Oyaji Life - MAGIC HOUR

End of the Year

Once a year during New Year holidays, I write a blog that has nothing to do with travel. I am trying to gain writing skills which do not rely on travel, but a good sense of writing is not something I can win in the end-of-year lottery, so I have not come to the fruition. In the end, it will be difficult to spread my wing away from being a travel blogger next year.

At the beginning of this year, I wrote “there is no night that never finds a day” in a quote from Japanese translation of Shakespeare’s “the night is long that never finds the day”. I had been feeling unwell for about a month since I caught a cold in early December of last year. At the time, it was diagnosed as an ordinary cold. However, some of my friends in medical field said that it might have been influenza and the diagnostic kit just didn’t react due to the vaccine I had taken.

This year was, in fact, really bad. Excessive temperature changes, hay fever, low atmospheric pressure, and various other factors have brought me to somewhere nothing resembling a dawn in sight.

Numbers speak for themselves, the number of paid leave in this year reached a record high of 18 days. Since I have been working the same company for a long time, I started with 40 days of paid leave, including 20 days carried over from last year. Yet, 18 days are probably at higher-end among Japanese workers.

The first half of the year was particularly bad. By the end of June, I had taken a total of 12 days off. This was the same number of days as whole last year including the days of sick leave owing the cold or the flu whichever it was. I traveled from time to time in the first half of this year, but not every month.

I worked to re-establish my life. During the summer months, the situation was relatively easy, but then worsened again as winter set in. The result was the aforementioned numbers.

The root cause of all seems to be insomnia. Insomnia weakens the autonomic nervous system, and it leads to further insomnia, a vicious cycle. Until the last summer, I was able to fall asleep with Chinese herbal medicine, but the Chinese herbal medicine had become completely ineffective, and I routinely went to bed at around 3:00 am. Even though I live close to my work, I still have to wake up at 7:30 am.

I considered substituting the Chinese herbal medicine by alcohol consumption, although the quality of my sleep would be suffered. I had to drink quite a lot to fall asleep, and when I emptied a bottle of whiskey within the three continuous nights on weekdays, I came to seriously consider the risk of liver dysfunction and gout. I concluded that western medication was better than alcohol, and resumed taking sleep aids for the first time in several years.

At first, the medication was so effective that affected my waking time. On the first day of work in this year, I woke up just before noon. Even I consider myself as a third-class businessman, my face turned ghostly white.

I somewhat managed to adjust the dosage of medication, but the insomnia gradually worsened and the medication became less effective. It did not work unless I feel some drowsiness, and as a result, I began to fall asleep after 2:00 am. From that point on, it became even later, beyond 3:00 am. By the time of the summer solstice, I slept after watching the sunrise. It was bad indeed.

After that, thanks to a change in medication, I was able to fall asleep around 3:00 am during the summer and fall months. However, the condition worsened again as winter approached. It seemed that I was susceptible to temperature changes. In fact, it is definitely worse than at the beginning of the year. It is a long time to continue this kind of life for more than a year.

It is tempting to think that “there is no day that never finds a night,” but I wish to make a break before that happens.

After I stopped receiving New Year’s gift money, I have not been interested to celebrate New Year. Still, the year will end soon. On the 30th, drunken on the last business at a yakitori restaurant and a bar in Ginza, Tokyo; and spent New Year’s Eve quietly at a Chinese restaurant and a bar in Yokohama. This has been a regular pattern for the past few years. Time flies as I repeat the same thing over and over again.

I do not think I will get a New Year’s gift money at this age, but I will go out for drinks to bring this year to close. Then I will prepare for my next trip.

After all, I only can be a travel blogger again next year.

New Year (Originally posted on 2023-Jan-2)

Last year was so not good. To be honest, it would be more accurate to say that last year was not good “either” since I have been saying that “last year was not so good” every year.

The root cause of my “not so good” feeling was that I spent whole the year idly every year, and I realized the fact when each year was over.

This is not that all years are the same. I was finally infected with COVID-19 last summer, so there were some changes in my life. Yet my life was still passive, and I have had a strong “same old” feeling. After all, COVID-19 did not change my life.

In addition, yesterday was the first day of the year, nevertheless I spent the day idly. I woke up in the afternoon and thought about picking up my New Year’s greeting cards from the mailbox, but I had never left my room. I thought about writing a blog but ended up not sitting down in front of my Mac all the day.

These accumulation of idly events from Day 1 will lead to another “not so good” year by the time of Day 365. I wonder if I can continue like this. I need to take some actions.

After some thoughts, I decided to buzz off my head. A buzz cut can be a refreshing enough to change of my mindset. It may seem trifling, but at least it gives me a sense of “having done something.”

It should be better than doing nothing at all.

Even if the “sense of having something done” turns out “sense of messing up something,” they are just a matter of good or bad, meaning that I have done something. It will lead to a break from the days of idleness, and will be a departure from “not so good”.

I will try to do something on my own initiative.

Admittedly this is something at low-level, but it is the first New Year’s resolution I have had in almost 30 years.

Memories of Croatia

Last year, I went to Europe for the first time after COVID-19 outbreak and quite enjoyed. In the past few years, I had to repeat short trips. However, since the trip was a relatively long duration and visited locations without much of direct flights, I had to be creative in making travel arrangements. I liked working on travel plans, so the whole process was a fun indeed.

