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 during the formative years.
Thanks to an enormously kind and helpful seller on gumtree, Kangaeroo also got to move around outer eastern Melbourne on a Malvern Star!
In many ways, the time spent in Australia was magical and Kangaeroo extends his deepest gratitude to all the friends, family, people, places, critters and creatures that made it that way (even the swooping magpies).
But there was also the realization of coming to a close.
It seems unlikely that Kangaeroo will ever return to his homeland again.
That was an understanding arrived at before heading Down Under, and proved to be a driving motivator to make the most of any opportunity to cherish Australia while there.
It’s fair to say that Kangaeroo pretty much fulfilled the role expected of him (except in his sister’s eyes), and had an extremely enjoyable stay in his homeland.
The third, and latest, version of Kangaeroo.com cycling kit has come off the production line and is ready to dazzle.
This year, for the first time ever, Kangaeroo.com cycling kit includes a vest and bib shorts.
The kit is a full supplement of spring-summer gear in a predominantly Aussie-wattle hue with gum-leaf green lettering.
The brighter gear reflects a shift to a new environment.
Kangaeroo.com cycling kit comprises a jersey, bib shorts and vest.
The jersey features the Kangaeroo.com thinking kangaroo logo on the front, rear and both sleeves.
The website title and URL also appear on the front, rear and sleeves.
The jersey base is wattle gold with gum leaf green lettering.
Kangaeroo.com jersey front
Meanwhile, the spring vest is an almost identical design, but has a larger logo and no lettering on the front.
And the bib shorts are black with wattle gold side panels containing the Kangaeroo.com logo and website URL in English on the right leg and Japanese on the left leg.
Kangaeroo.com kit first appeared in 2017 with a white jersey, black sleeves and an embroidery patch kangaroo on the left sleeve.
A second version of the kit came out two years later, this time entirely black.
Both kits featured the website title in Japanese and English, the URL and the thinking kangaroo logo on the front and rear of the shirts.
Kangaeroo is a portmanteau of the Japanese word kangaeru, to think, and ‘roo, an abbreviation of kangaroo, Australia’s national animal and a symbol of the country.
Kangaeroo.com jersey frontKangaeroo.com jersey frontKangaeroo.com jersey rearFull Kangaeroo.com kitKangaeroo.com bib shortsKangaeroo.com vestKangaeroo.com kit 2019Kangaeroo.com kit 2017
How the now defunct Daily Yomiuri reported on Australian politics in Japan in 1991.
Kangaeroo has lived in Japan since the late ’80s, just as the Showa Era (reign of Emperor Hirohito from 1926-1989) drew to a close.
Japan back then had possibly an even stronger fascination with English than it does even today, especially as it was far less accessible in a slower, less connected world.
But English and overseas meant America and Japan had an obsession for the United States. Occasionally, news would filter through from other powers, such as then recently reunited Germany, France, Italy, Britain and the crumbling Soviet Union and Russia.
It was rare, pretty close to unheard of, really, for Australia to attract much attention in a Japan then apparently poised to overcome the U.S. as the world’s leading economy.
So unheard of, actually, that when Oz did make news, it was enough for Kangaeroo to grab a copy of the English paper from a kiosk at Shibuya Station. And keep it for more than 30 years!
Paul Keating had just successfully challenged Bob Hawke as prime minister and took over leadership of a country in a deep recession. Here’s how the Daily Yomiuri reported the matter in its lead story for the December 20, 1991 edition.
Paul Keating New Premier Of Australia
SYDNEY (AP) – Australian Prime Minister Bow Hawke’s record eight-year reign ended Thursday when he was deposed by his former deputy, Paul Keating, in a Labor Party coup.
Keating’s victory was the culmination of two years of bitter rivalry between Australia’s two most powerful and charismatic politicians.
Hawke, whose standing with the public and fellow party members had tumbled along with the economy, called a special meeting of the Labor Party’s 110-member parliamentary caucus to decide the leadership issue which has split the party and divided the nation.
In a procedural move preceding a planned confidence vote, Hawke resigned and offered himself for reelection. Keating, who quit as treasurer when he failed in his first challenge on June 3, won the secret ballot 56-51. Three party members were not able to attend.
“It’s a very humbling experience, and I feel the poignancy of the moment,” Keating said as he emerged from the caucus room.
“The thing the government must do is get coinfidence in Australia going again…confidence of the people and confidence in the business community,” Keating told reporters later.
