Phoenix Park, Dublin -2009

In 2009 I lived in Dublin for six months and one day I went for walk.

Wandering and wondering through Phoenix Park

You can rent bikes at the entrance. I canvass the idea but decide against it. Maybe another day, especially as today I am solo, even the battery in my ipod has died. So there is nothing but the sounds of the park and my own thoughts for company.

Chesterfield Avenue is the main road through the park and I am following it, ignoring the walking tracks and enticing paths that fall off to either side. I am all for the road less travelled (indeed, I think I’ll end up building a house on it) but not without a map, especially as this park is huge (1752 acres). Not only is the park huge it is also the site for the infamous Phoenix Park murders. Granted that was in 1882. And some would argue they were political assignations. You can’t avoid the politics and history of Ireland, even when taking a walk around the park.

The first sight to see is Wellington Monument. I don’t mind it, but on it’s completion in 1861 it was described as being ‘in defiance of all rules of art and taste’. It was apparently meant to be taller and flanked by lions but public funds ran out.

And a little further up the Avenue is the Presidents of Ireland’s residence. It’s called Aras an Uachtarain in Gaelic and for the umpteenth time in the last few weeks I wish I knew how to pronounce Gaelic. I don’t go in today. You can, there’s even a tour but today is for walking, for greenery and for some quiet time.

I keep wandering along Chesterfield Avenue, passed the first main big intersection, passed the Corinthian column with a phoenix bursting out of it the top of it. Passed the manicured flower beds, the sports fields, further into the heart of this greenery.

And the word for the day is green.

A friend from back home in Australia recently wrote to taunt me with news that in 2007 Dublin had only two days when it didn’t rain. I don’t think 2009 will be much different. Today is first day I have left the house without my red umbrella. But I can’t help thinking that all the rain is a small price to pay for all the green that surrounds me now. It’s startling. Green, Green, Green. The trees and the grass are alert with it, turgid with it, bursting with it, saturated with it.

Further up the avenue an older couple and their granddaughter tumble out of a horse and carriage. The driver thanks the woman earnestly and gives her a quick peck on the cheek as she pays him for the ride. He then reminds the little girls to make sure she says goodbye to the horse. There is such a rapport between them I wonder if they have known each other for years or if they have just met.

My reverie and rhythm is interrupted by the sound of circus music blasting from a dark blue van advertising, funnily enough, a circus. The Forsett Circus. I spot their tent a little further up. I detour off the avenue to the tent. A man wearing a red jacket with gold coloured plastic buttons smiles at me, I smile back but keep walking. Just passed the circus some people stop in their car and ask me if this is the way to the Visitors Centre. I tell them I don’t know but I think it may be further down the road. They drive off and I follow the road, curious to see if my directions are correct.

I am. Approaching the Visitors Centre there is a walled garden, which looks like something out of an Enid Blyton story. Once inside I see that half of the garden is under restoration and the other half is covered with rows and rows of different plants. I wonder what their names are and wish my sister was here.She’d know.
What are these?

OK, this I know.

But what about this rebellious little bugger? Does he have a name?

What is it with humans and our desire to give everything a name?

Walter Benjamin held that naming was the ‘quintessential human activity’. I agree. I marvel at our fascination, compulsion and ability to name, to categorise, to know. I remember I felt relieved when I heard that the international economic turmoil that the world was experiencing was called The Global Financial Crisis.Relief. It’s named. The GFC. Surely if we can give something an acronym, it must somehow be knowable, fixable, under our control. Right?

How clever we humans are. How quaint. How deluded.

But right now, surrounded by some recognizable flowers and even more unknown trees, I am glad for both the chaos and order.

Ashton Castle is just around the corner from the Walled Garden. It has been round since the 16th century but has undergone various restorations since then. The last one was in 1996.It is super cute and super small and looks out on a childrens’ play area.

Just passed the castle is tree with a large reclining horizontal branch. A perfect place for lovers or, as happens a few moments later, a young boy of about nine to have a good sit and think. I walk passed the boy, lost in his own thoughts. And then I walk passed his younger brother who has picked up a handful of stones and is now proudly presenting them to his mother.

It starts to rain and I duck into the Visitors’ Centre, thinking about my little red umbrella sitting far far away on my bed. The staff in the Visitors’ Centre look bored but I am entertained by the section of the exhibit entitled - Drunkenness in the Park.

Apparently there was a meeting in 1792 to ban drinking in the park on Sundays.

‘All who are in favour of this resolution for sobriety, order and religion will say “aye” and those who wish to vote for the bar parlour, the tap room and they sin and disgrace of the country will say “no” ‘.

Talk about a leading question.


After it stops raining, I leave the Visitors Centre armed with a map. I decide to abandon Chesterfield Avenue and go left, slowing heading back to the Parkgate entrance. I walk away from the garden and the children and the unnamed plants and really stretch my legs, letting the oxygen get into my system. Letting my breath quicken a bit, moving my focus away from my thoughts and into my body, into moving. Filling myself with green green green.

