Culture Shock: Part Three - Returning Home.

Today, I am writing about the inevitable reality that almost all travellers face, unless they are travelling professionally that is and when they come home it’s only to say hello, and pack for the next trip. Coming home can be a serious ‘culture’ shock that is not easy to deal with, and I am facing that in less than a month. At the moment I am in a sort of holding pattern as it were here in Japan as my wife and I are living in Yokohama for a month with her family as she has some seminars that she needs to attend before we fly back to Australia in May.

Today - Yokohama

Me, I am at home most days blogging and writing and pretty daunted by the long list of tasks that await me when I get home. Finding a job, a car and all that jazz. IF I can get a number of things sorted before I get home, then it won’t be too bad I am hoping. A place to live is sorted at least. But the whole getting back into the grind of things can be more difficult than travelling to a place and realising it’s more than you bargained for.

May - home 'sweet' home - Melbourne

The first time I went solo backpacking, I came home after seven months around the world and pretty quickly fell into a bit of depression. I was working thankfully, however, I was working at night which didn’t help and I had to adjust to life back home. People seemed less interested in my trip than I had expected. Well, that’s usually the case for backpackers after a long trip. Sure you’ve had an amazing time and met people, seen things and taken a swag of photos, but back home everyone else has had work, work, life, families and reality to deal with, and it’s nice that you’re home but their lives are not going to suddenly stop because you’re back.

For me, this time it’s a little bit different because I’ve been working here for two years so it’s not like it’s been a big long holiday. I’ve had to wake before 6am and clean snow off my car and work 40+ hours a week. To be honest with this 4-6 weeks of inertia I am experiencing right now I will be desperate to start work as soon as is humanly possible.

Then there is the internal realisation that will probably happen to me this time. I’ve been away, seen amazing stuff, done stuff, and I got home and everything seems completely different. SO surreal and weird. Except, after a couple of weeks, this feeling goes into reverse, and everything appears to be the same. Friends, family – the same. Roads, places – the same. How could I go away for so long and nothing has changed at all? Woah, even television is the same? (except there’s always one new show that everyone’s watching)

It’s really quite difficult to deal with, and it’s not really true but coming home after six or more months overseas you do have a somewhat warped way of seeing what you encounter at home, it’s undeniable. And people will tell you you have changed. You’re accent has changed (I definitely now have a bit of an American twang to my accent, mostly with my ‘r’s), you’re different in ways you haven’t noticed.

It’s not that people don’t care that you’ve been away, and are now back, but living 9 to 5 takes its toll on everyone and although the first time you catch up with old friends is full of hugs and happiness, after that it’s ‘as you were’.

How about you? Have you experienced this sort of ‘reverse culture shock’ before? Comment below please!

And this is why I say ‘may the journey never end…’

PS. A little development for everyone. Yesterday I lost literally half the day working on the upcoming World Journeys Podcast. It’s coming! I am aiming to have it Itunes ready by Friday (April 17^th). I have completed the first episode, it is edited. I talk to the charismatic and very interesting Michael Eastwood about living in Japan, the JET program, Aomori Prefecture here in Japan and more. Stay tuned for that please! I have it mostly sorted – I am clearly not a tech-head because it has been doing my non-tech-head in trying to work out all this stuff about uploading, bandwidth and RSS feed. But after a period of preparation, we are set to go! Watch this space!

The Final Wrap - School's Out!

Well... that's that! In a blink of an eye, somehow I am finished with teaching schools in Japan. Today, at my second school, a special needs school, I went to graduation. It was an interesting day, some happy faces, some nervous ones.

It is interesting to me that comparing the two, very very different schools, yet two very similar graduation ceremonies. Luckily, there are far less students at today's school, so the process of handing everyone a diploma took less time. Some of the students present with more severe intellectual disabilities struggled to stay still for the seventy-minute ceremony, but then again so did plenty of others! The heaters were more effective at least!
After the diplomas were done, it was time for the principal to give a speech, followed by a VIP who spoke loudly and from a non-speaker of Japanese, it seemed a little angrily. Oh well, passion is always good right?

A few more speeches, the school song (which includes clapping by the way) and we were done. Oh no, a few photos quickly. Lots of congratulations. I had a meeting with the English teachers after that and just like that, I walked away from the teachers' room for the last time.

