My surprise trip home in April 2004

In April I went home to Australia... and didn't tell a soul! Well, I told one...

About a week before I left, I was buying souvenirs for family and friends. Looking for a shirt for my brother, I called Mum and asked her what size Alastair was. She said Large, then asked me why I was asking. "Um... for a birthday present." His birthday is 1 July, so this was plausible.
I then told her not to send me any letters or emails in the next little while, cause I was planning a week's trip to Korea. Not a lie... I was flying via Seoul. I warded off the "with who?" and "why?" questions, careful not to lie! "By myself." "Um... Students tell me Korean food is good."
I was online in an internet cafe a little later, and was asked by my friend Steve Jackson if I was thinking of coming back to Australia anytime within the next six months.
"Can you keep a secret?" I typed back.

Read on...



Tuesday 30 March
I flew from Naha to Fukuoka in the morning. Fukuoka was cold (13 degrees) and raining. I took the bus from the domestic to the international terminal, and boarded a Korean Air flight to Incheon (Seoul's airport - it's about an hour from Seoul).

I had about 8 hours in Incheon Airport. I snoozed for a bit, ate some food, and took photos around the airport. There was a multicolour Daewoo on display. I surfed the net at the free terminals in the transit lounge.

My flight for Brisbane left at 8.25pm. The dinner menu had a choice of Western or Korean. The Korean was very good - rice and vegetables, a little spices, and seaweed soup. Excellent stuff.

Wednesday 31 March DAY ONE
I arrived in Brisbane in the morning, and caught a bus into the city. Not much had changed since I left a year ago, but Festival Hall was now a construction site. The first thing I did was buy an Ice Break iced coffee for breakfast.
Thanks to an MSN conversation the week before, I had confided in Steve Jackson that I was coming back to Oz, and had arranged to meet him for lunch. With a couple hours to kill, I walked through a couple bookstores and music shops, then waited outside the offices of the DPI on Mary Street.
Steve came out just after 12 and we went and got lunch. He had Chinese, I had a meat pie and ginger beer. I had told my students at Nova that those would be my first meal back home. IT WAS GOOD!
Steve then gave me a key to his house, and showed me how the bus station system had changed underneath the Myer Centre. I got on a bus, and a little later was inside his house catching up on my sleep.
I woke up around 5pm, had a nice hot shower, and changed. Steve then drove me to Rochedale Baptist Church, where I knew there was an evening service preceded by a communal dinner.
We pulled up in the parking lot, and I could see Mum and Alastair inside. I walked in, backpack on my back, right behind her, and just said "Hello." My brother looked up at me with a "What the hell?" look on his face, and Mum just had a shocked look. "But you're in Korea..." she said. "A stopover," I replied.
After the initial shock wore off, we sat down and I joined them in the dinner - coincidentally, meat pies from the excellent shop down the road! A few people were surprised to say the least, and asked me if I was home for good. No, just a week's holiday...

Later that night I sent an email to all my friends, inviting them to a barbecue at our house on Friday night. Unfortunately, this was about 11.30pm, so...

Thursday 1 April DAY TWO
...the next morning I had a couple email replies. One said "Sorry, I'm working, I can't make it." Then there were a couple more that basically said... "Good one Glenn! Nearly fooled us!"
APRIL FOOL'S DAY! I'd forgotten about that. So I sent out another round of emails, assuring people that no, it wasn't a joke, yes, I was in the country, yes, they were invited to a barbecue.
Even so, one or two of them even rang my parents' house to check that I was really here.

This was the Day girls' birthday, so I rode over to their house (quite a way on a bike - hills!) and gave them their birthday presents and souvenirs from Okinawa.
Then I went with Alastair and Saara and had roast dinner at IKEA.

Friday 2 April DAY THREE
This was my barbecue. A good number of friends and relatives came over, and we spent the time eating, chatting, playing Jars of Clay on guitar, and playing pool.

This was also Adam's birthday, so Alastair ran back into the house, put a lit candle on top of a cinnamon roll, and brought it out to the pool room for A-dot. Alastair suggested that Adam blow out the candle by breathing in, or "sucking" the flame out. Turns out this doesn't work, other than to increase the risk of burning your lips. Adam tried a couple times, captured by my camera (the flame does lean towards his mouth), but then resorted to the much more orthodox method.

Everyone signed the page Mum had made for my photo album, and that was my welcome home party!

Saturday 3 April DAY FOUR
Mum, Dad and I drove over to the north side of the city, visited my grandparents, and then for lunch had fish and chips near the beach.

Sunday 4 April DAY FIVE
Went to church with the family. Said hello to more surprised people.
After lunch I went to the Dickmans' house for lunch, it being Steve's birthday the following Tuesday. After lunch I think there may have been an episode of Stargate involved.
Sunday night I went back to church for the youth service. Again, more surprised people who I hadn't seen yet, but who'd heard I was back for a while. From there we went to Danny's house to make good use of his squash-court-turned-into-home-theatre. And he has a pool table too... nice combination.

Monday 5 April DAY SIX
I don't quite remember what happened this day...

Tuesday 6 April DAY SEVEN
Nor this one...

Wednesday 7 April DAY EIGHT
On the way to the airport at 6:00am, while on the motorway, we had a blowout!!! Dad changed our rear tire and we made it to the airport at 6:30, right on time for my check-in.
After checking in I went downstairs to the immigration line... which took about half an hour to get through, there were so many people. Then there was the security check. The holdup was big enough that my flight was delayed ten minutes or so.
I arrived in Incheon Airport just before 6pm... and my next flight, to Fukuoka, was at 8am the next day! 18 hours in an airport! I had a meal in the foodcourt, surfed the net for a couple minutes, and then went to sleep on a couch in the transit lounge. I was careful to set my phone alarm for the next morning.

Thursday 8 April
Back in Japan!