Hot. Even hotter because the sun came out and literally baked us because of course today was the day we choose to walk through the Imperial Palace Garden (you’re only allowed freely into a small portion of it, but it’s really pretty)… go us!
Funnily enough there weren’t many people out and about… only a few stewed tourists and the odd local who seemed totally unfazed.
Our destination was the National Museum of Modern Art or MOMAT.
Absolutely fantastic. Full of beautiful art from Japanese artists that had lived/painted/be inspired by the impressionists and Paris, modern art with a Japanese twist… and more… so many beautiful paintings…
I should have taken down the names… it’s really bad of me not to… I was just in awe… My absolute favourite was this one:
the photo doesn’t do it justice at all… but trust me you could hear the snow falling when you looked at it.. magical
This series of cormoran fishermen painted using only ink was incredible too. Must be seen in real life.
The building is awesome too, full on mid-century style
maybe not comfortable… but so beautiful
After this we opted for the artificial coolness of the air-conditioned subway and made our way to Shibuya to see the famous super busy road crossing.
absolutely crap photo… but you get the idea…
And then… once again we walked and walked and soaked the atmosphere…
Day 4.
We left the hotel late, jet lag caught up with us all bit style, and decided to take it easy in the crazy ‘Harajuku’ area… plenty of vintage clothes for the boys to trawl through… ( who said boys don’t like shopping?)
And just like that our Tokyo adventure was over… but plenty more is to come!
This morning we left Tokyo on the bullet train and it’s about time I summarise our time there. We have had a great time and it was the perfect introduction to a world so different from ours (even if the weather wasn’t the the best, extremely hot and humid but also overcast which is a shame. The odd showers didn’t refresh either, the humidity was up to 90%!)
the view from our hotel room, to the left is the city centre, on the right, out of sight is the Imperial Palace.
On the first day, after an extra trip back to airport – I had somehow managed to leave my suitcase there (… let’s move on swiftly…) – after a nap, and after No 1 son found out his spectacular A Level results (so proud), we took a taxi to the area called Roppongi with the plan to see the city from above (Tokyo Sky Deck)… unfortunately an untimely monsoon and really strong winds scampered that idea so instead we visited an amazing exhibition by the Japanese artist Shiota Chiruri at the Mori Art Museum in the same building.
Absolutely gorgeous.
Outside, in the square stood one of those amazing giant spiders by Louise Bourgeois…
We then finish the day with the most amazing Tonkatsu in a small restaurant called ‘Butagumi’. Tonkatsu is breaded deep fried pork, we had the loin and it melted in our mouth, it is served with rice, thinly shredded cabbage and miso soup… totally delicious.
Day 2 saw us mastering the subway (really easy to be honest) then visiting two very different museums. On a side note I’m still amazed I got away with taking my crew to two museum in one day… they were probably too jet-lagged to know what was going on!
The first one was the small, but perfectly formed Sumida Hokusai, a splendidly modern building incongruously built in the middle of a residential area. It houses work by Hokusai, the master printer of the Edo period and we saw his famous ‘Great wave off Kagazawa’ amongst other beautiful works.
no photos were allowed
After that we walked to the Edo Museum… which is in the most bizarre building I’d ever seen… but it’s really interesting; it shows life in Edo – the old name of Tokyo for the past three hundred years, using models and interactive and life size exhibits. Really well made. It is great for younger children and adults alike.
the building is just… eccentric…No 2 liked the idea of being carted around waaaay too much
And then we walked and walked some more taking in the many different sights around us.
I was starting to beat myself up for not showing up here when I realised it would have been completely stupid. Blogging is meant to be a pleasure, a time-out activity, not a chore… so why should I beat myself up if I don’t do it? I’m certainly not getting paid for it! So I let go and just ‘was’ for a bit and it felt good. It’s been busy but don’t ask me to show anything for it… just life, and it’s enough.
I’m trying, trying being the operative word here, to get stuff ready for our big holiday to Japan but it’s the case of one step forward and two steps back. Two hours ago WHILE FOLDING SOCKS… my back went so now I’m walking around bent like an old woman and with a heat patch on my lower back. The exact the same thing that ruined my ski holiday two years ago. Talk about timings.
We celebrated No 3’s 14th birthday. (14yrs old, my baby, sigh). Family dinner with ‘nonna’s lasagna’. Can’t beat that. Here’s us, D-squad, unusually we all have our eyes open although my hair looks positively dodgy.
