lioness in japan

Along George Street in central Sydney was the Anzac Day parade on Friday, 25 April 2008. I was always fuzzy on the details on why this was such an important date in the Aussie calendar.

In Singapore, I woke up at dawn to go to a Woodlands cemetery to attend an Anzac ceremony three years ago. I just knew that many soldiers, Aussies, Kiwis, and British were slaughtered by the Turkish troops in Gallipoli, a beach on the coast of Turkey, during World War I. The battle instructions sent out gave the wrong location so the troops arrived at a cliffed beach where the Turkish army shot downwards and everyone was hopelessly wiped out within a matter of hours as the sun rose. After a series of hymns and prayers, we went down to the breakfast buffet where coffee and rum were served. So Aussie — they have their tipple any of the day.

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What makes a place feel more and more like home is when you get to know the peeps. Sydney has always been a familiar destination, what with the kangaroo’s family and friends. But more recently, I’ve forged my own friendships in the land Down Under, and it’s been nice catching up with them in person, rather than on MSN Messenger.

So I got to know Jean through the kangaroo from his time in Melbourne, but in the last few years, we were invited to her wedding in Oz, met up for drinkies in Singapore and munched on yakitori in Tokyo.

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I’m attending the kangaroo’s little brother’s wedding this weekend so we are hanging out here for 10 days. We have a string of family gatherings and meetups with friends.

Last night was the meet-the-in-laws bbq at Epping, where his brother and fiancé live. It’s a very suburban area and looks like Perth — wide open spaces with big residential houses stretched out along a seemingly endless road…

We had fun seeing some of the family while tucking into some good ol’ Aussie barbecued steak and chicken.

Today at lunch with the colleagues I learned these Aussisms: “cracking the shits” and “farting sparks” — they both mean to be very angry. Hilarious.

Anyway, this could be my last post till Monday because I won’t have Internet access. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Since I lost all my photos in the big iBook crash, I couldn’t blog about certain events. But a few days ago, a friend emailed me her photo album on Picasa, so here I am, sharing pretty pictures of my last snowboarding trip of the winter season.

A gal pal invited me to her company’s ski trip in late March. They got a massive discount on accommodation and free lessons thrown in, so I couldn’t resist. Her group of colleagues was fun and easy going. Everything was well organised and all we did was tear down the slopes, eat, drink, played silly games and dipped into the onsen twice a day. ‘Twas bliss…

Meanwhile, the kangaroo was back in Tokyo lugging our things from the old apartment to the new. My friends teased me for abusing my boyfriend, but really, our lives are so spontaneous schedule-wise, that stuff like this happens sometimes. His business trips are unpredictable and I make plans regardless whether he would be in town or not. As an aside, this is one way I survive as a trailing partner. If I waited for the kangaroo to tell me when he would be passing through town, I wouldn’t make any friends nor go on many outings. My advice is: make plans as if you were a single gal. If he can fit into your plans, cool, if not, you can hang out as a couple another time.

Back to my awesome trip…

We stayed at New Greenpia Tsunan Ski Resort in Niigata, which was about an hour away on the shinkansen, plus an additional hour’s bus ride from the station. It’s a big family hotel, but for the reasonable fee, who cares?

I love snowboarding but I am not good at it. This is me struggling to get up to pose for a photo but I couldn’t stand upright on this down slope.

The view was amazing. It makes all the tumbling and aching muscles worth it.

On breaks, I would just sit on the snow in the sun and gaze at the mountains and trees.

One new thing about Japanese culture I learned is they are absolutely into taking lessons. The Japanese believe in structured classes where they will practice till they get it right. Since this was a company trip, we had to participate because attendance was taken. It was particularly challenging for me as the lessons were all in Japanese.

If you’ve got time to kill, stop by the sake museum at Yuzawa station. For a small fee (probably less than 1,000JPY), you can try five different cups of sake. How it works is they have a huge selection of sake along a wall where the rice wine is dispensed into your tiny cup. I tried anything where I could recognize the kanji — from dragons to flowers to red monkeys, I sipped my way to a giggly, tipsy state.

I’m quite a loner most times, and if I do travel, it’s always with the kangaroo, so this group experience was refreshing. Anyway I hope the pictures will encourage you to try out Japanese ski slopes — they are just breathtaking.

Since we had such a strenuous cycle the day before, we decided to chill out in Gorkha for one day. The kangaroo was the first among us to suffer an attack of food poisoning — the culprit was a plate of chicken bryani which he refused to have again from herein.

We crept out of bed rather late by Nepalese standards: 9am. This merchant town has only one tourist attraction which is a temple on top of a hill where the Monkey God resides. We thought we’d pay him a visit.

Cute little goats pranced around us as we hiked up.

That was our first glimpse of the Annapurna Himalayas (which means mountains with snow) — they would be a constant backdrop for our long journey towards Pokhara.

The kangaroo was truly relaxed without his laptop and became philosophical when he stood next to the Monkey God. He toyed with the idea of playing chess all day whilst guarding the deity. He suggested I haul firewood by way of strapping the sticks to my head to take care of our household.

The hike proved a little draining for the sick kangaroo so he retired to our room while Ben and I wandered around taking pictures in the dusk light.

Lookie what we have here: a sarong kebaya — the unofficial national costume of Singapore which all the Singapore Airlines flight attendants wear. What was it doing here?

These ladies looked a little serious but they were really friendly and excited to see us. We figured the Nepalese thought that taking a photo is an important affair so they shouldn’t goof around. Another conclusion is they don’t have mirrors (just going by our humble hostel dwellings) and it was a way to see their reflections.

