In March of this year I was accepted into the PhD program of my university, having completed a Masters degree in December of last year.

With a four year visa under my belt and a wonderful Australia partner, I’m now embarking on the slippery, bureaucratically treacherous slope of getting long-term Australian residency with the added hope of someday, becoming a dual citizen of both the US and Australia.  Like most of you expats know, accomplishing this goal outside of federally recognized marriage is a painstaking and expensive ordeal.  In fact, it will cost us AU$2,545 just to apply for the visa.  This fee doesn’t include the medical exams required by the country (that I’ve been living in for the last two years mind you, and that I’ve already had twice for other visas while I’ve been here), the police background checks required (from both the US and Australia), the reams and reams of certified documents needed to prove the “viability and level of commitment of your relationship” and the six forms you need to fill out.  It also requires a two year “buffer” in which the applicant has 30 days to leave the country if the relationship goes south.  For all intents and purposes, applying for this visa is more of a commitment than marriage!  Kind of.  It all pays off in the end though, as gaining permanent residency means I can find a proper job like a big girl and immediately start paying off the student loans that are quietly gaining interest in some imaginary bank stateside.  As it stands, finding a job on a student visa is a matter of luck and desperation.  In fact, the first question that many employers ask is “are you a permanent resident or citizen?”.  Failure to have either of these qualifications immediately pulls you out of the job pool and you’re back at square one.  After having to live on US credit cards for nearly six months, all the while making myself ill from the stress of putting in (on average) twenty or more job applications a day, I certainly understand the desire of many to get PR as quickly as possible. That being said, I applaud Australia as being one of the few countries who treats applicants of both same-sex and opposite-sex relationships the same when dealing with defacto visas.  This means that, while my partner and I don’t have any legal standing in the eyes of the government, we can capitalise on her Australian citizenship to get me on the right track to permanent residency.  It just takes an average of three years.

As we start to think about our future and relationship in terms of years instead of weeks or months, we find that even though these processes are daunting, expensive and at times, ridiculous, we have a legitimate chance at being together for a long time without having to sacrifice our relationship.  And in the end, I think that’s certainly worth the $3000.

I’m going to try something different this time around in regards to holiday photo sharing; a slide show. It’s pretty simple, you can manually choose a photo to view from the bottom of the large gallery image, page through each image with the arrows at the top of the gallery view screen or simply wait for the next photo to come up.

Here we go!

The first city I stopped at was the large, northern city of Hanoi. It was here that I fell into a gutter, was side-swiped by a motorbike and was pick-pocketed within 24 hours. It was a glorious time!

The second city was Ninh Binh, well known for its natural limestone formations called Tam Coc and quiet back-roads, perfect for cycling.

The third stop was the central coast town of Hue:

The fourth was the beach-town of Nha Trang:

And my final stop, Ho Chi Minh City:

I spent the second half of my holiday in Cambodia, where I met up with an old friend of mine from Japan. Apart from being a fantastic travel companion, it was nice to see Angkor with someone that you already know.

My first stop was Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Located about 6 hours by bus from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. I was to spend a couple of days there before meeting Mark in Siem Reap, the “gateway” to Angkor.

Phnom Penh is a busy little city with a notorious reputation for violent crime and all manner of unsavoury activity. Like many travel related rumours, I found this to be completely untrue (and I got to mucking around some pretty dodgy areas, alone at night and didn’t feel too unsafe).

My first stop in the city was the Tuol Sleng Museum and Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Formerly Tuol Svay Prey High School, Tuol Sleng was converted into Security Prison 21 (S-21) by Pol Pot’s security forces in 1975. It was the largest detention and torture centre in the country at the time and nearly all of the prisoners at the facility were tortured and transported to the Killing Fields for extermination. The rusty metal beds and black and white photos of victims on said beds (you could match the patterns on the head/foot boards to the ones in the photos) were a horrifying reminder of Cambodia’s past and the dark side of us all.

Ankle irons used to chain detainees to bed frames and each other

The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek were an equally grim reminder, featuring a beautifully constructed stupa housing some 9000 human skulls. Most of the skulls exhibited some manner of blunt force trauma; a convenient Khmer Rouge killing tactic to save expensive bullets. It is estimated that 17,000 people were killed here between 1975 and1978. Excavation of the mass graves still continues.

