The same gang of us who went to Lake District almost exactly two years ago again assembled for a quick weekend road trip, through the beautiful scenic countryside, deep into Wales. I enjoyed every minute of it, although the way was beset with little disappointments. For years I had been wanting to see the puffins, which can only be found in a couple of islands off the coast of the UK, and I thought this was it - that I (we) were finally going to nail them for sure. We were close. So very close - just a queue and a 15min boat ride away. We were told that it was no-go for that day… winds too strong, waters too rough for a landing. Curses up and down along the queue, for there were others, aside from ourselves, who travelled great distances just for this opportunity. Sigh, bad luck, I guess. *shrugs*

So we walked around the cliffs and tried to look for the grey seals that were said to frequent the coast. After waiting and looking long and hard, we spotted a pair, frolicking in the water. I had expected to see them basking under the sun on the rocks, but they stuck to the water.

And then there’s the ocean - a deep, blue, vast expanse of water. That, the blue skies, the lush green of the cliffside bushes, the horses, the gulls, choughs, shags, and oystercatchers… it made it worthwhile. Totally.

~ 600 miles’ journey across and back

Brecon Beacons National Park

Horses at Martin’s Haven

The Pembrokeshire coast

There’s so much I’d like to say, but so much of it doesn’t need to be said.

From the living room windows, I can see our old apartment, just a few blocks and one postcode digit away. We’re barely two weeks settled at the new place, but it already feels like home; it has already been witness to much. Too much.

I’ve finally, finally booked my return flight to London. This trip… this journey… has been many months late. And this trip, unlike the many others before it, will be the shortest yet. And the most final. This Monday I’ll fly, and in a week I’ll pack up four… five years of my life and tie up any loose ends, and come Monday I’ll be leaving London behind. Another move… and another conclusion - not a very clean cut, this one - to another chapter in life.

Not everything in life goes according to plan. Plans I did have, but they are at the mercy of those forces out there. For now, I need to be here. I am needed here.

Went to Little India for a little exploration, this time at night, and with ZF and the budak. After an Indian buffet dinner (the spice was bearable, not once did I need to take out the tissue packet!), we plodded along, but not before we were treated to a cup of… hmmm… something gingery and spicey-tasting tea, on the house.

We passed by a tailor shophouse-turned-prayerhouse-of-God and were welcomed by a Mandarin-speaking Indian Christian Father whom we saw earlier in that same shop house preaching to a congregation in Tamil. They are all such friendly people, and like I told ZF, so friendly that I’m afraid I’d be kidnapped!

We saw a crowd, a procession, and a chariot of some sort lifted by some Hindu priests. It was the ‘Bramha Utsavam’ festival at the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, and we went in to observe the proceedings. Was offered cups of their yellow drink - a concoction of dhal, cashew nuts, milk, and sugar… it was warm, sweet. Talked to some priests, temple stewards and devotees…

At the entrance of the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple - the Bramha Utsavam ceremony of sorts?

Hindu devotees waiting to enter the temple

Photos :: Little India

Flower market at Victoria Park

Getting into position for the fireworks

In TST

HK city skyline with CNY light-ups on the skyscrapers

Mongkok

Been having a great time here, seeing relatives, grabbing my family along to Lantau, hanging out with friends, saw one of the Twins and Leo Ku, and messa even appeared on the local newspaper for one of the CNY specials, quote, photo and all! Teehee. Gotta run… zzz… job interview tomorrow!

Photos :: Hong Kong

Blogging from the new terminal with my N73… haven’t had time to analyse the architecture, but it appears to be quite green (read: eco-friendly), and very cool!

Going to Hong Kong again - this is my third trip there in six months? - to visit my folks for Chinese New Year. For too long has my face been missing from those family photos. It still wouldn’t be the entire extended family though… what with relatives away at the far-flung corners of the world… with some in Canada, and school beckoning my cousins back to the UK. And Japan, but that’s another story. We’re just all over the place.

