A slow start to today. Having been moored for a couple of days we went to leave, pressed the button to start the engine and ….. nothing ….. This is never a good look and led to some determined head scratching, the eventual conclusion of which was that the engine start battery was knackered. We reckon that it had lost some charge over a couple of days and...
We had a quiet day today. Well a quiet day in the sense that we didn’t go anywhere much, but not so quiet in terms of the weather. We chose the jetty at Gustafsberg because we knew the wind was going to blow hard from the west and sure enough, the forecast was completely accurate – it huffed and it puffed though didn’t blow any houses down …...
Buying a new boat can be a rash thing to do, particularly when you haven’t sold the previous one. Even more so when the previous one is also in Sweden. Charmary is still in Sweden. She wintered at Vindö Marin on the north side of Orust and she is due to be returned to the UK by a delivery skipper early in May. So, today we checked in with the boatyard. Ric and...
Amalia – our new boat – is a Sirius 35. We have read a lot about the boat, watched YouTube videos, researched it online, looked at Amalia herself and talked to other Sirius owners, but nothing prepares you for the moment where you actually have to drive the boat for the first time! On top of that, the previous owner had kindly agreed to come along which...
After an entertaining (?!?) night on the ferry in the company of a Norwegian couple, we arrived at Gothenburg on the ferry this morning at 9.15am – exactly when the timetable said – and by a complete fluke, we were the very first car off the ferry. Apart from a few questions from Swedish Customs (we said we had nothing to declare, though a few bottles of...
Harrowing, haunting, thought-provoking and emotional – just a few of the adjectives that could be used to describe today. The main emotion though was untrammelled anger – anger at the people who made the decision to drop the first A-bomb over Hiroshima. The devastation and suffering it caused to civilians can not in any way be justified and seeing some of...
Tea …. that essentially British drink …. or? Actually the real history of tea is a Japanese (and Chinese) history – we just came along later and exploited it! Tea was grown in China, but quickly made its way through Zen Buddhist monks to Japan. The first documented evidence of tea in Japan comes from the 9th century and relates to a Buddhist monk...
The gate (torii) of Itsukushima Shrine is perhaps one of the most iconic views of Japan. The red gate to the shrine appears to float serenely on the water looking like a magical entrance to another land. In a sense it is another land as the island of Miyajima (known also as Itsukushima) has shrines almost littered around the landscape – some hovering over the...
Takayama is an oddity within Japan. The city takes up a larger area than Tokyo – a total of over 2,000 square kilometres and yet it only has a population of just over 88,000 compared to 14 million people in Tokyo. This gives it the lowest population density of any city in Japan. This quirk perhaps stems from the fact that Takayama is quite high in the Japanese...
Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning and probably dates from medieval times, though it is not entirely clear exactly when it emerged as a staple ingredient. The taste, aroma, texture, and appearance of miso vary by region and season and different regions tend to use different combinations of the base products. Ishii Miso in Matsumoto produce miso using...