I like my women like I like my coffee...*
I've been having arguments with Toni's shower, which seems to have been born of the inclination that people rarely make use of warm water. As such it's more of a kitchen appliance, providing me with as much boiling hot or ice cold water as I could possibly want, which is fine. However when it comes to showering, something I'm fairly certain wasn't outside the speculative realms of plausible uses for a shower, the experience is similar to that of being on a Japanese game show, naked and having to crack a safe whilst getting stabbed repeatedly in the face. In fact the level of engineering accuracy and dexterous precision required to produce anything resembling a tolerable climate from Toni's shower is somewhere between brain surgery and rocket science; "One nano-millimeter between fantastically hot and fucking freezing".
[PRO-LOGUE +50pts]
Anyway to recap, I had arrived in Australia late Thursday evening, traveling over 10,000 miles, across a period of around 35 hours and standing at least briefly in 4 different continents. With enervated trepidity I carried my bags up to my room and laid down. Breathing in the enormity of my journey I closed my eyes, looking forward to the kind of long sleep earned exclusively by international wayfarers and Chilean miners. [+50pts] I was definitely not going to be woken up the following morning.
I was woken up the following morning at around 06:50 by Toni. Having taken the day off work to be with me; she had decided that instead of a lie-in, I would probably prefer a 6 o'clock slap in the face. Birds joined in. There was singing going on and the sun was lording over the pathetically ineffective attempt at shade my blinds were failing to provide. I'm not fond of mornings.
07:00
Friday morning.
Again, far too early.
My day began with a nice, relaxing and somewhat forced introduction to Toni's parents. Now, I wasn't quite feeling like the socially radiant beam of sunshine I usually am at 07:00 in the morning, but Toni was quick to reassure me by insisting I make a good impression, taking note of my appearance and reluctantly yielding; "Let's just get this over with".
So with my mind at ease, I make my way downstairs to be greeted by two mature, Vietnamese faces and the salutation of "Ah, good morning!"
"Hello!" I responded, with polite smiles all round.
"How's it going?" I continued.
This, however, proved to be a conversational dead end and as smiles remained fixed whilst eyes widened in mutual confusion, it dawned on me that this was probably about the extent of their English.
"Coffee?" Countered Toni's dad, indicating the Nescafé.
I flirted briefly with the idea of probing our linguistic barriers with the answer "fuck yes" but decided that was probably a bad idea.
"Please." [CONVO +75pts]
The conversation around me took place largely in Vietnamese for the rest of the morning, which was fine. I haven't yet worked out whether or not learning Vietnamese would make my life here simpler or more complicated, presumably both. I was happy enough to sit back and tune out as the a capella bebop of foreign language hummed innocently around me. Toni later explained that her father was pointing out that weddings are expensive and that I'd better start saving. I probably won't bother learning Vietnamese.
[IGNORANCE BONUS +200pts]
A trip then, to Inala, which Toni had briefly described to me as something of a 'culture-shock' due to the high density of Asian residents in the area. I decided not to mention that I was staying with a Vietnamese family at the time and instead bemoaned the culturally offensive level of sunlight as we sat down in an Asian owned cafe for breakfast. I ordered something with rice and pork as the cafe staff replaced my chopsticks with a spoon, evidently fearful I may cause injury to someone if required to attempt the complicated system of using two sticks to move food. I gazed earnestly out of the window and wondered which of the many defining Australian traits would first leave its impression on me. Mullets. The bewilderingly popular 80's haircut was apparently still very much in style and as children with fishtail skateboards whizzed in and out of a large Woolworths, I reevaluated what I knew about time differences. [+20pts]
We finished breakfast and had a brief wander around Inala, which isn't the largest of commercial suburbs, so was essentially just a brief wander around Woolworths. As I trawled the unfamiliar aisles, filled with the haphazard cartage of flighty shopping trolleys and an unnatural amount of BBQ equipment, wrong shaped fruit and misnamed branding assaulted my senses. Facsimile logos were propagated by erring slogans like; "Easy-Off, BAM and the dirt is gone", while unfamiliar hands peddled discontinued foods in a bankrupt supermarket. I felt as though I was descending into some kind of bizarre, products-oriented, acid nightmare. However, this being my typical response to any kind of shopping experience, I was quickly sated by the discovery of COON cheese and we left for an early lunch of Banh Mi Thit; a Vietnamese pork roll. [+20pts]
17:00
Thursday evening.
Angus and Julia Stone - Mango Tree
The weather had been thoughtfully pluvious all week, welcoming me to Australia with its first week of what would turn out to be a month of showers. This was something I had thoroughly enjoyed and was able to respond to the accusation; "the weather's been shit since you've arrived Jow" with a curt, yet high-spirited "good". Despite my almost schadenfreude revelry in the weeks rain, I was glad to see the skies tidy themselves up tonight, as I was due to be meeting Toni in Brisbane to see Angus and Julia Stone at the Tivoli and nobody here seems to like getting pissed on.
