Leaving Asia

On July 4th I left Asia.

It has been a wonderful 4 years and I was so very lucky to see and do all I saw and did.

Now we are in British Columbia, in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, exploring a new life in a new place.

New life, new blog. Follow my new tales...

Life on the Left Coast

It's Done

Once upon a time...

Yesterday...

Rebecca doing load out inventory duty. All I had to do on loading day was show up at the end and sign the papers.

At the end of the day, Rebecca and I said our good-bye's. She took good care of our home; we had the cleanest house in all of Manila. Now, after 4 years, I will have to learn how to use the washing machine.

All our worldly possessions in a 40-foot container. Estimated arrival in the port of Vancouver is July 23rd.

Now...

Unfortunately I have let stress into my body this past week and I will be navigating the next days of parties, lunches and dinners with all the bittersweet goodbye's in a very weakened state with a killer cold, the first in years. There's time, I trust, to get better before my flight on Monday.

3 Days, 9 Days, 15 Days...

...and Counting.

This is our last weekend of peace, quiet and order in our apartment and I am enjoying it. It's a rainy Sunday morning and Manila from my window is buried in fog and wet. On Wednesday the move begins in earnest. That is the day the movers come in and start packing. A week Tuesday they will load us out of here and we'll be off to the hotel. The following Monday (July 4) I'll be on the plane.

In between sorting, selling (220volt appliances mostly) and gifting, I've spent most of the past week designing the new blog. I don't recall this one being quite so complicated when I built it 4 years ago but I suppose it's because instead of using a basic template I'm changing it up and customizing it a whole lot more which has required learning a bit about coding. This is taking hours and hours of nit-picking, which suits me fine and distracts me beautifully from thoughts of the chaos that is coming my way.

I've decided to create this new blog for the new life, partially because I don't want to disappoint both of my readers, but mostly because I've had a blast writing this one. It's turned out to be a great memory maker of the last 4 years and when I go back and reread parts I'm always smiling. A picture or a cartoon or a joke or a story brings back the sights, sounds, smells and feelings. Even "in memory" posts brings me back to the lives before the passing, and I still smile.

My blog is not open, meaning it will not be found through a search engine, nor does it show up on Blogger lists. I'm not interested in a wide audience. It's still for family and friends (and, as it turns out, their family and friends) and I'll keep the next one that way too. Every now and then I'll get an email from someone I didn't know was reading it and that's always way fun, but for the most part I write for me, which solves the issue of "finding my voice". Finding inspiration comes with the curiosity. I see something or hear something or think of something that sparks the urge to write about it, a fine way to entertain myself.

It also may be a way of deluding myself to believe that I'm compensating for my lazy-making habits of not staying in touch often enough!

Planet Earth Wants You to Leave

I've been a little frustrated over the past week or two with the news coverage of the volcano that has been erupting in Chile. For several days on BBC and CNN there were endless scenes of the Sydney airport and the usual interviews with frustrated travelers who aren't able to travel because flights are canceled due to the volcanic ash above the southern Pacific. Whining travelers seemed to be the big story.

So I went looking for pictures of the real story.

Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images

Claudio Santana/AFP/Getty Images

More volcano pictures at The Big Picture.

Meanwhile, this from The Onion:

EARTH—According to a statement released to the press Tuesday, the planet Earth has "just about run out of ways" to let its roughly 6.9 billion human inhabitants know it wants them all to leave.

Following a recent series of disastrous floods along the Mississippi River and destructive tornadoes across much of the United States—as well as a year of even deadlier natural catastrophes all over the world—the Earth said its options for strongly implying that it no longer wants human beings living on it have basically been exhausted.

"At this point, I think I've stated my wishes quite loudly and clearly," the Earth's statement to all of humanity read in part. "I haven't exactly been subtle about it, you realize. I have literally tried to drown you, crush you, starve you, dehydrate you, pump you full of diseases, and suck your homes and families into swirling vortices of death. Honestly, what more is it going to take for you people to get the message?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" the statement continued. "Get the fuck out of here. I want you to leave now."

The Earth says all it can do at this point is keep manufacturing disasters and hope humanity finally "wises up."

The statement went on to list thousands of incidents in 2011 alone that the Earth claimed were "solely and unmistakably" designed to inform the human race that it might be time to move on, including the devastating tsunami that caused thousands of deaths in Japan, an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed an estimated 181 people, and historic rainstorms in Colombia that destroyed entire communities with deadly landslides.

