I go to a festival/market at the lake. A number of people admired it but one little old lady seemed to be quite determined to have it. She wanted to turn it into some sort of crafty artefact and didn't seem remotely concerned that if she took it off me I would be left wandering around in just my bra!

The lake is a good spot for a market festival. It's a lovely backdrop to the stalls and merriment

Lindsey waiting for one of Tim's Toasties

Freyja was in town yesterday so I met her, along with Julia, Travis and Henry, for lunch at The Boatshed, once again back out at the lake. It's a while since I was last at The Boatshed. I think the last time I was there might have been in February on Stella's 90th birthday. It was the first time in a long time that I had been there without Stella! We sat out in the annex so Henry, who is only four and a half, could be reasonably exuberant. There was no one else in the annex so we didn't need to make him sit quietly. In fact, he is quite a well behaved child but even the best behaved of children don't want to sit still and silent for any length of time, even if there are chips, nuggets and a small box of cherries available.

I haven't had one of their pizzas before.
It was very tasty, and nice and light
for lunch

I can't think of any reason to go back out to the lake today, alas. I should perhaps do some useful things in the house. I really could do to tidy up bits of the garden. I need to sort out the fridge and use up the vegetables - there's another box coming sometime today. And I need to go to the library to collect a book that's waiting for me.  Apart from that, there are no plans :D 

Back to (Almost) Normal

Life has pretty quickly fallen back to almost normal.

There was no market on Saturday and we didn't need anything at the farm shops, so Lindsey and I went out to the Wendouree shopping centre and just had a potter round. I bought some hair scrunchies in The Reject Shop, which may surprise those of you who know that I usually keep my hair quite short. When we were at the Miyako Resort in Japan they provided yukatas  for the guests to wear. Kaori wore hers and looked beautiful. They also provided elasticated sleeve bands to stop the sleeves falling into your soup or whatever. I do not have a Yukata, as such, but I do have a similar style summer dressing gown, plus my winter dressing gown has long sleeves and I struggle to keep them out of the sink or the frying pan or many other things. The scrunchies are a good size for what I wanted and are working perfectly. Also, $3 for six scrunchies at the Reject Shop is considerably cheaper than buying actual, proper sleeve garters!

I was out at Macedon on Sunday for lunch with The Sunday Lunchers. Chris and John put on a lovely lunch with prawn salad, a lemon and chicken bake and lemon steamed pudding. The food was delicious and the company entertaining. It was a good afternoon. The sun even shone, which was slightly surprising. After a hot and dry Saturday, Sunday was cooler, greyer and wetter. It was a pleasure to have the sun come out during the afternoon.

I say that life is almost back to normal. I had lunch with Freyja on Friday in a fairly new Korean place at work, and it was lovely. We will go there again. I do not normally go out for lunch on work days. I am picking up some extra Japanese lessons because I didn't do any while I was in Japan and I have a whole load to catch up. I am working on Wednesday and Thursday this week, rather than Wednesday and Friday. I have various deliveries due. In a normal week I do not have to think about what I'm doing, when and where. This week I am keeping a close eye on what I'm supposed to be doing and when!

In amongst everything else, I have planted some new herbs seedlings. Freyja and Simon gave me another herb planter so I have one with parsley, and one with thyme and oregano. One teeny, tiny step towards getting my gardens organised!!!

Home

So the blog got me to the Osaka airport and there it appeared to abandon me 😆

I did, in fact, get home.

I had a remarkably nice, Japanese style roast beef and salad plate in an airport cafe before heading through checkin, security and immigration.

The flight back to Brisbane was largely uneventful, apart from us sitting in our seats on the plane for over an hour before we left. We were, apparently, waiting for the official engineer's departure paperwork. The pilot said he had no idea what the hold up was. There was nothing wrong with the aircraft but we couldn't leave without the paperwork.

I had a bit of a wait in Brisbane for the next flight so had some brunch and a cup of coffee while I was waiting.  I happened to be in the airport at 11:00 on the 11th of November and was slightly surprised that we were asked to observe a minute's silence (I hadn't really noticed the date) and the airport came to a standstill. Even people who may not have known why we were observing a silence stood still and quiet. And then we all moved on again.

