Fast, fun, freaking fact.

The Barrier Reef Anemonefish. Very interesting creature, this one. Groups of this fish live in a single anemone, of the variety that is poisonous to other fish (but not to them). The group is dominated by the largest female. The second in command is the largest male. However, should the largest female perish (you know, perhaps being poisoned by a poisonous cone fish or something), the largest male steps up to the plate. But he doesn’t step up as a guy. Nope, he assumes her position by changing sexes. De-di-cation.

Australian Time Delay

My apologies; I wrote this in Australia with the intent of posting it once I was back in Shanghai. Then I arrived in Shanghai to discover that blogger (and facebook, twitter, and youtube) was still blocked. So now, a few weeks late: here's an update on my Australian adventure:

I’m again in a place with no cell phone reception, very little internet, and infrequent transportation. Where am I?, you may ask. Am I in the middle of a desert? In a black hole? Took a trip to outer-space? Nope; I’m still in Australia. I’m on Heron Island off the coast of Gladstone, which is north of Brisbane. In all fairness, Heron Island is about 85km off the Queensland coast in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. Why would have have internet in the ocean? And the Island is actually part of the Reef. Literally, the island is composed of thousands of year old reef bits. It’s pretty incredible. My room looks out onto the beach, which itself is inside of a Reef bed. I take it back; this is undeniably incredible. Who needs internet/reception when you've got this? Not I!

When our helicopter landed on the island today (yes, helicopter), we walked out onto the docks to survey the scene, and what did I spy with my little eye? A black tipped reef shark. How do I know for sure that’s what it was? Because I saw it four days ago in the Sydney Aquarium. And today I saw it swimming around the Great Barrier Reef. Luckily, a group of high school students that they’re friendly sharks (I’m thinking, Finding Nemo-style friendly? That didn’t last all that long!) and you can swim with them. I’m going to double check on that one before I dive in. Maybe triple check. Swimming with the dolphins is supposed to be a memorable experience, but fewer people say the same thing about swimming with sharks…probably because they aren’t around to remember.

Previous to Heron Island I was on Phillips Island, which is about 140km from Melbourne. Not to sound repetitive, but it was also fantastic -- albeit in a completely different fashion. Where Heron Island is warm with sharks swimming in the crystal waters and people walking in sarongs, Phillips Island was cold with crystal blue skies and lush green hills that were spotted with cows and sheep. And there was the odd wallaby in the bush as well. Seriously, wallabies in the bush!

On Phillips Island we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast run by two wonderful people, John and Robyn. John gave a tour of his farm, and pointed out black dots on a far hill that were his cattle. He also took us to his brother’s dairy farm just over the hill where we watched and helped with the evening milking of 230 cows. Robyn cooked us wonderful food with the eggs we collected daily, including a traditional Australian (or perhaps New Zealand, depending on who you ask) dessert called Pavlova. On our final night she copied the recipe for me and encouraged me not to be discouraged if my first Pavlova doesn’t turn out correctly. I’m going to give it a few tries and see what comes out of the oven…fingers crossed it’s something delicious!

Also on Phillips Island is a wild animal reserve with animals including emus, wallabies, koalas, Tasmanian devils, dingoes (no babies were eaten while we were there), swans and kangaroos. And some, although understandably not all (ahem, Tasmanian devils, ahem, dingoes), were left to roam the expansive park on their own. The park gave each person one back of pellet food to feed the animals roaming the park at will. Everyone was having a great time with this, having cute little wallabies gently eat food from your hand, not quite so gently swans peck the food out of your hand, and larger kangaroos slobber all over your hand to get the pellets.

And it was all well and good until one kangaroo walked up to me, stood high on his legs till he was almost eye to eye with me and kicked me! That roo was looking for food, and I wasn’t giving it up fast enough, so he lashed out. I jumped back in surprise, but when I regained my senses, I looked down at the marsupial and said, “That is not how we behave.” I’m pretty sure he was ashamed of his behavior and learned an important lesson that day. And so did I, don't carry the food bag.

G'day Mates! Since I've been in Australia, I've had shrimp on the barbie every night, Foster's (Australian for Beer), rode kangaroos instead of buses, and cuddled up next to my koala bear every night. Hmmm, wait a second, none of that is true (but I wish the kangaroo part was).


Despite the lack of roo-portation, Australia has been wonderful to me. It's winter here in Sydney, but when I say winter, I'm not sure I really mean it. True, the ocean is freaking cold, but there are still surfers in it, and people on the beach, and bright sun shining. It's the kind of winter I love.

Now, some people might think that the differences between Aus and the US are small since both are English speaking countires. Let me tell you this: when Burger King Changes it's name to Hungry Jacks (for reasons I haven't figured out yet), you have to admit there are big differences.

But let me recount three small differences I have taken note of.

• Toilets. Not the toilets themselves, but the flush buttons. In place of one flush, there are two...I believe that one is a half flush and the other's a whole big flush, or perhaps the half flush is equivalent to a urnial flush, but I haven't asked anyone about it for sure. Either way it seems like pretty solid water conservation.


