Saturday, August 20, 2005
Back
Soundtrack: Spurs v Middlesborough on Sky Sports 1 Today
Good evening this evening.
I see that there was a surge in pageloads on Thursday when it looked like I might actually be writing something new on here from my aunt's computer. Wrong. In fact, I'm probably suckering Big Jack right now, with his fancy updatey thing that he was demonstrating on the Team Elgar screenshot. But no, I don't think I'll write anything of any consequence this evening. Lucky, lucky, you're so lucky.
In fact, I think I might and go and watch some more music channels, though goodness knows I've watched far too much. Has anybody seen the Doves video? It's got lots and lots of tea in it, and ends with two big airships dropping a mansion into a gas holder shaped like a giant teacup. Bloody good stuff.
Good evening this evening.
I see that there was a surge in pageloads on Thursday when it looked like I might actually be writing something new on here from my aunt's computer. Wrong. In fact, I'm probably suckering Big Jack right now, with his fancy updatey thing that he was demonstrating on the Team Elgar screenshot. But no, I don't think I'll write anything of any consequence this evening. Lucky, lucky, you're so lucky.
In fact, I think I might and go and watch some more music channels, though goodness knows I've watched far too much. Has anybody seen the Doves video? It's got lots and lots of tea in it, and ends with two big airships dropping a mansion into a gas holder shaped like a giant teacup. Bloody good stuff.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Howzat one then?
Soundtrack: "Bluebell Morning" by Ooberman
Good arvo this arvo. Right, well I'm now settled at my Old Man's place in Sibu, hiding from the heat, and my goodness, it's so very very hot. I've been putting off doing this for ages, because I know that the internet connection is infuriatingly slow, and the computer, which was once state-of-the-art, is now a dusty old relic that takes a million years to load up. I think the operating system is Windows 95. Therefore, though before I've broken these catch-up posts into separate posts for each day or big event or whatever, I'm going to shove everything into one big long post because it'll just take bloody ages to load everything up separately. I never thought I'd miss broadband so much.
Tuesday 2nd August
In the name of saving money, Dad and I took a taxi from Aunty Hui Suan's house across the Singapore-Malaysia border to Johor Bahru. This is because it's so much more expensive just to fly from Singapore Airport. Dad asked the driver to take us round JB city centre first, just so's that I could see what it's like, and it struck me as a pretty backwards place. JB Airport was rather scabby as well - they didn't even have western-style sit-down toilets. After a couple of hours there, we flew to Kuching to meet up with Dad's friend Irene and her son Ang Chien (that's how it sounded - it probably isn't spelt anything like that). The son was a thoroughly sour and sullen fellow and Dad could tell that it was embarrassing Irene, so we made a quick exit and sat chilling out in the Golden Lounge at the airport for another couple of hours.
The flight between Kuching and Sibu is very short - only around twenty-five minutes, so Dad usually buys Golden Club class tickets for that leg as a treat. Whilst sitting in the Golden Lounge for all that time, I sat vaguely watching CNN International, because that's what Tolkien makes me do, and I was completely shocked to discover that Max Foster has left the BBC to go and be their anchorman. Even more shocking is the fact that he's also got rid of his monobrow. Double NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We finally got back to Sibu at around 9.30pm, to be picked up at the airport by my dad's friend Agatha (he's got a whole bunch of female friends who mother him). It was good to be back in a place that I'm familiar with, and it was also good not to have to be responsible for myself all the time anymore, as Dad is just looking after me now. Great for somebody as lazy as I am.
Wednesday 3rd August
A lazy day, to get me used to being here again. The thing that the reader must now bear in mind is that the best thing about Sibu is most definitely the food, and sometimes I may just get a tad carried away. We'll see, eh? So anyway, Dad took me for a late brunch in a coffee shop of kampua mee. Wherever you go in Singapore or Malaysia, there are a whole bunch of coffee shops everywhere, serving drinks as well as a range of rice and noodle dishes, plus some also serve some random stuff as well. Because of the heat, they're all built so that they have at least one side open onto the street to let in a breeze, and so the tables normally extend out onto the walkway as well. "Mee" is Chinese for "noodle," and "kampua" is the movement used to pick up the dry noodles with the chopsticks and a spoon. The noodles are dry, because they aren't soup noodles. Kampua mee, however, does actually come with soup in a separate bowl, and the entire dish is based on pork stock.
We popped into the bank to see all my dad's [female] friends there. The Old Man is the only person that I know who hangs out at the bank. He says that it's because a) it's got air conditioning; b) he's a priority banking customer, so they give him tea and coffee; and c) his friends give him sweets. Shoe shopping (everything's cheap here, and I ditched my last pair of summer shoes in Brisbane because they smelt and well, they fell apart), and then a relaxing afternoon at home. My father has free swimming for life, which extends to his family, as he swam for Malaysia when he wasn't the Old Man, so we went down the pool early evening. Out swim was rather quickly interrupted by a very heavy shower of rain, though.
After dinner, we took a trip to Pasar Malam. "Pasar" is Malay for "market," and "malam" is Malay for "night." Night Market. They have all sorts of stuff there - mostly food and bootleg goods. Kwai is the collective term for the small, sweet cakes and jellies made in this part of the world that are a lot like sweet dim sum. We picked up some peanut pancake-type kwai, as well as magnetite bracelets for RM3.50 each. ["RM" stands for "Ringgit Malaysia", the currency here, and there are around RM6.5 to the pound, which converts very well indeed.] I'd seen the same bracelets for $30 in Brisbane Airport, so that was pleasing.
