Tales of the past

The main reason for going to Auckland besides attending the conference was actually to visit my Auntie Marcelle. Yes, I've got a French Auntie who lives in New Zealand now. As you would imagine, good food is often the central theme. The last time I was in Auckland, I still recall having one of the best pate I've tasted. Everything else after that seems second best. You know that you're in a truly French restaurant when there's a hundred and one cheese at the deli display; in the wine cellar, other than the price on the wine racks and perhaps a few varieties of grapes which I could work out, the rest of the writings are all in French. Its like being a Caucasian in a Chinese shop only the roles are reversed.

There's one thing I never seem to get tired of hearing whenever I visit. Auntie Marcelle would tell me about how she got sent to New Zealand to work and while riding a bicycle had a freak accident which shattered her pelvis. My Uncle David was at that time her physiotherapy. Need I say more... Then there was the time when Uncle David went to Paris to visit her folks and offered to cook dinner. To this day, those that were still alive at that table remember how a 'little' Chinese man was able to dazzle the French palette by cooking up a feast with few ingredients to work with (just imagine looking for oyster sauce in 1970's Paris).

Auntie Marcelle has also got lots of old photographs stashed away which she has chronologically labelled with little bits of sticker. You can never get tired looking at these pictures and listening to tales of the past. Below: Mum and Dad on the left with my sister (1975)
Below: My mum on the extreme right (1970; way before I was born)
Old pictures of my cousins and Uncle Swee Chan among others.
Hope you get well soon Auntie. Love, Jun

Paths cross once more...

Its hard to come by 'available' funds while working for a not for profit NGO. I had to write to drug companies and reps for a nutrition conference in Auckland and time was not on my side. Fortunately, my boss agreeed to fund my expedition perhaps in recognition of my hard work in securing the recent grant proposal.
This trip has been most fruitful; both with work and the friends I manage to catch up with:
I still remember vividly that Samatha picked me up from the Airport and dumped me at the townhouses. Joyce who was a Singaporean teacher was the second person I came to know and thirdly was Debbie. I was looking for a place to stay at that time and Deb was commenting that I would make a great housemate for her then 'boyfriend'(husband now).

Well, what do you know?? She was right. 4 years down the track as housemates and another 3 years later; Adiemus was having a work conference in Auckland at the same time as well.

Cooked sausages and eggs for breakfast. (And trust me, my diet gets worse down the track as Cat would attest to it).

The clause for my funded trip was that my boss would only fund the conference and the airfares but not my accomodation. As you would imagine, I bunked in with Adiemus in his service apartment.
The Auckland christmas party.

Cyclone Season

The Start of the Wet or Cyclone Season. This is perhaps the hottest time of the year for Darwin (30-35c)with humidity levels at an all time high (pretty much like Singapore). But while the South prepares for Summer and bush fire season, we prepare for any impending cyclone.
Lining the streets now are truckloads of 'rubbish' such as old sofas, TVs, bikes and even a stove top. The rationale for the clean up day by the council is for residents to tidy up their garden, tools and tie down any equipment as they are potential flying missiles/projectile in a cyclone. Obviously some people are taking advantage of it by clearing out their whole garage.
Its perhaps a coincidence as well that a letter from my Superannuation (CPF) indicated that I have not names any beneficiaries. You hardly think of such things in Singapore as we are so 'sheltered' but the last big one was Cyclone Tracy in 1974 which pretty much flatenned Darwin. You just wonder if the next one is due soon with all this global warming and odd weather talk.
Maybe a Will in the process too.... Cat can have my Global Knives, Serene can have my cookery, Kheng (the racer), Mike (Giant MTB).....hmm, I dun have much other possessions to give ; )

Boys Toys: My New Ride

Woohoo... here's my new ride. Got this bike for a dime off one of the triathlete I was looking after.