I had plenty of time in Melbourne to make the coach back to Ballarat and then took a taxi back to my place, where things were more or less as I had left them three weeks earlier.

The cats were pleased to see me, and even more pleased to get fed, although I had had someone come in almost every day while I was away, sometimes staying for a night or three.

I've made it back to work.

I have established a (small) version of Austin and Kaori's snack cupboard. Theirs doesn't just have snacks and I do have a proper pantry, but I also have a cupboard in one of my dressers which didn't have much in it. It now has some Japanese snacks and on the rare-ish occasion when I buy Australian snacks, they can go in there too.

Now I need to turn my attention to the gardens. I need to get the summer and autumn veg seedlings in and I really, really need to weed the garden beds and the patio. This may not happen today. The forecast is for 30d in Ballarat which is a touch too hot for planting out seedlings and possibly a bit too hot for vigorous weeding

Some of the seedlings waiting
for their new homes

Last few days in Japan

I was Home Alone on Thursday. I wandered across to the Lawsons convenience store for supplies for lunch and then went for a gentle amble around the local area

This is, allegedly, the first beagle
cafe in Japan
Sadly. it doesn't open until
the end of the month

 

On Friday Austin came home at lunchtime. We went back out to Costco. I may have re-opened my Costco membership, although I haven't activated it yet. I need to take my online card to a service point to get it authorised and it seemed a bit reckless to do that in Japan. It can wait until I am able to get to an Australian branch.

We went out to a mall for lunch on Saturday. Unfortunately, Kaori wasn't very well so didn't enjoy the day much.

This just has to be an Aussie Santa
and you would hope it is Boxing Day
otherwise a lot of children will be very disappointed!

Kaori was not well enough to join us for dinner on Saturday evening. Austin, Tatsuki and I went to the Big Guy steak and burger joint

It was certainly tasty
Not sure how healthy it was!

This was probably quite healthy
Salad and corn soup

This was not
Triple cheese and bacon burger with 
mashed potato

and mushroom gravy

This was a tiny hotplate
for crisping the bacon
and cooking the middle of
the burger to your liking

Open salad bar
Tatsuki helped himself to orange slices
and broccoli 😀

(Some of these photos are Austin's)

And so we come to my final day for this trip

Austin and I took Tatsuki for his Sunday swimming lesson. Austin and I did not stay to watch it. We went to the nearby Donki. I wanted some KitKats and a strap for the new black bag I bought the other day when it was clear I had room in my suitcase for all the snacks and omiyage or my clothes, but not both. 

I love Don Quijote. I especially love Donpen

I have no real need for a humidifier, but I do fancy these

After swimming, we went for a final Coco Ichi curry

Corn soup
I may need to move to Japan just for
the corn soup

Tonkatsu curry
There was salad as well

And now I am at the airport, on my way home

Shinkansen from Gifu
to Kyoto

Hello Kitty from Kyoto
to the airport

Just waiting now for the first of two planes to take me home

Rokka-En

Lindsey went back to Australia on Tuesday, leaving Gifu just after lunch. Before she left, we went out to the Mall to collect her new glasses. Austin and I returned the rental car, Kaori picked us up and brought us home.

Kaori doesn't work on Wednesdays. Austin took the day off. Tatsuki went to school. It was a lovely day so Austin, Kaori and I went back towards the Aeon Mall we had had lunch in on Monday, and went to visit Rokka-En.

Rokka-En is an interesting large house that was designed by a British architect for a wealthy Japanese man and which was built in 1913. It has a large western section and a large-ish Japanese section and is surrounded by beautiful gardens. I would link you to the official website but it doesn't seem to have an English language version - which surprised me because all the information boards were in Japanese and English.

Austin and Kaori had never been and only knew about it because it was the setting for a film they had seen.

I know it was designed by a British architect, but the Western side of the house put me in mind more of American plantation houses. Not that I have ever been to the US but I have seen them in movies and TV shows.

We went back to the Mall we had been in on Monday for lunch, did a bit of gentle shopping in another shopping centre and then came home, arriving before Tatsuki got home from school.

Everyone is back at work and school today. I am Home Alone! I should probably have a shower and get dressed before the morning disappears right away