In which Roz and Layla revel in cheese conversations and get lost in a Vancouver forest

by Roz

I’d dreaded my first Transpacific flight from Tokyo, having had visions of sitting upright for a zillion hours whilst everyone else slept, and then of having terrible jetlag.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the reality was very different – I slept perfectly well and felt distinctly cheery as we arrived into Vancouver.  And even more cheery when I discovered that the Vancouver Airport experience was distinctly un-North American, and within half an hour of landing we were on a train into town. 

As part of our plan to combat jetlag, we had sworn to try and get some exercise before evening came.  So, first off we went for a swim in the hotel’s pool.  (I should note that our hotel experience was slightly more exciting than normal: Layla’s friend had access to a cheap hotel deal and had booked it for us.  This meant the hotel was consistently expecting a male guest to turn up, and looked at the two of us somewhat askance for being the two lady companions of this presumed male guest. Ah well, as Layla unkindly pointed out, it was unlikely that our charming appearance after an overnight flight might have led anyone to mistake us for hookers…) 

After checking in, it may have felt to us like morning, but in fact there were only a couple of hours of the day left before dinner and so we determinedly set off on a walk along the beautiful Vancouver coast.  We got slightly carried away, went further than we intended and then had to gallop back in the direction of Gastown ahead of meeting Layla’s friends who live in Vancouver for dinner.  Our destination was a delightful wine and cheese bar called the Salt Tasting Room that we remembered fondly from our previous trip here.  We revelled in the array of cheeses, and our ability to ask numerous questions of the server in a language we understood with ease whilst Layla’s friends looked on bemused that anyone could have so many questions to ask about cheese choices.  But you see, if you spend most of your life living in a country where successfully explaining that you don’t eat meat or fish feels like the epitome of waiter conversation glory, the opportunity to have more complex conversations feels like a treat. 

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel, assuring ourselves that we would stay up and watch a film or some such to ensure we slept properly.  Of course, we completely failed on this, and I was nodding off to sleep all too quickly.  So it was hardly a surprise that I was then awake from 2 till 4am…but a joy that after that insomniac interlude, the next thing I heard was the chambermaid trying to get in to clean the room at 10. 

After a hurried late breakfast in the room, we set off to pick up a picnic lunch and then to catch a bus.  As we’d researched Vancouver ahead of our trip, we’d found that there were a ton of good hikes accessible by public transport and so we were off to a place called Lighthouse Park where there were a number of linked trails.  This proved an excellent plan: the scenery was beautiful in that very West coast Canadian way - lots of big sky, big fir trees and pretty sparkling water.  We ate our lunch on a rock overlooking the sea and congratulated ourselves on feeling almost normal and on being somewhere lovely before continuing to hike. 

As the trails were coming to an end we began to flag and decided to mooch back in the direction of a bus.  Though the buses are infrequent (Lighthouse Park is a bit off the beaten track) we were in much luck as a bus turned up the very moment we reached the main road, before we even had a chance to sit down at the bus stop.  On the bus we planned the rest of our day: back to the room for Layla to do some work whilst I acquired tea and cinema tickets for us for later.   Layla was still going strong on the work front when I got back, so I went for a swim and read until I was able to lure Layla out to the cinema to see Ghostbusters.  This was as silly and charming and pro-women as everyone had said and we were happy to be part of the zeitgeist of enthusiasts.  We went to a cheery Lebanese restaurant for too much food afterwards, and finished off the evening with a glass of wine in a pretentious supermarket (which was more fun than it sounds). 

Next morning, we congratulated ourselves on having almost beaten jetlag and on Layla having done all her work, and set off on our second hiking daytrip.  On this occasion the bus deposited us – somewhat to our surprise – in a very cheery holiday town called Deep Cove.  We’d not anticipated the charming restaurants, shops and such like and so felt somewhat silly for having brought some squashed falafel (from the night before) and a sandwich or two with us.  We tried and failed to go paddleboarding – everyone else had been more organised than us, damn them, and made advance reservations – but it was fun to see people setting off in kayaks and on boards from the pretty cove.   We had an ice cream and squashed falafel (what could be a better combination) and then set off on our hike.  The start of the trail was very busy and I felt two conflicting emotions: “oh so nice that everyone here wants to hike” and “damn them all, walking at a different pace from me and getting in my way”.  I’m afraid that I’m often not a nice person…  But in reality it was fun to do what was clearly a classic route for Vancouverites. 

