Into the Red Centre

Australia is roughly the size of the continental United States, so it shouldn't surprise me that everywhere we went was completely different. However, I have never been anywhere quite as different as the Australian Outback.

Driving from the airport into Alice Springs, the biggest "city" for miles and miles, we saw a herd of feral camels and crossed the raging river below. A river of sand? I was beginning to feel right at home! (The camels, not so much)



Our first afternoon in Alice Springs, we took bus tour of all 4 places of interest. The reptile center, the somewhat sad armed forces memorial, telegraph relay station and Royal Flying Doctor Service Station. Since we happened to be visiting during a "school holiday," we didn't get to see the School of the Air, which broadcasts radio lessons to children at remote stations in the Outback. The inhabitants of the Australian Outback are really tough people. Dealing with the hot, dry weather is one thing, but the remoteness is something entirely different.

In the evening, we attended an Aboriginal Culture Performance and Dinner at a little outdoor theater. Our host was interesting, and we got the chance to eat kangaroo! There it is on my plate, front and center:


It didn't have a whole lot of flavor and was rather chewy. I don't feel a need to ever try it again.

Our second afternoon was spent wandering the galleries of the town's main street where we happened along this ingenous sign. Australian is a completely different language!



And lastly, in addition to all of the amazing things mentioned above, Alice Springs is also home to some beautiful eucalyptus trees, which makes it smell really nice!


After spending about as much time as anyone would possibly want to spend in Alice Springs, we were picked up by a loquacious bus driver named "Smiley" who narrated the entire 5 hour journey to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Oh, wait. I take that back. He did play a few songs about kangaroos on CDs and killed about 25 minutes with a Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter video! His commentary, while a bit much to absorb all at once, did liven up the scenery, which looked pretty much exactly like this the whole way, quite a bit.



The Outback apparently received a lot of rain in November, which left it much greener than I had expected.

We made it!



After checking into the hotel, where we would actually spend very little time (and almost none of it sleeping) we got back on the bus with a bunch of other tourists and headed to Kata-Tjuta, the sort of sister rocks to Uluru (the proper name for Ayer's Rock).

The path to nothing in particular. It was pretty hot and there were a ton of flies. The rocks do look impressive against the blue sky.



After our hike, there was another stop at a viewing a point where you could look one way and see Kata-Tjuta and then look the other way and see Uluru. Nice, but pretty far away from either of them. Gosh, there is soooooooooooo much space in Australia!! Our last stop of the day was at the designated tour bus sunset viewing area. We were greeted with some complimentary wine and extra salty trail mix to tide us over while we hunkered down to watch the sunset. It was recommended to stand in the same spot and take pictures about every 10 minutes until right before sunset, when you should up the frequency to every few minutes. When you got home, your time lapse shots would come together and show Uluru in an astounding rainbow of colors. I followed these instructions pretty closely, but ended up with about a dozen nearly identical pictures. And just as the sun actually set and the sky was the most beautiful, my battery died. Still, the one below isn't too shabby:



After sunset, we climbed back on the bus to be returned to our hotel. We ate dinner (not one of the better meals I had in Australia) and attempted to sleep before our 3:30 AM wake up call which would allow us to be out in front of the hotel at 4 AM for the Uluru sunrise tour! It was dark and a little chilly, but anticipating the high temperatures later on, I didn't bring a jacket. We drove to the park and they served us some awful coffee as we huddled around waiting for the sun to rise. I can't say it was particularly spectacular, but going on the tour did allow us to start our trek around the rock while one side was still in the shade.

Not a bad picture, especially considering this was about 6:30 AM.


Our hike around Uluru was one of my favorite parts of this Australian odyssey. Uluru has always been a sacred place for the Aboriginies, and while I don't want to get really hippy-dippy, it's hard to deny that it has a sort of other wordly feel to it. Uluru is a huge monolith in the middle of a lot of nothing. The path around the bottom took us about 3 hours to complete, and you would have to spend years studying it to get to know every little nook and cranny.



Yup, we went all the way around!

One of the biggest surprises for me was that Uluru is really lumpy up close! This shouldn't really be a surprise given that I know Uluru is a rock exposed to the elements, but in all the pictures taken from a distance (and with special filters?) it looks pretty smooth. There are countless holes and divots from water running down and sheer faces where pieces have broken off. Several of the more interesting features have especially sacred meanings for the Aboriginies and photographs were prohibited.


