The fat man dances

If you need an honest opinion about whether you've put on weight, Japanese people will deliver every time.

Take for example my recent return to dance practice in Tokushima. I turn up to Tensui-ren's practice at the local temple carpark one balmy evening last month, and the first thing out of the mouths of most people in the group was, "Dave, did you put on weight?!"

Some people softened the blow with the follow-up comment "Shiawase-na futori ya na" - which equates to the fattening of a happily married man, and is probably on the money. One or two thought I looked a little bigger and stronger, a bit like my very solidly built brother (who they've met), which sounds much better than "fatter". Everyone was kind enough to otherwise seem happy to see me again.

So I could only accept the comments with grace. And get on with dancing to whip my long disused muscles back into shape and try to shake those love handles.

I only had a week or so of actual practice to get into some sort of dancing shape before it was time to don the yukata in earnest. But my first performance was not in Tokushima, the veritable Mecca of Awa Odori. Instead it was at another festival half way across the country on the tsunami-devastated north-eastern coast.

Joining a bunch of dancers and dongers from a variety of different groups, I jetted, bussed and bullet trained my way to Sendai city, about 3 hours train ride north of Tokyo. Sendai is a scant hundred kilometres from Fukushima's nuclear disaster zone. The image of Sendai's airport being inundated and planes being washed away was one of the first I can recall seeing when news of the tsunami flitted around the globe back in March. Nearly five months later, we were heading to this busy town of over a million people to lift some spirits and spread a little happiness, Awa Odori style.

Straight off the train, we danced in the street in front of our hotel, then jumped on another bus to visit a kasetsu juutaku, temporary housing for people who lost their own homes. We danced at a couple of such places, amidst rows and rows of demountable buildings set up in camps on sports grounds or old school sites. The families living there seemed grateful to see us, and I think we duly managed to bring a little joy into their difficult lives.

The next day we danced in the festival proper, Sendai's famous Tanabata Matsuri. If I wasn't in dancing shape before I arrived, dancing in the heat of the day on stage and down a 170m arcade was bound to do the trick. The locals were generally unfamiliar with Awa Odori, but I think that just made them more appreciative. We all had a good time and personally I got a lot out of the experience of being on tour with people who live and breathe Awa Odori.

But of course we couldn't visit a place like Sendai without going to see the after effects of the tsunami, the literal ground zero. Doing it taxi style meant we had the driver's local perspective on what happened. The bulk of the wave was stopped by a built-up section of highway a kilometre or two in from the shore. On the inland side, there was a bit of garbage and the occasional derelict car, but buildings were generally intact. On the seaward side, there wasn't much left.

More piles of garbage, more random car wrecks. Concrete foundations of buildings, occasionally the actual shell of a house or gas stand. Plots that might have been rice fields now ruined and empty. In the distance, near the sea, a mountain with cranes moving around on it, which we were told is actually a mountain of rubbish that is simply being pushed together in one place so it can be dealt with. We couldn't go near it because roads are still closed in some areas that are considered too dangerous to access or are being protected from looting. Five months later, forget about rebuilding, they are still cleaning up. It's hard to comprehend how all that used to be standing in that place was washed away. And hard not to fearfully realise as you're driving along that you are driving on roads that were under six metres of churning ocean a scant few months ago. Fortunately the joy of dancing was close at hand to chase away these fleeting nightmares.

No sooner were we on the train back home than our exploits could already be found on YouTube. Sign of the times! The comment below this first one describes the cameraman's surprise when a big foreigner appeared dancing down the arcade - the repeat frames of me reinforce the impact, I guess!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyU4BpZWhaw

This second one is of our stage performance. I didn't even notice during the performance that one of our girls hit the deck. Full credit to her, she got back up, turned on the smile and carried on!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdbkh_06F8U

And here's two more for good measure:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0aObE7bf4U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZMnc0expPw

While we're at it, see if you can find me in these videos from the main festival in Tokushima:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeMtcbJy6c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPh4OmiByiM

Of course, I couldn't spend a month of summer in Japan without hitting the river for a good time with the crew at Happy Raft. After a couple of typhoons and plenty of rain in June, the Yoshino River had just come down to a nice level again by the time we arrived. Between dance practice, the festival and the recovery, I managed to head out west twice, both times jumping in a little boat by myself to cruise down the small rapids on the upper stretch of the river. The second time down I got to test out "mini-me", a 2-man raft the same shape as the big boats, rounder than the long inflatable kayak that is the usual for a 1-man paddle. I'll tell you, it's not easy to get a raft down the river by yourself with a single-bladed paddle, but it was a fun time!

