The Evening Star

I remember reading about this movie scene once, and I cannot find it, try as I might.

The scene shows two people stumbling across a drunk person who had passed out face down in the snow one night, and they are deliberating as to whether it would be safe to bring him home or not.

"Why do you want to bring him home?" one person demanded of the other. "I mean, what good can you see in this guy?"

"Well, I suppose, he was once a kid too," the other replied.

The first person is taken aback and finally relents, saying "That's a good enough reason for me."
and they both lift the drunk person home.

Kissing Frogs

She is wheeled into the wards, her frazzled blonde hair a mess, her eyes hidden behind the opaque dark circles of her sunglasses. She smiles a nervous smile, like a child on the first day of school, but the doctor and nurses do not smile in return. It is a busy day on the wards, and the last thing they needed was another detoxification.

She is there for an exorcism of a truly evil spirit - alcohol - which she consults every time life got a little too big and scary.

She surrenders her body to be possessed by that demon every so often in order to leave this world and all its anxieties for a little while, but the problem was, she would always come back. With a splitting headache for company. She had decided she had had enough.

She is wheeled into a single room and the doctor comes to see her. He is brusque with her and quickly charts up the medications which would help her in her struggle to be free from alcohol. His impatience is telling of an underlying prejudice which he has not yet acknowledged.

He sees her over the next few days as she wrestled to be free of that demon, which had a possessive streak about it - like an unforgiving ex-husband it came back to demand that she return to him and many times she would have given in.

She required large amounts of the pills that came to her rescue - they would quiet down the trembling of her hands, and the fluttering worry of her heart.

He gets to know her better over those few days, and slowly but surely she is improving. He finds other things to talk about so that her mind is taken off her need for the bottles of temporary forgetfulness.

He notices a folder which she had brought in, sitting in a corner of the room.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Oh, that's my portfolio," she said. "I used to be an artist, so I've brought them in to make me happy."

"May I have a look?"

She smiles, and her dull, wrinkled eyes come alive as she brings up her portfolio to her lap and as she turns the pages as if she were looking through a photo album.

The pictures are stunning - his eyes are wide open and his jaw slightly slacked as he took in photo after photo of her artwork.



She shows him her earlier works for her university. Here was a painting that she did for a friends' child's bedroom. There was an advertisement that she did for a local shop. There were local newspaper articles detailing her work for charity; he sees a younger version of her smiling happily at her sold-out art exhibitions. She even had her own art on a postcard, and every flip of the pages of the portfolio fleshed out her person more and more.

He reminds her how talented she is, and makes her promise to take up art again instead of reaching for the bottle. She smiles a little self-consciously as she half-believed her own worth, and nods.

He walks out from her room as he proceeds to the other patients, but he knew that he had learnt a very valuable lesson that day.

Yasmin Ahmad

So many things have happened in my time away. The world mourned the loss of the bizarre yet irreplaceable Michael Jackson, and said goodbye to Farrah Fawcett.

And Malaysia lost one of her most cherished daughters when Yasmin Ahmad passed away on the 25th of July 2009.

Rest in peace, Yasmin, who always knew how to play the chords that resonate within our hearts - to laugh until our tummies hurt and to cry unapologetically. She showed us a glimpse of what it meant to live life to the full.

To Catch You Up On Places I've Been 3

Road Trip NSW: Southwest Rocks, Trial Bay Gaol and the Smoky Cape Lighthouse

We then took the long scenic (scenic = windy road past some cows which were reincarnated from cows in their past life) route to South West Rocks, which was meant to be another beautiful part of these NSW coastlines.

It was a really pretty town, and the beach was quite impressive, with sailboats and yachts in the distance, and there were surrounding fir trees and grassy undergrowth. The feeling that you got was the one from the Salem High Country ads that you saw back in Malaysia.


