Running

There was a marathon in the Hunter Valley though the vineyards. Today, there was a marathon/ultramarathon (60kms) in Canberra City Centre. I've driven through two marathons in the last two weeks. It must be a sign -- maybe I should start training for another marathon as well. It's about persistence right? So one must continuously keep up running marathons to continue the persistence spirit. Though it's difficult to train while traveling, people manage all the time. Anyone in New York up for training for one in the winter/spring?

Sand Dunes

Port Stephens is home to amazing sand dunes that are constantly moving and evolving. The sand here is incredibly fine and you might have seen it before--they mine the sand here for the sparkling white beaches of Hawaii!

Tin City, a "tin shack" city with squatter rights, is where parts of the original Star Wars I was filmed. It's a collection of about 6 tin shacks--but don't let the outsides fool you, the insides are apparently comfy with cable and all!




Sand Sledding/Surfing! It's STEEP! 40 degree angle, at least!


Chocolate colored water -- the wind causes such great sand turbulence that the water turns a murky brown a few days of the year.

Where to Travel?

When people discuss traveling, they swap stories about places they have been. You get inspired by your friend who got lost in the Louvre, who danced till dawn in the Madrid, who drank margaritas in Cancun. I believe that the the top US destinations for the independent travelers are typically South East Asia, Europe and Latin America. Relatively few make the trek out here to Australia because of the distance and the similarity to the US.

So who are the travelers here? According to a recent study, 21% of Australian backpackers are from the UK and 9% from Germany. Through conversations, I learned that the British all come here for the sun and ease of traveling. The wide open spaces (hahah, Dixie Chicks) are a huge draw to them. With Germany, I figure there are similar weather reasons, as well as the chance to learn English. Many people come here for a gap year to perfect their English, what better way to travel and study at the same time?

Where shall my next trip be? There are fewer and fewer untrodden places in the world. Africa and Antarctica are no longer off limits,. It seems that other than the moon, rural Latvia, is probably one of the most exotic places that I can think of.

Work and Stereotypes

If you want to travel and are willing to work, then Australia is your place. Unlike the US where there is an influx of labor from Mexico, Australia must draw upon the world for labors on its farms. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people follow the harvest seasons around the countryside, traveling and working along the way. You have your pick of jobs: macadamia nut harvesting, grape vine pruning, cattle herding, sheep shearing, the list goes on. Or, you can become a WWOOFer, a Willing Worker on an Organic Farm, in which you work for ~5hrs a day in exchange for free room and board. Stints can range from 2 days to 6 months. It's a hugely popular program and maybe I'll come back as a wwoofer years down the road.

I have met a ton of Asian travelers here. At first, I was surprised to find such a high number of Japanese, Koreans and Chinese -- but on second though, Australia and Asia are relatively close geographically. So amazingly, people make an effort to differentiate between ethnicities, unlike in many parts of Europe, where all races are lumped together as "Asian."

Another surprise is that there are so many Japanese and Korean workers. My previous conception was that the Japanese and Koreans are economically well off and don't do farm labor. But I was getting a biased sample--most of the Japanese and Koreans who immigrated to the US were wealthy and highly educated. It's a misconception just as that of most Americans who believe Chinese and Indians are mathematically talented -- because only the best (and usually those in the hard sciences) were able to emigrate out of the country.

Photo Journey

Murwillumbah & Mt. Warning

Murwillumbah is a beautiful mountain town at the base of Mt. Warning, the 2nd highest crater mountain in the southern hemisphere. Here in Murwillumbah, I met Tassie, the YHA hostel owner and one of the most incredible people in the world. He's one of those rare people gifted with a way of understanding others. One who you talk can unaffectedly, one who listens and relates. Tassie's gift is people.

Views of Mt. Warning

The Murwillumbah countryside

The YHA

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Nimbin

Nimbin is the marijuana center of Australia. Originally a dedicated hippy community, Nimbin is now more touristy. Still, anyone who walks down the street is sure to get offered "Cookies?" "Dope?" etc. The police turn a blind eye -- some say that the government tolerates it because it would rather all the pot consumption be concentrated in this one small area than spread elsewhere in the state/country. As long as marijuana can be controlled here, there'll be less dealings and disruptions in the larger cities.

The atmosphere is super vibrant and friendly. Everyone is happy and relaxed. The colors here place are gorgeous.

Some cool signs

An old hippy bus

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Dubbo Zoo

Dubbo, the Australia's Missouri City into the Outback, is famous for its Western Plains Zoo. I attended a volunteer run morning walk with the animals at 6:45am.

The tour guide naturally asked me "Where are you from?" After learning that I was from California, he said that after taking a trip of over 30 famous world zoos, the San Diego Zoo stood out as the best and most professional zoo of all. Wow! It rightly claims its title, the World Famous San Diego Zoo.

I guess it's no wonder it's harder and harder to be amazed as my standards continue increasing, especially in regards to zoos. I grew up with the World Famous San Diego Zoo and the equally amazing San Diego Wild Animal Park. To top that off, Sea World was also next door. Growing up, I watched polar bears plunged into water pools from behind glass windows, I reached out to African gazelles, giraffes, elephants and rhinos roaming together from the monorail train, I strolled under sharks swimming above me from underwater walkways.

If I were ignorant, then everything would be fascinating and I would find the Dubbo zoo incredible. But as Socrates said, "it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied." I agree to an extent.

The Dubbo Zoo does have some cool Australian animals including the wombat and the echidna. This wombat prefers cotton to its usual roots.

The echidna is porcupine looking monotreme, a mammal that lays eggs and feeds its young milk like the platypus! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme

Also here are some African meerkats standing sentinel. They always wear a goofy looking grin!

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National Parks

I visited some amazing national parks through this trip.

