Cooking Sonnet

When I'm in the kitchen I like to be the master

Everything must be on time, faster, work faster.

Bubbling pot upon the stove, watch it, don't stray

An unwatched pot boils sooner, more like, they should say.

Add the spices matched for taste:

With this, I think, something sour.

With this, fresh ginger cooked with haste

for briskly cooked spices I like to devour.

Baskets of fruit beckon to me

from the kitchen table

perhaps a persimmon and apple dessert recipe

I shall make, if I am able.

To make a treat, so good to eat,

Is to me a most worthy feat.

Cycling in Tochigi.

Faces red, breath coming in long ragged gasps and leg muscles screaming with fatigue we struggle up to the crest. At the top we are treated to a stunning view of the river far below: white rocks and deep blue water. Then we sail down the other side, whooping and laughing with glee, no brakes and feet off the pedals as the lush mountain greenery whips past on either side.

Over the past few hours my friend and I had climbed many such foot-hills along the Naka River in North-West Tochigi. We had set out the previous day from our flat in Utsunomiya, the capital city of Tochigi prefecture. Our sturdy touring bicycles fully loaded with pannier bags stuffed with food, clothes and camping gear we cycled North to boldly go further than we had ever gone before.

'Silver Week', Japan's latest national holiday, gave us a chance to cycle for several days instead of our usual day trips and Japan has a lot to offer cyclists! Rivers are a great place to start for the casual cyclist. Most rivers have 'cycling roads' alongside them and, while these roads are often winding and less direct than normal roads, they are much more pleasant to ride on. Beautiful scenery, cool breezes off the river and most of all no traffic, exhaust fumes or juggernaut-like trucks and buses trying to kill you. Well, not literally, but take it from me, a bus thundering past you as you cycle along the roadside is a very scary experience indeed!

It was from one of these cycling roads at the confluence of Ara and Naka Rivers that we spied a weir for catching Ayu, the delicious river fish so many fishermen pursue every weekend in Japan. Until then I'd only heard of this style of catching fish, the river is diverted into a sloping bamboo ramp of sorts, the fish are trapped at the base of the ramp and you simply walk down it and pick up as many fish as you like. On the river bank, next to the weir there was a lovely open-plan restaurant selling, of course, fresh Ayu from the weir. Having cycled since 7 o'clock that morning, stopping only once to take a delicious onsen bath, we decided to stop for a well-earned lunch break. We ordered lunch set A: two salt-baked fish, two soy-baked fish, miso soup and rice. With a beer to wash it all down we were about to tuck in when an middle-aged lady at the next table asked us, "Have you eaten this fish before?"

"Yes, I replied, but not like this!" The fish was served skewered lengthways on a stick.

"I've been eating this fish since I was a little girl" she replied, "my grandmother showed me how to eat it, let me show you."

She came over to our table, and picked up one of the fish, first she broke off the tail, then pulled the skewer out, next she took some chopsticks and pressed the fish on all sides. Finally, she grasped the head between thumb and forefinger twisted and pulled. The whole spine, attached bones and internal organs came out!

"Now you try" she said. To my pleasure the whole procedure was easily done! We thanked our "Sakana sensei" profusely and then enjoyed some of the freshest and tastiest fish I've ever eaten. A weir on Arakawa. Photo: J. Mitchell

Sadly we soon ran out of cylcing road as the Naka river flowed into the mountainous countryside of Motegi. We abandoned the wide, gently sloping route 294 in favour of less trafficked rural roads. Soon we became happily lost amidst harvest scenery: rice-fields with sheaves stacked neatly, gorgeous red flowers sprouting from the field-banks and everywhere a pervading sweet scent on the air. We never did figure out it's origin though.

Cycling with a destination in mind is a good way to focus on a goal, when you're climbing a steep hill on a fully loaded bike it is good to have a goal in mind, be it the crest of the hill you're on or the day's final destination. I think this the mindset most people approach any venture with, be it climbing a mountain or cleaning a very messy apartment! Something I learned on this trip though is that to be overly goal-oriented can cause you to stop enjoying what you are doing in present.

