Day 2 - Patong

So woke up early, made my way down to the massive breakfast on offer and then went to wander around a bit. I put my feet in the Andaman Sea then ran back to my room to put my bikini on. So 10 mins later I was in the ocean. But there are signs that say "no swimming" not sure why so I took it easy. Then I just wandered up and down the beach being asked if I wanted to go parasailing or get a massage. Maybe later. Got back to hotel and jumped in the pool, showered and changed ready for the day. Now, abusing free wifi in the lobby.

More later.

In the past when I travelled I always kept a journal, now I keep a journal and tell the world about it through the magic of blog. 

I always find it amusing when people go overseas and go to Maccas or the Hard Rock Cafe. The resort I am in has a Belgian Bier Cafe. And a town ain't a town now without a Starbucks or two. 

Ok on with day 2.

I didn't manage to catch up with any of the people I knew here so I went exporing on my own. 

So in the scorching mid day sun I ventured out into Patong. I quickly learnt just how hot it can be and was brought back to doing silly dance at Andy 500 gigs about the "hot sand" so as I skipped, ran and hopped from shade patch to shade patch I stopped for a pedicure, then as my toes dried, I got a manicure too. And here's a picture .

I managed to get away without Having to get a massage too hopped, skipped and jumped across the hot sand until I found myself near Bang-la Road. This road gives Times Square a run for its money on sensory overload. Gaudy, gimmicky pubs, flashy lights, market shops that all sell the same thing. Embarrasingly enough some of the gawiest pubs are the Aussie ones. Why would you go to another country to drink like you would at home? I don't get it.

So I battled on through the heat in desperate need of drinking water and air conditioning. So I made my way to the Jungceylon shopping centre. Another thing you shouldn't do on day 1 of exploring is try to make rational shopping decisions. I bought things I didn't need had do no idea how much I was spending and couldn't figure out if I was hungry or not. 

I did eventually get hungry and ended up grabbing some sushi. I know I'm in Thailand not japan but hey the fish is very fresh and I finished up with total fusion mango sushi in coconut milk. Yum and a half!!!

On my trek back vowing to not spend any more money I booked a ticket to the thai boxing that evening. Also not the best idea when it goes from 9- midnight and your body is still in another time zone.  First they insist on busing you in an hour before anything starts. I think this is in the hope that tourists will spend money on souvenirs and alcohol.  I am glad i went even though I got bored around fight 6 of 8. They started with these little boys of about 10, crazy stuff. There are 3 areas of seating, VIP, ringside and gp. The guy at the tour shop recommended ringside. True the seats are comfy compared to the cheap seats, but the locals are having more fun in the cheap seats. That's where the atmosphere was. And you gotta love the guy who leans in to the ringside /VIP area and tries to get you to put on a bet when there is a huge "no gambling" sign painted on the wall. 

So basically the ringside and VIP seats of mostly tourists wondering "What the...??" Though there was a guy in the front row watching the whole thing with a go pro strapped to his head.  There is a camera showing it all on a big screen too, we even got a replay action on a ko.

The bogans in the front row found this fascinating and to prove to each other that they really were on tv they made rude gestures with their hands while they stared at the big screen. Tres amusant!

Now to write about or see a photo does not do this event justice. They play crazy music that sounds like 4 guys that have never touched musical instruments before or ever heard a piece of music. If I can figure out how to embed sound in this, I will.  But the other thing is the smell. The fighters are rubbed down with a body oil that smells like deep heat or tiger balm and it permeates through the stadium with the smell of man sweat and Thailand. 

They advertise that there are a few Aussies in the line up, but there weren't. I figure it's to get the tourist dollar. It works.. There was a French guy and a Russian guy and another guy whose nationality I don't remember but his body and his tattoos I do remember. Hmmm, abs...

So why did I go and how come I enjoyed it? It seemed the thing to do and what's not to like about very fit men oiled up and kicking at each other dressed in nothing but little shorts.  See, something for everyone. 

