Wholesale Therapy

Big news today: Costco opened its first Australian warehouse in Melbourne today! That’s right, the American institution of purchasing stuff in packs of 50 right off the shipping pallet, all under an expansive industrial roof, has finally reached across the Pacific to this corner of the world. I know they have locations in Taiwan, Korea and Japan, but as arguably the most Americanized countries in the Asia-Pacific region, it is high time for Australia to finally have a Costco.

For people who are not familiar with Costco, it is a completely different shopping experience than any other place. The biggest difference is that it has done away with the whole pretense of presentation: aisles are flanked not by shelves, but by pallets on which items on offer are shipped. The whole place is a steel-and-concrete warehouse; there’s no pop Muzak playing in the background and no shop assistants helping you trying on the shirt you want to buy. What you see is what you get. Items range from clothes to diapers, from groceries to pet food, from toiletries to cleaning supplies. You won’t find fifty varieties of canned tuna, but what you do find comes in packs of thirty. Want to get some toothpaste? There are packs of five on sale. Toilet paper? How about the packs of fifty? Want some apples? They have 10-lb bags. The big draw is that, per item, the prices are usually quite a bit lower than what one can find in retail shops. Obviously, you don’t go to Costco to pick up some bread and milk, because you will invariably come out with a hundred other things and $300 poorer. It is a boon for budget-conscious and well-disciplined people, heaven on earth for hoarders, but a giant sink hole for the impulsive shopper.

Now, Australians, or rather Melbournians, at least for now, will be able to stock up on a year’s supply of toilet paper and laundry detergent in just one trip. Apparently, there was a two-hour wait for the checkout today. People everywhere just love a bargain.

I wonder when they will open one up in Sydney.

Thirty-roll packs of toilet paper on sale at the Livermore, California, Costco. I had this picture taken to show my friends in Australia because I didn’t think they would ever see such a sight.

Juicy Juice

The house I am renting this year has a few huge orange trees in the back. And now they are all fully laden with ripe oranges and mandarines. Everyday, a dozen or so of them drop from the trees. As my housemate is not big on citrus fruit, I now find myself with more oranges piling up than I can shake a stick at. I have to get through them in a more efficient way than simply eating them. I can eat until I get sick and still wouldn’t make a dent in the pile. Besides giving them away, juicing them would be the most efficient way of consuming the mountains of oranges before they become part of the compost pile.


Ah, drinking freshly made orange juice is one of the simple pleasures in life (I know, I don’t ask for much). I can’t drink the stuff from the supermarket anymore. Even the “not from concentrate” version tastes “preserved.” One and half liters of the juice wouldn’t even last me two days. I am drinking so much of it that I am sure I pee vitamin C every day. But here’s the good news: no scurvies for me!

Clothes Lines

For most Americans, the image of freshly laundered clothes hanging in the breeze, soaking up the warmth of the sun, evokes the feeling of a quaint bygone era. Today, the crude imitation of “fresh spring breeze” scent that comes from a dryer sheet would be about as close as most people get when it comes to drying their clothes outside. In the US, not only are clothes dryers part of the standard household appliances, in many parts of the country where home owners associations rule with an iron fist, clothes lines in the backyard are actually illegal. They somehow have come to be associated with poverty, are considered eye sores, and thus, have a negative impact on property values. People throughout the country have to fight tooth and nail the get the “right to dry” law passed.

In Australia, that stigma associated with clothes lines in the backyard never seemed to have existed. Clothes lines like this one in the backyard of the house I am renting are not only a standard fixture in almost all single homes in Australia, they often are placed right in the middle of the open yard as the most prominent feature. Neighbors don’t grumble about having to look at your skivvies flapping in the wind; no one hyperventilates over being mistaken for living in a poor house because of the clothes line in the back.