After this sober reminder of humanity at its worst, I took a stroll through Psar Tuol Tom Pong or “The Russian Market” and headed back to my part of the city for dinner and sleep.

The next day I took a nice, leisurely stroll through the Royal Palace, home to the internationally renowned Silver Pagoda, so named for its floor – covered with five tonnes of silver tiles. The 90 kilo, solid gold, life-size standing Buddha (crusted in 2086 diamonds including one weighing in at 25 carats) and the smaller but no less impressive jade Buddha, carved from an enormous chunk of (you guessed it) jade, were also impressive. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside, so you’ll have to trust me when I say that they kick much ass.

The Royal Palace

One of the many flowering plants around the complex

My next stop was the national museum with its fantastic collection of Angkor period art (again, no photos allowed) and a stroll around Wat Phnom.

The next day I was off again to Siem Reap for 7 days of fabulous Angkor goodness.

Unfortunately, I didn’t feel terribly compelled to keep comprehensive logs of temples/places we visited in Siem Reap, so I’m going to try something new on this blog for multiple photos – a slide show. Click the thumbnails below the gallery photo to select a particular photo or just sit back and watch them go by.

As you can see, many of the temples had vastly different architectural styles and construction.

Cambodia offered more than beautiful temples, the Khmer people were friendly, gorgeous individuals:

And the colours and textures from markets to homes was at times overwhelming:

All in all it was a fantastic holiday and I would certainly encourage those who can, to travel to Vietnam and Cambodia – it is well worth it.

We choose Berry for our foray into Australian wines for a number of reasons;

1. Adelaide is too far away,
2. I would probably get all stabby and mean with the pretentious wine-swirlers in Hunter Valley and
3. We wanted to get as far south as the rail lines can get us without spending an arm and a leg.

So far?  Mission accomplished!

Nick wanted to walk in and ask if they'd send a telegraph for us. I said no.

What a view!

Wine country? And what a nice guy!

Spoils of war

Nick's giant head leaps into the frame, as is his wont.

The "two silos" of Silos Estate - my favourite was the Riesling.

Famous? Yes. Delicious? Oh yes.

Coolangata Estate

Stay tuned for updates on the Public Enemy shows, more photos from around Sydney and the massive Cambodia/Vietnam post.

Yes, yes I DID take that photo

The “blue” in “Blue Mountains” comes from the purple-blue haze that is actually a light mist of oil secreted by the many eucalyptus trees.  The smell?  Phenomenal.

The Three Sisters

]]> http://wittyblogname.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/happy-new-year/feed/ 3 DirtWarrior dscn2307 dscn2309 dscn2314 dscn2316 dscn2317 http://wittyblogname.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/impressions-of-sydney/ http://wittyblogname.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/impressions-of-sydney/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:08:59 +0000 Dirt Warrior http://wittyblogname.wordpress.com/?p=337 ]]> This morning I made a short trip into Sydney to pick up my new passport.  (Yes, I lost my original.  Yes there was Coopers Sparkling Ale involved.  Yes, a lesson has been learned.)

I love taking the bus into downtown Sydney. You get a magnificent view of the opera house, the harbor and the Business District skyline.  To this day I still experience a goofy, child-like excitement every time the bus rounds a corner and Sydney pops into view. I sit there, dumbly with a toothy grin and quick intakes of breath. Sometimes my fellow passengers will smile back at me, sometimes they turn away. Once, someone remarked “you sure are happy!” and chuckled at his own joke.

Today?

An old man who so politely asked the number of the bus waiting at the stop-light; “Excuse me young lady. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. What’s that bus number?” The young bank executives with their hurried, tapping steps, smoking cigarettes and laughing into cell-phones. The friendly security guard who chatted with me about his daughters first day of school, the trio of adorable Jamaican kids waiting for mom’s shift to end. The suited businessmen with bright ties, graying temples, shiny gold wedding rings and perpetual scowls. A gay couple holding hands. A bike messenger, nothing but flashes of florescent yellow darting in and out of traffic. Fellow students clutching backpacks, a pair of high school prefects with blue coats. A couple embracing on a park bench. Flags snapping in the breeze, car horns honking, steam, sweat, tiny droplets of blood on the sidewalk.

Glorious.

