Angry Bird Japan Tour 2011

Who would have ever thought a tour to Japan could have been so much fun!  I’d been in Tokyo every 3 years since 1984, so I’m acquainted with the city, the trains, the markets, the tourist attractions, the people etc.  These days, I’m usually content to bring along a project to work on when I wake up each morning – at 4am ( in the summer it’s already starting to get light). I didn’t really have a project to work for this trip but Miranda, Riley and Max provided me with one that was really fun to work on. 

Miranda had gotten the boys stuffed animals of the Angry Birds (and the Pigs too) because they had both been playing it incessantly.  They sent me a photo of three of the birds lined up all looking rather angry and it looked to me like an image of my family that I left behind. They were all angry at me for leaving!

When I mentioned this to them, the idea came up of posing the birds in various ways and taking photos or videos of them.Then they would send those images on to me and I’d put them together making up some story. The ideas kept flashing back and forth across the ocean! All three were filled with ideas but Riley was especially creative and took a lead role in the filming.We produced 4 short videos, now strung together. It was a great way to stay attached to everyone while being 10,000 miles away.

Oh, and did I mention the typhoon and the earthquake that hit Tokyo while I was there?

Playing Hooky

We ditched school for a day! It was one of those lovely late autumn days when the air is warm, the leaves are turning and the light from the hazy sky makes everything look even more beautiful. We told the boys the night before that they weren’t going to school the next day and that we were renting a car and driving up to Bear Mountain to go hiking. They were ecstatic.

We rented a red Mustang and zoomed up the Palisades to Bear Mountain State Park. It’s only about 50 miles north of the city, in fact, on clear days you can see the skyline from the mountain top. This day was a little hazy but you could just make out the outline of the skyscrapers if you looked closely and with imagination.

We followed a trail marked with white rectangles that lead down to the Hudson River. We didn’t make it all the way down because we realized that we’d have to walk all the way back up! But along the way we had great fun making believe we were trail-blazing mountain men.
We left the park and drove over the river Westchester County to Hardscrabble Road and then to Outhouse Orchards. It was pretty late in the season to pick apples but there were still a few on the trees.

Maxie took his teacher an apple the next morning. Riley proudly told his class that he had been on a “family day”.

Aussie Rules Football in Central Park

Columbus Day weekend in New York was glorious, perfect for an outdoor sixth birthday party for Max.  He turned 6 on October 9^th.  Last July, while we were in Melbourne, his cousin Will had turned 6 and his parents gave him a Footy party in a park close to their home.   We copied the Footy idea but displaced it to Central Park where few even know what Aussie Rules Football is (save those who watched ESPN in the early days when they showed it 24 hours a day!)

We planned goal kicking, hand-passing practice (complete with a practice board hand drawn by Riley and colored in by Max) and various other games including What’s the Time Mr. Wolf and Pass the Parcel as entertainment and we had time for everything.  The only thing we didn’t get to was an actual Footy game. Miranda was happy about that for she feared there might be tears involved in a “game”.

The super of our building had helped by making goal posts out of PVC piping.  Riley and I planted them in the ground before the action began and we did have some time kicking goals before the Parks Department came around in a little golf cart and said, “No stakes in the ground, you must use cones”.   Luckily we had some cones so the festivities continued without incident.

Miranda’s Football cake was fantastic, as usual, and the piñata bashing was filled with a manly display of testosterone.  We had lots of help from our wonderful neighbors lugging the food and equipment to and from the park. 

The most wonderful part of the day was watching Max himself.  He so enjoyed the attention and seemed to really be excited that it was “his” day.   

The MCG -- Melbourne

Football is big in Melbourne.  Australian Rules football, called “Footy”, is nothing like American football which Aussies refer to as “gridiron”.  (What?...oh, right.)  Its roots are in Melbourne where 10 of the 18 teams are based.  Originally the Victorian Football League (VFL), it only recently (1990) expanded beyond Melbourne and became the Australian Football League (AFL). 

 The Melbourne teams take their names from local neighborhoods, St. Kilda Saints, Carlton Blues, North Melbourne Kangaroos etc.  Sydney has only one team, the Sydney Swans (which is somewhat confusing as the Swan River flows through Perth).  Allegiance to teams is strong and attendance at the games is high.

We “barrack” for Carlton.  Max and Riley’s uncle Andrew is a “member” and got us 4 seats at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for a Carlton vs Richmond match on our last Saturday in Australia.  We four, Max, Riley, Will (age 6) and I sat in great seats in the huge stadium which seats over 100,000.  Andrew was there too, but had to attend to clients in his firm’s box.

Like soccer, play never stops and the players, 18 per team, wear no protective helmets or pads.  From the first bounce of the ball to the final horn there is continuous action, in fact, if one player holds the ball for more than a few seconds the fans jeer at him to kick it away.  The playing field is a huge oval about 150 meters long.  The ball is ovoid and slightly larger than an American football.

The ball is moved around the oval by kicking or hand-passing (hitting the ball off your hand) to a teammate.  If you have the ball you can be tackled which often causes a pile up and the referee then determines (mysteriously) who get possession of the ball.  Points are scored by kicking the ball through the 4 posts at either end of the oval. 

A game is four 30-minute quarters long and the stadium clock doesn’t stop during the quarter. However after a goal is scored the officials stop their clock briefly until play resumes.  This creates an interesting and sometimes very exciting tension at the end of the game. In a high scoring game, after the last quarter expires, there can be several more minutes of play until the horn blows announcing the end of the game.  Only the officials know exactly how much time that is.

