I know some of you were anxious to read about Melbourne's latest fashion in the winter. I am sure you had seen a prototype of it in Toronto or in the cities you live. It's the belly-button ring sneaking through a small opening at the front side. But that is old fashion. The teens in Melbourne wore their pants so low, much under the hips so that you could see not only their bellies but the 'dividing line' of their bums. You know what I mean. In order to make it more interesting for the Canadian tourists to watch, they put tattoos on the bums. So the belly-button, nose, eye-lash, even tongue ring worn by the TO girls are all old fashion. Imagine what the scenes would be in summer time :-).

I already knew much about Melbourne since I was in high school. The Australian Broadcasting Commission or Radio Australia had a powerful transmitter with special broadcast beamed to Indonesia (in Indonesian language). It is a radio funded by the Aussie's government to promote the country and most important for me, it had a good English lesson program. That was how I became familiar with their accents. :-) Melbourne is the second largest city in Australia and my sources told me 3 million people live there. The transportation system is pretty good, mostly with trams and trains covering the metropolitan area. They have three zones for the train, Cecilia and I had the opportunity to go as far as Zone 2 only. The one way (2 hours fare) was $ 4.50. If you are just travelling in the city proper or Zone 1, you could buy a daily ticket for $ 5.10, it's $ 2.60 for 2 hours. What I like about other cities transportation system, you could buy a ticket from the driver or there is a ticket vending machine inside the tram. In TO this is impossible, you better have exact change. I have seen several times, unhappy people dropping their dollar bills into the fare collector box in our TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) buses.

Who among you had ever been invited to a 25th wedding anniversary half-a-world apart at 7 PM on a certain day and came exactly on time as the clock stroke the hour? I told you our journey went through several special gates and going to our friend's wedding anniversary party was one of them. Erni and Ben Sugija, a very old friend of mine since my high school days, invited us. He probably didn't believe it either when I said Cecilia and I would take the train to Springvale and walked to the restaurant that he said was just across the station. At exactly 7 PM, we stood at the front door of The Great Wall Chinese Restaurant where Ben and Erni celebrated their silver anniversary that evening. I met a few of my old friends from Indonesia who moved to Melbourne and had burned their bridges. We saved $ 9 for the return fare when F.L. a friend from my Catholic Student Union (PMKRI) days drove us home after the party was over.

Melbourne was a city of surprise, Cecilia had her own pleasant one too and I wouldn't share it with you less you be jealous. I had one more surprise, that was meeting a girl friend I had not seen for about 25 years. What amazed me, when I was a university student, I went to her home almost every day. I tutored her and her three brothers-sister. Yet, when she appeared at Ben's party and was one of the 'party animals' I didn't recognize her at all. On second thought, perhaps the way she dressed must have caused it. She wore a sexy strapless outfit and I may have not paid attention to her face that much. My fault :-), mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Only on the next day when I asked Ben, who his party 'star performer' was, did I learn she was the girl friend I knew. Ben then called her and we arranged a meeting, Indonesian style or over dinner at a nice Thai restaurant in the suburb of Melbourne. She was already married of course and had two girls. When I looked at her, indeed she was the girl I previously knew. I must be getting old :-) but Cecilia had a different theory, she wore lots of clothes that night.

