Law Games 2007 (0) @ 1:19 PM

Finally recovered and I'm off to NYC this weekend. I'll prolly start taking pictures again.

Oh yeah, 5-peat in hockey. It's a dynasty. Happy New Years!

US of A (0) @ 2:22 AM

You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.
Charles Austin Beard
US historian (1874 - 1948)

Watching Fox News prompted that quote above; I honestly have no idea how this country will vote in November's midterm or in '08. I guess it depends on how many terror alerts there are in the run-up.

That aside, I really do love coming down to the US to visit. I'd really like to live in NYC. Someday...

And I had White Castle again. It's becoming less of a pilgrimage and more of a sickness I think. Still, new flavours of chicken rings for a limited time!

I'll toss some pictures up when I get back.

Ottawa/Montreal (3) @ 4:40 PM

My yearly pilgrimage to Ottawa was extended with a side trip to Montreal for some of the JazzFest. It was an awesome trip as usual. Thanks Kev & Mel and Greg & Maria for putting us up for the weekend.

The Hill.


Tam-tams


Unclear of the concept of a "drum circle."

London (May 28-30 2005) (3) @ 1:13 PM

Because of the delays leaving Barcelona, by the time we got from the airport to downtown London the subways had stopped running. Also, the buses take exact change only. And nothing around us was open save for a sandwich shop with a lineup wrapped around the building, and a newsstand with a surly vendor.

Despite the various hurdles we faced whilst traipsing through Europe, most notably, the language barriers; England proved to be the most trying experience of all. We were simply unable to convey our need for change to the surly vendor, even after purchasing something. Truly frustrating.

Later that day we met up with Aasthaa & Raeka and a various assortment of Waterloo peeps that were over in England/Ireland for co-op. We did some sightseeing. Some clubbing. That's about it. Nothing eventful. Absolutely nothing else to that story.

Two of Aasthaa's friends, Jeff & Cip, invited us to crash at their place the next evening, and the merriment continued as I celebrated my birthday in my birth city[ish].

Here are some various shots along the way

For D$:



The beginning of the end, not going on the London Eye.



The next day at Generator; part-hostel, part-star trek.



London Bridge



Random stuff including passing through some medieval faire, covert experimental jazz dancing footage, and just some lazy comedy.

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Camden Markets



Bah?



The crew minus 2.



As a mark of respect, please keep off the monument [Nice Parenting]



Green Park, near Buckingham Palace.

---

It was an amazing trip, start to finish, and now I can write the final paragraph.

179 days. ~67000 km. ~50 cities. 15 countries.
And I can't wait to get on the road again.
I just wanted to say thanks to my sister, my parents, my relatives, and my friends that helped make the trip possible.

We now return to the regular blogging, already in progress.

Fin.

about England, from Canada

Barcelona (May 27 2005) (0) @ 1:52 PM

Because of the unintended stops in Biarritz and San Sebastian, we basically had 6 hours to wander around Barcelona before our flight back to London. Surprisingly, we managed to see a bunch of the sites that we planned on seeing...but it's definitely a city I'll come back to spend more time.

One of the most famous buildings is the Sagrada Familia. Perpetually under construction.




With no time to change, our beach attire was decidedly uncool.




If I was ever going to attend church, it'd be one with a pond and geese in the center. The Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia




Poor Zorro.




Hip hop Culture


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Hip hop Culture Pt. 2: The Remix.
On the way to the modern art museum.




Outside the airport.

about Spain, from Canada

Madrid (May 26-27 2005) (1) @ 1:29 AM

By the end of the trip, photo-phatigue had set in and despite spending a full day and change in Madrid, I only have 8 decent shots to show for it...there was no shortage of impressive sites, but, well, meh.

As soon as we got out of our hostel and made our way to the metro, we saw a gaggle of Spaniards milling about. There was some sort of commercial being shot there, which gave us the opportunity to see our first real-live matador-actor.



The real, Real Madrid.



Like Rome before it, Madrid does not allow thumbs ups in the subways.



Possibly the greatest train station in the world. There's a tropical jungle in the middle of the station!



Worst. Recap. Ever.
But we're [I'm] so close to the end. Barcelona & London on Sunday.

Today's gonna be a busy day. Congrats Brian & Liselle!

about Spain, from Canada

San Sebastian (May 25 2005) (0) @ 5:48 PM

We arrived in the morning and despite having spent less than 24 hours with us, it was clear Ben was not keen on traveling much further with us. But he reluctantly followed along for some reason.

While waiting for Ben to buy a guitar in a music shop, I wandered around and saw that some of the rooftops had full out lawns and trees on 'em. Interestingly, they did not have shingles on the ground. Opposite land indeed.






I missed a great shot of the kid crying and curled up on the steps. Dunno what the fuss was about, but it was loud.



The cut-off jean shorts are the next throwback style. I'm calling it now for Summer '06.



After walking around the city, Hal and I climbed Urgull mountain cause it seemed like the thing to do, and I figured, "hey, my calves are fine now; i should climb more mountains."
There's a statue of Jesus at the top. This is that statue as you may have guessed.



The north of Spain/south of France region is Basque Country. It's easy to forget the differences between Basque and Spanish (or rather: Castilian, Catalan, Galacian...), but there are subtle reminders that linger about.


At the end of the day we headed for our last couchette ride of the trip, en route to Madrid.

about Spain, from Canada

Biarritz (May 24 2005) (0) @ 5:45 PM

Finally, real-time [minus one year] blogging... Due to the leg cramps I was feeling, we ended up stopping off in the south of France to have a day on the beach (this would eat into our Barcelona time significantly). We got to the hostel before it opened and had to wait around for a bit. This is the neighbouring lake where we killed some time before getting settled into our room and meeting our new roommates (Hal and Ben??).




We borrowed some of the hostels' bikes, which was an adventure of it's own, and headed off to town.




After a day on the beach we decided to get back on course and head to Madrid, but it turned out we wouldn't be making the connecting trip in Irun in time. Having seen all we needed to see of Biarritz, we decided to head to San Sebastian the next day with our new traveling friends, Hal and Ben.

about France, from Canada

Paris (May 20-23 2005) (4) @ 2:25 AM

All the major Parisian site photos I took are in the Gallery to peruse if interested, but the real Paris -- the seamy underbelly, that's what I'm going to blog about. And by seamy underbelly, I mean the glossy touristy stuff that I found funny.

Suicide Booths?



Okay, maybe I don't get jokes. Entirely possible. But reading this brochure left me scratching my head...



From the Jardin des Tuileries, on the way to the Louvre.






Ram mentioned to me last week of his dislike for people taking photos of photographers. I, on the other hand, love it. Cause of the rare times you get stuff like this. [there was supposed to be a link to a couple who met through flickr because one took a picture of the other taking a picture. but i can't find that link. but imagine the beauty of that.]



I know how you feel dude, I know how you feel. That's why Paul and I split up in Paris. I had enough of the museums and art galleries and whathaveyou so the Louvre was my only major stop.



On a mission for a late night shawarma we saw this guy drive up to a spot to parallel park. I made a comment about how fast he was going and how in awe I was about European drivers being able to whip into those spots so elegantly. On cue, he accelerates into the spot, hitting the car behind him, then pulling forward into the car in front, and finally, for good measure, backing up again into the car behind him to straighten out the wheels.




This panorama was taken across from the Montparnasse Tower, the tallest building in Paris.



Seriously? Could he be any more French?



Jardin du Luxembourg



Paul took a nice shot from the top of the L'Arc de Triomphe.



The city was amazing, and 4 days wasn't enough, but it was time to move on if we were going to see Spain at all. Also, it should be noted by this point of my trip, my calves were seizing up on a regular basis; this was likely due malnutrition from my chocolate pastry & falafel based diet. Stupid delicious train station pastries.

I'll leave you with some soothing segway action and a 360 view of the area around the Eiffel Tower. Can you imagine if downtown T.O. had green space like this?

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about France, from Canada

Milan (May 20 2005) (0) @ 2:24 PM

From Rome, we took an overnight to Paris, and there was a brief two hour stop over in Milan. Unfortunately it was at 7am, but despite the early hour, Will offered to give the abridged tour of Milan. Here's his pic from last year.

We met at the magnificent Duomo di Milano. Well, I imagine it looks magnificent. The wikipedia link has a better shot of it.



Then we hustled over to the Castello Sforzesco, and factoring in the time for breakfast and purchasing train station sammiches, that concluded our stopover in Milan.

about Italy, from Canada

Rome (May 18-19 2005) (0) @ 1:08 PM

As a result of the stop off in Florence, we had a serious mission ahead of us: 24 hours to tour Rome. It was ridiculous to keep such a tight schedule, but we did need to be in Barcelona by the time our flight left...

"It couldn't be done," it was said, "Rome wasn't seen in a day." But by this point in our travels, we had really refined our appreciation skills and could soak in the sights and culture whilst walking a brisk 8 km/h.

The first thing I see when we arrive at the train station? The new location of Mr. Panino.



We made a beeline for the ancient ruins, and along the way found out it was museum week or something. Pretty much every major site had free admission. There's a video & story that goes along with this at the end of this post.



Omg, Ronald Weasley! And he's trapped!



You may have to click to put it into context



La Bocca della Verità, the "mouth of truth", has a rich history that was unknown to us at the time of this photo. For all we knew, this was a bizarre Roman marriage ceremony. However, everyone in line was putting their hands in the mouth so...when in Rome...




The Palazzo Venezia is about as grand as they come.





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The next day we awoke bright and early after an uneventful night on the town to head to the Vatican. The Sistine Chapel was the highlight of the tour, but you weren't allowed to take photos inside. Weren't allowed to, but the endless stream of covert photographers didn't seem to care. You'd think the Vatican would develop a better system than just the plaintive cries of a security guard. The ceiling was amazing, especially considering the other Ninja Turtles didn't even help with this one.




St. Peter's Square and Basilica



The guides all warned of gangs of Roma people, especially children, that would swarm and rob people. Never saw anything remotely like that, and in fact the only time we saw any Roma was outside the Vatican. We saw these two kids playing music for the patrons of this restaurant (not as employees mind you, but freelancing). Later as we were leaving, I saw the little girl again with her family. It was an odd sight, and an almost unimaginable life. I didn't expect to see children this young, evidently not in school during the weekdays, raising money for the family. There's a lesson in there somewhere...






Finally, here are some random shots, and more swank signs.

If you have to ask...



Super happy fun slide?



Blurry, but the subways in Rome do not allow a thumbs up. Ever.



Back to the free admission story; The coliseum and surrounding areas were free, but the Roman Forum was only free for EU nationals. We walk up to the ticket office to pay and the following conversation transpires:

Attendant: What nationality are you?
Paul: Canadian
Attendant: Okay, British
Paul: Nope! Canadian!
Me: Quiet you...

A very nice gesture almost thwarted by Paul's inability to detect a freebie coming our way.

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About the post office reference in the video...In Florence, I forgot to give back the keys at the hostel we stayed at. (and as a further aside, the hostel owner was very nice, and let us in later than she normally would have and gave us a deal on the room). So we called her up from Rome, and I ended up mailing it from the Vatican.

about Italy, from Canada

Florence (May 17-18 2005) (2) @ 1:26 PM

Florence was probably the most random stop on our trip. Being completely ignorant, we assumed Michelangelo's David was in Rome. It's not. But we only figured that out after receiving an invitation to visit from a interesting Egyptian/Italian/Norwegian character we met on the train from Prague to Rome.
Paul and I were settling into our cabin when a guy breathlessly runs in, checks the seat number, and then announces:

I have a disgusting surprise for you,

and then runs off.

At this point, Paul's thinking he's bringing on fish or something smelly, and I'm worried this guys is going to just drop trou and leave a mess on the floor. Turns out it was none of the above. As we helped him with his 11th bag, the disgusting surprise was just a cabin full of bags.

Anyhoo, we get to talking and he tells us about the things to do in Florence (where he's settled down now) and combined with the train delays, we decide to jump off before Rome.

One of the many duomos in Italy.




I'm not a big "art" aficionado, but out of all the artsy things I saw in Europe, the David was probably my favourite. I don't know what it was exactly, but it was incredible. The detail, down to the veins on the feet, just jumped out at you. And I suppose to enhance the effect, there was a modern art piece nearby that really struck home how crappy modern art is. This is a replica of the David.

about Italy, from Canada

Prague (May 13-16 2005) (2) @ 12:54 PM

We arrived in Prague (from Berlin) at the tail end of the World Hockey Championship. The gold medal game was Czech Republic vs. Canada! What better time to show our national pride than to proudly march through the town square with our Canadian flags waving. There are better times apparently. The Czech team was slaughtering Canada 3-0, and the fans were throwing bottles at us. Salt in the wounds isn't just a phrase, it's a Czech way of life.




The next day there was a big party and the Czech team was on hand to take part. This video captures some of the evenings' hightlights, and about 2 seconds of the Czech team as they left the square.


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We took a walking tour of the city and visited Prague Castle, walked by the National Musuem, and went to the old town square again and saw the "Orloj"










It turns out that what these arrows were pointing at was not that impressive.




In Prague, the office gossip around the water cooler is on a whole other level. I really want to see Miss Saigon.




It's weird seeing an American car here.




Paul and I had a system to deal with our conflicting tastes in music. I'd choose the theme one night, and he'd choose the next. Prague's indie-hipster scene wasn't bumping when we were there, but the Reggae night was off the hook. Possibly the creepiest club ever.


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about the Czech Republic, from Canada

Berlin (May 12) (5) @ 2:29 PM

Hey, remember last year when I traveled around a bit and said I was gonna keep an online travel log of my journey? Well, I don't. Rewriting history with truthiness is fun. But I suppose before all memories fade of my time in Europe, I should pen something. Here it goes:

We had a few hot spots to hit in Berlin, and first up was the Reichstag. We heard the lineups were insane, and true to form, they were. Paul's in line somewhere here.




Inside it was an open-concept design for their Parliament. Transparency in government or something like that I'm sure. Up top was this mirrored structure, inspired no doubt by the shawarma, whose vendors were seen far and wide throughout Germany.




As we exited the Reichstag there was a demonstration by the Yes side for the ratification of the EU Constitution. Paul & I exercised our rights and joined in, although at the time we were unsure of our support for the Yes side. They did have large balloons which swayed my vote that day.




Oh yeah, on our way to the Reichstag we had to walk through the Brandenburg Gate which had a large panoramic shot of the gate after Allied bombing.




The happiest organ grinder in Germany.

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We also wandered around the Pergamon museum for a bit before heading off to see the wall and Checkpoint Charlie. The museum at CC contained an impressive collection of artifacts that chronicled many of the escapes over, under, and through the wall.




Spotted: An Enzo.




Also spotted: This huge, either offensive or brilliant, billboard.




While in the train station on our way to Prague, Paul stopped for more art appreciation.




There were more than a few surreal moments when I traveled. This ranked wayyyy up there. I had bought a magazine, I think it was an India Today, in Sri Lanka. Never got around to reading it but I carried it with me in case I got bored on a plane or train. While on the train from Berlin to Prague, I flip the page and see the picture of a buddy of mine from Waterloo. I couldn't quite wrap my head around it at the time; if ever the world was a small place...an idea that's so clichéd and yet never more true to me than on that day.

about Germany, from Canada

Dachau (May 11) (0) @ 3:07 PM

Exactly 200 days have passed since I visited Dachau. It seems like a lifetime ago.

Dachau was the first concentration camp used by the Nazis. To contrast that, it's hard to describe how peaceful it was there when we went. It was early May and there were white petals from the surrounding trees floating ethereally all around us. It's in small and unassuming town. You just can't imagine the absolute nightmare that this place represented 60 years ago.




They were in the process of digging out this road that had gone unnoticed. I wish I spoke German; it seemed like that old man would have had a story to tell.




This was inside one of the bunkers that housed the interrogation and torture rooms, and where the "special prisoners" were housed too.




This monument shows bodies twisted into a barbed wire fence. I didn't see that at first until I overheard a guide talking to his group. It was interesting to see the school groups out and their reaction to this site. In grade school we went to the Nestle factory on one of the only field trips I remember. I think it's important that these kids visit Dachau, but judging by their expressions, I don't think they appreciated the importance of this memorial. I could barely comprehend it myself.




When we went back to Munich we tried to make our way to the house that Hitler had lived in. It's now a police station. The door was locked and as were beginning to knock two police officers approached us and mentioned that there weren't any tours to be had here...

about Germany, from Canada

Munich (May 9-11) (3) @ 11:47 AM

So where was I...riiiight, traveling around Europe. After Bonn & visiting my relatives we hit up Munich. Paul's favourite stop of the trip I think. By this point we had successfully figured out the details of the Eurail pass and opted to head straight for Neuschwanstein as a day trip. This where Krazy King Ludwig built the castle that would later be the inspiration for the Disney castle.




Now remember, this was early May and my last stops had been Sri Lanka and Australia...so imagine the shock to my system when it started to snow. Also, this is a terrible picture.




Back in Munich there were platz(es?) as far as the eye could see. Basically these big open squares, really nice and allowed us to map the city mentally pretty well.




A running theme for our trip was playing oversized novelty chess. Well, never actually playing, but posing for pictures. Paul can thrash me at chess, although I'm intrigued by Fisher-Random chess (aka Chess960).




We hit up the Deutsches Museum, where I saw the greatest hologram ever. I never knew it was possible, but you could use a holographic pair of glasses to read an unfocused holographic book. Click the image for a link to the video which does a poor job of trying to capture that effect. Also, there was a musical instrument that played based tones on your relative position to it...the video can explain that one better.




Also seen at the museum at an exhibit about the human body (click to read it):




As we traveling along, we took shots of pictographic signs that struck us as funny. Usually we'd try and come up with an accompanying tag line to go with it. For this one, mine was along the lines of "Pink Panther Zone: Please Tiptoe." Funnily enough, I recently found a site that caters to this kind of humour. Ahh the internet...what niche doesn't exist?




Of course no trip to Munich is complete without seeing the magnificent Glockenspiel. The telltale atonal clanging is music to the ears, and the hoards of Japanese tourists can't seem to get enough. We had a handy free guide from Mike's Bike Tours, that said the Glockenspiel was crap, but you're gonna go see it anyway. Mike was really quite helpful. We visited his internet cafe and somehow got free drinks with a pub crawl tour (even though we were boarding a train for Berlin an hour later). I kinda wish we went on his bike tour instead of just exploiting his generosity.




Paul loves him the art galleries, and in Munich there were pinakotheks as far as the eye could see. I don't know what a pinakothek is, and frankly it sounds more Aztec than German, but this is a shot from inside one of 'em.

about Germany, from Canada

Bonn (May 6 - 8) (3) @ 1:16 AM

Let me preface this by saying I did indeed attend the Skydome screening of the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I freely admit I enjoyed the show, and many other sci-fi shows, movies, etc.

But I never, ever, thought I'd go to a convention. Paul however had an idea brewing. Early in our route decision making process he pitched the idea of going to FedCon in Germany. It turned out that Bonn, the site of FedCon 14, was really close to my relatives place. Well, close enough I suppose.

I really didn't want to go. I appreciate the shows on a TV watching level, but I couldn't justify traveling to Germany to sit in a convention centre listening to people talk about science fiction. And watch them dress up as their favourite characters. It smacked of a medieval fair. But he was very keen on going. And when it turned out that going for one day wouldn't cover the discussions with all the actors he wanted to see, he had the tougher task of convincing me that the weekend-long, €75 pass was the way to go.

After digging through the FedCon site, I did finally find a tiny reason to go. Parker Lewis.
Corin Nemec was going to be at FedCon!
I didn't know why he was going to be there, but knowing that Parker Lewis was gonna be there, it seemed like fate.

