Andrew and Kathleen

I thought the regret of leaving Japan would start to wear off three months later. To an extent, it has - it's nice to be able to watch TV in English, pick up a thick newspaper full of Australian news, and be able to browse through a bookstore and actually read instead of trying to work out what the heck the katakana is. Small talk with people in the street, never feeling awkward in unfamiliar public situations and, of course, eating a wide variety of food. Australia is certainly ahead of the curve when it comes to welcoming people from all nationalities.

I still read up on the Japanese news, although less frequently as time goes on, since a lot of it holds little significance. I make a point to read articles involving Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda. Just saying that name, doesn't it roll off the tongue just perfectly? Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda. So solemn and serious, no matter how amusing the news. Anyway, the point in this post is that it doesn't take much to trigger off a wave of homesickness. Thanks a lot, Kim. I was so upset I had to Google around for a bunch of Japan wallpapers to plaster all over the computer screen. Unfortunately, that seems to have only made it worse...

SBS has started running the cult Japanese TV show Iron Chef. It's a cooking/game show, which craps all over Jamie, Nigella and Kylie. Each week, a challenger goes up against the Iron Chefs, specialists in Chinese, French and Japanese cooking, and attempts to make dishes using a 'surprise' ingredient. All the time, commentators make stupid comments, presidents of local cooking associations offer useless advice, and bizarre pronouncements are uttered. "Hear the sound of the bamboo shoots," says the commentator, attempting to add serious gravitas to the whole affair.

The challenger is invariably a Kyoto chef, with a pedigree dating back centuries. The history is narrated as the artistic camera shot pans across him slicing and dicing against a black background. Back to the studio, and the challenger points to a Chef. "I challenge... Chinese Iron Chef!"

Chinese Iron Chef bristles at the insolence of this newcomer! And the fight is on!

The only complaint is the American dubbing. The attempts to translate the judges' spontaneous comments come across as wooden and awkward. It's a pity the comments are too quick to be subtitled.

Iron Chef is on SBS on Saturday night, around 7pm - just perfect timing to watch it and then hit the pubs.

Sydney's under attack at the moment - we've had bogong moths invading our place every night, somehow squeezing through the window cracks all for the dubious reward of being able to fly around the lights like some crazy jibber-jabberin' fool.

We have two, differing approaches to tackling the little buggers. My approach is the more humane - sneaking up as it rests, scooping it up with a bit of paper and flicking it outside. In gratitude, the stupid moth attempts to get back in to thank me personally. Sneaking up on a moth isn't the easiest of tasks, especially when other people (not mentioning names *cough* Kathleen *cough*) are sitting on the couch yelling out the current position of our furry, flying friend.

Contrast this approach with that of said girlfriend, who loves to hunt down the poor creature, brandishing the Mortein and liberally spraying, so that the place resembles an Amsterdam cafe.

Burton Enterprises, that world-dominating company that is usually trotted out whenever a form requires a business name, received a Linux evaluation software CD from IBM in the mail. I'll now be able to look at WebSphere, which seems to be compulsory on tech job descriptions these days.

Someone, and I'm not mentioning names here, *cough* Kathleen *cough*, suggested yesterday that since today would be lovely, sunny and 28C, we should have a picnic in the Botanic Gardens. Sounds good, I said, and we organised a few people to bring food, drinks and themselves.

Unfortunately, this morning turned out grey and overcast, and we had to pull the pin. About 3pm came the thunder.

Maybe next week.

It's not often I'm in agreement with Brian Harradine, but his article the other day on Chinese president Hu Jintao's Australian visit was spot on:

For the first time, the Australian Government will honour the head of state of a non-democratic country by arranging a special joint sitting of our democratically elected Parliament for him to address.

An even more invective-filled article, regarding Dubya, appeared on Crikey.com.au:

Stand in awe as Rodentius and his lackeys line up to grovel in the dirt to their mentor and supposed saviour ... Who needs a Republic??? We already have a President and the Rodent is his biggest crawling, lick-spittle lackey.

You could almost see the dollar signs in the eyes of the politicians (except the principled Greens and a few dissident Labor and Liberal pols) as they lined up to overlook the long list of human rights violations by China, in exchange for the promise of riches from one billion new eager consumers.