Thursday 4th August
Dad drove me out to Mukah so that I could go and visit his project there with him. Sibu isn't actually geographically that far from Mukah, but the drive still takes over two hours because the road is so awful. I love the scenery, though - there are just kilometres and kilometres of oil palm plantations, interspersed with unkempt jungle, and it just looks absolutely amazing. Once we got to the site, an incinerator on a palm plantation used for burning the harvested fruit shells, Dad spent around an hour speaking to his workers and testing out the fans at the base of his incinerator. It was actually built to a slightly different design from his usual incinerators, as his clients wanted to be able to collect the ash after burning so that they could use it to fertilise the palms on the plantation. Therefore, there was a raised slatted base inside the chamber so that the ash could fall through the gaps and be collected after burning. We didn't stay for long, we just went because Dad understands the importance of making a show. By turning up, he demonstrated that he's in control, and he forced the workers to get their arses into gear, but but by not staying the whole day, he showed that he trusts the workers, giving tem a sense of responsibility and an incentive to work.
When that was done, we went into Mukah town itself, which is actually twenty minutes' additional drive and a ferry ride away from the site. We had a lunch of kampua mee and then picked up some fresh fish for Agatha, as Mukah is actually a coastal town on the South China Sea. The other thing that the town is famous for is tebaloi, a type of dried sago biscuit, as they grow lots of sago in the area. We bought a whole bunch of that as well. [My goodness, this keyboard is annoyingly clunky. Meh.] After driving back to Sibu, we went to visit my Aunty Sylvia's grave, as it will be five years since she died later this month. The Evil Bastard Mosquitos there bit me seven times: once on my left shoulder, twice on my left leg, and four times on my right leg. And all in the space of ten minutes. I bloody hate those EBMs. We then went for a walk in the Bukit Lima Forestry Park (in Malay, "bukit" means "hill" and "lima" means five: Five Hills), so we were shaded from the horribly strong sun by the trees. As soon as we got home, it was time for me to watch the cricket: Dad had subscribed (RM119.95 for all five Tests) without much persuasion as he knew that I'd be impossible to live with otherwise, as demonstrated two years ago when I missed the third and fourth Tests against South Africa as I was out here. It was an amazing day's cricket, but I came out thinking that if we could score 407 in one day's cricket, then the Aussies would probably come along and score 507, just to piss me off.
Friday 5th August
Dad took me out to Sungei Merah (in Malay, "sungei" means "river," and "Merah" is just a name: River Merah), a district of Sibu, for brunch. There's only one row of wooden shophouses left - all the other have been pulled down for redevelopment. I had char kway tiaow with tomato sauce. In Chinese, "char" means "fried," and Kway tiaow is a type of flat rice noodle. It normally comes "dry," i.e. without sauce, so you have to specify for the tomato sauce, but it does give the dish an extra tang, which is nice. It really is satisfying to be able to eat with chopsticks now. I think I always had the potential to be able to do it, but I just couldn't be arsed to teach myself. I was watching all those Americans using chopsticks on "The OC" that ashamed me into teaching myself before I came out here again. Afterwards, we went to the bank to deliver some of the coconut buns that we'd bought in Sg. Merah to Dad's friends. It's similar to a doctor buttering up their nurses. While we were in town, Dad also brought in my many films to be developed, and we went to the opticians so that I could choose a pair of sunglasses to be made up with prescription lenses.
Back home, I watched a pirate copy of "Mr and Mrs Smith." It wasn't all as bad as I thought it'd be (Richard said that he fell asleep at the ciname when he went to see it), but then again, it DID have Seth Cohen/Adam Brody (the two are synonymous) in it. I watched an hour of so of the cricket, and then Dad made me go swimming. I quickly swam 500m and we had a hurried dinner, then we rushed home so that I didn't miss too much of the cricket. I was surprised that the Australia first innings reply didn't even last the day, and even more surprised when Shane Warne's first ball turned at right-angles to bowl Andrew Strauss.
Saturday 6th August
We had brunch at the place opposite Rejang Medical Centre - a plain meal consisting of soup rice noodles with fish balls and seaweed - very healthy, and very tasty as well, with lots of lovely Sarawak white pepper. We picked up my sunglasses from town, which I really like because they're not pretty-pretty glasses like the woman in the shop was trying to pick for me. They give me rock star delusions, which is always fun. It's been a long time since I've worn sunglasses, and it makes me feel slightly cooler to have them again. Actually, I feel cool just byb eing in Sibu - I get people starind at me all over town because of my "oh-so-racy" dress sense.
I WAS going to just watch the cricket all night, but then Kevin Pietersen was incorrectly given out, leaving us 70-odd for five, and I got depressed and decided to go swimming. I managed 400m before the water did my teeth in, so then Dad and I went for another quick dinner and made it home in time for me to see Freddie Flintoff twatting the ball to all parts. I then got supremely excited when it looked as if we were going to finish the Aussies off that night, but even with the extra half-hour, it wasn't to be, and I went to bed at 1.40am, the cricket finishing slightly later over here because the live feed isn't live: it's delayed by five minutes.
Sunday 7th August
I made Dad take us to 9am Mass so that I didn't miss any of the cricket in the evening. I'd skipped church for the five previous Sundays, so consider it penance that we had to sit through an overly-long, hot, boring Iban Mass. At first, I felt rather guilty about missing so much church, but actually, I think that I needed to go when I was in Adelaide, but once I was away from all that Falun Gong shit, there was no longer any need for me to renew my faith every week. I had Foochow soup noodles (they're a bit thicker than regular noodles) with fish for brunch.
The cricket provided me with an utterly nerve-wracking two hours that nearly killed me, but ultimately ensued in extreme happiness. Two runs. Bloody hell. Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Mike Kasprowicz brought the Aussies scarily close to winning, and it got to the stage where I just couldn't watch, but forced myself to anyway. And then, when Steve Harmison got Kasprowicz caught behind with Australia requiring three runs for victory, I just could not cope, and lay screaming on the floor until Dad said that he was hungry and it was time for dinner.
Monday 8th August
Because of the cricket and the evil Malay people next door who turn on the radio early in the morning, I hadn't been getting enough sleep those past few days. You know, Malaysian pop music really is a massive pile of wank, whether it's in Malay or Mandrin. The tunes sound as if they were written by unimaginative 12-year-olds, and the backing tracks are cheesy as-. It doesn't help that the singers can't even hold a tune. If Big Jack has a problem with Alex Kapranos, he definitely should not listen to Malaysian pop music. I think that it's probably a very good thing that I can't understand any of the lyrics.