Why fate? You know how things happen in threes? Well the first incident was when I was writing in my journal while in Sri Lanka. For some reason, the names of the entire cast of "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" started speeding through my head. Completely random, and extremely bizarre. The second incident was when I started reading a book I had on screenwriting a few weeks later. One of the blurbs recommending it came from the creator of PLCL. Now at this seemingly unconnected BiMonSciFiCon, Corin Nemec was gonna appear?

How could I not go? Well, pretty easily; it's 75 Euros to mill around with sci-fi nerds! I can do that for free at in the Comfy Lounge. But then Paul said he'd subsidize a portion of my ticket if I agreed to come so I said a'ight.
Once we reached a compromise we headed off to the convention. This is me posing in front of a hardcore vending machine along the way.




Spargel is white asparagus. It's a rare treat in Germany, in season only two months of the year. And they go bonkers over it. We had it on several occasions with my family, and it's quite delicious. Really simple dishes too. Boiled spargel drenched in hollandaise and served with homefries and salty pork. Paul really took a shine to spargel.




As I traveled I started taking more photos of people taking photographs. I dunno why. There was this statue outside the Bonn train station of a guy taking a photo. I took a picture of it. Then Paul suggested taking a picture of me taking a photograph of it. While the picture and its less cluttered followup are neat in concept, I think the stares from the passersby in this one make it way more interesting. Or maybe not. Both the meta-meta shots (03,04) are Paul's, as well as pic 31.




We eventually got to FedCon and of course, this is a family affair.




There were all sorts of individuals in attendance, and as far as I could tell, were all simply congregating to hawk their sci-fi or celebrity wares. Apparently the correct nomenclature for such wares is "merch," as in merchandise. Wheee, money well spent so far...




I surprised this guy from the balcony.




Yes! In all his glory, Parker Lewis was there. I found out that he was on Stargate for one season, and that's what qualified him for this convention. Regardless, it seems as though he hasn't aged a bit; this TV moment would have been truly complete if Neil Patrick Harris had been there too. The emcee of the night twice referred to Corin as Ferris Bueller; this was after Corin made it painfully clear that Parker Lewis was conceived before Ferris.




The word 'round the playground was that Leonard Nemoy was behind one of those doors. So a mob of geekerazzi assembled and waited. I got distracted by a lil' guy wearing a Geordi visor, and followed him for a picture but I lost track of him.




Remember how I said the idea of a convention reminded me of a medieval fair? Well, there was a "play" where people just showed off the costumes they had made or bought. There was no discernable storyline, just a clash of various pop sci-fi icons assembling on stage. It's dress up, and that's cool. On Halloween.




Jolene Blalock was one of the top tier draws at this convention (alongside Spiner & Nemoy). Her Q&A/storytime session started off awkwardly cause she didn't really know what to do with her time. But eventually she found her stride, yet remained quite nervous. To put her at ease, possibly the creepiest sounding guy in the world said "Don't be nervous Jolene...you're amongst friends." I was kinda freaked out by that, dunno how she felt. Shortly thereafter was an example of fine questions being posed to her.

GuyInStarTrekUniform: um Jolene, are you going to do another Star Trek movie?

Jolene: another Star Trek movie?

GiSTU: yeah, you know after Star Trek: Lost Contact

J: you mean ST: First Contact? I wasn't in that one

GiSTU: no! not First Contact, Lost Contact!

J: Last Contact??

GiSTU: no! Lost Contact! <chuckles to self>

J: is that a movie you wrote?

GiSTU: yes! ha ha! I have another role for you if you're interested

I can't remember how that dialogue resolved, I was crying from laughing so hard.




We ended up seeing Spiner twice and both times I was surprised how funny he was. He managed to hold the audience captive for his hour, and I did really enjoy that part of the convention. Not enough to ever go back to one again, but it didn't make it seem like a complete waste of time. Nemoy closed out the show on the last day and he as well had an interesting hour.

On Sunday after the convention finished, Paul grabbed a picture with a random klingon and we headed off towards our next destination, Munich.




A shot of the metro station outside the convention hotel.




We transferred trains in Cologne to get to Munich, and with a couple hours to kill we wandered the streets. The price of free has certainly gone up a lot.




Finally, if you've made it this far your reward is a poorly edited video montage of a couple things that happened at FedCon. It's about 4 mins & 13 mbs long, in Xvid format (should play with the DivX codec I used previously I think, but you may need to get the Xvid binaries to make it work)

about Germany, from Canada

Kaarst, Banneux (May 4 - 5) (0) @ 3:34 PM

You might remember I stopped off in Germany on my way over to Sri Lanka back in December. Well, I decided to visit my family there again whilst Paul and I attended a "conference." They live outside of Dusseldorf, fairly close to the Belgium border, which is where we headed for a nice lil' day trip.

Our destination was the Banneux Notre-Dame Sanctuaire. It houses a shrine to the Virgin Mary who according to legend appeared in Banneux back in '33. It was a really busy yet simultaneously peaceful place; the surrounding landscape stood out as stereotypically European.




Just outside the sanctuary we stopped for a quarter-chicken meal.




This is that European countryside I was talking about before.




In Kaarst we just hung around the house a lot, a well timed 'rest' portion of our trip as I came down with a terrible cold, and promptly passed it on to the rest of my family there. During that time though we were able to catch up on our carrom skillz. And no, those aren't electric pants in the forground.

about Belgium & Germany, from Canada

Amsterdam (May 1-3) (3) @ 6:21 AM

From London we took a bus & ferry & train combo to Amsterdam. To catch the morning bus required catching the earliest Underground from Rayner's Lane over to Liverpool Station. I did not factor in the train line being under construction and having to take a bus part of the way. Without going into specifics, I discovered something important that morning: backup plans when you don't have cell phones, are critical. With that auspicious start we were on our way, with Paul driving:




Apparently this was a funny picture. How else can you carry two backpacks? If you can think of a better way, let me know.




Getting out at the train station we realised we had no idea where we were and where we were going. The plan was to get a map and work from there. The helpful girl at the bookshop & map repository in the train station recommended a hostel close to the Rijksmuseum. After a long day of traveling we went off in search of food.




As this blog progresses, you'll be reading less and less information about the various structures seen in the pictures. Most of them are written down somewhere, or on occasion I had the foresight to record a memo with the pics, but for the most part they've all blended together into what I call the "Vast And Columnar Buildings, both Historical And grandiose"




At one of the old churches, let's call it Odenkirk, I saw my new favourite photograph at the World Press Photo exhibit.




Again, VACBHAGs are all around Europe, and this, is a shopping mall. It does kinda remind me of South Common...kinda.




This will appeal to one person, my "History of Mathematics" prof; I did a paper on Huygens and his crazy world of evolutes.




This is fairly self-explanatory.




Finally, Paul & I ventured into many a McDonald's in our travels. The justification of course is that while McDonald's is an American icon, there are regional specialities that piqued our respective curiosities. After a bad McCroquet, Paul opted for a tried and true happy meal, and the gem found inside was a little plastic stereo that played the following tune (mp3).




This little toy ventured all across Europe with us, in the hopes of starting a party with it. Unfortunately we kept forgetting about it. It is a catchy song tho.

about The Netherlands, from Canada

London (April 30) (4) @ 6:24 PM

Backup. Backup. Backup.
Sifting through a faulty but very important harddrive that crashed while I was away turned out to be a fairly time-consuming process. Reminded that I could easily lose every picture I've taken while traveling in one simple power surge, I've subsequently spent a lot more time backing up everything I own. In duplicate.

But now that it's done, and now that I've gotten over the post-traveling-blues, it's time to update.

Starting with London.




My flight from Colombo was on Sri Lankan Airlines (owned by the excellent Emirates airlines), and I was notified that in accordance with British aviation rules, the standard metal cutlery has been replaced with plastic cutlery. They apologized for this inconvenience. I liked that. I was seated next to an older guy who I cheerfully helped with his in-seat video & gaming terminal. After showing him how to play the chess game, he proceeded to detail every move he made. And just in case I didn't hear because I had my headphones on and was trying to watch a movie, he would tap me on the shoulder and repeat what I had missed. Wheee, only 10 more hours of this...

In any case I was staying with some of my parents' friends outside of central London, but conveniently on an Underground line. I met up with Paul who had arrived a few days earlier and we headed into the city to take a walkabout.




During this time, I was introduced to Frommer's guide. There was a love/hate relationship with Frommer. He did have a star rating on the major sites, but other than that, it wasn't too useful. It turned into a running gag, with Paul assigning Frommer various titles depending on where we were at the time.




In the brief period we were in the city, we managed to get lost and ended up walking in a giant circle back Piccadilly Circus. We ended the night early as we had a morning ferry to Amsterdam to catch.

about England, from Canada

Quarter Century (3) @ 12:53 PM

Well...25 years later and I've come full circle. Geographically at least. It was a fun weekend meeting up with old friends, and making new ones. The siteseeing portion has been really secondary. Paul & I are fairly museumed out. The greatest injustice to culture was probably our trip over to the British Museum. We wanted to see the Rosetta stone so we walked in, saw it and pretty much just walked right back out.

There is a ton of stuff to see in London, but I'll be back for sure. It's hella expensive though. Take the price in £, swap it with a $, and it's still more expensive than back home.

The last week has flown by, and I'm heading back to Canada tomorrow afternoon. Dragon boating season is well under way and I've got 3 weeks till the Centre Island meet to put on at least 10 pounds. Although as Paul has mentioned, if you don't care what kind of weight you put on, 10 isn't that difficult. When I get back home, I'll start staggering out posts of the last month, and when that's done, I don't imagine my blogging will be nearly as plentiful. But I love that I can keep in touch with everyone, wherever you are in the world. So I'll definitely make an effort to put something up now and then.

And whether you're up to something, nothing, or anything in between, feel free to drop me a line.

England

Cultural Savage (3) @ 9:52 AM

A little ankle injury, which I must say was long overdue, has slowed me down a bit. I've split up with Paul whilst in Paris as we have differing interests. He likes the galleries, I like walking the city. (Of course the irony of me not being able to walk very well is well...ironic)

I really tried giving the galleries a fair shake. But I can't do it. Staring at endless painting after painting, and especially some of the modern art stuff..ugh. Does that make me a cultural savage? I don't know. I remember talking about, tho perhaps not blogging about, my art un-appreciation. It's really aimed at paintings more than anything else. I like sculptures. Taking a rock and making it something cool, I'm all for it. When we stopped in Florence by accident and thus ended up seeing Michelangelo's David, I was in awe. I thought it was incredible, and definitely worth a side trip.

But paintings...very few paintings really stand out for me, and the few that do, have never really left a lasting impression. While I might hum a song favourite song as I walk down the street, I rarely imagine the "Still Life of an Apple & Pear" while strolling the streets. Maybe it's just museum overload. Or I might be missing something significant.

We're heading to a coastal/border town whose name escapes me in Southwestern France for a little R&R from our vacation. Hitting the beach before heading to Spain and then back to London by the end of the week.

Anyway, I'll prolly get caught up with pics when I get back to London. I had fun meeting up with Will who woke quite early to catch us on a transfer in Milan from Rome to Paris. Thanks for showing us Milan in a Minute. You should do tours on the side dude.

Paris, France

Hockey (1) @ 12:42 PM

They do love their hockey here...it was cool seeing the game in the public square with thousands of riled up Czech fans. We're heading off on an overnight to Munich shortly and then a long day train to Rome tomorrow. There was likely a better way to do this, but hey...when in [ed. no. don't say it]

Prague, Czech Republic

Planning (0) @ 12:23 PM

Turns out a little bit of planning goes a long way when you're traveling. Now that we have a schedule down, and all our modes of transportation nailed down, it's quite nice to just relax a bit and enjoy the city. We haven't seen too much of Prague yet, but if we're half as productive as we were in Berlin, the next two days should cover a lot.

We're heading out now, just wanted to check in with the folks...

Prague

Colombo for the last time (0) @ 2:37 PM

Not the last time ever, but the last time for the foreseeable future. It's been my hub, my goto place on this side of the world for the past 5 months. I'll certainly miss my family there and I already regret not spending more time with them.

From Colombo I headed to London to meet Paul, starting off our dash through Europe. This is a trial run of a hopefully longer stay at some point. Ten days into the month already and I'm beginning to panic...the reality of having to do stuff in the "real world" is fast approaching.

But I won't dwell on that. I'll start to think about it on the plane ride home.
Or maybe on the car ride back from the airport. Possibly just when I reach my front door. I'll extend this trip as long as I can...

In any case, we're heading out of Munich tonight on an overnight to Berlin. And from there we'll be in Prague for the weekend. I gotta say I really have been enjoying Germany, and I guess I'll add that to the ever growing list of languages I want to learn.

Germany

Anzac Day, Sydney (0) @ 12:16 AM

I bid farewell to Christine and headed back to Sydney for a couple more days before flying back out to Colombo.

Sunday night I met up with some SL peeps for a night out on the town. It was kind of a bust in the end, but when I heard cover was AUS$25 I wasn't too upset we couldn't actually get into the club.

On Monday I walked around some of the neighbourhoods near Darling Harbour with Kieran. He showed me the local greyhound racetrack, but unfortunately the only dogs present were the ones that were guarding the lot. I shot this piece of local graffiti, it's too bad that the tree was in the way.




April 25th is Anzac day, to celebrate veterans (started for vets of WWI I believe). And what better way to celebrate than to pack in hundreds of veterans in paddocks, and ply them with veneration-priced alcohol.




What? Problems when you have thousands of surly, emotional, drunk, trained-killers on the street? That'd be the day.




The best scene I wish I'd captured, was a guy running towards us balancing a beer, who got tackled by a group of police officers walking behind us. As he caught them out of the corner of his eye, he just said "oh shite," and then he was dropped to the ground. I was so close to capturing that moment as I was just about to grab my camera to take a photo of the cops.

about Australia, from Germany

I Got Served (April 23rd) (1) @ 12:15 AM

I forgot to mention it, mainly because I didn't take pics that night so I was waiting for Christine to send 'em to me. But at Tropicos, a club in Cairns, I got served. It's not hard to believe, but it highlighted my need to practice more.

The night started a week before, when I was reading about stuff to do in Cairns. I read about this "Nightmoves" hiphop dance school that was having an open freestyle session at a place called MyBar. Further research on MyBar turned up this short, but extremely sweet description: "Karaoke + Hiphop."

Could it be?

No, it couldn't. We stopped by there, but the bouncer said it was really slow and wasn't worth the cover. That's how good it was.

So we moseyed over to Tropicos which was playing good music when we walked past it before. They continued to play the same good music, over and over again in 1 hour sets. Regardless, we were dancing, when a couple of guys (who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighbourhood) came over when I was trying to pop and/or lock. One of them stepped up to me, and busted out some moves, and then I replied. And then he and his buddy started going at the same time. And I was only able to do the same thing I just did. I hung my head in shame. I should have done something to Achy Breaky Heart.

Cairns, Cape Trib (April 17-23) (0) @ 9:14 PM

The next locale on my agenda for the East coast Aussie tour was Cairns. Cairns is a very very very touristy spot. As Christine pointed out, there's a travel or tourist information booth every third store. But it's a very convenient starting point if you're heading out to the Great Barrier Reef. We were scheduled to leave for scuba diving and snorkeling out of Cape Tribulation, so our first night in Cairns was just spent wandering around the town. It reminded me of an over-planned community. Disneyland-ish.

But sometimes nature can provide a little authenticity.

These two cars were parked under this tree filled with flying foxes. I touched the hood of the one on the right, and it was cold, can't be sure how long it was there for. But one car was absolutely covered in bat poop. It's unfortunate (for my photographic reasons) that both cars were white, but the other one is untouched. I'd assume it's because the car on the right hadn't been there as long, but several hours later they were both still there and in the same condition.




Because there are fresh and salt-water crocs, swimming in the bay is not advisable. As a result, a giant man-made lagoon was constructed on the waters edge to provide a safe swimming area for everyone. It was really quite impressive.




The next day we headed to Cape Tribulation. Along the way the tour guide explained some of the problems with the wildlife they were having. Like the feral pigs, cats, dogs (dingos), and the cane toad. The cane toad was a particularly troubling little bugger, as he was a recently introduced species. There was a problem with beetles eating the sugar cane crops, and the idea was to introduce a natural solution to the problem. So they imported 48 cane toads (from South America I think).

Well, two things resulted. The cane toads enjoyed the beetles that were causing problems in the controlled lab experiment. However in the wild, they didn't actually even meet the beetles as they never climbed the sugar canes to get the beetles at the top. Secondly they had very little competition on the ground and proceeded to eat everything else that was available to them. And multiply. It reminded me of the Simpsons' episode which had a similar premise. Allegedly they will eat and eat, and given enough food, they will eat until they explode. The tour guide was spewing all sorts of cane toad vitriol, I wasn't sure if that last one was true, or if it weren't true of any species really. I'm fairly sure if you left a bag of dog food open, you'd have bits of dog all over your walls when you got home. And speaking of dogs, the cane toad is poisonous & and a hallucinogen, so pets and overzealous addicts were dying as well.

In any case, one of the proposed "solutions" were cane toad blood sports. Cane toad cricket, golf, & baseball events were some of the ideas pitched. I didn't really get into the debate, but my "captain obvious" moment was that this wouldn't do anything to limit the population of cane toads, but would in fact encourage violence against all animals. In any case, it seemed that all citizens were actively supported in any potential cane toad massacres they were planning. The humane way to kill 'em is less fun I guess, but you're supposed to catch them and toss them into the freezer. As their body temperature drops they're fooled into hibernating. So they freeze to death in their sleep. And you've got dead toads in your freezer. The government recommendation is to wait till garbage day to throw out your toadsicles as they'll thaw and rot in your can otherwise.

I don't know how that cane toad digression took a life of its own, but I'm done now. On the way to Cape Trib we traveled by boat along the Daintree River. We saw a few crocs, and the rainforest surrounding us that I would have imagined more at home in South America than Australia was unending.

By the time we got into our hostel, it was too late to go out, so we used it as catch up time for journals and reading. In the evening as we were making dinner, we discovered a couple of other Canucks, identified by their (our) pronunciation of margarine. Turns out Dan & Alison had only met a few days prior, and started traveling together. And Dan had actually worked at a camp very close to where Christine and Bryce worked. And Alison had gone to one of the camps when she was a kid. Brown people don't camp. It was another small-world-y experience.




We were scheduled to go diving the next day, but the one of two tour operators on the water had some ship problems. So we rebooked with the other company that was scheduled to resume service on Thursday. Now with a new free day, we decided to hike to a nearby swimming hole. There was a croc warning sign on one side of the river, and a swimming hole as demarcated on a map about 100 m away. Regardless, it was unlikely that all of us would be eaten, so I just swam in the middle...




I really like moonshots, and once I invest in a decent fully-sized tripod and a another lens I'll try taking them more often.




The next day Christine, Bryce & I went "Jungle Surfing." It's an overpriced, but fun, zip-line tour through the canopy. I stole a line from Paul in the comments I left for future Jungle Surfers: "Hip-bruisingly good times!"




And in that vein; for nausea-inducingly, arm-paralysingly good times, go on a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef during jellyfish season. To start off, for the first time in my life I had nausea that was induced by motion sickness. The rolling of the boat was not settling well with the muffins and pancakes. When we finally came to a halt, and started getting our gear on, I decided I should force it rather than have the horrifying possibility of spewing underwater into my rebreather.

Needless to say, throwing my business overboard wasn't nearly as productive as when others were doing it while we were moving. It just floated there, waiting for someone to jump on it. Graphic? Not graphic enough? Send a message to our complaints department.

