Panoramas

A selection of panoramic photos from this year.

Panoramas

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First snow

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It's snowing

Snow, hail, rain and thunder. Yep, that's what you get for staying half way up the mountain in winter.
This kind of weather started 3 days ago, and it's giving us a hard time here in Dharamkot.
The first hazard is the coldness, but it's actually the easiest one to deal with.
Not long after the temperature dropped, we were then trapped inside the hotel by the rain and the freezing wind almost all day long.
Whenever the weather gets bad, the internet stops working.

The lightening and thunders...they are not just spectacles that I used to watch with great interest and enjoyment in New Zealand, here they are real hazards to electronic equipments. I keep hearing stories about how they burn out everything connected to the power outlet in the entire house.
Just before we moved into our current hotel, one of the power supply of their computer was burnt by the lightening.
Several times we have sparks coming out (not sure from where) near our computers after lightening, that we immediately shut down everything to make sure we don't lose our hardwares.

You may wonder, why don't they just install something (earthing or whatever) to prevent this from happening?
It's a good question, but there's no good answers. The conclusion would be: "This is India, what do you expect?"

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More internet bugs

This month had been a great training session for my patience.

On the technical front, there's been one bug after another, none stop. First there was the usual difficulties & frustrations to get an internet connection, then for an entire day & night the power supply of our building fluctuated like crazy. The lights went brighter & dimmer all the time like in some horror movies, and the voltage was so unstable that the computers would constantly crash if we switch them on.

An electrician fixed the power problem the next day, but soon after, our internet provider denied our access for 3 days with the message that the username/password was invalid.

After the problem was finally resolved, just one day later, the light on the ADSL modem wouldn't come on. I picked up the phone, and there were no sound. We thought that something messed up the phone line, so there's nothing we can do but wait for the phone company to repair the problem.

We soon heard the news that during the previous night, someone had stolen a significant chunk of the cable from the major phone line, so all the telephone connections from McLeod Ganj upward were down. McLeod Ganj, being the main center in the area, got the phone connection back 2 days later, and for us in Dharamkot, we waited for 3 days until the phone connection was finally back, but...the internet was still not working.

That was yesterday, and today we found out that our network cable was not functioning. As a last resort, I connected an older cable that was broken earlier, and miraculously it worked. That's why I have access the internet at this very moment. We ordered a new cable, and with luck hopefully it will arrive promptly tomorrow.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is life in India. Either you get use to it, or you gocrazy.

On the personal front....ah..well...it's a long story. The only thing I can say is that it has been everything, but never boring.

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Internet connection traumas

I have not had such painful experiences with internet connections since the dial-up days.

When the broadband internet we have is working, it is perfect and we have really good speeds, but...it has become a daily struggle for us to get connections & stay connected.

For Rs. 3000 per month (100NZD), it is not so cheap and the reliability is disappointing.

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Nobody's perfect

No matter how amazing a person is, there's always something about them that can really annoy you.

In order to have a great friendship/relationship, you always need a bit of space & distance from each other. Maybe there are some exceptions, but the above holds true in most cases.

Ah well, nobody's perfect, I'm no exception.

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Photos from Dharamsala area

Life in Dharamsala

Monkeys in Dharamsala

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Drifting

Sometimes I feel I was born too late into this world.
The age of exploration is long gone, there are no more mysterious places in the world, no more uncharted territories unexplored by man.

The era of revolutions & great ideologies is now just a bygone memory. People used to fight with great passion, to bring freedom & equality to our society.
But nowadays, the society we lived in (in the developed world) is dominated by consumerism & endless pursuit of materialistic wealth, while most people in the world still live with inequality & injustice.

The western world thought the only way to help the rest of the world, is to bring modernization to them.
The so-called progress, bring roads & consumerable goods like coca-cola & mobile phones to every corner of the planet, but at the same time, it creates pollution & plastic wastes in quantities far beyond our capacity for them.

Living in New Zealand was like living in a paradise to me, because it's a beautiful country, and it's far away from all the troubles & conflicts in the world.

But I felt lost.

What's my purpose in life?

Is it just like what everyone said, you should get a career, get wealthy, find someone, settle down, get married (or not), have kids (or not), take up some hobbies, have a normal life and be a good citizen, and there, that's your fulfillment in life!?

Unfortunately following the status quo is never my thing.

I guess that's why after graduating from university, I went on a pilgrimage, and now four years later, I left home again and ended up in India.

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Dalai Lama in Leh - photos (11 August 2007)

People waiting for the arrival of the Dalai Lama, Main Bazaar road, Leh.


Dalai Lama's arrival.


Crowd reactions.

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Same conversation, over and over again

"No I'm not Japanese."

"No I'm not Korean."

"I'm from New Zealand."

