Broad brush strokes... the last two months.

I don’t want to bore you with details (to be perfectly honest, I don't want to bore myself with writing details either), so I’ll just give you a bit of a broad overview of how our lives have been travelling along for the last two months since arriving in Japan.

I’ll also admit that I can’t be bothered uploading photos to the blog, simply because it takes too much effort to resize them, so I’m just going to put in some links to my facebook albums.

A brief timeline of our lives since arriving…

5 June – touchdown! Got on the first plane of the morning in Hobart at 6am. Got off the plane from Sydney to Osaka at 8pm, local time. Met up with a charming chap called Simon on the plane whom we’ve quickly be-friended. After an hour or so of immigration and customs and whatnot, we arrived at our house near midnight, to find that it didn’t match the pictures we had been shown. Tired, and feeling like we had no alternative, we signed the lease and went to sleep.


5 June – 10 June: Before training.

We did a lot of cleaning the house and trying to find out about our local area. It took us days to find a ¥100 store – which turned out to be on Abeno Suji, embarrassingly close to our house.


6 June, we were at the Sumiyoshi Ward office registering ourselves. We saw a bike store around the corner. I bought a phone from Docomo (which turned out to be a mistake because everyone else has Softbank phones except me). We cleaned the house a lot because it was full of dust and mould. Not nice.


7 June, we went back to the bike store around the corner and bought ourselves some bikes. Tom got a nice blood red bike, I got a midnight blue one. To practice our riding skills we rode in a straight line toward the bay and got terribly lost and confronted by the industrial estate just two kilometres down the road from our sweet little house.


8 June, we rode to Tennoji on our new bikes and got on the Osaka loop line and went to Osaka Castle. It was refreshingly green, but a bit confronting in it’s tourist oriented bustle.

Osaka Castle photos.

We then rode past a little store selling tomato plants on the way home, and Tom has since had a little garden on our balcony with beautiful herbs and as yet not very productive but huge tomato plants.



11 June – 27 June: Core Training.

Two weeks devoted to perfecting your art as a teacher… or a whole bunch of theoretical skills that don’t get to see the light of day until you’re totally petrified in a class full of people expecting a lesson and you’ve have forgotten what you were told about what to do in this situation when you were learning about these skills a week ago.

This is the time where you make a lot of the friends that stay close to you for the rest of your stay in Japan. To give you a quick run down of who was there - Simon, from the Gold Coast, a high school science teacher and our cute and enthusiastic friend from the plane; Joe, an Arizona native who had been working in IT, who has an adventurous palate and a huge thirst for partying; Krista, a talented hobby photographer who is not party averse either, who’d been living in Chicago and working in publishing; Andy, from Carlisle in England, who had been working for a global pharmaceuticals company, and a very enthusiastic participant in the drinking game; Peter, a Melbournian and recent percussion graduate from the VCA who steers clear of beer; Susan, a Hungarian born, Sydney-sider and tea-totaller; and Brendan… well, Brendan was just a bit odd.

Susan and Brendan haven’t been seen by the training group socially since they finished training, but the rest of us have stayed actively in touch, and done a lot of gadding about and a bit of sightseeing and whatnot. All in all, we’re a good bunch, and I wouldn’t have had a different training group for quids.

It wasn’t easy. In fact, a lot of it was downright stressful, what with having to demonstrate your teaching chops (when you clearly haven’t got an idea in your head about what you’re doing) and try and remember all of this stuff that you’re not getting to put into practice until quite some time after being instructed.


21 June – In the middle of all of the training madness, Simon, Krista, Joe, Tom and I all went to Nara to see the Daibutsu (Big Buddha).

Todai Ji photos.


26 June – Joe and I went about a kilometre down the road from my house to the Sumiyoshi Shrine rice blessing ceremony.

Sumiyoshi Taisha photos.


27 June, we finished training, and began teaching on 29 June.


29 June – 6 August: Teaching.

For me, the old NOVA instincts were still in there, and I felt fairly relaxed about teaching the “Free-Time Lessons” within days of being let lose. ECC also have a fantastic array of “Group” classes – 80 minute long adult classes with real textbooks where you actually get to do a bit of real teaching. I have absolutely LOVED teaching group classes. I wish I had one on my set schedule. However, our schedules are not set, and nor will they be in the foreseeable future. We were hired in June – the contracts for the year are set in April. This means that ECC hired us at a time in the year where they would have usually already sorted out all of their staffing needs for the year. But this year ECC has been hiring more teachers than they have set schedule slots open for. Those of us unwittingly hired when there is no set shifts for us to inhabit once our training is completed have been stuck in a haze of substitution shifts – waking up each morning not knowing where we are going to be working, or who we are going to be working with, but most importantly, who we are going to be teaching.