Anyhoo, the diving experience was awesome. We were doing it out of Cairns, as our rebooked dive in Cape Tribulation was also cancelled; its supposed to be a little better from out there. I have some underwater shots that (crap, this future posting problem...) have/haven't been developed, but we bought some overpriced shots from the resident dive photographer on board. It was only when I started snorkeling that I encountered the blue-bottle jellyfish (fortunately not the lethal box jellyfish). I got stung a couple of times, and motioned my discomfort to Christine. I thought she had been stung too, and was signaling to just keep going. Not one to turn and run (unless everyone else is doing it), I pushed on. Then I got stung a couple more times, and then Christine got stung, and we made a beeline for the boat. Even our hasty retreat was met with more stinging.

It's a little less painful than a bee sting but more painful than licking a 9V battery. Once I got on shore the stinging was a little more intense, but then I noticed that my armpits were hurting like crazy. And then my arms started going a little numb. It's like when your arm falls asleep, except without the delightful accompanying pins & needles effect. This was a little worrisome, until my dive instructor, said "Haha, your glands are swelling too! You got the full treatment! Don't worry it'll go away in 30 mins."

30 minutes later it was gone and I was back in the water for a second dive and snorkel, and a second round of stinging.




Back in Cairns, we spent some time wandering again, but it was raining off and on, making the visibility quite poor and scuttling our plans of going up into the hills around Cairns.

This is what Australians call a "ute". Or what we would call, "ugly." Actually I kinda like these half-car/half-pickups. They seem far more practical than stuff like the Explorer SportTrac or Chevy Avalanche. You don't need the gas-guzzling, fender-crushing power of a SUV most of the time, but you do often need a lot of storage capacity. Just another one of those little quirks in Oz.




/update: i've tossed on a few of the underwater that I got developed, and a couple of the ones we bought

Thumbs up is not the right sign to give underwater...it means going up. The correct sign was shown previously.




This is me failing photography 101

about Australia, from Germany

Melbourne (April 13-16) (2) @ 7:13 PM

/* aside: Paul's on my case to get up to speed on the blog so that I can actually write stuff that's happening now. Since I'm working off this cold, and basically just growing my I'm too sick to shave beard, I'll put the next two posts up this weekend and finish off the Australian leg of my trip */

My next destination after Sydney was to meet up with Christine in Melbourne. At the airport I finally met Bryce, who was like Polkaroo for the longest time when in Canada; I never seemed to meet him. I was warmly invited to crash at his family's place, and it was extremely welcome as everything else in Melbourne was freezing cold. I was really caught off guard. I knew it was winter, and I knew it could get cold, but the forecast had said like 18-20 degrees. But that's the high. The low is very low, but not quite as low as I thought. Also most of the houses aren't well insulated since most of the time it's not needed. It was the change from 35 degrees & 90% humidity to 10 & 10 that I just wasn't ready for.

That night on the way to his house, we stopped in downtown Melbourne to see the Wednesday nightlife. Predictably, it was like a Wednesday night in Mississauga. But we did stumble across the filming of Ghost Rider (with Nic Cage?? odd casting choice). They were setting up the shot for a long time, and later I found out it's a scene where GR drives into the river. Or something. Well, someone takes a dunk.




Along the waterfront there are these pillars that shoot fire. In the evenings, usually weekends, on the hour for several hours there is this impromptu show. I'm not quite sure why they'd do it on a lonely Wednesday evening. Bryce said they were ridiculously expensive to do, but hey, it did provide me with some cool shots I guess. Maybe they were using them in the Ghost Rider shoot.




Hey Money, this pic is for you; Look right below the arrow.




I wasn't quite clear on the story, Christine might clarify it; but the original Aboriginal name that was thrown around for Melbourne was Batman. Obviously that didn't stick, but there is Batman Ave.




Although I'm not really a blood-thirsty carnivore, I do like trying different, non-endangered animals. And though my dad told Aarani not to let me have any, I wasn't quite clear on why. So I ate first, I'll ask questions later. Bryce and I had Kangaroo fillets. Which the Aussies insist on pronouncing FILL-IT. It was gamey of course, but I don't really know how to describe it better than that. Its supposed to be one of the leanest, healthiest red meats. And the kangaroo population is not kept in check since there are no local predators. So they're trying to boost consumption since they're culling herds anyway, but it doesn't seem to be that popular. For example, I'm shocked that Mackers McOz burger is just a regular beef burger.




We headed up into the rainforest an hour out of Melbourne. There were ferns and trees that were thousands of years old, and because of the geographic isolation, virtually unchanged from their ancestors hundreds of million years ago. The forest was teeming with bird life, but I think my biggest pet peeve (and it's through no fault of Australia's I guess) is that there aren't more big creatures. Yes there are kangaroos (not in the rainforest), but not much else that compares size-wise. Of course some might enjoy the fact that there isn't the possibility of being eaten at every turn, but that's the one thing I liked about India (and why Africa is on my short list of places to visit).

As it stands, it was still extremely beautiful landscape, and we had a bbq in the national park complete with TimTams, which was fun. I do like that even though it's getting into winter, you can still have bbqs outside. (I realise my roommates will complain since we did have winter bbqs, but it's not nearly as fun)




Later that evening we headed for a rugby game. I would've liked to see an Aussie Rules Football game, but I completely forgot about it beforehand and when I got into the various cities, there was never a game on. It was cool being at a rugby game where the audience was really into it. There was an angry woman beside us who was cheering against the hometown Melbourne Storm. I'm not quite sure why she was so angry since her precious Eels were beating the Storm mercilessly. There was also an angry Storms' fan on the other side of us, who's rage was really undirected. He was mad at everything, but couldn't verbalize it. Usually it was just a string of expletives. Or just one or two choice ones.




As the game neared its end, there was about a dozen people, middle-aged and beyond, who stood on the track in between the field, and the irate mob of fans. It was a pre-emptive strike in case the fans rushed the field. But seeing this lady in "attack" position was too much. I think the threat of being leveled by a rugby player is deterrence enough, I'm not quite sure how she'd help the situation.




Cairns is up next.

about Australia, from Germany

Blue Mountains (April 12) (1) @ 2:11 AM

Aight, well this one contains animals, so it'll be a longer one. We hopped on a 1/2 price day trip to the Blue Mountains a few hours out of Sydney. It was a promising start to the day when we pulled into a weigh station and saw wild kangaroos outside out window. This was shot through the bus window.




We got to the Scenic World train & skyline rides which take you to and from the boardwalk several hundred meters below. It was nice, but suffers from the fate of many wilderness boardwalks: lots of trees, and not much else. I'd rather hike through the woods but that's something to do next time I s'pose. It was neat cause I didn't really associate Australia with vast forests, but since I wasn't heading to the Outback, this is what I saw most often.

Before heading down to the boardwalk, we had to take photos with the statues.




The Blue Mountains' most famous site is likely the "Three Sisters." It's kind of cool, but if I hadn't been told those were the Three Sisters, I prolly wouldn't have caught them. The view from the top was impressive, and weather was great. Not cold, but not baking hot either. It reminded me of Toronto's cottage country, which I believe is defined as any place outside of Toronto. Since Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, everything is backwards. Thus, they have Christmas in July. Traditionally, December 25th means a nice ham dinner and exchanging of gifts. It's also the middle of summer, so it doesn't feel Christmas-y. July 25th up in the Blue Mountains is fairly chilly, so the lights go up, and chestnuts are roasted and turkeys are cooked. I thought it was pretty cool, but the more cynical me realized this was a scam to sell more gifts.




After the Blue Mountains, we headed to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. I was excited cause you got to walk around with some of the animals, much like at the Big Apple on the way to Ottawa (Colbourg, Colburn? Something like that, near exit 500ish on the 401 I think). Except instead of bunnies, they had kangaroos, wallabies & emus frolicking about the park. Imagine my surprise and where my expectations were when I saw the Featherdale sign.




Let me spoil this for you, like it was spoiled for me. That is apparently just a cute little logo. There were no koalas riding kangaroos anywhere in the park. I felt like it was a bait-and-switch. Lure them in with the promise of animals comically riding other animals...and then bam, nothing.

The kookaburra of the ol' gum tree fame was also within spitting distance. They were very calm around people, and would occasionally burst into their very distinctive call. It's like our loon I'd say. But it's not yet on their $1 coin. Probably because people would start calling them kookies.




Of course the koalas were as cute as a bug's ear. All of them were passed out on various tree branches and oblivious to the noise and camera flashes around them. I did pet one, not as soft as I would have imagined, and more claw-y. I'm sure they'd be delicious though.




The cassowaries were cool. Like ostriches, but more colourful and more deadly. Here's a tip for the uninitiated. The cassowaries are behind fences for a reason. Like the explanation of the raptors in Jurassic Park, these birds have a long sharp disembowelling claw that they enjoy using. And these particular birds didn't take to kindly to me putting my hands over the fence to get an unobstructed shot. So they sauntered over to me, and while I wasn't nervous about the claw since there was a fence, they were taller than me. And I think a peck to the face would really put a damper on my day.




Hopping about one of the fenced off areas were the wallabies, roos, and emus. The emu there was a nervous creature, like the weird kid with a bad haircut at your grade 8 school dance who made quick darting glances, and shuffled around awkwardly.* I really wanted to feed it, but seeing as it was one of those tall, possibly face-pecking birds, I dropped my feed when it came close. I'm so brave.

Most of my time was watching & feeding the roos & wallabies (which look exactly the same, I'm thinking it's a distinction like crocs & alligators). They were not the big Red Kangaroos, which are more aggressive & less predictable (& more tasty). One of the roos was up to something. He hopped over to one of the gates, and it was rudely closed on his face. Undeterred, he hopped over to the other gate, which was also closed. I don't know where he was planning on going, but I'm guessing if he was really smart, he would have just jumped over the gate. You're kangaroo for God's sake! He was also unfazed by my verbal taunting, and proceeded to lick himself.




I just thought this was a funny sight. I'm sure this happens all the time in the wild.




There were a ton of other animals of course, you can check the gallery (as a reminder, if there's an associated gallery with any post, you can click on the title to go directly there). There were dingos, but they are just dogs. So I only took one bad shot of one. Just imagine a dog. It was really cute and furry, and apparently if you get a special license, you can own one as a pet. The only other animal that I really wanted to see was a platypus, but it was nowhere to be found.

Next stop: Melbourne

about Australia, from Germany

Sydney (April 7-11) (1) @ 5:10 AM

After my last night out in Singapore, I packed and slept awkwardly and fortunately made it on time to my morning flight to Sydney. I was crashing at Aarani's place which is at Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is a relatively new development for Sydney and it's basically a bunch of nice restaurants, bars, and touristy attractions all in one convenient location. And it's literally not more than 250m from the apartment, but I still managed to go in the completely opposite direction when I started wandering the city.




On Friday we walked around Darling Harbour, over to the Rocks area and the CBD. On the way we met Superpuppy. They were filming Superman Returns in Sydney while I was there, but this was not a character from the movie. Just an odd coincidence. Although he could fly. Well, not fly so much as get carried by a gust of wind.




And it wouldn't be a post about Sydney without an obligatory shot of the Opera House. It was just as opera-y as I would have imagined. I don't really know what to say about it, it is a pretty neat design, acoustically & architecturally. A few meters away is the start of the Royal Botanical Gardens. It's a sprawling public park where the cockatoos roam freely. And it borders right on the CBD, so it's not unusual to see business people picnicking.




You might need to zoom in on the boat in between Kieran and I to fully understand this. Otherwise it just looks like I'm trying to thug it out, and Kieran is mocking that. Which is actually what's happening, but just zoom in on the boat.




We headed to Manly for a roof-top b.y.o.m.b. b.b.b.q.. It was pretty good, save for the meat which were steaks from the legendary rubber cow. This was shot on the way there; A wide angle lens and a non-moving boat would have been grand.




It was a pretty eventful evening, meeting relatives, and going to an Islander's bar which was hiphop in the front, salsa in the back, and I was easily the smallest guy in there.

Really the only thing I had to do in Australia was see a kangaroo. And a koala. And if possible, a koala riding a kangaroo. My theory is that if a kangaroo is cute, and a koala is cuter; then combining the two would be off the scales. It was explained to me that the chances of seeing that were very close to zero. But we'd make a go of it when we stopped at a wildlife park on our Blue Mountains trip.

Next stop: Blue Mountains

about Australia, from Germany

Books (0) @ 5:07 AM

So I'm back in Germanz again, this time with Paul in tow. I've caught a cold unfortunately, so I'm way more irritable than usual. I'm sure Paul appreciates it. Anyway, today will be a recovery day for the most part. Also a planning day. Whilst I like flying by the seat of my pants as much as the next guy, it can also wind up being more costly sometimes. Like wanting to see a bunch of museums and buying an "I amsterdam" cultural pass. It's an alright premise, but from the museums & sites we wanted to see, it would've been much cheaper to buy each ticket independently.

In any case, coming to Germany was a welcome change of pace. Right out of the train station we saw a sight for sore eyes, a supermarket. In Amsterdam there are museums, coffeshops, cafes, restaurants, bars, piano shops and streets devoted to designer clothing...but no grocery stores. No convenience stores. No barber shops. I wasn't quite sure how people were actually living in that city. Of course Germany is not all gumdrops and lollypops. The Düsseldorf train station vending machine annexed my KitKat bar. Paul ominously warned that "we trusted them too soon."

Anyhoo, Paul's up finally so we're going to consult Frommer's, Lonely Planet, the Eurail timetables & possibly a combination of constellations to determine the route for the next 4 weeks. And I might start a new book today...

I had a prewritten post about books, hence the title, and here that is.

I've read a few books on my travels, most I picked up in India cause it was so inexpensive there. Textbooks are (like some CompSci ones that I saw) are often at least 50% cheaper, and some 80% cheaper than buying them from the campus bookstore. It'd almost be worth it to fly there before the school years starts and buy all your texts. You'd get a free flight and all your textbooks.

Well, maybe it wouldn't be worth it, but if you were buying other people textbooks too and resell it for a tiny profit. And instead of you flying there, you could have shipped them via boat a 2 months or so in advance...wait a tick...

In any case, two recent ones that I can highly recommend are the Curious Incident of a Dog at Night Time, which was a very quick, fun read. I also worked my way through Guns, Germs and Steel, which was a non-trivial read, but well worth it. My only complaint is that I thought there was some redundancy, but I guess really it wasn't redundant, just more and more detail on the same concepts.

Definitely something I'd recommend if you're into human history, evolution, sociology, and/or anthropology. I can't wait to read Collapse when I get home.

Oh yeah, and here's my traveller tip of the day:

When going through the random screening, and they're swabbing your carry-on book for trace amounts of explosives, it may speed up the process if the books you're carrying are not titled "Guns, Germs, and Steel" or "Slaughterhouse 5"

from Germany

Phuket (April 1-4) (2) @ 3:06 AM

If you've been following along, you might remember that I slept through my flight to Phuket, Thailand. Well, I ended up catching the next available flight, and met up with Arvind, Aruni & Mike. That evening was a blur of seedy Thai beaches and Connect 4, but we called it a night because we were off to Phi Phi island early the next day.




Not much to say. It was a smorgasbord of blues and green as far as the eye could see. And looking down, well...




The weather was great, and we ended up snorkeling a few times. I'd never been before, and I was amazed at the world unda da sea. I noticed that the beaches were really clean, and apparently that's a by-product of being hit by a tsunami. All the garbage is washed out with the tide, or further inland. As a result, the locals who depend on the tourist industry are making an effort to keep the beaches clean now that they've had to take a fresh start.

Though I lost a bunch of weight at the beginning of my journey, it's found me again. An interesting side note was that the best satay I had wasn't in Thailand, but in the Hawker's markets near Anita's place. That alone probably contributed to 5 lbs.




That evening upon arriving back at Kata Beach (where we were staying in Phuket), we met the second group of NUS students, led into our room by Kiran! It still remains a shock whenever I see someone that I know from back home. That whole small world analogy which I've heard beaten to death as I travel, is of course, very true. As the brown man reported, it turned out that Kiran and Gaya knew each other from high school and coincidentally met again for the first time in Singapore!

That night we went for "authentic Thai cuisine, cooked by locals," which of course is much better than the authentic Thai cuisine cooked by foreigners.

It was a surreal evening as we were deciding what to do for the night. There was only two channels on in the room, rugby, and the unfortunate CNN Pope death countdown. I'm all for reporting about the Pope's health, but it was really quite morbid, all the anchors just waiting for him to die so they'd have something to report, and get on with all the pre-produced biographical materials.

The next day Arvind & Aruni had to get back to Singapore and finish some school work, so I went with Kiran, Carol & Tim to James Bond Island. Which was the setting of one of the Bond movies, whose name escapes me. Oh yeah, the movie "The Beach" was filmed partially on that first island we went to yesterday. I've never seen "The Beach" but yeah, those are my brushes with celebrities.




Probably the coolest animal I saw was not during my snorkeling, but on a canoe ride along some of the smaller island coasts. This is a mudskipper, a fish that can walk. I've never seen one in person, and it was just incredible; even if you don't like animals it's pretty amazing to see the adaptations that have developed in nature. The more time I spend on or near the water, the more I wonder what it'd be like if I'd stuck with that childhood dream of being a marine biologist. Or better yet, another childhood dream was to be a peregrine falcon. And that would be way cooler than marine biologist.




My flight didn't leave till the next evening, so I bid adieu to Kiran & Co., and just wandered around the town for a few hours. I chilled on the beach (and with the new beach chairs & umbrellas, since the tsunami destroyed all the other ones) and took this shot, which reminds me of a Corona ad. Well, without the Coronas.

about Thailand, from The Netherlands

Singapore (March 24-31, April 5-6) (5) @ 9:37 AM

Singapore can be summed up by two popular cliches, it is a fine city, and it is Disneyland with the death penalty. But above all, Singapore == Shopping. It's basically a giant sequence of connected malls.




/aside

All that I knew going there was the American kid who got caned a few years back. Other than that, I was pretty ignorant. It turned out that it's a pretty cool little city-state, state-of-the-art, that's trying to appeal to a growing tourist market. It has a stellar MRT that makes me cry when I think about the TTC; Instead of fumbling with tokens, a swipe system (that I'm assuming is not magnetic since you basically toss your wallet onto the reader...RFIDs?) that can be topped up can be used on the subway and the bus system. It's pay by the distance, so the further you travel, the more it costs you. And it's still very reasonable. I can get from the airport on the east side to the west end of the island all by train, and if I remember correctly, for under S$5.

There was an underground path to an MRT stop, I don't remember which one now, but I believe it was near the giant fountain. There a bunch of kids were practicing hiphop, capoera, some sort of traditional Malaysian dance and a couple of other things I didn't recognize. It was a relatively quiet, giant room, with well-polished floors. I'm guessing it's basically the equivalent of the village in Singapore.




Last MRT shot, I promise.



So why Singapore? The brown man & Kiran were there studying for a term, and two girls I had met in Sri Lanka were also studying at the same University for a semester. So I figured, I'll swing by and hangout since I have a stopover there anyway, and maybe take in a bit of Thailand and Malaysia while I'm in the neighbourhood. I stayed with a friend of a friend, who'd I'd never met before. It was a little awkward at first, but less so than couchsurfing I figured. Turns out she didn't even know I was gonna be crashing at her place, but to her credit she welcomed me in anyway. She set some ground rules, which while a tad constrictive, were acceptable terms.

While walking one night, we came across some guys flying these ultralight planes, which you cannot really see from this photo. It was neat tho.




I also met up with a friend from one of my classes who I had forgotten was from Singapore. May took me around the city and her family graciously invited me to their weekly dinner at the Singapore Swim Club which I of course accepted (food!). I also got to try out the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS head to head with May's brother, and I gotta say the PSP is mighty impressive. It's hard to believe there's near PS2 quality graphics from a system that seems smaller than some old video game controllers.

