Brunch - including Wendy's bread and Japanese pears - on the porch

Yoko's many crafts include teacosy cats..and books, Wendy dolls, cooking art work..

Academy Shu School - my room top right, the balcony where I dried clothes beneath volcanic ash

Peeking through the window at the living room, largely unchanged, like a museum of my life

Textures and colours of verdant and exuberant

Rico shopping in Miyakonojo, a giraffe amongst the shelves

Shochu, sweet potato schnapps local to Miyakonojo

Memory lane in Miyakonojo

September 11 in Japan ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

Late brunch with the wonderful Jack and Yoko, with gorgeous daughter Wendy. Thoroughly spoilt, reiki and discussions til early afternoon. Then off to visit the school building where I lived and worked in 1994-5, plus the surrounding gorgeous countryside where I used to walk the dogs and avoid dangerous snakes and admire the rice harvest. School rundown and overgrown now, dogs long since gone, but countryside amd rice fields still absurdly green and abundant. We drove the way I used to cycle, over the stone bridge, through the village and on to Miyakonijo city, rater rundown and shabby now, as if nothing had changed since the 1990s. Back for a delicious highball-themed barbecue with the family and some friends, Hiroshima the architect and Shin the saxophonist chicken farmer. We are blessed.Read more