素色心情

Peackful time toward evening at the shoal of Cairns.

查看整个相册

Flying to Alice Spring was definitely the last minute decision. To me, Northern Territory is a pretty cool geographic name, so do the big rock there. But it was followed by an unexpected thing: there is still >600km from Alice Spring to Uluru. Cannot pass by the sunset there, hence if we expect a one day return, will need to start off no later than 6:00am and half of the day will be spent on the way. Take things as they come, we started the long drive towards the rock.

The way is very easy to follow, just one or two turns throughout that 600km, temperature raised up from 10C to 36C, but no much things to watch except the red soil until we arrived at the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park.

View Full Album

Walking around the rock and watching how it was checkered with sunlight and shade likes the magic. Every shutter we pressed took a snapshot which was different from the prior one. Some aboriginal paintings still existed. The more I learned the aboriginal symbols and stories, the more I had brainstorm in the mind, not sure if it is the civilization or they refused the progress of human civilization compared with the current modern civilization.

View Full Album

Some caverns show a heart shape.

We gave up the Kata Tjuta and decided to enjoy the complete sunset process of Uluru. An elder couple impressed me. The lady took a digital camera whilst the sir took care of a video camera. They sit in front of the big rock, waited for the sunset, recorded the peace and change of the natural world. Just hope one day, when Michael and I was old, we also can experience the life like this way.

On the way back to Alice Spring was so amazing. We met only 5 cars, but saw ~100 kangaroos. Those wide animals jumped across the road randomly and totally neglected us, even some of them jumped towards the front light of our vehicle which was very dangerous. To keep them and ourselves safe, we slowed down and 100% concentrated on the road ahead though everything was so dark out of the scope of the front lights. In the last miles, we were even under the delusion, regarded grasses as kangaroos… That 600km took us more than 7 hours and finally drew a happy ending.

Afterward, we realized that it is worth taking this one day driving because the lodging nearby Uluru was extremely expensive (>AU$350 per night, while in Alice Spring it was under AU$100). Although the car rental companies there only offered up to 200km free mileage per day which couldn’t meet the round way between Alice Spring and Uluru, the exceeded part of mileage was still lower than the lodging fee. But the cons is that we didn’t have enough time to see Kata Tjuta hence another trip is definitely necessary for us next time.

If any opportunity in future, I will be more than happy to have a dedicated trip from Darwin to Alice Spring for me to better understand Northern Territory.

The first day we arrived at Sydney was extremely cold and shuddering, around 10 Centigrade. Went around the Darling Harbor, the heavy wind cooled down our chip lunch so quickly. But the scene is not bad, especially the blue sky. Last week it encountered the dust storm, compared with the full eye of yellow stuffs that can be referred from Sina news, the blue sky we saw on site made us so joyful. :)

Since the sun went down, the wind became heavier. It is hard to walk outside with a single layer shirt. We had to switch to be inside of buildings. Saw the IMAX cinema with the remark that it is the largest IMAX screen worldwide, besides, the 3D film pic attracted us. We decided to watch the “Under the sea” for the sake of hiding ourselves in a warmer place and experiencing the 3D. Wow, the film is so cool. Fishes and prawns even swim towards our face, looks like we can touch them very easily. But, the cinema still offered cold air condition. After 45-min to accomplish the film, I just felt I was frozen to be a piece of ice cube, the legs couldn’t bend or move. Nothing in my mind at that moment except an image of wool blanket.

In the following 3 days, I wore everything I can wear, drank hot water only. :) Everybody started the greeting with “the weather is abnormal in this spring”. At least the ramp-up of the temperature is expected and coming close per the weather forecast.

Trying to drive on the left side is very interesting. Not that difficult to get started, but at some corners when need to turn left or right, we held 1 or 2 seconds to think why the road is blocked by vehicles drive towards the contrary direction, then realized that we should on the left lane. By using our brains like that way, we are far away from Alzheimer's Pisease…

We leveraged GPS, but the experience to look for the Opera House was very interesting. The GPS guided us to a tunnel, and in the middle of it, the guide said we reached the destination already. :s It is under the water, Opera House was above our heads but out of the tunnel. Nothing to see, cannot believe it is the GPS service to pinpoint a destination for tourists.