I used to be a Kids Program Co-Ordinator at Tajimi NOVA, and I am fine with teaching kids if I am given the opportunity to know what is going on. If I get to do it often enough to know the course even slightly, I am a fantastic Kids teacher. I like kids and kids like me. But the way that ECC have been giving me kids lessons has been that they seem to crop up in my schedule so intermittently - bordering on never - when I do teach the little blighters I have don’t know what is meant to be going on, where they are up to in the course, what they know, what they don’t know, what the games are, where the lesson materials are or how they work. ECC have a lot more Kids levels than NOVA did, and there is no way that someone like myself – who has three set shifts of absolutely zero kids teaching – can possibly keep up with what the Kids lessons are. The upshot of this is that my lessons are awful, the kids hate me, and I hate the kids.

Even with the adults, it’s hard to build any rapport or target your lesson planning to specific student needs if you never know if you’re ever going to teach at that school again. Sub teaching is difficult, and I’m not enjoying it very much.

I understand that there’s nothing that can be done until some teachers who have permanent shifts decide to leave or a new contract year comes around. ECC has also been continuing to train a lot of new teachers – six batches of new recruits this summer alone, at a time when they usually do not recruit at all – from what I’ve been told. With so many people hungry for set shifts, for a bit of stability in their lives, it is difficult to see how everyone will get all the work that they want. Other teachers who have been here for a long time who don’t do any substitution shifts seem blissfully unaware of just how unpleasant it is, subbing all the time with no end in sight. At least if I knew “it’s just until November” then I might be able to coax myself through this unstable part of the year a little more successfully. At the moment it feels like we will be stuck substitute teaching until April next year – which may leave me burnt out and bitter before I even get my first set contact. We weren’t told before we came that we would be substitute teaching for an indefinite period of time. We were given the impression that what we were signing up for was a stable job, where we taught at a variety of set locations. Not that we were signing up for an unstable job, where we teach at a variety of unset locations – sometimes we are shipped from one location to another in the middle of a shift to cover for someone. It makes you feel pretty lonely because you don't know any of the people who you work with, and I don’t know who to ask for help.

Staffing practices aside, on a more positive note, the course materials at ECC are very good, I love teaching at the Web School (even thought it does feel a bit like working in a call centre), and I have met a lot of really fantastic teachers and students. It is very different to the ol’ Pink Satan, NOVA-bot jazz in many regards, and I am quite prepared to stay with the company. I think I would be very happy if it were not for the blasted subbing. The last few years have taught me that I can adapt to anything, given enough practice. I am just finding uncertainty a little more difficult to adapt to.

In the first few months of being here, our finances are being stretched to the limit. Monthly pay in arrears is great when you leave, but it’s difficult when you arrive, waiting for the tide to change and money to start coming back in. Luckily for us the tax man gave us some money back this year (unlike last year where he took all our money away), so we were able to make it through the dry times without having to resort to eating our shoes.

When Tom's tax came in, he bought himself the computer that he has been wanting for the last 4 years - a fantastic windfall for him. It also means that we are no longer competing for the usage of my computer - which seems old and decrepit next to the shiny snazzy new black Macbook.

We spent a fair bit of time putting away some beers with Joe and Simon, and having the occasional games, karaoke or noodle party with the nice neighbours, Tom and Alexis from Canada, Mark and Lindsey from Michigan, and Angela and Richard from Melbourne who live up the road. Good people and good times.

Here are some of our photos taken from around that time:

Urban Osaka photos.
Strange details from Osaka photos.



7 August – 19 August: Obon Holidays.

Paid holidays. What a total and utter novelty for two people like Tom and I! I take back everything I said above. I love you, ECC.

We received our first full sized pay packet on 12 August, and so we were very, very broke at the start of the holidays. It is unfortunate, because we were unable to book any accommodation or tickets because we had no money, so we sort of got stranded at home, hiding inside under the air conditioner trying to hide from the brutal imposing Osaka summer heat. It doesn’t even get cold at night here in July – August, and the choking humidity is very difficult for our Tasmanian constitution to adapt to.

9 August – we travelled to Kyoto to meet up with my old student and now friend, Takako, from Tajimi NOVA. We then went to the Yodogawa Hanabi (fireworks display) – the show was almost stolen by an enormous lightning storm that ended up soaking all of the people gathered on the riverside to watch the fireworks.