Holiday day 1 - travel

I am currently winging my way to Thailand for a week of RnR in a warm climate. Leaving Sydney was easy, it's been raining a lot and it was super windy when I left this morning.

It's been a while since I have flown internationally. The last time was New York, Montreal and Vancouver nearly 5 years ago. That was before I even started this blog! 

Some things never change. Despite a vast majority of travelers staring into their tablets and smart phones ( I am one of them, typing on my iPad , music from the iPhone), a lot of standard airplane technology hasn't changed. I'm sure there have been advances on the technology side but the mechanical technology is the same as it has been for years. Because it works and there is less chance of technical failure in case of emergency. Take the safety demo they do on every flight before you take off the seat belts, the air masks, the life jackets. All the features are still the same, even the demo actions and words haven't altered much. The meals still come in little foil containers, the seats, the tray tables, the overhead luggage compartments. It's all the same across different airlines and has remained the same for many years. So is this one of the few truely international industries. Australia can't even get all the states to agree on daylight savings, countries can't decide what side ofhe road we should drive on but we all fly the same.

I just had a brief stopover in Malaysia, so 2 hrs in KL airport. I think I confuse the Malaysians the most. They are never sure where I am from. Last time I came to visit they tried to wave me though as a returning citizen. 

The other thing I need to remember as a female traveling alone is to be careful being too friendly to males - they often get the wrong idea. Aussie men are so dumb they don't realize you like them until you bash them over the head with it, in New York all I had to look at a guy and I had a new dance partner, in Malaysia waiters want me to add them on Facebook and frisky bar tenders easily get the wrong idea when you accept their invitation for a private drive around town. Don't worry, I punched him in his ghoulies and I live to tell the tale, it was years ago now. 

I am excited because I found Miranda Hart's book for sale at KL airport so as much as I want to see stuff in Thailand I really like the idea of lying around the pool or beach for a day and reading her book. Geez,  I am getting older! 

Anyhoo I will be in Thailand before the hour is up and then I have to masquerade as Jimmy's thai bride, I just hope he hasn't made me a lady boy!!

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Well, I made it...eventually. We landed early but took nearly an hour to get through customs. Phuket airport is busy at night! And then I waited again for there to be enough passengers to fill a minibus to patong. So I made a friend instead - a lovely Irish girl who has been working in Australia for the past 5 months. Got in late, met a whole lot of people I will have trouble remembering this morning and stayed up for a bit catching up before hitting the hay. 

Facebook vs Reality: Relationships...again.

So I have been interacting with the 20 - something set of our species lately. Discussing friendships, relationships and how these terms have been redefined over time.

When does someone become a boy/girlfriend, what date do you celebrate as an anniversary, exclusivity, multiple partners and friends.

I spoke to someone yesterday who said they chat to a mutual acquaintance about once a week on Facebook. I don't have anyone I chat to that often. "That's what friends are!!", was the reply I got. So my thinking here is:-
A) I don't have any friends
B) I don't have the same expectations of my friends
C) where have my real friends gone?
D) what is this face book inter web thing you speak of?

I thought I was someone people wanted to know. I used to be the social event coordinator and the person who knew everyone. Turns out I am just a very organised person who keeps track of contact details very well. People turn to me if they want to get to someone or something else.

I am lucky to hear from friends once a month and I thought that was fine, until now. I look back to my early 30's where I would see a whole group of friends at least once a week and some of them more. Where are they now? Settled in their own worlds where I am nothing but a distant orbit. This is probably largely to do with me getting so caught up in my work that I disappear for months on end. I've been doing that for about 8 years now so I guess they all got used to it. Even my parents only hear from me once a week. I went away with work a few years back now to a remote area with little to no phone reception. I may have blogged it then but I will repeat myself: the 11 other people I was with freaked coz they were out of contact with girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, children. I had no one who needed to hear from me - except the producer. Does this sound sad to you? Does no one love this girl? Or is it just that the people that do love me trust that I will survive 10 days on a work trip to the outback without any dramas?