In total I danced 2 days in Sendai, 1 in Naruto, and 3-and-a-bit in Tokushima city. We also headed out to Ikeda to watch the last day of dancing out west and see if any old friends from Minoda-ren and the valley were still around. Sure enough, quite a few familiar faces. It was all good baby!

Speaking of babies, I wasn't the only chubby foreigner dancing on the streets of Tokushima this year. Our 13-month old boy Ryo took to it with a passion, too. Whenever the sound of ringing gongs and beating drums (or even a spoon clinking on a glass!) wafted past Ryo's ears, both arms went up into the air and he started bouncing on his little legs before running off in search of the nearest group of dancers to invade. He loves it and it's a source of great joy for Masumi and I to see him in action. Now the only problem is whether he ends up dancing with Masumi's group Uzuki-ren or with my Tensui-ren!

Also speaking of babies, we spent a lot of our time in Japan meeting up with friends and family to tell them some good news - baby number two is on the way! We don't know whether it's a boy or a girl yet, but Masumi is due to give birth some time in January. Watch this space!

Adding to the excitement, and also to the pressure, is the fact that work on our new house has just started this week. The thin layer of grass and soil has been stripped away, leaving only dirt that has been pounded hard and flat. Next up should be drainage and a concrete slab. Then it's the race to get it done by Christmas - otherwise, it'll be the wet season, and the black hole of holidays into the New Year, and the baby will be due... there's some kinds of mayhem I'd rather avoid!

Fortunately, my work as a public servant shouldn't contribute to the mayhem, especially now that I've secured a permanent full-time position here in Cairns. The last six months or so have been a flurry of applications and interviews for positions in Canberra, and subsequent negotiations to be outposted in Cairns. Finally, the NAQS program decided that an in-house capacity to manage data and IT issues was necessary on an ongoing basis. I interviewed for the position by phone from Japan, in the midst of our holiday, and must have done enough to convince the panel that I'm the man for the job.

So with a new house, new baby and new job, it looks like we're set for being in Cairns for a year or two yet. If we can set ourselves up to visit Japan for a month or two each northern summer, we'll be living the dream.

While we were away, Masumi and I celebrated two years since our wedding and three years of legal marriage. We also received some great news - Masumi has earned her permanent residency in Australia. The saga that started with Masumi getting booted out of the country is finally, really and truly, at an end. We don't even get a second look from immigration officers at the border these days. It's no small relief to know that we can now just focus on getting on with our lives together.

The final thing I noted between all the fun of Tokushima's festival season was that it has been exactly ten years since I first set foot on Shikoku. A decade since I first took the long, spectacular drive out to Iya; took my first clumsy dancing steps with Arasowa-ren under the bright lights of Aibahama; took the steep hike up to the Amagoi waterfall with all my fellow JETs in Kamiyama; and first started to write this blog. It really hit home for me when Masumi, Ryo and I hiked up to Amagoi with some friends the day before we were due to fly out.

It's a little bit spiritual up at the top of the main waterfall there. I couldn't help but spend a moment thinking about all the wonders of my time in Japan and how my life has changed since 2001. I whispered a few words of thanks to any of the spirits who might have been listening before we hiked back down. It started to rain just as we got to the bottom - which I like to think was an appropriate answer from a waterfall named “rain dance”.

Thanks, Japan, it's been good. 'Til next time, love,

Dave

Catalyst

Chess brought me to Cairns.

Before choosing to move to the tropical far north, I already had half a mind to spend a summer in Cairns rafting the Barron and the Tully, after which I'd go back to Japan for more of that on the Yoshino River. And I knew there was a small Japanese community in Cairns, which made it a little more attractive.

But chess was the clincher. The catalyst. Without my little chess business, I may never have come to Cairns, and... well, who knows where we'd all be now.

The actual now is a bit different to the nows I had imagined back in 2006. Husband. Father. Public servant. Mortgagee. I don't remember any of those being high on my list. But there they are and I wouldn't have it any other way. Largely thanks to chess.