On Friday was my parents 50th wedding anniversary and my brother has flown in from South Sudan to celebrate a mass and spend some time with them. We haven’t seen him in a year so it’s a double celebration. Don’t tell him, it’ll go to his head.
No 2 is in mourning for the cancelling of Boardmasters music Festival due to bad weather; he’d been looking forward to this for over a year and him and his friends and completely gutted. It’s a real shame they didn’t get the chance to go. On top of that Instagram has inexplicably deleted his account so you can imagine how much he’s loving life at the moment.
Lilli the ferocious beast, is trying to eat a fly. Unsuccessfully. (And quite hilariously).
There’s a rugby match on tv so nobody is doing any packing for the next 80 minutes or so. Obviously. Sigh.
For years one of my favourite traditions when going back to Italy to see the family was buying a book in the ‘Inspector Montalbano’ series. In Italy they’re published in a gorgeous edition, with blue covers and fabulous creamy paper. They’re small edition, easily held in one hand, absolutely perfect to slip in your pocket, or a handbag.
These are my latest reads, I’m sure I’ve missed a few through the years, I’ll needs to check.
The first one came out in 1994, and although I’ve been reading them in Italian you can also find them in English, (here, are the titles in chronological order). I would recommend reading them in the right order so you can get to know all the recurring characters… I promise you they’ll become friends! In the original language they’re written in ‘Sicilian’, which is not always easy for me but very colourful and endearing… I heard that the translation is brilliant and there are notes at the end of the books to explain certain essential traditions and quirks…. I’d be interested to hear what you think?
…there are quite a few…
Salvo Montalbano is an inspector of police, in the imaginary town (but not less real) of Vigata, in Sicily. He’s approaching retirement, he is honest and stubborn and hates talking while eating. He loves food and the description of his legendary meal prepared by his housekeeper will make you mouth water. He’s a ferocious social critic of the Italian and Sicilian condition. He navigate with skills the political waters, the contradictions between North and South ways of thinking and doings and all this with the support of the most extraordinary sets of characters. I grew up in a police environment and ‘nothing’ is exaggerated. Nothing. It makes me chuckle all the time.
If you like clever crime stories without blood dripping down the pages onto your sheets, if you’re interested in contemporary social issues subtly intertwined in the story, if you like well drawn up characters and you like Italy… then these books are for you.
Andrea Camilleri, the author, died a couple of weeks ago and I’m really sad the adventures of Montalbano will now stop. I’ll miss him.
The happiness, the flowers, the dress, the smiles and the cheesy toasts, the dancing…
This weekend Mr M and I drove South to Richmond for a wedding at the Bingham Hotel, a lovely place right on the river. Shame the weather didn’t quite play ball.
Our room was on the top floor with a lovely view and restful mid-century inspired decor and of nice details.
didn’t get the chance to use it, sadly…no, I didn’t steal them. I wanted to though…
The Ceremony was held here:
The readings were lovely too, one from Winnie the Pooh and this one which was new to me, but it’s totally brilliant.
I wanna be yours by John Cooper Clarke
I wanna be your vacuum cleaner Breathing in your dust I wanna be your Ford Cortina I will never rust If you like your coffee hot Let me be your coffee pot You call the shots I wanna be yours
I wanna be your raincoat For those frequent rainy days I wanna be your dreamboat When you want to sail away Let me be your teddy bear Take me with you anywhere I don’t care I wanna be yours
I wanna be your electric meter I will not run out I wanna be the electric heater You’ll get cold without I wanna be your setting lotion Hold your hair in deep devotion Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean That’s how deep is my devotion
… and everybody looked amazing… exquisite attention to details… and the flowers… don’t get me started on the flowers… perfection…
the bouquet!!!… dahlias… I’m in love dahlias
We had a really lovely time.
The big rain held off for a while so we had the chance to spend time in the garden right by the water.
We danced and had waaaay too much wine… not our usual weekend at all…
I was running errands on foot on the hottest day of the year so far so when I passed the city museum, with his cool inviting atrium… it was a no brainer!
I love The Wilson, it’s always beautifully curated, the permanent gallery is very interesting and it has an amazing shop full of beautifully crafted objects by local artists. Definitively worth a look if you need a present.
