Mongolian Permaculture: Day 26 - Food Culture and Solar Ovens

SHOWING OFF COMPLETED SOLAR OVEN DESIGN

Ankle is swollen to the size of a tennis ball.

Two more treatments of salty tea compress and I am able to hobble around by afternoon on a walking stick Moko cut up for me from an orange painted ger pole.

Spent the morning simmering tomato chutney in the outdoor kitchen for Kat’s Food Culture class; creating value-added products such as chutneys, pickles and preserves that can be processed over winter can create higher proit margins, and extend the co-operatives productivity into the cold winter months.

1kg of cucmbers = 500MNT.
1kg of pickled cucumbers = 1500MNT.

There is 2-3 times more labour involved, and the additional cost of bottling materials, but the long winter season is currently an unproductive time, and proximity to local markets could also give them an edge against inferior goods imported from UB and beyond.

Chimgee plays her Mongolian hip-hop mixed in with Black Eyed Peas and Beyonce while we cook, and we have become friends through our conversations in very basic, very broken Mongolian-English-and-Mime… she has been tending to my wound as if she was my little sister. I am surprised to find out that she is 23 years old, as I had picked her for 16 or maybe 17.

Tsurren, one of the women I spent an afternoon digging irrigation trenches with, gives my ankle a very painful massage and laughs with the others at my howls of anguish.

In fact, the entire kitchen staff and co-operative workers and I are becoming friends through our very basic, very broken Mongolian-English-and-Mime – I love this, making friends across language, cultural and distance barriers…

The Solar Oven Construction group-workshop after lunch is a hit, with 4-and-a-half working ovens being made [vs. the planned 2] from waste cardboard, reflective foil bought in Tosontsengel, waste plastic, rocks, a woolen blanket, and even a washbasin we picked up. This is could be a highly appropriate and replicable technology for the area, given the scarcity of fuelwood and long daylight hours [in summer].

Some boys show up at the gates of the hasha again this afternoon with a fresh catch, and Rick is able to haggle them down to 8500MNT, about $8AUS for 18 pan-sized Mongolian trout…delicious.

Tetch and I buterfly fillet the lot of them, lightly salt and dust with flour, and fry to a crsip in the wok-pan for a late dinner. There is enough for Bek,The Program Director, Rick and I to eat our fill, and feed the remaining kitchen staff.

I can almost feel my ankle healing minute-by-minute as I sit here typing the daily log listening to my iTunes. There is an almost-full moon out tonight, wispy clouds glowing in the Mongolian night sky casting a dark outline of the surrounding hills. The dogs of Tosontsengel are quiet(er) tonight, and the buddhist temples on the hill glow with a pale white light.

Students are buzzing with activity, are showing no signs of slowing down, and the clock is ticking over to 11:30pm. Tomorrow they will present their final designs for the task Rick has set.

Mongolia’s first-ever Permaculture Design Course will soon draw to a close.

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 21 - Mongolian Spaghetti Carbonara and The Dilema of Chocolate Cake

THE CLASS MOUNDS POTATOES IN THE FIELDS

Cake is still being requested each time I walk past the kitchen ...which I spent the better of part of today in... first to prepare the Filipino-Style crispy fried salted fish that was devoured pretty quickly, then to figure out how to prepare a spaghetti dinner to feed 26 hungry Mongolians using the sparsely inhabbited spice rack.

In fact, the pantry is looking pretty sparse, and Rick's watermelon search in town [for Kat's seed-saving lesson] reveals that the recent heavy rains have chewed into the roads and delayed deliveries from Ulanbaataar. We are both hankering for some peanuts to break the monotony of fatty meat broths and noodle dishes, and have been put on text-alert by Mogi The Peanutman, the young Lolly-Shopkeeper who is going to text us as soon as his delivery arrives!

There are no tomatoes in town, the potato and turnip boxes are down to the scraggly dregs that would have been thrown out of most western supermarkets weeks ago, all the milk has been commandeered to make traditional milk vodka by a wealthy local to celebrate an up-coming wedding, and Rick picks through an garlic stocking full of dried husks to come back with barely a handful of cloves. Of course these come at the end of the day, as the kitchen serves up our Mongolian Carbonara Creation...

...we are out of butter and cream, and there are 3 small packets of dried red spaghetti sauce packets in the kitchen. There is no garlic in sight, but we do have 3 potatoes, 3 small tomatoes and 3 onions to work with. A bagful of mineral salt leftover from the fish fry, and I find an unused packet of powdered white pepper. Luckily Kat has brought a packet of sweet paprika from Australia in her vegetarian survival kit, and this just may have saved the day...