Our friend Heath sent us some supplies from Japan:

Of course, the package wouldn't be complete without the famous (or should that be infamous):

We've never seen Women's Pocky. Does it exist? Is Men's Pocky stronger? More intense? Any Japanese person who knows why men get to exclusively have a flavour of Pocky, please let us know!

The box had 10 stamps on it - Y1580 - so it would have cost him more to send the package itself than to buy the contents. Plus customs had a bit of a nose around inside, too. Luckily, nothing was eaten.

...is how okonomiyaki is described in about.com. It's pretty easy to make, but difficult to make well; in Japan, the best is Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki (which we were fortunate enough to try in Hiroshima at Okonomimura, or Okonomi Village). The trick to making it is in the ingredients - only places with a substantial Japanese population are likely to have the things which are important, nay, essential to making it properly. Luckily, Sydney is such a place. Clarence Street, to be exact, which has a little Japanese grocery store downstairs from the street.

Bonito flakes, okonomiyaki sauce, and Japanese mayonnaise set us back around $20. Check the packaging out. You can tell authentic Japanese foodstuffs by the sheer amount of unnecessary plastic they use.

Gee, it was nice! The only thing missing was the sizzling hot plate, the old couple wielding the spatulas who speak no English, and the ice cold Kirin Ichiban.

One of the things we're missing the most about Japan is ramen, and since Sydney is the home of a large expatriate Japanese population, you'd think we'd be able to find something pretty easily, wouldn't you?

Luckily, tucked away on the 2nd floor of the Strand Arcade, lies a bustling little ramen shop - Ichi-ban Boshi. For that extra level of authenticity, it even has the line of hungry diners extending out of the front door. Unfortunately, this means a bit of a wait... in the midst of the other diners.

Last night, ABC's Foreign Correspondent had an excellent story about the growing concern within Japan about youth. There's a growing realisation that the emphasis on rote learning, exams, and 'beating down the nail that sticks up' has created a generation of dysfunctional young people. Students who go to study camps, studying from early in the morning until late at night are not uncommon there, and the stress to succeed is incredible.

Last month, there was an episode of SBS' Cutting Edge dealing with the Japanese problem of hikikomori.

That's two stories on Japan in the last month that have talked about this subject. During the years of Japan's bubble economy, it was widely assumed in the west that the reason for their success was their rigorous and aggressive educational system. It wasn't.

Hyde Park has a photo exhibition on at the moment. The park is beautiful at the best of times, but the massive photos really give you something to look forward to on the walk to work. My favourite is Our Lady of the Snows. Most Asian tourists stop at this one, since it features a Chinese-looking guy (who looks like our friend Lu's dad Kenny!), but the story behind the photo is touching. I won't spoil it here by saying what the story is - you'll have to find out.

I didn't get around to studying Sunday - too much procrastination - and a lucky thing it was, too.

I turned up for Cantonese class at the specified time and place in Pitt Street. No one else did. Turned out it had been cancelled due to low enrolments, and since the school only had a landline number for me, didn't get through to let me know. Nice one!

It's a beautiful day outside - warm, sunny, blue skies, and I'm inside. I signed up for a Cantonese course a few weeks ago, which continues on from one I took a few years ago in Melbourne. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've studied Cantonese at all, plus with the focus on learning Japanese in the past year, I'm sad to say that my language skills are pretty ordinary. Hence the rush to hit the books so I don't look clueless tomorrow.

I've had a few weeks to brush up, but when you come home from work, doing more intellectually taxing work isn't exactly high on the agenda.

The Japanese language exam is only a few weeks away, too, and I've long since dropped any serious study in that area, too.

The rugby world cup is on at the moment, and Sydney's probably the only city in Australia that really cares about this third-rate code, where the men are either biting each other's ears off, or sticking their fingers where they don't belong. Rugby would have to rate as one of the most perplexing and incomprehensible games ever devised.

Still, it was good to see that Deputy John got himself booed at the opening ceremony. Even rugby supporters can't stand him. Maybe they're un-Australian?

"They tell me it's kind of like Texas" - according to Dubya. As if that's something to aspire to. Wanker.

