Tag: photography

World’s biggest slide

A few weekends ago, I went with a group of friends to the Tate Modern in London. This is what I wrote in my organising email.

On Saturday, I am taking the train to London to see the Carsten Höller exhibition at the Tate Modern. It features the world’s biggest slide
— it’s six storeys tall, and you can slide down it to reach 30 mph.

It’s free, too.

Where does the ‘art’ come into it? The description asks, “How might a daily dose of sliding affect the way we perceive the world? Can slides become part of our experiential and architectural life?”

I’m really only going for the thrill factor, though. Thought I might like to leave Cambridge a bit past 9 AM.

We arrived at 11 AM and got tickets. We were scheduled to slide at 2:30 PM.

In the mean time, we saw some really interesting exhibitions on the top floor of the museum and grazed around Borough Market. Borough Market was good but I wouldn’t recommend anyone go at lunch time on a sunny Saturday, which also happened to be the 150th anniversary day of the market. We could barely move.

When we got to the slide, a couple people in our group said they were feeling sick in the stomach. I was unfazed. “You can’t fall out of it. What’s there to be scared of?”

So I put on my safety cap and kneepads, and climbed into the potato sack.

The first bend was much scarier than I expected. My heart jumped. I giggled madly all the way down. It wasn’t exactly comfortable; the slide was assembled in segments so it was bumpy. My head hurt afterward.

In the evening, we went to see the Blue Man Group at London’s West End. Being students, we paid £15 for the best seats in the house. That’s a 75% discount.

If only I didn’t have to study, I could have fun all the time instead of just most of the time.

My friends made me prove that I was tall enough to ride the big slide.

There were three slides, I think. Kids could only go on the slides that began on the second or third floors. The six of us asked for tickets to the tallest slide on the fifth floor.

People kept falling off the sides of the slide when they came down. I think they fell because they try to halt their sliding. I was too busy giggling to think about stopping so consequently, I flew in gracefully and was poured onto the landing mat.

The faces of Intel, The Blue Man Group. It was very, very random. It was funny and clever, too. Worth seeing, especially if you have a student card.

A ramble through the Peak District

My first three days in England were spent at the Peak District. It’s a beautiful pastoral area about three hours north of Cambridge. Being used to the wild beauty of places like Australia and New Zealand, the tame English countryside presented a new kind of prettiness.

These sheep were in front of our hostel.

On our ‘day off’, a large group of us decided to climb Back Tor, a very large hill near Edale.

The 2.5 hour walk ballooned into a 4.5 hour hike when our navigator got lost SIX TIMES. He once said, “I’m 99% sure we’re going the right way!”

I don’t normally post photos with recognisable people in them but I couldn’t resist this time. I hope you don’t know him but if you did, you would understand that this photo captures a lot of this person’s personality.

As a group, these scholars represent some of the best and brightest in the world. The following photos show that intelligence didn’t stop us jumping an electric fence or two.

After jumping electric fences, we trespassed on very pretty private property. When people are lost, they tend to be willing to cut across anything to get to a recognisable landmark.

An illustrated guide to my immediate world

I still haven’t got a computer yet. I am writing from a special room at Cambridge, which has been set up for people on my scholarship. It’s a really nice room. There are couches and tables, free newspapers, wired and unwired internet, a foose ball table and a free drinks vending machine. This is the first time I’ve been part of something that has translated to ‘creature comfort privileges’. The previous scholarship holders tell us newbies that it is quite easy to pull rank here in Cambridge just by citing our funding body.

It sounds like my course is going to be intensive. I have classes from 6-8 PM on most Mondays and Thursdays. This wipes out many of the dance classes I wanted to get to. Oh well. I’m here to learn, not dance.

I’ve got some photos of where I’m living. I’m really pleased with the place. We have four people living in a reasonably large house. We’ve made friends with each other. In fact, I’m skipping a couple of social functions tonight so that I can hang out at home to cook with housemates.

Besides. I’m sick. I’ve got quite a nasty cold. A night at home will be better than one at The Cow, where there will be two for one cocktails.


