Back to Asia

Off on adventures. Back end-February.

Asia Memories

In a few days we leave for Asia and I'm so excited I'm practically vibrating. It's a long journey, unlike all those trips when we lived in Manila, but it's of a pace so that's OK. We'll take the ferry to Vancouver and spend the afternoon and night there, then fly to Hong Kong where we'll also overnight. The next day we fly to Yangon transiting through Bangkok, where I can absorb a brief touch of that Thai design and style. BKK is full of orchids and statues and eye candy.

These days, as the trip has been planned and designed, little tidal waves (we won't call it a tsunami, will we) of memories keep washing over me. Thousands and thousands of memory glimpses, making me catch my breath, I'm smiling all the time. For example, I see a picture of the boat we will take down the Ayerwaddy from Mandalay to Bagan and I remember those two boat trips a few years ago now on the Mekong, one in northern Laos with its beautiful mountain scenery and another in southern Laos where the land is flatter, the river is wide and on that trip was very low, revealing big sandbars along the way.

Memory flash. On the trip in the north we watched The Dutchman in his cream linen suit, who couldn't stay away from the sunny outside deck, always standing, gazing for hours and hours at the scenery as we made our way through the northern mountains. As the day progressed through to the second morning the Dutchman's face grew redder and redder from the sun and his linen suit became more and more wrinkled. When we stopped at a weaving village we smiled as we watched him exuberantly buying scarves from every vendor it seemed, draping a dozen or so  around his neck, adorning the rumpled linen suit. Through most of this, his family of wife and teenage boy and girl, sat in the shade deck of the boat with backs to the scenery, playing cards.

I haven't been to Burma before but I've seen it. In July 2009 in northern Thailand Maristella and I  stopped here for a look see on our way to catch our boat for a two-day trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in Laos. This is the Golden Triangle, the spot by the Mekong River where 3 countries meet. I'm standing in Thailand, Laos is across the river on the right, and Burma is to the left. The poppies are in them thar hills.

Friends of mine have recently returned from Burma - two couples (traveling separately) from Manila and another couple from here in Qualium Beach - so I've been hearing the stories and looking at their photos and videos. One couple took a 10-day boat trip down the Ayerwaddy from Mandalay all the way to Yangon. (That's about 8 or 9 days longer than would suit me to travel with the same group of tourists, but 'chacun a son gout', to each his own). While they were not far from Manderlay there was a strong 6.8 earthquake and they witnessed, right in front of them, a part of a bridge under construction collapse, taking with it several workers - some lost their lives. This was last November 11th. As it happens one of their fellow travelers makes videos and here are links. One is a 6 minute video of the boat trip itself which shows glimpses of Burmese life and some of the places we will be, as well as giving a sense of what their tour was like with their fellow travelers.

The other, a 2 minute video,  is more specifically scenes of the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the bridge, the local people gathered outside, afraid to go back to the buildings, the search for survivors and the temple damage. Check them out, they're pretty well made and I think give a good sense of what it is like. I'll let you know. I just bought another memory card for my camera. 16GB. That should do it. Maybe.

Video maker is Wendy Evans www.rarolens.com.

Blue Skies

Today on this second day of the new year, I awoke to blue skies and sunshine, an event truly worth celebrating.

Here on the Wet Coast, skies have been gray and more or less drizzling since October 11th, so this is a very welcome boost to the waterlogged spirits, to say nothing of a very waterlogged GreenHouse. Out there the fuchsias are in winter hibernation under the benches, while the saturated cedar drips and the rivers of condensation flow down the inside of the windows. I mop up with sponges and run the fan all day long. The door hasn't shut properly in months.

Just as I was admitting how fed up I was with all this gray and wet, I spoke to Number One Son yesterday in Ottawa. "There's 5 feet of snow here and it is minus 24 degrees", he tells me. OK, I'll shut up. I prefer this for sure. He is also making plans for his return to British Columbia in a few months, to live here again, likely on the Island somewhere. I'm not holding my breath, but he does sound serious.

Sun or no sun, I still go for long walks most days. Yesterday I noticed a blooming pink rhodo in someone's garden near the ocean, as well as two well flowering hardy fuchsias. Daffodils I planted in pots and left beside the house under the eaves are showing their green tips. Hellebore buds are fattening up to bloom later this month. So some know that spring will arrive before too long. In a few weeks we leave for southeast Asia, where I will no doubt have my early fill of warmth and sunshine.