Because of one or two reasons, we canceled our plan to visit and stayed at Phillip Island nature park near Melbourne. The main attraction was to watch live penguins in their nature habitat instead of in the zoo. Well, there will be other opportunity to watch penguins, perhaps in our trip to Antartica one day :-). We used our last days to meet friends and renew acquaintances with our relatives in Melbourne. Prior to our departure to the Melbourne airport, we were able to meet Siauw Tiong Djin, founder of CARI, Committee Against Racism in Indonesia. My NGO (Non- Governmental Organisation) in Toronto, CCEVI, invited him last May to come over to Toronto to attend our annual May Memorial event to never forget that May 1998 tragedy in Jakarta and pray for the victims. He had superlative praise for you guys and gals. He had travelled internationally and he said that our Toronto group is beyond comparison, something like that :-). I was happy to hear from him that all the events we planned went very well, thanks to the hard work of everybody. We went through our last 'special gate' when Tiong Djin escorted us to the Qantas lounge after we checked-in. My fellow travellers who used to go on business would know what that kind of lounge provides. If you have a first-class or a business-class ticket, the airline will put you there so you have a very comfy waiting time. Other than all-you-can-eat food and drink, there are ample readings for the bookworms. If your flight is still several hours away, you can take a shower or a nap in the lounge. Now you know why those who are in power would try as hard as they could to keep their 'platinum card' privileges. They might become THP, The Hurting People, once their power is taken away from them. I know none of you my friends are like that :-).

Well, it is time to finish the last series of my journey across four continents, America to Europe then Asia and Australia. Even though I was told that the grass in our backyard is knee-high, I would repeat this kind of trip and perhaps sell the house and go for a year like the Australians :-). Thank you once again for all your wonderful prayers and best wishes. Without them, this story would not have been possible. Till we meet again, adios, auf wiedersehen, good bye


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There are about 300 caves in Waitomo, according to our guide. We only visited two of them because they are the public ones, the rest are in private land. The first cave we went to was Aranui Cave, a limestone type with lots of stalactites and stalagmites. It was not a spectacular cave and the only reason we took the time because we bought a 'combo deal'. Two caves for $ 40 per person instead of $ 24 per cave per person. After all the trouble of driving 3 hours, half-an-hour just going through downtown of Hamilton, New Zealand, a city on the way to Waitomo, why did we want to be 'cheap'? :-). After all, Mother Nature's creation is much better than Leonardo Da Vinci's, isn't it? He might take a few years to paint one faded painting, the Aranui Cave was formed after thousand of years. The main tourist attraction was the Glowworm Cave. They say that the worm is unique to New Zealand. It is the larval stage of a two-winged insect that emits a light to attract its food. This cave was discovered by a Maori chief and his English buddy in 1887 when they went canoeing by the river near the cave. Too bad that I only discovered moose droppings when I went canoeing, else I would be as famous as those guys. "Was it worth the time?," you asked. Slightly better than when Cecilia and I saw The Last Supper in Milan because we had to walk for quite a distance before we boarded a giant aluminium canoe to go close to where the glowworm had an exhibition on the cave's ceiling. In Milan's Cenacolo Vinciano, you just walk a few metres to get to the ex-dining room with Da Vinci's painting. When the canoe started to move around the bend, everything was dark, so that the light from the worm could be seen more spectacularly. The canoe only went for a few metres, back and forth along a fixed railing that the guide used. Not bad for a day trip.

"What do you think of the North Island?," our host AB who was born in Wellington asked us upon our return. "We saw more cows than people but the roads were pretty good," I said. Yes, though after Hamilton the road became narrow, it was well paved. They could build more passing lanes and rest areas but these days I could stand longer drive without the need to water the grass (read: my hobby to pee on the road side and at beaver dam on canoe trips). Actually we saw more students than cows at Waitomo Glowworm Cave. They were Japanese high school students, 5 buses all together in their school uniform. I was told by my guide that indeed it was one of their school outings while in New Zealand. They pay NZ$ 25K for a one year 'farm stay' program and I am not joking. They stay in the farm including learning how to produce moo juice or how to milk a cow. Aren't the Japs amazing? Even Tuti and Amir in my Indonesian grammar book only watched their grandpa's cow being milked when they visited granny's farm. No wonder we all buy Japanese things these days and in the future perhaps 'moo juice' from Japan :-).