This is my room. I have a ‘large room’ in a house, for which I’m paying about £90 a week. This seems expensive to me but there are others who are paying more.


Here is my bed in more detail. I brought the pillowcases, bedsheet and doona (‘duvet‘) cover from Australia and bought the doona at Argos. Argos is a catalogue store; it sells almost everything you can’t eat, at huge discounts to any other store. It can do this because it doesn’t display any of the items in-store. Instead, you look through a big catalogue, pick out the item you want, put in the form and the store assistants bring it out to you.

I commented to an English student that this was a bizarre concept. She laughed because Argos had been in business her entire life so it seemed quite normal to her. My housemate, Alex, is from Norway. When I showed him around Argos, he was quite delighted. This is a form of shopping particularly suited to men: know your target, hunt and destroy. None of this time-wasting browsing stuff that girls are often keen on.


This is where I’ll put the computer when I eventually get it. God, I hope it comes soon.

Note the Argos catalogue on the bottom shelf of the bookshelf.


This is where I keep most of my clothes. There isn’t much space for clothes. It’s a good thing I don’t have many (for the first time in my life, I am not crippled by choice).

See all the bathroom products on the chest of drawers? I bought most of those in the first week of arriving. I discovered that shampoo and conditioner are very expensive in grocery stores like Sainsbury’s. I am now a loyal patron of Boots, which is an English pharmacy superstore. I even have the loyalty card to prove it.


I brought quite a few pairs of shoes to Cambridge. I had an interesting time finding the blue pair during my second week here. I wanted to get shower footwear. In Australia, we call these ‘thongs‘ but in the rest of the civilised world, a ‘thong’ is an underwear/swimwear g-string. I am now required to call these ‘flip-flops‘.


The kitchen is our house’s communal space. We often stand around here talking to each other. For a week, we were limited to using the stove top only because none of us knew how to operate a gas oven. We ended up having to ask the domestic bursar. Quite a few people laughed at me when I told them this.

Because we’ve worked out how to light the oven, we’re going to cook home-made pizza tonight.


This is me cooking chorizo pasta. It turned out really well. As a result, my housemates think I can cook. I will see how long I can maintain this charade.


This is our first house dinner. Most days of the week, though, we go have dinner at the college dining room. Everyone at Cambridge belongs to a college. I chose my college because people told me it has the best and cheapest food. I have not been disappointed. It costs me around £2 to eat dinner at college (about AU$5.20), which is very cheap in England.


We have a big backyard, which has become a bicycle parking lot. I bought a bike a few days ago. I’m not sure I like having a bike. You have to park it, lock it, look after it. It reminds me of having a car. I haven’t had a car for more than a year now. Almost every student at Cambridge has a bike. As a consequence, there is a strong support industry in bike lock sales and bike insurance.

One evening, we pulled out the kitchen chairs and sat in the darkness of the backyard. Di lit some candles for us to sit around. There is now a pool of wax.


This is absolutely one of the best things about our house: location, location, location! We live on the ‘ethnic’ road of Cambridge. I have found three Chinese grocery stores on this road. There are also stores and restaurants featuring Indian, Algerian, Turkish, Greek, Brazilian, Korean, Japanese and vegetarian food, second-hand bookstores, wine stores, and supermarkets that open late. It takes me about six minutes to ride to the Engineering department, seven minutes to get to the centre of town and half a minute to the nearest doctor (who I visited this morning and who agreed with my self-diagnosis that I have a cold).


I took this photo early yesterday morning. Goodbye for now!

A vineyard at Red Hill

This is a vineyard near Red Hill, a town on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. Through the generosity of my friend Kieren, I got to stay in a beautiful newly constructed architect-designed homestead on Saturday night.

When the vines are full of grapes, Kieren’s family invites their friends over to pick grapes and make wine. To reward us for enduring a day of ‘hard work’ in the glorious sunshine, Kieren’s mum (a most accomplished chef) prepares a feast for us.

I like them ducks.

This pool featured in Poolside Magazine. On Saturday night, we sat in the 37°C water of the spa, drank wine and watched the stars.

