Chillin in the Maldives with MWSRP

Hey Chia!

Love the photo of you mixing music! What a dj!

It must have been great to catch up with friends over good food!

Things here in the Maldives have been pretty awesome, I've been slowly getting used to sea sickness which is a big plus. I can now ride the Dhoni without needing to fight off the urge to purge. However, I still feel nauseous at times and still get land sickness (swaying).

I've been learning heaps about whale sharks, the ocean, people in the industry and about myself too. I really enjoy chatting about the importance of conservation with the MWSRP team and they have wonderful ideas and experiences around this area. I also enjoy hearing their active lives. They all have been well travelled and live each day on the basis of living simply and sustainably.  I feel my mind expanding each day.

Time out on the boat for hours on end is great thinking time. It really has made me appreciate living and being in the moment and not being caught up on things like money and material things. I didn't think I was too materialistic before (except for my passion for gadgets) as I really paid attention to the small things in life, but I think that now, living out of a suitcase, wearing the same icebreaker shirt every day and being able to wash it every night, as made me really reconsider all the stuff I have. Like really, do I need 30-50 different tops etc?

I have 4 quick dry button down tops from mountain designs, however, I still find myself just washing my icebreaker top at night to wear it for the next day. I love the feel of the fine merino wool, it's stretchy, and I like the colour. No one judges here. :) I'm considering sending 2 of those tops back home so I just have 3 tops when we go to Europe.

You were so right about packing light. The guys at MWSRP were impressed at how light Kev and I had packed, however, I wanna make myself lighter. I think I did pretty well except for the shirt and for the toiletries department. I packed my Biotherm face washes, and they at so much weight. I never use them here too... Hrmmm

Anywho, here's a photo to leave with you. It was taken by Alissa and is of Chris, Kev and I (volunteers) and Neal (another MWSRP team member) on the staff beach at the Conrad Rangali.

First day in the Maldives

Hi Chia!

So a quick post on our first day in Male.

We woke up feeling exhausted, the time difference was a bit of a challenge (we are 3 hours behind Perth), however we got ourselves up and out of bed.

Here are some pics.

Our view from the balcony:




Male all flagged up with political fever. When we arrived last night, our taxi actually ran into a protest. We has to reverse out of the street. We were pretty safe and we got to our hotel soon after.







Some cool street art.



The AMAZING WATER! This is the water in the harbour; you know, where there is usually murky water with junk everywhere and rotting seaweed? Not in the Maldives! It's turquoise blue!




Kev and I had a free arvo and I asked him if he was willing to help me achieve my weird goal to walk or run around a whole island. He didn't hesitate to accept the challenge. We ended up walking for about an hour and 15 minutes to finish a complete loop around the island of Male.



We were super proud of our walk! I was gloating at accomplishing this mission!




The walk allowed us to appreciate things that other tourists wouldn't see, like where the army stay, where the landfill is placed, volleyball courts!, a lap and paddle pool created in the ocean by the locals so that they could swim!

We are now chilling in our room and are going to rest up as tomorrow we take the seaplane to the Maldives Whale Shark Research Program (MWSRP) base and start our volunteer role!

I'll try to blog when we get Internet access, however, I do not know how frequent that will be!

New day, new life, new hair

Hey Chia!

It's been a looooooong while since both of us have blogged! I know that respectively, we both have been busy. On my side, my life was preoccupied with work, and trying to get through the minutes, hours, days and weeks without going insane. Admittedly, I wasn't happy. I haven't been happy for a while and because we wanted our blog to be inspirational and one of positive thoughts of big and small, to be honest, there was nothing to write about.

So, eventually I hit breaking point at work. I'm not going to go into the details of what happened, but it wasn't good, and so I resigned. I decided to hang up my suit and call it quits to being a lawyer.

It was a long time coming. The rational side of my brain trying to convince the creative and emotional side that to stick it out in law was the right thing to do. I mean, I've been in law for almost 10 years - 5 years at uni, then straight into work as a law clerk, articled clerk and then lawyer. 2004 to 2013. It seemed silly and foolish to let it go. But deep down, I knew it was right.

