feels good to be home!

after about 33+ hours of travel, i am HOME. it's so good to be home. weather is cold. thermometer in the car was reading -6 degrees. there was also some light snow. nowhere near enough to accumulate but just enough to bring a smirk to my face. i know toronto is a big city but it seems humongous compared to brisbane. there seems to be more cars, more people, more skyscrapers, more everything.

my house is completely different from when i left last january. most noticeably, the gray carpets have been replaced with shiny new hardwood. i love it. there's also a huge 47" lcd tv in the living room and my brother has a sparkling new desktop with a huge 20" flat screen - which i'm on right now. i suspect that my parents may have had some sort of cash infusion of which i am unaware of. hm... ??? maybe it's from not having to feed their eldest!
:)
the last leg of my flight was long. really long. like 15 hours long. but i was incredibly lucky and got a seat in the emergency row. if you're ever flying in an airbus 340-600, ask for seats in row 20 - so much leg room it's not even funny.

Abu Dhabi. 11:36pm local time

i'm now in abu dhabi.
it's not quite as flashy and luxurious as i had imagine it to be. there is free wireless internet though! :)

the terminal has this fishbowl/bathtub feel to it with navy blue & lime green tiles that extend from the floor all the way up to the domed roof. i want to take a picture for you but there is a "no photos" sign. i could probably plead ignorance but let's not try that.

it's also packed. Despite being almost midnight, there are more people here now than there were this afternoon in Brisbane. I don't think this airport sleeps. On the depature board right now, there are flights every hour until 6:50am.

On tv Djokovic is giving Davydenko a pretty good whipping. Don't know what tournament it is though.

i'm pretty pooped.
next stop: HOME!

Singapore. 6:26pm local time

I’m about a ¼ of the way home. After about 8 hours of flight I’m now in Singapore for a 1 hour fueling stop.

So far this etihad flight has been awesome. The food is really good, the TV screens are huge and the headphones aren’t the crappy rigid foamy ones you get on air Canada. They even have complimentary alcohol! Man, that’s ol’ school service right there! i had a glass of white wine with lunch :)

Something that I found interesting: right before taking off, along with the safety announcements, they had a travel prayer from the Qur’an. i have no idea what exactly was said in the prayer (i'm pretty sure it was in Arabic) but I found that quite interesting.

Next stop: Abu Dhabi.

Etihad!

don't worry. i didn't just swear at you in some foreign language. etihad is actually the airline that i'll be taking home in november! yay! it ONLY cost me a smidgeon over $2400. it's pretty direct, i fly brisbane to abu dhabi and then from abu dhabi to toronto.
i know what you're thinking. "i've never even heard of etihad before. and where the heck is abu dhabi???"
Abu Dhabi is actually the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and is the 2nd largest city behind Dubai. my layover is only a few hours but i've never been to the UAE so it'll be cool.
as for Etihad, it's a fairly new airline. it was founded in 2003 and is actually the national airline of the UAE. it's in direct competition with it's 'older brother' Emirates Airlines. from what i've read so far the service is quite good and flights are never delayed.

my roommates have been busting my chops for flying with Etihad. so i did a little research. according to JACDEC (Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre), Etihad (0.00) has a better safety index than Air Canada (0.04), American Airlines (0.22), British Airways (0.03), China Airlines (1.52) or Korean Air (0.87).
For completion sake, Cathay Pacific and Qantas also have a safety index of 0.00. without going too much into detail about the math behind the safety index, simply it is the number of fatalities/terametre. a terametre is 10^12m.

so if i survived a round trip on china airlines, i should be fine on etihad. right??? right.

*****
in other news. i took my photo for trephine (which is our yearbook - only the 2nd years get a yearbook). nothing fancy, just really casual. but i think i came out looking like a huge dork. i'm sure the hair was perfect :p but i think i had this goofy little smile on my face. oh well.

