Heading to Kyoto

5 am and I am awake, well, we went to bed early, 10pm, and that is seven hours. I got out my laptop and read stuff online.

Sam didn’t stir, just continued right on snoring. It was cold and I gradually put on more and more layers.

I lay down again and slept at 5.30am, peeling off the layers again like peeling an onion.

I woke again at 6.30am. Sam woke up then, which is really early for him.

6.55am. Time to get up, pack, have breakfast at 7.30am and leave at 8.15am. Good thing we were down at the dining room just before 7.30am, as there is a line not long after the dining room opens.

Bucky makes me my coffee now without me having to give instructions. (Bucky is kind of cute, ugly cute. He has to be really, otherwise I wouldn’t have given him a nick name) Espresso with a small jug of warm milk on the side. I don’t think he has had such an order before. (Any man who makes me coffee… well… you know)

Sam and I both had mushroom rice for breakfast.

The restaurant was busy with people this morning. This is the time the Japanese are on holidays, after all.

“See the Japanese want western food,” says Sam.

I saw a woman at breakfast with two noisy kids (who were pretty cute kids, admittedly) (and a handsome husband, too) who she said shhh to the two young boys, be quiet, and the kids didn’t quieten down at all, and she went on getting her breakfast. Parents of this generation are just failures, if you tell them to be quiet, make them do it. Be quiet. Fail!

8.10am. They drove us to the Yudanaka train station with the guy from New York. Bucky was outside to say goodbye, with his cute rabbit teeth. He asked us about where we came from in Australia and when we said Melbourne, he said it was known for its coffee, so that much he knew.

“Yes, thanks to Italian immigration in the 1950s and 1960s, I said.

One of the girls drove the van.

8.37am. Our train left for Nagano. A lovely old silver train.

The sun was shining, which always makes the air fresher and the day lovelier.

The train was different, gone was the outdated modernist creation we arrived on, the rapid, in its place was the standard design train with seats running down the sides for the length of the train, everyone looking at one another. A handsome Japanese guy sat opposite, staring down at his phone.

The sun shone in through the windows. The gentle ease of a country morning was all pervading.

Through the plains of rural Japan, lovely and gentle and calm. Clackity clack, clackity clack. The blossom still in the trees. Clackity clack, clackity clack. A gentle descent into the urban throb. Clackity clack, clackity clack.

We had to swap trains half way, who knows why? Off one train and straight across the platform and onto another train already waiting, also silver glinting in the sunshine.

The guy from New York talked all the way, non stop. Sam sat in between me and him and with the sounds of the train and his hushed New York accent, I had trouble hearing everything he said. I found myself nodding without much of a clue, at times. He told us about his previous trips overseas, how his first trip to Europe when he was very young only cost him $200. He told us how a car ran over his foot in London on another trip. He told us how one trip to China he had 13 accidents, or mishaps.

He was born in Hong Kong but moved to New York when he was a young boy. He liked to travel always, seemingly, on a budget. He had travelled back to China many times.

He got off at Obuse, he was off to see some lino cut art. Out the door and then he was gone. He was quite nice really, said it was a pleasure meeting us and hoped we would meet up again, possibly in Bali. (We all said we’d like to go to Bali on our next trip away) We left him standing in the middle of the local train station looking around, as if trying to divine the way to go. He travels on a budget, he has limited funds, good for him. It is not only the cultures you see when you travel, but the people you meet too and their stories you hear.

The “local” train was packed by the time we got to Nagano. Seriously, if it is always like this put on a few more carriages Japan rail, or whatever it is you are called. Or, join the two trains it took to get us to Nagano together.

We bought a club sandwich and an espresso coffee at Beck’s coffee shop. Then Sam bought sushi to go.

10.48am. We catch the bullet train to Kanazawa to catch a connecting bullet train to Kyoto. We got on car 9, but were supposed to be on car 4, and as the train was leaving by the time we discovered our mistake, we had to walk through the train for 5 minutes to find our seats. Still, it was better than getting off and having the train leave without us.

Why is it that we all have to be subjected to people’s noisy kids? There is a screaming kid whose head I’d like to take in both my hands a smash into the window until it stops making a noise, or until it is to slippery to keep hold of, whichever comes first.

