Chinese New Year in Sydney

As Chinese New Year comes to a close this weekend marking 15 days of celebrations, I have to remark that Sydney knows how to celebrate! I think mostly due to the fact that weather isn't as much of a factor as it is back home (Vancouver). I think back on the Vancouver Chinese New Year parade where I can estimate say it's cold and miserable 70% of the time meaning people are marching and watching in layers and layers of clothing and ponchos and the lion dancers and performers brave the cold in their costumes.

Interestingly, an art exhibit that started with the Sydney Festival and is running through Chinese New Year was really interesting. This man, Song Dong, has placed all his family's belongings from China out on display. Every piece from their old home. Two things struck me - plastic bags folded into triangles and little scrap pieces of string tied nicely together to be saved. Both are things I and I know many other of my Asian friends do. I just never really thought of it being ingrained in our culture although I certainly know that saving everything because it could be useful one day, is pervasive in the Chinese culture which leads to clutter. The story of this exhibits explains why they collected "clutter" and I can understand. I find it interesting that as we come out of hard times, we still have these habits.

Chinese New Year in Sydney started off with a festival opening and Chinese Market in Belmore Park on the weekend that consisted of New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. It was just a little market with some food stalls, but nothing like what we have home where we have trinkets, As-Seen-On-TV goods, and other knick-nacks and gimmicks for sale. I did miss that, but I figure it probably existed somewhere in the more Chinese suburbs of Sydney. And I missed my one opportunity to get Dragon Beard Candy which for as long as I recall, get every year in Vancouver during Chinese New Year. Also, I was able to hunt down "leen goh" (literally translated as "year cake") and "loh bak goh" (literally translated as radish cake) in Chinatown which made me a very happy camper. However, I really missed Mom's "loh bak goh" as she always gets the taste so spot on and it's loaded with goodies like "lap cheung" (Chinese sausage), "ha mai" (Dried shrimp), and shiitake mushrooms (no translation needed) without too much MSG.



Last weekend (the 2nd weekend) I went with a friend to go see the Chinese New Year parade. The first major difference I pointed out above with the weather. The second is that this one takes place at night and this time, on a Sunday night! Vancouver would never have this! It was fun to see floats all lit up and the route lit up by lights. They also included the Korean community as it's Lunar New Year and both communities celebrate it. You may have guessed already - one of the Korean groups Gangnam Style-ed the whole parade route!

Town Hall all lit up with projections for the New Year.

So there it is - Chinese New Year in a different city. I still have yet to spend on in an actual Chinese city or country and I vow to do it one day! 

Bali Part 1 - Kuta/Seminyak/Kerobokan

In mid-December I took a short 5 day trip to Bali on a shoestring budget. Once piece of advice - Bali is not for people with shoestring budgets who are travelling solo. It was a lot more expensive as I had expected and I suppose if you have time to use local transit and really dig to find cheap places to stay, it's do-able. Anyways...

I arrived near midnight on a Saturday night and the first thing I noticed walking out of the airport was that I wasn’t mobbed by taxi drivers. Although they asked if I needed a taxi, they were not nearly as aggressive as others I have encountered in Asia. I was first offered 120,000 Rupiah (Rp) for the ride to Happy Day Hostel in Kerobokan, I asked for 80,000 (Lonely Planet tells me that Seminyak, just south of Kerobokan costs up to 70,000Rp) and was turned down. So I walked away to go check with the counter and a few steps later the cabbie agrees to 80,000Rp. First negotiation - done.

On the way it was dark, of course, but there were definitely some similarities to Sri Lanka. Motorbikes riding near the shoulder, lines on the road are just suggestions, and little shops and eateries along the way. As we got to Kuta and through Seminyak, things got more touristy and quite a bit nicer. Reminded me of Sri Lanka combined with Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Got to the hostel where the security guy handed me my key and was happy to walk into a 10 bed dorm where 4 UK gals were still up. Quickly got settled and caught some zzzz’s dreaming of surfing the next day.

Pura Petitenget - A temple in Kerobokan near my hostel. Loved that it was very un-touristy and no one was in it.

Bright and early I woke up and met a nice couple from England having breakfast in the common area. We chatted over breakfast then while they figured out what to do for the day I headed down to Kuta to go catch some waves. Catch some waves… well, just a few. I’m not so good plus the guy I rented the board from put me on a 7 footer “beginner” board. To be fair, he did come out into the water and helped me out for awhile which was awesome considering I rented the board from him for 50,000Rp for two hours (I probably could have negotiated for 10,000Rp less, but that was a pretty fair price!). He was a pretty cool dude because when I realised I didn’t have enough money to cab back to the hostel afterwards he offered to take payment the next day. How trusting! I told him I wasn’t sure I’d be back, so I gave him the cash and decided to walk along the beach north back to the hostel.