Yes, you can almost see the advertisement now - handsome guy and pretty girl dressed like yuppies - his sweater tied in a knot around his woolen cashmere vest and her white-rimmed sunglasses pushed up against her long flowing black hair.

She is cycling slowly, and he is ambling beside her. (/start subliminal message)SMOKESALEMANDYOUCOULDBESUCCESSFUL. ANDNOTDIEOFLUNGCANCER. (/end subliminal message). They are both smiling, their perfect rows of white teeth catching the sun, and life is good.

We had quite a delightful lunch at this restaurant called Bean @ the Rocks, and we I gobbled down a burger that was reincarnated from a cow in its past life. It must have been a good cow, because it was really yummy!

We drove along the roads, and although slightly tired from lunch and ready to go home, there were too many signs to distract us with the promise of other touristy things to do.

The Jailhouse

KS’ father had insisted that she see the Trial Bay jailhouse, because it had nostalgic connotations for him – having camped out there once before in his youth.

The concept of a prison by the sea didn’t quite make sense to me. The word jailhouse resort kept ringing in my head instead.

But here it was the Trial Bay gaol which housed inmates in the early 1900s before being made into an internment camp for mostly German people in Australia during the 1st World War. All that was left was ruins, of course, a shell of a building that has now stood over that same cliff for over a century now.


The ruins of Trial Bay Gaol - The hollow skeleton of the prison - remnants of the kitchen area (middle left picture) and - get this - that is actually a 1900s bath area (middle right picture) and me - reflecting on my sins (right bottom picture). Check out the view from the "prison".

We paid some money to go in and walk around, and from the educational DVD that we ended up watching, we found out that this was actually quite a pleasant jail at the end of the day.

Not the nasty prisoners killed by prison wardens or other prisoners kind of jail, but the happy everyone-got-together-and-made-soap-and-yoghurt-and-contributed-positively-overall kind of jail. As the DVD said itself – the only prisoner to have died in the initial stages drowned while body surfing.

The early prisoners were often walked to the sea where they had to build breakers for the ocean tides by breaking stone and lining it across the shore line, and were allowed a little bit of fun in the meantime.

On this bright sunny day, the jail had a cheerful non-threatening feel to it, and all in all it was quite a pleasant experience!

The Lighthouse


The Smoky Cape Lighthouse - Picture perfect.

KS was really keen to go home by this time, and insisted that there would be no more wave watching today. That was until we saw the sign indicating a turn off to a lighthouse. “Buildings I have time for,” she said cheerfully.

And so we decided to take the seven kilometre drive through the winding roads to the lighthouse, and when we got there, it was actually a really nice lookout point to a wide stretch of the NSW coastline.

The lighthouse has stood for many years, and I was quite taken aback to see that someone had established a bed and breakfast at the foot of the lighthouse. But the views from up there were quite spectacular, so it wouldn’t be so bad really, to wake up with God’s wide expanse of water licking the shores below you.

But that was the limit of our adventuring spirit for the day, and so we took a quick drive back to the town.

To Catch You Up On Places I've Been 2

Road Trip New South Wales: Frederickton and Crescent Head

Near where I worked was the town of Frederickton, a small humble town famed for their pies. The locals turn their noses up at this establishment, but I thought it was pretty nice. But I am a tourist, after all.

They had really interesting pies, there, not least their signature "Crocodile" and "Kangaroo" pies. Australia is indeed one of the few nations to eat the animals that form their national emblem(Emu and Kangaroos, anyone?).

Trust them to put it into their national food, though - the Aussie meat pie!

(Warning: Eating a Kangaroo meat pie will cause so much patriotism that you will attend a footy match in your green and gold tracksuit with an Australia flag around your shoulders, sunblock on your face, sunglasses, a VB in your right hand and the meat pie in your left, chanting "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!")


The Frederickton Pie Shop: Notice that they have not only learnt to put kangaroo and crocodile meat into pies, they have found a way of putting dead truck drivers into pies as well. Being the coward that I am, I went for the safe option of curry chicken and peas. At least I hope it was chicken.

