Travel doodles

Reading Time: 3 minutes

I had almost forgotten that on some of my travels I enjoyed trying to draw the place while I was on the homeward flight.

With my iPad on its final days, I’m relieved to download these travel doodles before I lost them.

They’re certainly not the greatest works of art, but they’re fantastic records to me of those trips after all these years, reigniting many memories and connections.


Madrid, Spain

I traveled to watch Real Madrid play Liverpool in a Champions League clash in 2014.

I still have fond memories of football, paella, sangria, and churros. I guess sangria was simplest to draw.


India

I traveled to Chennai a few times for work in 2014-15. Until I visited, I knew very little of the geography.

I saw cows roaming everywhere, here’s one in particular I liked and enjoyed drawing.


Singapore

I loved walking the clean, safe streets of Singapore after a day of meetings.

Here’s my take on the spectacular night scenery of the Marina Bay Sands.

The next day had quite a different scene and feeling.

No quick trip to ‘Singers’ is complete without their signature Singapore Chilli Crab. I took the taxi driver’s recommendation for the best in town, and was seriously impressed – while sitting with 100 others at tables setup in the car park.

“No Sign Board Seafood” Geyland Road

Traveling home to Australia

It was always a long flight from the middle east to Australia. I remember seeing the welcoming colours of a sunrise here as we flew over what our pilot friends call the GAFA (Great Australian F*ck All).

And I’m not sure if it was this trip, or another one, when we stayed on the Sunshine Coast and this was my view of the beach.

Caloundra on the Sunshine Coast

It’s been nice to see these drawings again after maybe half a dozen years. I find they bring back stronger memories than the photos I took, perhaps as I spent a lot more time drawing them while reflecting on the places and the wonderful times I spent there.

It makes me wish I took the time more often to reflect and draw.

Australian holidays – August 2017

Reading Time: 3 minutesTwo weeks back at work, and I’m in danger of forgetting my two weeks holiday in Australia.

I arrived in Launceston for a change, as Elle and boys were visiting an ill family member. The next day was already arranged for the boys and I to go zipline-ing at Treetops in Hollybank forest.  It was a wonderful experience.  I really don’t know what age group had the most fun.

We had only another two days with family in Tasmania, before we flew up to Brisbane.

The next day we were “Show And Tell” at my nephew’s class when we surprised him at school.

We became quite odd objects for his classmates to ask some interesting questions. They were most interested in how far away is Dubai. How do you get to Dubai. How many minutes is that? How long does it take to get there. Then again, how many minutes is that??

It wasn’t until we mentioned the flight took enough time to watch eight movies back-to-back that the questioning moved on.

Then perhaps the last question was the most interesting to them, when they learned that I work at a theme park with LEGOLAND!  Lesson learned. I really should have led with that one.

Back in Brisbane, thanks to my parents we saw the Brisbane Broncos play at home against the Parramatta Eels.  The boys were super excited. It was the first live NRL match for Lewis & Owen. Well, for Lewis. Owen fell into a deep sleep soon after we arrived in the stadium.  Even with all the extremely loud cheering, he didn’t stir.

Sadly, most of the cheering from 12 seconds on, was for Parra.  Bronco Adam Blair thought it was a good idea on the first kick return, to pass it aimlessly to an opposition player to score the fastest try recorded in NRL history. I think Blair’s been in need of a Head Impact Assessment for all of his life.

Broncos eventually scored some points in response.  They even began dominating, until silly mistakes undid all the good work. The final score was 54-34.

The boys and I still came out victorious, thanks to a McDonald’s promotion.  The Broncos scored more than 19 points, so each spectator could take their match ticket into a McDonald’s restaurant and pick up a free Broncos Burger. Myles had already devoured one of those in our travels and was a huge fan. When we visited the city the next day, we got three … and then another, and another. Free food really sparked Myles’s imagination. We wondered how we could print and redeem the other 29,000 tickets from the game.

That day we visited the Gallery of Modern Art.  It happened to be hosting an Avengers exhibit.  They had lots of costumes and props from the movies. And we got to design and share our own super heroes (I wonder if my Library Woman character will ever hit the big screen). The most fun was certainly the BRILLIANT interactive character exhibit that mimicked whatever moves the boys would make. The boys (and I) could have stayed there for hours, dabbing and kung fu kicking as Iron Man, HULK, and Guardian of the Galaxy characters tried to keep up on the big screen in front.

On the Sunshine Coast we stayed with my brother and family. It coincided with the Caloundra Power Boat Club’s “Take a kid fishing” Day.  We had a trial run on the day before and caught a few fish each, which was promising for the competition.  On the day that mattered though, we caught almost nothing.  The boys were more than pleased to just catch a few toad fish. Three out of our four boys still won a rod & reel combo regardless.

Our nephew’s Poppy opened up his arms wide and asked Owen how big was the fish he caught.  Owen felt compelled to correct him, “It wasn’t nearly that big!”  Quite an honest boy, but not a real fisherman. Yet.

We tested out the rods a few days later. Again with very little success, except for a couple of toad fish.  Myles was so proud that he was able to catch one with his bare hands.  It might be the only thing worse than catching a toad fish with a fishing rod.

Then our time in cool Australia was over.

It was an enjoyable, relaxing time.

For our flight home I saved almost two thousand dollars and flew China Southern Airlines, via Ghanzhou.  Apart from a few minor peculiarities (like people’s carry-on luggage being a 12kg box of peeled garlic), I thought it was pretty cool. Their premium economy seats were better than any other I can recall. I thought we found a wonderful alternative, until at the baggage belt in Dubai one of our bags was missing. We learned that it was safe and sound, but still in China.  Perhaps it’s an indication that you get what you pay for.

On the plus side, it was nice to have a good excuse for not shaving on my first day back at work.

Touch down Australia, “summer holidays” begin – Aug 2017

Reading Time: 2 minutesIt’s 4 in the morning, I’m wide awake, and my body feels like it should be eating dinner.
Dubai right now is 37 degrees at 10pm. Outside here in Launceston is 1.
My summer holiday has again become a freezing one.

