Three of us started the day with Diva our driver, heading out into the countryside to the Pyramids of chi.

This place was established by a Western Australian couple in 1963 It is a wellness and sound & healing centre with buildings shaped on the pyramids of Giza.

From the minute you arrive you get a feeling of peace. It’s beautifully centred around an entrance hall with a cafe and a seating area spilling down an incline.

You are encouraged to arrive early to become relaxed and ready for our session.

We chose Sound Healing though you can do other sessions like yoga and meditation . We are called to our session with a gong sounding in the foyer.

Entering the pyramid we were given an eye mask, stowed our bags collected a light blanket and found a bed.

All set up with pillows and a bolster for comfort.

Settling in it was explained that we would experience a range of sounds from light bells to heavy gongs and everything in between. This was going to be an experience!

Our leader also explained if we fell into a trance or sleep and started to snore they would give a light tap in the shoulder! I hoped it wouldn’t be me.

It started with light soft bells. Hypnotic. I started to relax and next thing tap tap on my shoulder. Then a gentle lifting abc another pillow was placed under my shoulders. I hope I hadn’t snored loudly!!!

It continued on for over an hour. I know I was in a trance like state. It felt like mediation.

After we woke and took our time o saw the pit like structure where the sound DJ operated the bells …..

Over a healthy berry coconut bowl we chatted about our experience and a man with an assortment of coloured clothes and painted red nails came over to share his experience. Patsy had noticed he’d held hands with another man who he then introduced as his nephew.

From California, he talked about ‘paying it forward ‘ as he gave Patsy a beaded bracelet.

In a dream like mood we headed back to our lovely villa and waited for lunch. Today the hosts of the villa. The Papa and Muma had invited us to lunch and a cultural experience.

They made a garland crown for us as we enjoyed beautiful satay and a delicious coconut salad. The lady, Sree, who had done our booking was there to meet us. She had been a little concerned that as ‘older ‘ ladies we might find the steps in the grounds a little much. But we were proud of ourselves. Everyone was managing well. Little did we know.

Coconut sticky rice

Ed stated our cultural experience making little flowered offerings. You see them everywhere her outside the shops, markets temples. Called canang sari, they are daily offerings of gratitude, prayer and balance to Hindi Gods. They have flowers arranged in a specific order and an incense stick to carry the prayers to the gods.

Then things went horribly wrong. We were gathering for a group photo when Lynne turned and stepped up. It was onto a tin lid covering a drain next to the koi pool.

Down she went. All I could think about was Don’t cut your Skin. Lynne has had a lot of trouble with healing on her shin.

After a fresh water wash it seemed no skin was broken. But very painful to walk on

Thank goodness it was almost our last day

Today we left Ubud for a beach day. Shelley organised a special day at the Sandy Bay Beach Club. She had been there when her daughter married in Bali.

It was a great idea – it got us away to see the beach island life in Bali.

We left our Bali home at 7 am and headed to Samur. Traffic is so bad in Bali we didn’t want to miss our ferry !

We got there in plenty of time to see the hoards of tourists boarding ferry’s for different islands!

40 minutes later we arrived at a busy little wharf with ‘black limos’ waiting to take us to the beach club.

The drive across the island showed us that there are no rules here regarding rubbish and litter. The island is lovely but there is so much rubbish along the roadside. it spoils it!

The Sandy Bay Beach Club is in a great position and was welcoming to our group of 8.

We settled in on beach lounges and tables and ordered a few cocktails to start us off.

The little beach was clean and the waves were pumping.

We swam, walked on the beach, lounged on the sun beds and ordered lunch which was terrific.

Other guests around us turned out to mostly come from Queensland!

Time passed as we chatted and relaxed. Lou’s husband popped in ! He’s over her to meet Lou at the end of our holiday. he’s a keen surfer and they are spending 10 days surfing and relaxing.

Our ‘black limo’ arrived to take us back to the ferry port.

