The contents of:

emu’s. i almost hit one with lebowski last week. it was dusk and the thing ran out from behind some bushes right into the middle of the road. thankfully lebowski has good brakes for something his size, so not even that close. however, it was a bit surreal. i felt like i was half in reality and half in a dr seuss book, and at that point i would not of been shocked to see the cat in the hat himself come running out after the giant weird flightless bird filling up my sight line.

then i saw a kangaroo on the horizon at dusk.

ah, australia.

below is a link to some pictures of jess and i’s drive along the great ocean road and up to the grampians national park. all of which was pretty nice.
click here to see some pictures.

here are some pictures of a hike i did at tali karng, in alpine national park, in late march.

yes, that was a long time ago.

clearly i am horrible at updating this. not that anyone is reading it anymore, but even just for myself. apparently writing here is the first thing i shed to the shuffle…and so it goes.

well of course things have happened since the last post, things i deem memorable enough to warrant personal note, but i’ll just skip (or cryptically allude to) most of those and start with what’s most recent, singapore and indonesia.

jess arrived over a month ago now and we spent the first part of it in melbourne, exploring the city and just having some fun. she undertook a little exploration of her own, taking a trip for a week up to the gold coast to see surfers paradise and byron bay. reports were good. while she was gone, i worked like a madman to make an insane work deadline and free myself for 2 weeks in se asia. the effort paid off and we departed for singapore april 23rd in the afternoon. we arrived in the evening and the humidity wrapped us like a wet blanket as a fond salutation. se asia again.

singapore was not to be our final destination, we knew we wanted to go to bali (or some other part of indo), but honestly we weren’t quite sure how to get there. the first night we spent eating some cheap food (while i tried to point out rats to jessie) and then bright and early the next morning i planted myself in front of a pay phone and called about 6 airlines, trying to figure out a decent ticket somewhere near to bali. the solution ended up being surabaya, which is in eastern java (bali is the next island to the west). we booked that ticket for the next morning and then set about seeing some of singapore.

singapore is without question the cleanest, most modern, asian city i’ve seen to this point. if i had to use one word to describe it, i would use ’shiny’. the subway system was immaculate, the malls numerous, and the streets clean. we stayed in a section called little india, and it was probably the dirtiest part i saw (hence the backpackers). english is readily spoken (and used for all transportation and street signs), though most of the population is chinese, indian (tamil), or malaysian. the food is an awesome mixture of all of those things. in little india we of course ate a lot of indian food. mmm…dosa. jessie got her first real dose of authentic indian food and she definitely liked it. especially dosa. the other culinary highlight for me was the tiong bahru hawkers center, which is essentially the coolest food court you can find. on the second floor of an open air building, there are about 100 stalls or so ringing an open center with a bunch of tables. you walk around and find what you want, order it, sit down, and they bring it to you. we ate here once on the way out, and again on the way back before heading to aussie. delicious sate, roasted pig, teow kway, curry chicken rice, wonton, soy milk…the options are immense. most dishes range from $2-$4 singapore dollars ($1 USD = $1.35 sing dollars), so you can gorge. mmm…asian food. it’s a nice combination of chinese, malaysian, indian, and indonesian. it was nice to see peanut sauce again.

other than eating, my lasting memory of singapore will be malls. so many malls. it’s nuts.

oh they have rambutan here as well, amongst my favorite fruits. i got jessie addicted to those in about 2 seconds.

