Even though summer's here in Townsville, the hot season brings with it heavy rain, and if I knew my meteorology a little better, I could perhaps tells you why. Just recently, Brisbane was hit by a storm that did a fair bit of damage and I believe even more storms are expected. It's said to be the worst storm that hit there since the 1970s.
Townsville I think is pretty safe from flooding, but with Mother Nature PMS-ing due to global warming etc etc etc, who knows what'll happen.
On Thursday, two days ago, me, my mom and my brother headed out to an Asian convenience store to load up on food that catered more to our taste. During my White Worshipping, childhood days where I wanted to be like the American kids who could wear whatever they wanted to school and had lockers to put their bags and books in, I would often turn my nose up at rice and its accompanying dishes, often requesting for spaghetti, fried chicken, baked potatoes etc.
Having eaten quite enough food to be able to pronounce a solid judgement on what food I think reigns supreme, unsurprisingly, it's gotta be Asian.
Now this excludes most types of Westernized Asian food, some of them abominations. One I recently had a bad encounter with was Lemon Chicken on a Stick. Not all kinds of Lemon Chicken are horrible - the ones I had in Hawaii for example were pretty tasty. The idea is to have chicken strips/chunks dipped in batter (though I think this is optional), fried, then doused with a sweet and sour lemon sauce.
However, this Lemon Chicken on a Stick was a heinous invention indeed. It's appearance was deceptively appealing, looking like five large durian seed-sized chunks of meat coated in batter, deep fried and skewered neatly on a bamboo stick. The surface of said meat was a dark golden brown and had a glossy, sticky sheen to it which I surmised was the lemon sauce. For AUD$3.50, I bought it because I was famished and my 6-inch Italian Cold Cut sub hadn't quite hit the spot (bigger is sometimes better hmm).
I plopped myself down, tastebuds tingling in anticipation. I didn't have high hopes for it of course and I figured I just wanted some thick juicy meat to bite into, regardless of the taste. I sank my teeth into the first nugget and lo and behold! It was all an ILLUSION!
Nine tenths of it was batter! My teeth had to go through a thick layer of lemon flavored batter before it even found chicken meat. It's like eating those "cucur pisang" (banana... cucurs haha.. um, they're an Asian food that's made from overripe bananas and flour, mashed together in a ball and deep fried), but at least you knew what to expect then!
I reluctantly finished the first one and dissected the second to have a better look. After peeling and probing, I was filled with disgust. The chicken pieces were the size of peas! It's sickening and insulting that food like this can be even called "Chinese". I had to throw the rest away. The strangest part of it all however, is that people still queue up and pay absurd amounts of money (AUD$12 for mixed rice?) for godawful food. WHY!??
Having said all that, my sister recently made a comment about how she wants to try "Chinese" food, as in the kind you can get in little white box, the kind you get from Chinatown in the US with contents going by the name of "Mushu Pork". There is a certain novelty in it I guess. I remember a phase in my childhood where I enjoyed eating rice from a little bowl with chopsticks (instead of with a spoon and fork) because of watching all those Hong Kong TV series. After that, it was the eating-with-hands phase whenever I ate a meal that had curry in it. Eating with a fork I think was encouraged by my grandmother, who told me that Americans do it and it stuck. So what's left to try I guess is eating food out of a cardboard box. I might give it a go one day... Hmm.
So anyway (don't I just love to go off on a tangent), the Asian convenience store is great. I can get cincau there, rose syrup, guilinggao (turtle jelly! mmm) and mom can get her curries, spices, Asian vegetables like white carrot and sauces. Going there assuages my longing for home.
So after that that we went to Stocklands, which is just down the road. Stocklands is a shopping center, but it's nowhere near the size of say One Utama. It's probably more the size of Atria. Mom goes to Woolworths, which is like Cold Storage, and me and my brother go to EB Games, which is like the original version of all the pirated game stalls/shops in KL.
My brother and I go browsing through the shelves of PC games. The older PC games like Ultimate Zoo Tycoon, Sacred, Battle for Middle Earth cost like AUD$20, while the newer games like Mass Effect, the Witcher costs AUD$70 or more. Travis just got himself a spanking new laptop with specs that make my laptop look geriatric. The price to pay of course is that his games cost way more than mine. Consequently, his wallet's barren.
While we look, a siren starts wailing. One of the storeboys looks up and goes, "Is that the evacuation alarm?" Seconds later, an announcer on loudspeaker answers his question. We're to evacuate. My first paranoid thought was, "Someone's got a gun!" A few weeks ago I saw a program on TV that featured the 20 worst acts of violence. Columbine and Virginia Tech were on the list as well as one that popped into my mind then - this guy who goes berserk in a shopping mall.
People started moving out of the stores and I passed this frustrated guy who went, "Can I just get this game first?" Hahaha. I went a bit faster than my brother who reflected the earlier guy's sentiments in that he couldn't make any purchases. Everywhere, shutters were being rolled down as people calmly walked past. That's what's surprising. People were moving fast, but not frantically as to cause chaos.
As I walked out, the cause of the evacuation became apparent. There was a wide ankle-height pool in front of some bank that was unfortunately situated right at the exit. The light rain I had driven through going to Stocklands had become quite a downpour as we were inside the shopping center. Outside, rain was pouring in torrents and about a hundred customers and workers waited outside, presumably for transport or just for the rain to stop.
The tricky part was now finding our mother, and we didn't have cellphones. My brother's more "she'll find us one la, let's just wait by the car", and I'm more certain that she won't until much later. After scanning around on our side and not finding her, we went up the carpark and my brother waited by the car while I headed off in search of mom. I went to the entrance we used when we first got there, saw to my dismay that the lower carpark had become a shallow pool, then saw mom JUST making her exit from the mall, indubitably one of the last ones out.
Unsurprisingly, she told me she was looking for us IN the shopping center, trying to find out where EB games was (which was at the opposite end) and a security guard had to chase her out. That's our mother. A gem of a woman and a heart of gold but has her blonde moments sometimes, even though it's probably maternal instinct kicking in. My brother exasperatedly goes, "MOM, it's an evacuation signal, it means the WHOLE MALL is evacuated! OF COURSE we're not in there!" Mom concedes conclusively, "Yea, I think next time in any emergency we should come back to the car." You gotta love her.
So that was our first shopping center evacuation. Pretty neat. It comes 2nd to the earthquake in Hawaii in terms of real-life disaster moment. As we drove back, we found out the traffic lights in the vicinity had been knocked out, presumably by lightning, and traffic police were already doing their job.
Because no one got anything they needed in Stockland, I had to drive to Castle Town Shopping Center, which is nearer to our place, and resume shopping there. When we were done, that's where and when I had that horrible "Chinese" food.
