Where oh where could he be?

Budapest, Hungary

So. I have been away from my blog for a while now. A month and a half actually. How could that happen?

I arrived in Budapest on Sunday, 20 July. I had been to Budapest before, almost exactly three years before, and I like the city and absolutely adore Hungarian food and culture and history and the language and people. The original plan was to spend some time here and then to use the city as a base for travel around the central parts of Europe.



Plan. Plans can be useful but I have learned to refrain from becoming attached to them. A rapid sequence of coincidences unfolded. I no longer accept coincidence as meaningless; for me all coincidence is synchronicity, at the very least in my poetic reality (one day soon, I promise). For me 'mere' coincidence belongs to a strictly causal purely rational reality, which for me is still real and of value but to reside there exclusively is not living fully, and such meaninglessness probably relies on a belief that time marches forward only, another belief I no longer accept at the very least in my poetic reality (ironically the multidirectional nature of time is also supported in rational reality in the science of quantum physics, but I digress from my digression).

How far back shall I trace the thread? Kathmandu.

In the early days of my time in Kathmandu, I was out exploring and it began to rain. As I hurried toward shelter, another person more hurried and shrouded in a navy rain poncho passed on my right, we glanced at each other briefly and she continued a short way, then stopped and turned back toward me. We decided to have a drink together and wait for the rain to pass. She invited me to come with her to a birthday dinner that evening. A couple she had randomly encountered invited her despite not knowing the guest of honour very well themselves. It turned out the birthday girl had just finished a ten day meditation retreat at a nearby Buddhist monastery and apart from Blue Raincoat and I the thirty-odd guests were other relative strangers also from this retreat.

In such a place with such a group, it's no surprise that hearts and minds were open. I met a woman who recommended The CouchSurfing Project, in short a global community dedicated to opening their homes to travellers to promote cultural exchange and raise collective consciousness. I joined and later searched for a host in Budapest. One remarkably helpful woman, who would have hosted me but was headed to Bulgaria for three months, referred me to a friend of hers that manages a few properties in Budapest. He had a few shared rooms, but it just so happened that another friend of his was considering renting out her studio flat. The three of us met at the property, instinct presided over formality, and within a few minutes (within 36 hours of arriving) I was residing in Budapest for the next two months.



The plans had changed. From tasting Europe widely to tasting life in Hungary deeply. At this point the thread loops back to Taipei. My friend Andy suggested I pursue freedom and truth, set fire to the notion of plans, choose somewhere to be for a while, and follow my heart from the present, free from the need to keep an eye forward for approaching plans. This struck me deeply, and I very nearly cancelled my remaining flights to live in Taiwan for at least three months and study Mandarin and Traditional Chinese with Andy. But at that point in my trip, I was not ready yet. My quest has been to find, hear, follow my own voice. At the last moment, I decided I was not clear enough on the matter.

Andy and I have had a long and close friendship, and with him in particular I have always struggled to know the difference between my voice and his (or more accurately the unfairly up on a pedestal version of his voice I created and heard; I am sure this is not uncommon; and I am so pleased to have woken up from it and started hearing my dear friend at last and can and do now love him more freely). I also felt burning my plans was not really more freedom, that it was closer to trading one set of given circumstances for another, that in reality each day presents its own set of given circumstances and my task is to hear my heart, make choices and do what I do; that as each article of my plan approached I was always free to keep or change or abandon it. I take the point, that it may well feel more free and be easier to follow my heart with fewer plans to negotiate. But I also felt like it would teach me less, that for me it would be avoiding the lesson; I want to learn to take this ability into my whole life not just my travelling life (whereas for Andy, right now, I think there is no separation).



So my heart lead me to stay for a while in Budapest. I wanted to taste normal life, to taste 'living here' and also to devour as much of the life on offer here as possible, so I went about pursuing activities that could give me the feeling that I actually live in Budapest and others that could become treasured memories. I contacted my former employer in Sydney and arranged to do contract work, in essence giving me a nine to five job to go to each day. I joined the gym and took a personal trainer. And as I mentioned I took the apartment and sought to establish for the first time more connections with locals than with travellers. I enrolled in salsa dancing classes (taught exclusively in Hungarian I might add; well, except for the words in Spanish, a language I am actually far less familiar with than Hungarian I might also add), bought tickets to camp overnight at a week long international music festival on one of the islands in the Danube, and registered to run in the Budapest Half-Marathon.



And it is wonderful. Wonderful wonderful. I am happy and invigorated and physically exhausted and happy and happy and happy. But a side effect of all this activity has been less time to record my thoughts in my blog. At many points during my travels so far I have felt the inner battle between writing about my journey and actually having my journey, between taking pictures of a place and actually being present in that place. I do not complain and I do not apologise. Not having enough time to do something is a cop-out and an illusion, we are all given the same amount of time in a day it is only a matter of how we choose to spend it. And this is how I have chosen to spend my time. That said, I will try not to leave it so long next time... ;-)

Pegasus And The Phoenix

Budapest, Hungary

Today marks the birth of a poetry project called Pegasus And The Phoenix. It's a collaboration with another writer and the objective is to write a poem every day for the month of September. The concept is we take turns proposing the muse for the next day, then each complete our poem by the end of the day. And no reading the counterpart poem before ours is complete.