On the far side of the rock, away from the road, we only saw maybe 4 other people. The solitude was pretty amazing. Of course, we weren't really alone, as there were many caterpillars, beetles and even a snake making their way through the red dirt.

Returning to our hotel a little after lunch time, there was no time for a shower (gross) before we got on another plane, this one bound for Cairns.

See you in Sydney!

I suppose I must have said some version of the words to my parents on the phone in December, but it's so long ago now, I can't be 100% sure.

I do remember it was cold and rainy the day I left Japan (just like it had been the day before, and like it has been most of the last two weeks. Seriously!) but the weather doesn't look so bad on the way to my transfer in Hong Kong.

The flight from Fukuoka to Hong Kong took about 4 hours, and the flight from Hong Kong to Sydney another 8. I flew Cathay Pacific, which I would not recommend for the long haul if you can avoid them. While they do have the in-seat TV screens with lots of options, their seats don't have seatback pockets (the magazines are under your seat, real convenient) and the seats don't so much recline as slide out from under you. They also find it necessary to give you dinner at 10 pm and wake you up 5 hours later at 3 am for breakfast. Anyway...

...Australia! After confusing several customs/currency exchange people with my pale skin, American passport and Japanese yen, I took a short train ride into the city, found my hostel, checked in and shucked the tights and scarf and took off on a self guided walking tour. Downtown Sydney isn't too big and I managed to see a lot of the big stuff on my very first day.

The Sydney Opera House gleaming in the sunshine!

Opera House and city skyline. I also stopped at the art museum, which was really nice because it was free and had a large wing of Aboriginal Art.

When it started to rain in the late afternoon I was amazed to see people walking out in the open without umbrellas! I've gotten used to living in a country full of neurotic people who check the weather forecast religiously and won't be caught without an umbrella if there is even a hint of rain.

Another sign I wasn't in Japan anymore. These exotic looking birds roamed the parks like pigeons. When I took this picture, I was a little afraid that he was coming over to nibble on my bare toes with that long beak!

The rain sent me back to the hostel for a much needed break, some dinner and an early night before the fire alarm went off at 1 am. As I made my way down 8 flights of stairs to the street in my pajamas, I marveled that this was the 3rd time I have had to evacuate a hotel/hostel in the middle of the night.

After spending a good 48 hours alone surrounded by many people I didn't know, I was really eager to meet my family at the airport. Eventually we checked into our much nicer hotel and began exploring Sydney together. Our first stop was "Wildlife World" for an introduction to Australia's many wild and wonderful fauna, including a 6 1/2 foot tall fringed lizard. Ha ha.

Inside we saw everything from gigantic insects to wallabies and koalas real lizards the size of baby alligators. The lovely specimen below is a perentie, the 4th largest lizard in the world!

The next few days in Sydney have turned into a bit of a blur, but the highlights included riding on a double decker city tour bus in the sunshine, walking across the Harbor Bridge (the structure in the back of the photo below,) taking a tour of the Sydney Opera House, a Christmas Harbour Cruise on a fake steamboat, and seeing people in bathing suits with red velour Santa hats at Bondi Beach.

Bondi Beach was full of Christmas revelers. It was interesting to spend Christmas south of the equator. Since there's not a whole lot of snow in Australia, the Aussies have come up with their own Christmas lore. Santa arrives in a beat up truck pulled by 6 white kangaroos, and can also be seen sporting aloha shirts while surfing.

The tour of the Opera House was really interesting. There was a lot of controversy surrounding its construction, and what follows is a pretty poor summary. There was an international competition held, and the winning design turned out to be nothing more than a few curves drawn on a cocktail napkin (or that's about how much actual thought went into it) The architect had no idea how to build the structure he envisioned. A relatively buget conscious project ballooned way out of proportion and took forever to build. No one liked it. But now that it's internationally recognized, I think they like it a lot more. One thing you can't tell from the outside is that a lot of smaller performance spaces are underground. Very interesting place, and I was intrigued to see that the main orchestral hall seemed to serve as a model for the Disney Concert Hall in L.A.


In addition to all the sights, Sydney was also a treasure trove of tantalizing food. We ate really excellent Indian food, seafood, pizza and breakfast treats. I think my lunch on my first day is still my favorite meal from the whole trip, and it's sort of a pity that I didn't take a picture of it; a grilled chicken, sun dried tomato, avocado and brie sandwich on focaccia bread. Sigh...if such a delight actually existed in Japan, it would probably cost about $18.