Well, I guess I would happily exchange the mortgage for outright ownership of our soon-to-be house. Nevertheless, since buying a block of land out at Redlynch back in November and proceeding down the road to building a house, we've had a great time learning the ropes of investing in a place to call our own. All going well, earth will be turned and concrete poured by the end of June.

Which brings me back to chess, because the end of the financial year will not only see our house starting. It will also see my chess business finishing.

It's not in a state of financial crisis - after all, once you've bought a few chess boards and other bits and pieces, it doesn't cost very much to maintain a chess coaching business. It does, however, take a good deal of effort and dedication, like any small business, and it has the added challenge of requiring someone who can play chess and teach children. Harder to find than you might think! I used to be able to do it all myself, but I'm not able to commit the needed time to it any more, especially now that I have a family and a full-time career with quarantine. So it's time to move on. Thanks, chess, it's been good.

It's no small part of this decision that my work with quarantine is getting busier. My days as a part-timer on the shift team at Cairns Airport are almost a distant memory. I've been working full-time with the Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy for 18 months now. In that time, the exposure I've gained to broad biosecurity issues and projects has led to an opportunity to join a national team dealing with biosecurity information management. I'll be taking up this new position as of July.

It doesn't mean we have to move to Canberra, thankfully. That'd be a bit chilly at this time of year, not to mention putting a bit of a dampener on our plans to build a house. I'll be working from Cairns for the foreseeable future. Still, the pull of Canberra might one day prove to be an irresistible force.

There are worse places than Canberra to raise a family. I've only been there a couple of times, but I like it, it's a beautiful city. It is, however, about 3000km further away from Japan than Cairns. And it's a very expensive place to live, thanks to all those highly paid public servants. And it's cold. Brrrrr. Give me the endless summer any day!

Speaking of summer, we'll be leaving this not-quite-winter for the northern summer in August. Which is, of course, dancing and rafting season in the land of sudachis, whirlpools and dancing fools. Our boy Ryo will get his first real taste of Awa Odori. And it'll be my first dance down the streets of Tokushima since our wedding two years ago. Yep, it's going to be a cracker. I hope yours is, too.

Love,

Dave

Truth and understanding

They tell you it changes everything.

But you can't comprehend it until your child's first cry shatters whatever life you lived until then and calls you onwards to the life you have now.

It was twenty-eight minutes past nine in the morning when our little son made his mark on our lives with the official start of his own. He weighed in at 3545 grams, or 7 pounds 8 ounces in the old scale, and was 51cm long. A well formed, breathing, beautiful baby boy. And a mum, my darling wife Masumi, who was still with us after 2 days of pain and all that incredible pushing. She was magnificent. And me, relieved and amazed. All of us changed.

After we'd recovered a little from the emotion of the day, that afternoon we named him Ryo Simon. Simon after my father. Ryo as a good, solid Japanese boy's name. The character we've chosen for his name means "truth" or "understanding". We hope he'll come to seek and find both. And without realising it at the time we named him, I think those meanings rang true because we found a little of both ourselves with his birth.

The days have blurred since July. 16 weeks on, Ryo is about 8-and-a-half kilos and wearing clothes that usually fit a 12-month-old child. He's well on his way to becoming a sumo!

There's not much else to report from paradise. I guess that's the nature of becoming a parent, it's all about the kids from now on. I go to work and come home. We play and bath and feed and change our boy, catch an hour or two of time to ourselves in the evening, and do it all again the next day. But there's nothing wrong with white picket fences. It's just surprising, in some ways, to find myself actually there.

But there's plenty to look forward to. We're just about to settle on our first major purchase, a block of land here in Cairns. It's hard to say whether we'll get the chance to build on it - if we stay in Cairns for another year or two, then I'm sure we will. Dreaming about building is certainly lots of fun and a learning process. And there's no doubt that owning a house in Cairns is cheaper than buying one in the big city!

Otherwise it's Christmas with the family, Awa Odori next northern summer, whatever family time we can grab in between, and the ongoing adventure that is parenthood and life with our son.

The last couple of years it looks like I've averaged two, maybe three posts per year. Not quite the output that I had in Japan! I'll try not to let it drop any further!

Lots of love,

Dave

Who's your daddy?

Explaining Easter is harder than you'd think. And there's nothing like needing to explain Easter to Japanese adults to remind you of just how different some layers of Japanese culture are to our own. Of course, it all boils down to Jesus, a long weekend and chocolate. For Masumi and I it also meant a well-timed week in Japan, possibly our last in a while.