It was quite a day of flying. In summary, my plane took off from DXB at 10:41am. With a short stop to change planes in MEL, I arrived and reunited with my family at Launceston airport 10:08am the next day.

I already got into the Aussie mood in Dubai. The family behind me at the boarding gate were speaking in Greek. I like the sound of the language. Then occasionally they would switch to a thick, regional Australian accent when they were cursing so impressively. I guess Greek has no equivalent to “flamin‘”

As I boarded, Bob Marley & The Wailers were singing “Don’t worry, ’bout a thing … Cause ev’ry little thing, is going to be all-right.” Not just a cool song, perhaps a great ploy to calm the nervous traveler?

I had the window seat, a vacant spot next to me, then one neighbour on the aisle. It was a lovely, old British lady. She looked like a small, female version of Tim Cook. We exchanged pleasantries. Soon after she took off her shoes, and asked if it’s ok to store them in the seat pocket between us. I said it’s fine. A little while later, she put her feet up on the seat next to me, after asking if it was fine. I figured it wouldn’t be long before I’d be asked to give her a foot massage. It didn’t come to that. She was actually lovely company, even helping me finish my large bag of cashews before Australian Customs.

I watched three movies, which is my standard for this leg. 

  • I watched Fate of the Furious – #8 in the franchise. It’s a lot of fun, and must be the best movie written by a 10 year old boy. 
  • Then I watched Ghost In The Shell. It’s hard to go past an action flick with a near-naked Scarlett Johansson. The movie is quite amazing. It’s the movie you’d expect if The Matrix and Total Recall had a baby. 
  • And the pick of the bunch was Off The Rails. It’s a documentary about Darius McCollum. Darius had issues growing up, and has Asperger’s syndrome, which resulted in his unhealthy love of the New York transit system. He continuously, quite innocently, takes control of trains and buses and impersonates employees. It has landed him in jail 32 times and for more than half of his adult life. His problem is exacerbated by a justice problem which continually proves unable to help. I watched it 1.5 times.

And now the two week whirlwind whistle-stop tour begins. It’s good to be home.

Glen Moray Whisky Tasting – 08 August 2017

Reading Time: 3 minutesFor several years I’ve been an occasional whisky-tasting attendee. These events are usually pompous single malt promotions with a bit of exclusivity to taste something unique that I may not buy myself.

Last night’s Glen Moray tasting was quite different. The label’s master distiller, Graham Coull, presented his finest whiskys for us to taste. Perhaps due to the format it was a larger crowd than we’re used to.
It was also the biggest audience the distiller had ever been part of. And this was after having a promotional tour of Australia – Glen Moray’s 3rd largest market.

The Hilton Double Tree’s COPPERDOG was a superb bar to host this.  It overlooked the amazing Ain Dubai (“Dubai Eye”) which seems to have almost 75% of the wheel completed. Building a massive pie chart is such a handy shape to report upon progress.

Rather than a speech and stories, Graham patiently took endless questions from the many curious folks. Most were pretty standard stuff which I think I could answer after a dram or two.  There are always questions like the exchange of whisky, and blends. Fun fact: Glen Moray might be the best thing in Johnnie Walker Red – even the only good thing in Johnnie Walker, depending on your tastes!

Then a guest asked Graham where the bathroom was.  But my highlight was someone asking if after opening a bottle of whisky, is it recommended to finish it on the same day. I can’t recall his detailed explanation, but what I chose to hear was Yes.

Out of the five samples, the 25 year old was clearly the smoothest.  But we were taken on a real Speyside journey from the Classic, to the 12 year, to the 15 (inferior to the 12 in some eyes), to the port casks and the sherry cask.  The 12 year old was finished in a bourbon cask, Jack Daniels to be precise if you could believe the perceptive guy next to us – which I didn’t.

It’s an interesting story how whisky has become so dependent on the casks of other spirits to finish and improve their flavour. And other spirits aren’t keeping up with this demand. This has led to some whisky companies going into the sherry business not for the content but the container.

Glen Moray generally use their casks twice or three times.  Graham explained he sees casks similar to tea bags.  Their first use is a bit strong, the second is fine, but the third can be a little too weak.  Being a proud Scotsman, he said it’s only natural they get maximum use out of everything.

The five of us were in a booth that had places set for seven. Handy. We thought to get maximum use out of things also and devoured the extra whisky samples.

We spotted another three untaken places at nearby table.  A guy was one step ahead of us about to help himself to one or two glasses when the lady at the other side of the table snapped at him.  It was quite funny to see her fury, and the gentleman deflate away. She scooped up the glasses into her chest like a protective dragon cuddling her eggs.

The next morning was the concluding chapter. Still quite seedy, I taxied back to the venue to pick up my car. I couldn’t tell if the attendant was joking when he asked if I had forgotten my car.

Staying in Emirates Park Zoo – 5-7 April 2017

Reading Time: 3 minutesWe had anything but a proper vacation for this Spring Break. Lewis had chicken pox for the first week.  Then on the weekend, Owen was hospitalised with pneumonia. My work was also busy, so with just a few days remaining of the boy’s holiday, we opted for a Staycation.

We decided to stay at Emirates Park Zoo & Resort.
The boys could clearly benefit from a greater appreciation for wildlife:

 

We arrived and I wondered if this was the right place to bring the kids when Owen loudly announced that the place smelled like poo.

We were shown to our adjoining rooms and realised what a cool place this was.

Outside our door was a sandy enclosure with seven deer. Owen didn’t know who painstakingly painted the white dots on them.

And through a window on the other side of the enclosure we could see lions staring back at us. Or they were probably staring at all that sweet venison they’re unable to get at.

