Ian Rapley
@irapley
Historian of modern Japan, part time shepherd, clueless beekeeper, forensic cricket scorer.
On the train. We've had <train put out of service>, <police dealing with an incident by the tracks>, <sitting in the middle of nowhere with no information>, and we're now at <no Aircon so handing out free water>. Pretty close to trainwang.
While we've been away, there's been a major wildfire on the other side of our mountain. I don't think it was ever heading in our direction, but the scale of the damage is pretty terrifying.
It's always like this in Galway, right? Lake swimming; an arts festival; the best, emptiest beaches you ever saw; and so much sun.
Arrived in Galway to discover a) an arts festival and b) the real final tomorrow is the all Ireland hurling. We're all Galway ultras now.
My first place sticker are raising a lot of questions that my actual performance in the parents' race cannot answer.
Last night played at T20 at Llandaff Cathedral School, tonight climbing at gilwern. One was significantly hotter than the other.
1 drop, 2 catches, 2 for 8 off 3.3 overs and then made 45* off 53 balls to chase down 137. That's probably going to be the highlight of the season for me.
Seasickness trigger warning, but here's some blurry footage of a lapwing. There was a bit of call and response going on, but I couldn't see the other one (sitting on eggs??).
Students talking about which bits of the course they like best My colleagues Crazy classroom exercises. Also, this slide always makes me laugh to myself
I'm sorting out my office. I've gone through the archaeology of old student essays and supervision notes to real prehistory.
I really enjoyed this. Ploughed through 80% on the plane yesterday, and then took advantage of my jetlag to finish it off early this morning. Exciting, weird, and a little bit heartbreaking.
I stumbled across an amazing sento (public bath), and then discovered it's a listed building. And there's a (associated?) hipster remote working office next door where I managed to break pretty much all the rules trying to buy a coffee.
Another recommendation is to look into Goshuin. They're stamps you can get at most temples/shrines. Our kids got into them, watching the calligraphy is great, and they make for a nice souvenir. The blank books are sold in temples/bookshops, I think I've even seen them in convenience stores.
Same was true of Nara last spring: the first stretch of grass/deer was full of people, five minutes round the back: same scenario, ~5% of the people. Even better is to go somewhere else entirely. There's English more or less everywhere these days, and plenty to see beyond Tokyo/Kyoto.
Kyoto is an amazing city. If the most famous five sites are congested, numbers 6-10 are equally historic and beautiful, and have a fraction of the visitors. Arashiyama, Fushimi, I think are a skip. But (2yrs ago now)we found myozenji, tofukuji, daitokuji were quiet.
Tip number two is to go as off the beaten path as you are comfortable with. Parts of Japan definitely have an over tourism problem, in our experience. To the extent that my wife was saying she has reservations recommending it as a destination. Fortunately it seems to be very concentrated.
Tip number one is to use Visit Japan Web. www.vjw.digital.go.jp/main/#/vjwpl... You do the immigration questions in advance, get a qr code and go into a different queue at the airport. It's not super well advertised in my experience, but it's potentially a significant time save.
I can't remember if I've done this before or just imagined it, but everyone I know seems to be planning a Japan trip at the moment so I've been thinking about what advice to give them.
I'm slightly disappointed to realise that I'm probably going to be away for the arrival of the first cuckoo of the year.
Third lecture on the 1860s. Is the Shogunate collapsing in a heap, or am I collapsing in a heap? Unclear.
There's not a pan in the kitchen that's not dirty, and I'm probably never eating hollandaise sauce again, given quite how much butter was involved, but it seems to have gone down well.
In our family have the potato & gravy problem. You've got a roast potato left at the end of a meal so you pour a little gravy for it. Then after the potato is finished, there's some gravy left. So you need another potato to mop up the gravy... So too, the 8 year old has found, books and bookshelves
Trying to learn how to hit over the top. Definitely not my natural game. And I very nearly needed a new phone.
AI in everything update: pretty sure I don't need a £300 toothbrush, I don't need a toothbrush with software updates, and you know what, I think my current toothbrush is protected against cyberattacks already, tyvm.