Weekend down south

X had a massage thingamajig to attend, so we decided to spend the weekend in Sydney. We stayed at the Novotel on Brighton le Sands, which is this really cute, coastal, still kind of bogan suburb 15 minutes away from the airport.


For some weird reason, we were given two double beds. And somewhere along the evening, X's tampering with the remote cost him AUD14.95 when he 'accidentally' clicked on the porn. *cough*

So after leaving X at daycare the conference, I took the 478 on Bay St to the Rockdale station, where I got a train ticket from a grumpy old man to the City. Hungry, I headed straight to the infamous Marigold for dim sum (known as yum char here).




Yes, I sat all by my lonesome self in the midst of tables of chattering families, nibbling on my yam puffs and prawn chee cheong fun. Unfortunately, I've been nursing a temperamental tummy for a whole week now and that was all I could stomach. The dishes were yummy though.

I then wandered about Market City. The upper levels totally remind me of Sungai Wang. Hunted down some obligatory souvenirs for the colleagues (Smiggle pens) and cosmetics for Maternal Logic. Got myself orange, seafoam green and silver nail polish. The latter is shiny enough to rival bike reflectors, I kid you not. It is made in China though so I wonder if it contains some radioactive evil shit that will shrivel my nails and cause them to drop off.

I walked past all the famous Asian hairsalons (Kippo, Ginger etc) but they were crowded. At last I wound up in one that looked reasonably busy but could slot me in. I forget the name but it was Korean and they cheated me out of a hairwash. The lady snipped away and in 15 minutes, I emerged looking somewhat like a little boy with cleavage (it was the bra, I'll admit). Here, you judge. Just ignore the lady behind me who thought she'd pose along.



The nicest parts of Sydney really, aren't the touristy Opera House/ Darling Harbour/ Harbour Bridge etc (overrated), nor the shopping malls and not even the Chinesey parts where obscure, too-sweet drinks with funny squiggly characters can be found. I discovered the lovely Eastern suburbs hidden between the main streets and Kings Cross. I wouldn't really recommend walking there at night, but I spent several hours on Saturday just wandering about, admiring the intricate lattice of the balconies, the charmingly peeling paintwork and the leafy trees and pavements purple-lined with jacaranda flowers.








See why you shouldn't wander there at night?





My attempt to swim failed as the heated pool is only open until 6pm. I did get to milk my new white bikini (never toss your wet bikini into your beachbag with your evil, evil, but so beautiful green Marc by MJ wallet in it) for all it was worth though. Note to self: Walk around in swimwear around the mall in Gold Coast and nobody notices; do the same in a hotel in Sydney and everyone will stare.

We had dinner at Mezes, which is attached to the lobby of the hotel. It's mainly Mediterranean food. The restaurant was bustling so it was a good thing X made reservations. Our waitress was this incredibly exotic thing with the most gorgeous eyes ever.


My Chai Latter Vanilla which is The Most Awesome Beverage Ever. I took one away again for breakfast. Had I not been completely stuffed from the yummy Seafood Linguine (see below), I'd have had another.


This is unbelievably good. Even better than my boss' mummy's Jewish meatball spaghetti, which is saying something.

NB: Stop calling me your boss! I am not your boss.
Jan: Yes boss.


I convinced X to get the Filet Mignon which was superb. (Top to bottom) Carrot shavings, feta block, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, vegetable filo pastry, pesto *drool*

Even more exquisite was the bill, which totalled AUD54.70 for both of us. This sort of thing on the Coast would have set us back AUD80, at least and probably not been half as good. I would have to say, this is only the second truly positive restaurant experience in Australia I've had, the first being The Balcony in Byron Bay (though they're starting to suck too).

I end our little trip with a picture of men in tights. Poor Batman (whose mask was held together with duct tape at the back) got humped by some idiot drunk. These guys were sporting enough to strike a pose anyway.



We spent Sunday in Manly, which would have probably been a nice place but it rained and poured cats, dogs, goats and dinosaurs and X and I just spent most of the time at the Ivanhoe having lunch. Well, I spent about 20 minutes in the loo which wouldn't flush, which made me flush when I exited, only to face an annoyed pregnant lady who had probably only been waiting forever. Awkward.

It's a good thing I was stoned last weekend

So X and I celebrated four years of endurance courtship last weekend.

The night before:

X: Get dressed up tomorrow, we're doing something special okay?
Jan: Are we going to the Irish dance?
X: What Irish dance?

We went to the Irish dance. X is like the most predictable person on earth I have ESP.

