after a six+ hour flight punctuated by only three bouts of minor turbulence, i touched down in sydney at 5.45am and nearly ripped out half a fingernail trying to drag a very large backpack off the carousel.
the sun started to rise as i whizzed homeward in a taxi. the city skyline was sillhouetted against a golden sky and dramatic swooping purple cloud backdrop. it was a crisp 8 degrees. refresca!
everything seems okay.
the other night i dreamt that i had a chocolate camera. at first i thought it was just an ordinary chocolate camera, but just as i was about to have my way with it, it became apparent that it was actually a working camera! i could wind the little wheel on the top to advance the film, and the shutter release button seemed to work. i took a couple of photographs and realised that i’d have to work really quickly before the camera melted into a chocolatey mess; already the film advance wheel was starting to stick. unfortunately the photographic adventure was cut short, because a maniac was trying to kill us, and we had to throw him off the balcony.
buried in the midnight slot on channel 5, singapore, is the rather good but tragically shortlived australian tv series, love is a four letter word.
having spent the afternoon cleaning out my childhood cupboards and rediscovering letters from people who have since dropped out of my life, seeing those familiar innercity grunge tv types again filled me with a twinge of wanting to be sometime else.
the day i heard that the daimaru department store on river valley road was closing down was a sad day indeed, even though i’m ever in singapore for a month, max, and the last time i was back here i only went to daimaru once.
that was enough time to discover the pokka gelato kiosk in the basement supermarket, where the scoops are light and milky and the flavours are like, kiwi yoghurt.
so, happy day, i poked my head in the other night to investigate the new japanese supermarket that has inherited the basement, and lo, the pokka geloto kiosk is still there. six words: sweet potato with roasted chesnut bits!
in a little over a week i fly back to the real world. how much gelato can i eat between now and then?
the sky was soft pink when i awoke a little before six this morning. in a few minutes a ferocious wind out of nowhere, and then big spluttery rain. so now everything smells cool and moist and good — i haven’t been out front yet, but i expect the downpour even managed to wash away that displeasing catshit smell from the manky strays that sit on the stairs, gazing down on you, imperiously.
for two weeks it’s been like, 34 degrees. i’ve been assured this is not normal, but i guess it’s no real consolation to me.
tomorrow morning i get to ride the nice bus (“nice” is the company name!) to kuala lumpur, where grandparents and most extended family members eke out an existence, with my mother and sister. it’s a five hour trip punctuated by a stop at a highway rest pavilion complete with many an eating stall where you can get tasty treats like exotic crackers and tea with condensed milk for not much money at all.
i am very very brown.
and so a month later i find myself back in a place where you can cross the street without fear of being flattened by any one (or more) of twenty million motorbikes going in all different directions. it’s not quite the lovely wintery clime of sydney — though from what i hear, sydney’s heading the way of atlantis at the moment — but at least there’s plenty of air conditioned respite from 32 degrees of sticky humidity.
yes, back in singapore where my childhood bed seems even smaller than before, and the (unfinished) mural across the walls and ceiling (and sadly for resale value, splattered randomly across the floor) a reminder of teenage artistic folly. an excursion to the neighbourhood mall this afternoon resulted in a plate of roast duck noodles (i’d been wondering what my first chosen meal after vietnam would be; that it’s turned out to be RDN is completely unsurprising), a large cup of bandung, the milky, rose syrupy beverage… and holy crap! a hello kitty badge maker!
i’ve wanted a badge maker for years and years. of course it is pink. ragingyoghurt badges coming soon.
no killer virus yet. instead, over the last four days there have been: jackfruit blended ice shake; ice cream with stewed in syrup longans; extreme heat; extreme traffic; a church at sunset, flanked by two lifesize tableaux: mary’s grotto, in which mary is nestled in a manmade mounatin cave setting beneath a neon halo and a neon sign the says “ave maria”, and a crucifiction scene where at jesus's feet stand mary and mary gazing down at a second jesus, lying in state (thus proving by being in two places at the same time, that he *is* god); a very long wait amidst pushy shovy grannies for a mini bus ride to a bus station, a mini bus that is actually a tin of sardines; a five hour bus trip from saigon down to the mekong delta punctuated by many hawkers coming on board to sell things, including, spruiked by loudspeaker, a set of knives; soursop blended ice shake; extreme heat; a siesta; another soursop blended ice shake; a cantonese congregation temple; a khmer temple; another temple at which a delightful scene of miniature buddha and goddess of mercy statues are glued onto a small concrete mountain; another siesta; a crazy park with decorated staircase-based structures that one could pose on, surrounded by many concrete animals and dangerous merry-go-round rides; a slice of coconut flan; a sugar brioche filled with dollops of kaya; a dubbed-into-vietnamese tv show, which seemed to have been made in italy; a five a.m. awakening; a motor sampan along the mekong to a floating market; a bowl of spaghetti and sliced pork in a tangy pink soup, on the sampan, in the shade of a neighbouring boat; veggies tied to poles; five hours in the sun, in the slowest motor sampan in can tho, travelling through silty brown canals; a jackfruit blended ice shake; a siesta.
at nine o’clock last night, it struck me that my plane was scheduled to leave at 8 in the morning, and i hadn’t yet packed. or scrubbed down the kitchen, or laid out fresh new cockroach bait for the little bastards, so that they would be dead when i got back in two months. it filled me with a sense of urgency.
yes, i have decided to fly into the face(mask) of DSV, so to speak. right now it’s 7.30 and i’m sitting in the departure lounge of sydney airport. after a minor panic while eating a large brown pear that i had somehow forgotten to pack my camera (unfounded, but that’s what lying awake for four hours waiting for the alarm clock to go off does to you), all i have to worry about now is that maybe my backpack is way too small, and maybe i haven’t brought enough shirts, and then even if i did, there won’t be space in my pack for me to buy anything.
engh. it’s all gonna be bits of paper with pictures of exotic food printed on anyway.
so off i go. remind me to tell you about my popcorn chicken experience one day.
today i voluntarily ate rabbit. the last time i ate a bunny was by default, when i was maybe like, 14, and we went to a french restaurant for my mum’s birthday, and it was prix fixe, and the appetiser was, from memory, some sort of gelatine engulfed rabbit roulade, which my sister refused by saying, no thanks, i have a pet rabbit.
but today at lunch, the tastiest-sounding thing on the blackboard menu was bucatini with rabbit in a butter, white wine and parsley sauce. in fact it was supremely tasty, which is why danks street depot is my favourite place to eat, which is not to say i go there often, but that whenever i do go i feel happy and lucky (distinct from happy-go-lucky, which i feel, like, never).
i guess for some people out there, eating rabbit is a normal occurance. it’s still exotic to me, like some shellfish, and offal.
last night i dined with the effusive and stylish lena at an unusually narrow korean restaurant in burwood. bemused by the sudden wintery turn that autumn took, we had cups of thick murky sweet ginseng tea while waiting for salmon nori rolls and two tofu dishes (pan fried and spicy hotpot). and then, surprise! the waitress brought us pickles: sure, a little dish of kimchee, but then also four other little dishes of chili pickled cucumber, julienned carrots and zucchini in sesame oil, beansprouts in vinegar and sesame oil, and strips of marinated chewy tofu. yum. free pickles.
