About verdanticity

verdanticity lives in Sydney with his Japanese husband and Arian sausage dog. He is interested in travel, food, wine, dinner parties, aeroplanes and flowers. Although currently a dull university administrator, verdanticity hopes one day to be the world’s most successful floral designer. He also has a bit of a political bent, though to be truthful his passions rarely rouse him beyond the odd letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald or Cab Sav-fuelled rants at dinner parties.

Verdanticity also goes by the nickname of Jiji. His partner is affectionately known as Baba. Jiji and Baba met each other in Tokyo in May 2001 and soon fell in love. (yes, there once was a spark….) They moved to Sydney together in 2006. Baba now has permanent residency.

Getting Baba’s visa was a walk in the park compared to all the hoops that Chai (the dachshund) had to jump through to move to Australia. Suffice to say Baba didn’t have to have a microchip injected into the back of his neck before coming, nor did he have to spend a month locked up in a cage upon arrival…despite the liberal party’s draconican treatment of (human) immigrants.

Jiji and Baba now both have dreary 9 to 5 jobs and less money than they did in Japan. However it is lovely to be surrounded by space, freedom and diversity. It’s wonderful to be able to sit on real green grass in a park. It’s a pleasure to rent a car and visit wineries within a couple of hours of home. It’s invigorating to sit on a bus and hear a dozen different languages being spoken all around. It’s refreshing to be able to pop down to the beach for a swim after work in summer.

Of course there is also a lot to miss about life in Japan: when was the last time you heard a drunk Japanese person leaning out of a car window in Ni-chome slurring “yerrrr farrrrkennn pooofta”? (They don’t even say it in Japanese!) We miss cheap international flights and weekends in Hong Kong. And of course we miss friends in Yokohama and Tokyo.