The Japanese toilet seat

The Japanese have a very different and unique attitude to the toilet seat and I will try to describe it without too much vulgar reference; they have managed to automate it!

When you sit down it will automatically start some water running into the bowl, I don’t know why it does this but it does. Having finished your business you then have a selection of buttons which will control the speed direction and most importantly temperature of the water, I doubt you want ice cold water sprayed onto your rear unexpectedly.  

Lost in translation

a well know rehydrating drink from Japan

Airport Piano’s

A number of airports have recently installed pianos for the public to play. I am in transit in Amsterdam at the moment and have 4 hours to kill and have just been captivated by a passenger who sat down and played one beautifully. I have to say it has totally uplifted me. I wish she could have stayed longer. Equally I am sure played badly they can have the opposite effect but this was outstanding.     

Lost in Translation

I saw this in a supermarket over Christmas, its actually Dog Food but the packaging does not say what sort of Adult they have mixed with the Chicken.

and so it begins again

So January 5th and the year has started again, its a Sunday evening and I am in an Airport, I love Airports and aircraft but I hate overcrowded departure lounges with masses of humanity looking for seats and waiting for flights. one thing I really dislike is airports that publish the gate numbers late to keep this mass of humanity together in the hope they will spend money in the shops, just let me know where the gate is and let me get to the peace and quite away from the departure lounge........ I tried guessing where the gate would be this time last year and went to the wrong place missing my flight as a result so here I sit in some branded coffee shop which the cup tells me is Starbucks although the coffee tastes no different than McDonalds or Café Nero.

Review of 2013

The last posting for another year and the end of the fourth year of this blog; Time seems to be passing so fast these days. 2014 brought 118 flights totalling 331 hours and visiting 45 different airports in 25 different countries flying 247,500Km. I created 31.5 tonnes of CO2 1.68Kgs of methane (by flying before you ask) and 1.37 tonnes of Nitrous oxide.  

Businesswise I thought 2012 was tough but 2013 was tougher still, I ended up having to close down businesses in the France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. but my businesses in the Czech Republic and Warsaw had a storming year making more money than all the other businesses put together over the last five years.  2014 should leave me clear to expand these business again but there are a couple of icebergs that have to be navigated in the last quarter of the year.  Closing the businesses has reduced my travel slightly but increased the distance travelled on each flight, I took 5 less flights but flew over 50 hours more than 2012. I see this trend continuing in 2014 with three visits to the Far East already planned and one of these extending across the Pacific to Hawaii.  

Highlights for 2013 were my first visit to the South pacific with a visit to Fiji and my first visit to Hong Kong for a number of years. I still get a huge amount of pleasure about my volunteering in the local school Football club and ATC unit. Being a workaholic these allow me to divert my attention away from my “work” to other “work”.

2014 has, as I indicated, three trips to the Far East along with other European trips and I am sure a number of other trips as well.         

Sri Lanka

After getting back from Fiji I was quickly off to Sri Lanka, and once again I had a small amount of spare time one evening. we walked out of the Hotel and stopped by a the beach, there were plenty of tuck tuck's passing us and trying to encourage us to use them for a tour. we were also being pushed by "passers by " to take a tour of their beautiful city" and visit the Buddhist temple where there was a big Festival about to start with Elephants. After a while of turning them down we picked one at random and allowed them to take us on the tour, as is the case with these sort of thing the price was difficult to pin down but we did not think it would be much. At the temple there was no festival but there was an elephant. The Elephant was a baby and obviously in some mental distress as it was chained on its rear left and front right foot and had very little ability to move. we were being encouraged to pay to feed it. when we were dropped back at the beach the discussions started about the fee, they tried to scam us but only for the equivalent of 15 Euro, we negotiated it down to 10 Euro and then paid him. I hate the bitter taste this sort of thing leaves and was distinctly uncomfortable about the elephant but there was nothing I could do about it.