The zoo sold bunches of green leafy grass to feed the animals. We fed monkeys, farmyard animals, tortoises, camels. Having turtles for pets made the boys spend mossssssssst of the tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime feeding the tortoises. Which actually weren’t as slow as I had expected. Some of the animals like camels and donkeys were able to reach quite far beyond the fence. This actually looked dangerous with their huge heads and massive teeth. There were signs warning people of the risk. The boys appreciated this and made a disturbing song to the tune of Frozen, “Do you want your nose bit offfff?”

Some time after seeing all sorts of exotic animals, we came across our compatriot kangaroos. Myles naturally started a normal Australian conversation with them, “G’day mate. Have you been drinking any XXXX lately?” The zoo also had kookaburras, and sulphur-crested cockatoos.  I seemed to spend more time with them than any other birds – just like when you’re at a party and you find someone you went to school with.

We attended just one of the scheduled shows, which was mostly an educational segment. What we learned was that one of their South American birds awkwardly wasn’t in the mood to perform. All “Tookie” had to do was hop across the four poles that the two people from the crowd were holding. That evening at the buffet I asked Myles if he also thought the meat in our biriyani looked anything like Tookie.

Myles compared the variety of animals on display to what he saw on his recent African trip. One observation was the goats here looked less like horses on drugs. And Ugandan giraffe were much taller.

I woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night, not to the sound of noisy neighbours or construction site activities, but to the roar of lions and nature. From the safety of a locked hotel room, this was brilliant.

For quite some time, each shriek or noise got our attention and led to a “What was that!?” Some sounds were quite clear. Others were contested. For instance, we couldn’t agree if one particular recurring noise we heard was an elephant or a chair moving.

The next morning it was apparent the folks next door had no zoo food to feed the animals.  Instead they improvised and gave our deers something resembling red chutney for breakfast. Thankfully the parents stopped the daughter before she gave them cocoapops for a second course.

The other kind of food you could purchase at the zoo was bags of nuts for the monkeys. We purchased these on the second day. The zoo’s monkeys though got hardly any, while my two big monkeys tuckered in.

The monkeys were overall very interesting to my boys. They loved seeing the monkey’s human-like hands reaching out from their cage to get the food. I had to correct Myles when he said they looked just like humans. They looked just like humans in jail. And some of their jail cells seemed small.

Myles spotted the Reptile House, and was quite accurate that for me it was like a Haunted House. In the enclosure for the anaconda, it was quite interesting/worrying to see no anaconda, yet a surgical mask was left laying on the ground. I wondered if this was perhaps evidence alluding to a horrifying story.

We thoroughly enjoyed the experience at the Emirates Park Zoo & Resort. It’s not far from the Yas area of Abu Dhabi – before you reach the city.

I highly recommend staying for a couple of nights, if you prefer to take more time watching and interacting with the animals, and not worrying about missing any exhibits.

I did notice they had some room for improvement. Their so-called “Mammal Cave” had no lazy guy on a couch watching TV with remote control in hand.

2016 Australian Holidays – from the archives

Reading Time: 8 minutesQuite a surprise to find I had blogged while on holidays back in 2016, but hadn’t published at the time. Actually uploaded two years later on 24/08/2018. Better late than never.

30/06/2016 – Let the holiday begin

This was the day we were to fly to Brisbane to begin our “Summer Holiday” in Australia’s Winter. But first I had to go into work.

Work was ridiculously busy.  It started joyfully enough, knowing I was almost on my way. Though more and more approvals kept me stuck at my desk.

The boys were amazingly good at the airport and on the plane.  Owen thankfully wore himself out at the boarding gate while we were waiting. He was doing a lot of running, along with a fair share of pole dancing.  Within an hour and half he was fast asleep and looking very comfortable.

I found myself quite tired too.  Though when I just began to nod off, a cabin crew would wake me for a drink or dinner.

As I checked out the travel map for our flight, It wasn’t a good sign that my first thought was ‘Is that all!?”

The Singapore Airlines cabin crew were all very friendly. The ladies’ uniform looks almost uncomfortably flattering. Their tiny feminine body seemed to be mostly hips.

Myles was trying to nod off.  And Lewis definitely should have. He spilled orange juice, and dropped a huge pile of skittles all over the floor; and he keeps talking at full volume as if he’s outside the plane sitting on the wing trying to be heard.

Today was my brother’s birthday.  In what has become an annual tradition the boys and I left an Arabic rendition of “Happy Birthday to you” on his voice mail.

One surprising thing, I had to return my duty-free alcohol I bought. It seems only from Terminal 3 there is an arrangement to box the alcohol – needed to enter in Australia. The cashier didn’t know, it was only when he consulted his supervisor that he learned.

 

03/07/2016 – Gold Coast Marathon Day!

I managed a decent amount of sleep on account of Owen needing me to snuggle him in bed.  I still woke up plenty of times.  Once or twice after worrying dreams of missing the event as usual.

The tram to the start line was too packed. Instead I went back to the front of my hotel where charter buses were picking up runners. Lesson-learned.  Don’t pass up a perfectly good transport to try for something more convenient.  On the bus I noticed everyone except a couple of runners had Asics brand running shoes. The more I looked around the more obvious it was. Clearly Dubai has very different market to Australia. I seemed a complete foreigner, perhaps I could have been wearing a grass skirt.

We got to the start line shortly before 6am. Lots of half-marathoners had to rush.

It was quite freezing.  A hot coffee was necessary, and tasted amazing.

My pre-race toilet prep worked a treat.  I felt great from the start. Conditions were absolutely perfect. Crisp to begin, and not getting above warm. I had huge appreciation for all the volunteers and thanked them when I could.  And the spectators were brilliant.  Miyuki from Dubai was running with me, and was hugely popular with the hordes of passionate Japanese passionate Japanese cheers squads.  The Australians had a bit more trouble pronouncing her name from reading it on her bib. I didn’t add a nickname to my bib when registering. I figured it would show my first name instead. Nope, it showed nothing.  So imagine my surprise when a total stranger yelled out “Go Rhino!” It turned out the guy next to me was nicknamed Rhino also. Though people didn’t need to your names for encouragement.

