It has been a wonderful few weeks and the eternal optimist in me is filled with love and hope.  Its hard to know where to begin but most importantly, the Australian Parliament has finally signed off on the same-sex marriage bill.  This was an historic moment of not only love and compassion but one of equality, dignity and the acknowledgment of the most basic of human rights.  I often wonder how beautiful our world would be if we stopped negative and hateful judgment of others and instead respected and encouraged their journeys.

Although not compulsory, just over 12.6 million people cast their postal vote with 61.6% of people voting YES and 38.4% voting NO.  I have so much pride in our wonderful county.

A little random rainbow chalk bombing never goes astray…….

Rainbow over the Newcastle Marina…….

The city I love and very happily live in, burst with pride and a thousand mullets when the SuperCars came to town.  Now this has certainly been a contentious event which saw mass disruption, chaos and the divide of residents who were either enthralled or enraged by it all.   Whether you love or loath the SuperCars being in Newcastle, there was always going to be an upside.  And that is, you get to channel your inner bogan for a few fabulous days and that my friends, is never a bad thing.

190,000 people descended on Newcastle with car enthusiasts, petrol heads and everyone else mingling blissfully together under the most perfect of summer skies.  Cold Chisel headlined and I very happily discovered you can recognise when a bogan has come of age as they turn up to a Chisel concert in a well ironed Bintang tee.  Happy days indeed.

‘I love ya Mossyyyyyyyyyyyy’……. 🙂

As the rains hammered down, we gathered at Roche Estate in the heart of the Hunter Valley.  Drenched to the bone, we hunkered down in our plastic rain ponchos and waited.  Then a slightly built man with grey hair and beard walked on stage.  It was Yusuf/Cat Stevens.

I do believe some kind of wonderful fell over the vineyard that night as the moment he began to sing, the rains stopped and they did not begin to fall again until after he left the stage.

That soulful voice, unchanged by the years, delivered messages of peace and tolerance, love and reassurance.  And those beautiful lyrics of yearning, question and hope uplifted the soaking wet 14,000 strong crowd.

He was haunting and humble and I fell in love with him all over again just as I had done in the 70’s.   I announced to my husband when I arrived home that I was converting to Islam.  He hid his shock at this revelation well I thought 🙂

This beautiful image is courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald…….

I wrote a blog post recently, published 1st October, with part of the title being There are some moments in life which bring a rare loveliness…….. In that post I wrote of how women can very often face the obstacle of other women who are driven by an unfathomable meanness to destroy and I have also written, again based on my own experience, of how unspeakably cruel some women can be.  When such brutal persecution is targeted toward you, it will leave an aching chasm which makes one so very wary.  Ever vigilant, you develop a caution toward others which makes it near impossible to foster any new relationships.  In that post, I also wrote of my great fortune in meeting some remarkable and inspiring women and it was one of those women who sat right alongside me during the concert.  There are few things which have as much impact nor define and sustain our souls than acceptance, friendship and happiness…….and the mutual love of a Cat.

So back to our last days in Hong Kong and what more can be said of the home of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat and the amazing bamboo spidermen.  Yes indeed.  The scaffold workers of Hong Kong are dubbed ‘bamboo spidermen’.   The spidermen move about with such agility on what looks to be the most flimsiest of frame-work, all of which, is constructed entirely from bamboo.  It must take incredible skill and courage to erect these neat, intricate and very complex platforms and walls which hold hundreds of construction workers daily.  This very traditional building method, the use of long slender bamboo poles tethered together with Panduit ties, form the most amazing exoskeletons which are even used in the construction of the tall, ultra modern skyscrapers.  Again,  this is Hong Kong so effortlessly slipping between century old tradition and a very modern world……….

The unassuming ‘bamboo spidermen’…….

This bold city, which also has one of the lowest crime rates in the world, comes alive after dark.  When the sun sets, the neon lights rise to assault your every sense with a glowing radiance of colour and energy.  Hanging overhead from the decaying facades of old apartment blocks and shops, there is such charm in this cityscape and I love the way the light from these incandescent masterpieces’ hits a wet pavement to become so very like a watery work of art.

Very sadly though, and this is due in-part to the sterility of the digital age, these wonderfully iconic pieces of signage, the inspiration for many futuristic sci-fi films including Blade Runner, are beginning to disappear.

A final snapshot…….

Every jewel store in Hong Kong sells these sweet gold pigs which represent sincerity and honor………..and a whole mess of affluent cuteness

Our time over in Hong Kong we boarded a boat headed to Taiwan, a little over 388 nautical miles away.  And I would just like to point out that to drink rum at 8 o’clock in the morning does not make you an alcoholic!  It makes you a pirate 😉

And suddenly, there was nothing between Hong Kong, Taiwan and me but that incredible expanse of the China Sea…….xx