It seems quieter on the other side of the park. A few couples enjoying a stroll, a man in his fifties taking his black Scottie dog for a walk. In the thick of the park it feels wilder, a contrast to the manicured flower beds and the clipped grass of the sporting fields that surround you as you enter.

Unfortunately I am yet to see any of the 300 fallow deer that are said to roam about the park. (Little fact I picked up in the Visitors’ Centre about the social hierarchy of the deers; the top five bucks account for 60 per cent of the matings. Most males are destined to never mate at all.)


Although I have no idea what the time is, and little inclination to find out, my legs are telling me I have been walking a while, and yet, as I pass the back of the Dublin Zoo’s emergency access signs I am reminded of how little of the park I have actually seen. But I keep going past the Zoo (the fourth oldest in Europe with over 700 different species), and the hospital, and the Guarda Headquarters. And eventually, and a little reluctantly, I spot some familiar manicured flower beds and the children coming back from their weekend sports games, so I know I must be coming to back to the entrance, which is now my exit.

And there is Parkgate entrance, where people are now returning the bikes they have rented. Glancing back at the map I still haven’t seen Ratra House, the War Memorial Gardens or Magazine Fort. And not one deer, not even a lonely virginal stag. Perhaps next time. And with someone to share a tandem bike with (10 euro for an hour, 20 for three).

Any takers?



Did I mention the green?

art (with a little a)

As a child I was completely uninterested in colouring in or painting or crafts or sewing or drawing. You know what I thought was fun; keeping notes on the comings and goings of my family and lining up my soft toys in front of my mini blackboard and teaching them the alphabet.

But arts and crafts? Just not my thing.

Now, when I look back on my early years of artistic disinterest, I wonder if I missed something fundamental and if some basic part of my visual brain just never got activated. To this day I have neither the inclination nor the ability to pick up a paintbrush or design a frock or draw a convincing stick figure self portrait. The only time I can ever imagine throwing a pot is in a heated argument. Yet, somewhat ironically, one of my most favourite things to do is potter around galleries. And some of my favourite travelling memories involve doing just that.


One of my first memories of London was my friend Kyle taking me, in my jetlag haze, to the Tate Modern and to The Rothko Room - a whole room of reds and purples and blacks and oranges, almost imperceptivity seeping into each other. It’s mesmerizing. There is just something so soothing and contemplative about Rothko’s work. It feels familiar, yet unknown, like an idea that defies articulation.

However, listening to an amateur like me describe Rothko is probably like listening to your brother’s new girlfriend telling you about the dream she had last night (BOR-ING). Let’s just say Rothko’s work is visceral, which means that it is better experienced than read about. So I’ll stop now and just recommend you check it out yourself.

Visiting The Rothko Room became a bit of a ritual for me. The perfect antidote to a busy London week and a busy head. Bliss.

London has arguably some of the world’s most impressive galleries - and most of them are free. The great thing about free galleries is that you can just pop in and visit when you are in the neighbourhood. Just stop off for a quick hello to the Turners at the Tate, the reclining nudes at the National Gallery, the portraits of Henry the 8th wives at the Portrait Gallery, pre-decapitation.

After work and on the weekends, gallery hopping became a bit of an obsession for me. I would charge myself up on coffee, sink into a pair of headsets and listen to the headset man or woman comment on Turner’s revolutionary use of colour (- hmmmm) or how Granach’s representation of Venus differs so greatly from Botticelli’s (- so true) or how Lapis Lazu was made from ultramarine and very expensive (- why thank you head set man, I did not know that).

You also have to love the pulling power of big cities like London when it comes to attracting major exhibitions. Well, love them when you are living in a big city, and feel a little resentful when you are not. Henry Moore at Kew Gardens, From Russia at the Academy, Antony Gormley at The Hayward and a humble little collection of Edward Hopper sketches at the British Museum were particular joys.

Galleries, for me, are everything that they are supposed to be; educational, inspirational and at times disturbing. In terms of the education, I am forever in debt to the galleries of London (and Europe) for my knowledge of the following words; diptych, exhume, pieta, sable, flanked. In terms of the inspiration, please refer to my previous rant on Rothko. And in terms of the disturbing, I remember a grey day in Berlin walking back to the hostel in 4 degree temperature after seeing a Thomas Demand exhibition at the Nationalgalerie. A dark and cold day for me. Both literally and metaphorically. Let’s talk about something else.

But, for me, more than being educational, or inspiring, or disturbing, galleries are just kind of fun. A playground. An intimate space where the imagination can cuddle up. I feel like I am both entirely at pleasure’s mercy and in the middle of a really good conversation. And maybe because I am so very bad at art (and crafts and design), I am in such awe of it. And because I have not even the mildest of hopes or aspirations to create any art myself, I can turn the inner critic off. And just enjoy it.

I met a guy once who plans his trips around great rock climbs and I know a couple whose holidays are all about the food. And, although it was not my intention, I think gallery hopping has become a bit of a travel theme for me.

