We like Phuket. We’ve been here several times before. Including two months after the tsunami, when the waves had sucked all the sand off the beach and we had to climb up sandbags to get to the promenade. Phuket is a tender port, so we come ashore in little boats and walk along a floating pontoon to get to the beach. It is VERY shallow. Nowadays, though, other than the occasional evacuation route notice, you’d never know anything had happened here. There’s no sign whatsoever of the devastation, other than the words of those who lost loved ones. They rebuilt, in concrete this time, shipped in a few hundred tonnes of sand to rebuild the beach, and life goes on.

The weather was even more exactly as you’d expect than you’d expect. Brilliant sunshine, slight breeze, some humidity, but nothing ghastly. The only niggle was that it was 40 degrees c in the shade. Now, I don’t know how many of my readers have ever experienced 40 degrees in the shade (I think it equates to about 96 or 98 Fahrenheit), but it’s quite an experience. Even the locals were complaining about the heat! Luckily, all the rebuilding money and donations paid for plentiful air conditioning, so, although they’ve done the overhead electricity wires thing like Japan (which I suppose makes sense if you’re worried about tsunamis…), which isn’t very pretty and mars the view now and again, there are no shortage of places to duck into for a breather.

We walked along the front, past cafes we’ve been to in the past, and ended up at a restaurant we’d also been to before. We had some drinks (lots of them!) and then realised we were hungry so we ordered lunch. I had Pad Sie Yiew, which is yummy. It’s a sort of stir fry with really wide noodles and pieces of chicken. Rather like Pad Thai, but cooked in soy rather than tamarind sauce. Hope that makes sense… Then we cut through the Holiday Inn Resort which is about half a mile by half a mile, I reckon, to the main shopping street. After the tsunami they built a purpose-built market area, with stalls and cafes, and it’s a really lovely place, so we crossed the road, carefully, and we wandered through the aisles. The first shop on the right when you enter Patong Top is… the Hello Kitty shop. Oops, may have accidentally bought some more handbags… oh dear. Much to my parents annoyance, I have also found that, since I lost two dress sizes last year, I can now get into clothes in this part of the world. Just. So there were several stops involving the trying on of sundresses and the like.

Prices have risen considerably in this part of the world. I mentioned this when I was talking about Hong Kong, I think, but it really is very noticeable here. One lady off the ship that I spoke to estimates that prices have tripled in the past six years, so it’s not just my imagination! Of course, the weak pound doesn’t help either. I just hope that pay has increased as well.

By now, mum was starting to feel the effects of the heat, so we retreated to the Marriott for a cold drink and quite probably the nicest loos on the island, before wandering along the beach back to the tenders. Patong Beach is aimed at tourists, very much so. It’s not “real” Thailand by any stretch of the imagination. But it is a wonderful little town with several miles of beautiful beaches. Phuket Town isn’t in the same league. It’s just an ordinary town for the locals. There’s little or nothing for tourists to see, do or even buy. We didn’t go into Phuket Town this time, but our tablemates did, and they were not impressed. It’s almost as if the money and the effort was put into repairing the places damaged by the tsunami and the other places, further inland, were left behind, receiving nothing whatsoever. But let’s face it, if you’re a tourist, you’re going to the seaside, aren’t you? You’re unlikely to go inland much. So stick to the edges of Phuket. Explore, by all means, but don’t expect the inland areas to match up to the beauty and effort that has been put into the coastal bits. There are watersports aplenty and several large resort hotels, so most of what you need is there. But go soon, because if prices keep rising at the rate they are at the moment, pretty soon, it’ll cease to be the cheap idyll it once was and will become as expensive and exclusive as the Maldives.

Talking of which… the Maldives. As mentioned previously, we have diverted to the Maldives because the Seychelles are considered too risky. We managed to get on an excursion to an island resort that P&O use frequently. Only 100 got to go there, 50 in the morning and 50 in the afternoon, although there were other excursions available to other islands. When we got there, it looked idyllic. All grass-covered gazebos and wooden walkways stretching out over the water. Just like the photos you’ve seen. We were shown to the bar and given a payment card and told we could use all the facilities on the island. This surprised us, because we’d been told we couldn’t use the restaurants. Dad clarified this with the manager and said “Right, well, we’ll go to the pool for a bit before lunch”. “Oh no,” says the staff member nearby. “You can’t use the pools”. The ensuing argument lasted the best part of an hour. They even tried to force us to use the children’s pool for eleven dollars a head, instead of the proper pool for free. Bearing in mind we had already paid fifty quid a head for a four hour visit, there was no way we were parting with any more money, and we told them so. Eventually, I got sick of the shilly-shallying, informed the bloke that I would be in the pool and if he wanted more money, he’d have to talk to P&O and left.