On our first day out, my friend and I had a clear destination in mind; we wanted to get from Utsunomiya to the Onsen-rich town of Tsujimachi in North-East Tochigi. It was a fairly long distance and by mid-afternoon we had made it most of the way along the Kinu river cycling path. When the Kinu started to turn West we struck out across land, into the hills on Route 293. At first the going was good, the hills weren't so steep and there was a broad cycling lane. "We're definitely going to make it!" was the thought on both our minds. Then, half-way up the steepest hill yet the cycling lane suddenly disappeared and we were at the mercy of Japanese national holiday traffic. Tired and stressed out from riding all day the killer trucks and cars were all a bit too much for me that late in the day. Suddenly I spied sign up ahead "Nasu Shiobara Camp Site" it said. I called a stop and my friend and I debated stopping for the day. We ended up staying after a long deliberation and, while camping is always loads of fun, we had to try hard to keep our spirits up; we hadn't made it to where we wanted to go, had we failed?

The anwer: definately not. I learned through this trip that it's moving I enjoy, not arriving. If I stop enjoying travelling then I should stop and rest. I shouldn't race up the hill, seeking the crest, but change to a lower gear and make my way slowly, giving myself time to see, smell and hear this beautiful country. Once I released myself from focusing on goals and berating myself if I didn't achieve those goals I experienced a feeling of true freedom. And I think it's that feeling I'm pursuing in all the travelling I do.

Cycling Path by Gogyo River. Photo: J.Mitchell

Flowers and Fishy Haircuts

Well, I missed blogging for the entire month of March. So much for my new-found wells of creativity, they dried up but now with the arrival of Spring I feel fresh and ready to go! At least that's the premise.. how far I'll actually get with this blog is yet to be seen, that's the beauty of a jerrymander you see, it can terminate in a fit of alzheimers at any second.

The last week and a half in Japan have been brilliant! For anyone who doesn't know what Hanami is allow me to give you a brief description. Hanami is the time of year when the many hundreds and thousands of millions of cherry blossom trees, sakura, which the Japanese are bonkers over, bloom. Suddenly you are catapulted out of horribly cold winter into balmy Spring days where people frolic, well, mostly just eat and drink really, under a canopy of pinky-white blossoms. A gentle breeze or a bird alighting after flight sends a rain of petals down on the inebriated masses below. I love Hanami. It's the time when all my bitterness at having to live in a place that actually has winter (I'm from Queensland!!), all of my culture-shock and all of dissatisfaction with my job is left behind in the constant party atmosphere.

Sakura blooms in a wave from South to North all the way up Japan. I live in a pretty Northern part, about 2 hours away from Tokyo by train, so Tokyo's Sakura blooms about a week before my local trees. I usually head down to the big city so I can get some Hanami-ing in early. This year I hung out with a good friend and on a Sunday when the blossoms were at 100% (according to the sakura report on TV) we managed to wedge our way into a crowded picnic area. Here I had the pleasure of witnessing THE WORST (or possibly best, depending on which way you look at it) MULLET IN JAPAN. One of the groups near us seemed to be the local bikie gang, there was a lot of leather, big strappy boots and scary-looking girlfriends involved but the stand out for me was a guy wearing a khaki jumpsuit with a leather utility belt that had large chains hanging from it. As if the outfit wasn't enough his hair looked like it been involved in a fight with some bleach about 6 months ago and then hacked off except for a long section starting at the base of his neck, yes, a mullet! This photo doesn't really show the full glory of it, I was a bit scared of pissing him off by obviously taking a photo of him since he was surrounded by his bikie mates, but I hope you can get the general idea.