I had char kway tiaow for brunch, after which we went to pick up my holiday photos, as well as get a new set of passport photos done for me, as I needed to update my Malaysian passport and identity card to the new electronic ones. One we got home, I discovered that I was missing an undeveloped film, which just happened to be the one with all my photos of Uluru and Kata Tjuta, infuriatingly. During the afternoon, I felt so bloody tired that I had to have a sleep. I dreamt that the seventh film was close to my pink bag that I got in Melbourne, and lo and behold, once I found the bag, I found the film.
After an evening swim of 500m (my teeth can't take much more as the chemicals in the pool are completely messed up, even though my body can), Dad took me to have demengu for dinner, which was lovely. Demengu is a type of rice pancake served in soup, along with fish balls and black Chinese fungus-type thingers. We walked around Pasar Malam for a while, and bought a fair bit of kwai to boot. It was on the news that England's squad remains unchanged. Everybody's saying that Old Trafford will be a slow, turning pitch, so I'm thinking that Matthew Hoggard should be replaced with Paul Collingwood. If the Aussies are playing two spinner then it'll be good to have an extra batsman, plus his medium pace will add some more variation to the bowling attack. Here's hoping.
Tuesday 9th August
We left for Dad's site in Bintulu at around 7.10am. It's around the same distance from Sibu as Mukah - it only seemed like further when I was little because we were on that bus for hours on that terrible road. The drive to Bintulu is slightly different from the drive to Mukah in that the road is a bit better, and the oil palm plantation are replaced by pepper farms instead. Once we got there, we discovered that none of the sub-contractors' workers had turned up. Dad spent ages talking to the sub-contractors, trying to find out where the workers and five tonnes of materials had got to. With all that sorted out, he drove the two of us into town for me to have a look around. I couldn't remember any of it, so Dad drove us to the beach so that I could have another look around. I can remember being on the beach, but none of it seemed familiar.
Once rested back home, Dad took me to another Bukit Lima park, where the EBMs freshly bit me: two bites on my right calve, one on my left thigh, and one on my left elbow. I bloody hate mosquitos. The park used to be really quite shabby, but now it's been done up really nicely by one of the rich Foochow associations, Fukin, I think. All the stonework, benches, giant scary animal statues, replica pagoda, were imported from China - their obsession with being Chinese is bordering on fascism. We picked up some takeaway beef satay and sweet-and-sour fish with rice for dinner. Delicious.
Yesterday
I'd been putting this off for two-and-a-half years, but I had my first driving lesson yesterday morning. Yes, seriously. And I didn't crash, which I'm quite proud of. My instructor, a chap called Wee, kept me inside the test centre as I'd never driven before, but I wasn't arguing. The people here drive like psychos, and they don't indicate or anything, so you never really have a clue what's going on. I'm learning in a Perodua Kancil, which is the Proton version (Perodua's the little car division) of a Citroen Saxo. You can see all the kids driving souped-up boy-racer versions of the things at night. That done, Dad and I went to get our passports and ICs updated, which didn't take nearly as long as we'd anticipated. You're not allowed to wear pale-coloured shirts in the photos, so that was my Franz Ferdinand t-shirt out of the picture, but I swung the next best thing: I'm wearing my bright green Kaiser Chiefs t-shirt in both the photos instead.
Dad treated me to a big brunch for finally getting my arse into gear and starting driving lessons. We had kampua mee at one place, and then kompia, rojak and angtow beng at Thomson Corner. Kompia are small buns made from unleavened bread covered in sesame seeds, and can be served in a few different ways - we had ours toasted and served with a meat filling with a touch of gravy. Rojak is a type of Malay salad, consisting of fresh fruit and vegetables (like pineapples and cucumbers) and fried tofu, covered in a spicy peanut dressing. Angtow beng is a type of drink made from condensed milk with lots of crushed ice, and it has red beans in the bottom. Red beans are like mini kidney beans - the same shape and texture in miniature, but they're very sweet and tasty.
We had dinner with a couple of Dad's old school friends after our evening swim: Uncle Chris, who I did my obs and gynae work experience with a couple of summers ago, and another chap called Wong, who had inexplicably changed his name from Wee. It was thoroughly boring, as all these reminiscy dinners generally are (I'll totally forget if I ever have my own children to inflict them on, though). Once home, we ended up watching the crappy American version of "Faking It," but it redeemed itself by featuring lots of über-camp American gay guys working in fashion.
Earlier today
I had my second driving lesson this morning, and Mr Wee let me go out onto the road. I'm quite proud of myself for only having stalled once, but my clutch control is still pretty shoddy. Dad let me have a go on his automatic "vintage" Mercedes E-class when we got home, and I much preferred it because, hey, I'm too lazy to have to think about gears. The thing is pretty difficult to steer, though. I'm trying to figure out a way of persuading my parents to let me drive Mum's Merc back home if I pass, but I just don't see that happening, realistically.
Beef soup noodles for brunch today, which was good, because they also came with tripe. I love offal. Third Test starts in under half-an-hour - I can't wait. Regaining the Ashes now seems to be a likely possibility now, unlike my previous propaganda where I just went round telling everybody we were going to win with no justification whatsoever.
Miscellaneous
These past few afternoons, I've been watching some cartoon adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales, followed by Sesame Street. HCA stories really are depressing old things. I keep on getting really sad for inanimate objects, and though the stories are meant to have positive messages at the end, I'm still really sad that the Christmas tree got neglected and chucked on the bonfire, or that the old streetlamp was melted down. Sesame Street always used to scare me, and now I've figured out why, though it's a really bizarre reason. I really like the muppets, always have, but the cartoony bits still freak me out. I don't what it is about them that I don't like, but they make me feel distinctly uneasy. Maybe it's because they have satanic messages hidden in them subliminally or something.