As I mentioned earlier, because of the weather, after we went to Waitomo we didn't venture to go outside Auckland anymore. We spent the rest of the days with our Indonesian friends, especially the newcomers to Auckland. Even though it was relatively easy for them to get New Zealand's permanent resident visa, finding job is a different story. In my opinion, this problem is compounded by the fact that in Indonesia, they already had good jobs and then, because New Zealand is close to Indonesia, they didn't 'burn their bridges'. This is a term I used to convince my fellow immigrants, only if they could forget to go back to their homeland (the nice things they were able to do or have there), will they feel good in their new countries, no matter where they settle. It has been proven from time to time. Whenever I met people that still have 'bridges', they always had complaints about their new place to live. They forgot that Utopia is only in the book and there's no paradise on earth except at Killarney Lake or Algonquin Park in the fall season :-). Australia and New Zealand's first settlers would never think of going back home if they couldn't find jobs. That's the difference between the immigrants a hundred years ago and in AD 2002.

Thanks to all the prayers and blessings from you all, the gale force wind in the evening prior to our departure from Auckland subsided and we were able to leave. But ... the plane had a special route. Instead of going direct to Melbourne as scheduled, it had to fly to Wellington first at the south end of the North Island to pick stranded passengers from the previous night. I considered that a nice side trip because we had the opportunity to catch more geography or scenery of New Zealand even though from above. The more south you go, the more rugged is the country. Our flight to Melbourne then arrived 2 hours later than scheduled. We were happy when we met L, Cecilia's niece who picked us at the airport and learned that she was wise enough to call Qantas prior to going to the airport. The weather in Melbourne was awesome and it stayed that way through-out our stay. I will tell you more about the city and our Melbourne experiences in the next episode. Till then my friends, bye for now. Read More......

Do you live in Vancouver, the car-wash city of Canada? You have a competition then and if you don't have a twin or sister city yet, tell your mayor to pick Auckland. Perhaps the 'special gate' that we took from the Sydney airport to go to Auckland was a wrong one. The sun never shined and the rain poured almost continously while we were there. To top that, toward the final day of our stay, we had gale force wind in Auckland and some other parts of New Zealand. However, the miserable weather in that city was compensated by the warm-hearted people we met, especially our host and hostess, AB and JB. I told you already how A the hubby had to sleep on the floor on an air-mattress that he blew himself, so that Cecilia and I could enjoy their bed. J gave me enough instruction on how to get to her home at Kepa Rd from the airport. As soon as we exited the terminal building and saw a bus called 'Air Bus' we knew that it was created to serve us :-). The fare to the city was NZ$ 13 per person, a bit pricey if you compare with Auckland's standard of living. For $ 6-7 you could eat a meal for two times. Yes, the food portion in Auckland is very generous, actually the same in Sydney and Melbourne. It is designed for hungry Indonesian students, so that for $ 13 allowance from mama or papa they can eat for a whole day.

Although the 'Air Bus' was an express airport to city bus (vice versa), it took about half an hour to reach the downtown area. We passed 'glass houses' suburb (J told me later) like One Tree Hill and Epsom. The property price in Epsom was sky-rocketed recently because it is located near Auckland's top university, AUT, Auckland University of Technology. The Kiwis (a name used by New Zealanders to call themselves) must know that some of the students' parents can buy houses like you and I buy camping tent. Yes, to those of you who don't know me yet, I own 5 tents. I would gladly share them with you though, at no charge. People bought houses there for either their children or to rent to the foreign students.

Thanks to my experiences in hearing different English accents I was able to communicate to the bus driver and asked him the bus number to get to Kepa Road from the downtown area. Auckland downtown or the city is not too big. The harbour was as beautiful as Sydney especially if the sun could smile at us. They boast they had more yachts per population than anybody else in the world, so they call Auckland a city of sails. We did see people sailing when we were in Sydney but not a single soul sailed in Auckland. "Winter," you said. Actually their winter is a joke, it was around 20C degree through-out our stay. I will share with you more about this 'funny winter' when we were in Melbourne and saw the latest teens' fashion (baring their bums).

