Dear world

Hello to all my many readers (cough...)

I have been quite busy lately, writing a lot in the I Love Chile website, but also searching to get myself a "proper job" in order to survive. I interviewed a TV star for the cover story of the next print issue, which will, um, not be printed (digital only copy...)

Bron left us a few days ago to go to Argentina and Antarctica. I think we showed her a pretty good time. Hopefully she will return to Chile sometime again :) The next visitors we have lined up are Viv and Bret, who will come in June.

Here is a quick little video of me playing Footbag by the pool that Bron took.

Hopefully by the time our next guests come, we will have our own place, and that is looking more and more likely. I won't say too much on that one, but fingers crossed for next week.

We had a good chat on Skype with Jonathan today. It was good to catch up with him. He is in Belgium at the moment. It was funny how we would spend Raiders games about our plans to travel the world, and after all that build up, here we are, and easily able to connect with each other.

Speaking of the mighty green machine, they begin their first trial in just a couple of hours. That means around this time last year, we would have been heading down to Bega with Jonathan to watch the first trial, also against the Storm, without Slater/Smith/Cronk.

My mum described the Raiders as "playing like a pack of girls", although the Bega Roosters women's League Tag team probably put in a better effort in the pre-match. Hopefully things will be better this year. I don't think I will be staying up too often to tune in to a live stream or radio broadcast in the middle of the night, though when I get the chance it would be great to watch.

I don't think it is possible to see it on TV here in Chile - maybe things like State of Origin on DirectTV...I'm not too sure. I just hope that the Raiders are better than the rabble that turned out last year.

Not too much planned for this coming weekend, just going to take things easy. I will probably keep an eye out for jobs as well as conjuring up other money making schemes as well. Let's see how that goes...

Quinta Normal and the Santiago Navy

Got up to some more adventures today with Bron. We're going to get up early and go for a day trip down to the coast, so I won't write too much about it, but I added a few pictures.

This was our basic day:

Bron slept until late and I wrote a couple of articles.

We ate lunch at a place selling empanadas. It was Bron's first experience with them. The ones wer had were ok, but I have definitely had better.

Considering each one cost about 600 pesos ($1.20), it wasn't really a big deal.

After lunch we just went to the park across from Bellas Artes and sat down in the grass and drank a couple of beers. It was good to just while away the afternoon in the shade. Our original plan had been to head to Parque Quinta Normal. The park itself has just been redone and there are also a whole lot of museums within the park.

A whole lot of people were making use of the water fountains that have just been redone. Apparently they light up at night too. One of the really noticable things here in Santiago is the waste of water - particularly considering there is a drought at the moment.

So many people (particularly those who are most likely employed by the municipality) spend hours watering, well they probably water more dirt and concrete than the actual grass. We didn't go into any of the museums, I think we were just content to wander around the park itself. Inside the park there is the National Museum, Natural History Museum, Science and Technology Museum and a few more.

Our wandering took us to the church - Gruta de Lourdes. It seems the church is not used anymore, there is barbed wire all around it and nobody was going in, it also seemed an outdoor altar had been set up directly across the road.

We wandered on from there, came into a kind of industrial area, then made our way back to what we expected to be the park, however it was part of a Navy base. I'm not sure if the guy on either gate should have checked us out, we could have been spies or something, but we had a wander through there.

Considering Bron spent much of her childhood as a Navy Brat, maybe she had the look, so they let us pass without worry. Who knows really, the bigger question is what is the point of a naval force hundreds of metres above sea level.

That I don't know. Once outside the navy area, we walked back into the park, and had no troubles getting back to the metro stop. Of course though, we entered on the wrong side, so we just took a bit of a detour to some of the outer suburbs of Santiago. We got off at Lo Prado and had a walk around there. We came across a nice park which had some slippery dips as well as a skatepark. From there we walked to San Pablo, where we could take the metro all the way back home.

We cooked up some burritos for dinner, which always goes down well. Tomorrow the plan is to head down to Valpo, though we have spent a lot of time in the Region V lately, so the next time maybe we will go somewhere else.

It's definitely worth a visit for a first time visitor though, and of course, it's a part of Australian history. I think I'm going to try and write something based on old mate Watson for my next uni project, the next subject I do will kick off at the end of the month.

Portal Lyon- Home of the underground

Today on the way home from my internship I went and paid a visit to Portal Lyon in Providencia. I guess you would say the main parts of Providencia are shopping centres, hotels and restaurants. Portal Lyon is a bit different though. Whilst it's right next door to a Fallabella department store, it is really a whole world apart.

The reason I went there was to pay a visit to a bloke named Greg. He is an Australian guy who moved here about 5 years ago. Our good friend José Miguel collects little cars- matchbox, hot wheels etc. He has almost a whole room full of them at his house. So this guy Greg has a shop selling matchbox cars. I was hoping I would see some of the cars from my childhood, but my memory is a bit hazy to know what exactly I had. I know I had a Mercedes that was blue, a formula 1 car and a smashed up Porsche.

What he did have in the shop however, was the exact track I had as a kid, there was no doubting that. I realised I actually had two different tracks, this one- the beach style, which include a looping wave, and another one that had a loop followed by a jump. I didn't buy anything today, but that's not to say that won't be different in the future...What I really wonder is if my collection from my younger years is still around somewhere back in Bega.

So anyway I talked to him for a while, I was wearing my Raiders hat, and he showed me he had a Roosters bag (no me gusta!!!!). Then his friend from next door came in, that guy runs a music shop, mainly selling posters and some t-shirts, we got talking and he asked if I liked Toe To Toe. I said I did, and he said I was the first person he had met that liked Toe To Toe.

Then he told me he was in a band and they were playing on Thursday. So I will go and check it out, it's in Bellavista at Bar Uno. The band is called Bajo Tierra. He said they are just starting out, but he has been in quite a few other bands including Dentro De Nada who I have a feeling I have heard of before.

In saying that, I just realised I may have double booked myself. I have signed up to play in a pickup soccer match, using a website called Jogabo. I really like the idea of this website, which basically allows you to sign up for pick up games throughout the world. So they are having a game on Thursday night and proceeds of that will go to charity. So I will probably play in that. It doesn't start til 10pm, but the show probably doesn't start til even later. The guy in the shop, Juan Carlos he said it started at 10, but you can never be sure exactly what that means in Chile.