Last week in my final classes there the students, a fellow teacher and I had a go at making some Australian 'food'. Meat pies - well you can find them out of Australia. Apart from a shortage of pastry they came up all right. See photos for references.









As for the lamingtons, well, they weren't quite as successful. I never realised how tricky they were to make. A lamington, for the non-Australian, is a very light sponge cake covered in chocolate sauce and finally dipped in coconut. The process of dipping the lamingtons was extremely... ummmm... let's say messy. I cleaned up afterwards and believe me there was a bit to clean up! And we ran short of coconut too. Plus there wasn't a lot of sponge cake so they were half-sized lamingtons. And I realised that we should have cut the crust off the sponge as well. But, once inside the mouth, little of this mattered!

So are the perils when you cook stuff you don't actually cook at home with an international audience. Certainly though, these types of lessons have always been a lot of fun. And now, well, who knows what the future will bring but for the foreseeable future, I won't be doing this sort of thing for a while.
Two years of teaching, oh and I received dozens of presents from the school too, lots of thank yous and the staff at both schools as I left stopped to applaud me which was really just awkward. Staff at special needs' schools world wide deserve applause for their patience, care and dedication. The school I was fortunate to work at once a week for two years is no exception.
And out into the wilderness. Suddenly, I am unemployed. End of the month sees my wife and I return to Yokohama for six weeks before heading back to Australia. I CAN work, but only being available for a short period is going to make it hard to employ me. We will see.

WATCH THIS SPACE - Short Journeys: Japan is coming either tomorrow or Saturday. I've spent a lot of time this week editing the first edition and it's almost ready. I have a cover too. This one will be released on Kindle, Payhip and Lulu at the same time. So many choices. It's the longest of all Short Journeys easily and has a special chapter on Iwate, the prefecture I've called my home these two years, and has more photos than ever as well. It will be a perfect introduction to Japan for someone considering a journey here.
Thanks as always for your support.

The Return

From this:

to this:

The date is fast approaching now, in May I will be returning to Australia to live with my wife. The final, main piece in the puzzle has been put into place now - my wife's partner visa came through yesterday ending months of stress and worry about it all. We are very thankful. We worried a bit, probably unnecessarily, but we didn't really have any contact from the embassy (in Seoul as the Tokyo consulate does not process visas) apart from responses to emails sent telling us to wait. There were just two of them.
It took about six months in total, and considering they quoted us about 9-12 months, that's not bad at all. And now we face the big move. I haven't lived permanently in Australia since I left in 2011 on my big trip, that resulted in marriage and two years living in Japan.
From one winter to another, at least the Melbourne winter can't rival the Iwate winter for cold and misery! It feels like this winter started years ago. The car park is still covered in ice and snow, though today we've some sunshine even if it's not so warm (about 3 degrees).
And all the things that need to be taken care of now, despite the fact that they've been on my mind for months, come into sharper focus - work, car, moving etc. Settling back into life. Having a TV! I havent had a TV for three years now!
Don't worry - the blog will continue. Both here and on Word Press, for the moment at least, and I will still be writing. Tomorrow will see the release of the latest Short Journeys - Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. This is the cover I have chosen -

And of course, if you're looking for my writings in ebook form, each ebook has a page devoted to it at my Word Press site -

World Journeys

Do visit it!
And thanks for following, a new chapter begins...

What does Australia Day Meme?

I am sitting here in Ichinoseki as the snow falls down outside. We've had some decent temperatures this weekend, it's been over zero you see, but it seems that is in the past. Reputedly this is the coldest two weeks of the year for Japan. The forecast is not looking too awful - Thursday night was seriously cold, minus 13 or something - When I arrived at school it was still minus 11. Believe me, it may not be Canada-cold but it's cold enough for me!

And here I am blogging about the bloody weather, when it's Australia Day back home. The 26th of January is a date that commemorates when the first fleet arrived on Sydney Cove and British rule began in Australia to be changed for Federation in 1901 when we got our own parliament and Prime Minister. My plan, after the somewhat political nature of last year's obligatory blog post, was to get very upbeat and positive this year. But after reading what people are posting on Facebook and the like, I feel a bit less inclined to go that way.

