Purple Heys!

4 April 2024

Kangaeroo Corner is welcoming the slow onset of spring with a little shock of violet offering greetings and warmth in more ways than one.

At the moment, our garden’s most prominent flowers are some hardenbergia creeping up a frame and showing off a bright shade of purple and specks of white.

The tiny blossoms are adorable, but they’re also bringing me the wholehearted joy of being the first-ever flowers I have grown by myself from seed.

I’m somewhat amazed by how much effect their appearance has had on me, which is perhaps a little over-exaggerated, but it is what I’m feeling anyway. It’s a mild sense of accomplishment and adds some color to my activities, which have tended to be carried out in a gray cloud for quite a long time now.

I never knew these (or many other) plants in Australia, but am delighted now to get to know and appreciate what’s often referred to as the Australian native wisteria.

Survived I was hospitalized. My brother and sister dropped everything to come and help. They took me to meetings. I have stopped. I will be all right. I can’t give up....
Winter is Here Although it was a glorious morning with clear, starry skies and then a wonderful sunrise, it was bloody freezing, confirming that the long-dreaded winter has arrived. Until now we have been blessed with unseasonal warmth: I wore shorts all weekend and the temperature topped 20 degrees on Saturday. I still...
Bonzer Bonsai! Given that this site started with the intent of spreading information about Japan and Australia and matters related to these countries, including languages, and then how much focus I have placed on gardening over the past couple of years, it’s surprising that I haven’t had much to say about bonsai....
‘Umble…That’s What You’ve Gotta Be Humility is a trait I desperately seek, but, like Uriah Heep in Charles Dickens‘ masterpiece, David Copperfield, who constantly espoused the need to be humble, I implore myself to be modest, but the only area in which I have consistently done so is my track record in life. For those...
オズのアホ使い　考えRooの母国であるオーストラリアでは、国名を省略して「オズ」と呼ぶことがある。　偶然に、考えるRooの生き方は馬鹿な言動が中心となっていた。　つきましては、「オズのアホ使い」と呼ばれても全然問題ないと思う。　具体的なことを言えないが、分かる人は分かる。いくらでも成功する機会が与えられ、裕福になれてもおかしくない過去があった。　しかし、貧乏で終わって、キャリアも何もならなかったというかキャリア事態はなかったというほど達成感がない。しょうがない。　それはそれでも変えられない。このもんだ。それでも十分。というか、これで満足しています。「オズのアホ使い」らしい生き方をして、最後までもそうだろう。　結局、考えRooはもう少し考えるべきだったかもしれない。...
Well, Wattle Ya’ Know! Spring can never come quick enough, and even though Tokyo had a warm winter, the wait for warmer, brighter weather seems interminably wrong, as symbolized by the blossoming of the wattle trees in Kangaeroo Corner. Although temperatures may have been warmer than average in the 2023-2024 winter, the fully fledged...
Feel That Groove….Or, Don’t I’ve struggled to adjust to the realities of life over the past few weeks, but waking on this holiday morning and seeing tiny spots of green sprouting up where my lawn used to be has raised my spirits infinitely, even if not leaving me quite as chilled out as a...
Arrows of Outrageous Fortune Mrs. Kangaeroo invited me out on a date today, which turned out to be an absolute ripper (how could any event with Mrs. Kangaeroo not be?), but involved horses, of course! Mrs. Kangaeroo is an avid equestrian and her devotion, best seen when it comes to living and providing loving...
Another One Bites the Dust… It’s no longer possible for me to trust my own mind because I know how utterly unreliable it is, but I got greater affirmation of why I’m so uneasy in my workplace when I learned last night that we have lost yet another very decent person from our working team....
Catching Up with Some Old Mates From an early morning to a very late night, I got to spend a day filled with chances to catch up with old mates. Firstly, I raced out to Ueno Park and got to meet someone I originally met while being able to work as a guide for Japan Biking...
Blowin’ In The Wind Tokyo spring tends to be windy, and it is blowing up a gale in the suburbs of the Japanese capital right now. This morning I got to fly for a few kilometers, backed by a tremendous tailwind. Of course, barring a meteorological miracle, where there’s a tailwind, there’s almost always...