Less than an hour into our hike we came to Quarry Rock viewpoint where we (and everyone else) stopped to rest and such like.  Our original plan had been to hike into the forest for several more hours.  I tried to tempt Layla by pointing out that we could rest for a while, read our books and then head back into town.  Unfortunately she is a determined girl who likes sticking to a plan, so she looked at me with amusement and dismissed this idea.  All too soon, we were hiking alone (everyone else had turned back) along the Baden-Powell trail (so named because boy scouts had originally made it).  This was really fun for ages, until I made the fatal mistake of wondering aloud why I’d read that people sometimes got lost since “the path is so well-marked”.  This was of course tempting fate, and within ten minutes we’d completely lost our way. We stood there, gazing at trees in every direction and debating whether to retrace our steps (which is what we should have done) or to press on and hope to find the trail again (which is of course what we decided to do).   Perhaps unsurprisingly we never found the Baden Powell trail again.  Instead we walked for hours without encountering signs of civilisation, until finally we encountered cryptic trails marked with signs saying “Forever After more difficult” and other similar inspiring comments.  We reassured ourselves, “This will be a funny post for Facebook… from our hotel… when we get back…” But we were beginning to get quite anxious – we’d been hiking for about 3 and a half hours and our water was running low… When we bumped into three boys and blurted madly to them that we were seeking a road, any road. They gave us some authoritative-sounding directions, disappointingly up a large hill.  These directions turned out to be not exactly accurate, but led us to bump into two other boys on bikes who supplied us with water, directions and kindness.  When we eventually found ourselves back on a road with houses we were both very relieved indeed.  “Civilisation!”

Though underneath our relief was also some anxiety. My understanding was that the last bus back was around 4.30 and it was already 4.40 and while we were literally out of the woods, we were still two kilometres from the main road and so still very much in the figurative woods. There was only one clear option: we pressed on to the main road “just to see” if we could find a bus stop and a bus. We knew that it was our last sensible hope. Without the bus, we would have to hitchhike… or ring the bell of a random fancy house and ask to borrow their phone to call a taxi. Wearily we dragged ourselves down the road in the baking sun, got to the bottom, made an arbitrary choice to turn left instead of right, spotted a bus stop, and – like a miracle – precisely as we did so, the very last bus of the day rounded the corner. Apparently it had been late or had taken a circuitous route from the place we’d originally planned to catch it.  We leapt on it with joy and Layla desperately emptied her wallet to find enough change for two tickets to our hotel. We were smug and relieved and spent the journey into town downing all of our remaining water without a care in the world and every so often pointing back at the dense forest on the receding hill and reminding each other, ‘imagine, we could still be lost in these woods!’.

Back in our hotel much earlier than we feared, and still with no idea how we managed to lose the trail, we showered and got ready to set off for Granville Island.  This is a somewhat touristy but very pleasant place, requiring a ferry (which gives a sense of occasion to any evening out).  We had dinner in a food market before going to a really good cinema-themed improv show.  After that we went to watch fireworks (and tried and failed to find Layla’s friends who were also there) and then walked home via a cool 20s-style cocktail bar.

On our final morning in Vancouver, we went for a quick swim (which later proved an unfortunate plan since we then left our swimming costumes behind, having hung them up to dry in our hotel bathroom) before heading to Stanley Park (the huge park at the tip of Vancouver) where we meandered passed lakes, along the beach and through overgrown trails – and shrieked at a racoon encounter.  Since it was Pride, there was a fun atmosphere as we went back and we poked our noses onto the Parade route to try to spot Justin Trudeau.  After that it was lunch in a café, and then we walked to the port with our luggage for the next leg of our journey (and one of the most exciting): it was time to board our boat to Alaska!