Ahh, sometimes Townsville CAN be interesting after all.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Choral Aires Concert and Zoo Tycoon
The weather is getting increasingly hotter every passing day. Ugh. Looks like Santa is gonna be making his rounds in probably a red pair of speedos (or maybe a man-thong a la Borat, though I ain't sure that's a sight I wanna see) when he visits north Queensland. Due to the occasional torrent of rain, humidity is also getting to a point where a 5 minute walk out in the afternoon is probably equivalent to sitting in a steam sauna and your sweat glands end up like geysers, turning your whole body into something like a cold glass of water left out in a warm room - just completely slick with perspiration (condensation in the case of the metaphor).
So I had my debut concert appearance two days ago. Pretty neat.
Just to back up a little, the Choral Aires is a choir group under the Townsville Choral Society that performs on Mondays at 9am. That gives one a hint that this group isn't for the working class or those still in school. It's really a group for retirees, and most of them are easily triple my age. Since I'm forced to bum around till the PR gets approved (and this just in: we have our bridging visas, which will allow us to stay beyond the period that's set on the tourist visas until we get an answer for our PR), I figured, why not?
Turns out, me joining was pretty mutually beneficial. My Monday mornings were filled with two hours of music, and they got an extra male voice as well as an accompanist.
At the concert, I was introduced even before the curtain went up as "a special guest all the way from Malaysia" and was given an embarrassing load of praise about what I'd done for the Choral Society. This guy who was the emcee and is the secretary of the Choral Society, Brian, always tells me that the email I sent out inquiring about the Choral Society was a godsend. Good accompanists are rare and expensive here, so I fell right in place in the scheme of things. He even expressed his desire to see me become an Australian citizen. I should've recorded that for immigration haha!
The concert went on and the beautiful thing is, people actually support the arts here in Townsville. I had my initial doubts about the number of audience that would show, but the hall was packed full! All these people who came were probably family, friends and maybe even some who just happened to be told about it. And though the performances themselves were probably not astounding in quality, you could see on the audience's faces that they were thoroughly enjoying every moment of it, mouthing the words to songs they know, or quietly murmuring their approval.
I was quite the multitasker. After every three songs, there'd be a few solos in the program for a change of pace and so the main choir could take a break to rest or to change into their other costumes. There's an upright piano onstage with the choir and the pianist who plays it is an 80 year old woman who has to use a walker to move around. I seriously respect that lady. She looks so frail that the last place you'd expect to see her is tinkling away on the piano, but she has an absolute passion for it, and I believe she's been playing with the Choral Society for years and years. However, when the soloists sing, the piano is situated behind the curtains, so the accompanist has to play on a digital piano offstage in a corner, at level with the audience. That's where I come in.
So here's me singing with the choir for a few songs, then the curtains close and I emerge from between them and play for the soloists, then I wiggle back through, the curtains open and ta-da, I'm back in the choir. That's not all either. I sang a solo that day, and it was a last minute addition. It's called "The Water is Wide", which is a gem of a folksong with a beautiful melody and poignant words. Here are the lyrics, and there are many variations on the verses, but this is the version I sang:
The water is wide, I cannot cross o'er,
And neither have I the wings to fly,
Build me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row my love and I.
A ship there is and she sails the seas,
She's laden deep, as deep can be,
But not so deep as the love I'm in,
And I know not if I sink or swim.
I leaned my back against a young oak,
Thinking he were a trusty tree,
But first he bended and then he broke,
Thus did my love prove false to me.
O love is handsome and love is kind,
Bright as a jewel when first it's new,
But love grows old and waxes cold,
And fades away like the morning dew.
To me, it's like the ultimate song about losing faith in love and becoming jaded, and there's a whole story encompassed right there in those four verses. The last verse in particular, with the sweet tune carrying those bitter words gives it a potent kick that is can bring tears.
And so it did. A Irish lady who was in the choir came up to me and asked about the song and told me she loved it and it brought tears to her eyes. That's more important to me than "you have a beautiful voice". Music cannot become a transcendant form of communication unless the message it bears can resonate between the singer and the audience. You can have a fantastic natural voice just as you can own a Steinway, and you can become competent and inoffensive with the instrument, but if music becomes an aesthetic listening experience instead of a emotional intercourse, I think it's fallen short of its purpose. Now if only I can figure how to do that while singing in other languages...
And there's more. An old man came looking for me backstage and placed his hands on my shoulders and with a trembling voice he told me "thank you for your smile". At the risk of sounding proud, he said that I lit up the stage with my smile. As a performer, there's a lot of perfunctory compliments, most of which possess a dubious veracity. "Good job" or "Well done" from your fellow performers or the polite applause of the audience. I admit, I'm guilty of it, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Sometimes however, you get a compliment that is so unabashedly sincere that it even makes you a little uncomfortable. He said quite a few things to me staring me straight in the eye, and I remember being really embarrassed since this was the dressing room and everyone was backstage changing out of their costumes. When he had spoken his last however, there were tears in his eyes, beginning to spill over, and I felt pretty overwhelmed.
That's the thing about singing. Critically, it wasn't technically perfect by far. In front of a panel of judges, they'd probably have things to say about breathing, phrasing, legato and that's fine. But there's something more moving in a mother singing a lullaby, a child singing something made-up to himself, or a lover serenading. I suspect it has to do with emotional investment, irregardless of whether too many breaths are being taken or it's "pitchy".
So anyway, I'm rambling. After that success, there was a Christmas party yesterday! And oh boy... the amount of food... Red Rooster chicken (which looks like Ayamas' roasted chicken), quiches, pies, salads, cold cuts. I'd stuffed myself to an appropriate amount and was engaging in conversation with the ladies around the table I was at when they announced that the sweets were out. Said sweets included tarts, cream puffs, fruit pies, fruits, pudding, cakes, lamingtons (sponge cake (i think) covered in chocolate, sprinkled with coconut shavings) and the piece de resistance, the all-Australian trifle, which if you didn't know, is a sinfully delicious dessert made by placing sponge cake at the bottom of a bowl and heaping custard, jello, and ice cream on top of it. I actually abstained yesterday because I felt guilty already... Sigh.
Conversation with these bunch of folks is always interesting. Before the party, I was speaking to an English guy who moved to Australia and he was recounting his experiences as a RAF statistician posted in Penang like forty years ago. Around the table, the ladies would talk about the history of Townsville, scandalous local gossip and life experiences. I would contribute with tidbits of Malaysian culture, talking about edibles such as chicken feet and congealed pig's blood (with restraint of course) which would make them groan and squirm. Funny though, a few of them actually responded after turning up their noses at chicken feet that they loved to eat pig brains (or was it some other kind of animal?), and even detailed instructions at how to cook it and how it tastes. "Delicate", remarks one and I can't help but laugh inside at the irony.
One man's meat is another man's poison... I love that quote.
It is remarkable that some of these folks have been with the Choral Society for ages. Quite a few have been with it for over forty years. Being about half that in age, it's still quite unfathomable to me.
Okay, I've written way lots. Just something else to add.
