osutoraria

Mick finished wiping the tables and headed back to the noodle store he worked at. John, his workmate, shook his head at him.
"How much have you spent on her so far?"
"Who?" asked Mick innocently.
"You know who. That Japanese girl you've been pining over for the past 6 months." John frowned.
"Oh" said Mick, furrowing his brow in concentration, "a few thousand. You know...we spend 10% of our pay on girls. Part of the budget!"
John laughed. "You know it's money wasted. What about your wife?"
"We're separated, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Sorry. What about the other girl?"
"Not really my type." Mick put the cleaning things away and started washing his hands. "I don't think she can speak English."
"Hmm. Maybe you can teach her!" John smiled.
"Haha. That's what got me into trouble last time!" Mick dried his hands and looked over at the escalator where that other girl had been only half an hour ago. "Maybe," he whispered to himself.

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Kumiko and Yuki we're enjoying themselves at a nearby cafe which looked over the wharf. They'd shared a soft and juicy blueberry muffin, Kumiko totally forgetting her diet.

Afterwards they queued at the entrance to the zoo. The ticket collector started checking tickets a few minutes before 9pm, so they were one of the first inside.

They'd made it for feeding time. Yuki was able to pat a baby koala at the sanctuary and pat a kangaroo in a mini farm area. Yuki thought the baby koala was the cutest thing she'd ever seen and had squealed in delight when it had looked straight at her.

The thing that impressed Yuki the most was the individual environment of the animals. Each animal had plenty of space and was surrounded by plants, rocks, streams and other things that meant it looked like a piece of their original home had been exactly transplanted to the zoo. For the monkeys it looked like she was looking onto an area of the jungle and for the tigers, an area of the Serengeti.

She loved the bird show. There were mice running along the fence as eagles swooped and grabbed notes from audience members in the open air mini stadium.

The tricks were fantastic. Yuki clapped her hands with every performance while Kumiko, who had seen everything before, was more blase about it.

After lunch they saw the seals and other sea animals, then some gorillas. They then took the sky car to the bottom of the zoo and left.

It was a great day and Yuki was very happy. They headed back to the ferry and back to Circular Quay.

"Did you take lots of pictures?" Kumiko asked.
"Hundreds! I'm going to have to download them to my laptop or get them printed otherwise I won't be taking any more!"
"I took a few too. I got a great one of the lion yawning. All those teeth!"
Yuki nodded. "It's a pity I couldn't hug a koala."
"Yeah. But you can only do that in Queensland. It's against the law in NSW." Kumiko said.
"Awww!" Yuki said disappointedly.

There was a tinny jingling sound and a song by Smup started coming from Kumiko's Gucci handbag. She pulled out her mobile and gasped at the name that had come up on the screen, then smiled sweetly at Yuki and took the call.

Yuki was immediately suspicious. She recognised that look. It was blind date time again.

Kumiko began speaking very quickly in English to the person on the phone so that Yuki couldn't understand. She was surprised Kumiko could speak that fast after only being in Australia for 6 months but she supposed it was because she'd studied here a few years previously.

Kumiko hung up then stared for a few seconds at the phone before speaking.

"That was Matt." she said, grabbing Yuki's arm. "Come on. We're going to get you some nice clothes."

Yuki raised her eyes and sighed. Here we go again, she thought.