What, a whole week? Yes, cue the conversation about how we get (and use) great holidays in Australia, whereas virtually no one would consider even asking for (let alone expecting) a whole week off work in Japan. Insert collective sigh of disbelief and game show buzzers!

But I digress. And for all the little differences, being back in Tokushima for a week was very familiar. There was dancing, rafting, sushi and shopping. We managed to catch up with just about everyone and generally have a good time, all in the midst of a beautiful cherry blossom season. The last time I'd done some hanami, Michael was touring Japan with me before I joined Happy Raft.

We'd have saved the journey for August and dancing season, but we're expecting to be a little busy this northern summer. You see, my beautiful wife is quite pregnant now. She's carried it very smoothly through the tropical summer and we're expecting to welcome a baby boy into the world in July. That's right, folks, I'm going to be a daddy!

Are we sure it's a boy? Pretty sure, so far as these things go, but you never know. In fact, I guess we were more sure before we went to Japan. The ultrasound in February seemed to be quite definitive. Last week we visited a temple in Tokushima to receive a blessing for a safe delivery. The timing was important - Masumi tells me that dogs are believed to have a positive influence over pregnancy and birth, and so the position of the dog in the Chinese astrological calendar influences which day people like to receive this blessing. Anyway, some of the paraphernalia that we get as part of that blessing is supposed to indicate the sex of the child, and apparently it's predicting a girl! Stay tuned to see whether technology or tradition will triumph!

What are we going to name him? We've got a list of candidate names that we'll take with us on the big day. They're separated into English and Japanese names. We're leaning towards a Japanese first name and English middle name. Having a long, double-barrelled surname like mine complicates things a little, as does the issue of pronouncing the names properly on both sides of the equator. Some candidates at the moment are Kousuke, Makoto, Ryou, Simon and Benjamin. Suffice to say that we'll have a reserve list of girl's names, just in case!

And just for the record, we're having the baby here in Cairns. Which is a great excuse for Masumi's mum to visit in July to help out. We'll miss the dancing in August, but we're already looking ahead to the next Obon season, where we'll be able to give our little boy his first taste of Awa Odori!

The joy in the Cooper household isn't confined to Cairns this year. As you can see from two photos on this page, we already have two new additions to the extended family. Masumi's eldest brother and his wife welcomed their third child and first daughter Aoi into the world in early March. I got some good practice in with her! Not far behind was my own brother Michael and his wife Lisa, with the first little Cooper of that generation, their baby girl Madison Rose. So cute! It's possible that our son could go to school in Australia with Madison, and maybe then in Japan with Aoi. Little ways to go before that comes about, of course! Suffice it to say that Mum and Dad are pretty happy to be made grandparents twice over in 4 months, and we're all full of the joys of growing families!

I'm still with quarantine, though I don't open bags at the moment, I'm doing some database work instead. I still play and coach chess. My kayak lies largely dormant... I might get a new paddle to encourage myself to get back out there. But the baby is the story of the year. Other than news of impending parenthood, there's really not much else to report from paradise. By the time I next get to writing, all the rest may well have changed, and I'm sure nothing will ever be the same again!

Lots of love,

Dave

Marriage and mayhem

Well, what a year it's been. At least, looking back at where Masumi and I were at this time last year, it feels like we've crossed a stormy sea, climbed a mountain or two, and finally found ourselves in some sort of paradise. All's well that ends well and this past 2 months really has been fantastic.

Life in Cairns for us has been pretty simple since we were reunited and allowed back into the country in February. I run my chess business and work on shift at the airport. Masumi has been studying hard to gain an Australian child care qualification and improve her English. The rest was just a matter of enjoying life in tropical Queensland and preparing for our summer in Japan and our wedding.

So I took two months purchased leave from work - you could never take that sort of leave as a public servant in Japan! We arrived in Japan halfway through July, straight into summer, straight into the height of dancing season, just catching the tail of the monsoon. We had nearly 4 weeks before the wedding day, but there was precious little time to relax. Meetings with planners, choosing flowers, shopping for gifts, preparing program booklets and name cards, and writing and translating speeches... it was a proper wedding, in every sense!

Most of our evenings were claimed by Awa Odori practice. We had to travel 30 minutes each way to the city for the dancing, and being in different groups with different venues added another dimension to the effort we had to make, but we're both committed dancing fools and we wouldn't have it any other way! Of course, we also had lots of friends to catch up with along the way, and we got some rafting in, too. It was a busy month!

