Glædelig jul! I had lots of travel this year with visits to the US, Japan, Thailand and Denmark, and many concerts, both at home and overseas. So let’s get into it …

The year started at home in Sydney with my regular swim mob, Wednesday night trivia at the Carlisle Castle in Newtown and a lot of travel planning. I also played barefoot bowls for the first time at nephew Ben’s 21st. Our subscription to the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s 2025 season started in February with some Brahms and Beethoven’s 7th symphony.

In March I had another couple of relaxed weeks in Hawaii, just on Oahu, swimming in the ocean and using a new camera. There I stayed in a great airbnb apartment with ocean views and again caught up with my US friend Jamie and some of her friends in Honolulu including the fun Pam and her hilarious partner Grover. A few of us went to a Hawaiian themed Cirque du Soleil performance that I really enjoyed and I attended three great Beethoven performances by the Hawaiian Symphony Orchestra: his 5th, 8th and 9th symphonies as they were playing a festival when I was there. By booking well ahead of my time in Hawaii I was for the first time able to visit Doris Duke’s Shangri-la (now the Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design) on the other side of Diamond Head.

I was at home again in April and Easter was with sister Mez, her husband Phil, Jan, Brian and Gregor came down from Newcastle. I think my highlight for the year was the ACO’s simply amazing concert with the wonderfully energetic cellist Abel Selaocoe. This was almost a life-changing experience. He is so talented. May was more of the same for me with my regular routine and another ACO concert

I spent about three weeks visiting Japan again in June because I found it so fascinating last year. This year I took the Shinkansen fast train to Kanazawa on the west coast and spent a week there. My time coincided with the Kanazawa festival, so I saw the Kaga Yuzen Lantern Floating on the river beside my airbnb and the spectacular Hyakumangoku Parade which is the festival highlight. Kanazawa has some great restaurants, a very cute old tea district, a big old castle as well as their historic old Samurai district and one of the three most beautiful gardens in Japan: Kenrokuen Garden. They also have a great MCA and the famous DT Suzuki Museum that is a brilliantly designed contemplative space. After a week there I took the Shinkansen back to Tokyo and had a spacious airbnb apartment just behind Ginza which is pretty convenient. I visited heaps of art and photography museums and saw a huge and brilliant Miro exhibition. I went to my first big baseball game at the Tokyo Dome and that was a pretty exciting experience. It is all so wonderful that I am heading back to Japan in 2026 to see more of Kyoto and Tokyo (this time in hotels with lap swimming pools!).

My longest trip this year was via a round-the-world ticket, taking in Bangkok, Copenhagen and New York. Bangkok was just a relaxing few days in a well situated hotel that has a beautiful 25m outdoor lap pool. Then it was on to Copenhagen via Helsinki (the Finnair stop). It was my second time in Copenhagen and I jagged a well situated, beautifully appointed airbnb in a traditional old apartment building. Once again I visited many museums, galleries and the Black Diamond Library but the highlight was a Banksy exhibition at MACA. I even spent some time over coffee with the exhibition curator! I took the train up to Louisiana MoMA to see it again and to see their huge Robert Longo exhibition, which was great. It was, however, really crowded. Before leaving for NYC, I walked down to the Copenhagen Ironman bike course (passing through the city) and photographed the race leaders. The canal water seemed too cold for swimming in Denmark, so I enjoyed staying in the luxurious Equinox hotel in Hudson Yards (NYC) that had an indoor lap pool that I used every day. Disappointingly, quite a few favourite museums were either closed, doing exhibition changeovers or had exhibitions of no interest to me, but I did enjoy my time in the Whitney, MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum and wandering around the 9/11 memorial area. Manhattan now has many new high rise buildings that I’d not see before, but I balanced the new with return visits to St Patrick’s cathedral, the Chrysler building and the Main Concourse in Grand Central Terminal.

Back home in Sydney I resumed my normal routine again, started planning a big trip to Sweden and Iceland in 2026 with Gregor of Newcastle and hosted a visit by Paulie of Canberra who was running the Sydney marathon. As well as our regular weekly trivia, the swim mob all went to drag trivia in Sydenham with Jackie Daniels. This year is my third year of regular Monday night rehearsals that started in October, with the 400-strong Radio Community Chest choir in St Stephen’s church in the city for our performance of Handel’s Messiah in the Sydney Town Hall on 13 and 14 December. We’ve had the last ACO concert that I enjoyed not a lot, but I am looking forward to another performance of Beethoven’s 9th in the Sydney Opera House and then a more intimate performance of Handel’s Messiah with the Pinchgut Opera in the City Recital Hall, Angel Place.

You can view a pictorial record of most of this in albums covering each trip/country here https://www.flickr.com/photos/malbooth/albums/ and I hope to provide separate updates about my Kindle reading and podcast listening on this blog as usual. Goodwill to you all!