A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To School

Well, it's officially 200 posts now since I made my move from my previous blogdrive account. Thank you to everyone for reading. And for sharing your stories with me.




Freedom

As relayed to me by my favourite friend storyteller.

So we were from one of those La Sallian brother's school lah, you know, and it was an all boys' school, run by the Catholic brothers. It was horrible in an all boys' school because we would get into all sorts of trouh-ble, you know.

And no use caning us, because you know lah, as boys, after awhile we don't feel it... So the brothers had to be very creative lah you know, about their forms of punishment.

There was this one that they came up with - called the Statue of Liberty.

So what happens is that the punished boy will be standing in the middle of the field in the hot afternoon sun, and he will be holding a Coke bottle in his hands, lah, you know. The old type of Coke bottle one, you know - in the glass and with the steel bottlecaps.

And he'll have to hold it with his arm outstretched lah, you know, like the Statue of Liberty.

And so it would be like a sort of sadistic torture lah, you know. You would be melting lah, melting you know! in the midday sun, and the bottle of refreshment is just there in your hands but you couldn't drink it.

Huhuhuhuhuhuh.

Terrer (Awesome) right? The Catholic brothers were pretty pleased with that punishment - I guess even compassionate men of God lose all compassion in a boys' high school!!

So one day, right, there was these three boys in the middle of the field lah. Sweating, sweating all, with their Coke bottles in their hands. Punished to the max.

Then suddenly ah, there was this boy coming out from nowhere, you know. Like a bolt of white and green lightning he suddenly appeared from out of the blue, and he just ran like crazy lah... We saw him running and then we thought to ourselves, Eh, what the hell is this guy doing lah?

Faster and faster he approached the three students in the middle of the field, and then suddenly we realised what was going on! Someone must have dared him or offered to pay him some money to do this lah - he had a bottle opener in his hand and in one swift motion, three bottlecaps flew off three Coke bottles, and then he ran back to the cheers of everyone sitting in the terraces.

And the three boys were gloating now, drinking their Cokes victoriously. The look on their faces were like Ah, feel the fresh taste of freedom! Hahahaha!

Then, half an hour later, right, that bottle-opener boy was standing in the middle of the field, being pa-nished, with a Coke bottle in his outstretched right hand. Ahahahahah! Padan muka! (Serves him right!)

But he had this grin on his face, you know, because just for that moment, he was a hero lah!

To Catch You Up On Places I've Been 5

Road Trip Australia: Bellingen and Dorrigo

It had been an especially difficult twelve days for me, and it was with great relief that I greeted Friday, and subsequently fell into the slumber that welcomed the weekend.

I had planned a trip with my pharmacist friend, C, and her partner, W. It was the weekend where the markets were going to be on in Bellingen, and then we would take a look at the stunning rainforests of Dorrigo, a World Heritage area.

And so we piled into W’s Subaru Forrester, which he had just purchased having lost his old second hand BMW. He had done this driving one night on the roads leaving CH, when a kangaroo jumped out of absolutely nowhere, and he had slammed on the brakes, causing his car to swerve and skid, the car coming to a complete stop only when it smashed into an electric pole, taking out the electricity of the entire CH with it for six hours.

But the Subaru was a beautiful car, replete with sunroof just made for a day like today. The sun had decided to come out in full force, brightening the skies to a vivid blue, spotted only by the few wispy clouds that had decided to work the weekend. Everything else was just more vibrant in the cheerful sun – the grass were especially green and the waters gleefully danced with the rays in the soft Saturday breeze.

For the first time in a long time since I obtained my drivers’ licence, I was able to sit at the back of someone’s car. A day like today transported me back to my childhood days and all the long family trips we would take – Mum and Dad and three kids in tow – I felt like I was a nine year old boy again, eyes wide open with my mouth slightly agape inhaling all the sights that flew by us at a hundred kilometres an hour.

It was a day so beautiful it was almost obscene.