As the wedding drew near, Masumi was under strict instructions to stay out of the sun, avoid any potential injuries, and get lots of beauty sleep. Everything came together in the last week, but it only really hit home that we were having a wedding when my family and friends arrived from Australia. They all turned up in Tokushima the day before. We had a brief couple of hours to spare to help them settle and grab a meal together before Masumi and I were off to dance again. The next time we saw each other was in our full wedding dress.

Choosing a date for our wedding involved a couple of considerations. Firstly, we wanted to have the wedding around the Obon holiday, so that we could dance and have my family experience the full Awa Odori festival. Summer is also a slightly less expensive time to host a wedding in Japan, the prime seasons being spring and autumn. A Saturday was best for people who might otherwise have work commitments or who have to travel. Furthermore, Masumi checked a Chinese astrological calendar to see which days in August were auspicious days of good fortune. Luckily, there was a day that fit the bill on all fronts, Saturday August 8.

A typhoon scooting around off the south coast of Japan was threatening to bring rain to Shikoku for a couple of days before our wedding, but the forecast bad weather never seemed to eventuate. Our wedding day dawned bright and beautiful, and we turned up at our venue the Kashino Club in the afternoon to start getting all dressed up.

It all kicked off with our families being formally introduced prior to the actual wedding ceremony. Masumi had some 27 relatives in attendance. My side was just Mum, Dad, Michael and his wife Lisa - a bit of a difference! I made up for that with a good number of friends, but it was certainly an interesting start to proceedings. It was also the actual first time our immediate families had ever met! To their credit, everyone dealt with it really well and both families got along just fine, language barrier and all, for the whole week.

Our ceremony was held indoors, in traditional dress with a semi-traditional style. We took elements from the very traditional "shinzenshiki", a Shinto ceremony which only involves family, but essentially went with a "jinzenshiki" style of wedding, so that we could involve all our friends and keep the atmosphere a little lighter and more personal.

Once we got properly underway, the rest of the evening disappeared in a blur of speeches, toasts, photos, dress changes, laughter and tears, and of course eating and drinking. Some highlights:

• Seeing my best mate Ben in a suit - unbelievable!
• The good weather was a special blessing, because it meant that we could be treated to an Awa Odori performance out in the garden. Having top groups like Tensui-ren and Uzuki-ren BOTH performing at our wedding was a special privilege and a wonderful spectacle.
• Michael and Lisa received a surprise gift to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.
• Masumi scooped out a massive chunk of wedding cake for me, but I somehow managed to get it all down in one mouthful!
• The dessert buffet was magnificent, and topped off with fireworks!

The evening went really well and everyone seemed to have had a good time. I'll let the photos say the rest!

After the reception, we kicked onto the nijikai, the after-party, where Masumi's friends made a great effort to show us a good time and make us feel even more special. And for good measure, we backed up for a couple more drinks at the third party before retiring to our hotel for the night. It wasn't until we woke up and checked out that we realised just how fortunate our timing of the wedding had been. Our plans to travel out west and go rafting with my family and friends were scuttled by torrential rain, so much rain that the highways were closed and the mighty Yoshino River had risen well above safe rafting limits. We turned around, found a good onsen, and spent the rest of the day relaxing - just what we all needed, really!

We had a spare day to do a bit of sightseeing before the dancing festival started in earnest. So we headed out to Naruto to see the whirlpools, did a bit of Aizome indigo dyeing, and visited temple number one on the pilgrimage route of 88 temples. There was talk of some of the boys coming back one day to do the pilgrimage, but I'm not holding my breath! On the Monday night, our two families got together again for some proper bonding time over good izakaya food and many drinks. It topped off a great wedding weekend.

But really we were just getting warmed up. The rain disappeared by the time Tokushima city's dance festival kicked off on August 11 with the massive Awa Odori stage performance ZENYASAI. I was performing, which claimed my whole day, but Masumi and our support team showed up to enjoy the first of three stagings. Then the street festival proper got underway on the 12th. Masumi and I were busy dancing, but we managed to catch up with our crew at various places around town over the next two days. My brother scored himself some time dancing with my group Tensui-ren - fully decked out in our dancing gear, he really looked the part. I think the scale of the festival took all our guests by surprise. They knew I was into the dancing, but had never been able to appreciate the atmosphere of Tokushima until they experienced it for themselves. I was just glad that they could finally see what I'd been raving about all these years.

