When Kangaeroo started back in 2010, the aim was probably to help students understand that American was not the only form of English and that Australians speak Strine. What the aim intended to accomplish remains unknown. At some point, the blog became an area to examine lesser-known aspects of the Japan-Australia relationship. For the first five years of its existence, Kangaeroo.com was updated almost daily. It’s initial aim was not accomplished because I couldn’t get enough people to read it. Same goes for its subsequent purpose, I guess. That probably goes some way to explaining why updates have been sporadic…
More and more is going on to inspire reflection on life. It’s a constructive development. Life is good when life exists. Realizing it’s good is another matter. Fortunately, for various reasons, it’s becoming easier to find elements of all things to contain the pleasant. It’s not my nature to do this, yet I am finding myself doing it more often. What luck!
Mount Fuji is glorious!For better or worse, like much of the rest of the world, Kangaeroo has been confined to home for the past year due to the covid pandemic.It has not been all woe, though. One benefit is an almost daily opportunity to cycle along the Tama River.There’s a cycling road about 50 kilometers long running for most of the way on both banks of the river, which once served as the Japanese capital’s main water supply.Mount Fuji is notoriously shy and only shows its face with great clarity for a few months each year, unfortunately those times being…
Perfuro certainly blew a storm for me! And so it should have, considering the Latin word for storm is the name given to a great line of Aussie cycling gear from the Gold Coast that Kangaeroo.com was lucky enough to get to try out after being picked as a contest winner. Kangaeroo.com doesn’t win too much, so wanted to treat the kit with the reverence it deserved. Perfuro founder Martin Coleman contacted Kangaeroo.com in early June to notify him of the win. Then, 2020 hit again. Japan Post has halted air mail to Australia because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but…
May is gorgeous in Japan, even this year when the world is confronting the bleak tragedy of the covid-19 outbreak. The warm, dry, mostly sunny month brings some much-needed delight.
A decade or so ago, Sydney comedian Richard Glover wrote a fairly comprehensive list of typical Australian behaviors that is usually reprinted around this time of year, heading into Australia Day on January 26. Kangaeroo joints the throng of reprinters by adding the list here. You know you’re Australian if: You know the meaning of the word “girt”. You believe that stubbies can be either drunk or worn. You understand that, should an Australian prime minister attempt to invent a nickname for himself, the nation would respond by choosing its own moniker, somewhat less flattering. You believe the best-looking people…
As sticklers will point out, 2020 doesn’t really count as the start of the Twenty-Twenties, but Kangaeroo reckons it does, so that’s how we’ll view it on the site. And the ’20s got off in pretty much the same way that 2019 left off–on the saddle, pushing the pedals. Once again, the pace was about 100 km/day. Visited sites included a loop of the Yamanote Line circling central Tokyo, the Tama River (again!), Takahata Fudosan temple and plenty of views of Mount Fuji. Yamanote Line Loop Tama River Mount Fuji
Welcome to 2020, the Year of the Rat, according to the Chinese zodiac. A rat is as close as you’ll get to a kangaroo in the Far East, so Kangaeroo is looking forward to this year. And if that’s not good enough, Kangaeroo’s track record suggests a rat is not too far away. Either way, we hope that all and sundry have a wonderful year, whatever happens.
Fatigue, muscle soreness and endurance were going to be the order of the day on the Kangaeroo crew’s second leg of Biwaichi, the circumnavigation of Biwa, Japan’s largest lake. Mrs. Kangaeroo had completed the 70-plus kilometer first leg with barely a hint of trouble, but not being used to cycling, it was going to be the second day that presented a big test as it would display her recuperative powers. Typically, she was magnificent! She woke with a huge smile and full of beans, getting into her Kangaeroo.com jersey and racing down to the hotel restaurant for the fancy buffet breakfast.…
オーストラリアって、怖い動物がたくさんいる国だ！ そして、この頃、その恐怖な状態の証になるような衝撃的な写真が出てきた。 まずは、オーストラリア北部にオリーブ・パイソンという蛇が最も怖い動物のひとつであるワニを丸ごと食べている写真が撮られた！ そして、それだけじゃない！ 今度は、豪州の真上から真下のタスマニア島へ移ろう。 ある夫婦が旅行から帰ってきたら、まず見たのがこれだ！ でかいクモがなん夜行性動物であるポッサムを食べていた！信じられる？ オーストラリアにいると気をつけようね。 The stuff of nightmares! Husband and wife stumble across a spider eating an entire POSSUM Amazing photographs show the moment a python devours an entire crocodile in a murky swamp
