My Love/Hate relationship with Tokyo

Things I Love:

Stuff works.

Trains come frequently and on time to the second.

Cheap lunches.

Shopping for clothes (and having change from 100 bucks after buying 3 or 4 fabulous, well made items).

Strong alcoholic drinks in izakaya for $2.50 (Acerola-hi at Andy’s in Yurakucho).

Onsen visits.

Eye candy. Lots and lots of eye candy.

French wine at affordable prices.

Pasta that’s invariably cooked to al-dente perfection instead of the mush that most Australian Italian restaurants serve up.

The fact that most people one encounters are genuinely kind, helpful and very good natured once the surface is scratched.

Clean taxis with lace seat covers and (if you’re extra lucky) gloved drivers.

Being able to get a decent meal at 11pm.

The ordered anarchy of the place.

Art, individuality and creativity are everywhere despite the overwhelming, unquestioning, conformist culture of corporate zombies.

Cakes and desserts.

Things I Hate:

The filthy air that made me sick. (I feel 100% better after being home in Sydney for just 12 hours. I’m not making it up when I say I can feel my lungs having to work 20% less now that I’m home to get the same amount of oxygen).

Incessant aural assaults from recorded safety announcements. (Would the place cease to function if the docile population weren’t forever being reminded about the dangers of riding on escalators or being warned that the bus is about to turn a corner).

Cigarette smoke everywhere and the stupidity of smoking being banned outdoors but being perfectly okay in unventilated pokey little cafes and restaurants.

The fact that in the year 2008 I still turn heads in one of the world’s premier cities for the simple fact that I don’t look Japanese.

Institutionalised sexism, racism and homophobia that many open minded people recognise and express remorse over, but yet fail to challenge or attempt to rectify at a societal level.

The fact that it’s OK to be a man in an outrageous frock if you’re a TV star (god, it’s almost a precondition of fame in Japan), but that most ordinary gay men must remain securely shut up in their closets. Last Tuesday night, an NHK panel show/documentary that I was fortunate enough to catch was the first time that homosexuality had been spoken about openly on the national broadcaster!!!

Women who stop randomly in the middle of crowded footpaths and the general inability of said women to walk in a straight line – especially when one is behind them and trying to rush for a train.

Kanji.

Natto.

Over packaging of anything and everything one buys.

Crowded trains.

The majority of service in high-end Western Style restaurants. (A very good lunch at the Amarni Ristorante was severely marred by a dreadful Japanese waiter trying to act Italian and just coming across as a totally rude wanker).

Parochialism.

This list is not just my reflection on the city I used to call home and visited last week for the first time in two years, but also a preliminary step towards making a huge decision of whether or not to move back to Tokyo some time over the next 6 -12 months as baba’s company tries to court him to transfer to the tokyo office.

Eternity Springs Art Farm

…is the name of the place baba and I stayed for 5 nights while on holiday to Lismore for new year’s eve. I can’t wait to go back.

The whole area of the hills behind Byron Bay is magical. The green, the trees, the rivers, the fresh air, the wildlife, the spirit of aquarius. Magic.

Eternity Springs is 5 minutes up the road from a little village called The Channon, which is at the bottom of a narrow winding road in a hidden valley. Accommodation is country-comfortable-simpe with a bit of an eccentric, artistic twist. What (or rather, who) makes the place so special is its owner Amanda. She is a wonderfully he bactry home with her guests. While many tropical fruits party goers were sinking in mud and rain at the camping grounds, we were enjoying fresh fruit salads and home-baked bread on the balcony for breakfast, hot showers and a comfy bed. Not to mention the feel good factor of staying somewhere that prides its self on eco-friendliness and sustainable practice and philosophy.

When can i move in?

What i like best about my new job…

…is the fact that I can finish work at 4:30. I have the option of working 8:30 – 4:30 or 9 to 5. By a peculiar whim of quantum physics I only need to tear myself out of bed 5 minutes earlier in order to get to work at half eight instead of 9:00 and I get to walk out at half past 4. Somehow a 4:30 finish is hugely liberating. I’m looking forward to summer when daylight saving and warm weather kicks in and I can jump on a bus from the University and be at Coogee beach for an afternoon dip by quarter to 5.

