I had all my things packed into one backpack, so it didn't take long to claim my luggage at the airport. I breezed through passport control and customs and was soon standing outside, breathing in the fresh air of a Tuesday morning in Perth.

August is wintertime in Australia. I'd heard it wouldn't be as cold as winter in Japan, but it was pretty chilly. All I had on was a fleece jacket. Fortunately, the shuttle bus to Perth stopped right outside the door, and once I boarded the bus I was out of the cold.

I paid the fare with a twenty-dollar bill and got back some gold-colored coins. The larger ones were worth a dollar apiece and the smaller ones were two-dollar coins. The color was just like that of the one-roger coins I'd seen on the Internet. Zhang had said he'd be bringing an actual one-roger coin when we met the next day, so I'd be able to compare them.

I settled into my seat and suddenly could barely keep my eyes open. I hadn't slept at all on the plane, and now that I'd arrived in Australia without incident I guess I felt more relaxed. As the bus traveled on I fell fast asleep and didn't open my eyes again until the driver, a friendly-looking guy, woke me up. His English was too fast for me, but from his expression and gestures I realized he was saying we'd reached the end of the line and it was time to get off. Looking out the window, I saw that we'd already arrived at Perth Station. I hurriedly hoisted my backpack and left the bus, emerging into the crowded square in front of the station.

It was refreshing to see people of various races milling around. Some were Western-looking; some were Asian-looking; some, I couldn't tell. I'd seen a lot of people from different countries at the airport, of course, but here in Perth, in the midst of daily life, people of different races seemed to blend. I noticed some people wearing business suits and overcoats, but many were dressed casually, like students. Some people were so lightly dressed you'd have thought it wasn't winter at all. With my penniless-backpacker appearance I felt as though I'd easily be absorbed into the city, so I sauntered on, picking a direction at whim.

A lot of the stores were still shuttered in the downtown area around the station, but the place was alive with street traffic and people coming and going—nothing like our Shutter Street back home. You couldn't really compare a shopping district on the outskirts of Tokyo with the center of the capital of Western Australia, but that scene, so different from what I was used to, made me realize once again that I'd come to the opposite side of the world.

I consulted a roadside map and saw there was a park nearby, so I walked to it and took off my backpack. Then I took out the pages I'd copied from the guidebook to find out where I was and which way I'd have to go to get to the cheap inn I had picked out. The sun had risen higher by now, taking some of the chill out of the air, and I enjoyed taking my bearings from the map and checking them against the position of the sun.

The sun was in the north. Since I'd crossed the equator and was now in the Southern Hemisphere, I was viewing the sun from the opposite direction, and that was the solution to Scott's puzzle. If you got stuck on the idea that the sun was still in the south, you could end up going in a direction exactly opposite the one you wanted to go in. As a thinking puzzle, it was easy, but it was something else to see it with your own eyes and actually experience it. They call the Southern Hemisphere an inverted hemisphere and Australia an upside-down continent, but it may have been my own sensibilities that were turned upside down.

I spent that day strolling around the streets of Perth. I did a little shopping and then toured sights that I could visit free of charge. By the afternoon I'd already reserved a bed for the night. The place was a cheap inn for backpackers, but they had a dining room where you could have all the toast and cereal you wanted for breakfast, so I was grateful for that. Relieved to have everything settled, at least until the next day, I secured a bed for myself in one of the four-person rooms and took a nap, using my backpack for a pillow. It was nighttime when I awoke. There's not much of a time difference between Western Australia and Japan, but somehow it seemed as though I had single-handedly developed a case of jet lag.

The train from Perth to Fremantle took less than half an hour. I was initially a little confused because I didn't see a ticket gate like they have in Japan, but I bought a ticket before going out to the platform, so I figured I'd be all right. I put the ticket in my pocket so I'd be able to present it for inspection at any time and then reached into my backpack and took out my markers, the items that would identify me at our meeting.

After all, the three of us had met online, and none of us knew what the others looked like. We'd talked about exchanging photos, but Zhang said it would be more fun to choose markers that would identify us to one another. He said he'd bring the one-roger coin that he'd sent away for; Scott said he'd bring a portable chess set. At first I wanted to bring a can of oden, as a souvenir of Akihabara for Scott, but as a food item it probably wouldn't get through customs, and since it contained liquid it probably couldn't even be brought onto an airplane. After a bit of thought I decided that the little gifts I'd already gotten for them—sushi-shaped brooches—would serve as my markers.

Apparently, Japan was the only place where realistic plastic models of food items were produced, for use in restaurant display windows. Foreign tourists were fascinated by them, and they'd become staple souvenirs of Japan. The store where I worked sold a number of these, and I'd bought two plastic sushi models: fatty tuna and squid. I'd been planning to wear them on my chest once I found the meeting place, but then I realized that Scott or Zhang might be riding the same train I was on, so I took a couple of safety pins and attached them to the front of my fleece jacket.

Speaking of souvenirs of Japan, while researching my trip I'd come up with a puzzle for Zhang and Scott. It went like this:

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There's a story about a counterfeiter who was banished to Australia, where he eventually became so famous that his portrait was printed on real bills. This, however, was a misconception that originated in Japan. Why did this misunderstanding arise?

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While I was in Perth I'd managed to procure an item connected to this puzzle: an old Australian ten-dollar bill dating back to the days before bills were made of plastic. The bill was engraved with portraits of Francis Greenway, an architect, and Henry Lawson, a writer. It had cost me twenty dollars at the coin-collector's shop where I found it, a king's ransom to a no-budget traveler like me, but I had to buy it. It wasn't just that it would help me explain the solution to my puzzle; I also felt as though there was something very important about the story of this bill.