*****
did you hear? the "ice...cccoooooold...beeeeeeeeer!!!" guy (his real name is wayne mcmahon but everyone calls him the ice-cold-beer-guy) from rogers centre was fired recently. all you jays fans should know who he is. apparently he sold a drink to a 22 year old mystery shopper without checking out his ID. i'm told that the policy at rogers centre is to check all ID for anyone who looks less than 30. there's now a facebook group petitioning for his job back. it's now up to 18,000 members. that's impressive.

*****
haven't been running in the last few days. partly because the weather has been lousy and partly because i've had stuff going on right around my normal jogging time - around 4 in the afternoon. but mostly because i've been a tad lazy. the last run i did was on friday to the city. that was almost 11 clicks.

it's actually a really nice run. right along the river. should probably run it again today.

gas prices are killing me!

last year i flew home during the x'mas holidays for about $2300. if you recall it wasn't the safest airline and it wasn't the most direct route (i flew brisbane to taipei, taipei to vancouver and finally vancouver to toronto). however it wasn't that bad. service was good, no major delays and no baggage lost.

but this year i thought i'd pay the extra few hundred dollars and fly home directly (e.g. Brisbane-L.A.-Toronto) to avoid the ridiculously long stopovers. i might have to rethink this option though. that direct flight is going to cost me a cool $3400. the flight route i took last year will cost me an extra $600 - so $2900 this year.

man. that's brutal. maybe i should just stay in brisbane...
thoughts???

green tea latte, glenelg, boxer shorts, brighton, clara's bday.

slept in on sunday morning and then headed out for breakfast by the beach. had a "lighter" breakfast and then went into to a starbucks to warm up and to sit & chat. we sat on the balcony that overlooked the ocean and the main square of glenelg. it was quite nice.

note to self. never get the green tea latte.

we then walked around glenelg...

look! it's a palindrome!
G-L-E-N-E-L-G... G-L-E-N-E-L-G.

while in search of a toilet, we stumbled across the town museum.

i'm not sure who this is but my guess is he found glenelg and pointed to everyone: "look! it's glenelg!" ok, so maybe that not EXACTLY how it went...

we then walked along the jetty and took some pictures.

...

...

yea. about that. justin had sent me boxer shorts that look like a canadian hockey jersey. to the horror of clara and stella, i showed my appreciation by wearing it around in public. can't possibly imagine what they'd be so embarrassed about.

we had had enough of glenelg so we headed to brighton.

another little beach. another jetty. and another meal. lunch was at primo's, an italian/seafood restaurant. it was good. i had the seafood risotto and felt like i was going to burst at the seams.

i'm pretty sure pat's full too.

after lunch, the girls' did the some shopping and pat & i snuck off to buy a cake for clara's birthday. on our way home we went up to windy point for a view of the city...

at least one silly jumping photo is mandatory on all trips.

funny thing.

in classic bogen fashion, there were several of these drive-thru liquor stores in adelaide.

of course there was one last meal left. dinner was at a restaurant/pub called the dublin. another great meal. i had a seared kingfish.
(sorry camera was out of batteries by this point).
it was some great tasting fish. we rarely have fish in brissy - beef is king at "home". so it was nice.

we capped off the trip with a song and some cake.

happy (early) birthday clara!

another early flight out and i was home in bris by noon on monday. cleaned up, showered and headed to lectures. i'm glad i didn't blow them off cause they were actually pretty good.

*****
when i first flew into adelaide i wasn't expecting a whole lot out of the city - especially considering stella refers to adelaide as a "cultural wasteland" and the in-flight magazine referred to it as "dullsville". but i gotta say i had a lot of fun. and i can definitely see why it'd be a tourist-worthy place in the summer time.
but maybe our next reunion will be somewhere else? melbourne? or even new zealand perhaps?

i think this picture sums up this trip.

noice!!!

marilyn, CBD, UofA, bratwursts, wine tasting.