Finding my inner Viking

Oslo, Norway

Fair hair and blue eyes? Check. Fair skin? Check. Tendency to avoid eye contact, be emotionally reserved and slow to trust others? Hmmm...



For a long time now I have wanted to visit Oslo, or at least Norway, with Oslo being the most obvious destination. Since my early twenties, since I started to see more of the world and meet more people with diverse and sometimes unimagined backgrounds and experiences. Since a longing awakened in me to have my own rich ethnic history, to throw back the solid white one hundred percent cotton kitchen towel, bought on sale at ShopKo and with a soda can pull tab sewn into one corner, of 'just plain midwestern American' for a cultural identity and reveal the complex, sensual and deeply compelling mixture of spices and flavours that make up my true lineage.

The commonly held view in my immediate family, though not authoritatively researched, at least not by me, is that I am descended from German and Polish on my mother's side and from English and Norwegian on my father's side. With a family name of Krueger, accepting my maternal grandfather as Germanic is easy. My grandmother is Paulus, which doesn't seem so Polish to me, but one must bear in mind many surnames were altered as they passed through Ellis Island, especially if they were difficult to pronounce or spell, as many Polish names are, or if they sounded 'too Jewish' or whatever was running through the immigration officer's mind; anyway the Polish designation is regarded with reasonably confident conviction. Hoping that White is anything but English is futile (it just seems so microscopically more interesting than Wisconsinite). And my paternal grandmother, Pauline Bradway; the name doesn't scream Norge to me but is plausibly Scandinavian, especially if we invoke the Ellis Island effect again, and though I can't recount an avalanche of names of family members, Ingeborg leaps to mind, I have seen a pretty deep family tree and am satisfied of her Norwegian pedigree.

Having collected this information, I gravitated most strongly to Norway. Why? Almost certainly all justification can be reduced to it simply seemed the sexiest of the bunch.



German is a decent start, but it's not terribly exotic. And with that simplistic young person's mind not so far out of high school history class, unable to see beyond the holocaust to appreciate there is so much more to Germany, especially in my generation, than World War II, and being blonde-haired and blue-eyed enough to be once dubbed 'Hitler's wet dream,' I just didn't want to be German at the time.

Where I grew up, Polish was not a sexy thing to be. There, they were the go-to butt of the joke. Simpletons, at best in a sort of charming and cuddly yet ultimately dismissive way (the slot for genuine ethnic prejudice and sub-human regard has long been solidly occupied by Native Americans). And being a child of the 80s, indoctrinated in Reaganomics and Cold War neo Red Scare rhetoric, I imagined Poland as a dour, monochromatic hell hole like every other coutry behind the Iron Curtain. Having my eyes opened since then, Poland is actually a very attractive lead. I identify strongly the broad underdog status, the fiery spirit, the fits of cerebral passion; though I am probably too upbeat and lacking in languages spoken and engineering degrees and tolerance for grain alcohol to be properly Polish.

English I have already touched on. I love English humour, and music and literature, but it just wasn't tasty enough for me. I have a memory of poring over the family tree and deciding that English must have traveled exclusively along the patrilinear edge with the surname and the rest of my paternal grandfather's heritage was in fact Norwegian as well. Perhaps it was one of those cases where an Ellis Island officer of English descent simply substituted his own family name when he was utterly baffled by all those mad diacritics? Male names like Finn, Welby and Almon certainly seemed unusual enough. Perhaps they were at least Welsh? I haven't given up hope.

So I settled on Norwegian. It certainly fit with my physical appearance. Indeed when abroad and people try to discern my marred and somewhat acommitted accent, the guesses usually start in Scandinavia. Swedish is often the initial attempt, being by far the best known source of Scandinavian blondes. I often take this opportunity to point out (like a good Norwegian) that Norwegians (as though I was one of them) aren't terribly fond of being almost-the-same-thinged and absorbed into Sweden; Sweden is to Norway as the US is to Canada and Australia is to New Zealand. Norway is proud, deserving of distinct recognition but doomed to sit in the shadow of its more famous cousin. In fact, just last night, I watched a young woman become a little heated when giving her opinion of Swedish neutrality in finger quotation marks during World War II.

And so I have come to Oslo, to solidify this long time identification, perhaps only as much as a quarter in fact but much more in spirit, with Norway.

Alas, I have not really penetrated the essence of being Norwegian. Not yet. I think my visit will prove too brief, and I am a little underprepared for the task. I would love to return, armed with more information about family lore, use that as a framework for exploring the whole of Norway, and that pretext I hope would also warm the elusive hearts of the locals and deepen my sense of belonging.