Of course there is no shortage of meat, which the cooks insisted be included in our dish, so we use an old [clean!] grinder to mix our onions in with our mince meat. This is then salted and peppered with paprika.

TOSONTSENGEL OUTDOOR KITCHEN

[NOTICE HOW (UN)IMPRESSED THE CHIEF COOK LOOKS WITH MY CULINARY SKILLS]

I find a piece of sheep's fat in the freezer which we slice thin shavings from and use to oil our pan. A large wok-shaped pan sits directly on the thin-iron, wood-fire stove - you turn the temperature up or down by adding or withdrawing more firewood - and once the fat shavings are crispy, in goes the mincemeat mix. Once this had cooked through and started to simmer in its own juices, we removed it from the wok-pan and set aside for our garnish...

Meat as a garnish? A scandalous, revolutionary concept in Mongolian cuisine!

More fat shavings are fried to season the pan since we have run out of butter, how am I going to make a carbonara sauce without butter and garlic? I caramelized some onions instead, then add the last of the kitchen's milk and the cooks gasps audibly.

The sauce winds up being pretty tasty: lots of mineral salt, the freshest, most organic milk on the planet, some white pepper and sweet paprika to pick it up, simmer for two hours and thicken with flour... One scoop of sauce poured over the pasta and garnished with a ladel-full of mincemeat to stretch our meagre rations to feed 30 very hungry people who have just come in from an impromptu working-bee in the potato fields [time to mound the potatoes again], and hey presto Mongolian-Carbonara-with-Meat-Sauce!

Kat forgoes her garnish and one of the herders quickly asks for her portion: 'Wheeeeeeere's the Beef?!?'

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Chocolate Cake.

Who am I to deny my newfound friends the simple pleasures of baking, and sharing a delicious, moist, melt-in-your-mouth Chocolate Cake?

Each time I walk past the kitchen, the question is plantively asked: "Cake?"

When I announce my intentions to teach the kitchen a simple chocolate muffin recipie with Kat, she is quick to point out her discomfort with introducing processed sugar into the diet of a culture not used to eating this kind of food. Have we really come all the way to Mongolia to introduce a part of western food culture that has only lead to epidemic diabetes and obesity rates?

Furthermore, neither sugar nor chocolate are locally available ingredients, having to be imported from tropical parts of the world - high cost goods in financial terms, but more importantly, extremely high-cost goods in terms of embodied energy.

Rick points out that we are here to teach Sustainability, not to be Jamie Oliver in the kitchen... and so agrees completely with Kat's stance.

Howzabout apple cake, I can rehydrate the dried apples bought in town and coat them in sugar to give a nice caremlized taste... when the Co-Operative starts growing apples, they can use their own produce in the recipie, and maybe even use their newfound baking skills to create a new micro-enterprise and income source. That's good, right?

Nope. Still using imported ingredients, and the processed sugar, so foreign to the Mongolian food culture, is very risky to introduce into their diet. Apples are at least 3-5 years away from production, and so won't be a locally available crop to utilize for quite some time. We can do better.

Perhaps carrot-cake, using carrots grown right here on the Co-Operative's plot, sweetened with locally harvested honey, or better yet, sweetened with a locally grown sugarbeet crop? Rick gives the nod, and so I begin my search for a good carrot-cake recipie ...I've never actually baked a carrot-cake!

In this way, we can meet the request of the community in a more responsible way, responding to their needs and wants a little more creatively - and perhaps opening the door to a new micro-enterprise [baking], or maybe even a new cash crop [sugarbeet].

It can be a slippery slope, this business of being more aware of our diet and consumption habbits. The more ecologically aware we become, the harder it can be to navigate our options, even in the Developed World ...perhaps even moreso in the Developed World...

...Organic is better than 'conventional' food production, but if it is produced organically in another bioregion and shipped thousands of miles to get to your door, than how 'green' is 'buying organic'?

A little deeper thought, a little more creatively problem-solving, and we can come up with better ways of living. I think it was Einstein, or perhaps Edison who summed this up best:

"Thinking is the hardest work these is. Indeed, that is why so few people engage in it."
-Einstein. or Edison. or maybe it was Benjamin Franklin...-

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 20 - 1st Design Presentations, Fishing, and A Feast For Kings

STUDENTS LEARN HOW TO USE AN A-FRAME TO FIND LEVEL

Using A-Frames to Find Level and Wicking Garden Beds on the prac list today.

Students were given their first design tasks yesterday and will be presenting this evening so that the Instructors can gague where everyone is at: what areas need more attention, which lessons/principles/tools have been understood best and worst, how people are working together, and which individual students need more attention in any areas.