Now, sadly, the cherry blossoms have all fallen and fresh green foliage is taking their place. I'm going to travel up north in May so hopefully there'll be some around then so I can enjoy some more Hanami time. If not, I'll have to wait until next year. If anyone has ever considered travelling to Japan I seriously recommend coming at the start of Spring so you can enjoy this lovely time. Photos really don't do it justice because the atmosphere is what is so nice. Everyone is enjoying themselves, feeling fresh lovely and free. There's that and the heavy public drinking, Kanpai!

Sunday Morning Sonnet

Diluted yellow light seeps from the curtains
A truck sporting loadspeakers advertises bargains
To hold onto dreams I am at pains
The vehicle moves on and peace once more reigns

My first concious thought comes with blissful slowness
I want no devices which mark the sun's progress
Indulge in time spent being absolutely aimless
Journey gently from the night's unconciousness

Loosen limbs and stretch with pleasure
It is time to end this sleepy leisure
Sunday morning is a fleeting treasure
But I must succumb to Awareness's pressure

For if by midday I do not awake
To enjoy Sunday afternoon it will be too late

25 Random Things

Recently on Facebook there's been this thing going around. You're supposed to write 25 things about yourself and tag your friends so they can learn more about you. It's a nice idea and I wanted to do it too but number one on my list is:

I don't like to follow the flock.

So I'm not going to do 25 and I'm going to do it here on my blog instead. Besides, since I opened my facebook account the number of random people I've collected as 'friends' is a little bit crazy; I once got a friend request from a girl who used to cover my lunch breaks at a job I absolutely hated. I couldn't remember her at all! "Is she really my 'friend'?" I asked myself as the cursor hovered over the 'ignore' button. Seriously though, how many times have you had a friend request from some random you hardly know? Is adding friends addictive, like collecting pokemon cards? You need to get the whole set! Everyone you've ever met. I don't know if I want all of those kind of people knowing 25 things about me. Which brings me to number two:

I'm quite a private person but am rubbish at keeping secrets.

I should come with a warning stamped on my head or something. The second I hear some juicy piece to gossip I just itch with the need to pass it on. Students have told me intimate details of their lives in confidence and I spill it to my boss and colleagues as soon as they have left the building. I know, I know; I'm a bad person but I just can't help it! Secrets burn inside me and even if I'm successful at keeping them for a while, the next time I have a few drinks the alcohol literally loosens my tongue. I'll go from respectable and witty to blurting gossip queen in the space it takes to mix another fuzzy navel. Most of the things I let escape are about me though so usually I'm the only one who gets hurt. All I can say is: you've been warned.

I've lost my accent.

I feel like one of those people who go overseas and come back with a shite fake accent. How I used to mock them.

I admire people who follow through on crazy plans.

How many times have you had a conversation with someone about doing some kind of adventure and it never happens. You could easily make it happen if you pushed for it but well, who could be bothered? I have a few regrets, some silly and serious but is it possible to have nostalgic regrets too? In the middle of Shanghai there is an area called People's Square. It's a large area right in the center of downtown and includes a museum, traditional and modern art galleries, an opera house, a very nice nightclub and an amusement park. One day a friend and I were strolling by the amusement park after taking in an exhibition at the modern art museum and we found a pirate boat. It was like finding treasure. Later that evening we related our find to some friends and together (with the help of some rum-based cocktails) we hatched a plan to dress like pirates, ride the subway and either scare or entertain the mostly Chinese passengers, and finally make our rowdy way to the pirate boat and claim it as our own! I regret never doing that to this day.

I nearly always find a way to let people know what I really think of them.

I like to think of myself as an essentially honest person, maybe that's why I'm rubbish at keeping secrets. I sometimes need to remind myself that social niceties revolve around secrets. Secrets about ourselves we keep from others and secret opinions we have of others. I really think if there was more honesty between people there would be far fewer social niceties. And anyway, often what I think about people is nice.

I have little to no time for crazy people.