Mere words cannot explain how in love I am with nature on a day like this, watching it once more through the eyes of a child.

When it comes to nature, I lose all my adult practicalities, and marvel instead – to see trees and not see lumber, to see land and not to want to own it, to marvel at the stars and galaxy and not feel the need to conquer it. To just stare in reverence, awe and whispered thankfulness.

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We drove past some really small towns on the way to Bellingen, and passed some acres of farmland. It is at this point that I comment to C and W that in my next life, I have decided that I would be reincarnated as a cow. I watched them with great envy, sitting there grazing grass lazily in the Saturday morning sun as if they had worked hard all week to deserve it, when the truth of the matter was, to a cow, everyday is Saturday.

But then you would have to be slaughtered in the end, protested C.

Looking at those cows right there, I thought to myself – is that really such a bad thing? If you could spend a lifetime of incomparable daily bliss and contentment, knowing perhaps that your ultimate destiny is in the abbatoir or on someone’s plate, wouldn’t you feel completely calm and accepting of your fate? I know I would.

W pressed a button to pull the sunroof away, and suddenly the fresh air came rushing in, bringing with it the musky smell of cow manure. I asked them if I could stand up, and C laughed , saying I should do the whole Titanic thing.

W laughed along and then I decided I would. I stood up in my seat and poked up half my body through the sunroof and for three glorious seconds felt the hundred kilometre winds and sunshine on my skin.

W and C told me to sit down, and their hushed admonishing tones suggested that it wasn’t all that funny in the end to them. Humans are such contradictory creatures sometimes!

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And so we arrived in the town of Bellingen, a wonderful hippy-esque town which has sprung up in the middle of nowhere, and thrived.

There were cars parked for miles around, mostly tourists here for the weekend market.

Our first stop was a quaint little shop ingeniously called the Yellow Shed – a gaudy yellow warehouse-converted-into-a-shophouse place which sold oddities and a mish-mash of antique collectibles, crystal decorations, pet lover paraphernalia, jazz CD, aromatic candles and books on New Age religions. It was like Hippie Heaven, yeah.



I bought myself a few CDs (Peace out, dude.) and was almost tempted to buy a cat lovers’ book when I realised that I was actually looking more for a cat recipe book.

(I love cats. They taste like chicken).

We sauntered along the whole town, and C really wanted to see the local pharmacy, because she heard that it was really pretty – like it had stained glasses and all. It was a really pretty pharmacy, in fact, but the thing I like the most was the old style word “Druggist” sketched into the colored glass.

Druggist. How apt. Like a drug pusher. My own local drug pusher. So much more personal than the term pharmacist, don’t you think?

We wandered around a little more and found the biggest shop in town – The H and W – which had served the town for a hundred years. It was one of those wonderful shops with a ceiling as high as a cathedral, and a mezzanine floor (fancy way of not saying first floor). They were selling clothes and apparel on the ground floor, and – you guessed it – junk and antique collectibles on the second floor.

There were so many interesting things up on the mezzanine floor that I could barely begin to describe it – old wooden closets and treasure chests, the swinging incense chandeliers and Indian cushions, Thai Buddhist idols and doorknobs.



Yes, you heard right, there were doorknobs. Not just one, not just one hundred, but trays full of them. In case you woke up one morning, you know, and misplaced your bedroom doorknob. In which case you wouldn’t be able to leave the room anyway to buy your doorknob. (The marketing team of these doorknobs need to rethink their sales strategy).

Having wandered through a few more quirky shops and bohemian restaurants, we finally chanced upon a nice bakery to try and quell our complaining tummies. It was a marvellous find – C and I agreed that we have never had pastry so fresh and good before. My coconut slice with its adjuvant fresh fruits was life-changing.

We wandered through the Bellingen markets and it was a beautiful day out for the family as fathers and mothers and little children trawled through the many food, jewellery, plant and health food stalls available. There were even tarot card readers who would sit and talk to you with “No time limit for $25.”