Local satay vendor.

Walking along the beach was quite enjoyable. Although asked quite constantly if I wanted a sun bed, a gentle “no, thank you” was enough to stop them from asking and often was answered by a “you’re welcome” or “have a nice day”. I really couldn’t get over how nice the Balinese were – a few even engaged in a short conversation with the standard “Where are you from?” and “How long are you here for?” even after saying no to them. So nice.

What I thought were fish tanks were actually display cases of food!

After returning to the hostel I spent the afternoon contemplating whether or not to head to Ulu Watu or wait to do that until the end of the trip. I decided to wait then went back to the beach at late afternoon to try to catch the sunset. To my surprise, the beach was filled with locals with some vendors selling treats in what looked like fish tanks on top of their heads. I stopped by a guy roasting some corn on his trailer and a lady squatting over a small grill making pork satay. I took that back to the beach and enjoyed the setting sun and watching the locals enjoy some family and friends time. A superb way to end the day! 

Happy 2013 from Sydney!

 Happy New Year! Wishing everyone a wonderful and fulfilled year ahead.

This year, I had the pleasure of ringing in the new year in Sydney Harbour. No, I didn't get the view of the bridge I wanted, but did met a lovely gentleman who was there by himself with all a bit of his camera equipment who I chatted with throughout the day and then lent me his tripod and taught me a bit about how to shoot fireworks. :)

For people from Vancouver, the fireworks themselves are beautiful over the harbour, but not as impressive as the Celebration of Light. However, the fireworks off the bridge are a different story. Those, are spectacular - but I only got a glimpse of it in person. I vow to come back one day and pay the $600 or whatever it is to be on a boat (or a bit less to be on an island lol).

Here are a few of my favourite shots! (No filters, no touch-ups and no editing, other than the bottom left hand corner on some of them, I blacked out the LCD screen of another camera that was in my frame)

Courtesy Seats and Online Shaming

What really gets my blood boiling is that people play ignorance when someone elderly gets on the bus. Instead of offering their seat (and yes, they are sitting in the courtesy seats), they just keep their eyes on their phone/tablet and are fully engrossed in whatever they are texting/watching/reading. They never check who is around them. They never look up to see if anyone needs the seat more than them. The ones who are the worst offenders are people my age or younger. For goodness sake, can you give up the slight inconvenience that you won't be able to watch your show for just a moment as you get up to offer your seat to the person who needs it more than you? I suggest if you want to take advantage of the courtesy seat, that you look up every stop and see who is getting on a the bus or train out of respect.

So there's actually a solution to bring my blood back down to a simmer, but I've learned of it only recently. There's a website called STOMP that allows site users to post pictures of people behaving rather poorly on the road or on transit. Check out this page, and maybe have a laugh here.

Only issue is, that a lot of these posts have turned into personal opinions, rather than just shaming someone for breaking a rule. Like, there is a statement that it was "unsightly for a woman to be sitting with one leg up on a luggage". This is an opinion; not a rule. So, people have taken it beyond what this page is supposed to be an complaining (remember, people here self-proclaim the country is known for eating, shopping, and complaining).

I think this could really work, if appropriate moderators are in place. Back home, there have been so many times I would have loved to post a photo or a video of an idiot driver driving recklessly on a road. What do you think? Like the Vancouver Stanley Cup Riots, would this be of help or detriment to law enforcement?

Volunteerism in Singapore, or the Lack Thereof

Last week I had a great lunch with the Nike We Run SG organizers to discuss some of the feedback I provided and they also wanted to learn about how things work in Canada. They were really open to sharing what their experiences have been and what mine was like. They really took it all in stride and acknowledge that they have many challenges and also that this event was a bit of an anomaly compared to some of their other events. I followed that with a great dinner discussion with a friend about some very similar topics.

The most important point to me about my volunteer experience was how I felt the time I gave wasn't used to it's greatest potential. Frankly, most of my time was wasted through waiting around. Their major challenge is the lack of public transport for the volunteers to get to the site early in the morning as trains and buses mostly don't run until around 6 or 7am on the weekends. Hence, they have no choice but to ask the volunteers to arrive before the last train or bus the night before. Most of the volunteers are high school kids who rely on public transport and it's safe to say that many families do not own a car. I compared that to my experiences in Vancouver where we can start driving on our own when we're 16.5 (here it's 18) and that there's lots of street parking in most places. We also live in a culture where volunteerism is almost a part of growing up, and have awesome family members who are willing to drive some of us around! Then, in Sri Lanka buses run pretty much 24 hours per day, so no issue there! Another major concern was that they were afraid they would get more no shows for a shift that starts early morning rather than going overnight. As it seemed, (at least for my group), I saw probably about a 50% no show rate!