Perhaps they have fundamentally opposite nature, what I enjoyed during the trip were the religious sites and the liquor. In Bulgaria, I stayed in a Bulgarian Orthodox Monastery. Greek Orthodox churches were worth seeing for different architectural styles from the Bulgarian. In addition, both countries have cultures of distilled spirits, and I enjoyed them. In Germany, where the last country I visited, I was able to visit an old-fashioned beer hall, even though I was in Germany for less than a day.

As a whisky lover, Scotland comes first in my mind when I think of European distilled spirits, but it has already been about 15 years since my last visit there. The industry was in recession when I had interests on whisky for the first time, but in recent years it has become very popular and the price has skyrocketed. Furthermore, Isle of Islay, a famous Scotch whisky producing island, used to be a remote island where seemed almost the farthest land on the earth. Now, the island has become a famous tourist destination, and I cannot find it as interesting as used to be.

Geographically, next to Scotland is Ireland, where is also a famous whiskey-producing country. I am not familiar with Ireland, but I know Irish whisky prices are not as high as those of Scotch. Looking at map of Ireland, I see that it has scenic coastlines and many ruins of old Celtic churches. Moreover, perhaps I have strong images of the chaotic times due to the influence of the novels I love to read, but I think that the country is full of cynical, gloomy, and alcoholic middle-aged men.

Cynical, gloomy, and alcoholic.

This would be the perfect place for me. Checking on flights, I found that if I take a red-eye flight on Japan Airlines to London Heathrow, I can get to Dublin in the next morning. On the way back, I can fly or take ferry & train to London, stay overnight, and take another red-eye flight back to Tokyo. The schedule seemed pretty good, I made a reservation for the airline ticket.

Normally, I would have completed all the arrangements as soon as possible, but things were different this time. My insomnia had been worsening in the first half of this year. Despite I had too much free time in late nights, I had not done anything for several months after I got the airline ticket. In fact, I checked few points such as distillery tours or ways to travel from Ireland to London during such late-night times. However, they did not go any further. I had wasted time without making any reservations or even making any plans at all. One of reasons might be a rental car to get around Ireland, as I did not like driving. Yet, it was almost the first time for me to do nothing on travel plans for such a long time.

Around that time, I had to take a training session at work, it said insomnia was not good for mental health. I have been lethargic at work from time to time, but I should have taken as a bad sign that I was lethargic on travel. It may be necessary to take some countermeasures against insomnia that has worsened. As a new approach to my insomnia, I decided to change the destination of my summer vacation.

I needed to go to a place where I could feel positive. Let me go to somewhere refreshing and full of dazzling sun, opposed to cynical, gloomy, and alcoholic.

If I am looking for dazzling sun in Europe, I should look for it in southern part of the continent. Since I visited the Aegean Sea last year, the Mediterranean Sea or the Adriatic Sea would be a good idea. Few years ago, I visited Dubrovnik, Croatia and took a day tour to city of Kotor in Montenegro. I remembered that I liked Kotor but did not have much time there. I should be able to expect dazzling sun of Adriatic Sea.

I checked the airline tickets again and found that All Nippon Airways offered red-eye flights for both out/in Japan. For the most efficient way to get around, I decided to go to Dubrovnik first, and then take a bus to Kotor. On the last day, I fly from Podgorica Airport in the capital of Montenegro to Vienna, and catch returning flight to Tokyo Haneda.

On the first day of summer vacation, I arrived Dubrovnik via Frankfurt. A clear sky over the Adriatic Sea was supposed to be waiting for me, but the sky was full of clouds. When I arrived Dubrovnik, it was the first time I had seriously looked at the weather forecast. It said that cloudy or rainy weather was expected throughout my stay.

I left my luggage at the short-term apartment and immediately went to Walls of Dubrovnik while there were still few blue skies. The Walls is the most famous tourist attraction in the Croatia’s the most famous tourist destination. The entrance fee was quite high, 35 euros, or equivalent more than 5,500 yen owing weak Japanese yen.

After paying the admission fee, I heard a thunderous roar from somewhere. Looking at the land side, there was still blue sky, but looking out to sea from the top of Walls of Dubrovnik, it was cloudy, and what looked like a rain pillar could be seen in the distance.

Then, a thunderstorm came. It was a heavy rain shower with strong winds. There was no place to avoid them on Walls of Dubrovnik. I just had left my suitcase at the apartment and came to the Walls without doing anything, fortunately I still had my umbrella in my backpack. I found a place with a slight shelter from the wind. I ended up standing under torrential downpour for about an hour, my umbrella was broken and I was soaking wet on the first day of arrival.

Finally, the rain stopped and I resumed sightseeing of the Walls of Dubrovnik. The first round was not much for photography, so I decided to go on second round. Apparently one admission fee only allows one round. Considering the weather forecast was not promising for the next few days, I thought I should have done two rounds on this day even though I had to pay the entrance fee again. It was highly likely that first 35 euros/5,500 yen was complete waste of money.

The initial choices were Ireland where was cynical, gloomy, and alcoholic, or, Adriatic Sea where had refreshing and full of dazzling sun. In order for me to turn over a new leaf, it seemed like an easy choice. However, this visit to Adriatic Sea might not much different from going to Ireland. In fact, it might have been worse because the expensive entrance fee was wasted.