ABSOLUTE ASCENDANCY

Commencing Operation . . .

Overview

Australia.

Almost half a year.

What did I end up doing?

In this entry, I will unveil exactly what I did and the many things I learned through this vacation. For those who do not know, I was born in Melbourne, and I hold dual citizenship in Australia and the United Kingdom. Over a year ago, my parents decided to move back to Australia to retire, and I had been meaning to visit them but struggled to find the opportunity to get enough time off from work to go see them for a reasonable amount of time. The company I was working for at the time decided to end my contract prematurely. Suddenly I had ample free time with severance pay to serve as a financial buffer. Conditions were as good as they were going to get, so I booked my flight to New South Wales and let my parents know that I’d be with them soon.

I would be living with my parents and grandparents for the first couple of months while at the Central Coast, after which I would spend the remaining time up in the North Coast. Here is a list of 20 things I accomplished while on my extended vacation.

1) Used three days to visit Sydney

2) Spent four days in Melbourne

3) Went to Scenic World

4) Enjoyed the end of year celebrations with my family

5) Visited a Buddhist temple for three evenings

6) Helped my family move house

7) Took care of my grandparents

8) Visited many different beaches

9) Spent a week undertaking intensive strength training and kickboxing

10) Trained in a Karate club with strong Okinawan roots

11) Joined a weekly board gaming evening

12) Purchased an old antique piano

13) Read through many books

14) Started writing my first book

15) Attended a Charity Black Tie event

16) Went to a street party with live music

17) Discovered the joy of gardening

18) Purchased two pairs of Birkenstock shoes

19) Competed in a Koshiki Karate tournament in Tamworth

20) Spent three days undergoing some specialised Karate training in Inverell

1) Used three days to visit Sydney

We stayed in a reasonably cheap hotel and spent much of the time walking around and exploring the city. On the first day, we visited the Chinese Gardens, which was really nice. The architecture was very appealing, and we managed to see a couple of lizards, turtles, fish and various species of birds also. We then took a ferry from the City to Manly beach, which was enjoyable on the whole, albeit a bit cold. I managed to take some great photos of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. The beach itself was small but if I was going to live in Sydney, I think a location near to Manly beach would be great.

On the second day, we walked across the Harbour Bridge, and there was an opportunity to pay money to take a lift which goes near enough to the highest peak of the bridge. The weather wasn’t great, and it was quite windy, so we decided to give it the skip. We visited the Opera House and saw it up nice and close. We didn’t actually go inside though. The shopping centre we went to had a sweet cake shop, so we treated ourselves to a sublime strawberry cake. In the evening we went to a nice Japanese restaurant. We ended up returning to the shop on our final day to buy a small cake to take back to the Central Coast.

2) Spent four days in Melbourne

My cousin visited me for two weeks in the Central Coast, so I wanted to return the favour by visiting him for a few days. I wanted to stay longer, but there was a lot of preparation I needed to assist with for the house move up to the North Coast. Anyway, on the first day, we go shopping at Adidas because I wanted to get some new sports gear. I ended up purchasing two shorts, a shirt and I wanted to buy the Ultra Boost 4.0 shoes, but they didn’t have my size for the colour I wanted. I will get my hands on a pair eventually though. We then went to visit my cousin’s mum, which had a sense of nostalgia as the local area was where I was born.

On the second day, we head to the city and visit the Victorian Market first and foremost. I end up buying some plushies for some of my friends back home, and then we hit up the Casino. It was my first time going to a casino, so we just did the slot machines. Just when I was thinking about giving up, I end up with a win. Nothing huge but the victory meant that I left the Casino with a small triumph over the house. It’s something I would like to do again someday with some friends perhaps.

On the third day, we met up with another cousin and hit the beach! We went to the water and then sunbathed afterward. On that day we went to a restaurant where you had a bowl and could fill it up with as many different consumables as you desired. You then took it to the counter and had to pay depending on the weight. They would then fill the bowl with soup, and you had a ramen-esque type of meal. It was pretty great.