Berlin, I’ve already mentioned, the Berliners know not only know how to put good art in their galleries but also in their bars and playgrounds and on the footpaths (ich liebe Berlin). I have also been to some amazing galleries in places I didn’t quite expect; I spent Christmas Day at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel, Switzerland and set the alarm of getting up close looking at brushstrokes and returned at Easter and visited the Tinguely Museum (Tinguely makes these huge rattling machine sculptures which are the size of trucks and just as noisy. They are great. ) And then there was a great weekend spent in Prague during the Biennale. And an amazing Arts and Craft exhibition in Edinburgh during the festival. And a sneaky few days of work to go to Melbourne to see the Tim Burton exhibition. ( Ok - I’ll stop. I am just showing off).




But I guess when it comes to those big impressive European galleries you just can’t beat Paris. Oh Paris. Try as I did not to be seduced by your accent, your little metro signs and your lingerie store owners who can pick your bra size even while you still have on your winter coat, I was impressed, I am impressed. Oh Paris- you had me at bonjour.

The first time I went to Paris it was the beginning of January. I went to Musee Rodin and saw his statues silhouette against grey skies and bare trees. The weather was grey and cold but I felt the exact opposite. The kissing, the thinking… But let’s get back to the art.

Six months later, I returned. Paris was warm and sunny and in the midst of Euro Cup fever. I only had a few days and was determined to see as much art as possible. I literally dropped off my bags at the hotel and set off to the Pompidou Centre. And straight up the bubble-wrap like escalator to Level Five. And there they were…a line up of the who’s who of 2Oth art– Matisse – Wow, Marden- Wow, Derain- WOW. And then there was this one piece of sculpture that just took my breath away. I love it with my whole being and to tell you the truth I can’t explain why, which is how I know it is true love. Pompidou said of the artist ‘he overcomes the coldness and rigidity of metal to endow it with an unexpected lightness, suppleness and immateriality’. Well said Mr Pompidou.

The next day I went to the Musee D’orsay, which made quite an impression (Pardon my dreadful art puns). I saw the world’s best collection of paintings and sketches by Monet and Manet and Degas and all the rest of the gang. I love all those paintings, and remembering that before they became calendars and jigsaw puzzles, they were controversial and ground breaking. I have a particular soft spot for Van Gough, although (or maybe because) his paintings remind me of blinding and unbearable loneliness.

And then the next day I visited the Musee de l’orangerie on recommendation from my friend Beth. The ‘Sistine Chapel of Impressionism’ it houses Monet’s Waterlilies Series. And it is beautiful. Monet seems like he was the sanest out of all those painters, I suspect it must have had something to do with the fresh air.

I also did a token quick loop of the Louvre ( Mona Lisa –Tick Venus de Milio –fifty million American tourist –tick) on the last day and exhausted and saturated with art got the train back to Switzerland.

That night, wrapped up in warm arms, I dreamt of museum spaces and rows and rows colourful artworks. Happy Dreams. Happy Times.


And here is the thing -while my photos are still remarkably average, and I remain completely uninterested in doing a life drawing class, there is something a little different about me. I have ditched my black wallet for a purple and pink one. I take a little bit more care when arranging flowers and aligning the postcards on the back of my wardrobe. My range of eye shadow colours have broadened.

And I wonder if a little part of my visual brain, which has lain dormant throughout the best of the last thirty odd years, is beginning to rumble.

Happy Colouring People.





True Love

Italia - Roma 2007

Italy

(or Tales of Trash and Treasure)

Are you expecting to hear about my unique insights on Italy? My keen cultural observations? Or perhaps you are expecting to hear about how I fell in love with Marco working in the fields of a Tuscan Olive Oil Farm (and how in a crazy twist of fate he ended up being the heir to the farm and its associated fortune of which I now have a half share in).

Or maybe you just want to hear about a new pizza topping?

Well expect to be disappointed. Fresh cultural insights? Acute cultural observations? Probably not. I think Goethe, Dickens, Henry James, Frances Mayes and Elizabeth Gilbert already beat me to that. Marco? Nope. Didn’t happen. I spent most of my time in Italy with a 40 something woman called Leslie from Melbourne. I don’t even know if there are Olive Oil Farms In Tuscany. And I am going to have a wild stab that you have already heard of Quattro Formaggi (Four Cheeses).


Writing about my trip to Italy is something akin to eating the fourth slice of the aforementioned pizza; I probably shouldn’t indulge myself. But also like that fourth (fifth, sixth) slice of pizza, I think I will.

And perhaps unrealistic expectations are a good place to start. As is Rome.


ROME

This was the plan.

I would walk wistfully around Rome, soaking in the culture. I would recline in the summer sun and sip cappuccino, probably wearing white linen pants. Or Armani. I would master a bit of the language. I would love Rome, and Rome would love me. I would be a real traveller and not just another tourist.

Right? Wrong. Well, kind of wrong. It was not so much that Rome didn’t live up to my expectations. It did. It was rather I did not live up to my expectations of what I would be like in Rome.

