Monday, 14 January 2008
10 Things: Australia and Japan
Well I just had the best last few weeks! Caught a flight from Narita to Sydney a few days after Christmas where Pam and Greg picked me up and rove me all the way to Orange to stay with my sister, Heather who was getting married on New Years Eve!
The wedding went really well and I found myself realising just how much I had not only missed Australia, but Orange as well!
A few days after New Years, Heather and her new husband, Jamie drove me to Wentworth Falls where my grandparents live to be passed over to Pam and Greg once more who drove me to Mosman, Sydney to stay for several days so I could catch up with all my friends from Sydney and also a friend of mine I had met while working in Tokyo, Christie who had just moved to Sydney with her Japanese fiance several months before.
It was a breath of fresh air to be able to actually talk about life in Japan with someone without coming across as an arrogant tosser. For some reason it's fairly hard to talk about living in another country with people back home. The slightest "In Tokyo..." sentence can seem like bragging depending on who you're talking to. While several people were generally interested I did find myself stopping myself from talking about the last four years of my life.
Ironically enough it was also great to talk to Christie and Kosuke (fiance) about how much Sydney and Australia as a whole had changed.
After a few days in Sydney I caught a flight to Melbourne which I had never been to before, to attend the wedding of Chris (who I used to work with but still hang out with in Tokyo) and Takayo.
Melbourne was great (though Sydney's still better!) and the wedding was really nice with both sides of the family being some of the friendliest people I've ever met.
After a few days in Melbourne I got on a flight from Melbourne to Cairns and then another to Narita.
Now that I've been back in Tokyo for a few days, I thought it'd be interesting to list 10 things that surprised me, shocked me or just stood out during my stay in Australia after being in Japan for 2 years and 10 things that surprised me, shocked me or just stood out about Japan after being in Australia again for a few weeks.
Australia
Japan
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posted by Brad at
4:49 PM
11 Comments:
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Welcome. My name's Brad and I'm about to start my fifth year in Tokyo, Japan though lately I've found that that defines me as badly as saying I'm from Sydney, Australia.
"Almost" equal? :)
EFTPOS most certainly exists in Japan, it's called J-Debit, and works the same way. Hardly anyone ever uses it, but the facility is available.
Get a Suica or Pasmo card, which removes the problem you have with train tickets, and indeed your eftpos concerns too. I don't know why you have to buy two tickets one way but not the other - have you asked the station staff?
Yeah, they said it's because the trip uses two different train lines. But the trip in which I only bought one ticket for used the exactly same lines. Their reasoning was "This machine is shit". Kinda.
You know in the four years I've been here you're the first person (Japanese or non) who has mention J-Debit. So you CAN use bank cards at registers?
I wont go as far as to say at EVERY point-of-sale, but if they have the blue and white sign that says J-Debit, AND your bank participates, then yes, you can. Expect young, inexperienced sales assistants to require some help, because chances are, youll have been the first customer in months to use the thing.
I actually never used it myself - I quite liked the Suica system, or just used cash anyway. I think Family Mart was one of the pioneer establishments that used JDebit.
They "rove" you? Japanese women are "week"?
:-)
If those are the only English mistakes I made then I'm happy! Haha... The complete inability to speak properly when I was in Oz was incredible! Heaps of people have told me that they experienced the same thing though so I don't feel too bad.
hey... what a lot of travel! haha.. good to see you enjoyed Sydney =) Yeh.. Aussieland is quite expensive.. but I thought stuff in Japan were expensive too, aren't they?
Interesting points u made.
Japan is CHEAP now! I had no idea until I went back to Oz! I almost did no shopping while I was there because I could buy the same things back in Japan for so much cheaper! Crazy!
Intresting post Brad....
Being an Aussie who is in love with all things Japanese (especially the women) and wants to go to Japan desperatly your post has made me think about the realities of my obsessions.
Cheers
AsianIdols
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I can kind of relate. I was a HUGE anime and manga fan before I came here but once the reality set in (that a lot of what you see on anime IS reflected in Japanese society) the novelty wore off very quickly. I still the like the occasional series though.
Hey Brad
I also always find it a bit of a shock going back to Australia.
I can totally relate to what you said about being able to talk about Japan without feeling like a tosser. I lived here for three years, then went back to Australia for four and am now here again. When living back there (Aus) I found it so hard because it was like everyone else could about the previous 3 years of their life, but were strange if I talked about mine, simply because those years had been spent in Japan. I ended up becoming friendly with a number of ex-gaijin and other ex-expats and that really helped.
It's funny, I find the service here much better than in Australia now, but maybe it's better here in regional areas than it is in Tokyo.
Oh, and I also meant to say...
Even though I believe there are many Japanese women who aren't "week" it is good to hear of a gaijin guy that still favours us Aussie girls ;) Luckily, my hubby still does too ;)