Recently, I got an old game I absolutely love. When I was just a little boy, my ambitions were far from glamorous. I wanted to become a zookeeper. I had a few books that were animal encyclopedias and they were the source of my fantasies. I remember running about the house with my brother and I would flip open the book, imagine the whole house was my personal zoo ( I adored Michael Jackson cuz he had a zoo) and designate specific spots in rooms where animals would be held. I'd go, "OK, 1 million radiolarians here!" I always remember talking about the more primitive multicellular organisms cuz they were at the beginning of the book. Then me and my brother, after we've finished assigning animals everywhere, would go on a safari, and we'd feed the animals, and we'd pretend we were them. It's pretty neat how the imagination works as a kid.
When this game came out, it was an instant hit with me: Zoo Tycoon!
I generally suck at micromanagement games. SimCity 4? 4-get it. (random lol!) Zoo Tycoon however offered everything I dreamed of as a kid. You could adopt a whole variety of animals: baboons, elephants, giraffes, lions and tigers and bears and build enclosures for em. Sounds simple? You have to make sure the enclosure's big enough, that it has the appropriate mix of terrain, the right kind of foliage associated with the animal's natural habitat, the right amount of rocks, elevation if the animal's a mountain dweller, the correct kind of shelter, the correct kind of fencing (no chain-link fences or for that matter, trees near fences for chimpanzees or they'll escape and your zoo ratings will plummet) and even the number of animals, as some of them want mates or large herds.
When that's done, you hire zookeepers (one of whom I'll usually name after myself) to look after ur animals.
Obviously it doesn't stop there. Money is a factor and you can't survive on the admittance fee alone. So you build burger stands, pizza stands, ice cream stands, drink stands, cuz guests get hungry and thirsty. But after all that, they wanna use the loo, so you have to build restrooms. And most of them would like eating and drinking sitting down, so that requires picnic tables. When they've seen everything, they wanna take home a souvenir, so you exploit this by having a gift stand. The music major in me finally clicked everything into place and realized that business was simply a profitable exploitation of need.
So you have a decent zoo, and you've got a maintenance worker to clean up the trash and a tour guide to show the folks around and some decent cash flow. You start investing the money in little improvements such as benches (and guests do get tired and cranky), exhibit signs, topiaries, flowerbeds, statues, which make the guests happy. You also invest in research so your staff improve, animal care quality is upped, animal houses (like the aviary or the reptile house) become available and even endangered animals like the panda can be up for adoption.
With ur eye on the profits, u build a restaurant, a full blown gift shop and sell off the gift stand, an animatronics theatre and that's when the real cash starts rolling in. If you'd like to control the flow of cash even better, you can adjust the prices of each money-making building. You give your zoo a makeover, putting in fountains, koi ponds, japanese rock gardens, observation areas. Pretty soon, you've got one hell of a zoo to be reckoned with and you're winning really sweet cash awards.
And just when you think, okay, I've done pretty much everything there is, the two expansion packs: Dinosaur Digs and Marine Mania comes in, each with their own unique challenges (making a disaster-free Jurassic Park for example, or getting a Great White Shark to do tricks for the audience).
I got the Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Collection just a couple weeks ago for AUD$20 and it's keeping me totally entertained. When I'm done (which won't be soon) I'll probably get Zoo Tycoon 2: Ultimate Collection.
And here's a screenshot of the Ice Age zoo I built yesterday.
Dunno if this pic can be made bigger, but at the bottom is the enclosure for the Sabertoothed Cat, to the right, the Wooly Mammoth, the top, the Giant Tortoise, and offscreen on the top left is the enclosure for the Wooly Rhinoceros. Fun stuff! The igloo shaped building's a gift shop, and the building to its left is a Dino Arcade. I started out with $150,000, spent till I had $40,000 and ended the game with $90,000 in eleven months. Pretty sweet. This is a scenario with a time limit and conditions but in a freeform game, it can go on till u've basically run out of space.
Well, I know what I'll be doing this afternoon. :P
So I had my debut concert appearance two days ago. Pretty neat.
Just to back up a little, the Choral Aires is a choir group under the Townsville Choral Society that performs on Mondays at 9am. That gives one a hint that this group isn't for the working class or those still in school. It's really a group for retirees, and most of them are easily triple my age. Since I'm forced to bum around till the PR gets approved (and this just in: we have our bridging visas, which will allow us to stay beyond the period that's set on the tourist visas until we get an answer for our PR), I figured, why not?
Turns out, me joining was pretty mutually beneficial. My Monday mornings were filled with two hours of music, and they got an extra male voice as well as an accompanist.
At the concert, I was introduced even before the curtain went up as "a special guest all the way from Malaysia" and was given an embarrassing load of praise about what I'd done for the Choral Society. This guy who was the emcee and is the secretary of the Choral Society, Brian, always tells me that the email I sent out inquiring about the Choral Society was a godsend. Good accompanists are rare and expensive here, so I fell right in place in the scheme of things. He even expressed his desire to see me become an Australian citizen. I should've recorded that for immigration haha!
The concert went on and the beautiful thing is, people actually support the arts here in Townsville. I had my initial doubts about the number of audience that would show, but the hall was packed full! All these people who came were probably family, friends and maybe even some who just happened to be told about it. And though the performances themselves were probably not astounding in quality, you could see on the audience's faces that they were thoroughly enjoying every moment of it, mouthing the words to songs they know, or quietly murmuring their approval.
I was quite the multitasker. After every three songs, there'd be a few solos in the program for a change of pace and so the main choir could take a break to rest or to change into their other costumes. There's an upright piano onstage with the choir and the pianist who plays it is an 80 year old woman who has to use a walker to move around. I seriously respect that lady. She looks so frail that the last place you'd expect to see her is tinkling away on the piano, but she has an absolute passion for it, and I believe she's been playing with the Choral Society for years and years. However, when the soloists sing, the piano is situated behind the curtains, so the accompanist has to play on a digital piano offstage in a corner, at level with the audience. That's where I come in.
So here's me singing with the choir for a few songs, then the curtains close and I emerge from between them and play for the soloists, then I wiggle back through, the curtains open and ta-da, I'm back in the choir. That's not all either. I sang a solo that day, and it was a last minute addition. It's called "The Water is Wide", which is a gem of a folksong with a beautiful melody and poignant words. Here are the lyrics, and there are many variations on the verses, but this is the version I sang:
The water is wide, I cannot cross o'er,
And neither have I the wings to fly,
Build me a boat that can carry two,
And both shall row my love and I.
A ship there is and she sails the seas,
She's laden deep, as deep can be,
But not so deep as the love I'm in,
And I know not if I sink or swim.
I leaned my back against a young oak,
Thinking he were a trusty tree,
But first he bended and then he broke,
Thus did my love prove false to me.
O love is handsome and love is kind,
Bright as a jewel when first it's new,
But love grows old and waxes cold,
And fades away like the morning dew.