Lots of signs said things like “Go complete stranger” or “I’m so proud of you, perfect stranger”.  There were so many good ones.  I liked the thought behind the image of the Mushroom from Super Mario games, with “Tap here for free power up”. I used as many of those as I could. “Unless you have puked, fainted, or died, keep going!”

One family had the song “We are the champions” playing loudly.  Though instead of those words, they sang “YOU are the champions ..”  The interesting thing with an out and back marathon course is that 20-30 minutes later when we ran back past the same spot they were singing the exact same song. That’s dedication.

I also loved other music along the way, which showcased a variety of bands.  There were two drummers going like crazy. To keep it up seemed to need as much stamina as running 42kms.

My favourite sign of all was in the first kilometre as we ran over the bridge for the first time.  A lady standing there was proudly waving a “You’re nearly there” poster.  As we did pass 1km I did the math and shared we have only 41.2km to go. I’m not sure how well that was appreciated by the runners around me.

In the final stages the going got tough, but I had no worries of finishing.  I just wanted to see the finish line – really wanted to see that line.  (Perhaps the feeling related to my former Gold Coast marathon where I had terrible cramps in the final 200 metres.)

The support heading to the finish was amazing. I particularly like seeing the Indigenous Marathon Foundation (IMF) mob – under the inspirational Rob De Castella.  Under their tent, they all gave such a hearty cheers.  I proudly gave high 5s all round. Even at the finish a lady with a camera obviously from IMF seeing me wearing an IMF shirt decided instead of taking my picture to give me high 5s.

 

04/07/2016 – Dreamworld

We all enjoyed seeing Australia’s premier theme park.  The entry was part of a deal with our accommodation, Paradise Resort. In hindsight, it would have been nice to have invested further and avoided the queues.  We waited 1 hour before doing the Thunder River Rapids ride (tragically, 2 months later that ride would be shut down forever).

We had to wait another hour for the boys who wanted to do Mick Doohan’s Motocross ride.

The Tower Of Terror seemed to have almost a 1 hour wait also, which Lewis and Corey persevered with – which seemed worth it.

05/07/2016 – The rain’s set in

We woke slightly before our breakfast meeting time to learn of a bad weather forecast. It was likely to rain all day so we agreed to drop our plan to visit Movie World. Instead, we decided to go ice skating in the resort we were staying.

All boys had a go. Owen picked it up extremely quickly. Bracken enjoyed it quite nervously – hanging on to the side walls rather than using the penguin-shaped guides. Corey joined us a little later to help Bracken, and he immediately enjoyed it more.

Lewis really put in a lot of effort. And Myles as expected was quite fine.

For lunch we went out for first & chips at the popular Pete’s Fish & Chips near Sea World.

From there we decided to not call it a day and take the Aqua Duck submersible vehicle. It was cool! The car had no suspension, so quite bouncy on the road. But it was amazing to drive into the water. All boys got to drive the boat out at sea which was fun.

For dinner Mum bought stuff to make hot dogs which went down a treat. Lewis may have had 5 or 6. The little boys and the older boys were very tired so we cut short our game of Sequence.

 

06/07/2018 – Helicopter ride and 2nd Dreamworld visit

The helicopter ride from Sea World was busier than I expected. We happened to see Tom Keneally also waiting.

The helicopter journey was more bumpy than I anticipated. The landing was the opposite and very smooth and straight-forward.

From there we went straight to Dreamworld for the rest of the day, where the boys enjoyed new rides and we all checked out the Peter Brock exhibit.

08/07/2016 – Farewell Paradise Resort, and final Dreamworld visit

We had our final morning at the hotel before visiting Dreamworld one last night.

Myles did the Tower Of Terror ride almost reluctantly. He wanted to do it, and not have Lewis just talking about it constantly. Right at the end before we got on, Myles was getting upset and said he didn’t want to do it. The attendants were very helpful and had obviously gone through the routine many times. They assured him after getting his name. Then when that didn’t work the lady said she would slow down the ride for Myles. Myles felt bad having it slowed down for everyone. He didn’t notice the wink she gave me. The story definitely helped. Although Myles looked really freaked out on the ride. Regardless, he enjoyed it. And not wanting to do it again.

Before that we took the train ride to the Corroboree section and saw the native animals. They were awesome, especially the koala which we got to pat,a 4 year old called “Cinnamon”.

The kangaroos weren’t too fussed about us. Boys enjoyed the indigenous exhibit, particularly The Mimis animated story.

We didn’t do many other rides.  The boys preferred to have fun in the Madagascar balls game. Our sons also had fun driving the Model T Fords, like their parents did at probably around the same age.

The Dreamworld Pass was definitely worth it. With three days we got to do a huge amount of the stuff we wanted, and see most of the attractions.

09/07/2016 – Caloundra fishing

Everyone slept like logs after the full week of theme parks and staying at the kids resort.

We had breakfast at mcDonalds as per Myles’s request. It was lovely to have an authentic bacon muffin. After breakfast the boys played in the playground. Well they did, until Myles noticed someone had urinated on the slide.

In the afternoon we went fishing with my brother in the Maroochy River. It took a short while to land our first fish. Naturally Myles caught it. He went on to catch 9 fish altogether. They were mostly bream, only a few legal size.

The stand-out for me was Owen. He was a complete natural. No one had to show him a thing. He just knew how to hold the rod, and wind in the line. And it didn’t take long before he was also trying to cast out the line himself.  It was well-deserved when he caught his first fish!

All in all it was a great day, and night. It’s lovely that we didn’t need to spend a lot of money on theme parks parks and hotel resorts. We can have fun doing such simple activities. I didn’t even need to fish. I enjoyed just watching the others.

13/07/2016 – Extremely white Tassie

We woke around 8am to an unfortunate day of weather, so we cancelled any plans to climb a mountain. Instead we had a great day playing in the snow.

