20 april 2008

busybusy day. up before 9 AM for the first time since i arrived. still too late to catch the parentals, who had left before 8.30. my stepmum does more before midday than most people do before midnight, and more than i do all week. this morning for example, she has made three dishes, plus rice, for seven people, washed and blow-dried blossom the cat, been for a walk, done some shopping, cleaned the house and… i don’t know, invented a new method of harvesting energy from the sun, or something.

today my stepbrother (who i’ve never met before) and his girlfriend (ditto) come round for lunch, as do some friends of my dad and stepmum: everyone is lovely, although i didn’t feel at my most sociable. have realised i hate meeting people, but i like having met them: bit of a dichotomy, really.

everyone leaves around 3, and i’m really tired but in a way that goes past the need for sleep; i’m wired.

we drive out to two rocks, a town - and by town i mean two shops and a pub - named for (yes!) the two rocks you can see out to sea. we eat chip butties in a deserted cafe and the rain pours down outside. just like england.

thankfully, we spot some kangaroos on the way home and i am reassured i am still in australia.

21 april 2008

another day of socialising - i’ve met more people in two days than i had in the previous year! (i’m exaggerating, but only slightly). my stepmum’s workmates from taiwan, who are soon leaving the state and then the country, come round for a cup of tea. they are both lovely. one of them used to be a journalist (for a tabloid-y paper back home) but wants to do something else in future.

later, my dad lays out the options for his post-retirement life as he sees them: building his own home, or joining the circus. it must be quite the hallucinogenic cocktail in his brain…

24 april 2008

lovely weather today. i have lunch al fresco. blossom looks like joining me but demurs at the last minute.

my stepmum and i go to burns beach, take in some lovely sea air, and have a drink. when we get back blossom has pooed on the bed.

i have a lie down on my bed with the fan on because it is too darn hot!

then i get ready for a meal at the local indian restaurant, masala, which is delicious.

just before we head off, i get a stress-filled email from a magazine wanting me to phone an interviewee about something really last-minute. as i’m due to head out in five minutes, and in australia, i have to decline, but email madly before setting off. i’m a bit stressed as i eat, but when i get home later it’s all resolved. phew.

25 april 2008

go to a bookshop in north perth, which sells second-hand stuff at rather high mark-ups. we all load up our arms nonetheless: the shop is piled so full of books in waist-high piles on the floor as well as on shelves. it’s like a maze and you feel you deserve some kind of reward for navigating it. the manager talks at length about theft and bad karma and how he moved here from new york to be a teacher but hated the schools. finally we escape and eat at a lovely balkan cafe.

then we head for some serious roo-spotting, to pinneroo memorial park. yes, the cemetery is where all the roos hang out. and they don’t seem to mind us snapping hundreds of pics of them. the people who’ve left flowers for their buried loved ones might be a bit miffed at the way the kangas are decimating them, though.

more animal spotting later: we go to joondalup lake, which is beautiful, a popular picnic spot, and i can see why. it’s incredibly hot and sunny for “autumn”, at least 28C, and we take some great pictures of the flocks of cockatiels. i think that’s what they are… at one point they have a mad squawking fit and hundreds of them fly close over our heads. it’s an incredible spectacle.

later, i mess around online and an internet quiz asks me if i embark upon adventures when i’m in emotional pain. er… no comment.

26 april 2008

another gorgeous day. start off feeling exhausted and dizzy, as i’m still so tired and jetlagged.

i had been promised a trip to “manor” all week - some posh cafe, i assumed. it turns out to be manna, an unassuming mostly veggie place. that makes more sense.

then it’s shopping time! gem and i attack e-sheds markets at fremantle with gusto. my dad sits and reads a book. and the paper. (we’re gone a while).

there are some great souvenir shops and stuff to see, including a lot of hello kitty merch, which is always good. i buy a koala (not a real one), a kangaroo keychain and some postcards. (tourist, much?)

on the way back, we head to a cafe for coffee (hot “chockie” in my case). it’s sunny and beautiful and the cafe view (a tiny beach on the waterfront) is gorgeous. the service however, is perfunctory at best. we drink up and take photos, including one of me sitting in a tree. no reason.