Working with nice people and not having to deal with law students is also nice (have i mentioned those things before??)

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that baba and I plan to go to Kerala in India again later in the year…
…Unfortunately, i’m very pissed off tonight with United Airlines. According to their (impossible to negotiate) website, it costs 60k miles to get from Syndey to India in business class on Star aliance partner airlines. I rang them the other week to confirm this. The woman on the other end of the phone in a call centre somewhere on Mars with a thick quasi-american accent said “yes sirrrrrr it’s 60 000 miles from Sydney to Bangalorrrre India via Singaporrrrre on Singaporrrrre airrrrlines sirrrrr.” I promptly purchased around 30k “top up” miles for around $1000 thinking i was getting a bargain to be able to fly business class for less than it would ordinarily cost to buy an economy class ticket. Tonight I rang their call centre on Mars again and was told by another martian with a fake american accent that it costs 75k miles because the flight to India involves a stopover in Singapore which is in a more expensive “zone”. Long story short, I spoke to a supervisorrrr who refused to budge. I asked If I could get a refund for the $1000 I’d paid to buy miles and give my cash directly to Singapore Airlies instead. She of course rattled off the usual line about purchases being non-refundable and suggested that I could try sending an email which will be answered “within seven days” requesting a refund in my special circumstances.

Well fiddlesticks, poo, bum, wee, knickers, bollocks and tits!!!!! I’ll keep you posted on the success or otherwise of my appeal.

Finally while I write this, my hero, positively pinko-bolshy Journalist Tony Jones, is on telly tearing shreds off the completely evil right-wing doco “The Global Warming Swindle” – the film which tries to debunk the scientific consensus which says that people are screwing with the planet and it’s environment.

Here endeth the lesson.

Oh P.S. New favourite TV program: Drawn Together. SBS 9pm Monday nights. Took a while to acquire a taste for it, but its irreverent, filthy and satirical humour rocks!!!

Thumbs up for Adelaide…

…but I wouldn’t want to live there.

Friday Morning we arrived to zero degree temperatures and frost thick on the grass next to the runway. The flight on Virgin Blue was typical Low cost Airline tacky “upbeat” service (“good morning ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…”) and rip-off inflight catering ($3.00 for instant coffee anyone or $5.00 to watch crap american telly??). The irony is that while i got my flight for free as part of a mobile phone promotion, baba could have flown for less on Qantas and got breakfast, coffee and the paper without having to put up with circus performers for flight attendants…not to mention the bogans in the seat in front!!!

We picked up the car and drove confidently to Adelaide street in north adelaide hoping to find somewhere nice and a bit funky for breakfast. No such luck…I’m sure it’s as hip and happening in the evening as the tourist brochures proudly proclaim, but the only place open for breakfast was a little coffee shop which was far more reminiscent of a CWA tearoom than sophisticated urban chic.

We managed to navigate our way to Norwood (no thanks to Baba’s inept, upside down map reading). If we were in Sydney we would have been in snooty Mosman…there were cafes full of ladies all of a certain age, wearing sensible and cleraly expensive clothes and perfect hair dos. We found a great shrine to all things Italian in a place called Bravo. They did an excellent breakfast and also had an interesting tapas-style menu and serious drinks in the evening.

Feeling well fed and caffined up we hot the road for McLaren vale. Adelaide is a very sensibly laid out city and her drivers are awfully courteous and law abiding so it was easy to get on to the main road going south. In no time we were checking into our digs for the night Claddagh Cottage.

It was a really cute Hobbit house of a cottage and a lovely base for our McLaren Vale explorations. If I was writing a review for Claddagh Cottage, the things I would nitpick upon include the fairly unimaginitive breakfast provisions left in the fridge, the lack of real coffee despite there being one of those ’80s drip machine thingys, and the typical cast-off utensils and blunt knives one always finds in such places. The location barely on the edge of town, just up the road from the public school which is in turn next door to the cemetary isn’t really “rural” but with such tiny windows in the historical cottage, it wouldn’t matter if it was next to a nuclear power plant.