To me, it's like the ultimate song about losing faith in love and becoming jaded, and there's a whole story encompassed right there in those four verses. The last verse in particular, with the sweet tune carrying those bitter words gives it a potent kick that is can bring tears.
And so it did. A Irish lady who was in the choir came up to me and asked about the song and told me she loved it and it brought tears to her eyes. That's more important to me than "you have a beautiful voice". Music cannot become a transcendant form of communication unless the message it bears can resonate between the singer and the audience. You can have a fantastic natural voice just as you can own a Steinway, and you can become competent and inoffensive with the instrument, but if music becomes an aesthetic listening experience instead of a emotional intercourse, I think it's fallen short of its purpose. Now if only I can figure how to do that while singing in other languages...
And there's more. An old man came looking for me backstage and placed his hands on my shoulders and with a trembling voice he told me "thank you for your smile". At the risk of sounding proud, he said that I lit up the stage with my smile. As a performer, there's a lot of perfunctory compliments, most of which possess a dubious veracity. "Good job" or "Well done" from your fellow performers or the polite applause of the audience. I admit, I'm guilty of it, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Sometimes however, you get a compliment that is so unabashedly sincere that it even makes you a little uncomfortable. He said quite a few things to me staring me straight in the eye, and I remember being really embarrassed since this was the dressing room and everyone was backstage changing out of their costumes. When he had spoken his last however, there were tears in his eyes, beginning to spill over, and I felt pretty overwhelmed.
That's the thing about singing. Critically, it wasn't technically perfect by far. In front of a panel of judges, they'd probably have things to say about breathing, phrasing, legato and that's fine. But there's something more moving in a mother singing a lullaby, a child singing something made-up to himself, or a lover serenading. I suspect it has to do with emotional investment, irregardless of whether too many breaths are being taken or it's "pitchy".
So anyway, I'm rambling. After that success, there was a Christmas party yesterday! And oh boy... the amount of food... Red Rooster chicken (which looks like Ayamas' roasted chicken), quiches, pies, salads, cold cuts. I'd stuffed myself to an appropriate amount and was engaging in conversation with the ladies around the table I was at when they announced that the sweets were out. Said sweets included tarts, cream puffs, fruit pies, fruits, pudding, cakes, lamingtons (sponge cake (i think) covered in chocolate, sprinkled with coconut shavings) and the piece de resistance, the all-Australian trifle, which if you didn't know, is a sinfully delicious dessert made by placing sponge cake at the bottom of a bowl and heaping custard, jello, and ice cream on top of it. I actually abstained yesterday because I felt guilty already... Sigh.
Conversation with these bunch of folks is always interesting. Before the party, I was speaking to an English guy who moved to Australia and he was recounting his experiences as a RAF statistician posted in Penang like forty years ago. Around the table, the ladies would talk about the history of Townsville, scandalous local gossip and life experiences. I would contribute with tidbits of Malaysian culture, talking about edibles such as chicken feet and congealed pig's blood (with restraint of course) which would make them groan and squirm. Funny though, a few of them actually responded after turning up their noses at chicken feet that they loved to eat pig brains (or was it some other kind of animal?), and even detailed instructions at how to cook it and how it tastes. "Delicate", remarks one and I can't help but laugh inside at the irony.
One man's meat is another man's poison... I love that quote.
It is remarkable that some of these folks have been with the Choral Society for ages. Quite a few have been with it for over forty years. Being about half that in age, it's still quite unfathomable to me.
Okay, I've written way lots. Just something else to add.
Recently, I got an old game I absolutely love. When I was just a little boy, my ambitions were far from glamorous. I wanted to become a zookeeper. I had a few books that were animal encyclopedias and they were the source of my fantasies. I remember running about the house with my brother and I would flip open the book, imagine the whole house was my personal zoo ( I adored Michael Jackson cuz he had a zoo) and designate specific spots in rooms where animals would be held. I'd go, "OK, 1 million radiolarians here!" I always remember talking about the more primitive multicellular organisms cuz they were at the beginning of the book. Then me and my brother, after we've finished assigning animals everywhere, would go on a safari, and we'd feed the animals, and we'd pretend we were them. It's pretty neat how the imagination works as a kid.
When this game came out, it was an instant hit with me: Zoo Tycoon!
I generally suck at micromanagement games. SimCity 4? 4-get it. (random lol!) Zoo Tycoon however offered everything I dreamed of as a kid. You could adopt a whole variety of animals: baboons, elephants, giraffes, lions and tigers and bears and build enclosures for em. Sounds simple? You have to make sure the enclosure's big enough, that it has the appropriate mix of terrain, the right kind of foliage associated with the animal's natural habitat, the right amount of rocks, elevation if the animal's a mountain dweller, the correct kind of shelter, the correct kind of fencing (no chain-link fences or for that matter, trees near fences for chimpanzees or they'll escape and your zoo ratings will plummet) and even the number of animals, as some of them want mates or large herds.
When that's done, you hire zookeepers (one of whom I'll usually name after myself) to look after ur animals.
Obviously it doesn't stop there. Money is a factor and you can't survive on the admittance fee alone. So you build burger stands, pizza stands, ice cream stands, drink stands, cuz guests get hungry and thirsty. But after all that, they wanna use the loo, so you have to build restrooms. And most of them would like eating and drinking sitting down, so that requires picnic tables. When they've seen everything, they wanna take home a souvenir, so you exploit this by having a gift stand. The music major in me finally clicked everything into place and realized that business was simply a profitable exploitation of need.
So you have a decent zoo, and you've got a maintenance worker to clean up the trash and a tour guide to show the folks around and some decent cash flow. You start investing the money in little improvements such as benches (and guests do get tired and cranky), exhibit signs, topiaries, flowerbeds, statues, which make the guests happy. You also invest in research so your staff improve, animal care quality is upped, animal houses (like the aviary or the reptile house) become available and even endangered animals like the panda can be up for adoption.
With ur eye on the profits, u build a restaurant, a full blown gift shop and sell off the gift stand, an animatronics theatre and that's when the real cash starts rolling in. If you'd like to control the flow of cash even better, you can adjust the prices of each money-making building. You give your zoo a makeover, putting in fountains, koi ponds, japanese rock gardens, observation areas. Pretty soon, you've got one hell of a zoo to be reckoned with and you're winning really sweet cash awards.
And just when you think, okay, I've done pretty much everything there is, the two expansion packs: Dinosaur Digs and Marine Mania comes in, each with their own unique challenges (making a disaster-free Jurassic Park for example, or getting a Great White Shark to do tricks for the audience).
I got the Zoo Tycoon Ultimate Collection just a couple weeks ago for AUD$20 and it's keeping me totally entertained. When I'm done (which won't be soon) I'll probably get Zoo Tycoon 2: Ultimate Collection.
And here's a screenshot of the Ice Age zoo I built yesterday.