Crescent Head is the nearest coastal beach and is one of the more beautiful beaches of the New South Wales region.

The first thing that you see is the sign declaring Crescent Head: Population 1209 and you can see where these 1209 residents are living – some of them have houses on ground level, but most of them live on the houses peeking out from the foliage on the slopes of the hill, granting wonderful views of the ocean beneath them.



These numbers swell over the holidays as tourists crowd in to surf, take a walk on the beach or the rolling hills, or just to picnic. There are at least two large camper grounds here inviting caravans and tents to park and take in the view and the sun.

There are enough shops for local needs – a Foodworks, a local fruit, vegie and gelati shop and all other things organic, a pharmacy, a police station and a few restaurants.

In order to live here as a retiree, you must have saved hundreds of lives and feed the hungry and clothed the poor in your past life. This wonderful self sufficient town is really paradise on earth on good days – the waves that lap the shores invite all to surf and swim in it, there is a wonderful walk up to a lookout point that gives you breathtaking views of the ocean beneath you, and there is a – try and top this one – golf course that slopes on the hills approximating the ocean.



KS and I walked into Crescent Head today and there was a wonderful carnival going on for the long weekend. Many shops were set up, selling everything from noni juice to opal jewellery, random curios to bawdy apparel.

KS and I stopped by the quaintly named ‘Shelf Respect’ a second-hand book store – it was filled with old books, leather bound volumes with yellowed paper, sitting alongside boxes full of Sidney Sheldon, Stephen King and Robert Ludlum.

I ended up buying Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, one of my most favourite reads as a child. It contains the story of The Yellow Face, one of the few stories where Sherlock Holmes makes a rare mistake in his deductions, which really bowled me over as a young reader. My absolute hero showing he is human after all – I grew up really quickly after reading that story!

We then took in the awe-inspiring views (“It’s pretty! Okay, I'm done watching this. Let’s go!” KS said, being the practical appreciator of God’s handiwork that she is) before heading off to the local gelati shop for some ice-cream.


There was this peak which you could walk up to on Crescent Head, and it offered you beautiful beach views below and also a great vantage point for the surrounding area. They went all the way to put a park bench there just for you. How wonderfully considerate!

To Catch You Up On Places I've Been 1

“The people up there listen to two kinds of music,” the nurse said with a twinkle in his eye, when he heard where I was going.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Country and Western.”
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The wings of the plane turn again to bring me to my new office, and this time it is a town in NSW, a place called K.

It was exciting and yet difficult to have to say goodbye to Melbourne, and to spend time away from K and my friends and family in Melbourne, but this was what this year was meant to be all about – experiencing what it would be like to work away from Victoria.

The first thing of concern was that there was no direct flight to K., and so I had to take a plane to PM first – and the moment the plane landed and I was finally allowed to switch on my phone – it worryingly showed no reception.

And so the thoughts were racing through my mind about how isolated I’d be in these coming two months, as I called for a taxicab to bring me to the hospital. We rode about forty minutes in the dark Sunday night to the hospital, passing trees and the town centre. I asked the fairly quiet taxi driver about the recent floods, and breathed a sigh to hear that it had receded.

It was a $95 dollar ride, and the feeling of desolation increased as I stepped into the hospital, thinking about how difficult and expensive it would be for me to travel out of here.

The hospital itself had all the charms of a district hospital, pleasant staff who had been working there forever, and fairly basic but adequate necessities to look after the local community.

Anyone with a potentially bigger medical problem would need to travel to the bigger hospitals at least 60 kilometres away.

They have been nothing but welcoming and friendly, and the work can get busy sometimes, but all in all it is pretty manageable.

I live in a house about ten minutes’ walk from the hospital, the sole inhabitant in a house meant for three, although I do get the occasional on-call radiologist or Emergency doctor staying here.