Forget Tiptoeing thru Tulips and Plod thru Paddies Normally, we’d be smack-bang in the middle of the rainy season by now (and we are, officially), but the skies have held off for the past few days, providing great cycling weather which has made for some wonderful rides, including this morning’s through the rice paddies of outer suburban Tokyo....
With 10 Thumbs, Odds Were Always For 1 Being At Least Malachite, If Not Green I’m notoriously clumsy, making even the simplest task a monumental one, but having 10 thumbs also increased the odds of at least one of them being green, if not a little shade of malachite. Nah…just kidding….I’m still bloody unco, and trying to prove I’ve got something of a green thumb...
Hello Cocky! Spring is drawing closer by the day, if not actually here already in Tokyo, but that doesn’t mean the warmth has arrived yet, though the cockatoo in Kangaeroo Corner couldn’t care less. Every morning is getting lighter and the flowers are blooming. Kangaeroo Corner’s wattle is resplendent! We were originally...
Oops, I Did It Again! After having repeatedly vowed to myself that I would post content with substance that may be interesting for anybody who ever stumbled across it, I’ve gone ahead and posted more sunrise cycling pics because Mother Nature just keeps turning on the stunning starts to the day. After another near-sleepless night...
Inuit ‘Innit It’s snowing in Tokyo again, reminding me that the Inuit are supposed to have 50 different words for snow and making me wonder if the equivalent to English’s “Oh no” is one of them. I’m not the biggest fan of snow falling on Tokyo, mostly because of the paralyzing effect...
Paws for Effect Blessed by warm, sunny weather and the sight of spring blossoms, I boldly decided to divide our kangaroo paws to try and get better flowers to make Kangaeroo Corner look even more effective. I’ve grown these kangaroo paw from seed that I brought back from Australia when I visited in...
Rooted! Having experimented with growing Aussie plants from seed last year, this year’s efforts have focused more on growing from cuttings and finally, from this morning, replicating the seed propagation experiment. Turns out that things are rooted, but not the way I had hoped. I started trying to grow cuttings from...
Warming Up After yesterday’s spectacular start and the promise of a 20-degree day, I woke with great expectations of another brilliant beginning. Anticipations of even greater things arose with the warmth being decent enough to enable the year’s first early morning ride in shorts and short-sleeves (albeit with a heattech T-shirt). Wanting...
Flashes of Brilliance, but Lacking Focus Today’s title was a perfect summation of the photos I took on my morning ride, but could also describe my life to a tee. The skies were spectacular! My photography, not quite so. I am struggling to hold my phone still. My hands shake all the time. I got a...
Don’t Think! A good mate of mine often quotes William Shakespeare’s Hamlet by reminding me that, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Kangaeroo is prone to over-thinking, and this week is looming as a tough one. There’s plenty on the schedule, both professionally and privately. And...
Saving Things For a Rainy Day It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of...
A Fern Native Action Some massive changes at Kangaeroo Corner this week, which is pretty apt for the early summer, but there has been some man-made actions, too, with a tree fern poised to take center stage. As mentioned earlier this week, the nandina had to go as it was killing all the other...
Budding (and Blurred) Spring can’t come quick enough, not just for me, but also for the blossoms in Kangaeroo Corner. For weeks now there have been signs of flowering in the garden. The silver wattle (acacia dealbata) has shown signs of budding since at least the middle of February, looking to repeat its...
Get Off Of My Cloud! Riding today was like floating through the heavens at times, reminding me of one of my favorite songs by the world’s greatest rock band: The Rolling Stones‘ Get off My Cloud. I’d have loved to have been able to keep the scene for myself as I rode through the mists...
Biking Beauty I’ve been alternating between busy and broken over the past few days, resulting in fewer posts and less cycling, but still lucky enough to catch some tremendous snapshots of the bike like the ones here. Work has been proceeding at a furious pace as we have not replaced people who...
Garden of Weedin’ Spring has sprung (for today) at least, and the garden at Kangaeroo Corner looks resplendent thanks to early morning weeding, a mow and planting plenty of new plants. Weather helped, too, with delightful sunshine and warmth as the temperature topped 20 for the first time this year. I had planned...