This little guy totally hammed it up for Ben’s hefty camera. He readjusted his collar and rearranged his hair. Everytime he posed, his female companions would shriek with laughter. This is an example of why travelling is so wonderful — you meet the locals and communicate even though you don’t speak the same language but you have a laugh anyway.

We were racing downhill for 140km towards Maoist trading town, Gorkha. The boys arrived five days before I did and fell ill (due to Herculean day trips out of Kathmandu and the awful pollution) so they slept for two days. . It was exhausting but it was a great first day — we were full of energy and ready for our Big Trip Out.

This was our trusty support car that crawled behind us all the way.

A water and granola bar (the kangaroo calls them nougat bars) break and a sweaty grin for the camera.

It’s embarrassing to post this almost two months after my Nepal trip. Usually I would just forget about it but it really was a special trip. I’m having a quiet weekend so I thought it would be appropriate to sit down and write it out. I put up my pictures on Facebook so I was a little lazy to rehash the whole experience but I think those who can’t access my Facebook pictures would enjoy this pictorial story.

Our friendly bike rental shop sat in the heart of buzzing tourist belt Thamal, Kathmandu. They kitted us well and the kangaroo concluded that this was the cheapest long holiday we’ve ever taken (plus point of travelling across a developing country).

The kangaroo took me through balancing drills on my mountain bike. Since we were going through rough terrain, it was important to ride standing up. Not pictured, the staff from our hostel, Tibetan Peace Lodge, giggled as I stumbled about. Later, the kangaroo teased me, “They were looking at your pink underwear peeking out from your jeans.”

The streets of Kathmandu were filthy and polluted. We were glad to race into the country the next day. The smog was the thickest I’ve seen and visibility was barely 10m.

We had Christmas dinner at a Western restaurant (they usually hawk a myriad of tourist faves like steak, pizza and pasta) the night before we set off. Although the kangaroo was nonchalant about missing Christmas with his folks, he still insisted on having a second turkey dinner (he and Ben had a European Christmas dinner the night before — the Europeans celebrate on Christmas Eve, while the Aussies have it on the actualy day). It was pretty special to be near the Himalayas and tuck into turkey with brown rice.

Even though he’s long gone, Mao was everywhere.

The entrance swarmed with local tourists but the dramatic red walls and gates beckoned — I was quite excited to go in.

When the movie, The Last Emperor, came out, I watched it at the cinema with my family and we had pretty good seats. As a teenager, this majestic film captured my imagination and had a compelling story that had me hooked. A few years later it was screened on TV so I video taped it and watched it many times. (Yeah, as a kid, i was a little obsessive compulsive.)

I bought a booklet on the Forbidden City so I could read more about its history and took one of the suggested routes. The sprawling stony squares were flanked by ancient palaces and willow trees — truly breathtaking.

After peeking into rooms of artifacts, the route led me to…the Imperial Garden.

Even the signs were fairly winsome…

What really caught my attention were these entwining trees. The story behind it, according to my trusty guidebook, was so romantic. Apparently, one of the ministers or a high level official killed a lower ranking colleague in a bloody sword duel so he could marry his wife. Devastated by her husband’s death, she suddenly flung herself into his grave, after they lowered his corpse, and died from the fall. So, that’s why these two trees grew up locked in what seems like a passionate embrace. What a lovely story.

I just wanted to pen my thoughts down on one of the most memorable trips I had this year. Can’t miss out on doing one on China, plus I want to start the new year without any backlog of entries.

Although the kangaroo was frantically busy with work in Beijing, he still made time to take me out on a dinner date to Peking duck mecca, Quan Ju De.

He directed the cab driver to the one next to the Forbidden City but was told it was under revonation so we went to another one — this restaurant has 12 joints in the city, so we didn’t need to feel disappointed.

An ode to thinly sliced, tender pieces of duck…

A demo of how to wrap up a Peking duck crepe.

A snug, juicy bit of goodness. I love the roast duck plain best, actually, so I can fully savour the crispy, savoury skin.

We were full of duck and posed in front of this culinary icon. It was one of those low key dates with good food and funny talk. I nearly rubbed my tummy with satisfaction.

Sorry for being so behind on my entries. Looking back, 2007 was definitely a year of travel. I was always off somewhere almost every month or even twice a month. As you can see, I’m gearing up for the Biggest Trip of the Year. But before that happens, I really want to pen my thoughts and pictures on Beijing. China’s a place I would like to see more of — there are so many things going on there and the development is astonishing.

Anyway, here are the highlights of my five-day holiday in this capital city.

This picture has particular significance because it was taken by two Anhui ladies in our Great Wall tour group. First, they saw the kangaroo shooting us using his long arms so they offered to take a photo of us. Then they wanted to take pictures with us….after which, the whole tour group surrounded us and gently pushed me aside to take pictures with the kangaroo! He felt like a superstar — they kept exclaiming, “He’s so handsome! (Ta hen shuai)” and “He’s so tall! (Tan hen gao)”.

This is our tour group. The Anhui folk were a funny bunch. It was through them I learned a bit of Chinese humour — the ruder they were to you, the more they liked you. In fact, one of the guys had a great pick-up line, “I’ll take you out to dinner tonight if you wash my feet after.” Sexy, eh?

It was a steep uphill climb.

The kangaroo ran out of puff for a bit there.

Wheee… we were at the top of a particularly high slope and thought we had enough of trekking the wall. With the wind whipping my hair about, I felt a rush of triumph and a sigh of happiness.