Bald Rocks is one of the largest exposed granite rock in the world.

Dunns Swamp in Wollemi NP is just stunningly gorgeous

Swan Rocks looks like a giant pipe organ.

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Bathurst

This town is a midsized industrial town that is home to the V8 stock car racing competition. I did my 2 loops around the 6km Mt. Panorama track, a couple hundred short of the 1000kms the racers do here every October.

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Blue Mountains

The Blue Mountains is a national park retreat 1.5hr west of Sydney. The mountains here appear blue in the light and are so aptly named. The most famous site is that of the Three Sisters, the rock formation shown here.

I went on a walkabout, an aboriginal pilgrimage, through sacred sites of the native Drunj people. This is a rock carving warning against family feuds. The young wallaby (right) is being attacked by a rainbow serpent because he failed to listen (facing away) to the mother wallaby (left).

Here is an aboriginal bark painting that I made using ochre paints.

Below is a picture of an Italian in my walkabout group using the ochre paints. He came to Sydney for World Youth Day, the HUGE Catholic celebration conference this week. Over 200,000 "pilgrims" have come from around the world to Sydney. Not an hour goes by without a reference to the WYD on the radio -- I can only imagine what it's like in Sydney.

The Universe

As one leaves the eastern Australian coast, the land becomes desert-like. It's country out here. This Central/Western region of the New South Wales state is known as the Big Sky Region. Its unpolluted skies are normally perfect for star gazing, unless it's been rainy as it has been in the last few days.

The Parkes Radio Telescope Dish


The large 64m telescope at Parkes made famous by the movie The Dish. The movie reputedly has great Aussie humor and is based on a true story.

A radio telescope maps the radio frequencies of the universe and can thus operate day and night. The space frequencies are reflected off the dish and concentrated at the receiving foci that extends out in from the middle of the dish. The images it produces are like the infrared diagrams from night vision goggles.

The telescope complex showed some very well done films that attempted to put size in perspective. What is BIG? Bigger than BIG? The universe is so massive that its size is barely comprehensible. It takes hundreds of millions of millions of light years to travel to the end of our known universe. So far, scientists have mapped our universe, but what is beyond that? If we began with the Big Bang and the universe is currently expanding, what is it expanding into?

In a way, it seems that we have been more successful at micro level studies. We understand protons, electrons and their energy components. We understand energy and matter. But on the other extreme, what lies beyond our universe? If you're like me, I usually gloss over the exhibit literature for the flashy interactive displays in science museums.
Take a moment seriously. Now. Just think. Imagine the night sky. Picture the stars. Their satellite moons. That starlight we see is millions of years old. Looking into the sky is like going back into time. We are seeing the light of stars that has traveled millions of millions of light years. In a way, time travel is possible if we can travel faster than light!

Five of the six radio telescope dishes at the Australia Telescope Complex in Narrabri. Instead of one huge dish, the six telescopes operate in conjunction and are more efficient in mapping the sky. The telescopes move into position along a 3km long railway track at 4km per hour according to researcher needs.

Thanksgiving - A pause

Little did I know that as I began my travels here in Australia, one of my dearest friends laid in an emergency room fighting for her life. In a spilt second, a happy enroute trip to a graduation celebration became the frantic ambulance rush to the hospital. Thank goodness she is recovering. ML, my thoughts and prayers are with you daily.

We complain about our jobs, our appearances, our relationships. But that's because we have jobs, have health, have people in our lives. We complain because we have the liberty to: we are not sick, hungry or homeless.

We rush through life. From one meeting to another, from one obligation to another. At the end, what is most important? As we fly through life, it takes an external shock to forces us to pause our busy routine and to reflect and appreciate.

A few months ago, a friend inspired me to create a soundtrack, which I termed my "Quarter Life Soundtrack." One way is to think that a quarter of my life has passed by. But from another angle, I still have a statistically good 50+ years of living. There's still time to try, to experience, to learn, to live.

Thanksgiving, I use to think of it as just another holiday. Going to college thousands of miles from home, I never went home for Thanksgiving and always wondered why we couldn't just roll together with Christmas for an extended holiday. But now, I realize the meaning behind Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is one of the most important holidays ever--it's an opportunity to give thanks for the people in life, your family and your friends.

Where are you from?

During first introductions, the most common questions after "What is your name?" is "Where are you from?" To this, I normally answer "San Diego," "California," or "San Diego, California." However, what most people really want to know is "What are you? What is your race?" The questioners are only half interested in my hometown whereabouts, they are more interested in knowing my race. But the question "What is your race?" is rude, therefore, it is masked by the more politically correct, "Where are you from?"

Nevertheless, the hidden nature of the second race inquiry becomes patent when traveling. People always politely ask where I'm from, and when I say the States, they typically say, "Oh. The US. But your heritage is Asian, right?" It is then, that I politely answer their true question of ethnicity, "Yes, I'm Chinese.

Therefore, if I say that I am from America, I am not really from America in the questioner's eyes. So should I just say I'm from China instead? I'm not alone in this quandary. Hispanics, Africans (the over 50 different nations!), Middle Easterners and Asians in the US all face this problem of a second heritage. So then again, maybe having a second part answer is part of the American equation. Because the United States is melting pot of cultures, to be American is to have roots in another country. To be American is to have family, both recent and past, that has immigrated to "the land of opportunity."

I know that my answer to the question "Where are you from?" will always have a second part. And I welcome the question and embrace my ethnicity. I have black hair, dark dark brown eyes (apparently black eyes don't exist), and a flat-bridged nose. Yes. I'm from States, but I am Chinese.

Haha, a real convo as I was typing this entry.

German: "Hi, where are you from?"

Me: "The United States."

German: "You don't look like it."

Me: Chuckle "Yes, I'm Chinese."