Christmas this year was quiet - no visitors, but still, by yesterday, I was well and truly sick of the whole thing. After staying up till midnight watching an old George Carlin performance on the Comedy Channel the night before, New Year's Day was a day of deconstruction as I took down the tree and the lights to pack away for another year. We officially celebrated New Year's at what was 9:30 in the morning New Year's Eve day here, New Year's in Yangon(Rangoon) where they were publicly celebrating with fireworks and all for the first time. Times appear to be changing in Burma, and I'm on my way.

Happy New Year - off to enjoy the sunshine before it vanishes again. New Year Resolutions? Yes I have one. I resolve to stop pretending I like dark chocolate and only eat the milk.

Retirement

This reminds me of what I don't miss about working life.

I'm very happy and supremely content with getting up in the morning and doing whatever I want. Playing. Retirement is grand.

One thing though. Retirement implies having a pension, no? Which at my tender young age I don't. So I think that despite filling out forms writing "retired" in the space for "occupation", what I really am is unemployed!


Check out the other "Demotivators" at despair.com/demotivators

007

On a rainy Saturday, the first day of Christmas month, we drove to Nanaimo, past the busy mall parking lots to the movie theater, where, with only a few other matinee-goers, we watched the new Bond movie.

Outstanding. The humor is back. I'd been lukewarm about the last, darker tales.

The promotion of the movie release includes a celebration of 50 years of Bond. All these 50 year celebrations (Beach Boys included) are making me nervous. Now the question, "who's the best Bond" is nonsensical but what about a favorite Bond girl? My all time fave is Jill St. John in Diamonds are Forever, who, as Tiffany Case, spent the entire movie prancing around in a bikini. Great last words when, as they looked up at the satellite in the night sky, she purred, "Jaaames, how are we going to get those diamonds down?" She's a riot.

Skyfall has it all. An extended outrageous chase scene opening, villains, over the top stunts, old references, a woman or two, booze, cigarettes, casinos, more chases, heavy artillery. Great way to spend a rainy raincoast Saturday afternoon.

November

The Moon and Jupiter November 28 2012 Source

 
"November is the worst month", my mother-in-law, who lived on this Wet Coast for many years, used to say.

I used to find that quite astonishing as for me, living as I was in eastern Ontario, January was the worst month. So much so that my life's ambition at the time was to spend the entire month of January in the house.

Now I think I know what she means.  There was a full moon out there somewhere last night but I could only catch a glimpse of it as the night clouds raced across the sky to cover it up. Tonight, no chance of a moon, I can hear the rain beating down on the skylights. It's November and rain month here on the Best Coast. Hey, if you want to live in a temperate rainforest...

Last November, our first winter here was quite different. I remember a lot of workmen hanging around doing lots of exterior work - stone brick patios, fences, gates, the side arbor (summer greenhouse) at this time - with no interruption for rain right up till Christmas. Not so this year. We're back to more usual November weather. Rainy and windy a lot of a time, which makes the afternoon breaks, blue sky and sun, even if just for a few hours such a treat. The sun is so low on the horizon this time of year that even mid day on days when it shines, it only hits part of the back garden - and then only for a short time before it dips behind the tall trees of the Forest, fading away to a 4:00 sunset. The sun shines here at a mid-day 16 degree angle by Winter Solstice I'm told, a few weeks away.

The GreenHouse is leaking like a sieve.


But it's not all wind and rain. November Scenes:

On a long raft, just off the dock at Fanny Bay, about 40 sea lions were snoozing in the brilliant early November sun. What a sight! And sound as well. Ignored by most of their dozy compadres, a few buddies were awake and barking.

On another day, my neighbor Dee and I were driving along the coast road to an art show, when I noticed some kind of commotion just off from Qualicum Beach. We pulled over to take a closer look. Lots of shore birds out there, but something else... A tail, a leap, a dive - it was a group of dolphins, close offshore. Unlike the seals that surface as they feed on their way to somewhere else, these guys were all staying in one place waterprancing. We were laughing with pure delight. I had no camera then, but sometimes that's a good thing - to just look, without trying to capture the shot.

The beaches are always a source of amazement, always something unexpected. Another day we came upon this small public access beach in a neighborhood not far away. Obviously a prized outjut (look it up and let me know if it's a word) of land into the winds of the Strait of Georgia.  Half a dozen neon windsurfers dancing on gray.

Meanwhile...