The planet Earth also singled out an ongoing drought in China that has left more than 2.3 million people with a shortage of fresh water as "a pretty big goddamned tip-off, wouldn't you say?"

While the Earth had hoped the human race might finally "get the picture" following one of the harshest winter storm years in recorded history, it instead found that people simply went on with their lives, occasionally making reference to disaster victims in their thoughts and prayers but showing no intention whatsoever of preparing themselves for a long trip through the far reaches of space to find a new home.

"I know your species has developed the technology to leave me, I've seen you use it before, so I'm asking you now, please, just take the hint already," read another excerpt from the Earth's statement, which added that it would really be best for all concerned if humanity were to "trundle off to some other biosphere for a while." "You can't possibly be enjoying this, can you? Honestly, you would have to be completely deranged or masochistic to continue staying here."

Immediately after delivering the statement, the Earth ignited a series of wildfires throughout the world's arid regions.

Though some scientists have responded to Earth's message with theories as to precisely what the planet might be trying to communicate, most firmly acknowledged that further study would be required before any definitive evidence could be gleaned from the "fascinating" statement.

"Certainly these utterances from the Earth are strongly worded, but at this point it is difficult to say whether they speak to a larger trend or are simply a bio-geological anomaly," Dr. Roger Summons of MIT said. "While there seems to be an implication that the Earth wants us to go away and never come back, I, for one, can't say conclusively from either a geochemical or a meteorological standpoint whether this is in fact the case."
In a sharp rebuke to both the planet and the mainstream scientific community, Republican leaders in Congress responded this week with a scathing critique of what they deemed to be the Earth's "pathetic and extremist viewpoints."

"What we're seeing here is the same old scientific mumbo jumbo and partisan rhetoric that the Earth has been spewing out for millennia," Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) said. "We're not going to be bullied by a celestial body that has time and again failed to deliver on its promise to glorify and reward mankind with its bounty."

Immediately following these statements from the human race, the Earth emitted a loud sigh, which shifted multiple tectonic plates and caused massive earthquakes on five continents.

Blast from the Past

This old trunk is a particular favourite of mine. It belonged to my father, so far back in time it was from his Merchant Marine days pre- and during the second World War when he sailed the world's seas. It still has some of the old traveling stickers on it, including one where I can still see his very recognizable handwriting.

It is a solid piece, still in good condition. The inside, with its stacked drawers, is lined in fabric that is dingy and worn and I remember that once upon a time I considered restoring it, another of my many projects that exists only in my imagination. I haven't opened it since some time before 2001, I can't even remember when last I did. In our previous house in Ottawa, for 5 years it served as our television stand in the corner of the family room.

Well today I did open it and the term "blast from the past" sounds too lame and rock and roll to describe it. What really happened was a grenade exploded in my face.

I had forgotten what was in it. More to the point, what I thought was in it, was not. I thought that among other things it was filled with old dolls of mine. That's what used to be, but somewhere along the years I had thrown them out I guess. As I think of it, I kind of wish there was one I had kept. Along with the old motley crew was a very refined and stylish doll with a couture wardrobe hand-stitched by my Aunt Peggy. That would be nice to see again, but must not have survived one of my very occasional ruthless purges. However, I did find two little boxes of knitted clothes for Angelique and Satoochi. I'm all by myself, but I'm laughing and laughing out loud. How did THAT survive the years? Along with that on the first layer were half a dozen pairs of cotton gloves - some wrist length and some elbow length. My mother's.

I removed the top drawer, and there on the second level was an old wedding dress from a former life. WTF??? Along with that were piles of really old, past generation at least, tablecloths with that distinctive ancient, musty smell that permeates the inside of the trunk. I lifted out that drawer to reach the bottom level and all hell broke loose in my mind.

There, I found stacks of shoe and stationery boxes filled with photos, letters, old received thank-you and Christmas cards, postcards, boxes of costume jewelery and fossils. These all belonged to my mother. There were journals and souvenirs from her trips to places like the Galapagos and Machu Pichu, old worn address books, term papers and a pile of expired passports. At the very bottom were envelopes filled with wedding photos from her marriage to my father in London, England. They had met on a ship on her way to South Africa. She was a young schoolteacher on her way to spend a year there on a teacher exchange program, where she had a complete blast and fell in love with Africa. He was the dashing Chief Engineer on the ship she was traveling on. Apparently the trip was far too short for both of them so after a year of letter writing she traveled to London to join him, and the next chapter unfolded. That would be me and my brother.