saturday started off with a big breakfast at a place called "a cafe etc..."
food was pretty good - and they had marilyn monroe EVERYWHERE. it was like a shrine. the walls of the restaurant were completely plastered with pictures, posters and news articles about marilyn. they had plates with pictures of MM hanging from the walls, porcelain dolls of MM, even a elvis-like bust of MM. it was cool. sort of. all that really matters was that it was only 10:30 and i was completely stuffed.


we then drove into the city and walked around the downtown core. it wasn't very big. hm... the entire downtown seemed about the size of the UofT st.george campus.
we took some pictures by the state library, the art gallery and museum and eventually wandered onto the university of adelaide campus. now, the UofA campus was actually quite nice.


it was very harvard-esque. it even had a little river in the back - like harvard!


it reminded me so much of boston that i got a little carried away. i don't think this boot is as lucky though.


all that walking was making us hungry. we weren't really hungry but felt obliged to eat. afterall, it was past noon. so we drove up to hahndorf a little town with good german food. we stopped in a little place for some tea and coffee and then settled on a german restaurant. i proceeded to stuff my face with a bratwurst with lots of sauerkraut.

it was good.

after lunch we went for some wine tasting.

stella opted not to drink as she was driving so i dutifully had her share of wine.


clara - happy with the view.


me - happy with my purchase.

after the wine we went up to mount lofty but it was much too foggy and cloudy to see anything.


after mount lofty we were pooped. so we headed home. we recharged our batteries and then decided it was time for dinner. yes we were still full but the clock said it was 6:30. time for dinner. we ended up picking up some take out from a thai place nearby. pat made a very valiant effort to finish all 4 servings (the rest of us weren't very hungry) but was unsuccessful. i think there is enough leftovers from that dinner to last stella for another couple of weeks.

adelaide wrap up.

man. where to start. i can't believe my break is over already and pat is somewhere over the pacific ocean on his way back home. it's true. time flies when you're having fun.

so we flew into adelaide on friday morning, caught a cab and made our way to stella's townhouse. after dropping off our bags and catching our breaths, we started getting hungry so we decided to go exploring around the campus. no offense stella but flinders has got nothing on UQ. it reminds me of the UTSC campus back in the day. lots of green grass and trees but also lots and LOTS of CONCRETE.

pat with the bust of captain matthew flinders.

fortunately stella finished earlier than expected so we headed out for some fluids (at cibo) and dinner (at simply sushi). after dinner we drove into the city and did a quick tour by car. we then headed to the airport to pick up clara who was flying in from sydney. for some reason stella thought it'd be funny to embarrass clara by wearing party hats as we waited for her at her gate.

in case you don't know clara, she gets embarrassed very easily and is generally ashamed of all her male cousins. well, except for pat. and in this case, without justin and harri, i guess that just leaves, well... me.

case in point:

adelaide is home to coopers beer. it's probably one of the better beers of australia but still doesn't compare to canadian beer. the funny thing is that coopers is a family brewery and one of the CEOs - Tim Cooper is actually an MD, well, i guess an MBBS.

after picking up clara, we picked up some pizza (yes, more food) and went home to watch some scrubs and fraser DVDs.

take that america!

we're number one!
we're number one!
we're number one!

australia is now the fattest country in the world. pft... and the yankees thought they were number one at everything.

*****
just got home from the airport. had a GREAT weekend in adelaide. will tell you all about it later with pictures and all. let's just say there was a lot of giggling and TRUCK loads of food. if we were to keep that up, we'd definitely be contributing to the aussie obesity epidemic.

adelaide here we come!

it's friday morning. early. so early dawn hasn't even cracked yet. headed to the airport for our 7am flight to adelaide. should be good. weather in adelaide looks brisk but sunny. probably won't update until i get back. catch y'all next week.

stop eating shark fin soup! STOP!

if you haven't seen this documentary yet, you have to watch it. it's a film called "sharkwater" by rob steward (no not ROD steward - rob). and he's canadian too!