Walking around downtown




Now this photo sucked, as I was still a little apprehensive about messing with Singapore police, so I kept my distance. But a huge armoured Mercedes police van had backed into a car. It was just a funny scene as the guy was furious, but couldn't really do much cause he was already talking to the cops...




At the Novena stop, there's a mall, and outside that is what I will call Novena Square. And every Thursday night, there is a huge line-dancing event. I loved it. This dude was really good. The icing on the cake was of course the hat; I refrained laughing out loud, as Singapore has a mandatory 2.5 year military service for every man when they turn 18. So that line-dancing Singaporean cowboy could really kick my ass.




Finally, due to numerous exams and projects and whatnot, I didn't end up meeting up with ere'one in Singapore till the day before I left for Australia. (I did meet Arvind & Kiran in Phuket right before that tho)

A quick jaunt over to Jahor Bahru, Malaysia introduced me to shopping again, but it was cheaper than Singapore. This store is unfortunately named, but it's basically Winners.




Obligatory Ronald Shot. I don't know exactly why it looks like I'm doing an "I'm a little teapot" routine. Oh right, Ronald's hand outstretched and I'm trying to hold it.




Hanging out in a shi sha place in Singapore with Meera & Gaya & Arvind & Co. It was very laid back, and played hiphop. Everything should be laid back and play hiphop. I don't know what that means. Phuket's next. Peace out.




/aside: This will only appeal to one person; While wandering the Sim Lim square, I walked into a store and on the radio was Rickie Yam's classic hit, "The girls over there are looking." I need to find that song again. It was very surreal

about Singapore, from Sri Lanka

In only a few days... (0) @ 8:56 AM

It's been a while since the last "real" post, but stay tuned for a couple of lengthy catchup pieces. And in about 2 days, I'll be meeting up with Paul in London to begin our month sprint through Europe.

Like the last time, I'll stagger out the posts, likely to interspliced with various updates from around Europe. Pics from Europe will be another month away...

Sri Lanka

Nice (1) @ 7:56 PM

I'm just finishing up the Australian east coast leg of my trip...I'll likely catch-up on some posts (starting with Singapore) in a couple of days. But it's been a blast hanging out with Aarani and Christine as I see just a tiny bit of this gigantic country.

I use the word "nice" a lot in my personal journal. I was annoyed that I was unable to come up with more descriptive terms, but nice really does sum up all of the people I've met & stayed with. From my start in Germany and Sri Lanka, to the surprises in Singapore, and more recently now in Melbourne and Sydney. Just wanted to say thanks!

Australia

Blogger... (1) @ 10:04 PM

This originally started as a brief note warning Christine and basically the entire Melbourne massive, that I'd be flying in later this evening...and praise for blogger in light of recent blogger bashes on the net. However numerous blogger-related problems erased that message.



It seems like blogger is going through some trying times. It's not a good thing when the status page is updated frequently, though it's appreciated. Overall I'm pretty happy with it, and my previous blogger complaint has been partially addressed. Once they wise up and switch blogger to the gmail layout I'll likely stick around. But on the off chance they aren't going that route, I'm looking at wordpress + gallery with an ajax twist. If anyone has any better suggestions lemme know, cause I've taken to downloading and trying new blog software while I wait around in the airports now.

Anyway here's some more stuff I came across while waiting to post an update:

If Cuban says it now, then I'd say it was a good idea. Seriously though, licenses are available (can't I own an idea without having to go through that cumbersome patenting process?) for a reasonable fee.

I'm ditching the laptop for the next two weeks and depending entirely on this:



And of course my new pda. The Lyra does do exactly what I need, backing up images from my memory card to its harddrive...but don't get it if you're planning on ever playing mp3s, videos, viewing your photos, well, pretty much don't get it. There are alternatives (Archos has a large selection), and even an ipod with the camera connector would likely serve you better in the long run. Plus if you wait a year everything will likely get perpendicular.

Google news provided me with a good laugh as well:



Finally, in a bid to meet the demands of blogging, I'll eventually get a bloggy (Bloggy's blog).

Australia

Jaffna (Mar.16-22) (8) @ 1:35 AM

I had another one of those, "holy crap" moments on the car ride from the Colombo airport. On the radio was a song which featured N.O.R.E. & Nina Sky, and had the Tego Calderon "Guasa Guasa" beat I'd first heard in the Dominican. It was very surreal. Globalisation at it's finest.

The next morning we flew to Jaffna. Here's my tip of the day for anyone traveling to Jaffna. If you were planning on getting a return flight ticket, don't bother. Get a one-way there and then take one of the luxury buses back. Flying from Jaffna to Colombo is exceedingly time-consuming thanks to the army controlled access to Pallaly airport and three sets of baggage checks.

I'd been to Jaffna briefly before so I'd seen the town. It's like any small but growing town. The reason we came this time was to visit my parents' old houses.



Very picturesque fishing areas, the water was various shades of blue and green; I'd swim there if I wasn't so concerned about the mines.



Here the morning fog is lifting and it was very calm and quiet out. Mainly because our cab had died and slowly coasted to a stop.



My mom's house had been stripped of most of the furniture and valuables over the years since my grandmother left. Here we slept on the floor and bathed by the well, a very simple lifestyle. It was weird being here; it wasn't familiar at all since I'd only been here once before. Yet at the same time it did feel very comfortable. The neighbours were amazing, and because there was no running water, no kitchen, nothing really in that house, they cooked meals for us while we were there. It's certainly an experience seeing the chicken you're about to eat. You'd think that would make me a vegetarian, but really it just made me lament the fact that the chicken was running around so much, making her very stringy. And it certainly was nice to see nature's beautiful cycle: man eating chicken, chickens eating leftover chicken pieces, goats eating plastic bags...



We also went to one of the island's to see my dad's house.



Yup, that's it. It had been appropriated by the army during the war, flattened when they turned the area into a base, and then cleared when they finally left. It was a pathetic sight, but not altogether unsurprising. We met with some of my dad's relatives back in town, and they showed us some stuff their mother had saved. It included my parents' wedding invitation.



It was an extremely profound moment for me. Because throughout a 20+ year war, through the '83 riots, the '91 Pungudutivu & '95 Jaffna displacements, they had carried it with them.
Family.

about Sri Lanka, from Australia

Oz (1) @ 7:56 PM

I'm heading to Australia now, and unlike my previous morning flight, I actually went to sleep for a bit and woke up in time.

Just wanted to say to all of Steve's family and friends that you're in my thoughts.
I'll order a large drink, extra hash browns and a sandwich, NOT in a combo, for breakfast today.

Singapore

Mysore, Bangalore, Mamallapuram (Mar.11-14) (0) @ 5:35 AM

From Kabini we headed back to Mysore to take in a few of the sights. We stopped at a temple, Tippu's palace and the Mysore palace. Mysore was a nice, quiet city, and was not nearly as crowded or polluted as Chennai. It was like the Oakville of India. The Mysore palace was pretty impressive.





After seeing the palace, we decided to headed to Bangalore. We arrived at the train station at 3:40. I waited in the car with the bags while Deepa & my sis checked the schedule. A couple minutes later my sister came running and said the train is leaving at 3:45. After collecting all the bags, we all headed for the platform. Of course the train we needed to catch was on the other side of the terminal, requiring us to use the pedestrian flyover. I grab some of their bags and let them run ahead. As I'm navigating my way down the stairs on the other side, the train starts pulling out. Shite. I get to the bottom of the stairs, and it stops. Phew. As I catch my breath for a moment, and it starts up again. At this point my sister and her friend have made it onto the train. However, there was no room at the doorway for me and the 3 bags I was carrying. I ran alongside the train for only a few seconds but it felt much longer. Finally with much shoving, I jumped on. It was awesome.

This shepherd isn't really too interested in his flock. I enjoyed watching the sheep make their getaway.



In Bangalore the first night I was feeling under the weather and opted to stay in. I got a chance to see some Indian MTV & VH1. There are so many singles out that I have never heard before, it's gonna take a while to catch up when I get back. The next day we went to Bangalore Central, basically a shopping-mall-store. There were two things that really stuck out for me. First, the bathrooms were polished black marble and had all the latest motion-sensors and gadgets. But all the devices in the world don't matter if people don't lift the toilet cover to pee. If it was limited to just one toilet that was almost understandable...

The other thing was this pillar.



Now, in case it's unclear, the text reads: "Bangalore Central is a great place for eating. So why should outside food be brought inside?" I don't know why this sign made me laugh so hard, but it did. When something is forbidden, like alcohol, there is a clear warning indicating just that. However the issue of outside food is addressed in a very philosophic manner. It also seems to suggest that if you have a good reason, then by all means bring outside food in.

After Bangalore we headed back to Chennai. That was the day of my tragic Sify experience.
Monday we headed to Mamallapuram, to see the shore temple and the carvings from the local artisans. Apparently they weren't created for religious purposes, but strictly as a demonstration of an artists' ability.

We passed by a hand-cranked ferris wheel that had dozens of kids clambering to get on.



This didn't turn out the way I hoped, but you get the gist of it.



The drive to and from Mamallapuram was along a highway that followed the coastline. Here the tsunami effects could be seen quite clearly. There were numerous tiny villages of temporary housing that were basically still on the beach.

about India, from Singapore

Thailand (0) @ 1:05 PM

I'm in Thailand (finally) and I've met up with the brown man so look forward to some exciting updates (hopefully).

Update: Blogger's posting by email capabilities are terrible...

Thailand

Sleep (0) @ 3:02 AM

Sometimes I enjoy sleep too much. Today would be an example of that. I slept through my flight to Thailand so I'm still in Singapore (contrary to what the sidebar said for a few hours...). I expected to be angry (at myself) but I realized I have no schedule to keep other than what I dictate, so I just went to the airport and changed my flight to tomorrow evening. Sure that kinda sucks, but what can you do? But I suppose I'll remember that it was the best 2.5 hours of sleep for S$25.

My travel tip of the day is to get two travel alarms.

Singapore

Kabini (Mar.9,10) (1) @ 9:28 PM

We traveled by sleeper train from Chennai to Mysore and took a car to our first destination. Along the way we passed this herd of sheep. At least they knew how to get out of the way of cars.



On an unrelated note, something I noticed a lot in India was that the cow was the primary beast of burden. The cow, ox, and water buffalo are the workhorses of this society.

In what is now called Rajiv Gandhi National Park lies the Kabini Lodge, a resort that ensures that you will see animals & that you will get fat. Each meal is buffet style, followed by a rest period, followed by tea (lather, rinse, repeat 3 times). Unfortunately the food is not brought to you, so I was forced to exert some effort to stuff my face.

While relaxing between meals, a troupe of monkeys congregated outside my door and rifled through the garbage. This baby was stopping to smell the roses.



I was able to catch up on some reading finally, plowing through a couple of books while sitting in the giant hammock.



There was a jeep safari, boat safari, and a morning ride in these tiny circular boats



Fiddling with the shutter speeds to try and highlight the sun streaming through the clouds.



On the boat safari we saw a crocodile attack another crocodile. I thought I missed the whole thing, but I actually lucked out and caught a bit of the action.



As we neared the opposite shore we saw a herd of wild elephants. The alpha male trumpeted his displeasure of the boat coming so close, and stormed towards us and warned the rest of his herd. It was really awe-inspiring. Coming around the corner and seeing the dozen or so giants I couldn't help but hear the Jurassic Park theme in my head. Seriously, we need to clone dinosaurs real soon. What could go wrong?

about India, from Singapore

Chennai (Mar.5-8, 13) (1) @ 6:27 AM

Stepping out of the airport, a change of plans meant my sister's friend's husband picked me up. I didn't know that, or what he looked like; and he had a vague description of what I looked like. So he wrote my name on a piece of paper and held it up as people walked out of the gates. I saw it and nodded in appreciation. After getting into the car it occurred to me that I still hadn't confirmed this was who was supposed to be picking me up. Basically if anyone had held a paper with my name I would've gotten into a car with them.

Of course that would be crazy though; who would get a passenger manifest and stand outside the airport waiting with their name written on a piece of paper? I would. I think it would be hilarious, in that kidnapping sort of way.

But I digress. To fully immerse yourself in the India portion of this travelblog, you need to experience not only the sights and sounds via photos and videos, but the smell as well. This works best if you're a student and already renting some grimy basement apartment. To recreate Chennai you need a week's preparation. Start by cranking the heat up to 35 degrees, and with the aid of a humidifier get the humidity up to 90+%. Then keep the bathroom door always open, the window closed, and stop flushing the toilet. And instead of making the effort of getting to the bathroom to pee, just choose one or two corners of your house, and relieve yourself there. And then throw a party, ensure that there's at least double the legal fire code number of people in your house.

Then come back and read this. Of course this is a vast generalization based on a very limited exposure to the hustle and bustle of Chennai. But it is an acceptable practice for men to pee on the side of the road, just off the sidewalk. And that contributes greatly to the "ambiance" that you can replicate in the comfort of your home using the directions above.

The plan was to meet up with my sister in India, travel a bit here, and then head back to Sri Lanka for another week of traveling. Our flights were fairly well co-ordinated, but I flew into Chennai in the morning and she would land in the evening. So I went with Deepa & Suresh to pick her up. On the way to the airport we stopped in at a jive party that they had planned on attending. It was a really cool rooftop party hosted by a jive teacher. There were a few intermissions where hiphop was played, and myself and one other hiphop-veteran/jive-virgin would get up and dance for a bit. It struck me at the time that it was basically a typical Revolution night just transposed a few thousand kilometers. A crowd of 90% 'brown' Indians and a grabbag of "east asian" Indians & white folk bopped around to "Addicted." Seeing the experienced Jive teacher lead just about any random girl on the dance floor in a complicated routine reminded me of watching all the locals at the Dominican club that did the same but with Salsa & Merengue. Makes me want to learn how to do that, but my two right feet make that impossible.

Much of the time in Chennai was spent shopping. Saris & such. I was a reluctant participant in these affairs as it was far too hot and muggy outside during the day to just wander about.



I did capture this scene outside of one store. It's a good thing there are no unions.



On Sunday we went to the Kebob Factory, which is basically a buffet for lazy people. The unlimited quantities of food are brought to you. I want this exact restaurant in T.O. The food is outstanding, so delicious, and you don't waste precious calories getting up to obtain more food. I highly recommend it.

Of course, when driving a car in India, women want a gasoline that's strong enough for a man, but pH balanced for her.



And while I am attempting to build the confidence needed to take more portraits, I cowardly snapped a few shots on an auto ride through Chennai...

about India, from Singapore

Alarm (Feb.28) (0) @ 6:25 AM

How do I wake up in the morning? I've got an alarm clock. I named him Kellogs cause he reminded me of that rooster in the old Cornflakes ad. And after 4 weeks of calling him Kellogs I remembered that that Cornflakes roosters' name was Cornelius. Anyhoo, he's a bit of a annoyance, but at the same time he's literally the cock of the walk, and that's always funny to see. His entire purpose in life is to announce his presence. It's also just kinda funny to see the barnyard politicking up close. Animal Farm never seemed so real.



Also on the topic of animals, I never realized how dumb goats are. Simply judging from appearances, goats are basically sheep with Down syndrome. But an even more telling sign of intelligence is their survival instinct. Here, driving is not a pedestrian-friendly sport. People dive out of the way in a amusing, "Crazy Taxi" sort of way. Even the cows and dogs do it. In fact, cows apply a complicated mathematical formula to determine what I call the Scramble Factor. If the cow feels that the incoming vehicles' weight & speed exceeds the cows' stopping power, then it will quickly dash out of the way. Babies are even more cognisant of their size disadvantage and are the first to leap to safety. The converse is true as well. If a motorcycle is going down a bumpy dirt path at about 10-15 km/h, the cow knows we have to stop. So they will slowly amble out of the motorcycle's path, and usually only to stop the incessant honking.

Goats however, do not possess this survival calculator. This is why we hit that baby goat today. It was the most unfortunate occurrence and I was sickened by the thud sound. I'm not sure what my karmic responsibility is as I was sitting shotgun, but was fast asleep. Here's a tip for those who find themselves in a similar situation. Don't look back.

about Sri Lanka, from Singapore

Unapologetic (1) @ 6:23 AM

So a months' worth of posts need to be done. And here's the first batch of back-dated posts. Where's typical blog apology for not updating in such a long time? Sorry, no can do. I remain unapologetic because traveling requires rolling with the punches and if there's no time, there's no time. In any case I did say I'd phase them in this time around, so I'll start with the end of February and go from there.

Also, I bought The Game album. I heard 4 tracks at the listening station in HMV and basically the "madd" beats were enough to hook me. During this time I realized that it would be awesomely cool if I could just plug my mp3 player into the listening station and buy the good tracks that I heard. If that idea catches on, remember where to send the royalties.

Singapore

Jaffnizzy (2) @ 7:33 AM

I think I forgot to mention that I met up with my sister in India, and right now we're staying at my mom's old house in Jaffna, catching up with relatives and my parents old friends that I've never met before. It's been an amazing time. Everyone is so welcoming and the food is sooo good...I've put on 4kg since I took off for India.

With so many people and places to see in a limited time, we've been traveling non-stop. Today is the first night that I think I'll have time (and non-generator-dependent power) to type up a post or two on my laptop.

I've learned that my next few flights have been bungled and I'll be spending the precious few days left in Sri Lanka running around trying to ensure I end up at the right airport on the right day. I'd even settle for just the right airport. Although my currently scheduled trip to Australia technically fits that criteria...it would be Singapore to Sydney, 5 hours in the airport, and then flying right back.

So hopefully I can get a few posts out this week, and you can look forward to adventures next week with the "brown man."

Sri Lanka

Sify (3) @ 8:53 AM

I can't claim I had a huge post, but it did take some time. And within a few seconds it was all gone. Thanks Sify! If you're in India and need to use a net cafe, I highly recommend anything other than a Sify cafe. I do like saying Sify though.

I'll start staggering some posts in Monday.
Sify.

about India, from Sri Lanka

Busy (3) @ 10:39 PM

I've reached the halfway point of my trip (though the calculations on the side there are off slightly...) and now I'm busy getting the rest of my itinerary set up. I'm behind on a couple of posts, but I have no new interesting pictures so I just might wait till I get to India this weekend to actually get something done.
abrupt ending

update: i fixed the dog video link from last week

I Used to Love H.E.R. (3) @ 1:45 AM

What is hiphop? There are the 4 elements of course, but musically what defines the genre? My contention? Nothing & everything defines it. I bumped into a Canuck recently who asked me what kind of music I listened to. Everything (the caveat "except country" is slowly being dropped...) I say, but mainly hiphop I guess.

Still?!

This one phrase hit hard in two places. My age, and my musical interest. Now I was on the defensive and I was trying to justify it. I put up a weak reply, one which I will likely not remedy. But here it goes. My dad can skip to the next post. Rohit remarked that I should use Nas to teach 'thug' English. (as an aside on the topic of gangsta c++ programming: on the 1st day of my last work term I'm sure my office mates were as surprised as I was when "The Cross" came blasting out of my computer. That clearly wasn't the headphone jack then...)

But I've come to theorize that hiphop is very much like English. It a rapidly mutable form of music, it borrows elements from any genre it wants, and in return it leaves it a little cooler. But it's fickle. And will drop the flavour of the month in search of that new hot sound. One minute it's a tabla, and the next it's a didgeridoo. Like in English, the new "words" bubble to the surface, yadda yadda yadda, and then we get tired of it and it falls by the wayside. But now it's a part of our lexicon.