You haven't known or learned about New Zealand until you stay at the Kiwis' homes. Actually this is a truth statement for visiting any country in the world. The best place to stay to know more about the place you visit is a 'home stay'. We spent the next 3 days chatting with our host and hostess as well as our other friends in various aspects of life. The only difference they have with us Canadians is in their English, which might become a strange language for most of you. What you call milk, in Auckland it's 'moo juice', from the sound of the producer. They are lucky that chicken doesn't have milk or else they have to say 'cock-a-doodle-doo juice'. Another unusual thing if you have never met or talked to an Australian or New Zealander is in how they address you. When they call you 'mate', they just like you and have no intention to make love or mate you. Also, don't be easily discouraged when they greet you in the morning and tell you that it is a good day to die :-). Enough kidding other people's English you said and I have to agree. The Canadians English is the purest in the world :-). They even speak with an accent in Britain.

By the time we were in Auckland, we have been to many places and used all kind of transportation but one. We have never rented a car since we left for Europe. Some of my friends told me that I am crazy enough to drive in Jakarta. It's even crazier to rent a car in Europe. I knew from the very first time we landed in Auckland, Cecilia was already 'sold' by the $ 25 a day car rental advertisement. Who would not? It promised unlimited mileage, insurance included. When I started to call a few, I realized that it was for the smallest and slowest car plus you have to rent it for several days to get that rate. However, since this journey is part of our 27th wedding anniversary celebration, I wouldn't want to jeopardize our 28th wedding anny plan. We found a car renting company that had a not-so-old Corolla (with 200K odometer reading) and reasonable insurance deductible for $ 65/day unlimited mileage. The rate would drop to $ 45/day had we rented it for 2 days. Most important, there was no additional charge for my wifey to drive that car too. We really had fun driving it back and forth to the Waitomo glowworm caves in the country side, 215 km south of Auckland. I will share with you our caving experience in the North Island of New Zealand in the next episode. Till then, goodbye mate.



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On Sunday June 16, after our first Mass ever in the Australian continent the Winartas released us to be under the custody of the Basukis. We knew Philipus and Diana his wife since several years ago where we met in the Internet, to be precise, in Paroki-Net mailing list, at that time the best Indonesian mailing list in the world :-). At one time, after reading so many fabulous stories, he didn't believe that such a writer existed. So he came over to Toronto from London, U.K., to meet me in person. It was only appropriate then that we paid him a visit in his own country of choice, Australia, and stayed for the next 2 nights at their place. The hand-over procedure was done a la Indonesian, over luncheon in a nice Chinese restaurant at Carlingsford in Sydney. The dim-sum chef could compete with any dim-sum restaurant chef in the world, in other words, not bad. Actually, it is not difficult to judge the quality of a restaurant. Just check how many people are lining up. If there's nobody inside, I am sure I can cook a better fried rice than the chef :-). The restaurant was jam-packed and if Sydney has (building) fire code like in TO, they had violated it.

We hinted to the Basukis that the Australian priest who celebrated the Eucharist said, "You don't see Australia until you go to the outback." So, being a fan of my canoeing stories and is aware that only Canadians can make love in a canoe, Philipus took us to the real outback. First we went to an ancient city, relatively of course, called Windsor. There were some differences than our Windsor, Ontario. We could relax there and there was no traffic jam. It's about an hour drive north west of Sydney. We tasted Aussie's genuine ice-cream, not bad but Milan's gelato is still numero uno. From Windsor, we went further north, about 35 km but through winding hilly road to Wisemans Ferry. This is the real outback and we had a 'free show', a real Australian bush fire. You probably had read about the terrible bush fire around Sydney last year. Seeing how vast the area is, you could imagine that it is not easy to douse a bush fire. The famous Hawkesbury River ran along our route. Had we have a week-time, Philipus would have rented a canoe for us, dropped and picked us at the Wisemans Ferry.

