Confessions of a Dangerous Blogger:

After we fixed the car, my brother and I decided to go for a surf down at the nearest ocean beach. It is a 30 minute drive down the coast, but a good chance to test out the new (professionally installed) CD player in the car.

We went down to a beach called Gunnamatta and prepared to jump in the surf for some mid afternoon frolicking. As we walked down to the water, we only saw two other surfers there. They were far out too. It would take some paddling to get near them. Closer to the shore, the waves were smashing right onto the beach. Actually, it looked as though they were spinning as they landed on shore. The undertow and the crash of the wave seemed to happen at the same time, right before a wall of water barreled up on the beach. It was quite intimidating.

Incidentally, along the same stretch of coast in 1967 one of our Prime Ministers disappeared while swimming. His body was never recovered.

Anyway, not letting a tired piece of history both us in the least, we dived into the churning water and let nature take its course. Lyndon tried the surfboard first, but after 5 minutes of struggle, he decided to give it to me. I started paddling out to get to the surfers out the back, while Lyndon swam next to me. I was almost out there, when I spotted a wave heading toward me, looking like it was going to break. I increased my paddling and as it was on top of me I pushed down on my board in an attempt to execute a duck dive. It almost worked.

I felt myself being sucked backward through the water by an incredible force. Normally, when a duck dive is executed, the wave may hit a part of you, but you’ll come up breathing. The wave usually just passes the top part of water, leaving the bottom relatively unmoved. Not so at Gunnamatta. The whole body of water from top to bottom sucked me down. I spun a few times, was dragged along the ocean floor for a bit and then clunk my surfboard slammed against my head.

After making my way to the top, I was not pleased to see another wall of water heading my way. Think not blue skies, crystal clear water. Think churning, swirling, choppy water with grey skies. Think desolate ocean beaches and emptiness. I would’ve thought these things myself, but the only thought I managed to have was ‘oh shit’.

I tumbled around again, fought my way to the top and decided to find my board. It was tied to my leg, so it can’t have got far. I grabbed it and floated closer to shore. My brother approached, grinning. I don’t know why because he had been dumped too, although with less surfboard-hitting-the-head action. I tried to tell him about my near-death experience, but all that came out was “urgh”. To which he replied, “why is your head bleeding?”

Turned out it was rather a nasty bump. We headed back, me to hospital to get my bleeding head fixed, Lyndon to watch TV. We had dared venture into the water, thinking that we might conquer nature and nature spat us out, broken and bleeding onto the shore in under 10 minutes. Am I Aussie any more? We’re meant to withstand these conditions, fly in the face of danger. This is my country, I should be king of these lands. Has all my time overseas really changed me that much? The conclusion of the day hit me like a fiberglass float in a churning sea.

I’m getting soft.

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Today I went into the city to take some photos and see just how many people were there. If you hadn’t realized, the Commonwealth Games are on right now, almost finished in fact. I will forgive you if you didn’t realize this because you’re probably not from a Commonwealth country. Even if you are, I’ll still forgive you. I don’t really care much either. However, being in Australia and most importanly in Melbourne, my home town and the host the 2006 Commonwealth games I thought that I should go and experience at least part of the excitement.

The last time my city held something of this importance was way back in 1956 when Melbourne hosted the Olympic Games. We got a lot of stuff out of those games, like a few stadiums and such things. And a whole lot of memories of course. So now we have some new games to play and it should freshen up the city.

I had actually tried to get into the city the day before, however parking was impossible so I tried again today, and being Sunday and the last day of the games, it was a lot easier. First though, I had Yum Cha with my friends Keith and Chek Heng and their girlfriends Cheryl and Hiromi. You may have noticed Keith in my Sydney photos. He lives there, but his girl lives in Melbourne and he makes the commute. They recently got engaged and I had a chance to check out the ring and talk about the wedding. Looks like I’ll be heading to Singapore with my tux in the near future.

Yum Cha was interesting. If you’ve never had it, let me describe it for you. Firstly, it’s a Chinese lunch thing. Waiters bring trolleys of different types of food around past your table and inform you of what they have. If you like it, you take it. Lots of variety, lots of food and lots of money. You can get a whole assortment of food, from chicken feet to Chinese cabbage, prawn buns to peach and mango custard. The only downside of the meal was the little baby worm things that were still clinging to the Bok Choy. It was annoying because I specifically asked for fully grown maggots…

Anyway, after chowing down the various foods, I headed back to the city to check out the Games atmosphere. The city was alive and hot. It was a 32 degree day which is about 80 degrees in Ye Olde Measurement Style used in some unenlightened places around the world. There were a few events on, with the cycling the closest to where I was hanging around by the Yarra. There were tons and tons of people walking around, which is not uncommon for a Sunday, but probably about 4 times more than normal. I took it as pretty much my last day around the city, as I’ll be going back to Korea shortly. I wanted to take in as much of it as possible, feel like as much of an Australian, Melbournian or whatever the bloody hell I am. I also ate some vegemite. Due to the increased numbers of people around I was not able to fling a boomerang around and catch me some good bush tucker, so I just smiled and took another bite of my sandwich.

I have a hard time resolving myself to being Australian. Many people have this problem. They get stuck on the stereotype of their own country and just don’t feel it fits them. When you don’t follow the local sports, aren’t interested so much by the local cuisine, and find yourself longing to be in another country. Or when you don’t talk like your ‘mates’, wonder who those celebrities are on TV and frequently lapse into long dialogs about “what it’s like over there”. If these types of things start to happen, then you may find that you too are in cultural limbo.

If there are more of us out there, then why not start our own country. A country with no borders, currency or fixed address. A country that isn’t listed in the United Nations and won’t return your calls. A country with no leaders or followers. A country united by our diversity, not wars and sporting events. A country that you can travel to any place, any time.

Of course it has to have a catchy name too. Let’s face it, nobody wants to be from a country called Doobieland.

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