Strangely enough, I’m setting out with the same goal as I did when I was in HK for CNY those many years ago. I wonder if my sis has been carrying on with the campaign… but I’ll know how far our influence has gone when we are witness to the absence (or presence) of sharks’ fin on the dining tables.

Here be random scribblings from my jotterbook, not necessarily in sequential order…

The fares to Japan usually cost more than flights to elsewhere, relatively speaking. I noticed that the in-flight menu had better quality paper and finishings. The meal trays too, were more aesthetically pleasing and had a Zen feel to it. The stewardesses and stewards spoke both English and Japanese. Trying to make the fares their worth?

Upon arrival in Tokyo Narita, ushers were standing by near our gate, directing passengers to the connecting flight to Los Angeles. A Causasian couple walked past, and the lady Japanese usher waved them back and told them, “Los Angeles, this way please.” To which the man replied, “No, we just came from there. We don’t want to go back!” It was said in a lighthearted manner, meant to be a teasing joke. But the poor usher was made embarrassed at her slight and kept bowing apologetically. She looked distraught, despite the couple’s attempts to assure her that “It’s perfectly alright!”

They had a new fingerprinting system at immigration control. You had to press both pointing fingers on the machines, and then it’d go ‘click’ and a snapshot of your fingerprints would be taken and show up on the control officer’s screen. It didn’t work for me. I was told to try my thumbs. Then my pointers again. Then my middle fingers. The machine was designed so that you had to fold in your other fingers other than the one being fingerprinted. So for a few seconds, I was relishing the amusing situation of having my both my middle fingers pointed directly at a figure of authority and not being reprimanded for it…

We had our Christmas dinner at a restaurant at Haneda Airport, since we were staying at the airport hotel for a night. There was still more than two hours to midnight when we walked through the airport, but already the airport staff were taking down Christmas trees and decor on shop and cafe windows. Talk about efficiency!

There are Hong Kongers everywhere in all the major cities… crowds of them. Tour buses full. Can’t avoid them. I’m not sure if it’s because we speak Cantonese ourselves and thus I am trained to pick it up when I hear it… or is it that HKgers do in fact speak in louder tones than other people?

Tokyo was hot. Over 11 °C. I was in short sleeves and with scarf wrapped around my neck, it was not uncommon to find me perspiring in the ovens of the department stores - their heaters are too much to bear! Once outdoors, I’d continue to sweat it out if I wore an additional jacket layer, so I’d have to take it off. My sis was in long sleeves, and she was complaining and wished she was in short-sleeves instead. I do not understand how the people both on the streets and inside the shops can stand it - the former dressed as people do in Hokkaido (we’re talking insulation, not fashion, of course. People in fashion-conscious Tokyo would never dress as sloppily as their northern neighbours), and the latter dressed as if they were still outdoors, keeping all their layers on. I am forced to assume that their sweat glands are rendered inactive in winter.

I love spotting humourous instances of Engrish:

On a hotel fire escape route map: ‘Robby’ was used in place of ‘lobby’.

‘Do not splash water’ on the toilet seat or it ‘may cause cause fire or trouble’.

A drawer in my hotel room was labelled ‘green tea things and glass’. The Japanese translates as ‘tea set’.

And more, only that I can’t remember them at the moment. Took pics of them with my mom’s camera, so I don’t have them with me right now.

Oh, my favourite was finding out that DSLRs can double up as flamethrowers, with some camera models capable of shooting up to 5 ‘flames per second’.

I think I’ve become immune to delays, waits, queues, and traffic jams. Living in London does that to you. And a good thing too. Why rush if there’s no point in rushing, if your impatience cannot solve anything? Enjoy the moment! Even if you’re not doing anything. Much.