I have noted a sharp increase in the normalness of my complexion, though it is quite short of the ocean of lookalikes rumour led me to expect (and dread). As much as (I think) I long to be seen as just like everyone else, I think in my heart I am very attached to feeling special. Of course, the real magic trick would be to let go and settle into knowledge of those things that truly make me special...

What I love about Kathmandu

Kathmandu, Nepal

Honk. Honk. Honk honk. Beeeep. Bee-beep. Honnnk.



Hello. Hello. Where you from? Australia. Australia, capital Canberra! Wow, that's right! When you arrive Nepal? Yesterday. First time Nepal? Yes. How long Nepal? Two weeks. You go trek? Oh, no, I'm not really sure. I can guide you, we can have tea, we can talk? Um, no thanks. Why not? Uh, what? Why not? Uh, sorry I'm not interested. Why not? Sorry, thank you. Where you stay? Sorry, thanks.

Ugh, it's hot and dusty. Ugh, it's pissing down rain. Shit, I stepped in a massive puddle. Shit, my sandal got stuck in the mud. Shit, was that animal piss? Shit, was that human shit? Shit, my sandals flick filth up on my legs, clothes, hands when I walk. (I tell myself it's only mud.) Shit, is that a dead rat? Shit, did I just step on what that fuck was that a chunk of animal guts filled with animal blood?



No I don't want to go trekking. No I don't want to go rafting. No I don't want a guide to tell me about this building. No I don't want a taxi. No I don't want a rickshaw. No I don't want marijuana. No I don't want hashish. No I don't want cocaine.

Honk to warn you of danger. Honk to tell you to get out of my way. Honk to say I'm turning left. Honk to say I'm approaching a blind corner. Honk to test your hearing. Honk to say it's Tuesday. Honk just to fit in. Honk like it's a mating call and I'm looking for a mate. Honk because what else would I do when I'm driving? Honk honk honk. Taxi goes honk, motor scooter goes beep. Car with a Kathman-doo-dee horn goes doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee. Rickshaw with a clown horn taped to the end of a shampoo bottle goes haw-hee haw-hee. A man hangs out of a bus and shouts something at everyone he passes. A man on a bicycle makes is that a kissing sound in lieu of a horn. Honk! Beep! Doo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee! Honk honk! Haw-hee haw-hee! Honk honk beep beep ssssmooch (something yelled in Nepali or Newari who knows) honnnk!



Wow, what a wonderful smell! Beautiful incense burning in that little shop. Wow, what a horrible smell! Putrid garbage piled in the street, Franken-dogs made of spare parts, with fur like botched hair plugs sprouting from eczema, prowling and tearing at it like they were in a nature documentary, giant grey-hooded crows nearby taking their share.

Wow, what gorgeous flavoursome food! Dhal bat with the tastiest vegetable curry! Vegetable momos kothey (think pot stickers filled with dry curry)! Egg and vegetable katti rolls (think thin naan covered in egg on one side wrapped around dry curry)! Decadent and divine gulab jamuns, laddus, burfis (sweets, Google 'em)! Wow, what amazing Western food, what delicious pizza, what exceptional Mexican (think huevos rancheros on a corn pancake), what fabulous coffee! Wow, what dreadful coffee, what dry and flavourless pastry that looked so promising, what disappointing coffee, what painful coffee, what heinous coffee!



Hello. Namaste. Namaste, where you from? Australia. Goo-day mate, capital Canberra. Yes. When you arrive Nepal? Five days ago. First time Nepal? Yes. How long Nepal? Another week or so. You go trek? Look, I'm sorry I'm not interested. No no, I'm just talking to you, I like to practise English. (A few minutes of shadowing and small talk.) Please some rupees / Please buy for me some biscuits / Please can you buy some milk for my sister (shop owner, without a word from my companion, introduces a huge tin of powdered milk that costs more than three proper dinners).



No I don't want to buy a beaded necklace. No, I don't want to buy a small embroidered purse thing; my girlfriend, sister, mother will understand. No, I don't want to buy your flute. No, I don't want to buy your string instrument. No I don't want to buy a giant fucking knife, yes I understand you said it's official Nepalese army. (Oh my god! Are you going to pull that out at me as you walk across the street?) No I don't want to buy a packet of Tiger Balm, No I don't want to buy two packets of Tiger Balm. No I don't want to buy a dozen packets of Tiger Balm. (Jesus, does anyone? Surely, over time, trial and error would favour something more practical like Immodium, laxitive, anything to manage your gastrointestinal tract. Dear god the unprecedented... let's just say Kathmand-don't drink the water.)

That looks like some sort of temple or shrine back through there, no one's going in there, I wonder what's back there....



Peace.
Beauty.
Timelessness.

...

Take a deep breath, and....



Honk honk honk honk honk. Hello. Namaste. Where did you get that shirt, where did you buy it? / I like your hair / I like your shoes / I like your earrings / I like your teeth / I like your laugh. Thank you. Beep beep honk. Where you from? Australia. Capital Canberra. Yes, that's what everybody says. Doo-dee-doo-dee honnk honnnnk!