Kathleen really cares about Australian Idol, which is another one of those crap reality shows that I hate so much. And she's really upset that the singers she dislikes the least are the ones that never get voted off, while the ones she thinks have great voices seem to always be one step away from the exit. Of course it's going to be that way. The only people who vote are 13-17 year old girls, who are always going to vote for the cute guys, regardless of skill or talent.

We went out for karaoke last night for Kathleen's birthday. It was great fun, but you can tell the people that have never been to Japan are a bit inhibited about singing in front of anyone. The Australian-style karaoke is to sing at a karaoke machine in a crowded pub, in front of all the other punters.

We paid for two hours, and got the obligatory five-minute phone call towards the end, letting us know our time was up. Yeah, yeah, we're on the last song, yeah, we'll be out in a second. Little did we expect the manager to actually COME IN and TURN ON THE LIGHTS!! I can't see that happening in Japan, somehow. The staff there tend to get a bit intimidated by a group of rowdy, drunken foreigners, to the point where you can tell they hate having to deal with you.

It was interesting, though, that people generally are really shy about singing. Kathleen at one point got banned, since she was singing what seemed like every song, but I think it was more that since no one else was having a go, she jumped in to fill the quiet. Someone's always got to get things started. Towards the end people were getting a bit more into it, though.

What you really need in these karaoke joints is not so much a big, comprehensive song list, but more a list of cheesy, 'starter' songs, the type that everyone gets into, in order to lose the whole shyness thing.

Now Ricky Ponting is having a bowl, with his slow, left arm off-spinners. Talk about rubbing it in.

Matt Hayden just scored the greatest innings in test history - 380 - against Zimbabwe. The record was previously held by Don Bradman and Mark Taylor, who famously declared before surpassing the record. Surely if you play teams like Zimbabwe (or the West Indies, or Bangladesh), there should be some form of handicapping involved. Maybe batsmen could start on -80, and the one-hand-one-bounce rule could be implemented. A record's great, but come on, getting one against Zimbabwe isn't really much of an achievement.

Jamie Oliver is now on TV virtually every day of the week. But not only that, he has both his stock standard cooking show, and the 'reality' TV show where he gets stroppy, sullen English teenagers and attempts to teach them how to be a chef. That's more interesting, if only because you get to see the real, sweary Jamie. And the TV stations have conspired together to stagger the times his show is on, so one channel finishes, and it's time for the next show to start on another channel. Wall-to-wall Jamie Oliver is no doubt the next step. The guy's like Eddie bloody McGuire. Channel 9 might as well call themselves Eddie 24/7 and be done with it.

But we noticed that Jamie is always doing the cooking or catering for his free-loading friends. Every party, every picnic, Eddie... er, Jamie... is stuck in the kitchen doing some elaborate dish. Even his own birthday, guess who's in the kitchen between courses, rather than getting plastered with his mates. You'd think one of his mates would say, "'Ang on, Jamie, whyn't you git outta the kitchen for a bit, and let us geezers just handle it." You'd think he'd get sick of it eventually: "Let's go to your place for a change, you bleedin' freeloaders!"

With two months having passed since our return, it's probably as good a time as ever to post some of the definitive Australian pictures taken over the last few weeks.

Ah, Japan. You wacky, wacky country! Thanks for the memories!

I can't believe how long it's taken me to get off my arse and actually get around to updating this website. A change of pace, a change of job, a change of scenery, probably the only constant thing around here is my hair colour. We've been back in Australia for about six weeks now. I could say something about how it's like we never left, but that wouldn't be true. For a start, we're living in Sydney; not having a permanent base in Melbourne meant that we could be open as to where we went to.

We've been missing Japan like crazy. All things considered, we would have preferred to stay for a second year. Playing some of the CDs we bought doesn't help the feelings of homesickness, either. Nor walking past all the Japanese restaurants here in Sydney (and there are a LOT of those!) and reading the Japanese menu instead of the English. Occasionally, there's a travel article in the paper. Reading about other people holidaying there doesn't help, either.

There's a great ad for Visa on TV at the moment. It has John Eales, the former captain of the Australian rugby union team, in Japan, struggling with the crowded trains. Until he forms a scrum and pushes his way on. Classic. You can download it here.