• Sports Uniforms. In the US I've sometimes marveled at how basketball players keep their shorts on, they're so long and they sag so much, it seems inevitable that some player is going to be panced. Here I have no such fears. Athletes (Rugby, Australian Football, etc) wear much shorter shorts, shorts that are reminicent of 1970s basketball uniforms.


• Traffic patterns. It's not so much the automoblie traffic that throws me off -- I am prepared to look right and then left to avoid being hit by cars, and I have no intention of getting behind the wheel of a car. Instead, it's the pedestrian traffic that throws me off. I haven't figured out a way to have another pedestrian "drive" for me. And so, when I pass another walker on the street, I attempt to give way by swerving to the right. The problem is that pedestrian traffic follows much the same rules as auto traffic, and I swerve right, right into people. Crud.


• Birds. Instead of big ravens to hassle you, here there are cocatoos. Oh, how sweet, how pretty. No. No. No. These birds get agressive too. Sure, they look prettier than many other birds, but you know what? When there's a large, wild bird flying at my head I don't really care what it looks like. These ladies found out the hard way.

Westward Ho!

Just two days after arriving back in Shanghai (just to refresh: this was back at the end of June), I went to the far south west of China to the towns of Lijiang and Dali. –On a side note, Yunnan is noted for its ethnic diversity and has the highest number of ethnic groups in all Chinese provinces. 38% of the population are members of a minority, and 25 of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups are represented in Yunnan. Both towns were beautiful, and both towns were bumping with people. In general, there was a more backpacker-esque vibe, with cafes blarring Bob Marley and boasting book exchanges.

We started off with Dali, and at one point while we were driving, our guide casually said, “oh yes, this is the road to Burma. That road they’re building will go to Laos.” Uh, really? Anyone want to take a side trip? Sadly, passports were left at the hotel, so we went to market instead. And to console myself from my non-Laotian trip, I thought about buying a bunny,

…or a waterbuffalo,

…and I considered a pig with these ladies, ….

but considering the fact that I have too much stuff as it is (and I’m not sure they’d get along with the dog I hope to have in the future), I settled on a horseshoe.



In all seriousness, it was great to get out into the country and visit some local markets where I really could have bought livestock, fresh veggies, cleaning supplies, without an “antique” seller in sight.

And then! Onto Lijiang, where the Old Town was built on a canal system and is incredibly beautiful…if you can see it through the hoardes of people. Which I could…sometimes. We decided to take the “old road” from Dali to Lijiang, which was supposed to take 6 hours compared to 3.5 on the “new road” but came with the added benefit of being beautiful. Well, if you’re on vacation and the point is to experience where you are, might as well go with the scenic route…10 hours later we arrived in Lijiang all ready for bed. Luckily, on the way we visited statues carved into the mountain side about 1200 years ago (sorry, no pictures, per 10+ signs requests), a monestary built into the mountain, and ran across a fair share of wild monkeys (which scared the beejesus out of me when the first appeared right over my head).

In Lijiang we spent the 4th of July on Yak Valley in Snow Mountain. I can’t promise there was a mountain because it was clouded over the entire time, but I did see yaks, so I’m going to take it on faith that there was a mountain too. Also, the “trek” up to Yak Valley involved a bus and a chair lift up to 3500meters.

There was another chair lift all the way up to 4200m, but that one just made my trek up Mount Meru in Tanzania seem useless, so we stuck with the 3500m lift.

And jiminy cricket, I think that will bring us all up to speed for the most part. Except for anything having to do with Sydney, I’ll let you know more about it in the days/weeks/month to come!

Dis -- Connect

There are a lot of things for me to write about – you know, like what I’ve been doing for the past 2 months. But let me just start right …here…and work backwards.

I’m in Sydney, Australia now, and this is where I’ll stay through mid-August. I was in China for a little over 2 weeks before, and I would have loved to write all about it in a timely manner. Sadly, access to my blog was blocked by the Chinese government. In fact, internet access has apparently been blocked repeatedly in recent months by the government. When I first arrived in Shanghai in June, access to google and gmail had just been restored, and sometime after the 4th of July access to facebook was blocked (http://www.examiner.com/x-15615-Asia-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m7d8-Facebook-Twitter-inaccessibility-makes-China-expats-feel-disconnected). Apparently it’s due to the riots in northwestern China, but I haven’t heard too much about those either (probably a combination of censorship and lack of news seeking, but I did hear that Palin resigned and Michael Jackson died. I’m getting all the important news, right?)

While I was in China before I knew that my access to youtube was completely gone and that skype was iffy, but google? Facebook? Call it what you will, but I feel a deep seeded need for those! With the right combination of sites being blocked I would have no way to contact people back in the US other than phone (and goodness knows I do not use those while abroad).

But now I can breath a sigh of relief; a *ahem* thorough google search revealed no disruptions in Australian internet access. Hell, I may even be able to keep my same skype name for the entire time I’m here!

And to fully catch you up on what I’ve been up to: I ordered a pair of boots. Fingers crossed that they’re less drama than the dresses!