In which Layla and Roz ride the Lavender Express and hide from the rain in Sapporo

by Layla

We arrived in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido, just before lunch and hustled to our AirBnB home, a slightly dingy but central and generally acceptable apartment that was all ours for our stay in the city. We dumped our bags and dashed out in search of food. And in doing so, discovered Odori Park, the central artery of Sapporo and all summer long, home to a massive beer garden that apparently has seats for 13,000 people! But we needed better sustenance so followed our iPhone apps to Lohas Café, a hip, vegetarian extravaganza of salads and grains and suspiciously vegan cheesecake. An excellent start to our Sapporo vacation! Afterwards we decided that a bit of mountain greenery was in order, so we hopped on a tram and before long we were on a cable car, soaring up Mount Moiwa to an observation deck that looked down over the whole city – which looked huge, in contrast to the rather intimate feel that it has on the ground. The sun was shining and we decided to walk part of the way down, along a lovely little path, accompanied by a random Japanese family. By the time we got back into town, we decided we’re earned a beer, so we popped into the Sapporo Beer part of the giant beer garden and indulged in a pre-prandial sip or two…

We walked home via one of the city’s ‘top’ sights, the governor’s house. It was an attractive red brick building, but more attractive was its lovely grounds dappled with grass and ponds… and more interesting was that just a few days after the Pokemon Go game launched in Japan, the grounds were absolutely full of Japanese people of all ages using their phones to catch virtual Pokemon (which apparently hang out in real-life grassy and watery places). This was especially striking as until now, we’ve rarely seen Japanese people using their phones much in public (as opposed to Washington or London where most people seem to walk along the street writing emails). On our walk back to the apartment, our game became spotting who was playing Pokemon Go – which obviously made us look a tad odd as we tried to surreptitiously peer at everyone’s screens.

That night we’d planned to try the local salty ramen, or corn and butter ramen, but everywhere we tried on ‘ramen alley’ seemed overtly unkeen on vegetarians, so we ended up in Jyoti, a really excellent little Indian restaurant on a street that was all covered over and very cheery. And after dinner, a new adventure awaited… karaoke! Ever since we moved to Japan we’ve thought about trying karaoke but due to our insanely bad singing skills, we had avoided it… But tonight was the night! We rented a little booth, inputted songs (thinking of songs was much the hardest bit), drank the beverages that we summoned on a little phone in the room, and sang. It was not tuneful, but it was very fun to have this little private room to belt out off-key versions of Good Morning Baltimore and Space Oddity, to name but two of our eclectic playlist… Hilarious.

When we’d planned out trip to Sapporo we’d been intending stay in Furano, a pretty little town famed for its lavender and attractive mountain scenery. Because in Japan, places are all famed for certain flowers and when they bloom, Japanese people descend on the place in fits of delighted hysteria. By chance, the lavender was blooming this week, and this week alone. This made it impossible for us to get a hotel room in Furano. So instead we boarded a special train called the Lavender Express and in a couple of hours (Roz reading, me editing a research paper about mental health in Mongolia), we arrived in town. After much confusion about what to do, we boarded a little wooden charming train decorated with bunches of lavender and took it to a tiny railway station that only exists for a couple of weeks per year. It was opposite Tomino Farm, the epicentre of lavender excitement in the Furano region.

Not knowing what to expect, we were more delighted than I’d expected. Tomino Farm was clearly also famous for melons. So we revelled in delicious slices (followed by melon ice cream) before venturing up to the fields. Sure enough, they were big and they were impressive. Huge rectangles of purple spreading up along the hillside, and special paths to enable viewing. Other flowers that had been planted in strips to create a fantastic giant stripe pattern. It was incredibly scenic with the mountains as a backdrop. We climbed up to the top where a classy little wooden bar had been built. We read our books and drank beer and watched the Japanese people being extra-delighted until it was time to catch the various trains and do more work all the way back to Sapporo.

That night I did yet more work and sent off the Mongolian paper – then we headed out to an obscure, fancy and delicious Italian restaurant called Saf. Down a back alley, it was charming and romantic and lovely and we had a delightful evening – even if Roz was bitter I’d worked so late that dinner was almost at bedtime!

We had planned another daytrip for some hiking the next day, so we were confused when we opened the curtains and found it was raining in a very British fashion. This coincided with me being sent a giant amount of health financing work and with the desire for some vacation financing, we decided to head to a cool coffeeshop for Roz to read her book and me to work. And both of us to angst over having planned the wrong things for our final vacation week and entirely changing our locations and hotels.

