Rainy Sydney, a moment (Going back years..) and Ying Zi

Today, first day after Christmas at work . Its a bit chilly and raining
lightly. I woke up to the freshness of my room that I had just
reorganized (in basic sync with Feng Shui). I was feeling little cold last
night so I had completely closed the window. In retrospect that should
have prevented rain from coming in. Apparently it must have rained
quite a bit during night, leaving Sydney with a
wet but crispy, teary morning.

My jaw and my cheeks are still a bit out of shape from the
Dental surgery, and I could have well worked from home
( turns out there are hardly anyone at work, except for Nick
and few others in our floor). But I decided to venture
out anyway, and I have few software to copy from the
iso site at office. I had my light jacket on when I started from
room, but had to take it off after I reached the platform,
I was feeling bit too warm.

Once seated on train I put on my iPod and started shuffling
thru my latest purchases and oldies, Korean, Michael Jackson (!),
Faye Wong blah blah.. The whole trip today was worthwhile for a
couple of observations, at Central, the trains were parrallelly sitting
in their tracks on each platform in a way that I could see right
from my window and look at people on the next one, then thru
to next one..and next one..and all thru to the last platform in sight.
It was almost like looking at a mirror placed opposite to another.
You can't possibly do this in a normal office day because the
trains and platforms will be full of people.

But this morning it was a bit like looking
at people and their lives..and a nerve soothing beauty of a young
Sydney girl sitting at seat in front of me. Bit skinny and fragile
looking, but radiant like an olive Sun.

She was also listening to her nano.
And with few exchange of glances backwards she must have measured
me up as well.. ha ha.. or just been aware sitting next to me. Her
frothing with the music was a good sight, so was her glances looking
out, watching the rain drops rushing down the window,
for a moment we were sharing the same views. Reminds me of
fewJamese Blunt lines..

Yeah, she caught my eye,
As we walked on by.
She could see from my face that I was,
Flying high,
And I don't think that I'll see her again,
But we shared a moment that will last till the end..


God.. the moments you create,
who else can have such spontaneousness?

Good drifting away.
But yeah, nothing to remember or forget, but a small picturesque
moment, confined in a train car, watching the rain outside,
and smelling the radiance of an unknown fairy. .not bad
start for the end of the year.

The guy seated next to me probably was Chinese, as he kept on
intently looking at my iPod screen when I was changing song and
noticed Faye Wong, and her blockbuster number Ying Zi. The song
basically dances around the fact of being in complete love with
someone, that you cease to exist beyond nothing but a
shadow of that person.

Ying Zi (Shadow) by Wang Fei ( Faye Wong)
----------------------------------------------------
You've got a name
I am just a shadow
In your heart there is a shadow
I am just a name.

I can't put it clearly
or see what it means
this thing inside
doesn't have an explanation
or is it just a show of
Wrong assumption..

Bill O'Reilly, Australian TV, my swollen jaw..

I have been sitting in front of my Japanese tea table, watching lots of TV
and getting myself lost in the Internet, recovering from the teeth pulling this week.

The swelling has set in and remained constant, but not too painful as I feared.
I have cut down on the pain killers and remain solely on guards of antibiotics
and strong mouth rinse. As the girl in the pharmacy said, the antibiotics is
for killing the bacteria from within and the mouthwash from outside.
I've got the TV on most of the time while seated in blue IKEA sitting pads,
with my laptop placed at the brown Japanese table, on day and night.
Right now there is a slow movie set in Emperial India is on in ABC. Its a
train journey of few British and an injured Indian train driver.

I stumbled upon this vicious Fox News talk show, O'Reilly Factor in Youtube yesterday.
The host is the most loud mouthed arrogant moron named Bill O'Reilly. I remeber
watching him while I was Nepal, years ago, and I think I liked the show then.
But watching him vomit his outrageously stupid and one dimensional attacks makes me stir at the thought of how one right wing American evil can take a damning swipe at the entire American Goodness and taint it in front of the entire world. He is a vehement pro Bush,
pro Iraq War fool with full bred blind support and I would say almost a Bush-faith, but no
trace of wisdom or civility. While he seems to have a bit of intellect as to understand
his version of war, saying invading Iraq in spite of a horrendous mistake by Bush
is just a 'mistake', he has no idea about what is going on in the ground, what the American
troops there think of the war and the errie similarity of fighting in vain as their
forefathers did in Vietnam, or what are the other options that could bring about an
immediate or long term solution to the explosive crisis. Watching him is like
watching a mad bull in a crowded market. But disappointingly no one seems to be
able to fully quash this garbage mouth. I have seen some people having a free ride
on rampages like this, believing they can say and what they like just on the strength
of their arrogance and people's tolerance, but this guy is grand daddy of them all..
don't know how the Americans put up with him.