I once had a conversation with this girl on bikes. She was never a 'rider' and would not understand why her boyfriend would need so many bikes. After getting on a racer herself, she was able to answer her own question. One is for city riding, if it gets stolen you dun really give a damn. The other is for riding off-road when the suspension makes the ride more comfortable. And the last one is for when you wanna go really really fast. I must say that she's a true roady 'convert' now as she's taking part in her first OD triathlon next month and Half Iron later on in the year.



After riding for months on the mountain bike and forever lagging behind. I'm finding myself closing the gap to the front of the pack now. Its a breeze to ride. With long stretches of open road and hardly any traffic or traffice lights, its the perfect backdrop for a roadbike.

Politics and Health

Half of my pay comes from the government, while the other half comes from donations and sales of diabetes related products. We have very little to do anything else other than the day to day running of the clinic. Therefore when election is round the corner and the government is throwing out ridiculous amounts of money, you just got to put your heads together to get a submission in there. Its these little bits of money that helps to upgrade and improve our services.
The process is long and arduous. After the submission, it took 3-4 months before we got to know the outcome. So when a friend who is working in the government sector rings to say congrats you've got the money...so what did you put in for? Urr... cant really remember, but I know its something to do with cooking and exercise, let me check to see what I wrote!


$143K for 4 series of 10 workshops around exercise, nutrition and cooking for diabetic and cardiac clients. There's always small grants around, I've written a few for 1-2k but this is the biggest lot of money I've ever recieved.
Needless to say, I'll be doing the cooking and nutrition session. But hey, they'll be no golden taps here... we are truly poor.

Great Outdoors: Katherine

With the booming economy, the Adelaide to Darwin rail and Tiger Airways spreading it wings around Asia, so too have the tourism numbers increase. Whenever the Dry season approaches the Southerners escape the winter chills to come up to Darwin for its crisp cool weather. But with this Dry Season, I noticed that there was also a large number of Taiwanese backpackers. Here's a group which I got to know. Without the new working/tourist visa and Tiget Airways they would not have contemplated backpacking. A sad fact of a Asian working system is that you can never expect to ask for 6 months leave and still expect your job to be there when you get back. Many of these girls gave up their jobs in order to travel. Good thing for me is that I get a free holiday as well. My contribution: the car (obviously with me in it). This time, we drove to Katherine (3 hours from Darwin) to kayak up the gorge.

Here's Edith Falls our first night campsite. After a short hike you get to a nice big waterfall swimhole..Second day, we drove to Katherine to begin our kayak up the gorges. Katherine has 12-13 gorges (I think). The hardest part was not the kayak rather the carry of the kayaks over the gorges which separates the river... Thats me being sun-smart.

Am sure Sis would love the adventure and so would no 1 and 2. Not sure how I'd get no. 3 over though.

And thats how I busted my watch.

End of an Era

I still remember vividly where I got this watch (an old Formula 1 series Tag Heuer). It was at the HourGlass shop at Marina Square. I had been eyeing this watch for a while and decided to get it after much deliberation (well it was the cheapest one of the Tag range I could afford). Think I paid $200 plus for it then. But in those days, when you're at Poly and not earning a wage, it was a lot to spend. No complains here but after a good 12-13 years of service its finally had it.
Tags are suppose to be waterproof but as I was kayaking up Katherine Gorge I noticed water had gotten in. Too late to do anything, not before long, it was gone. Guess after so many years, the seals would have been stuffed. Am a bit reluctant to throw it away though.

Lesson on Survival

Waking up at 7am to get into a 4WD with 3 Aboriginal health workers for a 3 day Aboriginal Mens Camp doesnt really sound like my normal work week does it.. An hour later, we were bashing through the Aussie outback where I could hardly see any road trails. These guys sure know where they are going. Anyway, without going into too much detail, Aboriginal people have a dramatically lower health status as compared to the rest of Australia. During white colonisation, many were centralised into camps and gradually lost their skills of being a hunter gatherer. The camp was organised for us health professionals to discuss issues of smoking, alcohol abuse, sexual health and of course, nutrition. But it was also for the Aborginal Elder to teach the younger ones the ways of hunting (and being physically fit).


