I'm God, you're Scum so drink!

We stepped off the plane and into the International Airport in Brisbane. Our mindset was well described by John in an email to family: “Before heading back to oz, actually it shouldn`t so much be seen as going back, as really the concept of backwards and forwards, home and away is really quite.....er what... arbitary?.... elementary?..... blurry perhaps. It`s the same as a delayed train in India, a cancelled flight in Nepal, a roundabout camel walk in a desert or a hospital stay in Thailand, just another funny direction this journey has asked us to take, neither good nor bad, neither forward nor backward, merely an interesting sidenote in a continuing journey. All we can do is make the most of it and enjoy whatever the path reveals. The only way to handle a detour, make it fun. So then, a little (working) holiday in Oz before we start a long working holiday in Japan. That in itself shows how the adventure still continues.”

We had wanted no one to meet us, so we could keep up the illusion that we were still independent travellers, but of course we were picked up. Tony (Tiff’s dad) met us. He had been specifically told not to come in Berry - John’s old blue station wagon that Jennie, Tony’s partner, had bought from him before we left. So we were driven through the ‘peak hour’ of Brisbane and were overwhelmed by the number of signs that we could understand. It’s amazing how much filtering your mind does when it ‘knows’ it can’t understand something…

Jennie had recently moved in with Tony, but hadn’t finished packing her house up yet. We became the lucky recipients of a house to sit: two bedrooms with study, separate lounge and dining, kitchen(!), backyard, outside toilet and best of all, a Hills Hoist. The living room was larger than any room we had stayed in in the last 11 months, including the whole of our apartment in Tokyo. We also were so generously lent the other car of Jennie and Tony’s household, ironically enough, an old Japanese Toyota. Even the manual was in Japanese.

We put the Brisbane City Council buses to work and met Janet (Tiff’s mum) in the city, marveling at the new Brisbane Square building, automated library computer bookings and queer colander-like sculptures, and then met Gemma (Tiff’s sister) when John was lodging his application for Working Holiday Visa. We then went back to Tony’s for dinner with he, Jennie and Jeremy (Tiff’s brother). The next day Xavier (John’s dad) drove down from Toowoomba to share the samosas and other Indian goodies he had bought. Seeing the family again was absolutely fantastic. The biggest thing we had missed while away was definitely family and friends. So the first couple of days were incredible.

On the following night, we went to a party of some of Tiff’s friends, surprising some, and reveling in our conspiracy to secrecy. It was an interesting night and Tiff had the opportunity to reunite with friends who had been overseas for some years while we were home and who returned after we had left; meaning that the period of separation was something like three or four years altogether. The most overwhelming thing though, was the ability to understand conversation. When you are only attuned to hearing one other person that you can understand, it’s very easy to forget that anyone else is even talking, it all becomes noise. But when you can understand snatches of conversation coming from all corners of the room, that’s when you realize that you no longer have social skills enough to follow your own conversation…

Point proved when we both exhaled a sigh of relief at a couple of our friends talking in Spanish (that we don’t understand) to each other. It was as if a nice comforting cocoon had enveloped us and we were able once again to talk and listen without panicking. The other huge disadvantage of being in an English-speaking country is that suddenly everyone else can understand you and you can no longer utter rude, judging or callous remarks without repercussions. :P (After being cut off by a shopper mum with her trolley…”Bitch”, shopper Mum turns around and scowls. Oops “I mean, bitchin trolley skills there…er, ooh the peas are on special….”)

On the second night we were home, we played host to a six person dinner party of Tiff’s friends. Entirely unexpected, and of course John had to cook for vegetarians, vegans, tee-totallers, wheat intolerants, dairy intolerants and full-blooded meat eaters. He has vowed never to do it again. It was a lovely night however, filled with conversation of a kind that we had not experienced in a year. And God the Aussie sense of humour is refreshing…

Catching up with friends continued throughout the homestay, climbing friends, friends of the family, school friends, close friends, friends you didn’t even think about while you were away… And you realize that there are people who you may not know as well as others, but who mean a lot to you, and who you would spend a hell of a lot more time with if you were staying at home.

The plan while home was to work for four weeks and pay off the cost of our return flights. John had intended to do casual boilermaking (on outrageously high pay), but that thought was soon nipped in the bud when he was overcome with nausea (of the soul?) when he went for an interview. The conditions of the places he applied for were not what he wanted anyway. Tiff had intended to do office temping, but found that the wait for application, placement and employment, especially at the beginning of the year, were weeks anyway. So, after two weeks of looking, frustration at all non-retail ‘immediate start’ casual sales and customer service roles being paid on commission, she gave up as well.