 

16/07/2016 – Flying home to Dubai

Even without looking after three boys, it’s a very long flight from Australia.  Not as long as the couple next to me on the flight, they were coming from New Zealand.  And travelling onto London.  Altogether they’d be sitting on a plane for 36 hours.

We all boarded late due to the plane arriving after schedule.  Then it took maybe more than 30 minutes for the engineers to repair some casing under the wing! At first they couldn’t open it.  Then it took some time.  Then they needed to complete the necessary paperwork.  The captain was nice enough to update us every 10 minutes sharing a lot of details – I’m not sure if we needed all the details.

Our planned flight was to depart at 2210 hours.  Before we boarded they revised the time to 2250.  With the refueling and engineering problems once we were aboard meant we didn’t leave til after midnight!

Despite this, due to good weather conditions we were still scheduled to arrive on-time!  That’s catching up two hours.  You can become curious, Why can’t they travel at that pace all the time.

This was my first QANTAS long haul between Australia and Dubai.  Not bad, though a little pokier in Economy.

The in-flight entertainment was unsurprisingly not up to the mark of Emirates.  With Emirates you get more choices than you need.  QANTAS, for me, have the choices you don’t necessarily want. Obviously the choices weren’t too bad, they lady across the aisle was often laughing out loud in hysterics.

The food was OK. I even enjoyed having a famous Bundaberg ginger beer.

Strangely blown away – April 2015

Reading Time: 3 minutesI don’t know the cause of the strange events.

Was it the full moon (a Red Moon at that)? Or perhaps it was the fact that in the days before, I watched two trippy movies which were challenging reality. First it was all five dimensions of Interstellar, then Fight Club. (I started Inception also, though I dreamed I was too tired and couldn’t watch more than 20 mins).

I guess it begun on Thursday when Dubai was subjected to one of the worst dust storms I’ve seen in my six years here. While I was driving, visibility was down to 10-20 metres.

After work when I got home, the front courtyard immediately looked different. The little tent we bought for Owen was missing.   The snake I had in there to scare the kids was now lying exposed on the concrete path.

Me & Owen, happy days in the tent
Me & Owen, happy days in the tent

My first thought was someone must have stolen it. Though, anyone interested in stealing kids toys had many more, and simpler opportunities. They had all been left where they were. It seemed quite clear, despite our courtyard having a 6 foot brick wall right around it, the heavy wind must have blown the tent outside.

I looked out in the street and in the neighbours’ yards, but it was nowhere to be seen. It was a shame, though I wasn’t too upset about it. The boys wouldn’t miss it for some time, and it was relatively cheap from IKEA.

The next day was Good Friday. I went to a friend’s place for an Easter BBQ. Everything was going quite well, until the lady at the end of the table turned and started choking. It was clear she was struggling, when she became quite frantic and ran off into the house. Her husband was nursing their baby, so I jumped up and grabbed the little one. And the guy chased his wife in the house, immediately starting the Heimlich Manoevre when he caught her. What a terrifying sight. After 4 or 5 seconds it seemed to do the trick. He thankfully didn’t show us the evidence, but claimed it was a 5 – 10 centimetre piece of roast lamb.

The awkwardness took a little while to leave, then the afternoon beers were flowing nicely. Before it got too late, I caught a taxi home. I focused my gaze at the passing neighborhood I could see out the taxi’s window. It minimised the sensation of the world spinning. All of a sudden though, I couldn’t believe my eyes! I quickly sat upright and squinted my eyes slightly. Outside, pinned against a small, simple wire fence was the same red, striped material of Owen’s tent. But this didn’t make sense. It was on the other side of my neighborhood – so far from my place.

 

Perhaps a bit forcefully, I told the taxi driver to stop right there and then. He must have thought I was needing to be sick. I opened the door and ran back to what I thought I had seen, and it was proven, I did see it. Here was the kids tent that I last saw in our place, according to Google maps, over 2 kilometres away.

The tent's end spot near Hessa Street
The tent’s end spot near Hessa Street

I guess the shape made it climb like a hot air balloon. And perhaps it didn’t fly in a straight line, so it could have travelled even further.

Imagine if Owen was inside at the time!?

Tent flight
Where I found the tent, 2.22872 km away from our courtyard

I folded it as best I could to fit it into the taxi’s back seat, and returned home. Most of the way I was still giggling in disbelief.

The next day I was keen to check I had not experienced a dream. Nope, the tent had returned – now with three skateboards inside to weigh it down.

IMG_6641.JPG

Ceylon – it’s more than a great cup of tea – December 2014

Reading Time: 10 minutesI started a new job three weeks ago, so it was probably time to take a few weeks’ holiday.

The airport was terribly busy with everyone wanting to escape for Christmas. We thought we had a stroke of luck when tired Owen’s crying got the attention of the immigration workers and we were brought to the front of the queue. The joy was short-lived when he spotted my family were on cancelled visas, and downed his tools. In Dubai when you change jobs your former employer cancels the visa, then the new employer will sponsor you with a new working visa. Due to timing I only had myself sponsored, and would get my family processed on our return.  Being Australian citizens we’re entitled to Visa on Arrival.  But there was a problem with this plan. Last time we came back from holiday, immigration incorrectly stamped our passports with a Visit Visa – despite us being residents.  This stamp combined with cancelled residence visas caused all the confusion.  It took a lot of Arabic debate between the officers back in the office to get to the bottom of it.  We arrived at the airport extremely early, which was extremely fortunate because when sanity eventually prevailed, we only just scraped though to the boarding games in time.

It was a relief to land in Sri Lanka.  We pre-arranged a local driver to take us around for all 10 days.  First we’d travel from the airport in Columbo to Kandy to visit the elephant ophanage.

Elephants are lovely, big creatures.  It was my closest encounter. Although they’re clearly quite beautiful, I couldn’t help but screw up my face as I smelt the terrible odour.  Then it was a slight relief to learn the stench wasn’t the elephants at all, it was the smell of the rolled cigarette which the elephant handler was smoking.