15 april 2008

after a five hour flight that feels 15 times longer, we arrive in australia just after midnight. i’m in the country of my birth for the first time in 29 years. as we drive the dark and empty highways home, i can’t quite believe i’m here, that i was born here, and that i’ll be staying here until the end of june.

we’re met by my stepmum and blossom the cat, and my guest room here is lovely. (i have my own bathroom, too). i notice there’s one of those annoying “natural sounds” CDs playing in my room, with cicadas, crickets or similar chirping away. i look around to turn it off but discover it’s no CD - it’s nature!

i shove my earplugs in deep, and crash out.

am in a very bad mood on waking, as so horribly jet-lagged. also, my dad wakes me from a very deep sleep and starts telling me what to do in quite some detail. after a heated discussion and a good cry, i think he sees my point of view: that this is a holiday, that i can’t do as much as a “well” person… and that that’s okay.

after that upheaval, i change my mind about not wanting to go out, and we head off with my stepmum to fremantle and a lovely veggie cafe* called juicy beetroot, where i have a delicious lentil dahl and rice. i also get two second-hand books from a big charity shop, including asta’s book, which keris keeps saying is good. (i’d better like it!)

we get take-away coffees/hot chocolate and sit by the waves at cottersloe beach, watching the people and dogs running up and down. i fall asleep in the car on the way home.

the day ends with me checking the net, but studiously avoiding my main email accounts so as not to be drawn back into the world of work: have declared this a week off.

the day also ends with blossom leaving a poo in the laundry room. i like to think she’s saying “welcome to australia, diane”.

16 april 2008

you just can’t keep me away: i log onto all my emails today. thankfully, there’s nothing too traumatic to contend with, but people are still contacting me about a feature i wrapped up 8 days ago.

i can’t believe that this time last week i was in the air, the trauma of my airport fiasco still heavy on my mind. it’s that bit harder to adjust when the start of a journey goes badly, especially for someone like me, who always finds it hard to adjust to anything.

i realise i’m really going to miss my ipod speakers as i tidy my room sans sound effects. i unpack everything with great haste, and then leave it languishing on my bed while i talk to my stepmum when she gets home from work (she works part-time in a nursery - plants, not kids, getting home at lunchtime). she bemoans the lack of good, bargainous clothes shopping in oz.

i take the stuff off my bed and pile it on the floor, neatly this time. putting some more stiff away i discover my dad’s secret stash in a drawer.

not what you’re thinking, unless what you’re thinking is ear plugs. more ear plugs than i’ve ever seen in one place - more than have ever been seen in one place.

“well, i’ll need them for the rest of my life,” he tells me.

19 april 2008

we go to a lavender tearoom in the hills of perth, about an hour’s drive. there are imposing signs about highly poisonous tiger snakes everywhere but “we’ve only seen one once” my dad ?reassures? me. i need to use the (outdoor) toilet and do so vairy cautiously… then i sample some lavender scone but settle on lavender ice cream and a “ginger crunch”. yum.  we see some aussie magpies (much bigger than the british version - i later find out they are two different birds, no relation) making off with leftovers as soon as people leave their tables.

we also see some galahs, like pink and grey parrots (brett had one in neighbours, he gave it to libby. or susan - remember?) they’re very pretty and full of character:

on the way back, we stop at kallamunda, which my dad’s mentioned having been to a few times. i expected a big town, but it’s a really small place, just a few shops on two or three streets, the end.

we go into a second-hand bookshop and my dad comments on the owner’s glass-enclosed catcher in the rye. the owner says salinger is hard to come by, so has to be kept pristine.

 ”most of what they turn out is rubbish, but he’s one of very few yanks who actually can write,” he tells us. i’m too jetlagged and agog to ask where his reading habits have been for the last 50 years.

later, we watch year of the dog, a film starring molly shannon and john c reilly which i wouldn’t recommend. “no, it wasn’t very good… was that your pick?” my dad asks.

*my dad is veggie; my stepmum vegan, so i’ll be having a low-meat couple of months…

it might be an oddly threatening letter from five years ago.

too funny!

obama declares himself the democratic candidate.

please give up now, hillary. (and please choose someone, anyone, else for the ticket, barack).