Masumi and I took the day off on the 14th to see our friends and family off. We'd shared a hectic, wonderful week with them. My family were off to Kyoto for some more sightseeing. Frank and Markus headed off to climb Fuji. Everyone else was on their way home. That evening was the Toyosaki family's annual barbecue. I ended up drinking more that night than I had the whole week! I guess after such a busy few days that I needed a few drinks!

My head was a little sore the next day, the last day of Awa Odori, but my feet certainly appreciated the break. We got stuck in for the final day of the festival and backed up with more drinks at the end of the night. Waking up on the Sunday, we had time for a quick trip out west to catch up with some friends and see the last of the Awa Odori in Ikeda, but then we had to get busy cleaning up after the wedding and packing our bags.

We flew back to Australia with my family, but really we were just stopping over, because we were back on a plane 24 hours later... to beautiful Bali!

Bali was a different kind of mayhem. There must be an underlying order to the chaos of traffic there, but rather than try to understand it, we just left the driving to the taxis and focused on enjoying it all. Everyone's trying to sell you something in Bali, but once you get used to that, it really is quite beautiful. We caught some great sunsets, saw some fantastic dancing, did a lot of shopping, relaxed with massages whenever we could, and even caught a spot of rafting. At one such sunset, we were caught out by the local monkeys - one cheeky little simian strolled up behind Masumi and snaffled her scrunchie right off her hair! But those are the stories that make for a great honeymoon. All in all, it was the holiday after the holiday that we really needed.

Now we're back in Cairns. It's almost a relief, after all that action, to be back in Australia and be able to settle back into a normal rhythm. I guess it won't be long before we start making serious plans about our future, but for now it's nice to just sit back and relax. Who knows what's next? There are all sorts of possible futures for Masumi and I. In any case, I reckon after making it through the past year, we'll be right for whatever comes next.

Hoping to see everyone again soon, lots of love,

Dave

Good things for those who wait

I can't say that we chose to wait. But wait we did.

Visa crisis take one and Masumi got kicked out of the country last June. Visa crisis take two occurred when I visited Japan for dancing season. We got married on August 20 - married in the morning, and I was on the plane that evening. I saw Masumi for a week in October. The spouse visa finally came through on December 30. Finally back together again on January 21, in wintry Japan. And I brought Masumi safely back to Australia on February 4.

Now we're in Cairns. Back to work at quarantine and chess is starting up for the year for me. Masumi is searching for work in child care. Time for some good things to come our way!

Speaking of good things, these photos. Erm, for lack of a better translation, pre-wedding photos. A bit of a Tokushima tradition and in Masumi's words, "I don't mind about the wedding, so long as we do the photos." Of course, we're still doing the wedding.

Anyway, enough talk. Enjoy our joyful photos.

If the skirt fits

Well, break out a slab of SOLO, slam it down fast and add my name to that lofty list of real men. Finally, I can roll a kayak!

Oh no, don't tell me you don't remember the SOLO Man?

Alright punters, firstly, SOLO is a lemon soft drink, which has been around in Aussie fridges for at least three decades. And anyone who watched TV during the 80s couldn’t possibly have missed one or another of the SOLO Man ads. I think the original had him taking on the rapids in a one-man inflatable raft. The iconic version, however, was the same moustached hardcore guy stuffing a can of SOLO in his jacket before jumping in his kayak, taking on a steep descent through God-knows-what-infested jungle, and finishing with a breathless drop off a waterfall. The ad concludes with him guzzling SOLO, the SOLO mostly spilling out the corners of his mouth, and the overture, "Light on the fizz so you can slam it down fast". They don't make ads like that any more.

The SOLO Man was a real man, and obviously, real men kayak. Which obviously makes me a real man. Yeah. Subsequent SOLO ads didn't quite cut it, except maybe for the one with some guy (not the original SOLO Man) wrestling with a croc that tried to steal his SOLO (there was a kayak in there somewhere).

Don't take the moral of the story as SOLO being your best way to distract a hungry crocodile, though. For that, you need the Crocodile Reaction Action Plan, or C.R.A.P. But that's a story for another missive.

