It's warm!

How lovely is the Adelaide weather! It has been lovely beyond description to get up in the morning and be able to feel my toes despite an absence of socks. And wearing just one layer of clothing rather than three... also tops. Well, I was always going to be impressed by the warmer weather, what else has impressed me upon my return home? First; Australians are very courteous. Well, at least the ones who I encountered during my epic journey home were. I was attempting to make phone calls to people who were waiting at Adelaide airport for me on Thursday morning when I was in fact in Sydney and waiting for a man to finish using the public phone when an amazing thing happened to me. He saw me waiting and actually hurried up and finished his call quickly so I could go next! How nice is that? In the plane the woman sitting next to me brushed me with her bag when hoisting it onto her shoulder and turned around and apologised! A man stepped on my foot and was very concerned about it! I couldn't believe it. I had become so accustomed to people simply pushing past me rather than saying "excuse me" and just knocking me about without apology that I was astonished by these simple manners.

Second thing to spring to my attention; Australia are very fat people. Seriously, I know this gets a lot of media attention and is not a revelation, but it is seriously disturbing me. And what are all these fat people doing? Lining up at Burger King for more shit food. They are about to get on a plane where, unless they have discovered an area of the plane I have never, they will be sitting on their arses doing nothing for several hours, and they are stuffing their faces with calories.

Third item; The men. They look at the women. They don't just take sidelong glances when they think the women can't see them, they hold their gaze even when you look right back at them. What am I supposed to say here? Am I supposed to say that I find it offensive because I am being observed at face value, as a "piece of meat"? Some part of me flickers over these quite valid points, but a larger part of me just feels quite happy to be getting some attention for once! Oh isn't it terrible, after all those years of trying to prevent men wolf whistling at women, now I am saying that I don't actually mind quite so much! But yes, if I make an effort to look nice, and I get admiration for doing so, it's certainly not a bad thing. For 12 months I have been in something of a flirt-free zone, I never realised how much I missed it!

There are many many other things that strike me as strange here, but they are slowly losing their oddity and becoming normal again. I am losing my compunction to speak japanese randomly and I have been SHOPPING. Yesterday I went down to the Mall and found myself some gorgeous high high high red red red shoes. They were completely inappropriate for the party I went to last night, but I had to wear them simply because I haven't been dressed up properly with lovely clothes, shoes for a year and I needed to. :) There are sides to me that never really got a chance to get out and about in Japan, and the delight in dressing up nice is certainly one of them. I am all for practical clothing when it's necessary, which is most of the time I believe (i will never be going to the supermarket in a mini skirt and high heels), but there is much to be said for making oneself gorgeous of an evening, something I intend to spend a lot more time doing from here on out.