Sprite Remix anyone? The Grey Album sparked a huge interest in "mashups", which of course is an old hiphop trick. Even in the internet world there were mashups back in the day by Prizefighter that I still enjoy. (even iGangsta beefs as another "dj" put out a Prizefighter diss track (the Backbone remix)) I don't know what the new flavour is gonna be, but I'm pretty confident that there will continue to be this musical juggernaut crushing the charts everywhere it goes.

So what defines hiphop music? Like English, nothing & everything. Once it enters, you don't get it back. It is and always will be. So the same way Quebec protects its heritage & culture by having language laws, so too must music critics put shields up deriding hiphop in an attempt to preserve their favourite forms of music. Don't worry friend, it will continue to exist. For now.

In the end, I've decided I don't need to justify it. It's a personal preference, and like hating onions, that's just the way it is.

I still love H.E.R.

Sri Lanka

I Hate Onions (0) @ 1:39 AM

It would have made my dad immensely happy if I had said I love onions. But I don't. However, I do eat them now. I don't want to be rude, so I won't pick at them as much as I used too. I still can't stand them though. That slimy-crunchy texture is what gets me. I believe kotthu roti would be the world's greatest meal if it didn't have onions (that's one of those million dollar restaurant idea that anyone can use, license free, assuming I can eat there for free).

This isn't a case of me having made up my mind and not learning to like it. I never ate eggplant that much before, I claimed I didn't like it. But I've been forcing myself to try everything here, and now I love eggplant. And I'm eating fish heads. I do pick out the eyes cause I haven't gotten over my food looking at me, but hey...

So I've started teaching English finally. I don't have a lesson plan, so that's not going too smoothly. And those formal grammar rules would be handy to know when making corrections...but you aren't sure why you're correcting them. Basically I want to ask and receive lots of questions to get a conversation started. For some students, this is an enjoyable experience. For others, they would rather stare at the ceiling for 10 minutes. The silence is remarkably not as awkward as one would expect.

But hopefully my mom is emailing me some tips, so this next week should go a little better. One of the questions I most frequently get is "what is your future?" "What are my future goals?" "What do I want to accomplish in the future?" Rephrasing it doesn't make it any easier to answer. I suppose I came here to help me find out. I still don't know.

Finally, here's a little video clip. I love dogs, and this one is great. She lives for the smallest of human interactions. A mere glance flattens her ears and starts the tail wagging. If you come over to pet her, she's like a Weeble-Wobble. Dogs are awesome. (updated March 4 when finally informed the link didn't work)

Oh and this is an open letter to the slipper thief:

I know you think your feet are big. And they very well might be. The largest shoe size here seems to be size 10. But I had to walk to many different stores to find one that sold a pair of size 10s. And they were the last pair. Even size 9s are sometimes hard to find. So while you're swimming around in my slippers, my toes and my heels are screaming out for justice. Size 7 will not do.

I wrongly assumed that buying a cheap pair of black DSI's would be the way to go. I should have bought something more distinctive, because it's entirely possible you took mine by mistake. But upon realizing your error, you should have made an effort to return them.

It's not you I hate, slipper thief; I hate what I became because of you.

This is an open apology to the person whose size 9 DSI's I thiefed...

Sri Lanka

No Clever Title (1) @ 1:37 AM

It's kinda surprising, but I don't feel homesick. I kinda expected that I would. However, I do miss wing night(s). Specifically the chicken wings, because you can't get anything remotely like that here; but the company was always nice as well.

I just realized why Western countries are "more developed." The answer? Monkeys. If Canada had monkeys swinging from the trees, kids would not be in school, they would be out watching the funny little monkeys. Industries would revolve entirely around banana and banana by-products. I don't think I'd ever need to travel. I'm definitely going to try and catch one of those delicious monkeys before I leave.

A joke: Is God real, or integer?
I never said it was a good joke.

Sri Lanka

Medley (3) @ 8:15 AM

Okay settle in for a long one. I have a tendency to jot down random things in my calendar for future entries in either my blog or personal journal. So I'm gonna tackle a bunch of the disconnected blog notes in a two posts. The second post is gonna be a tad techy so you've been forewarned. Move your mouse over italicized sections for more gory details.

Up first, I suppose anyone following the political situation in Sri Lanka heard about the shootings. That was south of here, and aside from a few photos, I haven't gleaned much from the newspapers. After doing this post I'll be reading online articles to find out what's been going on exactly. But the part that hit home is that there's still a war going on. The ceasefire really lulls you. You don't recognize the signs until events like this take place. So many layers simply standing on a beach; a paradise ravaged by nature and devastated by war. Soldiers becoming rescue workers & then back again. I don't know that it changes my timeline at all though.

Anyway, onwards and upwards I always say. My Tamil is improving at a terribly slow rate so there are numerous halting conversations that I've had. I had a tendency to talk a lot before I came here; I hated dead air so I would often fill it will inane banter that I'm sure many of you have borne witness to. Now I just save that witty little repertoire for my inner monologue. Externally I just kinda turn my head and stare off into space. I'm sure the pauses are awkward, but I can't even notice it anymore as it happens so frequently.

Oh I've put on some weight, dunno how much cause there's no scale here. And every morning I've been doing pushups, crunches and chinups. I'm working a plyometrics routine in, but a recent run aggravated my calves again. Here is my chinup bar:

I have my core stability muscles exercises under control but I need some tips for working out arms, legs, back. And let's say for arguments sake that the chinup bar is extremely huge and I can't quite grip it, so I can't do pull ups for lats. Any input will be extremely helpful, although now that I think about it, I won't get them till next week. Still email/comments on the matter would be appreciated.

The most exciting music news before I left (no, not Game's album...although I heard Dre's production was really good) was the possible Fugees reunion. Anyone hear anything more about that? I've been listening to Miseducation every now and then (one of the few albums on my laptop) and I miss Lauryn. The old non-crazy Lauryn.

No promises but this'll be my last BM-related comment (barring anything significant along the way of course). So I just wanted to give a shout out to Dr. Jane Wilson-Howarth for her awesome book. Very funny & informative, I highly recommend it to anyone intending to travel for extended periods of time (to Asia especially).

Peace out

Sri Lanka

RateMyProf.lk (2) @ 7:56 AM

I've really become productive with my internet time. Since my net access is limited, the first thing I do is triage my email; Replying to time-sensitive ones immediately (and tersely unfortunately; sorry Baggio), and downloading the rest (along with various blogs/sites) to my USB key. I then upload my prewritten blog post for the day, search for anything that I need info on in google, and I'm done within 30 mins. Since the access is fairly slow, I let the automated downloads start, and I maximize my google time.

And why do I need to maximize my google time? Because I don't know how to program. Oh sure I can hobble together some working code primarily using the knowledge I had before I went to university, tho I suppose now I document my code. But this is conditional on my accessing code, documentation, samples, examples, mathworld, etc. online. I've never had to program "offline" before and I'm finding it quite taxing. Spoiled much? Yup. I've been 'connected' for more than half my life, so I've become quite dependent on having constant access. It's somewhat alarming to find I don't remember precise definitions of threads & processes without having to look it up.

Preamble: I devised lesson plans based on an informal survey of what the students are interested in. A few were already adept at coding so I wasn't sure where to aim my lessons exactly. Seems most are interested in "algorithms" and networks. Well here are two interesting topics. Algorithms, if I were to use CS341 as a basis, would be highly theoretical exercises that require fairly rigorous mathematical proofs to show an algorithm is NP-complete. Besides the obvious, I'm not sure it's entirely useful in this scenario. There's a short timeframe to work within, and not everyone is particularly interested in the theory. So what about "algorithms" could I teach? Nothing. I save that topic for another day. I'm going to tackle networks instead.

(note to future self, go back in time and take Networking instead of UI. damn...seems like time travel isn't possible [B&T, 1989]1)

In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king...I know bits and pieces of tcp/ip socket coding just from fiddling around in Delphi, but right now I'm trying to get up to speed in C# which is the language they are familiar with.

Digression: it's a fairly bizarre situation I find myself in. Being able to work only when the generator is working whilst at the same time I'm learning a fairly new development platform. I can best describe the lifestyle as techno-Amish.

Socket coding isn't sooo bad in C#, and I'm able to use one of the well documented samples to help me along. The thing is there's a certain background that I have that allows me to follow the code. Rather, I'm able to follow the need for threads, when & why you block, writing custom exception handlers, etc. Conveying this in broken Tamil and broken English is not particularly easy, especially when I can't jump right into the socket code specifically.

So the first class: Was postponed. Another "guest lecturer" who was only here for a week teaching network maintenance handily (and mercifully) took most of the week up. This bought me the time to actually develop that lesson plan that I mentioned above. Also my English classes weren't being held this week (the reason was told and subsequently never comprehended)(also I was hoping that within that lack of comprehension I misunderstood the word "fifty". That's apparently the number of students in this class). So Monday morning both lesson plans will be put to the test.



Now after all that school stuff, back to the pictures (for the brave few that ventured this far). A nearby reservoir tank I visited last week

I also went to an orphanage. Most of the kids were actually out on an excursion so they came back pretty late and headed to bed. But a few stuck around to mug for the camera. I don't know which one of us has the funnier looking face? Hers was intentional.

In the middle of the week I headed back to Mullaithivu; the first thing I noticed on the way there was the refugee camp set up now. It stretched on for a quite a distance, I'm not quite sure how many people were being temporarily housed there.

This is a very similar photo to what you may have seen already. I was kinda surprised to see that nothing had changed. In fact some areas seemed to be "more" destroyed. This was due to unstable buildings being torn down after the immediate rescue effort.

Upon closer inspection, I did finally see the signs of rebuilding efforts that I expected to see more of. Here the slats for the rooftops are neatly stacked

The tsunami hit the Eastern coast of Sri Lanka on Sunday morning. This is what's left of one of the churches I saw.

And through all of this you tend to forget it is a tropical beach.

1 refers to the time traveling theory from the most excellent adventure a certain Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted "Theodore" Logan experienced

Sri Lanka

Work (Feb 5th) (3) @ 10:30 AM

I've finally got a routine. I've been waiting a while for this. It helps for a number of reasons. Number one reason? I know exactly where the nearest toilet will be. But a close second reason is that I finally get to apply some of that cruft I learned in school. It seems like I've been floundering for a while (if you include the time before this trip..well I'm not gonna go there), but I think the best way I can help right now is by donating the skills I have. There are more than enough qualified individuals here (or on their way) doing relief work, and it will be quite a while before the coastal region gets to a point where they need IT work. I know it seems like I'm trying to justify my decision to the "blog," but it's really just filler cause I don't have any new pictures to show.

Another side benefit of having a routine is that I get to implement a workout regime again. Destroy and Rebuild is a theme that's going through my head for obvious reasons, and I'm gonna spin that weight loss into a positive. I'm feeling much better, and I'm eating a lot more now. So I figure if I can toss in a few crunches, pushups, & running every day, I should be back in shape by the end of the month. Which is just in time to travel to India and get sick again. Oh that reminds me, I should've brought my Timbs (pour vous Dino).

So what's this work I speak of? A couple of things it looks like. The first is just a few days of getting up to speed. I'm a Delphi evangelist, converting many a co-op work places. However, apparently it's not used in the real world. This I refuse to believe; Still, I'm brushing up on my C++ to teach some introductory programming. I think cs130/134/240/246 is a good sampling of material to teach from. I really should have brought my notes that I burned upon graduation. "When will I ever need these again," I exclaimed! As well there's an interest in some network programming, but I never took a Networking course; basically Send-Acknowledge-Reply is the extent of my knowledge, and I'm not quite sure even that's correct.

I'm also going to be teaching English a few days a week. It's kinda funny because I find the English education overseas, especially in former British colonies, is extremely good. (Extremely well? Crap.) I don't remember all the grammatical rules and I also believe I wasn't taught many of them; I just know what sounds correct. Fortunately, everyone else knows the rules and just wants to hear conversational English. Which is what I can do. I like hearing the sound of my own voice, so this is a perfect arrangement.

28 Days Later and I should be able to say a few more things in Tamil, which is all I'll need while travelling Tamil Nadu and Kerala (come on, Malayalam is pretty close to Tamil, how hard could it be to learn another language). I've scrapped plans for Goa and Mumbai; I'll save that for another India trip where I add Agra, Delhi & Calcutta [and when I can afford to fly as opposed to taking 2 day train rides (unless I get a sponsor?)] It seems likely that I'll get to the net café once or twice this month, but I'm further away so it'll take a 30 minute car ride just to get there (or should I rent a motorcycle for this month...hmmm parents?)

Next post: My first day of school.

ps - Picasa2 is out and I like it, with google influence showing up in the searching. But I want more than searching by colour Google. I want to search by similar images. Right-click on an image and "Find Similar Images...". An extension of that would be facial recognition. And upon further inspection, it seems that I can't figure out how to search by colour either.

pps - my internet access is really limited right now, so i wrote this last week and haven't updated it...maybe next week...talk to you soon.

Sri Lanka

One Month (0) @ 3:56 AM

Okay, I'm heading North for about a month, and like last time my internet access will be limited to that lone net cafe serving a fairly huge area. I'll be back to Colombo in March (to head to India for a few weeks), then possibly back North depending on the plan.

Looks like I won't be able to telecommute from Australia, but now that the idea is in my head, I'm fairly sure I'll be heading there for a few weeks in April...along with a few weeks in SE Asia. If anyone has suggestions of where to go (within Australia|Singapore|Thailand|Malaysia), comment or email 'em to me, I'm trying to organize those details over the next month.

A lot of my plans have been really flexible, and as such change like the wind. But that's the low down right now. I should have staggered out those last posts cause I don't imagine I'll have any interesting pics for a while. (This is me going to work. This is me eating rice for the 1 millionth meal. This is me going to sleep in the mosquito net, which has holes in it. This is me covered in what I can only hope are mosquito bites...etc.)

So keep safe, and have fun studying/working/traveling.

geek note: i changed the commenting a bit, so it's a little more...well, immediate.

Sri Lanka

Interesting Article (2) @ 8:17 AM

I'm back at an internet cafe after wandering around Colombo aimlessly. The city is shut down because of the holiday and I can't do any of the various errands I need to run. So I plopped down at a terminal and just read dozens of sites for a couple hours. It reminded me of my co-op work terms. (Keith, I mean my previous work terms, not my last one...)

Anyway, I haven't read Salon in a while, but there was an interesting article about the relief situation. Rather than rehash or summarize it, just go read it if you're interested on one journalists' take on the aid that's required. (ed. isn't that a summary...?)(me. no, it's a teaser)

Also, I've answered my own request for help. It's just not possible with blogger. Sucks to your assmar Blogger.

Crap-on-a-stick, I just realized I missed a chunk of my trip. I didn't upload the post from Jan 17-19, though the pictures are in the gallery already. You can spoil it by taking a look, or wait till tomorrow to read that day. (I want to fix it now, and it's annoying me that I can't, but there's no USB on this machine. Wait, I can hide that gallery temporarily. Yes, I think I'll do that...)

Sri Lanka

Numbers (0) @ 2:59 AM

I'm sure it pleases my parents to no end that it took this long, (and with a math degree under my belt) but I finally see the beauty of numbers. Just knowing what numbers are in another language is quite possibly one of the single most useful things you could know when traveling.

In Hatton I got to flex my limited expansion of Tamil knowledge while Reuben was negotiating a tri-shaw price. The driver and his friend said it would be RS. 30 in Tamil to each other, but said RS. 50 to Reuben. I called them on it immediately, and they were shocked and embarrassed. Looking like a tool finally paid off, and now I had a new tactic to my negotiating repertoire. Instead of bustin' out some really broken Tamil, I speak as "Canadian" as possible. Then when the vendors and/or drivers discuss prices in Tamil, I'll have an inside edge.

Another key realization is that I should have stuck with French through high school. The ability to barely communicate with Reuben in French allowed us to discuss prices whilst the vendors were about. So after my time in Sri Lanka, what say I spend a few months in France? And then Spain too, cause if I knew Spanish I could really clean up when I end up traveling in the Caribbean again. Of course I would require some sort of employment that would facilitate this, but those are just minor details.

Now that I'm back in Colombo, I've got to wait till Tuesday (with 4 religions to cater to, there are government holidays coming out the wazoo) to get my visa extended, then I'm going to head up North to start with my original volunteering plan. I've been in contact with a few NGOs, but I've yet to hear back from them. And apparently manpower isn't an issue, but supplies and funds are. So to that end, I'll keep my eye out for any relief work but it looks like I'll be assisting in some computer teaching projects. (ed. just read in the Sunday Times that the U.N. Development Program is setting up an office in Mullaithivu; I'll be following up on that one)

Also, if/when my boss gets back to me (I'm technically still working on contract), I might be working out of the Australian office for some time come April. That's about the timeline I anticipated sticking around Sri Lanka but luckily I've got a bit of flexibility till June/July so I'm just playing everything by ear.

Some people might be wondering about the bi-polar posts. Soaring highs and non-soaring lows. Some are funny, some are painful attempts at humour, and some are serious. There are a range of emotions, like right now I had pangs of guilt because I took a week to travel in the midst of this situation. But it was not possible to just jump in and do long-term help as several barriers, namely needing to be a part of a structured organization, prevented me from actively participating in relief work. So I kinda pushed that aspect to the backburner, and just played the part of tourist for a week. I tend to wear many hats in life (figuratively, although as of Saturday, literally as well), so this is just a compendium of those various discrete points in my travels.

Anyhoo, I apologize for dumping all my posts on one day, but I don't know how to stagger it out automagically with blogger (help!). This'll be the last big post for a while until I get things sorted out here. I just saw Reuben off at the train station, he'll be hanging out for a few days by himself. It was a fun week and I guess I'll see ya in 6-7 months when we're both back home dude.

Sri Lanka

Peradeniya (Jan 21) (0) @ 2:57 AM

Finally, the last official stop on our whirlwind week was to the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. The site is huge, and we only saw about half of the gardens. I think I'll head back here before I leave Sri Lanka to see what I missed.

There were police regulating the flow of traffic on this suspension bridge. I'm sure there's a lot of tolerance built in, but I thought there were a couple things funny with this scene. A) the number of people sent on the bridge vs. the number the sign recommends and B) why was the "un" in unexpected added afterwards?

Finally, bats in the daytime. They were extremely noisy and we were stepping in a whole lot of batshit as we walked through this section of the gardens.

Sri Lanka

Pinnawala (Jan 20) (0) @ 2:54 AM

On Thursday we headed to the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, a state run facility that is about an hour or so out of Kandy. Before we got into the orphanage, we went to a spice garden across the street. It was a free tour, and they gave free massages with their homemade balms and oils. But the hard sell was in their shop and we both ended up buying stuff. This extra haggling time made us miss the baby elephants being bottle fed.

There's really not a whole lot to say about the orphanage. Just being there was awe-inspiring, walking around with these giants. It's kind of sad cause most of the elephants have chains on to prevent a full on stampede, and are hit with branches to get them to follow directions. And I believe most of these elephants will go onto being working elephants; I mean going into a lifetime of work is a depressing thought for me, I can't imagine what the elephants think of the situation.

The babies (babies of older orphans) stick very close to mom and are usually surrounded by other females as well.

Twice a day the elephants are taken to the river nearby and have a bath. It's funny to see the babies step too far and just have a trunk poking out of the water.

This guy on the left is missing a foot.

The "collateral damage" from a landmine is not always human.

Sri Lanka

Nuwara Eliya & Kandy (Jan 17 -19) (1) @ 2:50 AM

The train ride on Monday was full of surprises. Well one surprise. About an hour into the ride I caught a figure leaping towards me. It was another friend of mine from Waterloo. He and his cousins had decided to go to Nuwara Eliya from Colombo for the day, and by chance we were on the same train. It was the craziest coincident, and after a little prodding, I convinced them to stay and chill with us for the evening and leave in the morning.