Crikey! What’s Going On Here? Crikey, Kangaeroo.com is colder than ever before and I’ve got no explanation for what is happening. Let’s get one thing straight, first: Kangaeroo.com has never been hot! This website started in March 2010 together with a sister site (now defunct) called Yutairui.com, which had a record of attracting more than...
Be Careful What You Wish For… One of the highlights of Kangaeroo Corner is the Fountain of Strewth, which I placed with the hope of attracting birds to the garden, but the role has been served so well, I’m now drawn to the idiom used in the headline (which stems from a passage of Aesop’s fables...
Full Seed Ahead! Buoyed by the emergence of buds from everlasting daisies on Saturday and given the gift of desperation on late Sunday afternoon following a weekend of sloth, I planted the last of my seeds from Australia. With “budding” success from the humidity pods I have been using, I got enough confidence...
No Paws for Thought Kangaroo paws, the big success story of my Aussie seeds saga, and the one that most mattered to me, reached a new stage in their progress from propagation. Mrs. Kangaeroo noticed that they were crowding the large pot that I had planted them in, and if they weren’t moved they...
Sunflowers in the Rain Fortune smiled favorably on me this morning, too, as I got to ride out to a nearby sunflower field and get some awesome photos. There’s not much I can elaborate on, other than to say the field was a spectacular sight. There were lots of people around, even though the...
Beating Jobsworths with Luck Waking early gave Kangaeroo a slice of luck this morning, enabling a visit to Yakushiike Park in Machida before the jobsworths arrived there and booted him out for bringing his bike. The park is a delight, unbelievably located in the Tokyo suburbs. It has some spectacular wisteria growing on trellises,...
Strange Days, Indeed There have been better days than today, but this one is up there for peculiarity (in a minor sort of way). The morning ride was nice in spite of tiredness that became increasingly more obvious the more Kangaeroo rode. Not helping was having woken before 3 a.m. again and not...
Welcoming In Winter Like it or not, and I’m firmly in the “not” camp on this one, winter is here again, but I’ve been kind’ve happy to see how well Kangaeroo Corner has held up this year as the cold sets in. This year is the second year of our garden and for...
Fountain of Strewth Frozen Over! It’s a gloriously sunny morning today, but bloody freezing, as attested to by the Fountain of Strewth freezing over. Birds are coming to Kangaeroo Corner throughout the day every day at this time of year, largely to enjoy a drink or a bath from the Fountain of Strewth. I broke...
Mean and Green After a few months of being jealous of my neighbors for enabling their lawns to evade the effects of the blistering hot summer, I woke this morning to find myself transforming from being green with envy to being verdant with chlorophyll! Kangaeroo Corner’s lawn, which started May in a generally...
Bit of a Wasted Weekend Didn’t do a lot today. Except eat. And play with the bird. Turned out to be something of a wasted weekend. It wasn’t a total failure. Cleaned the house. And got the garden looking good. Including some shopping for new lights....
Bromocalypse, Now! As fate would have it, I got to ride my Brompton in a post-apocalyptic landscape over the weekend, making for some eerie-looking pics. It’s not the first time I have been able to ride through the area, but it was Brommie’s first chance to do so. Although the scenes appear...
Fat-Arsed Friend! Fortune blessed me with lots of wonderful reminders of how lucky I am yesterday, including through a fat-arsed addition to Kangaeroo Corner. We held a garden party for close friends and family, hoping to show off Kangaeroo Corner. A harsh summer, untimely rains and, I think, excessive intervention on my...
A Second Bite of Biwaichi 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...
Minding My Peas, and Queues In my Aussie plant grow from seed experiment, desert peas moved outdoors today, with more budding plants queueing to join them. Only three of 12 desert pea seeds germinated, but did so strongly. Nonetheless, having struggled with clumsiness when repotting everlastings last month, I was better prepared this time. By...
南天は難点…Or, Farewell Heavenly Bamboo! Kangaeroo Corner, our garden, is basically filled with Aussie native plants, but there were a few trees and plants there when we came to live here, and they have largely remained, including the nandina, also known as heavenly bamboo. Unfortunately, her presence in the garden proved far from heavenly. The...
Sounds to Trigger an Aussie Prompted by a Scottish mate’s post on Twitter about a tune that reminds him of his homeland, I got to thinking about the same kinds of songs that have an effect on me regarding Australia, my native country. While doing so, I realized there are probably a few shared by...