The urbanisation out the window never stops. The development never eases off, wide open spaces never appear. It does a bit from time to time, but never like Australia. There are never wide open spaces of undeveloped land.

11.34am Toyama train station. It looks very slick and modern, white and silver steel. This must be a new station, surely.

11.56am. At Kanazawa Station, to catch our connecting train. It is called the Thunderbird number 22 bound for Osaka, so that must be a good sign, Thunderbirds are go, and all, except it is not a bullet train, it isn’t even a fast train, the Thunderbird is stopping all stations.

Komatsu, Kagaonsen, Awaraonsen, Fukui, Sabae, Takefu, Tsuruga, Kyoto.

Kyoto here we come.

The voiceover just never stops. The fact it is done in several languages doesn’t help its brevity, or lack thereof. Japan is generally like that, there is always some back ground noise going on.

There are no big trees in Japan, that my eyes can see out the window. Well, for the most part, in the urbanised areas. No large trees in gardens of houses.

I put my headphones in and listened to The Two of Us, Alfredo Malabello. Lay my head back and felt the movement of the train lull me to sleep.

And then I listened to Michael Buble Live. I wonder now if I imagined the movement of the train lulling me to sleep? I’m not sure there is much movement with a bullet train. Maybe it was the warmth of the confined spaces.

Sam played his games with his headphones on.

The sun shone. The train was warm.

I listened to Kate Ceberano’s 19 Days In New York. My eyes close and sleep nearly envelops me, but not quite.

2.37pm. We arrive in Kyoto.

We had to catch the underground to Marutamachi underground station. There is a manual, of sorts, of how to get to the house. Screen shots and written instructions, as there was in Tokyo. Around the corner and along a bit, turn right and you are there.

There are rules, a page of rules. We can leave our bags after midday, but no staying in the house before 4pm. There is something about a fine from the cleaners that will be oncharged to us if we check in too early and disturb them.

The entrance is a bit grim, a sliding door with a central lock, there is one of those key safes like real estate agents use. We have the code, click open there is the key. First door open, along a dark walkway to another door, open. There are the bikes we can ride. There are doors in all directions from there. The front garden. The toilet the front door to the house.

“What do we think?” Sam says. “It is 3.15pm, surely the cleaners have come by now.”

“Find the wifi password, message the owner to ask if 3.15pm is too early?” I suggest. “Or will the universe implode if we stay now?”

“Surely not?” says Sam.

We have to check out by 10am on checkout day, otherwise there is a 10000 yen for every fifteen minutes we overstay. Yeah, right, I think. Of course, Sam and I are pretty quiet tenants who abide by the rules. Don’t worry luv, we’ll be gone before 10am. Don’t you worry.

“I’d like to see them enforce collect on 10,000 yen fine, quite frankly,” I say.

“Seriously?” says Sam.

“We could go anyway,” I say. “Go get coffee?”

“Coffee? Is that all you think about?”

“I’ve only had one today.” He must be tired, I think. We are tired, I reckon. It is tiring packing up and moving everything to another place, changing trains 3 times to do it. And we were up early, 5 am and 6 am, that is early.

“You’ll turn into coffee one day.”

“I could be so lucky.”

“Has she answered?”

“No?”

“Oh well, let’s go,” I say. “We don’t want her to shit her pants over it.”

So, we went and got coffee. It was rubbish. The menu said espresso, but seriously, I think it was pour over just put in a small cup.

We came back at four, just because that is how long it took us.

Sam says she has answered, he reads it out. “The cleaners have been now, it is no problem if you stay now.”

“Only an hour too late,” I say. “But it makes no never mind.”

The house is really nice once you are inside. They just need to tart up the front a bit and they’d probably get more rentals.

Then we went and got food. Around the corner and along a bit. Too tired to really go looking for anything nice, we fall into the Japanese take away kind of place. I eat beef with kimchi and a salad and something and miso soup. Sam eats beef with eel and ochre and silken tofu and a crab miso soup. There is always miso soup in Japan.

I came home and I was a bit sleepy. I lay down on the couch with my laptop, time to research Kyoto. What to do in this place tomorrow?

Next thing I knew it was 10.30pm.

I sat up for a while, Sam played his game, Final Fantasy.

We went to bed at midnight.

