Return

I think it is time to write again.

England is like another world. Adjusting back is strange and harder than I thought.

But I am not going to talk too much about England yet. On our way back from Sydney, we had an amazing stopover in Hong Kong and I must commit my memories to type.

We arrived direct from Sydney on Tuesday, early evening. The flight went well, plane was near empty so we had a row of seats to ourselves and it was really quiet, no queues for toilet etc. Landed in Hong Kong in some serious fog, boarded a train to HK Central station, then squeezed our mega amount of luggage into a Tardis-like HK taxi for a crazy-driving mad dash to our hotel in Wan Chai, on Hong Kong Island.

The hotel was amazing. We got a deluxe room which had plenty of space, and a great view over the racecourse and the edge of the skyscrapers. But we were hungry so headed straight out on the free shuttle bus to get the Star Ferry across to Tsim Sha Tsui on the mainland.



The Star Ferry is brilliant! The view from the water is fantastic, and with all the bright lights at night the fog didn't matter so much. And it only costs about 20p for a crossing. The ferry dropped us off in the heart of Kowloon and we made our way towards HK's mega shopping street, Nathan Road, endless shops, designer and more traditional, huge crowds and the obligatory shady men offering "copy bag, copy rolex". I completely misunderstood what was going on at first and was wondering what "coffee bag" was, whether it was like a tea bag. Then I realised that was Chinese pronunciation of 'copy'.

Somewhere off Nathan Road we found a vegetarian restaurant recommended in our Rough Guide, which had all you can eat Cantonese vegetarian buffet. It was so cheap and had free green tea and the food was really good - we were so hungry that I definitely had my money's worth anyway! Then it was train back to HK Island and bed.

The following morning we made our way over to the central business area of Hong Kong Island, walking around super-smart malls on our way to get the Peak Tram. The Peak Tram is a funicular railway that takes you up to Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island, an upmarket residential area that until 1930 was reserved exclusively for non-Chinese.



The tram ejects you into a little shopping centre that seems especially designed to prevent you getting out. We did find the exit eventually though and had a good walk round. There's a great view from the top over the harbour, although unfortunately the fog was still thick so we couldn't see as much as we would have liked. We climbed up a bit further and found a pleasant garden, with a signposted walk that we did, thinking it would take us in a circuit but we ended up somewhere completely lost on the mountain with no people in sight! We retraced our steps in the end and found our way back to the tram.

We found a gallery cafe in Central for lunch with a thai vegetarian buffet - really nice. Then we caught the Star Ferry back over the Tsim Sha Tsui and wandered around a bit, got a coffee, then realised from the guide book that the Hong Kong Museum of History, which was just round the corner, was free entry for the afternoon. We went along and it was a brilliant museum - really well laid out and with plenty of detail covering the whole history of Hong Kong, from pre-history right through to HK being handed back to China and the creation of the Special Administrative Region. In one bit they had done a reconstruction of a Hong Kong street circa 1930 and you could wander into all the shops, it was fascinating!

We headed back to HK Island and got some sushi rolls in the mall near the hotel for dinner. We were stuffed after lunch still. We had a look round the shops too, which were really festive as they had late night shopping for Chinese New Year (a few days later) - it's like Christmas there! Then bed.

Thursday morning we made our way down to the Ferry Terminal once more, but this time not for the Star Ferry, oh no! We boarded the Lantau Island Ferry, to Mui Wo.

The ferry was pretty awful. Even though it only cost about 80p, it took almost an hour, was really rickety, and the route was really unscenic. The fog was still really thick so you couldn't see far enough to see anything interesting, but parked out in the sea between the islands are all these horrible huge industrial junky boats, container ships, some boats that just look like they are rotting away. These things kept looming out of the fog at us as we sailed past. Blah.

Lantau Island is the largest of HK's islands, and very mountainous. It feels very rural, even the town Mui Wo seemed rather sparse. We boarded a bus next in the main square and that wound its way up high into the mountains, giving some amazing views! Hong Kong is very craggy. After about half an hour, we arrived at our destination, Ngong Ping, next to which lies the Po Lin Monastery and its massive 26m high bronze Buddha statue.



The photos really don't give the best impression, the Tian Tan Buddha looms over you wherever you are.






It's very beautiful around the monastery. We went up into the dining hall where the monastery dishes up hearty vegetarian meals for a tiny price. The food was quite basic (mostly just plain rice and vegetables) but nice and there was plenty of it! We had about 5 different dishes.

After filling up, we made our way up to the summit and the statue.





After a good look round, we were back on the bus to Mui Wo and back on the boat to Hong Kong Island.

