Using SUICA (travel and convenience card) in Japan

If you have been to Japan, you might have seen signs for SUICA at train stations, or you might have seen other travellers (probably Japanese/locals), using a card for transit travel.  

The video above shows how to get such a card, charge it, and use it for train travel, buying from vending machines, and convenience stores.

The price they pay for your perfect vacation photo

MAY 15, 2021

Shane Gross

The New York Times


BAHAMAS — It took nearly three months, but Mr Jody Pinder eventually succeeded. Endangered green sea turtles, usually shy, skittish and satisfied with a diet of sea grass and algae, were accepting handouts of squid that he and other local tour operators were providing at Bottom Harbor in the Bahamas.

“If you don’t feed them, they won’t come close enough for you to see them and photograph them,” Mr Pinder said.

Before the pandemic, Mr Pinder and others had been selling this assured adventure to a booming population of tourists. Day after day, boats would flock to Bottom Harbor and tourists would hop into its shallow turquoise waters holding squid morsels in their hands or on wooden skewers.

The turtles would then grab the snacks as the visitors snapped Instagram-worthy images.

Rules for using the onsen

So, here are 8 rules for onsen bathing,

Airfares post-Covid19

I am pessimistic about leisure travel in a post-Covid19 world.

Airfares are unlikely to be as low as they used to be. Covid19 broke the airline pricing model. This video explains it better than I can.

Leisure travel in a post-Covid 19 world

"We've gone for our last overseas holiday. At least for a long while," I told my wife.

This was in Feb? Mar? of this year (2020).

When did flights get grounded? (Spoiler alert: in mid March, countries all started to restrict entry of non-residents by turn.)

By 23 March 2020 SIA had cut 96% of their flights.

Western Australia - Naturally. Or not.

[Note: This was from a trip in July 2014. I never "published" it. Might as well do so now.]

I started titling this blog piece as "flora and fauna of Western Australia" - like I was an expert. I was just going to post some pictures of flowers and wildlife.

And the caption would go along the lines of "here's a blue wildflower." And "here's a small yellow one. I don't know their names."

Helpful huh?

So if you stumbled on this while Googling for "flora and fauna of Western Australia - the definitive guide", this is not it.

The Kindness of (Japanese) Strangers

From a previous post:

I did not realise that there were TWO terminals at Haneda, and we were at Terminal 2 looking for JAL when it was ALL ANA flights. 30 minutes before our flight we were still at Terminal 2, and we approached ANA ground staff to ask about our flight. They told us we were at the WRONG terminal. So I tried to find my way to Terminal 1... with less than 30 minutes to spare.
Fortunately, the ANA staff ran towards us, checked our flight and bookings (I had a print out of the details), and ran with us to the shuttle bus (shuttling between Terminal 1 and Terminal 2), caught the shuttle bus to Domestic Terminal 1 and put us on it. At Terminal 1, we hunted for the JAL check it, connected with their "Smile" service, and the woman immediately sprang into action! 

(We had also asked a security guard for help and he sent us to the second floor to the check in counter). 

The JAL ground staff took our documents, and checked us through.
It was less than 15 minutes to our flight.
She tagged our luggage to be checked in and we ran for the gate. 
Fortunately, the flight was delayed for 5 minutes. For us? I do not know. Didn't think so,
The flight crew did not mentioned that. We did not seem to have caused any undue delay, so the 5 minutes holdup might just have been lucky coincidence.