Sg Maribyrnong, Melbourne

Sunday, 22nd October 2006

Finally, I had the kayak, the brackets, the roof rack, a river, a beautiful sunny day and a willing paddling partner, Michelle, my niece. So no more excuses for not launching the kayak.

But the kayak was heavier than I thought and the 4WD was a lot higher than I thought! Also found the bracket bolts were too short and had to be replaced. So it took us almost a hour to get the kayak strapped securely onto the roof rack!

It was a beautiful sunny day, mid 20 degrees C. The park where we launched was relatively quiet. There were families picnicking and fishing on the river bank. We were the only ones paddling.

My nephew, Edwin, and his wife, Thu, also joined us for a paddle.

We came across a boat taking some tourists on a cruise upstream.

Yes, it was a sunny day ...

The Great Wall at Badaling

19th September 2006

Badaling is about 1.5 hours' drive from Beijing city. The visit was defintely one of the highlights of our recent 7-day tour of Beijing, Tianjing and Chengde with my wife, daughter, mum and aunt.

This photo was taken at the base of the climb. The climb up this section of the Wall was a reasonable climb and most visitors that day managed to reach the 2nd Tower.

I struggled and managed to reach the 3rd Tower. My wife and daughter managed to reach the 5th Tower, the top of this section. But for some reason, they lost their way on the way down and came down on the "other" side of the mountain. They had to take a cab back to our tour bus. Cost them 10 yuan and a lot of embarrassment.

Aussie BBQ

The Aussie BBQ is such an important part of our lives in Melbourne. It's an informal way to wine and dine with your family and friends without being too worried about the cooking.









We used to have a charcoal griller but I recently bought a gas griller for the convinence. I am normlly the BBQ cook in our holdhold. Here we have my brother-in-law helping out.


It's currently winter in Melbourne. Here's my father starting a fire to keep us warm.


Of course, you've got to have red wine and cheese!

Why Batukawa?

Yes, this is a photo of Batukawa, near Kuching in Sarawak,
Malaysia. It was taken during a flight from Kuching to KL in January 2003.

I actually spent my early childhood around the Green Road / Pisang Road area in Kuching. But my family often visited Batukawa because we had a very close relative there.

In fact, the lady was my grand father's only sister. My grand father died in an accident when I was very young, so our great aunt was our closest elder.

Her family owned a 5-acre property by the river and they used to run a business that manufactured yeast. They also supplied water to the town.

I had lots of cousins there and we all learned to swim in the river just off their private jetty. We swam, dived, jumped off coconut trees into the river, fish, paddle in a sampan, ..., you name it. We had lots of fun and I even swam across the river once just to proved that I could do it.

So Batukawa represents time in my life when life was simple, carefree and fun. You could say Batukawa is my Shangri La.

This Blog is therefore dedicated to finding "Batukawa" again.