We wandered back to the hotel and kind of spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around in bed, drinking green tea and watching the sun set out of our huge window. It was really nice. We got up again eventually and went for a really nice dinner at a crazy cantonese vegetarian restaurant we found online. You had to go into this slightly grotty looking tenement building and up in a lift to get to it, but once in it was great, really busy, and even though there was a slightly awkward language barrier the staff were really welcoming - I think being slightly off the tourist trail, they weren't really used to international visitors!

A last look round the lights of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, and we went back to the hotel to pack up and sleep before the long long long flight the next morning. There was a slight mis-hap checking in when my suitcase accidentally went down the luggage chute without a luggage tag, but it all got sorted in the end! The flight this time was not so fun. Halfway through I genuinely thought I was going to DIE of BOREDOM (13 hours aghhh) and this time the plane was really small and really crowded, and the seats didn't recline properly. McWrinkle wasn't too happy as he had his own seat on the first plane but this time had to go under the seat in front with my bag. I did fall asleep for an hour or so though, and the rest of the time watched Tudors.

Then we arrived back in Heathrow, passing through the corridors of arrivals with cheery photos of London sights on the walls, a positive beginning. Then it was COLD. SO COLD. And dark. I had two nights in a row without a day in between. And thus, with a seemingly endless night and some photos of London on the walls, began a new chapter of life.

Bye January, Bye Australia

January has seen some crazy times, that seem a world away now as I sit here wrapped in blankets, fire blazing, looking out of the window over frosty English countryside...

...The new year 2011 started as it meant to go on with layers of thick, sticky heat falling over Sydney.



We took a trip out to visit our old house in Meadowbank and caught the Parramatta River ferry back to the city, like we always used to do back in the day.



We hung out at Sydney Observatory and on Observatory Hill, my favourite place in the world...we did the night tour at Sydney Observatory also, got to look at Jupiter and a lovely nebula!



We took our last day trip out to the Blue Mountains - where the air was fresh and clean and delicious - walked the giant steps, Furber steps and through the Jamison Valley. I ached for the next 3 days.

We've seen the sights, walked over the Harbour Bridge, swam at Balmoral, and spent a lovely evening with Dean at the free open-air concert in the Domain, Sydney Symphony performing a Shakespeare-themed set of works, with our accompanying selection of wine, cheese and antipasto. We saw Kitty, Daisy and Lewis play some fun rock 'n' roll at the Sydney Festival, and The National play an amazing gig at the Enmore Theatre. We braved the queue for the Annie Leibowitz retrospective at the MCA and found it thoroughly worth the wait. We had flat whites and falafels at Shenkin in Erskineville (my favourite home for always), thickshakes at BuzzzBar in Newtown, poached eggs at Baffi and Mo in Redfern, rojak and cendol at Mamak in Chinatown, polenta chips and many other delights with David and Kristie at Bloodwood in Newtown, Four Ate Five's excellent chips in Surry Hills, Crust Pizza in Neutral Bay (Crust Pizza!!!), and the most fabulous 3 course meal with the most delectable bottle of wine at Glebe Point Diner.

I had my last day at work and my colleagues bought me some beautiful antique silver rose earrings. Mark and I held our leaving party at Emma's shop, we had a vegetarian BBQ, and we drank our 2003 vintage Moet that I had been saving for such an occasion.

Our last day in Sydney was a busy one, made rather difficult by the fact the weather suddenly decided it was a good idea to be 36 degrees (THIRTY SIX DEGREES) for the day. Poor Mark had to carry an 8kg box to the Post Office, then we had to find lunch somewhere that had air conditioning before we passed out (Deus ex Machina sufficed with their lovely salads, giving us a chance to cool down). Then a trip to the bank where I lost the plot slightly and Mark had to do my accounting for me which probably made the bank people think he was trying to steal all my money or something.

Then a trip up the Sydney Tower!



For some last minute postcard sending and surveying of our beautiful land...

And the day was over. Just the evening was left, a last drink with Dean at the Art House Hotel and then onwards into the night to watch Priscilla Queen of the Desert at Emma's in Surry Hills.

On Tuesday 25th at 8am, a taxi came to Neutral Bay, a taxi came and took us away. It took us over the Harbour Bridge, past Circular Quay, and south to the airport. A final flat white later and we boarded a plane, one final loop over Sydney, beautiful Sydney, Sydney my home, and we were gone.

