Homeward Bound

I'm on my way home at last. By the time I arrive in Melbourne on the 18th February I'll have been away for exactly 6 months.

Our travel arrangements of late have been rather interesting. We were hoping to be able to depart on the 18th February but were doubtful of getting seats. As a result we've been calling Emirates on a daily basis to see how we were doing. Today Gene called up and was advised that we'd all been kicked off the waiting list as it was too long and that the first day it reopened was the 20th Feb. They also mentioned that I should fly soon as the ticket that I was under the impression (due to the printed words at the top of my old ticket) was valid for a year from issue was only valid for six months according to their system. Not wanting to have to buy a new ticket to argue this later we took the one ticket back to Australia that they had. The only catch is I'd have to leave tomorrow.

So I'll be leaving Gene & Nick (again) and heading home first to pave the way for them. With any luck they may be able to get a flight on the 25th Feb but if not they're confirmed for the 28th February.

After recovering from the shock of having to leave tomorrow instead of in a few days or a week my first instinct was to pack everything that I wanted to do into my one day here.

First port of call after a fine breakfast of currypuffs was to take Nick down to Far East Plaza and Orchard Road to see the main shopping strip of Singapore.

We were briefly distracted at Takashimaya where we had a Korean lunch and I bought traditional snacks like mwah chee which is a rice flour dough dipped in crushed peanuts (taste better than it looks and sounds) and some Japanese sweet pancakes (again with peanuts).

Once at Far East Plaza we took him to our favourite ever bookshop, Sunny, where Gene and I proceeded to purchase new libraries.

Reading List for early 2007
- His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman
- The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
- The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: and Other Stories by Tim Burton
- The Science of Discworld II: The Globe by Terry Pratchett
- Wicked by Gregory Maguire (Gene bought this one)

Nick left with nothing which was very restraint of him.

Having only just eaten less than an hour ago we trooped upstairs to have Hainanese Chicken Rice at the shop that I've gone to since I was a wee lass. You don't even have to order now. You just let them know how many people need a seat and as you sit down they roll out the rice, chicken, broth and off you go! Two serves for $5.60. Now that's what I love about eating in Singapore.

Next stop was Pan Photo to visit Doris where Nick made up for his lack of shopping at Sunny Bookstore. We walked out of there with one 80GB iPod (Nick), a set of in-ear headphones and iPod Nano case (Gene) and an iPod remote (mine). After that it was time for the boys to stop for a beer if only to interrupt our shopping.

We decided we'd spent enough money but should get some clothes for Chinese New Year's day (you're meant to wear new clothes). We hunted for red shirts for the boys but were unsuccessful. It's red t-shirts instead. I managed to find a lovely red skirt which is about a million miles too long for me but I like the hem (well bottom 20cm) of my skirt dragging on the ground... ahem.

If you think that's the end of the shopping then (to quote Captain Jack Sparrows), clearly you haven't been to Singapore. We headed to Bedok to find some shorts for the boys so they didn't melt. This was a successful trip where they found shorts and I found the world's most comfortable bra. Win win situation for all.

Finally it was time to head home for a rest before heading out for a meal of more local foods...

Tonight's Menu
- BBQ Stingray - Gene's favourite
- Sambal Prawns
- Sambal Sotong (calimari)
- Fried Oyster with egg
- oyster omelette
- 10 x otah (fish cooked in coconut leaf)
- 30 x satay sticks (10 x beef, 10 x chicken, 10 x lamb)
- char kway teow
- another squid & veggie dish that I don't know the name of
- 1 x fresh coconut
- 4 x lime juice slushies
- 1 x fresh sugar cane juice
- 1 x grass jelly drink
- 1 x long neck of tiger beer

We're in the process of trying to introduce Nick to as many of the local foods that we love and crave when we're in Singapore. Needless to say we're all rather full.

So tomorrow I'll have some bak-kwa slices of marinated pork and whatever else that catches my eye before I run off to catch a plane back to reality. It's going to be a big day!

Soon

It's 3:52am and I'm just waiting for the next bus home. The Opening Ceremony is in just over two days time and I doubt I'll get a chance to post for a while as we'll be flat out.

The days have been a bit up and down. I think it's just my body's way of settling into a different rhythmn. Happily I've settled down a bit. Admittedly the weather has changed quite a bit in Doha. Gone are the 30 degree days. Instead we've had 20-25 degree days and light rain.

Monday was a luxurious day off for some of us. Laundry was gratefully cleaned while we stocked up on groceries and other items. Gene, Nick & I spent our day at City Centre where we enjoyed a variety of take away foods for lunch and purchased the odd piece of clothing for the upcoming Europe trip. Gene bought me a watch as I think he finds the Baby G a bit big on me and also because he's been wanting to buy me a watch for a while at least until we get home. He also got a G-Shock watch of his own which he loves.