All the boys, all five children and the two Dads went into the water to wash the elephants with a well-used shard from a coconut shell. We imagined the elephants were enjoying it, tho I sensed the big beasts let out a sigh of relief when we left them.
While we were on the way there the boys were all keen to ride the elephants. Once it was time to line up though, they all got too scared. After seeing Owen the baby bravely joining Elle and I, eventually the other kids warmed up. The boys all began holding the accompanying parents incredibly tightly. Then before long, we usually had to check they were still there and ask them to hang onto us.

The rain had started by this time. The temperatures were fine though. It was a lovely change for people living in Dubai.

We stayed in the hills above Kandy, and we had our second encounter with animals, seeing large troops of monkeys in trees all around the hotel. The boys all got a kick out of seeing them jump around. Tho the sign on our window indicated they’re not just cute, and that we must keep the doors and windows locked.

We went into town for a cultural show and dinner. Our waiter became our friend when he learned we’re from Australia. He mentioned how the Australian cricket team won their test against India, adding “Good, we hate India”.

Once home we had a couple more drinks in the bar then retired to the rooms. I know at least I was extremely tired. As I was going to sleep there was a bit of noise from downstairs. I remember saying to myself, I hope they don’t ……then… Zzzz.

The next morning we went to the Sri Dalada Maligawa – or (Buddhist) Temple of the Tooth. We had to be respectful and wear long shorts. Though this was slightly contradicted when they asked me to remove my shoes.
The ancient relics there were very impressive. And we all enjoyed the journey through the temple, which coincided with their day of worship. It was disappointing to hear that as little as twenty years ago the place was under threat and getting attacked by the Tamil Tigers.
Everything inside there seems peaceful now. I saw a boy maybe in his teens in traditional orange monk sarong. He looked quite stoic in the same attire as his fellow monks from hundreds of generations gone by. Then the boy pulled out his smart phone and took a picture of the proceedings.

As we walked back to the van I asked Lewis what’s been the highlight of trip so far. It wasn’t the flight, elephants, monkeys, cultural show & fire walking, Buddhist temple, or sightseeing. It was the hotel.
The next day we ventured further North to visit a historic tea factory, established 1840. When you first arrive in Sri Lanka it’s quite special to first see a hill of tea trees.  By day three you realise it’s noteworthy to spot a hill with no tea growing.
The tea factory tour was quite interesting. I’ve been to many brewery and distillery tours in my time. I’d never have imagined there was a similar story and complexity and craft to the humble cup of tea.

Dogs are a lot more trusting of Sri Lankan drivers than I was. Everywhere we drove you’d see dogs laying 1/3rd on the edge of the road, without a worry from dog or driver. Tho perhaps that explains why after driving for long periods you’ll see so many of them limping around.

All the roads we drove on (which was mostly the same one road) had three lanes of traffic driving, tho they only had two painted. It sort of seems like every road we were on is One Way, they just happen to be one way in both directions.

For some variety we caught a local train meeting our driver a few stations away. On the train there was a sign “No Tobacco No Liqour“. I can only imagine it’s some very posh kind of alcohol.

Singalese script picstitchI loved seeing the Singalese script on signs everywhere. With all the near symmetric curly squiggles it’s perfection decoration. It may even communicate some kind of language.

Another item on the To Do list from Bentota where we were staying was to visit the Brief Garden.  This was a memorial to the architect and notable figure of the area Bevis Bawa, who happened to share uncommon first name with Elle’s father.  The gardens were lovely, and well kept. Inside was very artful and interesting.  But the more we saw, the more concerned we were. Mr Bawa was clearly an art buff, though it seemed his art and statue collections had one thing in common, most featured very naked men. The statues in particular were eyebrow raising to say the least.  Our sons were thankfully not teenagers yet, so they didn’t spend the time giggling (like us parents did).  Instead we got quite a few innocent questions about why all the pictures and statues had large things exposed.  The place was difficult to find, though it was certainly quite quick to escape from.

On another day we visited Galle to do some more sightseeing. Immediately as we parked we had people descend upon us to offer saris and other knickknacks. We kept moving to see the fort and other things, all the while trying to make as little eye contact as possible.
One particular guy I certainly didn’t want to make eye contact had a few bags next to him as he urinated on the wall. The others had passed by him to take in the ocean. I had Owen on my shoulders and now that he had finished his business we were sadly in his path. As he spotted us, he said in a husky voice “Cooooo-bra. Cooooo-bra.” As I slowly registered what this word meant he threw out two baskets in front of me, and the basket lids magically popped off and out jumped and hissed TWO “BEEPING” COBRAS! The others reported that I swore loudly and simultaneously jumped in the air and sideways away from these snakes. For people that don’t know, I HATE snakes. Particularly when they’re venomous and thrown at me, while I’m holding a 21 month old baby. It took me some time to walk back around this guy to continue our sightseeing. And maybe it took a few days to get the thought of this horrible scene from my thoughts.

With all our adventures it was easy to forget that it was Christmas Eve. That evening Santa visited. He stole the tinsel we bought in a Sri Lankan store and made a Christmas tree and left a few gifts – despite us being away from home. I thought it quite interesting how santa managed to place the problematic baubles in the dark – perhaps while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes cause he was putting all this up while wearing just his underpants. In fact at one point, resort security doing a sweep of the garden area with their torches, but fortunately for all concerned they didn’t spot him in this awkward position outside the suite.

Early on Christmas morning I saw the figure of someone walking outside towards the makeshift Christmas tree. My family was still asleep so I opened the curtain to check if it was one of the other kids. Instead it was the Sri Lankan guy who cleans the leaves from the resort grounds. He was paused in front of the tree, looking curiously up at all the tinsel and scratching his head. I then saw him pick up one of the gifts from the ground and read the name card. Seeming satisfied it’s nothing he needed to worry about he turned around and spotted me looking out at him, he gave a big smile and a thumbs up. It was a great start to Christmas.