So anyway, the rest of this little shopping centre, Portal Lyon is filled with similar kinds of shops. Video games, tattoo parlours, skate shops, more shops selling shirts, records, CDs, tickets, etc. As I was walking around the circular pathway, I got thinking- I wonder how a shop selling Footbags would go...

By the time I got to the bottom I decided it would go pretty badly. As I continued my walk home a guy came up to me. He looked a bit shady and I was a bit concerned about being robbed. I think he wanted a light for a cigarette, or money to get cigarettes. I'm not too sure really, but I didn't have and wouldn't give him either if I did. There were no troubles and I continued on my way.

Tomorrow night will be the final of the Copa Sudamericana. "La U" won the first leg in Ecuador 1-0, even though LDU Quito had not lost there for a number of years in Copa Sudamericana games. They are in pretty hot form, and I have a feeling they are yet to lose a game since I arrived in Chile.

Universidad de Chile 2- Vasco de Gamma 0

Last night I went and met up with a French guy, Julien. I met him at the hostel last year in Canberra. I'm pretty sure he was wearing a Ruiner shirt or something, so we got talking. I can't remember exactly but I think we went to see I Exist play, maybe with The Abandonment. I think Antti, one of the Finnish guys I made good friends with also came that day.

Anyway, Julien is travelling in South America now, he's been in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and now in Chile. We met up and got some dinner first. Of course it was some kind of sandwich variety. I tried to mix it up a bit, and should have learned from the last time, to just go for one of the usual options. This one wasn't too bad- but the previous time, I ordered what was basically a gherkin sandwich, I bit into, thinking it was covered in melted cheese- but that was actually artichoke- I hate artichoke.

This time around in was something like ham, Camembert cheese and a couple of other things. I also thought it would be a hot sandwich, but wrong again. No big deal though, it was cool to hang out and talk about our respective travels. He went to the World Cup last year in South Africa. I am going to try and go for sure in Brazil, maybe even try and get some kind of job on it.

So I told him there was The Match on last night- La U were playing with Vasco de Gamma from Brazil. We walked around a while, and I was actually surprised not to come across more places. We ended up going to the area around the street Suecia, which is mainly for gringos- we went to a place around the corner a bit, but there were actually no gringos to be fan, just abajos, the fans of La U- the underdogs.

This was the semi final, second leg of the Copa Sudamericana. The first leg in Brazil was 1-1. We were talking earlier about how teams, national teams, like Brazil and Argentina are on their way down- it's becoming much more even through South America, and it seems to be similar for clubs. I think normally you would think "team from Brazil vs team from Chile, Brazil will win. Not the case this time.

I thought Vasco de Gamma looked pretty solid to begin with, they had some good long passes that went straight to the blokes down the front- but then they took a free kick which practically went out of the stadium, and the fortunes changed from there.

La U went in with a 1-0 lead in the first half, the first goal was greeted with a mild celebration, but with one of the Vasco players receiving a red card for an elbow to the face, which looked more like it belonged in UFC, rather than on the field, it was time for azul to put the finishing touches on. I had remarked earlier that our UFC fighter, number 23, had looked like he had packed it in earlier in the game. The ball went out, he didn't chase it at all- and the TV zoomed in on his scowl on the face, which said "I hate losing, I want to go home". So he took the early exit, and La U scored practically immediately afterwards, capitalising on his absence down the left wing.

One noticable difference to the TV coverage was that when the goals were scored, there was no GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL. The commentators just stayed silent, probably knowing the crowds around the TV would be celebrating.

And straight after that goal, most of the people in the pub got up to the feet, raised their fists in the air and shouted-

CHI CHI CHI, LE LE LE, UNIVERSIDAD DE CHILE!!!!

The game was as good as over by then, though Vasco had a couple of shots on goal, there was no comeback on the cards. U de Chile were through to the finals for the first time ever, everybody clapped at the television.

I walked home, which takes about 45 minutes. All through the city you could hear horns honking to the tune of (Chi Chi Chi, Le Le Le). Not just for the walk home, but of course, throughout the night.

Once more unto the breach...

For most people, a wedding is a one time experience. Not for everyone though, plenty of religions seems to have the equivalent of the multiball option in regards to wives, whilst these days it's quite common for re-marriages to occur etc. And, in our situation, when your from two sides of a vast ocean, it really is necessary to have two ceremonies.

So after having our "proper"(according to the law) wedding in Sydney earlier this year, tomorrow is the next Big Day. There will definitely be no more weddings after this one- they're a lot of work!

The bride arrives

I made a little zine for the wedding guests

Champers anyone?

At both events we have been lucky enough to have some incredible garden spaces to use. In Sydney we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, their gardens lay themselves out over a number of levels, which was a really perfect setup for the ceremony we had, meant we could change the focus point a couple of times throughout.

A good friend of mine, and a long time servant of Footbag in Australia, Ian Pritchard, just so happens to me a wedding videographer for his day job, so he had a bit of fun and took some photos on the day- what a great way to spend one of your only weekends off!

With this ring I give you my love

You may now kiss the bride

The happy couple

Cheers mates

José, a good friend of ours, who is from Brazil cooked up some amazing food.

Here's cheers

Another view of the garden. Grandma planted the Jacaranda when she was young.

A fierce battle for the bouquet

Then time for cake

Grandma and Grandpa- couldn't have happened without them

We were very fortunate with the weather the first time round- after some, very ironic, morning rain, the skies cleared up, and it was a perfect temperature, not too hot either- the next couple of weeks saw almost every day in the 40s, and the previous weeks in Sydney were full of rain, so we did well.

After "official proceedings", a bunch of our good friends joined us to take a water taxi into the city. Originally we had just planned to take a ferry, but in hindsight, it was definitely best to take the water taxi, meaning we had our own boat, I think the maximum capacity was 27. This was a great way to head into the city, as a whole bunch of us were staying at Sydney Harbour YHA.

