GILI GILI GILI

The past 3 days have been glorious!

No more getting mauraded by locals yelling "TRANSPORT!!" and "TAXI!!" I am currently on one of the Gili Islands where no motor vehicles are allowed. IT is a tiny island where people use only bicycles and horse drawn buggies. It is littered with little cafes and restaurants all right on the beach with little cushions and tiny tables to sprawl out to.

The beach is littered with dive resorts as there are a nuber of fantastic sites around the relatively untouched islands. 4 dives in the last 2 days - have been awesome! Makes me get, once again, tempted just to stay here and dive for a while. Not a bad life!!!!!!

Anyway, one more day here and then back to Sanur to pick up my hopefully repaired kite and board - then back to the business of Kuta beach and on to Sydney.

One week today I will be back in CANADA!!!!!!

crazy.

A Sleepy, Spectacular Sunrise...on a Balinese Volcano

Yesterday I arrived in the central Balinese city of Ubut. This doesn't have the surf, beach or other stereotypical "Bali" bits that most people talk about - but what it does have is pretty amazing! When I first arrived I made my way straight to the Monkey Forest - trust me... not just a clever name. There are monkeys everywhere!!! I really couldn't stop laughing... My words won't do it justice - wait for the pics and video.

That evening I went a traditional Balinese dance, under an almost full moon at am old temple. It was called the Kekak and was a drama, dance, musical performed by over 30 men and a few women. It involved some really hilarious rhythms and a lot of hands waving in the air. Again, my words probably can't do it justice.

I awoke this morning at 2:30am to a knock on my door by Kifi (sp?) - my balinese Pop at my homestay- over 4 hours - a flashlight - some sweat and a banana sandwich later... I was watching the sunrise from atop Mt Bakir... Bali's fairly active volcano. This was truly a phenomenal experience!!

While I was little grumpy getting woken up at 230am, and it took my body a while to get moving... it was quite a unique experience hiking up the side of a volcano with nothing but a flashlight a friend and a guide to help. It sorta looked like a bit of a moonscape - as it was all lava rocks and ...well.. deadness! Around, 5am we arrived at the summit - (the first to arrive - so it was especially quiet and eerie...). We had some tea, boiled bananas and a banana sandwich and then just sat back and watched the sunrise. I could def. count on one hand (maybe even one finger) the number of times I have actually sat and watched the sunrise. AMAZING!!!!!!! Especially with steam rising up from the surrounding 4 craters.

After watching the sunrise we continued our hike around the rim of the craters, which all erupted in the past 150 yrs. The most devastating one occuring in the 70's and the most recent being in 2000!

On the way home, my homestay Pop brought us straight to a Balinese coffee plantation - which was obviously very needed as we had just completed a 6+ hour hike and it wasn't even 10am yet! This gave me a little boost as we checked out some rice fields and finally made it back to the homestay around 11:30am - where I crashed pretty hard until the delightful hour of 3pm. I now find myself feeling like I am starting a new day, writing about my adventures yesterday ..er this morning....whatever.

Tonight, more traditional Bali dancing at the Lotus Pond Water Temple and tomorrow morning... off to the Gili Islands in Lombok for some serious Scuba!

Prior to arriving in Ubud, I spent a few days in Kuta (doing some surfing) and Sanur (doing some serious Kiting!). In a nutshell.... Kiting was some of the best I have ever done... I was sunburnt, learned some new tricks and was loving life. Day 2 of kiting ended with a broken fin and a whole panel getting blown out of my kite. I left my stuff in Sanur to see if they could fix it for when I loop back. Apparently, they said they could fix both for $50-60 bucks! I was ready to say goodbye to the kite... It was a serious mess. Either way... the kiting was awesome.

JIF - In bali bar/restaurants they rarely use cash registers. Everytime you order a drink or a meal the server disappears somewhere for a bit. There is normally a girl who sits in the corner with all the paper receipts sitting out in front of her and the servers just run over and give her updates on the bill. It seems to work ok... saves on buying a cash register I guess.

A Very Merry Australian, Orphan Christmas!

Christmas can be one of the most difficult times to be away from home. 2007 is the second Christmas of 26 that I have spent away from my family. Luckily, there always seem to be others in the same boat as me, and it really can be a great time to get together and celebrate!

This year, we entititled our event an Orphan's Christmas, not because we didn't have families, but we just wouldn't be able to be with them this Christmas. We decided to have the event at our house in SYdney, in our main living area.

Now, I live in a house of mostly guys and none of us really have much of a handle on organizing the food aspect of a holiday dinner. I don't even want to begin describing to you the scene on Christmas eve when we decided it was finally time to go shopping for some food and figure out what we were going to eat. We ended up at a very, very busy shopping centre downtown Sydney walking in circles pretty much disagreeing on anything and everything and really getting nowhere. Chicken, turkey, pork?!? Too many options.