Now, I'm just free to recover from the stress and to reassess life.

I haven't felt this good in years. I also felt compelled to completely shed my old self. This included a makeover.





I've never had my hair this short!!! Apart from when I was in pre primary school! It was liberating and I feel so free and different! All these years I was too scared to do the bob! But after resigning, I was literally like 'why not! It will grow back!'

So with old Anna gone and new Anna to be discovered, for the first time in years, I feel hopeful. I had lost all hope previously, without even knowing it.

So...What do u think? Does it suit? :)

Amazing strangers

Hi Chia!

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. I've been both busy and unsure of what to write for our blog.

I hope you had a good Easter break! I loved catching up with you and having our girly dessert date! :)

One of the things that happened this weekend included meeting this wonderful couple at my beach on Friday morning.

I had gone for a run and went for a quick snorkel. The water wasn't the greatest as I was thrashed around the reef a bit and there was poor visibility. I pulled myself out of the water, camera and snorkel in one hand, and my other hand stabilizing myself from the insistent waves and the soft sand beneath me which sunk at each step.

I was a little sad that it wasn't a great session but I was happily buzzing from the adrenaline and chilled water.

I spoke to two fisherman who showed me their catch (3 whitings), a nice man in speedos who told me that the water should be better in the following days (he was an experienced diver), and a kayaker who had no luck in catching any fish and whose friend got stuck in his kayak in the middle of the ocean and threw the biggest tantrum on water that I've ever seen.

While I was talking to the Friendly Kayaker, the two fishermen called out to him saying that his friend may need some help. As we looked to the flat horizon, his friend was swiping and waving his arms up in the air, and angrily threw his paddle into the ocean on more than one occasion. The Friendly Kayaker just laughed and his good nature encouraged me to laugh too.

'Should you go help him?' I asked.

'Haha.... Nah. He should be fine out there,' he laughed as we looked on.

After a few minutes he sighed and said 'Yea, I better see what's going on,' and he laughed to himself as he pushed out his kayak.

It turned out that his friend ended up being caught on something, and resorted to cutting his anchor. When they returned to shore, the Angry Kayaker unintentionally caught a wave which tipped him over. We all laughed as we saw his angry head pop up from the water, hat soaked over his face and his fishing gear bobbing away out to sea. As the Angry Kayaker started swearing and shouting in frustration, the Friendly Kayaker kept laughing in good spirits as he swam out to help collect the escaping equipment.

It was a very humorous morning.

After that, I was getting a little cold and hungry so I turned around to walk back home. As I climbed the stairs I approached a couple enjoying breakfast with their dog on the look out. I smiled to them and the woman asked me if I saw anything out in the ocean during my snorkel.

'Nothing,' I sighed, 'It was just too murky out there.'

We then started talking about the stingrays, dolphins and sea lions that we all had seen out there. At some point in our lively conversation, Mr T pointed that he could hear a slight American accent in my voice. I then told him that my Dad was from the US, to which Mrs T excitedly claimed that she too was from the US.

We then went into our backgrounds and life journeys. It was an inspiring and exciting conversation. They both were such lovely and warm hearted people. So open and so engaging.

Mrs T then invited me to come visit them and meet their son who had a similar life journey as me and that it would be wonderful to exchange further experiences. I thanked them for their generous invitation as we exchanged contact details.

It was an amazing experience. I am truly in awe at the kindness of strangers. I find that the more I open up to people, the more I learn about other experiences, appreciate how there are so many different opportunities out there for the taking and I really feel the 'magic' of coincidences or things that 'happen for a reason'. It also helps me remember that there are people out there who genuinely do want to connect and help others. That desire for a genuine connection and finding it in the most random situations is what makes people and life amazing.

I ended up visiting Mr and Mrs T on Sunday and met their son who is an amazing musician.

I hope to find time to visit them another time in the future.

