Leave the gun. Take the cannoli

“Mommy! It’s Over!!!”

Home but not really home.
Imagine leaving for a 2-week trip and coming home to a different “home”
At a pretty different location.
With your stuff still in boxes and no time to unpack or re-group
Touch down on Saturday night and back to work on Monday
I’m quite sure I’m still reeling from my Oz experience and the inexperience of my new home

Lets start with the land of the roos
I didnt see any kangeroos or koalas the entire time I was there
bcos I didnt visit the zoo
Thats how scarce wildlife is these days
I did see a peacock, a duck, a fox, some chickens, couple dogs, many horses and even more cows

I was putting up at Nic’s place in Clovelly Randwick, Sydney
and now I am indebted to him for the rest of my lives
maybe 20 years down the road I will have to bring my asian wife and kids over
and become his driver/butler/chambermaid/cook
It will be my honor to serve the then world-reknown plastic surgeon, Dr Chen
- who almost couldn’t get on his flight back to Singapore
because of the order of which his Chinese and english names were printed on his visa

anyways, Dr Chen was a gr8 host who cooks and is a cleaning freak
i did my fair share of cooking and cleaning too
but wasn’t half as thorough as he was when it came to cleaning up.

The weather was gr8, simply because I didnt have to perspire
It wasn’t as sunny as we’d liked it to be
and it did rain/drizzle on a number of days
but it was cooling on most days
and even on the sunny days, it was never hot and humid like Singapore
On top of that, I experienced hale while we were driving up and down the Blue Mountains
and it even snowed for a bit.

Hunter Valley was gr8 too, we stayed in a nice farm house hosted by an OLD lady named Margaret
besides us, there were 3 other scandenavians and an aussie couple
so we all lived in the same house, just different rooms with en-suite toilets
breakfast is served in the dining area
Margaret also sells some boutique lingerie, I was jus glad she didnt offer to parade in them.

The valley tour was truely an experience
our bus driver, John drove only the 2 of us in the entire bus around the various vineyards & cellars
and I MUST say, the wine that we tasted were most exquisite!
whites and reds, they were all fantastic
some of them came with very complex tastes that any description for them would jus be beyond words

I bought a bottle, which was sadly confiscated by customs because I stupidly packed it into my carry-on luggage.
DUMB
now it’s like I never went to Hunter Valley
still, a beautiful place with endless rows of grapevines.
ps: these are real grapevines with real grapes on them, unlike the ones in the office, ones which you can only harvest gossip from.
And one more thing, the 3hr drive back to Sydney was insane. And I was driving 110km/h half the time.

The other road trip that we made was down to southern highlands,
more specifically, a place called Bowral.
It basically a nice countryside place and gets pretty cold at night
I almost didn’t bring my hoodie on my Oz trip. I’m glad I did.
We stayed in another nice house, this time Nic’s gf joined us for the trip.
Went to Fitzroy Falls and some place at night to watch glowworms.
Met up with more of Nic’s aussie friends for dinner that day. Funny bunch.
All girls and one guy, mostly 19 or 20.

Went on the glowworm visit with them as well, and they made me tell ghost stories in the middle of the forest when it’s close to pitch-black
i didn’t mind, and didn’t care, since I would probably never do the same in a jungle in Singapore for fear of the asian ghosts lurking in the tree-tops.

How scary can caucasian ghosts get right? Headless horseman (Lu?)? Or Frankenstein? Dracula?
Anyways, I was quite sure there weren’t asian ghosts in that aussie forest.
I was the last-man on both trips to and from the glowworm site since the majority of the group were girls. Couldn’t let them freak out, could I? Nic and I were oldest of the bunch anyways.

Even driving at night was totally new experience. There weren’t any street lamps in the country-side, only the road reflectors to mark the centreline and some reflective chevrons to mark turns.
But its amazing how effective they were in doing the job.
And did I mention? In both the valley and at Bowral, if you turned off the lights in the room at night, no amount of time would help your eyes adjust to the darkness.
It’s just pitch-black in bed, can’t see your fingers if you were picking your nose.

Showering in Oz is always a therapeutic affair, we shower not so to keep clean but more so to keep warm.

There’s hot water in most faucets, in public toilet sinks, in the kitchen sink, in the bathroom etc.
And it just sucks when the hot water tank runs out of hot water on a cold night.