Christmas in Australia

Christmas in Australia is more in sync with the inherent Australian
nature of life - Outdoor activities, beaches mostly. People talk more about going places,
traveling, family vacations, rather than a traditional dinner or Churches
or other more conventional ways of celebration more prevalent in UK,
Europe or North America. I hardly hear about the type of family gatherings
as seen in movies, people here rather make most of the holiday and take it
as a long week off.

This might probably have to do with the season of the Christmas here, its
mid summer in Australia. Its not snowy, white, shivering boxing day.
Its rather full blown sunny day, partly raining, again, beautiful sunshines.
Temperature in Perth on Christmas eve was frying 40 degrees, it was bit
better in Sydney at around 27. So naturally you are enticed to go out, rather
than sit around the fire and sing Christmas carols ( ha ha..imagine doing this in Perth) .
But they do a lot of shopping, and buy gifts for each other to the degree where they spend a
small fortune out of their pockets.

How about us, non Christians in Australia? Well, its a good resting time for us
as well. We won't have huge fat layered turkey dinner, which I think is bad for this time of
the year anyway. We relax and go around as well, or do things on our own, or
get our rotten teeth pulled..like I did.

Teeth pulled

Visit to the dentist..just an imagination is enough to send chills down
my spine. I actually woke up at 1 in the afternoon by by Dentist's call.
I had setup an appointment yesterday and forgot about it.

One of my wisdom tooth has been rotting for long time, and I had seen
a dentist about a year and half ago, I was advised to get rid of the rotting
teeth then. I had been pushing it. Today was the day to do it.
Although I was prepared mentally to remove this one, he told me that
the upper one also rotting and would have no use since its lower partner
would be gone, I would not be able to chew with it. I thought it was sensible, since
this would just rot more and cause trouble later on, I would eventually
have to remove it as well, so I agreed to have both pulled.

It was in a clinic on Liverpool Road, I had to ask the dentist about the
exact location as well, he was a bit pissed of I guess. Young and energetic
looking, my dentist was ethnic Korean and was excited to know that I had
visited Seoul just last month. But I did not agree with him when he said that
the city was clean for its size, well..Seoul is a dirty city.

The upper wisdom teeth came out easily, in the dentist's own word,
just 'pull, and bang..it will be out'. It was like that indeed.
But lower one was bit of a mess.
It was indeed scary, specially when he started to flutter as the tooth was
found to be really deeply and strongly rooted. The dentist had to use all
his force trying to uproot it, it would not budge. It was terrifying to hear him
feel he was having problem with it, and say that if he kept on trying to shake
it up with brute force he would end up breaking my jaw. He had to
cut open my jaw bone a little, and finally he was able to pull the teeth out.
Well the minor surgery did not hurt as much as I imagined. It was also
comforting to hear from the girl at the Pharmacy that she too had pulled
out her tooth last year and apart from swelling it hurt only for couple of
days. Emm..I have a small swelling now and I am drowsy with the pain
killer. I hope I will be able to pull it off without much drama..I have to
visit the clinic in 2 wks to remove the stitch on my jaws.

I am thinking about my dad's frequent visits to dentists in Kathmandu,
and his days suffering the pain back home. Just called home this evening
and it was good to be comforted by both Mom and Dad.

My Current Verdict on Asian / Australian Cities

City	Infra	Size	Places	Culture	People	Livability	Overall
1. Tokyo	100	100	100	100	100	100	100.00
2. Beijing	60	30	140	130	100	80	90.00
3. Shanghai	70	40	120	115	100	75	86.67
4. Hong Kong	80	40	110	100	85	90	84.17
5. Bangkok	65	35	100	100	100	70	78.33
6. Sydney	80	20	90	50	105	120	77.50
7. Melbourne	70	10	60	50	110	130	71.67
8. Seoul	70	35	70	80	85	65	67.50
9. Kathmandu	5	2	110	125	80	25	57.83
10. Pokhara	3	1	90	95	90	65	57.33
11. New Delhi	35	30	50	75	20	15	37.50
12. Bangalore	25	8	40	30	90	30	37.17

A dream: simple but fuller life

When Brad Pitt said 'Life is pain', for me it was like a staggering
affirmation of what I have just been realizing, and what pundits of
enlightenment have been saying for centuries. That just by having
fame and fortune, you are not going to be happy.Just by having what

you wanted, does not ensure your happiness. If a couple of million dollar

a movie, a woman the whole world lusts upon, a fame like on one else,
a career that everyone dreams of, cannot make u happy, cannot fulfill
your heart and desires, not only unable to make u happy but u actually
feel that its pain!, then what else can you do materially to be happy??