Neutral Bay

My current bedroom in the Neutral Bay sharehouse. I like this house a lot, it has space in. The only downside is obviously that it is on the wrong (north) side of the bridge. It is SO straight here. So vanilla. And there are like, 5 supermarkets all within a few blocks of each other. At least we are not far from the beach. I am now one of those terrible people for whom there is no life outside the inner west.

In one week I will no longer live in Sydney. No longer live in Australia.

In which so many things have gone on

Readers, dear readers, please do not think I have abandoned you!!! I have been moving and organising and all manner of other things.

So, back the the UK we go, arriving for February. Which, provided this Sydney February is as unpleasantly HOT as the last one, will be a nice time to leave. But, if this UK February is as unpleasantly COLD as the last one, it will likewise not be a particularly pleasant time to arrive. One cannot win, really.

We have moved out of Erskineville. Over to Surry Hills. All our worldly goods are in a container somewhere, waiting for their journey back across the sea. We got Crown to do our removals again this time - the guys that came were awesome, best removal ever - everything got so well wrapped and packed. Oddly a much better job was done than by the same company on the way over! They must have upped their stakes.

We are reduced again to a life out of a suitcase for the next few months. Until the novelty wears off I must admit it is a pleasant state of affairs, to have your life that simple that it all fits into one bag.



The living room in the new house... It's small but cosy. Surry Hills is ok, it doesn't have the community feel of Erskineville/Newtown. Lots of cafes, bars, restaurants, but doesn't feel like there's a lot to do unless you have a lot of money to burn. There's no bookshops, really. Although there is a great library.

We said a sad goodbye to two of our dear friends - Chesney and Totoro! Off they went in the crate!



The weather is very up and down at the moment. Which I guess is usual for this time of year as the skies adjust to being warmer. The rain is abundant but we we have had a few nice days. They have tended to be during the week though, unfortunately for me stuck in my office. Today we are rained off and stuck inside, although we did get a good brunch in at Four Ate Five on Crown Street (vegan mexican bean breakfast - YUM).

I should be off to Canberra next weekend, and definitely Melbourne the weekend after that, so there should be some more fun stuff to write about soon. Mark has been to a rockabilly-only barbershop and is sporting an excellent new hair-do. Last Saturday night we went to an astonomy open evening at Macquarie Uni and got to look through a telescope to see Jupiter and its moons, and Uranus. Also we learnt about how to find south using the Southern Cross constellation. We have eaten at Atom Thai, Cafe Sopra, Kai on King, Sofia, Bloodwood and Mamak.

I am spending the afternoon in Narnia, or more precisely in Ettinsmoor on the way to Harfang.....yes I raided the children's section of the library! Also watching the rain fall outside the window.....hope for a nicer day tomorrow.

roller derby & melancholia

Tonight I went to Roller Derby at Hordern Pavillion with Dean, Zane, Erin, etc (I was the heterosexual minority which was novel!) - Sydney versus Wollongong Illawara (Sydney thrashed them woo woo woo!). It was my first Roller Derby experience and I had a great time! The rules seem complicated but it's actually quite simple. And there is a lot of shoving - I was quite surprised how violent it was! The best thing about it is the showmanship aspect - all the girls have fun 'skating names' like "Peaches Obscene" and "Babycakes" and "Miss Sin Doll" and "Vindi Vicious" and the style is really burlesque - lots of make-up, minimal clothing, lots of lace and ruffles and tattoos and glitter and showing off.

Now I am home eating beans on toast and watching some awful film called Before Sunrise despite the fact the Ethan Hawke character is grating on my brain (keeps coming out with such cringe-worthy/scientifically disastrous/irrational gems as 'so 10 thousand years ago there were only a million souls, today there are x million, so where did all those extra souls come from, they must be reincarnated'). But it's set in Vienna and the premise is the characters meet on a train and spend the night in Vienna together, walking around. It makes me want to go to Vienna.

I kind of feel like Vienna might be one of those places like Sydney, that are just so close to reaching near perfection as a place to be. Vienna has, for me, almost everything. A beautiful city, beautiful surrounding countryside, great weather (reliably hot, sunny summers and reliably real, cold, snowy winters), low living costs (comparative to most western european capitals), amazing culture and history, great bars and fun nightlife (surprisingly, and something Sydney definitely lacks), plus plenty to fill your days with. It is safe, and quiet, the transport is amazing and everything is just so well run. The only thing it lacks is coastline and good food (austrian food has tendencies to make my insides revolt, rather quickly - it is just meat and stodge! No fish! No vegetables!). Two things that Sydney of course can offer, in abundance.

It is places like these, like Vienna, like Sydney, like Paris, like Melbourne, like Berlin....that make me feel sometimes there is no hope for me in the United Kingdom. But then I think, I have to find something. I have to look really hard and find something there, because I have to live there. This makes me feel a strange mixture of determination, hope, and confused melancholy.