the next morning we boarded our plane to surabaya and off we went to indonesia, the real adventure beginning. (uh, we made the plane without about 10 minutes to spare even though i misread our departure time by a full hour…thankfully the singapore transportation scene, both airport and trains, are efficient). the plan was to take a train from surabaya all the way to the eastern most town of java, banyuwangi, and then take a ferry/bus combo from there to kuta beach, bali. so upon arrival in surabaya, we took a taxi to the train station, booked our train, and then set out walking to find a near by hotel. the lonely planet (or bible as i somewhat mockingly refer to it as) led us to a hotel, sort of. the map sucked and we walked around a lot, but then we found it. it was full. the friendly, smiley reception fellow offered another suggestion and away we walked in what we thought might be the right direction. turns out it was. we found another hotel and checked into what was a pretty nice room. the walk was great, as we got to see close up a big indo city (the second largest in indo actually). the stalls, dirt and bustle of a developing nation were all present, as was the traffic noise and wide eyed stares of a not so touristy place. for jessie, this was really her first exposure to that. she did well. even the crossing traffic bit. ‘it’s an art,’ i kept saying as she dubiously eyed me, half expecting me to get run over at any second.

after a bit of relaxing in the hotel room (and enjoying the aircon), dark now, we decided to go get some food. in my opinion street food is the best food, so that’s where we headed. close by was a reputed night stall spot, and that seemed the logical destination. on a narrow road that seemed to be the entrance to a couple of malls, a plaza of western crap (kfc, etc), and a giant fancy hotel, were two rows, back to back, of what looked to be semi-permanent food carts advertising nasi goreng, soto ayam, bakso, gado gado, and a bunch of other words i didn’t know at the time. they looked shady and they looked busy, or that is to say they looked delectably perfect. we browsed a bit and then chose one, going for soto ayam (i knew ayam was chicken and soto was some kind of broth or soup). as fate would have it, we chose well. soto ayam is a bowl of broth, somewhat spicy intially, with a little rice, a bit of cooked chicken (shaved off a small whole bird, roasted i think in some kind of yellow looking rub/marinade), a small amount of strange blue noodles, some kind of flour (cassava maybe? i really have no clue here), all mixed together. it is served with condiment options of a think sweet soy sauce (i passed on this), spicy spicy peanut sauce (i did not pass on this…soooo good) and lime. man oh man this thing was good. i tried it several more times, in several more places, but this was hands down the best spot. it was probably my favorite indonesian meal of the entire trip. it was delicious. it also happened to cost about $0.50. amazing. after this great meal we went and explored a mall (about 5 floors of mobile phone stores…no joke), then decided to have beers at the fancy fancy hotel. being a muslim country for the most part, beers are around, just not in your face like the rest of se asia, or asia for that matter…we sampled our first bintang’s (indonesia’s beer), which is a lite hot weather lager, short on taste but equally short on cost, so fair by my book. our waiter was friendly and taught us a couple indo words/phrases while we stared at a couple of other white people. after our beers, we went into another mall (more than just mobile’s this time) where i bought a couple of random cds. good times.

the next morning we planted ourselves on the train for an 6 hour ride to the eastern edge of java. we bought the lowest class available (no aircon), which was my call (wanted to travel with the locals) and i think that ticket was about 5 bucks. the ride was hot, slightly uncomfortable after 6 hours on crappy seats, but great. the movie passing by out the window was at first city and then lush jungle with a small settlement here and there. banana trees and giant strange tropical plants moving by at 3rd world train speed. generally speaking, nothing beats train travel if you are going overland in developing countries as far as i can tell. there is just something about the pace of these trains, india especially, that moves just right. slow enough to see but fast enough to keep you interested. windows down and hawkers shouting their wares. families singing or people zoning out silently. trains, when not too sterile, i think still offer a little bit more interactivity with your environment as well as some of the romance of a past era of travel. or at least that’s my guess. they can also suck too. ask any one of my friends that has had their shoes stolen (size 13! what indian can possibly wear those?!) or been awoken by what seems to be a chinese war erupting at 5 am on a 24 hour long train ride. but, generally, i love them.

anyhow, after this ride we arrived in banyuwangi and spotted some other backpackers heading to bali as well, so we latched on with them. they were a group of 6 mexicans. let the jokes begin. i know i was laughing a little inside. i am also going to hell most likely, but it was funny. they were hilarious as it turns out and a lot of fun, we ended up becoming pretty good friends with them and hopefully i’ll see them again back in the americas. anyhow, we got on a bus, then a ferry, then another bus that put us in denpasar, bali about 10pm. we all grabbed some food and then shared a bemos (small minivan, and i mean real small, i could not even sit up) to kuta beach, the epicenter of bali tourism to find a room. for once a driver took us someplace nice (this has never been my luck in 100+ prior experiences), so we all got rooms and went to find beer (bintang).