When I first brought up the idea of staying in a hostel, I would say my Mum's reaction was one of horror. I worked for the last few years in the YHA in Canberra, and had the benefit, regularly used, of staying almost anywhere else within the (quite expansive) network for free. Plenty of the guests were fellow staff/mates from work, so they had some free rooms too... what I was not expecting though, was to have the best room in the house, and champagne and chocolate in the room- I don't know if you could expect that in a "honeymoon suite" in a flash hotel.

It was a great chance to have everyone together there, though you may say the night become a whole lot less formal as it went on.

Our honeymoon, we didn't want to make it a big, expensive trip at all, as we already had plenty of overseas trips booked for later in the year, so we made our way down to Melbourne and The Great Ocean Road.

I think it worked perfectly for what we were after, it was a chance to just take a laidback trip and see a few sights. Francisca had never been to Victoria at all, and I had not been all that far along the Great Ocean Road, so it was really a good chance to travel along there.

So now it's time to prepare again- the wedding is in Rancagua, it's about an hour and a bit away from Santiago. There has been a big turnout of family- sixteen in total, and my good friend Doug as well. Today the family are out touring down the coast, Doug and I will join them in a bus down south tomorrow. Not sure exactly what's going to be happening to come back, but there's a good chance our "romantic exit" from the wedding, it may also be in a bus with sixteen family.

What I do know is there will be a good spread on at the wedding, that in itself is doubtless. According to the last few days, I think the weather will be good, a little on the hot side, but there are going to be marquees set up. It will also be a good chance to meet some more of Francisca's family and friends that I have not met yet- we can share a mix of my hopeless Spanish (though it's getting better, slowly), and whatever English that they have.

We were incredibly happy with our first wedding, everything went exactly as it was planned, and I definitely hope tomorrow we will be saying the same.

primero semana en Chile

So we have been around for more than a week now, it's time to start getting into the swing of things. I just received my last payment for the work I did while we were back in Australia, so that's the end of the line as for money coming from there.

So it is time to start looking for a job, though I must say I'm not in a huge hurry to get one, I would much prefer to take in the new surroundings than get trapped in the work grind immediately.

Y hoy, por qué no? (and today, why not?)

Within the first week we have been to the beach at Viña del Mar, explored Valparaiso with some new found friends, went up into the mountains and wandered around the city. My good friend Doug, who I lived and studied with back in the early days of the Bruce house has been visiting us, he just left yesterday morning for a surf camp in Peru.

It was a good chance for him to pick up some Spanish for the rest of his trip. He will be back to see us for the second round of our wedding, which is in just a couple of weeks.

Completos y Cervezas

So, being new in town, over the next couple of years, I will present to you my research findings on a number of important topics.

To begin with, in a similar idea to my Capital Pies idea, which never really got off the ground (some food for thought for coming back home), is to find the best completo. A completo is a very Chilean food item, I actually have had one before, from the Chilean stand at the multiculural fest in Canberra earlier this year.

The basic premise is that off a hot dog, with extra fillings on top. Today we went to Dominó in Providencia. Francisca rates this one as the best in town. That's a good way to start, but my research will see if this is really correct. It was pretty good, not to be confused with Dominos!

As for the beers, Doug and I have started off at the cheap end of the scale. We bought a pack of 12 cans of Becker beer. The $12 cans cost about six Australian dollars, so not a bad deal at all. They taste ok, it is just like any of the standard Australian beers, but much cheaper. All these recent travels have reminded me mainly of one thing: Australia is a big rip-off.

I have barely taken any photos at all. A new camera is something I may invest in in the very near future, as I haven't got one anymore, I lost it just before our trip to Asia, which was unfortunate timing.

Today we also stopped in a pub for a break from our long walk. I drank a Salzburg Lager. Quite tasty, however it cost about as much as this pack of 12, so I think in my current financial situation I should stick to the likes of Becker.

Thanks Boris.

Bienvenidos

So here we are, in Santiago. I honestly think it's going to take at least a week to get adjusted to the time difference and everything, but we've got plenty of time, we'll be around for two years after all!

Today mi amigo, Doug will arrive in town, pretty soon actually. He has the same combination of Emirates/LAN that I took. Emirates were pretty good, good to know for another flight that you can do things like bring your own USB and watch movies on the screen. I really didn't sleep enough of the flights over, probably only just over an hour in total.

We had a big family lunch upon arrival, and immediately after eating way too much food, I was feeling overly drowsy. Glad there weren't any more courses, I would have fallen asleep with my face straight into the meal. So I snuck off and got some rest for a little while. Will be interesting to see how Doug is feeling after doing the same flight. It was good to get that rest. I was up early this morning, that wasn't too surprising at all.

The photo from the top is the view from the apartment, where Francisca's mum lives. This is where we begin out Chilean life. You can't see it so well in the photos, but you can see the snow on the peaks of the Andes from here.

Too late, tonight I'm gone

The last couple of weeks have been some kind of endless farewell. Many of the friends I have got to catch up with this week, we have been friends for a long, long time. I am writing this one from the airport, so it's the last few minutes I'll spend in Australia for quite some time.

The basic plan is that we will head over for about 2 years to begin with. We will see what happens, I am going to leave my options open (real meaning- I haven't organised anything) for work, accommodation etc. I have my lovely wife to give me some tips, and to begin with we will stay with her mum in Santiago.

It is likely we will move outside of Santiago once we get a bit more settled, but exactly where to, I'm not so sure of. So I will say adios to Australia and move on to the next phase of my life.

Capital Lies

So in the past few weeks I have been dwelling on our upcoming departure from Australia, and thinking of doing some kind of zine for the occasion. Of course, time is almost up, and I just have a blank page, and many more things to do, so there will be no farewell issue of the zine.

That's not to say there won't be any more issues though. I will probably do some more, from Chile, I haven't decided if I will keep the Capital Eyes thread running. I plan on making a zine about the adventures in South America of an Aussie Gringo, called Grassy Arse. (geddit...) I might even think about doing a podcast, but first things first, I'm going to get myself settled down over on the other side of the ocean.

We only have 3 days left in Sydney. Our time in Canberra finished earlier this week, we finally picked up one of those elusive $15 tickets on the bus. Got to see a lot of our friends, but of course you can't see everyone you plan on seeing.