One criteria to judge how cultured a society is, is to check their washroom. If you have to pay 2 francs to go pee, you know that money is very important in there :-). I couldn't believe my eyes when I went inside the washroom at that outback place called Wisemans Ferry. It was spotless, cleaner than a McDonald Restaurant's washroom. They have running water plus enough TP, abbreviation for toilet paper that we the Canadian outbackers, I mean campers, use.

If you are a sport freak or watched the last Sydney Olympic, you must have heard about the world-famous Bondi Beach. It is not too far from Botany Bay. We went there on the Monday morning with an intention to go swimming, me only. It was not meant to be. Only surfers were allowed and it wouldn't be fun anyway to swim against several feet high of waves. The sky was overcast and there was a strong wind. It is winter in Australia, so all the surfers wore wet-suit, not fun at all to watch plus there was no beach volleyball match at Bondi. Actually it was really a nice beach, with white and soft sand. I am sure if I come back in the summer, Philipus would take me there again.

Realizing that we had become bored, Philipus told us an interesting story about how well educated are Australian sharks. If you are a Japanese or a Chinese, you don't have to worry about the sharks there. They will only attack and eat white and black guys but will run away if they see that you have squinty eyes. Their teachers must have told them about shark fin soups. No wonder the soups are very pricey in Australia. On Australian quality of education, some of my friends told me that at present, Indonesia's biggest export to Australia is school student :-). If you don't believe me, just go to any campus in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and you would hear kids talking in 'Bahasa Prokem' :-). I am serious, I met so many Indonesian students in Sydney and Melbourne. Well, even Cecilia contributed to the export by having her nephew and niece studying at Melbourne's RMIT.

Those of you who live in big cities know that every city has at least an area where the people live in 'glass houses'. In Toronto it's called The Bridlepath with million dollar houses. Thank God I don't have a friend who lives there because if I happen to be Li Kai Shing's buddy (who has a house there) you would never read my story. Cecilia and I would be playing mahjong with the Lis over private dim-sum. Thus, Philipus drove us sightseeing to an area in Sydney called St. Ives. I doubt he would want to live there because there would be no way he can fulfill his promise to drive me canoeing to Wisemans Ferry. He would be busy entertaining and pampering his friends at his million dollar home. Kidding aside, we couldn't have better hosts hostesses in Sydney than the Winartas and the Basukis. Philipus drove us to the airport in the morning of Tuesday, June 18 after we had a filling Vietnamese hot bread breakfast bought at Botany Bay earlier. Our plane for Auckland departed 30 minutes late at 9:55 AM and I will share with you our New Zealand's journey in the next episode. Good bye mate, till then.



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Sydney was the first city we visited in this fourth continent I ever set my foot, Australia. I had been wanting to come to Australia since way back when I was still working for IBM in Indonesia but my training or assignment was always to Asia and once to Canada (that made me wanting to move to). Because of the meagre pension I got from IBM (don't tell my ex-boss, he already knew) I chosed the last day of the low-fare season which fell on June 14th. That was the main reason why I flew to Sydney on my birthday :-). The combined airfare from TO to Jakarta return and Jakarta to Australia-New Zealand return was cheaper than if I bought 'around the world' fare. Besides that, we would have to come back through the U.S.A. As I said earlier, coming back through the U.S. is always my last choice. The U.S. custom officers are terrible, especially if they know we come from Indonesia. All in all, we spent about Cdn $ 6000 for our air tickets. Yes, three new canoes but what the heck.

Prior to our departure to Sydney, we already knew that both Australia and New Zealand have strict custom regulations. I didn't know therefore that going through the 'green line', non-declare exit route, almost cost me my Australian dollar allowances. We didn't bring prohibited items like meats and dairy products so with full confidence I checked 'no no no' in the custom declaration. Lo and behold, all our packs and luggage were x-rayed. The officer asked us to open them all and found two items that deserved questions. "What is this?" "Oh, that is a spice for cooking sir," I replied. They were 'bumbu masak' that made Indonesian dishes par excellent :-). "This is still food but it's OK," said the officer. I took my breath again. "What is this?" "Those are candies," was my sheepish answer. "It's chocolate but it's OK too." For the second time, I was able to breath and after that, I knew how to spell relief when the officer let us go without digging any further. We later learned from the Indonesians we met in both countries, DECLARE something that would make the officer happy and your 'martabak' plus all your other delicacies would be blessed to go to your friends or relatives' tummy.