On the final day, we met up with a couple of my cousin’s mates and went to Mount Martha. We were planning on doing some cliff jumping, but the police had barricaded the area and forebode the act due to people neglecting to keep the area free of rubbish. A shame but the water was very nice to swim in regardless. We went to a Thai restaurant for lunch that day, and one of the guys starts talking about a group for men to share their experiences and talk through their emotions. I confess that I wasn’t the best at opening myself up to people, so he encouraged me to give it a try there and then. I hesitated but then proceeded to do so, and you know what, it wasn’t that bad actually. Still, though, don’t expect me to do it too often!

3) Went to Scenic World

My family and I visited Scenic World on the Blue Mountains towards the end of 2018. There are three main attractions at Scenic World.

· The Scenic Skyway
· The Scenic Railway
· The Scenic Cableway

Each offers a unique perspective of the Blue Mountains, which I will describe below.

The Scenic Skyway
This is a cable car that glides between two cliff tops on the Blue Mountains. With a clear glass floor, you are not only able to view your horizontal surroundings but can also see what is above and below you as you travel. The journey lasts over 700 metres and offers fantastic views of Katoomba Falls, the Three Sisters, and Jamison Valley.

The Scenic Railway
The steepest passenger railway in the entire world, the Scenic Railway provides a thrilling incline of 52 degrees on the standard setting. Each seat has its own personal incline setting which can be set to either 44, 52 or 64 degrees. The descent is over 300 metres through a cliff-side tunnel which leads deep into the Jamison Valley. While we were down there, we decided to go for a walk through the Jurassic rain-forest, which features various dinosaur models which included sound effects. From what I learned, the original concept of the Railway was to help transport miners to and fro.

The Scenic Cableway
This is similar to the Skyway with the method of transportation and panoramic views. The difference is that the travelling distance is almost 550 metres, and it is on an incline rather than fairly horizontal. The Scenic Cableway grants unique views to the Three Sisters, Orphan Rock, and Mt Solitary.

We ended up taking each ride twice, and all in all, proved to be a great day out. If you ever do visit Scenic World, I would recommend the Skyway and the Railway. If you have time, you can check out the Cableway too, but as it is similar to the Skyway, I don’t think it’s as worthwhile to visit.

4) Enjoyed the end of year celebrations with my family

Two years ago, I only had my brother to spend the end of the year with as my family had moved back to Australia. So it was nice to be able to spend this time with my family with a distinctive Sri Lankan style meal, consisting of egg curry, potato curry, string hoppers, among other things.

5) Visited a Buddhist temple for three evenings

The three days was the final day of 2018, New Year’s day, and the second. A visit to the temple usually consists of chanting and meditation. An excellent opportunity to face my defilements in a calm and controlled environment. On New Year’s day, there was an extended chanting to celebrate the new year and also a new year’s meal prepared by various visitors.

6) Helped my family move house

Okay, this was a big operation. They say that moving house is the second biggest cause of stress, only beaten by divorce. The short of it is that my family has way too much stuff. They could easily get by with owning maybe a third of what they currently possess. At any rate, it was a gruelling six-hour drive from Central to North Coast, but fortunately, the journey went pretty smoothly, and only a few bits of furniture was damaged in transit. Lots of heavy lifting involved after the moving company dropped the furniture off, as I am sure you can imagine.

7) Took care of my grandparents

My parents were still living in the Central Coast until May, so from January to May, it fell to me to look after my grandparents while house renovations were taking place. This mainly involved multiple trips to the doctors for various medical reasons as well as in general, driving my grandparents around and helping to keep the house clean.

