Archive for August, 2006
August 27th, 2006
Freshly home after travelling for months? Feeling a little bit bored by the offerings your home town has to offer? Wishing you could fill up your day with culture and spectacle?
Yesterday, I answered yes to all of those questions. But since a quick hop over to Asia wasn’t on the agenda, I had to make due with Calgary’s offerings. Fortunately, Calgary’s offerings were a bit more interesting than usual.
My afternoon was occupied by a trip into Chinatown where I was able to feed my addiction to Asia. I’ve had the chance to visit that area a few times since being home and each time has offered me a glimpse of that part of the world that has become my second home. I’ve become comfortable in the oddities of Asia and I miss being bombarded by its endless surprises.
But yesterday, Chinatown was even more appealing than usual. A Street festival took over the area with a market hawking Asian wares and a stage featuring performances from the area. Karate, Thai dance, Chinese Opera and more entertained the sun-baked crowds and of course, I was there in the front row, snapping away.
After spending a couple hours in Chinatown, I wandered downtown for a while where a host of wedding photographers and their subjects were swarming around the Hudson’s Bay building. Brides and grooms mingled and I could hardly figure out who had married whom.
I then headed over to Mark and Kara’s where they and James were getting ready for our evening of fireworks. Calgary’s Globalfest was wrapping up its final night and the final night of the fireworks competition was the main draw.
The four of us headed in the direction of Elliston Park but not before stopping for some fantastic Indian food (there’s another country I’ll have to visit).
At the park, we claimed our spot in front of the lake and waited for darkness to fall while the mosquitoes hovered over my head. Kara, James and I all had our cameras propped up on our tripods leaving Mark as the only one of us that probably maximized his enjoyment of the show.
I have to admit that I have been a bit spoiled by some of the fireworks extravaganzas I’ve witnessed in Japan. They seem to have a surplus of explosive material in that country which leads them to draw out their displays for a good 90 minutes or more. This finale at Globalfest lasted around 20 minutes, but it was an impressive 20 minutes. A good diversity of colourful blasts and bursts were well coordinated with the music and made for a fine spectacle.
A day like that was just what I needed. After some of the adventures I’ve had this year, it’s certainly an adjustment to be back home, back in a world where everything seems familiar and sometimes even predictable. Maybe I just need to look a little harder to find adventure, trouble, and fun – it’s not always going to fine me as seems to happen when travelling.
August 20th, 2006
Google has publically launched Writely, a free online word processing application. It writes PDFs, will publish directly to your blog, has collaboration tools including subscribing to an RSS feed of a document), automatic off-site backups and more.
It is, of course, an impressive application, but I’m not sure if it will usurp Word as the de facto word processor. It seems everyone already has a copy of Microsoft’s offering. Writely may not take off, but perhaps it will have the positive effect of inspiring some improvements in the software we already have. I mean, it’s not like Microsoft doesn’t like to update their products. This may just mean that there are actually some relevant additions to the next release.
Though I did, in fact, use Writely to create this post and it worked fairly well. It didn’t include the title of the document, but it warms you that this feature may not be supported. It also used breaks instead of the paragraph tag for the html, so that was a bit unusual. Since I typically use paragraphs, I edited the post’s HTML after the fact, but I suspect most people won’t notice or care. Not to mention this just came out - a few improvements are probably already on the way.
I didn’t expect to be switching over to a new method of posting to this site, but it was worth a test. Now that I have made that test, I know for certain that I will be sticking to my trusty Wordpress administration panel.
August 19th, 2006
I have just posted my article on photographing the temples of Angkor in Cambodia that was originally published by Travel Photographers Network.
Angkor was truly a joy to shoot and I could have spent far longer there than I did. All the major temples merited repeat visits. Different lighting conditions and times of day would have delivered wonderful new photographic opportunities and challenges each time.
It was one of my favourite locations in Southeast Asia, so if you are in the area, do yourself and take at least a few days to make the trip into Cambodia.