"Yes I look Asian because I was born in Taiwan, but if you go to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand right now, you'll see people from everywhere around the world."


If I get a dollar every time I have this conversation, let's say the money I got will probably be enough to cover all my meal costs for this whole trip. I was quite patient in the beginning, thinking that it's part of my responsibility to "educate" people, but man~ how many times is too many to have the same conversation? How about 8 times a day? That's my highest daily record so far.

Somehow I find that Indians have more problem accepting my answer when I said I'm from New Zealand, whereas most Europeans are ok with it. I think the reason is simple, many big cities in Europe are quite multi-cultural as I have observed when I was there, and people there are used to the idea of having people from different culture & background living in the same country. Which is not quite the case in most Indian cities. Sure you see lot's of westerners in touristy places, but they're just tourists.

Here's an interesting observation, guess people from which country make up the number 1 tourist population in India? Answer: Israelis.

The second place probably goes to the French.

As for New Zealanders, so far I've met 4.
Taiwaneses: 7.
Australians: 3.
Chinese: 0.

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Rains

Right now I'm trapped inside the internet cafe, because it's pouring like cats & dogs outside. Dharamsala certainly lives up to its reputation as the second rainiest place in India.

I have a umbrella with me, but judging by how heavy the rain is, I'll still be half soaked if I attempt to walk back from McLeod Ganj to Bhagsu (15 min).

The noise of the rain is so loud, that you'll be forgiven to think that there's a waterfall right outside the front door of the building.

It doesn't rain all day here, but since I arrived on last sunday, there was a heavy rain like this almost everyday for 1~2 hours. Ah well, what can you expect from the second rainiest place in India during monsoon?

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The effect of altitude change

Did I just walk 7km uphill in 45 minutes? That can't be right. According to the road sign, that's the distance between Dharamsala & McLeod Ganj. However I'm suspicious about this figure. According to Lonely Planet, the distance by walking is 4km, and that feels more like the correct distanace to me.

Having lived in places with altitude higher than 3000~4000m for about a month, back in places under 2000m, I feel like superman. Ok...not quite, but people who know me well would know that my walking speed uphill had always been dramatically slower than my average walking speed, but now in Dharamsala, I can keep up the same pace all the way uphill, without getting out of breath. I didn't even have to drink any water, even though I sweat a lot during the walk.

It's good to feel fit and well.

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bomb blasts

There's another bomb blast in Hyderabad, it happened 3 days ago, while I was hundreds of kilometers away in Srinagar. This time two bombs exploded, in a restaurant and a park, and it was more serious than the first time this year, more than 40 people were killed. I called my friends, and found out that like the last time, they were hardly affected. The city is big, so that what happened in one area hardly affects the other.

Last time it happened on May 19th, I remember it clearly because I was on sick leave that day. In the early afternoon I received a phone call from Marcus, telling me that a mosque (Mecca Masjid) was bombed and there's a curfew on the street, so everyone in the studio had to go home early. We ended up spending the afternoon watching movies at Marcus & Kiki's flat.

Some people may be wondering whether it is safe to travel in India, honestly I really feel safe here. I mean when I walk around the streets here at night, I feel safer than walking in big cities of Europe, or even safer than walking pass the drunken guys yelling loudly on Queen street. It's just a unfortunate fact that terrorism is affecting this country, and I don't know why Hyderabad had become a major target this year.

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Kashmir

I'm now in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir

this is an interesting place...in a bit of a sad way
you can clearly see that in the past the city must be a pretty upscale resort for tourists, the setting & architecture have strong European influences, the lakes have hundreds of houseboats as relaxing accommodations. The streets are cleaner and greener (in the touristy centers) than other Indian cities.

But since the partition of India, the hostility between India & Pakistan and the political unrest in the decades that followed have pretty much screwed the tourism industry here

Nowadays, while staying on the houseboats remained a tranquil & relaxing experience, in downtown Srinagar, you'll see fully armed Indian soldiers standing guard on every corner of the street. The political situation between India and Pakistan is a lot better these days, but there still aren't that many foreign tourists, and I noticed that there're probably more Indian tourists.

Kashmir used to be dubbed as "paradise on earth" because of it's natural beauty, it's interesting in a sad way to see how human conflicts affect the so-called "paradise".

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Vegetarian

I've always told people who are vegetarian that I'm both vegetarian & non-vegetarian at the same time. But as of now, I've stayed with a vegetarian diet for over a month.

Actually I've reduced my meat consumption since I came to India, because there're so many vegetarians here, all the restaurant have both veg. & non-veg dishes, so it was very easy to choose veg. dishes.

Since last month, I intentionally stopped ordering non-veg food from restaurants, and before long, 3 weeks have passed! However last week was getting a bit difficult for me, because I visited Nubra Valley, and for whatever reason veg. diet is not the norm in the valley, and I had to refuse mutton dishes and ask for veg. food.