Each night work ends at five, and I walk in the early winter sunset into the house, and try to
drown out the quiet with the television on. I call home to feel the warmth of familiar voices, and wonder what their nights must be like while I am away from them.

There is no internet access here, but the quiet solitude is a welcome break, an impetus to sit quietly and listen to yourself reflect; something we don’t often have the luxury of time to do, in the rush to accumulate wealth and pursue happiness.

Home. Cooked.

'Waiter, what's that fly doing in my soup?'
'Looks like the backstroke, sir.'

I am just going to put up a few more pictures for my family to remember their time here - just the home-cooked birthday dinner we had for my sister's birthday, kindly prepared by K.

It was a proper three meal dinner - with a cheese and olive platter as entree, followed by a Spanish mariscada (a seafood stew) and a fancy (sorry, my love, the ingredients are more complicated than I can name!) salad for mains, and a passionfruit cake at the end of it.



K was really kind and had gotten my sister a separate birthday gift as well - a nice little girly purse with many many pockets and slots, which I secretly eyed enviously. Hahaha!



Having worked in NSW for a couple of months as a locum, I slipped back into my eating habits of being a single guy - ham and cheese sandwiches, soups out of a can, instant noodles, microwave meals and regular take-away meals.

It was only then that I realised that in all the time we have been together, I have been really spoilt by K with some truly wonderful home-cooked meals. She is trying her best to introduce some much-needed culture and healthy eating in my life!

I am definite that K would be resistant of any praise about her cooking simply because of her nature, so I will just pay my compliments to her ability in three words.

Homemade chicken rice.

The Family Holiday Part 1

I know that this is a long time coming, and as you know, I have been (insert excuse here).

But I have decided that I would like to remember these past few months as well as I can, and so here, via the benefits of my birthday Canon Ixus 80 iS and the wonders of Photoscape, I would like to present to you, The Cheoks on vacation:



Mum and Grace had arrived a few days earlier, but I couldn't see them at the airport because I was away working in M. This was going to be a relaxing trip for my sister and my Mum before my sister started her housemanship year proper (a.k.a. the ninth circle of working-life Hell) in Malaysia.

And so K picked me up from the airport - it was really good seeing her after being away for awhile - and we drove off to Tai Pan for their yum cha there. I can't tell you how happy we were as a family to meet again - this was only my sister's second trip to Melbourne and my Mum's fourth (I think, Mum?). My brother, D, HC and J were there as well, so it really felt like a reunion of sorts.

The timing couldn't have been any better as well - it was my sister's (insert desired number here, Grace)th birthday - so we went over to HC and J for a time of birthday celebrations (with J's beautiful homemade cheesecake) and to play the Wii and to let Angus, their King Charles' Cavalier pee all over us in its excitement again!



There was also a chance for our favourite get-together meal - steamboat - which is basically boiling raw meat and vegetables in a common soup pot and dipping them in yummy sauces before devouring it. As usual, there was enough food leftover to feed a tiny nation.

Unfortunately, I had a week-long course to attend, and my brother and his girlfriend and K had to play host without me. I will say very little about these next few photos, but put them up for my family to remember as well.



Yummy breakfast at the Boathouse in Maribyrnong, loved dearly by K, and tolerated by me. (I'm going to be in so much trouble for writing this!)



Travelling to the Dandenongs and Sassafras - Geppeto's Workshop, where Pinnochio works behind the counter and has to chop his nose every night because he'd lie so often to the customers in the daytime.



And of course, no trip to Sassafras is complete without a trip to Miss Marple's - wonderful scones, decadent sundaes and more teapots than in Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

I love this top left hand corner photo of my brother and D, taken expertly by K.

The Family Holiday Part 2

Road Trip Victoria: Healesville Sanctuary, Take 2.

I am starting to get so predictable that you'd knew I'd say that.

