Another Year, Another Physical

The thing about working in Japan is the requirement that we have to do a medical/physical examination every year. While I had to make a booking and pay for it under my previous employer, my current employer takes care of the booking and payment of it. During all my time working in Australia with various employers, I have never had to do a physical examination.

Fortunately, as I have taken some days off this week, taking the medical exam worked well for me. 

Compared to having to do a physical in Australia (or at least, in my home town), in Japan I only need to go to the one clinic to get everything checked - vision, hearing, blood test, height, weight, chest x-ray - plus I could pick one optional check as part of the exam - some options including tumor marker to even checking if one has antibodies against the Chinese Communist Pneumonia. From getting in there to leaving the clinic, it took maybe 45 minutes at most, though with so few people there that day, I would say these were ideal conditions and there was very little waiting between each check.

When I had to do my medical before moving to Japan all the way back in 2016, I had to go to 4 different places, all on different days. I went to my GP for my height, vision and weight check; a different place for hearing, another place for my x-ray, and another place for my blood test - all out of my own pocket (despite health insurance), though it's not exactly reasonable for an employer situated in a different country to fork out for a medical examination in Australia. As it was on different days, it takes time to get the results back, and I had to go back my GP at the end of it all anyway. 

There are some things that Australia does better than Japan (which I may cover in a separate entry some time) but when it comes to things like medical exams, Japan completely trumps Australia on this. Lift your game Australia.

Looking back on 2022

First of all, あけましておめでとう. Being the first day of 2023, I thought I would take the time to post and reflect on 2022

The big two things that have happened for me this year is moving to another prefecture altogether, along with taking up a new job. Compared to working as an ALT, there are lot more tasks and responsibilities, and I had to learn them quickly. While it has been difficult to keep on top of my job, it has been fun, and also has given an insight on the other side of an ALT dispatch company, and that there are some people who are clearly not suited to being ALTs, even after they pass the hiring process. 
On the other hand, I have been occasionally asked to work out of town for various periods of time, whether it be to other nearby prefectures, or as recently as the other side of the country. Though it has been exhausting from time to time, it does give me an opportunity to see how other schools handle teaching English, including the team teaching process, with some schools doing it better than others. 

In terms of hobbies, I got back in to the gym. While not I'm not 100% - and probably never will be with my back injury, it feels good to be training again. While working my upper body is no problem, I know I need to put more focus on my lower body, especially my core, though I have to take extra care on the types of exercises I can do.
I also have been purchasing a crap ton of Gundam model kits, and my back log has grown as a result. This is also the year I got back to purchasing official Transformers toys and figures, starting with Blaster. While the quality and articulation is not what I'm used to compared to third party figures, they're still fun to transform. 
On the other hand, I have just about neglected my drawing. I have had very little opportunity and drive to draw these days. 

And despite all that has happened, I feel a sense of emptiness and sadness. It has now been 4 years since I last went back home to Australia, and after what went down in 2021, I'm trying to mentally brace myself for what will happen when I go back. Many of friends have settled down and starting their own families, and I'm left wondering what I'm doing with my life, and asking myself did I make the right decision to live and work in Japan? And even after a year on with what happened that leading up to what happened back in 2021 (which I still don't feel comfortable spelling out here at the moment), I continue to wonder whether I made the right decision to not go back home at that time, despite there being no certainty that I would have been able to enter Australia at that time, not to mention that I would have lost my job at the time, and it would have taken a long time to recover financially from that. I think it will take me a very long time to move on from that, as there have been numerous times over the past year where I have thought about that incident, and I still don't have the answer that I'm looking for - and I don't think I will ever find that answer.

Aussie mate ship is a myth

 https://www.news.com.au/travel/people-just-dont-care-australians-stranded-overseas-come-to-terms-with-their-own-country-abandoning-them/news-story/a322777fbccf1ac9eb32f88a04844aa4

Reading this article just now, I can't but also feel the same way as other Australians stranded overseas. While I am fortunate enough to have a valid visa, a job, and a roof over my head here in Japan, there are many overseas that are not so fortunate. Some who cannot return home have expired visas and therefore cannot find a job in the mean time, while some are facing the real prospect of homelessness as they're waiting for an opportunity to return home. Many are missing out on being with their families, to witness births of their children, and even missing the chance to say their final goodbyes to dying loved ones. I am also one of those people, and have to live with the regret that I chose to stay here in the mean time as opposed to financially ruining myself for a chance to return home that is not guaranteed. 

While it is easy for me to hate on the government for abandoning its own people stranded overseas, it is saddening to see that Australians back home are backing and supporting the government's decisions for putting a cap on Australians trying to return from overseas. This is supposedly to help ease the strain on the hotel quarantine system, but it's clear that the hotel quarantine system does not work: people who return to Australia who aren't infected risk the chance of catching the Wuhan virus in hotel quarantine, simply because hotels were never designed for that purpose in the first place. Rather than put money in setting up dedicated quarantine facilities away from populated cities, the Federal government would rather continue with this flawed hotel quarantine system. However, state governments are to blame too for demanding border lock downs, gladly ignoring the plight of their own citizens stranded abroad. Then there's the average Australian who believes that those stranded abroad deserve their fate, citing that they had many chances to return to Australia, but didn't take it. I feel that this attitude smacks of tone deafness in that each Australian that is abroad has a reason for being overseas in the first place - many went overseas to find work, some went overseas to see loved ones and family. Especially for those working overseas, returning home is not as simple as packing your bags and going to the airport - it's not like a holiday: You need to give advanced notice to resign from your job, give notice to move out from your house or apartment, not to mention figuring out what to do with many of your belongings - furniture, cars and such - pretty sure you can't fit all of that in to a suitcase. To say that they had many opportunities to return home is also false - since very early on, caps were put in place that meant that the chance to return to Australia became essentially a lottery, and sometimes a very expensive one at that. As a result of the caps, airlines are forced to cancel seats, or prioritise business class passengers over economy class ones in an effort to recover some of their losses. It has also led to the significant increase in airfares, meaning only travel has now become the domain of the wealthy.

