Japanna

14/03/2022

Beautiful vistas after work walks

09/03/2022

Bordertown boats

06/03/2022

Friday night sky

31/01/2022

Good morning February!

13/03/2021

Sunshine and happiness ...

27/02/2021

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. William Ernest Henley - 1849-1903.

21/02/2021

Sometimes in the winds of change we find our greatest direction.

20/02/2021

18/02/2021

"Everything you love will probably be lost, but in the end, love will return in another way.” Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1923)

08/02/2021

Aaaagh covid /// you’ve done it again!

Tokyo and ten other prefectures have been put under a second state of emergency to cope with a surge in coronavirus cases.

08/02/2021

We project our thoughts and beliefs and they return to us as our experience. —David Bingham

23/01/2021

This chapter 2020 isn’t the end of your story, your life, your business, your career or YOU; this chapter 2021 is about beginning and emerging as something more spectacular and wonderful in spirit - YOU.

15/01/2021

It’s not looking too hopeful for 2021. However we will return to Japan someday — and we will appreciate everything we’ve missed with so much more reverence. Keep the faith my furusato friends ..

15/01/2021

In their old age, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Joachim and Anna of separately, telling them that God had heard their prayers and that they would give birth to a daughter, Mary. Then St. Anna conceived by her husband and after nine months bore a daughter blessed by God and by all generations of men: the Most-holy Virgin Mary

The origins of a name : biblical one ... this building is tucked away on the Gold Coast ! I came across it today. How wonderful!

12/01/2021

Everyone is feeling it - look at Kyoto without the crowds!!!!
and also look at the beautiful Japanese people so quietly and elegantly waiting for visitors to return - all ages, young and old and so respectful.

While Kyoto once struggled with over tourism, it has been comparatively empty for some time now. Today we go to Kyoto and speak to some of the local Japanese...

10/01/2021

Cannot wait to say those words - tadaima! and hear the response - Okaerinasai!!!! Such a longing to see the world boiled down to reconnecting with my favourite land ......🎎

One day it will happen - we will go to Japan with our vaccine and paperwork and enjoy our leisure trip - when we are all ready globally I will be the first one to book tickets and take off to Japan - who is with me? 😁😂😍

10/01/2021

04/01/2021

We seek happiness in experience after experience, relationship after relationship, therapy after therapy, workshop after workshop — even ‘spiritual’ ones, which sound so promising but never address the root cause of suffering: ignorance of our true nature.

28/12/2020

That’s the thing with magic. You’ve got to know it’s still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you. Charles de Lint. (b.1951) Writer and Celtic Folk Musician

27/12/2020

The appearance of things change according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves. Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) Poet and Artist

24/12/2020

Turn your wounds into wisdom. Oprah Winfrey (b.1954) Media Personality and Businesswoman

22/12/2020

Life is playfulness... We need to play so that we can rediscover the magic all around us. Flora Colao (b. 1954) Writer and Therapist

22/12/2020

People who wait for a magic wand fail to see that they ARE the magic wand. Thomas Leonard (1955-2001) Personal Development Coach

21/12/2020

As the great scientist Newton said ‘When I look at the solar system, I see the Earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.’ It is quite possible to leave your home for a walk in the early morning air and return a different person - beguiled, enchanted. Mary Ellen Chase (1887-1973) Educator and Writer

20/12/2020

This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical, and more to whosoever will think of it. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Writer and Historian

19/12/2020

I grew up saying grace. In Japan they say it too! You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen on the ink. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) Writer

18/12/2020

I'll tell you what we will do for you! You know those pesky 😫🤣cancellation fees and the run around with credits etc blah blah

Let's have a group trip - if we cannot travel on the specified dates because of covid, countries, regulations or such - I will move the whole trip to another date no fees (with me on your group tour) as many times as we like.

So we can't go in April - move the dates to May, we can't go in May then I will move the trip to June - covid permitting we will go on a group tour sometime.......... we got this. 😍

And if you're not able to change your holiday dates/annual leave - full refund. If you can't come the same time I will book the same trip for you and you can go at your leisure as a self guided trip - and I will organise a special surprise for you of a different kind when in Japan.🎎

Much love to you all - omatase itashimasu - It's coming - finalising the details for our Essential Covid Trip - "Furusato Friends" 🥰

Photo - my daughter and my (Japanese host sister) Mayumi's daughter at Osaka Universal Studios one Christmas a few years ago now. Mayumi and I met when we were 16 years old. Still we are family 💗

17/12/2020

Gratitude is the memory of the heart ❤️. Jean-Baptiste Massieu (1743-1818) French Revolution Activist

17/12/2020

MAGIC FOOTSTEPS. A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) Nobel Prize -Winning Physicist. God gave you a gift of 86,400 second today. Have you used one to say ‘thankyou’? William A. Ward (1921-1994) Writer

16/12/2020

I’m looking into everything for our group trip to Japan !
And I’ll be with you all the way — all the tricky parts with transport, Covid regulations and then all the fun parts woot woot

The food, the karaoke 🎤 bars and singing (maybe drinking?) the walking along ancient paths in historical Japanese towns, the friendly Japanese hospitality, the big cities, the quiet onsen (communal ones only lol) moments and the little things that make japan so wonderful and different — vending machines and coastal towns, navigating the train systems, department store hidden secrets and even backstreet local eateries and bars with my local friends ...

There will also be a memorable surprise somewhere along the way for us all and I’m so looking forward to it!!!

Who’s coming once I nut out all the details for us travelling in April/May?❤️😳👹👺👘🌸🌈🌊🍎🍜🍱🍥🥂🍺🥃🍶⚽️🥋✈️🛫

NHK has learned that Japan's transport ministry and a railway operator have drawn up a proposal allowing people arriving from overseas to use the train to leave Narita Airport near Tokyo.