Ater the pracs I spent much of the day in the outdoors kitchen, working with the cook to prepare some salad and tracking down ingredients to make a socially responsible cake. More on this later as I think it deserves an entire post to explore on its own, The Dilema of Chocolate Cake in Developing Countries.

FEAST FOR A KING

The very talented Michael [our principle translator] invited me to witness the traditional Mongolian livestock slaughtering technique ...HARDCORE.

The sheep is brought into one of the abandoned buildings to face his executioner. Michael takes of his shirt as he sharpens his knife: "Very Important," he says [the knife, not the shirt!].

Gunrick holds the animals back legs while Michael pins him with his leg as he crouches over its exposed belly, makes a small surgical cut just below the ribcage, then reaches into the live animal's organ cavity elbow-deep to sever its artery with his finger. The sheep kicks a few times and organs bulge out of the incision, pulsing with their last throbs as the life fades from its eyes.

Death comes quickly, and the Mongolians deftly push the guts back into the animal and begin skinning the warm carcass. It is a grisly thing to watch, very clean and efficient. No blood.

The animal bleeds to death internally, and the blood will congeal inside to be scooped out later for the broth and sausages. The organs are highly nutritious, highly prized and will all go into the broth for later.

The next part we had not seen before: the stomach and intestines are cleaned out, and the head and hooves scorched of their hair and scraped clean. The entrails are stuffed with the congealed blood, the stomach turned inside out and stuffed with the head and hooves of the sheep.

The fatty tail pad is scooped out, filled with meat, and sewn shut to be boiled next to the stuffed tripe for at least two hours: it is this part that was considered to be Chinggis' favorite meal ...a feast for kings.

I witness and participate in most of the preparation all day, and am picked up at around 6pm by 13-year old 'Gunner' and his little brother 'Huong', and their buddy 'Tetch' [that is the best I can do to pronounce their names!] while the students present their first design tasks to Rick and Kat.

FISHING BUDDIES, FROM L TO R:
'TETCH' AKA 'CHOJO', 'GUNNER' AND 'HUONG'

Gunner stopped by the hasha with about a dozen Mongolian Trout, which we butterfly filleted and salted this afternoon before heading to the river. Tomorrow we will fry them to a crisp and add some garlic and vinegar, Filipino-style. Fish and rice are now on the menu! I have enlisted Tetch help me with my Microfinance class on PDC Day 10 - hopefully he can design a logo for the Co-Operative by then...

It is about a 1 km walk to the river, and Gunner's halting English is good enough for us to have a pretty good conversation all the way there and back. He studies music and dance, likes basketball, soccer and volleyball, and has a very large family living in the ger encampment by the river in the distance.

I am determined to see one of the monster fish that lurk in the depths of Mongolian waterways, but as soon as I start signing that I want to hook the first fingerling he catches, Gunner puts his hands to his throat and signals that going for one of the big fish will mean certain death

So, me and my new fishing buddies stand at the river banks casting handlines hooked with grasshoppers into the current, and manage to pull out one pan-sized trout, and two small fries that the small fries wanted to bag.

We walk back to the hasha as the sun sets behind the hills and I play a little tune on the harmonica Rick has leant me for the trip. I'm not much of a player, but it is fun to walk home Huck-Finn-style from the river, and all of a sudden I am 9 years old again without a care in the world in the middle of Mongolia.

I arrive at the feast late and Rick is not impressed. Rightly so, as Michael has spent the entire day preparing a traditional feast reserved for royalty, and I waltz in with a few small fish on my back just as everyone is finishing up their meals.

We have been invited into their tribe, an extra-special effort is made to welcome us, and one of the guests of honor skips out on the feast. Not the right message to send to the group.

I will have a heart-to-heart with Michael tomorrow, and pay closer attention going forward... but geez it was fun today!

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 17 - Mulch, Compost Tea, and BBQ Liver

THE ART OF MULCH

So nice to wake up this morning to find carrot plots freshly mulched with grass and weed clippings in the compound where bare earth baked in the sun yesterday. The knowledge being shared is already being transferred and replicated.

One minor adjustments needed to be made: southernwood species were slashed and dropped onto the growbeds for use as mulch, but aromatic plants may have oils and other compounds that could act as growth inhibitors for the seedlings underneath. Better to dry out the weeds for a couple days before using as mulch in order to allow these compounds to evaporate, and to ensure the weeds die and so do not take root and compete with their vegetable crop.

OUTDOOR CLASSROOM

Soils, Green Manures, Vegetable Crops, and Needs/Functions/Products Analysis taught today, students are finishing up their last session outside the tent, opting for the shade of one the abandoned buildings. After the hailstorm two days ago, the heat of the relentless sun is unbearable inside the tent.