It didn’t end there, of course. When we got to the pool, there was a bar. Mum wanted a cup of tea, but because she can’t have caffeine, she carries her own decaffeinated teabags. She asked for a cup of hot water. Guess what the answer was? No, you’re not a resident. Seriously, P&O sends ships here all the time. How hard can it be to establish with the hotel staff what we can and cannot do or have? Denying someone a cup of hot water, which should be free anyway, is just farcical. Anyway, they went for a walk on the beach and I swam in the pool and burned my shoulders for a couple of hours and then we left. It could have been utterly perfect. Instead it was very pleasant but marred irrevocably by a third of our time being wasted arguing the toss.

As regards the actual travel bit, we have a lot of sea days coming up – there are only about half a dozen ports left and four weeks to go. I don’t think we’ll see sea colours anything like what we saw in the Maldives – so pale turquoise and clear you could see the bottom even when it was ten feet deep. Just astonishing. There are almost daily porpoise and dolphin sightings now, and some people have been huge manta rays gliding past, as well as shoals of smaller fish now and again. I wonder what they think of us, this huge, loud interloper charging through their home. Mind you, it’s a bit bumpy at the moment and we are both pitching and rolling, so perhaps the sea is trying to block out the noise we make so as not to disturb them too much. It’s funny. The webcam TV channel shows us going up and down and they’re playing chillout flute and piano music over the top. Very soothing and strangely hypnotic at the same time. It looks like a beautiful day outside. I hope it’s nice where you are.

We asked a taxi to take us to the Meridien hotel. He took us to the Mandarin instead. Oh well, close enough! The Mandarin Orchard is a beautiful modern hotel with a restaurant so good you have to book to get in on a weekday lunchtime. I dread to think how far ahead you’d have to book for dinner! We ate in the Triple Three cafe, where I had to take a photo of the cake display, because it looked more like art than food! Mum had a piece of quiche, dad had a giant cookie and I tried a Green Tea Mousse, which was very nice but was sweeter than I was expecting, so dad finished it for me.  We then used their beautiful loos (although mine flushed itself three times while I was trying to use it, which was VERY disconcerting!) and then headed out onto Orchard Road – shopping mecca of the world. It was insanely hot and very humid, as always in Singapore, and for some reason, the streets were extremely crowded. Some store called OG was having a members only sale and everyone in Singapore was apparently a member except us. The queue went down the block and everyone came out laden with purchases. Sort of like trying to walk past Primark during the first morning of their sale! Except OG bags are still plastic. Tut tut.

Once the novelty of the crowds had worn off (which didn’t take long!), and we’d bought couple of cheap watches (mine died yesterday and no amount of CPR/new batteries could save it – it had a good life, though – it was my present for passing my GCSEs!) we grabbed a cab to Funan Digital Life Mall. This is the home of fixed price electronics in Singapore. You can go to Sim Lim Square and haggle, but you’d have to check the contents of the box you receive and the warranties are less reliable, apparently. So Funan it was. I bought a small HP Mini notebook, pink, of course, and a padded slip cover to protect it, pink, of course. I was going to buy an Acer One, but the salesman said the HP was the same spec with a better warranty and fifty dollars cheaper, and I couldn’t argue with him on any point, so that’s what I bought. We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to the Harbour Front.

This is a massive shopping mall built right on the quayside next to where the cruise ships dock. However, “local” shipping lines take priority, so nowadays we have to moor out at the container port and get a shuttle bus into town. This is also absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this is probably WAY cheaper for P&O. Nothing to do with it, AT ALL. No, sirreebob. Not a bit of it. Especially in view of the fact that this is our second visit to Singapore on this cruise. Not at all. Nope. The shuttle bus went from and to the Harbour Front Mall. Nice touch that, P&O, thanks. Not only don’t take us to the beautiful purpose-built cruise terminal and dump us so far out of town in the commercial port that it takes twenty minutes to drive from the ship to the port gate (no, really, we timed it) and THEN twenty minutes into town, but then drive us to that purpose-built cruise terminal and mall so we know EXACTLY what we’re missing. Thanks for that, thanks a bunch.