Have already managed to catch up with quite a few friends, talk about the old days, etc and I have almost booked myself out for the next couple of days, so of course I will need to find some time to pack too. Busy times ahead in the next few days.

A bit of a walk

We're into our last week in town in Canberra now, next Tuesday we will take the bus to Sydney, and it's not many more days and we will be bound for Chile. I decided to do some walking. Some time ago Jonathan and I somehow came up with this VM Challenge. The concept of VM came from the German word for World Cup or World Championship, weltmesiterschaft, which the Germans pronounce vee-emm. Our original challenge was to run up 5 mountains, going by bike between each one.

We never made it to any of those mountains running, but I decided the better idea would be to do the full challenge, walking. I told a couple of others about it and they were keen too, especially if the walking challenge was fuelled by beer. Of course, it never happened, but I had most of a day to kill, and didn't want to spend it standing in lines.

So the original plan was to go Mt Majura>Mt Ainslie>Black Mountain>Mt Painter>The Pinnacle. Some may argue that The Pinnacle is not a mountain, but none of them really are, and this run made the best case for not having to travel too far between destinations.

Anyhow, I had already walked around 10km before I started my "real" walking, which could explain why I didn't get to the end. I stopped in Weetangera for a pie, what a weird combination of shops they have there. No supermarket, but they have a publisher...righto.

From the shops I cut across the backstreets and made my way to The Pinnacle. Up a few steps, no worries, there we go. A fairly easy start. So as to not go through any private property, I took the loop track right back around to the main entrance and went on to Mt Painter. I had been up there once before, but it was a bit more of a climb coming from the bottom end. When you come from Cook, the parking area is already some way uphill. It wasn't too much effort to get up there, however the part that always had me wondering about this trip is where to go between Mt Painter and Black Mountain. I wasn't sure if it would be better to go through the suburb or Aranda, or to cut through the Aranda Bushland area.

I came down the mountain and decided to head for the bush. This turned out to be the right option, as soon enough I was on the Old Weetangera Road. This must have been one of the first roads heading further out of town. There is a little house just behind the stadium, which is called Weetangera Homestead. This old track, though it is now interrupted a few times by major roads, begins there.

In a previous expedition to Black Mountain I had come across that road, so I knew I was on the right trail. Heading up the Black Mountain trail was a lot more strenuous than my previous efforts, and with the sun on my back, I was definitely feeling the effects. I had to stop for a while and this photo shows a pretty accurate description of how I was feeling.

What a looker...

So at the top I contemplated whether I would pay the entrance fee to go in the Telstra Tower. I decided not too, and just sat on a chair and rested for quite some time. Heading back down I was reminded of what must have been the first time I walked up Black Mountain. Coming down, almost back to the road, there was a bloke with a t-shirt, and absolutely nothing underneath. That sure was a weird sight!

I had never been into the Botanical Gardens before, as most of the times I've taken the track has been outside of the garden hours, so I popped through the gate. The Gardens have the largest collection of Australian plants and trees in the world, but in Australia, are gum trees etc all that impressive? The rainforest section I was much more impressed by though, Canberra doesn't really have a climate that produces rainforests.

Whilst I should have carried on to the final two mountains, instead I headed in to the city for a beer stop. What my explorations showed though, is that the challenge is definitely achievable. I guess I won't have time this time around, but maybe some time in the future.

Tomorrow is my Dad's birthday. Each year around this time he gets together with his mates from high school (and their families) in the Blue Mountains.

I haven't got to go every year, actually I've only got to go a couple of times in recent years, but last year was Dad's 50th, so I tried to do something a bit special. What I did was to collect some stories, some great memories, mainly from these mates coming to the weekend away, also family and other friends as well.

The project really turned out so much better than I expected, with lots of help in the design from Francisca. If you have read any of the issues of Capital Eyes, you will notice my artistic pedigree is not very high.

It was great to find all these old pictures and scan some of them in when I was putting everything together. This is me, not sure what age, maybe about 3 or 4. I had those little trucks for so many years, but they had a mean rust on them after many years outside, but in this picture they look close to brand new.

Leaving home

In our last few weeks in Australia, we are upholding the pacer lifestyle. This term pacer comes back to a spelling error during the "Danpacers era". A while ago I went up to Queensland for work, and in the time I was away, turned by two bedroom apartment into a sort of mini hostel.

So you know, what comes around goes around, so we are relying on our friends to give us a roof over our heads. We have been staying with Viv and Bret for the first portion of our stay, which has been really good, we can just walk to work etc. We don't want to impose on them for the whole stay, so today we move over to Caroline's house, multiple times Australian Women's Footbag Champion...

We will stay there for about a week and then come back here, then finish off our time in Australia with a stint and Grandma and Grandpa's in Sydney. Not really long at all to go to takeoff.

Let me remember how I felt just before leaving to go away to Queensland:

It has been great to have our friends help us out, and it has been fun to stay with Viv and Bret. We share some jokes and I have been reading various books that have been picked up from garage sales, borders closing down sales etc. I polished off Danny Buderus' autobiography, now I reading about "Laurie and Clyde", two of my heroes growing up, who I got to see in action earlier this year in Hay. You know, as much as these may be embarrassing to have in your collection, I actually really like to read these sports books, brings back a lot of memories.

SiamSato

So I left my dear wife under the pretty vague instructions "just get us a beer will ya luv". She came back with a brown bottle, looked like a success. Siam Sato it is called, and after my first swill I thought, this sure isn't beer.

It tasted a bit like cider. After a quick trawl on Google I found this thread "SiamSato, what the hell is this?" http://teakdoor.com/thailands-wine-cellar/2817-siamsato-what-is-this-stuff.html

It seems it's some kind of rice wine.

We met with Jonathan today. I first met him in the hostel in Canberra about 2 years ago, I was just about to leave for my first overseas journey and since then we have always talked about how great it would be to be travelling, compared our different plans and ideas on the travel game.

It is quite amazing how in the end, we just left on our journeys a couple of days apart. I visited the hospital today, the seemed to do a good job and the doctor gave me a lot of different medicines to take. He said not to walk too much, but we did go for a short walk, where we may have seen the Queen (? not too sure about that), but we were stopped from crossing the bridge while a convoy of cars went by).