The best solution is that if people could share taxis or carpool and have parental support to volunteer (i.e. rides to a volunteer assignment), less people would have to check in so early. The challenge here is the culture in Singapore does not promote, encourage, or value volunteering. People who volunteer mostly do it for what they get in return, materialistically. The volunteer entitlements are just as important as the runners' entitlements. The question most people ask is, "what do I get in return for my time?" My warm and fuzzy answer for recruitment in Canada (and in Sri Lanka) of "the joy of knowing you just helped some people accomplish something they never thought they could do, or achieve a goal of being the best athlete they can be" won't cut it here. Mostly, the kids (and others) do it because they have to, and the parents aren't there to tell them why it's good to do donate your time (or give them reasons to keep doing it). So for people to fork out extra money to take a taxi or carpool? Unlikely because volunteering doesn't hold very much value in this society. Heck, I feel like that anyone who gives them a more meaningful reason for volunteering other than for the material goods, just isn't heard. Yes, they would nod, but deep within their hearts, I don't think it's in them.

I crossed out "more meaningful" because I recognized that is a very Western personal and cultural expectation. In my discussions last week, what is meaningful to people here is very different from what is meaningful to many people I know. Many of us find meaning in helping others, volunteering their time, fundraising for charity, and in general, engaging with other human beings. A lot of people here find meaning in having the latest in gadgets and the feeling of having the warm and fuzzy screens of the iPads, tablets, and phones in their hands. Not that they don't think volunteering isn't meaningful, just lower on the list. I make that assumption, because that's all I ever see on the buses, trains, restaurants, malls, and streets. Yup. Everywhere. That, and in those discussions, I came to the conclusion that people here, work to buy the latest gadget, that designer purse, or the swank pair of shoes. They don't work to be a better person, attain that leadership role, go on an adventure, a vacation, or some time off. Seems wrong to the majority of us raised in the Western world, right? But what if, this is your world and this is what you know? Should we impose upon them what they should learn about outside this little protected bubble?

For the younger generation, it's all about "me". What do I get out of it? It doesn't matter that my actions might help someone else, because what do I get out of it for putting that effort in? Back home, you are recognized for being a "good" person to volunteer your time, you maybe get a meal and a t-shirt, you feel good about contributing to an event/project/charity, and you get to put it on your resume. Here, you get a meal, t-shirt, and cash. That's all that is expected. So to change the volunteer experience and to grow volunteerism, a major shift in culture is necessary so that it holds a greater value. The culture would need to recognize that volunteering is an activity that builds character, experience, and life-skills, like sport.  And guess what, sport engagement outside of high school is pretty dismal.

So, a little more food for thought. When primary schools are using parents of potential students as volunteers as a way to increase the probability their kid will be accepted into the school? They'll say that it's to help the school pick the best citizens for their school. Is it a clever scheme to get the resources you need to run school programs, or is a detriment to promoting volunteerism?

Around the Big Island on Two Tanks of Gas – Day 3: Black Sand Beach, Turtles, and Green Sand Beach

What I loved about this trip most were my easy and unrushed mornings. I would wake up around 6:00 am when it got light, step out of the tent, stretch, wash up and then slowly prep and eat my breakfast. I typically sliced up from fruit to snack on throughout the day (oh the papaya, mango, star fruit, and dragon fruits were deelish!), slowly packed up and then by around 8:00 or 9:00 am was on the road to my next point of interest. So that was how this morning began ...

I was on the road to Black Sand Beach and got there nice and early around 8:30am. With the 2nd half of my breakfast in hand, I moseyed on over to the beach to find the turtles that my guidebook told me would be sunbathing there. On the way there, a family from Alabama caught my attention and told me there were 5 or 6 of them about halfway down the beach! Totally stoked, I soon spotted three on the beach and a couple of them floating in the shallow water seemingly enjoying each wave of water washing over them. I found a spot on the rocks, plopped down, then enjoyed the peacefulness of watching the turtles and feeling the sun rising higher in the sky.