This is Jemima. Kieren said, ‘She’s not smart but she’s very photogenic.’ I said something about Jemima being blonde.

Durian Durian

Yesterday, Damjan was introduced to the durian, a shy tropical fruit that defends itself from predators with its spikes and its fragrance.

Regarding spikes, I offered Damjan use of my steel-capped boots. Industrial-strength protective footwear is recommended to those who frequently handle durian and jackfruit, like greengrocers.

Regarding its fragrance, Wikipedia has some graphic descriptions. The fine city of Singapore has banned durians on its public transport. I was on the Paris Metro once and smelled a durian-like smell. People around me were complaining about the odour. I didn’t mind it so much because it made me think of tropical fruit.

As for its flavour? Mum and dad love it. Many people are addicted. Our first time taster, Damjan, says that there is a coffee aftertaste.

He said, “The flavour’s really complex. I think it’s an acquired taste.”

I asked, “Do you want to acquire it?”

He said, “Sure!”

Damjan likes food.

Reprieve

Every day in northern Victoria is a clear day — no rain, no clouds. We get beautiful light this side of the mountains.

It would normally be something to enjoy, this spring holiday in the middle of winter. However, we’ve been working with farmers and I’m starting to understand what drought means to them.

“We’re hoping for rain real soon,” we were told a week ago. “There are farmers out there with their fields empty. It’s pretty much the end of the sowing season but they can’t sow anything without water. If they miss this season, it’ll be the second one in a row…”

Jamie and I walked down the corridor of the main building, towards the exit doors. We were suddenly surrounded by a constant tapping.

“What’s that sound?” I said, puzzled.

We arrived at the windows and saw streaks of movement flying down from the sky and exploding on the ground, turning light grey asphalt to dark grey. The dark grey began as splotches but soon turned into a uniform sheen. I saw clouds for the first time in the two months I’ve worked in Shepparton.

“Rain!” I cried, almost in disbelief. “It’s raining!”

“Fan-bloody-tastic!” admired Jamie.

“I’d forgotten what it sounded like,” I murmured.

When we entered the next building, I felt the buzz of celebration.

“It’s raining!” people crowed. “About time! Just in time!”

“There will be a lot very happy people out there today.”

This is Lake Konardin in the Hattah-Kulkyne National Park. That’s right, it’s a lake.

The pub with no beer

We drove to Leitchville, a tiny town of about 500 people. Why were we in Leitchville? Because it was the nearest town to the middle-of-nowhere place we had to go to. We were there to meet David, who was going to give us a tour of the Pyramid Creek Salt Interception Scheme.

“Meet me in front of the pub,” David had said. “You’ll know which one it is. It’s the main building in town.”

We pulled up in front of the pub and parked alongside another car and a van. On the other side of the carpark, David waved to us. After a short discussion, we hopped into his car and started the twenty minute drive to the Scheme.

For the next two hours, David showed us the structures that they used to control the flow of Pyramid Creek. He took us to the pumps that sucked salty water out of the ground before it flowed into the creek. Jamie and I tasted the groundwater — it was almost as salty as sea water. David then drove us to the evaporation pans: 200 hectares of pooled water, waiting for the sun to evaporate it and leave behind white crystals of salt. The salt is then processed and sold as gourmet salt, amongst other things.

We were almost finished when my mobile phone rang. I was surprised I was even getting reception.

“Hello, Joan speaking.”

“Joan? This is Michael from Avis. Do you have one of our rental cars?”

“Yes, we’ve had it for about two months.”

“Is it parked in front of a hotel?”

I was confused. We had left our hotel in Shepparton this morning. “Um. You mean, a hotel in Leitchville?”

“Yeah, Leitchville. We’ve just had a call from the hotel owner. He’s going to tow your car away in fifteen minutes.”

“Excuse me?”

“He says that you’re parked in a loading zone and a truck is coming to make a delivery. If the car isn’t moved in fifteen minutes, he’ll get it towed away. I’ve got his mobile number. His name is Ryan.”