We are not too sure of where to go next. Unfortunately this current hostel was fully booked for tomorrow. We haven't really finished with Bangkok (too be honest we've barely started), so we booked another night next door. We did this in Jaipur and the second place was totally substandard compared to the first place, but hopefully they will be just as good as each other.

Here's another thread on SiamSato, this time from the Lonely Planet Thorntree forum. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=1724931

You know I have drunk many boxes of fruity lexia in the past so this is just another crappy drink. It's not really good, but not as bad as some describe. I'm not so sure it would keep the tuk tuk's going.

Speaking of these scammers, Jonathan has a good attitude towards them, he makes it all part of the game. They say, oh hello where are you going to? "Phuket, take me to Phuket, how much?" or other things that would take something like a week in one of these suspiciously put together contraptions. Keeping it fun is a good way to keep up the positive attitude as fighting with touts and other dodgy characters can really bring you down.

Compared to India, Thailand doesn't have the same volume of this annoyances, actually Thailand is pretty easy going, especially in the traffic department. It is good to see people driving on the side of the road they are meant to be on, and not going full speed down the wrong side at an oncoming bus.

As much as I have said that this SiamSato is ok, it's taken me a good long time to get even down to the first label. Probably wouldn't trade on this one again...

Thailand zine scene search

While sitting here getting some rest for my ankle, I started making some enquiries into the zine world of Thailand. I have only just started looking, but I came across a very interesting write up of a Terror show in Bangkok.

By the looks of it, Jagged Visions is a punk/hardcore zine from the Netherlands, and the main guy has a brother living in Bangkok. But anyway, some interesting points in there about the scene. I found a link to another website about Thai hardcore, but it hadn't been updated in a few months. The last link was to Relentless, from Sydney playing. They're not very good though.

I looked on Last FM and there is a death metal festival on in about a week from now. I don't think I could really handle from midday to midnight of death/black metal, it doesn't sound that much up my alley and I'd say we would be out of town.

I came across a couple of other travel zines about Thailand. I have the idea to do up a zine about our trip, but let's see. Anyhow, I will search for more on Thailand as the day goes on. Looks like Jonathan has arrived in town, possibly a couple of days ago. He wrote me a comment on facebook at 5am saying he had met some characters and gone out partying, good times. So maybe we will see him later in the afternoon...

Bangkok

Today we had a very good day. After a breakfast at the hostel, which was included in the stay, and had a toast with a smiley face imprinted into it....there's really no other way to start the day...we took a short walk down to the river. It's a big river and it's very brown. On the way back, we were looking undecidedly at a laneway thinking it could be a shortcut. A guy walking past must have read our mind. "Yeah, you can walk down there". At the end of the lane, I was still getting my bearings and found the hostel directly in front of me. A rare occasion when a go at a shortcut actually turns out to be shorter than the other options.

We came back and chatted to a couple of girls from Austria. When I was reading about some of these scams that are renowned in Thailand, I said to myself "is anyone really dumb enough to fall for these tricks"?

So I asked the girls what they got up to. "Yesterday we went with a rickshaw driver, he took us on this tour for 10 baht (about 30c), and first he took us to a travel agent, then to a jewellery shop, after the third place we made him bring us back to the hostel". C'mon girls, that one is the oldest trick in the book....I guess they must be pretty young though as they said it's there first big trick. No harm done to them though anyway, it was just a learning experience that everyone, particularly those that drive rickshaws, is not out to give you a good deal.

We were lucky, as we had our local "tour guides" come and pick us up. No rickshaws, taxis, buses, trains, planes etc. Just airconditioned comfort and we headed north.

After driving out of the city limits, we stopped at an area where they have some seafood restaurants. We got a huge variety of food, which they said was less than usual. There was a little bit of everything, shrimps, crab omelette, a Tom Yum soup with shrimp inside, a big fish, rice, vegetables, the works. We left there with full tummies.

We got fairly sick in India and our eating habits on the trip have changed since then. We have really been eating only one big meal and then some smaller snacks throughout the day, but that's not the way in Thailand. More on that later.

From there we went to a couple of tourist locations. First was the Bang Pa-In Palace. I linked to the wiki article which tells me it's only used occasionally by the current royals, but it's a very nice place, with temples, gardens and lots of other features inside. One of the gardens is a collection of hedges in animal shapes.

Awesome.

We stopped in at a temple next, which had a big load of stairs leading up to. With the condition of our ankles it was probably a mistake to head up there, but there was a good view at the top. Not really worth coming to the temple and not actually entering it.

It was getting to about 6pm and our next stop was Sun's old uni, where every Monday and Thursday they have a night market. And it's not just a small market. You wouldn't see me back at UC for the Wednesday market day, I'll put it that way. Anyway, I don't like markets that much, so it would be likely for me to do something like to fake an injury to skip out of the markets.

However there was no faking, my ankle and foot were hurting significantly, so it was time to sit down. The gang gathered up some more food, though I wasn't too hungry. That didn't concern them..."it's 7 o'clock, it's time to eat!" Even though we hadn't actually finished our lunch until about 2pm.

Tomorrow we're going to go to the doctor. I have a lot of bruising on my foot, and Francisca's ankle has swollen up a bit. She also has a cough that hasn't rested since we were in India. So let's see how that goes. We've got one more night booked in here, but then I think they are booked out for a couple of weeks, so we will have to move on to some coastal paradise.

After tomorrow I will spend most of the day resting so I will try and add some more pictures to this blog. I also start back on my uni course next week. My subjects are "Online Writing" and "Writing and New Media", so I might talk about that a bit in here.

It's good that I can be in Thailand and still "get it done"

On to the next one

So we are entering the next stage of our trip. We arrived late last night in Bangkok and we are staying in the very pleasant Kkaosan Baan Thai, which is a Guesthouse which is set up as a normal Thai house.

We had another ankle injury last night, as our friend Viv suggested, maybe taking the "his and hers thing a little to far"....