One of the other must see places for my family was of course, the Healesville Sanctuary, one of Victoria's iconic animal parks.

We started the leisurely drive in the morning and arrived for a brunch at the local bakers in Healesville. The town itself is quite quaint and probably had an equal number of locals and tourists, thanks to the Animal Sanctuary.


My mum wearing the White Car Hat which is part of the local custom.

The sanctuary itself is replete with animals - Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, and many birds native to Australia.

It is a great place to bring families - and partners, of course - the one and a half hour trip will be rewarded with hugs and exclamations of "So cute!!" from your partner, especially if they're female (and certain males, too).


Some of the family in the Healesville Sanctuary - wallabies (so cute!), Tasmanian Devils (so devilishly handsome!), sisters (so cute!), pelicans, koalas and kangaroos. Note the picture where I'm training a wallaby to pick the pockets of unsuspecting tourists.

The other thing that makes the Sanctuary such a fun place to visit is all their shows - they have reptile shows, which let you see the skinks and lizards up close, and if you are brave enough - to touch them. Eeeww.... so cute!


The four faces to employ when touching reptiles: (from L - R) the Chinaman face (this will make a good soup), the surprised face (it feels like a handbag!), the slightly disgusted face (it is slimier than my ex!) and the normal happy face (even the reptiles are nicer here in Australia).

But the winner of the shows must be the Birds of Prey and Parrot in Flights show, a finely crafted showpiece of some of Australia's smartest and largest birds - up close and personal. These are birds trained to entertain, and they certainly do a good job of it!

There is a part of the show where they will let the birds of prey fly quite near you, and I managed to take a shot of one of the birds as it swooped down towards me.


The Bird Show at the Sanctuary has birds getting rid of your rubbish for you, breaking eggs with stones, diving for fish in a pond from great heights and talking back to you. I could watch it all day!

The Family Holiday Part 3

It was a beautiful day when we decided that we would take a trip to Phillip Island to see the famed penguins there.

And so we set off towards the the south tip of Melbourne, and it was a day when God was just showing off - it was a perfect myriad of a multi-toned blue of the skies scattered with slow, pregnant, dirty-white clouds harmonizing perfectly with the lush green grass beneath, evidence of the recent heavy rainfall.

The sun was out in full force, making everything bright and beautiful, breathing life into the trees and bushes, dancing on the surface of nearby lakes. We had to stop several times to savour the handiworks of God.



There are many things that you can do at Philip Island, apart from ogling at Mother Nature - the penguins are a highlight, of course, but there is a chocolate factory (and Mr. Willy Wonka) on the island, and also a koala conservatory and the grand prix circuit for those V8 races, of course.

We had a bit of time to kill, and seriously, we should have gone to the chocolate factory and rolled around in their pools of chocolate and dipped in their caramel lakes, but we ended up going to the Nobbies and the koala conservatory instead.

The Nobbies is the southern most tip of the island, and even on a day like this where the sun was turned all the way up, the cold breeze from the Southern Pole still managed to cause us to shiver.

We met some natives there:

The Eskinuit tribe of Philip Island - as you can see, their men wear this ridiculous headgear to keep themselves warm. You can tell who are the leaders of the tribe because they are the only ones allowed to wear sunglasses. Their women are demure and often unhappy to be photographed. Hahaha!

We shared a lunch of D's patented chicken and avocado sandwich, and we walked along the boardwalk, and wasted money on the binoculars which were supposed to help us see seals lying in the rocks in the distance. We saw them, alright, laughing at us for having wasted money trying to spot them.

We then went to the Koala conservatory, for which I will not put up any pictures, because, to be frank, I have had enough of freakin' (Aloha, my love!) koalas.

The March of the Penguins

It drew nearer to evening, and time to head back to the Phillip Island Penguin Parade.

It was a really interesting experience - we were all seated on these terraced seats facing the beach as we waited for night to arrive, and for the penguins to return from a hard day's work of foraging for fishes for their young ones.