I got Seoul but I'm not a soldier

(Seoul, South Korea)

Brief though it was, I thoroughly enjoyed my two days in Seoul. This was my first solo adventure in a city where English is mostly unavailable.



My hostel was in a part of Seoul called Daehangno. Armed with fairly detailed instructions from my booking confirmation email, brimming with satisfaction at having made my way into the city exclusively by train, both for the money it saved me and the achievement itself, I rose to street level to bustling late night activity. In front of the metro station there was an improvised food court; a number of tables were laid out with vessels containing various limbs of various sea creatures, with several stations for preparing these alien delicacies, I forget now whether they were vast burbling cauldrons or large wok-like apparatuses; patronised exclusively by locals (well, to my eye).

As I followed my instructions, reliably hitting the landmarks, I noted bars named The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Austin Powers. A twenty foot Gandalf statue stood guard in front of one cafe, "You shall not pass! ...without java and bundt cake." And suddenly my landmarks failed to materialise. A big intersection with a Burger King across the way and "a shop that sells bags" nearby. I did see a Starbucks across the way and a shop (among many) nearby with its garage door shutters closed... Had the mermaid overthrown the king? After briefly doing the lost white boy shuffle, I found the right alleyway and my hostel.

It was a bit of a shock to discover no one is given keys, not to their room, not to the hostel itself, everything is always unlocked. Thankfully there were small lockers where I could secure my laptop and passport and paper tickets (another story, I think I have the last paper tickets on the planet) and other designated irreplaceables, but I decided it would only be good for me to start getting comfortable with the possibility of losing all my belongings. This is not hysteria, it has happened to friends of mine. I will not be careless but I feel I am moving in the direction I want to go, that I feel I could lose everything and things would still turn out okay.

My two days were more realistically one day, and it began with making a few notes on my transit map and just seeing what I could see. I decided to start at the Presidential Palace, but found it utterly surrounded by an utterly inconceivable throng of police and countless armoured busses lining the streets. The police seemed alert but not in the middle of something. I couldn't work out what was happening. The palace turned out to be closed early that day for an inapparent reason. I concluded they were probably related but didn't pursue the mystery further.



From there I walked to an area called Insadong. This is a very well-known pedestrain shopping strip popular with tourists and it seemed locals alike. It had lots of galleries and shops, cafes, culturally relevant artifacts, street food, a few crazies (guy dressed as robot), everything I suppose you might expect. I enjoyed it but didn't see anything I wanted to buy. I had a 15-herb Korean tea with these fluff ball biscuits, billed as traditional Korean cookies, in essence sweet packing peanuts rolled in toasted coconut; quite lovely I must say.

From there I walked in the direction of the Cheonggyecheon; a river that used to run through the city, that fell victim to urban development, that not so long ago was restored, redeveloped and turned into a pleasant if not completely successful get back to nature in the middle of the city affair.



Then I made my way to another palace or temple (some circle I made on my map) and found myself in the middle of an enormous public event of some kind. Again I couldn't quite work out the nature of the happening. Traffic was blocked off, food vendors were everywhere, people were everywhere, I swear there were carnival rides but now I am unsure. Then some sort of protest mob seemed to materialise before my eyes, like clouds of cotton candy spontaneously gathering about the stick, and the people began to march. There was no English signage to help me decode the incident, except the word "NO" in places, and I saw some stars and stripes and some drawings of cows. I had heard in the news (not sure how, maybe at the airport) there was some issue the Koreans were having with beef imported from the US, so I was satisfied I had worked out what the march was about. But this was definitely not the whole story of the enclosing gathering.

Further along the square I saw people with signs to do with Tibet, with a group of demonstrators laying on the ground, with police drama chalk outlines, faces covered for a somber effect. I remembered passing some people in Insadong with Tibetan flags and another street pantomime with soldiers and a hooded victim with something on a sign about North Korean refugees, something critical of China's treatment of them. So China was also on Korea's shitlist that day.

Next I came to a huge gathering, I took to be the ultimate gathering, with music blaring from the main stage, everyone holding signs that bore a number of Korean characters and the word "OUT." I decided this was a political action day, mostly a protest about China's involvement in Tibet, Korea's contribution to the displeasure echoing everywhere in the lead up to the Beijing olympics, and the other demonstrations were offshoots, the natural result of the coming together of so many like-minded politically aware individuals.

Then I got a better look at the stage, the next song started and the crowd cheered loudly. I will not be able to adequately convey the scene. Five musicians dressed in yellow rainjacket hazardous waste Devo outfits with custom instruments hewn from odd post nuclear apocalypse materials, one musician with sousaphonic back-mounted tubes akin to flexible sewer pipes bent around his body with the ends twisted up in front of him to make a toned bass percussion instrument, looking like Madeline half swallowed by an H.R. Giger creation, the others bearing similarly constructed instruments, the central female (looking, from where I stood) performer with a type of xylophone.