Being the stingy greenie that I am, I absolutely embrace the clothes line for saving me money and being good to the environment. Yes, it takes longer to hang the clothes up on a line than simply throwing them into the dryer and push a button. But I look at it as part of my morning stretches. Yes, the weather dictates when I can do my laundry. If it rains on my day off, I just wait until the next dry day; I have plenty of underwear and socks. Worse comes to worst, if I really need to do laundry when it is raining, I hang them up on a foldable drying rack under the patio cover. On nice sunny weekends, my morning sometimes starts with the ritual of me standing out in the yard under the warm sun, with blades of grass between my toes, pinning the wet laundry up on the spinning rack. I then go out to do whatever for the day, not having to worry about my clothes getting wrinkled for sitting in the dryer all day. In the afternoon before the sun sets, the clothes are ready to be taken down. The wind has done the ironing for most of the clothes. And that smell of fresh air and sun soaked into the clothes just feels so – natural.

I just heard the washing machine buzz. Better go hang them up.

A bee visiting the flowers in the yard

In Retrospect: Venice

Not much needs to be said about Venice. Everything about it makes it an attractive destination: the labyrinthine canals, the history behind every building, the festive atmosphere, those gondolas, the colorful houses, even the throngs of tourists. My short trip to Europe with my sister in September 2002 included Venice in the spur-of-the-moment itinerary. Even though we only stayed for two days, the time was well spent getting lost in the backstreets, island-hopping by water-taxi, and filling my daily quota of gelati.

Venice is a collection of islands scatter through the lagoon, with the main island connected to the mainland by a train bridge.

View of San Marco Square from the poor-man’s gondola – the utilitarian water-taxi

San Marco Square was deserted in the early dawn.

At this early hour, the famous and famously annoying pigeons were the only visitors to San Marco Basilica and Campanile.

The gondolas were moored to pylons at the end of San Marco Square with San Giorgio Maggiore Island in the background.

Later in the day, the gondolas would be put into service for all the tourists who wanted that romantic ride through open sewage, er, I mean the canals.

The juxtaposition of gondolas and a warship

The water lapped at the edge of San Marco Square. Flooding has become a common occurrence in recent years due to both the gradual sinking of the city and rising level of the sea.

Gondolas going under the Bridge of Sighs

Get your tschochke along the waterfront

Art student or watercolor master?

While gondola rides are considered a must-do in Venice, we got around by the much more utilitarian water-taxi.

Just a quiet corner in some back canal

All the ubiquitous gondolas were starting to make the whole place feel like a theme-park, only tourists were riding them, after all.

Out on the Island of Burano, the residents must have been competing to see who has the house with the loudest colors.

An American suburban neighborhood association president would surely go apoplectic upon laying eyes on such gross violation of uniformity and the distinct lack of beige.

Filling up on gelato

In Retrospect: Tiger Leaping Gorge

Tiger Leaping Gorge, the name alone evokes images of peril, mystique, and majesty. In early December 2003 when I was traipsing around southwestern China, I made sure to do the three-day hike through the gorge. It is not in a national park, nor is it a “protected area”. It is simply a place where people happen to live in a stunningly beautiful setting. Two main trails runs through the gorge: the low trail was being expanded to accommodate cars and tourist buses, the high trail, well trodden by villagers living in the area, remained the footpath that connects the little villages that cling on to the side of the steep mountain. The villages made it possible for people who had no camping gear to see the place. I hiked with a small backpack, ate and slept at guesthouses run by entrepreneurial villagers who took advantage of the fledgling tourist industry being developed around them.

The gorge, flanked by the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain on one side and the Haba Mountain on the other, is reputed to be among the deepest in the world. The jagged peaks of the mountains drop almost four thousand meters to meet at the bottom, a mere twenty meters apart at the narrowest, squeezing the upper Yangtze River through a series of cascades and rapids. I hiked the relatively short high trail with a few other backpackers, enjoyed the warm Naxi hospitality, and visited the bottom of the gorge where legend had it that a tiger had leapt across to safety while being chased by a hunter.

Tiger Leaping Gorge is located in northern Yunnan Province in southwestern China.