Living with my grandparents has definitely been a challenging yet rewarding experience. I learned a great deal of patience and was forced to slow my pace down while around them. Whenever we went out shopping, I would frequently have to wait for them to catch up or saunter beside them. Whenever they wanted to order food to eat, they would take ages to decide so most of the time I had to pick something for them and then sometimes I’d end up choosing something they didn’t like. The number of times I had to make repeat trips because they either didn’t buy enough stuff or out-rightly forgot to purchase something, tended towards the realm of maddening. In the grand scheme of things, these blunders are really of minor consequence, but lots of little things can pile up and become a bigger problem if not handled carefully. Such frustrations usually don’t last too long, and when more severe times required me to take my grandparents to the doctors, things get put into perspective. It wasn’t all bad, though. Hardly so. Lunch and dinner were prepared for me each day, which freed up a lot of time. They also gave me a lot of money even at my refusal, which aided in some of my purchases and the adventures I went on.

8) Visited many different beaches

I ended up visiting beaches in Melbourne, Sydney, the Central Coast, and the North Coast during my half year trip. I don’t think I’ve ever been to the beach so often in my life. During my vacation, I made it a habit to visit the beach at least once a week because I realised I would not get this kind of opportunity back in the UK. Walking barefoot in the soft sand with the gentle feel of the ocean breeze is so purifying. I also found a vast expanse of the beach, which was practically deserted one day, and I ended up taking a three-hour walk along the coastline. I felt as if I had my own private beach, it was fantastic.

9) Spent a week undertaking intensive strength training and kickboxing

I seriously do not think I’ve trained so hard in my life in one week. I ended up training for 90 minutes Monday to Friday and 45 minutes on Saturday. It was all high-intensity classes as well, designed to have you sweating like a man stranded in the desert heat. I did various strength training exercises, some of which were new to me. I had to push and pull a weighted sled, slam a hammer on a tire and run while dragging the weight of the instructor behind me who was attached via elastic resistance cables. For the kickboxing training, the sessions consisted of multiple three-minute bouts of shadow boxing, pad work, and sparring. It was tough as hell, but I felt like a champion at the end of each session, though I almost threw up on a couple of the days.

10) Trained in a Karate club with strong Okinawan roots

I spent over three months training with these guys in Karate and Kobudo (weapons training). I picked up a few Karate and Kobudo katas with the Bo (long) and Jo (short) staffs while I was there. This was great because admittedly, I do not do enough weapons work back at home, so having a dedicated lesson once a week to practice the weapon forms was very useful indeed.

I took part in the fundamentals classes as their training was vastly different from what I usually do, and I wanted to get exposure to their way of teaching the basics. This gave me an excellent opportunity to practice many different and less utilised striking techniques, one of which I decided to take with me to the Tamworth Koshiki Karate tournament. That technique was the Mikazuki Geri (crescent kick). I also picked up a new training technique and adapted it to my shadow boxing sessions. It is the concept of continuous attacking. When I used to shadow box, I would frequently take short pauses to adjust stances. With the constant attacking approach, though I would continue to throw out attacks no matter how tired or sluggish I became until the timer ran out. This training proved to be a useful preparation tool for my fight, and it is something I will be taking with me on my training journey.

From what I understand, the traditional Okinawan dojos only used the white and black belt. This concept was utilised in this dojo, but they included the brown belt as a bridge between white and black. The white belt was worn up until 1st Kyu. After receiving the brown belt, that student was considered a black belt in training up until such time they were worthy of being graded to black. Truly a worthwhile training experience and I will be back someday to train with them again.

11) Joined a weekly board gaming evening

I played once a week on a Tuesday at Good Games in Coffs Harbour. I made new friends and ended up playing many modern board games that I hadn’t yet encountered. A few of the games I ended up playing were Dominion, Terraforming Mars and Mage Knight (which was my favourite).

12) Purchased an old antique piano

We ended up buying an old Broadwood White & Co antique piano for the new house. Given that it is over a hundred years old, it plays really well. I will showcase a piece further below so you can hear how it sounds. One of the conversations I had with a friend was discussing the best soundtracks from the Pokemon handheld games. There are seven generations of Pokemon games at the time of writing, but we mainly ended up talking about the fourth generation, Pokemon Diamond / Pearl / Platinum. My friend showed me a piece known as Route 209, and it definitely sparked a sense of nostalgia in me, so I decided to learn a piano cover of it which is below.

