I was kind of busy over the xmas nye period, some fun stuff and lots and lots of house moving stuff..yes! I have FINALLY moved into my own place! Yay! I was living out of my suitcase for the last 6 months..now time to buy some junk and store it in the garage hehe I think first I have to get my junk from London and KL…Sigh

Drove down to Kiama, about 3 hours one-way and did a tourist drive up and down the mountain. Wasn’t quite Greece in a fast car but was fun, misty in some bits and fantastic scenery Carrington Falls was pretty awesome. Flat rocky river bed dropping 50m into a valley! Kiama is more well known for it’s blowhole (not being rude, it really has a famous blowhole).

Spent New Year’s Eve and the first day of the New Year on the beach surfing small to flat waves. It was such a sunny gorgeous day out though, made up for the fact that I flattened half the wave the moment I got up on it

I’ll send “beachy” photos next time..

But here is a video link, just a sunny day with the girls at the beach. It will only take up less than 2.5 minutes of your time, so have a look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC1FQk9Ras4
(click watch in high quality)

Shi

]]> http://misstraveler.com/postcards/happy-new-year/feed/ 0 http://misstraveler.com/postcards/tis-the-season-for-turkey/ http://misstraveler.com/postcards/tis-the-season-for-turkey/#comments Fri, 22 Dec 2006 09:00:00 +0000 http://misstraveler.com/?p=26

hi

merry xmas! Got back from the turkey/greece trip & drove to east coast for surf the day after… It was good because scored some great swell, but I paid for it the next day because I did not get enough sleep/jetlag/not eating anything…

Turkey & greece were interesting. I’ve also discovered the meaning of “It’s all greek to me” – I’ve been driving on the opposite side of the road, with road signs that have gamma, sigma, rho…

Our conversations were like this:

Me: ok, so what street do I turn?
Brother: uhmmm…ok at the..Y..gamma…pie…O with a dash…ermmm..oh, I think we just missed it.

Greece had a lot of stones…and temples…mostly stones lying on the ground. The description would read ” There used to be a 30m high gold temple in 1000bc” and I would stare at the boulders on the ground & try to visualize it….

Sigh.

anyway in greece I liked these 2 places:

Delphi – cool temple in the mountain, gorgeous views (not that I got to see any, I was designated driver, the roads were mountainous and the greek drivers all had little mazda roadsters & tendencies to overtake at the sharpest steepest bends) Epidavros Ampitheater: 200m diameter & 5 storeys high – but we could still hear each other speaking normally from the other side (200m away)…great acoustics…

Istanbul was good. The rest of turkey..uhmmm…well if you’re in turkey you should just stay in Istanbul. Blue Mosque & Hagia Sophia was good…the palace was a bit of a letdown, except for the holy relics including a foot print of prophet mohammed & his teeth & the severed hand of a 500AD christian saint.

Most of turkey seemed to be enveloped in clouds of smoke from the wood/coal fires….everyone in turkey seems to drive around in little hyundais, travel by car ferry, and have NEVER SEEN AN ASIAN PERSON. We got stared at every place we went to, and entire classrooms of kids on school trips would bombard us with “Hello!” “Konnichiwa!” and ask to take pics with us.

Also a lot of stuff about turkey trying to join the EU & greece stopping them, ha ha. Oh yeah, Brad Pitt’s troy horse is actually sitting in Troy – and it looks more authentic than the 3 storey rocking horse they charge ppl 8Euros to see.

So after arriving 3pm saturday in KL , & with no sleep for the previous 36 hrs, I was driving to the surf at 3am to make it there by 7am. Mozzie bites, crushed finger, washed over the rocks (I provided
that afternoon’s drama entertainment), bruises, blinding rain that physically hurts you & the best trashing I’ve had in a while… I was elated

Came back into KL yesterday to meet my sis who’s come in from syd, mate who’s come in from qatar, buy final xmas gifts & bake xmas cookies! I’m forwarding a pic of some friends surfing last sunday…obviously there are prettier pics of msian surf here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryannys

http://www.scaryreef.fotopages.com

Tomorrow I’m heading bk to the east coast for the xmas weekend…not starting work til jan so if it’s still good I’ll be there surfing into the new year’s…hmmmm

GREAT STUFF….

merry xmas & happy new year to all!

xoxox
shi.

Happy New Year (a few days late for Christmas) (~_~)

Was back to Tokyo recently for some work stuff. Quite full-on, would work till past midnight then back to the hotel to work til about 4am. The whole thing wrapped up on the 24 th so instead of heading back to warm Malaysia I extended a couple of days…so yes! My first Xmas eve and Xmas day in Tokyo! Just arrived back in KL a couple of hours ago so forgiveness if my email sounds slightly incoherent and the image I sent lacks a linear visual theme – blame it on the jetlag heehee. I really wish I could write a long email about everything in Tokyo but this week is going to be crazy busy!

So let me sum it up in few sentences:

In Tokyo Christmas is the season for shopping, dating and christmas lights (but not trees or ornaments, just lights)

Very nice Xmas cakes because it’s more a Japanese tradition to give cakes than turkeys.

The Harajuku freaks can’t show obscene amounts of cleavage, fish net stockings and Gothic lolita french maid costumes because it’s too cold.

Besides looking like a tourist with digital camera, I blended in perfectly with the 1000s of other Tokyo-ites taking photos with their cameras and keitai.

Very yummy getsu-ramen at Shibuya for Xmas eve dinner and….

Very yummy French crepes on Omotesando for Xmas brunch (thank you Denise!)

Asahi beer.

And I was very happy to be back in warm Malaysia after all that.

Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2006,

Shi.