June 22, 2011

Today was a big day. We met up with a former coworker of mine. She is from Japan but I met her while she was on a visa in Canada. Turns out she got the same idea and is currently in Australia.

So today my coworker, my Aussie, my Aussie’s friend, and myself made a trip to the Melbourne Museum, where we spent about 3 hours wandering through each of the sections.

We also ended up at the Melbourne Aquarium but I took a lot of pictures there, so I'll save that for its own post.

June 19, 2011

What I really love about Melbourne is the immense variety of architecture. No two streets look the same. There is such an eclectic mix of old with new, classic with modern, familiar with strange.

June 18, 2011 (Australia time)

It was impossible to wake up this morning. Our view looks onto a brick wall that is probably a grand distance of 1m away from our window. We get no sunlight. This is not in the least conducive to getting over jetlag.

We went to the Queen Victoria Market today. It was close to our hotel and would allow us to get some fresh fruit and veggies for our room – something I, in particular, had been looking forward to since leaving Canada. For so much of the year we get our food imported so I’ve been counting on fresh, local produce.

What I was not counting on, however, was the price.

$12.98 for 125grams of blueberries?! Are you for real? What, are they specially manufactured, dna-spliced blueberries? Good lord.

In other news, I now feel a little more like I’m in Australia – kangaroo! Maybe not in the form I was expecting...

The market was pretty cool, it was quite large and had many stalls with many interesting things to choose from.

Back at the hotel we had ourselves a nice little picnic of cheese and dips.

June 18, 2011

Sitting in the hotel room, watching tv with all the Aussie accents. Strange thing about Australia and this move is that it’s somehow scarier to be here than it was for me to move to China on my own. The thing is, I find it easier being in a country with a different language because it’s nice to be able to use the language barrier as an excuse. Here, if I do something wrong or stupid, it’s harder to have an excuse. If I’m confused here, I feel stupid. If I watch the news and am half-listening and think that they’ve been talking about (and showing replays of) rugby only to be told it’s football – I feel stupid.

I feel a bit of shock every time an Aussie opens his or her mouth. I keep expecting the comfortable Canadian accent and slang, that ever-present “eh”, and am always slightly jarred to hear the crazy Aussie accent. I feel like I’m in a film that’s been dubbed, like the voices don’t quite match the faces.

Being in the hotel is kind of a safe place. All airports and all chain hotels are the same, generally speaking, around the world, so I haven’t yet been fully exposed to “Australia” so to speak.

And also, I've been here 14 hours and have yet to see a kangaroo.

June 17, 2011

I’m travelling with a born and bred Australian who has been away from home for the last three years and never made it further north than Melbourne. So while I have an advantage with a local, most of this trip will be new for both of us.

We are in the Pearson Airport. It’s really late. Actually, it’s technically really, really early. My family has gone home after dropping us off and are likely already asleep, preparing for the next day of their regularly scheduled lives, while I prepare to live on the direct opposite side of the world.

Our flight is really long, but smooth. I am watching several movies while trying to ignore the children pulling back on my seat. If this flight is so much as an hour longer, I may whip around and smack some good manners into the mother who is refusing to control her children.

We are at the Hong Kong airport which is huge and completely deserted.

I wish we could explore Hong Kong for a couple days – I never did make it down while I was in China. The view from the flight is beautiful and makes me vow to myself that I will return someday for a bit of sightseeing.

I’m told I’ll love Tim Tams and since this is my first encounter with one, I consider this my first “Australian Meal”.

 It’s totally more Chinese than it is Australian. I know this. But still. A Tim Tam!

In the Melbourne airport with our entire life on one trolley.

It has begun.

 

April 19, 2011

My Australian visa was officially just approved. I have a nice long letter from the Australian immigration people. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. I just keep staring at the letter waiting for it to come to life with a song and dance congratulating me and welcoming me to the wonderful land of no winters, funny accents, kangaroos, and baby-thieving dingoes.

Australiaaaaa!

August 23, 2011

My newest adventure thus beginneth! I am in Australia, the land down under, the place stereotypically renowned for blonde suntanned, surfer bodies, for killer bugs and snakes, for gorgeous beaches, and for foreign phrases such as “crikey!”, “throw a shrimp on the barbie”, and “how ya goin’?”.

