Time Travel

Where was I this time, in the last 5 years? Jump on board my time machine and let’s step back in time as revisited via Facebook.

2010 Sept 25th

Leanne is in Japan, Tokyo with 18 overly confident teenagers!!!!

2010 Sept 25th

Leanne is thinking of you all at home in Christchurch. Heard you had a bit of a flurry of quakes again this evening. Hope you are all not too frazzled! 18 teenagers is looking like fun compared with those aftershocks!

On Sept 4th my beautiful city was rocked by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. There was considerable damage but no loss of life. The quakes continued for over a year. There were 5 major events in all and over 10,000 significant after shocks. The February quake caused loss of life and major damage. The city is still recovering to this day.

I was teaching at a High School in NZ and we had been planning our trip to Japan for 2 years. There was thought of cancelling it but the parents were very stoic and adamant that life must go on despite many of them suffering loss of property and livelihoods.  We went to Japan and ha a wonderful 3 weeks. I must admit I was more nervous than usual having see the earthquake damage at home and to this day thank my lucky stars I was not in Japan with a school group when their massive quake struck the following year in March only some 3 weeks after Christchurch’s most destructive quake.

2011 Sept 28th

View over Pushkar from the temple up on the hill.

2011 September and I was 9 months into a brilliant year’s travel. I spent 3 weeks in India. India is the  country in which I experienced the most extreme culture shock. It seethes with humanity. The noise and hustle and bustle seemed never ending. The poverty shocked me. Yet amongst it all, there is so much beauty, history and culture. My guide jokingly said for many people INDIA stands for “I’ll never do it again.”  I would definitely like to venture back but I am not sure it is a place I can solo travel in.   After India I headed into Nepal to do 8 days trekking on the Anapurna circuit. Nepal too was devastated by an major earthquake earlier this year. People I met such as my wonderful mountain guides are struggling to make ends meet. If anyone is looking for an introduction to an experienced guide please let me know!

2012 Sept 30th

Typhoon scheduled to make land fall sometime between midnight and early morning. Kids were meant to have a morning of tests on Monday but has been postponed till Wed. With the many taiphoon warnings have yet to have one actually arrive on time as stated. You’d think they’d say IF on Monday there are heavy weather warnings in place and school is cancelled we will do on Wed. Bloody thing will prob slow down and arrive on Wed now! Murphy’s! Half the kids I talked to didn’t even know they had tests on Mon lol.

2012 Sept 28th

Classic Japan. Popped in to my local breakfast coffee shop the other day. It has a smoking room at the back and non smoking section at the front. More often than not you can get a seat in smoking but have to wait for non smoking. This would suggest that non smoking is s popular choice. On this particular day some renovation work was happening in the smokers section so at the door they were telling everyone that today the whole cafe was smoking. Mmmn go figure???? I had take out that day. Am here about 2 weeks later and whole place is still a bit smoky smelling.

One of my bug bears about Japan. In fact I think it was one of my first posts way back I just needed to vent!

2013 September 29th, exactly 2 years ago to the day

Yummy dinner with Sara and Yuki

Tuna Sushi roll

Grilled squid

Yakitori, Chicken skewers

Grilled salted fish

Sashimi

2014 September 29th, exactly one year ago to the day

Leanne Swept off her feet by a sumo!

Which brings us back to now!

September 29th 2015

Here I am taking part in the Writing 101 Course and blogging!

How about you? Do you know where you were on this day last year?

Yoroshiku Onegai shimasu

Leanne