After one and a half hours of trudging through the hula hoop dancers (Spot the Pothead, as W pointed out) and me being refused a ride on the ponies there, we finally made our way out of the Bellingen Markets.

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Our next destination was Dorrigo, along the scenic and promisingly named Waterfall Way. It was the perfect season to catch the waterfalls – the recent rains had ensured that there was enough water for the promise of a spectacular cascade but had damaged some of the roads in the process. The recent run of good weather ensured that all the roads were fixed and opened up again.

It was quite a steep ascent as we climbed up one side of the Great Dividing Range, and in all fairness, the waterfalls along the way were quite nice, but not spectacular, you know?

As we reached the top of the Dividing Range, a peculiar sight greeted us all – the top of the mountain looked like the bottom of the mountain. We drove through flatlands with hills in the distance, and paddocks just like down below. I had sort of expected the top to be, I don’t know, not flat.

We finally arrived in Dorrigo National Park, and the first thing we did was walk out to the Skywalk – this was a carefully constructed wooden walk that stretched out above the forest below you. It offered a breathending (breathtaking just doesn’t seem to cut it) view of the hills and trees below. The perfect calming blend of green, blue and white brought to you in true Technicolour.



We decided to brave the rainforest walk as well, a good hour long walk to see the waterfalls secreted in the middle of the forest. It was a wonderful walk through the forest – the leaves of the impossibly tall forests overlapped in such a way that it took the craftiest of sunrays to find their way to the forest floor. Even the wind could not find its way through the maze of branches and leaves to rustle the underlying grass.

There was almost a reverential hush within the forest, as deep as a basement in a cathedral – the quietness was only disturbed by the sound of our footfall, and the occasional bird brave enough to lose its whistle in this immense jungle.

There was a clear pathway for trekking but you could often see where fallen trees had to be cut cleanly through with a chainsaw to allow more tourists to walk through.

The quiet was a welcome intruder into my soul, troubled and noisy from the work of the past twelve days, needing once again to center with my God, and His universe.

One Night Stand

It is a noisy bar on a Friday night. The bar itself is a beautiful concept - set in the bohemian capital of Brunswick St, it has attracted crowds of young people, backpackers and artistic souls alike. They were there to have a good time, to celebrate an anniversary, to people watch, to be watched, to drink a workweek's worth of frustrations away.

The place is decorated beautifully - coloured lights string the ceillings reminiscent of a seventies' American pubs in Vietnam, and, in keeping with the theme of the bar, toy soldiers were waging their little battles all along the pipes lining the walls of the bar.

The converted warehouse's high ceillings reverberate with the cacophony of chatter from the separate cliques of friends there that night, interspersed with the sparse background trance music which was present but not intrusive. Beer is flowing freely from the taps as people trade their red and yellow dollar notes for golden glasses of courage and forgetfulness.

It is in this gamut of frenzied interaction when you couldn't help but notice her. She stood alone for an extended period of time, which seemed really out of place in a joint like this. She was really tall for an Asian girl, and that made her stick out even more like a sore thumb.

She was dressed for a night out, you could see that she had paid extra attention to her make-up tonight. Her sky-blue sloping platform shoes snuggled the overly long legs which were covered with orange socks that travelled up to her knees. From then on, just the slightest peek of her thighs before her dress takes over, its rectangular shapes and array of colours matching her patterned handbag. Her hands were covered in delicate gloves, its lacy patterns perhaps belonging more to the wife of a Chinese kingpin from half a century ago.

Maybe that was her in a past life, then, the wife of an unscrupulous Chinese drug lord, and she is paying off her karma in this life, trapped in the body of this man instead.

Her/his chin is the first giveaway - masculine in its strong angular definition, his upper lips showed the faint shadow that layers of makeup could not hide. No amount of mascara could alter the downward turn of the edge of his eyes which completed his decidedly male facial features which a blind man could spot all the way from the other side of the bar.

