LishLight Blog

Gen Y people have generally been described as well educated, highly technology oriented, materialistic, and lacking the loyalty to jobs that characterised their parents. Some might argue that this lack of loyalty is due to an abundance of choices of what to do with oneself, be it change to another job, go travelling, or simply try out a new hobby. In the rapidly shrinking world of I-want-it-now, it is easier and easier to do whatever you want, whenever you want. No wonder people are getting more hedonistic.

I’ve never really thought I fell into the Gen Y category, but, increasingly, I feel that I must. I’ve had a series of jobs, none lasting more than 2 years. I’ve travelled widely, am well educated, and would certainly feel lost without the internet as a source of knowledge for everything. One of the downsides that I’ve noticed for myself, is that due to the amount of choice I have for what to do, I’m overwhelmed and feel lost and unfocused. Any given day has me looking out and thinking a million different things I want to do. The hedonist in me takes control. I want to read this and that, explore a dozen things, write fiction, non-fiction, go out dancing, create a new website, update existing ones I have…  etc etc. The possibilities are endless.

Writing to-do lists and prioritising items only works to a certain point. The inner rebel is easily distracted from what I had planned to do and wants to do other new and exciting activities rather than stick to the plan.

So in an effort to rein in my roaming fancies, I am introspecting. Why am I finding myself torn in a dozen directions and following none? Is it the hedonist in me with eyes bigger than my stomach? Why are some activities (eg going to meet with friends, or applying for jobs) so much easier to motivate myself to do than others?

One theory I have is that there are simply too many choices available. The world is my oyster and I like it that way. But it’s not the most productive way to look at it. I need to focus on only a handful of goals at a time, and put the others off till another timeframe.

What worries me when I try to leave some goals for later is that they will never get done. But that’s still better than nothing ever getting finished.

So, in an effort to keep my writing going, it’s coming back into my list of top activities I want to do. Here goes!

As it’s a Monday, Andrew heads off to work and I survey the mess that my possessions have created within a single day. With the two of us hanging out for 3 weeks, it’s important to make sure we get along well for the whole time and have adequate space so I gratefully make use of the cupboard I’m given. I don’t think it would be an issue if we were in an English-speaking country, but here in China the world feels quite full-on when you don’t understand much. So the previous day had seen me let Andrew do all the talking to other people. Today, I needed to strike out on my own.

Stupidly enough, the first thing I do in the morning is accidentally kick a chair and turn my little toe purple and swollen. I hope it’s not broken. I can still walk, but limp a bit. Hilariously enough, I also just hope it doesn’t affect my dancing. Walking, shmalking. Dancing is critical.

As a result, my afternoon of wandering the subway, Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City is cut down to a quick trip on the subway to Tianamen Square and back, and a visit to a local supermarket.
The subways haven’t changed much since I was last here, aside from additional advertising. Each carriage now has tv screens playing ads (with sound), and sometimes when you look out the windows, there are screens outside the train too. That’s new to me.

One of the other major changes I’ve noticed with the subway is the increased security - you now have to have your backpack x-rayed as you go to catch the train. And when I wandered up from the subway to Tianamen Square, I was also patted down by police and scanned with a metal-detector, i think. Every entrance to the Square has this.

As a caucasian in China, I find I get stared at a lot, though perhaps not as much as last time I was here. You’d think the Olympics last year would have gotten everyone used to white people. But I was still asked by someone to have them take a photo with me. Also, in touristy areas like the square I kept hearing ‘Hello! How are you? Where are you from?’ shouted in my direction. Being on my own and kind of paranoid, with a heightened sense of caution I chose not to respond to those people.

I’m trying to remember what made me respond to the person who asked to take a photo with me. I think they were being polite and started talking with ‘Excuse me’ which is much less threatening.

I saw a crowd around a handful of black people. I wonder if the crowd was just because they were black, or because they were famous. I suspect it’s the former, as they didn’t look familiar at all. I guess I have it easy since I’m only white and not blonde or anything really crazy.

