On My Way! The Big Day Has Arrived

Well finally, I'm at Adelaide Airport. But what a journey. I had the day off work (and was actually thinking of going to work today it was that busy), but it was a good thing I didn't. I haven't had a chance to relax. Even now as I sip from a beer in the Qantas Club in Adelaide Airport, I'm pretty juiced up on adrenalin. You would think that years of international travel would mean that everything goes like a well-oiled machine. However, complacency is ever comfort's enemy. I left too much to the last day, and it showed.

Well - I'm here at least. The first leg of my journey to Japan - to be reunited with my wife. Thankfully my brother's house-sitting so that T-kun (our cat) won't be too lonely whilst we're away. What a day, what a week, what a month. Seriously - I've been running on about 5 hours sleep a night for the last week, and even last night it was a 1am sleep, 5:30 am wakeup. I don't know what sort of state I will be in when I finally arrive.

So... the journey begins. Yet - to keep things nicely segmented, I won't post too much detail here, but rather get around to it on my Japanese Ties blog... in about 12 months. ?;-)

See you all on the flip-side!
Ben

PS - News from Japan is mixed at the moment, they've apparently managed to close up the leak (by just about every known technology known to humankind by the sounds of it), and yet at the same time they've just released 11,500 tonnes of radioactive water into the Pacific. I'm not sure how to reconcile those two things (is that a YEAH! or a Huh?). To make matters worse, they've detected high levels of radiation in some of the fish-life around that area. Hmmm.... sushi's looking a tad doubtful (at least until I get to Sapporo).

PPS - you'd also have thought that I would have known not to have packed a wine bottle into my carry on luggage. I did know not to... but such was the mad dash to the taxi pick-up time, that many things (including common sense) went by the by.

Today I Generated 12.66 kWh... Without Breaking A Sweat.

Well, in recent times it's been a topic of some interest here in Adelaide (and Australia in general) - the cost of electricity. This is in the context of a move to a carbon-based tax reform that the government is trying to bring in. And of course - lets not forget the other energy debate that's currently going on - whether or not nuclear power is a solution. It is interesting to see the Japanese government has announced that there will be a greater emphasis on renewable energy and solar in particular.

Well - this week we started doing our own bit (thanks to the inspiration and support from my parents, whom are strong advocates for solar power since they installed their own system a year ago). So we went with EnergyMatters, to get a 2.1kW system, expandable to 3kW. For us now, 2.1kW should pretty well make us energy self-sufficient (we have gas heating and cooking), but we're expecting energy growth as L-kun gets older. To be honest however, for bang for your buck, a 1.5kW system is definitely the most cost effective way to go with the current rebate system in Australia.

The installation of the systems was in itself a very funny story. With T-chan already in Japan, I had to take a day off work to be here for the installation. Only to lock myself out of my house about 5 mins before the installers arrived. Embarrassing. Thankfully, the installers were fantastic and we had the problem solved in no time (I won't say how). Not only that, they also found that the previous owners had left a live wire up in the roof (they had moved a light, but failed to hook it up). So the guys installed a new light fitting and hooked up the wires for free. Great service that went well and truly beyond the call of duty.

At 6:50pm... only producing 52 W - the end of a good day

So here we are now... energy producers. And it does feel good. Ok -we're coming into winter, so I'm not going to get the most out of the system, but better late than never. Note - the government is reducing the rebate available to people for installing solar power (from July 11) which means it's unlikely you'll have time to get it installed in time with a huge back-order of panels and installations. However, don't despair natural competition will likely continue to bring the price down (they've dropped a lot in the year since my parents installed their system).

The only thing worth considering is however - if Japan does get into Solar in a big way quickly, you can expect to see a huge draw on the global inventory of panels (Japan is a big supplier of panels itself). This increased demand might possibly cause a temporary increase in prices, and a lengthy shortage of panels in the worst case.

Trip To Japan - Update and Questions Posed

Well, to update you on things, Qantas are still changing flight schedules around (they seem to be doing it on a weekly basis, making decisions on Fridays about the upcoming week). Not sure what happens if you're flying out on Saturday though. Anyhow - they put me on flight that left Sydney (direct flight for Narita) the next day at 6:05 am. Yet - in my opinion this is just an imaginary flight (they did the same thing to T-chan as well). So I jumped first before being pushed and changed my flight to also fly via Hong Kong (from Melbourne), and this time fly direct into Haneda airport (where T-chan/L-kun and grandparents would be arriving 30 mins earlier). That's a significant advantage. We're all together no matter what happens.

The issue that we're working through now is what to do for our "scheduled" mini break. L-kun and grandparents would be flying back to Sapporo on the 12th, and T-chan and I had been planning on swanning around Nikko. The earthquake-tsunami-nuclear disaster put paid to those plans; as it did to so many other peoples plans (and lives).

Instead we've decided to get out of Tokyo for the 3 days - and will be either travelling to Nagoya; or back to Kyoto. Let's just say it's not easy deciding these things when both of us are busy (my work load's gone through the roof in expectation of going away on leave... funny how that is... and T-chan's busy preparing for the wedding).

I know - how can we be thinking of holidaying in Japan now? Well, I have to say that I love travelling around Japan, and whilst the country is in a state of shock (and possibly concussion) from the events of the 11th of March, life must go on. I know people are not in a ebullient mood now, but I guess we prefer to view Japan through the lens of what it hasn't lost (as compared to what it has lost). I also know that there's going to be some disruption, though things seem to be normalising now somewhat (power black outs have stopped for the moment, but are due to come back next week... what impact will that have on us? I don't know yet).

We've got two main options (both involving train travel from Tokyo) :

Option 1 - Nagoya (hire a car) > Ise Grand Shrine > (Iga) > Hikone > Nagoya

or

Option 2 - Kyoto (in particular Uji / Hiei-zan / bits that we missed in 2006)

Hard to make decision... and let's just say my poor old Lonely Planet guide from way back in 2002 is getting a dusting off (yes, I still read books). Anyhow, I'm sure they're both two very good experiences (though I hesitate to say great experiences, all things considered).

Because it's Cherry Blossom season now, not only can accommodation be difficult (though I bet a lot of foreign tourists will be absent this year), but also the roads can be murder at this time of year. We'd previously experienced aborted attempts to see Cherry Blossoms in Hokkaido due to 25 km long traffic jams... and the online guide for Hikone warns about heavy traffic at this time of year. Actually - I have to admit that I'm a little worried about the access to petrol these days in Honshu.

I would be happy to hear people's views (if anyone has an opinion on having been to the places of Option 1 in particular - or indeed, if anyone reads this).