The tide had gone out so now we had to tender out to the boat. what a performance. We were congratulating ourselves on our flexibility getting on and off boats. We are in our 70’s but still holidaying like we’re in our 30’s – without the brief bikinis.

Back in Sanur our driver Devi was waiting for us. He took us into Sanur beach and we walked along the front past all the lovely hotels.

The footpaths here are better than in Ubud and there are so many restaurants and bars and spas!

We headed back to our Bali home happy to have seen another Bali. The beach Bali.

The Discovery is a big paddle wheel boat sitting on the river outside the big set of shops and a restaurant where we’ll be having lunch.

Once on board we were offered coffee and blueberry donuts. They were delicious. Dunked into the coffee it made a good breakfast.

The boat started along the Chena river past some lovely homes. It’s green and lovely and hard to imagine it in winter when it can be 40 below ! The trees are all budding so it looks beautiful.

Our narrator is clear and offers great insight into life in Alaska and living in Fairbanks. He also plays trombone but not today!

We heard about some of the houses we were passing some all timber others concrete or brick. Painted.

We stopped at the home of mushing and heard about Susan Douglas. A local woman who won 4 Iditarod races. Amazing story made so sad as she first of cancer at 52. They showed us mushing – and told us it’s the number 1 sport in Alaska. I love that they are keeping this tradition going. In the era of electronic’ everything’ it’s good to see mushing is still popular.

We landed at a village where some of the young native Alaskan met us to direct us around the village and talk about life there. They were lively young people, so confident talking about some of the customs of their culture. Most were either in high school or heading off to college.

Dylan talked about the Caribou and how they adapt. They change coat colour. Antlers on male & female and they drop them after they reproduce.There’s around 7500 in 52 herds in Alaska . They were brought from Siberia. Around 1800’s

We saw the skins of lynx, wolverines, fox pelts red, silver cross fox. All from same litter. White coats. Used to trim clothing. Beaver pelt is water resistant.

Snow shoes are made from winter hide & string , Bedding from spruce branches topped with moose hide. The skin are used for huts. And lean to huts for when they are nomadic. But how they survived in these harsh conditions is amazing. Birch batch is pliable so used for canoes and for baskets.

Beadwork on belts. Flowers embroidered were the bluebell and forget me not. Animal tracks trimmed with fur buttons made from moose antlers.

Women’s winter parker. Traditionally beaver fur trimmed river otter. Wolverines fur put around face waterproofing and warm. Bead works passed on. Traditional rose pattern. 23. Lb $35,000 now. Resourceful people.

We had a salmon filleting and smoking demonstration

Leaving the river we had lunch in the large eating all. All very slickly done. Hearty stew, vegetables. Salad and pecan pie.

The afternoon saw us on a little train into a gold digging expedition. Dexter , a local character explained how gold dredging was carried out. Then it was our turn to pan. We were directed to seating with a pan set up for everyone in front of a trough. We panned and got to keep the gold flecks we found. They were weighed …..I got $5 worth so they sent me back for another go. Old.l Dexter helped me! Success. I got around $16 worth. Steve got $26 with. In the end we had around $40 worth and here’s the smart part.. you could have your flecks put into a charm or locket which of course you had to pay for.

Drinks and dinner tonight to farewell our travelling buddies. Leanne and Darren from Sydney and Matthew and Maureen from the Blue Mountains. Great fun meeting them.

Tomorrow an early start for our Seattle adventure with Lisa and John.

We slide into port at the respectable hour of 10 just as Steve and I finish our eggs Benny with salmon. No simple room service today. We were having a busy day and wanted a nice breakfast!

Unfortunately it’s raining! We walked through the township. Juneau is the capital of Alaska. It has around 33,000 people and most of them work in tourism, logging, salmon, selling jewellery ( why are there sooooo many shops selling diamonds ) and lollipop persons seeing us safely across the roads to save being run down by a tourist bus.

