This Battered Suitcase

I just got home from Vietnam three days ago, and it was one of the best trips of my life. Today, acting completely on spontaneity, I booked tickets to Sri Lanka for a nine day holiday in September. And there's South Korea in October, and Borneo in December, and it never stops, it never stops, I can never stay settled for long...


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I`m in Tokyo now, for a wee holiday. We arrived amongst the bright lights on Tuesday; already we`ve spent a day exploring Shinjuku and its beautiful garden, shopped in Shibuya and Harajuku, sipped cocktails on the 52nd floor overlooking Roppongi, taken a boat ride down the river from Asakusa, gone antiquing in Ginza, and spent a very early morning ( Read more... )

OK, so, um, before I came to Japan, I thought these things were kind of lame. "What is the fun in this?", I thought.

And then I tried it.

And I realized how wrong I had been.


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Life has been so busy lately that I've barely had time to go on the internet at all, let alone do any major updates! The days have consisted of six days a week of teaching, chocolate fondue, nabe parties, tickets for sumo and Duffy, ridiculously good books (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, please read it), insane amounts of ( Read more... )

And now it's the new year. My only new year's resolution? Don't make mountains out of molehills. I've already failed. Twice.

2008 started in Edinburgh with a bang (literally, I was there for Hogmanay), where I would spend the next six or seven months, traipsing about from café to coffeeshop, reading this and that, consuming far too much fish and ( Read more... )

I'm here in Queenstown, New Zealand, after an amazing Christmas week in Christchurch and another four days of driving around the south island. It's been so wonderful to finally meet David's family and friends and to finally see where he grew up! It's also so beautiful here: fields of sheep and huge snowy mountains and crashing waves on rocky ( Read more... )

I haven't even written anything in December yet? Where have the days gone? Life has been a whirlwind of Christmas shopping, bike riding, English teaching, persimmon eating, Murakami reading, vacation planning, happy-go-lucky, smiles ear-to-ear, all kinds of fun. I leave for New Zealand in less than 48 hours; I'll try and do a photo post from there ( Read more... )

It's hard to imagine that I'll be in New Zealand in just over three weeks. I feel like I have barely batted an eye and three months in Japan has flown past! I never could have imagined that I would like it this much; rather, I never could have imagined that I would like teaching this much. It's such a strange and exhilarating feeling to love doing ( Read more... )

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