We went back to the ship and divested ourselves of our (my) purchases, which considering their littleness were getting surprisingly heavy! Then we caught the evening shuttle bus to Clarke Quay. Yes, the evening shuttle went to and from a different place to the day shuttle. No potential for lost and confused passengers there then!

At Clarke Quay we found a beautiful and thankfully air conditioned Chinese restaurant called Peony-Jade. The food was lovely, but the portions were VAST. We ordered the duck, but when it came, not only were the pancakes triangular, which was a first for us, but they insisted on making them up for us! This was a little irksome because it meant not only having to stare at it for a good ten minutes before getting our hands on it (we only got them when they were all made up), but having to explain who wanted spring onion, who didn’t, and so on. Just give it to us and let us do it! Luckily, for half of the duck, they gave us the bits and let us do it ourselves, otherwise we could well still be sitting there! Dad and Mum had a shredded beef dish and I ordered a chicken in sweet lime dressing, which, if you eat Chinese food in the UK, was as near to lemon chicken as makes no difference. It was delicious. The rice was very colourful, because they filled it with slices of spring onion and what looked like crab meat (which is reddy-pink for the unfamiliar). When I asked, he said it was fake crabmeat, made from flour. What’s the point in that?! I find that hard to comprehend. If I order a vegetarian dish, making it clear I don’t want any fish or meat in it, why would you put in PRETEND meat or fish?! Can’t process the thinking behind that one, I’m afraid. Deeply odd.

All delicious, nonetheless, but if you’re ever in Singapore, DON’T EAT THERE. No, really. Don’t eat at the Peony-Jade. Why? Because they con you when the bill comes. Dad calls it Tourist Tax. They poured tea for three, despite the fact that we ordered for two. They charged us for three, despite mum sending hers away untouched. Then, they gave us little towelettes to clean our fingers after the pancakes. And charged us for those too! The overall damage for the uninvited extras was around six dollars, or a little under 4.5% of the total bill. Now, they have no danger of repeat business from us, we’re from the cruise ship, they know we’re only around for one day or two at the most, but that kind of behaviour is not to be encouraged. Tourist Tax isn’t all that common any more (this is the ironic name given to that extra that appears when you try to pay for something whilst clearly not being a local), but I still think it’s indefensible. Charging for a towelette? We didn’t ASK for a towelette, you GAVE us a towelette. We would have been happy with a boil of water with a slice of lemon in it! Utterly disgraceful.

So that’s the tip of the day: NEVER EAT IN THE PEONY-JADE, CLARKE QUAY IN SINGAPORE. Don’t eat at Quayside Seafood which is next door and owned by the same people. I imagine they con you there too.

Anyway, Clarke Quay is AMAZING. It’s a beautiful harbour/marina type thing but on a river, not a dead end, with restaurants along the water’s edge. Live music coming from every door, covered pedestrian streets so that you can sit outside. Really vibrant and buzzing. NOT my parents’ sort of place at all! But they liked it as a thing to look at – it was the “noise” they couldn’t handle. So after a wander, we headed back to the shuttle bus and back to the ship. We got back about 11.15. We weren’t due to leave port until 2am, but enough is enough! It was a long day!

In case I’ve forgotten to explain, there’s a reason why we stayed in Singapore until 2am. We never normally stay in a port past midnight, because it costs a whole day extra in mooring fees (roughly £50,000, give or take). However, a few days ago, the Captain was informed of a recent “threat to oil shipping”(read: pirates)  in the Malacca Straits, so he negotiated with Southampton and they said ‘Stay late and then go like hell. Go through the Straits at full pelt. Just to be on the safe side’. So that’s what we’re doing. It’s now 5am and I can’t sleep, so I can tell you that we are currently passing between some islands (there’s rather a lot of those around here…) and only doing 10 knots, but once clear of them, we will be going at full tilt (about 25-27 knots) for the rest of the night. Here endeth Singapore 2.