I lay in bed wondering what kind of fire trap this place is. Really, it on has one door, the front door and to get to it you have to walk through a long, enclosed walkway. I think about Buddy and Brun and fall asleep.

I really just want to go home, play with my bulldogs and play my new CDs that I have bought. Japan is just not really doing it for me, I am afraid.

That’s not the attitude I think, as I lay in the dark under the soft and luscious doona. There is only a week to go, it will go fast, enjoy it.

Snow Monkey

Monkey's and Hot Baths

I am up at 6.30am. Sam is wake not long after.

7.30am. we ate breakfast, not served until 7.30 sharp. The Japanese pride themselves on their punctuality. I eat a bacon and cheese baguette, or some such thing. Sam eats mushroom rise, with miso soup and yogurt. Sam picks up my roll and takes two large bites. I’m like a bulldog when it comes to my food, can be food aggressive.

The guy running the café bar makes me coffee. He has adorable prominent rabbit teeth, so I call him Bucky. He is nice, they are all nice.

9am. Then we are off to the monkey park to see the snow monkeys. Get up there early, is always a good strategy with popular tourist attractions, as far as I am concerned. One of the nice girls from out hotel drives us. She shows us what bus stops at which to catch the bus on the way back. She gives us a map to show us where to get off the bus.

“The bus goes to the train station, don’t go there or you will have a long walk back to the hotel,” she says.

There is a wide, if soggy path up the hill to the Monkey Park. It is nice to get out into the quiet and solitude of nature. The air is crisp and clean, if not as cold as our drive suggested it may be.

Sam says he is a bit short of breath. I tell him that I am too. He says he was glad it wasn’t just him.

Then, suddenly, there is a monkey in the trees. Then another monkey. Then there is a monkey walking passed us on the path. We stop and watch them.

We head up to the park. There are plenty of monkeys to observe and photograph. There are plenty of tourists doing just that. It wasn’t cold enough for the snow monkeys to get into the hot springs, but they sat all around them. You could see the grain that had been put out to ensure there were snow monkeys for the tourists to see. They just walked amongst the people. Don’t pat them, don’t scare them and above all don’t feed them or let them see you have food. If the snow monkeys associate humans with food it will become impossible for us to observe them up close and personal without them pestering us for food.

We take photos. We stand and watch them.

11.11am. We walk back down from the monkey park, we just missed the bus by ten minutes. The next bus was at 12.06pm.

We pissed around taking blossom shots, waiting for the sun to come out from behind the clouds. But, I was hungry, my bacon roll had worn off and Sam ate half of it anyway, and that was at 7am and all. My stomach was telling me to eat. So, we walked back up the hill to Enza Café and ate Ramen. I put my jacket on the back of the chair.

“Don’t let me forget my jacket,” I said.

11.50am. We head back down to the bus stop. People had gathered by then waiting for the next bus. We took more sun on the blossom shots, as we waited.

12.04pm. “Where is your jacket?” Sam says.

“Oh shit,” I say. “I told you not to let me forget it.”

“The bus will probably be late,” says Sam.

“Not in Japan,” I say.

There is always time to get it done, I thought. No use standing and wondering if I have time to go and get it, just go. So, I ran back up the hill, literally ran. I couldn’t run all the way, it was a steep hill. I walked a bit and then ran again. I got my jacket and ran back down the hill. The bus was there by then and people were getting. We got on.

I heaved and gasped for breath. Oh universe, how fit am I. It was a steep hill, I want to add at this point. And it was up hill for half a kilometre, okay a quarter, but it wasn’t just a couple of steps.

When we were back in the hotel’s café, I couldn’t stop coughing from the run. It felt like a hay fever cough, bought on by the running, well, I guess it is spring here after all.

We sat in the café with our computers. I drank coffee.

We decided on a midday onsen, so we change into the traditional dress and clack up the street in our wooden shoes. It wasn’t nearly as glam as last nights, just a rusty old bath set into the ground, essentially. The public onsen. We went to three of them, they are all the same.

It was bloody hot too. Scolding hot, even after we put loads of water into it, it was still hot. We sat on the edge and bucketed water over ourselves. Eventually, we managed to slide our bodies under the water.

3pm. We are back in the hotel having a snooze. It’s always nice to have an afternoon snooze. But, the sun is shining. We’re inside on our beds and the sun is finally shining.

