End of an Era

I was very sad to hear of the death on Saturday of Harry Patch, the last surviving World War I veteran in Britain and one of only four surviving WWI Veterans in the world (Briton Claude Choules now lives in Australia; Frank Buckles is American and Jack Babcock Canadian). Harry Patch was 111, and his death came only a week after that of fellow WWI veteran Henry Allingham, Britain's oldest ever male and the world's oldest man (113 years, 42 days) at the time of his death.

Part of the reason I was so annoyed at the numpty who called the office last November during the two minutes' silence at the Remembrance Day service was that I was actually semi-crying, having watched Harry, Henry and Bill Stone (who died on 10 January this year at the age of 108) each lay a wreath at the Cenotaph. It was very poignant, watching these three frail men so utterly determined to stand up out of their wheelchairs and lay wreaths to commemorate the lives of their friends and colleagues who died in service to their country. After Henry Allingham died a couple of weeks ago, I remember thinking how sad it would be to see just one veteran at the Remembrance Day service this year; I imagine for Harry Patch it would have been a lonely moment, so perhaps it's better that he passed away too before November.

We have lots of reasons to be thankful to these men, and to the thousands of others who fought in that conflict and all conflicts since then.

Feeling melancholy today. Normal service will be resumed next time :).

Wedding Season Rolls On

This weekend it was the turn of Becky and Rob (her Rob, not mine, obviously), and we had a great afternoon watching them get married and chatting in particular to Rob's aunt, uncle and cousin who'd come down from Scotland for the wedding. Becky was in on a secret plan for Rob's sister to fly in from South Africa for the week, and she had spun Rob a yarn about a super-duper sale at Debenhams as the reason she had to go out at 5am on Friday, when she was actually driving to Heathrow to pick up Caroline. It was a really lovely day, and Cathy, who made my wedding cake, did a fantastic job yet again on Becky & Rob's cake.

More photos are here.

So Far So Good

Work went from one extreme to the other this week. Monday and Tuesday were really quiet as all the staff were away, many of them in Uganda. Thursday and today, on the other hand, were the opposite - everyone back from Uganda, but most people going away again this weekend so trying to get a month's work done in 2 days. Chaos, but I loved it.

There wasn't a great deal for me to do this week, as I mentioned on Sunday, and there won't be for the rest of the summer, so I'm just going to do three days next week and possibly only two the week after. I'm going to try and get the office running really smoothly while things are quiet; we'll see how that turns out...

... And New Job

I'm starting my new job tomorrow. I'm working 20 hours a week (5 hours a day every weekday except Wednesday) as Operations Manager at our church. I've been volunteering there a few hours a week since March, and was offered the job a couple of months ago. I'm really looking forward to it - the rest of the summer should be quite quiet in the office, but from September it will get a lot busier.

Now that the wedding is over, I'm really glad to have something to occupy my time. I loved not being at work for the last 6 months, but without the wedding to organise I imagine I'd get very bored very quickly :).

New Hair...

After we got engaged, I grew my hair so I would have more options when it came to a style on the wedding day. While I loved how it turned out on the day, and while being able to tie my long hair back came in handy in Japan - my straighteners didn't work there because of the difference in electricity voltage, and the humidity turned my fringe into a frizzy mess, so I pulled it all back, something I wouldn't have been able to do with shorter hair - nonetheless I was sooo glad to get to the hairdressers yesterday. I still wanted the option of drying it wavy or straight, so I had about 5 inches off the length and had my layers cut in again.

Here's straight:


And wavy:


Plus, I can just to say get it into a pony tail for the gym :).

I'm a Twitterer

While we were on holiday, Rob convinced me to get a Twitter account. I'm yet to be persuaded that Twitter is anything more than information overload, but I'll give it a try for a while. Feel free to follow me, or if you don't have a Twitter account, my most recent tweets are in the sidebar on the left. Here goes...

Honeymoon: Bintan

After a less-than-perfect 16-hour journey to get here, which included me coming within milliseconds of throwing up due to turbulence on the plane then going one better - twice - on the boat from Singapore to Bintan island, we finally arrived and the journey was all forgotten. Our villa is gorgeous, the resort beautiful and food delicious. Sure, I could live without the mosquitoes, but getting bitten every night despite having covered myself from head to toe in insect repellent AND sleeping inside a mosquito net while Rob takes no such precautions and is left well alone is highly annoying a small price to pay.

We went on a mountain bike ride out to a local fishing village, read lots of books (Rob), played lots of Bejeweled on the iPod (me), sunbathed by the pool, had spa treatments, went to a beach barbecue, played tennis (well, tried to, at least) and had 'Dinner on the Rocks' - a fabulous 6-course meal with our own private waiter on an outcrop of rocks just off the beach.