If you have ever tried to cross a busy street in Rome you will understand this is not a city in which to let your mind wander off. Rome demands your attention. Or a vesper will knock you down. Or a waiter will try and follow you back to your hotel. Rome is stimulating. And for me, still trying to break in my traveling boots and figure out how this travelling thing is really done, a little over-stimulating.

This probably explains why despite my very honourable travelling intentions to get around like the locals how, within hours of being in Rome, I found myself on one of those big red tourist hop-on hop-off buses with a bunch of American tourists. Traveller. No. Tourist. Undeniably yes.

And pretty damn excited.

-There’s the Trevi Fountain that Anita Ekberg splashed around in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita.
-And there’s the Spanish Steps (why are they called the Spanish steps again?)
-There’s the balcony where Mussolini used to give his speeches (much less ostentatious than you would expect).
-There’s the Colussuem – how is that thing still standing? Lots of scaffolding.
-There’s the statue of Remus and Romulus (small).
-There are the juiciest tomatoes I have ever eater (Tomatoes are a FRUIT in Rome).
-There’s Vatican City and St Peters.
-There is the longest frigging line I have ever seen.
-There’s the Sistine Chapel (I see it wedged between another 100 people in an allocated ten minute time period).
-There is a calendar of Hot Priests (not official Vatican City Merchandise).

Oh Rome. You are just too much.

(Apparently one of the reasons there are only two underground lines in Rome (I eventually got off the big red bus) is because there is literally so much in Rome. Even under it. Every time they try to start digging they come across a mass of ancient relics and the archaeologists need to get called in.)

Even in my over-stimulated and over-excited state, I did manage to go to the Pantheon. And stop still in its presence. My good friend Danne had said it is the most perfect building in the world and I muttered in agreement as I walked in. And then I shut up. I stood still for quite some time under its perfect dome.

A perfect pause in a perfect building which has been standing there, gracious and calm, for the last 2000 years.

Perfect.

And then I went to the Gelato Bar opposite to experience yet another form of perfection. Danne had suggested I set myself a goal of trying a different gelato flavour every day. Bacio, limone and Cocco - I was quite the overachiever that day.

I only had a short time in Rome, but I went back and threw one coin in the Trevi Fountain to assure I will return.

And maybe really absorb it.


Me and Marco

To Mother - sometime in late 2009

To mother

Mother (n)

To mother (v)


I am of a certain age.

( I wonder who first coined this phrase, and what was the exact age they were referring to, and were they referring to a man or a woman when it was first said and did they have any idea how the phrase would work itself into our vernacular)

Anyway, I am of a certain age where it is very conceivable (and yes the pun is entirely intended) that I could be a mother. (Please insert your choice of the following three sounds effects:1. Beginning of the opening bars of Beethoven’s Symphony No.5 - de de de dom 2. Sickly sweet sigh - ahhh 3. Nervous laughter). And if I want to be one, well, this is the decade to do it.

The whole concept of being a mother was much easier when I was eight. Back in Primary School my girlfriends and I had it sorted. We would play ‘giving birth’ at little lunch. The births were dramatic and painful and short enough that we had enough time to experience our maternal bliss, deliver each other's babies, eat our apples and chips, and possible play elastics before the bell rang for class. Those were the days.

I find it amusing, and to be honest a little disturbing, that we used to play ‘giving birth’. Was it practising? Genetic memory? Cultural Conditioning? Whether I like it or not, the whole motherhood thing has always been there. And it ain’t going away.


It was there in my teenage years. No matter how cool and rebellious my girlfriends and I got, no matter how much black we were wearing (90s grunge, not Noughties goth), no matter what illegal activity we were plotting or cafes we were haunting to agonise over university choices and formal dress colours , the topic of what would you name your children came up regularly. However, when we were teenagers, the idea of being a mother belonged to a very distant future, after we had won our Oscars, worked for the UN and owned our own apartments with harbour views. So that was at least after we were 25.Those were the days.

(NB Those hypothetical conversations on hypothetical babies’ names are still happening. It was only a few weeks ago when I was having dinner at friend’s place when this topic came up. My good friend Rors and I both realised that we both had a particular soft spot for the name Olivia. We laughed it off, but a close observer would have noticed our slightly flared nostrils and that we both made a silent and some irrational vow to get knocked up asap so that we could rightfully claim the name.)

In my university days I was fairly insistent I was not going to have any children. Children were so bourgeois. Indeed, for the majority of my twenties, most of the conversations I had with my girlfriends that even related to motherhood were really about pregnancy; and how best to avoid it. Those were the days.

So, for the last five or so years when anyone has asked me if I am married or have children I have chortled ‘Oh god no. I am way too young for all that’. That has been my answer. It has come from a deep and instinctual place. But as I ascend or descend into my thirties (however you want to look at it) I realise something has shifted. Strangers have stopped referring to me as ‘that nice young girl’ and have started referring to me as that 'nice young woman’. (and sometimes they drop the 'nice' and 'young') I am getting invited to baby showers. Hell, I am throwing baby showers. These are my days now.