I had the most amazing week of impromptu visits and adventures this week (more often than not they involve food and wine- so yes, I love them! Come visit!). It started as a meeting about a project we are working on together and turned into dinner, a sleepover and a drive to the northern beaches to visit her parents and a mutual colleague and friend of ours. So we sat in the afternoon sun sharing a lovely bottle of red wine and good conversation surrounded by numerous species of birds and one of my favorite canines in this world.  Our host has over 70 years of life experience on this earth and we were musing over relationships and expectations. I figure he might know a thing  or two about human interaction. We spoke about the importance of creating a healthy and open conversation about your expectations within a relationship and about face to face communication vs a phone call vs a written message (email, text, message, letter). Communication is undoubtedly clearer face to face. There are so many tools of communication that don't involve words - facial cues, body language, the tone and inflection in a voice. Think of trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak the same language as you. It's like breaking up with someone via Facebook or text vs a phone call or the oh so brave face to face (or phone sex vs real sex vs sexting, if your brain works that way) . I should be so lucky, all my relationships just kinda fizzle off until they seem to ignore me completely. Until they want to get to someone or something else, then I probably have the contact details they are after.

 The more I think about it the less sense committed relationships make to me (at least the standard definition of them). Cheating is only cheating if monogamy is the expectation. I watched "The Vow" on tv the other night, average movie but a surprising message embedded in a sub plot. Daughter finds out dad cheated on mum, can't understand how mum forgave him. Mum (Jessica Lange!) tells daughter that she thought about all the good he had brought to her life over the years vs his one bad. This echoes Dan Savage's words on monogamish and so called cheating (That's in an earlier blog of mine). I agree.

So monogamish, polyamory, cheating?  Same thing? Different expectations.  I have many different people in my life whom I love for different reasons. I do not have committed sexual relationships with any of them but I need them all in my life to satisfy different expectations of mine. Until I find my "The One" who somehow embodies all of this, this is how I'm going to continue living my life.

Having said all this, I think of the movies and music that I love and realize what a stupid romantic I can be. I'd love to be 'swept off my feet' , 'weak at the knees', 'so in love I want to put it in my FB status update everyday and make people sick', but I am a realist. If my "Prince Charming
" is spread over a few different people, I think myself pretty lucky.

Would I rather the weekly Facebook chat from lots of people I never see in person or an impromptu drop in a few times a year?  Honesty, I'd like both, but the impromptu visit is worth about 100 faceless Facebook chats.

Why do I only know crazy people??

I guess crazy attracts crazy. My family are rather conservative, but my friends, well that's a whole other story!!

Of course it depends on your definition of crazy. I guess my definition involves words like non-conformist, spontaneous, adventurous, dreamers, your general social misfit.

Crazy people are interesting!
So , yes, I AM CRAZY! At least I hope I am.

I guess it was evident when I used to dip my salt and vinegar chips into my ice cream or lemonade at birthday parties in primary school. My high school group proudly called ourselves misfits. We were bonded , it seemed, by the fact that we didn't fit into any other group. In retrospect, we were all about reality. W didn't pretend to be anything we weren't, and I am happy to say that over 20 years later I still keep up with a few of them and despite all having VERY different lives now, we are still connected. And in my adult life I have been lucky enough to meet and collect a lot of new crazy friends along the way. Of course working in the entertainment industry helps with that, imagine if I was an accountant! Although having said that, I know some great accountants (2 are performers who were hiding out, or earning a living, as accountants)

Society expects a 40 year old woman to be married with kids and a mortgage. I got divorced and I don't have kids. People, mostly family, continue to ask me when am I going to find a new husband to look after me? I don't see this happening and in my experience, it's me who ends up doing the looking after.