With the rain continuing even after several cups of tea and a cheese toastie, we decided that the cinema was calling. We went to a lovely independent cinema called Kine and watched Brooklyn, which was thankfully in English. Afterwards we settled down in Starbucks so, you guessed it, I could do more work. And hooray: finished it and sent it off.

That night we sheepishly but covetously decided to return to the delicious Indian restaurant, after which we went bowling. We were amusingly placed on what seemed to be the ladies’ floor. And I don’t like to boast but I beat Roz very resolutely indeed. She got her revenge when we started playing air hockey though, thrashing me 10-1… Much fun.

This morning we checked out early, stowed our luggage in lockers at the station (very much the done thing in this country), and walked over to the Botanical Gardens. A much better botanical garden than we expected, we spent quite a while strolling along paths that almost felt they were in a forest. Then we walked further still and got to the Hokkaido Modern Art Museum where we really enjoyed a little exhibition of contemporary art focused on Hokkaido scenery. And polished it all off with a rather exciting vegan Japanese meal at Itadakizen, the sister restaurant of a place by the same name next to SOAS in London where my classmates and I would indulge in a bowl of ramen after a tough morning of Japanesing.

And then it was back to the station in the pouring rain, onto a train, a plane to Tokyo and now we are about to board yet another plane. This time across the Pacific. Next stop: Vancouver!

In which Roz and Layla venture to the north of Japan for star-shaped parks and non-humid air

by Roz

Regular readers of this blog might be thinking: “gosh, another holiday, but you’ve only just been on vacation”.  And, of course, you’d have a point.  But this holiday marks the end of the year-long slog of language learning that I’ve been doing ahead of starting my new job in August.  And once I’ve started, holidays are apparently not really on the cards once until Christmas ish (which seems a very long way away, so we’ll see!).  Anyway, we are yet again embarking on a holiday that is far from a well-worn path, involving Japan, Vancouver, Alaska and LA.  I feel that the 19^th century young men who went on their Grand Tours really weren’t imaginative enough in their combinations…

Our first stop was Hakodate.  This is a port town in Hokkaido, the north of Japan, and is known for being the first Japanese trading port for foreigners and for its comparatively pleasant temperature in the summer (as opposed to the baking humidity of Tokyo).  Following my exam on Friday, we hopped over to the airport and were shortly afterwards delivered to this very pleasant city.  As we gazed out of the taxi window we were bemused to find that in many ways it’s somewhat reminiscent of Iceland scenery or some parts of northern Europe: the houses are not at all Japanese, being low lying and far from identical.  Having dropped off our stuff in the hotel we headed out to dinner in a local brewery, with vaulted ceilings and shiny beer-making facilities.  We enjoyed not only delightful beer, but also various vegetables and the star of the evening: corn pizza (which we convinced ourselves was a Hokkaido speciality rather than a travesty).  

Next morning, after a speedy yoghurt breakfast in our room (ever classy!) we set off to explore Hakodate town.  We first headed towards the old part of town (where foreigners first came) and meandered first through some linked red brick warehouses (now home to some cheery shops and restaurants) before heading towards the original British consulate (now used as a tearoom - which I very much regretted not sampling).  We pottered around the area, musing how strange it would have been to visit Japan when it was completely closed to foreigners and almost managed to avoid noticing we were climbing up a San Francisco style hill towards a cable car.  Though the weather was far from optimal for a cable car experience, we had a plan to go to the top of the mountain and then walk down again.  This we did, and were somewhat surprised to find ourselves on what was a really excellent hiking path (notwithstanding the mist!). 

Back at the bottom of the hill / mountain, our need for lunch was pressing.  We poked our noses into a few places hopefully but without success, before finally settling on a soba restaurant, which was entirely delightful and seemingly entirely unphased by our vegetarianism.  We then hopped on a tram to the other side of the city and went to the city park, which is built around a fort and has a star-shaped moat.  We wandered around, sniggering at (but also secretly envious of) the determined folk who were lying on the grass as though the weather wasn’t as dricht (dreich – Layla) as it was.  After a stoic walk in which we endeavoured to ignore the chill, we headed to what seemed to be quite a famous cake shop for, well, cake.  (Side note: the problem with writing a holiday blog is the requirement to confess to eating far more meals than most people do.  Sigh.)  After this delightful stop (hooray for hot cakes even if I did begrudgingly let Layla have some of mine) we headed back to the hotel for a rest / watch of Netflix ahead of dinner. 

