Ippoippo

(Just in case any readers haven’t seen it, read here, and maybe you will understand the sarcastic comment).

Well, it seems that commercial whaling may be coming back. News stories here, and here. Its a very emotive subject. From what I understand, many people in Japan (your normal person on the street) probably doesn’t mind if they don’t eat whale or not. At the moment, it seems like some Nationalists in Japan are pursuing this issue, using the justification (and let’s face it, it is a valid justification when you think about it) that other countries should not be telling a sovereign country (Japan) what to it. Mind you, I’m not convinced by some of their other arguments. For example:

“Whale is abundant,” he says. “The number of fish is falling while the number of whales is rising. Surely the rapid increase in the whale population influences the level of the fish stocks? We need to know more about it.”

Hmmm, nothing to do with the fact that the Japanese fleet is over-fishing to meet it’s own huge fish appetite!

Its a tough one. I personally think that Whales should not be hunted, but I still see that my view is an emotional one.

Talking of seabourne food!

Yuko and I went out on Saturday and ended up having some food at “Tomodachi” in Melbourne Central. Hmmmm, at the risk of sounding like a Japanese food snob, we were seriously unimpressed! In fact, sometimes, the odd plate of sushi on the roller (it was a 回転寿司 or kaiten zushi place) tasted distinctly off. Urghhh. Anyway, we thought “F**k it” and went that evening to a somewhat expensive, but very nice Japanese place, where they had some great sashimi. Yummy

Sporting Weekend

It’s been a pretty sporting weekend. Yuko and I watched New Zealand vs Ireland in rugby. The Irish put up a bit of a fight, so it was an OK game. Shame that Wales and England didn’t play that well! (Well, maybe I’m being a bit too nice to England there… it was amusing to see the Aussies stuff them! Ahhh, that’s a bit more Welsh-like for me )

Of course, yesterday was some more soccer for Australia and Japan. Japan managed to hold on for a draw against Croatia. Australia lost (not suprisingly) to Brazil. Anyway, the 0-0 game with Japan has made that group kind of interesting. It’s certainly given the Australians a chance to get through… but also if all kinds of wierd things happen (which they won’t) Japan can still qualify to the next round.

Yuko and I didn’t bother staying up for that game, but we may do so for the final one. Not sure yet.

On Friday, I also managed to soak up some Aussie culture. Yep, I went off to see an Aussie Rules Football game. Our partner company here invited a couple of people (including me) to one of their corperate boxes at the Telstra Dome to watch St. Kilda vs Adelaide. Adelaide stuffed St. Kilda! Considering Victoria (the Oz State of) invented AFL, their teams don’t seem to be doing very well at the moment.

Seems some Japanese fans took the game a bit too seriously. You also have to laugh at the name they chose for Japan’s mascot!

Post Game Aftermath

Well, not such a good result for Japan in the World Cup, but a good one for my Aussie collegues. To be fair, Australia were the better team, and Japan’s goal was somewhat dubious.

When watching the game, I could see that the Japanese were getting tired with the heat (and/or were also just confident sitting on the one goal lead), so I had that ominous feeling that Australia would sneak in a equalizer to open up the game.
Yuko and I spent watched the game at the Imperial Hotel, joined by Members of the Australia-Japan Society of Victoria. I learnt later that there was also a sizable contingent of Japanese fans (I think, mainly students) down at Federation Square. Our bunch of fans were a more subdued and less hardcore (Yuko and I were the only ones wearing Japanese football tops). The only really vocal suppotters was a 7 year old boy (Australian born, half-Japanese half Hong-Kong Chinese) and his mum (Japanese). Before the game started, the young lad, myself and Yuko posed for photo’s for some local press, and today I’ve noticed that Yuko is in a picture printed in the late-edition of The Age (Printed Paper Edition).

After the game, Melbourne just went nuts, with people cheering and tooting horns. It was all very friendly though, with no real aggrevation between the fans. You can see pictures over here and here too, with video here. Story here.
One thing that made me laugh… Australian commentry. Commentry on UK TV attempts to keep impartial (during the game at least, the pundits are not), but boy are the Aussie (in-game) commentators really biased. I don’t blame them as such, but I’m used to the biased commentry coming during half-time analysis and after the game. I seem to recall it took only 3 minutes for the commentator to start complaining about something (and the Aussie’s call the British/English ‘Whinging Poms’!!!! )

Well, tonight is Japan’s first Game in the football world cup. Must admit, we are feeling a bit tired after our trip along the Great Ocean Road… but we’ll still be heading over for the game.

Road Trip

On Saturday, Yuko and I met up with 3 other of my work collegues, who are also on assignment here in Australia. We then headed off to Geelong, then onto Torquey where we started onto the Great Ocean Road. The weather was somewhat foggy until the point where we reached the coast, and it cleared up into a nice sunny (though windy and chilly) day. The Great Ocean Road has some amazing scenario, though it’s a very twist drive. Yuko did feel a little iffy at times, not helped by my work collegues driving (a little bit agressive on the throttle and brake). Still, it was good to see some good Aussie countryside.

By 13:00, we got to Apollo Bay, where we stopped for lunch. Now, I love Aussie service in restaurants, but compared to Japan (and compared to the US from what I was told by my Israeli-American collegue) it can be a little slow. However, this place in Apollo Bay was REALLY slow, and it meant we were a little late leaving Apollo Bay. We had been hoping to stop off at the Lighthouse at Cape Otway, but we decided to press onto Port Campbell area.

The 12 Apostles, near Port Campbell is a stunning site. It’s a shame we hadn’t been able to find any accomdation for the 5 of us (if it had just been Yuko and myself, it would have been easier to organise), so we then had to head straight back to Lorne. At Lorne, we dropped off our bags, before going out for dinner in a very nice restaurant that evening.

On Sunday, we pretty much explored around the Lorne area itself, including the beautiful Erskine Falls. We, then decided to head back to Melbourne, stopping off in Anglesea for a late lunch.
A tiring, and somewhat rushed journey, but enjoyable.

Rugby

Hmmmm, Wales lost again in the rugby, bugger. Mind you, England didn’t fair much better (was watching that game live on TV last night)

Eco

Hmm, seems Japan is struggling with the concept of saving on Plastic Bag usage.

Put off flying

NatGeo (which is the new name for the National Geographic channel) in Australia has had a bit of an ‘Aircrash Investigation’ marathon TV Programme session today. One of the most interesting ones we saw was about the DHL Flight Incident, in Baghdad. There were also programmes about JAL Flight 123 and Philippine Airlines 434. All very interesting, if somewhat scary.