Personal DNA

Well it's no secret that I like taking online personality tests. I like to see how the results compare from test to test and day to day. This test was actually interesting to complete and gives the outcome in written, graphical and pictorial form. You can also invite your friends to assess your personality.

Try it. Hold the cursor over each coloured bar below to see what it represents.

My results:

Benevolent Leader


My Personal DNA Report

He did good

Worked on Valentine's Day. Was really tired. Got home. Went shopping. Planned dinner. Felt really sleepy. Nothing romantic had happened. Then the doorbell rang and an arrangement was delivered.



Made me cry. What a sweetie. Yutaka did good.

What Kind of Food Are You?

You Are French Food

Snobby yet ubiquitous. People act like they understand you more than they actually do.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Because I like cheese??!!

The Crush

Having experienced the peak hour crush in Japan for the first time, I can honestly say that I do not want to come back in the next life as a sardine or a Japanese business person.

Whhooaahh craparoni, what an utterly traumatic and excruciating experience that was!!! Can you believe in five years of living in Japan on and off, yesterday was the first time I had ever taken a peak hour train in Japan.

I had two days of extra work starting at the unusually early time (for an English teacher in Japan) of 9am, so I had to leave my station at 8am. I noticed that the lines on the train platform were much longer than usual but as I was near the start of a line, I wasn't too worried about it. I got on the train which was already pretty much at capacity and managed to find a ring to hold onto. It was a sub express and I had five stops before I had to change to a local train. Well....each and every stop about two people got off and 50 more got on. We were pushed from in front, behind, beside and occasionally from underneath. An umbrella poked my thigh, an elbow nudged my shoulder, a briefcase dug into my back and a young lady being a head shorter than me, basically had her head under my chin. As the train pulled away from each station, the whole mass of humanity would tilt backwards with the force, supported only by those lucky (?) enough to have hold of something.

As I was being pushed from behind, I was forced to stand at a very unnatural angle and that along with holding my heavy bag was basically causing my leg muscles to shake. You know the way they do when you suddenly do some heavy exercise, like run up a hill full sprint? I wasn't sure if I could hold out for the five stations. I had a horrible thought, "what if I get train sick". I had nowhere to run, nowhere to throw up and definitely nowhere to hide.

At last we made it to the station where I had to change trains. I have no idea how I managed to get out. There must have been about 15 bodies between myself and the doorway to sweet sweet freedom. I think it was only for my oversized bag which I used to bulldoze a path through the pack (thank goodness for big heavy text books) and my very strong desire to not be touching 20 people at once with every appendage I own, not to mention all the other people's appendages touching me.

I crossed over to the local train which was full but at least everyone could have a handlehold. I stood and watched the young men especially employed by the train company and who only work there at peak hour, rush from door to door pushing everyone's bits and pieces that had been caught in the train doors back inside. The images of faces pressed up against the windows were no longer comedy but real and right there in front of me. I just shook my head and gave up a silent prayer that we're moving home soon.

I might think twice now before complaining about the late working hours of an English teacher in Japan. At least by starting later we get to avoid this daily distress.

I s'pose it could be worse.


In reality it was like this. Crowded Japanese Train

What's Your Japanese Subculture?

You Are a Goth!

You're so gothically outrageous, and you aren't afraid to flaunt it. Whether you dress up like Robert Smith or a tragic Little Bo Peep, chances are that you'll be parading around with the rest of the goths at Yoyogi Park on Sunday. Don't forget your white makeup and blue lipstick! Who knows? You may just get picked up by one of the seedy photographers.

What's Your Japanese Subculture?

Who makes this crap? I am so not a Goth. Not that there's anything wrong with being a Goth but I don't own much black and white clothing and only have minimal body piercings. *sigh* At least I wasn't a giggly schoolgirl.

Sushi tray

Sushi tray
Originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

How good does this look? This is one thing I really love about Japanese food, it's presentation is always carefully thought about and well laid out. The tamago sushi (egg- yellow with black stripe) was the best, closely followed by the salmon (orange).

This tray was delivered too- like a pizza. There are some things I will miss when we head home...

Local festival

Local festival pics
Originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

Last night we went to a local festival at a shrine one train stop away. This festival was selling charms for good business in 2006. They had free sake, the cold clear kind and the hot milky coloured kind. I totally recommend the hot white sake, it is very delicious and really warms you up on a cold night. We also ate butter potatoes and frankfurts while watching the locals get drunk and start dancing around the fire.

Here are a few pics.

Australia has just experienced its hottest year on record.

Action needed on climate change

This scares the poop outta me. Is each year just gunna get hotter and hotter until we are all roasted?

When will it become obvious to everyone that some attention to how we are influencing the environment is more important than carrying on with our comfortable lives? Our kids are not gunna applaud us for all our great 'developments' and super 'technology' when they're in danger every time they step foot outside.

Can anyone offer me an interesting reason as to why Australia did not sign the Kyoto Protocol? Something other than that big ol' bully President telling us we had to.

Snow time

Blizzard
Originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

Well we have a blizzard here. The rest of Japan had been getting recored snowfalls for a week or so but none in Osaka....until today. It is amazing for this Aussie to watch. I even rang my parents back home to tell them, where it is 40 degrees. Ouch! Talk about extremes.

Have a look.

FWC Christmas Party 2005

FWC Christmas Party 2005
Originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

On Saturday a group of foreign wives (and fiancees) met for a Christmas party at my place (aka the shoebox). It was a really fun night, some got pleasantly tipsy and all were stuffed with good food.