The bar is as noisy as a protest, the loud chattering murmur punctuated by drunken laughter and shouts of recognition as new friends continued pouring in. Several girls were being chatted up by men of all ages tonight, but no one comes to talk to him.

The occasional pauses of conversation allowed the Friday night patrons eyes to wander, and inevitably, a few fall on him. The reactions are plethora - some snigger inwardly, others try to point him out discreetly to their friends, and others are not as discreet. But the question on their lips after "Is that actually a dude?" is "What is he doing here?".

His intentions are uncertain, but he looks like he is waiting for someone to pick him up or buy him a drink. Or just to talk about everything and nothing, like ordinary people were doing all around him.

He twirls his cascading hair, his eyes downcast and he is lost in thought. His body sways slightly as he dances in the arms of a make-believe lover. There is a ghost of a smile on his face as he returns to a different time.

Perhaps he is in a bar once more in Phuket, and it is Friday night there too. But there, he is among his other friends who had grown tired of being boys. Tonight, he would be out with them in a bar not unlike this one, but they would be laughing, getting pissed on a girls' night out in town, and perhaps he would be taken home by a nice man (they usually weren't) if the night went well.

Instead, he is here tonight, a stark phantom of loneliness haunting the bar where people tried their best to ignore him. He wanders to the menu board, trying to look interested and telling himself not to pay attention to the gnawing loneliness he felt inside.

Hours pass and the only person to talk to him was a girl who had been kind enough to exchange a few words with him when he compliments her on her sweater as she walks past him to get to the toilets. The conversation doesn't last beyond a few minutes as she ambles back to her laughing group of friends, leaving him once more to drift aimlessly.

He finally sits himself at the bar, and his eyes trawl the blackboard menu above the bartender's head. He decides on a beer, and he silently thanks the imaginary nice Caucasian man who had offered to buy him drinks tonight, who had held his hand as he recounted how his drunken dad once beat him so bad he had to be in hospital for weeks, and who had laughed at the story of how his mother caught him trying her clothes and high heels at home one day when he was sure that she was away visiting Auntie Pom in the hospital.

He reaches for his purse, and pays the bartender for the pleasure of another night in hell. And so he dies a slow death every night, doomed to pay off all his past sins, as he whispers a quiet prayer for a better life in his next reincarnation.

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

I will finish my reminiscence off of my time in NSW soon but here is a page from a day when things got a little bit hectic at work. Please forgive the medical jargon, and just fast forward pass the bits that don't make sense. It is the humanness of the story that I am interested in the end, as always.

11 July 2009

I love cardiac arrests. Nothing stirs you from the slumber of a lousy ward day than a bona fide full on cardiac arrest.

Today I didn’t manage to save a lady from dying. She was in the hospital for chest pains which we had investigated at length but all our leads ended in cul-de-sacs. She had developed some abdominal pain and low blood pressure overnight, and the consultant this morning wanted to do a scan on her to make sure that she didn’t actually have a weakening of her main blood vessel, the aorta.

And so the arrangements were made for her to be brought to the nearby big hospital in PM for her CT scan. She was never to make that journey as I was asked to see her later that morning as she was becoming more breathless and dropping her blood pressure.

I must admit that my mind was still ambling at the pace of a ward round, and I suggested silly reflex things like ventolin or Lasix when obviously this lady was dying right before my very eyes.

And soon the fog cleared up and I asked them to bring the BIPAP machine (a tight mask that fits over her face to help with her breathing) to her bedside, by which time she started becoming unresponsive. The cardiac monitors still showed a heart trace, but we couldn’t get a blood pressure and her oxygen saturations were dropping faster than a stock market in the Great Depression.

We got her dentures out and put in a Guedel’s airway which sat rather awkwardly in her mouth. I tried to bag and mask her unsuccessfully as I had difficulty getting a good seal. One of the nurse slammed the emergency buzzer on my harried command, and soon help arrived. We proceeded to put a nasopharyhgeal airway instead, and tried to ventilate her better with the bag and mask.