I'm not sure how long will I continue this habit, because there're still some really delicious meat dishes (especially from Hyderabad) that I craved from time to time, and the veg. food here in Leh is getting a bit repetitive for me. But I intend to stay with it for as long as possible.

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Dalai Lama in Leh

The Dalai Lama is in Leh now, he arrived at around 10:30am this morning.
This time he's visiting Soma Gompa (monastry), which is just outside the internet place, so I witnessed the event.

As usual the street is fulled of people, about 1/4 to 1/3 are tourists (mind you Leh is fulled of tourists), and there're lots of Indian soldiers & polices on the street, fully armed.
Many Ladakhis are wearing their traditional custumes, holding scarfs, flowers...etc in their hands, and there are banners on the street buildings, saying "welcome".

After waiting for about half an hour, several vehicles passed through the street in front of the gompa, fulled of soldiers/polices, some soldiers jumped out with rifles in their hands, and soon after, the Dalai Lama's vehicle arrived.

He walked out of the car, palms together in front of his chest, making a Buddhist gesture to the crowds, and was quickly lead into the gompa by his entourage.

I took several photos and managed to capture his face in one of them.
But I won't be able to upload any more photos until I left Leh and go back to some place with cheaper internet.

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De javu - take two

Yesterday, just before I was leaving a Tibetan market here in Leh, a strong feeling of de javu hit me, I suddenly remembered that the market and the streets outside appeared in one of my dreams a few years ago!

This is the second time something like this happened to me. The first time was back in 2003, while I was on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella, in a small town called Viana.

Sure it's not uncommon that I have feelings of de javu about certain things or places, but occurrences like this one is rare.

It's fun.

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Edwin@Leh

I arrived in Leh on Sunday after a very bumpy 2-day jeep journey through the 2nd highest motorable road in the world (I got photos but won't have time to upload them until a few weeks from now).

Yesterday the Dalai Lama passed through Leh in the morning at around 9am. I was still in my hotel room at that time so I did not witness the procession of his convoy. But people told me that he was on his way to Nubra Valley to give a 3 days teaching to the public, and he'll do the same thing in Leh around the 16th of this month.

In Norther India, where it's more Buddhist than Hindu, Dalai Lama realy is just like the Pope in Italy. Wherever I go, people talked about where he is right now and where he's going to be soon, many shops and restaurants have his photo hanging on the wall, and wherever he goes, people line the streets to welcome him.

I picked up his autobiography "Freedom in exile" in Manali and I it to be a perfect time and place for me to read this book, because I'm so close to where the events happened in the book, and the places around me are fulled of his presence.

I haven't decided whether to attend his teachings in Leh or not, because as usual, "the plan is that there's no plan."

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wow, Spiti, wow!!

Spiti

The bus from Manali to Spiti valley is hands down the most impressive bus ride I've ever had in my life so far.

The look of the Himalayas changed from the steep rocky cliffs with lots of green vegetation, to dry barren desert valleys with impressive mountain formations, I was in awe and could not think of anything other than "wow, wow, what a scenery." I have seen lots of great sceneries in my life, but I have never seen anything like this.

I have the same emotional feeling I've had when I visited places like:
* first time in NZ, the coast of Otago, the Glaciers in South Island(1993)
* the road to Milford sound (~2000)
* Tongariro crossing (2003)
* Swiss Alps (2003)

Except that in Spiti, the scale of the scenery is about 10 times larger than the places above.

However, about the road condition to get there...well, let's say if the minister of transportation will get a heart attack if he ever sees this kind of "highway" in New Zealand, especially when it's on steep mountain valleys.
Ok, the road surface is not all bad, but in many places, it's best described as "rock, pebbles and dust" or "rock, mud and water". Most part of the highway is not wide enough for two vehicles to pass (bus, truck & jeeps), so quite often one of them have to back up to a wider area and let the other pass.

Highlights about my journey in Spiti:

Kibber: a small village with an altitude of 4205m. About an hour walk uphill from the village you will reach a high mountain plateau where you can have 360 degree of mountain view and no one else is around. A really wonderful place to be.

Jazz under the moonlight: what a coincident that 4 musicians (2 French & 2 Indians from Delhi) stayed on the same floor of my hotel in Kibber. So one night I had the front seat to a free concert. We sat around the table on the balcony, and the guys performed Jazz music with guitars and saxophone. The Saxophone was especially amazing, and the surrounding mountain acted as a natural sound theatrical system: creating echoes for the music. With moonlight & a sky fulled of stars, what a magical night~

Upper-class bus travel: The buses in India are always fulled, so on the journey from Kaza to Kibber, I ended up sitting on the roof of the bus, along with all the luggages & 12 other passengers. It was a fun experience and the view was wonderful, the only danger is that whenever the bus passed through some overhanging objects, such as electrical wires or monumental gates (eg. near the towns & gompas), we have to bend our heads down to avoid being hit by them!