Anyway, I made my way to the second floor to see the space dedicated to Katy Welsh, the current artist in residence (till August 25th).
A joyous sense of colour, screen printing, mix media, fabric, paper, block printing… all combined with a nod to Matisse, and the Bloomsbury Group…
I loved it.
It’s not a big exhibition, but it’s a delightful way to step out of ”life’ and take a breath or two in the peace and quiet. I highly recommend it.
Second holiday read and one of the best books I read this year. Original, beautifully written, moving, scary, terrifying, profound, clever, heartbreaking… I could go on and on… just read it will you?
I’m not big into autobiography… but this book is a memoir with a difference. O’Farrell recounts her life through 17 near death experiences. Don’t think it’s trivial, or funny… because it is one of the most insightful piece of writing I’ve read in a long time. It is a love letter to life, to make every day, every occasion count, every minute, every second because everything is important. It’s not told in chronological order, but that adds to the interest, it’s easy to follow… some chapter are short, some are long, some tie up with the previous ones or another one that will follow.
So many of her observations hit home, but no more that when she talks about her restleness and desire, no, need to travel… she writes that after the first school trip (to Rome, in her case):
For me it was going to stay with our German friends when I was nine. For a month. They didn’t speak Italian, (only the father, but he was at work all day), and I didn’t speak German… but I had the best time… at an unconscious level I think I knew ‘this was it’… the best way to be, always learning, always faced with new things to interpret and disintangle, and appreciate. I even went to school for a couple of weeks… maths and art I could do!!… I also ate my weight in chocolate which ran freely in their house, so that might have had something to do with it!
After that I took any opportunity that came along!
“I have this compulsion for freedom,for a state of liberation. It is an urge so strong, so all-encompassing that it overwhelms everything else. I cannot stand my life as it is. I cannot stand to be here, in this town, in this school. I have to get away.I have to work and work so that I can leave and only then can I create a life that will be liveable for me.”
And that was exactly how I felt when at 19yrs old I left my country… I needed to leave… hard to explain how or why… but in those five lines …. there’s my 17/18/19yr old me.
But seriously, this is a fabulous book.
Go forth and read it.
“We are, all of us, wandering about in a state of oblivion, borrowing our time, seizing our days, escaping our fates, slipping through loopholes, unaware of when the axe may fall.
And we’re back. The sky is quite grey this morning, but we’re bracing ourselves for a heatwave in the next few days… we’ll see. They’re never as hot as they say.
The laundry is almost all done – well, until no 1 and no 2 arrive back from their trip tomorrow and then we’re back to square one – but the list of things to do in the next three weeks before we’re off on our big family trip is quite daunting. Every time I walk into a room I think of something different to add to it… Today for example I need to go food shopping because we literally don’t have anything for dinner…, there’s no fruit, there’s no milk… not even the basic essentials… then I must try sorting out no 3’s room, de-clutter all the old school stuff and sort out his uniform for next year. I know it sounds early to do so… but it’s now or scrambling around the week before he’s due to go back and having done that once I’m not doing that anymore… It may sound like an easy project, but you don’t know the kind of sloth my son is… he moves at the speed of a snail under anaesthetic…
Then there are plants to repot, the house needs a hoover throughout, stuff to be taken to the dry cleaners, visa for no 1 and his Nepal trip… a car load of recycling to take to the dump… AND filing… oh my lord so much filing I want to cry…
So let’s ignore all that for now and talk about the holiday. Let’s do like the ostrich do and hide our head in the sand.
We went to Greece, as you know, and stayed at a big resort called The Romanos, in Costa Navarino.
reception… see? big, right?we had one afternoon of bad weather… sorry…
It was big, giant, actually, but really well designed so you never felt you were amongst hundreds of people. The rooms were in small buildings dotted around the place.
I still have no idea where this corridor takes you to…this is the view from our terrace… never underestimate the restorative power of the smell of sea air first thing in the morning…
The grounds were immaculately kept and it was very green so you never were faced with walls of bricks and mortar, it felt like strolling in a park when you walked to the pool or the beach.
path to the beach
The beach was wide, fully equipped with umbrellas and sunbeds and a bar/restaurant served lovely food and lots and lots of platters of fresh fruit. You could hire all sorts of water equipment… mainly we did this:
Whilst the boys, no 3 and a friend, spent most of the day in the water (salted or fresh) and in the gym… boys eh?