It wasn’t until later in the morning when the kids took their presents that I noticed a big dried snake skin resting in the shrub next to our Christmas tree. It made the night’s tree-decorating activities in the dark a lot more extreme, especially with the freaking Cobras still fresh in my mind.

Something different you see on roads of Sri Lanka is the position of the cemeteries. We saw no elaborate areas for graves. To an outsider they seem placed almost randomly by the roadside. Sometimes they spread across on each side of the road. From the two grave stones I read, the deceased lived til they were both 93. Not a bad innings when the average life expectancy in Sri Lanka is 74. Although I suspect in the Southern reaches a lot of the headstones were marking the graves of much younger people due to the tragic tsunami that hit the area in 2004.  It was devastating to still see the after effects of this, with many houses never rebuilt.

On the way home we bought some traditional Sri Lankan masks, after clearing up some confusion with our driver that we didn’t want to go to (Church) Mass.
And it was around this time that we hit another Sri Lankan holiday milestone and finished the bottle of local rocket fuel called Arak. Perhaps a good indication of its quality, we couldn’t work out if it’s a whisky or a rum. Another indicator of its quality could be when we asked the guy at bottle shop if we drink it with coke, he was insistent you drink it with almost anything. Perhaps a sign of drinking too much of it, we were incorrectly calling it Akra almost all the time

Early one morning I thought I heard the standard sound of an ice cream truck, perhaps playing Green Sleeves. But don’t be fooled, the truck that’s doing its rounds isn’t filled with sweeties, ice creams or ice lollies. It’s the sound of the curry samosa and savoury snacks truck.  Mmmm.

The day before we left we had quite an unexpected encounter, like something from the X-Files. Well, not quite. Actress Gillian Anderson happened to be staying at the same small resort as us, with her sons. On my walk to breakfast she asked how old our boys were. Her sons were roughly the same age. All the boys played well together and had lots of fun. To us it seemed nothing different from just another lovely mum and kids spending time together, apart from the fact that the older boys secretly referred to her as “Pegasus” (from her film Johnny English).

Our last day of sightseeing we went to Hikkaduwa. It’s a popular beach area with backpackers. We went out in a glass-bottom boat and saw the variety of sea life, including a large turtle our boat captain nearly decapitated a snorkeller to show us. Again, if you asked my boys what was the highlight of that day it wouldn’t be the boat trip, or even patting a turtle further down the beach. They enjoyed making mines in the sand with anything they could find, like empty rum bottles, and boxes for rum bottles.

On our last day I woke up to the sound of heavy rain. There had been quite a few days with some rain, but this was now bucketing down. So naturally I just had to get out and run in it. The streets in heavy rain are quiet. When I eventually found people under the roofs of shops for cover they looked at me quite baffled. To be fair, only slightly more baffled than when it wasn’t raining.

Our return flight was departing from Columbo.  This allowed us the opportunity to meet up with our dear old Sri Lankan maid Dilika, who left Dubai to live in the outskirts with her large family. It was so lovely to see her again, though her family went to way too much trouble with lunch for us.  We always liked Dilika and kept in touch.  We had heard when she got back to Sri Lanka she had a little girl around the same time as we had Owen. What we didn’t know til we met was the daughter’s name happened to be Owenya!  What a lovely coincidence.
After our sad goodbyes, with time running out in Columbo before our flight we managed just a little bit of sight-seeing from the van.

It was fun to be driven around Columbo hearing where all the national team cricketers used to play. Our driver’s son is the captain of the Columbo University cricket team, so he had A LOT of cricket knowledge – or perhaps he had the amazing cricket knowledge of an average Sri Lankan.

While they are united in their love of cricket, I found there’s no consensus on who is the most famous Sri Lankan cricket player. To the average Australian it would most probably be Muralidaran – the controversial spinner/chucker extraordinairre. Some of our Sri Lankan friends suggested Sangakarra. He could certainly be the most famous based on the number of signs bearing his image. Other suggestions ranged from Malinga, who is certainly very recognisable; and surprisingly Arjuna Ranatunga.

The final memorable landmark we were shown was the new-ish Sri Lankan parliament building. It’s an interesting design, looking quite grand and important, but with still enough local Asian charm. Our tour guide informed us the building’s architect was none other than Mr Bevis Bawa. The same character whose house we visited at the Brief Garden. We were a little impressed to see the handy work of the guy whose house we visited. But we were also a little curious he didn’t incorporate any impressive phalluses into the construction.

We got to the airport with lots of time to spare.  Just as well cause we hit another hurdle. At checkin they shared the Immigration rules are we must have either a valid visa, or if you’re able to get a visa on arrival (like us) you must have flight tickets for an onward journey.  We already knew we couldn’t move our visa situation forward any faster, so we had to buy some tickets.  Fortunately the airport is equipped, and very experienced, with this. So, by a stroke of luck we finished our holiday with some new flight tickets back to Sri Lanka so we can do this whole holiday again. 😀

Or most probably, we’ll just seek a refund.

“Istuti” Sri Lanka, and thanks to our friends travelling with us, and our wonderful driver Naranjin.

We’ll not forget this holiday, well the boys won’t forget the hotel and the mine they built on the beach.

Umm Al Quwain Marine Club “Camping” – 11-13 April 2014

Reading Time: 3 minutesElle and the boys had two weeks holiday for Easter. So last weekend we headed up to UAQ Marine Club to go “camping” with some friends for a couple of nights.

We weren’t the only ones with a strange concept of camping.  There were kids there with remote-controlled cars.  Our friends mentioned, that form is better known as “glam-ping” – combining glamour with camping.

It’s not the kind of camping I remember.

In fact, I can’t even comprehend the advent of people bringing their own jet skis.  Why do people go away to enjoy nature by powering along the top of the water as fast and noisy as possible?

Later there were other scenes more like what I was used to.  An example was fathers passing a rugby ball to each other – trying to show they still have it. It may be the only reason why rugby balls get packed on holidays.