I couldn't sleep one night, so I got thinking: if each member of the England squad that played at Edgbaston was a Harry Potter character, who would be who? I came up with this:
Marcus Trescothick = Ron Weasley (the big right-hand man)
Andrew Strauss = Hermione Granger (the smart one)
Michael Vaughan = Harry Potter (obviously)
Ian Bell = Dobby (I considered making him Colin Creevey, but if you think about it, all Bell does well is run around dedicatedly retrieving the ball for Vaughan)
Kevin Pietersen = Bill Weasley (earring… odd hair… good in a fight…)
Andrew Flintoff = Cedric Diggory (if any player was picked to represent the England team, it wold be Freddie, just like Diggory was picked to represent Hogwarts in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Let's face it, Fred's the ECB's poster boy)
Geraint Jones = Ginny Weasley (the pint-sized street fighter)
Ashley Giles = Arthur Weasley (the seasoned pro, who's oddness and eccentricities are just downright endearing)
Matthew Hoggard = Luna Lovegood (I considered making him Neville, but I reckon he's more like Luna because he goes around saying odd things that are actually quite funny)
Steve Harmison = Rubeus Hagrid (the friendly giant)
Simon Jones = Sirius Black (fiery, passionate, brilliant)
We'll just ignore the fact that two of them are dead. And statistical probability meant that a fair few of them would be Weasleys…
Good arvo this arvo. Right, well I'm now settled at my Old Man's place in Sibu, hiding from the heat, and my goodness, it's so very very hot. I've been putting off doing this for ages, because I know that the internet connection is infuriatingly slow, and the computer, which was once state-of-the-art, is now a dusty old relic that takes a million years to load up. I think the operating system is Windows 95. Therefore, though before I've broken these catch-up posts into separate posts for each day or big event or whatever, I'm going to shove everything into one big long post because it'll just take bloody ages to load everything up separately. I never thought I'd miss broadband so much.
Tuesday 2nd August
In the name of saving money, Dad and I took a taxi from Aunty Hui Suan's house across the Singapore-Malaysia border to Johor Bahru. This is because it's so much more expensive just to fly from Singapore Airport. Dad asked the driver to take us round JB city centre first, just so's that I could see what it's like, and it struck me as a pretty backwards place. JB Airport was rather scabby as well - they didn't even have western-style sit-down toilets. After a couple of hours there, we flew to Kuching to meet up with Dad's friend Irene and her son Ang Chien (that's how it sounded - it probably isn't spelt anything like that). The son was a thoroughly sour and sullen fellow and Dad could tell that it was embarrassing Irene, so we made a quick exit and sat chilling out in the Golden Lounge at the airport for another couple of hours.
The flight between Kuching and Sibu is very short - only around twenty-five minutes, so Dad usually buys Golden Club class tickets for that leg as a treat. Whilst sitting in the Golden Lounge for all that time, I sat vaguely watching CNN International, because that's what Tolkien makes me do, and I was completely shocked to discover that Max Foster has left the BBC to go and be their anchorman. Even more shocking is the fact that he's also got rid of his monobrow. Double NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We finally got back to Sibu at around 9.30pm, to be picked up at the airport by my dad's friend Agatha (he's got a whole bunch of female friends who mother him). It was good to be back in a place that I'm familiar with, and it was also good not to have to be responsible for myself all the time anymore, as Dad is just looking after me now. Great for somebody as lazy as I am.
Wednesday 3rd August
A lazy day, to get me used to being here again. The thing that the reader must now bear in mind is that the best thing about Sibu is most definitely the food, and sometimes I may just get a tad carried away. We'll see, eh? So anyway, Dad took me for a late brunch in a coffee shop of kampua mee. Wherever you go in Singapore or Malaysia, there are a whole bunch of coffee shops everywhere, serving drinks as well as a range of rice and noodle dishes, plus some also serve some random stuff as well. Because of the heat, they're all built so that they have at least one side open onto the street to let in a breeze, and so the tables normally extend out onto the walkway as well. "Mee" is Chinese for "noodle," and "kampua" is the movement used to pick up the dry noodles with the chopsticks and a spoon. The noodles are dry, because they aren't soup noodles. Kampua mee, however, does actually come with soup in a separate bowl, and the entire dish is based on pork stock.
We popped into the bank to see all my dad's [female] friends there. The Old Man is the only person that I know who hangs out at the bank. He says that it's because a) it's got air conditioning; b) he's a priority banking customer, so they give him tea and coffee; and c) his friends give him sweets. Shoe shopping (everything's cheap here, and I ditched my last pair of summer shoes in Brisbane because they smelt and well, they fell apart), and then a relaxing afternoon at home. My father has free swimming for life, which extends to his family, as he swam for Malaysia when he wasn't the Old Man, so we went down the pool early evening. Out swim was rather quickly interrupted by a very heavy shower of rain, though.
After dinner, we took a trip to Pasar Malam. "Pasar" is Malay for "market," and "malam" is Malay for "night." Night Market. They have all sorts of stuff there - mostly food and bootleg goods. Kwai is the collective term for the small, sweet cakes and jellies made in this part of the world that are a lot like sweet dim sum. We picked up some peanut pancake-type kwai, as well as magnetite bracelets for RM3.50 each. ["RM" stands for "Ringgit Malaysia", the currency here, and there are around RM6.5 to the pound, which converts very well indeed.] I'd seen the same bracelets for $30 in Brisbane Airport, so that was pleasing.
Thursday 4th August
Dad drove me out to Mukah so that I could go and visit his project there with him. Sibu isn't actually geographically that far from Mukah, but the drive still takes over two hours because the road is so awful. I love the scenery, though - there are just kilometres and kilometres of oil palm plantations, interspersed with unkempt jungle, and it just looks absolutely amazing. Once we got to the site, an incinerator on a palm plantation used for burning the harvested fruit shells, Dad spent around an hour speaking to his workers and testing out the fans at the base of his incinerator. It was actually built to a slightly different design from his usual incinerators, as his clients wanted to be able to collect the ash after burning so that they could use it to fertilise the palms on the plantation. Therefore, there was a raised slatted base inside the chamber so that the ash could fall through the gaps and be collected after burning. We didn't stay for long, we just went because Dad understands the importance of making a show. By turning up, he demonstrated that he's in control, and he forced the workers to get their arses into gear, but but by not staying the whole day, he showed that he trusts the workers, giving tem a sense of responsibility and an incentive to work.