Luckily, the café that Gemma works at was short staffed just at this particular time, and so Tiff ended up doing a few casual shifts for them. Not quite enough to pay off the airtickets, but certainly a nice contribution towards household expenses.

After a week of driving around the Toyota, John swallowed his pride and sentimentality and asked if he could borrow Berry. There ensued a proliferation of drives - coastal, inland and inner city. All were bliss: the freedom of a car, the incredible laziness it creates in its user, the ability to take control of one’s life and direction and be out of the city speeding towards the wilderness in simply a second’s decision. Travelling takes so long without a car. It forces you to slow down, to work at someone else’s speed. All important virtues, and yet…

During this period we also bought a laptop computer. A long-awaited occasion for us, we had researched in Thailand and Japan, before finally deciding on a model from Australia. It was good timing, as the thing would have been wildly impractical on Tonsai, in India and Kathmandu (and the internet is so cheap in those countries it wouldn’t matter anyway), but when internet in Japan is 400yen ($4.40) minimum an hour, you start thinking about POPmail, chats and the like. A lovely little Tecra A8, 100gb hard drive, 1g RAM, 15.4 inch widescreen, oh, and a wireless mouse, MSOffice 2007 and all the little extra necessities… WiFi rocks btw.

So while Tiff was out working the customers at Café Cue, John was compiling a very personal, very emotional DVD of our travels so far. We’ve had quite a number of requests for pictures of us on the blog. We’ve always wanted to avoid ‘happy snaps’ of the trip. So this very Tiff and John oriented 20 minutes of photos came to be. If anyone’s interested in seeing it, contact Jan, Tony or Xavier. It is indeed a labour of love, and evoked quite a few tears in many of its viewers.

We were lucky enough (?) to be spending Australia Day actually in Australia, and so we celebrated with a “BBQ” (a stove inside the house to cook on and blankets on the ground to eat outside). We caught up with people and managed to not feel even the slightest bit sentimental about the ‘meaning’ of the day. In fact if anything, we were probably pissed off to be spending it in Australia. But we did appreciate the green grass in the BIG backyard and Australian beer (Go Crownies!!!) and good company.

We went dancing in the Valley with Gemma and yes, John kept his time-of-not-walking vow that he would dance whenever he got the opportunity, and grooved his cute little ass (-Tiff) on the dance floor. And to those of you who are disbelieving, he says, “I-am-a-robot-and-I-groove.” Right angle armswing.

We spent a little (definitely not enough) time with Adrian and Emily and Clayton (the bub whose birth we had delayed our departure to be around for) and Chickpea (aka Tiaopi the dog). We walked along the seafront at Deagon and watched a now-toddling Clayton feed chips to the strangely-tolerant pup. We visited the backyard woody we had built in their shed before we left, and saw the progress on the renovations to their house. Man we miss you guys!!

We appreciated living close to New Farm Park and the river by taking walks (when we were not lazy and using the glorious car) along the paths. We ate fish and chips in the park and sat on the green grass (it’s still green, even if there is a drought).

We met friends at the Lychee Lounge, our local cocktail bar and hangout in West End in our past life. And we went drinking with our young climbing friend Matt who had turned 18 while we were away. We played pitch and putt twice, once with Matt and once with Jan (Tiff’s mum) and John’s back survived. We spent every free afternoon in the pool with Jan and Gemma at their apartment, and often whiled away the evening hours with talk and catchup and mutual appreciation of each other, the views from the 7th floor of a Kelvin Grove highrise (an unusual height for a suburban building in Brisbane), and the weather of a lovely small clean town.

We loved the coast. Noosa, Gold Coast and everything in between. The cleanliness, the freshness, the natural surroundings. The company of brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends. We are so lucky to have these things preserved in Australia. We like to think that we always appreciated and took advantage of the wonderful things we have at home; and now we just appreciate them more. People! Don’t take them for granted!

They are also good for getting you drunk. It seems Tiff’s whole family was intent on keeping John drunk the entire time we were home, from beers on the balcony with Jan, to beers and scotch and vodka and wine and champagne and absinthe with Tony, Jennie and Jeremy, and Bacardi, Jack Daniels, tequila and gin with Gemma. Ahh, good days, followed by really bad mornings, topped off by rehab osteopath (massage therapy) appointments while still drunk. Luckily the osteo had a good sense of humour and a mean streak. With no sympathy whatsoever he told John to lie on his stomach and “…throw up if you have to while I push. It’s OK, this isn’t my normal room.”