Suddently, Rowan and I were walking past the meat section and it was the first of many Holiday Miracles as we called them. Sitting all alone on the shelf, with a sliver of light shining in it - pre-seasoned, pre-stuffed - The Holiday Roast (as it was called on the label). There was only one left, it was a fair sized chicken that we picked up with achunk of ham and went on our way.

Brett cooked up the roast the next day and it really was amazing! Tender, juicy, great stuffing and superb gravy. It really was a holiday Miracle.

The day was a huge success and we had a great group of orphans who showed up:

Mark - Australian
Brett - Australian
Rowan - Australian
Teresa - Australian
Alok - Canadian
AMit - Indian
Nomi - Japanese
Leah - Japanese
Mel - The random australian neighbour
Me - Canadian

After our fantastic meal, we had a fun little gift exchange - which mostly contained random nerf-type toys and funny moustaches. It was a beautiful sunny day so we high tailed it down to the park on the corner and spent a few hours running off our big meal! Tons of fun again.

After it got dark, we returned home to enjoy Mark's Trifle in a box as we sat on the roof admiring the Sydney skyline and just chilling out.

We finished off the night with a 4 hour game of Risk. What Christmas is complete without a game of Risk? Went to bed at about 4am, ready to get up in a few hours to begin the long 1000km trek to Brisbane!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Magical Melbourne Cup

Last weekend, I had the privilege of getting sent south to Melbourne for a work. Friday nite I got my fill of Halloween at Canadian's Halloween party... Which was great because I thought for a second I was going to miss it. Halloween - Not such a big deal in Oz.

It also just so happened to be coming up on Melbourne Cup, which is one of the biggest holidays in Victoria - Basically one horse race stops the nation. ITs actually quite cool, people get all dolled up - in old englishy kindy style and then go to the race track and eat, drink and make massive bets on the races. I was downtown Saturday afternoon in Melbourne and streaming out of the train station were hundreds of guys in nice suits and fedora-ish hats and all kinds of women super dolled up in classy dresses and massive hats and/or feather-like contraptions in their hair. Very interesting phenomenon.

And all that was just the precursor to the Melbourne Cup - -Called Darby Day. Actual Melbourne Cup was Tuesday afternoon and we got treated to lunch and drinks for the afternoon in North Sydney - Wicked. We get the afternoon off work to watch 1.5 minute horse race. I bet about 30 bucks.. didnt win anything. It was an exciting minute tho.

In other news, the kiting is getting amazing here! It is such a cool culture! Tons of people hang out at this great kiting spot near the airport called "Dolls Pt." Most days the wind comes up at about 3pm and blows at about 17-22 knots until the sun goes down. And if the wind isnt blowing, the crew just hangs out on the beach socializing having a good time, waiting for the wind to come back. Everytime I go out someone teaches me something else new about kiting - normally because they see me struggling or doing something dumb... but ya gotta learn sometime right? I am seriously excited about kiting every Saturday-Sunday that I am here! The only problem is that I would also like to take weekened trips outside of the city - but I am always looking at the wind forecast and it keeps me in the city... Ah well. Can't really complain. Whenever I am out on the water.. I seriously just start to laugh. Kiting is one of the coolest feelings ever. It really is beyond description. Wakeboarding without a boat.. and you can cruise right into the beach, step off your board, fold your kite up and put it in the back of your car. (i put a little rip in my kite the other day--- this can be an expensive sport--but nowhere near wakeboarding in the long run).

Today I played my first game of Touch Footy with some colleagues in a work league. Touch Footy refers to Rugby League (which is basically Australian Rugby - you get limited tackles and positioning is a little different). Super fun, and hopefully will play some more. Its good to get in there with everyone and do some running around!

In general, I am really enjoying Sydney! Time is flying by!It is sort of a strange feeling sometimes being here though, as it really isn't very different from Canada - so I don't feel too culture shocked, but that being said, I can't shake the fact that I am on the other side of the world and there are all these tiny differences that sorta throw me for a loop sometimes.

Starting my Sydney Life

Not going to write much now, but life is great!! Started my job and Im loving it! Awesome projects, working on lots of advertising and promotions. Tons of great people in the office, playing weekly vball and doing some salsa dancing! I bought a car and am actually enjoying the commute (35 mins) listening to some good Aussie radio every morning and evening.

Anyway, check out some pics.

j.

A day of Seconds & Thirds

As eluded to in my previous post, in addition to a day of Firsts, yesterday was a day of Seconds and Thirds. What do I mean by this? Allow me to outline a piece of my life in the past 3 years.

September 2005- Just moved to Shanghai. Need to furnish my new place. Go to IKEA.
September 2006 - Just moved to Hamilton. Need to furnish my new place. Go to IKEA.
September 2007 - Just moved to Sydney. Need to furnish my new place. Go to IKEA.