And it has got me thinking.

See, when I say I am of a certain age, what I really mean is I am of a certain age where I could possible still have a few more lone overseas adventures, some exotic passionate but ultimately misguided love affairs, a brilliant career, an ethical investment portfolio. And then find the right stud, I mean man, to settle down and procreate. Sounds like a plan.

However, I am also at an age where I have learnt ( and learnt and learnt) that there is a limited supply of fairy godmothers out there to grant you your wishes. And even fewer princes who would be bothered to go out of their way to return a lost shoe to a girl.


So, here it is. What if I want children and there isn’t the right man, enough money or enough fertile little eggs? What if being a celebrity becomes a pre-requisite for adopting and that optioned is ruled out? What will I do with my maternal instincts? Or, what if I have children and find out I don’t have any maternal instincts? And then there are other instincts that come into play. I have the instinct to reproduce. It’s quite fun actually. I get the biological drive thing but what about our instincts as human to survive on this planet. With overpopulation and so many people already on this planet in need of looking after, could it just be irresponsible to think about creating more?

And then there is this; the thing about having children is that it inevitably consumes your focus, for most people their families are their world, and as it should be.Blood is thicker than water and all that. But what about the world beyond your family, the secondary world that flashes by on the news or stands next to you on a crowded bus, which begins at the point where all that is familiar to you ends. If blood is thicker than water…well… who is looking after the water?


One night I vented all this to two older friends who, over a few quiet drinks, shared their own thoughts and experiences on the conundrum (And one of them was a man. While the ladies may take up most of the seats when it comes to the issue of motherhood, they are not entirely reserved for us. The fellas have their concerns too).They gave advice, laughed, listened and guided. And later it occurred to me I had been ‘mothered’ on this issue. ‘Mother’, verb, not noun.


And the panic somewhat subsided.


How many ‘mothers’ have you had? How many people have ‘mothered’ you? How many men and women have popped up with sound advice, a loan of twenty bucks the day before pay day, told you to go for it, told you it was ok to give up, gave you a place to stay, a cuddle when you needed one and a kick up the bum when you needed one of those to?

When was the last time you did some ‘mothering’ yourself? What will I do with my maternal instincts if I don’t have children? The same thing I have been doing with them for the last thirty years; giving it to the people around me who needed them. Surely that is a life well spent.




I don’t know if there is a little Olivia or Max ( that’s my boy’s name -Hands off!) in my future. It would be lovely is there is, but I equally sure that life will still be lovely if there is not. What I do know is there are words to be written and new places to be explored, plants to be watered, children to be read to, and a world in some serious need of some tender loving care, and a smaller population.

And regardless of how many dependents you have or you don’t; some mothering for us all to give and get.



(I dedicate this piece to my mum. And to Max and Olivia)

Two Londons 2007

There was a box of herbal tea bags on my desk at the language school I taught at in London. It was an assortment of lemon, ginger and orange. I bought it at the beginning of winter when I was optimistically theorising that citrus could replace sunshine. After my afternoon class, I would take a tea bag from the box, walk into the kitchen, place the tea bag in a large yellow mug, add boiling water until it was two thirds full, walk back to my deskand sit the tea down. I would then walk back to the kitchen, get a glass of water and a spoon, walk back to my desk and sit down, pour the water into the tea to cool it down, strain the tea bag by placing the tea bag into the bowl of the spoon and wrapping the string around it to squeeze out the water and throw the tea bag in the bin. Then I would drink the tea while preparing the next day's lessons.

One day I noticed Paul, who sat next to me, watching me intently. I looked at him quizzically. "Just watching the ritual", he said. At the time I hadn't thought of it as such, I was just making a cup of tea. But now, looking back, I do the same thing.

Recall and watch the rituals.



There are two Londons for me. There is the London of my first impressions which turned my expectations upsidedown. I had not expected to like London. I thought it would be grey and dreary and lack lustre but I changed my mind before I got off the tube coming in from Heathrow. London was bright until eleven and excited and pulsing with energy ( I arrived in summer). London was brilliant. London was brilliant even in my jetlag haze.This is my first London. This is the London of my touristic squeals at Big Ben, and Tower Bridge and the Thames. This is the London first coffee at the cafe at the top of the Tate Modern overlooking St Paul's.This is the London of the excitement at getting on Red Double Decker buses ( actually, that particular excitement never really wore off). This is the London of feeling like I was walking around on a giant Monopoly board. The London shown in the snapshots of tourists, but MY snapshots. I remember that first visit before I headed off to Italy and Scotland for six weeks, in snapshots, and in a giddying rush of excitement and overstimulation. My first London is a crush I will never quite get over.


That is of course my first London.There is the second London that I lived in and worked in and paid bills in. The second London that I eventually cracked and made a life in. A place where I had daily ritual, weekly pleasure and pet peeves. The first London is a place where I took photos, the second Londin is a place where I made tea.