Surprisingly, as they hadn't lived together in years, there still were a few things of my Dad's. Inside a small leather case with his embossed initials I found an intriguing and beautiful certificate that had been awarded to him, Brother James William Burns, in 1942 from the Grand Lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Scotland, appointing him the degree of Master Mason. On the heading is the iconic Masons eye shining over everything.

I had thought I knew where any remaining papers and things of my Mother's were. I had no idea that there was all this lying dormant in the trunk. I think I know what happened. After my mother died on June 15, 1994 I eventually had to go through her room and sort through and dispose of her belongings. She lived with us at the time in Washington, DC. I now remember being in the closet removing her clothes to send away. However when it came to going through the papers and photos and such, I was paralyzed. A neighbor reassured me, "Don't push it. Just pack everything in boxes for your move and don't bother looking at it now". So I did.  In the past 17 years since she died I've carted this stuff around. Sometimes it moves from box to trunk as it did now, but I still hold on to it and still don't look through it. Still paralyzed. Recently, meaning within the last 4 years, I did finally get around to shredding her piles of 20 year-old bank statements. But other than that, I have never really looked through it, just glanced around the edges.

So, what did I do now? Little Miss Sort and Toss as I've become in recent years? Well, guess what, I shoved it all back into the trunk, closed and locked it up again. "I'll look at this when I'm settling in to the new house", I tell myself for the fourth time (having moved 4 times since Washington). Likely to happen?

But here's the thing. Despite my fleeting thoughts of sorting, tossing and organizing things into something that makes sense, maybe instead it makes more sense to keep things the way they are, with the musty smells, and old familiar handwriting, and little jolts of recognition of long forgotten objects. Sometime, whenever the boxes and trunk are next opened, again I'll experience this huge explosion of surprise and recognition and emotion and memories. The trunk opens and the past spills out. Could be a good thing when I really think about it.

But not too often. Every 5 or 10 years would be OK with me.

4 Weeks and ...

...Counting

Source

I was sitting by the window in the bedroom last night looking out the window. Past sunset, which is early here closer to the equator, by 7:00 the sky was dark and the city lights sparkled. It was clear enough to see 3 planes stacked up at a time, approaching the runway by the airport. The upside down quarter moon was shining through a bit of high cloud haze.Through my binoculars I watched the nightly fireworks way way out by Manila Bay.

I've already talked about the view as way up there on the list of things I appreciate here and the fireworks are part of that. The best night here by far was last New Year's Eve - what a blast - literally. I am SO glad we decided to stay in Manila to see that.

We are now weeks away from leaving. The movers come in 2 1/2 weeks to start packing, in 3 1/2 weeks they load everything on a truck and take it away to put in storage for 2 months. In 4 weeks and 2 days I'll be on a plane heading for Vancouver Island. For good this time.

I've timed my departure to arrive at my favorite spot by the water in Victoria on July 4th, American Independence Day. Why? The Fireworks. The house faces San Juan Island on the American side of the Strait and I intend to be sitting outside that night with my binoculars watching the show, as I did last year. You can see several different Fourth of July fireworks celebrations going off from different parts of the island. Impressive, even from such a distance. Of course arriving after a voyage of 18 hours, I may have to prop my eyelids open.

It's time to leave. That's starting to sink in now. On Friday afternoon I returned to mah jong after an absence of several weeks to find that more people are leaving. This past year has been hard with so many friends departing. People are hosting going away lunches and dinners for us this month and "good byes" are starting. Meanwhile although I'm still straddling the Pacific as it were, a foot on each side (what an image, inner thigh burn) my attention is turning more and more to the other side. My internet prowling is starting to move away from Asia (although there are a couple of sites I will follow for some time, I'm sure) to searching Vancouver Island. I'm sad to leave Asia, very sad, but at the same time my new home is starting to spark some interest. Summer events are starting to appear in my calendar and I'm finding places I'd like to visit including a couple of Northern Gulf Islands not too far from us.

I think there is another great adventure in my future. Soon come.