(These next two are Reuben's photos)

This is out of chronological order, but it's more of an aside. We had dinner at Remarkos. If you head to the sinks & kitchen at the back, don't look too closely at the ceilings.

Anyway, there's not a lot to Nuwara Eliya other than the marketplace and the tea estates. The first day we didn't want to walk too much (our legs still extremely sore from the climb) so we just wandered the market instead of taking the tea tour. We split from my friends, as they didn't want to pay the "white" tax that Reuben would bring with him. A lot of legit and counterfeit winter jackets were the main selling point here. It seems weird to buy winter clothes in a tropical country, but the jackets are manufactured in Sri Lanka and Thailand, and you can get some good deals.

After walking for a bit, we attempted to rejoin my friends. They were nowhere to be seen. And it wouldn't be until we went back to the hotel in the evening that we found them all asleep in their room. A wakeup call at 4:30am the next morning revealed that they couldn't find us and were really tired, so they headed to the hotel to take a nap. Of course that turned into a 12 hour sleep. Later that morning they left for Colombo, and since it had started raining we opted to skip the tea tour and head to Kandy a day early.

We stayed with some family friend's, a few clicks out of town. On Wednesday morning we walked to the nearby Riverside Elephant Park, which was a rather sad little private elephant attraction. Three of the elephants were in Kandy working, likely in a religious ceremony though it wasn't explained what the work was. The one that was left was a 62-year old elephant that looked sickly. It was likely just normal problems associated with geriatric pachyderms, but still it was hard to watch. Especially when I got close and I saw tears.

On the way towards the bus route, we passed by three stray pups on the side of the road. They were simultaneously adorable and mangy. Like me! To jump ahead a bit, when we came back in the evening to the house I had a little incident with the tri-shaw driver. We had agreed on a price, and after assuring us he knew where the place was, he proceeded to take a longer route to our destination. I knew it wasn't the same way we had traveled in the morning, but I didn't think anything of it. About 2km from our destination, he pulls to the side (and in my head I readied myself for getting jumped and dumped down the mountainside) and in very broken English says that it's gonna cost double because it's farther than he thought. I said no way, and said to keep going. He said no. So I got out, and let him stew for a bit. Then I came back and gave him half of the fare, and said we'd walk. He didn't take the money and tried to sell his new price again.

I was annoyed. It's not the money, because we're talking one dollar here or there. But as we've been continually nickel & dimed, you get fed up with being fleeced at every opportunity. And it does add up quickly. However I wasn't sure how far we were from home, and it was a little later in the evening so I wasn't keen to try and find the place in the dark. As well, I was tossed up on whether this guy was planning on swindling us from the start or whether he was just incompetent and didn't know how far it really was. So I split the difference and offered another 50% on top. He took that offer, but at this point I just wanted to get to somewhere I recognized and get away from the driver. So we got off at the hotel that was a short walk away and he promptly turned around and went back the way he came. Even though I knew it was closer to go in the direction we were headed. So he was just incompetent. That's no excuse. Maybe it did really cost what he said, but if you don't know where you're going as a taxi driver, then don't accept the fare.

Anyway, that side story took longer than planned...so we walked from the hotel, and heard crying and whimpering from roughly the same spot we saw the puppies in the morning. As I got closer I saw that one pup had fallen in the drainage ditch and his siblings were crying by the edge. Deciding that it didn't seem like they had rabies (in my professional opinion), I plucked the puppy up and put him down on the ground. As I started to walk away the puppies started following me. I picked up the pace a bit and they broke into a run. Now, my legs were still sore, so my running was more of a hobble, and the puppies were closing fast down the road. As a car passed I stopped and let the pups catch up so they would get off the road. Pulling one out of the ditch just to have all three get squished wasn't really an appealing prospect. When they got to me, they were barking and "yipping" and tumbling over my shoes, and trying to climb my legs. As cute as they were I couldn't take them in, so I opted to run again. (I passed on the fleeting thought to drop all three into the drainage ditch) They were persistent but we eventually lost them, though Reuben swears he heard them the next morning. I'm guessing the dog that guarded our place scared them away. I guess the point of this aside was that I was chased by a pack of dogs. Filthy, tiny, doe-eyed dogs.

During the day in Kandy we went the temple of the tooth that I mentioned the last time I was here. Here's a panoramic photo stitched together of the lake across from the temple.

And here's a shot of some of the homeless in city.

Sri Lanka

Adam's Peak (Jan 16) (1) @ 2:44 AM

Now, I'm going to preface this post with many explanations (or whining if you will). I've lost a bit of weight while here, mainly due to minor illnesses; but also because I walk everywhere and combined with the heat, I burn off way more than I take in. I'm now down to my weight from grade nine, which probably is not something to brag about, but I will anyways. Also, before we caught our bus to the base of Adam's Peak, I didn't eat lunch when we were in town, as I was feeling ill.

Suitably warned, I'll proceed with today's post. Our ascent began shortly after we got back from our backpacking detour to the waterfalls. I remarked at the time that it prolly was a bad idea to do that, on the same day as the climb. I'd like to say it fell on deaf ears, but Reuben agreed, and despite that we continued with our plan. On the bus to Siripagama, the usual starting point of the climb, we met two students (from Germany & the Netherlands) who were on an internship in Sri Lanka. They were traveling with a local friend of theirs.

While I'm a convert to the Tilley hat (except when I have to buy any tickets), I'm reluctant to make the leap to the Tilley shorts that Reuben models above. (The next three photos are Reuben's shots)

We decided that to travel from Rathnapura to Nuwara Eliya, we'd climb over the mountain with our gear, as that would save us from backtracking when taking the bus.

However, it was a bit much for me. My calves started to cramp up, which I expected to happen since they always do that (anyone remember the double-leg-cramp-n-fall-over technique I pioneered during intramural soccer over at Columbia Lake?), but then my quads were giving out too. This was early, like 3 hours into the climb. So my sherpa (aka Reuben) heroically carried my pack as well. He claimed the extra weight was not a problem because he'd already hit one plateau of pain, and the difference in weight wasn't too bad. Plus he said he's used to doing stuff like this from his camping and portaging. I was still in awe. We had already separated from the guys that we met on the bus, because I knew I wanted to slow down my climbing rate and didn't want to slow the whole group.

Another 2.5 hours later and the somewhat even cement steps ended, while the very uneven rock steps began. I didn't think I could make it to the next rest area but I eventually did, upon which a team of experienced climbers (they've done the Himalayas) came to my aid. I got a leg massage, and they wrapped tensor bandages around my quads, gave me salt water (and I was silently curious if the water had been boiled. But I can't look a gift horse in the mouth. Even if there are brain parasites in my drinking supply), and then they told me to rest. They said my pace was likely too fast, I should adopt something like their pace, which is extremely slow; just taking it one step at a time.
They were confident we'd make it in time, which is good that at least someone was.

After a 30 minute nap I got up, took off the bandages, and gave a few pounds of gear to Reuben. And we were off. Very very slowly. Baby steps. The addition of a walking stick however improved the situation tremendously.

At first I could sense my legs were tensing up, but I just slowed the pace down even further and I was able to push on. I was a little nervous we wouldn't make it up the mountain before the sunrise, and I'm sure Reuben was more than a little nervous. Around midnight we rounded a flat section, and when we came to a clearing it was a little disheartening to see that we were only halfway there. From December to May the path is lit by fluorescent lights, which you can see snaking through the skyline in the pic below. (ed. VOC whut! It's my warmest hoodie)

But we trudged on. More accurately, I trudged while Reuben seemed to stroll with an airy bounce in his step. I hated him at this point. Still, we walked pretty much continuously, with 5 minute breaks when we reached rest areas. And in a feat reminiscent of the Tortoise and the Hare, we walked past our new bus friends who had stopped to sleep for an hour.

At the top, it was extremely cold, and everyone was bundled up and huddled together. We had a long and fairly solitary walk up the mountain, but at the top there were dozens of pilgrims (or "pilgrimmers" as I was informed by our international English teacher) waiting for the morning ceremonies. Most had come up the other side, which is a considerably shorter hike and has cement steps all the way.

Yes, lower right hand corner...even a dog made it up that mountain. Climbing down the other side still was a long process, about 3 hours till we reached the nearest bus terminal. As we walked down I was humbled once again, as a worker carried some 25-35 kilos of sugar up the mountain side. All those rest areas needed to be stocked with tea, bottled drinks, snacks, etc. and this was how it was done.

Near the base of the "Adam's Peak" section, which is still at a fairly high elevation, we stopped for another shot. This was still about 3 km from the bus terminal. It didn't capture the blue sky very well. Or at all I suppose. I blame the Germans. Well, the one German guy who took the photo.

We took the bus to Hatton (which Lonely Planet correctly describes as a "ramshackle market town"), and crashed there for the night. We'd be leaving for Nuwara Eliya by train the next morning. As we entered the guest house we walked through the middle of a wedding. That's nice, two smelly backpackers interrupting your special day. I kinda wanted to shower and come back to watch the wedding, but just resting my eyes for a bit turned into a 6 hour nap.

Sri Lanka

Colombo, Rathnapura (Jan 13 - 15) (1) @ 2:38 AM

Okay, here's another series of updates; I'd stagger it out if anyone knows how to do delayed posting with Blogger. So Reuben's on his mid-semester break from "teaching" "English." We had planned to meet for a week in January, and despite the tsunami he was still pumped to go. Of course outside of the North, East, and Southern coastline you cannot tell anything has happened at all, and I figured this was a good time for a break. A well earned rest from my vacation.

An aside: I had hit the McDonald's last week, just to see what was different. McRice with Gravy was a local treat, but I was annoyed by the spicy chicken sandwich. "Chicken McSpicy." Damnit, it's Spicy McChicken. You already call it a McChicken sandwich if it's sans spice. Plus in the US I believe their spicy chicken sammich is called Spicy McChicken. I don't know why it bothered me, but it did.

Anyway, his flight came in bright and early and we got a jump start on the day. After a leisurely stroll through Colombo, we met up with one of my friends' from Waterloo. He was staying at a nice hotel at Galle Face (the beach/touristy part of Colombo), and inside we saw the Canadian DART team having a meeting in the bar. You can take the military out of Canada but you can't take the Canada out of the military...

Friday we left for Rathnapura. There wasn't much planned, just wanted to see some gem mines and waterfalls. It would be our launching point for climbing Adam's Peak. We stopped for dinner at another hotel, and hanging above us was this giant spider. We didn't notice it until it pooped on Reuben. I'm sorry, but if an insect (arachnid...pedantic?) is big enough that you notice when it poops on you, that's just too big...Biddy you'd love it here.

As dusk fell, we saw and heard the bats come out. They were huge fruit bats, and here's my attempt at taking a no-flash, slow-shutter shot of bat flying. See the squiggly lines? Those are the bats flying over the course of 1 second. I'm not quite sure how to photograph bats from a distance and at night, but if you have suggestions, feel free to send 'em my way. Though I've posted a number of photographs, there is a sizable majority of crap shots like these that you've been saved from.

The following day, the day of our Adam's Peak climb, we made a bad but fun decision. We decide to walk to the nearby waterfalls and climb 'em. It's about 2 km before we stop for directions, and we're on the right path. Another quarter mile and we'll be there. Two more kilometers later and we finally reach the waterfalls. As Reuben has deduced rather quickly, the local population cannot estimate distances. But it was a nice sight, and here's a composite shot of his jump. One of our guides is in the foreground.

And here's one of Reuben's shots; my "Starvin' Marvin chic" look is going to storm the fashion industry. Trust me, stick frame & belly is a hit. This was kinda cool because I happened to stand up right where the sun was shining through.

Our guides were two local kids who we stopped for directions. They spoke a little English, which was enough. After we saw the waterfalls we were invited to their house for king coconut water, which is delicious. I guess I kinda figured we'd hitch a tri-shaw back to town, but none were to be found. So we hiked, with our packs, 4 km back to town to catch the bus to the base of Adam's Peak.

Sri Lanka

Briefly... (1) @ 5:41 AM

I've been travelling with Reuben for almost a week now, and there have been some good adventures along the way. We're in Kandy currently, and will prolly be here for a few days. Pictures & real updates when I get back to Colombo as usual.

Thanks for the emails/comments, seeya in a few days.

Sri Lanka

Errands (New Years 05 - Jan 10) (3) @ 1:41 AM

Of course the tsunami was not the reason people had come to Sri Lanka, so various plans were in motion. A lot of students that were here, were leaving within a week, so there were attempts to merge trips and share vans to get things done quickly and cheap. Time isn't so much a factor for me, so I was just going with the flow.

The flow took me to Jaffna Town, New Year's 2005, asleep on a floor with mosquito coil that kept extinguishing itself. The bites are bad, but the whining in your ear, that's what keeps you awake (insert obvious joke here).

Anyway, this post will be short(er) and sweet. I'm writing this on Jan. 10 evening after a day of rest (king coconut water + fenugreek == homemade immodium)(I've added bowel movements, BMs if you will, to my list of things I freely talk about now)

In VVT we saw some coastal damage, but it was basically only places that were a hundred feet or so from the water. Nothing like the upwards of 2km of damage inland in some other regions. A few fishing boats here were thrown around and destroyed.



Zoomed in. Too lazy to walk.



This is my usually shower & laundry facilities. Mercifully, western style toilets are available occasionally. And if they're not, I hold it. (More than you cared to know? Too bad, you read it already)



Lately I've been going to bed really early and thus, as some proverb goes, I rose early. I went outside to see if I could take any cool night or sunrise shots. I didn't hear a thing, then all of a sudden I sense something behind me. Cows. Two of them. And by time I powered up my camera, this cow, if my udderstanding of cow is correct, was taunting me. The cow had startled me, but when I saw this picture, I was really freaked out.



Nothin to say 'bout this one, just think it's purty.



Reuben's coming in a little over a day, and thanks to my little setback, I've yet to plan our week of traveling.

Sri Lanka

Mullaithivu (Dec 27 - 28) (0) @ 1:37 AM

Where to start? On the 26th the first waves hit, and on the 27th morning, a few groups of students from outside countries that were in the region donated supplies, clothes and monies, and took charge in seeing that is was distributed as well. One student dropped in all of his extra-strength Tylenol that he can't get in Sri Lanka, and will make do with Panadol, which I (rather...he) estimates has the pain killing power of about half a Flintstone's Chewable Vitamin. (Some may find it odd that I'm joking around, but you'd be surprised how many smiles we saw that day. Some people just wanted to forget what happened for a few minutes, and were quick to share jokes with us)

There were four large schools that served as refugee camps in the area surrounding Mullaithivu. The one I went to already had students from Jaffna medical college setting up an impromptu office. TRO was also at the school, spraying chemicals for disease prevention, distributing food, and digging washroom facilities. The years of fighting & mass exoduses (exodi?) seemed to provide them with more than enough experience to handle the emergency needs of the tsunami victims. So what could we do? We did a lot of information gathering. Compiling immediate needs, lists of foreign relatives to notify, it wasn't much, but it was a start. Afterwards we spent a lot of time talking with the families, listening to their stories. It must have been cathartic, (remember that placebo I was talking about? well maybe it was useful), because once one person started, usually their neighbors would join in as well. Just talking & playing games with the kids seemed to ease the parents' worries a bit. It was temporary relief, and it didn't feel like we were doing much, but some parents even thanked us afterwards.

Sorry, I omitted something. The wailing. It's something that everyone had to sort of "tune" out, or else they would lose it to. One of the first things I saw when I got to main school was a father, around 30 years old, crying and shaking violently. I've never seen that before. It's that macho-men-don't-cry-attitude in our society I guess. I expect mothers to cry out, it's an image I've seen on television, and even more recently at the cemetery. But I'd never heard it like this. I've never seen so many people who had stopped crying purely because they were exhausted. I resolved at that point not to so much as tear up. I hadn't suffered in any tangible way like they had, I should be steadfast and show them I'm ready to help, not look like I need help.

We stayed there the whole day and in the evening headed back to collect our thoughts, organize for the next day and get some sleep. One small group of students had headed out separately, and we took a look at some of the videos and pictures they took. I'm relieved I didn't go with them, because the pictures were hard enough. (no pictures from today...see two posts ago)

On the 28th, we headed to Mullaithivu. We didn't go on the 27th because there were reports of aftershocks, or the potential at least, and the last thing anyone wanted was a bunch of foreigners needing to be rescued. Mullaithivu had been hit hard. Out of a population of about 17000, approximately 3300 people were dead with hundreds more missing. The tsunami is just the latest trauma to hit this town. Just take a look at the post office. The façade still bears witness to the shells and bullets that struck years ago, but the rest of the building has been completely ripped open by the waves.



I snapped this from the bus, as rescuers headed back after searching another section of the town.



This captured my attention for a few minutes. You wonder if it was just clothes from the house tangled in the tree, or was there was a story behind it.



Occasionally an album or a few photos will be found. Rescuers will usually collect and spread them out where the front door used to be so relatives can come and find the house.



This lorry was smashed an tossed on it's side. It's still hard to imagine the water rushing through like that. Imagine how many people were in it's path.



I said I never took any gruesome pictures, and I don't consider this to be. But skip past if you must. Trust me on this...there's an image someone else took that is now burned into my memory; I wish I'd never seen it. I don't believe a picture needs to be gory to be important; and on a public medium like this I wouldn't post those kinds of images. Basically when any bodies are found, they are wrapped in plastic and loaded into these tractors. They're taken back to the main junction where they're loaded into a lorry. From there, they are transported to one of the mass graves that are dug nearby, and buried. Sometimes in a casket, but more often not.



This is the school where kids from the Senthalir Illam (Orphanage) went.



And this is the picture I didn't take that I found quite moving. I had a serious problem with posting this picture, because I didn't take it.

Low-Res (4mb) | High-Res (13mb)

I've applied grain & smoothed the photo to remove detail, and added a disclaimer to it, so I hope it doesn't get used somewhere else. But there is a problem with images on the internet ending up in publications or other websites, without the photographers' consent. Like here. Well not quite, I don't know exactly who took the photo, but everyone dumped their pics onto a laptop to share. So unlike all the other photos, text, etc on this site, this photo not released under the CC license. And since I went this far, I selected a few other shots, and as I was doing that, the song I was listening to seemed far too appropriate. So I created a montage, and this video (also not released under the CC license) shows more of those pictures that capture the human element that I was talking about. I'm sure you're probably saying I'm making a big fuss over nothing, but I just want to cover the bases (which I'm isn't legally binding..), and I know I'd appreciate it if the situation were reversed.

I tend to end up babbling so I'm done now.

Sri Lanka

Pre-Tsunami (Dec 20 - Dec 26) (0) @ 1:20 AM

So here are a few of the pics I've long since promised. Over the past few weeks I've taken very few photos. There several reasons for that. One is that I was being judicious (stingy?) with my memory cards. Turns out I had plenty of space left over, space that I should have at least filled with video clips. Another reason is there were times when I didn't feel like taking photos (as outlined in my last post). And finally there were a few times when I wasn't allowed to take photos for one reason or another. Generally the people with the guns, from either side, were very camera shy.

As it turned out though, many many people took photos, so while I may have missed a number of shots, it's likely I'll eventually get a hold of 'em. I'm guessing that'll be when I get back to Canada, but still, I'm making a note of it now.

So what'd I get up to? Traveling around the North-East I got a chance to see a slightly more rural side of life. 20 years of conflict will do that. At the same time I was able to access my email sporadically, though I could probably count the number of public internet terminals in the region on my hands.