Their anthem? Tequila.



All dancing in unison like some cross between Dance Dance Revolution and a Tai Bo class led by The Wiggles, inciting the crowd into happy swaying and the inevitable all together now, "Tequlia!" And I must admit, it just might have been the coolest thing I have seen in a long time.

I got a better look at the signs and saw a photo of a grave looking man in a conservative suit with the red international 'no' circle, like a vast public outcry to who ya gonna call the Bankerbusters or something. I took "OUT" then to be about a politician that had displeased this particular group of Koreans. Perhaps all the issues being presented falling under his influence? Perhaps this while thing connected back to the barricaded palace, but I had not the communication skills to investigate.

And I found the whole unintelligible adventure strangely and incredibly satisfying, I absolutely adored not having a clue what was happening.

Where are the bullet trains?

Tokyo, Japan

The last few days have been a bit of a blur. I've got that fuzzy vibratey eyes-hot dehydrated lack of sleep thing. I haven't looked in a mirror today, thankfully, but I can feel the failure of the micro-tethers that hold my face up that last millimeter, that seem to appear and start to loosen as one hits thirty, that seem to more and more easily surrender to late nights, alcohol and fluorescent lighting. No amount of breakfast or coffee will rescue me, I can only hope to heal over time. And it could be a while.

I am on the Narita Express train to the airport, a journey that takes 90 minutes (where are the fucking anime bullet trains, Japan?) which should leave me with another 90 minutes to spare; little enough time to make my father's blood in me anxious that should the right unlikely series of unfortunate events occur I could miss my flight, enough time that the blood of experience in me knows I'll be fine and bombasts loudly on the floor of my blood Parliament to Mr. Speaker that the opposition should be ashamed for such blatant partisan fearmongering. Yeah. Wow. Tired. I am.

Not sure I structured that statement in such a way as to mandate a knock on wood but I think I'll do it anyway for good measure. A coalition building gesture.

Once I get to Narita, I have two 5-hour flights to get to Kathmandu (I am rarely able to sleep on a plane, no matter how exhausted), arriving at 10pm, a mystery on the spot visa application process to negotiate (Dad's blood has been wringing its hands over that for days already) and the classic unknown quantity of conveyance to the hostel will surely take me past midnight. But all that is way too far into the future right now.

I spent two days each in Seoul and Tokyo, a travel strategy I do not recommend to anyone. This came about as the result of a change to my itinerary to spend an extra week in Taipei, triggering a cavalcade of convoluted negotiations with my travel agent. I purchased this in hindsight ridiculous batch of tickets in an in hindsight ridiculous misguided effort to leverage economies of scale and save money on all my travel in Asia whilst simultaneously leveraging my (evidently false) wisdom and foresight that told me that when I inevitably wanted to modify my plans it would be best to be championed by an expert with access and guaranteed English to manage the process; in hindsight another travel strategy I do not recommend to anyone. I was a complete dick (who, me?) to my travel agent (sorry Hannah), and indeed to everyone else that I spoke to in her office, and in reality it was all down to my inexperience and ignorant expectations. But I digress...

Where was I? Seoul and Tokyo. Perhaps I will break these down into separate entries...

Made in Taiwan

Taipei, Taiwan

Before I decided to travel to Taiwan, I would have struggled to place it on the map. Oh sure, if you asked me to, I could have faked it; scanning the Asia Pacific region hoping to spot it quickly. I probably would've had as good a shot as anyone.



What did I know about it? I was aware there is a pretty serious dispute over the sovereignity of Taiwan, that it considers itself a country in its own right while China considers it a breakaway province; that the rest of the world is a bit nervous about it because no one wants to piss off China but everyone wants access to both economies (probably rear access); that not so long ago George Bush stirred the pot by selling some sort of equipment of war, planes I think, to Taiwan. I also know 'Made in Taiwan' by which I mean I am aware it is a major outsourcing player. Not that it helps me know where it is. I heard of 'Made in Indonesia' too but I must confess I had little to no idea where that country was until after 9/11 and the Bali bombings and the media urged all Australians to be very afraid of the world's most populous Muslim country just to the north. Where is this political snidery coming from?

Truth be told I wasn't really sure whether it was a city, a country, or another city-state like Hong Kong and Singapore. So when I zero in and say I decided to travel to Taipei, I'm sure even fewer students will raise their hands to come to the front.

Why, then, Taipei? One of my oldest and best friends, Andy, has recently made it his home; in my words (he is at least as eloquent but considerably more subtle in his own words) answering a long-delayed calling of his heart to live in an unfamiliar land and learn its language, in this case spoken Mandarin and written Traditional Chinese, to live simply and truthfully in the moment. And so I am here to see Andy, to see Andy's Taipei, and to see what else might be here just for me.