the next day jess and i decided to go for a walk and got extremely lost. it was awesome. she got wickedly sun burned on her shoulders and i got burnt too (don’t underestimate that indo sun). during our meandering we finally found the beach and the waves necessitated that we come right back. we rented some boards and in we went. it was my first time surfing in nearly 2 years and it was great. strangely a 2 year hiatus does not magically make you a good surfer, but it was a lot of fun none the less. the waves were nearly perfect, though getting big on the outside set. we surfed until the sun went down and i was a content human being. that night we got some beers and explored the kuta night life a bit (full of drunk aussies). kuta, to me, is a mess. it’s not even high season and it’s completely packed with aussie’s already. the town itself is a mix of ultra fancy resort (beach side) and ultra cheap backpacker standards (clothes, jewelry, sunglasses, etc). while it has a lot to offer in the way of value in terms of money and surfing, i just did not like the vibe. too many aussie’s roving around on scooters (they cost about $3 a day to rent), generally posing and being lame. it reminded me of a giant frat party. the surf was perfect for me though, absolutely right for my ability (and one of the few beach breaks in indo). we had fun in kuta, even coming back for about 36 hours on our way back to singapore, but that was mostly due to the people (ie the mexicans). after about 2 full days of it there (including one that ended surfing to the sunset), we decided to get the hell out of the bustle and go to the gili islands.

we found a cheap domestic flight and we were off the next morning to mataram, on lombok island (this is the next major island east of bali). the flight was about 30 minutes, and from it we could see the mountainous terrain of lombok. the gili’s are a set of 3 small islands right off the (sorta) northwest corner of lombok. the closest to the shore, gili air, is where we were headed. the locals call it the lazy island. gili meno is the next one out (headed west), it’s the smallest both in size and population, and the locals call it mosquito island (thanks to a lake in the center). the furthest island, and largest, is gili trawagan, aka party island. all three have been seeing tourists for a long time, but their popularity fluctuates. also, it was low season, so not very many people were on any of them. gili t had the most, and it was still probably only about 30% of capacity. gili air had, i would guess, about 50 tourists on it max, though i only saw about 10.

to get to gili air from the airport in mataram, we had to take a taxi and a boat. the touts descend on you the second you walk out the gates of the baggage claim and they are relentless. their prices are awful as well. after finding a decent price, we took a taxi through monkey forest (where we stopped to see some…wait for it…monkeys!) to bangsal, a shithole of a small port that one uses to get to the gili’s. the bible warned us this place would suck horribly, and it did. after much ridiculousness, we got on a boat and got to gili air. most people walked off to the right, so we walked off to the left (also following my hunch at where surf might be if it existed here) and found a bungalow on a quiet part of the island which was basically the southwest corner, or sunset side.

gili air was great. it’s a small, small island (we walked around it in about an hour and a half…5km i think the bible said). the water was warm, torquoise, and brimming with tropical fish. all three of the islands are surrounded by reef, creating conditions right for a ton of sea life. the snorkeling was excellent, so we even took a guided trip one day to go snorkeling around the three islands. this was well worth the 8 bucks or whatever it was, as we got to see more fish than i can even begin to identify. we saw two turtles (either hawksbill or green, i’m not sure), a clown fish (thanks to charlie and finding nemo for my knowledge of that one), and so much more (you can read about some of what’s out there here. every time i thought i’d seen all the types of fish i could possibly see, i’d see three more new and different. since the reef was so close, we kept our gear, and went out daily. aside from snorkeling, we just relaxed. lazy island it is. a lot of eating good food, drinking banana shakes, swimming, and generally relaxing. there was one wave to surf, but it was a reef break about 30 meters off shore, and a bit beyond my ability. it would be the perfect spot for surfing though, as the wave was good and pretty empty outside the 8 or so locals that lived on it. someday…a few confusing paths crisscross the interior of the island, so one day we took a walk through those. the main path leads into the small village of the permanent residents. it’s a different world in there of course. the people on the edges of the island all speak english from years of working with tourists, and are pretty nice, but certainly forward. the people inside say ‘halo’, smile a sheepish smile, and then look down and run away. except the little kids. they yell ‘halo’ and chase you. the peoples gardens are lush and the coconut groves serene. it’s a peaceful place. no cars, no motorcycles, only bicycles and horse carts (’transport’ as they call it, used for anything heavy or lazy…i.e. tourists or building supplies).