We are meeting in a while with Sun, a friend of Francisca that she met in her studies at ANU. In a couple of days we are likely to come across with Jonathan again, he has been doing some Muy Thai training down near Phuket somewhere.

We took the flight with Air India yesterday. The Indian airlines generally get a pretty bad wrap, but both flights we had no troubles, got a good meal, got a couple of beers. I hadn't even downed my first Tiger and the lady puts down another one on my tray table...Got talking to the guy sitting next to me, he was a hugely bearded bloke (puts me to shame by a long way...). He was from the USA but earnt a crust by going around the world, buying some jewellery in places like Nepal, Thailand etc, then selling it in the USA. Seemed a nice bloke. Also watched a movie that I was paying vague attention too that had an incredibly stupid plot. I might try and find some more information about it later on.

I have found a link to a review of the movie, which I have linked above. The movie was called Lafangey Parindey. It's not very positive, but it's pretty accurate....

So today Sun is going to show us around the place, tomorrow we can probably show ourselves around a bit. We have 3 days booked here and then not really any plan on where to go. I think the coastline is calling. There's not too much plan from here, we just have a flight from Hanoi in just over a month, so we can do whatever we want really.

more wanderings

After the travels I mentioned in my previous post, in reality I should have come home, worked hard on saving, reducing costs, planning the trips later this year.

But the road beckoned. Mum and Dad told me they had some guests, my auntie, uncle and cousin, so I popped down to Bega for just over a day.

The word was they were going to take a trip to Mumbulla Falls (pictured) in the morning, so I got up quite early, and I had hit the road by 6am. Midway along I got a call from Mum seeing if I had left yet, and I told her I'd be there in an hour.

Our access to the falls was blocked about 1km from the normal place, with a tree across the road. This was after a meandering cow had blocked our way further back on the track. Welcome to the country.

Once we got there, the water was crystal clear. I had been planning to probably not go in, but once we got there, the sun was up, the water looked good, and the slide had plenty of water running through it. I dipped my hand in the water, it was pretty sharp, but we'd come on an adventure, so I went in for a few jumps.

Although we had the whole place to ourselves, we didn't spend too long in the water, as it was freezing. The afternoon we spent watching my mum play in this wildlife park, Potaroo Palace, on the road to Merimbula. She was playing for quite some time, so I was checking the tweets once the Raiders game started. Things weren't looking good when we drove back into town.

However the Green Machine put on 24 points in 9 minutes, and the game was into golden point. Too bad they lost that, but that was a great 9 minutes. If you had that to the 22 minutes against the Cowboys before losing Dugan and Campo in the space of 8 minutes, you're getting towards a decent half of footy. What a disappointing season this year has been. Maybe next year...

We were talking about a sunrise beach mission the next morning, but the more we talked about it, the less appealing it became, so the next morning I hit the road back home. The day I left we got a new housemate back in, but apparently I missed a good night to miss, and by the time I was back, that feller was a distant memory already.

A few days later I was on the road again. I was actually meant to go to Malaysia last weekend, but plans had to be changed at the last minute. My flights to Malaysia were from Melbourne anyway, so I decided I'd head down there for the weekend.

On arrival at the airport, the jokers at Qantas laughed in my face and told me I booked my flight for the day before. One of a string of stuff ups recently, but I wasn't going to let that stop me, so I rushed into a taxi, got to the Jolimont for the 8:45 to Narrandera. A change and sometime in the middle of the night, we were off to Melbourne. With the sun just starting to think about coming up, I was there.

After a lunch at Crossways, one of those Hare Krishna joints, I wandered around the NGV. Although Victoria is not its own nation, there are not one but two National Gallery of Victoria. There was a cool Everfresh exhibition there. I also popped into Sticky to collect my Eurovision pack, featuring Capital Eyes #12. Whilst there I also picked up If Destroyed Still True #5 (I think).

I had a kick with Ryan Richardson, the inclement weather meant we had to go behind the gallery to The Cave. The students wandering the gallery seemed more impressed with the footbag then with the paintings....

After the kick I actually went for a swim. It was a cold day, but the pool was heated and I was hoping this would relax a few aches and pains. It didn't really work, but it was good in the pool, and there was no one else there.

I met up with Megan, a good friend of mine, from school. We went to a bar called Cabinet, I'd never been there before, but I quite liked it. Not too many people and they will come and take your order at the table.

I got to see another good friend later on that night, I guess Melbourne is just full of friends of mine from different eras. Friends from school, friends from when I lived in Sydney, friends from when I lived in Melbourne and friends from Canberra.

It was Michael, an old workmate of mine, it was his 21st. We went upstairs to the Noodle Kingdom, where we had shared a great 3am meal in the not too distant past.

Some of his other pals made him a cake. A one ring cake. It was very tasty.

From the Noodle Kingdom, filled with food and still with plenty of money in the wallet, we jumped on a tram for a couple of stops, and wandered to North Melbourne, another revisit, a place I mentioned in the last post, our dart playing place. It was a bit too crowded for playing darts, but they did still have the appeal of the $10 jug. Bargain.

It wasn't too late a night, so I was feeling reasonably fresh the next morning. We went for some bagels for breakfast. I had another kick planned and headed down to Fed Square to meet with Dan Ednie. Dan has been one of the best players in Australia over the past years, though he has been otherwise occupied and hasn't been kicking too much. We had been kicking for a while, and were joined by a familiar old face, Brendan Erskine. Brendan was one of the earliest footbag players in Australia, and he taught me a few tricks when I was first starting out in freestyle.

After our kick, we went for some lunch. A lot of places were closed, but the ever reliable Noodle Kingdom was open for action, one of the waiters actually recognised me from the day before. Lynton Stephens, another Aussie footbag legend actually called while we were playing and they arranged to go for dinner later on. I wasn't able to join in on that, as I had a flight to catch.

I didn't bother to repeat my walking feats of the last visit, so just jumped on the skybus and was at the airport not too much later. Not all that long after that, I was in Sydney. Francisca had come up to Sydney for the weekend, so I thought rather than fly back to Canberra, I could join her there.

We were both pretty tired so not much was on for the night time. After a big breakfast feast at Grandma's, we were meeting up with some more friends, this time it was Nathan and Brooke. We met them in Gladesville, but instead of waiting an hour for a bus, we just walked.