A long time ago I thought that being depressed was cool, Goth was the look and Nine Inch Nails was it. During that time, I would also periodically fall into a depressive state and do all sorts of dumb things. Hurting and isolating myself and others. In the end I managed to snap myself out of it using common sense and the desire to be happy not medication. Now I can't stand crazy people because deep down I know they can stop being crazy if they really really want to. There's that and I was involved with a string of damaged young men: a self-harming guilty catholic boy, the drug addled son of a vietnam-vet, a lying alcoholic, and one who said this world was too small for him before leaving it via the roof of a high rise building. Sorry to be a bit black and white about "crazy people" but in my case I consider it a result of experience.

I'm lazy.

It's amazing I've managed to keep writing for this long! I'm someone whose effeciency is motivated by how much free time I can get. Due to laziness, I also haven't exercised enough in my life, have given up playing 3 musical instruments and gave up studying languages at school. I regret it all. I used to (and still do a little bit) think that being hedonistic is glamorous and provocative, what's changed? I'm getting old!

I'm turning Japanese!

Not really, but recently I've been afflicted with a terrible affliction. I sometimes can't pronounce L and R. Like a Japanese person. You say glamorous, I say gramorous. Oh dear. I hope it goes away soon, I really do. Also I now say "See you" instead of "See ya." What is this place doing to me? On top of loosing my accent I don't want to return to an English speaking country with a Japanese accent. Imagine all the unintentional racist slurs I would make!

The End.

In Moscow subway stations are underground palaces. Amidst the grandeur passengers rush in an orderly fashion from platform to platform on marbled floors. Grand archways, tangled iron bridges and chandeliers mark their progress. Commuters march back and forth under the pressure of roads and buildings above. Elderly trains rumble and crash along worn iron tracks. Security guards and attendants sit quietly behind glass. While I, I stop and admire the stained glass. Guess it's because I'm the only one with time to spare; being a tourist.

Millions of lives traffic through buried palaces every day in that grand old city. I visited Moscow for a week last summer and, while I learned very little during my stay, I saw enough to be dazzled. The scale of things was most surprising: everything was just so big! Walking between the Moscow River and one of the many concentric multi-lane highways which ripple out from the city center I saw a car advertisement which spanned over 200 meters. A life-sized model of the road below was positioned perpendicular to it. Real car shells hung from it, suspended above our heads as we walked the shore, in the distance one of the huge state buildings glittered over the water, its many towers and pillars adorned with stars and heroic statues.

That week in 2008 was an eventful one. Two major events were occurring which interested and concerned me. Firstly, Beijing was hosting the 29th Olympiad. Having lived in China four years ago I was keen to see that country open its doors to the world, which they did in a magnificent, proud and very Chinese way (lots and lots of fireworks). I was happy for China to see everything go well, during my stopover in the Shanghai airport (I place I have spent many a long hour waiting in) everyone ignored the first boarding call for our flight because we were too busy cheering on the women's archery team. I figured it was safer to cheer for China than their English opponents, given the country I was in. I just want to add here that Shanghai Airport has the most ridiculous transfer system I have ever encountered. Instead of keeping us securely inside the airport and just ushering us from arrivals to departures, we were given temporary visa's only to walk out and catch an escalator upstairs, walk past check in and back through customs. It struck me as quite, quite mad, however, I took the opportunity to walk outside and take photographic proof that I was in China during the Olympics. Note my cheesy "I'm in China" grin.

The second world event to occur that week was Russia, my fun-filled holiday destination, attacked Georgia over a its mistreatment of an ethnic minority. I didn't really understand the whole situation because the news media I viewed on the topic were completely conflicting. On the one hand I saw Western coverage saying that Russia was using peacekeeping to take back some soviet land, or it was about natural resources and pipe lines. On the other, the Russian news channels were accusing Georgians of genocide and showed their peacekeeping efforts in nothing but a good light. It was all quite a to-do at the time but now, not even a year later, I have no idea how the whole situation panned out. I guess I better do a web-search and get informed.