I'm having trouble getting to sleep at the moment. Again I think it's to do with the different rhythmns and also just the excitement of the ceremony being so soon.

It's interesting to note that 8 months to the day on the Closing Ceremony of the Asian Games, we were Opening Melbourne's.

See you all on the other side of the Ceremony!

A whirlwind of colour & noise

Wow what a day! Gene & I have been in Tokyo for 13 hours and have managed to pack in quite a bit.

After a day of flying we arrived rather tired but excited in Japan. Gene braved the complicated looking foreign exchange forms and I tried to get our rail vouchers exchanged. Gene was more successful as the JR Rail Offices had closed just after our plane landed. While we were hunting the correct (albeit closed) ticket window we missed our hotel shuttle bus by 6 minutes. After an hour waiting in the deliciously cool 17.6 degree celcius Japan night we finally made it on the shuttle. We spent our first night in Japan in the Narita Hilton which was wonderfully comfy and boasted beer vending machines about 10m from our room door. The view from our hotel room was pretty special.

Our first morning saw us enjoying a breakfast which melded Western bacon and eggs style food with rice porridge & miso soup. After this we headed to the hotel shuttle bus area where we saw a bus waiting. We tried to work out which bus we needed to jump on to get to Narita train station. As the bus was leaving, we worked out that it was indeed the bus we should have been on. Happily the next bus arrived and although it didn't go to the Narita train station, it did take us to to the airport where we could get a train from Terminal 2. It turned out that was ideal as the Narita-Tokyo express train we got on didn't stop at Narita station.

The trip to Tokyo took just over an hour and I took several (slightly blurred) photos of what could be rice paddies or could be wasabi farms... my agriculture knowledge is lacking I know.

We finally arrived in Tokyo's Shinjuku station at 12:30 and took in our first glimpse of Tokyo from the station. Our phrase book has come in most handy as I headed to the ticket office to ask for directions to the Tokyo Hilton. After securing a map with a friendly and simple looking red line to our hotel and the reassurance that it was only 20 minutes away, Gene & I set off to brave the streets with our luggage in tow. How lost could we possibly get when we had a map? Apparently a little... On closer inspection our map turned out not to have street names, only building names. Now you'd think that this would be really handy in a city of skyscrapers, but the thing that we noticed about Tokyo so far is the lack of logos and garishly bright signs at the top of buildings. They seem to be reserved for the lower levels. So we were stuck walking until we found a map in front of random building. Unfortunately the "you are here" arrow had been stolen so it took us a while to get our bearings again. We'd taken a turn too early or late, it was hard to tell, but we knew we were within blocks of the hotel.

At about 13:00 we made it to the hotel where we bumped into Gene's Mum, Cathy, who was in the lobby trying to find out if we'd checked in. We headed up to the hotel room and settled before heading to Gene's parents' room to snack on some rather beautifully decorated chocolates.

We headed out to the Keio department store to grab some food. It's great being in a department store trying to read the directory when it's not in English. It's even better trying to order off a menu when it's not in English. Our phrase book came to our rescue again and we managed to get a menu in English while providing our waitress with some amusement. Gene & I stuck to our usual favourites of katsu-don and oyako-don for our first meal.

After that we decided to find Kabukicho which was noted as the entertainment area where we could find all the latest Japanese arcades and more. We got there by means of a small alleyway that had stall selling everything from cheap sunnies to Japanese copies of Charlie Chaplin's short films. I'm amazed at what you can find in Japan! We entered the area which was hard to miss with all the flashing signs. I managed to find what I thought was a bead shop within two minutes of us arriving there and headed in to check it out. It turned out to be a craft department store with everything from "inner wear" (lingerie) to snake skin for craft use. I found the brand of knitting needles/crochet hooks that I was after (at 20% off!) but I'm holding out till we find the shop first.

Across the road from this shop was an adult toy shop (we think) which seemed to have vending machines selling capsules that contained everything from designer wallets to dildos. We were a little confused and somewhat disturbed but we didn't let it deter us from exploring the area further.