Spanish class today was interrupted and curtailed by announcements from the bridge. Which was forgivable because we were passing Krakatoa. How cool is that?! Unfortunately, this meant twenty or more minutes of blathering nonsense from the onboard speaker who twittered inanely over the tannoy system, talking and talking without actually saying anything. Knowing when it exploded (27 August 1883) is all very well and good, but he didn’t seem to know much about it! He mentioned the size of the explosion and how far away it was heard (3000 miles), but I didn’t hear him even mention the nuclear winter that ensued or WHY the eruption was noteworthy. The explosion blew the island apart (which he didn’t mention) and created a new one, called Child of Krakatoa, which is an active volcano that spews out enough gunk to cause it to grow in height by 16 feet a year. That’s a centimetre a day in height. A foot since we set sail. Currently. Right now. As we speak. It’s a foot taller now than when we left England. Wow. How DEEPLY cool is that? Instead he just kept talking about each US warship sunk near here by the Japanese, which although is important to know and appreciate, seemed of limited relevance when we could be talking about a volcanic eruption that caused death and destruction all over the globe. Seriously? Could you not maybe do SOME research before you do this stuff? How hard can it be? You probably only mentioned the thing about the film “Krakatoa: East of Java” being dodgy because Krakatoa is WEST of Java (seriously – did no one in Hollywood get fired for that?!) because the Captain said it last night in his announcement. Most people who have heard of Krakatoa know about the nuclear winter. How can you not, when you’re being PAID to know this kind of stuff?! Really? Crops failed, people starved to death. Hello? Duh? Maybe just one iddy biddy mention of the dust cloud? Blocking out the sun ALL OVER THE FACE OF THE EARTH? For MONTHS? Affecting harvests, tree growth, human and animal health and growth, even the colour of the sky in contemporary paintings? Just one? No? No mention of the dust layer in the tree ring record? In EUROPE? Or in the Arctic ice record? Nope. Just lists of dead Americans. No idea. Not a ruddy clue. *sigh*

Anyway, Krakatoa. I’ve seen it. It’s amazing. It just looks like a triangular/ pyramidal island with trees on, but when you know what happened here, it’s awe-inspiring. And very slightly unnerving. After all, we were VERY close… *gulp*

Geraldton. Our last stop in Australia before the home stretch. Never heard of it? No, neither had we. This was P&O UK’s maiden visit, which is always nice, because they make that little bit more of a fuss over us! There was a welcome tent on the quayside, a free shuttle bus service and free refreshments at the hotel next to the shuttle bus stop in town. All very nice. Trouble is, that was about it.

Don’t get me wrong, Geraldton is a pleasant little town, but it has very little of interest. It’s a beaches and watersports mecca, which is all very well and good if you’re into lying on beaches or giving yourself saltwater enemas behind speeding boats, but if you’re not that sort of person, you may struggle here. There were tours out into the countryside – which is apparently breathtaking with gorges and national parks and stuff – and the possibility of a passing visit to Hutt River Principality (a group of farms that declared independence when new Australian wheat quotas threatened to bankrupt them). They have their own stamps and money and are, for Australian tax purposes, non-doms. No, really! They had to declare war on the Commonwealth of Australia to get it, but they ended hostilities after four days, so no harm done. I would have loved to have gone there. This kind of thinking fascinates me. But it was too far out of town for such a brief visit.

HMAS Sydney II sank near here after a confrontation with a German ship in 1941. All 645 souls were lost. There is a beautiful memorial on the hill overlooking the town, which is a metal domed canopy made of flying birds. Beautiful. What the Germans were doing down here, I have no idea. The British tested their first nuclear device nearby and when Skylab crashed to Earth, it was near here. Donald Campbell got one of his water speed records nearby as well. For an isolated mining town, it’s had a lot of visitors!

They have some interesting thinking here, too. When a boat was recently seized in a criminal investigation, they stripped it of all the noxious chemical bits and then sank it to form an artificial reef for the marine flora and fauna. I LIKE that kind of thinking. That’s cool.

Nice place, though. Very pleasant little town. Highly recommended. But don’t eat at the Freemasons Hotel or the attached Gilroys Irish Bar. I’m told the Tides restaurant is nice. Try there instead.