Tabo Gompa: with thousand-year-old Buddhist wall paintings & sculptures, it's a truly amazing place to be, especially if you can get in when no other tourists are around, sitting in the dim lighting of the gompa, looking at the ancient Tibetan Buddhist decorations gave me a feeling of peace and tranquility.

I have uploaded a small selection of photos to picasa (click the photo for the link), I have not time to stitch the panoramic photos so for now the photos will just be in compositions straight from my camera. But actually I feel that no matter how I take the photos they simply could not fully describe the sceneries & feelings I experienced in Spiti.

I'm now once again in Manali. Spiti was an amazing place but there's no cellphone reception & internet was slow and expensive, so I'll relax for a few days in Manali & then travel to Leh.

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Life = never ending adventures

Four years ago, I dropped everything in NZ and travelled to Europe for almost 6 months.
After I got back, I thought "ok I've got the biggest adventure in my life over and done with, now it's time to come back to the real life, have a career & create a lifestyle that I want."

Little did I know, the adventure is far from over. Four years on, the current of life take me to places that I would not have imagined before.

All it takes, is for me to let go of my worries, doubts, and dive into the flow. It feels good to be alive, even though it scares me from time to time.

Ever since I came to India, I feel like a handicap because I don't know how to ride a motorbike. Everyone agrees that riding a motorbike is the best way to travel in India, it gives you the freedom to go wherever you want & stop whenever you like. And almost every Indian guys I've met knows how to drive it.

Sure I've been riding bicycles since I was a kid, and I have ridden a scooter in Tuscany (fully automatic), but a motorbike is slightly more complicated than that.

Today I have finally broke my personal record. I rented a motorbike this morning (Yammaha RX100 for Rs. 350), and threw myself into the deep end. Before this, the only times I've driven a motorbike were the four 10-minute tutorial & practices given by Marcus back in Hyderabad, so when I first started, I could not get the bike moving properly and the engine always dies. But after awhile, with some instruction from the guy who rented it to me, I started driving on the main road.

Unfortunately my first experience only lasted for about 15 minutes. I came to a bridge and it was sealed off (looks like it was damaged), so all the vehicles have to drive through a very bumpy & rocky detour. I drove behind a car, and when it suddenly stopped, I hit the breaks and just like that my engine died. I was in the middle of the road and I couldn't start it again! Well...long story short, 2 guys helped me to push the bike back onto the normal road, a local stopped by because his bike had a punctured tyre, he helped me to restart the engine, and he drove my bike with me on the back to a bike repair shop to get help for his bike, and I drove the bike back to the guy who rented it to me, who took the bike & repaired whatever the problem was.

2 hours later, after lunch, I was on the road again, but heading for the opposite direction towards Naggar, a village about 21kms away from Manali. This time everything went smoothly.

Man~ driving in India, it is fun & scary at the same time!
Let's see...how many things have I drove pass (or overtook me)? Trucks, jeeps, buses, cars, other bikes, auto-rickshaws, tractors, people, sheep, dogs, cows, donkeys, horses, an elephant....yes, a real live elephant, with a guy riding on top of course.

My ultimate goal, is to be able to ride to the highest & 2nd highest motorable roads in the world (which happened to be both in this region of the Himalayas), in Nubra valley & from Manali to Leh. But at the moment I really couldn't make the decision, to do that I'll need really solid experiences in handling the bikes, the roads are not easy at all~

Anyway as the saying goes, let's wait and see.

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Reiki

I've been studying Reiki here in Vashisht for about a week now. It's a really cool experience.
In the past the only way for me to experience/witness the "energy" is by having "visions" coming into my mind or having intuitive hunches, but now I can feel strong energy movements in my body.

When I worked on people from the course, I can sense the heat & electrical sensations in my palm while I move them around the other person's chakras, and often I see different energy colors on different areas. It's interesting that after the session I got feedbacks from the other person that matched what I've sensed during the session.

It's cool.

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Journal entry from Manali

Life is amazing.
It presents you with all kinds of opportunities, if you're open to them, one opportunity will lead to another, and they'll take you through many amazing experiences.

I'm so glad I decided to accept the invitation to come to India. To be honest I had a lot of doubts before. Why would I want to go to an over-populated country, getting paid 1/4 of the standard NZ salary, living with the city traffic, pollution, noise, crowd, and worse living conditions?

The answer, is that these experiences enriched my life. I'm very happy to see the changes in me. I've become more open and more relaxed. I stopped worrying about job, career, and money, and I have a lot more acceptance to everything happening around me.