At the western end of the gorge, the upper Yangtze, also known as Jinsha Jiang or the “Golden Sand River”, flows quietly through relatively gentle terrain.

Upon entering the gorge on the High Trail, the jagged peaks of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain was in view.

The Naxi House was a little guesthouse run by a local Naxi family. The Naxi people are the predominant ethnic minority group living in the area.

Maize and pumpkins being dried for the winter

Even the view from the toilet was spectacular.

Persimmons being dried in the sun

Higher up on the trail, the full length of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain came into view.



I spent the night at the Tea Horse Guesthouse, where I was greeted by the owner with nuts, snacks, and a bong with locally harvested “herbs.”

The next morning, it took a long time for the sun to rise above the peaks across the gorge.

After breakfast, the incredibly hospitable Naxi Mama sent us off on our hike.

The people carved out terraces and lived off the land.

The trail wound its way around the mountain, veering precariously close to the edge at places.

Taking a break with Inbal, Keeley, and John

The setting sun covered the gorge in a dramatic show of light and shadows.

The daughter of the owner of Sean’s Guesthouse swept the courtyard clean early in the morning.

The peaks of the Haba Mountain towered over the little hamlet at the eastern end of the gorge.

Every inch of arable land had been converted into terrace fields.

The water buffalo took a break as his elderly owner looked on.

The height of the mountains allowed the sun to grace the bottom of the gorge for only a couple of hours a day.

The river roared through the narrowest part of the gorge.

The vista opened up again at the eastern end of the gorge.

In Retrospect: Bagan

I had never heard of Bagan until I went to Myanmar (a.k.a. Burma) in February, 2004. It is THE place that gave Myanmar the nickname “The Land of Pagodas”. With thousands of temples and pagodas in various styles and sizes built between the 1000s and the 1200s while it was the capital of the Burmese Empire, Bagan exuded an air of otherworldliness. I stayed in Bagan for four days and explored on a rented bicycle the maze of dirt tracks connecting many of the pagodas scattered throughout the plains. It would take someone with a degree in archeology and Burmese history to fully understand the different styles and significance of the pagodas. Content with a simple description and explanation from my Lonely Planet guidebook for the major pagodas, I just enjoyed the artistry of the architecture and the relative isolation of the place. Pagoda fatigue notwithstanding, I relished the moments of watching sunsets while perched atop one of the taller pagodas, enjoying the delicious local food at roadside restaurants, and talking with the locals at juice stands and at the riverbank.

Sunrise from one of the smaller pagodas near my guesthouse

From the top of Shwesandaw, the countless pagodas dotting the now parched plains came into view. The lush vegetation would return when the monsoon came later in the year.

With very little vehicular traffic around, the trishaw was a cheap and efficient way for people to get around.

Vendors hawked souvenir at the more popular pagodas.

Shrines like this one, scaled to the appropriate size, are always found inside the pagodas.

This little kid sat with us at dinner. He was wearing thanaka on his face like many children and women in Myanmar.

This lady at our guesthouse made thanaka by grinding a log of thanaka wood on a piece of stone. Thanaka is worn as a cosmetic, sunscreen, and skin conditioner mostly by women and children.

With the cooling sensation of the freshly applied thanaka on my face and the drafty longyi tied around my hips, I was now ready for the oppressive heat of the dry season.



Lacquer ware was a famous local craft.

When parched from riding around the dry dirt tracks, a glass of freshly squeezed sugar cane juice was all you’d need.

Goats grazed in the shadows of the Ananda Temple.


Workmen repairing a sign in front of one of the pagodas


Ananda Temple, like many of others here, was still being used by the locals as a place of worship.


The afternoon sun streamed through a window inside the Ananda Temple.

This gilded statue of Buddha received many offerings from the locals.






Dinner consisted of rice with little dishes of delicious Burmese curries.

Sunsets were always magical in a setting like this.




The lifeline for much of Myanmar, the Irrawaddy River is a place where people do their daily bathing and washing.