But we were all fairly junior and standing there like lost deers, before the consultant came by, and joined us in standing around like lost deers. This lady was dying before us and we didn’t know how to fix her.

We couldn’t get a blood pressure and the cells in her body were slowly dying from the lack of oxygen. We were throwing aramine and gelofusin at her, but the blood pressure still could not be detected. The decision was finally made to put a tube in her throat to make ventilation easier.

I picked the short straw and had the unenviable task of putting the tube into her gummy mouth.

I asked for suction to clear out the saliva pooling at the back of her throat, and then moved in the steel laryngoscopic blade and pulled her tongue aside. It was touch-and-go for a moment when I tried to manipulate the back of her throat to visualise the vocal cords better, but finally there it was in all its slitty glory, opening up for the plastic tube invitingly.

I didn’t need a second invitation. I whispered a quick prayer and put in the tube, a little too far in, admittedly, but there was great satisfaction in seeing her chest rise and fall as the bag was put onto the tube and pressed to inflate her lungs. The anaesthetist finally appeared, pleased to see that the tube was in, albeit a little too far in, and got it readjusted.

All this action became a little too much for her to take in the end, and her heart finally gave way. We started resuscitation, threw in the adrenaline, atropine and lignocaine combination but to little avail.

Her son was sitting at her feet all this time. They said he would be really lost without her, because he had a mental illness and was staying with her in a dependent manner.

Somehow, by the grace of God, there was no frantic hysteria as Mum entered her last leg of her race in life.

There was almost a peace that passeth understanding permeating him, as he held Mum’s hand and told her that he was there.

Sitting there at the end of the bed, he watched the doctors and nurses panic with their dilated pupils, their nostrils flared, their arms shaking, conjuring up all their magical spells and charms to try and ward off Death one more time.

The son, complete with straggly hair and unkempt beard, stood calmly before us when it was all over and we broke the bad news. It was almost like watching Mum pass away and watching the staff do everything they possibly could was therapeutic or a release of sorts for him.

There was an almost eerie clarity and purpose as he said, “ Nope, I’ve got to go to the solicitors and sort out Mum’s last will and wishes, and get some things from her cupboard, but thank you for all that you have done for Mum. I don’t have time to cry yet, but I will soon, but now is the time to get things done.”

Some people fall apart in the face of the death of a loved one. Others gain a lucidity and an energy to move purposefully to do the necessary things, and honour the wishes of their dearly departed, knowing that in this whirlwind chaos of activity that follows death, they will somehow find that little pocket to grieve for their loved ones, but not just yet.

Another Aeroplane, Another Sunny Place

His legs climb up the steps to the airplane, pausing in the queue outside the plane ever so often as the passengers inside the plane find their seats and scramble to push their luggage into the overhead compartment.

There is a plastic smiling stewardess who looks at his boarding pass and tells everyone where to go, as if they were incapable of finding their seats themselves.

He finds his seat next to the window, and plants himself next to another person who will share his space, but not his life, for the next hour or so.

The seats are stiff, he pays little attention to the perfunctory safety demonstration by the stewardesses at the start of the flight. He flicks through the on-board magazine absently as the plane begins to take off.

The plane propellers creak as they lift the airplane and its eighty four passengers skywards. He leans forward in his seat and looks outside as the world distances itself from him. The roads that seemed eternal when the taxi brought him to the airport were now just lines - perimeters surrounding the jigsaw puzzle pieces of mismatched green and brown earth beneath him.

Below him a million lives were being lived, a hundred thousand dramas unfolding, thousands of people leaving to hundreds of different destinations, convincing themselves that their problems and worries were important, when in truth, from up here, it all seemed a little less consequential.

His ruminations are interrupted when the plane flies through the clouds, and as the wispy, white, fog-like surroundings obscured his vista of the world beneath, he marvelled at the fact that he is actually flying through water.