highlights food-wise on the island were some nice coconut curries, gado-gado (a mix of sauteed veggies covered in peanut sauce), fresh stir fried squid, snapper, some other local weird veggies, sate (i love peanut sauce, it’s like spicy peanut butter…), and fruit shakes. jessie’s favorite, hands down, had to have been banana pancakes. while my love of them may not have been as great as hers, i can certainly say they were damn tasty. different than the pancake we know and love, but good in their own way.

a couple of the local kids hung out with us quite a bit. helmi (sp?) being the main one. helmi had a twin brother, which was initially a bit confusing, but eventually i figured it out (he had a good sized scar next to one eye from a big wipe out on the reef). the owner of our bungalow, hasip (i think that was his name) was also very friendly. he would turn up every morning whenever i rolled out of bed and bring us breakfast (banana pancake/omelet/jaffle, fresh fruit, and lombok coffee) on our porch. from talking to the two of them i got a bit of history about the island. most of the original gili natives came from sulawesi (a large island to the northeast), they told me. helmi was born there and hasip came from lombok, where he used to be a guide on rinjani. the people were pretty nice in general.

at this point, we had a few days before we needed to be back in surabaya for our singapore flight, so we decided to go back to kuta for a day or two. jessie could shop and i could surf, so it was fine by me. we got back to kuta by speedboat, which was awesome. we hit 38 knots and it was a jarring ride to say the least. via the most popular form of backpacker boat transportation, the ride and bus combo from a gili to kuta takes about 7 or 8 hours. our boat ride took only an hour, with another hour or so on a bus. kuta was much as we’d left it a week earlier, a zoo. this time we knew our way around a bit though so all was peachy. and the first night there we ran into the mexicans. by this time they had moved south out of kuta, to a quieter location out in the country in an area convienent to a number of surfing breaks. we all sat down and swapped stories over a couple of beers, at the end of which they invited us to come with them the next day on a tour of that part of the coast. we agreed. the next morning two of them showed up around 11 and i went surfing with them for a couple of hours…well, more like duck diving. the waves were huge, moving pretty fast, and nice and hollow. great if you have skill, which i don’t. so i got a great work out and some much needed practice on my duck diving (which i finally figured out how to do). after the session, jess and i hopped on their scooters and we headed off to see another part of bali.