Rainy Days in Tochigi

It's raining today, started last night and has kept going with ever increasing intensity. Usually I ride my bike the short 5 minute journey to work. It's great 'cause I absolutely hate getting up early. Total night person me; I get up at 9am to work at 10am. Most people would consider that lazy but I think it's a clever use of time. Anyway, on rainy days I tend to walk rather than ride because of the beauty. Maybe I watched too many BBC shows when I was younger but to this day the experience of walking under an umbrella and dodging deep puddles holds a certain romanticism for me.
Small things leap out: water glistening on a smooth rock or flowers vibrant with colour despite the grey sky. It's nice taking some time to actually notice things. My favourite author said that if we went around noticing things all the time we'd never get anything done. And he's right, however it is such a nice thing to indulge in. Momentarily forget what you're doing or have to do and waste some time in contemplating the shape of rain drops.

Confessions of a triva buff.

When I was a student I took advantage of free* university and a scholarship to generally have a good time and live out some Edwardian fantasy I had about university life. Shamelessly I enrolled in an Arts course studying humanities, history and literature. Without even a though of my future job prospects!
University was weird. There's so much going on there you really can try interesting and different things. Like... Fencing club: the place where nerds do battle. Or, the Young National Party: where being racist is OK!
Seriously though, all the political club people were unbearable. Like this one guy I dated for a while in my second year. He worked part-time for a local member of Labor and was, in the midst of John Howard's long and exacting run of power, a dedicated Labor Party supporter. Which was fine, until Kim Beazly failed to convince everyone that his inflated self would be able to steer the Nation well through troubled waters whilst illegal immigrant babies were being thrown overboard!
At least, that's what that media lot said anyway.
So, not as too much a surprise to most, Labor lost and poor unseen-of-late boyfriend, having been kept awake and campaigning for the last 43 hours on caffeine pills and alcohol, showed up on my doorstep. He was a pale and wasted image of his old self. He stumbled in and collapsed on my couch babbling about Keep Left signs mocking him and how only oral sex would make him feel better. So you know what I mean about political types being a little too dramatic.

University is where I learned really useful stuff; like my favourite author when I was a child was a paedophile, or that the South Pole was reached first by Roald Amundsen's and then Robert Falcon Scott's teams. Admundsen was also the first to reach the North Pole too. Anyway, the point is everyone remembers Scott and not Amundsen because Scott's name is much cooler. It's true if you don't believe me.
The point of the Amundsen and Scott story is to say something about trends: Only the most popular names, books, faces and films survive. Only that which is talked about most can survive Samuel Johnson's 'test of time'; the rule that if a work can survive time it is truly good. So, according to Johnson, can it be true that Madonna is on par with Shakespeare?
We used to discuss that kind of thing in class. I kept wondering why I had worked so hard in high school at trigonometry if this was higher education. University filled my brain with interesting yet essentially useless information. That is, useless in the workplace yet deadly on Trivia Night down at the pub.

What does the future hold for me? I hope I end up some kind of trivia buff who travels from dusty frontier town to dusty frontier town. Taking on the local buffs at their own trivia nights and surviving on the spoils: free drinks, dinner coupons, meat trays and magnum bottles of wine.

*free means I owe the Australian government loads of money. I don't have to start paying it back anytime soon though so I think it's free.

I am visually disturbing.

I was going to start again but that would probably lead to 'paramnesia' (isn't that a lovely word, looked up the spelling for deja vu and got that little gem). That and well... it's just the Internet and I and our one-sided love affair.
The Internet teases me you see, gives me glimpses of things I would like then leads me to a US and Canada website only. It will let me fill in all parts of a booking form then reject me on a whim. It will, as you see, let you write an entire blog: fabulous and witty and then will return mysteriously to the previous page, deleting my material forever. Condemning it to the realm of lost data. What a horrible fate.
So I won't start again. And I'll have a 10 second silence for all of the data I've lost in my life.