The Day of the Chicken Today, February 8, is The Day of the Chicken in Japan, according to the Japan Anniversary Association. The anniversary was chosen because of one phonetic reading for the date. In Japanese, phrasing today’s date would be 2月8日, which is literally the “second month and eighth day” if rendered in English....
Brommies More Than Just a Mere Bike Several years ago now, I was very fortunate to stumble into buying a Brompton folding bicycle that has fundamentally changed my life and continues to have countless unimaginable effects. I’d already shown signs of developing into an avid cyclist and was using a Dahon foldup bike to slice my then...
豪出身元祖「クール・ジャパン」支持者が訃報報道を否定　親日家として知られているオーストラリア出身でイギリスで活躍したクライブ・ジェームズ氏というユーモアリストが末期がん報道を25日付否定している。　ジェームズ氏は1939年オーストラリア、シドニーで生まれて1960年代の初め頃からイギリスでライター、ブロードキャスターなどさまざまな行動で大活躍した。　しかし、最も有名なところが恐らく1970年代から1990年代の頭頃の間イギリスを始め主に英国連邦内の英語圏日本のことを紹介したこと。日本にとって彼の重要な役割を理解できるため、当時の事情を振り返る必要がある。当時、日本の絶好景気か閉鎖市場や輸出黒字などを理由とした貿易摩擦時代の真最中だったので、日本及び日本人に対して「日本人が働き蜂」や「軍力で出来なかった経済力で世界を支配しようとしている」などのような反日的な批判や感情が強まるつつあったが、それに対してジェームズ氏が自身のテレビ番組で日本のテレビ番組を使って日本人を友好的に提供することにした。「ザ・ガマン」などの映像を使用して「日本人を小馬鹿にしている」という批判もあったが、「人間味」を感じさせる場面を披露し、世論の日本・日本人に対しての気持ちを肯定的な方向に導くように大きく貢献したと言える。ジェームズ氏が英語圏の元祖「クール・ジャパン」支持者と言っても過言ではない。　で、同氏が数年前から白血病となり、もう72歳となっているので、後は長くないということが思われている。そして、6月21日付の英デイリー・ミラー紙では「もうがんに負けた」と末期がん宣言のようなインタービュー記事が報道されて、英・豪を中心に心の準備が始まった。　しかし、25日付のオーストラリア各紙では自身筆の記事では「死ぬ寸前報道」を強く否認し、「まだ、まだ戦うぞ」と宣言した。　ジェームズ氏が自称「日本語喋る」上に日本に対して愛情を感じさせる文書などによって「親日家」及び「日本通」なので、もっと活躍を続けてほしい人が多いかもしれない。...
Sodden But Sublime, Pigging Out in Yokohama Rain continued throughout the weekend, barely stopping from the time it began on Friday afternoon. This made me miserable at a time when I was in the mood to celebrate, but the weekend turned out to be a ripper one anyway as we hit the streets of Yokohama. I’ve always...
No Wonder the Wallabies Were Wallies in RWC2019 Australia’s rugby team, the Wallabies, were ignominiously dumped from the 2019 Rugby World Cup that Japan is currently hosting (and being lauded for both its organization skills and the rousing performance of its unfancied team). The Wallabies lost badly to England in a quarter final, mostly because they were not...
Tour de Kagoshima-Kyoto Day 3: Ozu to Kurokawa Mount Aso threw everything it had a tour participants today including heavy rain, strong winds, great elevation, mist, clouds, cold, storms…and kangaroos. Kangaroos can be found grazing along the sides of Mount Aso. But thanks to a heavy cloud of mist, little could be found as the tour crossed the...
Some of the Cycling Camerawork that can be Expected These are the types of shots that I’ve been able to take of bikes....
Paws and Reflect Possibly the most meaningful part of my Australian seeds experiment arose today when I transplanted my kangaroo paw seedlings. The great experiment, which I expected would result in me proving to have a green thumb and presenting all my gardening mates with exotic plants has proven only that I am...