13) Read through many books

With such a surplus of time on my hands while on vacation, I decided to invest a substantial amount of that time reading through a whole host of books, both fiction and non-fiction which I will list below.

· Think and Grow Rich
· The 4 Hour Work Week
· How to Win Friends and Influence People
· With Each and Every Breath
· A Flower Called Metta
· Mindfulness – The Path to the Deathless
· Walden
· The History of Love
· One Hundred Years of Solitude
· The Book Thief
· The Silmarillion

I have written short reviews of some of these books in the Resources section of Absolute Ascendancy.

14) Started writing my first book

Again, due to having so much time on my hands, I decided to partake in a new adventure. This has been an exciting challenge for me to undertake. Writing this book reminds me of the time when I wrote my final year thesis on Dark Matter during my time at university. This expedition will serve as a great learning experience, and I plan to publish the book in the coming months, though I suspect it will not hit the shelves until the last quarter of the year.

15) Attended a Charity Black Tie event

Hosted by Barney Miller Classic, a charity focused on post-recovery for paralysed surfers who have suffered severe injuries. There was a live auction selling various things, and even though I didn’t end up buying anything, it was enjoyable to sit back and observe as I had never been to an auction before. There was a live singer who was pretty good and even a magician who was downright amazing. He came over and did a magic trick with me where he wrote something down on a piece of paper, folded it up, and gave it to me. I then had to choose a number between 1 and 100. I chose 73. He then took out his phone, and there was a list of beverages assigned to each number. 73 related to a type of rum. He then told me to open up the piece of paper, and it had the word rum written on it! I then handed back the paper to him, he took out a lighter and set it on fire. The paper was engulfed in flames, but once they vanished, there was a small bottle of the rum specified on his phone earlier! No idea what kind of illusion trick he pulled on me, but it was awe-inspiring nevertheless. The food was pretty good as well, especially the starter and dessert. There was no one sitting next to me, so I ended up having two starters. All in all, a great evening.

16) Went to a street party with live music

Again courtesy of Barney Miller Classic, the party started in the afternoon and went on till the late evening. There were around five live rock bands in total, and it was such a blast. So many people turned up, and I found a nice seat by the side of the pub where I had my evening meal while jamming to the music.

17) Discovered the joy of gardening

The new property we moved into has a couple of acres of land that needed to be maintained. While my father had the fun job of driving the ride-on lawnmower to cut the grass, guess who had to rake and bin the scraps afterward? Funnily enough, after a short while, I actually began to enjoy the exercise on the whole. I was only concentrated on the task at hand. Raking the dead grass into piles and then putting those piles into the appropriate bin. It was pretty monotonous, but I felt a serene sense of calm while doing the job. Some call it a form of working meditation but regardless, I never knew raking grass could be enjoyable.

18) Purchased two pairs of Birkenstock shoes

Lately, I have noticed my lower body has been given me more trouble. Particularly my feet and knees. I have known for a long time that my feet are pretty flat, but I never went about getting orthotics or any kind of support for my feet. I finally decided to do something about it as it was becoming increasingly discomforting to walk about in my day to day life. I was recommended to try out a pair of Birkenstock shoes by the chiropractor I was visiting while in Australia. Boy, was I impressed! I initially purchased one pair to wear at home, the Amsterdam but after realising how happy my feet were from wearing them, I ended up buying the Cincinnati for outdoor wear. So thankful for having these shoes as I now have the spring back in my step. Definitely, recommend grabbing a pair if you have troublesome feet, though I would say that these shoes should not serve as a replacement for actual orthotics.

19) Competed in a Koshiki Karate tournament in Tamworth

You can read all about this one here.

20) Spent three days undergoing some specialised Karate training in Inverell

You can read all about this one here.

Conclusion

Honestly, this has been an incredible experience. I did not think I would be able to spend half a year holidaying in Australia, but this is something I will aim to do more of in the coming years. Getting out there, travelling more and really living my life to the full.

Mission complete – Overlord Drakow signing out.