Dunno if this pic can be made bigger, but at the bottom is the enclosure for the Sabertoothed Cat, to the right, the Wooly Mammoth, the top, the Giant Tortoise, and offscreen on the top left is the enclosure for the Wooly Rhinoceros. Fun stuff! The igloo shaped building's a gift shop, and the building to its left is a Dino Arcade. I started out with $150,000, spent till I had $40,000 and ended the game with $90,000 in eleven months. Pretty sweet. This is a scenario with a time limit and conditions but in a freeform game, it can go on till u've basically run out of space.
Well, I know what I'll be doing this afternoon. :P
Monday, November 17, 2008
How To Occupy One's Time In Townsville!
So yea, I've procrastinated updating the blog, what's new? My excuse is that my brother hogs the laptop the whole day playing Fallout 2, those apparently addictive Facebook RPGs (Elven Blood/Blood Lust etc), or looking at webcomics. He does so for hours on end, surfacing only to eat or to go to the toilet. I'm just waiting for him to get his own laptop so I do whatever I want with it whenever I want to.
Truth is I'm just lazy and easily distracted. I think I tried to make my blog too much an elaborate chronicle of my life here, which is painstaking. So I'm gonna try a different approach and just be random and not too worry about being absolutely meticulous.
Here goes.
It's been about 47 days since settling down in Townsville. Things have certainly progressed somewhat. Visa applications have been submitted and now we're just hoping they give us an answer before December, cuz that's when government offices start winding down.
So, as the title goes, I'm gonna write a lil about what I've done to pass the time in Townsville just for fun. More for my own amusement than anyone else's. Let's see:
Music: So I'm in 3 musical groups and within the next few months (if I'm still here) I'll be performing in all of em. This Sunday I'm performing with the Choral-Aires and showcasing my ability to be multitalented haha. I'm singing a solo, accompanying for soloists, and singing in the choir. In December I'll be performing in Carols by Candlelight down at The Strand (an esplanade that's well known in Townsville). At the end of January (this one's pending my visa approval), I'll be playing the piano with an ORCHESTRA (WOOHOO!) for a short run of the hilarious musical homage to Elvis' songs (think Mamma Mia) All Shook Up! Also, I've discovered that due to a dearth of accompanists in Townsville, there are job opportunities available to me that pay quite a handsome sum. Awesome!!
Exercise: Since I have so much spare time and I'm no longer a 14 year old with a metabolic rate that incinerates calories, I've taken to jogging around the nearby park, working up quite a sweat on my mom's exercise machine, doing pushups and situps and swimming in the pool. My goal: to be in great shape by the time I get to uni - cuz that's when a hot bod's most important, bwahahaha. Now if only I can get my hands on a pair of dumbbells.
The Block: We've gone down every Saturday to "The Block", which is the land where the new house will be built. As of this week, the irrigation's up and running and the once barren land in the paddocks is now growing a green carpet of grass. The fences have been painted and the fence posts are insulated so that electric wires can be strung through the enclosure. The annoying thorny bushes have been snipped away so there's less of a chance we get our ankles bloodies by them. We've discarded hundreds of palm fronds littering our considerable backyard so that the lawnmower can be driven through the tall grass choking the entire area, and now it looks like a herd of elephants has stampeded across the area. In time, hopefully that can be transformed into something aesthetically pleasing. It is however really awesome that there's a creek behind the house. It gives off such a... Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn kinda vibe. Rustic charm, that's what it is. The creek is dry most of the time, so it's full of dry leaves, fallen trees and animal poop. Pretty sweet. I wonder where you'll end up if u keep following it. What's sweet is that there are many wallabies hiding around the creek, and a whole assortment of birds make their nests nearby. Totally appeals to the nature lover in me.
Books: In a strange twist, my tastes in books have swung towards the horror genre, which in films, I fastidiously avoid. Just look at my reading history since I came here: Dreamcatcher, Lisey's Story, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 'Salem's Lot, which are all by Stephen King. Then there's The Great and Secret Show and Everville from Clive Barker. Also, there's the darkly enthralling Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist. Right now, I have my hands on the 1300+ pg Stephen King novel "It", which I've been wanting desperately to read. My aversion to the horror genre began with the two-part TV adaptation of the book, which features a child-eating clown as its antagonist. Stephen King perhaps was responsible for coulerophobia... or perhaps clowns just have a sort of twisted macabre charm to them in their corpse-white face paint and grotesquely exaggerated make up. Either way, Stephen King has a knack for producing some all-out weird monstrosities like "shit-weasels", killer automobiles, killer artificial teeth... Enjoyable nontheless.
Movies: Thank God for Civic Video. Renting DVDs is sooooo worth it. $3 a DVD for a week, $1.50 on Tuesdays. They've got special offers and promotions here and there and I walked out of Civic Video last week with 7 movies that only cost me $10. Great stuff. Most recent watch: The History Boys.
Writing: Still working on what would hopefully be something epic. The Tolkienesque high fantasy genre is appealing to me, and I've often seen fantasy as a way to explore real world issues in a larger than life setting. Still, I find myself often stumped by a limited understanding and vocabulary when it comes to areas such as medieval politics, government, social structure, warfare, architecture and even trivial things such as the names of flowers and trees. Well, that's what research is for I guess.
All rite, time to get my lazy butt up and work up a sweat.
Truth is I'm just lazy and easily distracted. I think I tried to make my blog too much an elaborate chronicle of my life here, which is painstaking. So I'm gonna try a different approach and just be random and not too worry about being absolutely meticulous.
Here goes.
It's been about 47 days since settling down in Townsville. Things have certainly progressed somewhat. Visa applications have been submitted and now we're just hoping they give us an answer before December, cuz that's when government offices start winding down.
So, as the title goes, I'm gonna write a lil about what I've done to pass the time in Townsville just for fun. More for my own amusement than anyone else's. Let's see:
Music: So I'm in 3 musical groups and within the next few months (if I'm still here) I'll be performing in all of em. This Sunday I'm performing with the Choral-Aires and showcasing my ability to be multitalented haha. I'm singing a solo, accompanying for soloists, and singing in the choir. In December I'll be performing in Carols by Candlelight down at The Strand (an esplanade that's well known in Townsville). At the end of January (this one's pending my visa approval), I'll be playing the piano with an ORCHESTRA (WOOHOO!) for a short run of the hilarious musical homage to Elvis' songs (think Mamma Mia) All Shook Up! Also, I've discovered that due to a dearth of accompanists in Townsville, there are job opportunities available to me that pay quite a handsome sum. Awesome!!
Exercise: Since I have so much spare time and I'm no longer a 14 year old with a metabolic rate that incinerates calories, I've taken to jogging around the nearby park, working up quite a sweat on my mom's exercise machine, doing pushups and situps and swimming in the pool. My goal: to be in great shape by the time I get to uni - cuz that's when a hot bod's most important, bwahahaha. Now if only I can get my hands on a pair of dumbbells.
