“This would never happen in Melbourne”, I heard someone say, with disdain, to his friend. I then watched him look around the carriage with a general “sneer”.
“Clearly they were from Melbourne, and clearly they were tram nerds”, I thought to myself. What was the issue? There was a slight delay in the doors opening. FFS.
After waiting days, weeks, months, years, decades for the new tram in my neighbourhood, and having lived through night-time construction works, I was pretty bloody pleased that, at last, today, they’re picking up passengers. For me, a five second delay on the doors opening on Day 1 was, if anything, a relief. It could have been worse.
Though I didn’t really need to (I live close to the city), I caught the tram twice today: both times to and from Central Station.
As it’s a novelty, and as they’re free this weekend, the trams were packed.
The only other time I’ve been this cold and wet was two years ago in Sweden. Although it was summer, the combination of colder temperatures and wet weather combined for truly unpleasant conditions. I said to my friend, Tony at the time that I had never been this cold in my life.
That was still the case until today, as the glorious weather of my first week in China has been replaced by cold, miserable conditions. It’s grey, very grey.
Beijing Olympic Stadium
It doesn’t help that we can’t turn on the central heating which, suitably enough, is centrally controlled. It’s mid-November, I believe, before it gets turned on. Kate tells me a couple of years ago when she was here it got so cold before the central heating was turned on, that it was warmer in her fridge than it was in her apartment.
Thus, my first task of the day was to buy a suitably warm jacket that would double as wet-weather gear. I found one in the “clothing market” I mentioned the other day. Although I haggled over price – as is the norm in China – I probably still paid too much for a “North Face” jacket. Even if I can’t vouch for its authenticity as a genuine “North Face” product, it kept me warm and dry throughout the day, which makes it authentic in my eyes.
Beijing Olympic Stadium
I played “tourism bingo” again this morning, getting on the subway and getting off at somewhere which took my fancy: today I got off at the Beijing Olympic Centre. I was travelling throughout Europe for most of the duration of the Olympic Games in 2008, and wasn’t all that much interested in watching television. On the odd occasion my eyes were diverted to a television screen, there were often Australians playing or competing which was co-incidental I guess. So it was with “open eyes” that I visited the stadium today. And guess what? It’s fan-bloody-tastic.
Beijing Olympic Stadium
The birdcage stadium and the nearby water-cube are both architectually and visually spectacular. And as you walk around the two facilities, the games are very much alive with videos, photographs, souvenir shops, and even a wax-works museum featuring past presidents of the International Olympic Committee.
PIlgrimmage to where Australian diver, Matthew Mitcham scored his perfect 10 at Beijing Olympics
Although it was fabulous to visit the spot where Matthew Mitcham scored his perfect 10, I was completely blown away by the indoor pool/beach. When I visited there were maybe 30 or 40 people swimming, or just enjoying the machine-generated waves. Oddly enough, since the water was only a couple of feet deep, there were lots of people wearing life jackets. Many were just lying back, relaxing, and enjoying the entertainment – which ranged from Canto-pop to Bollywood – on the nearby stage. Yes, seriously. I loved it. I wish I had swimwear so that I could have joined those below.
The fake beach inside the Beijing Water CubeSwimmers on the fake beach at the Beijing Water Cube
On arriving home tonight, the cold, wet conditions have really set in. Thus, we’re faced with a dilemma: do we wait for the frozen home-made dumplings (delivered by Kate’s cleaner) to thaw out or do we venture out for dinner? Venturing out is not an option, as it’s too bloody cold, so we’ll sit and wait for the big thaw, I’m guessing.
Tomorrow, I’m off to The Great Wall, and would be sooooo excited if it snowed. Fingers crossed.
“Do you mind if we call in to Myer? A girlfriend told me about some great new mascara and lipstick from Clarins”, my friend asked as we made our way through the city this afternoon.
As I stood and watched, I listened to the conversation between the two women. “It doesn’t run and all you need to do is rinse with warm water…” the assistant told my friend. “What about tears? They’re warm water, aren’t they?”, I interjected. The looks on the faces of both my friend and the shop assistant clearly told me I was out of my depth in this conversation.
It was then I looked down and saw cotton buds, presumably used in the application and or removal of makeup. “I could really clean my ears out with those”, I thought to myself. It was then I realised the difference between men and women.
For many, the narrative of limb loss is defined by the clinical reality of surgery and the physical grind of rehabilitation. For Nish Afinwala, an IT professional in Perth, the story is far more internal—a journey that began with a life-threatening medical crisis and culminated in a profound spiritual awakening.
Born in India and raised in Tanzania, he moved to Australia in 2006 to complete his masters, eventually falling in love with the country and settling in Western Australia. Life was “smooth” until a genetic heart condition, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, began to obstruct his blood flow.