where they stayed was great. it was near a surf beach named padangpadang, situated a bit inland off the road in a fairly lush tropical jungle setting. the spot was quiet and relaxed. of course they all shared two fairly messy rooms. hilarious. we met the others and had a late lunch, then set off down the road a bit further to see uluwatu, which is one of the, if not the most, famous breaks in bali. to get their you have to hike a down a paved set of steps (and back up on the way out) and then out to the edge of a cliff. to get to the break you hike down some sketchy path and then paddle out a cave/river into the surf. it was really low tide when we were there, so not a lot of people were out, but you could tell just getting out to the break there would require a pretty decent level of ability. the view was gorgeous. after some time here, and a swap of a couple mexicans (they were like an basketball team, always rotating in and out of the lineup), we cruised the small bali back roads through the forests to another break, dreamland. the access to this one was nice. we 4×4′d, which surprisingly is possible even on a scooter with two people, out to the edge of a field, complete with grazing black socked cows (as i liked to call them, with their perfect black leg markings that looked like high socks). from there we hiked down a short small path to the beach. dreamland is a small sandy beach divided by a runoff stream, with the open, grassy hill above it one one side, and a small cliff behind it on the other. unfortunately, on the cliff side someone is building a GIANT resort. it’s awful. you can see why this place was called dreamland, and i guess it used to be a popular spot for backpackers to come camp out. the resort pretty much ruins that. the unrelenting march of development couldn’t complete ruin it though, it was still a lovely beach and there we sat, with the mexicans, and watched our last indonesian sunset. there were a lot of what appeared to be indonesian muslim tourists there, and they were funny to watch playing in the waves and taking pictures. after some time we headed back to the mexicans hotel for some dinner. lucky for us the hotel restaurant was well known for a dish called ayam bakar, a form of grilled chicken. the mexicans raved and i could smell it on the grill, so of course i had it. two things i know i’ll do if i ever go back to bali: 1. surf; 2. eat ayam bakar here again. it was delicious. next time i’m ordering two plates. after dinner we mounted up and rolled through the air of the warm night to kuta for some farewell beers. our plan got a bit hijacked when upon arrival at our hotel the staff gave me a message that a travel agent had been by several times for us. something about problems with our flight. i walked over to the travel agents and he informed me that the flight we had booked from bali to surabaya had changed in time. the new time would not be ok for us to catch our connecting flight, the airline offices were all closed at this point, the only other flight option was 8am the next day, so what to do? ugh. we decided to go to the airport really early the next day and try to get on a flight there, the travel agent was to accompany us and sort it all out. awesome. back to the beers. out we went with the mexicans. i made friends for life when i picked up the tab for everyone at the first bar (about 30 bucks for 8 people to drink for nearly 2 hours), and now i have many offers of places to stay in mexico (and sisters…). the night was fun but probably a little bit too much so as we nearly missed our planes the next morning. intersections with good people in far away places, at times you cannot predict or control, well, you cannot manufacture or recreate those moments, so you better live them while they present themselves. it was a little sticky but we got to surabaya and i even had time to pick up a souveneir. we got back to singapore that night in once piece and headed to little india, found a hostel, and had some delicious food, just like singapore pros.

our last day in singapore we ate and we wandered. and we got ken and megan a wok. eat and wandering is a good one for me. our flight was around 9:45pm, which we made no problem and after some sleepy flights we made it to melbourne the next morning safe and sound, another adventure fading already.

for such a short amount of time i felt we saw a good mixture of things. from the strange cleanliness of ultra modern singapore, the pulsing indo metropolis of surabaya (and it’s street food!), the resorts of aussie infested kuta, the quiet roads of southern bali, all the way to lizard watching in rough bungalows on lazy gili air. we traveled by by plane, by bus, by ferry, by speed boat, by long boat, by train, by taxi, by scooter, and a lot by foot. it was diverse and it, from my perspective, was a lot of fun. hopefully jessie got a taste of that life and saw some things she hadn’t seen.

at the least she heard some tracey chapman.

if you want to see some pictures of it all, and note, i did not take my camera out much, here are a few.

also, forgive me if this post is long and disjointed, it was not written in one sitting. but mostly forgive me for writing the longest post ever.  if you made it all the way through the magic phrase is “all peppers are green”, and if you say that to me i will bring you with me next time.  ok, maybe not.  but i will give you a really good hug.

it was 38 degrees C today.  the non-metric translation of that is: hot.

other important notes:

• the melbourne grand prix was this just past weekend, and i was amongst those in attendance.  from an f1 standpoint, it was pure insanity and despite little passing, decidedly amusing.
• kiss played after the race sunday night to a huge audience of bogans.  as it stands today, here and now, it was probably the most opportune setting to see kiss in.  i certainly saw more kiss t-shirts than ferrari t-shirts and that right there sends a message.
• raiders fans now make complete sense.
• the temperature is expected to drop from 38 to 20 degrees C within a couple of days, representing a change of nearly 30 degrees F in two days in the equivalent of late august.  take what you may from that.