As this was the relaxing part of our holiday, we didn't take many photographs (particularly as we forgot our camera on the mountain bike ride), but the ones we did take are here. These are my favourites: -

Our villa

Our bed

The pool area

Back to reality tomorrow :).

Honeymoon: Tokyo

Well, Tokyo is unlike anywhere I've ever seen before - possibly because there's nowhere like it in the world. It's a huge sprawling place, 23 cities in one. We visited lots of different things: the Gardens of the Imperial Palace; Ginza, the main shopping district; Akihabara, the electronics district; Shinjuku, the main business district; and Shibuya, an area popular for its shops, restaurants and nightlife.

Our enthusiasm for sightseeing was waning a little bit, so we took things at a slightly slower pace. We had also had our fill of miso soup and noodles for a while, so we went to Friday's and the Outback Steak House for our evening meals :). The weather was quite a bit cooler here than it was in Kyoto, in fact it was drizzling most of the time, but that didn't spoil it too much; we were glad of the break from the heat and humidity.

We didn't go to too many places that warranted picture-taking, but the pictures we do have are here. The two pictures below were taken from the 8th floor of our hotel, looking out at the road outside Shibuya station. The number of people crossing the road each time the lights changed was incredible; exactly how I imagined Tokyo to be :).



So, having spent 11 days sightseeing, we're now looking forward to 10 days of doing absolutely nothing in Indonesia...

Honeymoon: Kyoto

Japan is a country of no words. That is, there are words, but they just look like pretty symbols to me ;).

Kyoto is without doubt one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. We spent our four days here visiting temples, castles and shrines, trying new foods, sleeping on the floor and walking a LOT. I sprained my ankle the first day here, but it hasn't given me too much trouble since then, thankfully.

We stayed in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, which was definitely an experience. We really enjoyed it, but as we both have back problems, we think next time we come we'll stay at the Westin :). The accommodation included dinner as well as breakfast, and we had some really amazing food, including a kaiseki meal, shabu-shabu and sukiyaki. Neither of us is a great fish lover, but we tried most things - although we drew the line at a whole fish which, whilst beautifully prepared, could not tempt us to break off its head and take a bite. We declined dinner at the ryokan one night (sashimi on the menu that night) and went out for the most amazing teppanyaki, then we found a sake bar run by an Israeli ex-pat who's been in Japan for 23 years, where we tried seven different types of sake.

We visited loads of temples and shrines, including Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), the Heian Shrine, Kiyomizu Temple, Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion) and Chion-in, whose 'Sanmon' entrance gate is the largest in the world.

Again, full photos are here but my favourites are below.

Our room in the ryokan

The Heian-jingu torii

Heian Shrine

All the gardens looked at least as beautiful as this

Kinkaku-ji

Nijo Castle

Outside the Manga Museum. Yes, it was as hot as it looks

Sanmon Gate

Ginkaku-ji with Kyoto in the background

Honeymoon: Singapore

We left Heathrow at 18:30 on Sunday evening and flew 13 hours overnight to Singapore, arriving at 14:30 on Monday afternoon. We had half-hoped that we might get an upgrade on the flight, but Singapore apparently don't do free upgrades, and it cost £1,900 per person, so we decided not to. £1,900? That's crazy! Turned out we made the right choice because we got exit row seats, plus the guy sitting next to us in the group of 3 moved seats, so we had 3 seats to the 2 of us.

When we got to Singapore, neither of us was particularly tired so we decided to get the train rather than a taxi to the hotel. It was about a half-hour journey and cost S$2.60 each (about £1.20) - plus if you handed your ticket back in at the end of your journey they gave you a S$1 refund, AND the trains were clean, air-conditioned and comfortable. Compare that to the London Underground: £4 for a one-way ticket, filthy, over-crowded and sweltering hot in summer.

Our hotel was gorgeous, and we had a great view of the marina from our balcony. We crammed quite a lot into our two days in Singapore: we went on a city tour, which was a whistle-stop tour of the most famous landmarks, designed to give you a taste of the city and allow you to choose which areas to visit in more detail. The tour took in Merlion Park, Thian Hock Keng Temple, a gem factory, the Orchid Garden at the Singapore Botanic Gardens and a quick stop at Little India.

We went on an evening tour of Chinatown, which included a look round the night market, a trishaw ride to Clarke Quay then a boat trip along the Singapore River to the marina and back. We also went on a night safari at the Singapore Zoo, which was great fun, and we went on the Singapore Flyer, the largest ferris wheel in the world.

Pictures are here, but some of my favourites are below.

The Merlion

Thian Hock Keng Temple

At the Orchid Garden

Rob on his trishaw ride

The Singapore Flyer

Raffles Hotel

Next stop: Japan.