Australians have had a reputation of mate ship and always looking out for their own during hard times, but the Wuhan virus has showed me that Aussie mate ship is dead. Australians should be putting pressure on the government to get its own people home, not gladly throw them under the bus. Yes, people are scared, but that is no excuse for turning on each other. Whereas people were up in arms and throwing their support behind drug smugglers like Schappelle Corby, or the Bali 9 to put pressure on the government to get them home rather than leave them at the mercy of Indonesia's very strict judicial system, why should Australians stranded abroad be given the finger in comparison, especially since most stranded Australians have been well behaved, law abiding, and aren't facing life in prison or the death penalty for attempting to smuggle drugs in to another country? 

For those Australians cheering the government on for keeping Aussies abroad out of the country, I can only hope that you don't land yourselves in a situation where you require the help of the Federal government to bail you out. If you do, I hope you practice what you've been preaching and turn down any and all offers of government assistance, and get yourselves out of whatever mess you put yourself in.

Another Trip Back Home

I just returned from a trip back home yesterday. I arrived early in the morning yesterday, but the one thing that surprised me was how quickly I got through immigration. In the past, I have to wait in a ridiculously long line to get my re-entry permit sorted. This time however, there were probably only 2 other people ahead of me before I was sorted out. I get the feeling the guy who sorted out my re-entry permit was either drinking the night before, or dead inside - I really couldn't tell which. Likewise, getting through customs was pretty easy too - no questions about what I had in my suitcase. Previously they have asked me, and when I answer snacks - specifically chocolate and biscuits/cookies, they wave me through without even checking. Then again, this is the first time I arrived to Japan early in the morning, as previous times I arrived either at night, or in the afternoon.

So my trip back home is the same as previous times: Spend time with the family and catch up with friends. Ten days went by really quickly, and I wasn't able to catch up with everyone. I caught up with my usual circle of friends I've known since high school, but even now we usually catch up on a regular basis anyway. I also was able to catch up with one friend I've known since Primary school, and I'm pretty sure it's been about 3-4 years since I last saw him.
However, one thing I noticed a lot more this time compared to my other trips is how far my home country has really pushed to being a mostly cashless society. While I believe there will always be a need for cash in some capacity, people mostly pay by card. One of my friends has been doing it for years now, but since he has tied his card/account to his phone, he pays everything by phone. So I will admit, it did feel a little weird to be paying by cash, especially as cashiers were expecting a card payment when they got the card reader/eftpos machine prepared in anticipation, only to see me pull out money.
Speaking of money, I had a really strange experience during my stay. I'm not sure how recent, though I known it's only been since this year, but my country has introduced new versions of our paper money: 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s and 100s.  I have read that initially there were problems with these new bills as many vending machines/ticket machines were not able to read them, though I had thought that by the time I arrived, the problem was sorted. Apparently not, as we went out for lunch for my Dad's birthday, and we weren't able to pay for parking, as it wouldn't take the 20 dollar notes we had, which happened to be the new ones. Even stranger, the machine was very specific in that it wouldn't take anything higher than a 20 - no 50s or 100s allowed, and all I had were the old versions of the 50s on hand. We even tried paying by card, though it seems there was a problem with the card reader in that it wouldn't accept any of our cards. Fortunately, a staff member in charge of parking was kind enough to waive the fee and let us out with no problem. Still, I found that really inconvenient in they only accept certain types of bills, but not all.

In any case, I have one week left before I start the new semester. Nothing really planned, aside from gym, and perhaps practicing my drawing.

A Quick Trip back Home

Yesterday I returned from my week long trip back home. It was a very last minute thing, as just recently, my dad was in hospital due to an apparently rare strain of pneumonia that required him to be hospitalised for about a week. Fortunately, by the time I arrived, he was already out of hospital, and was looking a lot better compared to when I video chatted with him a few times previously.

The thing about this trip, was not just was it a last minute decision, but this was strictly to spend time with the family, so no catching up with friends this time (though I will be doing that when I go back for Christmas/New Year). I was glad to be able to spend more time with Dad and Mum, and I think because I'm no longer at home, I had more patience with my parents. With Dad's health, and just naturally slowing down due his age, I wasn't really bothered by it. We also took Dad out for an early birthday celebration where I gave him a card and small box of rum & raisin chocolates I bought back in Chikusei.

I was also able to sort out some of my other errands, including filing my taxes, sorting out my accounts, getting some pokemon event cards for my 3DS pokemon games, and buying souvenirs/gifts for my girlfriend, and the obligatory omiyage/souvenirs for the teachers at my school.
Oh, and I was able to scan a bunch of my drawings I had drawn last year and this year, so I am hoping to finish the update for my site before the summer break ends. I have been working on an update for the site since a few months ago, but other things tend to get in the way these days. However, I have not forgotten about my baby... well the site is nearly 20 years old now, so I can't really call it my baby anymore - maybe my teenage kid? (laughs)