The Block: We've gone down every Saturday to "The Block", which is the land where the new house will be built. As of this week, the irrigation's up and running and the once barren land in the paddocks is now growing a green carpet of grass. The fences have been painted and the fence posts are insulated so that electric wires can be strung through the enclosure. The annoying thorny bushes have been snipped away so there's less of a chance we get our ankles bloodies by them. We've discarded hundreds of palm fronds littering our considerable backyard so that the lawnmower can be driven through the tall grass choking the entire area, and now it looks like a herd of elephants has stampeded across the area. In time, hopefully that can be transformed into something aesthetically pleasing. It is however really awesome that there's a creek behind the house. It gives off such a... Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn kinda vibe. Rustic charm, that's what it is. The creek is dry most of the time, so it's full of dry leaves, fallen trees and animal poop. Pretty sweet. I wonder where you'll end up if u keep following it. What's sweet is that there are many wallabies hiding around the creek, and a whole assortment of birds make their nests nearby. Totally appeals to the nature lover in me.
Books: In a strange twist, my tastes in books have swung towards the horror genre, which in films, I fastidiously avoid. Just look at my reading history since I came here: Dreamcatcher, Lisey's Story, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 'Salem's Lot, which are all by Stephen King. Then there's The Great and Secret Show and Everville from Clive Barker. Also, there's the darkly enthralling Faerie Tale by Raymond E Feist. Right now, I have my hands on the 1300+ pg Stephen King novel "It", which I've been wanting desperately to read. My aversion to the horror genre began with the two-part TV adaptation of the book, which features a child-eating clown as its antagonist. Stephen King perhaps was responsible for coulerophobia... or perhaps clowns just have a sort of twisted macabre charm to them in their corpse-white face paint and grotesquely exaggerated make up. Either way, Stephen King has a knack for producing some all-out weird monstrosities like "shit-weasels", killer automobiles, killer artificial teeth... Enjoyable nontheless.
Movies: Thank God for Civic Video. Renting DVDs is sooooo worth it. $3 a DVD for a week, $1.50 on Tuesdays. They've got special offers and promotions here and there and I walked out of Civic Video last week with 7 movies that only cost me $10. Great stuff. Most recent watch: The History Boys.
Writing: Still working on what would hopefully be something epic. The Tolkienesque high fantasy genre is appealing to me, and I've often seen fantasy as a way to explore real world issues in a larger than life setting. Still, I find myself often stumped by a limited understanding and vocabulary when it comes to areas such as medieval politics, government, social structure, warfare, architecture and even trivial things such as the names of flowers and trees. Well, that's what research is for I guess.
All rite, time to get my lazy butt up and work up a sweat.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Captain the Mearas and pigging out at Freemason's
So where was I?
Ah yes, did I tell you that Gary owns horses? He's like a horse expert. On the road to Gary's parents' place, we stopped to see one of the horses he used to own - can't remember the name, but it was a flea-bitten gray (dunno why they call it that, it looked more like chocolate-flecked-white). There were also two brown horses in a paddock beside his parents' place named Mouse and Susie. But the one that took my breath away was Captain!
If you watched the Lord of the Rings, you'd know about Shadowfax, the Chief of the Mearas, a beautiful horse that Gandalf calls into service. Seeing Captain as he stood on a hill quite a distance away was like a scene out of a movie. An elegant vision in white (he's considered gray though) against a backdrop of green, observing us calmly as we approached the fence like a prince spotting a subject approaching. Gary and his parents call him and their voices ring out in the open air. He's uncertain at first, probably cuz he sees Asian people standing with his white owners (haha). Gary's stepmom goes to get him, and when she's attracted enough interest for him to follow her, she runs towards us, and Captain follows.
Captain's a real poser man. Maybe he wants to make it big in the film industry someday. He makes a great show of tossing his mane in the wind as he gallops down from the hill, and within seconds, he's in front of us. He gets fed a special treat - food pellets and thick, gooey molasses. Gary says that's why he's fat. He doesn't look that out of shape to me. Here's a couple of pics.
See the background in the first pic? Awesome huh? And here's a group pic with us walking to the stables. See the little doggies?
After we're done, we head out to this buffet place called Freemason's (or something like that but nothing to do with the not-so-secret society) and for AUD$16.90, it's eat all you can! The place is a real gem, having a real country feel to it. It's got a whole separate section for slot machines and other big, flashy, you-may-lose-that-quarter-and-then-some kinda games. They even have a little low ceilinged alcove for kids (if you can stand up inside without hitting ur head on the ceiling, ur a kid) who wanna have a go at the PS2 games that are there. There are TVs overhead showing some rugged 1970s country singer going at it, and there's even a small TV above the urinal in the men's room!
And the food! Oh my... Roast beef and roast pork with crackle if you'd like, a salad bar with great variety, baked/mashed potatoes, roasted pumpkins, spaghetti, chicken pot pie, mushroom soup (the real good kind where they chop in fresh mushrooms), apple crumble, chocolate mousse, bread pudding and custard, all the vanilla ice cream you want. Mm MM!
I'll stop here so I can at least say I've posted something. Nyahaha. Will continue with next post about how I met my three Australian-Filipino step-nephews!
Ah yes, did I tell you that Gary owns horses? He's like a horse expert. On the road to Gary's parents' place, we stopped to see one of the horses he used to own - can't remember the name, but it was a flea-bitten gray (dunno why they call it that, it looked more like chocolate-flecked-white). There were also two brown horses in a paddock beside his parents' place named Mouse and Susie. But the one that took my breath away was Captain!
If you watched the Lord of the Rings, you'd know about Shadowfax, the Chief of the Mearas, a beautiful horse that Gandalf calls into service. Seeing Captain as he stood on a hill quite a distance away was like a scene out of a movie. An elegant vision in white (he's considered gray though) against a backdrop of green, observing us calmly as we approached the fence like a prince spotting a subject approaching. Gary and his parents call him and their voices ring out in the open air. He's uncertain at first, probably cuz he sees Asian people standing with his white owners (haha). Gary's stepmom goes to get him, and when she's attracted enough interest for him to follow her, she runs towards us, and Captain follows.
Captain's a real poser man. Maybe he wants to make it big in the film industry someday. He makes a great show of tossing his mane in the wind as he gallops down from the hill, and within seconds, he's in front of us. He gets fed a special treat - food pellets and thick, gooey molasses. Gary says that's why he's fat. He doesn't look that out of shape to me. Here's a couple of pics.
See the background in the first pic? Awesome huh? And here's a group pic with us walking to the stables. See the little doggies?
After we're done, we head out to this buffet place called Freemason's (or something like that but nothing to do with the not-so-secret society) and for AUD$16.90, it's eat all you can! The place is a real gem, having a real country feel to it. It's got a whole separate section for slot machines and other big, flashy, you-may-lose-that-quarter-and-then-some kinda games. They even have a little low ceilinged alcove for kids (if you can stand up inside without hitting ur head on the ceiling, ur a kid) who wanna have a go at the PS2 games that are there. There are TVs overhead showing some rugged 1970s country singer going at it, and there's even a small TV above the urinal in the men's room!