In 2018, he underwent open-heart surgery, but complications arose. “The blood flow from my heart, it started seeping into my lungs and I was struggling to breathe,” he recalls. To save his life, doctors placed him on an ECMO machine. While the machine kept his heart pumping, it compromised blood flow to his extremities. On 18 April 2018, doctors performed an above-knee amputation on his left leg to prevent sepsis.
The two years following his initial discharge were a “vicious cycle” of medical instability. While his left leg was gone, Nish fought desperately to save his right leg, which had suffered muscle loss from ischemia. “It was me holding on to it, thinking that, no, I need to salvage, I need to salvage,” he says.
However, the right leg remained an open wound. “That whole year in twenty nineteen, I kept on getting infection every three months,” Nish explains. “I go back, they put me on antibiotics. I go back again home, I have infection, I come back”.
The physical toll led to a spiritual and emotional breaking point. “I was so much depressed… why am I going through infection every three months? And why am I going through this depression and anxiety?”. During these months, Nish was surrounded by symbols of his upbringing, yet he felt a growing sense of emptiness.
Nish came from a Hindu background. “My bed had all the idols… I had a picture of Jesus Christ as well… but I was so lost in my own issues and in my own world of losing my legs”.
The turning point arrived in mid-2020. A non-Christian friend visited Nish “out of nowhere” and pulled a Bible from his bag. Initially, Nish’s mind was switched off: “I just rejected. And I said, ‘you know, take, take the take the Bible back. I don’t want to disrespect someone’s religion'”.
The very next day, Nish fell from his wheelchair while attempting to weight-bear on his weak right leg, resulting in a fracture. Returning to the hospital, he was told the right leg also required amputation. In that moment, he felt a “thought put in my head” to finally read the Bible. “I read the Bible and words like love, mercy, forgiveness where all, you know, talking to me,” he says. On the second day, he experienced a vision: “I saw a vision of the cross… I know that day I saw a vision of Jesus Christ. And, the very next day I accepted him as my Lord and Savior”.
Transitioning to life as a double amputee required a shift in perspective, especially regarding his family. His son, who was only two years old when the surgeries began, has only ever known Nish as an amputee. Nish recalls the heartbreak of his son once asking, “I wish daddy could grow a leg,” but now finds strength in their shared journey.
Nish initially returned to his career in IT, feeling a calling to change his work to “give back to the community”. He now works in IT in aged care specifically. “I’m able to give back to the community… they see me in a wheelchair and some some people are in a wheelchair as well. So I can give them a hope. Look, it’s not the end”.
Today, Nish views his challenges through a lens of “eternal hope”. He is trialling prosthetic legs and remains acutely aware of the support available in Australia. “I’m really grateful for this country, for NDIS, that they give us this opportunity,” he says.
He finds peace in surrendering the need for control. “I just take it day by day… things are not in my hands anymore. And I surrender to the one who has one who is in control”.
For Nish, his identity is no longer tied to his physical limbs, but to his faith. “All this is just… a breath of air. It’s just a breath of air and it just blows away”.
As part of The Limb Shift podcast I am working on, I spoke to Nish Afinwala about limb loss and limb difference. The interview with him will appear in the podcast when it launches later in 2026.
The photograph above and below was taken at Gamla Stan, the Old Town in Stockholm. Roughly translated it means please give to the homeless, though you wouldn’t need to speak Swedish to understand, as there are similar handwritten signs all over the world.
Though you sometimes see people on the street walk away from, avoid eyesight with, and otherwise “not engage” with people who are homeless, or are asking for money on the streets, I’m not, generally, one of those people. If I have change, and if I’m not in too much of a hurry, I’ll usually stop and reach into my pocket when someone asks me for help. Scammers aside, I figure it takes a lot of courage for someone to walk up to a complete stranger and ask them for help.
But things are changing. As we’re moving to a cashless society, I’ve found myself often without any cash at all in my pockets. If I catch public transport to work, I’ll use my Opal Card. Most days, I’ll order my coffee through an app. At lunch, I’ll usually swipe my debit card. I keep a jar full of coins on my desk for mid-afternoon chocolates or soft-drinks. So by and large, I don’t carry cash anymore.
If everyone ends up like me, what does that mean for people living on the streets, asking for cash?
Please give to the homeless sign in Stockholm
Though it’s an issue here in Australia, I chose to show the photo I took in Stockholm to illustrate the story, as Sweden is well on track to become the first cashless society.
I really love the train trip between Sydney and Newcastle, except of course when there’s track work, and you’re transported by bus instead. It’s only happened to me once. The train trip is, by world standards, already quite slow (almost three hours to travel 150 km), but when you also have to get on and off buses as well, it becomes quite tedious.
Over the course of three hours, however, you have time to think about life, look out the windows at the scenery, and catch up on some listening, reading, watching and writing.