The evening wind blew delightfully on our faces as we waited with every one for the penguins to show. The dusk sky was a soft indigo on the horizon - the colour of a gentle bruise which the sky would nurse back to health the next morning.

And soon, the cloak of night was thrown upon us, and we waited and waited, peering out into the darkness. And suddenly it happened - first a head peered out of the waves crashing onto the shore. And then another, and another. And soon, a whole group of penguins stood at the beachside, calling out their unique quacks, waiting for the whole herd to arrive before heading back to their nests in the hillside.

It was interesting watching the social etiquette of another of God's creatures. I felt almost intrusive as I watched the penguins wait for everyone in the group to show, as they waddled clumsily initially and then began their headlong rush into their homes on the hill. They run in packs because they do not want to be eaten.

The guide explained to us that the very reason the penguins had white bellies and black backs were so as to be invisible to the birds of prey above, and the lurking sea creatures below when they go out to fish for food.

As the novelty of watching the fairy penguins' landing and charging up the hills began to wear off, we walked along the boardwalk and had the pleasure of seeing them in their natural habitat. My brother and sister were fortunate enough to see a few penguins get slap happy - their art of lovemaking was sadomasochistic, and not to mention, decidedly public.

Unfortunately, they had a strict no photographs rule in the Penguin Parade, and so I have had to take a picture off the internet instead:


Surprise! Now imagine getting slap happy with him!

Okay, so they looked a little more like this:



Walking in the dark and listening to the calls of the penguins echo through the hills was a humbling experience. It was like standing in another city, listening to the sounds of civilisation echo - another of God's amazing creatures, supposedly of a lesser intelligence, but with their own community rules and looking after the interests of not only themselves, but others as well.

Naturally, we went crazy at the souvenir shop later, buying all penguin related items before heading home under the blanket of stars and the Southern Cross.

Another Summer Day, Has Come And Gone Away

To all my wonderful readers, family and friends - I am finally home.

After two months of silence, I am finally able to stretch my cramped fingers and let it go crazy again on my laptop keyboard again to write to you the best way I know how.

The Flight Home

There is a girl of four and she looks like she stepped out of one of those kiddie commercials - blue-eyed, her fringe perfectly cut against her forehead just above her eyebrows and the two ponytails arched over her crown of blonde hair danced every time she turned her head. She had a dimpled smile that would disarm you and a twinkle of mischief about her.

She was sitting with her grandmother - her younger sister who could barely walk without falling was sitting across the aisle on her grandfather's lap. It is their first flight, and the grandfather has been gently explaining every thing to the younger sister to soften what must be a simultaneously scary and exhilarating experience.

The plane is about to take off now!
It's going to make a loud noise now, so don't be afraid.
Ready?
One, two, three!... Whoosh!

It is towards the end of the flight when the captain announces that the plane has begun its descent into Melbourne that my ears begin to feel the pressure change.

Nana! cries the four-year-old. My ears are blocked! she laughs.

Nana I can't hear you! I can't hear you Nana! I can't hear you! I can't heaAAAR YOU! she giggles to herself.

Her grandmother turns to her with kindness in her voice.

"That's because I haven't talked to you, sweetie."

The girl laughs, and persists - Nana can YOU hear me? What about now? And now? Andnow?Andow? Andow?Anow? Anow? Anowanowanowanow?

The grandmother smiles gently at her little granddaughter, and helps her back into her seat. She pulls the seatbelt carefully across and snaps it shut.

"We're going to be landing soon, sweetie. You're going to feel a big bump as we land okay? Ready? We're going to land now... coming closer, and closer, and closer... and three, two, one..."

There is no bump.

The girl turns to her grandmother and looks quizzically, wondering why the bump that was promised never eventu...

Bump! The plane lands with a thud, and the unexpected shock delivers a laugh through the grandmother and child, both revelling in their first plane ride together.