When I landed on this coast on July 4th, 2011, I declared that I would not set foot in an airplane or in an airport for a year. At least. I wanted a break from it all, after our 4 years of constant exploring. I wanted to see what being grounded felt like. Well 16 months later, the possibility of travel now felt right. Where to go? A few interesting suggestions on the short list, from 3 different continents, but we're going back to Asia in January, just for a visit this time. To Burma.

Back to the Bunkie

Nowadays, the Bunkie Studio is alight, with fireplace going and music playing. I'm spending my days there building a miniature theater and a few other things. Facing the huge picture window in front of my desk I sometimes watch eagles or ravens flying by, going back and forth from the forest at the end of the street. It's all very cozy and comfortable and I spend hours in there most days, playing.

The miniature theater project has been with me in my dreams and imagination for something like 5 years now. It's a Venetian inspired stage scene with an highly decorative exterior facade, a scenery backdrop representing the Rialto Bridge in Venice and six actors in Carnevale costume, taking their final bows. It measures 24 inches wide, 14 inches deep and 21 inches at its highest point. The actors are 5 1/2 to 6 inches high.

The scenery backdrop was the first thing I had made. I commissioned a Thai artist in the Chiang Mai night market building to paint the 19" canvas from a small picture I gave him. Dusit did a fantastic job. When I was in Manila I started sketching and constructed the theater out of foam board to figure out the dimensions. Then last winter, here, with the studio set up to spend my days in, still unable to work out how I was going to build it, I worked instead on the actors and finished costuming them. Six weeks work, and I loved every single minute of it. Freaky cute.

Some weeks ago, when the Saturday market was still outside, I was strolling along the vendor tables when I stopped in front of a woodworker, displaying wooden toys, puzzles and other small things. Nothing of interest to me except for a small sign I noticed at the back of the booth, "We do custom orders". So I stopped for a chat. Turned out that the guy was a retired high school woodworking teacher who had a fully equipped shop and, guess what, would be very interested in building my theater. Now this was major as I had been completely stalled. By this past fall, I was still pretty stymied about the construction of the basic structure. I needed saws which I didn't have to cut up the 3/8 inch Baltic Birch plywood. And even if I got the equipment, I had no idea how to use it, and how to construct what is, essentially a three piece interlocking box cabinet.

Well Bill the WoodWorker did know. He took my design and measurements, got going and in no time the cabinet that would become my fantasy theater was finished and delivered. I went out there with my camera and photographed him in his shop as he put the last little finishing touches on the theater. I was drooling over his workspace and all his equipment and tools lined up and organized so brilliantly. He says that the organization comes to him after long years of experience including teaching woodworking to prison inmates. There it seems, they need to be uber-organized - every single nail needs to be counted out and accounted for, for pretty obvious reasons.

Here's the theater back home, ready to be started. To create this sneak preview I propped up Dusit's scenery backdrop, placed the actors that I costumed last winter and for good measure balanced a couple of cardboard rolls on children's blocks - this is a Venetian play after all, and marble columns are in order, no? Everyone was very happy. The Freaky Cutes have spent the summer on the fireplace mantle, yelling at me from time to time. "Where's the theater?" "I'm sick of standing here in this costume" "Get on with it".

The two pottery masks on the wall (from a local artist) are masks for giants, at 14" wide and 16" tall.

Now that the cabinet is done, after the ridiculously long creative incubation period, it's full speed ahead. I've been building the marble columns for both sides of the stage and have completed the hardwood floor board installation on a sub-floor that will slide inside. All the exterior and interior facades and trims are created on some kind of base designed to fit into or onto the cabinet. It's easier to work on of course, flat, outside the structure, but the bigger reason for not working directly on the cabinet is I have no idea what I'm doing so I'm making it up as I go along. Best not to be experimenting right on the finished product as often I'm trying different finishes, or colors, or techniques or whatever before finding the "that's it" solution. I'm also figuring out what I need to electrify the thing to run stage lights both from the floor upward and along tracks above, highlighting the actors and scenery. I'm carving the Tragedie e Comedie masks for the top center of the triangular pediment above the entire stage.

I've designed the front facade, checking out lumber stores to see what the smallest molding they have looks like, and figuring out how to make my own. In a way, I'm finding I have some latitude with equipment and supplies as this project is not to usual miniature scale. It's a theater stage. If I did it in 1:12 it would take up the entire Bunkie and out the door.  But it's still pretty small and I still have to find trims and finishes somewhere, or figure out how to make or convert things - with tools not much better than my Olaf 25mm utility knife. Wish me luck. Or better yet, wish me inspiration.