Wyoming Building

There may or may not have been a tattoo shop on the agenda…

My little suburb of Marsfield is $15.00, a bus, a train and 45 minutes to an hour from Sydney’s Central Station.  Central Station is the largest train station in Australia, serving as the main hub of suburban, interstate and intercity exchange. The station dumps outgoing passengers into the heart of Sydney:

Tall buildings are pretty much the balls

"Gloves. Corsets. Costumes." Glorious.

From Central Station it’s a 20 minute walk north to Hyde Park. Hyde Park was once the playing and sports field for all manner of characters in the early days of the colony. Today, it serves as a green little bit of joy between the towering skyscrapers of the Sydney Business district.

Hyde Park

Artemis - my favourite.

Hyde Park is also home to the Art-Deco Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) War Memorial with well-known sculpture by Rayner Hoff.  Interestingly enough, there was some considerable controversy over the statue’s nudity – said to be the only statue in war memorial history to showcase male genitalia (gasp!).

Memorial with reflection pool

Detail of memorial wall

Hoff's Sacrifice

Continuing north you cant help but notice St. Mary’s Cathedral – made recently famous by this year’s World Youth Day and the Pope’s public apology for the molestation of children in Australia.

Soaring spires

Don’t worry – there’s not going to be some scathing generalization regarding Christianity made here.  Yet.

Now, I’m not a religious person by any means, but I certainly can appreciate the human ingenuity and craftsmanship that goes into cathedral architecture.  Granted, anything with sweeping architecture reminiscent of wings makes me giddy.

Potentially offensive aside: It would have been really neat to find a Benedict XVI dashboard bobble head in the gift shop.  I even mouthed along to the Lord’s Prayer while I took covert pictures during mass!  (Going.  To.  Hell.)  Moving on:

Sultry, isn't it?

To the north of St. Mary’s you’ll find the Hyde Park Barracks Museum, a fascinating tour through was was the original convict barracks in the 1800′s, housing men sent to the colony as laborers.  Since then the building has been used for a number of public purposes including immigration (“A place for the friendless female”) and asylum. Recently converted into a museum, it is still under some archaeological study.  This month featured a rather large exhibit on the convict hulks – huge retired war-ships used as floating prisons for Britain’s overflowing convicts.  Granted, stealing a horse might cost you 14 years of hard labor in a colony.  I had no idea these ships even existed (I told you, *a rock*) and it was a really neat exhibit.  I totally tried on the ankle irons.  I was also profoundly amused at the depiction of a convict on the exhibit hand out.

Maybe it's the jaunty little cap.

Quick non-offensive aside: You can see a clock there at the top of the building with the name “Macquarie” on it. You’ll see this name all around Sydney and New South Wales. Why? Thank Major-General Lachlan Macquarie (and for all of you stickler linguists out there; “Lachlan MacGuaire”) the first and defining governor of New South Wales in the early 1800′s, credited for a crucial hand in shaping Australian society as it is today. My university takes its name from his as well as Macquarie lighthouse, Australia’s first, which is also part of the university crest.

Barracks - note the name on the clock

20 minutes north of Hyde Park brings you to the the Palace and the Royal Botanic Gardens.  The gardens are huge, sprawling and offer a very good view of the harbour and Sydney skyline.

Downtown Sydney (represent!)

The gardens have been around since 1816 and take up 30 hectares of space at Farm Cove and Sydney Harbour (or something like that – I’m still a off on the geography of the harbour proper).  I was astounded by the scope of the place and haven’t seen that much green since the Butchart gardens of Canada.  I found it amusing that the large “domain” surrounding the Royal Gardens proper once served as a “buffer zone” from the convict rabble for the higher-ups who lived there in the 1800′s.  The scoundrals!

The gardens also house a very unique (for these desert bred eyes) animal – the grey-faced flying fox.  I thought they were wonderfully adorable and spent some considerable time arguing with myself about the pros and cons of taking one home with me.

Adorable. And possibly riddled with incurable disease.

Now, I want you all to hitch up your britches because now I’m going to release the big guns.

Wait for it…

Wait...

Wait for it…

Wait...

Sydney Opera House!

OPERA HOUSE!!!!111!!one!!!1

And Harbour Bridge

So ended my day of fun and frolic in Sydney.  I hope you all enjoyed it with me!

The flight over the harbour was especially mesmerizing and I was able to catch a pretty eye-full of the Sydney Opera House; the quintessential Sydney photo op. Once in Sydney, it was a frantic scrabble to find a missing bag that was thankfully returned to me yesterday, intact and full of denim gold. It’s amazing how something as simple as a new pair of pants can make you feel.