To wine:McLaren Vale is a very picturesque region. Recent rain meant that the rolling hills were very green. The vines in the foreground and sea in the background conjured up immages of somewhere vaguely “European” (I was going to say Tuscan, but I doubt that there is much sea to be seen in Tuscany).

Our first vineyard was Coriole. The bloke at the cellar door was a bit standoffish and didn’t go out of his way to talk up the wines or to make any recommendations. Walked out with a bottle of shiraz and a sticky riesling. The bloke was also the first of many many men in that part of the world with very verdant chin growth. Perhaps someone can shed some light on why so many South Austrlaians go in for grey beards…

Next was D’Arenberg where the men and women at the cellar door weren’t sporting bushy cornflake catchers and were far more friendly and interesting to chat to. D’Arenberg’s wines were also a notch up. Yummy Yummy. Particularly impressive was their Viognier. It had me giggling it tasted so good. Had a mixed half dozen sent home.

Baba’s penguin fixation was indulged when we went down to Victor Harbour at sunset to watch the little penguins come ashore. They were a bit shy that night and we only saw a dozen or so, but they were cute waddling along.

After freezing half to death watching smelly birds (and getting fed up with drunk, noisy Brits on the penguin tour) we had dinner in a local organic restaurant (think pleasant brasserie surroundings and good food rather than hippies and brown rice) before retiring to a hot bath and crackling fire as the frost settled outside.

On Saturday morning, the nearby town of Willunga hosts a farmers market. There was lots of fresh fruit and veg, honey, flowers, essential oils, cakes, jams and dairy products. We bought a litre of organic milk and some yoghurt. They were both magnificent and sooooo much more delicious than what we normally get at the supermarket. I’m rather fond of milk. While living in Japan I despaired at how awful the milk tasted – even the expensive stuff which is pasturised in the more typical western style was still somehow bitter and just not very nice. Probably something to do with poor old cows cooped up and being fed chemicals rather than roaming free on green pastures. Coming baack to Australia and drinking the local milk again has been a great relief; this McLarenVale Organic milk took cow juice to a whole new dimension!!

We then took the scenic route back to Adelaide – or rather I enjoyed driving along deserted, winding country roads while baba slept. Once we’d checked into the hotel (Holiday Inn, corner room with a good view, drab decor, too much advertising in the room, personalised message and greeting from manager a nice touch) we took a stroll through the Botanic gardens and down by the River. It’s very nice to be right in the middle of a big city and able to breath clean air and see and hear birds everywhere. However apart from Rundle Mall in the middle of town which could easily be Sydney’s Pitt St or Melbourne’s Bourke St or Brisbane’s Queen(??) Street, the city was dead. What do Adelaide people do on a Saturday afternoon??? There was simply no one about.

After a little R&R (rest and romance) back at the Hotel, we frocked up to go to the Symphony. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra were playing Elgar, Wagner and Tchaikovsky which was very enjoyable – especially Elgar’s violin concerto. We were then right on time for our dinner reservation at The Brasserie, Simon Bryant’s (ABC TV the cook and the chef – BRILLIANT cooking show) restaurant. South Australian chefs and restaurants are proud of sourcing local, good quality ingredients and much less concerened about the sceney showyness of much of the Sydney dining scene. I loved simon’s Kangroo with bush food salad, native berries and quince. Baba accidentally ordered fish and chips – but made from delicius SA whiting and organic potatoes served with balsamic vinegar (from TV co-host’s Maggie Beer’s range perhaps???) My fig pudding dessert was 2007′s best dessert to date by far. In fact the whole meal or me shot straight to the top of the 2007 dining charts.

On Sunday, after again being unsuccessful in finding anywhere decent for breakfast in Adelaide, we gave up and headed straight up to the Barossa. Long story short, the Barossa was a bit of a let down after the natural beauty of McLaren Vale. We made the foodie’s pilgrimage to Maggie Beer’s shop, but realised it was silly to actually buy anything seeing as we can get her full range of condiments, vinegars and the famous ver juice (google it…) down the road at David Jones. The only other good bit about the Barossa was Peter Lehmann wines. I bought just 3 bottles as the credit card is very close to maxed out. With all this fine wine in the house now, I’m just waiting for the dinner party invitations to roll in. It’s a waste to drink it at home by myself.