And the food! Oh my... Roast beef and roast pork with crackle if you'd like, a salad bar with great variety, baked/mashed potatoes, roasted pumpkins, spaghetti, chicken pot pie, mushroom soup (the real good kind where they chop in fresh mushrooms), apple crumble, chocolate mousse, bread pudding and custard, all the vanilla ice cream you want. Mm MM!
I'll stop here so I can at least say I've posted something. Nyahaha. Will continue with next post about how I met my three Australian-Filipino step-nephews!
Departure from Malaysia. Surfer's Paradise. Gympie.
Ya know, after procrastinating all this time ever since my Xanga was left out there in cyberspace to decompose (isn't there a joke out there about what a musician does when he dies? he de-composes? HA HA HA! ok ok that's a bad way to start) and since I've got pretty much all the free time I want (no PR yet, not allowed to work, so I'm forced to laze around in Australia not having to move a reluctant muscle for the sake of cash) , and since I've moved away from Malaysia, (which may or may not be a permanent thing depending on the outcome of my PR application) necessitating the need to keep my friends and family back home informed, I have finally mustered up sufficient self-motivation to start a blog! Hooray for me! And yay for all those parentheses. They always seem to pop up when I'm writing a blog post. I'll blame it on my inclination towards exposition. :P
So this blog is for all my friends and family who wanna keep tabs on me and my life outside of Malaysia. Should plans go awry and I'm back in Malaysia for Christmas, this blog will be thrown into some black hole in cyberspace, never to be seen again... Nah. I'll keep it open anyway. I see the appeal of having a blog. Having a place where it's all about you, with no one to interrupt your incessant, self-absorbed rambling, except in the form of comments which you could simply choose to ignore anyway. So yea, viva the birth of my blog!
Be forewarned, this current post will have no pictures of any sort. I'm guessing this blog will force me to take out my camera and snap away at every event I'm attending, but for now, cuz my camera's not functioning yet, this post will be all words. And since the old saying goes "a picture paints a thousand words", here's the equivalent of a few pics for ya. :)
So after the mother of all farewells at the airport where tears flowed, pictures were taken, difficult goodbyes were said (moving on to happier thoughts) we went down the escalator to board.
Now, the weight limit for the check-in bag is 25kg and we scraped past that with some bags being a few tenths of a kilo over without having to be charged. Whew. The thing was, each of us, me and my three siblings, mom, and Gary had like 3 carry-0ns each (backpack, laptop/violin/handbag and the actual carry-on) and i've always been worried in situations like this that airport staff will give us the eye and say "no, that's waaaay past ur limit" and we'd have to chuck something away. It was the same situation with me coming back from Hawaii, I was so worried the cabin crew would frown and ask me to leave something behind.
Thankfully, cabin crews are nice folks and I think they turn a blind eye to these things. If we were trying to carry my sister's cello aboard, that'd have been a different story, but yea.
So we were sitting there in a waiting place when Gary took a look at the flight tickets and got a little disgruntled when he saw his ticket was 17A and my mom's ticket was 17C. Eventually it was explained that there are no B seats. Kinda strange. I bet the guy explaining it to Gary must have gotten questions like that a lot.
So, boarding time came, and we walked. Oh yes, we walked. Why is Air Asia cheaper? You walk. There's a fairly looong trek to the airplane and our hand-carry luggage ain't light. Boarding planes this way has always reminded me of presidents or celebrities boarding their private aircraft and waving glamorously at the cameras. Obviously this wasn't quite the same. Nevertheless, we managed to squeeze past the tight aisles, stow our stuff and park our butts down.
I tell ya, one day before I die, I wanna fly first class. Maybe there's a mistake and oh what? No seat for Tyler Chin? Sir wouldja like to fly first class? Uh huh! Then there'll be a leather reclining seat twice as wide as my butt's width that I can just sink into, with cabin staff feeding me grapes and sashimi, and I'll be sipping on ginger ale, and there'll be lotsa space to walk around, maybe a park in there, and a swimming pool... kinda like Wall-E... Oh what wondrous mysteries lie beyond the curtains leading to the First Class? Will a lowly bard like me ever know? Anyway, I digress.
Flight was pretty uneventful. It's passable entertainment since it always has a suspenseful beginning and end. Turbulence was minimal, and thank goodness none when I was taking a leak. The nasi lemak was definitely sub-standard, and crap, now I'm craving it as I type....
We arrived in Coolangatta Airport (yea, Australia has a whole lot of cool n strange sounding places) where there was another minor drama with my sister's check-in luggage going missing (later we found it was set aside cuz there was an "Expedite" label still stuck to the handle of her luggage). The immigration officer (and all other Australians) pronounced my name "Toilah", and it still sounds strange to me. One thing I noticed about the accent is that every final unaccented "er" syllable becomes "ah". Like river becomes "rivah", water = "wohtah" hahaha. After the initial kookiness, it does become quite endearing. Still, I don't think I'll be infected or people will really have a hard time understanding me back home!
The weather's pretty dang cool in Brisbane, irregardless of the sun shining down. We traveled by car, some uh... Kia model... with 3 plus 3 seats at the back... (my automobile vocab is very limited). Dunno what u call it but anyway, it's sweet cuz it fit ALL our luggage, even though the rear view mirror was rendered useless. Haha.
We went down to Surfers' Paradise, and despite the cool air, there was no lack of people frolicking on the beach, and half-naked chiseled men jogging down the sidewalk. I on the other hand put on this big comfy jacket and zipped up to the horror of my siblings who thought I was being a disgrace.
We also got the chance to stop by a beach, and memories of Hawaii came flooding back. Actually, a lot of Australia that's near the coast reminds me of Hawaii. Well, how different can beaches be? Unless ur comparing with Port Dickson then that's a different story. But the sun, the surf rolling in ready to consume unsuspecting swimmers, the warm unpolluted sand that just lets your feet sink in to the ankles... oh... just gorgeous (oh no, I sound like the Crocodile Hunter, bless him).
After ooh-ing and aah-ing for about an hour on the road, most of us save Gary were dozing in the car. Australia is a BIIIG place. I mean, it's land mass is as big as the US (excluding Alaska)! Flying between a state takes 2 hours, so that's like 16-17 hours of driving! Gaah!
We stopped over at this nice little rented house for a shower then went off to visit Gary's folks in Gympie (pronounced gim (not jim)-pee). Now I recently discovered that I'm equally in love with the countryside and the bustling city, and Gympie is the former.
Gary's parents live in a remade shed (dunno if that's right) which is really not as bad as it sounds cuz there's space for a whole kitchen and a comfortable bedroom atop of this hill that overlooks many many many acres of land.