We went to dinner with Xavier and Larry (John’s brother) in a Tibetan restaurant in New Farm and were able to analyse the faithfulness with which the cultural aspects of the place had been re-created. The smell was overpoweringly true and we reeled back to high mountain-top monasteries in Leh, Ladakh. The food was much tastier and with a lot more variety than is authentically available. And with a lot broader range of spices.

Of course we visited Urban Climb, our old second home, and the feeling was weird. In physical terms nothing had changed, and yet most of the clientele there didn’t recognize us; that is until someone started telling them that we are the people on the advertising posters… :p It was cool and interesting seeing people again, but it also made us glad that we weren’t there anymore. That we were out doing something more than dedicating our lives to a tiny little climbing gym, in a tiny little town, in a relatively tiny country, at the bottom of the world.

John had been applying for jobs in Japan throughout this time, and about a week before we left was invited to attend a group interview at the same company that Tiffany would be working at, Berlitz Japan. He accepted, and his prospects for employment started looking extremely good.

As our time in Australia drew to a close, it was with mixed emotions that we prepared for our departure. Cleaning the house was a huge task considering the size of the place and the fact that we’d not had to clean for 12 months, what with staying in hotels and all. The packing was easy as we’d only brought one bag of gear from Japan and the rest was stored with friends. The goodbyes were teary and emotional, perhaps more so than when first we’d left. As this time we knew what we were going out to and appreciated more what we were leaving behind. Even so, Tiff was ready and raring to go, being bored with Brisbane as a temporary staying place. John, on the other hand had been building up a wall of emotions since we arrived and now it was showing itself. He suddenly realized that there are more people in this world who care about him than just Tiff, and they are actually quite nice people. And suddenly he didn’t want to go again.

He didn’t want to have to go through the same hardships as last time before he saw all these wonderful people again. (Could you blame him? There are few who have had as hard a time as him.) Would we have to deal with sickness, injury, culture shock, embarrassment, harassment, scams, filth and all the other things travelling entails, before once again we could look upon our loved ones? Is it just too much? Is it worth it?

We took a cab to the airport at 4am and departed without any of the fuss of the last one. And the lovely Amies Family came to the airport and treated us to a coffee before we got underway. (Oh and the beautiful Amanda-Jane had come to Jan and Gem’s house for our last supper.) We got our Tax Refund on the laptop smoothly and made it on board without having any equipment confiscated. And then we cried. The transition in Seoul was effortless and when we finally arrived back in Tokyo we were able to follow our path of two and a half months before, to the hotel, with the ease of local knowledge.

At Juyoh, John went through an intense three day emotional crisis. He was on the verge of throwing it all in and going home. Tiff, on the other hand, had said that she was staying no matter what.

As soon as our bags were delivered to us at the hotel, John put on a brave face and we headed to the office of the foreigner accommodation company Fontana. We looked at a few places close to Tiff’s proposed work, and then decided to move back into the same apartment block that we had been in in December/January. We just changed from 205, to 102. So, the pics are the same as all these apartments are identical…

Tiff started training four days after we re-arrived in Japan, and on that Wednesday of that week John had his interview. He was taking everything day by day, and evaluating his life situation. How much did he want to be here? How much did he want to go home? What was keeping him here? What would the repercussions be if he went home now, without Tiff? He decided to do the interview and play it by ear. If he didn’t get the job it was quite likely we would not be able to afford to stay anyway.

He made it through the first round even though his interview was much harder than Tiff’s. She had almost no talkers and John had lots of talkers, and extremely over-qualified teacher wannabes. But the HR manager conducting the interview remembered Tiff and kept referring to her so John was feeling positive. The following day he was told he had a followup interview for the school in the building which also housed Headquarters (where the initial training and interview were held). Despite his emotional state, John was able to woo the important people with his outgoing and professionally energetic side, and so he was then accepted into Berlitz Japan. His training started after a week’s break.

And with that, we were living and working in Japan. Can you believe it, LIVING in Japan! Not just travelling. And we are making a life here, but that is the content of another blog….

As usual, you can see some of our hundreds of pics on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintrinity and http://www.flickr.com/photos/saintrinity2 and you can keep in touch with us and see more pics on Facebook (it rocks) and John's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/JohnFXM