I had extremely low expectations as the Gold Coast standard of art can be likened to its inhabitants' love of outlet stores and fast food. But it turned out to be pretty fun. It was like watching the Mamma Mia. Terribly campy and corny and the storyline made no sense whatsoever (good triumphs over evil with lots of tap dancing and singing in garish polyester; evil people look like durians; choreography is done according to the hirsuteness of one's chest), and the cast were mostly terribly unattractive. But once you got over that, their passion was infectious and soon I was hooting and clapping along. Unfortunately, cameras aren't permitted at the venue hence the lack of photographic evidence.

I do however, have a picture of a drunk lady in a sumo fatsuit at the ATM on Chevron Island. Oh, the randomness.

Bangkok Thai restaurant seemed to be the only decent venue open at 10pm. The waitresses rolled their eyes, but the food was decent (I hope they didn't spit in our food) and I could hardly bear to use the elegant lotus-shaped serviette.


We drove to Beechmont, which is like, in the middle of NOWHERE and came across people flying. Of course, I fell asleep in the car.


I really miss doing this.


Lahey's Canungra Tramway Tunnel. I found Asian people in Canungra! How unbelievable is that? Not in the tunnel, but at the petrol station. We are truly ubiquitous.

Introversion

It's funny how well this describes me. Which may come as a surprise.

Pieces of me

My gorgeous salad. Rockmelon and mango and avocados are always nice additions.

The Joshua tree.

There are peacocks everywhere at my workplace. Apparently one raped a peahen the other day.

Albino peacock/ hen

Hail! My first sighting. The car's alarm went off, but fortunately enough did not sustain any visible damage.

Won Ton Noodle. When I was a kid, the hawkers used to occasionally spell it as One Ton Mee. And I used to wonder why (won ton means 'swallow cloud', a reference to the appearance of cooked dumplings). From the Malaysian restaurant at Sunshine Blvd. The proprietor is from Ipoh too.

X: What is this?

Jan: Failed brownies. I did everything the instructions said to and it still turned out like this!

X: Did it occur to you to use one pan instead of two? *detaches second pan*

Jan: ...

Jewish schnitzels. Yum.

Opera in the Park at Broadbeach. Quite nice but we were simply sitting to far away to appreciate the full effect thus the early departure.

Things to do during terrorist attacks

NSFW... as in you might start laughing uncontrollably and feel the urge to forward the link to everyone.

Depending on how juvenile you are. I found it funny anyway.

The accidental

I'm not sorry we met.

When you said there was a Hooker Boulevard on the Coast I thought you were kidding

kungfu blanket-ing. regular insults on his hairline and age. the odd comeback on my head and height. dutch oven ambushes. housework avoidance. tantrums. the bush. hairdye on the towels. smudges on the mirrors. tits whisperer. fingerprints on the windows. never making the bed. dishes in the sink. turnitdowni'mtryingtodomyfigures. two and a half men. john howard eyebrows. bunnykins. messing up the bathroom. malaysian showers. asian mail order bride jokes. astro turf. long balls. blind as a bat. vege soup.

Happy fourth anniversary!

Happy 1st anniversary to Australia and I

Today marks a whole year since I left an existence of 23.71 years in Malaysia. Of dependence and pampering and being absolutely spoilt.

In these 12 months, I've learnt a lot. Things I'd always taken for granted because Someone Else was always there to do it for me. While I can un-jam photocopiers (most models) in record time or discuss the finer points of modern literature, I had no basic urban survival skills whatsoever. And really, I think it was quite typical of people of my generation.

Below are some of my modest achievements.

*drum roll*

Cooking
Take-outs and decent restaurants were always within a 5 minute drive away (I lived within the vicinity of 6 malls). Why bother? Well here on the Coast, food is almost always a disappointment and/or disturbingly processed. While my repertoire consists of few dishes, I'm proud to say the Fried Rice and Vegetable Soup are edible. Plus I now bake stuff I actually consume; granted it's from a mix. Baby steps.

Driving
A year ago, I didn't have a clue which pedal was for what (no, really). Now I happily maneuovre the car without killing/ maiming people and creatures or even scratching the paint (barring a few incidences earlier in the year). I do occasionally forget the seatbelt or headlights at night. And not to mention, after 2 failures I finally passed the driving test! Granted I had to pimp my instructor though (if anyone on the Coast needs someone patient, gentle and good-natured with an excellent track record, leave your email address and I'll send you her details).

And! I now know how to fill petrol on my own. No explosions so far. Hurray! Though I've only just found out my car can't do diesel. It's a good thing that Unleaded has a prettier logo. Phew.