and that’s that.  happy st patty’s day.

music, and plenty of it.

after a night of half spontaneously drunk packing, done by megan, ken, and i, each in preparation for our respective journeys, ken dropped me off at my rides house at 7:30 AM. about 10 minutes later i was riding in a car with two people i’d never met before, headed for meredith amphitheater. the amount i was bringing with me was about 1/10th that what they were bringing, so i figured i packed perfectly. about 2 or so hours later we arrived inside the gates of the festival.

the camping grounds were divided into sections for navigational aid, and consisted mostly of open plains (as the name of the festival might suggest), with a few lightly treed areas mixed in. my friend, felicity, who i met in da li, china, arranged the whole deal for me. she found me a ride with a couple of her sisters friends and they sort of just absorbed me into their group. they had all been coming here for another, slightly larger festival, for a number of years, so they knew the ins and outs. we arrived earlier than most, and got a good spot that while relatively far from the stage, offered shade on the tents until at least noon as well as a spot to hunker down during the blazing afternoon sun. it was key. i set up my new $26 dome tent (with faulty fly) and called myself home for the weekend.

the amphitheater grounds were great, apparently it used to be a private farm, and they started hosting a festival there (the meredith) about 1991 i believe. the place conjured a loose, kind of down home feel…in other words, pretty comfortable. northwest, or behind the stage, and running slightly beyond the western boundary of the grounds ran what looked like a ravine, and beyond it was one rolling slope into the horizon. all around us, otherwise, were those empty golden plains. the stage itself was about a 10 minutes walk from our camp, set down a little hill, with a bit of flat ground in front of it. the grounds held decent food vendors priced normally even, a complete bar with view of the stage, a convenience store, a bottle shop (beer store), and an ice vendor. all of these were made of tents as well. they were very recycling conscious and seemed pretty environmental aware in all regards. about 7000 people attended and it was busy, but not packed. the empty field we rolled into in the morning was soon transformed into a refugee camp of tents, swags (like a bivy sack back home), cars, and partying people. good stuff.

the music started about 2:00 pm saturday and went, essentially with stop, until 6 am monday morning. the variety of the music was pretty impressive. it ranged from indie, to electronic punk, to 90s rock, to d.j.’s, to funk/soul. my personal favorite was probably a self assured skinny weirdo named lens jekman. i have a cd of his, and don’t really like it outside one awesome song, but his life performance was great. his band consisted of: a blond indie/punky drummer (michelle ericksons evil twin), a computer dork, two beautiful (and possibly underage) string players (cello and violin), an androgynous 12 year old ‘it’ on bass, and jens self assured weirdo himself on guitar. they were awesome. it was great. other highlights were ween and their musical carnival (which was great to see in person by the way), the sea and cake (though i almost fell asleep to them it was so mellow), iron & wine (i think my expectations were too high for this and their set too short), kid koala’s super funky mixes, and then just chilling out on the fringes, exploring or cramming into shade, people watching and listening to music i’d never heard before.

also, i saw a wedge tail eagle, which is the largest eagle in australia and amongst the largest in the world.

it was hot, though thankfully breezy back at the camp, and mostly beautiful the whole time. the stars at night were so bright it was hard to make out constellations. the people were friendly (and drunk). the music was good. i came back in one piece. so yeah, i’d call it a success.

if you’d like to see the pictures from golden plains, and a few randoms from the last month or so in melbourne, here you go: pictures.

and here’s more about golden plains and the amphitheater: www.goldenplains.com.au/page_superAmp.php.

aussie slang for white trash. awesome. this really defines it better than i ever could. anyhow, good to know i’m learning about the culture, eh?

it’s a long weekend here, victoria labor day i do believe. to celebrate i’m going to a concert/festival called golden plains. it’s on an old farm about an hour and a half west of melbourne. i’ll report back post show. if i can remember, perhaps even with some pictures for once.

