Entries from March 2007 ↓

Leaving my job in London

After 2 and a bit years I ended my time at Spring Digital in mid-February. A bit sad to leave lots of good friends, it was a fun time when I wasn’t stressed, sleep-deprived or hungover (which I guess wasn’t all that often!) My first professional role straight out of Uni and I was lucky to be handed so many opportunities in a business that grew from 7 to 30 people in the time I was there. They liked to do things differently which I loved, I met a really diverse client range and worked on some interesting things, also the people were incredibly smart and taught me heaps everyday. I still don’t know what the hell I want to do with my life though!

Tokyo

What an amazing city. My first impressions were that the place was just an amazingly big city yet it was also the cleanest city i’ve been to in the world and there were no street cleaners to be seen. It smelt like beautiful Japanese food, felt very safe and the people were really nice. Such a contrast to London!

Some of the highlights were:

Tsujiki Fish Market. A huge fish market where all the finest Tuna (6 foot in some cases, big fat things) are auctioned off to the stall owners who take the Tuna to their stalls for carving and serving to the public. You have to get up early (about 5:30am) but this was a very cool place. Hundreds of stalls selling any type of seafood imaginable in the most unimaginable sizes.

Akhibara or Electric Town. Tonnes of Duty Free and cutting edge technology for sale. Kitted myself out with the latest camera from Sony for a reasonable price. Watch it get stolen in Brazil.

Imperial Palace. Although you can’t actully enter the Imperial Palace, this is a beautiful sight from a distance, surrounded by a huge moat and Bonsai gardens, right in the middle of all these high-rises.

Tokyo Metropolitan Goverment Building No.1 in Shinjuku. A 45th floor view across all of Tokyo. The buildings don’t ever seem to stop and on a clear day you can see Mt Fuji. I didn’t go on a clear day.

Tokyo Tower. A copy of the Eiffel!

Hachiko Crossing in Shibuya. The busiest street crossing in the entire world and also the scene for all of the funky looking Japanese kids and huge neon-lighted buildings.

Tobacco and Salt Museum. Interesting cigarette packet design history and stupid objects, like a boat, made out of rock salt. At least it was free.

Meiji Shrine. A beautiful shrine and surrounding gardens. Went here on my last day when it was drizzling, making the walk up to the shrine a misty, rainforest-like experience which was beautiful.

Nake Meguro and Ebisu. The trendy, upcoming area of Tokyo (kind’ve similar to East London, but less developed) situated on the canal with lots of cool clothes stores and restaurants out of my price range. Fun for a look regardless.

Parasite Museum. Disturbing. Display of an 8 meter long parasite found in a man’s body.
Manga Museum. A history of the cartoon-style literature that dominates Japanese society. More old stuff than new, but still pretty amazing art. Pity it was all in Japanese.

Asakusa. Interesting architecture by Phillip Starck (Flamme D’or and the Asahi Building). Asakusa Kannon Temple, Kaminarimon Gates. Nakamise Dori street stalls selling lots of touristy crap (which as a tourist was good).

Ueno Park and Shinobozu Pond. Huge Pond in the middle of Tokyo which looked really cool. Full of wierd looking ducks.

Tenno-je Temple and the big buddha statue.

Nezu Shrine. Cherry Blossom, hundreds of torii gates.

Roppongi. The going-out district in Tokyo. Lots of drunk businessmen.

Kyoto

In the middle of my Tokyo stay I ventured down to Kyoto to catch up with my mate from Melbourne, Josh. Great to catch up with the old boy and we were straight back to our best in talking absolute nonsense that no-one else understood but which made us both piss ourselves laughing. Kyoto was another cool city. Much different to Tokyo. This was the original capital of Japan, but it is quite a way smaller than Tokyo and has many more historical sights. We took in a few temples (Heian, Golden Palace to name two. OK my memory is not so good.), loads of great local beer, lots of beautiful food (which again I can’t remember the name of) and even went to a Sento - the public baths where you are expected to strip off and have the locals stare at you whilst you lather your supple body. Kyoto was also the place of my initiation with Karaoke bars. I was shitting myself to begin with but after 14 beers got the courage (I was dragged) to go for it. Essentially you go into a tiny room with a TV and some couches (and more alchohol) and select some tunes and then blast away on the microphone. Josh and his mate Tracy took the first plunge (seasoned veterans as they were) and then once I got the microphone I just wouldn’t let go. To the contrary of my self-expected ability, i sounded like shit, but it doesn’t really matter in Karaoke. Unfortunately I deleted all the videos, but we ended up all singing like the lead from the Darkness which would’ve sounded pretty scary to the people in the other booths i’m sure. Fantastic night.