Not having people to run to for everything
I'm not discrediting X - he's been an absolute angel and super patient with the hapless/ clueless - but he has his own life and can't be there for me for everything. I've learnt I have some wonderful friends who make up for their physical absence with lots of calls, messages and thoughtful words. Or some of the locals who make effort to contact me every other day because really, migrating to a foreign country all by your lonesome can be a really awful experience if left unchecked (literally). Of course, my mummy updates me on the latest gossip and reminds me to move away from the beach every week (Maternal Logic #45690: "Girl, the tsunami might hit Australia anytime! Make sure you stay far, far away from the beach." "Ma, I'm 200 metres from the beach on the Gold COAST." "Well, move further in!")too.

Talking to strangers
Whilst I sloughed myself of some rather nasty people I'd never really felt 100% comfortable, but remained friends with (I came to Queensland knowing less than 5 people), I'm slowly expanding my social circle. Being a room full of strangers still makes me nervous, but I've stopped hiding in the toilet with mini panic attacks and can manage a little socialising. Some of them even stay in touch! Long lunch sessions are looking to be a regular possibility.

A little less brandwhoring
Moving from a big city to a town with about 25% of KL's population inevitably meant a downgrading of material goods. I hated shopping here - where were TopShop, Zara and all the high street shops? Whilst I'm still looking for that elusive Chanel backpack on eBay every now and then (I ended up buying a vintage Moschino backpack in the end), I've stopped lamenting the fact that 90% of the labels in my wardrobe are completely unrecognizable.

Standing up for myself
Being the typical subservient, (relatively) tolerant Asian female, I'd put up with a lot of BS in my life. Now, I'll call a bluff when I see it and not be overwhelmed with guilt for hurting the other party's feelings/ not saving face. Compared to the outspoken folks here though, I'm probably still at the pretty mild end of the spectrum.

The gray area
I had such a good life before; I saw used to see things in black and white. People and situations were always good or bad. Good to be embraced; bad to be lopped out of my picturesque life and to never be heard from again. Yet here I've made some decisions which I was heavily judged upon and the saying of Let he who does not sin cast the first rock has never held truer.

When I first arrived, a lovely Belgian lady told me, "If you can stay here for two years without going back home, you'll be fine. The first two years are always the hardest."

There are days I question what I'm doing here, but I can honestly say most of the time I'm really glad to be here.

Useful French phrase of the day.

Vous observez Uranus avec un télescope.

Hehehe.

How thee annoy me, let me count the ways

As we say in Chinese, my tail has been trodden on of the late.

1. Unnecessary negative comments. Unless it's constructive criticism, I believe in the old adage If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything.

2. People who talk loudly in public. Hello, bogan teenage girls!

3. Fake accents. If I can live here for a year and (mostly) socialise with locals and only acquire the slightest hint of Aussiness when I say, I don't know (I DON'T KNOI), then you sure as hell shouldn't sound like Steve Irwin.

4. People who compare themselves to others. I mean, I'm susceptible to the odd OMG, she's so gorgeous I feel like a squashed toad in comparison moment, but when you have people going around asking for your vital stats so they can see how they measure up, it's tantamount to stalking.

5. Nosiness. How much I earn, how often and if I do 'do it', why I haven't gotten married, what's wrong with me why don't I want kids is none of anyone's business but mine, thankyouverymuch.

6. Relatives. See number 5.

7. People who substitute adjectives/ verbs/ nouns etc with swear words innecessantly. You're not cool, just have severely impeded vocabulary.

8. Office gossips and politics. Chances are, you're a non-performer to have to resort to these.

9. Inefficient people who always claim to be busy. Listen pal, if you haven't worked in a sweat shop an audit firm in East Asia before, then you have no idea what busy is. Busy means totally forgetting all human needs, including eating, pissing and showering at least once a day. Busy means not seeing your partner or family or friends for weeks or months. Busy means getting 8 hours of sleep... over a week. Busy means working so late that by the time you look up, the security guard has left and you're locked in the building (true story). Busy means not having time to read this blog.

10. People who just say something for the sake of saying something. Silence is golden. Also see no. 1.

Don't laugh, but

The water supply got cut off just after I'd soaped up my hands.

So I washed them in the toilet.

I was desperate, okay.

Mooncake Festival

Last Sunday, X and I celebrated the Mid Autumn Festival (in Taiwan, they do the lanterns with that Dumpling Festival. WEIRD) his colleagues who are mostly all Asian. They always invite me along to play translator.