豪カンガルー島で動物園が激安販売中　南オーストラリア州カンガルー島にカンガルーかコアラやエミューなどオーストラリア独特な動物を中心に飼っているhttp://www.parndanawildlifepark.com/パーンダーナ・ワイルドライフ・パークが只今販売中、とnews.com.auが４日付報道した。　パークは、１００種類以上の動物が住み、面積が約20ヘクタールで僅か豪ドル595,000（約4779万円）で発売されている。　販売しているエルダーズ・リアル・エステートによる、販売価格が動物の他住宅、お土産屋、バーベーキュー・ゾーン、倉庫や車庫などを含める。 Want to buy a zoo? There’s one for sale on Kangaroo Island, South Australia...
Paws to Reflect Having been gifted with the precious opportunity to maintain a garden filled with Australian native plants, one of the highlights of a trip back Down Under last year was bringing back loads of seeds that I hoped to grow and plant. Most of the propagation worked, but once the seedlings...
若かりしジョニー・デップの珍しい豪訪問　今月また来日するハリウッド大スタージョニー・デップ氏がちょこちょこ日本に来ることにも関わらず、オーストラリアとあまり縁がない。 Hollywood heartthrob Johnny Depp is a regular visitor to Japan, and is due to return again later this month, but he hasn’t shown his face so often in Australia. 　初回オーストラリアに訪問したのが１９８８年「２１ジャンプ・ストリート」出演する時の同番組PR訪問。 His first visit Down Under was way back in 1988, when he made a whirlwind trip to promote 21...
There And Back Again: Oz 2022 Kangaeroo made it back to Oz for a while in 2022. The circumstances behind the trip weren’t the greatest. But the time spent Down Under was fruitful and poignant. Kangaeroo got to catch up with lots of childhood friends. And deeply explored the places that had played an enormous role...
Dekochari, Proud Member of Japan’s Itasha ‘Cringeworthy Cars’ Family Long past their heyday, even in English-language coverage, dekochari, decorated bicycles, continue to survive in miniscule numbers even in today’s Japan. Dekochari derived from the dekotora, decorated trucks, that became hugely popular throughout the archipelago in the 1970s on the back of the Torakku Yaro series of films, and which...
‘Single Men Only?’ – Early Japanese Migration to Oz 日本人の豪州への初期移民は「独身男性限定」？知られざる日豪関係のルーツ What You Didn’t Know about Australia-Japan Relations Japanese immigration to Australia in the 19th century differed to other parts of the Japanese diaspora. １９世紀、豪州への日本人移民は他の国での日本人移住と比べて少々違っていた。...
Apples, she’ll be/大丈夫 apples, she’ll be Australian English A common phrase meaning “everything will be all right.” No problem. No worries. Safe and sound. 日本語大丈夫。全然、心配いらない。ノープロブレム。 Plain English 1) No worries 2) No problem. Strine Dictionary...
Every Cloud Has a Sliver of Whining An unseasonably warm and dry late winter and early spring has given way to more customary wet, with really lousy weather since rain began early yesterday morning. Wet weather makes me whine, but I really shouldn’t because it was supposed to pour all day today, but I woke to warm...
Blessed By Wonderful People in 2023 Magnificent people made 2023 a much better year than I thought it was...
Watch Your Words! Many foreigners guffaw at the frequent mangling of English that some Japanese can achieve and there’re plenty of websites and the like dedicated to highlighting these flaws, but they should note that this can go both ways. Perhaps a tad of extra time and consultation could have gone into the...
Blowout! Even Fartilizer Couldn’t Help Well, strong winds have put paid to a lot of my experiment in growing seeds from Australian native plants, and even fartilizer couldn’t help. Gale-force winds daily for pretty much the past week made life tough for the little seedlings on the patio at Kangaeroo Corner. Watering, care, and even...
Tour of Japan’s Taste of Oz The Tour of Japan 2018 ended Sunday in Tokyo with Spaniard Marcos Garcia of the Kinan Racing Team claiming the general classification title. Slovenian Grega Bole of Bahrain-Meridatook the Blue Jersey for the points classification. Local hero Yuzuru Suzuki took the King of the Mountain crown riding for Utsunomiya Blitzen....
Fully Fern-Ished Garden Kangaeroo Corner has now got a fully fledged fern in place, with the amazing Alex Endo planting a dicksonia tree fern this morning. The fern went into the back entrance where the nandina had been. BEFORE Alex, who specializes in Aussie plants and creating gardens filled with Australian native plants...