Tried it again next night by selecting an alternative route. Finally we reached the Mrs. Macquarie Point and saw the Opera House plus the Sydney Bridge. The parking fee is so expensive: 6:00pm-6:00am, only offer 6P, $2.2 per hour. A vehicle got a penalty ticket of $84. Based on that, we decided to watch the Opera House in the rotation manner with 1 person kept on the vehicle to pay attention to the cop. A visitor guide there says “Please talk with the roses, walk on the grass, smile to the trees…” I want to supplement: “as long as you can afford the expensive parking fee”.

Anyway, finally we accomplished the visit with the Opera House peacefully. :)

View Full Album

同学发来一个email, 漫画里是小时候坐自行车的快乐日子~~。忍不住想起我爸。小时候，去外婆家，都是坐自行车，我坐在爸爸的自行车后面，弟弟坐妈的车。他们还比赛谁骑得快，能先到家。我爸上下车都很小心，从来都没有踢到过我，不过坐在前面，手倒是真的被刹车夹到过好几次的．后来我们有了小车，每次爸爸坐上来都很满足的，就连去医院也是那样，就像当初我坐他骑的车那样，脚麻掉了也还是很满足．

<漫画图片上了好几次都显示得挺小的，大家可以参看http://msn.myspace.cn/t/3967925.html>

Cannot sleep, think about writing something in English because of the unexpected experience today in the State.

Got up early at 3:00am in LA to catch up the connection flight. However, we missed the check-in time by chance; then even worse news, there were no available seat in any other flights today. We should be in Seattle before 12:00pm, but no way. I was getting upset at that moment, because I was ready to go back already and the date was straight followed by another business meeting .

The initial reaction was to look for help: called helpdesk per the instruction displayed on the auto-check-in machine, failed; asked the frontline agent, they redirected us to counter 6, we followed; the line was very long with slight movement, then, interesting things put up…

Both of us still had hope to get ticket soon so we could catch up, but the slow progress on the line made us hopeless. We then decided to jump the queue, but only for a quick inquiry to see if anybody can provide guaranteed advice. The lady behind the counter accepted our inquiry and she even wanted to directly put us into the standby list. Whilst, we were too anxious to realize that we broke the rule. No doubt, persons in the line before us complained suddenly and the agent started to educate us accordingly. Embarrassed in the first 2 seconds and very quickly it made us calm down. While we went back to the waiting line, we started to refresh mind and think about alternative options.

Called the classmate who originally helped us book the oversea flight ticket and checked if it was possible to reissue the ticket to tomorrow. Called the colleague who coordinated the meeting to see if the reissue would cause any business impact. Called mom to let her know our status. Called… In parallel, we saw another girl was educated by the assistant due to the same reason (jump the queue).

What jumped into my mind was that: I thought we were exceptional as we needed to catch up an oversea flight, but there was no exceptional actually. Everyone in the line was faced with the same problem, missed preferred flight, so the education from people around was a lesson to me. No excuse like I got up early with unclear mind or anything else, one way to breakout is the rational thinking.

Then the line before us was clear and it was our turn. The stewardess never smiled in the whole procedure, but she respected any decision we made and never pushed us to leave. She told us all the options we could take and all the challenges we were faced with as long as we asked. She gave us enough time for discussion, even taking cell phone, and then asked for a final consensus. When we said we wanted to enter the standby list, she proactively told us how the process ran. Before that, compared with JA’s service, we thought UA was not that good because their stewardess seldom smile. But since this experience, I changed my mind, and I even started to be in favor of the disclaimer “you take your own risk”.

The next flight was delayed for 1 hour and 30 minutes so it completely broke our dream of catching up the intraday schedule. We settled down the ticket reissue and switched focus to the possibility of getting on the second flight, at least we could move to Seattle, otherwise, the auto-switch process may cause the LAX airport to be our short-term “The Terminal”.