We were very happy when we exited the door to see familiar faces, Winarta and Giokkie who we last met in Toronto about 20 years ago. Believing and enjoying our canoe camping stories, they ignored the fact that we almost didn't sleep at all in the airplane. It was fully loaded, thanks to the last day of the cheapest fare and there are 3 hours time difference between Jakarta and Sydney so that we arrived at 4 AM our body clock time. We went sight-seeing through-out the city, taking all kind of public transportation, from train to boat to monorail. My life long dream to see Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House came true. The ports are beautiful, more than Toronto and Vancouver, forget Halifax :-).

Sydney is about the same size as TO, around 4 million people live in an area that I believe is not much different from TO. The public transportation is quite OK though a bit expensive. A fare called 'day tripper', unlimited travel around Sydney for a day cost Aust.$ 13. Our Canadian dollar worths about 10% more than Australian. Sydney was 'discovered' by James Cook when he landed at Botany Bay in 1770. So it is about the same age as Toronto, much younger than my birthplace Jakarta which was built in 1527. Blame my Indonesian history teacher if the year is wrong :-).

The Winartas took us to Sydney Tower, slightly smaller than our Toronto CN Tower, still the tallest free standing structure in the world I believe. In there, we took Skytour, an animated 3D surround-sound virtual journey around Australia. Not bad mate :-). Yes, the continent is splendidly amazing and as beautiful as Canada :-). The floras and faunas are quite different than the rest of the world, and so are the people. My friend Dave at IBM said, "If you travel around the world (Dave is a world traveller) and find your fellow travellers, the American and Canadian would probably spend a week holiday in the place you visit. The European about a month and the Australian a year." I think Dave is right :-). Everybody I met ridiculed me for staying only 3 nights in each cities. I was glad that I could make an excuse that my wife wants to be at the World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto at the end of July :-).

In the evening, after dinner the Winartas took us to a beach, too bad it was not a lover's lane type but we were not after that though. After 27 years of marriage we look more to the stars above than to each other. :-) Yes, it had been a while I have not seen the Southern Cross constellation. It was beautiful, no wonder the Aussies put it in their national flag. I printed the sky-map of Melbourne prior to leaving Indonesia for Australia. We planned to go to a cottage at Phillip Island near Melbourne to watch the penguins and the stars but that will be in a different story. To be fair to both our friends in Sydney, on the second night we moved to stay at the Basukis. The sight- seeing and our Australian journey will continue in the next episode. Till then, bye for now.

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Hello my dear friends and families who couldn't wait to read our next part of yours truly 'around the world trip'. Australia and New Zealand's part is actually the third one after we left Canada on May 5, 2002 and spent more than 2 weeks traveling in Europe. We went to Singapore and Jakarta thereafter and stayed for another 3 weeks before we left for Sydney, Australia on June 14. I wrote my experiences while in Indonesia in my mother language, Bahasa Betawi, mixed with Indonesian and the language of the future generation called 'Bahasa Prokem' so that most of you won't understand anyway. As I still love Canada and my friends there, here is the third part of my journey with Cecilia my wife, written in English with no trace of Australian and New Zealand's accent.