Banking On Banksia Having caught the propagating bug last year, I’ve decided to try my hand at growing my own plants again in 2024, this time turning to the difficult proposition of raising banksias, the flower that most symbolizes Australian flora in my eyes. So far, my luck with banksias hasn’t been great,...
Lots. And Nothing All sorts of things have been happening, but also nothing at all. I hope that doesn’t seem too strange? The “all sorts of things” are just day-to-day events that keep me busy. And there was yet another clash with my boss, this time leading to her humiliation. I could have...
Glorious Greeting Waking early is never easy, especially as the nights get longer and the temperature cools. But nature sometimes does its best to reward those who drag themselves out from under the covers as the birds begin to sing. The photos here come from one of those times....
‘Sno Business Like Snow Business March in Tokyo always feels like a bit of a tease as expectations of immediate warming are invariably let down, which is a feeling probably stemming from childhood in southern Australia where there is a clear demarcation in the transition from summer to autumn. And today we got snow, albeit...
国内ヒットでも海外コケ豪映画の行方は？　1950年代世界を魅了して以降評価が下がれ影響も薄れた邦画同様、1970・1980年代で一時期一世風靡した豪映画も低迷している。 Just as Japanese cinema was globally renowned in the 1950s only to subsequently fall into decline, Australian movies lauded across the world in the 1970s and 1980s can now no longer make much of an impact outside of their homeland. 　国内市場が十分に邦画の存在を確保できるに対してオーストラリア国内だけでは商売にならない。今でも大ヒットしても数百万豪ドルの興業収益しか期待できないので、世界的にヒットするクロコダイル・ダンディ、マッド・マックスかムーラン・ルージュやハッピー・フィートなどのような大作以外オーストラリアの映画界がビジネスよりチャリティ見たいな存在だ。 Unlike the domestic Japanese market, however, which is...
F.R.O. 2022 As 2022 draws to a close, Kangaeroo will be glad to see the back of it. There was plenty to be grateful for: a happy marriage, closer relationships with children, excellent friends, a life filled with love, family reunions, delightful garden, a full year of employment, generally good health. For...
Calamity Free Ride! After several days featuring a series of stumbles, fumbles, bumps and bruises, it was fantastic to finally have an early morning ride that went without a calamity. Sort of. Riding La Cangura much slower and more cautiously than usual, the morning ride went without a hitch. There were many fears...
The Fountain of Strewth! Has Kangaeroo mentioned that he’s got a garden? And he loves it! Just in case he hasn’t, let me remind you again that Kangaeroo Corner is a little Aussie plants garden in comfy outer suburb of Tokyo. And playing a prominent role in that Aussie garden is the Fountain of...
Yakuza Battle! 多摩川での仁義なき戦い！ My normal morning ride was rudely interrupted today when I had to stop at a set of traffic lights I usually only use for reference because there were dozens of cops loitering there. Japanese authorities have a tendency to over-react, so even though there were at least 30 officers, several...
Beautifully Breaks the Tama River Morning Mornings can be hard to get up for, particularly in the cold and dark of winter. Yet, some things make it worth waking early for. Waking, then moving, can be a great way to start the day. It can get the body working and warmed up before the mind takes...
Marching Onward March draws to a close today, ending the first quarter of the calendar year for 2023 in what seems a stunningly speedy period. Time is, of course, relative. Each year, the relative amount of time each period occupies in our whole lives is shorter. So. it’s only natural that time...
Kangaroo Crank Continuing on from yesterday’s entry, there’s more Maruishi Cycle brilliance on show. Here is a bicycle crank featuring a kangaroo motif. This work is especially notable as it was done before World War II. Also note the kangaroo print on the pedal shaft. Pretty amazing bit of work, though the...
Satoyama For the past few years, I’ve been very fortunate to live adjacent to (and, more recently, nearby) a satoyama, a little strip of near-wilderness amid the hustle and bustle of suburban and metropolitan areas. Tokyo is the world’s largest city and it is densely populated. Much of the city is...
Sweltering! It’s boiling hot and the heat and humidity are energy sapping, but I still love summer in Tokyo. The heat means I can eat to my heart’s content and won’t gain too much weight, especially if I can continue cycling. I’m still able to ride at least twice a day...