For his part, Hawke seemed on the verge of tears at a news conference but also joked with reporters. “I fought the good fight. The fight is over,” Hawke said.
“If this was 11 years ago, I’d be getting pretty thoroughly drunk,” the former world champion beer drinker-turned-teetotaler said when asked what his immediate plans were.
“I leave the prime ministership proud of my accomplishments. The Australia of 1991 is a profoundly better place than the one in 1983 that I inherited…more tolerant, more compassionate, more competitive.”
Hawke congratulated Keating and vowed to support him.
Keating launched his bid for leadership claiming Hawke had promised to stand down as prime minister after the election in March 1990.
Keating (left), meeting with then Emperor Akihito during a meeting at the Imperial Palace in September 1992.
That would have given Keating enough time to settle in before leading the party into the next parliamentary election, which legally must be held by 1993. The party winning the most seats also win’s the prime minister’s seat, with the party leader becoming the prime minister.
Among Keating’s first duties will be to host U.S. President George Bush’s visit to Australia on Dec. 31-Jan. 3. He also faces the daunting task of healing the deep wounds that Labor has suffered from the leadership struggle.
Calls for more forceful leadership have become increasingly strident as the economy wallows in recession. Figures released last week showed that unemployment climbed to 10.5 percent in November, the highest since World War II.
The Labor Party, already suffering from sinking popularity, has fallen further behind in the polls in the weeks since the opposition coalition announced plans for a major revamp of the tax system.
Hawke recently fell behind opposition leader John Hewson for the first time in opinion polls. The man who once boasted a 75 percent approval rate has seen it plunge to around 25 percent.
The party has badly missed the 47-year-old Keating in a Cabinet role. While viewed as somewhat cold and sometimes brutal to antagonistic questioners, his uncompromising and forthright style as treasurer won respect from the international finance community.
The leadership issue has been simmering since Keating’s first challenge on June 3 and came to a head last Thursday when a group of six Cabinet ministers, all strong supporters of Hawke, met with their leader to suggest he quit.
Keating (left) meeting with then Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama during a visit to Japan in 1995
Keating would go on to lead Australia for the next five years, including an election win that was totally unexpected and increased Labor’s majority in 1993. He became a strong advocate of Australia fostering closer relations with Asian nations, including Japan, and remains so to this day. Keating lost the prime ministership to John Howard in 1996 and Australia would lurch strongly to the right and cling ever closer to the Anglosphere in a trend that remains pretty much unabated to this day. Keating’s pro-Asian stance would also usher in the racist Pauline Hanson, a polarizing figure and apparent far-right extremist when she emerged on the scene as a member of the Liberal Party in the mid-1990s, her views as leader of her own party, One Nation, are now regarded as almost mainstream. Indeed, Mark Latham, a former Labor Party leader once strongly likened to Keating, has become her closest and most outspoken political ally. Howard was strongly criticized as prime minister when he refused to condemn Hanson’s racism.
Hawke and Keating would patch up their differences and resume their strong friendship, which held until Hawke died in 2019. The recession that ended Hawke’s leadership and led to the Keating era was over the quarter the news reported above. Australia’s economic growth would continue uninterrupted for over 110 quarters until the pandemic hit.
Japan and Australia have since 1991 built an extremely strong relationship that it becoming even closer as the two countries deal with the looming threat of China.
Nonetheless, news of Australia remains a rarity in Japan, largely relating the annual bushfire season and occasionally a prime ministerial or sporting visit. But Australia is an undisputedly more significant presence in the Japan of 2022 than it had been in 1991.
Befitting the world’s largest city’s proclivity for being destroyed – and saved – over and again on almost countless occasions over the past several decades, Godzilla is an almost ubiquitous presence in Tokyo.
Godzilla can be found roaming in several parts of Tokyo, from the leafy suburbs of Denenchofu right in the central hub areas of Shinjuku, where he peers over the Kabukicho entertainment district, to the posh shopping area of Hibiya.
Inspired by Tokyo Time Out’s feature from last summer on the 10 monsters you’ll meet in Tokyo, Kangaeroo finally got on the bike and headed out to check out the creepy colossuses dotting Tokyo’s streets and parks.
Godzilla is probably the quintessential Japanese monster, so gets first write-up. Godzilla statues can be found in many areas associated with Toho, the film studio that first gave birth to the creature.