Here we are holding our secret santa gifts.

What does a drawing of a pig say about you and your personality?

This is so cute, I gotta add it.



What it showed about my personality.

-you are a realist (yes)
-you are direct, enjoy playing devil's advocate and neither fear nor avoid discussions (yes)
-you are emotional and naive, you care little for details and are a risk-taker (first two yes, last two no)
-you are insecure or are living through a period of major change(last one definitely!!
-you are an OK listener (hmmm?)
-your sex life is WOW (hehehe....)

Have a go yourself. Draw a pig

Australian Politics Test

This is an interesting test to show how you fit into the Australian Political system. Have a go, you might be surprised by your results.
Australian Politics Test

I tend to be centre left with no political party being very much aligned to my views. The closest were Family First and The Greens.
My Results

Being White, the new uncool?

This has been an ongoing thought of mine for a while now. I was going to take the time over a few days to write it out and word it properly but i've been getting a bit impatient for other's thoughts. I obviously have too much time on my hands but so be it.

My thoughts on being 'white'.

It seems that being 'white' isn't very cool. I used to find myself jealous of people with varied cultural backgrounds, who celebrated interesting festivals and ate different foods. The girls of Indian decent I went to high school with always seemed exotic to me with their whole other world going on once they got home. They could
speak another language and smelled of spices and visited family in different countries in the school holidays.

Minorities around me always seemed so passionate about their culture and families and I often found myself so intrigued by their way of life. Maybe this was what first led me to leave Australia and date guys of other nationalities? I always wanted my kids to be able to speak another language. I always thought that i'd love to be different and have my Mum come from some exotic country (she's British and I always wished she was from a non-English speaking country, so I could have had the opportunity to be bilingual).

I find people from non-white backgrounds (this is probably not very politically correct) being proud of what their culture is and has done. African Americans have their great musical talents, Aboriginal Australians have their intimate knowledge of nature and fantastic arts and crafts, Japanese have their long long history and
traditions. And I find myself thinking, what can I as a white Australian be proud of?

Well, my ancestors built ships and found new lands- but then proceeded to kill the natives and stuff up the environment.

It just seems that being 'white' (and I guess i'm mainly talking about being white in Australia) is not something to be proud of. In some way I feel relieved that my kids can at least get some 'culture' and 'history' from their Japanese side.

OK, I think it's all out now. I know this is all over the place but that is the state of my mind at present.

Your thoughts?

Our first wedding anniversary

Anniversary Flowers
Originally uploaded by BeingWanderLust.

Yutaka and I have just celebrated our first wedding anniversary. This past year has flown. Our next anniversary will be in Australia! Yay!!

My parents sent us this gorgeous big basket of flowers. Aren't we blessed?

Tokyo trip

We just spent a weekend in Tokyo. I thought Tokyo was great, it felt much cleaner, safer and friendlier than Osaka. Maybe they're just more gaijin friendly? I went to the Edo Tokyo museum and would fully recommend it to anyone. Free guides are available in many languages (I got one lovely English speaking lady all to myself). You can ask stupid questions and get the inside knowledge that may be difficult just walking around by yourself. I have a distinct lack of knowledge about Japanese history, so I got a lot out of this museum. Here is a link with Japanese, English, Korean and Chinese Edo Tokyo Museum

Check out the huge bus and the really long cool escalator going up into the Edo Tokyo Museum.

www.flickr.com

What slanguage do you speak?

Your Slanguage Profile

Aussie Slang: 100%

Victorian Slang: 50%

New England Slang: 25%

Prison Slang: 25%

Southern Slang: 25%

British Slang: 0%

Canadian Slang: 0%

What Slanguage Do You Speak?

Expat get together

A few of us ex-pats (with Japanese husbands) had a bit of a get together last week in Nara. It was great! Good company, lots of chat, yummy food, noisy kids, beer, wine....ahhh.... I've met some awesome women in Japan. Another cool thing was the mix of nationalities, we had two Americans, one British, one New Zealander and an Aussie.



That's one thing I really love about travelling and meeting people, you can be in a group and realise you're the only one of your nationality there. And in some strange way it makes you want to be careful of how you portray your nationality. You become an ambassador of sorts. I think i've become more patriotic than ever by travelling and living overseas. And coming home.....wow do you appreciate the small things. Even the simple way a bus driver at Sydney airport greeted another driver, with a "g'day Rosso". Made the bus crack up laughing and made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Last Post

Some of you may remember fondly my large cucumber post. Well, I had to delete it. It had stuffed up my whole page and I was too much of a technophobe to figure it out or too lazy. It's bloody hot here in Japan at the moment. It has sucked all my energy. When you wake up and see it is 30 degrees in your house, it aint a nice way to start the day. Bring on Autumn!

Our Honeymoon

Well, a couple of weeks ago we had our honeymoon on Yakushima. A little world heritage island to the south of Japan. However, both Yutaka and I were a bit ill and so have decided to just call it a holiday and have another honeymoon some other time (yay). Some interesting links to Yakushima;

World Heritage Natural Property
Yakushima

Info from World Conservation Monitoring Centre

Here are some pics:

The world heritage forest.


A foot onsen (hot bath).


Magnificent coastline.


Having a lunch break after hiking up a mountain.


Breathtaking waterfall.


Turtle laying eggs.

Violent Smilies

I just gotta dedicate a whole post to some of these great smilies I found. Made me laugh so much. You can find them here WebSmileys

OK, here we go... Should I place a warning? Nah, in your face!!



OK, just for balance and to prove I am not evil....


Enough.