TODAYonline | Focus | Youth | Patrolling the void decks

TODAYonline | Focus | Youth | Patrolling the void decks

Tasmania

Tasmania: Home to the Tasmania Devil. But the most common animal that I saw on the signs is not the Tasmanian Devil but the legendary Tasmanian Tiger.

Legend has it, that when explorers first arrived, they saw a wolf like animal with tiger stripes. I find this similar to how the "Singa" or as the world commonly calls it the "Lion" was spotted when Sang Ni La Utama arrived on the shores of Singapura. And like you can never find a lion in Singapore (except in the zoo, and lions live in the desert anyway), you can no longer find a Tasmanian Tiger in Tasmania anymore. Or anywhere else in the world as a matter of fact.

Still, the home to the Tasmania Devil is a beautiful place to visit. Having the priviledge of visiting during winter was wonderful as it is so hot in Singapore now. The temperature ranges from 6 to 16 deg Celcius and I was cool with that (all punt intended). The main downside to winter is the occasional rain and the constant grey skies which can be a bummer if you are planning to take lots of outdoor photographs. I was then very grateful for the day that we went up to Cradle Mountain: the sky was clear and blue when we reach Dove Lake and we managed a few beautiful pictures.

The sky became overcast quickly after an hour and we sort of regretted taking the 2 hour trek round the lake as it proved to be cold and tiring. It was quite an easy track with some except the up and downhillls towards the end of it. Some parts of the track took us to frost covered areas where we stumbled upon a wombat. It took us completely by surprise because it passed us silently while I was taking a picture of my friend tying his shoelaces. What first caught our attention was the fresh shit on the track, which must have been left behind while it was passing.

There were many sites, suggested by Chan Brothers, for us to visit. My friend did a wonderful job of printing out the google maps of the routes to these sites so that I can help him navigate. It is wonderful to drive in tasmania as the road signs are clear and not easy to miss. The main thing that we had to look out for were the wildlife that would jump onto the road from dusk to dawn. We had a close encounter with a small one and my friend swerved a little and managed to avoid hitting the little jumping creature.

Since we bought the car pass that allows us to visit all parks, plus the fact that my friend was the only person driving and that distances between locations were long, we decided to skip many of the sites like the wilderness park, cheese farm, wine and beer breweries. We visited mainly the parks and went to 3 water falls altogther: Liffey Falls, Nelson Falls, and Russell Falls.

One place that we regretted not spending more time at was the Curringa Farm that was near to Horbart. We stay in this magnificent house with a great hall with kitchen and dining room attached, and 2 wings for bedrooms. Every room has full length glass doors that over look a beautiful river. Imagine waking up to beautiful scenery every morning! However, that can only happen if you are not afraid and leave the curtains open throughout the night where the surrounding is pitch black. One thing that I really enjoyed about the house was that its equipped in every way: a full kitchen with stove, microwave and electric oven, fridge and even a dish washer. And all the time, the place has a toasty feeling as we make sure that the wood in the fireplace is burning to make sure that we don't freeze. If I had the chance to go back to Tasmania again, I would want to visit this place and have the full farm experience.

I would say that this was a wonderful trip. The only down side was the expensive food and the lack of variety; I think Singaporeans are spoiled for choice. I loved the homemade soups though. My friend said that I must have had at least 9 bowls of soup in the whole trip. On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed Tasmania and it was wonderful to see so much of nature and God's beautiful art pieces. I would love to go back again, but this time, I would choose Spring time instead of Winter; then I can see more clear skies and less rain.

Reflections

I have been thinking about reviving my blog for sometime now. Its just so dead! However, I haven't got anything worth blogging about to motivate me to do so and therefore I didn't get down to doing it.

Anyway, it has actually been more than a year since I have posted anything on this wall. I think with the ease of facebook and twitter, not many people would bother to blog anymore. Least goes to say for those who used their blogs for a one-liner updates to gain attention; now they can do it via those channels, and through the ease of smartphones.

Moving on, since I last blogged, many things have happened. I was reading through my old entries and found that it was kind of a good exercise for me to reflect on a few things. I was looking at my last 2 entries about writing a passage for my friend's book and about simple things that made me smile and I remembered that we also wanted to write a book on how the simplicities of life can put a smile on our faces. I also visited TPY KFC a few times but the auntie is no longer there.

I got into a new job last april but went back to doing the same thing as before - working with youths. Having worked in a nursing home for 9 months prior to that has helped me to be even sure of my calling and passion in working with youths. Thinking about that, I thank God for stirring my heart for this when I was in primary school, and opening doors for me in terms of my work and education. I could really see how He has planned and built me up for all this since young and can truly appreciate that "all my days have been ordained for me".

I have also taken up the youth ministry in church. That is proving to challenging and at the same time a great joy for me. It is teaching me to be humble and that as much knowledge and as much experience I have, I have learnt that God needs to take precedence and He needs to move in His time.

Being around new people and doing new things with people that I've already knew has brought much joy and blessings into my life; some more than others. Whether in ministry or at work, I have come to appreciate the fact that work doesn't have to be difficult if people are not being difficult. And its good to know that there are people out there who choose to be nice and honest at the same time.