Albany was a wonderful little town. Picturesque, lovely architecture, friendly people, interesting history. The only niggles that marred the day were: (a) The Ulysses Club were in town (3000 bikers with the motto “Grow Old Disgracefully”) which meant noisy bikes and every single photo I took had a bloomin’ bike in it and (b) we only had half a day. Back on Board was 1pm, for pity’s sake. I know the town is small, but it’s not THAT small! Still it meant a leisurely afternoon on board eating Magnums and napping, so not all bad news then…

Today was Fremantle and Perth. Lovely towns, both. Did a tour in the morning, which consisted of a coach trip to Perth, a little tour thereof, then a boat trip back up the Swan River to Fremantle and a coach tour of Fremantle. It was 38 in the shade today, which was so hot even the locals were complaining. I think it’s equivalent to about 100 in English money. We wandered a bit, shopped a little and had a lunch in a lovely little tea room. We pootled a little further and then Mum and Dad caught a heritage tram (really a trolleybus, not a tram) back to the ship. I took a taxi up to Cottesloe Beach, where there was a sculpture festival on the beach, which we had driven past on the way to Perth. It was truly astonishing to see people sitting on the beach in between large modern sculptures, leaning on them and eating their picnics in the shade of them. You know by now how I feel about public art and it was a truly wonderful experience.

All the sculptures were for sale, and the catalogue included a comment from each artist. One, Ken Sealey, had done a piece which was a swimmer made of layered plywood suspended in a block of laminated safety glass. Think Hirst and sharks and impossibility of death etc. But the swimmer isn’t in formaldehyde but encased in green glass. The comment the artist gave was as follows: “We have salt in our tears, sweat and blood. We came from the sea. We can never return. We are trapped in our ideas.” I’m still trying to decide whether this is the most pretentious thing I’ve ever read or quite possibly the most profound…

Melbourne was a lovely day. Mum’s old schoolfriend, Hannah, and her daughter, Jenny, met us at the port. They’re lovely. And I met up with a friend I made on the internet about three or four years ago, Fiona. She was lovely too! We all piled into Jenny’s people carrier (she has four kids so…) and they drove us around town showing us the sights and the architecture (old and new). Then we drove into the Dandenong Hills, via Pin Oak Court (yes, Neighbours’ Ramsey Street!). We had a lovely lunch, served to us, oddly, by a lovely bloke from Shropshire. Then we boarded the Puffing Billy, a small gauge single line steam train that took us from Belgrave to Lakeside, where Jenny met up with us in the people carrier. I love steam trains. I have no idea why, but they just make my heart stop. They’re so beautiful, they smell so good and they make such wonderful noises. When it was waiting at the station and picking up steam pressure, prior to departure, our engine was making noises just like Ivor the Engine and when we got to a steep incline, you could hear him saying “I know I can, I know I can, I know I can”. Stupidly enjoyable and amazing views across the countryside above the city. Surprisingly green, this part of Australia. I’ve always imagined Oz to be more Alice Springs/ Uluru/ bush-like, but this bit is actually very green indeed.

Adelaide was brilliant. Despite the 40 minute drive into the city (and, ergo, back again) and the fact that it was a Sunday, so the Central Market and several other shops were closed, the architecture was interesting (again with the art deco and some really interesting modern stuff literally next to beautiful old Victorian and Edwardian frilly bits), the people were lovely, the clothes were expensive but available in my size (so it would have been rude not to buy them, after they’d gone to all that trouble…) and the weather was lovely. We were predicted 71 (19/20ish) and 60% chance of rain. It actually was over 80 (28/29) and sunny and the rain didn’t come down until after 4, when we were already on our way back to the ship. There is a circular bus route in the centre of town which is every half hour, every day and completely FREE. (If you’re in Adelaide, you’re looking for the 99C route.) We took a ride on it, which allowed us to see more of the city without our legs falling off. We were all particularly intrigued by a series of thirty foot inflatable astronauts climbing over several of the buildings and standing in the parks. Advertising for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, apparently, but very entertaining to find when you turn a corner! The little girl astronauts had pink skirts on their spacesuits! Very cute.