When that was done, we went into Mukah town itself, which is actually twenty minutes' additional drive and a ferry ride away from the site. We had a lunch of kampua mee and then picked up some fresh fish for Agatha, as Mukah is actually a coastal town on the South China Sea. The other thing that the town is famous for is tebaloi, a type of dried sago biscuit, as they grow lots of sago in the area. We bought a whole bunch of that as well. [My goodness, this keyboard is annoyingly clunky. Meh.] After driving back to Sibu, we went to visit my Aunty Sylvia's grave, as it will be five years since she died later this month. The Evil Bastard Mosquitos there bit me seven times: once on my left shoulder, twice on my left leg, and four times on my right leg. And all in the space of ten minutes. I bloody hate those EBMs. We then went for a walk in the Bukit Lima Forestry Park (in Malay, "bukit" means "hill" and "lima" means five: Five Hills), so we were shaded from the horribly strong sun by the trees. As soon as we got home, it was time for me to watch the cricket: Dad had subscribed (RM119.95 for all five Tests) without much persuasion as he knew that I'd be impossible to live with otherwise, as demonstrated two years ago when I missed the third and fourth Tests against South Africa as I was out here. It was an amazing day's cricket, but I came out thinking that if we could score 407 in one day's cricket, then the Aussies would probably come along and score 507, just to piss me off.
Friday 5th August
Dad took me out to Sungei Merah (in Malay, "sungei" means "river," and "Merah" is just a name: River Merah), a district of Sibu, for brunch. There's only one row of wooden shophouses left - all the other have been pulled down for redevelopment. I had char kway tiaow with tomato sauce. In Chinese, "char" means "fried," and Kway tiaow is a type of flat rice noodle. It normally comes "dry," i.e. without sauce, so you have to specify for the tomato sauce, but it does give the dish an extra tang, which is nice. It really is satisfying to be able to eat with chopsticks now. I think I always had the potential to be able to do it, but I just couldn't be arsed to teach myself. I was watching all those Americans using chopsticks on "The OC" that ashamed me into teaching myself before I came out here again. Afterwards, we went to the bank to deliver some of the coconut buns that we'd bought in Sg. Merah to Dad's friends. It's similar to a doctor buttering up their nurses. While we were in town, Dad also brought in my many films to be developed, and we went to the opticians so that I could choose a pair of sunglasses to be made up with prescription lenses.
Back home, I watched a pirate copy of "Mr and Mrs Smith." It wasn't all as bad as I thought it'd be (Richard said that he fell asleep at the ciname when he went to see it), but then again, it DID have Seth Cohen/Adam Brody (the two are synonymous) in it. I watched an hour of so of the cricket, and then Dad made me go swimming. I quickly swam 500m and we had a hurried dinner, then we rushed home so that I didn't miss too much of the cricket. I was surprised that the Australia first innings reply didn't even last the day, and even more surprised when Shane Warne's first ball turned at right-angles to bowl Andrew Strauss.
Saturday 6th August
We had brunch at the place opposite Rejang Medical Centre - a plain meal consisting of soup rice noodles with fish balls and seaweed - very healthy, and very tasty as well, with lots of lovely Sarawak white pepper. We picked up my sunglasses from town, which I really like because they're not pretty-pretty glasses like the woman in the shop was trying to pick for me. They give me rock star delusions, which is always fun. It's been a long time since I've worn sunglasses, and it makes me feel slightly cooler to have them again. Actually, I feel cool just byb eing in Sibu - I get people starind at me all over town because of my "oh-so-racy" dress sense.
I WAS going to just watch the cricket all night, but then Kevin Pietersen was incorrectly given out, leaving us 70-odd for five, and I got depressed and decided to go swimming. I managed 400m before the water did my teeth in, so then Dad and I went for another quick dinner and made it home in time for me to see Freddie Flintoff twatting the ball to all parts. I then got supremely excited when it looked as if we were going to finish the Aussies off that night, but even with the extra half-hour, it wasn't to be, and I went to bed at 1.40am, the cricket finishing slightly later over here because the live feed isn't live: it's delayed by five minutes.
Sunday 7th August
I made Dad take us to 9am Mass so that I didn't miss any of the cricket in the evening. I'd skipped church for the five previous Sundays, so consider it penance that we had to sit through an overly-long, hot, boring Iban Mass. At first, I felt rather guilty about missing so much church, but actually, I think that I needed to go when I was in Adelaide, but once I was away from all that Falun Gong shit, there was no longer any need for me to renew my faith every week. I had Foochow soup noodles (they're a bit thicker than regular noodles) with fish for brunch.
The cricket provided me with an utterly nerve-wracking two hours that nearly killed me, but ultimately ensued in extreme happiness. Two runs. Bloody hell. Shane Warne, Brett Lee and Mike Kasprowicz brought the Aussies scarily close to winning, and it got to the stage where I just couldn't watch, but forced myself to anyway. And then, when Steve Harmison got Kasprowicz caught behind with Australia requiring three runs for victory, I just could not cope, and lay screaming on the floor until Dad said that he was hungry and it was time for dinner.
Monday 8th August
Because of the cricket and the evil Malay people next door who turn on the radio early in the morning, I hadn't been getting enough sleep those past few days. You know, Malaysian pop music really is a massive pile of wank, whether it's in Malay or Mandrin. The tunes sound as if they were written by unimaginative 12-year-olds, and the backing tracks are cheesy as-. It doesn't help that the singers can't even hold a tune. If Big Jack has a problem with Alex Kapranos, he definitely should not listen to Malaysian pop music. I think that it's probably a very good thing that I can't understand any of the lyrics.