We intended to go somewhere new and exciting for dinner, and then felt flummoxed when our favourite options turned out to be booked up.  However, we booked one for dinner on Sunday (me revelling in impressing the easily impressed restauranteur by being able to write my name in Japanese) and then headed back to our beer venue for more beer and corn pizza.  We felt somewhat ashamed, but enjoyed ourselves very much, so there. 

Next morning, we were off on a little daytrip.  Near Hakodate is what’s called a “quasi national park” called Onuma.  I’m not exactly sure what a quasi national park is, but this was a very cheery experience.  As we arrived in the town (which had a sort of holiday town feel to it) locals were setting up with bands and such like at the entrance to the park.  We headed in, and then followed a number of different paths along beautiful little lakes and ponds, going past water lilies and  (oddly) Scottish thistles.  After this delight, I could hold Layla back no longer and we hired a rowing boat and went out on to the water.  This was just lovely – there was quite a large lake and few people.  I lay back and looked like the Lady of Shallot (well other than the being dead bit) whilst Layla looked moderately masterful and rowed us around.  We stopped to eat the packed lunch we’d brought with us (telling ourselves 12.01pm was definitely lunchtime) and then, after an hour on the water, reluctantly returned to shore to console ourselves with an ice cream.  There was one more path to explore, and this we did.  It was a bit more obscure, so we had it pretty much to ourselves in a very serene fashion – which was all the more of a treat because it had a superbly beautiful view. 

Before getting the train back to Hakodate we stopped off for tea and iced chocolate which was very pleasant indeed.  Once back in Hakodate we went and went back to the brick warehouse area first to put our feet in some (allegedly) magical water (a hot spring foot spa – Layla) and then (ah the shame) to hang out in the Starbucks in the red brick warehouse area so we could use their wifi to phone a friend and Layla could speak to her parents.  We then went back to our hotel, watched a little more Netflix (musing on whether the TV series we have picked – Outlanders - is just too violent for our tender sensibilities) before dinner.  Dinner was a delightful meal at the soup curry place in the warehouse buildings that I had booked the night before.  We bemoaned our vegetarianism since everyone else was able to have some exciting dish which they made themselves on a domed hotplate– but it was jolly to watch them – and our soup curry was delicious nonetheless.  And then it was back to our hotel ahead of a fairly early train to Sapporo the next day. 

And it is from that train that I type now, having just received the news that I passed my exam.  Hooray for passing exams, for the end of full-time language training and for holidays. 

In which Layla and Roz go on amazing walks and want to live in Sydney

By Layla

On Thursday morning, after some coffee (Roz) / giant chocolate drink (me on my ongoing but ultimately doomed quest for the ice chocolate drink of my youth), we took the bus to the famous Bondi Beach and started off in fine style with lunch at the Bondi branch of Bill’s – completely delicious! Then we headed off to one of Sydney’s most famous walks, the cliffside path from Bondi to Coogee beach. Again, the scenery over the harbour was absolutely glorious with brilliant blue sparkling water, and some chilly surfers to watch. Sadly parts of the path had been wrecked by a huge storm a month ago, but with a few diversions, we made along the beautiful path to Coogee beach and a bus home.  

We had a speedy dinner at home that night, and then walked into town, our destination: the Museum of Australia. Since moving to Tokyo, we have been missing lovely evening events at museums, so were delighted that there was a special event about explorers that night, featuring the first woman to fly around the world. The event was attached to an exhibition about Australia’s top 50 explorers. We were very much entertained by a little climbing wall in the exhibition, which went well with the wine they provided for us… but otherwise the exhibition was quite rubbish. So we were intrigued it had won the award for the best-curated exhibition of the year in Australia! Undeterred, we proceeded to the theatre and enjoyed the pilot (whose name I am ashamed to say I forget) telling us about her adventure. It didn’t make me wish I was a solo pilot, quite frankly… but it was a nice evening and inspiring. But lacking in cocktails, so when it finished, we found ourselves in Pocket Bar, a completely delightful little bar with great drinks and a lot of cheese, all of which we duly consumed. Hooray.