4pm. We head outside for a walk around. We climb up behind the houses to all the temples. There are some really ornate temples but none of them seem to have been well maintained, and are in varying states of decay, can’t really see why. May be the old inhabitants that built them have long since died. And like country towns the world over, the young ‘uns had moved away. Don’t know. Just guessing.

6.15pm. We go to the big, luxo onsen. It was hot, we were ready to leave much sooner than last night. It just seemed so hot. Maybe it was because we’d already had one. There were some cute boys there to purve on, well, appreciate, maybe a better term. Glance at, really. Hot dads seemed to be the specialty of the night. Strapping men with their boys having onsen together

We ate in. Croquettes, roast chicken and a fried chicken entrée for dinner back in the hotel.

We packed. We got ready to leave for tomorrow. Ready to get back on the tourist conveyor belt.

We went to sleep at 10pm, Nan (Sam’s one for early to bed, so I refer to him as Nan) was very happy about that.



Don’t pat the snow monkeys.

Oh, Jesus the water is hot in this tub!

People come and people go.

Let’s see all the naked men,

In their natural surroundings.

Let’s go to bed early,

So, we can get up early.

There is the sound of wooden shoes

Clacking in the street.

Leaving Tokyo

How I'll remember Tokyo

Time to go, time to leave Tokyo. A big city that must suck a good proportion of the world's energy with all its lights and screens and electronic advertising.


--> We are both awake early, 6am. I stir just a bit and I hear, “Baby?” instantly.

“Yes, honey.”

“It’s 5am, er, 6am.”

We both lay back for a minute but, clearly, we are both awake by then.

8.30am. We’re pack and are ready to head out to eat something, before the 10am checkout.

8.45am. Sam is watching a movie on his phone.

We’re ready to leave to go get breakfast.

Our bullet train leaves at 1.50pm, half an hour train ride from Shinjuku.

Off to see the snow monkeys.

10.15am. We leave our AirBnB. We head off up our little street to the main road, passed the Mercedes carpark (Still have no idea why there is a carpark that only has Mercedes in it) for the last time.

10.30am. As we meander off down the main for the last, across the lights on the green man, passed the large open car park, the dodgy wheel starts its final disintegration on Sam’s suitcase. Not good.

10.45am. We’re in Excelsior Caffe drinking our last good coffee. The staff are lovely, the Japanese are always helpful.

Rodeo Drive is across the road. That is what the shop is called.

So, I'm sitting in a coffee shop with free wifi while Sam goes off to visit the local Shinjuku Samsonite shop to look at new suitcases, as the dodgy wheel on his suitcase, which has been dodgy all the way through Europe, and before, may not survive, this morning as we head to the bullet train to head to our next stop. So, what else is there to do but post photos.

The sun is shining, it is a lovely morning.

11.36am. Time to get going, off into the blue. Sam picked out a new purple suitcase, but in the end we decide just to risk it. What is the worst could happen, the wheel could come off and he’d have to carry it?

12.09pm. The train out of Shinjuku; which train to catch is confusing, always confusing in the labyrinth that is Shinjuku station, but we got on the right train in the end.

It’s a half an hour train ride JS24 is our stop. Our train leaves at 1.50, or 2.18pm, depending on what you read. It is 1.50pm when it leaves.

12.47pm. Waiting in the waiting room, we have an hour before our bullet train leaves 🍁 haha, not that kind of leaves 🍁 oh, stop it.

Busy, busy, busy, of course, like everything else in Tokyo. People waiting, people coming and people going.

Sam has found Tokyo Banana, someone recommended to us, should we buy a box? No, we decide, it just looks like confectionary.

We buy some cold take away, rice and chicken and beef. We scoff it down.

I’m getting antsy and want to get to the platform. We head up there. Initially we are waiting in the wrong place. There are places to queue on the platform itself, and car numbers on the signs above. One bullet train comes and goes, midnight blue and as slippery as you like. Sam goes to the toilet. Another bullet train comes and goes, like moulded green plastic. Sam sends me to the toilet. Another bullet train comes and goes, green moulded plastic and pink moulded plastic joined together. It’s getting close to our departure. We find the place we are supposed to queue, car 6. The Japanese queue in an orderly fashion, always.