I had char kway tiaow for brunch, after which we went to pick up my holiday photos, as well as get a new set of passport photos done for me, as I needed to update my Malaysian passport and identity card to the new electronic ones. One we got home, I discovered that I was missing an undeveloped film, which just happened to be the one with all my photos of Uluru and Kata Tjuta, infuriatingly. During the afternoon, I felt so bloody tired that I had to have a sleep. I dreamt that the seventh film was close to my pink bag that I got in Melbourne, and lo and behold, once I found the bag, I found the film.
After an evening swim of 500m (my teeth can't take much more as the chemicals in the pool are completely messed up, even though my body can), Dad took me to have demengu for dinner, which was lovely. Demengu is a type of rice pancake served in soup, along with fish balls and black Chinese fungus-type thingers. We walked around Pasar Malam for a while, and bought a fair bit of kwai to boot. It was on the news that England's squad remains unchanged. Everybody's saying that Old Trafford will be a slow, turning pitch, so I'm thinking that Matthew Hoggard should be replaced with Paul Collingwood. If the Aussies are playing two spinner then it'll be good to have an extra batsman, plus his medium pace will add some more variation to the bowling attack. Here's hoping.
Tuesday 9th August
We left for Dad's site in Bintulu at around 7.10am. It's around the same distance from Sibu as Mukah - it only seemed like further when I was little because we were on that bus for hours on that terrible road. The drive to Bintulu is slightly different from the drive to Mukah in that the road is a bit better, and the oil palm plantation are replaced by pepper farms instead. Once we got there, we discovered that none of the sub-contractors' workers had turned up. Dad spent ages talking to the sub-contractors, trying to find out where the workers and five tonnes of materials had got to. With all that sorted out, he drove the two of us into town for me to have a look around. I couldn't remember any of it, so Dad drove us to the beach so that I could have another look around. I can remember being on the beach, but none of it seemed familiar.
Once rested back home, Dad took me to another Bukit Lima park, where the EBMs freshly bit me: two bites on my right calve, one on my left thigh, and one on my left elbow. I bloody hate mosquitos. The park used to be really quite shabby, but now it's been done up really nicely by one of the rich Foochow associations, Fukin, I think. All the stonework, benches, giant scary animal statues, replica pagoda, were imported from China - their obsession with being Chinese is bordering on fascism. We picked up some takeaway beef satay and sweet-and-sour fish with rice for dinner. Delicious.
Yesterday
I'd been putting this off for two-and-a-half years, but I had my first driving lesson yesterday morning. Yes, seriously. And I didn't crash, which I'm quite proud of. My instructor, a chap called Wee, kept me inside the test centre as I'd never driven before, but I wasn't arguing. The people here drive like psychos, and they don't indicate or anything, so you never really have a clue what's going on. I'm learning in a Perodua Kancil, which is the Proton version (Perodua's the little car division) of a Citroen Saxo. You can see all the kids driving souped-up boy-racer versions of the things at night. That done, Dad and I went to get our passports and ICs updated, which didn't take nearly as long as we'd anticipated. You're not allowed to wear pale-coloured shirts in the photos, so that was my Franz Ferdinand t-shirt out of the picture, but I swung the next best thing: I'm wearing my bright green Kaiser Chiefs t-shirt in both the photos instead.
Dad treated me to a big brunch for finally getting my arse into gear and starting driving lessons. We had kampua mee at one place, and then kompia, rojak and angtow beng at Thomson Corner. Kompia are small buns made from unleavened bread covered in sesame seeds, and can be served in a few different ways - we had ours toasted and served with a meat filling with a touch of gravy. Rojak is a type of Malay salad, consisting of fresh fruit and vegetables (like pineapples and cucumbers) and fried tofu, covered in a spicy peanut dressing. Angtow beng is a type of drink made from condensed milk with lots of crushed ice, and it has red beans in the bottom. Red beans are like mini kidney beans - the same shape and texture in miniature, but they're very sweet and tasty.
We had dinner with a couple of Dad's old school friends after our evening swim: Uncle Chris, who I did my obs and gynae work experience with a couple of summers ago, and another chap called Wong, who had inexplicably changed his name from Wee. It was thoroughly boring, as all these reminiscy dinners generally are (I'll totally forget if I ever have my own children to inflict them on, though). Once home, we ended up watching the crappy American version of "Faking It," but it redeemed itself by featuring lots of über-camp American gay guys working in fashion.
Earlier today
I had my second driving lesson this morning, and Mr Wee let me go out onto the road. I'm quite proud of myself for only having stalled once, but my clutch control is still pretty shoddy. Dad let me have a go on his automatic "vintage" Mercedes E-class when we got home, and I much preferred it because, hey, I'm too lazy to have to think about gears. The thing is pretty difficult to steer, though. I'm trying to figure out a way of persuading my parents to let me drive Mum's Merc back home if I pass, but I just don't see that happening, realistically.
Beef soup noodles for brunch today, which was good, because they also came with tripe. I love offal. Third Test starts in under half-an-hour - I can't wait. Regaining the Ashes now seems to be a likely possibility now, unlike my previous propaganda where I just went round telling everybody we were going to win with no justification whatsoever.
Miscellaneous
These past few afternoons, I've been watching some cartoon adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen fairytales, followed by Sesame Street. HCA stories really are depressing old things. I keep on getting really sad for inanimate objects, and though the stories are meant to have positive messages at the end, I'm still really sad that the Christmas tree got neglected and chucked on the bonfire, or that the old streetlamp was melted down. Sesame Street always used to scare me, and now I've figured out why, though it's a really bizarre reason. I really like the muppets, always have, but the cartoony bits still freak me out. I don't what it is about them that I don't like, but they make me feel distinctly uneasy. Maybe it's because they have satanic messages hidden in them subliminally or something.