Best of all, the friendship I have here, and the chance to experience India, is priceless.

I'm now in Vashist, Manali. It's such a nice and comfortable place, and for Rs. 350 (NZD $11.7) per night, I have a million-dollar mountain view (the beginning of the great Himalaya range) in the hotel. Ok it is kind of a high price for my accomodation budget (usually it's around Rs 100~150), but...it's time to give myself a bit of a treat.

Life is good.

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Travellig in India

So just like that, a week ago I was still working like a slave in Hyderabad, now I'm hundreds of kilometers away in Rishikesh.
I have to say that if I've never done all those solo travels before (in Europe & NZ...etc), I'd be in a huge trouble. Even with those experiences under my belt, I still find travelling alone by public transports in India to be REALLY TOUGH~

I took a plane from Hyderabad to Delhi at 5:40am yesterday (4th July), then from Delhi took an 8 hour bus ride to Haridwar, and a bus ride from Haridwar to Rishikesh.

Without the friendly helps from the locals I would possibly be stucked in Haridwar yesterday. (at almost 8pm) There were no English signs anywhere on the buses or in the bus station. The chaotic station had no counters, no arrival and departure info. When the bus arrived, I had to do what everyone else does, push myself into the crowds to get inside before the bus leaves.

I'm considering to get a motor bike, and when I meet up with Marcus & Kiki next month(maybe), I'll start travelling by bike. But I'll have to wait and see how things happen, because as usual, the plan is that there's no plan.

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Looking forward to go to the mountains

The Himalayas that is. I heard so many good things about the places from Marcus & Kiki, who rode a motorbike through the highest motorable road in the world, from Manali to Leh, back in 2002~2003(?).

The work at Hyderabad has dried out my energies. I worked for 66~72 hours per week during my first 2 months here, a condition that I wouldn't have accepted if I knew before hands. The only reason that I stayed and did not just pack up and go travelling is because I want to test my limits.

The people from the studio are good people, it's just that they have put themselves in a very difficult situation, having to finish huge amount of works with impossible time constraints. However the lack of management and organization is wasting a lot of time for everybody in the studio, but there's not much I can do about it, this is India, they have their way of doing things.

At the end of my two month contract period, I had a chat with the studio directors (who always talk to me like friends), mentioning my intention to leave and go travelling. They expressed their desire for me to stay, so I said that I'll stay for one more month and see how things go. But at least after our talk, they've reduced the working our back to the normal hours, that is from 9am to 6:30 pm, Monday to Saturday.

I'm not sure how long will I stay here, nobody knows when will the movie be finished (surprise surprise, what do you expect with the style of management here?), but now my desire is to go to the mountains next month.

Let's wait and see, that's all I can say.

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Culture tickles

Ever since I threw away my culture baggages, I consider myself to be free from culture shocks.
Since I arrived in India, once again I find myself having to adjust to a totally different environment, experiencing all these differences, the sensations I got are not shocks, but somewhat more like tickles, that makes me smile, amused, curious, or become mindful.

- Rain
People here really like rains! In contrast to most people in NZ who complain when it rains, in here people smiles.
There's no such a thing as a light shower here, every time it rains, it pours like cats & dogs, and always accompanied with thunders and lightnings. Then the city's power supply will be shut down.
Marcus told me that not a single drop of rain fell since last September, but since I arrived, the week that followed rained every afternoon/evening.
People at the studio were really happy to see the rain, everyone would go out to the balcony to watch the rainfall, play in the water.
They said that I brought the rain from NZ, as I tried to tell them it's not my fault~
One afternoon we even had a halestorm, which had not happen here for 9 years. We automatically had a break from work (the power was out anyway), and played in the back garden.

But now, after having a few extremely hot, sweaty & sleepless nights, I too prefer rains. The cool breeze after the rain makes sleeping at night so much more comfortable.

- Power cuts
Power cuts happen more frequently than traffic accidents (from my observations anyway). For my first two weeks, it was pretty much a daily occurrence.
At the studio we have our own power generator, but it was not unusual that we have to shut down our computer because the power is out.

- Traffic
The traffic rule here is best described as "none existent". There's a cross-road near our studio, every time I cross through it (by car or on someone's motorbike), the traffic literally comes from all directions~
Cars, motorbikes, auto-rickshaws, pedestrians...etc, everyone's crossing the intersection at the same time without any rules or directions (traffic lights too are none existent in most places), despite this, since I've been here I have not yet seen a traffic accident!
It makes you see that somehow there's a natural order governing everything here, laws in India....more or less are just for references.

- Arranged marriages
The Sunday paper has several pages for matrimonial match makings.
They're very similar to the dating advertisements in other countries, except here its for finding suitable marriage partners.