All in all, Adelaide and surrounds impressed me. It’s such a nice sized city and easy to get around. McLaren Vale, the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa are all very close – one could even “do” all three in a day if you didn’t tarry. The main problem with Adelaide is that it seemed to be a city of old John Howard voters and dissaffected Emo teenagers with nowhere for 20 and 30 somethings to go. It could just be though that we didn’t know where to look. I hope to go back again some day, maybe even retire there…John Howard wil probably still be the bloody Prime Minister then, and I daresay his ability to brainwash the population will be such that maybe even I will be coaxed into voting for him (God forbid).

A far happier thought than ever voting for the Liberal Party is the decidedly pinko left wing McLaren vale vista below, shot while drinking my organic milk and eating my biodynamic yoghurt…

Melbourne was great

well, baba and I went to Melbourne last weekend – actually really only for Saturday. We arrived at midnight on Fri to cold, drizzly windy weather (and bumpy landing with crosswinds). M-san picked us up at the airport and drove us to the lovely little house he’s renting about 10km out of the city in the slightly unfashionable Norther n Suburbs. The cat curled up on the sofa bed with me and baba and we had a decent night’s sleep. (Anyone who knows me knows that I hate cats!!)

The main reason for going down was to go to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show. Not to sure what the International bit refers to because all the floral displays were from floral designers and students from Victoria – not even interstate. For me the most interesting bit was seeing the design contest for students. There were two levels on display: Advanced and Intermediate. The brief for the advanced students was to create a display for the opening party of an interior design firm. The intemediate students had to create a table setting for a romantic dinner for two. For an aspiring florist it was fascinating to look closely at the students’ work; to see those who had creative and original ideas and the varying degrees of success to which those ideas were executed. It was also interesting to see that the judges (of this particular competition anyway) seemed to rate quirky creativity over the potential commercial viability of the desings these future floral designers were creating.

That evening we had a lovely dinner at European, a trez hip restaurant/wine bar. Melbournians take their food and drink very seriously. Sydney people like to think they do too, but in this town its more about being seen in the hippest joints – and being served by the rudest, snootiest waiters. Dining in Melbourne was a lovely experience. For my main I had barramundi (not bad but there was a bit too much going on on the plate) and two glasses of an Italian Pinot Gris. A true rarity in Australia, all the wines on the menu were from the old world. Not a single Hunter Semilon or Coonawarra Cab Sav in sight.

Baba and I are very seriosuly thinking of moving to Melbourne in the futire – particularly when we are thinking about buying a house.

Bring on the weekend

Work is pretty crap at the moment – even my boss is looking for a new job. I’ve got a couple of applications in the works. Cross your fingers for me.

All will be forgotten this weekend when Baba and I pop down to Melbourne for another one of our insanely brief impulsive trips. the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show is on at the moment, and I want to see the floral designs. The theme this year in the commercial class is shop window displays. I want to see if anyone has stolen the idea that I’ve got in my sketch book for just that kind of display.

It will also be a wonderful opportunity to see our good friend M-san who has kindly offered the use of his spare bedroom and chauffeuring expertise. The trip will be a bit tiring – flying down late Friday night, arriving around midnight and coming back on the 6:15 flight on Sunday morning. So we’ll be home, back in our own house by 8:30 Sunday morning. The reason for such stupid flight times??? Money of course. Sunday morning 6am flight = $69. Sunday afternoon/evening flight = upwards of $160. The plane geek inside me is excited to be flying on a 767 for the first time in many years on the Qantas flight down and also excited at the prospect of losing my virgin-blue virginity. (I lost my virgin virginity with a virgin atlantic flight from Tokyo to London a few years ago, so, I’m not a virgin virgin, just a virgin-blue virgin). After all that, go and google the word virgin and see if my blog comes up. I suspect however you’ll just end up in pornogrphy pop-up land which will eventually crash your computer. You have been warned.