BUT... you know Australia IS a great country in so many respects. And I'm not going to be all down on the politics of Australia today, or our 'Prime Minister'... yes I was using inverted commas deliberately. It is a great country because we are so lucky. We are lucky not only to have such a beautiful place to live, with space and good weather (believe me, snow in winter time is sooooooooooo over-rated). We are lucky to have a great deal of free speech. And we are most lucky to live in a multi-cultural society.

This is what essentially makes Melbourne such a brilliant city, above all else. You can see people from every origin imaginable in Melbourne, living in relative harmony, expressing their own cultures in a mostly peaceful way. Yes, it has its faults. Yes not everyone gets along. But we have communities from all across the planet.

I think we forget that we are so young too as a country and as a city. People get in a tiff saying immigrants should basically 'assimilate'. Ever since the Borg it's become a really ugly word, and frankly I think people's expectations for people coming to another country and assimilating within a few years is rather ridiculous.

And if 'assimilating' means letting go of culture and who you are, then it's a word that needs to be abandoned post haste. Australia IS a country of IMMIGRANTS. Simple as that. Think what today means for the indigenous Australians - the day they lost their land. It's so important that as a nation Australians NEVER forget this.

Memes. They sprung up seemingly from no where and now they are everywhere, and Australia Day is the time you see a hell of a lot on twitter and facebook feeds. This year Meme's are playing on use of 'Stralya' to mock the way some Aussies pronounce Australia. Take the one above which shows a child reaching for a beer. This underlines the divide at the moment in Australian society, some being I guess for want of a better word, 'intellectuals' bemoaning and almost being embarrassed by a culture seen as based on drinking and racism. Is that an unfair assertion? Then there is a group who see that group as trying to cut down, belittle and destroy what they consider to be Australia. Does the truth lie somewhere in between? One things for sure, the groups won't see eye to eye.

'White Australia has a black history'. I mean this is the sort of stuff I've seen destroy friendship on the book of faces. Maybe this is what is wrong with facebook. Opinions you wouldn't express in public are revealed on facebook. Of course, this meme is 100% true. 60,000 odd years Indigenous Australians are traced to this land. 1788 is only a fateful day that began White Australian history. Imagine then being an Indigenous Australian walking down the street seeing a white person wearing this -

This T-shirt was being sold by the supermarket chain ALDI. It was removed from stores for being racist. And you know, it is. 60,000 years of people living in Australia. It's really important that Australians have a little bit of respect for the Indigenous peoples of our country. And many do, please don't think that everyone feels negatively towards them. Just as we don't ALL feel negatively towards refugees fleeing their country and coming to Australia by any means they can to seek asylum.

Irony is sometimes lost on people. 

It doesn't mean Australia is not a great country. Hell, as a tourist you should have a blast and I encourage you to come. Uluru, the Gold Coast, Melbourne, Kakadu, Sydney, oh and please do take a chance to get to Tasmania, it is really gorgeous. Australians are very friendly and welcoming and laid back which is the best thing of all I can honestly say living in Japan at the moment where it doesn't appear to be a good thing to be 'laid back' about anything.

There is however a political divide in the country that appears to growing wider. With people in one of two camps. Some would say it's left versus right, but it's not really. It's a series of issues that people feel strongly one way or another on. And the thing is, the variety of cultures in GREAT in my opinion. And should only be encouraged. If Australia can go forward with positivity and understanding, there is no ceiling. 

Australians on Australia day - in fact all those IN Australia on Australia, look at what is the same about you. Listen to someone's point of view. Extend the hand of friendship.

AND

I'm terribly sorry this became political again. 

Geeking out at a professional level.

As the sun set on my short trip home to Australia, I geeked out like I have only geeked out once or twice before in my life. I went to the biggest Doctor Who convention in Australian history – ‘Lords of Time’ at Rydge’s Hotel on Exhibition street. What a day and an evening it was!

I feel bad because it all seemed a bit too geeky for me, despite the fact that I happily put my hand up and say ‘I’m a geek!’ Hell, I write and produce my own Doctor Who fan fiction! However, sometimes it is a bit confronting. When there was a costume contest at the event I went to in England back mid-2011, the contestants were children. This time they were, in the majority, adults. As someone said to me ‘nothing wrong with a bit of cosplay’. Hmmmm, living in Japan I’m not sure that I would class a forty-year old woman as participating in cosplay because she dressed up as the TARDIS.