I couldn't sleep one night, so I got thinking: if each member of the England squad that played at Edgbaston was a Harry Potter character, who would be who? I came up with this:
Marcus Trescothick = Ron Weasley (the big right-hand man)
Andrew Strauss = Hermione Granger (the smart one)
Michael Vaughan = Harry Potter (obviously)
Ian Bell = Dobby (I considered making him Colin Creevey, but if you think about it, all Bell does well is run around dedicatedly retrieving the ball for Vaughan)
Kevin Pietersen = Bill Weasley (earring… odd hair… good in a fight…)
Andrew Flintoff = Cedric Diggory (if any player was picked to represent the England team, it wold be Freddie, just like Diggory was picked to represent Hogwarts in the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Let's face it, Fred's the ECB's poster boy)
Geraint Jones = Ginny Weasley (the pint-sized street fighter)
Ashley Giles = Arthur Weasley (the seasoned pro, who's oddness and eccentricities are just downright endearing)
Matthew Hoggard = Luna Lovegood (I considered making him Neville, but I reckon he's more like Luna because he goes around saying odd things that are actually quite funny)
Steve Harmison = Rubeus Hagrid (the friendly giant)
Simon Jones = Sirius Black (fiery, passionate, brilliant)
We'll just ignore the fact that two of them are dead. And statistical probability meant that a fair few of them would be Weasleys…
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
A very positive step in the Collingwood Saga
Soundtrack: "Lank Haired Girl To Bearded Boy" by It's Jo And Danny
And a very good morning this morning.
Yes! It's finally happened! David Graveney and company have seen the light and added Paul Collingwood to the squad for the second Test. The reasoning is here. Basically, I reckon Graveney got shit scared because our batting line-up is paper-thin, and he used the crappy weather as an excuse to do what he should've done in the first place. Now, I've just checked the 5-day forcast for Birmingham, and it says that it'll be sunny but cool on Thursday, overcast on Friday, and there'll be sunny intervals on Saturday. Therefore, I'm not sure whether they'll drop either Ashley Giles or Matthew Hoggard for Colly, if indeed, they decide to play him at all. I don't think that they'll drop the Wrong Ginger One (Ian Bell), but that's okay, because we still took twenty Aussie wickets at Lord's with both Hoggy and Gilo looking pretty innocuous. Plus Colly can bowl a bit - he's ace in the one-dayers.
It seems to be a day of backtracking and going back on previously set-in-stone decisions. After declaring that all their albums would be eponymously titled, Franz Ferdinand have come out saying that actually, they're going to call their second album "You Could Have It So Much Better." I'm quite glad about it, actually, because I really think that titles set the tone for an album. I think that if FF had named the new album "Franz Ferdinand 2" then it would've implied that they hadn't really made much progress since "Franz Ferdinand," which I don't think is really the case, having heard some of the new stuff played live at some of their most recent shows. And I like the idea that you could have it so much better if you just listened to their record.
I've really been letting myself go since I got back to South-East Asia. I've stopped using deodorant, because everybody else smells anyway and I just can't be bothered anymore, plus I've been taking loads and loads of showers in one day. I've stopped using conditoner on my hair as well, because there's so much moisture in the climate that my hair never dries out. For the same reason, I've stopped using face cream because my skin never dries out as well. My goodness.
So yeah, anyway, the rest of yesterday, then. That library was massive, like a cathedral of knowledge. Fourteen gargantuan floors of literature. Pretty impressive stuff. Oh yes, and the crap-looking tan has got crapper. I now have a secondary tan in the shape of my wifebeater, and on my finger where I was wearing my $5 mood ring that I bought at Brisbane Airport to use up my dollars (I gave the dregs to Unicef as well). I haven't had a mood ring since I was around seven, and it is terribly good fun. I've been alternating being in either a "romantic" or "lovable" mood. Reckon that's a good sign?
I had a go on Wen Qi's erhu last night (Wen Qi is Aunty Hui Suan's daughter). It's only got two strings, tuned in fifths like a violin, but you play it upright, like a cello or a bass. So first off, I couldn't do the fingering on the left hand well at all, because I kept on using my very proper double bass technique, which is so so wrong, if you look at the picture of the chick playing the erhu. [My dad laughed at me for calling a womana chick yesterday. I spent far too much time hanging around with Blake in Adelaide.] And then the bow is actually slotted between the two strings, so you put pressure up or down according to which string you want to play, which I just couldn't cope with - I kept on wanting to tilt the thing to play on a different string. It's the type of thing that I'd need to sit down and really concentrate on for a goodly amount of time, just to stop myself from trying to play it like a bass.
Wen Qi is like bloody Cordelia (not Cordelia from Buffy, from WSYO). Wen Qi did her Grade 8 piano the same year as me, except I was 13 and she was 10. Yes, 10. And she only went and got five more marks than me. That's just not natural, doing your Grade 8 aged 10. She sat her diploma a couple of years ago (aged 14), but she said that she failed every single section but one, and was so traumatised that she can't face resitting it. Well there we are.
We're flying to Sibu this afternoon. The Old Man said that his internet connection is slow as-, so I doubt I'll be posting much once I'm over there. I'll probably do some of those big catch-up posts at some point, so you'll have loads to look forward to, I'm sure. In other news, my dad said that he'll subscribe to the second Test for me, so that's good. I'm not sure if I can also persuade him to let me watch the third Test, but I think that knows I'll be insuffereable if I don't know what the score is. He found out last time I came out to visit him, and I missed the third and fourth Tests against South Africa, and that was just Saffers and not even the Ashes. And also, I think secretly, he's starting to quite enjoy cricket now, but he just can't understand why the slips don't do any running until after the ball has passed them by. I feel that it'll be an excellent time to demonstrate why when Glenn McGrath is bowling, but it won't be pleasant viewing for me.
Well then well then well then. Bye for now.
And a very good morning this morning.
Yes! It's finally happened! David Graveney and company have seen the light and added Paul Collingwood to the squad for the second Test. The reasoning is here. Basically, I reckon Graveney got shit scared because our batting line-up is paper-thin, and he used the crappy weather as an excuse to do what he should've done in the first place. Now, I've just checked the 5-day forcast for Birmingham, and it says that it'll be sunny but cool on Thursday, overcast on Friday, and there'll be sunny intervals on Saturday. Therefore, I'm not sure whether they'll drop either Ashley Giles or Matthew Hoggard for Colly, if indeed, they decide to play him at all. I don't think that they'll drop the Wrong Ginger One (Ian Bell), but that's okay, because we still took twenty Aussie wickets at Lord's with both Hoggy and Gilo looking pretty innocuous. Plus Colly can bowl a bit - he's ace in the one-dayers.