Yodogawa Hanabi photos.


12 August – we jumped on the JR line to Himeji and went and saw the enormous, beautiful original castle there.

Himeji Jo photos.


18 August – we rode our bikes to Osaka Port and went and saw the beautiful sea creatures at Osaka Aquarium.

Osaka Aquarium photos.


22 August – we went to Akame Shiju Hattaki in Mie Prefecture to see the amphibian centre, and the 48 waterfalls on the 8km nature walk (of which we did 4km and turned around and came back).

Akame Shiju Hattaki photos.



So… now we’re back at work, starting to hatch some plans for a get away around my birthday. I’m probably just feeling that 3 month hump at the moment. It is only natural, as I have mentioned before in this log, that humans resist change. Change on this scale is bound to upset our sensibilities after a while. A new country, a new company, a new language, new friends, new opportunities, new difficulties… and this is just a broad brush stroke over what has been only the beginning of our time in a country that we plan to be in for about 20 months… we know all too well that plans sometimes don’t run smoothly, and I’m hoping that life remains interesting but allows us a little time to enjoy our pieces of stability. We do have a stable income. We do have a stable house. I’m about to take up learning Japanese at the local YMCA. Routines slowly emerge. I’m finding a lot more peace here than I had even hoped for. The quiet mind in the din. I love Osaka, I’ve decided… it’s a great place – the good things about it are really good. I look forward to having more to report in the next few months…

Finally made it.

Osaka: City of love

So, we made it. Got off the plane at 9:30, fingerprinted and photographed, and thrown out on to the Nankai line. We arrived at our house by midnight. It didn't match the photos, but by this point we were so tired we just wanted somewhere, nay, anywhere, to put our heads down to rest.

We registered our details as aliens at the local Sumiyoshi Ward Office on the first morning. We bought some bikes on the second morning. We had a phone by the third morning. We managed to get our internet on in under a month. Things are traveling along - not without their frustrations - but they are traveling along.

It is hot. We are in the middle of the longest hot spell that Osaka has experienced in years. It gets close to 40ºc during the day, and doesn't cool down much at night. The humidity hits you in the face like a warm putrid slap every time you leave the house. I'm looking forward to Autumn with ever increasing enthusiasm.

We have done some sightseeing, and I will go into that in more detail later, but for now, let it be known that we are in Osaka, and that we still love each other, and maybe we'll grow to love Osaka... but that will probably happen when it cools down a bit.

A Nice Little House

To quote the great Steve Miller, time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, into the future. We have a lot of stuff to sort out in the next few weeks, and not much time to devote to anything except working. We are both a little nervous that we won't get everything sorted out sufficiently well before we need to leave. I've not been sleeping so well. It's pretty normal, considering that we're about to embark on a pretty big adventure.

However, we have had a lovely development regarding our housing arrangements.

Today, I got an email from our housing agent, offering us a lovely house in Osaka in a suburb called Tezukayama. It's in Sumiyoshi ward which is part of the southern part of Osaka. Look at how lovely and clean the apartment is:





It just looks so lovely, doesn't it? It is on the fourth floor of a four storey apartment block, so that also bodes well. I like being the stomper upstairs, not the stompee downstairs. Of course, it's Japanese sized, so I don't think we'll be swinging more than one cat at a time, but I've seen smaller, and the price was the same as the house we used to rent in Napoleon Street. Ridiculous, isn't it? That a house in Hobart now costs the same amount as a house in Japan.

Let's just hope that Godzilla doesn't visit Osaka and smash everything up before we get there.

Some of Australia

What happened between then and now...