Kobe

Josh, Tracy and I then hopped aboard a bullet train (these things can go like 300 km/h) to Kobe, home of the best beef in the world. They massage their cows, no shit, and feed it special grain and even beers. They sell sandwiches of these things for 200 quid in Harrods, London! But we eventually found a reasonably priced Teppinyaki restaurant where I cast aside my vegetarianism and went at the meat like a vegetarian who has been waiting to eat meat for ages. Um… yeah. It was mighty good meat. That night we strolled around aimlessly to find a pub and couldnt find any of the bastards. Finally we stumbled on a whisky bar with about 5 stools, all of which we occupied given that while we were searching around looking for a place we randomly added two Canadians to our troupe who were also teachers in Japan somewhere just randomly walking around Kobe (memory very vague at this stage). This whisky bar seemed far too posh for us. We all ordered beers and then listened to this funny bartender tell us some bedtime stories or something along those lines and then Josh bought a whisky and the block of ice was a sphere and it filled the entire glass and it tripped us all out and we got a photo and then we left and found some bar run by a Nigerian bloke on the 5th floor of some building and he played all this RnB and Hip Hop and I talked shit with him for about 2 hours about the state of Nigerian Football while Josh and Tracy had a deep and meaningful and he had a picture on the wall of some famous footballer in his club/tiny room of his house with dimmed blue lights and lots of bottles of spirits and then we left and went home where Josh and Tracy tried to scare me and steal my wallet. That’s kind’ve all I remember anyway.

The following day we checked out Himaji Castle in Himaji. A cool 5 storied castle we got to go to the top of. Josh and I were too busy talking shit and being hungover to actually see any of the sites, but it was a cool place (i’m told).

Arriving in Melbourne

It was about 38 degrees in Melbourne when I arrived. A couple of days later I was in a suit attending a wedding in the same weather for my mate Natalie and her fiancé Anthony. The wedding kick-started a downward spiral of drunkardness, sunburn and sleeping in. Lots of catching up with the family after the wedding and a couple of days later we had a beautiful meal at home for Dad’s 60th birthday (the first of many celebrations).

Noosa and Coolum

After the first weekend, the family headed up to a Coolum resort for the proper celebration of Dad’s big 6 0. We had our own golf buggy, a tennis court, pool, beach nearby and access to all the Hyatt facilities including the Golf Course. Sarah didn’t come up for a few days due to work, so Scott (Sarah’s boyfriend) and I got smashed on Vodka, Gin and beers to make up for her absence. We also played a little bit of golf, called off early because of torrential rain, some tennis (c’monnnnn) and lots of other relaxing things (beautiful food, sunburn and lots of sleep).

On Friday we had the Disco Ross 60th Birthday Golf Bash. A bunch of Dad’s mates had flown up from Melbourne and Sydney to join us for 18 holes at Noosa Springs. I put lots of money on the match because they were all old bastards, but my team lost by one shot in the end. Afterwards, the most welcomed post-game beer for a long time and then about 5 more before passing out in the Tarago for the trip back home.

Friday was just a mere preperation for the big lunch on Saturday. All the golfers and a few more joined us for a lunch on the River at Ricky’s Riverside, a really nice and modern place right on the water. Sarah, Mum and I made some speeches taking the piss out of Dad, followed by a few of his mates and by 8pm we were all completely blattered. This didn’t stop us from drinking more however. Scott and I started getting onto the Jager Bombs and Long Island Ice Tea’s for some unknown reason (I think coaxed on by the barman), plus copious amounts of red (which had earlier prevented Dad from even completing his speech). Saw the final bill amount, glad I wasn’t paying. Lots of photos on the camera at this point that gain no recognition in my brain, including an attempt to recreate a photo of Dad and his mate from the 70’s and several shots of seated dinner patrons who unfortunately copped the brunt of our rather large bill.

Scott and I, surely in charge of our senses by now, let everyone else go home and made our way to Noosa’s nightclub the Rolling Rock (affectionetly known as the throbbing cock to regulars). My only experience of this bar was being kicked out of it in schoolies week for being underage. I wished the same scenario had befallen us after being in the place for 5 minutes. We danced, drank some more and broke up some fights and then went home. Noosa hadn’t finished with us yet however and while Scott and I walked toward the cab rank and past the cop shop (yes the cop shop) we were jumped by eight 18 year old kids. Copped a nice one in the bottom lip and to the side of the head, don’t really remember any of it other than abusing the cops for doing nothing about it afterwards. Lip still healing.

On Sunday it was off to the National Park in Noosa to nurse hangovers (and in Scott and my cases - fat lips). Someone was brave enough to bring along some VB’s, I opted for lots of greasy food and a dip in Tea Tree Bay (best beach I’ve ever been to in the world).

Now we’re back in Melbourne, still with a fat lip (almost gone). Catching up with some mates this week, Grandma’s 94th birthday on Friday, watching some footy, generally not doing a lot and itching to get to Brazil to continue the travel trail!

Mi cago en el papa.