We are once again on the move and this time we get on an Air Canada flight first to Vancouver and then TO. Funnily enough we are flying at 7 pm and arriving at about the same time in Toronto on the same day Tuesday.
We composed a whole posting in the Tokyo Reference Library only to have it evaporate when we pressed `publish post`. So this is a recap. If this post is a bit wacky we blame the keyboard which is basically set up for characters not so much for alphabet.
Thursday and Friday in Sigli were significant in that the Vice Bupati (Vice Mayor) invited us out to a dinner he hosted - and awarded us with the Sigli official plaques. At the restaurant it was hilarious when due to the size of the group it was deemed that a wall partition should be removed in order to accommodate the entourage and then the nails sticking out from the floor were hammered down with a handy rock. So that was a big wow.
We are very pleased to have the help of the translator Iwan, while we are away this time as he transitions into a local resource for the library project. So basically we spent a couple of hours teaching him everything about the project and bob is your uncle. What a great guy - we are blessed.
Let`s face it we travelled a lot this trip and Saturday was no exception as we went from Banda Aceh to Jakarta and then overnight to Tokyo arriving at 7 am. We really lucked out on the flight and each had 3 seats over which we could sprawl out.
In Tokyo on the way in we saw one of the dressed up `maid girls` with the frills and high heels. Little did we know the shots of her shoes would be some of the best we got of weird getups。 We valiantly attempted to do Tokyo in 36 hours - shrines, temples, shopping, fish market, museums, sushi, and mastered the transit system in the process. Or so we claim.
The post would not be complete without a nod to the bathrooms, specifically the toilets. They are amazing - what can be achieved with technology. O.k. they have heated seats, various bidet options, the sound of gurgling water and even an odor button which we didn`t try. Given the context of coming from Indonesia where all bathrooms have pools of water on the floor and the usual squat, we were so enamored that we visited more than our fair share of washrooms around the city.
Right now we await our flight in a business lounge and we are crossing our fingers that indeed time will fly and get us home in less than an hour.
Emperors palace looked great in the winter
2 comments:
Welcome home! I will try to wear high heels, feed you, give you awards and have Nic translate for us to help you transition home.
Excellent posts - even the hurried, silent, dry, and wet parts. Thank you for all of them.
Is there a job description for intrepid librarian? You both would fit the bill. Your descriptions made me feel like part of the scene, right down to the toilets.
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