Welcome To 'Stralia Mate

I like arriving back in Australia.  One particular time, after being gone a year and a half, the customs official stamped my passport and kindly said "Welcome Home".  It really emotionally affected me, and I burst into tears.  He looked at me strangely and promptly ordered a body cavity search.  You are questioned just a little longer when you have a few stamps in the old P.P.  People always get suss.  When they then inspect your shit, they leave no item unchecked.  I remember once having every single green teabag in a box of one hundred opened and examined.  The old mobile phone drug swipe is a goody too - that somehow aways comes back positive, which leads to tricky questions designed to break you like a wafer.

The best way to avoid any kind of customs search is to have one or more items of food with you (which isn't hard when you have kids), and to declare it.  They are always grateful for your honesty, tick your card, and off you go....walking funny due to the lump of hashish up your rectum.....Chalks nearly always gets the full interrogation from security when leaving a place, followed by the terrorist pat down and explosives swipe.  They always say it's random, but when do you see a sweet old lady spreading them on the mat?  It's always dark haired men.  Since we started travelling with the girls though, people have taken in easy on us.  Not in Germany though.  I don't know if anyone has ever experienced the security pat down there, but they are not mucking around.  Once a woman was so thorough, that I felt like I didn't need to have sex for a week.  I thought it might have been just that particular hussy, but just recently I had another "spare no inch of body untouched" by another German airport groper.  Chalks finds Japan the worst.  He actually had his penis cupped, then lifted, and finally felt under, while exiting the country on Tuesday night.

Things Bogans Like - best website ever

Of course I digress.  The main thing I like is hearing upon arrival is the Australian accent.  You hear it as soon as you step out the plane door from the airport staff.  Some scruffy looking cruiser goes to his mate "yeah but nah....sweet chili and sour cream shits all over salt and vinegar".  Contrast this with exiting an aircraft at Tokyo airport.  A group of immaculate looking airport employees all bow deeply simultaneously, and say "Irrashaimase" (Welcome).  Japan is like 18th century etiquette meets the space age.  Australia is more like "I don't care enough to bother being like an era".  It doesn't matter where you come from or what kind of fancy car you drive.  We all sound like a giant pack of bogans.  But that, in itself, is actually comforting.

It's funny how at first you really see all the tiny differences between countries.  It only takes a few days for that special insight to wear off.  For example - all I noticed initially, was how dirty everything was. There was crap all over the airport floor, dust in all the corners in the supermarket, stained carpet and dirty walls in Avis.  You would never see this is Japan.  I've seen people cleaning the high ceiling corners in train stations with wet mops.  I've also witnessed sprightly old men going up and down escalators in all different positions, with a cleaning cloth, making sure every inch is sparkling.  Someone once told me once that your average escalator rail has more germs on it than a toilet seat.  The same person obviously told the entire nation of Japan too.  But as dirty as Australia can appear, nothing beats America for sheer filth.  Take your antibacterial gel people and don't be shy to squirt it.  You could get the plague just from holding a hanging subway handle.

When we walked into our apartment that we'll be living for the next two months, I was bowled over at how huge it was.  It felt cavernous.  Particularly after living in one room for the last 5 weeks.  However, I remember when we looked at it before we left and I was thinking "How am I going to keep the girls from going crazy in a small apartment?"  So interesting how perceptions can change.  Going grocery shopping was also culture-shockish.  Everyone was so casual.  When people are friendly here, you get the feeling it's because they really want to be.  It's genuine.  In Japan, friendliness is expected, and it can feel false.  Everyone wears a mask, and I'm not talking one of those small white disease-prevention ones.

Other things I notice, are the much smaller numbers of people in the city, all the old cool cars on the road, the much bigger area of public personal space -  which is unspoken and understood, that there are many, many, more trees and greenery, how nobody pays attention to Valli and Cordi, how fat a lot of people are, how badly dressed and grubby a lot people are, that the men perv more, how expensive groceries are, how relaxed everything feels, and that more people seem happy.  I also forget what it feels like to eavesdrop on everyone's conversation.  When you are in a non-English speaking country, your ears prick up every time you hear a word of English.  Back in Australia, you have to re-train yourself to block out Shirley describing the boil on her bum to her mate.

Anyway, vivid imagery of pus aside, it's good to be back.  We have a fun two months ahead of us, I can just feel it, and soon I won't even notice the dim sim stains on everyone's t-shirts.