Ships have two main kinds of movement: pitch and roll. If you’re standing in the middle, facing forward, pitch is front to back up and down. Like boats do in cartoons, or the little car does on the Bupa advert. Up the hill and down the other side. Like the start of a rollercoaster, for want of a better analogy. Rolling is side to side. The left side goes up as the right side goes down and then down as the right side goes up. My cabin only creaks when we’re doing both at once, pitching AND rolling, which doesn’t happen very often because the captain usually turns into the wind/waves to reduce movement.  Anyway, now we have two sea days as we traverse the Australian Bight towards Albany. Bit bumpy today. It’s funny. I don’t THINK this ship is made of wood. It seems to be all metal and stuff. Yet when the ship moves in certain ways, it creaks just like a wooden ship. If you’ve ever seen Hornblower or Amistad other seafaring films or shows, you’ll know the sound. Maybe it’s the wooden wardrobes?!

Brisbane is AMAZING. It is beautiful, modern, clean, interesting, historical, friendly and is the first place in the southern hemisphere I have ever considered as a possible place to live. Just wonderful. We met our cousin, who drove us around a bit. We then had brunch with him and then went back to the ship to catch our afternoon tour. We got a guided coach tour of the interesting bits in the centre of town, followed by a paddle steamer trip up the river that runs through the centre of the city. The whole thing was wonderful, although the full Devonshire cream tea on the boat seemed a bit odd!

If anyone is wondering what particularly got to me about Brisbane, it’s the public art. I LOVE public art, it’s a passion of mine. Well, all art affects me, but public art is so exciting. Brisbane has a sculpture on almost every street corner. It’s extraordinary. I tried to photograph as many as I could, and I got even more by accident just by snapping buildings and not noticing what was in front of them! Seriously, there’s sculpture and art and interesting architecture on every street. The place is amazing. Loved it. HAVE to come back here. HAVE to.

We got to Sydney early because we had to do repairs which we’re not supposed to know about or talk about because travelling in that condition probably breaches several maritime laws.  Suffice to say, we arrived at midnight, instead of 8am. This meant that I could get off, meet up with Simon and Guy and go out for a drink. We got turned away from the Star City casino – the security guard either doesn’t like English people, or goatee beards, or gay men, or check shirts, or, oh, I don’t know. He said Guy had had too much to drink. Two glasses of wine with dinner four hours previously hardly constitutes too much to drink. Maybe he just didn’t understand that he was listening to an English accent, not a drunk Australian! Anyway, we found a pub nearby and we had a great time just hanging out and catching up. Got to bed about 6am.

Met up again for lunch at a pancake place on the Rocks, which served me beef ribs which turned out to be roughly half a cow. I managed half. Literally half. Heartbreakingly delicious, though. I wished I had the room to eat the rest of it, but there was no way! Then I dragged them both on an open top bus tour, which is my new favourite way to see new cities. They showed me some stuff they’d found that I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, including an amazing fountain in the shape of a spiral. We went to QVB (Queen Victoria Buildings) which is a seriously posh shopping centre that was once described as the most beautiful shopping centre in the world. It was amazing. It was carpeted! Seriously, I kid you not! And the loos contained the biggest toilet cubicles I have ever seen. Astonishing. It has that over-ornate beauty that you only get with Victorian and similar era architecture. It looks rather similar to Harrods, but designed by someone who had a real love for curlicues and extra bits. Even the clocks were astonishing. About twenty foot long, suspended from the glass roof and so over ornate, I can’t even begin to describe them. You’ll have to wait for the photos, I’m afraid. Then back to the Rocks for dinner with my parents and then Simon, Guy and I went to Darling Harbour for a drink at Pontoon, which is a wonderful bar. I heartily recommend it. The view across the harbour is amazing.

So my day in Sydney was the best part of forty-eight hours long.  We sailed late, because we mislaid a crew member (and eventually sailed without him/her) at about 1ish.

I give up. Three hours I got this time. And I was SO tired. I went to bed at 9.30 and it is now quarter to one and I’m wide awake. Ironic, really, as Timmy Mallett disembarked yesterday.

For those who led a more sheltered existence in childhood, Timmy Mallett presented a Saturday morning television show called Wacaday. WAC stood for the Wide Awake Club. So now you see why it is relevant to my insomnia. Clever, innit, this writing lark. 😉

I used to love Wacaday, used to watch it religiously, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him much, as he was being hogged by old people who watch I’m a Celebrity, Please Torture Me in the Jungle and wanted to suck up and have their photos taken. Most of them probably didn’t have the faintest idea who he really was (and I heard several say they didn’t even like him!).  He’s now an artist, and a rather good one at that. Rolf Harris taught him to paint, so he’s quite fearless with colour and the results are stunning. He painted live for us several times and did scenes of places we have been to. Needless to say, the paintings have all been snapped up, despite the four-figure price tags! I’m hoping that some will be made into prints, so that us normal people can afford to buy them, too, but this is apparently by no means a certainty.

