Returning

So I’m back from a surreal, hectic, gorgeous week in London, and it seems like a dream. One minute I was going along with life in a sub-tropical climate, the next walking through drizzle in a grey city, trying not to let my umbrella turn inside out. I was vastly unprepared in the clothing department, having overestimated English springtime, why oh why did I think I could wear flip flops? A quick trip to Topshop and all was sorted. Returning to my old life was like taking a much-loved story book off a shelf… the story is familiar and the words echoed in my mind, but the person reading them had changed, and the sentences carried a new meaning. I love London, it’s my home and there are so many people I love there, yet I saw it through a brighter lens. Not much had changed since I left – a couple of weddings, babies growing bigger, friends getting new jobs, but I’ve changed more than that. My perspective on the world has been stretched beyond my imagination. I stick out in Singapore, I’m kind of special here, adventurous. I lay awake with jet lag at 4am this morning, ravenously hungry dreaming of rice porridge – unthinkable a few short months ago! My tastes have changed. The earthquake in Indonesia is nearer now, never again will I hear of a natural disaster in Asia and feel nothing. These people look like my new friends. They’ve been given 12kg of rice in ‘aid’ by the government, and I know they deserve more. Having spent time in Asia, I’ll return to the West a different person – older, thinner, richer, hopefully a little wiser and more compassionate.

London pix 5

London pix 4

London Pix 3

London pix 2

London pix

Home, sweet home...

I lean over from my blanket cacoon and see a sheet of whiteness outside the oval window. I keep looking though, searching for the first glimpse of the city I love. Gradually the haze clears and I look out to this rainy vista, small brick-red houses sprawl organically, surrounded by verdant trees that from this height appear to have been drawn by small children, lollipop-like. I can't explain the emotion that comes with the familiarity of a tree. Such a simple thing, on an ordinary day I must see hundreds. But I've been away. Not for a long time, but long enough to ache for home, for friends and the parts of me that will forever exist only in this city. A kind of joy, a relieved kind of joy, passes through me, and I know I'm gonna have a great time. This is the city I love.

Beach bbq, Singapore style!

Lite

Have you noticed that lots of things are 'lite' nowadays. I don't mean to sound like one of those ranting senior citizens who say things like, "Now then, listen here, all that low-fat rubbish is nonsense! If everyone just got off their fat arse and worked hard rather than watching Richard & Judy all day they'd be able to drink full-cream milk!" I don't really care what other people eat and drink, I mean, it doesn't affect me, and if someone who's dangerously overweight wants to eat a Burger King, well that's ok by me. But sometimes enough is enough, and the healthy option can see like a good idea. I was in Cold Storage the other day (Singapore's equivalent of Waitrose), buying soy milk and laughing at the hilarity of the specially-grown $50 square watermelon, when I noticed that my regular brand of beany-fake-milk-stuff had introduced a 'lite' version. The spelling immediately got my back up, I mean it's only one letter less than the correct spelling! Come on. But it got me thinking... maybe I should be consuming less calories. Maybe if I drink 'lite' soy milk on my cereal I'll be able to eat something else instead. But the problem I've found is that the 'lite' version is generally a euphenism for 'crap-tasting', so I deliberated for a good few minutes on whether to buy it or not. (I would never have wasted such time in London, I was lucky if I even got to the shops, but time is wide-open here, like the grand canyon, all that space just waiting to be filled.) Eventually I buy it, and am disappointed, as I expected. It's kinda watery and more acidic. But hey, at least I can eat another piece of Green & Blacks* to compensate.

* Thank you to everyone who has sent rations of my favourite choc, so much so that there's a bit of a glut at the moment. Unfortunately the ants are rather fond of the Maya Gold, so keep it til I get back folks!

Eeeeekkkkk!!!

