(ireland arrival / palace vision / crowded japan transit)
I land in Ireland, not Dublin, and meet up with Dad and Sister. They say they’re going to the hotel to drop off their things and then wander around. I remind them that I came last minute and still need to find a hotel. Dad wonders if I’ll be okay, and I tell him it shouldn’t be an issue, though I worry about Baobao.
I look up nearby hotels on an app. While I’m searching, we sit outside on large stone steps and look around. In front of us is a large park, and on the other side of the park is an old hospital. Around the park are old European buildings. To the left is a road going up a hill.
Dad points out that under one of the building steps on the hill there is a statue of Woody and Jessie and what look like their parents, huddled together and holding up the landing. They are half buried. He says the hill had to be re-landscaped because it was slowly eroding, and when they did that it covered the bottom of the statue. A lot of people were upset because they had to reconstruct their houses to match the new level of the road. He also points out a painted sign on the building next to us. He says it reads “war makes money” in Latin and shows a man holding a gun against a red warfront background. It faces the old hospital and signifies people’s anger at wars the government participated in.
The building whose steps we’re sitting on is a palace. Inside, we go up a spiral staircase to an exhibit room displaying dishware, including an entire wall of tea sets. The tea sets aren’t the thin fine china I expect. Either the family wasn’t wealthy enough to own fine china, or it hadn’t become popular yet. The cups are bulky and dyed primarily one color, sometimes with gold around the rim or a second color inside.
I see a vision of the ladies of the court having tea when the king comes in to see his queen. They seem to have a good relationship, and he appears to love her very much. She has white hair, possibly a wig or dye though she’s young, curled around her head with a small curl down the back. He has orangey-brown hair stacked high like a beehive. He consults her about information she gave him that was confirmed true, and she tells him what to do next.
In a cutaway scene, her father speaks with someone about her gift. She has foresight, or has come back in time, and can tell the future. Her father listened to her and gained a great deal. Then she asked him to send her to marry the king. Shortly after, a call went out among the aristocracy that the king was looking for a wife. She passed every test smoothly and became queen. Now she is expecting her second child and seems to anticipate future trouble that she is trying to prevent.
Back on vacation, I’m in a museum. It has many separate dark rooms with yellow lights illuminating artifacts that look Western in origin, possibly Greek or Roman. Between rooms is a hallway that occasionally passes doors opening to a courtyard. It almost feels like a movie theater. Someone, maybe a group, comes to tell me we’re moving to another location.
Still on vacation, I’m now in Japan. I’m in a suburb of Yokohama, and it’s extremely crowded around the train station. I try to stay with my group, but we get separated. They shout that I should just keep going and get off at the last station. I look at the train map and see that one end in a direction is Gifu, which doesn’t feel right, so I choose the other direction. It’s crowded down the stairs and onto the platform, and I’m carried along with the flow of people.
In a new town, I stop for lunch with a friend, possibly UK Friend K or High School Friend L. I like the place but don’t feel very hungry, so I order something light. She orders a large portion of spicy shrimp tempura and a side salad with full slices of cucumber and carrot, and she eats almost none of it.
I try to help two elementary schoolers pay at a touchscreen machine, but one insists on pressing the buttons herself and, because she can’t quite reach, selects the wrong dish. They’re on a sponsored trip and need receipts for reimbursement, but the dish she chose costs 300 yen more than what she bought. I try to change it, but the system won’t allow it. I ask the staff, but she says she can’t change it either.
The child explains why she needs the receipt, and the staff seems conflicted because the transaction is already recorded in the system. I think privately that it’s a flawed system. I notice an elderly woman behind the counter working the machine and assume this can’t be the first time someone has entered their order incorrectly.