Heres the billabong where our main source of water is. Me, after going through the National Service, you'd think would be more survival savvy. But I got told off when I was asked to get water. Well, I take pail, go river, grab water; how hard could that be.
Apprantly, I had to tie a rope to the pail and stand behind the tree to do it. Why????
Cos the locals have seen a 4m croc lurking in these water!!!!


Task 2: Shooting a flying target, namely duck of geese with a double barrelled shot gun.

A: "So Gerard, have you ever shot a gun?" (I think they were expecting never as the answer)
Me: "Yes, I did"
A: "Woa, you should be pretty good at this then. What gun have you shot before?"
Me: "Urrr...just the M16" (Hey trust me, I was being humble here, at least I didnt give the full list of M203, section assualt rifle, GPMG, bazooka)
A: "What the?!? we got a terrorist here! Are you serious?"

Heres a pict of the boys waiting for geese to fly overhead.
The Boys with the kill.And heres lunch within 1hr. Freshly shot from the sky, plucked and cooked over wood fire.

Well, as for me, I did not get one. And needless to say, heres the joke of the camp. "Hey Jerry, you didnt get any! You just missing your M16 right"

Next Task: Fishing.

All these kids have is just a reel and a rubber fish bait. When they lost the bait, they just tied a small piece of plastic bag to it and were still reeling them in!

Heres another task which I failed terribly. Theres only these words to descibe it.

Outclassed, Outcast and Outlast. For something so simple, you would not think that there would be any technique involved. But hey, you gotta pull the line in at such a speed whereby it reassembles a fish swimming?!?

Outcast: By the time I had cast and pulled the bait in 2 times, I reckon the Aboriginal kid beside me had already cast his forth or fifth time.

Outlast: Its Australia. The sun is FREAKING HOT. Even with suntan lotion, I'm not standing under the hot sun just to hook a barra!

Think in the end, they taught me more about survival than I did with them on nutrition.

Great Outdoors: Part 2

Me and the boys (Hao, Rocky and Ravi).

The view at the Ubirr plains

Sunset at Ubirr over the Nardab flood plains.

The Great Outdoors

One of the joys of being in Australia; the Great Outdoors. The ability to just pack up and go camping for the weekend. There's nothing like sleeping under a blanket of stars, waking up to the scent of fresh morning air and having bread toasted over a wood fire . Here's one of the trips where I went Kakadu National Park.

Darwin only has 2 seasons. The Wet and the Dry. The wet starts from around Novemeber to March whereby the temperature starts to rise to the low-mid 30's and humidity is at an all time high. As the name suggests, the season comes with wet tropical downpours with freakish thunderstorms (not a good time to visit unless you are one of those camera fanatics who love to capture lighting strikes). I must say, even though coming from Singapore, where lightning is a common occurance that the 'lightning' show is pretty amazing. Maybe its because of the lack of high rise that you see the full extent of its beauty here.
The Dry on the other hand (April to Oct) is characterised by cool 'winter' night in the teens and daytime temp of 20's with low humidity. Perfect weather for camping.

Our campsite for the first night.


Rocky, Joyce and me.

The group .
Yellow water billabong.

And here's why you dun go swimming in a billabong (notice the croc? I was told its a good 3m and not to stick your head out of the boat cos they can JUMP)

Misery

It was great spending the past 2 weeks with family back home. But all good things have to come to an end and I had to hop onto the flight back to Darwin. Arrived at 2.30am. Got home by 4am, slept till 7am to go to work at 8am. Think I pretty much survived on caffeine till the end of the day. Would I do it any different? Didnt think so. If I had all that free time at home, think I'd feel pretty miserable... No niece and nephew to play with. I actually have to do housework again. What to cook for dinner??
Workmates were telling me how they missed the fragrant smell of my cooked lunches heating up in the microwave. I just tell them; "you wouldnt know what I was missing out on till you came to Singapore". To them my lunches of stir fried noodles with ginger, vegetables and soysauce seasoned pork seemed exotic as compared to the cold cut sandwiches, salads or bought sushi they were having. But compared to the 3-4 home cooked dishes + daily soup and freshly cut fruits I had been having back home, it is pretty miserable I'd say.
What to cook tomorrow??