I stayed on a quaint little brown-brick campus for the 3 or so days needed to clean up and open my permanent accommodation. It was during this time that I locked my after-hours key card in my room a total of three times, locked my room key in my room a total of two times and misplaced and nearly lost the bike room key once. I also managed to walk approximately 3 km in the opposite direction of campus while almost falling into a creek. And in true Idiot Girl fashion, I wiped the dirt off of my knees, smiled at the guy on his bike laughing his ass off at my display and carried on my way with a smile and my pride more or less intact (because if I haven’t become accustomed of making an ass of myself in public by now, there’s no hope for me).

With derby, new faces, fun stories, travel galore and a semester of difficult but intellectually rewarding classes coming up in the near future, I’m sure that this next couple of years will, for lack of a better term, kick ass!

Tent Eye

(Quick warning: This post is rather long and full of photos – give it a sec to load.)

Let me take you to a magical world of fairy tale delight and unicorn dreams:

There once was a very special girl who wanted to do some travelling before she left Japan. She looked and looked for interesting places to visit but didn’t have anyone to go with. One day she stumbled up this site and learned about the 2007 Khanuy Valley Settlement Project in the Khanuy Valley, Arkhangai, Mongolia. Excited about the project, she applied and was accepted. Two months later she found herself on a plane for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia very hung-over and not quite sure how she got there.

100 bottles of vodka and a campfire later, there were many stories to tell.

The Khanuy valley is a large valley about 15 hours on dirt roads west of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. Several nomadic families inhabit the valley, 4 of which were of immediate walking distance of camp. In fact, on the second or third day Scott (another participant and I) made a “ger visit” and had some amazing, home-made yoghurt.

Culturally related aside: I still don’t know how I felt about the ger visits – the information that I read regarding Mongolian culture on the steppes indicated that the families of the valley were warm and always happy to entertain guests and strangers.  The western American in me thinks “God, I hope I’m not inconveniencing them by showing up out of the blue…” etc ad nauseum and the Anthropologist in me says “Interesting view from the “Western American” lens – why do you feel this way?” etc ad nauseum.

Yogurt, cheeses, milk and other dairy products are incredibly important to the nomads and are the main staple used during the long winter months where the temperatures drop well below zero.

Hard cheese inside of a ger

For the entirety of the tip, participants lived in tents.

Home - mine is the yellow one up front

We had some wild storms that threatened to blow down a couple of the tents – and in fact, we ended up losing the kitchen “tent” ( though I’m not sure how accurate that term is) and one of the gals had a tent pole vs. tent material issue. The tent pole won. Thank god for duct tape!

Because we were in a valley, storms would often blow in during the afternoon, pass quickly, circle beyond the mountains and hit us again much harder when the sun went down (which was at about 11:00 PM and it rose at about 4:30AM).

Incoming storm

One evening at about 1:00 AM a huge lightning storm came in. There was so much lightning that for about 30 minutes, it was all you could see through the skin of your rain fly, strobing. It was one of the most amazing and downright terrifying experiences of my life, and because it gets so dark out there (we were miles from the nearest light bulb) the stars, moon and everything else were stunning. When the stars came out at their fullest around midnight, it was breathtaking.  The sky was so huge, so enormous that you would get vertigo looking up into it.  When we had a full moon, it was so bright that you cast shadows on the ground.  I’d go back in a heartbeat just to feel that again.

The bulk of our field research dealt with Bronze age nomadic pastoralists – a lifestyle that the modern nomads still adapt. As we were studying the nomadic way of life, much of our research dealt with where things weren’t as well as where things were. As such, most of the time spent in the field was spent conducting shovel “test probes” – a 30cm by 30cm hole that was approximately 20 cm deep, depending on the soil strata.

Tools of the trade

However, one of the directors was conducting traditional archaeological excavation at a separate site about 8 minutes from camp.

Other tools of the trade

Horses are hugely important in the valley and Mongolia is well known for their unique, and incredibly study “Steppe ponies” (though there is nothing “pony” with these horses) that are smaller and more compact than their western counterparts.

As modes of transportation, the horses are green-broke; that is, only “tamed” to the point of wearing a saddle and bridle. They are still spirited and I have seen someone bucked off. (It is important that the horses remain “wild” while in the herd in order to protect themselves.) In fact, I myself almost fell off while trying to get a horse into a canter the first time I rode!