Miniatures in Taiwan

Rose Mansion by Reginald Twigg

The reason I wanted to go to Taiwan was to see the Miniatures Museum in Taipei.  Opened in 1997, this is a private museum built to house the collection of Lin Wen Jen and his wife. They had been collecting miniatures picked up on their travels for years and have commissioned major pieces from some of the world's best miniature artists. There are hundreds of displays of dollhouses, room boxes, historical back street scenes, toy soldiers, fantasyscapes and sculptured dolls. There's a miniature Buckingham Palace and also this enormous pink house called Rose Mansion which believe it or not was the PhD thesis of one Reginald Twigg. (I think I feel another advanced degree coming on).This 1885 mansion was once a Los Angeles landmark, since demolished. Twigg was studying the history of architecture and constructing this house was part of his dissertation. His original sponsors were in a tragic accident killing the husband and seriously injuring the wife, and the Lins stepped in to support the project through its completion. Historical research and construction of the 1:12 scale house took over 4 years. Mr. Lin considers this piece to be the center of the collection, pleased he could have contributed to its creation. It greats you as you walk into the first room of the museum and he uses it in his logo. Just looking at all those exterior wood tiles makes me laugh. I too put them on one by one on the roof of my one room witch's house, a Halloween project. It took me over a year to finish the roof. All my projects, no matter what they are or done in what medium, take forever. It might be called attention deficit.

Halloween Witch's House, since completed. It only comes out for the month of October.

Click on any of these pictures to see a larger, clearer view.

Within hours of landing in Taipei, we were at the museum, and I was beyond thrilled to see included in the collection about half a dozen room boxes created by the American miniaturist Brooke Tucker. I have admired her work for years and years but until now had only seen it in magazines.

This Brooke Tucker boy's room was commissioned by Lin Wen-Jen for his grandson. I had seen it before in a magazine and couldn't believe my eyes when there it was, "live" in the museum.

This miniature miniature train set in the corner actually works!

The first two pictures are where I first saw this room box - I scanned it from a 1998 issue of Miniature Collector magazine. The darker pictures are ones I took through the plexiglass of the museum display last week. My miniature jones goes way way back. I still have issues from 1988 of the now defunct Nutshell News (or Nutcase News as Maristella used to call it, and she'll get no argument from me). However the real beginnings are to be found when I was 8 or so, when I built a two-room apartment on a shelf (room boxes?) for Angelique and Satoochi. I never played with Barbie, only with these 2. They are now spending their retirement on proud display with their 2nd generation buddies from the 1990's. Can't wait for the fad to come around again.

Angelique and Satoochi

More museum room boxes from Brooke Tucker (unfortunately the colors aren't true, lighting and plexiglass not being kind to me, but you get the drift):

This sunken living room scene was the largest room box Brooke had created. It took her a year to complete. Compared to my creations that is blisteringly fast!

Saltwater aquarium. I don't THINK it works! You never know.

I went to Taipei with a half-full carry-on. I came back with a still not full carry-on. This is a first. Usually I have to buy another suitcase for all the loot I buy or at the very least my carry-on is stuffed and so heavy I have to check it. So why? Nothing to buy in Taiwan? Au contraire, I brought home miniatures from the National Palace Museum gift store. It won't all fit in my Treasure Shop so I'm contemplating what kind of new scene this might all fit beautifully in.

Meanwhile here's more pictures of the almost (never) finished Treasure Shop (Little Shop of Treasures).

A Daring Raid on Taipei

The night before we were supposed to leave for Taiwan I was awake almost all night listening to the wind against our windows. A typhoon was passing through to the north making me crazy at the thought of our trip ahead. At 6:00 in the morning, instead of getting in the car as planned to go to the airport, I was on the phone to Philippine Airlines, paying them NOT to fly that day.

The next day was fine however, and off we went, an easy 2-hour flight (Toronto to Halifax, Vancouver to San Francisco). Taipei International Airport wins my prize for the best, by far, immigration process. There were no line-ups. Zero. By the way, the worst, by far, is Istanbul, followed by the non-resident line in Vancouver and Bangkok.