He wishes that he could roll his window down and stick his hands out and feel the clouds. He is sure in his little-boy heart that it would feel like tearing away at cotton.

Suddenly the plane bursts through the clouds and into a different world. Silent as the South pole and just as beautiful, the sea of clouds formed their own winter wonderland beneath him, peaking and dipping like soft marshamallow mountains and valleys. The sky is a vivid blue, and it never rains here.

He takes out his camera phone and switches it on, unwilling to let such beauty pass him by. There is a little flurry of excitement in his heart as he turns it on. In the cinema of his mind, the plane takes a sudden noseward dip towards the earth, sending screaming passengers and stewardesses and the on-flight meal trolleys crashing toward the front of the plane, hurtling at six hundred kilometres per hour towards earth.

He feels both relief and disappointment when his Vodafone backed Nokia did not create the airplane catastrophe threatened by the stewardesses at the start of the flight. He captures the breathtaking view quickly and covertly, and he stows away his camera phone before it is confiscated by the friendly staff of the airplane.

He smiles a secret smile, feeling triumphant, as once more, he has cheated Death.

It's (Not So) Fun To Stay At The...

I must admit that in the time when we I was up in NSW, that there were times during the nine weeks when I had to find ways of dealing with the unnerving quiet.

There would be the regular phone calls back to K and also some fastidious reading in bed, but most of all, I would rediscover my old friend the television.

Masterchef Australia was all the rage back then, and we were glued to our televisions every night cheering on our favourite amateur chefs. I had a soft spot for Poh, who was one of the final two contestants in what was one of Australian reality television's most viewed finals ever.

The night of the finals, K and I were furiously smsing each other while the show was going on to share the excitement and the roller-coaster ride of emotions with a whole nation.

I had selected Poh to win - she had shown much promise in the last few shows leading up to the finals, and more importantly, she was showcasing Malaysian cooking to the judges and to Australia. To spice things up, let's just say I entered into a little bet with K, who secretly wanted Poh to win, but had to choose Julie by default.

The wager, done half-jokingly, was that the other person had to do the YMCA publicly.

Well, you can guess who won now, and I guess, this is as public as I will get.


To my other Poh - the most reluctant YMCA you'll ever see.

In other good news, Poh has been given her own cooking show and is in the process of publishing her own cook books. So maybe K will take pity on me and make me something from Poh's cook book one day.

I wouldn't bet on it, though.

To Catch You Up On Places I've Been 4

Road Trip Australia: Brisbane



It was my first trip to Brisbane, oh wait, no, scratch that - it was my first trip to Queensland ever, and I was as excited as a little boy on Christmas Day when the plane landed in Brisbane.

This year, one of the things I wanted to do was visit my friends interstate, and the proximity of my work in the north of NSW to Brisbane allowed me to drop by for a weekend to visit A, a good friend from high school.

One of the first things I like to do when I am travelling is to take a picture of the local taxis - it highlights something so basic in each city, and yet so different - Melbourne has its yellow taxis while the taxis in Brisbane are orange and white!

(Cheok, HK - Voted Most Likely To Be Easily Amused - Graduating Class of 1997)

There was a pickup bus and its former world-champion of pickup-bus racing driver which brought me to my friend A's place - he lived at the M on Mary Street, just on the fringe of CBD - an excellent location - away from the hustle and bustle, but with the heart of Brisbane right at your doorstep.

It was already late when I arrived, so we went for supper at the only place open in Brisbane on a Friday night - Pancake Cafe, which looked suspiciously like the Pancake Parlour back in Melbourne. It was a good time of catching up with A, and the food was actually not bad!

The next morning, God decided to bless us with a day out of His "Beautiful Saturday Weather" book, and it was perfect for walking around and taking photos:


The iconic Brisbane Conrad Treasury Casino; the bridge to Southbank; Southbank, where the Queensland Performing Arts Centre sits, licking itself clean for the production of CATS

It was quite a walk to our designated breakfast place, and I took in all the sights and sounds of Brisbane as we made our way patiently to this place in the west:


The Gunshop Café -bang for your buck, great shots of coffee, located in the wild, wild west and (insert other groan-inducing gun-slinging puns here). :)

The Gunshop Café on Mollison Street was a local icon for breakfast, and it was filled to the brim this particular morning as locals packed the café, deliberating over hearty bacon and eggs and lattés.