Our bullet train comes. Our reserve seats are 17a and 17b. We slide out of the train station right on time, of course. The countryside is populated with houses. The houses never stop. The is barely any undeveloped land. Houses cover the entire place, they never let up. In the middle of all of that there is a stepped hi rise building, that looks gruesome. Is that public housing? It is the only hi rise building to be seen in a sea of roofs.

2.48pm. We are in Nagano. It’s been raining, now there’s a surprise, but is has stopped now.

We have to buy a ticket for the local train service. Where to go, what to buy. The ever helpful Japanese give us instructions and point us in the right direction with their customary smile.

3.13pm. We’re on the train to our last stop for today. It is kind of a dated postmodern space age train, like it was super modern in the 1960s, perhaps. The carpets are all worn, but it has Star Trek doors, that pssss and then open as you approach. I think it may have been new when the first Star Trek series was produced.

We’ve made all our connections, the plans have worked out, it is always a good feeling when you pull it off. Just 20 minutes to go, 3.33pm we leave. The train is empty now, but I guess that means nothing in Japan 🇯🇵.

Sam has gone to get a drink.

And the train fills up, with bloody tourists, of course. Mung bean eating, non armpit shaving, pot smoking (nothing wrong with that), vegan no doubt, filthy German tourists. All off to see the snow monkeys. Why do we want to see the snow monkeys? Something to do? Because we want to see the countryside, says Sam.

The blond boy German is photo mad. He dashes all over the train taking shots. He and his girlfriend get off the train before us, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.

3.50pm. We passed the Suzka rail yards

4.20pm. We arrive at our destination Yudanaka the end of the line in our outdated space age train. The nice lady from our hotel picked us up in her bright red Toyota people mover, as prearranged.

We book into our hotel with a fat bloke from New York and a boy and two girls who I think are from Germany. The fat guy from New York is keen to get to the onsen, the hot baths this area is famous for. That and the snow monkeys, of course.

We book to go to the onsen at 7pm. The staff give us traditional Japanese outfits to change into, we even get clacky wooden shoes.

We had a wander around town. People were out and about in their onsen gowns and jackets, clacking up and down the street in their wooden shoes.

Eggs were boiling in a bowl outside one of the hotels. Some guy was bending down getting himself an egg, in his onsen gown, he stood up when he was done. He’s cute, I say. He smiles, I sense, then he speaks to me in fluent English, something about the boiled eggs being a tradition. He clearly has heard me call him cute. He was there with his two younger brothers and his mum and dad. Congrats mum and dad, 3 cute men added to the worlds stockpile of cute men. The oldest is the most handsome though.

We head back to the hotel, wanting to go to the onsen earlier than we’d booked, so we didn’t have to eat too late. We just miss the 6pm shuttle, it was full anyway, the American from New York was in the front seat. So, they took us at 6.15pm, when the shuttle was back.

The onsen was a big zooshy across town. It frequented by mostly old men, but there were a few cuties there.

We learned the etiquette of the onsen, how to wash ourselves on the stool first, at washing areas dotted all around the edge of the baths. (If you have ever been to a gay sauna, not that dissimilar)

There was the outside pool and spa and the inside pool. The inside pool seemed quite hot. I liked the outside pool the best.

We ended up in the spa with Burn the Dutch boy we booked in with (not German at all) and the fat New Yorker. Burn kisses us good bye when he has to go back in the earlier shuttle to the hotel. (Those Dutch boys, always so affectionate, you've got to love that in a guy)

We ate dinner in the restaurant. I had pork, Sam had an apple beef curry. We had chicken for an entrée. Burn ate next to us with his two girlfriends.

We went for a walk after dinner, just to see the lights of the narrow streets, trying to see if we could see any other restaurants, armed with the explanatory map. But the other restaurants aren’t obvious. And it was cold, so we went home.

We bought ice cream and ate it in the shop where we bought it, over a tea ceremony fire pit. I had vanilla and mascarpone with nuts. Sam had green tea.

We came home and went through all of our photos.

It is very much like the mountainous regions of Italy, or Switzerland, or Austria, same quaint kind of village feel, but everyone is doing hot springs baths, every day they visit the onsens, it is why people come here, after all, that and the snow monkeys

In bed by 11.11.