As more tourists arrived over the next hour, I walked around to try to find a quieter spot. I found a tide pool where one turtle was cruising around on its own and watched it for awhile. I didn't leave soon enough though. As I once again set to find another quieter spot, an irresponsible tourist family took over my spot, saw the turtle, then approached it and touched it. For those of you who don't know, disturbing turtles in their natural habitat is illegal or "kapu", meaning forbidden, in Hawaiian. Not only that, as I'm sure we have all experienced with the numerous "don't feed the bears", "don't feed the birds" or "don't feed the raccoons" signs, it habituates them with human interaction which distracts them from their natural habits. So as the members of this family touched the turtle, I glared ... I even said something, but they ignored it while I died a little inside (like the time the man we went snorkelling with in the Maldives broke off a giant piece of coral by stepping on it, albeit accidentally). I was so angry that people could be so ignorant and inconsiderate. It took sometime for me again to recognize it was something I could not control, but I really was quite angry because turtles are such a precious and endangered species around the world.


After that, I decided I had to move on. I went on to Naahelu where I had a tent site booked at Margo's Corner. Margo herself was pleasant and such a trooper. She has Parkinsons and runs this little business plus a small shop on her own. She does have workers who visit to help her out and told me she was pretty independent as she's been meeting people from online dating the last few years. Go Margo! Anyhow, I set up my tent, tossed my stuff inside, then went off to find Green Sands beach!

Long, dusty, seaside walk to Green Sands! 

I was SO glad I rented an all-wheel drive SUV as the road from Naahelu to Green Sands Beach and South Point eventually became pot-holed and single-lane where you had to pull over onto the little shoulder there was to let oncoming cars pass. It was a scenic drive going by horse stables, pastures, and even a wind farm! I got to the very dusty parking lot, thought about driving a part of the dirt road towards the beach, but decided to park the car and do the hike/walk as planned. It's a walk - but on very dusty sand covered tracks in full and direct sunlight. It was quite windy which was really helpful in keeping the body temperature down, but I almost got burned having forgotten my sunblock back in the car!

The coast is gorgeous, on your right hand side, as you go along the numerous dirt tracks created by 4x4s. However, you look left and all you can see is brown sand and dirt which makes it look like you're trudging through a desert. There were some moments where I thought "is this really worth it?" Just over an hour later, I finally reach the site where I was rewarded with a uniquely green sand beach (from the Olivine eroded from the giant rock that frames the bay) and beautiful turquoise blue waters. It wasn't very busy as only about 10 others were there, and a one point, it was just me and 3 others. I sat in the shade of the rock and enjoyed a little picnic with my peanut butter and banana sandwich washed down by some green Powerade. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? ;)

The walk back was more enjoyable, because I wasn't thinking so much "are we there yet?" I got back, super dusty, headed back to Margo's for a shower then went to a local bar for a well-deserved (well, at least I thought) meal of Laulau. I found Laulau to be very similar to a Chinese soup made with pork/pork bones and watercress, except, minus the soup. After the filling meal, I spent some time in the common area of Margo's (just me) reading, planning my next day, and helping her do some of her giant puzzle before calling it a night.

The Little Things That Make Me Canadian

I had a great conversation with someone last night who spent 6 years in Canada going to school and was really able to identify with some of those Canadian quirks/stereotypes that we have. Couple this with a chat about the same topic with another friend the other night, I have to say there are some things I really miss right now!

• People holding doors open in front of you. I can't count the number of times I expected someone to look behind and see me right there and hold the door for just a second longer. The worst ones are the ones that open the door just a bit, then slip in, essentially closing the door on you. 
• Getting a thank you for holding doors open for others
• Smiling at people in the hall/elevator/street and getting one in return. I mostly get strange looks back. Or, none at all. 
• "Sorry!" 
• The excitement of the first dusting of snow on the mountains 
• Toques and scarves
• The signs in the bathrooms telling people how to avoid Influenza (sorry, but the handwashing here I've observed is pitiful or non-existent. Gross, I know. The country looks mightly clean on the surface, but some personal habits need some work on!)
• Fall apples
• My bike and golf clubs
• Awesome hugs 

I really couldn't have had a more Canadian convo last night - we talked about mountains, Montreal smoked meat, poutine, Banff, snow, politeness (we are almost too polite to a fault!), and Russell Peters. The last one came about because he's of Indian descent. Myself, being Chinese, was thinking about instances where you'll find the two races interact with each other (my context was Vancouver). We concluded it would be close to 'nil, maybe except at a Russell Peters show.

I've also observed people here are very risk-adverse. I thought I was, but they are even more so! It could be because from the time they grow up, rules define their world. You can't do this, you can't do that. You can do this, but this is the exact way you must do it. Even directions to the Ministry of Manpower (I hate that gender discriminating name!) on their website have photos documenting every turn you need to take to reach their office. Getting lost, is not an option - because they don't let you, and people don't want to. Then again, I guess you can consider it amazing customer service?

Anyhow, going for a wander at Pulau Ubin this Saturday. Stay tuned for more!