it's about sharks and how they are misrepresented by the media as bloodthirsty, human hunting monsters. it hints at how sharks are a vital part of not only the underwater ecosystem of the world but of the very ecosystem in which we live & depend on. it then focuses on the billion dollar business of shark finning. there is some gruesome footage of fishermen catching sharks for their fins, cutting them off and then discarding the now-finless-but-still-alive sharks back into the water to die.

i've never had shark fin soup before. never really wanted to. but this definitely turns me off to it. and plus, i'm told it has no real taste to it. it's usually served in a chicken or beef broth! people eat it for its "texture" and their completely misplaced beliefs of health benefits. and of course don't forget the status that comes with being able to afford it.

stop. watch the movie. and if you're feeling like some soup, go eat some pho instead.

*****
managed to get in 30 hours of study this week. didn't make my goal.
should've got in much more. was not very efficient.
current gear: stuck in 5th.

*****
forgot to mention: i'm going down to adelaide during my week off in june! yay! i'm going to fly down with my brother to see my cousins stella and clara - yes clara! she's flying down from sydney. it'll be a mini family reunion. harri? justin? wanna join us?

fraser - day 4.

last day on fraser island.
we had spent the last night trying to finish off as much of the food and alcohol as possible. i didn't drink much though - just ONE beer. i should've had more. it would've helped me sleep better. the ground was hard and terribly lumpy, but matt didn't seem to mind. he had enough of the goon and beer to keep him snoring all night long. ;)

on the other hand. i'm glad i didn't drink any cause otherwise i wouldn't have remembered all the silly shenanigans that the rest of the group pulled. there were dance offs, drink offs and even a push-up contest. everyone was pretty loose. i think matt has some of this on video. i'll have to try and convince him to put some of that up on youtube. it'll come in real handy for people's weddings some time down the road.

last on the agenda was lake mackenzie. (4)
lake mackenzie is arguably one of the biggest draws of fraser island. it has creamy white sand and crystal clear warm water.


we goofed around...


played some frisbee...


slept on the beach...


and enjoyed the last few hours of our stay on fraser island.


and just as we went back to the ferry, it started pouring. we couldn't have timed it any better.
chalk up another successful trip with plenty of good memories.

fraser - day 3.

we woke up to the sun just peeking over the horizon.


first on the agenda for day 3 was a trip up past indian heads to what are called "champagne pools". (3)

as the tide comes in, it splashes over the rocks and sprays the swimmers. in the pools there are also tons of little fishies that swim around. that was cool.

we then headed back down the beach and up a short hike to the top of indian heads. there we were able to see sting rays and sharks through the water.

we had some awesome views.

...

...

after that, we drove back south towards our campsite for the night.

on the way down, we stopped by the maheno shipwreck. (3)

the maheno used to be a luxury cruise ship in the early 1900s. it served as a hospital ship during the first world war. and in 1935 it was being towed from melbourne to japan for scrap metal when it was hit by a huge cyclone. a few days later, it drifted ashore and beached itself onto fraser island. apparently more than 3.5 storeys of the ship is buried under the sand.

we then dropped by eli creek. we rinsed off the sand and salt water at eli creek. eli creek is one of the bigger washouts where freshwater from the island drains into the ocean. we were told the water was clean enough to drink - as long as you weren't downstream of all the swimmers! despite the water being a chilly 16 degrees celsius, there were plenty of people that floated down the current.

this is us walking up the creek.

as we drove up to our campsite, we caught a glimpse of a dingo!


that night we had dinner, played marco polo in the dark on the beach and admired the jellyfish that washed onto the shore with the incoming tide.

fraser island! (day 1 & 2)

went to fraser island for a 4 day/3 night camping trip. had an amazing time.
before i get into all the details, here's some quick background info:
-fraser island is the largest sand island in the world. there is sand EVERYWHERE. by the time you get home, you have sand EVERYWHERE. in every crevice you could possibly imagine.
-it's home to some of the purest breeds of dingoes in all of australia. which we saw on a couple of occasions.
-it's only accessible with a 4 wheel-drive vehicle. with anything else, you don't stand a chance.
- access to the island is via a ferry from hervey bay which is roughly 300 km north of brisbane.