Tokyo is one crazy town. I think I might actually love and hate it in exactly equal portions. There is a law: for every lovely nice thing that happens to you there an unexpected and unpleasant thing shall also occur. Last weekend is a very good example of this law. My flatmate and I, riding on the back of a recent windfall, booked into a posh hotel, rode the shinkansen to town and cruised around the bay in a floating night club.
It was a wonderful night out, I even got chatted up by a tribal pattern enthusiast, although I think his fascination was caught more by the patterned top I wore than my own, ample, charms. So one night I experience the high life, the next afternoon I'm chucked out of an onsen on account of my very small spiral tattoo. It wouldn't have been so very embarrassing if I hadn't been completely nude during the "Please leave, you're visually disturbing the other clients" conversation. The staff member had me, I couldn't very well say "what tattoo" innocently!

Back to the boat for a moment though. It struck me as odd early in the evening that the groups we were sitting near were all really stereotypical. It was weird. On our left we had a group of party-happy young gay boys, swilling champagne, which was provided by an older, but not elderly, European man. They were quite fun actually by the end of the night they were all pole-dancing and removing their clothes, providing muscle displays for the keen to see. To our right were the Goths. I guess they're Emo's now. They sat quietly, smoking and drinking red wine with their dark, lank hair draped artfully across half the face. It was easy to think they weren't even enjoying the music until you saw the odd foot or finger tapping; the odd fringe moving to the beat. If that wasn't enough across from us were the crew-cut army boys in ties and shirts with scantily clad South East Asian escorts.
I started to feel worried that there wasn't some cliche sub-culture I was a part of!

No matter where I go I just can't get a full mental picture of Tokyo.
It just seems to stretch forever, in variation.
No matter the vantage point, it won't be revealed to me.
From air, sea or land
it remains a mystery:
Unfathomable.

Or maybe it begins with a G?

Jerrymander? I don't even remember what it means exactly, something to do with politics maybe, anyway, the point is, we were in the middle of a game. That's where the story begins really.
Tim, Matt, Bri, Meghan and I were engaged in a game I've always known as Fictionary, however Tim believes it to be Balderdash. I thought he judged the game a bit harshly really, a little bit silly sure but balderdash? Surely not.
Are you familiar with the game? I hope so, all you need is some paper, pens and a dictionary. Common items about the house really. The game involves guessing at the meaning of uncommon words found in the dictionary! Points are scored for correct answers and, and here's the good bit, you receive points if players choose your answer.

It was quite a popular game with my crew for a while. We were like that: restlessly shifting from thing to thing. Constants like one apartment, lived in for more than 2 years, became a bit of a hub. It had a sense of solidity in the midst of what was otherwise mutable and shifting.
Ha! the number of stories that could be told about that apartment building. It should be heritage listed, maybe it even is. I wonder if it's still going? The endless string of friends passing a rental property on. That in itself is a bit of a Brisbane tradition; another way to grow some roots.
Nostalgia, I feel, is yellow and slightly sticky. Like some kind of viscous resin. It has a strong smell too, one that makes you feel slightly ill if you breath it for too long.

So we were in the middle of a game of fictionary. People had long since abandoned the strategy of guessing the correct answer and were playing for points from their peers. Or, to put it another way, we were all being a little bit silly and voting for the funniest answer, this, as you can imagine lead to a lot of puns. There was the definition "a refreshing drink for vampires" given for 'tamponade' and "the economic practice of making new vets from old ones" for revetment. Gerrymander, it is spelt with a 'g' thanks dictionary, was defined as "when a geriatric goes on a little wander."

Since then, jerrrymandering or gerrymandering has become a bit of a pastime for me. And you would be right to question how someone who is clearly not a geriatric goes on a jerrymander. It's easy if you know how: start without knowing the end and see where you end up.