Made friends with the kitchen today with a packet of 'Choco-Pies', 1,500MNT well-spent in town today. I’m a quick learner:

THE COOK IS YOUR BEST FRIEND.
-Rick’s first lesson of working in Overseas Aid-

Class is progressing well, lots of interaction and discussion and connections being made. Personalities emerging through language barriers as we spend more time and get to know the students better.

Compost Tea prac taught by Kat this afternoon to get everyone moving and the blood flowing …there is now a small washbasin full of nutritious and delicious compost tea near the dining room entrance for everyone to turn and flow to keep the microbiology lovefest well oxygenated so that they multiply over the next 48 hours.

MANY DEFT HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK;
EVERYTHING EXCEPT FOR THE HEAD AND HOOVES IS EATEN

Just finished dinner, home made noodles with meat again of course, but the highlight of the day …invited out to watch the men butcher a sheep.

Bek and Michael stole away with the liver, which they wrapped with the fatty lining of the offal cavity, stuffed in a wild green onion shoot, pinned with a piece of kindling, and put directly onto the fire coals.

Best dish I have eaten in Mongolia so far – the charred fat crisped up while the liver cooked through just enough to be safe – think succulent foie gras wrapped in crispy smoked bacon and you get the idea.

Yum.

YUM! DID I SAY THAT ALREADY?

Tasmania: Day 5 - In Search of Sushi

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. “Fire Coming Down the Mountain”, by The Gorillaz, live in Harlem with Dennis Hoper
   
2. “El Manana”, by The Gorrilaz

TAWNY FROGMOUTH AT NIGHT

Who’s bright idea was it to go spotlighting on the back of the ute for wildlife at midnight on a 3 dog night [as in degrees Centigrade!]?!?

…oh yeah, I was the Ideas-Man last night… the wildlife around these parts is very intelligent; smart enough to stay in on a cold night, anyways… we only spot three wallabies, nothing like the abundant wildlife scattering from our headlights experienced on the way in.

The morning is balmy compared to the windchill of midnight on he truck bed with the midnight wind screaming in my hair, spotlight turned up to the tree canopy searching for glimpse of the elusive, rare, and very rare species of Drop-Bear and Hoop-Snake that are rumoured to be active in these parts.

I spend it with a steaming cup of tea in one hand, and a slimy tennis ball in the other, exploring the luxury campgrounds again while Maximus leaps and bounds alongside me like an oversized, muscular Mexican Jumping Bean [another rare species fumored to be active in these parts].

Today’s mission is to head back into Ulverstone in search of sushi supplies. Aoba’s arrival has sparked my culinary imagination, and I’ve offered to gather the necessary ingredients to make okonomyaki, a delicious sort of Japanese savory pancake made with shredded cabbage, batter, minced beef or pork, Japanese mayonaise, bonito flakes, and a special okonomyaki sauce that is like a mild teriyaki.

Ulverstone by daylight has quite a different character; it is Sunday so the main street is empty and the church’s parking lot is full. We find a morning latte at Smiley’s café, where we meet none other than Mr. Smiley himself, who amuses himself by attempting to welcome us with his best Caadian accent. “Hau wood yoo like yore coafeeee then, ay, young laydeeee?” he drawls, then laughs heartily at his own joke. Aussies love Canadians…

The supermarket doesn’t carry the Japanese batter mix and other special ingredients for us to make okonomyaki – I forget that we are in rural Tasmania. We are surprised to learn that nobody in town sells fresh fish, and so head down the road to Penguin in search of good sushi.

The road to Penguin follows an old railway track along coast, just a few feet from the rocky beaches, and as the sun glints and sparkles off the blue water I feel like I am driving through the opening scene in a roadtrip movie. The town of Penguin is nestled into a small nook in the coast and has the feel of a lazy coastal holiday town. There are winged tuxedos everywhere on the main street, cute and kitschy, all grinning and winking, and one in particular is very happy to see The Canadian.

There is no fresh fish to be found here either, so we press on to the port of Burnie, which is said to have a deep water harbor to rival Devonport and Hobart. This is a logging, woodchipping, and papermill town, and the first thing to be spotted as we round the corner and approach the town are three massive piles of woodchip sitting on the docks, each at least 5 stories high.

Peter tells us later that he has seen miles and miles of woodchip piles twice as large sitting idle deep in the forests around his property. The effects of the Global Finanical Crisis [known in Oz as "GFC" - sounds like a really bad fast food restaurant chain...] are felt even in the wilderness of Tasmania, just waiting for a stray spark to send them up like piles of gunpowder in a Loony Toons cartoon gone tragically wrong.

