Chad’s Blog

I took a ton of shots of the lighthouse at Point Abino this past weekend. At times it was lost in a haze. Other times it was bright white on a blue lake.

I want to get one of these printed, but I can’t decide which one.

After two weeks of awful pollution in Beijing, the blue skies of Ottawa made me very happy. I snapped this shot on my wanderings around town.

Of all the absurd airport search experiences I’ve had, my flight from Christmas Island has by far been the most absurd.

“Sir, please step over here.”

“OK.”

“Sir, you have been randomly selected to have a personal frisk search conducted.”

“How Personal?”

“Sir, do I have your consent to conduct a personal frisk search?”

As I raise my arms and wait for the metal detecting wand, “Yeah, OK. Go ahead.”

“Sir, read this,” pointing toward a sign on the wall with a list of gibberish rules on how searches should be conducted. “Do you understand and agree?”

“Sure.” I start raising my arms again to be searched.

“Sir, please sign this.”

“Huh? OK, this is getting absurd.”

“Sir you must sign this.”

“Why?”

“To give your consent to being searched.”

“I already gave consent.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I told you that you could search me.”

“That’s not consent.”

“Huh? Sure it is. I’m telling you that you can frisk me.”

“You must sign.”

“Why?”

“Because you were randomly selected to undergo a personal frisk search.”

“There’s a difference between randomly being selected and being arbitrarily selected, but that’s beside the point. What if I don’t want to sign?”

“Then you don’t enter into the sanitized area.”

“I don’t imagine health codes would permit an unsanitary route to the airplane would they?”

“Sir, if you don’t sign the form then you’re refusing consent.”

“OK, but I’d like a copy of the form.”

“You can’t have that.”

“Why not? You want me to sign something, but not have a copy of what I’ve signed. That doesn’t sound right.”

At this point, the supervisor stepped in to say that I could keep a blank copy of the form. I started to run out of energy so I finally signed it.

The security contractor then proceeded to conduct the most awkward frisking I’ve ever had. For someone who is a professional frisker, this guy wasn’t comfortable touching me at all.

What got me going is the fact that every other airport in Asia frisks 100% of passengers incredibly efficiently. In the time that I spent reading search consent wall signs and signing paperwork, he could have searched everyone boarding the plan. In fairness, there were only nine of us on the flight.

Yes, the sky really was that beautiful blue colour.

Christmas Island couldn’t possibly be an Australian territory if it didn’t have some form of messed up wildlife. Crabs living on land might have qualified, but fish that live on land definitely fit the bill.

Watching them jump a foot from rock to rock was very cool.

The red crabs are cute considering they’re large red relatives of spiders.

What gets a little disconcerting is that they’re everywhere.

Their bigger cousins, the robber crabs are big and scary looking. They really reminded me of a creature from Alien.

What I didn’t realize is that crabs are foragers that eat whatever happens to be on the ground. Judging by the speed with which this guy snatched and ran, banana peels are a tasty treat.

We also stumbled across these little guys who are barely two inches from tip to tip, and have wee yellow eyes.

The trees were still brown, but spring has sprung and cherry blossoms are everywhere.

We had a great hike along the wall near Jiankou. Technically this part of the wall is closed, in reality it’s open enough that you need to buy a ticket.

Some parts were extremely steep, but very manageable. I couldn’t imagine living on the wall hundreds of years ago having to bring water up these cliffs.

It was the first beautiful day in Beijing this spring and it seemed like a great time to get outside. Peking University was the eventual destination.

It’s a beautiful campus, especially when cherry blossoms are in season.

It’s big, green, and run-down. The most interesting parts were the little details, like this old padlock.

One of Kashgar’s big attractions is the weekend animal market.

I’m not sure what a well-trimmed behind says about a sheep, but they were certainly well groomed.