Walking around, it's hard to miss the multitude of pachinko & slot machine halls. Being the avid gamblers that we are, Gene and I decided that Pachinko, a game that apparently involved little skill and have little monetary incentive, was the way to go. In a whirlwind of colour, movement and much noise, we spent 3,000 yen shooting ball-bearings around the machine with gobsmacked looks on our faces. Unsurprisingly the clerk at the pachinko parlour was more than happy to give us a copy of instructions for the game in English. In all fairness though, everyone in Japan seems happy to help you out if they can. It's a wonderfully helpful and polite place to visit! Having not spent enough money playing games with little return, we both gave the slots a turn. We both got a pay out but not before making idiots of ourselves when we tried to store our tokens in the drink holder. It didn't go so well, mainly because there was a big hole in the bottom of the drink holder so all the coins fell out.

We decided we'd played enough confusingly noisy but oddly amusing games for the day and headed to another arcade for more familiar games. We played a Japanese drumming game before we decided to join in the photo booth culture. We spent what felt like an eternity posing for the camera, Gene was a little tall for some of the close-ups, but it was great fun. The language barrier proved amusing as we couldn't understand the instructions and were pressing buttons at random. We stepped outside to wait for our pictures, but they just didn't seem to be printing! We flagged down a clerk and after a game of charades pointed us to another booth where he demonstrated that we could add pictures to our photos. It was awesome! We spent another 5-10 minutes adding random characters and cartoons to our photos and then they printed. A game of Time Crisis 3, some poor drumming on my part and it was time to meet up with Gene's folks. On the way back we checked out a capsule hotel and saw many more interestingly named establishments.

The 100 yen shop grabbed our attention on the way to dinner but not nearly as much as the excitement of buying dinner from a vending machine. Well, that's not 100% accurate, we bought a token from the vending machine which we handed to the chef who cooked everything fresh. The main excitement came from not knowing what you'd ordered, just the cost. Gene & I ended up with some white meat and rice while Gene's parents ended up with some red meat and rice.

After dinner we explored the area further to find ourselves surrounded my men's clubs and ladies' clubs. We finally made it back to the Shinjuku station after Gene & his dad had been propositioned by various men offering to introduce them to lovely Japanese or Russian women for a while.

So here we are back at the hotel.

Now, it has to be done, it's an important topic of discussion when travelling, the toilet. When you sit down on the toilet, it flushes gently, apparently to help you pee if you're having troubles. It's actually a little disconcerting when you're not expecting it... Gene says "for all the good a bidet is, it might as well shoot water up my ass (or if you don't happen to be sitting on the toilet at the time, all over the bathroom)" Thank you Gene :)

Anyhow, accompanying pics to this rather long account are to be found at: my Zoto site. We're heading to Matsumoto tomorrow to check out the castle there.

Random Updates

My voice is better although not 100%. I really should stop using it until it gets better though, apparently I could do permanent damage. Good thing I'm not aspiring to a career in singing.

Captain Random Moment
The other day, when I'd lost my voice yet again, I was thinking about how cool it would be to go and watch a stand up comedian who couldn't speak. Crazy I know, but I reckon I could really get into watching a show where the entire thing was done in sign language and being translated. The physicality of sign language is what gets my attention. Okay I'm being weird so I'll stop now.

Gene and I received our itineraries today. We depart on the 16th May and get back on the 2nd June. So now all that remains is to get the house packed (pfft, easy done) and I need to get my passport renewed. This would have been much easier if I'd gotten my passport three months later than I did. However as the last time I needed a new passport was when I was 17yrs 9 months old, I needed to go through the full passport application process. Many thanks to Paul for his help with that.

We're slowly sorting out what stuff is going to go where. We've confirmed that the books and DVDs are mainly going to the Nic(k)s with the Xbox. Naomi kindly offered to take Herman (many thanks Nomes!) so we need to organise a time to drop him off. A random guest who came over last night has offered to take our big leather chairs. (Okay I'm exaggerating, Gene knew the guy from Adelaide I think). Now all that remains is getting boxes.

Sadly Gram is out of action. According to Gene she's not starting. This leads us to believe that not only is the transmission dead, the alternator has joined it. This is not well timed.

Tomorrow I have two things that I need to achieve. First I need to lodge my passport application otherwise I'm not going anywhere. Second I need to get a quote on fixing the car. I'm not optimistic on the cost of that.

On a more positive note though, I came home after work tonight and checked my email to discover that I've been asked to go and talk at a careers breakfast at my old school. I'm pretty excited about this because they never got any arts type people to talk when I was there. The biggest catch is it's at 7:30am. What highschool kid in their right mind is thinking about their career choie at that hour?! I sure as hell wasn't. Maybe that's why I'm in theatre... hmm.... Anyway, I can't do it this term so it might happen next term instead. Not sure what I'd say to the kids and their parents though...

Anyway, it's well past bedtime now. Not that I'm tired. I just need to be up early in the morning (read: up in the morning) so I should do the sensible thing and sleep.

Yep, bed. No really...