We settled down at one of the two crowded tables in Cha Cha, Broadbeach. It's always terribly confusing for me, as half are Japanese and the other half Chinese/ Taiwanese and then they'll throw in some English in an attempt to include X. We wisely picked at the food and nodded along.

So anyway, this guy with an enormous head (this coming from someone with a pretty large cranium) sat across from me, smiled and introduced himself as 'Ken from Osaka' who used to be a 'psychologist'. We started off with the usual pleasantries - Have you been to Japan, The flight tickets are quite cheap on Jetstar etc. Then by the third line or so, he threw this in.

"Wow X, she is very young for you! How did you get her?"

Like wow. I mean, sure everyone thinks that. But none have been so bold as to actually voice it out.

I intercepted jokingly, "From the kindergarten.

Then again, "How did you get here?" His enormous head craned forward, "Did he...?" A finger towards X.

"No, no," X leapt to my defense knowing how these assumptions always upset me.

Had he made such a comment a year ago, I would have:
a) Thrown my drink in his face (which was only water anyway)
b) Made a very snide comment using lots of obscure multisyllabic words with regards to the lack of correlation between the size of his head and brain
c) Moved to sit elsewhere

But as you have it, I've somewhat matured and lost some of the ego and pride that come with corporate life. I explained my circumstances patiently instead.

Apart from that incident, all went well. X's Boss gave us a mooncake and we somehow managed to divvy it up into 10 miniscule slices to share with our table. "What about the others?" Someone asked.

I looked over at the other 15 red-faced drunks, screaming and babbling incoherently. "Nevermind."

Later, a few of us headed to the newly opened Movenpick for ice cream. It was terribly amusing. Taiwanese, Japanese, Thai, American/ Aussie, Malaysian. We spoke Mandarin/ English. Kazu, the Jap, nodded along and would interject, "Dui ya!" (That's right!) ever so often during appropriate silences.

I still can't quite relate, but I really like these people.

Yehudim

According to my statistics, about half you readers are Malaysians. And if you check the last page of your nice maroon passport, you'll realise we can't travel to Israel, if you haven't noticed it already (which a surprising amount of you lot haven't).

Prior to accepting my current job, my only contact with Israelis was a long, borderline philosophical conversation with a nice Jewish man before, during a trip to Thailand on the kosher-ness of foods and the logic ("What logic?") behind the restrictions etc.

So it's terribly ironic the folk at New Job all hail from Israel. Now I've been accused of being terribly Westernised, but I think of myself more as secular. And truthfully, I've always been uncomfortable around people who are too parochial - I just can't relate.

Yet their graciousness just transcends all the boundaries. Yes, they speak in Hebrew all the time; yes, their eating habits are quite different; yes, I get headaches from sorting out their Israeli receipts when bookkeeping (the trick is to match the dates and amounts to the bank statements). But they always let me in on the conversation. They feed me (anyone who feeds me is on my good side, really). They are always concerned for my wellbeing and are the most honest, nicest, kindest, most sincere people I have had the pleasure of working with in the longest time. Remember I come from very corporate, Dilbert-esque, kiasu office culture - backstabbing and gossiping is the norm.

Four weeks into the job, I've already picked up a little bit of the culture. And since many of you may never get the chance to step into Israel, here's a mish mash of Jewish trivia. (Disclaimer: Um, may not be factual.)

- Shalom can be used as hello, goodbye and peace be with you.
- Hebrew is written from right to left. However, do not exclaim that it's "written backwards" because you'll be informed that the language precedes English.
- The Hebrew alphabet does not contain any vowels, or capital letters and to a Gentile such as myself, looks like neatly spaced poseur tapeworms.
- SS taught me the Jewish version of bon apetit today but I forget.
- Many American celebrities actually have Jewish heritage. Some common surnames are Cohen/ Coen, anything ending with a -berg.
- Jewish given names always have beautiful meanings. Examples: Gal - waves, Shelly - "May I?", Kesem - magic, Tal - dew.
- In spite being smack in the middle of the Middle East, Israel is an incredibly green country famous for the landscaping.
- Israelis are not allowed in Muslim countries, hence flights tend to transit in Europe.
- The Jewish calendar is a lunar one, as opposed to the Gregorian solar calendar used mostly around the world. For this reason, Muslim and Jewish festivities tend to fall around the same time. (The sheer irony...)

I am so blessed.

Pulp wisdom

"Uncomfortable silences. Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?...That's when you know you found somebody special. When you can just shut the fuck up for a minute, and comfortably share silence."

Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace, to John Travolta as Vincent Vega
Pulp Fiction