From the beginning I have been impressed. Taipei seems strange and wonderful, far less English spoken and on display than Hong Kong, less architecturally and people-vibe claustrophobic and stressed as well. Taipei has been immediately welcoming; the people are incredibly friendly and the city feels completely safe; crime-wise that is, definitely not pedestrian-wise.



There seems to be a sort of hive-mind telepathy at work in traffic, a wireless network I have not yet learned to fully join, swarms of scooters everywhere, swarms of scooters anywhere, including the footpath, assuming there is one, even other areas that by all visual cues with which I am familiar should be pedestrians only, scooters happily carrying whole helmetless families complete with infants and or pets and or shopping bags; no Taiwanese person, be they on scooter, in car or on foot seeming to take notice of each other yet somehow able to negotiate. There are some spectacular exceptions however, as a quick search for "scooter accident" on YouTube will demonstrate, the lion's share inevitably Made in Taiwan. It's definitely not as packed and outwardly crazy looking as some images I have seen of India for example, but Taiwan seems to give just enough space to build up a good speed.

Some of my comfort is doubtlessly to do with having Andy for a guide and anchor. Like almost all places in the world I have been so far (oho I've been to sooo many), there are enough global mega icons to remind me I'm still sometimes thankfully sometimes depresingly within reach of the western world, I'm still on McPlanet Earth (though on my first trip to Mars I'm sure there will be a Starbucks and a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Unavoidably, my introduction to Taipei has been filtered through Andy's experience and preference. Most of the cafes and bars I have been to would be right at home in San Francisco; the decor, the music, the ambience. Less so the food and reading material. The coffee however has been surprisingly excellent. My only complaint would be that smoking is permitted everywhere, and indulged in enthusiastically. I am surprised Taipei hasn't been overrun with French Canadians and Central Europeans. For some, I'm sure this is a piece of the appeal. For me, it's been a while since I had to contend with coming home from a night out smelling like smoke.

We are often the only expats in these places. That said, there are also places with an unmistakable expat patronage. This is neither good nor bad, it seems expats naturally coalesce in all metropolitan cities, though I'm told more noticeably so here.



On my first night, I was told that six months in Taipei infallibly turns nice guy expats into bad boy expats. I didn't understand immediately. Later, when taking recommendations (from some females) for places to check out, the pattern was: "You should go to (insert club name)." "Oh yeah? What's that place like?" "Oh I hate it but you guys would like it." "Why would we want to go to a place you hate?" "Because you're guys." A what is that supposed to mean shrug. "Oh come on, a lot of expats go there, the Taiwanese girls who go there know lots of expats go there, that's why they go there." I pretend I still don't understand...

Andy's pre-filter aside, there is definitely a something else that makes Taipei incredibly appealing to me. Something I haven't fully identified just feels good, creative, genuine, in touch, soulful in a way that resonates with me. I have the gut feeling there is an abundance of creative and vibrant and spiritual people here. Perhaps this is partly driven by my impression that many of the artists, musicians, thinkers from China make their way here for its comparatively freer open-minded culture. Taipei is simulatenously more expressive of Traditional Chinese culture, being somewhat out of reach from China's Cultural Revolution. Everything just kind of seems perfectly acceptable here, welcome even. Maybe I am just feeling the cultural impact of Buddhism. The explanation is not really what is important. The point is, I have been pleasantly surprised to discover how much I enjoy it here. Better, the point is simply how much I enjoy being here.

10,000 Buddha bellies

Sha Ting, Hong Kong

I sit here; digesting my lunch of vegetarian fried duck with greens, rice and tea; in a not quite fully realised cafe adjacent to the main temple of the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery on a suburban mountainside in Sha Ting, Hong Kong.

I know almost nothing about this place, to be fair precious little about Buddhism, much less Chinese Buddhism, and so I feel I lack any kind of academic insight through which to experience what I see. So I have kind of invented my own story a bit, which I think can also be quite cool.

I found out about this place by accident. I never really intended to stay in Hong Kong, but use it as a central hub for the places I wanted to visit in Asia. But it worked out I ended up with a couple of days here, and my accommodation (which is a story of its own) is not the place to just burn time. So I went to Google Maps, intending to put together some Google searches for dance clubs or food areas or whatever, and I was shown a list of other peoples' saved maps of Hong Kong. I clicked. It seemed to belong to a group adventure. I can't work out for the life of me what the occasion was, perhaps someone's wedding. The story I told myself is a group of English mates came over for a holiday. Anyway, it was marked on this map and I thought it looked interesting so I decided to go.

Not for the first time, I armed myself with far too little navigational support. Despite the omnipresence of English here, it is an incredibly easy place in which to get lost, at least for me. I'd love to portray this impulse as some kind of extreme traveller wanderlust, but I think it comes down to being a bit of a ditz and a boob.

I remembered the appropriate relationship to the train station, but adding that third dimension, lots of foliage, and armies of Chinese glyphs seriously tested my architypally male map parsing abilities.

I followed the most probable path, even spotting a sign and came upon the likely candidate. I remembered a note on the Google Map about hundreds of stairs and thought I was at the right place.