14 april 2008

our last day in singapore. (i know, finally, right?!)

we get up, have a delish breakfast (cheese and pepper omelette, made to order, and a huge pile of noodles - the perfect blend of east and west!), finish packing and check out, leaving our cases to collect later.

then we set off to look at the merlion, the symbol of singapore: basically a big lion/mermaid hybrid.

we take lots of pictures of the new, larger version and look at the smaller original.

there are loads of tourists, and a man from thailand sits down next to my dad and snaps a picture of the pair of them together. we have no idea why.

then we walk along to boat quay — or was it clark quay? one of the two quays, anyway –and look around. as we walk along the quay, we are hassled at every turn by restaurateurs trying to lure us in. “you want food madam?” no thank you. “drink? we have tea, coffee?” no. i am hungry but i’m more concerned that somewhere in the last few years i have become a “madam”… this hard sell approach is everywhere in singapore, part of the bartering culture and a little odd considering how polite everyone is here. there is just no taboo against aggressively trying to sell something, but for a reserved brit it’s hard to take in. in my culture, polite = leave me alone. here, polite = be nice at all times… but still try to SELL.

perhaps weirdly, we decide to eat lunch in o’brien’s, an irish sandwich bar we have in the UK. i have a fishfinger and cheese sandwich with ketchup, one of the oddest things i’ve ever ordered. (made a few, but never had one made for me). nice though!

we only have a couple of hours left now, so we decide to do the one thing that’s been missing from the trip (at least from my perspective): a visit to sim lim square, home of everything electronic, electrical and technological. we go by underground, and are overwhelmed by the size and scope of the place.

this one huge mall has to have the biggest selection of technology available in one place, ever. somehow i restrain myself from getting a mini-PC (they have a lot of asus eePCs, which are so tiny), an ipod nano and a tiny-looking 1TB external hard drive.

on the down side, this mall has the worst toilets i’ve ever seen/used (enough said), and the most off-putting food court:

(speaking of shopping, i forgot to mention it in one of my previous posts, because i can’t remember which day we went, but i feel i must give a mention to a store called mustafa. just down the road from our hotel in little india, it’s like wilkinson’s on steroids. you wouldn’t believe the choice: you can change money, book a holiday, buy luggage, clothes, cameras, toiletries, basically everything you could ever want. it’s open 24 hours a day and continually heaving. it’s a tourist attraction in itself: a must-see).

finally, it’s time to head back to the hotel, buy a little budda in the gift shop, and head to the airport.

australia ahoy!

lately i’ve been fascinated by diablo cody. i love her punk/goth/rock style, the fact that she’s my age and an oscar-winning screenwriter, and that she is witty and brash and cool; cool enough to blog about how dorky she sometimes feels, which just makes me like her more.

i found her fascinating before juno won its mucho awards, or before i read her book. i’m interested in her life, in how she got where she is today, and the fact that she changed her name to the spanish for “devil”.

but i was in no hurry at all to actually watch juno. partly because everyone kept talking about how witty and edgy and brilliant it is, and it always gets my back up when everyone tells me how much i’ll love something. and partly because i felt a sense of ownership, like: ”i knew about this movie months ago! i know so much about it i don’t even need to see it!”

but mostly it was ‘cos of the whole pregnancy-plot thing. as i once blogged for the guardian, hollywood has trouble handling unwanted pregnancies.

of course, i watched it in the end.

» more…

an article of mine is in the telegraph today, talking about online confessionals such as postsecret.com**: forgive me world, for i have sinned…

*she said, sacrilegiously.

** should have added that sooner, for the google traffic ;)

i was trying to sign into my email account dianeshipleyworks, but for some reason i keep getting an error message.

then i saw what i’d typed by mistake: dianeshipleyrocks.

right, where were we?

11 april 2008 (continued…)

so we walk, and walk, and walk, and walk. and eventually (after “just a few minutes” in my dad’s parlance and “absolutely bloody forever” in mine) we reach our bus stop. my feet are on fire. i get the same (attractive!) effect i got in new york, from loadsa flying plus loadsa walking: ankles like watermelons. i do not want to walk any more.

luckily, i did not have to. we sat at the bus stop and studied our timetable and map. our singapore airlines-provided hop-on, hop-off bus would arrive in twenty-five minutes. okay. we sat, and we watched the traffic: cars, buses, and the occasional rickshaw. my favourite was the man on his bike… smoking a pipe.

finally, our bus came.

here my memory has a major lapse, and my notes fail me: i’m not sure where we went first, or what we did when we got there. presumably, it was something good, as everything was running smoothly (at this point). but after we had been to this mysterious place, we hopped back on our bus to go to chinatown. and came into contact with the rudest bus driver ev-ah (singapore airlines ruining their reputation, again!)

this bus is supposed to be free for people on stopovers with singapore airlines, or $3 if you’re on holiday with singapore airlines. despite my being on a stopover, our new driver decided arbitrarily that i had to pay $3. because i had an electronic ticket, i think. (i wondered afterwards if he could read?) he was quite hysterical, grabbing my arm and shouting, “ma’am you are not on a stopover just ‘cos you come to singapore! holiday is not a stopover!” he stopped the bus and showed me a green boarding pass some other people had - i did not have one, therefore i was a dirty liar, was the implication. not wanting to cause any further commotion over a $3 fare, we paid, but seethed a bit. then we went to chinatown.  

