Winter blossom

It's a strange winter here. The cold isn't that cold at all. But as if to compensate, there's a heavy gloom. A fog like none I've seen before seems to be hell bent on holding the world at ransom. At 10 in the morning, the sun has still not managed to shine through, and if it has, there's merely a pale disc through the swirling white.

It's through this that I had to make my way to my grandpa's a couple of days back. The garden was blooming with all sorts of colours, but the occasion was sombre. It was all going well enough, till a sudden thunder shower chose to have some fun, and collapsed the roof of the temporary dining hall. It was quite impressive actually! The force of the water cracked one of the tables in half! Thankfully, this was before anyone actually sat down to eat.

Now I'm back home after another very foggy couple of hundred kms this morning. Looking forward to a very lazy week and a half or so :). Given my last 6 day stay here, it actually feels like I've been running around since October :-<.

Currently: sleepy :)
Listening to: Radiohead - Punchdrunk lovesick singalong

Home sweet home

Things you begin to notice in airports and aircraft. Things you begin to notice after the whole novelty thing has worn off, and you aren't on high alert every time you pass through a security check. After you've gotten to the point where you could probably sleep-walk through any airport 'cos you have realised that they are, in fact, all the same. Like the fact that more faces on the album covers in the CD store look familiar 'cos you've seen them in some Idol/Rockstar hunt thing on TV. That more titles in the bookstore fiction racks have the word sex in them than a year back. That the chairs in the waiting area have been re-arranged.

I was on a two-flight plan back home after ages, and the Quantas one out of Perth was delayed by an hour and a half. Why? Because it took them 90 minutes to realise that they couldn't fix the in-flight entertainment system. So some people missed their connections, my changeover time in Singapore dropped to well under an hour (leaving absolutely no time for my customary mail-check at Changi :-<). And still no movies or music on a five hour flight. Thank God for my iPod and my book. At least things were working on the next flight and I quite enjoyed A Good Year! I love movies where everything works out like clockwork. It helps if it's funny.

Other things you begin to notice are how the eye colours and accents melt from one to another as you go hopping from one airport to another. (Skin/hair colours and languages should be obvious the very first time you travel :|.) And how the babble in the cabin gets louder every step you take towards BOM/CCU etc. And of course how procedures in airports get more and more time consuming. Till you get to Kolkata international and you get the distinct urge to nuke the place. Maybe then they'll work a little bit quicker.

After a few years or so you make your way out of the terminal and get dragged to a 'taxi'. Then a chap with obviously no right to have a licence for a bicycle (had there been such a thing) much less for a motor vehicle, takes you for a fun ride back home. On the way you watch helplessly as several people, dogs, cows, have near death experiences. And then of course the toothy smile that informs you that the change you are waiting for, you're never gonna get.

Currently: tired
Listening to: Jack Johnson - Dreams be dreams

The Rottnest adventure!

A slightly delayed account of what was arguably the best day's outing in the recent past! (I know I keep saying that, but this has just been such an awesome, awesome time at Perth :D.) Right so this is Saturday, and with my brand new IXUS in tow, we went for a day's trip to Rottnest Island. It's a fairly large island, about 11 kms long and 4.5 kms across at the widest. What was forecast to be a boiling hot day turned to be somewhat milder, thanks to the brilliant sea breeze! As soon as we got to the island, we hired a couple of bikes and set off! The sky was clear, and the views were stunning! And I took this chance to try and get some stitched up panoramas! They're not perfect, but still pretty awesome :D.Somewhat at the centre of the island, at it's highest point, stands the Wadjemup Lighthouse. This, as far as I know, is one of the very few lighthouses that are open to the public, while in actual operation! We had to book a tour with a guide of course. (They were hardly going to allow us to run amok with the massive reflector floating around on the bed of Mercury and what not :P.) The ride to the lighthouse took quite a while! But once we got used to them, the axle braking bikes were pretty cool! Okay, so these do not have lever operated rear brakes, instead, you pedal backwards to apply brakes on the rear wheel! Caused a few scares, given my habit of freewheeling backwards while going downhill, but I managed to get over it :D.The top of the lighthouse was a really long way up (38m doesn't sound like too much, but it is, believe me), and while the views all around were really something, I could just not help wondering what it would feel like in case some unfortunate soul decided to take a plunge. Without base-jumping equipment that is.While cycling around the island we also came up on a rather interesting life form on the island, the Quokka. It looks rather like a tiny, fat kangaroo :D. I was quite surprised to realise that unlike most wild animals, these were not afraid of people at all! In fact, rather than shy away from us, a few of them came right up and peered curiously as we clicked furiously away.From the lighthouse we'd spied these awesome looking beaches, so afterwards we went biking around, looking for them. Pictures of perfection, sparkling blue and pure white dazzling in the sun. One of the things that rather surprised me though was the way a lot of the trees looked. Wind-slapped is probably the best description I can come up with :D.Once back at the settlement around the jetty, and with some time left, we went looking for the other lighthouse on the island, the Bathurst Lighthouse! This one wasn't as tall, or grand, neither was it open to the public, but this was the third one we'd been to in the day (the first one being the South Mole at Fremantle), and my lighthouse crazy flatmate was absolutely in heaven :D.Eventually we made our way back and settled for some very late lunch. Here we were once again entertained by some intrepid 'wild'life! The white bird had been eyeing my bag (or my sandwich) for some time, when this peacock came by to give us a closer look :D. Having had some not-so-nice experiences with peacocks as a kid, I was a bit apprehensive, but we survived :D.

At the end of the day we were pretty tired, but it was a nice kind of tired. Nodding off on the ferry on the way back, woken up by the splashing of the waves hitting the window, the sky still bright blue. And tomorrow I'm off, home for almost three weeks!!!

Feeling: almost perfectly happy :)
Listening to: Moby - Sunday (the day before my birthday)

More Rottnest pics here.

O M G!!

Anyone who has not yet seen The Departed, please go watch it!!! Went and watched it today, on a complete whim, and left the theatre totally blown away!! Scorsese is god, as are a whole bunch of those people who've acted in it. Especially Leo DeCaprio and Jack Nicholson. And so loved the soundtrack!! Wondering how I can lay my hands on it!! Anyone else got totally totally hooked on that piece playing in the 'get them off my tail' scene?!! I do understand if you have no idea what I'm talking about :D.

Currently: in awe!!
Listening to: Moby - Running

The inevitable

I knew I would do it sometime, but I never seemed to be getting around to it... Eventually it took missed opportunities at the Australia Day fireworks and the aquarium visit, and today's planned trip to Rottnest Island for me to finally go get a successor to my much used, much abused, and very much loved Sony Cyber-shot DSC - L1. I did overshoot my target of 3500 clicks for retiring it, and I have to admit, I could not have asked for a better first camera :). But eventually the 3x optical, the tiny memory card that forced me to dump pics every chance I got, the absence of a stitch assist, and most importantly, the damage incurred during the small boat trip a few months ago all added up to a big enough reason.

The successor that I finally settled on to replace my L1 is the Canon IXUS 850IS. And critical as I am of an able substitute, since last night, it's shown promise. It helps of course, that it's actually smaller than the L1 in two dimensions which is no mean feat, manages to pack a 3.8x wide angle Canon lens system (with OIS), and is not that much heavier, and hence still fits in nicely in my pocket :). And yes, it's good to have two cams around so I don't have to resort to mirrors to get a decent picture of either :P.

Feeling: ecstatic (having just discovered the true powers of the stitch assist)
Listening to: Jack Johnson - Traffic in the sky