This is the cemetery I had also mentioned in that earlier post. I read the link that Mr. Blarneystone provided in his comment; this was location of my first moral dilemma I had encountered while picture taking. I opted at the time not to take any photos of the mother crying. I shot this instead, at the same time, a few graves away.



Christmas day, which unsurprisingly felt like any other day, a group of us visited an orphanage for boys. It was amazing just hanging out and talking (well, I was listening a lot) to the kids. They've been through a lot; war, losing their parents, their siblings, their homes. But they are really bright eyed & bushy tailed for lack of better cliche, and all are very familiar with digital cameras.



The best Christmas Jam I've ever been to. There was one kid who was a crazy good dancer. It was like a mix between ghana, reggae & hiphop. He looked like he was 8, though all of them look younger than they are. This would be the perfect segue into a video, but the one major failure of using my digital camera as a camcorder is that low-light video is not possible.



This is from Boxing day morning. A reminder of the war...this was taken while about 10-15 km away, the North-Eastern shoreline was being hammered by the tsunami. I didn't find out what was happening until later in the afternoon, though I saw and heard numerous ambulances going past. There was some discussion going on throughout the day, but I didn't know what "wave" was in Tamil.

Sri Lanka

Melodrama Much? (4) @ 7:59 AM

Well, I had a few more days to reflect, and I don't know if I liked that last post I did. It smelled of too much drama. I'm not trying to guilt anyone or myself, and I'm definitely not demeaning any of the work that anyone is doing in the relief effort. I wrote that while I was sad, angry, tired, gassy, melancholy, and subsequently tired again. I wish I could just show you instead of telling you. However the only machine that has USB was tied up by the guy from TIME, and I think CNN just came in and left. Sucker.

So that will have to wait a few more days. I'm sure you've been saturated with pictures and videos of the disaster, but hey, what's a few more right? As an aside, my shots are not gruesome, and mostly landscape pictures. I rarely take "people photos", though the opportunity presents itself numerous times. The first was at a cemetery a few weeks ago, before the tsunami hit. A mother finally found out where her daughter was buried after 4 years, a casualty of war. I chose not to take pictures because I felt it a personal moment, I didn't want to invade her space. Other people did take photos, and I was appalled.

Fast forward to two days ago and I see a picture someone took of a woman, leaning against a building, tears streaming down her face. She was at one of the mass grave sites. I saw that picture, and I felt it. I don't know how to describe it, but I "felt" the picture. It was incredibly moving, and though I wasn't there at the time, it captured the significance of the moment perfectly. And then I had an epiphany of sorts. I thought back to the most important photographs I had seen. Like the one of John & Bobby Kennedy sitting across from each other in a hotel room. Or of the child suffering from starvation being watched a few feet away by a vulture. These pictures definitely affected me and/or "moved" me. The human element was missing from my photos. In a few years, looking back I'll remember the scenery on the whole, but to remember the moment...

So I've decided to change my photographic style substantially. If and when a situation presents itself, I should try and capture the human aspect of it.

That was a terribly long post about picture taking. Point and shoot idiot, just point and shoot. (That summed up it up fairly well)

Anyway, I'm gonna get going. I'm walking back to my accommodations, and to avoid a repeat of last night, I want to actually find it. I never realized how freaking dark it is at night...

Also, this was rather poignant I thought.

Sri Lanka

What's Tamil for... (1) @ 9:48 AM

Bodies? My Tamil hasn't improved (much? at all?) yet, but this I understand. Everyone just says bodies. It's slightly more alarming because in a huge conversation, it's the only word that I can pick out. Definitely a sobering start to the new year, and one that I won't ever forget. Thanks everyone who contacted myself or my parents, I apologize for the lack of communication. As usual I'll get pics up asap, but right now I just want to jot down a few thoughts.

First off, myself, and all of my traveling companions are safe and sound. We were about 30 mins away from the heavily hit sites, and I was amazed, and proud, of how everyone pulled together to help those in need. Students from various countries were in the area, and everyone (save for me...again, "yet") shared a common language which made things a little easier to organize. We collected extra clothes, money, medical supplies and helped distribute them to schools which were housing displaced families.

The days kind of blend together so I don't quite remember what happened when. I have my "journal", which is now 3 pieces of scrap paper that have some notes scribbled on them...I'll have a day free tomorrow when I'll finally be able to collect my thoughts and write a proper entry. Anyway...so what happened?

We were on a tour of some neighboring cities when we heard ambulances in the distance. Shortly thereafter we saw several pass by. We didn't think much of it, and continued on our schedule. Later in the day it became evident that something was amiss, and we were informed that a tidal wave had hit and casualties were reported in the hundreds. We were quickly hustled back into the bus to regroup. Watching the BBC (which was the first and last outside media contact I'd have for a while) filled in a lot of the details I missed. Perspective is an interesting study. From where I was sitting, the death toll stood in the thousands. But the focus was on the 40 tourists in Thailand that were reported killed or missing. Ironically, that's where my concern lay as well, but I later found out that my friends (my family :) ) were safe in Thailand. Anyway, what I was saying about perspective...there was a collective groan as it was clear there would be very little news on the situation in Sri Lanka, and it's hard to grasp the magnitude of a situation like this when you're in the thick of it. (sorry i thought I was going somewhere with that, but apparently not...so awkward segue and new paragraph)

The day after the first wave hit we traveled to schools that temporarily housed the survivors. We collected information about relatives in foreign countries, to help get families in contact with each other. It's crazy how disasters really bring out the best and worst in people. There was a family we talked to who said they fled their homes, but it turned out were from unaffected regions. They later said they wanted some medical supplies and clothes. I realize in the end they still had a need and were likely impoverished, but I can't fathom how one could "fake" need like that. Especially in context of real survival stories.

Like the 16 people killed in one family.
Like the mother who said "I have 4 children, but only two hands."
Like the little boy who simply said, "My mother is gone."

It's crazy. I keep saying that, but it's still as true as the first time. I'd like to say we helped, but we were a placebo (ed. not my phrase, credit to UK-G). We looked like help, but real help takes time. We talked to survivors, distributed supplies, tried to get contact information to send word to family overseas...but the real work is digging the latrines, the real work is spraying chemicals to prevent disease, the real work is lifting toppled walls and carrying the crouching bodies out from underneath. But I'll be staying for a while. I want to help. I need to help.

In this situation, I realize how far I have to go; how much more I have to "grow" (rhyme unintentional); there is a certain breed of person, a character that emerges that cannot be taught. While walking around the school, gathering information, I saw another student from Canada without his slippers on. I asked where they were, and he said "I took them off before entering the school," and he then changed the topic.

Nobody took off their shoes. He gave them to someone who needed them more. I'd be humbled many more times throughout week, but that was a hell of a start.

Kinda depressing? Yeah, sorry about that. But I have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, and for that I'm grateful. Happy New Years, and take care.

PS - I'll send personal replies shortly (one week?), but right now I'm going to sleep in a van to wake up at 4 am to drive to the border. (For my parents who are now reading this blog, I'm going to sleep in a house, and it's not missing a window on the back door) (this choose your own adventure style courtesy of Rohit, my blog guru)

PPS - A few people were curious about the camera I'm using. It's the Canon PowerShot S1 IS.

Sri Lanka

Foreigner (6) @ 5:21 AM

That was a Coles notes version of the 4 days in the Cultural Triangle; I really enjoyed visiting the various sites, but it is hard to get all of them covered in any depth with that timeframe.

In Sri Lanka, there is a tourist or foreigner fee for most sites, and a local price. The local price is often not advertised. For the major cities in the Cultural Triangle, Sigiriya, Polonnoruwa and Anuradhapura, the fee for locals is 20 rupees (rs) and 2080 rs (~ $20 US) for tourists. The first site we went to, Sigiriya, I was decked out in jeans, a t-shirt, a nice Tilley hat I got as a gift, and glasses. I apparently (and in retrospect I see why) smelled like a foreigner. They nailed me for the tourist fee, though my friends (also Canadians, but dressed more local-like) got past 'em.

Thinking it was my hat that gave me away, and likely the glasses (not many people wear glasses here, despite a need), I resolved not to get caught at the next stop, Polonnoruwa. Unfortunately, as we were driving up to the gate, I didn’t remove my glasses in time, and that, in conjunction with a driver who may or may not have accidentally let slip I’m not a SL national, resulted in me purchasing another ticket. Now I’ve paid $40 dollars while the locals would pay less than two quarters. The cultural triangle pass, if I’d purchased it in the beginning, costs $40. Now, regardless of what I did, I would have to pay $60 for the pleasure of visiting those three sites.

But I resolved not to get caught in Anuradhapura. I put in my contacts, left the hat in the car, and just kept my head down…and I managed to avoid getting caught a third time. So, any brown folk that find themselves in a similar situation in Sri Lanka, you’ve been warned. Sorry, this trick won’t work for any other skin colour.

Also, in an attempt to try every antibiotic on the planet, I got sick on Thursday evening. I went to the local medical clinic the doc prescribed Erythromycin, which I would rank higher than Tetracycline, but still lower than Amoxillin. I’ll keep you posted if I ever need to break out the Cipro.

My parents asked about the mosquito problem here. It’s not a mosquito problem per say, it’s more like the human infestation here on Mosquito Isle that’s the real problem. The first few days I was being bit on my feet, and then I applied some repellent. So the mosquitoes moved up to my arms. So I thought quickly, and applied repellent on my arms as well. They moved onto my neck. I could sense a pattern emerging, but I needed more evidence. So I put repellent on my feet, my arms, and my neck. I currently have two giant bites on either ear. My ears! Not even the juicy lobes, but at the top, which is like all cartilage. I believe this is the mosquito mafia equivalent of putting a horse’s head in your bed; just letting me know who calls the shots. Last night I installed a mosquito net finally, and that seems to have worked. Haran: 1, Mosquitoes: 25+

Anyway, I this'll be my last post before the new year, so I'd like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday, and have a great New Year's.

Sri Lanka

Mihintale & Kandy (Dec. 16) (0) @ 5:12 AM

The last day of my 4 day Cultural Triangle trip brought us to Mihintale and very briefly in Kandy. I think I liked Mihintale the best out of all the places we went. My perspective might have been skewed by the gorgeous weather that we were finally experiencing, not a rain cloud in sight. It was nice not having to lug an umbrella around for once.

The first thing we saw was this lion shaped shower. The face is broken, but it housed a tap mechanism and the nozzle, and the water would flow down pipes in the hill above, and fill the tank, and when desired, spray from the lion's mouth. I want something like that in my house.

There's a giant assembly hall that was used as a cafeteria for the monks that could not beg for alms during the rainy season. Here giant boats (think gravy, not navy) were filled with food that the monks could eat, buffet style. This is the rice boat, and there's a curry boat as well.

Giant squirrel. Its smaller cousin that I see everywhere is sort of like a chipmunk.

This is a Five-headed Cobra carved into the wall of this pool. Because of all the rain, only the head is visible, but the pool extends down 6m! When the water level is lower, there are nooks carved into the cave that the monks can use.

After leaving Mihintale, we headed straight for Kandy, which was the last capital of the Sinhalese kingdom. The designation of capital accompanies any place that houses the Sacred Tooth of Buddha. Here is where it currently resides, within this appropriately named "Temple of the Tooth."

Inside there are a number of pictures explaining the story of the tooth and its journey, and one plaque caught my eye. You'll likely have to click it to see it clearly, but even some 700 years later, King Pandu has his PR people working overtime. I was tempted to ask what was originally written, but I thought better of it.

Sri Lanka

Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura (Dec 15) (0) @ 5:08 AM

Day three of our excursion into the Cultural Triangle took us to Polonnaruwa in the morning. A fairly young (1000 years old) former capital of the Sinhalese kingdom, the ruins were well preserved and maintained. The very first building we came across was the Royal Palace of Parakramabahu. It is claimed that the original building was seven storeys high, and contained over 1000 rooms.

This, I believe, is the Thuparama. Of course, I should have just said it was, and you'd be none the wiser. So let's try that again.
This IS the Thuparama, one of the only buildings with an intact roof. It's a prayer hall, with one large Buddha statue at the end of the hall.

In the afternoon we headed to Anuradhapura, and we passed a working elephant by the side of the road. The man beside the elephant is holding a large poking stick. If only that elephant realised how much bigger and stronger she is, she could have thrown him up the tree and made a break for it. I felt so sorry for her, and it was a stark contrast to the wild herd we saw the previous day. It's not really fair for me to judge I suppose, and I'm sure if he had a pack of Monitor lizards doing his bidding I wouldn't care at all...anyway...

We arrived in Anuradhapura which was the capital for over 1000 years, starting in 380 BC. This is another one of the many Buddhist stupas (also called dagobas). I found it surprising that these were just monuments, not buildings you could go into. At the center is a relic chamber, containing a strand of hair of Buddha for example, and then a half-sphere of bricks is built around it, expanding until you get what is seen below.

Nearby is the sacred bodhi tree (Sri Maha Bodhi) site. The actual tree is surrounded by a complex, so check the gallery for another pic, but I found this to be a better shot to put up. Either praying or sleeping, this monk is chillin' by one of many smaller bodhi trees in the area. Apparently this sacred bodhi tree is the "oldest, historically authenticated tree in the world," (> 2000 years) as it has been continuously attended to by Buddhist guardians.

Finally, this is a shot of a stupa that is being restored. Most of the stupas are restored, very few are as they originally existed. The vegetation that has grown is cleared, then covered with dirt. After that, bricks are laid over top. It kinda took some of the magic away...which I've hopefully taken away from you as well :)

Sri Lanka

Dambulla, Sigiriya, Trinco (Dec 13, 14) (0) @ 5:00 AM

The easiest way to get around Sri Lanka is by car. It's certainly not the cheapest way, but each of the main "attractions" of the island are separated by hundreds of kilometers of bad roads and jungles. That's all you'll see for much of your journey. Just winding roads, flooded roads, bumpy roads and of course, Donnelly Rhodes (danger bay anyone?). With that in mind, we left with a car and driver, friends and family in tow. We hit the road to visit the "Cultural Triangle." The Cultural Triangle is, as best I can figure, a parallelogram of some sort. My "Lonely Planet - Sri Lanka" guide book is sufficiently vague on what the Cultural Triangle is, but basically most of ancient Sri Lankan Sinhalese history can be explored within a 90 km radius. The major ancient cities within the CT are Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura & Sigiriya

The first city we visited was Dambulla. The rock temple is very cool, set in the side of a mountain. There were monkeys everywhere but they were somewhat creepy. I can't quite put my finger on why, but they would just stare past you.

Right beside the base of the rock temple steps is a very gaudy "Golden Temple." I thought it looked out of place, and when I checked later, Lonely Planet explained that "this precinct has been distastefully commercialised with the construction of what is claimed to be the largest Buddha statue in the world, in the Dharmachakkra posture."

After Dambulla, we headed to Sigiriya, to climb the Sigiriya Rock Fortress. This is a view from the last steps up to the top of the rock. Around the 5th century, King Kasyapa carved a stronghold out of the rock in anticipation of an invasion by his half-brother (who wanted revenge for Kasyapa allegedly walling their father up in a palace). At the top there are a series of pools and gardens, and these feed down into various parts of the fortress.

The fog finally cleared out as we made our way out of the fortress, and here's the rock in all it's glory.

The next day we headed to Trincomalee; Koneswaram Kovil (temple) was the first stop.

There's nothing quite like a speedo. Recognized the world over as something that shouldn't be worn. And yet it persists. Anyway, this boat had just collapsed, and there was a big crowd forming ready to pull it onto the beach.

On the way back we saw a couple of safari trucks pulled over to the side. Apparently we had just missed a small herd of wild elephants crossing the road, but they were still visible through the brush. The combination of rain (as usual), low light, and a very low vantage point meant that this was the best shot I could get. Still, it was quite exciting to see elephants roaming about.

Sri Lanka

Germany (Dec 5 - 8) (0) @ 4:43 AM

The first cultural difference I noticed when I landed in Frankfurt were the bicycles. The bike is the preferred method of travel by the employees to get around the terminal. I thought this was quaint, as any advanced airport would be using Segways.

From the Frankfurt airport I hitched a ride on the bullet train direct to Düsseldorf. Reaching speeds of 300kmph, it still took about 2 hours to reach the train station where I would be meeting some family friends' to crash at their place for the next few days. They live in the small village of Kaarst, just outside of Neuss which is a small town, just outside of Düsseldorf.

They took me to the main cultural/touristy site which is in Köln aka Cologne. Construction on the Cologne Cathedral began in the 13th century, and it wasn't completed until 1880. This is approximately the same timeline that construction in the Waterloo region is based on. This was one of the few shots I was able to get off, and on this little trip I learned a valuable lesson in battery consumption.

The next day I went on a trip to Neuss, mainly to familiarize myself with the train I would be taking to get back to Düsseldorf, but also to see if there was any shopping to be had there. I found the prices to be alright, about the same as in Canada. My dollar would go a lot further in Sri Lanka, so I opted not to spend anything (especially after the 114€ bullet train ticket).

This is, well it didn't strike me to ask what this was exactly, but I assumed it was a farm house of some kind. Or a mill. Something like that. Anyway, it reminded me of the scenery in the TV series, "Band of Brothers" (cue DS9 theme song). I snapped this pic while riding a bike through the Kaarst countryside.

And here is Santa attempting to break into a home. I dunno why I found it so amusing; clearly the chimneys are too small for a magical man to fit into. So in Germany he just throws up a grappling hook and works his way in through the second storey window. I saw this on a couple of houses, but I never had the camera around. Finally took this on the way back from my bike ride.

about Germany, written in Sri Lanka

Columbo (1) @ 6:53 AM

Was a great detective. Colombo, on the other hand, is the capital of Sri Lanka. Although I'll be traveling around the country, it's comforting to have a place to call home whenever the need arises. My family here has been great, and I'm slightly more confident in transitioning to a more rural lifestyle.

Of course, there still is a nasty issue of mosquitoes. Apparently my blood is like sugar for them (um, wait...like sugar for us? they love blood, not sugar. the point is, my blood is sugary) I've mercifully been limited to being bitten on my feet. I don't know why that is, and I've questioned if they are mosquito bites or something else, but I can't imagine I'd like the answer if it's not mosquitoes. So I'll continue to scratch my feet till they bleed delicious, sugary blood.

Rohit had mentioned about getting cellphone for cheap, basically anywhere other than Canada. I looked into it a little bit, and I believe I'll be getting a number here. Coverage won't exist if I head into more rural areas, but almost all major cities will have reception.

Anzwazy (seriously, I really did like the swapped z/y), so what have I been up to? Not a whole lot just yet. I'm relaxing and adjusting to the weather & time difference much better than the last time I was here. For a one month trip, I slept the entire first week. I would wake, eat, de-eat, and go back to sleep. This time I've managed to work out the kinks thanks in part to the crazy university hours I used to keep, and from not gorging at every meal. Finishing a huge plate of rice and promptly sleeping after lunch has been excised from my routine.

I wish this post had more consistency, but I'm writing various things that have stood out as I remember them, not chronologically. Like the fact that I'm writing this update as a result of running into some Waterloo friends of mine at the gate to board my plan from Germany to Sri Lanka. After my last post at the free net lounge, I meandered over to the gate, and a huge lineup had already formed. I decided to pull a QB sneak (see Rich, I know football. Or as they say here, "Chazwozzers") and headed around to the front of the line. As I approached, I saw familiar faces, which didn't phase me at first. Then I realized the absurdity of the situation. It was quite cool, and we've all been chillaxing for a couple days now.