The following day Roz went to another yoga class and did some Japanese homework while I got on a train heading deep into the suburbs of Sydney to meet up with my Dad’s cousin and visit my 93 year old great aunt, who moved to Sydney from Scotland as a teenager as a cure for her asthma (apparently this prescription was ineffective, but she stayed anyway). After that expedition was successfully completed, Roz and I reconvened for lunch at a delightful local cafe, then walked through Pott’s Point to the New South Wales Museum of Art. We were enjoying the art well enough til Roz unexpectedly received an email that brought into question the house in which we are going to live from September… and we spent the next few hours walking around the Botanic Gardens and discussing this development at great and tedious length, punctuated by a lovely period of lying on the grass reading, and a stroll to Mrs Macquarrie’s chair, a look out point over the water. So many beautiful walks in this city!

As darkness approached, we retired to one of my new favourite places in Sydney, Our Golden Age cinema. This delight of a venue has a really beautiful vintage-feeling cocktail bar (where we duly indulged), and a cute little cinema that shows obscure type films. The film on that evening was Midnight Special, a sci fi film that inexplicably got good reviews. It was in fact not at all good, but we both loved the cinema so much that we didn’t really mind. Afterwards we walked to Dead Ringers restaurant for rather excellently done tapas and a few drinks before bed.

Saturday was the start of Roz’s birthday weekend. We decided to embark on a less-famous Sydney waterside walk/hike, Taronga Zoo to Balmoral Beach. I’d feared it might be less nice than the previous two walks, but it turned out to be the loveliest of all, and we very much recommend it. We took a ferry across the sparkling, beautiful harbour and got out just by the zoo. From there, a hiking path took us along foresty paths right by the water. Partway along, we stopped for a tasty sandwich lunch and to delight in a marriage proposal being written in the sky by a little aeroplane: “Marry Me Vivi?”. Charming. A bit further, and we eventually found ourselves on pretty Balmoral Beach eating a strawberry muffin and reading our books in an exceptionally scenic location.

When we got back into town, Roz was suddenly inspired: why not go up Sydney tower and have cocktails in their revolving bar? Why not indeed! Up we went and sure enough, enjoyed cocktails as the bar slowly rotated, giving us 360 degree views of the harbour and city as night fell. Afterwards, we walked to another cocktail bar, this time the award-winning Eau de Vie in Kings Cross. The cocktails were amazing. I liked that my ‘aviator’ cocktail came topped with a giant pink candy floss ‘cloud’, with a tiny paper aeroplane perched on top. Hilarious - and ridiculously hipster. We loved it. We crossed the road to Govinda’s a famous Indian buffet restaurant attached to a cinema. We’d planned to see a film after dinner, but the dinner wasn’t very nice so rather than linger, we cut our losses and walked instead to the cinema next to our apartment, and saw God Willing, a funny, charming Italian film instead. And enjoyed the Australian tradition of eating ‘choco-tops’ (ice cream cones where the ice cream is coated in a layer of chocolate) during the film.

Sunday was Roz’s birthday, but no long lie for her! After a quick opening of presents, we were off on the train to the Blue Mountains for a scenic day trip. When I was about seventeen, my family came on a trip to Sydney and drove to the Blue Mountains. It was a horrible grey, drizzly, chilly day and there was so much fog that when we got to the lookout point, we could see absolutely nothing. So I had been rather anti-Blue Mountains on this trip. But Roz persuaded me and it was a fabulous day. We had a nice vegetarian lunch in Up Beet, then walked to Echo Point from which we had a lovely clear view of the mountains (in stark contrast to my previous experience). After that we climbed down nearly 1000 steps (was glad when we got to the bottom of that!), did a lovely hour and a half of foresty, waterfall-pocked hiking along the valley floor, and then ascended on what is apparently the steepest railway in the world. As we set off on the railway, I commented that I couldn’t see what the fuss was about – and then suddenly it felt as thought we were going up vertically, and it was all very exciting!

We got home about 6:30pm – just enough time to pack our bags, and walk the 20 minutes to a famous vegetarian restaurant, Yellow, for Roz’s birthday dinner. The restaurant was exciting and delicious, and we revelled in the novelty of being able to ask complicated questions about the menu in a language we could understand!

