Japan does bathrooms better than anywhere else, including public toilets.
Singapore – June
We went to Singapore (first time for both of us) because Brendan was co-chairing a SREcon, but we took some extra time to sightsee and get together with friends and fellow alumni of Woodstock School.
Our last months and weeks in the US were hectic, to put it mildly. We had already been preparing for the move for weeks: making and adding to lists of things to give away and enticing friends to take them, getting various paperwork we needed to be able to get into Australia (only Australian citizens and their immediate family members are currently allowed in), canceling subscriptions, insurance, utilities, etc. You don’t know how many financial and logistical ties you have to a place until you’re trying to unravel them all.
We had planned all along to do our own packing, to avoid possible COVID exposure from the movers. It would be a big job, and we started weeks in advance, putting everything we wouldn’t need to see or use for a few months into boxes. (Another advantage to doing your own packing is that it’s far less wasteful: I spent well over $1000 on packing materials, but we used clothing, linens, etc. to pad our breakables, and therefore less bubble wrap.)
Though we haven’t said it out loud to many people until recently, our move to Australia has been in the works for years (very fortunately, because it took two years to get my partner visa!). In that time, the people we have told often had questions about why I would want to move “so far away.”
The grimly ironic situation now is that no one questions our decision to move – many are frankly envious.
But, even before COVID, there were plenty of good reasons to move to Australia.
This was our second trip to Australia – we went three Christmases in a row. The tickets had been paid for before we realized I had breast cancer, and, as it turned out, the trip was an important respite between surgery and chemotherapy.
I only learned for sure that I would have to have chemo the day we landed in Sydney. Knowing that we would be returning to months of hellish treatment, we decided to have as much fun as we could during our vacation!
While visiting Uluru, we did something that was a first for both of us: took a ride in a helicopter.
Like everything else at Uluru/Kata Tjuta, the ride was easy to arrange: we went to the tourist office at the central square, booked it, and charged it to our hotel (we later settled the bill for everything when we checked out).
The views were, of course, stunning – but the ride itself was also a lot of fun. I want to do that again!
The red desert was surprisingly green; it has received an unusual amount of rain for the last four years.