as i’ve mentioned, i live across the street from the bay, and it’s nice.  one thing about the bay though, is there is a heavy onshore wind (wind that blows from the ocean on to the land), and while it keeps the temperature around here bearable and the air nice and fresh, it makes the water choppy as hell rendering swimming a bit more difficult than it could be and frisbee nearly impossible.  mind you, these are minor beach complaints, but that wind is definitely a part of life around the bayside.

yesterday though, there was no wind.  none.  and of course it was hot as hell, which was less than ideal.  but the bay was glassy and flat.  after ken and megan were done with work and their errands, nearly 8:30 pm, we headed out for a swim, looking forward to some flat for messing around with this crazy water ball ken got recently.  the thing is slightly smaller than a tennis ball, feels like it’s full of silicon, and has a nylon cover.  what makes it cool is that it bounces on water.  so if you throw it with some spin and speed, it’ll bounce right off the surface.  of course the angle at which it hits the water affects the trajectory, so when the water is choppy it tends to go all over the place.  we haven’t messed with it much, so the flat water would provide an opportunity to improve those skills a bit.

so with all this in mind we started wading out into the bay.  suddenly though, i spotted a big blue translucent jelly fish.  it was about the size of a 2 liter water bottle, floating around, eating or whatever it does.  ken and megan waded over and checked it out.  quickly we noticed that there were a lot of them floating around.  one major preconceived notion people tend to have about australia is that there are a lot of deadly creatures lurking around waiting to kill you.  well, there are a lot, there are just not waiting to kill you.  however, as ridiculous as it may be, that creeps into your head.  so of course we thought it best not to get stung by the jelly fish.  and  of course one of us did.  megan.  thankfully i can say that she did not die, so the blue jelly fish is probably not deadly.  she suffered minor pain and a small patch of red marks on her leg.  about a minute before she got stung, ken got bit by something on his toe, drawing blood even.  he was of course convinced it was a small shark (he’s slightly obsessed with sharks), but megan and i settled on crab.  so 5 minutes into the water we were surrounded by a pack of killer jelly fish, megan had been stung by one, and ken had been bitten by a shark.  it was great.  we stayed about waste deep and started throwing the ball, ever vigilant for the floating blue jelly fish that slowly moved around us.  the longer we played, the riskier the throws got, leading of course to a few stray balls out deeper in the bay, and of course taunts of “oh you’re dead for sure.”  good times.

the jelly fish were actually really interesting to watch swim around.  i’ve never seen them so close in, alive, and in such great number.  it was kind of like snorkeling without having to go anywhere.  ken and megan are both avid divers (megan even studied marine biology) so it was educational as well.  a local was headed out for a swim when he noticed them.  he told us he’d never seen them there before.  i’d seen part of a dead one a few days earlier in the surf, but never a live one.  we all decided it was the calm bay.  whatever it was, it was interesting.

cenote a.k.a. the devil cat, myself, and this god forsaken apple laptop. yep, that’s about it.

it’s nearly time for the daily bike ride, but an observation about this neighborhood first. the houses around are damn cool. eventually i post some pictures of them, but until then, a brief description will have to suffice. i’m not exactly sure of the style, but i think they are modeled after english style vacation cottages. they are small, generally one story, mostly brick, but with a lot of wood work accents on the front, and have a lot of peaks and round bays. they are all very close together (sometimes old old duplexes even), so they have high fences of brick or iron, with cute little overgrown front yards. i love just walking or biking around the neighborhoods here and looking at them all. endless entertainment.

in other, unrelated news, here is a link to all the photos from my asian excursion:

http://picasaweb.google.com/1django

also, to be honest, i live in the future now. it was confirmed while having a conversation with my dad during the superbowl. yes, as hard as it is to believe, united airlines has allowed me to travel forward in time and i now live in a world that is 19 hours and 7 seconds ahead of everyone on the west coast of north america. so please, if you need to know how something is going to work out, let me know and i can tell you. except don’t ask me the day or the time, that part i can’t seem to figure out…