Anyone unfamiliar with Angus and Julia Stone's music, please click the link above. In fact, even if you are familiar with their music, play it in the background. It'll add to what is no doubt an already captivating reading experience for you, get me blad?
I said you do.[C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER +100pts]
To get into the city, I first needed to catch a lift to the train station from Toni's parents. While Toni had professed to orchestrating this pursuit before she left for work, it still managed to play out with about the same level of cohesion as Abbott and Costello's "Who's on first?" sketch, if Costello's role was played by a middle-aged Vietnamese couple. However, after a good half hour of declaring that I was good to go, whilst being asked repeatedly whether or not I was ready, I hopped into their car and off we went. [+20pts]
I've found public transport to be a very calming experience here, as whilst I pride myself on my adaptability and versatility, I don't respond well to change. This being the case, public transport provides a wealth of familiarity, wherever I am in the world, it always remains comfortingly shite. Sitting by myself on the 45 minute journey into Fortitude Valley (or simply 'The Valley') at the centre of Brisbane, I note approvingly the graffiti scarred windows and outbound trains marked 'Ipswich' that fill me with a grounded sense of self amongst the strange and infinitely ridiculous place names that flew past (all real):
Tarrigindi,
Woolongabba,
Moorooka,
Toowoomba,
Toowong,
Slacks Creek,
Coorparoo,
Indooroopilly,
Yeerongpilly,
There's honestly more of these.
[+40pts]
The night was warm and clear, suitably encompassing The Valley's bustling, neon artistry. It's an ideal part of the city for a bit of nocturnal culture-juggling, so after meeting Toni at the station, we bounce around China Town looking for something to eat. I made a brilliant joke about being sick of Asians which was inexplicably, poorly received, but we stop for some Japanese food and I pay. [+20pts]
The Tivoli made for a nice venue, it's essentially a renovated theatre house that's been re-geared for music and the walls were lined tastefully with memorabilia from previous acts. The drinks were expensive, but fuck it, I'm on holiday, so I allow myself the $10 beers [+20pts] and amble into position as the lights dimmed and the action got underway.
As Angus and Julia were revealed to the crowd I admired the work that had been put into their set, ephemeral lighting cast a dreamy twilight over the band and the stage was adorned with an old-style street light and Australian gumtree. The concert ebbed and flowed smoothly with the songs, save for one clearly pissed guy, who was gesticulating devil signs, shouting and headbanging inappropriately to the contrastingly calm music being played, I considered headbutting him, but decided this would probably be similarly incongruous. The matter was settled shortly after as two large bouncers ejected him from the building before returning to assert that if we see anybody else acting up, to "put our hands in the air" and as the crowd became a sea of iPhones, I looked around and replied;
"Brilliant. I'll just wait until the band finishes."
[+75pts]
There we go, that's another blog entry done for now and I've managed to cover about three days in the last two months. Good for me.
For anything I've referenced here check the Link's below.
Cheers again.
[EPIC-LOGUE 50pts]
TOTAL: 5240pts
NEW HIGH SCORE
HIGH SCORES
- 0005240 - POO
- 0003501 - JOW
- 0000000 - _ _ _
- 0000000 - _ _ _
- 0000000 - _ _ _
Angus and Julia Stone - Mango Tree
*Feel free to add your own punchline, fabulous prizes to be won.
You lucky, lucky people.
I've been meaning to write up what I've been up to since arriving in Australia, as I'm no doubt sure most of you know I haven't the greatest ability to relay any actual information to people in conversation. People often ask me what I've been up to so far, or what opinions I have formed on what is geographically England's tropical arsehole*, only to have me reply with a dismissive non-comment about something unrelated. Well done me.
Nevertheless, I do feel I should keep track of what I've been up to and tagging everyone I deem polite enough to feign interest in my goings on seems more pleasant than telling you all to "fuckin' read it, comment on it and laugh at my witty observations."
Now, as I'm over a month in I'm going to have to do a considerable amount of back-tracking in my storytelling and my memory is at best abstruse, still somewhat addled by a post-teenage comedown which I suspect will be in place for the majority of my life. With this in mind I am going to be scoring myself points on various storytelling merits throughout this note-blog-story-critique, in an attempt to keep me coherent in my writing and motivated in my...
So without further ado;
Fuckin' read it, comment on it and laugh at my witty observations.
02:00AM.
Wednesday morning.
Far too early.