We avoided the jewellery speakers and called into the public library. Curiously located on the 5 th floor above a city car park, it is warm and welcoming and the librarian was helpful with bus timetables.

We didn’t book a tour of the glacier ( we’re flying over this afternoon) or a whale watching tour ( we’re flying will see some later this week when we do go on a tour)

So we decided to be a local and get the no 8 bus out to the Medenhall glacier. It worked well.

Except we did not leave enough time to walk the 1.5 mile up to the glacier so only saw it from a distance. But we met some nice people on the bus.

Especially coming back we had a great chat to a couple from England. Both were in the police force. So lovely and interesting. pity they are on the Princess cruise.

We got back in time for our 5 glacier fly over in a light – ie…..very small plane.

We met Kathleen and Jonathan from Nth Carolina. Along with a grandad and his two grandchildren 6 and 10 we flew down the Taku river over the glacier and along the river over two more glaciers. The plane was small we had headphones and an excellent commentary.

It’s so remote , so cold looking – and this is the start of summer. You have to be tough to live here in the wilderness. Though it did remind me of the opposite conditions in the Northern Territory of Australia. The blue of our waterways, and the remoteness of our outback.

Here they have grizzly bears. We have crocodiles 🐊.

It’s always hard to know how to spend your last day in a big city when you are facing an overnight flight.

I opted to give Steve a knife making class to celebrate his birthday.

But first I picked up my rings and my bangle. They quite a fuss presenting it to me.

It was a fun session. Thank you Nane_asakusa.

Then it was off to Bub Activity Centre

https://bub-activitycenter.com/#bub

I found this and it happened to be around the corner from our hotel so no long train journey!

It was so well run. We had loads of fun and learned something as well.

Run by 3 young people including Misa who turns out to be Russian! it was set up so well. And run in a fun but professional way.

We are set up with protective jackets, finger protectors, and our own sharpening stone.

We saw the different types of knives and selected one. They are a carbon knife and start just s as a blade. We sharpen!

It was harder than it looked! I’m going a vegetable chopping knife. Steve’s doing a standard kitchen knife.

They were helpful with showing us where we could improve how to hold it …. Where to add pressure

After we reached a certain stage we went to the engraving table. We learned how to write our name in Japanese, then engrave it on the wooden handle.

Back to the sharpening table to do the other side. But first we had to pass the ‘slice the paper’ test. I passed as did Steve.

Then we graduated to the next grade stone to finish ……back and forth. Up and down. Until the edge was perfect. My fingers were hurting!

We had photos taken and the knife was boxed for travel. We have to declare it. It’s a weapon. I hope theres no problem.

I would recommend this great activity. Especially as a last day thing when you’re out of the hotel and don’t want a huge day.

BUB as they are called run lots of activities.

We finished around 12.30. Had a quick bite then headed to Jiyucho

https://jiyucho.tokyo/en/pages/jiyucho-tokyo

When searching for bookshops or craft shops or writing centres I found this. It’s near Asakusa where we’re based ( Did I mention I love this area)

We tried to go yesterday and now today I really don’t have time to sit and sip tea and write and feel super peaceful. But I had to see it.

The lady who runs the shop – for a better word …. Is Eika. She was quietly spoken. Probably because there were 6 people sitting quietly writing.

The idea is you write a letter to yourself using prompts suggested by the centre.

You are given beautiful tea to sip and you write. In a year they post you the letter. What a lovely idea.

There are also postcards you can write to yourself or friends and they will post them.

There’s also a library. You can take a book and exchange but they ask you to write a letter to put inside.

Eika was delightful. She showed me around, talked so calmly and let me take lots of photos. And I bought some cards and coffee pouches with inspirational words on them. I had to use my translator!

I think we need this in Brisbane. Japanese people seem so calm and patient. We need to adopt some of these traits.

We made it back to the hotel to change and get the Skyliner train. 41 minutes to Narita.

All very easy.

Tomorrow I wake up in Brisbane. Can’t wait to see the family friends.