A and I finally decided on the same thing - the savoury chive cornbread with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon - it was a really yummy way to start the day!

Energised, we took in the other sights of Brisbane that morning - our first stop was the lovely Southbank, overlooking the Brisbane river. Southbank has been converted into a wonderful oasis for locals and travellers alike - it houses a fully synthetic beach and also many beautiful structures including the majestic Wheel of Brisbane (cleverly named so because it is shaped like a - you guessed it - wheel) and also sporadic other decorative contraptions.


The beautiful Southbank and Brisbane river - home to the Wheel of Brisbane and Stanley Market. Enlarge to see that cute little self-perpetuating water construct in the left hand corner.

One of the highlights of the area is the bustling Stanley Market - home to artistic odds-and-ends. Here you can get everything from paintings to framed panormaic photographs and an assortment of jewellery as well. Have your cards read by a Tarot reader or consult a fully qualified naturopath. This bohemian market has everything to suit the tastes of the adventurous.

Personally I bought several clever buttons from a button stall, half of which was filled with "I love Twilight" buttons and the other half with "Twilight Sucks!" buttons. I bought 4 buttons: One reads 'Cleverly Disguised As Responsible Adult' (that's me!), another one with Elmo's face on it (for K), the political one reading 'I dream of a better tomorrow where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.' (Why did the chicken cross the road?) and my favourite: 'Rock is dead... Long live papers and scissors!'

We took in more of the surrounding buildings and bridges, and walked ourselves silly that morning. We ended up in the beautiful Botanical Gardens which were home to many local trees and fauna, and witness to the occasional wedding.


Some well-preserved relics in the suburbs; the beautiful curving Goodwill Pedestrian Bridge with its signature skyward spiral; the Botanical Gardens overlooking the Brisbane River

We decided that we had had enough walking for the daytime and so went back home to catch some rest.

We came out again in the evening as A brought me to see the local Chinatown (a must-see for me since I am almost Chinese) and interestingly enough, Chinatown is home not only to the Asian grocers and your Oriental eateries - it was also home to Brisbane's most popular nightclubs and lounges.


The view from A's room in the daytime and at night; Chinatown is proudly displayed on the top right red building as you enter it - there is a China House in Chinatown, there is a China Room in China House, there is a China kitchen in China Room, and in the China room there is very nice china. I'm sorry I made you read that.

There were many interesting statues that graced our path back to Southbank for dinner at Cha Cha Char. One showed an itinerant bagpack-carrying kangaroo waiting to cross the road at a traffic light, while another were just an eerie pair of hands situated at the corner of Eagle and Queen St. The hands were trying to make a point, I think, like - "Hey, look! My other hand is pointed to where the hidden treasure of Captain Cook is! Start digging!"


The statues; Char Cha Char, and a delicious dinner. Note the cute cow sauce dispenser in the left hand corner.

We made our way to Char Cha Char finally, and were a little bit early so A and I just sat out by the night river and talked a little more. We were finally given seats inside and proceeded to have a really nice steak dinner which A very generously paid for. We also had really expensive water, which cost us about seven dollars and fifty cents for a bottle of still water.

(Today's travelling tip: When the waiter asks you if you want water and you say yes, and proceeds to ask you whether you want option a: Sparkling or b: Still, go for option c: Tap. Water shouldn't cost $7.50 a bottle. Even if it has been blessed by the Pope.)

I am going to end off my very satisfying three day trip to Brisbane here. I must say that I really like the town itself, I felt really safe walking the streets the whole time, and I am sure that one day it will match and surpass Melbourne as a very liveable city indeed.