There were lots of very familiar reasons to smile as I entered the exhibition, “Between Two Worlds”, today at the Newcastle Art Gallery.
Exhibition Opening
In fact, two of the art works in the exhibition, I’d previously co-owned (you might say), when I was part of the art collecting group, Hawkesbury One.
He’s such a terrific artist and has had an amazing life story. China is made up of 56 different minorities, and today he spoke about growing up in a small minority community in China. “Thirty kilometers away people spoke an entirely different dialect”, he said, noting that he learned a number of them during his early life as a truck driver. He was also a member of the Red Army, and fought in the border conflict between China and Vietnam, a conflict that’s not commonly known about in Australia. Eventually he came to Australia as a student, and was granted permanent residency in the wake of the events of 1989. In the last decade he has re-connected with China, and will often return there in pursuit of his life as an artist.
He was one of three artists who spoke today at the gallery about the exhibition curated by Kate. https://catherinecroll.com/
I first travelled to China with Kate in 2010, when she was stationed at Red Gate Gallery. At the time I was there, she was working with a number of visiting Australian artists, including people like Archibald Prize-winning, Guy Maestri, legendary Indigenous artist, Fiona Foley, and, at the time emerging-artist, Francis Belle Parker.
In the time since, Kate has travelled back and forth many times, and has curated a number of exhibitions, including Lunar New Year for the City of Sydney. It seemed to me this exhibition is, in some respects, the culmination of all of the work Kate has done over the last fifteen years, featuring the artists she has come to know well, resulting in a broad, interesting collection.
“Will the exhibition tour?”, someone asked during the Q&A session. “No, we would like people to come to Newcastle”, the Director of the Gallery, Lauretta Morton said.
So my advice for anyone else from Sydney is to hop on the train, enjoy the views through the Hawkesbury, and visit the exhibition. And for anyone else, there’s always Google Maps to get you there.
Christmas (or “Giftmas” as I’ve heard someone cynically and amusingly describe it as lately) came early for me this year in the form of a brand new mobile phone. You might recall reading last week I lost my previous mobile in the back of a cab, soon after arriving back from a weekend Canberra. Late last week, I called Telstra to organise a replacement phone, which arrived today. A replacememt which had more cords than I thought necessary, had a book which took me about 30 minutes to read, and which still took about 15 minutes of fiddling around with before I could actually make a call. It has a radio, an mp3 player, G3 access, Office Suite, and an inbuilt nuclear reactor, I’m sure. Tonight, on the way to see “Borat: The Movie” (which I’ll write about later), I decided to make use of the phone’s 3megapixel camera. I snapped this photograph of the Christmas Tree at Taylor Square. I think the night-time quality is reasonably good, but look forward to further experimentation. So yes, an early Christmas present for myself, but I just better make sure I don’t lose this one.
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About 100 seats, I heard, and an awful lot of standing space. It is so absurdly slow with such poor traffic light priority, I wonder if it will quite as successful as I thought. ‘Though mention has been made of it becoming faster over time, how can it be so slow when it mostly doesn’t mix with traffic, with the existing bus service taking 35 minutes to the Quay as against the tram’s 50 minutes. Still, all quite exciting.
To get from my place to Circular Quay it generally takes 20 minutes by bus, and 25 by tram. I think I’ll use it most to get to George Street Cinemas etc.
Congratulations! Finally you Sydneysiders have seen the light and have rediscovered the joy of tramming.
I remember running into an old lady as I was lugging my luggage towards the Escherium which is Central station a couple of years ago. The task of finding my way into the labyrinth wasn’t made any easier by having to navigate around the tram works. ‘We had them fifty years ago,’ she confided to me vociferously as she pointed me towards the Tænarian portal. ‘Now they’re bringing them back! They should never have got rid of them!’
About 100 seats, I heard, and an awful lot of standing space. It is so absurdly slow with such poor traffic light priority, I wonder if it will quite as successful as I thought. ‘Though mention has been made of it becoming faster over time, how can it be so slow when it mostly doesn’t mix with traffic, with the existing bus service taking 35 minutes to the Quay as against the tram’s 50 minutes. Still, all quite exciting.
To get from my place to Circular Quay it generally takes 20 minutes by bus, and 25 by tram. I think I’ll use it most to get to George Street Cinemas etc.
Congratulations! Finally you Sydneysiders have seen the light and have rediscovered the joy of tramming.
I remember running into an old lady as I was lugging my luggage towards the Escherium which is Central station a couple of years ago. The task of finding my way into the labyrinth wasn’t made any easier by having to navigate around the tram works. ‘We had them fifty years ago,’ she confided to me vociferously as she pointed me towards the Tænarian portal. ‘Now they’re bringing them back! They should never have got rid of them!’
Thank god they’re back!!
I have a Myki.