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By 6am I’m off the plane and wandering through Beijing airport. We taxied for 15 minutes before getting to the terminal. Wow, it’s changed a lot since I was last there in 2005. It’s huge. It looks very modern now, and has a minimum of Chinglish. And, believe it or not, you now need to catch a train from immigration through to baggage collection.

I am met by Andrew and 4 degree cold so I immediately pile on a few extra layers. Why is it so cold here at in the middle of spring?

We head back to his apartment to drop off my things. He lives in a studio apartment which is remarkably well laid out and has loads of facilities (from a large tv to a washer/dryer) considering how small it is. After I shower, we head out to the Temple of Heaven gardens to wander around, dine on dumplings for lunch at the gorgeous Riten park and come back to his place for a mid-afternoon nap.

I’m a bit jetlagged so we only go out for a bit of a walk in the evening and then pick a nearby restaurant for incredible beans and Peking Duck for dinner.

Man, how I love the chinese vegetable dishes. This is why I could happily be vegetarian here. But I probably won’t be - there are too many delicious things to try!

The red wine from the night before came back to haunt me. A painful morning resulted and the oft-quoted resolution to never again drink quite so much wine in a single evening. By afternoon I’d mostly recovered and did a final round of packing all my remaining worldly belongings. Apparently, I still had too many possessions as after throwing out a bag of stuff, I still had 22kg in my main luggage, plus carry-on of a laptop and 5-10kg of other bits and pieces.

Thankfully I was still allowed to check in my suitcase and proceed through more queues to get onto the plane.

On the plane I watched the Holiday and then the Da Vinci Code before falling into an uncomfortable sleep. I swear they make long-haul seats much more uncomfortable than short flight seats on purpose. I can never sleep comfortably on long flights. But with my trusty travel pillow, I still got 3-4 hours of sleep.

So as the traipsing about Australia finally comes to a close, I catch a bus back up to Sydney and get back just in time to go see the dentist for my last appointment. With my face half-numb from the anaesthetic for the first filling I get in probably 10 years, I find that people keep asking me for directions. I hope I didn’t sound quite as inept as I felt, but they seemed to get the gist of what I was saying. Needless to say, drinking a glass of water while only half your lip can feel anything is downright peculiar.

A fun-filled evening with friends followed this, including the consumption of entirely too much red wine. But if you can’t do it with friends, who can you do it with?

I still want to know why someone thought it would a great idea for the boys to lift me up in the air! No matter. Fun was had, hugs were exchanged, and I was gifted with a gorgeous necklace. Thanks guys! Miss you!

After having the Uluru trip and Sydney time be fairly go-go-go with site-seeing, commuting, or seeing people, I take advantage of my 3 days in Canberra to catch up on some important relaxing. Combine this with a seemingly never-ending list of institutions to contact to change my postal and home addresses and I spend a lot of time on the internet and phone. Also, as my laptop is coming to the end of its warranty period, I get its hinge fixed up while I still can. The Dell people probably think I’m a bit nuts what with my address changing 3 or 4 times in the last few weeks as I try to get the hinge fixed, but what can you do?

It’s weird planning a lengthy period of travel like the first 2 months I have. Just about every time I stop to relax somewhere, I start planning my accommodation for the next locations.So I honestly can’t count how long I spent looking up hotels for Japan.
I am please to report that of the four nights I spent in Canberra, all of them involved swing dancing. Huzzah! Though I’m clearly out of practice when it comes to leading, so I need to work on that again.
I also spent time sight-seeing in Canberra too. Walked along Lake Burley-Griffin. I had a personalised tour of the National Library, I spent a few hours at the National Gallery of Art and poked my head in the Portrait Gallery too. So little time, so much to see! But checking out these awesome works just strengthens my resolve to get into a more artistic role when I next work.