Imagine lush green pastures, cool clear air, mountains framing the horizon, wooden fences, tilled earth sprouting fresh vegetables, bougainvillas to name a flower from the numerous others amidst macadamia trees abloom with vivid colors, a herd of cattle grazing peacefully, a crow cawing, a bush turkey scrambles across the field in search of food... paradise! Truly!
It's a place where the busy air of city life dissipates and all your senses feel... at ease.
Gary's parents are just adorable. They're exactly the kind of people you'd imagine would live in a place like this. Two souls just filled with wholesome goodness, living a simple life out there in quiet little Gympie. They have two cute lil terriers named Jemma and Monty, which they took in because they were mistreated pretty badly by the previous owner. One's more inquisitive while the other's more wary.
to be cont'd in next post... sleepy... ive been typing for more than an hour... haha...
So this blog is for all my friends and family who wanna keep tabs on me and my life outside of Malaysia. Should plans go awry and I'm back in Malaysia for Christmas, this blog will be thrown into some black hole in cyberspace, never to be seen again... Nah. I'll keep it open anyway. I see the appeal of having a blog. Having a place where it's all about you, with no one to interrupt your incessant, self-absorbed rambling, except in the form of comments which you could simply choose to ignore anyway. So yea, viva the birth of my blog!
Be forewarned, this current post will have no pictures of any sort. I'm guessing this blog will force me to take out my camera and snap away at every event I'm attending, but for now, cuz my camera's not functioning yet, this post will be all words. And since the old saying goes "a picture paints a thousand words", here's the equivalent of a few pics for ya. :)
So after the mother of all farewells at the airport where tears flowed, pictures were taken, difficult goodbyes were said (moving on to happier thoughts) we went down the escalator to board.
Now, the weight limit for the check-in bag is 25kg and we scraped past that with some bags being a few tenths of a kilo over without having to be charged. Whew. The thing was, each of us, me and my three siblings, mom, and Gary had like 3 carry-0ns each (backpack, laptop/violin/handbag and the actual carry-on) and i've always been worried in situations like this that airport staff will give us the eye and say "no, that's waaaay past ur limit" and we'd have to chuck something away. It was the same situation with me coming back from Hawaii, I was so worried the cabin crew would frown and ask me to leave something behind.
Thankfully, cabin crews are nice folks and I think they turn a blind eye to these things. If we were trying to carry my sister's cello aboard, that'd have been a different story, but yea.
So we were sitting there in a waiting place when Gary took a look at the flight tickets and got a little disgruntled when he saw his ticket was 17A and my mom's ticket was 17C. Eventually it was explained that there are no B seats. Kinda strange. I bet the guy explaining it to Gary must have gotten questions like that a lot.
So, boarding time came, and we walked. Oh yes, we walked. Why is Air Asia cheaper? You walk. There's a fairly looong trek to the airplane and our hand-carry luggage ain't light. Boarding planes this way has always reminded me of presidents or celebrities boarding their private aircraft and waving glamorously at the cameras. Obviously this wasn't quite the same. Nevertheless, we managed to squeeze past the tight aisles, stow our stuff and park our butts down.
I tell ya, one day before I die, I wanna fly first class. Maybe there's a mistake and oh what? No seat for Tyler Chin? Sir wouldja like to fly first class? Uh huh! Then there'll be a leather reclining seat twice as wide as my butt's width that I can just sink into, with cabin staff feeding me grapes and sashimi, and I'll be sipping on ginger ale, and there'll be lotsa space to walk around, maybe a park in there, and a swimming pool... kinda like Wall-E... Oh what wondrous mysteries lie beyond the curtains leading to the First Class? Will a lowly bard like me ever know? Anyway, I digress.
Flight was pretty uneventful. It's passable entertainment since it always has a suspenseful beginning and end. Turbulence was minimal, and thank goodness none when I was taking a leak. The nasi lemak was definitely sub-standard, and crap, now I'm craving it as I type....
We arrived in Coolangatta Airport (yea, Australia has a whole lot of cool n strange sounding places) where there was another minor drama with my sister's check-in luggage going missing (later we found it was set aside cuz there was an "Expedite" label still stuck to the handle of her luggage). The immigration officer (and all other Australians) pronounced my name "Toilah", and it still sounds strange to me. One thing I noticed about the accent is that every final unaccented "er" syllable becomes "ah". Like river becomes "rivah", water = "wohtah" hahaha. After the initial kookiness, it does become quite endearing. Still, I don't think I'll be infected or people will really have a hard time understanding me back home!
The weather's pretty dang cool in Brisbane, irregardless of the sun shining down. We traveled by car, some uh... Kia model... with 3 plus 3 seats at the back... (my automobile vocab is very limited). Dunno what u call it but anyway, it's sweet cuz it fit ALL our luggage, even though the rear view mirror was rendered useless. Haha.
We went down to Surfers' Paradise, and despite the cool air, there was no lack of people frolicking on the beach, and half-naked chiseled men jogging down the sidewalk. I on the other hand put on this big comfy jacket and zipped up to the horror of my siblings who thought I was being a disgrace.
We also got the chance to stop by a beach, and memories of Hawaii came flooding back. Actually, a lot of Australia that's near the coast reminds me of Hawaii. Well, how different can beaches be? Unless ur comparing with Port Dickson then that's a different story. But the sun, the surf rolling in ready to consume unsuspecting swimmers, the warm unpolluted sand that just lets your feet sink in to the ankles... oh... just gorgeous (oh no, I sound like the Crocodile Hunter, bless him).
After ooh-ing and aah-ing for about an hour on the road, most of us save Gary were dozing in the car. Australia is a BIIIG place. I mean, it's land mass is as big as the US (excluding Alaska)! Flying between a state takes 2 hours, so that's like 16-17 hours of driving! Gaah!
We stopped over at this nice little rented house for a shower then went off to visit Gary's folks in Gympie (pronounced gim (not jim)-pee). Now I recently discovered that I'm equally in love with the countryside and the bustling city, and Gympie is the former.
Gary's parents live in a remade shed (dunno if that's right) which is really not as bad as it sounds cuz there's space for a whole kitchen and a comfortable bedroom atop of this hill that overlooks many many many acres of land.
Imagine lush green pastures, cool clear air, mountains framing the horizon, wooden fences, tilled earth sprouting fresh vegetables, bougainvillas to name a flower from the numerous others amidst macadamia trees abloom with vivid colors, a herd of cattle grazing peacefully, a crow cawing, a bush turkey scrambles across the field in search of food... paradise! Truly!
It's a place where the busy air of city life dissipates and all your senses feel... at ease.
Gary's parents are just adorable. They're exactly the kind of people you'd imagine would live in a place like this. Two souls just filled with wholesome goodness, living a simple life out there in quiet little Gympie. They have two cute lil terriers named Jemma and Monty, which they took in because they were mistreated pretty badly by the previous owner. One's more inquisitive while the other's more wary.
to be cont'd in next post... sleepy... ive been typing for more than an hour... haha...
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