The stark contrast of the pristeen wilderness we have come down from, to the huge industrial machines and belching smokestacks that are in and around this town is disconcerting. It sparks an inner dialogue questioning how economic and environmental sustainability can ever reconcile each other when we live in a system that places financial profitability and growth above all else.

The road back is full of questions, and as I enjoy fresh sushi with new friends this night, I am thankful for being with good people surrounded by wilderness.

Suddenly, it has become much easier to see why Peter made the decision to come build a self-sufficient life for his family, “luxury camping” in the bush.

# # #


BUSH TUCKER: SUSHI!


MAXIMUS DECIMUS MERIDIUS




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Tasmania: Day 2 - The Tasman Penninsula

Theme Songs for the Day:

1. Oompa Loopma Remix, by G-Penguin
2. O Fortuna, composed by Carl Orff

THE TASMAN PENNINSULA
1 1/2 - 2 HOURS' DRIVE EAST FROM HOBART

I love the smell of coffee and chocolate in the morning.

It is the Breakfast of Champions, and for my money, certainly beats that other breakfast of champions and artistic types all over the world: coffee and a cigarette.

Ahhhh chocolate.... food for the soul...

O, chocolate, how do I love thee, let me count the ways...


THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY:

As we drove around the neighborhood last night looking for someplace to park the campervan, I kept spotting purple roadsigns reading "CADBURY" in that delicious cursive font that graces their chocolate bars. It was only because of the better judgement of my navigator that we did not camp out in the parking lot of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, just 4km up the road from the caravan park.

THE MORNING VIEW FROM

"TREASURE ISLAND" CARAVAN PARK

I walk along the dark waters in the cold morning to stretch sleep-twisted muscles, backlit clouds roll in overhead, while a wispy white cloudbank sweeps over a craggy rock face looming in the distance behind me.

This morning's mission is simple: get to the Chocolate Factory for a chocolatey morning meal with the fabled Oompa-Loompas, excuse me, "Little People" as they preferred to be called in this part of the world. There are no Little People to be seen anywhere on the premises and I use my Sherlock Holmes skills to deduce that they must be nocturnal, like so many other species of unique Aussie fauna.

The "tour" turns out to be a 30-minute audio/video presentation about the history and processes of the factory [who knew that chocolate is not fattening when consumed on a Thursday!?], Willy Wonka was not there [in fact I was nearly thrown out at the mention of his name; he owns the other chocolate company that begins with "N" and ends in "E"], and apparently rivers of chocolate dow not run through fields of candy at this chocolate factory. I thought it best not to ask if we could see the Great Glass Elevator.

Insiders' tip: the coffee in the cafe is forgettable, but the hot chocolate is amazing!! Check out the vintage posterboard advertisement that reads CHOCOLATE SAVES LIVES ...and stop by the gift shop to buy $50 worth of non-fattening-on-thursdays chocolate for like twenty bucks...


THE ROAD TO PORT ARTHUR:

Next stop: Port Arthur. Once the most feared penal colony in Australia, in high school I read a novel titled "Come Danger, Come Darkness" about a teen who is sent there from England for stealing a loaf of bread and escapes. The novel captured the harsh conditions endured by the convicts, and the stark contrast of this brutal human place set in the swirling mists of the Tasman Wilderness. I've been curious to visit ever since.

LOOK CLOSELY: YOU CAN SEE
GHOSTS OF TALL-MASTED PIRATE SHIPS
MOORED IN THE SHELTER OF THE BAY

It takes about an hour to get to the first distraction - a turnoff to Pirate Bay, Devil's Kitchen, and the Blowhole. The photo on the roadsign sells me in 3 seconds to take the next turnoff, and shortly thereafter we crest a turn and hear angel choirs singing as the view reveals itself. Unlike fast food menu pics, roadsign photos and postcards never capture the majesty of being enveloped by a sweeping vista in nature.

The road winds down to the water's edge, and we are greeted with a different roadsign: "WELCOME TO DOO-TOWN". Twenty or so endearingly quaint cottages in various stages of ramshackle are clustered around the small harbor at the end of the Bay, with names like "MUCH ADOO ABOUT NOTHING", "DOO ANYTHING", and "DOO F#&K ALL" [sic]. Sheer awesomeness. There are absolutely no people in and around the town.

The Blowhole is suitably impressive, a tunnel about 80 feet long, with an almost perfectly flat roof carved out of the sandstone leading from the ocean to a small pool which surges with the waves rolling through the tunnel. From the right angle, it looks like a very miniature ocean that has simply appeared in a rocky outcrop in the bushlands behind the beach, complete with tidal wave action and all. The oceans are calm today, so now and then the Blowhole half-heartedly spits up a lazy tendril of oceanspray.