simple map of fraser island.

we were a group of 16. 16!
our house: matt, susan, alan, laura, myself.
susan's friend from canada: jenn.
our friends shawn & yi.
shawn's sister: wang-ee.
yi's girlfriend: angela.
bunch of third years: claudia, henry, jason, priya, vincent.
and claudia's friend from vancouver: ali.


our first night was spent at a hostel in hervey bay. (1)
we kept it pretty low-key. some of us did end up taking unwanted dips into the pool though.


the next day we picked up our bright pink, 9-seater toyota land cruiser. she was a beauty!


we then picked up some groceries and headed to the barge. we backed the car in...

and enjoyed the boat ride.


after a 35 minute ferry ride, we arrived on the island. we drove across the island - this was real 4-wheel driving, and headed to the beach. driving was so much fun. after about 10 minutes you start feeling invincible. there is no rock or tree or pot hole that you can't clear in this thing. shift down into 2nd, take you're time and this bad boy in pink just powers through anything.

after driving across the island, we made it to the beach on the eastern shore. driving on the beach was also hilarious. couldn't help but to scream the baywatch theme song a couple of times.

~don't you worry!
it's gonna be alright...
cause i'm always ready
i won't let you out of my sight!~
haha.... aww.... david hasselhoff. THE HOFF! ok. i digress.

after having lunch we headed to lake wabby. (2)
lake wabby is about a 30 minute hike into the middle of the island. you walk in and out of nowhere, this lake springs up.


facing the lake is a huge bank of sand. you walk up this hill and all you see is more sand. its like you're in a desert somewhere in morocco or egypt.


jenn tried to ride a boogie board down the sand but that didn't work too well.


after lake wabby, we drove up near dundubara had dinner and camped for the night. it wasn't cold but the ground was bloody hard. (2)

in oz.

so in case you didn't know, i'm in brisbane now. arrived a few days ago.
my apologies to those that i didn't get a chance to say a proper goodbye to. i will see y'all next november. maybe. ;)

the flight here was pretty straight forward. toronto to vancouver, vancouver to taipei, taipei to brisbane. no major delays, cancelled flights, or lost baggage. win-win.

i did have a massive stopover in taipei though. i think it was about 17 hours long. thankfully the government of the republic of china (not the people's republic of china, there's a difference!) provides a free 1/2 day tour for those that have a stopover of more than 7 hours long. so i jumped on and took a little tour...

first stop was the Longshan Temple. it's apparently the oldest and most famous temple in taipei. it was impressive. not necessarily because of it's size or architecture but the fact that there was this temple right in the middle of the city.

if i remember correctly, these people on the left are praying to the god of "study". there were also gods for health, business, fertility and matchmaking. haha. if anyone wants to make requests, i will say a prayer for them to the matchmaker god the next time i'm in taipei.

next was the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, also known as National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall. My (limited) understanding is that Chiang Kai-Shek played a very key role in forming Taiwan into a democratic country and not a communist one like it's "big brother".

the stairs in this picture... there are 89 steps. why 89? that's because Chiang was 89 when he passed away! duh! silly! isn't that obvious?!?!

the third step was this place called Martyrs' Shrine. it's a shrine dedicated to the soldiers of china's wars.

now at the main entrance and closer to the shrine itself there are guards. kind of like our mounties, these guards aren't allowed to move. however, they have these little minions.

guess what this guy's job is.
that's right. his sole purpose is to wipe the sweat off of the guards faces!

and finally, we had a quick photo-stop in front of Taipei 101.

the tallest building in the world. it cost nearly $2 billion dollars to construct and even has double decker elevators! how cool is that??? however, it's soon expected to be overtaken by the Burj, Dubai which stands at 141 floors.

and then it was back to the airport. after another 4 hours, i was on the plane to brisbane. i enjoyed taipei. definitely a place i'd like to revisit some time.