So what are the most desirable qualities?
Guys: 172cm+, Engineering degree, working in Engineering or IT.
Girls: slim, fair looking, university degree (BA...etc), coming from well cultured families.

According to Marcus & Kiki (my Brazilian & German friends who's email invitation brought me here to Hyderabad), matrimonial match making is a huge business in India, the largest website here is devoted to such purposes.
My Indian friends told me that about 70~80% of marriages in India are arranged marriages, and they are meant to last for a lifetime. (I haven't done the research so I have no idea what's the divorce rate in India)

- Head shakes
People shake their heads side to side when they're indicating "yes", "OK", or "I'm listening".
When I first arrived I was confused, because when I asked someone a question, they'll shake their heads, and I though they meant "No", when actually they're saying "OK".

- Food
Lonely Planet mentioned that on average an Indian eats 2kg of rice weekly, as I found out it is no exaggeration. The portion of food you get in restaurants are HUGE. No matter what I order - Biryanis, curry with rice, fried rice...etc, at most I can only finish half the amount.
Soon I begin to share meals with my room-mate (from New Delhi who doesn't eat as much as the locals), we split the food and cost, and it works out perfectly.
Its a wonder to see how the locals are so skinny when they eat so much.

- Public obscenity?
Richard Gere got an arrest warrant from an Indian court for kissing Shilpa Shetty on the cheek in a public televised event. The reason? It's public obscenity, according to the court.
That's not all, there are people who took to the street and protested, burning Gere & Shetty's effigies!
Looks like no matter where you are, there are always lots of people in the public who like to blow things out of proportion. Only the subject matter's different.

- Contrasts
LIke every other country India has a lot of contrasts, the major difference I find isi that everything here is packed together, living side by side.
Looking down from the balcony of my apartment, its a slum area, people living in simple houses, with dusty narrow streets too small for cars to travel, and you can see buffaloes walking around from time to time.
A little bit further, at the border of the slum, right across the street there's a band new, villa-styled, fenced housing complex with a nice swimming pool, looks extremely alluring to us in the summer heat.
Looking even further, about 4 km away is the ancient Golconda fort & Hyderabad's Muslim kings' tombs, which had been there for hundreds of years.

I have more to say about the contrasts I've observed & experienced, but I'll leave that for later.

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Opportunities & choices

My friend Yillie, who's both spiritual and a real psychic (interesting that these two qualities don't always come together in the same package), told me at the end of last year, when I felt like I have exhausted my options in finding works in the field I was pursuing, that there'll be opportunities coming to me in March 2007, and I'll be facing the dilemma of choosing between them.

Boy~ was she right. In the middle of March, I had to choose between staying in Auckland and joining a cafe business with my friend, or to go to India and work on the visual effects for a movie, and I only had 1 week in total before I had to make the decision.

It was a tough one, every mental & emotional muscle of mine were fired up, causing waves and waves of unsettling sensations in my body for over a week. Facing two totally different options with no "right" solution, I swung back and forth between my decisions.

Then something strange happened, on the last day, at around 2am in the morning, I reached a state of clarity, my mind was quiet, my emotions were silenced, I felt calm and peaceful, and I heard my inner voice repeating a message clearly: "Go to India".
It wasn't based on some logical reasoning, like "I should go because of...etc etc", instead it was a clear sense of knowing, that puts all my thoughts to rest.

So that's it, I'm leaving for Hyderabad, India, on Saturday 7th of April, staying for an initial contract period of 2 months, and then decide whether I'll stay longer or not.

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Random thoughts

A question is like a mirror, the answer you give reflects who you are and your perception of the truth.

Lately my mind had tuned back into the soul searching/truth finding mode. I've learnt that changing the modes of my mind is not something I can control entirelly, it's far easier to let go and just allow it to shift gears naturally.

Life as it is has become more peaceful and enjoyable than it had ever been, even during the past two stressful weeks, it was a lot easier for me to find peace during the breaks.

When I was troubled, I ask myself, what advice would I give if someone come up to me with the same problem? The answers were always fulled of peace and wisdom, that they calmed me down.

Taming the ego, healing old wounds, and allowing inner wisdoms to shine through. So these are what I signed up for for this life eh?

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Giving a nudge

A friend called me today, he's someone I knew since I was a teenager, we've met up a few times last year, and I've shared my travel stories with him, and a bit of my spiritual experiences. But by the end of our interations, I found that we've ran out of conversation topics.

I learnt that he's not been doing anything outside of work, so I suggest him to go and explore everything about life as much as possible, and find out who he really is.
I thought that's the final message that I should pass on to him, and he really needs to figure things out for himself.

He called me once in a while to make small talks, how are you, what have you been doing...etc. I politely replied his questions but the conversations never really went anywhere, it was always the same repeated stuff.

Today, after repeating the routine once again, I asked him:

"So you're working five days a week, what do you do during your weekends?"

