A few things to remember from December 24th, 2014:

It’s Christmas Eve; stay left; The sky is so blue; stay left; Art House; stay left; Penguins Parade; stay left; This is beautiful!; stay left

From Melbourne to Phillip Island on Christmas Eve Day. Easy drive to the Island, first stop Pyramid Rock (just to the left of this photo…) The thing I kept having to tell myself was to, STAY LEFT! A small detail when driving on the opposite side of the road. I arrived to the Art House where I was staying, to a table full of people and a glass of champagne. This day was turning out to be excellent. I spent the afternoon with a fantastic family filled with wit, intrigue and just the right amount of self-deprecating humor.

As evening got closer it was decided I should go to the Penguin Parade. So I left the festivities behind in search of little fairy penguins coming in from the sea. I have to admit I was expecting a sort of Bracken Cave bat experience-millions of bats exiting a cave en masse. Not so much the case with the penguins.

I made it to the penguin park just in time to join a tour. Turns out you didn’t need a tour but I was so frantic I was going to miss the little happy feets I failed to read the fine print. It also turned out there was no photography allowed, at all. So already a bit disappointed, I followed the tour guide. As the tour went on it got colder and colder, and we finally made it to the beach where we would see this grand parade happen! I sat there on the sand, legs falling asleep, getting colder and more impatient by the second. I was bordering on semi-bitter when I saw a group of the cutest little penguins pass not too far from me, looked up at the beautiful sliver of the moon, remembered it was Christmas Eve and just how lucky I was to be there.

It’s been just over 6 months since my last post and I find it hard to figure out where to begin, again. Why is it so hard to post an image and a few words? I think too much about it and spend hours revising the verbiage. Really it’s easy, like riding a bike…that is if I got a bike and then stared at it for hours trying to figure out how it was going to make me look good! Got to drop that last part.

This cup of tea is from Malaysia, my first stop on this sometimes crazy ride that is living, and traveling, in Asia. So while I will backtrack a bit with some images, I will also do my best keeping up with the here and now.

It was amazing. Up close and personal once again. But this time up close to an elephant who loved me…loved me because I had food. I felt loved and a bit scared. But isn’t that how love works? Love and fear sometimes go hand and hand. This animal could have taken me out but for the food and her Mahout. She is blind and so she could only tell sounds and the sweet smell of food; and really it was but a peanut sized snack I had for her.  Still, if she had wanted, she could have pressed the issue and pushed me. Even her Mahout could not have stopped her. She did push a bit, and that was the love and the thrill. The smile on my face surprises me even now I see the photo; was I really that happy? At the same time, I know how happy I was to have contact with her and feel the thrill of such a primeval desire: food for her and for me at least, some sort of love and fleeting belonging.  We all need it and heck, I was simply giving her a cucumber at this point! The smile is as real as the cucumber I fed her. It was awesome. An animal that at any point could have charged me as far as I knew; but there was an animal who felt a sense of love and belonging – that animal was me.