Five minutes up the road from Doo-Town is the Devil's Kitchen, which is what I am excited aboot [sorry, The Canadian's accent is rubbing off on me...]. Lucifer is out today, or sleeping deep in the narrow cave we can see far below, while the ocean feature he has sculpted through his kitchen sends a wave or two at a time rolling through the massive canyon sounding like a giant sheet of paper slowly tearing.

The tallest trees you see at the top of the photo at right are 2-3 stories high...a natural sink and kitchen bench can be made out from our vantage point, and there is a rock shelf that makes up the floor which extends out 60-80 feet past the base of the cliffs, where Peter later tells us that they drop straight down as deep as they are high.

We hit the road and cross the narrow isthmus [seriously, how often do you get to use the word "isthmus" in a sentence??] of Eaglehawk Nest, where a pack of monster bulldogs on shackles just long enough to touch each other once guarded the crossing so that escaped convicts could not get through. That's what the statue of a massively rabid bulldog said, and that's the story I am sticking with. It is said to be true.

As I coax the campervan through the twisting roads towards Port Arthur, I can't help but think that were I an escaped convict, I would like nothing more than to carve out a patch of bushland here and live off the land... The waterways touch both sides of the road in places, the eucalyptus grows thickly to the water's edge, and the afternoon sunlight streams through the gathering mists.

When the roadsigns finally announce Port Arthur, we drive past 3 empty parking lots before pulling up in front of the vistor center entrance. The tours range from half-day walks to 3-day experiences, complete with breakfast & dinner packages. It costs $2 for a brochure and there are pricetags on everything else in the place. This is not the experience I came to Tassie for, so I quickly decide to leave before they charge us for breathing in the historic air.

Besides which, there was a Tasmanian Devil Reserve that we passed on the way in that looked like a whole lot of fun.


TASMANIAN DEVILS:

Three words to capture the essence of the infamous Tassie Devils.

Ferocious. Precocious. Capricocious. ...nope. Let's try again...

Lost. Dazed. Confused. ...yeah, that's it:

I am told that they are indeed quite feral and ferocious when feeding, but the Tassie Devils we meet this afternoon may have gotten into the Koalas' stash of the good green stuff that makes them so rasta-mellow... These guys lope around their enclosure amicably with silly gaping grins and vapid eyes, pausing often to remember what they were doing again, then doing little circles before loping away, thrilled to be coming around the corner to meet us again. Hours of entertainment for the whole family!

We meet three Locals at the Dunnaly Pub that evening, which I again cleverly deduce to be the original watering hole for convicts who managed to escape and avoid the rabid hounds of Eaglehawk Nest.

"Have a beer mate, you deserve it..." and again I imagine myself as that escaped convict, this time sitting at the bar top relishing my newfound freedom and wondering, Tasmanian-Devil-like, what my next move is going to be.

Anyways, I ask these three guys where we can go to get a good feed around here before 6 o'clock, and I don't miss the glint in their eyes as they glance at each other before answering: "Awwww yearh, nuh ...the foodssh roooly good he-yahh....youse should staaay it'd be well worth itt.... we come he-yah ev'ry Thursdeee noight!!". They are pissed as farts [American translation = "quite drunk"], enamored with The Canadian's blonde hair and blue eyes, and very entertaining, so we decide to stay and have a couple beers with them.

The Locals promptly decide to celebrate by stoking the fire to keep us warm, and proceed to fall over each other stuffing the fireplace so full of oversized logs that it may qualify for a bushfire instead of a glowing hearth of embers. In Tasmania, they don't use a fire poker to move the logs, they simply kick the fire around with their boots. And plumbers' crack is never attractive, but quite hilarious in the right context.

Oh, and they make a really great drop of port in this part of the world:

A RATHER NICE GLASS OF PORT

# # #

Tasmania: Day 1 - Blister in the Sun

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. "Blister in the Sun", by The Violent Femmes
2. "American Music", by The Violent Femmes

Q: What do rock & roll legends do when they retire?

A: Open a tea-house in Hobart, Tasmania.

Hobart is a beautiful old port town of short and squat historic buildings built to keep out the cold southern winds. Perched upon the waterfront of the Derwent River, which empties into Storm Bay, the Tasman Sea, and the Southern Ocean, I have never made the one-hour flight down to explore this corner of the world despite ten years of living in Melbourne.

The sun us setting and the clouds look as though they are glowing from the inside as we pull into the city center in search of Chado: The Way of Tea... A couple of short paragraphs grazed over the in-flight magazine on Tiger Airlines alerted us to the place, run by Brian Ritchie, bassist for the Violent Femmes, and his lovely wife Varuni Kulasekara.