Next, we leave the coast for the Outback...

The Little Tree that Could

...made an appearance for second year. Once again a lovely group of neighbors came over to help me take it out of its box and decorate it. I saved the ornaments Hannah, Allison, Jamie and I worked so hard on last year, so the process was much shorter and less messy this year. After the tree was up and the requisite “oohs” and “ahhhs” were muttered, I brought out some apple crumble and vanilla ice cream a la Naoko-sensei. Happy Merry Christmas 2008 from the Kamitsu-machi Kyoushokuin Jutaku!

Chicken Soup for the Soul

The lovely Naoko-sensei wasn’t the only one taking care of me when I came down with my cold in December. Keizo came over twice to fill my larder and provide some distraction from my symptoms. The first night I could feel the cold coming on, he brought over some hot udon for dinner, some OTC cold medicine and a package of masks, which he thought we both should wear. While eating the udon, I commented that in the U.S., chicken soup is popular fodder for sick people. He left and I went to bed early.

The next day was the day I went to the doctor. The day after that is when I wrote the last post. I failed to mention Keizo’s second care visit because I didn’t think too much of it until I got better and started putting the pieces together.

He let me know he was coming over in the afternoon with some food for me to eat. When he arrived I was napping on my porch, so he let himself in and told me to take it easy. I stayed on the sunny porch for about 10 minutes when I realized there were no sounds coming from the inside of my apartment. I went inside to investigate and found Keizo sitting on the couch starring at the wall. He showed me the bag of stuff he brought, which was a lot of raw produce, and I asked him if he had picked up any apple juice, which was my one request. He had missed the message, so he went back out again and I ate some soup that Vanessa brought me the night before.

When I was feeling better, I went through the bag of groceries Keizo bought. Inside there were carrots, broccoli, onions, chicken and even some hard to find cilantro. There was also a box of chicken boullion cubes and a box of instant chicken consome. As I was putting them away, I noticed there was a picture on the back of the instant consome---carrots, broccoli, onions, a chicken leg and a green herb-y thing. The picture and the contents of the shopping bag matched exactly! My quiet knight in shinning armor had done his best to get me some chicken soup, but once all of the ingredients were in front of him, he had no idea what to do with them. Hehe. Maybe it didn’t have quite the healing effect he anticipated, but they do say that laughter is the best medicine.

Before I left for my winter vacation, I used up the ingredients in the bag and made my first ever chicken soup from scratch courtesy of a recipe from the internet. It came out pretty well, if I may say so myself.

Would this make you feel better?

After biking home from elementary school on Monday, I barely had the energy to climb the stairs to my apt. Oh no, my cold like symptoms picked up at last week's Mid-Year Seminar in the building that felt like a meat locker had finally caught up to me. So I stayed home Tuesday and the lovely Naoko-sensei took me to see her doctor. I was the youngest person in the waiting room by about 40 years until an 8 year old girl and her mom walked in just before my name was called.

When I saw the doctor, he looked at me, at the chart the nurse had prepared and back at me and started to chuckle. The nurse had put 男 (male) instead of 女(female) on my chart by mistake. Although sometimes elementary classes I have never taught before come to the teacher's room looking for a male teacher. Hmmmm. Then the doctor, who kind of looks like a Japanese Tom Selleck (maybe it was just the mustache) asked some questions and looked at my tonsils (which he quickly diagnosed as "dekkai" or large) and wrote me four perscriptions to be filled at the pharmacy next door. In Japan, they appear to only make pills for one symptom, so if you have multiple symptoms as one often does with a cold, you get a whole cocktail of drugs to take in various combinations at different times of the day. I have two pills that are to be taken after each meal, a package of throat tablets and way too many packs of purple powder which are to be added to water and gargled 4 times a day. When mixed with water, it looks like this:


It doesn't smell or have a taste, and I am not supposed to swallow it, but still, gargling purple water 4 times a day really is not that appetizing. I suppose it's working, as I am feeling much better tonight than I was last night. Still not 100%, but better than even this morning, which is a good sign, and somewhat of a relief considering that I basically slept all day--in bed, on the tiny couch, and later outside in the sun. Hopefully, I will sleep better tonight than I did last night with my dreams about crashing helicopters and invading martians. But first, I have to do my 4th gargle of the day...