Speaking of chronological order, I highly recommend keeping a journal. I had been contemplating a journal for a while now, and I had discussed it at length in Waterloo a few years back, but I never started it. But now, necessity and functionality have dictated that a journal must be kept, and I've realized it's what people must have done before blogs were invented. Unfortunately, I find I write to myself like I write on this blog. It's like I'm catering to a larger audience, so I omit some personal details. While remembering events is essential, I think remembering the frame of mind I'm in would be cool to look back upon later as well. Plus if anyone ever finds my journal and reads it, they would have much better material to post on the internet.
(oh, and keeping the journal with you when updating a blog/emailing is probably a good idea)

Anyway, the battery life of the notebook I'm on is draining, so I'll conclude this post. This week I'll be on the road traveling around a bit, it should provide for some nice pictures. Which I will eventually upload. I'm regretting not getting that Gmini still...

Sri Lanka

Leaving Germanz (2) @ 6:44 AM

I´m at a free internet lounge in Frankfurt´s airport...the kezboard
has y and z swapped, I don´t know whz, but I like it.

It was an extremelz short trip, but I have a feeling I´ll be back in
Maz, getting a cheap flight from London or something. Anzwaz, I was
in just outside of Dusseldof for mz time there, and I´ll post pics
eventuallz.

But god bless those Germans, I loved the German salami, which of
course thez just called salami. And I did see a few German Shepards,
which curiouslz, were not simplz called Shepards. Quirks abound.

Anzhoo, thanks for the emails, I´ll respond when it won´t make me late
for a flight. Like right now. So as the Germans saz, later.

Germany, edited from Sri Lanka

I'm off (2) @ 11:11 AM

Realizing that title could have many meanings, please take it as you would.
Going to be heading to the airport shortly, and my hours of waiting will finally pay off with many many more hours of waiting.

First stop is Germany and I wonder if the indigenous people there have the in-ter-net. We'll soon find out.

Also, congrats to the UFE crowd that passed with or without flying colours...you passed, now breathe (1 and to the 2, 2 and to the 3, etc., etc.)

oh ya n.e.r.d. update - a question i should have asked ages ago: what's the best way to store all my pictures while travelling. budding digital photographers any suggestions? I almost bought this, but I couldn't justify the extra cost for a digital video player...plus it's 20GB, at its price I'd expect at least 40GB. anyway it's too late now, but feel free to discuss. or at the very least, silently ponder.

Mississauga

The story thus far... (1) @ 1:30 AM

It's been a pretty crazy week, and as you can tell, I've updated an ton (ahh sarcasm, is there no medium you transcend?). I suppose this is good practice for me. I have no idea what my internet access will be, but I figure it could be days or a couple of weeks between updates. I'll continue to write, but there will be larger, less frequent updates I'd imagine.

Anyway, last Friday was a lot of fun, and Saturday turned out pretty good too, got to catch up with a lot of people before I left. So the hard stuff, packing, visas, etc. could begin this week. Starting with Monday's revisit to the Indian embassy. What I hoped would be a fairly smooth and quick transaction, turned out to be an 11 hour ordeal. The system is soooo slow, and there is no incentive to improve the customer relations at all. If you don't want to wait in line and pay your $62, there's a billion other people waiting to take your place...

The rest of this week was spent tying up loose ends and getting things I'll need for my time there. I've still got a lot to do, but I just wanted to test out this new blogging system I'll likely be using. W.Bloggar is an offline blog tool. This'll allow me to write and save posts, then upload them when I finally get to an internet connection. Can't say that it does everything that I need, but "beggars" can't be choosers. I apologize for the lameness factor on this update, but there is much to do, and as you can guess, I haven't started doing it yet.

Oh yeah, I can't stress enough how good Amazon.ca has been...travel books like the Lonely Planet series and Rough Guides are like $40-$50 in the book store. I managed to snag a couple online for less than half the price. Plus even with the free shipping, I got it in my hands within two business days. Quite impressive. Which segues nicely into an sidebar I was noticing while shopping for books. Why the hell is the exchange rate printed on like the barcode...with the dollar soaring (up at like 84 cents US), the Canadian prices are completely skewed. I watched a report this week dealing with the same topic, and the suggestion a bookstore owner gave was to "buy it online from the US." Why not just use the US price and do the conversion at the cash register? I'm sure there's a reason (and I have a sneaking suspicion the report may have given an explanation...), but I can't be bothered to think right now. No time for that.

update: A combination of blogger, a flaky router, and a laptop I'm setting up to take with me prevented me from posting this earlier. I'm sure this bodes well for me when I'm halfway across the world in the jungle trying to send an email...

Mississauga

Fig Newtons...they the bomb! (4) @ 7:44 PM

I can't be sure of what the audio is. I remembered him saying Fig Newtons, and I was fairly sure it's a package of Fig Newtons in his hands, but the audio sounds like "it's new, they the bomb."



Regardless, whatever they were selling were most definitely, "the bomb." It had to be. The employees bought something. White Castle employees buying unsolicited cookies at 3am. Damn I miss the DubC.

I'm adding trinkets to the this site right now. Since Paul seems hellbent on clock domination, I've included a little countdown message on the sidebar, to throw my hat in the time-telling revolution.

There's also a tiny map that may or may not stick around, indicating which country I'm in. It won't change much, but when it does, you'll have a tiny, eye-straining graphic to enjoy. Also, I've realized if & when I want to look back at my posts, I won't be sure of where I posted from. This is first and foremost a "travelblog" so accordingly, I will put some sort of fixed geographical reference in subsequent posts.

about chicago, posted from mississauga

Horn and Khaaan go to White Castle Pt.2 (1) @ 1:35 AM

Well the first thing when we got into the cab was trying to remember where the other White Castle Dave mentioned to us was. He gave us an alternate to the one we had seen before, as 35th & MLK (like Chris Rock says) isn't not the best neighborhood for safe late night adventures. Anyway, we got to the White Castle, which was glowing and white, and shaped like a castle. Incredible. The sights, the smells, all were overpowering our senses. We took two photos. After all the build up, all the hype, I only took two photos. It was drizzling and I didn't want to take a chance.

Anyway, inside we get to ordering 10 cheeseburger sliders, 2 drinks and 2 fries for under $9. We gobbled down two sliders each, and then we noticed the sign for Chicken Rings. Rings of Chicken. Good God, they've thought of everything. So we got a 20 pack of those too. But before we placed our order for the rings, a couple came into the store (this is well after 3am remember, not that the time changes the weirdness) with packages of cookies and fig newtons, and tried to sell them to the employees behind the counter (which also was separated by bulletproof plastic).
A) I didn't realize how many people sell things in Chicago. As you're stopped at highway offramps people jump at the chance to sell bottled water and socks. And apparently the late night burger joint is the place for cookies.
And B) I don't know why they didn't try their cookie pitch at us. We were wolfing down food not two feet away from them.

Anyway, there wasn't a place to sit, so I said lets get a cab back and finish our food their. Turns out finding a cab at this hour, in this neighbourhood, was difficult. Not terribly surprising, except for the fact that there was a cab dispatch across the street from the White Castle. After getting turned down a few times, we finally managed to pound on the window of a cab that was stopped at a red light. He took pity on us and drove us home.

Once home, we finished what we could, and reveled in the White Castle afterglow. We ended up making another stop at White Castle on the way home Friday so that Dave and Avery could be a part of a wonderful experience. Our petitions to bring White Castle North of the border will begin very shortly. (funny aside: the cab ride cost us more than what we paid for the food)

Chicago Photo Interlude Pt.2 (0) @ 1:10 AM

After leaving the NBC studios, Dave headed to class, leaving the dynamic trio to wander the city aimlessly. We picked up a map (not the popup map that Paul wanted) and planned our day. We decided to head to the Navy Pier and go from there. One of the coolest things about that plan was that there is a free trolley that runs every 20 minutes from downtown. Quite convenient and I wonder if Toronto has something like that. They should. (an aside: the Chicago subway system seems to be fairly effective and efficient. it covers a fairly wide region [going up to O'Hare as well] and makes me lament our very limited subway system even more)

When we got to the Navy Pier, we walked around the main building and headed to the amusement park. I got the chills while walking around there. I remarked that it felt like I was in the video game "Silent Hill," thanks in part to the constant fog we experienced in Chicago, and because there was nobody on the rides.



Correction, there was one person on the ride. I couldn't help laugh at the sight of the one kid going around that swing. The coup de grâce was when the kid shouted "Hi Everybody!" There's no one here kid. No one. Well, seeing as there were no lineups we decided to head to the ferris wheel and see the Chicago skyline.



This is what happens when you try to take a panoramic shot of the city from moving ferris wheel car. Also, there's a black building in the center that blocks the Sears tower which is really what we wanted a shot of. The automated recording in the car stated that our view would be obstructed. Thanks for telling us when we're already up there.
(ed: i lost some of this post...quick tip, don't click on links in msn while editing in blogger...i've lost the will to rewrite all of what i had before. but trust me, it was good. and much much funnier than the stuff that currently exists)

Anyway we headed into the buildings on the pier, and saw a pretty impressive stained glass exhibit. The photos didn't turn out too well, i gotta get a tripod for the slow shutter speed shots, cause this flash business doesn't really work.



After that, we realized most of the day had slipped away. We headed back downtown, stopped in for a drink at the Rainforest Cafe and then made our way home. Wednesday evening we went out and met up with Art & Nate at the club I mentioned earlier (dance music that cleared the dance floor...).

Thursday was off to a lazy start, but the plan was to hit the Art Institute. I'm not big on the classical fine arts (gimme photography, music, poetry, heck, even dance before wandering a gallery), so when our free passes courtesy the Chicago Public Library system were conveniently forgotten at home, I opted to just wander around downtown (where I had my pawn shop story). But before we split up, we passed by the greatest store.



The Segway Store. It was so great getting to try out the Segway...I was following that story back when it was "Ginger" or "It." It's definitely something that has to be experienced as it's like no other transportation I've used. Avery described how to do a panning shot to capture motion in a picture, and I think this one turned out pretty good.



This is a shot from an L platform...I wish I could take good city shots. At least I'm hitting enough cities to practice finally.

Chicago Photo Interlude Pt.1 (1) @ 11:33 PM

I was gonna continue with the White Castle adventure, but I've got some new photos up in the gallery now, and I'm picking a few choice ones for the front page to talk about. There'll prolly be overlap with what I've already written while in Chi-town, but who cares? I don't. That's not true. It bothers me a little. But I really don't like reading what I write so with that, on to the photos.



Before even leaving the country (on Monday) I knew things were looking up. We saw numerous K Kars on the road and in parking lots all over the place, but this was the first one (like a robin, it's a sign of Spring. Or a sign of rust. It's definitely something).



We chilled at Dave's on Monday and we met his two roommates, Uyen (it's pronounced "Win"), and Art (pronounced "Win"), both of whom were incredible for putting up with us all week, and they even came out a couple of times for nights out on the town. We played many little games while chilling at Dave's, but Dominos was the game of the week I think. We quickly discovered that Avery is a domino master. Oh the brown guy on the edge of that shot is bizarro-Chicago-Haran (aka Vinesh) according to Paul.



We hit up the Shedd Aquarium on Tuesday, which I found really amazing, save for the "Shark" exhibit (pronounced Xzibit) which cost extra (we pulled the ol' buy two and swap wristbands technique). This turtle was about to feast upon that diver.



Creepiest. Statue. Ever. After leaving the Aquarium, we went back home, and then headed out for some Chicago deep dish pizza. Everyone we spoke to before and that dinner after recommended Giorando's as the place for Chicago deep dish. Everyone except the waitress there. She said, "this is a stuffed pizza, it's not a deep dish." She was actively dissuading us from eating there. It turned out she was also from the Toronto area (Thornhill), and Avery insisted that the waitress might have been mildly retarded. Sorry, that's not-PC. "mildly mentally challenged"

Despite her efforts to stop us from eating there, we plowed into a three topping large, which was really really good, but very heavy. We applauded Paul's eating feat of 3 slices. (there Paul, recognition of your eating prowess)



That night we went to Blues Chicago, which actually consists of two blues bars, and it's one admission to get into both locations. The first bar had the Hoochie Man, who was pretty good, and had a couple of funny lines. Big Time Sarah hopped on the stage later and did her best Beyoncé impression. D$ enjoyed the booty-shaking grandmother. The picture above is of one of the singers at the second Blues Chicago bar we went to. Paul mentioned to me early on that he couldn't shake the fact that the woman looked like Dr. Dre. This unfortunately was true (Dre mixed with Dee Snider from Twisted Sister), and for the rest of the show I couldn't shake that mental picture either. I'm including a crudely photoshopped example:



I gotta say that DeeDre was pretty tight, and during one of her songs, "Oil & Water," she came out into the audience and had them sing the hook. ("oil and water; oil and water; oil and water don't mix."). Avery and I attempted to get flush with the wall and stay completely motionless as she approached, but she was able to spot us. D$, myself and Ave all ended up singing, but somehow she missed Paul. Anyway it was a good time and we called it a night. A big day was ahead.



Yup, we ended up getting tickets to the Jerry Springer show. And this is the best picture of the experience I could get. I gotta say I'm glad I went, but I'm fairly sure I'd never go again. It wasn't the slightest bit alarming how staged everything was; what was terrifying was how real the crowd was. Also, the disclaimer stating how they owned our appearance and could use it for any purpose "in perpetuity" was discomforting. To warm up the show, Jerry opens with some jokes, which were corny, but his delivery was good so I enjoyed that part a lot. The actual show was pretty dumb, and had no content. But there was a fight every two minutes.

One interesting tidbit is that the bell being rung doesn't indicate that a fight has broken out, but instead is a cue for the "guests" to begin fighting. Anyway, Ave & Paul mentioned that this little visit would likely end any future political career for us. But aside from the fact that Canadian politics isn't nearly as dirty as American politics (well, from the campaigning perspective at least), even a drug-using halfwit can become President (you decide who I'm talking about), so I figure this can all be chalked up to a youthful indiscretion.

updated nov.23 with Uyen's name spelled correctly

Horn and Khaaan go to White Castle Pt.1 (1) @ 12:15 AM

It.
Was.
Awesome.

Well yesterday was a pretty crazy night, which reached it's apex when we finally hit up White Castle. But the story up to that point was pretty good too. D$ and I played some floor hockey at his school, which was a lot of fun. It also highlighted the dire need for some sort of regular physical activity on my part.

Anyway, after floor hockey, it became pretty clear that the freestyle battle which I've been hyping was not going to materialize. Disappointing, especially after setting the bar so low during the first round. We ended up cabbing it over to The Legroom. However, Dave's roommate directed us into the wrong club. No cover and we were each given a free drink ticket. The club was empty and so we made use of the ticket and walked out. I made sure to say to the bouncer as we left (almost immediately after arriving), "we'll be back." Then we promptly walked out, and not 3 meters away was the place we were supposed to go. So they watched as we went in there. I felt like a jerk. But then I remembered bouncers are emotionless automatons.

The bar was pretty nice, lounge-y front, bar in the middle and a dance floor at the back. The music was so good, as soon as we walked in ol' skool Snoop was playing, and the next track was Cali Love. The bartender seemed like a nice guy, but he stiffed Avery on 2 bucks. That was gonna be his tip anyway so she didn't follow it up. Turns out he took a cut of every payment that went in...but he did it in the stupidest way possible. He'd tell you how much it really was, and then return the wrong amount of change. If he'd just change the "price" of the drinks, we would have been none the wiser.

Regardless, I wasn't in the mood to get kicked out for accused the bartender of stealing (I didn't see a manager to speak to or anything...), so I also didn't follow that up. It was annoying. But the dance floor was hype, and it was like a repeat of the last time I went clubbing here: brown central. We danced much of the night away, and headed home to get some rest for today's drive. Fortunately Paul had the idea of hitting up White Castle.

So we get Dave's house keys, he calls us a cab, and we're on our way...
(the rest of this adventure when we get back to Sauga)

Downtown Chicago (0) @ 9:50 PM

It's a mixed bag downtown; amazing architecture combined with nothing to do. Well, not nothing, but everything is so spread out. The downtown core is like the Bay/University area, except unending. Got to walk around soaking in the sights (and the rain), and I had a good time in a pawn shop. While looking at 35mm SLRs, and spinning G-Unit pendants, a guy walks in all out of breath and quickly asks if they buy car stereos. Store policy is no, so the guy left dejected, but I'm sure that enterprising individual managed to find someone to purchase his stereo.

Also, perhaps the highlight of the trip for me: the Segway store. For a mere $5 you got a free demo and "test drive" of a ruggedized Segway. I gotta say that I really want one now. Walking is for suckers.

Oh yeah, last night was fun, went to a bar/club down, well, somewhere (an aside: I'm completely and utterly incapable of figuring out Chicago. Up is down, North is South...I don't know why, but I suspect it's because the lake is North of the city). Pretty good scene but it would have been amazing if it wasn't house & dance music in the basement. That DJ managed to not keep the dance floor going all night long. I asked for hiphop, and he looked as if I had asked for polka. And he was coloured, which caused me to be confused. Tonight should be good tho, everyone seems to be up for going out, and fingers crossed that there will be hiphop. I should go back to Circus...NTYO whut whut...

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! (0) @ 8:27 PM

I feel dirty. And no matter how much I shower, it won't come off.

Puttin' him on blast (0) @ 6:47 PM

Chicago radio is awesome. Women call in and put their baby daddys' on blast. I wish there was more to explain, but that's really all it is. "Hi, I'm Waneeda, and I want to put my baby daddy Sniper on blast."

We're going out for Chicago deep dish pizza shortly, after spending the most of the day at the aquarium. It's in a nice "educational" district which includes the field museum, the planetarium, the mauseleum, etc. I think we're gonna hit up a jazz club later tonight as well.

And it looks like there's gonna be another optometry entrant to the freestyle battle, round 2. Hopefully he won't be as scared of the camera as D$ & Manwatt.

Freestyle Battle Round One (0) @ 10:16 AM

After what looked to be a terrible showing, one of Dave's buddies finally stepped in and laid down a thrashing. Not much footage exists as apparently Dave and Paul are afraid of putting anything down in front of a camera. So much for hitting 106andPark. However, Paul claims he'll be in a better state of mind next time around, so hopefully there'll be more flow than yo's.

E'rebody is still sleeping here...I think the plan today is to get Maury or Jerry tickets. I'd like to get some seats to Oprah, but I think her army of housewives has got that locked down. Ave said she's scream, cry and try to touch Oprah if we got on. I'd like to make that happen.

I dunno what timezone to indicate updates were done in. I guess I'll set it to the local time, but put up some sort of conversion on the side (underneath the "Where Am I" section.

damn, doing frequent updates to outblog Paul are wearing me out...i'm scraping the bottom of the story pile in an effort to have something interesting. I'm gonna go back to a more relaxed pace; Paul you've won. Wait...he's sleeping on the couch out in the livingroom, I should tell him directly instead of blogging about it. Plus I get to wake him up, it's a win-win situation.

In Chicago (1) @ 11:42 PM

The drive down had some memorable events, unfortunately, D$ wouldn't let me treasure and cherish those memories on digital film (and subsequently share those memories on the internet).

I'll fill in the details with recreations, but for now, Paul has just earned the Chessmasha title against Dave, and Avery is in a valiant struggle to retain domino domination.

Paul's bugging me to let him blog; One computer, two nerds. Who will come out victorious?

Queen's Homecoming Weekend (0) @ 9:12 PM

crazy aberdeen street party...(gallery)

Cottage Long Weekend (2) @ 4:30 PM

(not mine of course, brown ppl don't have cottages)
did some rock jumping. hella fun

NYC Pics @ 4:55 PM

just missed 40 people being arrested... (times square)

"American Oligopoly" rpg, republicans vs. democrats (lower east side)

NYC Cop on a Segway (east village, 9th & B i think)

Temporary fencing around the park (9th & B again)