The Inevitable Australia vs. Japan blog

I always get a little melancholy just before I leave Australia to return to Japan. Although I love Japan and am not quite ready to book my final one-way ticket, there are some things about Australia (particularly Melbourne) that are addictive;

1. Australia has a distinctive smell. No, I'm not talking about the pungent aroma of stale-piss that coats Flinders Street Station, but the earthy smell of gum trees, roasting coffee and the hint of pre-winter woodsmoke in the air. Whatever it is, nowhere else smells like it.

2. Nowhere in the world (and I will go out on a limb here) can you eat as well as you can in Melbourne - the variety and quality of food is top shelf. If you have a craving for a Nepalese curry, an Argentinian steak (and don't we crave beef in Japan), or a Turkmenistani... thingy, you can get it. And cheap. Goddamit, you can even buy natto here, not that you'd want to.

3. The Melbourne Brunch Culture. God I miss those lazy weekend breakfasts at the Fitz cafe which turn into drunken lunches, which turn into a 4pm stumble home. Tokyo just aint a brunching city.

4. You can go rowing in a canoe along the Yarra (in the middle of the city), take a bottle of wine and drift for hours along the eucalyptus lined banks for $22. You can hire a canoe in Tokyo, but; 1) the "river" is butt-ugly with smashing views of concrete, construction cranes and experimental "modern" architecture. (The exception, of course, being cherry blossom season when these eyesores are covered with pink and white fluffy things; 2) you would have to queue for about a week and fork out a months rent for an hour of rowing; and 3) they?fd probably confiscate your bottle of wine, insisting its "too dangerous" to have onboard. I had been so brainwashed by the rule-ridden society of Japan that I felt naughty popping my (wine bottle's) cork in our boat on the Yarra and felt compelled to hide the wine whenever another boat came past (ironically full of drunken revellers). Thankfully, after a couple of glasses of Riesling I ceased to give a shit.

5. I can buy clothes in Australia that fit me.

Having said all that, it is good to be "home" (the one north of the equator), although the apaato is mighty lonely without Matt, who is probably getting debaucherously drunk and playing pool with the lads in a dirty sleazy pub somewhere, the lucky bastard.

I did start to wonder, however, whether I would actually get back to Tokyo given my bad luck with airplanes this past week...

Firstly, on my Brisbane to Melbourne flight, my humble 737 accelerated down the runway, only to brake suddenly just as the plane was about to become airborne. 45 minutes and a few pilot announcements later, it was announced that the plane, was, in fact, f!@#$ed, and we wouldn't be flying in it. Not least because the pilot had seriously shat the brakes when he aborted take-off. After 30 more minutes, the tractor came to tow us back to the terminal where we were ferried onto other flights. Luckily, after swilling a glass of trusty chardy I was ready to get onto another airplane...

Yesterday, my 767 to Tokyo didn't even make it to the runway before a nasty crunch was heard from "down below" (and don't we all hate it when that happens?). Turns out the tractor which tows the plane to the tarmac, went hell for leather out of the gates and took the plane's towbar with it. Now, a missing towbar is hardly a major issue, but it's probably a good thing I won't be flying for awhile...