Frolicking in the Foliage

Well, maybe not so much "frolicking" as just standing around and admiring the brilliant colors, but that doesn't make for a very catchy title.

Last Sunday actually lived up to its name and was unually sunny for Japan and this time of the year, so it wasn't too hard for Jamie to convince me to abandon my chores and join her on a mini-trip to Dazaifu. While it's more famous for the ume (plum) blossoms in February, Dazaifu didn't disappoint with its abundance of momiji (Japanese maple leaves).

After picking up some hot mochi filled with red bean paste to keep our hands warm and tummies happy, we took a right at the end of the street lined with shops. At the end of the block was a small temple with an amazing courtyard of trees, moss and rocks.




After removing our shoes and leaving them out front with everyone else's we walked into the traditional Japanese building that surrounded the courtyard. Obviously, we weren't the only people who thought a sunny weekend afternoon was the perfect time to look at leaves.


Despite the crowd, the small building was quite serene and Jamie and I enjoyed looking at the leaves and taking pictures for about a half an hour before our feet couldn't take the direct contact with the cold floor anymore. Luckily, there were some more leaves on the outside that could be appreciated with your shoes on!

Still inside the courtyard. Gorgeous reds and yellows...



....and a blindingly orange tree at the entrance!



Walking back towards the main street, we happened across some trees we could actually get close to and a mini-stream full of floating leaves.

Then we followed the colored leaves along a path up a hill which dumped us out in the back of the larger Tenmangu Shrine, where we saw this magical looking tunnel for the first time. The it was back to the shops for some soft cream (the fall flavor was maron or chestnut) and Christmas shopping before getting back on the train to Kurume, where we both accomplished our neglected chores in record time before heading to Tatsunoya for our first ramen dinner in a long time.

A pictoral essay of Osaka and its environs

I don't know where that title came from and it in no way conveys how much fun I had collecting the images below.

Day 1: Osaka-shi.

The Open-Air Museum of Old Farmhouses, Osaka castle, din-din and iruminashion at the aquarium. These places are so different that I hope you will be able to figure out which pictures are which.

Hmmm, there's the sky...and an old building of some kind...

...and another! It's like a museum or something...

Wait! That's not a farmhouse! It's a fire engine!

Looking at old buildings ages you. Let's take a break under this red tree.

The following is obviously not a farmhouse.

A sign at the ticket booth. Sorry, no cannibalism for me today, thanks.

Now, that's a gold fish!

Osaka-style okonomiyaki. Thick and juicy!

After taking the train out of the city center, following the signs through the wrong exit at the station and walking in a big circle on deserted streets which cost us a ride on the "World's Largest Giant Wheel" we found what we were looking for---illuminated sea creatures!

I don't make a very good manta ray.

Can you guess the animal below? Bio-luminescent plankton? Nope! It's the whale shark on super zoom. Duh!

Day 2: Out of Osaka

Stop 1: The Instant Ramen Museum, which is a legitimate museum with security guards in the parking lot directing traffic.

Hall of Ramen through the Ages. I have never seen so much sodium on one wall before.

Edible airplane food? At least it's not rubbery meat. "Ramen de sky" anyone?

The man behind it all, Momofuku Ando. A real noodle head if you ask me.

Stop 2: Himeji Castle. The castle of Japan. What can I say, it was really big?

So pointy.

OMG!! Look, a wedding party!! The bride and groom were lucky to get a ride, everyone else had to walk from who knows where in their formal wear.

Stop 3. Kobe. Since it was already dark when we got there, we didn't do a whole lot of exploring and went straight to the harbour, which could have very well have been an American shopping mall, except there were a few too many Japanese people there.

We finally got to ride a ferris wheel, only this one was pretty small. Nice view though.

Ginourmous tree inside the mall. Where am I again?

I never knew I wanted a small dog so I could dress it up like a strawberry until I went into this store with Jamie.

Day 3: Osaka in the rain

Day 3 had basically one stop, the Umeda Sky Building. Kind of like a tower in that it has nice view, or will at least until all the construction around it is complete.

Going up to the "Floating Garden Observatory." I don't recall seeing any plants up there.



Out the window on the rainy side of the building. Jamie and I do have a knack for visiting high places on days with severely limited visibility. Nice.


The dry side. Lots of buildings, and even more that we couldn't see. Osaka isn't Japan's second city for nothing!

The End.