Part of the archaeology involved looking at and understanding these amazing standing stones known as “deer stones”, whose main motif involved beak-nosed, flowing antlered deer, as well as belt-like motifs, chevrons and earring or sun emblems.

Awesome

Deer stone and bone

Here you can clearly see the deer pattern

Before the race

It just so happened that one day while trying to finish some probes near a winter camp near the deer stones, we found ourselves in the path of a Naadam horse race. Naadam, officially held in July from the 11th to the 14th in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, is often held in rural areas any time in June and July. Three events are held for the festival, wrestling, archery and horse racing (the only one of the three events that women can participate).  Normally, only children and young adults participate in the races because they are lighter than adults.  I was told by one of the neighbours that at the big Naadam in UB, kids are sometimes tied to the horses so that they don’t fall off. At any rate, as we were digging pits, a nomad come riding into our area and tells us that we need to stop digging, as pulling up sod during the sacred day of Naadam will keep the rains from coming. With a free afternoon on our hands, we decided to stay and watch the race.

My pronunciation of Mongolian was crap and I found it more beneficial for everyone involved to pass over the phrasebook and point to my questions. It worked like a charm and I was thrilled at learning about what the people of  the valley did, felt and who they were.  This guy turned out to be 78 and was the resident doc of the valley.

Rock on old man

The start and finish for the horse race

Saddle

At the starting line

Naadam certainly wasn’t the only time for celebration. Because the field directors have been working in the area since 2001, they’ve made some friends in the valley – one of which invited the lot of us to a goat dinner.

Goat dinner

A proud father and his sons

Shy

Dinner!

That brings us to food.  Because we were living on the steppe, vegetables and fruit are hard to come by in the field, so meals consisted primarily of mutton pastas, rice and fry bread – which is so amazing that I could eat it every day. Well, ok, we did eat it everyday for breakfast. We were fortunate enough to have an amazing cook who did wonders with what she had. A camp favourite was an amazing dish called “houshurs” (don’t check me on spelling for that one) which involved a mixture of ground mutton, spices, and some veggies wrapped in dough and fried.  Something akin to sucking on the sweet teat of Jesus himself.

Mongolia is a primarily Buddhist country, animals are slaughtered in as humane a way as possible and without the spill of blood. This involves making a small incision on the belly of the animal and shoving your arm into its chest cavity in order to snap the aorta with your fingers. In this way, as little blood is shed as possible.

Poor White Fang

Our vehicles often fell apart because of the beating they took. One day, while coming home from the field for the evening, we lost a tire. It was a good thing that I was sitting on the very rear wheel well that took the crap!  Sean is one of the Mongolian students with whom we worked. His dad, Otro was one of the drivers for the project and aunt, Puje was the cook. Puje had a son, Tamiraa who was Sean’s cousin. The Mongolian project director, Erdna, was Otro and Puje’s older brother.  Also helping out were Hoa and Bayamonk, who was kind enough to procure horses for us.

For good reason, Mongolia is called “The Land of the Blue Sky” and they weren’t wrong. The scenery of the place is mind-blowing and sometimes surreal, especially with a horse under you and the sun setting.

Standing stone

Our bathing facilities

Camp from Dos Titties

Lone Tree

It was not uncommon to have visitors stop by every night with vodka or marriage proposals. Sometimes, when we were feeling especially crazy, we’d have Hoa start a bonfire. With gasoline.  It is customary to offer or be offered vodka, Mongolian National (home-brewed vodka from the remnants of airag) or airag (fermented mares milk) when a visitor comes to camp, and considered rude not to drink at least a sip of the offered drink when it comes around to you in the “drinking circle”. As such, it’s best to have a big group so that the vodka is shared amongst everyone else. Sometimes you have a small group and…well, those certainly were good nights.

A frequent visitor

Guests at our last fire

Family

After coming in from the field, I spent about a week back in UB mucking around, seeing the sights and taking as many showers as possible.

One of the highlights of my stay in UB was Gandan Monastery:

Prayer wheels at Gandan

Gandan Facade, UB

Naadam in UB:

Archers at Naadam

Naadam Dancers

Thanks for reading from me and Roland; our camp mascot:

Say goodbye Roland.