There was a storm last night, nothing special about that, it rains loads here and it’s always heavy and aggressive – none of that pathetic English drizzle that can’t decide if it wants to rain or not. Getting off the bus, I threw up my inadequate umbrella and decisively set off up the hill for home, figuring I could always jump straight in the shower should I get soaked. There was something ever-so-slightly scary about walking in this storm though… the night seemed darker than black, the clouds holding up a shade in front of the moon’s light. I carried on, each footstep meeting the pavement firmly in my attempt to get home, and fast. About ten steps on, I step out of my flip flop. No big deal, I turn and retrieve it, slipping my toes into the wet leather. I can’t really see anything, umbrella overhead, my eyes skim the pavement, and my head is full of music turned up loud to counteract the white noise of rain on concrete. Then it happens. A few seconds later a dark streak passes across the pavement and I tread on something small and squishy. Then I hear it, as if in slow motion, ‘Eeekkk!!! Eeekkk!! Eeek! Eeek!’ I look down as I walk on to see a mouse scuttling into the storm drain, having been trodden on by 55kg of Caucasian girl with a small umbrella! I’m ashamed to say that my first thought was for my sanity, wondering if I’d have nightmares. It was only when I shook my umbrella out under the car port that my mind turned to the poor creature. It was probably being flooded out of its home in the storm drain and rushing to the surface for respite gets trodden on by a giant! I hope it’s ok. I mean, I don’t really like mice, but I wouldn’t want to break one’s spine or anything. I’ll be more careful in the rain from now on, I promise.

Over and over

The title of this blog is actually the title of a track by Hot Chip, who I'm loving at the moment. I first saw them in the Square Pie Tent at Glastonbury this year... though Jags did point out that I had my fingers in my ears for the first few minutes until I got 'into' their overexcited style. I remember being transfixed by the small guy in an owl t-shirt whose contribution to the band was to bang a cow bell ...

Anyway, I was gonna blog about how I've been folding paper over and over, not about Hot Chip, even though they're ace and deserve a whole post to themselves.

On Saturday a colleague and I went to Konokuniya, the Japanese bookshop at Takashimaya... it's a geek's paradise, floor upon floor of beautiful books, so I was happy. We ended up buying all this gorgeous origami paper, only to find that the instructions are all weird and we can only remember how to make a crane:

They're beautiful nontheless, and slightly addictive. I've now decided to try to make a collection and string them all together....

I'm a secret Starbucks lover...

For once in my life I’m grateful to Starbucks. Not because I’ve made it my mission to visit every branch on the planet, nor because I like their coffee (admit it, it’s pretty average). No, I’m grateful to this multi-national highly reproductive coffee dispenser because it’s Sunday afternoon, and I’ve come here for a rest. I’ve just been to church and listened to a sermon about sex from an old Canadian guy – a bit like listening to your dad talking about his sex life, had lunch with some friends, and now I have a few hours to kill.

So, I spend $3.85 on a decaf soy latte, and climb sixteen noisy stairs to the first floor of my local ‘bucks. Taking a seat, I count eight other people like me – alone that is – and they’re all busy… reading, studying, listening to their ipods, smsing, one guy is colouring in, he must be a geography student. Hardly anyone’s actually drinking coffee, empty cups and discarded napkins litter the tables.

This quasi-community breathes in synch and there’s a strange sense of ‘belonging’ in this room with the ubiquitous beech chairs and chequerboard tables. We can all stay here as long as we like, all day if we feel like it, because we can’t be thrown out… it would go against the ‘home from home’ advertising by-line. So here we are, in our public lounge, our home for the afternoon, entertaining ourselves by not speaking to anyone else. I wonder what would happen if I tried to start a conversation with someone… it stays a thought, it would be too weird. What would I say? ‘Do you come here often?’ The eternally bad chat-up line.

I did a talk about a year ago about how ipods are the symbol of our generation – the epitome of selfishness, music for one (I now own one so include myself). Just as we listen to our own private vibes, being here in this fridge-like coffee shop on a hot day accentuates the defragmentation of our society. We think we ‘are’, we think we ‘exist’, we think we ‘belong’ here, but we’re lying to ourselves. We’re very much alone on these rented chairs. The guy next to me is a foreign country. My visa has been refused.

Pelican

When I was in Perth, we were driving along the coast near Mandurah, when we spotted three huge pelicans at the side of the river. This one was huge, it came up to my chest in height. He let me get about a metre away before leaping into the water. Pretty cool huh?