I stayed with my mother recently while I was in the middle of a particularly grueling, and life sucking project and I celebrated another birthday. It dawned on Mum that I wouldn't have time to look after a family in the way that she did, with the work that I choose to do. Hats off to those who do what I do and manage a family, don't know how you do it. The point of me mentioning the birthday is that for a good week I was bringing home little presents from friends and showing mum photos of how spoilt I got at work. It showed her that I am happy and surrounded by people who care about me, despite not being in a traditional family model. It was great! My Mum has come a long way from her childhood in rural China.

Even medically recognized crazy is becoming more acceptable in society these days. Who hasn't been to a therapist or at least knows someone who has a medically recognized psychological condition? See, crazy is slowly taking over the world. Wonder what will happen if crazy became the norm?

As much as I condemn social stereotypes, where would we be without them? We misfits would have nothing to feel alienated from and we wouldn't know what we to rebel  against. Ferris Beuller says isms (racism, fascism, sexism, etc) are bad, I agree, but a necessary evil.  If we didn't have isms we wouldn't have crazy people.

I love being a turtle!!!

A moment please...

Last night my Grandmother closed her eyes on this world for the last time. She was 96 (i think), or there abouts.

I haven't seen her in years, so, to me, I guess I had already let her go.
My understanding of death and society's reaction to it as much a conundrum as what relationships are supposed to be.

I know I am supposed to be all sad and accept everybody's deepest condolences. Truth is, she probably should have let go a few years ago. She didn't want to be here anymore. A friend of mine, who also recently lost his grandmother, said the same thing, going so far as to say that if it was a family pet you would have taken them to the vet years ago to be put down. Sounds harsh but there is truth in it that you should at least consider for a moment. I am not asking you to agree, just to consider it for a brief moment.

I couldn't have a proper conversation with my grandmother as my chinese language skills could barely pass kindergarten. Do I regret this? No,  not particularly - I had a choice, I had the time, I just chose not to do anything about it.

What I do know about her is that she raised a family of 5 children with a fairly absent husband in rural China. The family officially migrated here when my Mother was only 16 and after my grandfather passed away in the 80's. my grandmother continued to live very capably on her own. So to suddenly have your body fail you and be put in a nursing home must have been really hard for her. I pride myself on my strength and I can only put it to the positive female influences in my life. Of which she was definitely one.

When I stop to think about what she has taught me I think of dumplings (goc jai) and the fact that she stuck up for me when I was compared to my sister all the time. Maybe it was because she too was a little sister.

Regular readers may remember a post about how excited I was when I made my first batch of these dumplings without any assistance. I remember being gathered in my mothers kitchen with a whole contingent of aunties and making dumplings to feed the masses that are my extended family. I could write something really poetic about how she will always be there to guide my hand whenever i make these dumplings from scratch. But that would be lying - she knows it, I know it, you know it. I watched, I learned and I practiced making these things because  they are yummy and I like to eat them. Maybe I'll make some now, I'm getting kinda peckish.

She will be buried next to her husband, my grandfather,and I hope we can keep the tradition going of sending things to the afterlife where they continue on in happier more peaceful times. Do I believe in the afterlife? Not sure, but she did so lets hope that's where she is.

I have a really clear memory of her at my grandfathers grave once, offering up his favourite foods along with Chinese tea and a few shots of whiskey, just the way he liked it and chatting to him. Catching him up on news of the family and to share the banquet with other deceased relatives. It created a great image of my deceased relatives around a banquet table - eating, drinking and being merry. So maybe that's where she is now.

The body may be gone but the memory will always be there and I hope this little blog is enough to honour that memory, even though she would't be able to read and understand it.

2013 - the year that was.

So as the year comes to an end, I look back and reassess where am I now?