We were talking with our Japanese hosts, who organised the dog-sledding and ran the pension house we stayed in during one of our stops in Hokkaido. They are both in their mid-fifties - but you would never have guessed if you hadn’t known! The wife is a F1 driver, and still races with her pals from around the country, and the husband likes to go caving and cliff-climbing in Hong Kong. They keep about a dozen sled dogs, a mixture of huskies and shiba inu-lookalikes. They had moved out of the city a long while back, now living a peaceful existence in the countryside, away from the frustrations and the stresses of a modern society. I found myself envying their lifestyle, in a certain way. They were extremely hospitable, friendly but quiet folks who admitted that they weren’t that used to having noise in the house - now, my family doesn’t exactly make a racket where we go but they did describe us as ‘うるさい’!

Such contradictory consumption behaviour. Recycling bins are everywhere. But the Japanese love elaborate packgaging and wrapping up simple items in layers and layers of quality paper or in cute, tiny little bags. Among other things that serve no practical purpose save for aesthetics. I was waiting in the car, which was parked outside a 7-eleven outlet in the outskirts of a small town in Hokkaido. A car pulled up next to ours, a lady got out, opened the backseat door, and took out a few plastic bags of what looked like trash. She walked over to the recycling bins outside 7-eleven, and poured out the rubbish which were all sorted into plastic bottles, cans and paper. Then she got back into her car and left. I looked on with keen interest.

What if snow wasn’t white? What if snow was any other colour other than white? Would snow still be as beautiful then? Or does white naturally encompass purity and beauty?

Never knew that the Japanese cranes would be this difficult to shoot. I hadn’t thought of it. Perhaps I was looking forward to just seeing these majestic, slender birds and not so much of actually photographing them. Did a couple of technical boo-boos when I was shooting them - too high an ISO, too much noise, overdid the shutter speeds, exposure was wrong. Hard to get the details out for both its black and white plumage. It was freezing out there, standing still in in the chilly winds, my bum wet from sitting on the snow when trying to shoot in level with the cranes, my fingers numbed and nearly frostbitten since I had to leave the tips exposed to operate the camera and lens. But to see them in real life and not in magazines and winning photographic entires, at long last - these red-capped cranes that can be found nowhere else in the world but in eastern Hokkaido - to watch them up close, through my lens, dancing and singing in fields and hills of white… what a feeling. I watched as one, then two, then some, then all heads turned to look as a canine (looking suspiciously like an artic fox-dog) approached the flock, and then all the cranes lifted and sailed off together in one direction, landing a few metres further to the east. There was no sense of alarm; only an aura of grace and confidence.

Why is there always that curiosity among wildlife photographers of one another’s kit? Is it that we envy what the other has (or if ours is ’superior’, then we would lay claim to boasting rights) or that we subconsiously gauge a photographer’s worth by the size of his lens - the higher quality a piece of kit, the more expensive, and the more passionate the man is about his art, or do we simply feast our eyes on these beautiful babies (the way I’d look at the lens on display in a camera shop), or are we seeking to open a gateway to interact with fellow wildlife photographers, and use talks of camera equipment (later leading on to discussions of wildlife) as an excuse to engage in a conversation? There seems to be an unspoken code that to stand in silence, to have our faces glued to our camera panels, even while the shutter is at rest, is impolite behaviour. You are expected to talk. Not that I protest. I greatly enjoy these brief periods of understanding among strangers bound by a common passion.

We flew on new year’s day. It was a short flight from Kushiro to Tokyo, and so it was a small aircraft and we flew low, just under the clouds. To observe the vast expanse of mountains, rivers, forests, meadows and towns beneath you - it is a humbling experience. When a train on a rail track appears no larger than an ant’s antennae, individual beings on earth seem so insignificant.

Back in civilization, with access to the ‘net! In Tokyo now, having spent the past few days at various towns and outposts in Hokkaido.

Some photos have been uploaded. Have a look!

Photos :: Japan Dec 2007-08

明けましておめでとう - Happy New Year to all!