A bevy of Doctors.

A fan made (?) TARDIS console

Anyhoo. There was a stage shared by the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Doctors – Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann. Other guests included John Leeson, voice of K-9, Nicolas Briggs who does the Dalek voices but more importantly is the man behind the Big Finish productions – a series of audio stories that began back in 1999 when Doctor Who was not on the tele, and my personal favourite the feisty and very funny Janet Fielding who’s time on stage with Peter Davison was incredibly entertaining. Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy also make for a very fun time when they are on stage.

Janet Fielding and Peter Davison

There were autographs, photo-opportunities and much more. Some people were prepared to fork out $650 for a VIP pass that got them a meal and cocktails with the stars and I think their own photo with them. At that price it seemed a bit over the top but if you’re a fanatic then you’d be saving your pennies from way back. Photos with the stars cost $40 each so that on its own is steep and if you want one with each person...

The stars themselves are very well behaved, and extremely friendly towards the fans despite some of the awkward questions they get. I found myself overwhelmed trying to think of something to say to Paul McGann and embarrassingly talked about the weather and daylight savings time. Better, I guess, than asking some continuity-based question about his 17^th Big Finish adventure. By the way, the Big Finish adventures are excellent for any ‘Who’ fan out there reading this and hasn’t listened to a few yet!

Rob Lloyd and Vicki Kyriakakis in the improvised show 'Time Lord'

The second day was wrapped by the incredibly talented Robert Lloyd, a Melbournian (originally from Dubbo) who has his own Doctor Who themed one man show called ‘Who, Me’. It was perhaps the highlight of the entire day and a bit, a very funny show indeed. Rob is now touring it around in different conventions and festivals. In fact, later in the year it has its premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival! Rob was also involved in an improvised Doctor Who show called ‘Time Lord’ on the opening night, where he played the Doctor! 

For more information on the shows and Robert, please visit his website :

Rob Lloyd's Website

The next day was awesome weather. We had a BBQ in the back yard enjoying a cloud-free day, friends and warmth. Before I could say ‘Jack Robinson’ my time home was over, and that evening I was on a plane on my way back to Japan. It had felt like possibly the shortest three weeks of my life...

Great Ocean Road, Great Victory

Official start to the Great Ocean Road

I am lucky enough to have some very wonderful friends i n Melbourne and it was thanks to them that I, without car, and my wife and we had a chance for a day trip down the Great Ocean Road. The Great Ocean  Road follows, logically enough, the ocean along to south coast of Victoria heading westwards towards Adelaide.
The scenery is what makes the Great Ocean Road worth the journey, and if you go far enough along it eventually you will reach the 'Twelve Apostles' and 'London Bridge'. The London Bridge was an arch formed out to a platform of earth, the twelve apostles are a collection of 'limestone stacks' not too far from the coast. There used to be twelve of them, now I think there is about eight, and the bridge collapsed. Back in my childhood we visited them as they were, so erosion has taken its toll in a short amount of time recently.

But this time we didn't make it quite so far. It is a long drive along the road to get them, more than two or three hours past Melbourne. So up and back in one day was going to be too much. But the cliffs and scenery were worth it as we journeyed as far as far as Apollo Bay, a popular spot during the summer. We stopped also at Lorne, a very popular place at different times of the year for festivals, sun, sand and a big New Year's Eve celebration too.

Beach at Lorne

.

The ride was long, windy at times, and the weather was around 20 degrees so not very warm, but a great day with friends. One of the highlights were the frequent signs on the road reminding people to drive on the left hand side of the road! Obviously a lot of foreign tourists take the road - there must have been some incidents! Australian freeways often have signs on the exit ramps telling cars 'WRONG WAY! GO BACK!' But I fear if you see that sign it may already be too late!

And there was lunch at Lorne. We stopped at a hamburger place which makes delicious, gourmet, organic hamburgers. If you thought hamburgers were just crap fast food, think again! And if you didn't change your mind, this wonderful Lorne eatery 'The Bottle of Milk' WILL change your mind. A walk on the beach followed. I have always lived on the eastern side of the city, so if I have been to Lorne before, I don't remember it.