After checking into our (great) little hotel, we hit the sidewalk, off to the Miniatures Museum which was one of our reasons for being there. On the way we decided to look for lunch and ended up in the back street where there were a string of little noodle shops catering to office workers in the nearby buildings. Not a single word of English on any sign, but marvelous sights and smells. We ended up going to the one place that at least had a picture of a bowl of soup in front and ended up having a wonderful conversation with the owner/cooks about what was for lunch. This was the first of quite a few conversations we had where neither party had a single word of the other's language. (I exaggerate. I actually know 2 words of Chinese). Somehow it all just works out and if you're really hopelessly stuck at some point understanding, it all ends up in a shrug and a smile. Kind of like my mother-in-law who is hard of hearing - when she really can't hear after trying mightily, she shrugs, shakes her head and smiles widely. All is well.

Of course, we went to the Botanical Gardens, an oasis in the middle of the city, frequented by retired folk and school groups, in mid-morning.

Malaysian Night Heron at the Taipei Botanical Gardens

The Metro was spotless and orderly and extremely easy to navigate.

Venerable Master Hsing Yun, Monk Caligrapher

Longshan Temple

Another reason we were there was to visit the Museum of Looted Chinese Antiquities, more officially known as the National Palace Museum. In 1949 when the Nationalists were defeated by the Communists in the Civil War, Chiang Kai Shek, as he left for Formosa (Taiwan),  took whatever was left of the contents of Shanghai museum with him, having earlier taken what was in the Beijing palace and museum. The really heavy bronzes remain today in the lower level of the Shanghai Museum. Of course some say that given what happened later with that genocidal bastard Mao Tse Tung and his so-called cultural revolution perhaps the ancient artifacts were protected in their new home on Ilha Formosa (which means "beautiful island" in Portugese).

The National Palace Museum in Taipei was great. They have a lot of fun multi-media stuff. For example, in the Chinese flower painting exhibit where the images are intricately detailed and delicate looking  and don't show all that well displayed under glass, they have set up little screens where you can zoom in on the painting on display (well virtually). You can actually "play" with the art and appreciate it so much more. A gallery like that I'd usually be in and out in less than a minute, not particularly drawn to look closer. Instead, I stayed awhile and had fun. The jade gallery was also amazing - I had no idea there were so many different colors, textures and patterns of jade. The Chinese jade artists (and others) seem to love to carve the most tiny and intricate creations. Miniature astonishments. It was heaven. On their website they have ten pictures from their jade collection on display and when you select one it takes you to a zoom function where you can see all over the detail beautifully.

One day we decided to leave the concrete city and go to a seaside town at the end of one of the metro lines. The town, Tansui or Danshui, is located at the mouth of a river which drains into the Taiwan strait, that separates the island from China. There are a couple of forts there from times past and we climbed way up a hill to visit one of them, Fort San Domingo, prompting me to ask, huffing and puffing, "why do they always have to put forts up on a hill?" (ha ha). A bit of a surprise awaited us. An exhibition about Canada:

Former British Consulate at Fort San Domingo in Tansui

 Yes, Canada=Hockey. No point in arguing. How about those Canucks!

Dr. Mackay, the inspiration for this exhibition, seems to be famous in Taiwan. He was a missionary from Ontario who arrived in Taiwan in 1872 and spent 29 years there. Here's what the exhibit had to say about him:

The first interaction of Dr. Mackay and the indigenous peoples in mountains was direct and friendly, which moved Mackay to start preaching among the indigenous tribes despite the danger and difficulties. The activities of Dr. Mackay and his followers in the Kavalan tribes usually started with visiting ill people from door to door. Then, they stood in a plaza or on the temple stairs and sang the songs of praise. Next, they pulled patients' teeth, gave out medicine, and preached at the end of their charity work. Because of Dr. Mackay's missionary work, he found people who were suffering from illnesses and relieved their pain. He won people's love and friendship for the mission. Hence, the Kavalan people became Christians in less than two decades.

Museum of Tansui fishiegoodies - Fisherman's Wharf

One thing I've noticed in my travels - there is a museum for EVERYTHING.

On our last morning before leaving for the airport we hopped on the Metro a couple of stops to visit the weekend Holiday Jade Market and the adjacent Holiday Flower Market, huge enclosed areas under an overpass. During the week the area is a car parking lot but on Saturdays and Sundays it is totally transformed into eye candy markets. I loved the Flower Market with its neat and immaculate open booths, where Taipei families and couples stroll leisurely along the main walkway, many with dogs on leash, browsing or buying shrubs and flowering plants for their gardens or terraces. The colors, and much more, took my breath away: