Marvelous Melbourne!

So I had a marvelous time in Melbourne earlier this week.

But just a quick update on my thoughts on the rugby game. Here's the link to the team that I watched: the Canberra Brumbies. http://www.brumbies.com.au/ In case you're wondering - a brumbie apparently is a wild horse. It's a good game. I enjoy it more than CFL - not a whole lot of stoppages. The game keeps going and it's pretty insane. And they guys don't really wear any sort of protective gear. I think they're crazy. But I enjoyed it. In contrast to the BC Lions games that I'm used to - there isn't a whole lot of music clips playing in the background during the game and there aren't any cheerleaders.

Anyway, a week later - I headed to Melbourne for a few days. I had already visited Melbourne in December but I didn't do all the touristy stuff b/c I was SO tired from traveling around Asia.

Highlights:

Phillip Island - so I got to handfeed some wallabies and kangaroos. Awwwww..... so cute. And then at sunset, all these little tiny penguins come home. It's like "Lord of the Rings" but a la bird style b/c these little penguins rally together on the shore in a group and then they have to waddle past the seagulls that are swooping at them and apparently... trying to make the penguins puke so that they can eat their food... I'm not quite sure if I heard that correctly. But it was awesome watching these little penguins. They were hilarious. The crowds would cheer for them when they made it up the beach.

Melbourne - so I've decided that if I ever immigrate to Oz, I most definitely want to live in Melbourne. It doesn't have the nice beaches that Sydney has but it's not as psycho. Shopping and dining is amazing in Melbourne. And I had a sample of a clubbing scene - yawn... my latest night out ever - i made it to 5am... ;) And that's without Red Bull! Overall, it's an amazing city. Lots of great festivals and events. I was there during the world swimming championships and Formula 1 race weekend. Craziness...

The Great Ocean Road - so they got this idea from the Pacific Highway in California. I think the coastline is more dramatic in California but it's still pretty amazing. We drove out to the bit where they have these limestone stacks on the coast of the ocean. Amazing! Wait until you see the pictures.

I was a bit sad to leave Melbourne...

Anyway, back in Canberra. The city with a god-awful bus service. At least it's not as brown and dead as it was when I first arrived. It's looking a bit greener thanks to some rain recently. Work is going well except that this week my boss asked me to write a grant proposal - yeah... never wrote one before... Other than that, I'm just planning my travels post-Canberra. Just booked my flight to Japan today! Oh yeah!

Alright, that's it for now. Catch you folks later.

International Women's Day

So yesterday (March 8) was International Women's Day. Working for an NGO that is focused on the empowerment of women, makes it a bit of a big deal. And rightfully so - I'm all for the empowerment of women. You go girl!

I had the privilege of meeting a very special woman this morning. Through work, I got an invitation to have a meeting with Malalai Joya. She is a young courageous woman who is a member of the National Assembly in Afghanistan. She speaks out radically against injustice and in favour of women's rights and continues to pay the price for speaking out. She has survivied a number of assassination attempts and her home has been bombed. I have tremendous amount of respect for her. Read a short bio about her at: http://www.unifem.org.au/iwd/Default.html

She shared her thoughts on issues of concern currently in Afghanistan: including security, and access to education for women. It sort of makes me wonder sometimes what the world would be like if women ran it.

So it was a pretty cool meeting. I felt a bit awkward and out of place being one of two men in the room. There were about 10 of us in the private dining room of Kevin Rudd, leader of the opposition. (And on a side note, I'm really hoping that he wins the next election at the end of this year. I think Australia is desperate for change.) Too bad, Kevin wasn't there. That'd been cool. He had one of his senior advisors taking notes and asking questions on how the Australian government could better serve the people of Afghanistan.

Anyway, it was a real privilege being there.

Ya know, through work, my interest in politics has really grown. Hmmm... I wonder if I'll get involved with politics when I get home to Canada. It'd suck to have to move to Ottawa though... ;)

Last weekend, I was in Sydney, which was rockin! I finally made it to the iconic Bondi Beach. It was really cool! I had a great time spending the day at the beach with some friends. As much as I love all the road trips, I am looking forward to my weekend here in Canberra. Don't get me wrong - it's not going to be a quiet weekend, but it'll good to be at home for once. I'm going to my first Rugby game tonight. Should be another great Aussie experience.

Catch y'all later.

Aussie Update

So it's been awhile since I last posted so I thought I throw up a quick update. There isn't as much stuff to post when you're just doing the day to day stuff - ya know, going to work, cooking, hanging out with friends, etc.

Highlights over the last few weeks include going up to Sydney (again). I went up for a training workshop entitled "Introduction to the aid and development sector in Australia." It was actually really, really intersting. I learned lots about overseas aid and policies and how the Oz Government works. Now I'm really curious to learn more about Canada's policies on overseas aid.

Last weekend, I also went down to the coast (a small town called Ulladulla) and visited my old roommate from my China backpacking trip. He lives literally 5 minutes from the beach so I got in some quality beach time. I LOVE playing in the waves. Well, until it threw me against the shore and I sort of tumbled a bit on my neck. Hmmm.... And it was absolutely frigid on the Saturday and started raining. Sunday was better. I actually got a bit of a sunburnt on my face. And yes, I know it's very tacky of me - but I have a big Aussie flag beach towel. ;)

We've been getting some weird weather in Canberra lately. We've had over a week of on and off thunderstorms. (I've been told that there's a drought.... I'm sort of confused.) And then last Tuesday night, it came down hard. Lots and lots of hail (see pic above). So much so, that a lot of buildings at the Australian National University were severely damaged resulting in school closures for the rest of the week. Traffic was crap the next morning too. Insane! Our own little natural disaster. The ironic thing was that the climate change research building got totally trashed. Scientists attribute the latest bout of weird weather to climate change.

Work is going really well. I've thrown all my energy in organizing this upcoming symposium on microbicides. It looks pretty promising. I think we secured some funding this week. Not sure if I've talked about microbicides before. But they are a recent development in HIV-prevention. Essentially, microbicides would be a topical cream/ointment that women could put in their vagina prior to sexual intercourse that would protect them if they came in contact w/ HIV. It's really important that this product comes to fruition particularly for women who are unable to negotiate safe sex with their partners (esp. for women in developing countries where gender inequality exists). So this one day symposium would bring together scienstists, researchers, community activists, government officials to educate about microbicides and to talk about how to start an advocacy campaign. I've been working really closely with our Canadian counterparts. (Go Canada!) It's a really neat experience.

So yeah, things are going well here. Making lots of good friends. And having a great time overall. I can't believe that my trip overseas is officially half over. I will return to Vancouver on Aug 1. That's it for now. Laterz.