ColorRun!

Morning Chia!

I can't believe that yesterday and the ColorRun has already come and gone!

I was so amped and excited for this run!

Our team, 'Rainbows and Unicorns', which consisted of Kev, Clem, Drew, Katie, Amy, Shaz, Sas, Charlene, you and me, did so well in keeping together and walking, running and dancing our way through the different checkpoints and finishing the happiest 5km ever! Unfortunately, we were unable to meet up with Viv and Elvina, but they were there in spirit!

I don't know about you, but the whole day was so fun for me! I just got this little buzz and I was uncontrollably happy! Perhaps it was the mixture of awesome music, friends, exercise and lots and lots of bright colours!

The ColorRun is spelt without the 'u'. However, marketing was awesome and has said that you put the 'u' in ColorRun!

Anywho, here are some pics and videos of the day! Enjoy!

The first ones there! Thanks Chia for the awesome hats! Totes love theeeeem!

Drew & Katie!

Our group is exploding 

What animals do in the Savannah - they laze around under the shade of a tree

The fellas

The girls

What about dancers?

Yaaaayyyy!

And the Rainbows and Unicorns are off!

In the wind of Pink

At the Blue Checkpoint. They told us to roll, so we did.

Looking smurfy guys!!!

Our team being monkeys!

Orange Station Volunteer bent on OompaLumpafying me.

Color Ninjas... they were surprising and fun!

We so colorful!

Love Clem's face

Rainbows and Unicorns!

Hooray!

Jumping for Joy

So happy that the run makes you do cartwheels

Hooray we did it!

ColorFestival!

We love colour

Spotty Hair

Conga Line

Orange me please

Toss!

Getting sorta over-coloured now

Our mascot!

The Rainbows and Unicorns Team

The messy train ride home!

One of the funniest things was the after math of the ColorRun and ColorFestival! It took a lot of baby oil, body wash and a sturdy sponge to assist in washing all the beautiful colours off! We also spent the afternoon soaking our clothes in NappySan (except for our ColorRun shirts, which we soaked in Vinegar in hopes of preserving the colour on the shirt!)

There's a crazy amount of photos, and so I need to sort through them and post more on Facebook!

Sorry for such a short post! I gotta head off to work now!

Hope you had an awesome time Chia!

Valentine's Day rewind

Aren't you a lucky ducky Anna? That is a very clever card Kev made you :) Proven skills for a surgeon right there. I'm glad my card was to your liking too. Hallmark has nothing on us Kev! Plus I can't believe how expensive cards can be! $9.99 for a bit of diamantes and embossing? Hrm...

So it's Valentines and it's been a lonnnnng while since I've had anything close to a romantic one. However today was romantic thanks to you and some fro yo :D Love our fro yo dates even if it's for a short while.

My love

We LOVE fro yo!

Is it strange that I'm getting my jollies from hearing and seeing what people do for Valentine's? I was driving and I saw a man with a dozen helium love hearty balloons that he was trying to contain inside a huge plastic bag. He was also trying to catch the bus! I hope the lucky lady was delighted by them. If only I could find out...


I'd best describe my previous Valentine's Day as adventurous and fun! I managed to cross off two things I've always wanted to do.  Learn to surf and test out the buoyancy in the Dead Sea.

Valentine's  2012

On this day I enjoyed my new addiction to flat bread and hummus for breakfast with Lauren in Amman, Jordan.

 

Then on our way to Petra, we stopped by the Dead Sea and were thrilled to bits how buoyant we were.

Valentine's 2011

On this day I woke up ridiculously early for my third day of surfing lessons in Bali.

I don't know if I ever mentioned my hot surf instructor Ketut. Yes as in 'Ketut and Rhonda'. Except of course this Ketut is exceptionally good looking. Waking up at 5am has has never been that easy!

Lastly, isn't this cute?

Oh and I love Google's interactive banner. I've been clicking to see how the animals would celebrate their Valentine's! Funny stuff.