To a T

For those of you who may not know this: I like clothes. To feed my clothing lust, here in Shanghai there's an amazing "tailor made just for you" building. Yes, that's right, an entire building full of small stalls of tailors and fabric to the ceilings and displays of everything from qipaos (traditional dresses) to coats to suits. The building has 3 floors and a basement and each one has probably at least 100 tailors touting their wares (that's 400 tailors!!). If you can dream it, someone can probably make it. On my first visit I was a kid at a petting zoo; I put my hands on every thing I saw -- beautiful silk and linen and cashmere fabrics, along side the synthetic and pleather fabrics, and the rows and rows of buttons and ribbon.

On my inaugural visit I ordered two things -- a silk dress and a linen shirt -- from two different tailors. Xiao Hu was with me on this visit and patiently helped me to negotiate and fully explain what I wanted made. The tailors told us to come back in 7 days to pick up the wares. I left a deposit and took a receipt, and 7 days later I came back to pick up my clothes. This time I went on my own, Chinese phrase book in hand. My first stop was for the dress, downstairs in the basement. When I stopped by the lady's stall, she looked at me, and I got the idea that the dress wasn't there, mostly because she pointed at tomorrow on her calendar. Did I mention that the tailors is a 30 minute bus ride, followed by a 20 minute walk from my house?

Turns out that the "tailors" and their stalls are in that petting zoo of a building, but the sewing machines are in a different location. Where? I have no idea, but it's no more than 10 minutes away cause the second lady said my shirt wasn't there but could be in 10 minutes. I wonder if there's an equally big building just 10 minutes away full of an equal number of sewing machines... or maybe there are just 10 people in the sewing machine local for the 400 tailors.

A few more attempts at picking up the silk dress ensued, and when I finally walked away with the dress I decided that the basement wasn't a place I'd frequent again. That lady was just a little too crazy and much too unhelpful. Live and learn.

On my next trip to the tailors (because yes, I did go back again, my love for clothes surpassed experience with the silk dress), I went to a stall that had come most highly recommended by a woman who has lived in Shanghai for 5 years. I figured that's a safe bet; she's had many clothes well made by this particular tailor (or whoever the person behind the sewing machine at this stall may be). I decided to order a qipao, and I was to come back in 3 days for a fitting. 3 days later I returned, the man pulls my qipao out of the bag...and it's the wrong fabric. No joke; the style is right, the size is right, it's beautifully made, but the fabric is not what I chose. Shoot. But! The nice man promised (in perfect English, thank goodness, because my Chinese wasn't cutting it) to have another qipao -- in the fabric I picked -- ready in 2 days. Plus, to make up for the error, he would throw in a scarf of the same (correct) material gratis. Alright, I said, see you in two days.

Two days later: one perfect, well fitted qipao in the right material was waiting for me at the tailor's stall when I arrived! Yippee! Woohoo!

I learned a few things from my trips to, and time at, the tailor:

1. an hour commute (one way) to the tailor's is not to be undergone lightly; it's best to call ahead and make sure the garment is ready before heading out the door. Also known as -- plan ahead!


2. tailors (along with others) who come with personal recommendation's are a solid bet. learn from someone else's mistakes!


3. the language barrier is a hard one to pole vault over when describing clothes. how do you mimic "soft ruffles" or "pleated"? i need to learn Chinese!


4. i still love having clothes made to order.

Becoming a Real Man

Chairman Mao is said to have issued this ultimatum: "he who has not climbed the great wall is not a true man." Well, color me in shades of Man, cause as of Wednesday, that's what I am. Chest hair on order.

This past Monday I flew the 2 hours to Beijing to meet up with my wonderful friend Dani. Dani's been volunteering in Cambodia and we decided since we are on the same continent we had to meet up. And what better place for a get together than the Great Wall?! We couldn't think of one, so that's where we went. You know, it really is HUGE.

In order to build up to the GW, we spent our first day and a half visiting the Forbidden City (well, it's not forbidden anymore, now it's a big attraction, but it was forbidden for 500 years), Tiannamen Square, various sweets stores (oh yes, we did), park, the old fashioned hutong neighborhoods, and the new-fangled main streets. While in the Forbidden City Dani and I decided to jump off these rock formations...I was apparently terrified. Not to mention the fact that a guard informed me that this activity was itself forbidden. Oops.

Then on Thursday we woke up before the sun, sang some Mulan songs, and made our way (via public bus) to the GW at Badaling. Upon arrival at the GW entrance, we had two choices: left or right. Right was the choice of most of the other early risers at the Wall; we picked Left. Turns out it was a good choice; at times we were the only people we could see on our part of the wall. Or sometimes on the uphill parts (there's something that's not advertised -- at some points I almost needed a harness) I was close to being passed by fit little old ladies. What good is working out if it doesn't prepare you to hike the GW?!

When we headed back after reaching the end of our GW segment, there were far more people who'd chosen the Left path, and with all those people came souvenir sellers and a man playing "auld lade syne." Out with the private time for meditation on the wall, in with the crowds. But Dani and I had our time, and by golly, it was good!