But not for long… All good things must come to an end. Roz blew out her birthday dessert candle, and we reluctantly walked home to bed. Up before the crack of dawn today, I’m now writing this from the plane as we head home to Tokyo. But I fear we are leaving our hearts in Sydney.  Maybe time to develop asthma and try Great-Aunt Mary’s prescription…

Books we read on holiday

Roz

A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute), The Far Country (Nevil Shute), The Buddha of Suburbia (Hanif Kuresishi) and The Last Painting of Sarah de Vos (Dominic Smith). Plus good progress on Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy) and Landfalls (Naomi Williams).

Layla

The Mandibles (Lionel Shriver), A Town Like Alice (Nevil Shute), and good progress into Landfills (Naomi Williams). And a lot of Facebook articles about Brexit…

In which Layla and Roz enjoy speaking English and fall in love with Sydney

by Layla

We had been looking forward to this for a while: our first proper holiday from our new Tokyo home, in pursuit of English language relaxation and lots of cultural fun without jetlag – so where better than a trip to Sydney, Australia! It may have been unpleasantly an overnight 9 hour flight… but the time difference was minimal. Which meant that we slept, landed, acquired mobile phone service (ten thousand times easier to do than in our new home country), checked into our beautiful AirBnB apartment in Paddington, and just over an hour after landing, we were feeling good and eating glorious avocado toast in Bill’s, a breakfast place just minutes from our apartment (and yes, the same Bill’s that has a branch in Tokyo that we also like…). Hooray!

Fuelled by avocado, we explored our new neighbourhood. Paddington is absolutely delightful: hipster, charming, pretty, and full of cool shops, bars and restaurants, including several amazingly nice bookshops. We immediately adopted the neighbourhood as our beloved home. Having duly admired it, and strolled in a sunken Roman garden in the sunshine, as you do, we realised it was still only 9:45am… so we walked into town and joined a really good free walking tour of downtown Sydney. We really enjoyed hearing stories of how the city grew from the efforts of convicts from the UK, admired the iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and hospital built on the proceeds of selling rum… and then had a tasty lunch in a charming though touristy area called The Rocks. Followed by a quick pop into a gallery to enjoy a show that was part of a citywide photography festival. Hooray.

After that we walked round the harbour to the Opera House and spent a while reading (ahem, napping in my case) on the grass at the Botanical Gardens which are big and beautiful, overlooking the water, and such a delight. We walked all the way home afterwards, via a supermarket to stock up our new apartment. After that we duly had dinner at home, then supplemented that with wine and cheese at a lovely local Italian place. What a brilliant first day! 

On Sunday we decided to take advantage of Sydney’s lovely $2.10 all-day Sunday travel ticket and took the ferry to Manly. When I last visited about 16 years ago, Manly was a rather downtrodden beach resort. Now it’s gone all hipster. Roz acquired a flat white and a toasted banana bread from a pretentious food cart, we picked up a picnic of super-organic veggie sandwiches from a fancy lunch place, and before long we were off on our main Manly mission: a 10km walk/hike along coastal paths to The Spit (a bridge from which we could get a bus back into town). The walk was glorious. As the sun shone, we stripped off layers, and delighted in the walking path, which mostly clung to the pretty water. We stopped for our picnic, then the trail started to get more exciting, requiring a bit of rock scrambling, then a long way through a nature reserve, which felt fun and remote as though we were in a jungle sort of place. Then we started to get a bit tired and our water ran out (necessitating an undercover thieving operation where we had to desperately acquire some from a garden tap in someone’s driveway – the less said of this indignity, the better!), but a lovely café eventually appeared on the horizon, filling us with tea and lemonade and raspberry muffins, which powered us along the last 30 minutes to the bus… What a super walk! Take more than a small bottle of water if you’re doing it though…

We had a quick dinner at home, then glammed up for one of the evenings I was looking forward to most: Heathers the Musical… at the Sydney Opera House! Two brilliant things at once. It was very cool walking into the Opera House, and the rock musical was rather fabulous and very reminiscent of my teenage years watching Heathers on video. Such fun! We drank fizz in the Opera House bar and toasted our excellent start to the holiday.