Musings on the present and the future.

Part of the Kaldor Public Art Projects 2010 is currently on just down the road from us in the former brickworks on the edge of Sydney Park. They are currently being used to contain Stephen Vitiello's sound installation "The Sound of Red Earth" - sounds recorded in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Each of the buildings is a different theme - my favourite being the coastal one with sand on the floor and the sound of the ocean.





Mark has left for Europe for 3 weeks and thusly I am lonesome. Although I did go to the video shop and rent The Boat that Rocked, Notting Hill, and series 1 of Pushing Daisies, so I have many hours of entertainment. On Friday night we had a goodbye meal for Mark (the other Mark) and Daniella down at the Sultan's Table in Enmore, as they are leaving for India for the next few months! I've never really wanted to go to India before, well, not really been bothered about it I suppose, but I'm quite into the idea now! Thinking about an Indian holiday at some point. I am getting Japan cravings again, too - can't wait to go back but that's an expensive one so will probably be a few years before we make it back. I would love to visit the onsen (hot springs) and go down to Hiroshima.

Went to an election party the other week at Nick's house in Stanmore! Got confused when the coverage on different channels was showing completely different results, ended up dancing to video channels instead, drank a lot of red wine, and set fire to a picture of Tony Abbott in the garden. There is a hung parliament now, deja vu!!! Hung parliaments are à la mode.

Election aside, the main news over here for us is that it looks like we are moving back to the UK in 2011. Which feels incredibly soon and I'm not really sure I want to....but more on that another time.

Anyway, I need ideas for entertaining myself in Sydney over the next 3 weeks! I'm usually full of ideas for stuff I want to do when Mark goes away, but this time I'm at a slight loss, oddly. I'll have to plan some walks I guess. I think it's Pyrmont Markets next Saturday so I'll hopefully make it down there (although it's SUCH an early start!). I guess he's only been away over the hot times before, so I normally just go to the beach. No beach yet, not yet. In a few weeks hopefully the beach weather will come. Although I am fond of the beaches on a nice winter day for a walk - beaches are a lot more attractive when there aren't oodles of people slathered all over them.

We were saying recently how maybe one benefit of being back in the UK is that we will perhaps be a bit more sociable again. We have both been a little lonely in Sydney, Mark doesn't really see many people and most of the people I meet through work are not permanent in Aus, or they are just...'work people'...you know? Like...nice people.....but, you wouldn't necessarily socialise outside because you only have work in common really.
I've always made an effort to stay away from the "expat community" and all that business, because I always thought it seemed a bit counter-productive...like, if you move abroad and only socialise with people from the country you've moved from, you can only really be looking back, and I'm not one for looking back if I can help it. As it turned out, most of the people who became my closest friends were expats, non-australian, so maybe I shouldn't have tried to avoid that so much!

Aaaanyway, just looked up Mark's flights, he'll be in Berlin in about a hour, finally! Such a long journey, I've had two full days and one whole night's sleep since he started travelling. Actually can't wait to be in Europe again - not UK but Europe. A magical place where you can get a flight for an hour and a half and actually land in a different country from the one you set off from! Ahh. Going to watch this film now. Work tomorrow. Goodnight!

Shuffling around

This evening Mark and I are getting packed up as we leave the Glebe house tomorrow for another temporary home. At least we will soon have a more permanent home! As I mentioned a couple of posts back, we had our application accepted on the house in Meadowbank and put down a deposit on it last Saturday! Until we can move in on September 3rd, we will be in the Medina Executive Apartments. It looks pretty nice and is being paid for by Macquarie University out of Mark's relocation allowance. The downside is that it's in North Ryde (near Macquarie University), a dull suburban sprawl connected to the city only via a 40 minute bus ride. But, there are gym, sauna and swimming pool facilities, so hopefully I will be too busy getting wet to notice the surroundings too much.

Today Mark took the morning off work and we strolled around Glebe and Newtown, until it was time for a seminar he wanted to attend at the University of Sydney. We also had another poke around in Gould's Book Arcade on King Street, the most brilliant warehouse piled full of second hand books, where I acquired Nylon magazine and Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. That makes the second Nabokov novel I have bought in a week (the first being The Defence, found for $3 on a stall at Glebe Market) - the lesser known ones that I found hard to get hold of in the UK just keep appearing!

Here's a few pictures from around Glebe/Newtown:


View of the Central Business District.




On King Street, Newtown.


Mark in a cafe reading Nylon.