I really can’t judge people for attempting to relive their youth.  I knee-boarded one day, water skied the next.
It was the first time I had tried skiing, and it was such a surprise to stand up on my third attempt.  I was fortunate to get good advice, don’t think too much – which I found quite natural to do.

All the boys, except land-bound Owen, enjoyed the lovely warm water.  Lewis particularly took to it on this trip. He even wanted to give kneeboarding a try, though decided against it after a few failed warm-ups along the beach. He was OK to miss it, there was more than enough fun riding on the boat, sitting on the donut being towed behind, having a fish, or just swimming.

Myles tried his hand at fishing, as he regularly does. Though he may be a bit hesitant to try it again.  He was sitting on the back of the boat, feet in the water, casting the line out into the sea.  Unbeknownst to him I had quietly slipped into the water from the front of the boat, and snuck around under the water beneath where he was sitting. Then I quickly pulled myself up onto the landing deck right in front of him and screamed.  As he jumped about a foot in height, I’ve never seen his face so terrified.  It would have been a different story if I happened to get a hook in my face, which I willingly risked.

It wasn’t the only fun we had on the water.  All six of the big boys went out on kayaks one day.  I was with Lewis, and out in the open water we spotted a few pieces of rubbish. It was a good opportunity to teach Lewis about doing our bit for the environment and fishing them out to put into the bin later. It was a little disconcerting though, when we made it to a secluded beach to take a rest, that there was a rubbish tip spewing hundreds of bottles into the ocean. It seemed to make our two pieces of litter we collected seem quite pointless.  We sadly didn’t take any photos of Lewis & I out in the double kayak.  Though just try to imagine me kayaking against the current, and five year old slacker in the front holding his oar horizontally the entire time.

Our two evenings were quite enjoyable – often playing hide & seek tag with the boys, despite an apocalypse of mosquitos or sand flies taking a real fancy with me in the dark.  It’s a bit of a “sore” point. My wife is usually the one who gets eaten alive by insects and they leave me alone. I joke that it’s the reason I married her.  This time however, unbeknownst to me, she cheated and applied repellent. So I was getting eaten for a change.  When I shared this story at work, my Egyptian colleague could relate to it while staying there, though he had a far more interesting description, saying the bites caused him to truly hate his life.

It’s a lovely place to stay for a couple of nights. We happened to be there at the same time last year.  Perhaps we’ll be there at the same time in 2015 also.

Maybe we’ll see our compatriot Keith Urban:

The day I wasn’t married for 20 minutes

Reading Time: 3 minutesYesterday my family and I went to Kite Beach in Dubai, our former local.  It reminded me of the time 18 months earlier when I lost my wedding ring there.

Probably not surprising, I remember it quite vividly.

It was just Myles, Lewis & I.

We went for a swim, walked up and down the beach fossicking for interesting shells, and then we played a bit of rugby along the beach.  One of the boys threw a poor pass which I had to stretch down to catch in front of my feet.  As I did this, something felt unusual.  I was pleased to catch the ball before it hit the sand, and ran a few more steps.  Then I realised, the unusual sensation was my wedding ring was no longer on my finger.

I’ve lost a bit of weight in the ten years since my wedding day.  As a result, my wedding ring has become quite loose on my finger.

Hindsight has 20-20 vision.  While at the beach I really should have temporarily moved the ring it to my middle finger which is a tighter (and more safe)  fit.

I checked and saw no ring on my finger, and rushed back the few steps to where it would have dropped.  It was where the waves were hitting the shore line – a terrible place to lose it.  I frantically dug into the sand and water, but found nothing.  I got the boys to help me, and after a few frantic minutes and increasing desperation I increased the search zone.

I made a mental note of the landmarks, while I thought of where I could get a metal detector, and whether I should report it to authorities. In fact there were a lot of worries going through my mind, including what kind of coverage we had for such loss of personal property.

 

What made things worse was Elle happened to be out of town.  She had flown back to Australia on a short trip.  Losing your wedding ring while the wife is away seems so much more suspicious than while she’s there.  In fact, I suspected my ring had some kind of GPS sensor that would already be sending alerts to her back in Tasmania the second it came off my finger and she’d be shortly calling me, asking what was I up to.

I tried to think calmly, and not show my utter fear of losing the ring.

After a good 10 minutes of digging, the three of us had covered the whole area where I suspected the ring would be.  But with no luck. It was gone.

I decided to clear my head and perhaps enter into the wonderful world of denial. The three of us went back to passing the football again.  The whole time I was still numb with worry about the lost ring, and talking nonsense that it didn’t matter.

After some lacklustre passes, it was clear our minds were elsewhere.  So after around 10 minutes we decided to head home.

I figured at that point, why not have one final look at the area – you know, just in case.

I walked over roughly to the area, lined myself up with the landmarks I previously noted so I was standing in the right position.  And just as I looked down, right there, directly in front of me, on top of the sand literally between my two feet, my ring just got washed in from a wave.  It was the same sand which the boys and I were furiously digging earlier to no avail.  It was completely surreal. It seemed like my eyes were clearly playing tricks on me.  Though I didn’t dawdle. I snatched up the ring along with the sand beneath it.  I opened out my fingers, looked in and lo and behold, there it was, my gold wedding ring safely in my grasp.

It almost seemed like a scene from Lord of the Rings, me looking into my palm with the ring glistening in the sun, almost animated with shine.  I avoided a slow motion raising it up above my head triumphantly – like from a movie.  Instead I put it straight onto my wedding finger, clinched it in a fist, and covered my left hand tightly with my right.

To be honest, losing something of such sentimental and financial value had made me feel completely sick in the stomach.  This feeling washed away completely with feelings of just how fortunate I was to find it again and have it back on my finger.  This emotion was no doubt intensified after almost giving up on it and wondering how to break such news to my wife.

Fortunately something was on my side that day, and it never came to that.  And while I’ve still not resized my wedding ring, without fail I always move it to the safety of my middle finger if there’s any risk that the activity could cause it to fall from my finger.