It was quite a pleasant journey actually, and it didn't really take that long. We went to the Bayview in Gladesville where we had plenty to eat, a big lunch.

To digest the lunch, we took a walk down to the ferry. We passed the Gladesville skatepark, which I never knew existed, and we watched some young kids go around on there. If that had have been around many moons ok (maybe when I lived in Sydney), I could imagine myself spending plenty of time there.

We caught the ferry into Darling Harbour, and something I noticed while walking was that things had changed. Once the home of getting incredibly ripped off, now every place is trying to outdo each other for deals and cheap prices. $10 steaks here, all day, $3 drinks, 2 for the price of 1. I'm not sure what brought this change about, but I like it!

We didn't stop to take in any of the deals, but went to the park just near Central Station for a quick kick with Dyalan Govender. We didn't have too long, as I had a bus to catch, but I got through my routine with two drops, twice which put me in good stead for the nationals.

From the kick it was straight on the Greyhound and back to the cold of Canberra.

Now, I should be getting back to what I mentioned in the first sentence. Instead, I'm about to pull in to Sydney...

Straya in a week

It's getting close to the time where I pack it in from Australia for a fairly extended period. A while ago, I got a Jetstar credit card, which entitled me to a free one way flight within Australia. I connected some deals, and had myself a bit of a tour around Australia, a whirlwind one at that but the basic plan was:

Canberra>Sydney>Hobart>Melbourne>Canberra>Sydney>Hamilton Island>Airlie Beach>Brisbane>Sydney>Canberra.

I think it was maybe 9 days in total I took off for that, but it was a pretty good time all around. Pretty well everywhere I had been before, but they were just places I had a good time in, but wanted to visit again.

My trip kicked off with a bus trip, then I met my friend Kelly for beers in Sydney. I had an early flight so I couldn't have a real rager.

I was up pretty early, I decided to cut down on costs and walk to the airport. I was already staying in the city, and it's only 6km to the airport, a distance I regularly walk. Though my 6km track normally takes me along the bottom of Mt Ainslie, my main companions being kangaroos...this trip took me through the highlights of Redfern...

No troubles though, and I got to the airport and straight on the plane. It wasn't too long and I was contemplating walking to the airport in Hobart. There was a big ad saying YHA members got half price on the bus, so I jumped on that opportunity.

I went in to the YHA. It is a very quiet season, so there was actually nobody there when I went. I headed down the road and got some lunch, then wandered a bit more, and end up playing footbag for about an hour down by the wharf. Once I came back there was someone to check me in, and I pretty well had the entire place to myself.

I was doing Sticky's Target 168 Challenge and that day was the last day to do it. At that stage I hadn't started, so I got a wriggle on, printed off some pictures and headed for Officeworks. Except I walked about 3km in the wrong direction...

The cutting, pasting, folding, sending process took a bit longer than I expected, and entries need to be at the Post Office by 5pm. At 4:59pm I had my postmark, I was in business, I had the night to explore.

The first thing I wanted to check if the TV worked. This is not really something I would normally do, I don't even have a working TV at home. However, the Raiders had a rare channel nine appearance, which was being shown on delay at midnight.

After checking that I headed down to the wharf where I had been kicking earlier. I was meeting with Jeremy, another Footbag player as well as his girlfriend. I first met Jeremy back in 2002, when we had a "NSW Championships" at Homebake. Radio Birdman played that too, it was a pretty awesome day actually.

Anyway, I met him for a beer. We started at a trendy bar which was not really our scene at all, so we quickly moved on from there. For dinner we stopped by a fish and chips place, which was not really better or worse than most other fish and chip places, nothing to write home about.

We headed to another bar a few blocks back from the wharf, where another friend of his was having a farewell do. They also sold pints of Bluetongue for $5. I was sold on that.

I got talking to a guy in a Lagwagon shirt who was pretty excited about the Propagandhi show that night. I admitted that I had kinda come to Hobart for that, but I didn't buy a ticket. Maaaaatttttteee was his original reaction, he was some kind of tradie, I think a plumber. We got talking about punk rock and adventures and after a few more Bluetongues we walked up to the show together. I didn't really have a plan, but he told me there was a front bar and I guessed I would be at least able to hear from there, and I was going to see them in Canberra a few days later anyway.

So we wandered up to this bar, The Brisbane Hotel in Hobart. It was a pretty good pub actually, I liked it, if I was back in Hobart I'd probably pop in there for a few pints, maybe a few less than I had that night.

When it came time for Propagandhi to take the stage, I had myself a nice perch, just outside the band room, but in direct line of sight and hearing of the band. I had no troubles in watching, and midway through the set they just opened up the doors. So that all worked itself out very well.

The show finished just before midnight, so I dashed back to the hostel to catch the Raiders match, where they finally won a game. That was great to see, I was yelling and screaming as if I was at the match, but from the comfort of a nice bed.

The next day I woke up with a fairly severe hangover. I had agreed to have a kick with Jeremy and Lotus, another veteran of Australian footbag. The play and busk at Salamanca Markets every Saturday.

We played for a few hours, and had some people interested in the kicking but the guys said they usually do better. I hit some good tricks, but struggled to keep up the fitness levels. This can be heavily attributed to the large number of pints of Cascade Pale Ale the evening before.

We had a quick beer after the kick, but I definitely wasn't in the mood for anymore, or even so much for the first one. By the water the day before I had seen something about riding a bike to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art. So I decided to do that. The guy gave me a bit of a weird look and told me I would be only able to go one way.

It was about a 15km ride, mainly flat, though I did take a ride over the Tasman Bridge (oops). This was a good opportunity to see a little bit more of Hobart, as the ride to the gallery in itself is not really all that interesting (mainly flat through industrial areas and suburbia).

I got to MONA about an hour and a half before closing time. Obviously this wasn't going to be enough time to see everything, but even the setup there is impressive. The basic concept is that it a super rich guy's own private museum, so he can show anything he wants. There are some things that are a bit, I guess you might say eye-opening, but the big thing is the variety, and the quality of the content.