in chinatown, we walked through the outdoor markets, looked at some of the ornate temples, were blasted by the incredible heat (and rained on a bit as well) and i saw the biggest/scariest terodactyl-sized bug in the world, which made me scream and run around and shriek “it’s not on me, is it?!” which is always fun.

then went to a “hawker centre”, a kind of pre-food court food court, with the tables crammed in and around the stalls. hectic, cramped, not the cleanest place in the world… but cheap. i had something called hainanese chicken: plain boiled chicken with rice, basically, plus a coke to pep me up. then i used the toilet, which i had to pay for. there were big red flies in my stall with me, and i ‘went’ as quickly as i ever have in my life. *shudder*

i know some people love authenticity and realness when they travel but i love posh hotels, starbucks and homogeneity. what can i say? i’m culturally corrupt and morally bereft, and i like it that way.

we then walked to a shopping centre and looked at some technology (they had lots of littletiny notebook computers, and i wanted one), before catching our bus back. or trying to.

it was twenty minutes late (or ten minutes early, and the previous one was missing), and guess who the driver was? this time, with our $3 tickets, we were free from persecution. but not to worry: some other tourists were being persecuted instead! the driver from hades stopped the bus again to have an argument with an older english couple, who he said weren’t on a stopover either (and yet they were). unlike us, they just refused to pay. “sue me,” the older man said, “you’ll lose.” we bonded with them and their friends about how none of us wanted to fly singapore airlines ever again.

thankful at least that we could relax for a while, we sank back into our seats, planning on staying on until the place we got on, and having a nice look round singapore on the way. but when we got to the botanical gardens, the driver announced “everyone alight and wait for next bus! EVERYONE ALIGHT!”

so we had to alight and join the people who were already waiting for the next bus - which equalled more than one busful in total. everyone looked unimpressed. we got a taxi back to the hotel in the end. i checked in, napped, we had a meal at the hotel and we both had an early night. it had been a heck of a 24 hours.

12 april 2008

today we did something really cool: went on the singapore flyer. it was excellent - much better organised than the london eye, and 30 metres taller, too. we saw pretty much the whole of singapore, including a new ‘floating’ football pitch - not sure how that will work, but fun all the same - and all the construction for a massive new casino/hotel complex. apparently the chinese are mad-keen gamblers. who knew?

the sky was bright blue, the sun was out, it was a gorgeous day, hardly a cloud in the sky… perfect weather to see the city. and then five minutes after we got off the flyer, there was thunder, lightning and torrential rain for the next two hours. we sat around and waited for the weather to abate a bit, but it didn’t, so we headed off to the legendary raffles hotel, my grandad’s stomping ground just after world war two. and the home of the singapore sling cocktail.

as our taxi pulled up, a man in ornate indian (colonial esque, very un-pc) costume came forward with a huge umbrella, and ushered us inside. i could get used to that! the interior is so gorgeous, with chandeliers and plush carpets and really lovely architecture. then you walk around the back and there are loads of shops. pretty, pretty shops.

we went to an upstairs bar and had singapore slings (let’s not mention the price) and an intense heart-to-heart. as ya do. then we trolled around the complex a bit more (was still raining) and headed to orchard road, the main shopping district: one long, long, longlong row of high-street shops, designer shops, and huge mall after huge mall. it’s a shoppers paradise, but not a place to find bargains. i went into a tiffany shop for the first time, but didn’t/couldn’t indulge.

we had hot chocolates outside a cafe and watched the frenetic world go by, and i didn’t want to leave.

13 april 2008

no rain today, for the first time this trip. hotter than hell, though. we went to jurong bird park, which was fab.

there are some birds (varieties of toucan mostly), who make a nest and then the woman barricades herself in until the eggs hatch - for months on end, she never leaves and the man has to bring her food. but if anything (like death) happens to him, she is is faithful and will never accept food from another suitor… and then she and her babies die. plus, there’s a bird called “mad woman bird” because it behaves erratically. erm, patriarchy much?

we saw some non-sexist displays too, like beautiful flamingos, and we fed the lorikeets, which snatched a feeding bowl right out of my dad’s hands, to my amusement.

we had something to eat and i had much fun in the gift shop (my dad, not so much) before heading back to the hotel to soak my book and read my feet. or something like that.