We drove. Or more specifically, the person with a licence drove. We left Brisbane on a Wednesday and drove down the Pacific Highway. We drove to Surfers and jumped in the water to say goodbye to Queensland. We went past Byron Bay and stopped at Coffs Harbour for the night - which was sadly over developed and full of fast food outlets. On Thursday I drove until I collapsed in a heap in Newcastle, which was about as pretty as Coffs Harbour but far less disappointing. On Friday morning we made good time to Sydney (aside from a panic attack on the Sydney Harbour Bridge after which I needed to pull over and have a deep breath - Sydney-siders would do well to learn some patience and etiquette from Queensland, I must say), where we met up with Jonathan and his good lady wife Denise. We saw Stuart briefly, Matt Wlazlo came out of the wood work, and Angus was there too. Friday was a blur. Saturday we went and saw Immortal, and there we saw Trent, Alex, Luke, Anthony, and a whole bunch of other people we knew. Sunday, we drove to Dapto and saw my Aunt Mary, who was so very kind to us, and we then stayed the Monday in Canberra. I went to the National Gallery and experienced the kind of disappointment that I have only ever experienced before in Tokyo when I found the fabled 'Godzilla statue' and it was only 40cm high. Just pitiful really, considering that we went several hundred kilometres out of our way to find this moderately sized collection that lacked any real balls. We jumped in the car on Tuesday and drove again, this time to Jindabyne, where we had a pleasant evening in a youth hostel with a bottle of wine and a pizza. We drove on to Thredbo, where we took a brief diversion up Mount Kosciusko and took in some air from the highest point in Australia. We then drove through the hair-raising hair-pin bended road from Thredbo to Khankoban, on to Woodonga. At Woodonga I checked my pulse, bought a big bottle of regular cola, and floored it all the way down the Hume highway. We hit Melbourne on Wednesday evening, just before I was getting to the crazy-crashing-the-car-lady tiredness threshold. We spent four nights in Melbourne (including one in a lovely hotel with a beautiful sparkling city view), and we caught up with Monika, Ben Butcher, Liz Clark, Laurel, Gianni Abbate, Sam and his lovely lady friend, Lach, Lou, Timmy T and a few others before jumping on a day sailing to Devonport on the Spirit of Tasmania. A word from the wise: DON'T TAKE THE BOAT unless you can not possibly avoid it. It is full of really horrible obnoxious bogans of all sorts of descriptions, and it just doesn't warrant thinking about. We were put up by Al Sainsbury for the night in Promised Land that evening. The next day we gunned it to Hobart. And here we are. In Hobart. AGAIN.

And if it seems like a lot of words to put in one paragraph, I did so because it was a lot of kilometres to do in that space of time, and I realise now that most people these days will never drive as far as I just drove in a manual car with no cruise control. It's hard work, and I would have liked to have a rest after all of that. But that never seemed to happen. From the moment I got back here, there was something doing every moment of every day. Right now I am sitting at work, which is the closest I have gotten to having a rest, in a sunny corner in my office at the Department of Justice in Rosny, waiting for my supervisor to give me some more work. So, well may you ask: "how does this relate to the ongoing mission to get to Japan?" - and the answer is: without the Department of Justice, I would never go anywhere.

Before departing for Brisbane, I was briefly employed as a receptionist in the Department of Justice for the Resource Management and Planning Appeals Tribunal. Kept me out of poverty and in food well enough to get us on the plane and up to Brisboring, where after five months of misadventures and misplaced hope, we finally found ourselves a job in Japan, teaching English for ECC. Once we had found the job in Japan, we were only too happy to run away from Brisbane. We were under the illusion that we might stay with Tom's mother and save some money once we got back to Hobart, but due to it being a bit far away from everything, we ended up having to move out of Carlton Beach and into South Hobart so that we could work. And boy, did I get a job. Policy Division, Workplace Standards, Department of Justice. Helping write regulations. Big stuff. Bigger than the Office for Women policy work that I had done before in Brisbane, bigger than the Information Science and Technology project I had undertaken at Economic Development... and I thought writing ministerial briefs was big cookies. That's nothing compared to the nightmarish proportions of writing the regulations for the Occupational Licencing Act. Tom has also gotten himself a job at the Department of Justice, at the Magistrates Court in Hobart doing administration stuff. Funnily enough, we have once again gotten the same employer (we both worked for the Australian Passport Information Service, be it at different times, and we both worked for the Department of Child Safety in Brisbane).

Now, to pay for our living expenses whilst we were unemployed for those four weeks there and the tickets to Japan, we went quite a fair bit under zero on the credit card, and now we are scrambling like mad to try and make it back to zero before the interest kicks in. I have never paid any interest on my credit card before, and I don't plan on starting paying credit card companies money any time soon either! I'm a bit nervous about it all, and before Tom found himself a job, I was really nervous, but this week we will both receive our first full sized pay packets from our respective jobs.

I was driving back from a barbecue at Marion Bay the other day when a giant kangaroo leapt out in front of me on the road, and unfortunately, our car was mangled a bit. Now we're in a desperate frenzy to cover the repairs, change the registration, pay for the plane tickets, sell the car and try to catch up with all of the merry people that have come out of the woodwork to see us whilst we are in town briefly, and to be perfectly honest, I don't think I will be able to have a single moment to myself until I'm on the plane to Osaka.

And that plane leaves on 5 June, so the timeline is frighteningly short.

I will try and upload some photos soon, but you know it’s hard when you don’t have any internet access at home.

Cunningham's Pass