There is one page of food items on the menu, and pages upon pages of exotic names with descriptions of the exotic teas served up. Our servers are a two beautiful women from Japan and India, who gracefully invite us in to sit and enjoy a meal - even though we are the only two people in the place.

Tea sets line the walls and a bamboo flute plays softly in the background. Apparently, Brian often stops by the shop to play for customers - not folk-punk bass guitar but the shakuhachi, or bamboo flute - and we missed him today as he played for the lunchtime crowd...

Dinner is delicious: bento boxes, Violent Femmes-style - served by the band's groupies with flaming sake bombs and everyone's favorite riff from everyone's favorite Femmes anthem blasting as the food comes out... "and we go ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, like a Blister in the Sun........"

Welcome to Tasmania, wild cultural hub of the southern oceans! This is going to be a good trip...

OK, SO MAYBE I EXAGGERATED ABOUT THE GROUPIES.
AND THE FLAMING SAKE BOMBS.
AND THE BLARING MUSIC.
BUT GEEZ, THAT FOOD WAS DELICIOUS!



# # #

farewell Honolulu, hello Melbourne!

THEME SONGS FOR THE DAY:

1. Honolulu City Lights - by Keola Beamer. This is a pretty random video, but it was the only recording of the song I could find on YouTube!
2. The Horses - by Aussie singer Daryl Braithwaite, from the album "Rise"
3. Back in Black - by rock legends AC/DC, from the album "Back in Black"

SUNSET ON MY LAST EVENING IN HONOLULU;
THE WAIKIKI SKYLINE BIDS ME FAREWELL

The weeks and days counting down to my departure from Honolulu are a blur of laughs, first-time experiences, and happy good-byes. It is surreal how quickly my departure day was upon me, as I boarded the plane it felt like I was watching a movie of myself, you know the one with Jim Carrey where he runs down the jetway yelling, "It's OK, I'm a LIMO DRIVER!!!"

Funny how when you are about to leave a place, all of a sudden you meet the coolest people and start to do all the funnest things you didn't do but wanted to the whole time you were there: paddling on a stand-up board and then a one-man outrigger canoe off Kaimana Beach were firsts on the 3rd-to-last day in the islands [i'm hooked!]. And, I've done more rockclimbing, hiking, camping, motorcycling, volunteering, and just hanging out with loved ones in the last 2 months than I have in the last 12 years of living in Honolulu.

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP LEFT:
1) SQUALL OFF LAIE POINT
2) BOGGART'S "KRAKATOA STEAMER" WITH POOTIE
3) CAMPING AT "LUANA"
4) GETTING GROCERIES AT KAENA POINT

Since I pulled an all-nighter to pack 12 years worth of accumulated "stuff" into two oversized suitcases, I slept through the 9-hour flight to Sydney and awoke in a new hemispehere, a new country... the 60-minute connecting flight to Melbourne was over by the time we finished the tiny butter chicken dinner with peas swimming in a tasty curry-like sauce over rice that they served up; QANTAS always did have decent airline food...

...but this was nothing compared to the delicious meal Mum, Dad, Sis and I enjoyed at the Pacific Seafood House, a new contemporary asian restaurant in its new location at the edge of Melbourne's Chinatown. This neighborhood smells just like Honolulu's Chinatown: a mix of five-spice, char-siu, and steamed dumplings on the main streets, with the faint underlying stench of hum-ha, stale beer and urine wafting through the air from the back alleys. Chinatowns smell the same all over world.

We get home late, and as I walk into the house that my family has lived in for the last 12 years, it feels like I am home. Mum says, "I'm glad you're here," before turning in for the night, and I am fast asleep in the back room soon after.

I wake up to an empty house as everyone has left early to get to work, and Yuki the cat greets me with a loud meow before settling into a chair to wait for a beam of sunlight through the windows she can bask in. She doesn't have to wait long, as I am making my breakfast of crumpets with honey and tea, the autumn sun appears and streams through the windows to both of our delight.

The crisp Melbourne autumn morning is too inviting to stay inside the house, so I take my breakfast and the old naval war novel I am reading [thank you, Hawaii Yacht Club book exchange] and find a warm sunspot in the garden to sit and read in. Mum interrupts [it's "Mum" when I am in Australia, "Mom" when I am in Hawaii] 1 chapter before the thrilling finale of the book - she only has a half day at work and has come home to take me out for a Melbourne latte and lunch.

We go to Batch Espresso in Balaclava, a trendy cafe three stops up on the train line. Young families, artistic types, dapper executives, and orthodox jews in black suits, hats and sporting beards and sideburns bustle about the street here, which is lined with cafes, restaurants, and specialty shops. This kind of vibrant street culture is one of the things I miss most about this place, and is something that Honolulu could certainly learn from. No newbie police officers pouncing on their prey to hand out jaywalking tickets here!