I've been thinking about this project for a very long time, even while "finishing" the last miniatures project back in Manila, the Asian Treasure Shop. The design is probably inspired by 19th century European toy theaters (think gaudy), but that's as far as that goes. This is a picture of a cardboard and paper painted theater from England, 1850, now in the Pollock Museum. We used to have one of these that we played with as kids at the cottage in Grandma's house. I remember well the different cardboard backdrops that slid into brackets, and the painted cardboard actors on sticks that you poked through the sides to move them around the stage. It had a cloth screen that you could turn a crank at the side to raise and lower it. It came with scenery and actors for several fairy tales including Little Red Riding Hood, wolf and all. It was very old even way back then, and it may even have belonged to my grandmother as a child. My cousin and I were talking about it awhile ago, wondering what happened to it. Wish I knew. I do know that for several years when I used to spend summers there as an adult, I looked everywhere for it to no avail. Gone. Someone must have pitched it. Another problem with communal property.

This is where the inspiration no doubt comes from, but today's theater is a different beast made of different materials. I know exactly what it looks like finished in this imagination of mine, the trick now is making it happen.  This is all about figuring out how to do things I don't know how to do, while listening to great music in my playground and staying warm. Heaven.

Way Past Time

So the real news of the election yesterday were the votes in Colorado and Washington state to legalize recreational pot.

Also, Massachusetts voted in favor of medical marijuana bringing the number of states allowing it to 17. As far as I'm concerned, "medical marijuana" is bullshit. Not that I don't believe it has medicinal benefits, au contraire, it absolutely does. It's just that it is a half-assed, pretend approach to legalization. It's like saying you can't have that double bourbon on the rocks if you're doing it because you like the taste, or you like the way it makes you feel or whatever, but you can if it helps your migraine. Sissies.

Happy Day

Today was blue sky sun shining, for the first time in well over a week. And why not? Today was my birthday after all. Forever young in Qualicum Beach. Works for me.

Last week we were in Vancouver where I had to travel to get an appointment with a specialist, sooner, that is, than the year it would take me to wait for one over here on The Island. Yes, year-long waiting lists. It's a little strange, stepping back into the Canadian/BC health care system after being away. In Manila the quality of care and the ability to access medical specialists when you want to, totally depends on money. Want an appointment with a specialist over there? "Yes, Mam, when would you like to come?" Medical tourism is big in places like Thailand and Malaysia, and the Philippines is trying to get a piece of the action - they even built a shiny, new hospital down the road from where we used to live, just for that business. Meanwhile, millions of their citizens have limited, if any, access to anywhere near decent healthcare.

So... I don't think I'll complain too loudly about wait times here, and a few days in Vancouver is hardly a hardship. The ferry ride over is totally relaxed, and it was about time anyway for a change of scenery and a taste of the big city. We always stay at my absolutely favorite hotel of anywhere, a suite hotel on a residential street in the West End, a block from Davie Street.

The West End is a mixture of low- and high-rise buildings, most of a vintage, although there are more and more signs of renovations. Renovations, not tear-downs, which I think is great. I have no clue about the politics and real estate of Vancouver, and why this is so; it's just me walking around this wonderful neighborhood and looking. It reminds me a little of urban neighborhoods of Montreal, where I grew up. We're 3 blocks from the water and close to Grenville Island, via the ultra-cool little passenger ferryettes, as well as to Stanley Park, to Yaletown, downtown and anywhere else we care to go - most of the time walking. On this visit it was grey and rainy, but looking way good to me.

The entire West End is all about walking and looking and vibrant main streets with lots of pedestrian traffic just blocks from where you live. I especially like Davie Street, or Davie VILLAGE as I see it is being called - our neighborhood. where there is such a great mix of people, most of them colorful, in one way or another. We've stayed there so many times these past years, it now feels like OUR neighborhood in Vancouver.

And not coincidentally to my love for it,  there is a cheekiness to Davie Street that is fun, fun fun. Love some of the window displays and the signs are terrific.

And P.S. to the healthcare story. After 22 years with Type 1 Diabetes, it seems I have no apparent complications, which is huge. This won't last. But for now, and for today's day, I am so very grateful for my good health. I feel great. And I don't even care that I just turned xx.

Quake

At 9:00 on Saturday night I had a call from a very bleary-sounding Number One Son, calling from Ottawa where it was midnight. "Did you hear about the earthquake?"