The next day was rainy and chilly, and everybody in Sydney was aghast. We hid in a completely glorious bookshop Berkeluow, just a 2 minute walk from our apartment. Possibly the loveliest bookshop either of us have ever visited. We spent ages browsing the shelves – and having tea and cake in their café. Then we headed into the centre of town to try to get Roz’s phone fixed as it was playing up. We integrated a visit to the mobile provider shop and the Apple store with a delicious quiche and vegetables lunch in the very beautiful old Queen Victoria Building. After Japan living, we are particularly charmed by the vast availability of vegetarian quiche type items and loads of tasty, healthy, definitely-vegetarian salads available everywhere here… 

Having polished off lunch, we proceeded to the Museum of Contemporary Art, on Sydney Harbour. A very cool building, but we were not especially inspired by most of its contents… but nevertheless, we had a pleasant half hour wandering around looking at the exhibits and climbing over school groups before a return to the Apple store and a coffee in a nice little coffeeshop nearby. The continuing rain inspired us to head for home and watch a sneaky first episode of the new series of Orange is the New Black while devouring copious chocolate for the rest of the afternoon…

That evening, after another dinner at home, we walked to another very cool theatre to see a much-anticipated play, The Literati. Based on Moliere’s Les Femmes Savantes, the play was entirely in rhyming couplets in an amazingly non-annoying way. It was witty and compelling and cool and we were both completely delighted. We have really, really been missing good theatre! Afterwards we walked through the rather seedy Kings Cross to the posher Potts Point, where we settled in Monopole restaurant for their famous cheese board… and a little wine to wash it down. A lovely end to the evening. Even if the walk home was a tad chilly…

The next morning the sun was shining. Roz headed to a yoga class (which made her pine desperately for regular yoga classes in English) while I went for a meeting with one of the Sydney-based people who works for an organisation I run.  He took me on a cool walk all over the area, pointing out historical and architectural features as we strolled through Rushcutters Park, admired boats, and noted the spot where refrigeration was invented (funded by his great grandfather, apparently). All very cool and interesting. Afterwards we met up with Roz, who was virtuously doing some Japanese homework in lovely Berkelouws bookshop café. After my colleague left, we ordered all sorts of delicious lunch items.

After lunch we walked up Oxford Street, Paddington’s main drag, going into cool shops and musing on buying furniture for our imminent new Tokyo house… then we got to the huge Centennial Park and spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through the grass and around its many pretty lakes in the sunshine. We polished off the afternoon at a chocolate café where I aspired to acquire a drink, ice chocolate, that I had when I came to Sydney in my youth. Alas it no longer seems to be a thing, so I had to make do with a chocolate milkshake instead. Such hardship… That evening we had outstanding Italian tapas at 10 William Street, then went to a cute arty cinema to see Mustang, a Turkish film which was excellent but depressing. But we enjoyed the treat of seeing a foreign film with subtitles in English! Another lovely day.

Yesterday the sun was still shining, but we still had our hearts set on going to the Orpheum, a brilliant art deco cinema, for their lunch-and-a-film afternoon. It was us and a cinema full of pensioners, but we delighted in the amazing space and the Wurlitzer organ (which rose out of the floor, played by the resident organist) before seeing Florence Foster Jenkins, which was a very sweet movie (and disconcertingly featured Howard from the Big Bang Theory). Afterwards, having eschewed the old lady non-veggie sandwiches on offer at the cinema, we had avocado toast at a hipster coffee place at Neutral Junction, before getting the bus back into town. We walked to Banagaroo Nature Reserve, a fairly deserted lawn overlooking the water to the west of Sydney Harbour Bridge where we read our books for ages, before mustering our energy and walking up and over the Sydney Harbour Bridge along a cool pedestrian footpath. Fab views, cool bridge, and lots of fun. 

After that exertion it was obviously time for another chocolate café where I pursued my ice chocolate dream again in vain (but had another giant chocolate milkshake. Not exactly a slimming vacation…). Then we walked along the water to a nice Italian restaurant opposite the Sydney Theatre Company’s Roslyn Packer Theatre, near the water and very cool, to see Arthur Miller’s All My Son’s. While not entirely my cup of tea, it was a good production and we both enjoyed the whole experience. Again, home by bus. I love that the size of Sydney and its great bus system makes it easy to get around.

This morning I sent Roz to the supermarket while I sit in lovely Berkeluow’s bookshop with a smoothie, writing this blog. Ah, it’s a hard life…