And here they come, like locusts. Whoosh! Don't get me started about the people dragging the suitcases along behind them and all you could hear was the whir of wheels on the bitumen. And they always seem to be right next to me, like I was trapped on some drone field. I wasn't quiet about it, well, I wasn't quiet about it to Sam. 

Sam told me it was karma, but I had no idea what he meant. (Quizzical look)

Here's the New York shot. (Tokyo looking like New York)

And of course the rain came down, as it has this whole trip. (Who'd have thought it would rain in spring) What is that song about the rain? I'm sure Annie had Tokyo in mind when she wrote it.

"And they coom, and they coom." The only trouble with travelling is all the annoying tourists. (physical sake) They all rushed to this spot to take pictures mindlessly of the palace, which they couldn't see.

"I bet they are taking photos of nothing," I said to Sam. And they were.

Just photograph happy. I even see them not even stop walking and they are snapping away. Morons, the lot of them.

(of course, we were there too, but that was just to see what was going on, you understand)

Trees by the Emperor's Palace. I had to wait the longest time for an old European couple to stop faffing about with a selfie stick before I could get this shot. Dear God people, there is no other bloody angle from which you can take a shot of yourselves, except perhaps straight up your great big hooters. These trees will be dead by the time you finish. Move along!

Tokyo Train Station

Tokyo train station. Nice it is too. Quite interesting, it is in a very different part of Tokyo which doesn't have all the tackiness. I assume it is the business district part of Tokyo, I could check, but I can't be bothered. Let's just say it is. By the Emperor's Palace, in a part of Tokyo that reminds me of New York, in a way.

We  saw St Mary's Cathedral today, a magnificent piece of modernist architecture

The ubiquitous Toyota Crown Super Saloon Tokyo taxi, normally in black, but these red ones are better for the night shot

Shinjuku night life

Pride Tokyo

We left the giant pet shop, after looking for bulldog accessories, and Google maps told us that the Pride March was on, right at that very moment, just up the road from where we were. So we watched the Pride March go by, it seemed to go by in sections, and we joined onto the end of the section that just passed by and we walked through Tokyo as a part of Tokyo Pride. Happy Pride everyone. It was nuts in the park at the end.

I've got video (do we still call it video?) of the parade heading off down the wrong street and having to be dragged back by the police and put back on track, which was very funny, everybody laughed, but I have dodgy wifi and I can't post it.

Coffee

It is afternoon. I want coffee, I suggest we find some. I need a sit down, my back is hurting. Google maps finds five nearby coffee shops, I pick the one with the best photo of coffee, nice white porcelain cups. Shrug, it is as good as anything else to go on. It’s a nice little market arrange'mont, unfortunately playing what sounds like Middle Eastern music on crack. I imagine some 1920s ingenue spinning like a whirling dervish with veils, while her coke addicted boyfriend drums manically, blowing a whistle out his arse for all he’s worth. The coffee, of course, is average. [roll of the eyes] Melbourne coffee drinkers are hard to please, I understand, but people how hard can it be? Really? I’m not asking you to solve string theory, it is just the blending of ground beans and hot water. How difficult can it be, for fuck sake?

The craziness of the pedestrian crossings in Tokyo

Tokyo

Tokyo

Leaving On A Jet Plane

We got into Tokyo airport at 8am.
It took over and hour and half to catch the train into Tokyo.

We found our Airbnb cell for the week without too much trouble. We had screen shots of every moment of the walk from the metro station to our Airbnb, only problem was that the first instruction of turn left as soon as you leave the metro station should have been turn right, but somehow Sam found a guy who spoke mandarin and they discussed the directions in Chinese in Tokyo and found which way we should be going.

It rained on our heads as we found our way. Tired, hungry and wet, don't you just love travel, I thought at one point as we made our way.

We ate at a fast Japanese food restaurant. We had our second cup of shit coffee. We went to a supermarket and bought fruit. Everything and I mean everything is wrapped in plastic in the supermarket. Every piece of fruit was in gladwrap. (Ironic that they use the term glad)

We bought strawberries which were already in a plastic container and the cashier put them in their own separate plastic bag before she put them in the plastic carry bag. That was three different plastic wrappers for the strawberries. Thumbs up for the planet.

We fell in a heap and slept until 6pm.