“Oh.” I racked my brains. “We’re not actually in Leitchville at the moment. I don’t know if we can get there in fifteen minutes. But, look, I’ll deal with it. Could you give me the number?” I scrawled the number down on a media release about the salt interception scheme.

I hung up and called ‘Ryan’.

“Hello, it’s Ryan.”

“Hi Ryan. My name is Joan. Avis called me to say that our car is blocking the way in front of the pub.”

“Yeah, a little silver car? It’s in the loading zone. The beer truck is coming. I need to get it moved.”

“We can get there in twenty minutes,” David murmured to me.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said into the phone. “We didn’t realise. We’ll be there in fifteen, twenty minutes to move the car. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, no worries. The truck will arrive about then.”

“Good, then. I’ll see you soon.”

We wound up the tour and got back to the Leitchville pub in 17 minutes. Jamie hopped out of David’s car.

“I’ll move it and go into the pub to let them know it’s been moved,” he said.

“Thanks, Jamie. The guy’s name is Ryan.”

Jamie tells me later that when he went into the pub, it was like a scene from a Western film, when a stranger walks into town.

“I walked in,” Jamie recounted, “and everyone turns to look at me, dead silence. I said, ‘Uh, g’day. Is Ryan around?’ and they all pointed to him.”


An inland ocean near Leitchville

Photos from England and France

The problem with having a digital camera and a portable 80 GB hard disk is that you take a lot of photos. There is definitely a risk of thoughtless happy snapping; it’s kind of like being able to eat as much junk food as you like because you have a great metabolism.

My only redeeming feature is that I’m not shy about deleting photos. I’ve deleted about 370 and I was happy with around 700, which is a two-thirds strike rate. It makes me feel better when I delete lots; the average quality of the remaining photos increases with each mediocre shot I send to the recycle bin.

I have finally gone through all my photos from the trip to England and France and here are some of the fruits of my labour. Don’t worry, I’m not going to subject you to a holiday photo slideshow — you know the kind, where the most interested person in the room is the one who went on holiday.

“Hi blog readers. Why don’t you visit my England and France photo album?”

I fell again


There’s a lake near where I live in Shepparton. We try to go for a jog around it in the mornings at about 6 AM. I used to run one lap while Jamie ran two, however, I found that I could probably run 1.3 laps instead of waiting until Jamie appeared around the bend.

One morning, I decided to do an extra loop in the far south-west corner of the lake. There’s a bridge that cuts across a section so I thought I could cross it a few times to add some distance to my run.

It all went to plan until I headed back towards the main trail. Suddenly, my foot had caught on something and I was falling. Instinctively, I put my hands up to protect myself before I hit the gravel.

I bounced back upright before the pain hit my palms. Winced. Couldn’t see the damage in the dark. I hobbled back to see a low hanging chain between two posts. It was less than a foot off the ground.

I brushed the stones and dirt off my palms as I slowly walked away. In two minutes, I was jogging again, more slowly this time.

The sky was lighter when I got back to our starting point. I rolled up my pants leg and saw a long gash of blood. It was shallow. Nothing as bad as the last time I fell.

Now, that would have been the end of it except for this postscript, the kind of postscript that often happens to Joan. An hour later, we were back at home getting ready for work. I grabbed my handbag and checked that I had the essentials.

Uh oh. Where was my phone?

Oh, I knew. I knew exactly where it was. Lying in the gravel near the south-west corner of the lake.

“Jamie, this is going to sound stupid. I think my phone fell out of my pocket when I fell over at the lake.”

Jamie stopped immediately. “Oh no! Are you sure?”

“Yeah… Do you think we should get ready for work then go back and find it?”

“No, I’d go straight away. There were a lot of walkers this morning. Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I’ll be right. Where are the car keys?” I grabbed a fleece jumper, shoved my feet into sneakers and ran to the garage.

I parked as close to the western end of the lake as I could, got out of the car and started running — for the second time this morning. I wondered what the people who saw me thought, this girl in black dress pants and a shirt, with a baby blue polar fleece top and blue sneakers running around the lake at 7:45 AM.

I was lucky. The phone was still there.