"Oh...nothing, just staying at home, doing some gardening, the same old boring stuff."

"Man, you sound like you're already 40-50 years old." (He's only around 30 by the way)

"Ha ha, ye, I know, it's boring."

"Man you should get some hobbies."

"Yes maybe I should, but I really don't know what to do."

"Well...what are you interested in?"

"I don't know..nothing...."

"I don't believe you."

"It's true, really, I can't think of anything...."

"No way, I don't believe it, tell me, what is it that you really want to do? If tomorrow the world is going to end, what would you do today?"

"Well...I don't know, spend all my money?"

"Ok, so what would you spend your money on?"

"I don't know..."

"Come one, there must be something you want to get, or something you want to do."

"No...really...I can't think of anything, I don't have any dreams...etc"

"I don't believe you, I believe that it's not because you don't have any dreams, but that they have been suppressed over the years as you grow up, so all you need to do is to ask yourself questions and find out what you want."

"Maybe you're right, but I can't think of any."

"Well...what did you want to do as a kid? You must have things that you wanted to do back then but couldn't, and now it's your chance to realise them."

"It's too long ago, I can't remember."

"Ask yourself, go explore, find out what you want."

"Yeah, maybe, but what I want maybe unrealistic."

"Don't worry about whether it's realistic or not, just say it."

"Well...I want to earn lots of money, but it's a bit unrealistic."

"Ok...what does earning lots of money meant to you? What does money represent?"

"It's a good feeling to have lots of money, it feels good."

"Ok, but when I asked you what do you want to spend your money on earlier, you told me that you don't know, so what do you want to have lots of money for? Ask yourself what does money represent, what does it meant to you personally? Just go and explore."

"Ok..."



I felt this is the end of our conversation, he should turn inward and find some answers from himself. But he then started to ask me what I'm planning to do today, something he's already asked earlier.

"Hey don't change the subject, you haven't answer my questions yet."

Seeing that we're going to repeat the same talk again, I tuned up my bossy persona a notch at this point:

"Ok, I remember when I told you about my travel experiences, you mentioned that you'll be interested to do something like that as well. So tell me, if you can travel to any places in the world, where would you like to go?"

"I want to go to Italy." Finally I'm getting a straight answer.

"Ok, why don't you go?"

"Ha ha, hey.. it's not like you can just go anytime."

"Why not? You've been working for a while now, you haven't been spending much, so you've got quite a bit of savings, so just go whenver you've got a holiday."

He agreed, but then said he doesn't like to travel alone.

"So go findout if there's someone you can go with, go explore the possibilities."

"Yes, that's the thing, finding someone..."

I gave him a speech about how when you travel, if you're open to others, you'll meet all kinds of people, you can make friends anywhere, so why do you need to worry about being alone...etc

"Yes you're right, the feeling is different that way though...etc"

Finally I made a proposition that he can't refuse:

"Look, I'm not saying that you have to go tomorrow, just start exploring the idea, start investigating and researching. Go to the library or a bookshop and pick up some travel guides, there're lot's of places in Italy that you can visit, so do some readings and find out what interests you the most, start researching and planning the trip.
So that in the future when someone ask you what have you been doing, you'll have something interesting to share with them instead of just the normal boring day to day stuff. And maybe through the conversation, you'll find other people who are also interested in travelling to Italy, and then you may find yourself a travel partner...etc."

He agreed.

"So go and make your life more interesting." I said.


I'm glad about how things went, I've finally broke the old interaction pattern between us, so that in the future we may have someting exciting to talk about.
I totally believe that everyone is responsible for how interesting their life is, there's nothing others can do except give you a nudge in the right direction once in a while.

By the way, it's fun to play my bossy persona, I enjoyed it.

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Power

The only time when other people can have power over you, is when there's something you want from them, whether it's materialistic or psychological.

This is the latest thought that entered my mind, as I continued to observe how my internal state responds to external events.

Why else would so many guys get nervous and insecure around beautiful women? Why else would those successful people participate in "the apprentice" and become wussies in front of Donald Trump?

Is there an exception to the rule? I couldn't think of any at least for now.

The media often describe the president of the US as the most powerful man in the world. Is he really?

When Alexander the Great came before Diogenes (who was sunbathing), thrilled to meet the philosopher, asked if there was any favour he might do for him. To which Diogenes replied "Yes, could you move out of the way, you're blocking my sun."

Who was more powerful?

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working overtime

The difference between last week and this week cannot be more drastic than it had been for me. Last week I had all the free time in the world, and I was considering apply for a position in a UK company, the job is pretty much what I'm looking for (technical artist/scripter), and at the moment there doesn't seem to be any opportunity of this nature in NZ.