Toho Studios has a huge mural and a statue dedicated to its most famous monster. Godzilla also looms over cinemas in central Tokyo.
Godzilla in Hibiya
Hibiya’s Godzilla viewed from a safe spot
Godzilla looms over Kabukicho
Godzilla has a long-term rival in King Kong, dating back to the early 1960s in Japan, and also prominent in Hollywood. Although not specified as such, considering the enormity of the beast, it’s little surprise that the gigantic ape also occupies a prime position in Tokyo’s annals of monsters.
King Kong-like giant apes can be found along Setagaya-dori, an arterial road leading into central Tokyo from the western suburbs.
Setagaya-dori’s gorilllas
The first Kong adorns a glasses store. There are actually two gorillas, one with a headband, holding a lovebug and sucking on a cigar, and the other an apparent offspring bearing a flag urging road users to drive safely, somewhat ironic considering how much of a distraction it is on the busy road.
The next great ape is a few kilometers further down the same road in Sangenjaya, a mini-hub from the suburbs on the road into the Tokyo sub-center of Shibuya and meeting point for Route 246, a prime road in Tokyo that also heads out of the capital toward Odawara, Hakone and Mount Fuji.
Sangenjaya’s great gorilla sits atop a convenience store in a bustling shopping street leading off the main route. It holds a a woman in its hands and a smaller gorilla also adorns the entry to the building.
Sangenjaya gorilla
The reason for the existence of these gorillas has apparently been lost in the annals of time. They appear to be a relic of Japan’s booming postwar decades when there was money to throw around on advertising that would stand out from the crowd. There are “gorilla buildings” across Japan, and not just these examples from Tokyo.
Speaking of throwing money around, few do so better than Roppongi Hills, a center of wealth in Tokyo, and home to some monsters (including Goldman-Sachs, possibly one of the most hideous monsters of all). Maman is a spider-like sculpture on permanent display, while coincidentally there is currently also an array of pocket monsters on show.
Huge spider at Roppongi HillsPocket MonstersRoppongi Hills’ (non-banking) monsters
Other monsters on the trip were in somewhat nondescript parks.
Tire Park in Ota-ku in the southern part of Tokyo has a collection of huge monsters made from tires. The monsters include dinosaurs and a robot.
Tire Park in Ota-ku
Finally, not far from the ancient temple of Jindaiji, there’s a small park in Chofu dedicated to the animation of Shigeru Mizuki’s famous Gegege no Kitaro, a delightful story of spirit monsters. The film version was produced in Chofu and allegedly set in the area, and the city responded by creating the park, which is hugely popular among the young, and the young at heart.
All in all, the Tokyo Monster Ride was a fabulous trip, and could be even more enjoyable if taken along back roads on bike paths instead of the sometimes hairy routes that Kangaeroo rode.
Would love to go around in milder weather. Moreover, there are still plenty of other monsters to find, in addition to live-sized robots and all sorts of kitsch culture in Tokyo. Warmer months could be fun.
This week, Kangaeroo was granted the dubious pleasure of eating a glazed donut hamburger.
The photo deserves to be listed as full size to stand as testimony to its likelihood of clogging arteries, even among those who haven’t eaten it.
This was the Luther Burger, which sells for an equally artery-clutching 1,600 yen. Days after eating it and it is still hard to tell whether it was worth it.
Another serving was a burger dripping with melted cheese, also for 1,600 yen.
Kangaeroo and a mate bought one eat, cut ’em in half and share the dishes.
Kangaeroo also washed down the burgers with a delightful chocolate and banana milkshake.
Crane in Sotokanda, Tokyo, served the dishes. It’s well worth a visit to the restaurant even if only to gorge on the decadence of southern American cuisine (?).
Staff at the restaurant were kind, welcoming, friendly and helpful. Most importantly, perhaps, they were flexible, allowing us to split meals and helping set up photo shoots.
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 fully rule out any activities under the skies.
This kind of weather does my head in.
Kangaeroo has also just switched employers, so there is a massive amount of stress and the fear of the unknown.
Transition is not moving altogether smoothly, either.
One bonus of not being able to ride was getting to take a walk.
And Kangaeroo is fortunate enough to be able to live in a neighborhood.
The area is remarkably beautiful and relatively untouched considering its proximity to central Tokyo and the suburban sprawl of the world’s largest city.
Add to that the new greenery and the rain, and it made for an outstanding stroll.
It won’t last much longer, but it is certainly enjoyable while it lasts.