I’m no longer the travelling English teacher, but feel like the travelling English student, as I navigate through the unfamiliar, and often bizarre, terrain that is the Australian accent. As I post entries from my journals written since first receiving my visa acceptance letter in April, you might find that I seem more shocked by Australian customs, speech and way of life than I did in India or China. Frankly, this is sometimes exactly how I feel. Perhaps I relied too much on how similar Canada supposedly is to Australia – maybe I didn’t prepare myself for the culture shock. Maybe I relied too much on North America’s simplistic, one-dimensional view of the land down under and felt that I already knew everything. Perhaps after experiencing such obviously different cultures in India and China, I overestimated myself and felt that nothing could equate or surpass the adventures I have already lived.

Regardless of the explanation, the fact of the matter is, I’ve thrown myself into Australia, now I’ve gotta live it.

I'm sorry!

Ok, so I don't have an excuse for my inexplicable departure from this here blog. Goodness, it's especially rude considering I left in the middle of a riveting, edge-of-your-seat tale that included running away from a charmed snake, naan with Nutella and peanut butter, the Ganges River, telling the time via a massive sundial, roaming the streets with elephants, shoe shopping, crashing a wedding, and of course, the majestic and unbelievably stunning Taj Mahal.

There's a thousand words behind each photo, but my trip in India is now past and I have a new adventure to recount, so I'm going to allow the pictures to speak for themselves. Enjoy.

Charmed snake

Busy busy busy

Nutella and peanut butter naan

On the Ganges River

Yum

Elephant in front of Hawa Mahal

Sundial

Shoes, shoes, shoes and more shoes

The wedding we crashed

Is it just me, or does this camel look really tall?

Peekaboo! Taj Mahal!

Taj Mahal at sunset. Stunning.

Day 6 in India

Feb 21/09

We're in Haridwar now. We decided against Varanasi. Actually, the fully booked train decided for us.

Back in Canada I had decided not to bring my Lonely Planet Guide book with me to India because it was huge and weighed a bajillion kg and I'd have had to pay extra for the extra weight on the plane (K, maybe it's not that heavy), so instead I photocopied what I thought would be the necessary pages. And what I thought were only necessary were Delhi and Varanasi, not taking into account the total unreliability of trains and buses and general transportation in India.

So based on the recommondation of Rajan we hopped on a whiplash-inducing 8 hour, dirty, gross, squishy bus ride and started heading to Rishikesh.

I cannot fully emphasize the state of this bus. It had plastic seats, was small and crowded and was more reminiscent of a city bus like the TTC than a long-distance bus meant for hours and hours and hours of SLAM stop. SLAM go. SLAM stop. SLAM go. And oh man, the insistent, steady horns! Just like in China, the way vehicles announce their presence is by blaring on the horns and when you have hundreds of vehicles on any given road at any given time, it gets loud.

Very, very loud.

And then... oh, this is hard. I'd rather put it out of my memory. Oh my word, the mosquitoes. The mosquitoes! Constantly buzzing, flitting around your exposed sandal-clad feet. I nearly drowned myself in repellent, but I'm proud to say that I escaped with only one bite on my toe. Thus far, anyway.

So yeah, we're in Haridwar. We're supposed to be in Rishikesh but when there's a bus strike going on between Haridwar and Rishikesh, what can one do?

Well, if you're Indian you can easily make a few calls and find a place to crash for the night (at this point, it was midnight). And if you're a young foreign girl, you can blindly trust a nice man when he tells you he'll find you a cheap hotel.

So here we are. In a 500INR per night hotel. In Haridwar. With no way to get to Rishikesh.

And this hotel is really gross. I don't know if this is my Canadian standard speaking or if I'm basing it on what I expect Indian conditions to be like. The pillows were once white and now they're a deep grey. The sheets were also once white but are now a muddy brown, with splotches of blood. Yes, blood. Oh wait, did I say sheets (plural)? I mean sheet (singular). There's just the one covering the mattress. And then there's a 50kg duvet insert folded up at the foot of the bed. No cover. Just insert.

We met another Canadian (represent!) on the bus. We saved her from the same man who tried to direct us to the wrong bus. She's been travelling around Australia, Nepal, India and surrounding areas for the past two months and is going to continue on for another three months. The stories she has are pretty incredible and make me regret further that I actually agreed to come for only two weeks. Two weeks! What was I thinking?

Anyway, hopefully the buses will be running tomorrow and we can get over to Rishikesh. It sounds like an interesting city. It was apparently put on the map by the Beatles in the '60's as the place where they found enlightenment and transcendental meditation. It is also the birthplace of Yoga and has the nickname of The City of Yoga.