There are no displays on the walls, so you use an IPhone like device to navigate your way around, and there are a few different options about what you want to read. To go into the museum you actually descend into a giant staircase, the building is actually carved into the cliff.

To come back, I jumped on the ferry. I only had a t-shirt on, but I really wasn't too cold. I had another early flight, so it was time to take it easy. I just grabbed a pizza for dinner, then had an early night.

Next stop was Melbourne, I was there by about 10am the next day. After my feats of walking in Sydney, I was thinking about a repeat. After consulting Google maps I realised I wouldn't have to walk down the motorway, so there must be a chance for me to get into the city.

I could see the city a long way off in the distance, but the weather was not looking up. After walking for a fair while, I had reached Airport West, and the clouds opened up. Time to seek an alternative, a tram came by soon after and it was definitely the right move to get on that.

I stayed with my friend Chris, who I went to school with. Since my first visit back in 2005 when I came down for Nationals, I have stayed with him a huge number of times. So many that his pet bird actually treats me as if I live there.

I didn't really have too much planned for my stay in Melbourne, it was more of just a transition to get me to the next place. The first night I think we played a whole heap of NBA Jam on the PS3, that was a lot of fun, we were both right into it and improved a lot over the course of the night.

The next day I got to catch up with a few friends, but it was all pretty low key, and I was home by midnight. It wouldn't be too long til I would be visiting Melbourne again, so it wasn't a big deal. Thinking of it now, we spent a lot of the night playing darts. Old men...

Tuesday was my day to leave and I left the apartment with my bag packed, thinking there was a good chance I was going to walk to the airport. My first stop was the Vic Markets to get myself a couple of bargain Borek, then I had a walk through Carlton and Fitzroy, checking out some bookstores. I didn't really want to carry anything more, so I didn't but any books. I continued along my way up through North Fitzroy, then I decided to follow the Merri Creek trail for a while. This trail starts at Dights Falls, where I actually used to spend a bit of time when I lived in Melbourne, that was some moons ago now too.

Once I got to Coburg I got off the trail and started making my across. And across, and across. All up I think I walked for about 30km, but I got to the airport, and my flight hadn't left yet, and I hadn't paid any money to get there.

I saw a couple of friends in the queue at the airport which got things going a bit faster. The Tiger flight was changed to a 6:15 takeoff instead of 5:45. I think when they're not running too late, they just change the time, rather than admitting they are late. The rest of the boards flashed up "cancelled", "delayed" so it was good to get on the plane.

It was just after the last bus, so I took a taxi into the city. Met my dear wife for some dinner, left my bag at work and wandered over to the Propagandhi show.

I Exist were on first and I hadn't seen them for ages, they were in great form, with their new album just about to come out. The long walk was taking its toll on me though, I spent a lot of the night having a strong desire to sit down somewhere. Propagandhi were great again, funnily enough I was probably further away from the action than I was at the Hobart show!

The next day we were up early, more travels were on the way. By the end of the day we would be kicking back in Airlie Beach, but there was a lot to do before getting there. First we had to drive to Sydney. We parked at Kelly's place then took a taxi to the airport, ate some food and jumped on the plane to Hamilton Island. I was glad to notice that things were running smoothly with the flights, booking a whole heap of cheap ones can lead to disaster when things go wrong. There were a number of crying babies and annoying kids on the flight, but it wasn't too big a deal.

Once we got to Hamilton Island, we just had to wait a short while, then we were on a ferry into the town of Airlie Beach itself. I spent about 6 weeks working up there over Christmas/New Year at the end of 09, so it was good to go back there in a non-work capacity.

The Origin was on that night. I was first looking for a place to watch it, but after having a good time watching the game by myself on the previous occasion, I thought that sounded pretty good, so we got some beer and I turned it on in the room. The Blues went down, but only just, a typical Queensland late minute Billy Slater try sealing the deal.

The next day we were off on Ocean Rafting. We had done this before when we were both up there, so we knew what to expect, but it was still a lot of fun.

Hill Inlet Lookout, with Whitehaven Beach in the background. Below is a picture of us on a previous visit...

On Ocean Rafting you get to snorkel, have a good feed, take a bushwalk on Whitsunday Island, then hang out on the beach for a while. We took the south trip, though I think the north trip is better, as you get a second snorkel instead of staying at the beach longer.

It was a fairly quiet night that night we returned to the Down Under Bar, who had a good deal involving a pint of beer and a steak for $10, can barely go past that, then we just hung around the hostel. Before dinner I did play some footbag, and had some good runs. I had returned to my little spot by the lagoon where I put in a lot of hours, and an incredible amount of sweat over those six weeks I was staying in Airlie Beach.

From Airlie we took a bus to Proserpine, and we were accompanied by these most annoying of American girls. Just shut up, hey. It was a pleasure to get off the bus and not hear them anymore.

We had a while to wait for the flight, so I was going through my routine a bit, it was starting to come together a bit more. The Proserpine airport is one of the worst, and it was actually under renovation, so only half the things there were available.

I had a window seat for a great view over the coastline. Last time I flew, the guy sitting in the window seat was snoring away instead of admiring the view.

Brisbane was the next stop, we took a fairly long walk around the city, and we came across a freestyle football player in the Gardens near QUT. Francisca noticed him, and she said to me "I saw that guy taking his pants off, he must be a footbag player or something". Luckily he was not some kind of weird pervert, and we had a kick of the ball. I have a lot to learn in freestyle football, but I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

That night we went and saw Fires Of Waco, who were playing a free show at Fat Louie's. I also got to meet Crispy, who made the Rock'n'Raider zine, one of my favourites ever. We've been talking online for about 4 years so it was good to meet him. The worst thing about that venue though, was these crazy queues for beer. I was pretty keen to have a bit of a loose night, but the idea of the queue just really put a dampener on that one.

The trip was coming to a close, with just a couple more days remaining. The next day my friend Josh cooked up a storm, we went over to his new place, it's pretty awesome, but a bit close to the train line. They invited us to a party later on, and I have been to Brisbane so many times, that I knew most of the people at the party too.

The next day we finally had a flight delay, it had to be on the last one didn't it....but we got back to Sydney, then from there it was a long drive home back to Canberra, then back to work the next day.