Working London 2007

The English school I taught in was tucked inside one of those terrace houses that line New Oxford St (and for that matter, most streets in London). It had three flights of narrow stairs and ten or so classrooms perilously stacked up around them. Before and after class, the school would swell with students as they spilled out of classrooms and out of the front door. In summer, when the school was at full capacity, you’d swear the whole building was about to topple over.

I loved teaching there, which came as quite a surprise to me. When I had left Sydney I was burnt out. I had sworn that I was never stepping back into a classroom. But in London with a bank balance of Australian dollars being pillaged by the UK pound, I had to reconsider. And I am glad that I did.

Maybe it was the diverse and dynamic exam class I had in the mornings, or just being in a new environment, or the three months traveling I had just had, but somehow I got my teaching mojo back. Teaching was great, teaching was fun, and teaching was paying for my weekends away. Yay.

I guess it was the students. London had impressed me with its multiculturalism from the moment I got on the Piccadily Line from Heathrow and my English classes took it to a whole other level: there were the two sisters from Bogatta Columbia who forever changed my opinion on the seeming innocuousness of cocaine use, my student from Yemen who changed his mind weekly about his university choices, a rather temperamental Georgian with visa issues and issues in general ( I once remarked upon him being late to class again and asked what he was going to do about it. ”You can’t change me” he yelled in response “Nobody can change me”. And promptly walked out of my class), a Russian student who would occasionally freak me out by wearing purple contact lenses ( very disconcerting) and the grumpiest woman I have ever met, a ridiculously good looking partially deaf Italian who was brushing up on her English before taking a senior position in a bank ( she was great, when she learned I was heading to Berlin she told me it was her favourite city and wrote me a list of everywhere I should visit). And Lucia, who was working on her PHD on Brazilian literature and was also a Portuguese and Italian teacher ( - it was laughable that I was her teacher and not the other way round but she was my student and is now still my friend). And that is but to name a few…

And then there were my colleagues who were both highly amusing and highly likeable. Just as well as the staffroom was so small that when I pushed the chair back I would consistently hit the Director of Studies desk, threatening daily to send his milky tea sprawling all over his keyboard. ‘Oh no, not to worry’, he would retort to my daily apology with distracted politeness. But that small staffroom worked for the most part, mostly due to the quirkiness and general good nature ( generally) of English language teachers.
As the token Australian in the room I was the recipient of the occasional odd question -What is a flaming dingo? I think you mean Flaming Galah. - You don’t have real universities in Australia, do you? Well if we don’t who on earth is sending me those HECS bills.

Most of them I could answer

Robert, tall, lithe and kind of sexy for sixty came to me one Monday morning – “ Gemma, there are these Australian young guys live near my home and they have these parties with so much beer, so much beer. Why do they have so much beer? And they insist on wearing flipflops and shorts even in winter. Why do they do that?

I just don’t know, Robert, I just don’t know.

Tokyo 2007

‘Too convenient and too complex’

Five Days in Tokyo

It amazes me. You get off the plane, you get your bags, you look at the map and the directions you have scribbled on a bit of paper tucked inside your carry on bag, you negotiate some transport and you get to the unknown accommodation you booked 40,000km away and the adventure begins. It’s so simple. Most of the time. An exercise in total trust in the travelling gods, in guidebook writers, in your instincts and in the first taxi driver that crosses your path.



My first experience of this was Tokyo. I was going to Europe but decided to go via Tokyo for a few days. I’d taught a lot of Japanese students as an English language teacher and it had sparked my interest. I had even entertained the idea of working there a couple of years earlier and enrolled in an evening class to learn the language. I could only remember a handful of phrases; sumimasen (which means excuse me) was one which was going to be particularly useful over the next five days.

That first night I had got into the airport quite late and booked into a local airport hotel to have a decent sleep and to put off having to actually navigate the subway .I’d come with few expectations of Tokyo but plenty of reservations, most of them were about the subway system. I’d been staring at the densely packed interweaving lines of the subway map for the last few weeks. I’d been dreaming about it and waking up with night sweats. My sense of direction was not great at the best of times, even in my home town of Sydney I had mainly relied on others to get me around for the last 27 or so odd years. But now (terrifyingly, electrifyingly) there was only me, a lone aussie red head in a city of 20 million armed with some scrappy directions, a phrase book and a jammed packed backpack, which 12 hours into my trip was already digging into my shoulders and limiting the blood flow to my arms. I arrived at the hotel, got to my room which had an Ashai beer vending machine outside it. I took it as an omen. A good one.

Kampai (which means Cheers)

The next day I set off to get into the real Tokyo. It is hot. It is hotter carrying my backpack. A man on the train platform looks at me bemused and says 'Strong'. I wonder how the women around me manage to look so manicured and fresh. A woman worries when traveling by herself, but I was comforted, coldly comforted, by the fact that perhaps the Japanese wouldn’t recognize me as being a woman.

I am sweltering. There are many beautiful times to come to Japan, it is becoming quite the hotspot in winter for skiing, and is spectacular in May when the Cherry Blossoms are in full bloom. The one time all the guidebooks will tell you not to arrive in the whole year is June and August. It is hot and humid and likely to rain. I arrived in Japan on the 20th of June.