Regular readers will have heard me winging about needing a new career path, a change, something.
Well this year was one of the toughest years for me financially. As a freelancer and a home owner I was incredibly lucky to have had enough work to pay the mortgage and my bills and still feed myself.This was the first time in six years that I didn't have a long project to more onto. I survived on small gigs, a little waitressing, selling stuff off on gumtree, getting in a Flatmate and generally culling my spending. It also gave me time to work on a number of different projects of my own. I went to my first industry conference, festival and have taken a side step into a smaller role on a bigger project. I have done 2 radio interviews and spoken to a classroom of up and coming film makers. I turned 40!!

I have struggled but I am happy with what I have achieved this year - met lots of new people on different projects - unfortunately freebie, low budget and deferral projects. A project I did a few years ago was released this year. I got paid to direct a few episodes of a series.

I am still single and childless and the best auntie ever!!  Relationships continue to baffle me. And now I have new 'dangerous' ideas in my head thanks to dan savage. It's all about expectations, and what most people expect from their partners is quite unreasonable and they don't want to talk about it. Heterosexual relationships - men and women spend years searching for that one person who will be their everything. Once they find someone close enough that they can tolerate (we'll call this 'love') and settle down they spend the rest of the time trying to get away from each other on boys nights, ladies lunches etc. Where I am friends with men and they get married - I am somehow expected to hang with the girls even though I hardly know them. Purely based on my gender am I supposed to want to hang with women more than men? It doesn't make sense - and you know it.

I also discovered that as a single woman , if I ever comment on a member of the opposite sex, then I am told "ooh, you have a crush on him!" Or "you are so in love with him". I had one friend, after telling her that i met someone she studied with and we got on immediately ask, " did you sleep with him?"  Well no, I didn't know that's what I was expected to do when meeting people that know you. It is kinda odd when you think about it. I don't get the same questions if I say the same about a woman I met, and I wouldn't get them if I wasn't single either. This is pretty much why I keep my private life private (except for this blog).

I had a rather stressful December at work and it continues on into January, which I am actually grateful for. Christmas was the usual gastronomic family affair. Lots of fun. I also gathered some fellow freelancers for a little Christmas drink at Pocket bar. I figured as freelancers we don't always get Christmas parties, so let's have one of our own. It was a pretty quiet affair but lovely to catch up with those that came. Most of it finished up pretty early but all I needed was one person to say "one more?", and I don't know what time I got home, but I slept late and was a little hung over the next day - must have been a good one.

And now I have escaped north (to an undisclosed location, except that I tagged myself in on FB the other night) to hang with a good friend and just chill. Happy to be out of Sydney and the pressure everyone puts on New Year's Eve.  It's great, I have forgotten what day it is and don't care what time it is and my brain is so relaxed that I am asking really dumb questions - now that's love!!

Happy new year folks and catch you on the flip side that is 2014!!!

Am I dangerous?

So i just read an article that was posted on Facebook.
It was about the differences between men and women. It 's pretty obvious that it was put together by a man and does nothing but confirm the stereotypes that society has set.

Is this really how men and women behave?

No, but this is how we are encouraged to behave if we want to be considered socially acceptable.
So by this reasoning I am NOT socially acceptable because I am a woman and can go to the bathroom by myself.

The Festival of Dangerous ideas is coming up in Sydney next month. I love the idea and will be there with bells on. What I find interesting is the use of the word "dangerous".

The festival is a compilation of talks and discussions that put forward alternative ideas in regards to religion, politics, sex, ethics..., life, the universe and everything.
It uses words like "controversial", "confronting" and  "thought provoking". It challenges you to get out of your comfort zone.

Dangerous ideas can be disruptive. They give you the chance to change your mind. This November, step out of the day-to-day to listen, think and talk ideas. Embrace excess for one dangerous weekend...there's nothing quite like it.

So if you don't think like everyone else - you are considered "Dangerous"?

I am NOT socially acceptable, therefore I am dangerous?

Personally I think it is much more dangerous to be so caught up in "being normal" that you miss everything else going on in the world.

Go forth, live life, enjoy!!

The Festival Of Dangerous Ideas