Being a worldly and sensitive guy, I put on my most respectful and reverent visage; I mean I know enough about Buddhism to know it's not like dashing into a water park, right?; and stepped through the gate.

Well, it wasn't the monastery, it was instead a sort of cemetary mausoleum thing (Po Fook Memorial Hall). Very impressive, peaceful, the smell of incense burning, out of respect, I assume, possibly marking some other purpose of which I am completely ignorant. As soon as I worked it out I stopped taking photos, I suppose out of assumed expectation of respect. I made my way back down the hill and rejoined the path and found it at last.

At the entrance point, I restored my reverent countenance, and was startled by the first impression. Neither here nor there in terms of what I expected (again, I confess they would have been based on nothing but fantasy). Either simple natural beauty and harmony or extravagent heart-stopping theatricality and opulence. Instead, construction-like gates and fences, dilapidated footpaths and restoration in progress and in progress for who knows how long but seemingly in no hurry to become complete.

There was a sign teaching you how to behave around wild monkeys, and that excited me. I made sure to study it, hoping to test my new savvy, but so far, no monkeys for me. Damn it.

The long steep climb to the main temple is flanked on either side sometimes both by a series of increasingly elaborate and well-made gold statues. Now by gold I mean wood or perhaps some other material painted gold.



I was surprised at the range of expressions and personalities. These are supposed to be Buddhas, right? Isn't Buddha pretty much totally serene, I suppose I have heard of Buddha laughing, but some seemed practically sacreligious, I thought, some clearly putting their egos on display, exuding pride, some completely moronic.

In my limited knowledge, I was thinking Buddha is supposed to be free of attachment, free from ego. I suppose it is a mistake of the rational mind, of brainwashing by our black or white, good or evil, this or that culture to assume free of attachment is the same as detachment. I can equate this to my current thinking about love, and fear creating the impulse to define, control, possess and tie down, limiting the loved one in the name of reducing the risk of experiencing pain. In this light, to give someone freedom is definitely not the same as apathy or not loving. I love someone, give them freedom, I feel all those things, love, joy, pain, yet try to maintain the freedom. And perhaps this is Buddha too. Free from attachment to worldly things, yet also completely present experiencing the full range of worldly feelings... But I digress.

As this thought passed by, I thought perhaps these aren't among the Ten Thousand Buddhas; these are instead, well, mere mortals or manifestations of the human foibles that Buddha has transcended? I just didn't know but pressed on.



I finally arrived at the main temple and at last saw the kind of Buddhas I was expecting. Seated, serene, almost meditating. And thousands upon thousands of them (apparently about 13,000). After spending some time there, I strolled around the courtyard and into the vegetarian cafe I also read about on the Google Map. I am a big fan of Buddhist vegetarian food, and I was not disappointed. As I sat, I started to ponder the experience so far and whether or not my expectations were met.

And I have to say at that point I was disappointed. And so I pondered that. I couldn't help thinking the whole thing was a bit cheeseball and cheap. Something akin to The House On The Rock in Wisconsin. Extravagent, ambitious, striking, impressive, opulent, but ultimately cheeseball. But The House On The Rock actually derives its cool because it is so unapologetically cheeseball. But surely, the Chinese, Buddhists aren't capable of cheeseball, right?

Well why not?

Then I felt like a bit of an elitist snob. Or some sort of inside out elitist. Where I operate from cultural imperialist guilt with this over-respect for other cultures, in my unconscious ethnocentric cultural superiority, I assume capacity for cheeseball is the highest evolution of civilisation and society (think The Big Pineapple), and that Chinese, Buddhist, whatever, it is just too pure in other words too primitive to do that (all of this sits outside my awareness, conscious mind, by the way). But there it is, maybe all cultures are equally drawn to kitsch. Perhaps it is a human imperative. As such, is it fair of me to expect Buddha to be above kitsch? No.

And so what am I left with?

Well, here it is again. A choice.

Or a choice and a paradox. Perhaps I can choose to let it be both, and take pleasure, amusement and even something transcendent from it. All at the same time. It is impressive, it is holy, it is fucking silly. It just is. Why not?



And so, in the end, I have been quite satisfied with my trek up the hill to see the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery. Now I'm off to find the gift shop...

Ernesto

(Wellington, New Zealand)

My favourite cafe in Wellington was called Ernesto. If I can work out how to add photos to my blog, I will include one here. ("Uh, you're a web designer" my friend Andrew tells me. True, but I admit I am also somehow Web 2.0, mobile phone, all those things the kids are into these days developmentally challenged, or as they say in Australia 'intellectually mild,' or as they said back in my day 'retarded.')



Wellington has the most striking concentration and abundance of cool cafes, restaurants, shops, pubs, live music venues, nightclubs, places to go. And to my further surprise, most places are open until the wee hours every night of the week, with only some closing a bit earlier on Sunday and Monday night. And to go with it, the people out and about are strikingly attractive, men and women, with a very individualistic and genuine sense of style.