August 19th, 2006
Last night, my friend Kara told me that for as many hours time difference as you have changed, it will take as many days to recover from the jet lag. That means I should have another week or so of this lethargy.
Fortunately, it’s not hampering me too much. I can crank up a burst of energy when I need it for, say, a job interview or the first chance I have had to see some of my Calgary friends in more than seven months, or of course, for some snakes, on planes.
But first, my journey here, because it involves planes as well. And considering how miserable one of my flights was, I would have probably preferred to have some pissed-off venomous snakes on board.
My flight to Singapore was uneventful. My time in Singapore’s Changi airport was as good a time as one can have in an airport. With an early check-in under my belt, I got to wander the busy terminal to browse the stores, taste plenty of food and even watch a free movie in a small theatre. The flight to London was as pleasant as an 11-and-a-half hour flight can be with a good selection of movies to choose from on the Qantas flight.
I stopped in Frankfurt for a transfer of planes and then touched down in London where I promptly squirted through the overwhelmed Heathrow airport and into Chelsea to see Caroline for a day. We mostly lunged the day away and went for a wander in her neighbourhood where my fondness for London and the UK burned bright and bid me to return to the country as soon as I was able.
The next morning, I headed off early to Gatwick where a flood of people stood shoulder to shoulder waiting in endless cues and sharing in a collective exasperation at the scene. Though no one was moving any faster than a tectonic plate, everyone seemed to be in decent spirits and we were all able to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.
Since I couldn’t take all my camera gear and laptop onto the plane with me as I would normally do, I headed over to the oversize and fragile luggage line and said goodbye to my precious cargo. When I asked the attendant if he was going to slap a ‘fragile’ sticker on my bag, he reassured me that everything would be taken care of. I worriedly left it behind and headed through security and to my plane.
On board, I soon discovered that there was a misbehaved infant convention soon taking place in Calgary and all the delegates happened to be sitting in the rows ahead of me. A lot of moaning, crying and stomping filled up the next nine or ten hours of the transatlantic flight. Combine that with having coffee spilled on my by a flight attendant (who promptly wiped my seat then scurried away), and the flight wasn’t the happiest way to return home.
When I arrived in the baggage claim area, I immediately began my search for my camera bag. When I couldn’t find it at the oversize carousel, I hoped that it was yet to arrive and headed over to the normal carousel to retrieve my other bag. There, to my horror, I witnessed my camera back tumbling down the ramp towards the carousel. In a panic I charged towards it through the crowd to catch it before it went slamming to the base of the conveyor belt. Fortunately, everything in it seems to be functional.
The final absurdity came when, having exited the plane, all passengers had to clear immigration. But since no pens were allowed on the flight, there was a sizable bottleneck as we all lined up for the use of the three available pens to be able to fill out our immigration cards.
Since then, I have mostly been unsuccessfully trying to get into a sensible sleep pattern while reacquainting myself with Calgary (and overcoming a bit of reverse culture shock).
But yesterday was a bit more interesting since I had my first job interview for the position that drew me home. I thought it went well and the job seemed like something that would keep me more than content. I really have my fingers crossed for one and I’ll be pretty disappointed if I don’t get it. I did, after all traverse a few continents to get here for this job. It really is perfect for me, so if anyone out there happens to have any good luck they aren’t currently using it, I will happily accept it. Thanks!
After the interview, I wandered downtown and found myself soon gravitating towards Chinatown. I miss Asia. As I wandered the Calgary streets, no tuk-tuk drivers offered me a ride. No sleezy suit salesmen suggested I might look better if I was wearing their wares. No durian smell met my nose. And yes, I actually missed all that.
But Chinatown here has a fantastic little restaurant called Veggie House that caters very much to both my vegetarian side and that part of me that pines for the Far East.