Love The Way You Lie Kangaeroo got a much better day than expected today, Japan’s National Foundation Day but not a holiday because it fell on a Saturday. Waking, Your Humble Narrator (to borrow a turn of phrase from Anthony Burgess) was greeted by a winter wonderland from the previous day’s snowfall. There would be...
Kangaeroo Corner’s Critters! Courtesy of a great act of kindness, this post is the result of receiving a gifted camera. An old mate read my previous post and generously passed on a camera he had not been using. I took the camera out in the garden this morning and got to snap away....
Holmes, Sweet Holmes With Valentine’s Day focusing a spotlight on love (or at least a love of chocolate in Japan) and having gone to a movie theater to see a film for the first time in decades over the weekend, I got to thinking, which can often be a dangerous thing. Growing up...
Biwaichi Takes the Wind from Our Sails Having completed about two-thirds of a circumnavigation of Lake Biwa, Japan’s largest lake, the final day was supposed to be an easy jaunt to the train station and a comfortable ride home to Tokyo for the Kangaeroo crew. “Ha, ha,” laughed the devil. On paper, the last leg of the...
色々な意味で象徴的な豪の「羊風」Big Things 　イギリスが刑務植民地した1788年以降オーストラリアの存在に大きく関わって、壮大な貢献をしてきた羊。　羊毛でも羊肉でも、そして羊製品などが19世紀初代から現在に渡ってオーストラリアにとって重要な輸出物であり、国内では雇用や商売にかかせない存在だ。　人間一人に対して10匹以上もいる羊がオーストラリアがこの動物をどんなに頼るのかを示すだろう。　だとしたら、もう一つオーストラリアの象徴である形式で称えてもいいだろう？　もちろん、羊関係が「Big Things」の仲間に入っている。　実は、同じものを何回も祝っている場合もある。　たとえ、Big Merinoだ。　ニューサウスウェールズ州にあるゴールバーン市が地方都市であり、羊牧場などと歴史が長い。　オーストラリア初内陸都市とも言われているこのゴールバーン市。　メルボルンとシドニーを繋がるヒューム・ハイウェイに位置している。　同市の観光名所となっているBig Merinoがそこに置かれている。　恐らくオーストラリアの数多くある「Big Things」の中の有名なオブジェ一つと思う。　ここではお店やお土産屋などがある。　もう一つのBig Merinoもある。　これがクイーンズランド州のブラッコールという小さな町にある。　ブラッコールという町も同町のBig Merinoのいずれもゴールバーンに負けるがオージー英語ではこの小さな町が重要な役割を果たしている。　オーシー英語では、Beyond the black stump（黒い＜木などの＞株の彼方という意味）という表現がある。「はるかの奥地」を示す表現だ。　そして、元々の黒い株がこのブラッコールにあったという。（他の町にも同じことを言っている箇所が多数あるけどね、、、）。　ちなみに、Big Merinoのメリノが羊の種類であり、オーストラリアの羊産業で最も関係した種類だ。　ふたつのBig Merinoがあると同じように二つのBig Ramもある。　（ところで、ラム＜ram＞が「雄羊」という意味、ラム＜lamb＞（子羊）じゃない。）　まず、南オーストラリア州にあるカルーンダ町にBig Ramがある。　これが同地域が羊毛及び羊肉が盛んだから羊を称えようとして作られた「Big Things」だそう。　高さ2メートル位なので、それほどビッグではないよね。　間違いなくデカイRamは西オーストラリア州のBig Ramだ。　これがウェジンという町にあり、考えRooが以前に取り上げている。　また、ラム（雄羊）だけではない。　今回こそラム（子羊）を称える「Big Things」がある。　ニューサウスウェールズ州に一旦戻って、ガイラという町にたどり着く。　ここには子羊だけでなくじゃが芋を称える「Big Things」がある。　ガイラのBig Lambは子羊像であるが、その可愛いな子羊がじゃが芋の上に座っているような感じとなっている。...
Not Everything About Winter is Cruddy Winter sucks….for the most part. Winter is cold, dark and seemingly endless and colorless. For someone whose daily routine involves rising early and cycling, winter is not exactly the pleasantest time of year. And the cold mornings start from November and linger on until deeply into April at least, and...
