Parallax: the life of media interns abroad

I write this sitting on my bed in my share house in Sydney's inner west, feeling a million miles away from Tokyo and all I saw, heard, felt and learned there. Japan could be another world, so far removed is it from my normal life in Australia.

I've come home feeling changed in a way I can't yet articulate. This trip was a lot of firsts for me - first time travelling alone, first time living alone, first time working full-time. There's a sense of accomplishment, certainly, but I also feel like my internship sparked something - a desire to live overseas more permanently - that I hadn't before realised I wanted to do.

Falling in love with Tokyo. Photo by Myvawny Costelloe.

During the summer months there is an annual mass exodus from Santiago, and every year on the first Monday of March everyone comes stampeding back, in a frenzy known as Super Lunes. The authorities have prepared for the post-vacation gridlock this year with 900 more buses while ramping up the frequency of trains on metro lines by 17 percent. As normal congested life kicks back into gear on the streets of Santiago I’ll be leaving, returning to my own normal life in Sydney.

Poster from Chile's 1988 'No' campaign in our office

For my last weekend in Chile, some workmates and I took a trip to San Pedro de Atacama, the driest desert on earth. I found myself awestruck by the landscapes before me, which brought to light my own futility in the face of the enormously powerful forces of nature.

Lone flamingo feasting on Brine Shrimp.

I’m writing this from the airport in Buenos Aires, taking full advantage of their free WIFI. I’m one hour in to my 11 hour overnight layover before my next flight leaves for Sydney, so I have a considerable amount of time to blog. My head is full of thoughts and emotions as my internship and my time in Chile has drawn to a close, and I’m going to write another post once I’m back in Sydney and have had a few days to properly reflect on my whole experience. But for now, I’ll write a first post about my final week as a journalist for I Love Chile.

I finished my internship last Friday, after what can only be described as an incredibly slow news week. As a result I didn’t have as many articles as usual published, but I was able to do some interviews and work on some features before departing for the past five days on an amazing adventure to the town of Puerto Varas and the island of Chiloé in the south of Chile.

Some pictures from my trip to Puerto Varas and Chiloé.

This fellowship has given me a wonderful opportunity to see some incredible parts of an amazing country. Laura and I have had a few sneaky weekends away to see more of the Malaysian peninsular, up to Penang and down to Melaka.
And in the week following my internship, my mum jetted over from Sydney and we spent some time on the Borneo side of Malaysia. Here lies some of the most amazing untamed wilderness, incredible wildlife, stunning land(and sea)scapes and an entirely different side of Malaysia from that seen in KL.

Ever heard the saying ‘We make plans and Mother Nature laughs’? I now have an acute understanding of this dictum, as last weekend at the Wanderlust festival, Pachamama was in hysterics.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article about Wanderlust , a three-day music and yoga festival that was making its Chilean debut in February. The festival giant was coming to the southern hemisphere for the first time, and I was chosen to cover it.

I arrived in Chillán, a popular ski destination 400km south of Santiago, doe-eyed and eager to begin work on my photo essay. Unfortunately the elements had other plans.

The calm before the storm at Chillán.

Our last week at the Star fell, significantly, on first week of the Chinese New Year. New beginnings for half the nation and an ending for us at the Star; which, translated to our day to day work, meant a fairly quiet week overall.

With the official new year falling on the weekend and the public holidays stretched out over Monday and Tuesday, much of the Star (and most Malaysian-Chinese across the country) had the week before and after off work to get together with family, eat, drink and set off copious amounts of fireworks.

Incense lit at a temple in Chinatown, Melaka. Lighting incense in the new year is thought to bring prosperity.