So, anyway, I can’t sleep. My body clock has officially given up the ghost. My computer tells me it is 4pm in London, my bedside clock says 1am and my internal systems have thrown their cards up in the air and walked away from the table in disgust.

Osaka was fun. And I finally got to part with some money! In the morning we met up with two of our tablemates, Sonia and Mike, and shared a taxi into Den Den Town. This is the electronics quarter, where all the computer, camera and similar shiny things are sold. Osaka is quite like London in the 1500s – shops are grouped together by product. Hence in London there is Fish Street, and Milk Street and Pudding Lane and so on. We walked down a covered street (nice touch, that) and every single shop sold kitchenwares. Every single one. Chopsticks, pepperpots, ovens, condiment dishes, signwriters, lighting, air conditioning and so on. Everything you need to fully stock a brand new restaurant was available in the one place, in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. You nearly all got bamboo pancake warmers as souvenirs until my dad whispered in my ear “How are you going to pack them, exactly…?”

Of course, when I say “shared a taxi”, I am glossing over somewhat here. Every single taxi in Osaka is licensed to carry four people and four people only. Sonia, however, is tiny and could quite easily fit in my pocket – well, sit on Mike’s lap, anyway. (I kid you not. She’s four foot eleven and thin as a rake.) We managed to find a taxi driver who would take five of us, as long as Sonia agreed to duck if we saw a policeman, but we weren’t so successful later in the day, once the police were up and about, and we ended up coming back in two cabs, rather than one. Made for quite a giggle in the morning though, I can tell you! Good thing we all like each other!

Anyway, Den Den Town. If anyone tells you that Osaka shops open between 10 and 11, just slap them round the back of the head and be done with it. 11.30, if you’re lucky, thank you very much. This meant a fair bit of rather fruitless wandering past rolled down shutters that may well have hidden precisely what we were looking for! Anyway,  we finally found a store that sold what we were looking for. Mike and I bought blank CDs to burn photos onto and flash drives for further storage. I relieved the nice people at Mastercard of about a hundred quid, all in all.

We then found another willing taxi driver who drove the five of us to the Sheraton Hotel. In the basement, there is a rather good restaurant (well, actually there are three, but we went to the President Chibo), which I highly recommend, if anyone’s going to Osaka at any point. They served lovely, simple Japanese food (which has an astonishing obsession with garlic, which surprised me) which they cooked in front of us. It was delicious. I had Japanese tea after. I’d never tried Japanese tea before. Well, you know how Chinese tea is Green Tea with Jasmine in? Well, Japanese tea is black tea with nothing. Just ordinary tea, like we have at home! So now when you serve someone tea, you can ask if they would like Japanese tea or whether they would like milk as well!

We then went back up into the Sheraton proper to use their rather lovely loos (heated seats were a bit startling though!). We then grabbed (two) taxis to Bic Camera. I understood Bic Camera to be Osaka’s biggest camera store. It’s WAY more than that. It’s six floors, for a start, and is basically a department store that is REALLY obsessed with electronics. But it also sells children’s clothes, golf clubs, cosmetics, air conditioning units, white goods, you name it. There’s even a McDonalds on the 2nd floor (apparently).

I’ve been wondering if we should have gone on an organised tour. We did have one booked, but it was eight hours long, so we cancelled it. I’m wondering if we missed out on the “traditional” Japanese stuff. You know, girls in kimonos, temples, cherry blossom, tea ceremonies and the like. Oh well, maybe next time, but even then, not eight hours of it, please!

But we definitely saw Osaka, which is, much like Hiroshima, not a pretty town. It’s just a big city – and don’t let the Port Guide map fool you, it’s HUGE – although with the same temporary-looking overhead wiring we saw yesterday. It is by no means a beautiful place. I’m starting to see why people make such a fuss about London, Edinburgh, Paris and the like. They are very PRETTY cities, particularly if this is what you’re coming from, if you see what I mean. I suppose it’s true of all war-ravaged cities. When you rebuild, you rebuild fast and useful, like I said yesterday about Hiroshima. This is the same, only WAY bigger. And with a rather cool double-decker road bridge, with one level going each way.