Last week an auntie in church asked me how old would I be after this birthday. I had to think for a while and realized that I'm already 33. I think I am getting old. The term "Uncle Kar Leong" is beginning to sink in and used more frequently. This serves as a good reminder to me that I need to slow down as I do not have as much energy as I used to have. I realize that I have been taking on quite a bit of responsibilities and ad hoc "projects". I am beginning to understand that I need to let go of some so that I can take time to go deep, instead of going wide; both spiritually and mentally, so that there can be wisdom in my knowledge.

All in all, God has been good. And a reminder from our youth cell group last week: He is my strength and my song.

Accepting Opportunities

My friend has asked me to write something about Opportunity for her book. I was honoured and got right to it:

Accepting Opportunities

Many a times we are out there looking for the “right” opportunities: in our lives, our careers and even our relationships. Others, who taught me to be encouraging and to have a positive perspective towards life, taught me to look at situations, even in difficult ones, and turn them into opportunities.

You see, the problem with searching for the right opportunity is that it would always leave us looking for what we deem is big, fitting, easy, relevant and smooth-sailing for us. However, the truth is that opportunity presents itself even in times when things are not going well, in small ways, and when situations don’t turn out quite the way you planned it.

I have accepted many opportunities in my life, some of which had turned out what seemed to be unsuccessful at the end. By making the most of these opportunities and doing my best with them, even for the ones that didn’t go well, they have opened up many more opportunities and with them, the abundance and freedom of choice in my life now.

What I have learnt is that opportunities, no matter how small, beget opportunities. And they will only start working their way in your life when they are taken. So, the moment that you have accepted an opportunity, you have started a series of things going on for you in your life.

An opportunity is a chance, and as much as you want a chance in life, you have to take a chance at it!

One Random Act of Kindness

I was at TPY KFC 2 days ago and I was served by an Indian auntie. I remember this auntie because she usually served with a smile and had great attitude whenever I was there in the past but that day, I could see that she was not very happy.

It could be because the customer before me was being difficult or maybe she was already feeling down before that. But when it was my turn, she kept forgetting my requests and if I wasn't served by her before, I would think that she was just giving lousy service. So I kept smiling at her because I didn't think that she was doing it on purpose.

As she was finishing packing my food into the plastic bag, she did the usually routine of putting chilli sauce packets into the bag and i stopped her saying that there I have not use for them and that I have lots from previous orders. She then thanked me and said that at least I bothered to tell her and I replied that those are money too. She became very happy and the smile came back to her face because she agreed.

She kept thanking me as I left and I saw that the smile remained on her face when she was serving the next customer.

It was really random, didn't meant it, but i felt good too after that.

Lousy Movie Experiences

I watch quite a few movies recently and honestly, the experiences were quite terrible.

I watch Feng Yun and Avatar at Illuma Bugis last week and it seems to me that the screens are not tall enough because it was pretty obvious that the top of the screen is being "chopped" off. The characters were practically "hairless" during their close-ups as a lot of times, I could only see the face of the actors from the forehead down. It didn't look like it was done on purpose by the film makers, because, also, there were a few scenes in Avatar that seemed like they were chopped off the top too. I think I will boycott Illuma as much as possible.

Yesterday, I watch Bodyguards and Assasins. The film was being edited very badly and left a lot of scenes cut off arruptly, some were so bad that the link of the story was broken! Imagine that! So why should I pay for a lousy movie with so many scenes cut off when I can download the full movie and enjoy it at home?

Streets of Singapore Photo Trip and Dim Sum

LF and I were thinking of going for a short trip but couldn't decide where. So I suggested that we go around to shoot and have dim sum. He went on Canon's site and found a competition on something about streets so that's what we did today. Lau also took leave and came along to test out his D90.


We walked down along North Bridge Road and went into the many allies along it like Arab Street, Haji Lane, Jalan Pisang, etc.



There were many groups students walking around cos there were doing their heritage tour. We walked past an empty shop but suddenly we heard a lot of noises. When we turned around, we saw many students crowding around the shop.

All of them were shouting, "Auntie, how much?" and their teachers were shouting, " Stop shouting!" It was quite a funny sight and the shopkeeper was really busy and I'm sure, made a lot of money.



We walked around and saw many interesting things in that area.


Finally, the dark clouds couldn't hold it anymore and it started to rain. So we took the opportunity to take a break before going down to Chinatown. We got pretty hungry by the time we reach there and so we went straight to Yum Cha for their dim sum buffet. It was quite nice and fortunately we decided to go early because there were people queuing for the buffet after a while. We were wondering how was it that those people didn't have to work.





After that, we continue with our little photo adventure. The streets were really empty because of the rain.


Finally, we went up Ang Siang Hill and it rained again when we were halfway up. We finally made a round back to Chinatown and found ourselves too tired to continue.



It was quite an enjoyable trip. The weather was great! The short episodes of rain made the weather really cool. It was quite a fruitful day and I got to really try out my new camera which I bought at the COMEX.