Foreign Talent and National Pride

I was having dinner with this other Honky the other day (who married a Spore girl); anyway, he was abit frustrated with the educational system here cos his kids never ever returned home with homework. "All they do is play sports in school". Hmm, what's wrong with that picture. I love my sports and if I was a kid again, that dosent sound too bad. Wait...think I'm going off track here. Bottomline: I love my Sports and do follow the cricket and Ashes recently and am looking forward to the Rugby World Cup.
So what do you do when its the Arafura Games and its the final Gold/Silver Hockey playoff match between Australia and Singapore? Well, I gotta say, I'd still barrack for my Singapore Team!!
Where do you draw the line on foreign talent? The world seems a smaller place these days and its increasing common to see athletes of different 'nationality' representin your own country; well cos they have been granted citizenship/PR. So its really heartwarming to see our Singapore Team made up of a Singh, Chinese and Malays playing against the Australians. It brings back memories of watching the Malaysian Cup and the reason of why we watch the Olympics/Major Games. To watch athletes from different countries competing, not watch a Chinese Table Tennis import playing against another player from China.
Well done to our Singapore Hockey boys even though they came in second.

Home Courture

Here where I shop for my kitchen stuff. Not sure about the Eastern States but we dun get a lot of veriety up here and its often more expensive. By ordering on-line and factoring in postage, its still cheaper. So check it out..

www.homecourture.com.au

Quality

Once I started paying my mortgages, I realise my disposable income has just greatly skrunk. You start to think about reining in your lifestyle. Thinking twice about going out or to the movies etc. But I dun do much of that anyway. I do however believe in paying abit more for 'quality' products (within my capabilities). I enjoy a lot of things and I guess thats where the reining in, comes in. I love my bikes, as you would know by now, nothing short of full carbon fibre, my set of Global knifes, tennis rackets and the polar 625X sitting at home in Singapore.
The other things I would splurge on is food and kitchen stuff and one of the first babies I got was the Weber BabyQ. Its small and compact. I can also bring it out camping if I wanted to; just swap to a smaller gas bottle. If I wanted a steak and roast veg for dinner, I just stick the veg in, take a shower; come out later just to sear the steak and its done.


Here are my ex-colleagues from Singapore and Mike at my place for a simple Aussie BBQ.
P.S. Sleeping on the floor isnt really that bad!

Go 2 and 5

Eating plenty of fruit and vegies not only contributes to good health, but also protects against a number of diseases and helps maintain a healthy weight.
Well, that's the national campaign backed by Dietitians to encourage Adults to get their 2 serves of fruits and 5 serves of vegetables each day. So what do you get when Dietitians working from different parts of the TopEnd get together? You get a pubcrawl; and the theme: Go 2&5, only thing is, its not fruit and veg. You get a sticker for every standard drink and by the end of the night there should be a minimum of 7 on your tag. Frankly, by the end of it, I think most of us well and truly fulfilled that requirement.


The pubcrawl also coincided with the Opening of the Arafura Games held every 2 years here in Darwin. Was elated when I got a call from an old colleague who was travelling with the Singapore Team here. Andrew's been around the council for a long time and is one of the Head Sports Trainer. I'd go to him or the rehab lab for any of my aches and pains. Anyway, we caught up on old times over dinner at my place and I got him to tag along for a few drinks as well.


Anthea who is based in Darwin but flys out to remote areas (and also my housemate); Louise from the hospital and myself.



Last but not least; our organisers, Angela, Craig and also Anthea