Tour diary entry #7: Leinster Lions and crazy taxi
After a long-awaited Welsh victory, the tour diary has moved on to Australia from Japan
It’s funny that I’m writing this tour diary - like the humble jet-setter I am - staring at Brisbane’s Story Bridge, just as I was a year ago.
It was Brisbane where Wales last won a rugby game - albeit an uncapped fixture against the Queensland Reds.
But now, having swapped Kobe for Brisbane, I at least can embark on the British and Irish Lions Tests having seen Wales finally win a Test match after 644 days.
Where to begin with Saturday. Genuinely, it’s odd to say, but it was a weirdly emotional experience seeing Wales win again.
I wasn’t tearing up in the press box - I’d lost far too much sweat for that - but there was just a slightly numb feeling afterwards, as if it almost hadn’t happened.
Before the match, I had stumbled upon a stall outside ran by the Kansai St David’s Society. The woman selling Welsh cakes and tea there, Chikako Hirono, had taught in the Vale of Glamorgan back in 1990.
With that long-awaited win in the bag, that marked the end of my time in Japan.
It’s a new experience, going from one tour to another.
It’s honestly a strange one.
It feels odd to be leaving Japan once Wales’ tour is done and not be heading home. But it maybe feels stranger to be joining the Lions tour feeling like I’ve not really followed it to date.
Still, now I’m Brisbane, there’s little time to think like that.
Sometimes, the journalists who arrive just in time for the Test series on Lions tours can get under the skin of those who have been putting in the hard yards on the ground from the very beginning.
Thankfully, my two weeks in Japan should at least endear myself to my colleagues a little more.