The cafe's menus are cleverly presented in old refurbished hardback novels, with notches in the pages cut out to the places where the menus are hidden - reduce / reuse / recycle at its best in the artistic simplicity of the idea. I order the avocado-feta mash on ciabbata bread [toasted], with a side of bacon [thick, satisfying rashers that are far more decadent than the thin, crispy, burnt stuff Americans are so used to], while Mum goes for the fish special, a pan fried fillet of "roughy" served on a bed of pilaf lentilis with a glass of rose.

I order myself a latte, and soak in the whole scene. There are two ladies seated right next to us, bistro-style so that our elbows are rubbing, talking animatedly about their clients' latest purchases in her boutique, while an artsy lesbian couple sip lazily at their lattes on the sidewalk tables, scratching their dog's belly with their feet. When my drink comes I grin broadly and breathe in the java; there is nothing quite like a Melbourne latte.

It is difficult to describe why a Melbourne latte is so special; perhaps it is the hormone-free milk that is used in every other country in the world except for the united States, or maybe it is simply the sheer volume of espresso that Melbournites consume, forcing barristas everywhere to be on their toes because their discerning audience demands it.

A good Melbourne latte is velvety smooth and doesn't have the bitter bite that many Kona blends do. You could drink three or four of them at one siting and still want more. Think of the creamiest, most expensive, espresso ice cream you've ever had....and imagine that coming out of the espresso machine steamer into your steaming mug...and that is close to what a Melbourne latte is like. Glazers' in Honolulu comes close, but Melbourne still has my vote when it comes to "Best Latte in the World"...

...it is good to be back in my new old home.

THE AUTUMN MELBOURNE SKY...
NOT A CLOUD TO BE SEEN IN ANY DIRECTION...

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Bestest Neighborhood Ever

DIAMOND HEAD IN THE MORNING FROM MY BEDROOM

I'm really going to miss this neighborhoood.

Living "in the shadow" of Leahi, the Hawaiian name for Waikiki's world famous landmark most people know as Diamond Head Crater, has been so much fun...  

Each morning I am greeted by the many moods of Leahi through my bedroom window; this time of year the rains awakens the slopes into lush shades of green.  Hiking the inside of the crater 3 mornings/week was a great workout while I had the habit...then breakfast down the road at Boggarts cafe, voted "Honolulu's Best Breakfast Sandwich" by Honolulu Weekly readers [also home to the cutest waitresses this side of Waikiki]....

Technically, this neighborhood is called Kaimuki [pronounced kai-moo-kee], though it is bordered by the affluent neighborhoods of Kahala, Diamond Head, and Waikiki's Gold Coast...which is just fine by the property owners becuase it means we enjoy living in an affluent neighborhhod - without the affluent property taxes [shhhh nobody tell the City & County....].

The charm of the area lies in the vibe of the people who live here - a combination of college students, adventurous travellers, old local families, affluent Honolulu executives, wealthy trophy-home owners, and the international jet-set.  On my block live 3 generations of a hawaiian family [right next door]; a retired local-Japanese man, his wife, and their tenants [hospitality workers in Waikiki who shower at 2am like clockwork]; "Crazy Ivan" the German software engineer, his Japanese girlfriend, and their college student roomates;  the bright yin-yang, dog-loving couple who live in a cute & cozy two-bedroom cottage [he teaches at the community college one block away, she's an up & coming lawyer at one of Honolulu's leading firms] and their furry family: Daisy, Noodles, and their lazy fat cat Snowball; and another young couple who own the Le Guginol, the best french food in Honolulu [he's a local boy trained in France].

My more disciplined neighbors can be seen jogging around the crater and community college campus in the mornings and evenings like clockwork...today I got some exercise and walked 2 blocks to Rueger Market for a $6 pork laulau plate lunch [ono-licious!!].  This little store is a local secret, and has been making killer hawaiian food [especially the ahi pok'e] from this neighborhood corner store for over two generations!

On Saturday I slept in and missed the famer's market, which has fresh organic produce, delicious kona coffee [from the farmer himself], grilled Kahuku corn-on-the cob from the North Shore, fried green tomaotes, fresh pizza, free range beef.....sooooo many goodies; I'll have to dedicate a post soley to it.

Last night my brother and I slurped up delicious Tenkaipen Ramen on Kapahulu Ave.  The owner has his own TV show called Ultimate Japan, which took us on tours of "behind-the-scenes" Japan as we dined.  The chicken broth I ordered has been simmering for 48 hours....thick, creamy, full of flavor.....OISHSI!!

I'm really going to miss this neighborhoood!

SUNSET FROM POKOLE ST