The screen indicated ‘0 seat remaining’ always; however, we cannot help gazing at it. In the last minute, it changed to be “1 seat remaining”. As we are the first two in the standby list, Datou’s name was called. We wanted to bypass this chance to the 3^rd one in line to avoid being separated. Unexpectedly, the stewardess asked we 3 to stand by together. She wanted to check the real available seat on the aircraft by person, if it was only 1, it went to the 3^rd passenger, if lucky enough there were 2 seats, we then got it. She insisted that all of us got ready together. Although she never smiled just like the UA style, she calculated the seat carefully and then told us they had 2 seats available for Datou and me.

Since then, both of us completely calmed down. Arrived at Seattle, confirmed the ticket reissue, rented car, looked for motel... everything was normal just like our original schedule. What we were thinking was that famous word from KungFu Panda: yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is the gift. Experience today even it is unexpectedly, worth doing…

在回上海的火车上, 大家一起吃肯德基, 突然看到鸡翅盒上的小字, “© 1998 KFC”, 不禁彻底安静下来. 窗外已是漆黑, 这样的情形, 正适合漫天地思想. 肯德基到上海似乎已不止8年, 我记不太清了. 8年来, 我没有长高, 很多事已不同, 虽不能片刻间道尽所有, 但三两小事嚼来也算满足.

• 第一次和弟弟一起去洋快餐店吃鸡翅, 我没吃, 弟弟也舍不得吃, 一个小汉堡+一个鸡翅吃了之后, 还把余下的一个鸡翅包好带回家.
• 南方商城里的超市, 大学毕业前还是稀罕之处, 晚饭后一个寝室一起去逛, 一人一把推车, 那是囤积漂亮餐巾纸的开始, 质量超好的塑料袋回家也能惹得妈妈的喜爱
• 大四末第一堂Internet教学课, 老师在黑板上画个IE窗口, 然后余下的课, 我整一学期都没再去上.
• 试考认识的姑娘, 早几年常在节假日约出来聊天. 一次搞丢了一封给她的信, 正感叹着自己年事已高, 她来信和我说, 在超市到地铁站的免费班车上有人拾到那封信, 然后寄给了她, 我庆信自己有及时封信写地址的习惯
• 大小礼拜, 休息的那天, 小CD 播放机接了两个自制音箱放王菲的歌, 一边拖地板, 楼下公用电话的阿姨大叔嗓门提高到最大分贝, “有电话”,我敢打赌, 那时方圆两里地都知道我的名字和家里门牌
• 抱了放着简历的文件夹, 走在校园招聘会里, 展台内的负责人问, 你有没有很得意的程序可以讲一下, 我说没有, 只有学校里的课后作业, 他顿了片刻, 然后在我的简历表上写了”偏软”
• 去伯朗打工的最后一天, 暴雨, 到达时套鞋里浸满了水, 好不容易倒干净, 擦干脚, 脚刚踩到铺好纸的地上, 主管叫我进她办公室, 瞬间又赤脚穿回到湿冷的鞋里, 一拖一拖地进去, 她说大家送给我一个手表, 留个纪念, 让我好生感动
• 早上五点醒过来, 趴在床上在白纸黑字把梦里看到的程式写下来, 到单位以后测试, 通过, 一气呵成, 狂喜
• 石门一路那里的S型天桥拆了, 以前在桥上走, 感受蜜蜂行走打弯的途径, 之后在桥下走, 觉得好像天亮了好多
• Support Win98的时候没用过几天Win98, 急到头上发孢, 爸爸从小和我说要笨鸟先飞, 的确是授用一生的教悔,
• 晚上在泸沽湖旁烧烤, 问送鱼来的小姑娘想不想去丽江看看, 她低着头说”不想”,只是认真地添着火
• 第一次进理发店是在工作之后第6年, 对折55块, 妈妈看了说我终于找到了适合自己”稀毛拉里”的发型, 大头说”贵噢, 我剃一个头只要5块钱”, 呵呵.