I'm not fond of mornings. By and large, things in my life are supposed to end by the morning. It could be due to me freestyling my body-clock for the best part of my existence, but I naturally feel sick at any given moment 'ante meridiem', I physically cannot cope. It doesn't matter when I woke up, or what I've been doing, I just find it impossible to function. It may be partially due to this that I also feel that it's completely unreasonable to ask people do anything this side of the day, anything ending with 'AM' in my experience, ends messily (jam, Saddam, Vietnam..). [COMBO +3x50pts]
Still, at a little after 2 o'clock in the morning I pile my suitcase, the contents of which I am still discovering, into the boot of my Dads car and head off to the Cattle Market Bus Station (I'll advise anyone unfamiliar with Ipswich that the name is a relic of its former use and that it is not currently offering dual services). [+20pts]
After what I deemed to be a rather coolly played goodbye, but what probably came off as a slightly awkward and peculiar act of wandering off, I climbed onto a surprisingly busy, but unsurprisingly quiet coach to begin the first 6 hour stage of my two day journey.
Now, I'm not going to retell step for step the entirety of my journey as it involves a lot of sitting and staring at a book. The idea of somebody reading about me reading about somebody else (who himself makes numerous references to his favourite author), does not make for good storytelling... [INCEPTION +100pts]
So just take a couple of minutes to imagine me doing something awesome for the next 18 hours, where I probably resolved a hijacking with a series of back-flips before reattaching one of the engines whilst air-stepping alongside the plane at just under the speed of sound. Yeah, that sounds like something I'd do.
More coffee.
Once I'd gotten over the initial reflex-outrage of discovering that Royal Brunei Airlines were a fundamentally (Note: not fundamentalist) Muslim service and therefore would not be providing alcohol, something I was fairly certain would make my preplanned travel singing both difficult to explain and tediously coherent, [+20pts] I had a comfortable enough journey.
Having been awake for over a day before I started traveling, I was hoping to spend large chunks of my journey unconscious, though this was scuppered by the overwhelming hospitality of the airline, who were more than keen to offer every member of the cabin a torrent of juice, snacks, meals and flannels every 15 minutes, whether they were conscious or not. Retrospectively I might have come off as ungracious, but having managed to fall asleep for the first time in about 36 hours only to be reawakened seconds later by the politely modulated chant of "Sir, sir, sir." I felt my response was entirely justified; Taking in my surroundings and assessing the situation I replied with "Hneurgh?"
"Sir?" Was repeated again.
"No I don't want any fucking ice-cream."
Then a brief pause as the young steward considered the possibility of miscommunication, before reiterating that I should fasten my seat belt. [CONVO +75pts]
As the plane 2-stepped its way from continent to continent, I made the most of my frosted viewpoint over the world. I enjoyed flying over Iraq and tutting at the mess, coming into Dubai at night and seeing it lit up like a neon circuit board that had caught fire, then switching views between the Arabian Sea and South Asian landscape before touching down in Brunei. [+25pts]
Landing in Brisbane at around 21:00 I was pleased to find myself appropriately tired, as it turns out my spasmodic body-clock is seemingly uneffected by jet lag. So I go to check out with my immigration card unattempted and stuffed into my pocket,. This being highlighted to me as a problem I quickly fill it in, ticking all the boxes suggesting that I may be bringing in foreign food, soil and animal products, before being asked where I was going by a large Australian chap in a suit.
"Ah, I was just heading to the back of the queue." I replied.
"Nah, don't worry about that, just go through here." He said, ushering me past a Chinese family and towards a woman who scrutinised my problematic immigration card before sending me to quarantine.
I arrived at the quarantine area to discover that there was nobody there, so I ambled my way through a complicated series of rope barriers to end up on the other side without hindrance. Concerned I might have done something wrong, I began waving my foreign packet of crisps at people as I made my way out of the gate. [STEALTH +100pts]
Finding the whole experience a little disorientating it was good to see Toni, [+10pts] who had apparently just that second arrived. I hugged, kissed and complained to her about the inappropriate warmth of the night, then she drove me through Brisbane city centre. Toni offered to highlight Brisbane's points of interest, but I didn't take that much in on the way back to hers, there were the tall buildings synonymous with any major city, the tallest being inexplicably obscured by some of the smaller ones, there was the area she worked; Fortitude Valley and Toni pointed out the river, which later turned out to be a car park.
Everyone was asleep by the time we arrived back at Toni's and the house was silent, except for an odd, chorus-like warble which I wasn't prepared to question.
Now I'm sure that's far more than most of you are prepared to read, so I'll stop for now, more than happy to have started my note-blog-story-critique a month late, with less than a paragraph of it about me being in Australia.
Cheers.
TOTAL: 3501pts
NEW HIGH SCORE
HIGH SCORES
- 0003501 - JOW
- 0000000 - _ _ _
- 0000000 - _ _ _
- 0000000 - _ _ _
- 0000000 - _ _ _
*'Arsehole' is auto-corrected to 'Arsenal' by Toni's computer, you may also be pleased to know that it corrects 'Walcott' to 'Walkabout'.
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