We're heading to the airport in half an hour to head to Japan. Buddy is sitting next to me, he has no idea. I'll miss him and Brun, who has gone to a friend's place to be looked after as he is still too young to leave at home with Buddy unsupervised. We have house sitters, but it won't be the same thing for Bud. Pat pat.

I don't believe in god in the same way I don't believe in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny and it seems to me that you have to believe in both to believe in god. It is the same suspension of disbelief.

I celebrate New Year and Mid Year, or the summer and winter solstice. Easter and Xmas don't mean much to anyone. Let's face it, Santa was invented by Coca Cola.

Now we have got all that other nonsense out of the way, let the chocolate festival begin.

Ah, yes, the nonsense that I speak of.  Let's look at one christian's message

"As a Christian, I believe that God sent his one and only son Jesus to die on the cross so that anyone can come to have an intimate and personal relationship with him.” In what universe does that make any sense at all. He committed infanticide so we could be closer to him? What kind of evil madman is this god? Only some illiterate cave dweller would believe this.

"This is the core message behind why I believe we celebrate Easter. I also believe that we are all sinners, that no one including myself is exempt from this and this is why Jesus died for us so that we could all be forgiven by God.” He killed his son so we could all be absolved of the evil we have done. That is the thinking of a psychopath.

"God is a loving God The above indicates anything but love and I pray that everyone will come to experience that same love Are you serious? as I have. No wonder pedophilia is acceptable to so many priest, well, arguably it is kinder than infanticide? 

In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him. So God is a single cell amoeba?

It is all unintelligible nonsense

Happy Chocolate Festival everyone!

You know what the most liberating idea is in this era? I don’t, actually, have to have an opinion

I love the smell of fresh cut grass in the afternoon

The whole notion of heaven is vanity, bordering on narcissism. The whole idea of Christian belief is wilful stupidity

Everything that comes out of Scott Morison's mouth is a lie

I saw Tim Wilson sprinting towards Spring Street passed no 1 Treasury Place. She’s a really fat queen.

Hey Israel Folau, God's plan for fuckwits is Centrelink.

Japan’s 100  million dollar stealth fighter disappears without a trace mid flight? Oh, the irony

Anti abortionists challenge clinic safe zones in court... you f’ing nutjobs... go... a... way!

and they lost

This idiot Liberal Government gives the Adani coal mine the all-clear... they couldn't give a shit about the planet.

Brun

I'm way more taken with my new puppy than I would ever thought I would be. He's an adorable little chap.

Of course, he is like a young gay boy, everything goes in his mouth.

Apparently, My No Filter Approach To Life Upsets Some People

The mist hangs low over the flat pond. Little Christian lines up his eye with his hand and then flicks his wrist. 

Ch, ch, ch, ch, ch, the smooth stone kisses the surface of the water repeatedly as it sails off into oblivion. 

And the assembled faceless masses bring their hands to their faces and form Os with their lips.

Little Christian holds his hands in the air in victory.

Then he bows to the cheering crowd.

 

If You Believe Vaccines Lead to Autism, You Are A First Class Idiot

Some anti-vaxxers are increasingly making the same unfounded claims about pets and vaccines they’ve been repeating about children and vaccines for the past 20 years. 

They are refusing to vaccinate their dogs for fear it will make their dog autistic.

Seriously?

My theory is that climate change is melting our brains. Probably by the time climate change is having its full effect, we’ll all be brain-dead zombies anyway.

Some of us, clearly, are already there.

(Ed note, for the completely stupid amongst you, there is no such thing as an autistic dog)

Mother Hubbard

I went to the cupboard to get some more coffee beans to fill the coffee machine this morning so I could have my third coffee, but there were none.

"What the fuck!" I, actually, heard myself say as my search of the pantry became more and more frantic. Shelf to shelf. I moved everything. 

"They must be here some where?"

And we weren't, actually, out of coffee beans, but we just nearly were, the machine was nearly empty.

"What the fuck!"

I caught myself being cross, frantic, if I was honest. How could this happen? I think I even had a little sweat on my brow. Then I laughed at myself, ah, the fail safe. Everything is serious until you see the funny side. Just take a look at yourself, I thought. Chuckle. 

First world problems, I thought. 

If nothing else, Coles is only a 5 minute walk away.