With some veggie dumplings happily swirling in my stomach, I decided to walk across downtown to pay a surprise visit to Mark and Kara. I like surprises (both giving and receiving), so I reveled in the confused look on Mark’s face when he opened the door. Few people knew I was going to be home, so the word had not spread to Mark’s ears yet.
We went for a drink then hopped over to Brian and Janice’s place for a barbecue. Later, Kara showed up after a CPR course and I got the chance to surprise her too before we set off to see Snakes on a Plane.
And despite the astronomical Internet-fuelled hype, it did not disappoint. Though I suspect, if you don’t see it on opening in a busy theatre, you may miss out on a lot of the fun. Our Friday-night trip to the film included plenty of patrons donning plush snakes on their heads and a large group of rowdies tossing out rubber snakes to every member of the audience.
With every ludicrous death scene we waived our snakes above our heads in salute to the makes of this magical film and when Jackson uttered the film’s climactic line, we all shouted along to the line that we, the citizen’s of the Internet, helped to pen.
I giggled all the way home reminiscing about cobras, anacondas, chihuahuas, the mile high club, the rest of the totally ridiculous spectacle I had just witnessed. I only wish my flight from London had been so entertaining.
August 11th, 2006
In my writings, I have been unfair to Darwin. It’s not that I have criticized this city, it’s that I haven’t written about it. But I have the somewhat legitimate excuse of being rather busy.
During my first week here, I hunted for jobs. That was pretty much all I did. Tracking down leads here and there, visiting temp agencies and tracking down more leads was my introduction to the Northern Territory’s capital. And all that had us get off on the wrong foot. (Although the offer I got to work on a fishing boat for a couple months was intriguing.)
When I arrived, I was staying with some generous residents whom I met online and their place was a good half hour walk out of town along the Stuart Highway. Each morning, I woke and ambled into town along a long stretch of road that keenly reminded me of the smaller cities of Alberta, and that’s not exactly a compliment. Used car lot after used car lot lined the highway and drilled a heavy message into my mind as I passed: “You are no longer in Asia.”
At the time, that was not a reality I was eager to face. I’ve grown accustomed to Asia and its many weird ways. The first world now sometimes feels like a second home. But, being that I was in Australia and not my real home, it was all the more confusing. “This is a lot like home. Canada home. But then again, what’s with all the didgeridoos?” Job hunting, used car lots, tourist-marketed didgeridoos, and a wee bit of culture shock welcomed me to Australia.
While job hunting, however, I happened to make a strange discovery: back in Calgary, my true, first home, there was a job opening that would be perfect for me. When I passed along the web page to Sarah to note the irony of having to come to Australia to find a great job in Calgary, she remarked, “You could do that in your sleep.” But the thing was, I wouldn’t want to sleep through this job – if I did, I would be missing out on a lot of fun and education.
I won’t go into the specifics of the job here, but I genuinely thing that it was made for me and I for it. The mutual benefits of uniting the two of us would be almost obscene. So, I decided, why not? Let’s throw a resume their way and see what happens.
Strangely enough, the next day I was offered a job in Australia. A much less interesting job to be sure, but a job nonetheless. Given the emaciated state of my wallet and a potentially long-term stay in the land down under, I jumped at the opportunity.
By this point I had moved through a couple hostels. I happened to be homeless in Darwin on the busiest weekend of the year and finding a bed for a night proved to be a challenge. Finding one for consecutive nights proved to be just plain silly. Anyone making such demands had to have been the product of an upbringing that neglected to instill the dangers of greed. But my avarice for sleep pushed me on and I was fortunate enough to find a place that would house me and keep me well fed on a diet of feet stink (one of the main food groups of the dorm resident).
During the nights, I fought the snorers, but the days started to pick up. I got to explore the Mindil beach market and enjoy some genuinely refreshing air. Compared to my previous destination, Bangkok, the air of Darwin is a lot less brown. Darwin is to happily flowing blood as Bangkok is to malignant, festering tumors in your lungs. I wish I had the opportunity to explore further afield of Darwin to see the Kakadu and Lichfield, but I will just use that as a fantastic excuse to come back.