All jokes aside, though, it’s been a great day. Great feeling to stuff myself into a fiberglass boat, seal myself in with a rubber skirt, get in the pool, deliberately remove myself from the living breathing world of air by rolling upside down, feel the tension of not being able to breathe building, and then successfully popping the roll and coming up right and steady. I did it today for the first time, by myself, unattended, and then did it another ten times in a row without failing once. There’s something a little more right with the world when you conquer a little goal, overcome a little fear, and look forward to pushing onto the next challenge.

But my great Friday hasn’t just been about kayaking. It started at 5am when I turned up for work at Quarantine. We’ve got a few projects going on at work, which keeps us busy, and I’m surrounded by positive people. It can be rough when the shift work deprives you of sleep, but otherwise I usually enjoy my morning at the airport. And I had to issue my first fine just yesterday – not that I enjoy taking people’s money, but it went as well as can be expected, and is a little bit of a milestone. Declare your mandarins, folks...

Got home, Skyped my beautiful wife, then headed down to the markets to give Billy the coffee man his new chess pieces. Scored a free mocha for my trouble, then headed off to do my fruit shopping and buy a nose clamp. Yes, a nose clamp – to use when kayaking so less water gets up my nose, and more air stays in my lungs! Home again to put said clamp to good use by jumping in the pool with the kayak and popping my first roll (cue Rocky theme song).

Quick shower and back on the road to a school sports awards evening, where I get a bit of recognition as a chess coach and my students get recognition for their champion efforts during the year. The main event of the evening was a demonstration blitz chess game between a student, the current Queensland under-14 junior champion, and a teacher, a champion swim coach who happens to play a mean game of chess. I had to commentate to ham it up a bit. The student won, but kudos to the coach, he did very well. Exciting stuff! But even more exciting than that, I scored the evening’s raffle hamper! Top day!

How do you beat a top day? By having a top week, of course! I had such a week just this past fortnight or so, when I made an impulse decision to visit Masumi in Japan.

You see, being married is great, but being forcefully separated by 5000km is not. Masumi and I have been doing and planning lots of things that bring our life together closer to reality every day, and you know, it’s all part of our adventure. But just earlier this month, I was booking cheap tickets to Japan for January. We’re going to do our wedding photo session then – so-called MAEDORI is the usual thing in Japan so you don’t have to worry about getting great photos on your wedding day – and we’re hopeful that Masumi will have a visa, so I can escort her back to Cairns. As I was about to depart the Jetstar website, the withered part of my brain that was once responsible for being a little maths whiz clicked briefly into gear and I realised, hey, if we next meet in January, that’ll be five months without having seen each other. Five months without my wife, what the...?!?!?

Booked yet another ticket to Osaka, begged for some leave from work at short notice, and before I knew it, I was headed to Japan on a Thursday afternoon flight. There followed 7 top days in Osaka, Tokushima and Kyoto with Masumi. Great autumn weather, great onsen, great food. I was a bit early for the true fire of Japan in full autumn, but at least it was still warm enough to get around comfortably.

We tried on a few of our wedding suits and dresses – check out the results in these photos, and as you can see, this skirt fits, too! We inspected our wedding venue - also very nice. And we caught one of Kyoto’s great festivals, the Jidai Matsuri. Which I have to say, honestly, is a bit boring, but at least we can say we’ve seen it. Line it up next to Awa Odori, and you’d just as well be comparing a waltz with your grandmother to a rumba with Angelina Jolie. Not that I’d ever rumba with anyone but you, Masumi, sweetheart, if you’re reading this, I love you. Anyway, it was a top week. In every sense of the word, it was a week of consummation. Time together, time to get grounded and reassure ourselves that we’ve done the right thing. Very timely and much needed for us both.

Now it’s back to work and time to get cracking on wedding preparations. Yes, we’re legally married, but we’ll do things properly. In Japan, next northern summer, Japanese style. My side of the family is pretty excited about the whole prospect of being in Tokushima for the dancing season and having a Japan experience like no other. And there’s no such thing as preparing too early for a wedding in Japan, so Masumi and I are already doing up invitations, menus, orders of proceeding... and lots of other stuff that I still have to learn about! I’ll keep you up to date with the adventure!

Which just leaves another 3 months – or 2-and-a-bit now! – before I see Masumi again. A bit of chess, some kayaking on the Barron, Christmas and New Year working at the airport, and before we know it, it’ll be January. No worries. Now where's my skirt?

Love,

Dave