It seems to be a day of backtracking and going back on previously set-in-stone decisions. After declaring that all their albums would be eponymously titled, Franz Ferdinand have come out saying that actually, they're going to call their second album "You Could Have It So Much Better." I'm quite glad about it, actually, because I really think that titles set the tone for an album. I think that if FF had named the new album "Franz Ferdinand 2" then it would've implied that they hadn't really made much progress since "Franz Ferdinand," which I don't think is really the case, having heard some of the new stuff played live at some of their most recent shows. And I like the idea that you could have it so much better if you just listened to their record.
I've really been letting myself go since I got back to South-East Asia. I've stopped using deodorant, because everybody else smells anyway and I just can't be bothered anymore, plus I've been taking loads and loads of showers in one day. I've stopped using conditoner on my hair as well, because there's so much moisture in the climate that my hair never dries out. For the same reason, I've stopped using face cream because my skin never dries out as well. My goodness.
So yeah, anyway, the rest of yesterday, then. That library was massive, like a cathedral of knowledge. Fourteen gargantuan floors of literature. Pretty impressive stuff. Oh yes, and the crap-looking tan has got crapper. I now have a secondary tan in the shape of my wifebeater, and on my finger where I was wearing my $5 mood ring that I bought at Brisbane Airport to use up my dollars (I gave the dregs to Unicef as well). I haven't had a mood ring since I was around seven, and it is terribly good fun. I've been alternating being in either a "romantic" or "lovable" mood. Reckon that's a good sign?
I had a go on Wen Qi's erhu last night (Wen Qi is Aunty Hui Suan's daughter). It's only got two strings, tuned in fifths like a violin, but you play it upright, like a cello or a bass. So first off, I couldn't do the fingering on the left hand well at all, because I kept on using my very proper double bass technique, which is so so wrong, if you look at the picture of the chick playing the erhu. [My dad laughed at me for calling a womana chick yesterday. I spent far too much time hanging around with Blake in Adelaide.] And then the bow is actually slotted between the two strings, so you put pressure up or down according to which string you want to play, which I just couldn't cope with - I kept on wanting to tilt the thing to play on a different string. It's the type of thing that I'd need to sit down and really concentrate on for a goodly amount of time, just to stop myself from trying to play it like a bass.
Wen Qi is like bloody Cordelia (not Cordelia from Buffy, from WSYO). Wen Qi did her Grade 8 piano the same year as me, except I was 13 and she was 10. Yes, 10. And she only went and got five more marks than me. That's just not natural, doing your Grade 8 aged 10. She sat her diploma a couple of years ago (aged 14), but she said that she failed every single section but one, and was so traumatised that she can't face resitting it. Well there we are.
We're flying to Sibu this afternoon. The Old Man said that his internet connection is slow as-, so I doubt I'll be posting much once I'm over there. I'll probably do some of those big catch-up posts at some point, so you'll have loads to look forward to, I'm sure. In other news, my dad said that he'll subscribe to the second Test for me, so that's good. I'm not sure if I can also persuade him to let me watch the third Test, but I think that knows I'll be insuffereable if I don't know what the score is. He found out last time I came out to visit him, and I missed the third and fourth Tests against South Africa, and that was just Saffers and not even the Ashes. And also, I think secretly, he's starting to quite enjoy cricket now, but he just can't understand why the slips don't do any running until after the ball has passed them by. I feel that it'll be an excellent time to demonstrate why when Glenn McGrath is bowling, but it won't be pleasant viewing for me.
Well then well then well then. Bye for now.
Monday, August 01, 2005
It ain't half hot
Soundtrack: "Tales Told" by Ian Broudie
Good evening this evening.
Most of the stuff to do in Singapore consists of shopping, shopping and shopping, so when Aunty Hui Suan took Dad and I out for lunch today, we ended up walking round the attached shopping mall whislt we waited for the restaurant to open. It was surreal, walking into Marks and Spencers and seeing all the biscuits sold at extortionate prices because they were imported from the UK. We had dim sum for lunch, but fortunately, it was at one of those places where you pre-order everything by ticking what you want on the menu (like in HK), so I didn't get any hot chicken feet spilt on me this time.
After lunch, we walked in the midday heat to the Asian Civilisations Museum on Armenian Street. There was quite an interesting exhibition on the Peranakan Chinese of Singapore, but we had gone to see the exhibition of Vatican artifacts. It turned out that they were actually at the Asian Civilisations Museum on Empress Place. Ah. So we gave up that one, then. Aunty Hui Suan then took us to the new national library of Singapore, which has only recently opened. It's really rather large, and I couldn't find Q anywhere inside it.
Right, I'm getting chucked off now. Farewell for now.
Good evening this evening.
Most of the stuff to do in Singapore consists of shopping, shopping and shopping, so when Aunty Hui Suan took Dad and I out for lunch today, we ended up walking round the attached shopping mall whislt we waited for the restaurant to open. It was surreal, walking into Marks and Spencers and seeing all the biscuits sold at extortionate prices because they were imported from the UK. We had dim sum for lunch, but fortunately, it was at one of those places where you pre-order everything by ticking what you want on the menu (like in HK), so I didn't get any hot chicken feet spilt on me this time.
After lunch, we walked in the midday heat to the Asian Civilisations Museum on Armenian Street. There was quite an interesting exhibition on the Peranakan Chinese of Singapore, but we had gone to see the exhibition of Vatican artifacts. It turned out that they were actually at the Asian Civilisations Museum on Empress Place. Ah. So we gave up that one, then. Aunty Hui Suan then took us to the new national library of Singapore, which has only recently opened. It's really rather large, and I couldn't find Q anywhere inside it.
Right, I'm getting chucked off now. Farewell for now.