Rendering my weeks of worry useless, I get the train to Asakusa station with no hassles or confusion. Asakusa hits me with its Temple, tourists, traffic and an unusually high amount of sequined shoes stores. I have a few hours to wait before I can get into the hostel, drop off my bags and start to really explore. I wonder down to the Sumida River and get my first glimpse of what has become one of Tokyo’s infamous landmark – the giant beer bubble above the Asahi main office (It looks like a giant poo, one of my Japanese friends told me. It does. A giant gold coated poo). I sit in the park for a while and rest. It seems to be something that a lot of other people are doing as well. They don’t really seem to notice me, or pretended not to. Maybe they had other things on their mind. My friend Megumi later explained to me that where I had stretched out that first day, waiting for my hostel to open, was where the homeless people go and I, unknowingly, had parked myself and my bag right in the middle of them. Sumimasen

A colleague at work who had spent some time in Japan had remarked how reasonable the hostel was that I had booked. In a moment of paranoia I had booked myself into a female only room so was a little surprised to get into my room and find a laddish block of a bloke from Newcastle who warned me that the quite young Japanese guy on the top bunk had swiped twenty yen off him. He then proceeded to tell me about the Hostel movies he had recently seen and asked had I. He instantly reminded me of the sun drenched boys from up North which I knew from back home. There was something reassuring on that first real night away, after hours of walking round getting my bearings and trying to work out how to order my soba noodles through a vending machine ( why couldn’t I just ask the man behind the counter?) to get back to the hostel and fall asleep to the sound of the beer-induced snores coming from his adjacent bunk.

Tokyo is known for its technological edginess, so the irony that I couldn’t get the only two pieces of technology I relied on, my phone and my hair straightener, to work was not lost on me. (I found out later that the global roaming on my phone that was guaranteed to work internationally couldn’t work in Japan because their telecommunications network was ‘too advanced’. As for the hair iron, well, that to this day remains a technological mystery.)

No thanks to my phone but many thanks to a speedy internet connection I was able to meet up with two of my old students, M and M. I had nicknamed them double trouble when they were at my school in Sydney. This was mostly due to M No 1’s ability to tease me mercilessly. It had started with my rather funky green cardigan that had these holes near the wrist band so that you could put your thumbs through. ‘Poor teacher' M No 1 had teased, ‘she has holes in her clothes’. I had retaliated that I had to be nice to her and show her respect because she was older than me. Somewhere amongst the playful jibes, or perhaps because of them, we had become friends. M No 2 was joined at the hip with M No 1 when she was in Sydney. She always seemed a bit shocked but awed by M No 1 comments and when she smiled she didn’t just smile she beamed. I liked her immediately.

I had emailed and organized to meet them near the Asakusa train station exit that comes out near the ice cream store (there were five exits). And there they were; punctual and armed with pretty umbrellas (including one for me), English and Japanese tourists guides and diamantes on their high heeled shoes. Just gorgeous. God I wished my hair iron had been working. Sumimasen

We went to the Edo museum, a remarkable building housing truly remarkable things but to be honest it was all a bit lost on me. I was much too distracted by double trouble and the constant giggling.

The giggling subsided over lunch as we focused our attention on food .Oh the food – if I had to eat one type of food for the rest of my life it would be Japanese. We had some little Japanese restaurant in some little back street in gods know what part of Tokyo and my friends ordered Okonomiyaki. “Looks like vomit” M No 2 commented as our meal, as it was cooked on the hot plate in the middle of our table. Yes, it did look like vomit. But it tasted like salty goodness. This was my little taste of real Tokyo, washed down with a local beer.

After lunch we went to Odaibo. A strange man made island in the middle of Tokyo Bay with futuristic shopping centres, luxiourous hotels and a replica of the Statue of Liberty. And you have to take this super fast train to get there .Super fun.

Over cakes and coffee (although, Japan, not really the place to get coffee) the friendship and the cultural exchange deepened. I explained the difference between get on and get it on and they explained about Japanese men, smaller but harder. I was impressed. The girls were really nailing their comparative adjectives.

Later, over dinner, we sat together sipping sake looking down on the colorful lights on the cluster of ferries bobbing up and down on Tokyo Bay. And the endless Tokyo skyline that stretched out and up behind it. Oh Tokyo. So pretty from a distance. Exhilarating.

The next day it was Saki and sightseeing. Saki was also a former student turned present friend. We shared the same birthday and in a class of nine she had been the only girl. We bonded. We decided on the Emperor’s Gardens and Tokyo Tower. On asking her if they were good places to go, she said she had never been to them. ‘For tourists’, she said. What can I say the gardens were lovely and Tokyo Tower had a vertigo-inducing glass floor that I would rather not think about. But about a five minute walk from the tower was the temple that Sakiko family went to every New Year to get their fortune for the year. She took me there to get mine. It says travel is good but to look after myself. My fortune comes with a little gold- plated charm that I carry around in my wallet for the rest of the year.