I hadn't. I had been putzing around the intertube looking at this and that. It seems a 7.7 earthquake had struck off Haida Gwaii and a tsunami warning was in place for the west side of Vancouver Island, including Tofino of course, and beyond. For the next few hours I kept my eye on the reports, waiting to see what would happen with the tsunami. Despite the fact that I'm not on Facebook (closed up shop there after a very short time), don't twit or tweet or whatever, nonetheless the word was spreading among friends and family - the phone call, a few emails and text messages. After a few hours the tsunami warning was cancelled and off I went to bed but not before I had thought a lot about earthquakes and Tofino, among other things.

Since 2004, I have looked at some of the sea level, beach front places we've stayed at on the island and elsewhere, calling them "tsunami bait". In recent trips in Ucluelet and Tofino this year, I've been very aware of the fact that if a tsunami did hit, as it has in the past, if we didn't get to higher ground in time we'd be toast. On our last trip to Tofino in September I checked out the evacuation route on our way in to town so I'd know where it was - safe ground is a bit of a hike along the two-lane highway past Long Beach. I wondered at the time how the town would be informed and what an evacuation would look like. I even said to the others that we should park outside in front of the condo building rather than underground behind the electric-run gates. Perhaps my imagination is too vivid, I'm sure it is, which I don't consider a bad thing, but I started imagining what it would be like if an earthquake happened at Tofino and you had to hightail it out of there after finding your car in the darkness of a power outage (as it was in Haida Gwai on Saturday night) and getting it out of the garage - all the while chaos reigns and somewhere out there a big wave is headed your way.

I also noticed during that trip, that the vacation rental condo we stayed at had no information about what to do if... No maps, directions or instructions about how to proceed if natural disaster struck - information I would think would be useful to travellers who don't know their way around, or are even aware of what a precarious part of the planet this is. Check out this map - in the past month over a hundred earthquakes have occurred in coastal British Columbia up through Alaska. Not all of course were felt but it is continuous, all around the Pacific Ring of Fire.

And more big ones are to come.
 

I've been reading a book lately called Cascadia's Fault which is a science thriller - but all true. It tells how scientists have over time found out that the Cascadian fault line which stretches along the North American coast from northern California up along Vancouver Island, that they used to think was inactive, is "virtually identical to the tectonic time bomb that decimated Japan in 2011, and when Cascadia's fault ruptures, it will generate the same kind of earthquake, at magnitude 9 or higher."  It is this type of fault that will cause a huge tsunami, unlike Saturday's which is on a different fault line, the Queen Charlotte Fault and generated a sideward movement of the plates which doesn't cause the big tsunamis an upward thrusting plate movement does.

The author, Jerry Thompson, has been on the earthquake story for 25 years and is brilliant at explaining the science and following the story of the earthquake scientists as they puzzled out the truth about the Cascadia subduction zone. The last big one was January 26th, 1700 (the story of how they figured out that particular date is a good read in itself) and according to the people who get paid to know these things, another one is coming, bigger than anyone has prepared for (or built schools and hospitals to withstand). Certainly the ordinary Joe Blow citizen (or another JB I could mention) is not at all prepared for natural disaster.  They know they should be, but they're not. And I'm sure, most aren't even aware they're living on a timebomb.

Back to Saturday night's Haida Gwaii earthquake. A couple of weeks ago we were at Thanksgiving dinner at our neighbor's house across the street where I met her grandson, a commercial diver. He  was about to leave for a couple of months work up in Haida Gwaii, harvesting geoducks (pronounced 'gooey duck', a species of large clam) for export to Asia. As it turns out, shortly after he started work up there one of the divers on the project died on the job. Not only that, the young man was involved in the rescue and performed CPR on the man, to no avail. I can only imagine how he must be feeling. Now this earthquake has literally rocked their boat. I think it's time for him to come home.

While the scientists know that this part of the Ring of Fire is due for a big one, there is still no way to predict exactly when, which makes the recent criminal conviction of 6 earthquake scientists in Italy particularly bizarre. Convicted of manslaughter, last week they were sentenced to 6 years in prison for failing to warn the public prior to the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009 which destroyed the town and killed 300 people. Other Italian scientists are now saying "take this job and shove it". There is some precedent for this trial and conviction it seems. In 1633 Galileo was tried by the Vatican for claiming the earth revolved around the sun. How far we've come. Not.