 ++Great Beaches++ |
| ++Tokyo Fall++ |
| ++Danish Summer++ |
| ++Yokohama Harbour++ |
| ++SeedPods++ |
| ++South Korea++ |
| ++Shibuya Tokyo++ |
| ++Colors By Numbers++ |
| ++Great Beaches++ |
| ++Tokyo Fall++ |
| ++Danish Summer++ |
| ++Yokohama Harbour++ |
| ++SeedPods++ |
| ++South Korea++ |
| ++Shibuya Tokyo++ |
| ++Colors By Numbers++ |
| ++Israeli's in Asia++ |
| ++Winter 2003/04++ |
| ++Late Autumn 2003++ |
| ++Autumn 2003++ |
| ++A New Hope++ |
| ++Akiko's Ambush++ |
| ++EyeTest++ |
| ++Club Bunker Holocaust++ |
| ++Gravity++ |
| ++New Founde World++ |
| ++Musk++ |
| ++Zreek++ |
| ++Freek++ |
| ++Freeze++ |
| ++Cheek++ |
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MANY PEOPLE IN JAPAN (where I live now) often ask me "Why did you come here?", as if they can't understand why anyone would choose to move to such a harried, overcrowded, go-go-go environment. They can't believe I would voluntarily leave behind the blue skies and pristine seas of Australia, and come to live in their homeland. What they fail to consider is that after 27 years of life in Australia, I figured I had experienced as much as I needed to experience of Australian life. And what they fail to understand is that while it has plenty of fresh air and open spaces, Australia can also be as boring as hell when it comes to cultural experiences. When I was a child there, all I wanted to do was to get out. Preferably to Europe, because it seemed so temperate and cultured and so far removed from the brown scrublands of my own country, and because the books I read were set in European type landscapes (for example, "Lord of the Rings".) If there was snow and lots of people with blond hair, even better. In my ideal life I figured I would be living somewhere like the spruce forests of Norway or in some small town in Iceland, and every night would be decorated with the Northern Lights.
Of course, things never work out the way you expect them to do, and your dreams have a habit of building upon themselves, adding new layers, and metamorphosising. (But your dreams do want to come true, if you allow them to express themselves, step by step!) Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the trip changed me on many levels. But the biggest shock happened at the start of the holiday, when we made a two-day stopover in Bangkok, Thailand. Just like the Middle East, I had never considered Asia as a place to visit, let alone to live. But after just two days in Thailand from December 26-28 1992, my feelings about Asia underwent a complete revolution. I was a travel virgin, so my sense of culture shock was extreme -- I have never felt that kind of culture shock since then, and doubtless I ever will. You can only lose your virginity once, and I lost my (travel) virginity in Bangkok! It was the ultimate exotic experience -- so chaotic and strange -- so ancient and modern -- so colourful and beautiful -- so ugly and repugnant. So addictive! The smells of leather and Thai food and sewage and incense mixed together into one baffling aroma. The shock of poverty and affluence in the same street (beggars outside the Japanese department store.) The realisation that home is a very small place indeed, and that there are countless other worlds existing everywhere, existing without our knowledge. As I said, it was the ultimate travel experience for me, and I will never experience the like of it again. But one consequence of this stunning baptism is that I have been addicted to Asia ever since those two dazed days of 1992. From that point on, I knew I had to live in Asia. Europe could wait, for the time's being at least!
MY FIRST SINGAPORE MOMENT - january 1993
Anyway, I remember enjoying the stunning views of Singapore City as we approached the airport, and the sun shone stong, and the air was blue and clear. It was afternoon, and I had been flying all night, enjoying the luxuries only Turkish Airlines can present. We landed, and I remember ambling around the airport for an hour or two. I remember seeing the big "Selamat Datang" (welcome!) sign hanging over one of the indoor tropical gardens. But I was desperate to get home to Australia after two months in strange places, so I didn't pay much attention to how beautiful the airport was.
It would be 14 or 15 months before I would be back (again, for only a fleeting, airport-centric visit.) But in that time, as I finished my university degree in Australia, I would undergo a profound cultural revolution. I would become what Japanese might call an Asia-mania -- an Asian-fanatic, and I would dedicate my life to living and loving in Asia!
MY SECOND SINGAPORE MOMENT - april 1994
But -- screw them! They were going to hear what I had to say about the Middle East and the wider world! I would not remain silent. This website is testament to this fact!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Jakarta Dreams
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After spending all of my early years dreaming about Europe, but never actually leaving Australia, I was invited to accompany my university friend Garnet Mae on a voyage in 1992. He was planning to go to the Middle East, a place that wasn't even on my travel wish list -- but he had such a confident, I-can-do-anything spirit that I felt sure I could be safe with him, even if I had no money. He was an experienced traveller, and taught me that you didn't need much money on the backpacker circuit (so long as you kept to the cheaper countries.) In my ideal world, I would have preferred to go to Iceland and Norway rather than the Middle East. But Iceland and Norway were (and still are) prohibitively expensive, whereas the Middle East was affordable to a university student like me. So, I decided to go, thinking that any travel had to be good travel, even if it was to a part of the world I had never been interested in before.
incredible experiences during my two-month holiday -- visited the Pyramids at Giza and the goat town oasis of Siwa in the middle of the desert near the Libyan border, lolled around a Palestian refugee camp and seen countless machine guns and tanks, traipsed through the snowy streets of Istanbul where everyone wore fur hats and moustaches. In short, I had tasted the vastness and diversity of the world, and then been forced back into the little box of Australian university life. It had been a cool and mesmerising little box before I blasted out of it, but now it was sterile and boring. It's funny how stupendous new experiences can make your old life seem intolerable and dull. Nobody wanted to hear my stories about Israel or the troubles of the Middle East. Nothing in Australia could compare with the feeling and the freedom of the open roads and bus routes of the Golan Heights or Lower Egypt, the sickly-sweet smells of a Bangkok market.
