ようこそ、テロリスト！

Well that was quick. A week in Australia--in Newcastle, in Sydney--and before I know it I'm here typing this in a tiny internet cafe booth (1x2M) in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The booth, by the way, is also my accommodation for the night, costing about AU$12.

No more meat pies. No more roast dinners or legs of lamb on the barbie. No more schooies, no more middies, and definitely no more punting. The best thing about going back to Australia was, of course, catching up with all, or nearly all, my friends and family. The strangest part of the trip was spending a few nights in my old bedroom in mum's house. It was like a time capsule. Stepping into it was like stepping three years into the past. The same old posters up on the walls, a few photos from high school and uni, some dusty CD's and text books and essays and reports scattered about on my old dusty desk. And when I woke up in my big ol' comfortable bed I wondered whether Japan had just been a dream.

The trips most ironic moment happened pretty much as soon as I touched down in Sydney. Strutting down one of the near empty Australian and New Zealand citizen lanes, towards the passport inspection counters, I felt a deep and satisfying sense of ha-ha-look-who's-the-foreigner-nowiness as I passed hundreds of my Japanese co-passengers who were of course lined up in the Non-Australian citizen lanes. Now before I go on, I should explain that just days before, Japan had become only the second country in the world to begin fingerprinting and photographing foreigners entering the country. Ostensibly, it is supposed to reduce the risk of a terrorist attack happening in Japan. The minister of (in)justice justified it with words along the lines of, "There is evidence of Al Qaida members entering and reentering Japan on numerous occassions. In fact, a friend of a friend of mine is an Al Qaida member...So, err, what I mean is, the point I'm trying to make..." and so on, digging himself a nice little hole. So while the only person in Japan with links to Al Qaida is the minister of justice, us foreigners are being treated like cattle with criminal impulses.

So perhaps now you can understand why I was so "Carn the ANZACS!" as I gleefully strolled towards the passport inspection counter. But then, when I was just a few metres away from the big red line that says STOP, a Japanese tour guide began ushering her charges into OUR lane; and then we were the JANZACS and I ended up waiting in line behind a couple of Japanese gents. And what did the Australian immigration officials have to say about this? It wasn't GET IN THE PROPER LINE OR WE'LL HAVE YOU GITMO'd. It was "How ya goin'?" "No worries, in ya go. 'Ave a good one."

What can I say? Such is life. Anyway, getting through immigration at Tokyo was no big deal. In addition to all the concerns about invasion of privacy and whatnot, there had also been a lot of talk about how long and tedious the process of photographing and fingerprinting everyone would be. But I can now tell you it took only a few seconds and was quite painless.

So that's it for the wrap up of my trip home. From tomorrow I'll be embarking on another mini-trip, this one semi-planned and uncosted. First stop, Kamakura. Or Kobe. Or maybe Nara. We'll I'll let you know tomorrow anyway.

FUGU ME!!

So I went to Ganryujima the other day, a place I had been wanting to go to for quite some time. It's a tiny island off the port city of Shiminoseki, famous throughout Japan and among martial arts enthusiasts the world over, though many don't know where it is. Luckily for me, it is not so far from where I live, taking about two hours by train and ferry to get there.

But why is it famous, and why did I want to go there? Glad you asked.

Unique indeed!

This is the book responsible for me wanting to visit Ganryujima, where the story's climactic scene takes place. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Japanese history or culture, or indeed anyone who has a lot of spare time as it runs for almost 1000 pages.

I don't know what this is. Emiko said it's the spot where they fought...


But I thought this was more likely to have been the spot.

Musashi strikes!

A replica of the boat in which Musashi came to the fight. I was just about to hop in for a photo when we heard a voice shouting. We turned around to see one of the old fellows that run the ferry riding along the footpath on an old beat up bicycle. He told us to hurry up because the last ferry for the day was about to leave. And so that was that.

It was almost dark when we got back to Shiminoseki harbour. We decided it was time for something to eat. But what does one eat when in Shiminoseki? Apparently one eats Fugu (blowfish) if one dares. Fugu, as you may have heard, is lethally poisonous if not prepared properly. That's why a Fugu chef is required to have a special licence. Even so, every year a handful of people die from eating ill-prepared Fugu.

Two test nibbles; didn't die.

Thus emboldened I went and ordered Fugu curry, while Emiko, not wholly satisfied with the already modest danger levels, ordered a Fugu sashi don, which is RAW Fugu on rice.

Well anyway the good news is we survived. The verdict? I wish I could say "Fugutastic", but the truth is it was "ma-ma desu". Not so very tasty. But at least we're still breathing.