I spent most of my hangin' out, eatin', people watchin', booty shakin' in two adjacent areas. Courtenay Place centres on a main thoroughfare of the same name, a wide boulevard starting at the Embassy Theatre (where the Lord Of The Rings films premiered); packed with upmarket (but not too upmarket) pubs and nightclubs on the one side, more functional budget conscious establishments on the other (with a few notable exceptions and a mermaid style strip club which I must admit I was fascinated to see but decided against on the advice of another traveler who said it was shit), almost as though it was planned that way; and running to a perpendicular with Cuba Street, the other area.

Cuba Street was the real highlight. I hate to call it a pedestrian mall, in fact there's a word on the tip of my tongue for what I'd rather call it, but there it is. For much of it, pedestrians only, and a wonderland of punky clothing shops and tattoo places, rock and roll venues, and some of the coolest cafes and restaurants I've ever seen. Oddly, in the middle stands probably the single most atrociously tacky fountain I've ever seen. It's almost like a giant fuck you and you have to smirk, so out of place amidst the funky and/or well-branded shop fronts and signage.

Not much further along, where it becomes a street again, on one corner stands Ernesto. A converted clothing shop of some sort with cool leadlight windows, I was immediately drawn in by the inviting vibe of the wood floors, merlot leather booths. I was looking for a place to sit down with my laptop.

I asked a waitress if they had wireless internet. I will step out for a moment and tell you about her. She was incredibly cute, had a very quirky dress style, lots of layers and textures and things that looked a little old fashioned, like a funky librarian or orphan, neat healthy brown hair cut about jaw length except with those elf-like wispy bits that were a bit longer, such a sweet voice and soft spoken and I believe French (this is not random, there is a whole strip of French cafes, not that it makes it any more plausible, but I was sure I detected it). I shall call her Amelie. She told me they were supposed to have it but nobody knew if it was working. They gave me a password and I sat down and it worked. So I discovered the internet for the staff and patrons of Ernesto. I can't say for sure but I think she swooned at my masculine achievement.

And the barista, I will call her Svetlana. An at first stern looking woman, with pixie dyed blonde hair and deep set eyes made more stern with heavy eye shadow. But she had the most gorgeous, almost hypnotically beautiful tattoos on her bare arms. Over a few visits, with different outfits, I could see that her body art indeed seemed to cover much of her body, the same geometric vine spiral ancient perhaps arabic motifs occasionally showing themselves on the back of her neck and the small of her back. I wanted to see the whole thing, but of course couldn't think of an uncreepy way to ask.

Miraculously, a few days later the city council was erecting a public exhibition of photographs, enlarged and on display along Courtenay Place. And I was stuck by a female nude, with her back to the camera, with the most amazing body art. After a second, I recognised it as Svetlana, she had a black wig on, but there was no mistaking the pink lotus on her right shoulder, and the vine spiral. Stunning. I asked her about it, and she confirmed, seemed surprised I worked it out, saying some of her friends had to be told it was her. "You must be joking." I said, "absolutely stunning!" I like to think she too swooned.



And of course the food! My first meal, a breakfast burrito. I must say life in Australia has made me a sucker for the Mexican item on the menu. Much to my delight it was delicious. Beans, eggs, cheese, a spicy salsa that actually had some taste to it, guacamole. Excellent! I had it again another day as well. And their salmon & poached eggs on hash browns with hollandaise was amazing. By far the most fabulous hash browns I've sampled. Every breakfast was fantastic. And the coffee was outstanding as well.

If you ever find yourself in Wellington, make sure you pay a visit. And if you're lucky, Svetlana and Amelie will have gotten over their embarrassing infatuation with me.

One ring to rule them all

(Auckland, New Zealand)

At one point, rummaging through my satchel (or man bag or murse) for something I forget what must have been something related to going out that night as I was amid my young roommates in Auckland perhaps my money clip, I happened across my wedding ring. What was it doing there? Even I had to ask. Well, one of my last days in Sydney was spent with Erika and among other rituals of closure we made a moment of returning our rings, a gesture symbolising our agreement to release the infused meaning and transform them back into ordinary objects. The whole journey of these rings, from joy through pain to reconciliation, has been an extraordinary and powerful story I will always cherish, one I hope to tell properly some day, and for me is the most salient argument for embracing symbols to mark these things that utterly transcend intellect, words, photographs, memory even. But I digress. I put it in my satchel and never decided what to do with it, and so it is with me.

I expressed my surprise, blushed and wondered aloud what I should do. Rick suggested, "Well you're in New Zealand; wouldn't it be funny if you went on the Lord Of The Rings tour and cast it into the fires of Mount Doom?"

And it was funny, and I know Erika, who has a great sense of humour, would also find it amusing. But, aside from it being far too nerdy a thing to actually do, it didn't quite fit, for as I said, the ring has already been unmade in the fires in which it was made.