Victoria

Thanks to Facebook, I reconnected with one of my former supervisors at AUA in Bangkok, Phil Chappell. Like me, Phil returned to his native country after several years of living in Thailand. Phil is from Melbourne, the capital and largest city in Ausralia's most populous state, Victoria. When not working and studying, Phil likes to relax on Victoria's Great Ocean Road. As you can see, the scenery of Great Ocean Road is indeed spectacular. If you don't like the beach, well, you can play with Koalas!

"This is the beach where I grew up in Melbourne. The wrecked ship is the HMVS Cerberus, which we used to fish off, and the jetty is what we used to dive off. My car is in the foreground - the Ford Focus."  Phil Chappell

Thai Down Under

Thai lady Dararat Sueapaen spent a considerable amount of time in Australia studying English as a Second Language. During her time "Down Under" she made lots of friends, including many Asians who were themselves in the intensive English program. After spotting Dararat in image one, see if you can find her among her pack of friends. In one photo, you can see Dararat and her classmates with their ESL teacher. In another photo, Dararat goes really native by firing a gun at a shooting range.

Australia

Jalal Khasanov is the younger brother of Ulugbek, the Uzbek friend I met at Samford in the early 90s. Dr. Jim Vann (Uncle Jim) and I actually met Jalal, his wife Mahliya and their son Amir for the first time on our visit to Tashkent, Uzbekistan in 1993. Today, Jalal and Mahliya have two more kids: Umar and Amina, ages 11 and 3. "Baby" Amir himself is now a strapping 16 year old! The family resides in Adelaide, Australia, where Jalal and Mahliya both practice medicine. Below are photos of Jalal. In the first, he's in Tasmania. The next several pictures are of his family. The final two are of Jalol having a good time in his adopted homeland: with a team of Paintball "warriors" and then dressed as a Tatar warrior.