There was also a glorious SPA that offered amazing natural treatments a lot of them based on olive oil… me and mr M are thoroughly moisturised! (After all we are in the Kalamata region!)
who doesn’t love a sunken seating area?
The food was amazing in all the restaurants we tried. Greek, Lebanese, fish restaurant… and the most incredibly Japanese fusion ever.
There are plenty of things to do for kids/kids club/gym/golf/indoor swimming/water sports… you name it. If that is your sort of thing.
So. It was good. BUT… I wouldn’t say I’d go again… big places are not my thing at all… and I’m not very good at doing nothing for more than a couple of days without feeling totally restless and cabin-feverish! It’s my problem and that is why that Mr M – who can happily lie in the sun all day – lets me go off and explore by myself without feeling left out. He probably breathes a sigh of relief when I’m off to be honest!
In August, we’re having a big holiday in Japan as a family, and I can’t wait. It’ll be much more active!!
What is your favourite holiday? Are you an explorer or a lizard? Organised tours? driving holidays? country? beach? walking?
We were offered the use of a free rental car for the afternoon but none of my travelling companions wanted to leave the resort for an adventure so I went on my own… (I get totally restless after a few days of no activity… I’m not good at the ‘lizard in the sun’ holiday style)
There are lots, LOTS of old, OLD, things to see nearby…. Ottoman and Venetian castles and Mycenaean tombs… but I opted for the palace of Nestor… I spent so many of my school days studying the Ilyad and Greek mythology that the chance of stepping in the footsteps of the great general was to great to miss!
The palace is on top of a hill, with amazing views of the coastline and the sea, surrounded colourful oleanders and olive trees hundreds of years old in the most amazing location. There weren’t many other visitors, the cicadas were out in full, the hot sun, the warm breeze… it was truly magical. With your eyes closed you could travel back in time.
The ruins of the palace are protected by a giant roof and a walkaway has been built over them so you can walk up high and have a perfect view of the different rooms and the palace structure.
throne room on the right, private rooms on the left
t this is the throne room, the throne would have been along the wall at the back
this is the waiting room next to it
from the remaining of the decoration it could have looked something like this… broken cups and vessels, solidified after a big fire that destroyed the palace centuries ago
The photo on the right shows the clay tablets found in the room on the left during early excavations. They allowed archeologist to decipher the Linear B text, which is the earliest European language ever found (a sort of pre-Greek language).
how can anyone de-code anything like this is beyond me…
Coolest thing in the house is the bathtub, so weirdly modern it is tiled inside with lovely mosaics and has even a step to help you step in…
olive oil was a rich commodity even back then and the storeroom were large
they sat behind the throne room
It’s not a big place, but it was lovingly restored and maintained and it was a pleasure to visit.
A short distance away there is also a Mycenaean tomb.
The roof was rebuilt in the last century…
They are much bigger than you think when you get inside them. And a little bit erie… didn’t linger long… Not sure what the sarcophagus-like shape on that photo was, suffice to say my mind was running away with all the creepy stories I had ever read so I exited quickly in the hot sun and the olive grove and walked speedily back to the car.
spent the day by the pool finishing this novel and getting sunburned… actually worked out in the gym. in real life… true story…… post magical olive oil wrap treatment…
But let’s talk about ‘Forces of Nature’, by Jane Harper. It’s another case for Aaron Falk, the Australian policeman whom we first met in her debut novel ‘The Dry’ (also brilliant). this time it’s a case of a woman missing ‘in the bush’ during a team building exercise gone wrong.
Whilst I got a little bit annoyed at how helpless the women’s group seemed compared the men’s group… the story is really gripping and perfectly laid out. The characters are well defined and rounded, and the atmosphere pleasantly, spine tinglingly creepy… you just don’t know how it’ll end/where/who/how… It keeps you guessing till the end and doesn’t let down.
I don’t think it’s necessary to have read the first novel to enjoy this one. You might know less of Falk’s background, but it doesn’t matter for this story.
I really enjoyed the Australian vernacular/terminology… it reminded me of my travelling days and it helps building a real sense of place. The description of the weather, the setting of the story are really well done. I would really recommend this book if you like thrillers (not to scary I promise), that are intelligently written and not bloody/violent etc.
while you're ahead... 