2025

Well, 2024 is over. It ended for us with an 8:30pm bedtime and a 4:15am wake up to watch the first sunrise of 2025 from Marcoola Beach. It’s the ninth new year sunrise Misa-chan and I have done. Anyway, it’s the new year and what better way to start it off than to reminisce about the past?

The highlights reel of our 2024 includes:

• Six weeks in Japan. This time was a little different, as we met up with my friend of 30-odd years, Stephen,  in Tokyo, then he came to Fukuoka to meet us again. I got to drive him and his fiancee Kylie around Fukuoka, Itoshima and Karatsu. Misa-chan and I also got to spend time with her family, see a few places we’ve been dying to see, and eat a ton of delicious food.
• Seeing some live music. The best moments include Mr Bungle in Osaka, and 311 in Brisbane. It had been over 20 years since I’d seen either of them.
• Driving down to Melbourne to celebrate my nephew’s 21st birthday. The thing was, we didn’t tell anybody (except a few friends, and my sister in law). The first night we drove from 11pm to 1:30pm (all night and morning) to get to Sydney, then the next day we did another ten hours to Melbourne. Got to catch up with some friends I hadn’t seen in ages,  as well as family, and Stephen & Kylie… again.
• Then coming home from Melbourne we stayed in Bathurst (with Stephen and Kylie) and did some laps of Mount Panorama. I don’t have a bucket list, but if I did this was one of the things that would be on the list. One of our school friends passed away four years ago and we’ve been wanting to do some laps in his memory. We got to do this, and scribble a message on the wall at Brock’s Skyline for him. We shared our photos with his wife and she was very happy we did this, that we haven’t forgotten our good friend.
• Discovering new music. The best by far was Shishamo, but other bands which I’ve found to have been pretty sweet in 2024 are kojikoji, Haku, Necry Talkie and muque.
• Meeting 311. The concert at The Triffid was tops, but to meet my heroes of 30 years was the icing on the proverbial cake.
• The Biscoff croissant they sell at Southbank. It’s a small French bakery and the Biscoff croissant is 10/10 for taste and value for money. Other bakeries have bite size pieces of croissant for $10, this is a full on monster sized one for $8.
• Losing weight. While the Biscoff croissant was a nice treat, I’ve spent the past 3 months ditching the daily snacks and shedding the kilos. I do enjoy a sneaky piece of chocolate here and there, but it’s no longer 2-3 chocolate bars, a family block and/or bag of potato chips. I’ve replaced them with protein bars (BSC are the best!) which have less sugar, more fibre and more protein. They keep me fuller, less tempted to eat junk snacks. The highest reading I saw was 96.0kg. The lowest was 86.7, the morning of my recent colonoscopy where I’d had the evil Glycoprep drink to flush me out after a day of fasting. Since then, I’ve gone back up to the 87s. But for the first 9 months of the year I was mostly between 92-94, so to be 5-6kg down from my average weight is a pretty good achievement. Still a way to go, but I just need to stay out of the chips/chocolate/ice cream aisle.

I hope 2025 is as good a year as 2024, or even better with happiness, love, success and health.

Here’s some photo highlights…