Our loose plan thus far for the weekend (if we can get there) is to do some yoga, maybe some white water rafting, lots of meditating and attempting to find our inner selves. We also hope to hit up Rajiji National Park which is supposed to have every animal under the sun but whether or not you see them is a different issue.

Day 4 in India

Feb 15/09

Today we went to Connaught Place Area: a huge traffic circle that branches off into many smaller streets filled with shopping of all kinds. Everything from Western shops like Levi's to smaller Mom and Pop shops selling custom-made traditional Indian wear.

The whole place was pretty cool, hectic beyond all belief though with all the cars, trucks, taxis and scooters etc.

We went to the underground bazaar where I bought myself a bag for this weekend in Varanasi, since all I have is my massive backpackers bag. So this one's a nice cute little thing that will fit one or two changes of clothes. I paid 300INR or approximately $7.50CAD.

And then I bought a pashmina for way more than it is worth but the man selling them was so cute and friendly talking about wanting to take his fiance to Cape Town for their honeymoon, that I just fell into his trap, hook, line and sinker and paid about $8CAD.

Day 3 in India

Feb 18/09

After we finished teaching at 12:30 we were picked up, quickly ate a hot, delicious lunch and were driven through ridiculous, insane traffic with construction galore (they're building a Metro system here in Delhi), overcongestion of cars, rickshaws, 3-wheel taxis, bikes, scooters, motorcycles, buses, trucks, cows, pedestrians, dogs and whatever else could possibly squeeze itself onto the road.

After about an hour and fifteen minutes of dangerous navigation on behalf of our driver (who later ripped us off), we arrived at Jama Masjid - the largest mosque in India. Truly stunning.

It took about 14 years to build and is made of red sandstone and white marble. Apparently the view is particularly stunning from the towers but as unaccompanied women, we were not allowed to go up.

When we first arrived, we were not allowed in because our arms were showing and this is indecent exposure for a holy place. So they provided us with robes that looked like hospital gowns. Sexy! We didn't feel that out of place or ridiculous though, as every other foreign woman there had one on.

We braved the traffic some more and next headed to Red Fort (Lal Qila), a huge fort that took 10 years to build - which isn't surprising as it's 2km long and up to 33m high in some parts. Unfortunately, we didn't realize just how huge is is and didn't give ourself nearly enough time to explore. And just to make matters worse, my camera battery died. But the pictures I would have provided you with would have looked something like these.

After that we were rushed off to Raj Ghat, the place where Mahatma Gandhi was cremated after being assassinated. It's a large park, and in the very centre is a very simple marble slab with a flame marking Gandhi's cremation spot. The whole park is quite beautiful, well-kept, green and filled with many trees.

Our driver then took us to ITDC - Indian Textile Development Corporation. An Indian fabrics factory where the prices are fixed and supposedly cheapest (but isn't that what they all say?). We might head back another day because I really would love to get a saree or a pashmina.

I've decided that I'm in love with India - it's big, loud, suffocating, dirty, poor, polluted and - at times - unsafe, but it's so completely and totally full of life that I think it's hard not to get a second-hand high off of it.

Happy School

So a bit about the school at which I'm volunteering.

We were supposed to be situated in an orphanage for mentally and physically disabled children in the outskirts of Delhi - about 45km outside - but Rajan decided for some reason that we'd be better off in the middle of the city at the school run by volunteers, and for students who can't afford public school.

So instead we're staying with Rajan in quite comfortable accomodations - I mean, yeah, we had to give up the luxuries of the orphanage such as squat toilets, no electricity, no running water, no clean water, lentil soup, lentil soup and more lentil soup, but I supposed we'll manage here.

We teach from 8am until 1pm, including a short break and a small bowl of lunch. Today, my first day, we taught them volleyball, which none of them had ever played, seen or heard of before. And then we moved on to English lessons where I basically tried to gauge what level they are at.

The school is called The Happy School and is run entirely by volunteers. The story behind it is quite incredible.

It was started by the principal Kamil Capoor on her front lawn with only 5 students from her neighbourhood. It quickly began to grow as more students showed up in her classes and people began to offer their assistance and to volunteer time. Eventually it moved to the road, and then a small building nearby until it finally grew to the small school that it is now.

All of the teachers are volunteers, all the food is donated, all of the books, computers, playground equipment, and even the school itself was technically a donation.

You can check out the website, http://www.thehappyschool.in/ and feel free to donate in any way you can. Trust me, they can always use the help and this way you know where it's gonna go.