As I wandered around IKEA yesterday searching for standard apartment items I got a very strange feeling of familiarity. The first came from the fact that I was in IKEA. I have been to IKEAs all over the world and I can assure you that once you are inside those doors, it doesn't matter what country you are in, you just feel like you are in IKEA. I think IKEA bridges the gap between all world cultures and has created a sort of sad globalization of discount furniture. Interestingly enough, I was helping a Chinese couple shop yesterday and we were speaking Chinese in IKEA, in Sydney. Weird.

So, my yearly routine of going to IKEA doesn't stop at simply entering the building but continues on in the items I buy. For the past 3 years I have entered IKEA with the exact same intentions. To basically furnish my new apartment. I can't believe how many times I have bought the exact same products!!!

Office Waste Bin (Black Mesh) - 3 times (SH, HA, SY)
Fold out laundry bin - 3 times (SH, HA, SY)
$25 Frying Pan - 3 times (SH, HA, SY)
6 Pack of glasses - 3 times (SH, HA, SY)

Rectangular White Table - 2 times (HA, SY)
$49 Duvet cover - 2 times (SH, SY)
$25 Duck Pillow - 2 times (SH, SY)
$69 Duvet - 2 times (SH, SY)

Anyway, the list can go on. But you get the picture. You may say I am stupid for buying this stuff over and over again. I would tend to agree. Remind me to at least sell the stuff this time.

Too bad for IKEA all of their customers don't buy all their products 3x each.

A Day of Firsts... Seconds & Thirds!

Yesterday was a serious day of firsts for me in Australia. Let me precursor why by saying that this week's activities have been dedicated to getting myself "settled" in Sydney, by way of finding a place to live, finding furniture, getting internet, phone, and a car. Details of the Palace that I live in (or rather the dungeon where I reside) will be captured in a separate blog entry.

Yesterday, I bought my first large item on eBay.
First No. 1 - First large purchase on eBay ($200)

I bought a used Queen Size Bed (Don't worry the pictures looked ok). Little did I know that I was required to go and pick up this bed. And it happened to be my luck that it was located in the little suburb of Heathcote which is about as far away from Sydney CBD you can be and still be in Sydney (Its in the sticks). So, how was I to get this bed? I explored multiple options including moving guys and courier. In the end I decided to rent myself a Big ol Van and do the job myself. So here were the problems, I am in a massively busy city where the traffic and the driving is crazy and I am also totally unfamiliar. I am driving a rather large vehicle that I am also unfamiliar with. I am sitting and driving on the right side of the van. I am driving on the left hand side of the road. So a whole slew of firsts.

First no. 2 - First time renting a van
First no. 3 - First time driving in Sydney
First no. 4 - First time driving a right hand drive
First no.5 - First time driving on the left hand side of the road

It is absolutely like learning to drive all over again. I was forced to ignore all driving instinct and focus real hard and really use my mirrors because I kept ignoring the whole left part of the vehicle, which normally you dont worry about because that is where you are driving. Anyway, apart from a few wide left hand turns and tight right hand turns into honking taxi cabs, and getting lost a dozen times, the trip went well and I picked up my bed and returned the truck today without incident. It was actually really fun and challenging trying to maneuver through downtown Sydney in this big old van! And after a well it does become more like second nature again. Tonight I pick up my new car! A 1991 Toyota Corolla Hatchback! The left hand fun continues!!

First no.6 - My first Car!

The Blog Continues: Australia Edition

So, Since Im not in crazy censorsing China.. the blog will now be back to its old location on Blogspot. This is the third edition of my travel Escapades. The first one being England, the second being China and now Australia. I arived in Sydney early this morning and have spent the day thus far randomly touring Sydney.

Random story to start. Im in the elevator at my hotel, some girls come in and are arguing about wearing sandals or closed toed shoes. She says, "its way too cold to wear sandals! Did you know it supposed to drop down to 16 degrees today!!??!!?" ITs not cold out. Its not beach weather. But its not cold.

I will recommence my section entitled "Jeff's Interesting Facts" or JIFS. These JIFS are little tidbits of info that describe little things that are different or interesting about whatever locale that I am in. Here are a few to start already:

JIF - Burger King is called Hungry Jacks. Same symbol, it just says Hungry Jacks between the buns instead of Burger King.

JIF - Instead of saying "only in theatres" on movie posters, it says "only at the movies"

JIF - I saw a sign downtown that said "New Zebra Crossing." This seemed peculiar to me. I mean, it is nice that they are trying to be accomodating to the zebras but.. is that really necessary? I then looked down and realized its just what they call cross walks that have white stripes on the black pavement. Witty. Very witty.

Lots of news and pics to come. Stay tuned.