I chose a unique title again as I did in my 'Europe Through The Side Door' for this story because I had been to several special 'gates' traveling to and in both countries. Who amongst you had ever had a stranger coming over prior to a trip you were going to make and gave you NZ $ 200 with no strings attached? Yes, a fan of my writings who had been following me since I moved to Canada, dropped by my Mom's house and gave me that money. To top that, Cecilia and I got a special gift of Aus. $ 1000 for sharing our experiences in life. "What about the gate?," you asked. How many of you had ever gone through immigration booth without needing to stop at that gate? That happened to us on our way from Jakarta to Sydney through the Indonesian immigration counter. Our travel agent just waved at the officer and he let us went through without even asking who we were we and what our names were. Perhaps going through this special gate could only happen in Indonesia, I wonder. In addition (remember this is post September 11, 2001) we didn't even have to show our faces to the Qantas airline check-in people. The travel agent checked us in and just handed the boarding pass. Yes, there are many special gates in Indonesia. No wonder a few of my friends and relatives said this country is a "paradise" for doing business and I am sure you know what I mean.

There were other special gates that we went through while we traveled. First in Sydney. We didn't have to learn about any public transportation there because one of our friends picked us at the airport and the other one dropped us when we left Sydney for Auckland. We stayed for 1 night at the Winartas, my friend from IBM Indonesia who I haven't met for 20 years and 2 nights at the Basukis, our friends from Paroki-Sby. Throughout this third part of our journey, we had excellent demonstration of Indonesian hospitality. Imagine this. Our host and hostess in Auckland, AB and JB, an Internet friend from my Psychology mailing list let us use their daughters' room so that A the hubby had to sleep on the floor on an air mattress. BTW, A is a native New Zealander who had become 'Indonesian', thanks to J's brainwashing :-). Yes, only Indonesians would suffer for their guests and the immigration officer would wave at friendly tourists like us :-). Only among Indonesians would you find two-bedroom apartment that can accommodate 7 people and that how we stayed in Melbourne. You won't be surprised then if I tell you, I have a friend from Indonesia who had lived in Toronto for 25 years and is an executive with a prominent company. They don't have beds in their home which is a very big house, worth close to a million dollar. They all sleep on a mattress on the floor just like what we did in Melbourne.

As it happened numerous times in Europe, we felt grateful for all the gifts we had received in our Australia and New Zealand's trip. Thanks again to your prayers or your special blessings. The weather in Australian cities we visited were excellent. Even the local people couldn't believe our luck :-). Yes, on the other hand we were showered through-out our stay in New Zealand. The sun never said hi to us, not even for a second. Then we understood why it was like that. It was meant to be so that we had the time to gather with some Indonesian immigrants in Auckland. They are having a hard time and therefore I recommended them to read my sharing 'Pengalaman Imigran Toronto' that I wrote many years ago. It was a story of Cecilia's and my life as immigrant in Canada, the best part and the not-so-good aspect. A few said, if they could they would prefer Canada but it was the most difficult. New Zealand was the easiest for them to get permanent resident visa compared to Canada and Australia. Forget the U.S.A., none of those Aucklanders would like to get their shoes x-rayed when boarding the plane :-).

I haven't told you yet. When I was in Bandung, we went to the best (meaning most delicious) restaurant for 'martabak', an Indonesian delicacy. They sell both the cake type (martabak kue) and the egg and meat type (martabak daging). The name is Martabak Canada and if you are a local people, it is at Jl. Kebon Kawung. I asked the owner (I was assuming because he seemed to be the boss) why did he name it Canada. I thought he was once a Canadian landed immigrant that was not able to stand cold weather because these days, Bandung has hot weather, thanks to the pollution. He said, "In order to be well-known," (biar terkenal). I said, "Why don't you use Martabak U.S.A.?" "I don't want to be bombed," was the answered (saya tidak mau digranat). Well, that's one of the reasons why some of my friends in Australia and New Zealand prefer to live in Canada than in the USA, if they had a choice.

Till the next episode where I will tell you our experiences in the 3 cities and their vicinities that we visited. It may not be as interesting as our experiences with 'Marylin' (that some of you liked that episode very much :-)) but I have different excitement to share. Till then, bye for now. Read More......