We end up in Ginza, the international label laden brightly lit streets of Ginza. Saki takes me to this Japanese restaurant where all the tables are inside these replica igloos. I love it. We make jokes about big men trying to squash into them for business lunches and swap pictures of my sister's wedding and then her sister's wedding. We talk about travel. We talk about Japan. ‘Japan’ she remarks ‘too convenient and too complex’. I think about the Asahii vending machines, the metro ticketing system, the machines in the entrances to shops that dry your vasa (umbrella).

We call it a night and I wonder when or if our paths will cross again. I go back to hostel, lie on my bed and feel very disturbed after reading Banana Yokomoto’s haunting short stories. There is a bit of a niggling pain around two of my remaining two wisdom teeth. And I have a bit of a sort throat. I rationalize it away with my prediction that a good night’s sleep and two Nurofen will take care of it. The pain wakes me up a four a.m. More painkillers and I am finding it difficult to open my jaw.


The next morning I can barely get my mouth open to brush my teeth. It hurts. A lot. And I find myself counting the down the minutes until I can take another dose of Nurifen. Bugger, Bugger Bugger Bugger. I had planned to get out of Tokyo for the day and visit Kamakura and see the giant Buddhist statue. No zen for me today.

I comfort myself with the fact if I get really sick I do have friends here. This is not a drama. Just need to find a dentist. Just need to check with my insurance first. Just need to call my insurance company. Just need to do that.

But my mobile doesn’t work. I find a pay phone and try to call the international number of my insurance agency. And try. And try again. Not working. My tooth is really hurting. They have another number but I need to pay. The pay phone doesn’t take coins and or money. I try to get an operator. I can’t speak ( or understand) Japanese. I go and buy a phone card. I follow the directions. It should work. It should work. It doesn’t work. My tooth throbs and there are still two hours before I can take any more Nurofen. Coffee will help. I go to Starbucks. The Starbucks has one of those devices that you place your umbrella in and it dries it and covers it in plastic. I scowl at it. I don’t need a plastic covered umbrella. I just need to make a phone call.

Buoyed by caffeine, I go into the Asakusa tourist information centre. I try the phone there and somehow manage to get in contact with an American international operating service. The pre-recorded voice tells me it will be sixty dollars to connect the call. Sixty American dollars. I am not that desperate to get in contact with my insurance company…yet.

I ask for help at information desk. Sumimasen. Fortunately they have a little more English then I have Japanese. I ask why my phone card won’t work here. It’s only for national calls. That phone company only deals with national calls. I ask which card I should buy for international calls. They don’t know. But they are very helpful and try the phone numbers for me and I don’t have the heart to tell them that the numbers they are dialing aren’t going to work to because they are the exact combinations I have been trying for about an hour. Together we reach a stalemate with the telephone. I am sure there must be an easy way to make an international phone call; we all know there must be. We just don’t know what it is. What they do know is where there is a dentist surgery with a dentist who speaks a little English. About thirty metres down the street. At last. Something easy.

A little English is right. Very little. I lay back in the dentist chair and point to my back left teeth. I find my phrase book and point to ‘antibiotics’. Yes, he says. He sorts me out with a prescription and even sends one of his nurses with me to go to the pharmacists to get it filled. I am so grateful I want to hug them all.

The next day, antibiotics in system, dosed up on Nurofen, I take a cruise down the Sumida River. It is a grey and rainy day which matches my mood. We cruise up the river. Much of Tokyo’s homeless live next to the river in make-do tents made out of blue plastic. They dot the cement banks all the way up to Tokyo Harbour. In the afternoon I wonder round the shops at Asakusa. A man in an expensive looking gold car pulls up next to me and says hello. I say hello back. He indicates that he would like to have a drink. I think that is what he meant. I shake my head politely and walk to into the next shop. He is still there when I get out and says hello again. This is getting a little uncomfortable. I walk into the next shop and spend a long time looking at some brightly bejeweled handbags hoping he will be gone by the time I leave. He’s not and is ever so persistent that I join him. My heart thumps a little in my chest and my head goes into overdrive calculating how many days I would have to be missing before anyone would think to notify the authorities. I quickly pass in front of the car and duck into the markets, where there is no road you can drive down. I figure no matter how much he would like a drink with me, he is going to like his car more and won’t leave it.

I lose him but feel a little shaky when I get back to the hostel. This is not helped by the fact that later that night there are raised voices downstairs between the owner of the hostel and cleaning staff. And the Japanese very rarely raise their voices. At least it has gotten my mind off the pain throbbing in the back of my mouth. The American guy across the hall say he is happy to get out of here. Maybe I have been reading to much of Banana Moto but I feel spooked. I think the spirits of Tokyo are telling me it’s time to go. And it is.

I get to back to the airport hotel early the next day. Order room service, take painkillers and watch BBC World News replaying their main story that tomorrow is Tony Blair’s last day as Prime Minister. It seems fitting as tomorrow I fly to London. Goodbye Tony. Hello ME!

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