My last few days in Sydney tend to be rather busy, finishing off health care appointments, and meeting with friends for picnics and lunch. It’s nice to know that not much has changed at work, but as someone told me, with me travelling, I’m the one who’s changing the most. Or at least I hope so.
I catch a bus down to Canberra for the week and am still amazed at the fact that you can go down for $15. Aside from getting a bit cold on the bus (silly me forgot left her jumper in the suitcase put into the baggage bin), it was a very smooth ride down.
I love visiting the swing people down in Canberra, they’re awesome. Everyone’s so welcoming and helpful. And it’s not as cliquey as the larger swing scenes such as Sydney and Melbourne so it’s easy to get along with everyone and have a great night.

Hmmm… there’s nothing quite like sitting around waiting for things to make you feel like an animal being herded. This day felt repeatedly like I was being herded around. I woke up with enough time to pack and have breakfast before checking out at 10 on the dot, and then found myself with half an hour to kill before the airport transfer came.

Now, the airport transfers are free (provided by the main tour company in the area), but they leave 2 hours before your flight is scheduled. So, even though there’s only a 7 min actual drive to the airport and maybe 20 minutes of packing people on and off the coach combined, and the rest of the 2 hours was either spent waiting in queue at the airport, or sitting at the airport waiting for my flight…. or, since I was feeling adventurous and hideously bored, waiting in line at the one and only cafe. (Incidentally, the queue at the cafe exhausted my patience and I gave up waiting after 10 minutes and went back to reading my book. 10 minutes later I looked up and the people who had been in line just in front of me were only just being served.) Next time I’m driving to Uluru with friends, because the queuing drove me nuts.

So, after getting on the plane I dropped back off to sleep (I love my travel pillow), and arrived in Sydney in time to go to my last dance event in Sydney with my host for the weekend, Phil. Whee! I’ve converted him!

Heh. I’ve basically exhausted most of the interesting (and affordable) things I want to do here now, so today’s been pretty laid-back. I can’t really spend too much more, so I’ve been indulging in all the free stuff I can. For example, I went to the visitor centre this morning, which gave a decent introduction to the wildlife (loads of stuffed animals) and geological nature of the area. It even had a cute sand pit with stamps to make animal tracks and learn who makes what.
This afternoon I’ll be taking in some time at the pool, having a few drinks at the bar and then going up to watch the stars myself from the lookout. I’m determined to see some shooting stars before I leave.
One of the other downsides to this particular hostel is that the guest kitchen setup isn’t well thought out.
There’s a shelf with food on it, but it’s not labelled as free for all or owned by people, so who knows what’s on there. I had a box of cereal labelled with my initials and the date i was leaving (as is the convention at other places), and it was rudely stolen. I wouldn’t have minded people taking a bowl of it to eat, but to take the whole box is just irritating. So now I’m keeping EVERYTHING I own in a box in the fridge, whether it needs refrigeration or not.
I’ve also noticed that although there are washing lines outside in the 35 degree heat, meaning that clothes dry completely within about an hour, a lot of people in the dorms hang up their own clotheslines IN the dorms. Paranoid? Maybe. Largely disappointing that they’re so concerned about theft that they do it that way.
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After watching my last sunset in the area (watching Uluru changing from orange to purple), I spent the evening hanging out with some random guys who were staying at the campground nearby. The resort has an interesting policy of only allowing guests with room keys or campground passes to purchase alcohol. Strange, but I guess it keeps a lot of the weirdoes away. Either that, or it just encourages them to actually stay at the resort which has a monopoly on the area and can therefore charge exorbitant rates for average facilities.
In any case, the guys from the campground didn’t have a pass with them, so they were limited to drinking water. Kind of took a shine off the evening, I expect.
After a bit of chatting with them, I wandered out to a nearby sand dune to so some stargazing on my own. Now, that’s what I call an awesome night sky. I lay on a bench watching for shooting stars (I saw 2 in 10 minutes!) until the ravenous mosquitoes drove me away. Perhaps I should have brought some bug spray, but, to be honest, I prefer being bitten a few times compared to the smell and texture of bug spray. Hell, I even survived hours of hiking around Uluru and Kata Tjuta without a fly net, so why give in the the mosquitoes?