I could barely stay awake during dinner, so afterwards, I took the money I owed back to the cabin of the lady who lent it to me and then I went to bed. And here I am, four hours later, wide awake and talking to you. Good thing tomorrow is a sea day. I have a feeling I will be spending most of it asleep!

The ship was moored, incidentally, at the foot of the World’s Largest Ferris Wheel, which Mike went up on. It looked a bit vertiginous for my liking. The pods are grouped into colours and one of each colour contained a giant Winnie the Pooh. We never did grasp why, exactly. Just half a dozen four foot Winnie the Poohs going round and round and round and round every twenty minutes or so. Deeply strange.

Today I finally set foot in Japan for the first time. Big anti-climax. HUGE. No taxis, no one who spoke English to meet, greet or assist. A ludicrously long wait for a taxi, actually. There was a well-meaning old taxi marshall, who eventually rang someone up and yelled at them until they sent more cabs to the port. Mind you, it was long conversation. The person at the other end was clearly unwilling!

We went to the Peace Park. This is the park that the bomb was dropped on. It’s big and T-shaped and easy to spot from the sky (and probably wasn’t called the Peace Park back then…). There are a series of memorials and fountains set up, including an arch with the names of all who died on the day and as a result over the longer term from the effects of the radiation. There is also the Children’s Memorial, which is in the shape of the bomb but has a bell hung inside, which you ring for world peace. If only it was that easy! The symbol of longevity is the crane (bird) and a young girl called Sadako who had leukaemia tried to make 1000 origami cranes so that she wouldn’t die. She did 1300 but she still died, but the crane has now become the symbol of Hiroshima’s hopes for peace in the world and the bell clanger is a brass origami crane. We rang the bell, for what it’s worth…

Hiroshima is not a pretty city. In fact, it is downright ugly. Hardly surprising, considering, but still… When the air was safe and they started to rebuild, the thinking was clearly “Get it up fast and make it useful – to hell with pretty”. It is a very utilitarian place. Only marginally less stark than some Soviet suburbs in Eastern Europe. They were often just concrete blocks with window holes. At least in Hiroshima, they have tiled over the concrete, but they just bunged them on – no need for pattern or colour. It’s also a surprisingly untidy place. I expected a Japanese city to be clean, efficient and modern. Not here. The electricity supply that was strung up all those years ago is still there – the streets are a spaghetti maze above your head of telephone and electrical cabling. We were surprised they hadn’t buried it all by now, but, as I said, it’s a very utilitarian place. Ain’t broke? Don’t fix it. Mind you, if it costs 30 quid to get a taxi for 15 minutes, maybe they just can’t afford to dig holes!

The important thing to see was the Peace Dome. This is an old brick building near where the bomb hit. It was the Industrial Promotion Hall, built in 1914 and had a dome on the top. The roof of the dome was vaporised by the bomb blast, leaving only the struts behind. They left it just as it was, as a permanent reminder of what happened on 6th August 1945. Very poignant. And very necessary, because the entire city was razed to the ground and nothing whatsoever remains other than that.  But anyway, we came, we saw, we paid our respects, we took photos, bought a t-shirt, some postcards and a couple of cranes and then we left.

The sea is the colour of slate, today, as the sky is overcast and grey. It’ll probably start raining shortly. The view from my massage bed (I know, it’s a hard life…*) was of a fairly smooth ocean as far as the eye could see, the colour of slate, with white horses cresting the waves forming ripple patterns similar to those found in the surface of natural slate. It’s all rather pretty, despite the dark grey overall effect. Sometimes, I spend so much time running around “doing” stuff, that even I forget to look out the window and marvel at the magic of the water. It’s never the same colour twice or the same shade all over. It’s constantly changing and shifting, with the wind, with the clouds, with the sun, mist or rain. It is actually quite dangerously hypnotic and if you look at it for long enough, you’d never get anything done at all! You’d never move. It’s still bitterly cold out, though, so the effect is currently a little diluted from being witnessed through glass. It is still pretty, but it doesn’t have nearly the same visceral power as when you are outdoors, with nothing between you and the infinite but a waist-high barrier and a steady footing.

* In my defence, Beijing has done something catastrophic to my neck. Don’t ask me what or how, I’ve no idea.