A typical day during Oz Fest would be like this:
0900 – Rise and shine
0930 – Pan Fry Bacon/Luncheon Meat/Spam and Eggs
0945 – Consume the above with coke/water/juice
1000 – wash dishes
1015 – surf net/bum in bed to radio music/stone
1030 – Hot shower
1115 – Ready to leave house for destination in the city for the day
1200 – 1700 – Sight-seeing/ Shopping/ Chilling/ Eating
1730 – Home again
1800 – Chop garlic & onions/ marinate beef/ Boil Pasta and prepare pasta sauce
1815 – Finish cooking, set tables and prepare drinks
1830 – Consume dinner
1845 – Finish dinner and do dishes
1915 – Drink beer/wine/talk cock/play online games/disturb nic
2000 – talk more cock/ play more games/ disturb nic more
2030 – Hot Private Shower
2100 – 0130 – Upload photos of the day, chat on msn, more online games. Honestly I don’t know what we do, but time just flies and soon its bed-time.
0145 – 0200 – Bedtime

Other things about Oz land
The lanes of the roads in the city and suburbs are narrower, even though they have bigger cars.
Aussies mostly ride motorbikes out of passion because you can easily get a car thats cheaper than a bike over there.
It’s cool enough to cycle to work and not perspire.
It’s also cool enough to ride a motorbike in full gear and not perspire, in fact you probably need full gear to protect you from the cold winds on the freeways.
The trucks with 100 wheels travel at 110km/h on freeways and 130 when they overtake you on the right lane.
You have to commit yourself to overtaking if you have already decided to overtake a trailer truck.
and that means at least 130-140km/h.
Aussies typically dress pretty. Supermarkets and fastfood outlets are mostly manned by Asians.
It tickled me very much to hear Singapore “Accent” on the streets of Oz from passerbys.
There are hobos are the streets at night.
Groupsof young drunk punks at night make you feel insecure when you’re out at night.
(even for someone my size)
I struck a convo about nudie jeans with the salesguy at General Pants (a place that sells pants. duh?). It sells more than pants though, streetwear basically.
I had to shop at Supre (an aussie female fashion boutique, much like Miss Selfridge) for my gf, the cashier was cool (and yet quite hot).
Store assistants are generally more friendly over there when they actually bother to attend to you, they ask if you need anything and make convos with you while they work the cash register and fold your clothes and they also provide compliments/suggestions when you try stuff on.
Fast food chains don’t provide chilli sauce or ketchup (you gotta pay for em). And there’s egg and bacon muffin during breakfast.
Krispy Kreme is nice. And the gay fella that mans (or womans) the store at the airport outlet is uber friendly and polite. Two thumbs up (his gay ass).
Trains in Sydney are more comfy and less crowded. Though maybe more dangerous at night since they have “night-safe carriages” at night patrolled by security staff.
It’s a AU$200 fine if you abuse bus/train concession. Fines over there aren’t cheap, so actually Singapore isn’t such a fine city afterall.

I think Aussies generally know how live life and have fun doin it, you see 40yr-olds hitting the beach in their wet suits to surf at 3pm in the afternoon on a Thursday. They skate and ride. It’s very easy to find surf, bike and skate shops.

And ya, I can’t forget mentioning David Ma, Nic’s asian aussie housemate. Very funny guy. Only 20, but someone with real drive and really humourous as a person. He reactions to us Singaporeans and our ways never fail to amuse me. He was deeply entertained by the facebook photos of a gay friend of mine and ogled really hard at this event advertisement pic with a naked Singaporean Chick in it. We also managed to confused him with our Singaporean-styled comments on the facebook photos I had uploaded. The inner geek in him is very entertained by online games as well, the last I saw him, he was occupied with oil-mining and playing the role of President Bush. Cheers to David.

I kinda look forward to the day when one or more of Nic’s aussie friends come to visit Singapore.

In the last couple of days in Oz, I thought I was ready to come home, but now that I’m back,
I really don’t think I was ready to be home.
It feels weird listening to Singapore radio, to sleep in a super-single bed instead of a double. Weird to sleep with air-conditioning and weird just not to be surrounded by caucasians.
Worst still, its weird to be working again.
When I was in Oz, I kept wondering what had kept me so busy that I had so little time for my gf and almost everything else. Especially on week nights. And why was I so tired by the time I got off work.
Being in Oz and off work for 2 weeks really helped me to wind down.
I got enough sleep, ate well and had time to absorb all the sights and sounds around me.
Even though I was cooking, doing the dishes and getting my own laundry done,
I still had plenty of time for everything else – Something which I can’t fathom ever since I got back.

My stuff in my new home are still half unpacked in boxes, half my clothes are still at my gf’s place.
I take twice as long to get to work, wake up earlier and reach home later.
Currently I’m still not enjoying my new place, its a weird place with nothing to do in the middle of nowhere.

Well, I back from Oz but the Oz Fest 2008 isn’t over until I say it is.
I still have a roll of film on my gf’s vivitar which I brought to Oz that I have to finish up and develop.
So… there are more photos to come.
Now I understand what Jo was talking about when she came back from her 2-week U.S. of A. Fest and said she’s got the US Fever and can’t wait to go back there again.

I guess I wasn’t ready to come home yet.
It was gr8 hanging out with Nic, feels weird not to hear his bullcrap for at least 12 hours of my day.
Thanks Nic and sorry I broke your bottle-opener and took the laminate off your kitchen counter by using it as a bottle-opener instead.

Maybe this weekend I will buy them beef steaks and cook em.

The Oz Fest continues…