I did get to explore the city a little but not nearly as much as I would have liked. The hopping Mitchell Street and the quiet Esplanade both made for a decent walk. I headed up to the East Point Reserve in the hopes of sighting a wallaby, but they remained elusive. But that stroll took me along the comically named (for Brits anyway) Fannie Bay. Oh, and sunsets on the beach that would make even Dick Cheney weep (engine oil of some kind I’m sure).
And I met a few fine folks and had a few good chats. I played pool with a couple of charming girls from Japan. I got in on Australia’s national sport of teasing with my roommates. And I whiled away the workdays with some fun co-workers.
Speaking of co-workers, they were the only genuinely enjoyable part of my temporary job. I was doing data entry for a call centre that was busy taking technical support requests for the telecommunications troubles all over the Northern Territory. My role was to make sure each job was logged properly after it had been resolved. Make sure this box is filled out and that box is checked. And so on. Forever. Until the end of time. And the forever again.
But I made the best of the stultifying work and very much appreciated the chance to make some cash.
Interestingly enough, midway through the week, I received an email from the potential employer in Calgary that I mentioned before. The one with the job I would step over dying old ladies for. They were interested in chatting with me and wanted to know when I would be back in Canada.
Well, I had already been considering making my way back home, so I pretty much told them it would be as soon as I was able to book a ticket. And off I went to sort out my way back.
With all the possible routes back home, it turned out to be going the long way around the world that was the most economical and that would get me back in Calgary the earliest. Busy, expensive flights prevented me from going the more direct route over the Pacific. Instead, I am now headed through Singapore, then London, then home. Yes, London.
Had I only known that at the very time I was booking my ticket, terrorists were being arrested in the UK, I would have happily paid more to steer clear of a trip through England. But as you travel, you get behind on the news. Tragically behind.
And so, with a London-bound itinerary in my pocket, I now sit in the overly-airconditioned Darwin airport waiting for my 3:30 am flight to Singapore. And I’m feeling remarkably cogent for this time of night (considering how bad the snoring has been in my dorm). I have no idea for exactly how long I will be travelling. It’s Friday night here. It will be Monday afternoon when I get home. Factor in some time zones and I think it comes out to way too bloody long.
If there happened to be a chicken I could sacrifice or some nearby idol I could supplicate, I would do it in the hopes that I will have such peaceful flights that they lull me to sleep for their duration. Thankfully, my stop in London includes a visit with Caroline whose home will provide me with a much-needed rest stop before I embark on the final leg of my trip.
A fellow traveler recently reminded me of a dear, old poem by Robert Frost whose conclusion reads, “And miles to go before I sleep…” Both its literal and metaphorical meanings seem appropriate right now as a begin another journey. Look it up, it’s a good one.
August 5th, 2006
Just thought I would let you know that I am alive and well in Australia. I’m here in Darwin where I have been suffering from a bit of sticker shock after being in Southeast Asia. Internet access, for example, costs four or five times as much here, so I haven’t been online nearly as much. Once I work my way back into first-world prices, I’ll be more content to post a bit more.
The last week has mostly been spent job hunting and adjusting to all these white people speaking English to me. For the former, I’ve found a temp job that starts next week and for the latter, the quirky Aussie accent is sometimes weird enough that I can pretend people are speaking a foreign language to me, so it works out well enough.
After departing my lovely little private room that I obtained through some contacts I made before coming here, I now have been relegated to the land of dorms when other house guests took my spot. After last night’s endless snoring competition, I’m hoping that the fatigue I have saved up will let me sleep through the worst of the din tonight. I’m at a new hostel and I have fewer people in my room, so I’m hoping I may serve as a participant in the contest tonight and not just a listener.
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