The players line up for the national anthem.

A few days earlier I had taken my wife to her first game of Australian Rules football (Aussie Rules). My team is the somewhat maligned at times Western Bulldogs, formerly known as Footscray. One thing I miss living here in Japan is going to games live, although as the Bulldogs have been struggling over the last couple of years (we won only five games last year, losing our last eleven by an average margin of around ten goals. That's bad.) it's not so bad I guess. I get a live stream on the internet of most games which is nice. Well, we had a rousing 11 goal victory in this game - the opening game of the season, so my only game for the year was a good one!

One of the bulldog players kicks a goal.

Packing in as much as I could in Australia was a must, and there is still more to come. Next blog I get all nerdy again! Stay tuned!

Melbourne Visitations.

Hello folks, the absent blogger is back! Not just blogging but in Japan. Over the next couple of blogs I will try and cover some of the things I got up to whilst home in Australia for three weeks.

Journeying back to Australia for a break is quite a different experience from coming back after a holiday. With three weeks and a list of things to do and people to see as long as the arms of an octopus combined, I was never going to achieve everything I wanted to. One thing that was high on the list of priorities was visiting my grandparents. They are both into their nineties and still doing pretty well considering, so I was bundled into the car for a trip to Kyabram.

Hitting the road, country Victoria

Getting a lift in, around and out of Melbourne is a good thing when you have no car, especially considering public transport in Melbourne. It’s generally agreed, Melbourne public transport is poor and a nightmare for tourists to navigate. Hell, I’m technically a local and it was difficult for me. But enough of that – for now!

Kyabram is a little country town around three and a half hours drive from Melbourne. Once you’re out of Melbourne, the roads are pretty free unlike Japan and you can move at a decent pace, but you do have to be careful most places in Victoria – speed cameras abound and there’s plenty of police with radar around too. In Japan the police are pretty lenient if you’re not doing more than say 10km over the limit, in Victoria, Australia they nab you at over 5% over the limit I think it is now. And that’s only to allow for error.

Well. The Victorian countryside was looking in reasonable nick. There had been a bit of fire here and there, and a very hot dry summer but the trees and grass had a distinct green tinge to them. That’s always something people like to see in Australia. Not a lot to see in Kyabram I guess, but a nice couple of days away nonetheless.

Ardmona Shepparton, a worthwhile stop in rural Victoria!

Shepparton park/lake/swamp area with boardwalk.

We stopped at the Ardmona factory – or what was the Ardmona factory, on the way back. Well, this warehouse has lots and lots of food very cheap and in bulk. Shepparton itself is rather pleasant with a beautiful lake and surrounds, but I think this place is the highlight! You can buy boxes and boxes of tinned fruit, but there’s all sorts of jams, tomato sauces and most things you’d use to stock a good Italian restaurant. Great place for a bargain!

Back to Melbourne and I spent a day near the Yarra River at the wonderfully named Andrew’s reserve. The city is all around, but there in the suburb Kew if you looked the right way and ignored the cyclists you might think you were out in the Victorian bush. Wonderful relaxing place to spend the day – a place I had no idea existed beforehand.

Travelling back home from the city by train I rediscovered Melbourne’s transport woes. My train was 10 minutes late. That’s one out of one late. Then, because it was late they announced it wouldn’t be stopping at most of the stations on route – so that they could claim it was on time by the time it reached its final destination.  So three quarters of the people waiting patiently for the train sat back down and had to wait for the next one. I was lucky, mine was one of the stops it was keeping. I was ten stops at least down the line, but it only stopped once before my station!

As if that isn’t bad enough, then there is the ticketing system.

‘Myki’ has had problems from the very start, I haven’t met anyone who likes it or indeed understands the payment structure, plus billions and billions put on it to get it to work right. It seemed to work ok when I used it, but I understand there are still chinks in the armour. If you are tourist heading to Melbourne you do well to read up on the system before you arrive! – rant over, this is one topic that has got a lot of (bad) press already.

Next blog I will cover my trips with some great friends down the Great Ocean Road, one of the most stunningly beautiful drives in all of Victoria. Stay tuned!