• biker friendly city, with many bike paths
• ken and megan came up with a song for me, which was hilarious. a good birthday gift too.
• the cbd reminds me a bit of a european city, narrow streets lined with funky bars and cafes. it’s cool. i’m looking forward to exploring it a bit.
• ken and i went on a bike ride today, in a town called geelang (i think), down where ken was doing some work. the path ran along a river, and on the way back we went through a pine forest that reminded me of bend and sun river. the pines smelled identical, and then became identical, i’m pretty sure they were ponderosa pines. at first though, they were of a different sort. they sort of looked like a softer version of a big pine, with large, long, drooping needles, with a dark, but gentle shade of green to them. it was a good ride.
• things are expensive here. it’s gonna take a while to figure out how to live cheap and right.
• the acmi (google it), is cool. they had an interactive video game exhibit and are featuring gus van zant films in their next showings.
• seems like a good, vibrant, city for me to explore for a while.

ken and megan’s apartment (my friends i’m staying with for the time being) is good, to say the least. i mean, it’s across the street from the ocean. i can be swimming in about 2 minutes. yeah, it’s rough. it is in a part of melbourne called middlepark (i think…), and i don’t know much about the areas surrounding it yet, as i’ve only been here about 2 days.

of all days to arrive, i arrived on, get this…australia day. my timing is impeccable. apparently aussie’s celebrate this by singing you off the plane, drinking all day long, crashing their boats, and then fighting. it’s awesome. ken had some family in town, and i think they’d had a late night the evening before, so we all just went out for a mellow late dinner in an area near here, st kilda, and then walked back home to pass out. on the walk back we saw two fights and a drunk drunk girl lift her skirt and piss on a corner, right in front of the busiest bar on the strip. classy! anyhow, safe to say people drink a bit here. it was entertaining and quite a introduction to melbourne.

yesterday was ken’s birthday so we went for a long bike ride down the promonade along the beach. the bike path is great, so i anticipate some daily rides on that thing. it’s flat as hell here too, which is good considering the bike i’m using was made for a 5 foot 2 girl…the seat doesn’t even go high enough for me…haha. but it gets me around so no problem. anyhow the ride was good and afterwards we went to the south melbourne market which was cool. i bought a load of veggies for $3.84. spinach, asparagus, bell peppers, and string beans. apparently that market is the way to shop here. eating out, at least initially, seems to be quite expensive. i’ll sort out some cheap eats before long though, that’s my specialty. there are lots of indians and asians here too, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find something good and inexpensive. during dinner we watched the australian open men’s final, which was being in melbourne, and invented drinking games to spice it up a bit. after the match we headed out to port melbourne and hit a couple of bars and capped the night with a swim in the ocean. not so bad, not so bad. not sure what the plan is for my birthday, but ken’s mom wanted him to go out for a really nice dinner someplace, so perhaps we’ll do that.

one thing i should mention, or cat i should mention, is cenote, ken and megans cat. he’s techinically probably still a kitten, at about 3 months old or so, but he’s funny as hell. he actually plays fetch. you can throw his ball and he’ll go retreive it and then drop it next to you so you can throw it again. i’ve never seen a cat do that before. he’s a character and like to harass me at night when i’m trying to sleep. but we’re buds and i’ll work on that with him. if he’s smart, perhaps i can figure out a way to make him fetch me a beer. another hilarious addition from him is that megan likes to walk him, on leash, on the beach. i asked her, while struggling for a delicate way to phrase the question, if she’d seen anyone else doing this…she said no. haha. good thing she doesn’t care at all which i have to say is awesome.

so yeah, that’s about all i got. this week i don’t have to work yet, no laptop, so i’ll probably explore melbourne a bit. this weekend ken and megan are doing a triatholon, someplace down the west side of the bay, so i will probably head out there with them and check that spot out. maybe go surf or something…

yeah surfing.