However, a phone call last friday changed my plan. A friend brought the info that a company wants a short 3D animation to be done in 2 weeks, and he asked if I'm interested in taking on the project with 4 other people. I agreed without giving it much thoughts. But when I finally found out the complexity of the project....I was seriously stressed.

It seemed nuts to attempt to create a 2 minutes+ animation in 2 weeks, especially when none of the character design/setup, storyboard & animatic are finalized. With no other options, everyone in the group jumped straight in and started working, and I've been working for 10~12+ hours everyday since then.

The stress only goes away when I'm making progress, or when I detach myself from the project emotionally. Either way, I'm looking forward to get the animation finished and done with.

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Learning to paint

I've always been reasonably adequate at drawing what I see, but for some reasons, when it comes to painting (figures & portraits specifically), I fumbled like a clown trying to juggle baby crocodiles while standing on top of five stacked beach balls.

There seems to be some links missing in my brain, that are supposed to connect one skill to another.

What's the difference between drawing & painting?

I feel comfortable with drawing because there's only one variable that I have to control: the values (ie. darkness). By varying the density of the applied medium, I can define light & shadow, shape & form quite easily.
Similarly, I can paint reasonably well as long as it's limited to only one color, but attempts to create a "real painting" (ie. a picture with full color ranges) mostly end up becoming a color mess.

As I gradually improved my skills over the years, I've learnt to work with 2 tones. I'll establish the values with a dark color, then use a light color to add highlights to different areas. It's an improvement, but still far from a full color painting.

So now what?

Not long ago I discovered traditional painting techniques like glazing & scumbling, meaning the artist will apply transparent color layers on top of monotoned underpaintings, thus build up richly colored surfaces.
(see an example here)

Sounds easy enough right? Seems like a perfect solution to my problem.

Well...the concept is easy enough to understand, but the application is definately a lot more complicated. For the start the varieties of mediums & paints out there are enough to confuse any beginners, then the technique itself will require a lot of experiments & learnings to get a hang of.

So this is where I am now, at the monotone stage:



Paintings like these are my inspirations:




I honestly have no idea how far can I take my skills, but I'm not too concerned about it, for now I'll just take it one step at a time and see what happens next.

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perception of time

I used to think that if there's a remote control for my life, I'd put it in fast forward mode, so that I can quickly go through everything life has to offer and be done with it. This idea, although still instereting, seem less relevant to me nowadays.

Somehow my perception of time have changed.
To me, the past few years seem like one single continuous day, and everything that happened feels like it was yesterday.

I feel like time has come to a stand still, so that in one eternal moment, I observed the occurance of countless events, saw myself change from one state into another, and witnessed sunrise and sunset over and over.

Maybe time really doesn't exist.


A brief internet search on related topics brought me some interesting finds:

A World Without Time: The Forgotten Legacy Of Godel And Einstein
"in 1949 Godel made a remarkable discovery: there exist possible worlds described by the theory of relativity in which time, as we ordinarily understand it, does not exist. He added a philosophical argument that demonstrates, by Godel's lights, that as a consequence, time does not exist in our world either. If Godel is right, Einstein has not just explained time; he has explained it away."

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/denying_time.shtml
"Perhaps humans invented the concept of time out of mortal fear; reasoning that if time were tangible then its degenerative march could be controlled, just as mankind has tried to subdue other aspects of the natural world. Immortality would be within our grasp! But while time may be a convenient metronome that delivers neatly portioned slivers of existence to conscious beings, the idea of a ‘universal time’ is looking increasingly fanciful, at least to some physicists."

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translating wikipedia

I've spend 3 days last week translating wikipedia's entry of Hannibal Barca from English to Chinese. It took a lot longer than I expected: 3 full days of work for 5000 words.

A lot of time was actually spend on finding out existing translations for all the different names, for historical person, tribes, countries, cities, provinces, rivers, mountains...etc, which turned out to be a rather time consuming job. Some of the names have no translations to be found, and some of them have different variations in which case I had to find out which one is consistent with other wikipedia entries.

In the end it's a rather satisfying experience to see everything being neatly put together, however I'm definately going to take a break & probably won't start translating another entry any time soon.

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New years day

Yesterday was a strange new years day. I woke up to a bright sunshine, but then the sky turned dark, rain & hail followed. In the afternoon my backyard was again lit by rays of sunshine, but not far away heavy clouds occupied the sky, and for hours it thundered.
I lost count of the numbers, but I'm certain that more than a dozen of them occured within 2~3 hours.

For most part of the day I was clouded by a heaviness centered around my solar plexus, a feeling that had became all too familiar to me. It persisted until finally, during a half meditative state, that I focus my awareness on fully experiencing and observing this emotion, and right then it shifted.

Like an ice cube on a frying pan, the heaviness melted and vaporised within seconds, leaving not a single trace behind.

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