Ideal Workday Weather Today is bleak. Weather is debilitating. It’s drizzling, bleak, wet and cold. Perfect for work … if you have to work indoors. (Not too good for those who earn a living outside, though) It’s too wet to ride, to do much outside to be honest, but not wet enough to...
Unrealistic Expectations I’d love to be able to create a bike naturally, and would even be willing to go to term with it inside a womb if need be. (I would need to get a womb first, of course). But it ain’t gonna happen. And like a lot in life, being able...
Cold, Wet and Dark Doesn’t get any more archetypically Monday than today….cold, wet, dark and bleak. Kangaeroo wasn’t too keen on getting out on the bike with a huge day ahead. But it was precisely because the day promises to be demanding that dragged him out in the end. Rain had been forecast, but...
Craving Procrastination, But Will Procrastinate Tomorrow Well, what a bloody awful rabbit hole to fall into. Today was supposed to involved delivering choccies to some cycling associates in Kawasaki. But getting up and about with half an hour or so free before Mrs. Kangaeroo was due to head off to work and hanging out with the...
Golden Girl La Cangura is the name of my bike, a beautiful gunmetal and gold-trimmed machine from Orbea, a manufacturer from Spain, hence the name (which means The Kangaroo in English). She looks delightful in among the canola, the yellow hues of the bike and the flowers a wonderful match. Just wish...
Tigers Trump Tenderfoots Richmond Football Club will contest the 2017 AFL Grand Final! The mighty Tigers triumphed over the Australian Football League’s newest team, the Western Sydney Giants, a talent-packed outfit created to boost revenue from TV broadcasts. Now, Richmond will play the rampaging Adelaide Crows to determine the Aussie Rules champion of...
Goings On It’s been a strange old start to the year, really, mainly because Kangaeroo is strange and old. Tokyo has been experiencing a mild winter. So far there has been no snow and daytime temperatures have been closer to what you’d expect in March than the opening month of the year....
Aussie Pair in Contention for one of Japan’s Top Talent Contests A pair of Gold Coast teens are among the finalists in the 13th Japan Bishojo Contest, a beauty and talent pageant for young women that has been the launching pad for some of Japan’s top female performers over the past 25 years. Aussie-born Gold Coast residents Ayano Wakayama and Runa...
Let There Be Light This morning I got an entire ride in the light for the first time this year. I still had lights on my bike, but they were the flashing type that enabled me to be seen instead of the high-lumen shiners that all me to see. It was lovely to be...
Bloody Beauty! Back on the Bike! After months of near inactivity, Kangaeroo was finally able to indulge regularly in the pursuit that brings probably the greatest pleasure in life: cycling! So far, 2022 has been a series of calamities in terms of cycling, starting with poor weather then moving on to poor equipment, poor health and...
The Strewth, the Whole Strewth and Nothing But the Strewth… Strewth, work and life are bloody busy at the moment, but I can’t let that stop me from looking after things, which resulted this week in a renovation to the Fountain of Strewth. It was nothing major, but I found wooden letters on sale in the local 100 yen shop...
Devil Laughs Nobody else but me is gonna understand just how ironic this post is (provided it even makes it onto the site) as I type it out in an MS Word file rather than directly into the blog as I would usually do. With a couple of extra hours available to...
Spring-Heeled Spring is such a delight in Japan. One reason for that is the blooming of cherry blossoms. For a week or so, much of the company is given a glorious pink carpet as the national flower blooms, transforming often bleak landscapes into spectacular vistas. Kangaeroo spent the weekend cycling Tokyo’s...
Sending a Message Alright, I hadn’t known this before, but when I arrived in Japan in the mid-1980s, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I stayed in Bunkyo-ku, not far from Gokokuji Temple. Unbeknown to me at the time, and not until today, in fact, right around the same time, Australia’s biggest band, and then...
RIP to a Ripper Bloke, Bob Hawke Australia’s last man of the people to become prime minister is no longer. Robert James Lee “Bob” Hawke died earlier this week, just two days before his beloved Australian Labor Party is expected to re-take office in the May 18 federal election following six years of misrule by an incompetent...