The match we saw was high scoring with Carlton winning 156 to 67.  After the game all of the players shook hands in a wonderful display of good-sportsmanship, especially since they had been beating up on each other for the last 2 hours!

The boys lasted the duration with proper administration of drinks, “chips” and trips to the gift store.  Andrew met us afterwards at our seats and walked us out to where he had parked his car.  There is no parking lot per se; cars are parked in a semi-coherent way on the uneven grassy grounds around the MCG.  It looks a little crazy but seems to work just fine.

The next day we made a trip to Rebel Sport on Chapel St. in Prahran to buy some Footy balls for Max and Riley.  Miranda said, “We’re not taking those home, are we?”  Since we’ve been back we’ve practiced our kicking and hand-passing several times in Central Park!

Thanks Uncle Andrew for giving us a great day and a new experience! 

Sydney Harbor Sailing

Neither Miranda nor I had been to Sydney during the winter months of June, July or August. The ballet stints there are November/December and March/April, and once during the 2000 Olympics we were there for the month of September. It was in the low 60s for our visit which was fine though we didn’t get a chance to swim at Bondi Beach!



We met Dave Clarence, timpanist for the Opera Orchestra, at the Opera House stage door before their performance of La Somnambula that evening. He signed us in and we showed the boys the Green Room, our former dressing rooms (definitely the best view of any dressing room I’ve ever had!) and the stages of the various halls. It was also fun to see some of the orchestra members as they came in for work.


We didn’t stay for the Bellini but met Robert and Libby Albert, Sydney’s greatest art supporters, at a restaurant on the Quay and had a grand time catching up with them. In years past they would take us out Sundays sailing in Sydney Harbor on their lovely 38ft sloop, experiences I’ll never forget. They hadn’t changed a bit, Libby as lovely as ever and Robert still championing plain speak.

In the morning we hopped on the ferry for a trip to Manly. I was explaining to the boys how in 1788 Captain Cook had sailed into Botany Bay which is about 20 miles south of Sydney Harbor and staked claim to Australia. When he continued north he sailed right past this perfect harbor because it’s invisible from sea. The harbor opening between the two Heads is only about a mile wide and then the harbor turns immediately south, then back west finally opening out onto the glorious harbor. So from sea the harbor it looks like a small bay. About 10 years after Cook, the First Fleet did sail into the harbor and came ashore near Circular Quay.


The Manly ferry ride is about 30 minutes and you don’t even see the Heads until about the last 7 minutes of the trip. The wind was at our backs for the trip over and the boat was empty so we had a fun time sitting outside in the front row watching the harbor go by.

We spent about an hour walking along the Corso and sitting on the beach watching the surfers practice their art. After a windy trip back to Circular Quay we met Vicki and Jayne, two former ballerinas, for a quick coffee and headed back to the airport for our Tiger Air flight to Melbourne.

Flying Foxes -- Sydney Botanic Gardens

Sydney is known first and foremost for the magnificent Opera House, Jørn Utzon’s architectural masterpiece, which extends out into Sydney Harbor like a magical sailing ship. Miranda and I both worked there for years back in the 90s. The Australian Ballet has two seasons per year in Sydney for a total of about 4-5 months. Unfortunately, the Opera House is as unworkable inside as it is beautiful outside; but that’s old news.

Just south of Bennelong Point where the Opera House is located are the Botanic Gardens. What was once a string of dilapidated fisheries is now a spectacular garden filled with great and glorious indigenous flora and fauna. We quickly deviated from the main path up to a giant Morton Bay Fig tree. Having just come from Sequoia National Park seeing huge trees was not an uncommon sight for us. The external root structure of this tree extended outward from the trunk like giant concrete road dividers. The boys had a great time walking up the roots and climbing all over the tree.

Our main purpose for entering the gardens was to see the flying foxes. We had told the boys so often of these bats that they no longer believed us. We didn’t have much further to go to see these weird black and brown pod-like creatures hanging upside down in the tops of the trees. While we were gawking, several bats took flight showing us their huge wingspan. I used to see them flying around my Sydney apartment at dusk gobbling up insects. They are ugly and frightening close up but extremely graceful and beautiful in flight
.
Several times over the years the city has tried to rid the gardens of the bats. They did this by playing some ghastly loud “music” during the day waking the bats and causing them to circle overhead screeching. This served only to annoy the bats and those humans walking through the gardens at the time! Ultimately, they didn’t leave; after all, this area has been their home for centuries. That’s one point for the bats!

We walked on and sat on a bench for a “chokkie” break. We heard some cockatoos screeching and Riley and I walked over to see what they were up to. They were quite friendly and one even tried to land on Riley’s head!

The iron bars around the thought to be extinct Wollemi Pine had been removed and tree was growing well. We finished our afternoon in Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. We didn’t see too much art but had a great time in their gift shop.

From Riley:  After seeing the Sydney Opera House we went along the harbor through the Botanic Gardens.  Once we saw the flying foxes/bats me and dad saw some cockatoos.  We decided to walk over to them and we took some pictures. One of them walked sort of like a tank (toed-in) and he was very loud. We saw two cockatoos digging holes and then the cockatoo walking like a tank came waddling over to me, stared at me for a second, flapped its wings, and tried to land on my head!   But I ducked!