I admire Brad for his class in real life, his no no-nonsense and humbleness
in spite of being such a super star.

I don't know..chasing up career and day to day here in Australia, being
away from family members and loved ones for so long, sometimes I feel
happiness has been snuffed out of my life. But As Pitt said, life is pain,
there is no different definition to better understand it.
Life is a serial soap of pain and problems, its never gonna end till your last day,
the trick would be to learn to flow with it and try to enjoy probably.

I used to imagine I was just a small carpenter down in Kathmandu.
I contemplate a simple but fuller life with my family near beside me.
Lot of this imagination comes from a young carpenter, Krishna, who used to make
furniture for us at home. Like him, I would have a bike to move around,
I would be working with logs of wood, nailing down while joining legs of
chairs and tables and beds. I would have my wife making tea for me nearby
and my small kid would be playing around. My parents would be watching me
or advising me on this and that. Wow, what a lovely life that would have been.
Only the things were that simple..

I am sitting here, missing my family, every moment, wishing they could see
my progress, my success and disappointment, live and breath with me.

Staring out of a small window, at..life.

Yesterday was a day of a small dissapointment, and a lesson in life
for me.I was excited to brim about something, then it slipped off my hand.

I was after a property, a two bedroom flat, in Inner Sydney, I wanted
to commit for it the moment I saw it. The property agent wanted me to
sign the initial contract right away at his office, but being a first
time buyer and totally new to trade I wanted to confirm with a friend
of mine who has been here for a long time. Well, my friend came to
the inspection with his new girlfriend, and had a look around too.
The flat was just immaculate, big, spacious, very well renovated and
sunny. He said that its a nice bldg but a bit overpriced, so I might
need to do my homework and find out more before I make a formal
offer. So I stopped my temptation, did not sign the contract with the
agent, that I was about to do, and set out to find out more about the
area, the property and so forth in the region and around sydney. My
little research did a lot of good to me, I came across different
vendors and builders, had a chat with lots of them, and few of them
recognized the property I was interested in and immediately
recommended me for the price. In fact I was getting a very good
bargain it turned out. So I called up the agent and wanted to put
down pen to the paper as well as the 0.25 percent deposit that was
required to show my formal commitment. Well at first he was happy I
was making up my mind and told me that he already had an offer for
it, and mine had to be a bit higher than that. So I agreed and told
him that I will see him at his office with the cash and will sign the
contract there. I was brimming with confidence and joy, a property
for me, in Sydney, wow that was mouth watering. And to add to it, it
was a really good one. How happy would my family be..and so it went,
I was very excited. He called back after a while, I could feel it right away
and as expected, he poured cold water on my dream.
The owners are fearful of losing the offer they
already had, in case I backed out in the crunch hour. The agent then
asked if I would want to go a bit higher in offer that would make
them change their mind. I could have tinged a sense of a game here,
but the honesty in his voice ruled it out. So I agreed, five grand
more.He called back later and completely dashed my hopes, the owners
were still interested in the offer at hand and were leaning towards
it inspite of my higher offer. I did not want to further chase up (
lack of heart? or being too cautious?)I told him that I am not
getting good vibes about it and would back down then. So it went
puff. He later called me up to console me as if I had lost something
really big ( which is not true) and wanted to comfort me by saying he
will find something good soon for me.

So, a bit of a disappointment, a lot of local learning.

Japanese Evening

Last evening was all Japanese. I had my first lesson, an hour, with
Mika, myJapanese teacher. She gave me quite an amount. Its hard
enough trying to remember 10 japanese characters already..

Then I joined some Japanese boys and girls I met thru the net, and we had
a long gathering at Shark bar, Liverpool street..
Kazu was the main organizer, seemed like 27-28 year old, student and working
as a cleaner, renting in Bondi Beach.
Masa, from Kyushu island, just finished his college and is looking for work.
Akiko, from Hiroshima, has been here for 6 years and works for a travel agency.
Tetsu also been here for 3 years and also works for another travel agency.
We talked for hours about life in Japan, life here for Japanese, differences
on people, blah blah..just wanted to get some insight on Japan.
But most of them seem to feel that they like Australia more than their
own country, Tetsu says that after tasting the freedom of western society
in Australia, its now impossible for him to go back and live in his society.
He finds it too strict, too disciplined. The rest seem to feel same way.
Kazu was openly hoping to be able to get the Australian residency if
he could. The girls have been here for years and told me that only thing
they want to go back is for short visits.