Royal Wedding

Those if you that know me will be surprised to hear that I'm sitting in a pub watching the Royal Wedding. This is partly because I'm curious to see how the pomp & circumstance of the british monarchy is seen overseas, but more because they have free wi-fi and a 2 for 1 deal on Strongbow in celebration of the occasion. Yeah I know - Strongbow. But this is the pub with supposedly the largest range of draft beers in Malaysia and that totals 7 (Tiger, Heinekin, Guiness, Kilkenny, Strongbow, Carlsberg & Carlsberg Export). So when in Rome.....

Watching the wedding has been interesting - good to see 'the old country' in so much detail. But what strikes me is how the newsreaders, the journalists and even the people on the street are happy to call themselves 'commoners'. One of the things I love about Australia is how class is generally not an issue and you're judged on the person you are, not the people who beget you. Watching my 'pommie' brethren deliberately abase themselves to a lineage blessed only by luck and aggression still makes me angry. Viva la republic!

Anyway, on the way in I passed an amusing traffic jam, where a bunch of flash cars were travelling (presumably) a wedding party. They had a police escort and there were lots of flashing lights, blowing of whistles, sounding of horns and suchlike. But they were still stuck.
and even parking presented difficulties
I think it's human nature to hope that someone gets it badly wrong. Either that or I'm a very bad person.

So - Georgetown, Penang. What a crazy place.
A mix of colonial & chinese architecture, a melting pot of cultures, a place that is intensely visceral in its sights, its sounds and its smells. And of course its tastes. It rained today, intensely, and certain parts flooded in shades of Brisbane.
But hopefully the weather will pick up over the next few days because I'm looking forward to wandering around a lot more.

Today I looked around Fort Cornwallis, designed to fend off attacks from sea in around 1800 and extended over time but never used in anger
The etching on the cannon says it was cast in 1798. I like the arrow on the cannon, maybe added in for particularly dumb bombardiers. 'Point it this way.'
I also visited the forts gaol, a picture that was hard to self-take because I had at least two offers to take it for me. Which is lovely and very typical of what it's like over here, but I enjoy the challenge of the self-shot. And that is very hard to explain in Malay or Japanese.

The only thing that puzzles me is why they put the guns in the fort in the first place. My hotel room has a much better field of fire
The national anthem has just played as part of the wedding, and I had a bizarre urge to stand. My Grandma, who sadly passed away 10 years ago, used to insist on watching the queens speech on Christmas day and it's nice to think about how excited she'd be about this event and how strange and yet natural that it is that I'm watching it here.

KL catch up

I've been practicing a form of 'extreme tourism' over the last few days - not jumping out of planes or white water rafting, but seeing everything I can squeeze in in the time that I'm there. This has meant I've not had much time to sit around updating blogs, so here's a snapshot view of Malaysia to make up for my neglect.......
KL tower from underneath


and the views from 250m up

Some of the best chicken wings I've ever eaten in the Golden Triangle
Grafa fixed gear bike shop & cafe - doesn't everyone check out bike shops when they're away? It's a pain to get to on public transport, but the owner is a good bloke.
View from the bottom of the 250odd steps up to the stunning Batu caves. Tourism & fitness combined, I ended up racing a Malaysian lad up. And we both regretted it at the top.
The caves were amazing though. Light streaming through the holes in the roof highlight temples built into the cave walls, and the monks use mirrors to scare the monkeys that live high on the walls.
It's like the gods have descended from the skies
although the locals aren't so impressed
and however the spirits move you you can't get too carried away on the train home.
Merdeka square, home of Malaysian independence
and also the home of the famous 'hash house harriers', who combine running & beer. Note to self - must look up the local branch in Brisbane.

After all that walking around I needed to relax, so tried a fish spa
At first you use the tank of small fish, and when you've got used to that you move up to the bigger fish
All a bit weird and a little bit tickly, but also very relaxing.

I left KL this morning and after a 6 hr train journey and a swift ferry ride I'm in Georgetown on the island of Penang now. Very different to KL - much less modern in some ways, and the local vendors have much less interest in tourists walking past. It's famed for its food but I'm going to need to step out of my comfort zone to make the most of it.....

Everyones got something to hide except....

Where's Mikey?
This is me at 9.00am yesterday, having flown a red-eye with about 3 hrs sleep and then wandering around for a few hours wearing a merino wool shirt in 30 degrees and 95% humidity
and again 36 hrs later, a bit less tired.

It's been a busy 2 days, including admiring the Malaysian approach to safe electrics in the rain

and the never-ending excitement of the monorail
Still, it's good to go to new places and make new friends - click on the image to see the whole picture....
More soon!

Time for a quick brew?

I was home alone for a few nights last week, so thought I would make the most of it and get some more beer on. I'm still playing with saison yeast so I tweaked my earlier recipes to give a little more wheat for mouthfeel, plus I used only amarillo hops to try to accentuate the citrus.

I mashed for an hour, boiled for an hour, cooled the wort, pitched the yeast and by 8.30pm I was cleaning up...pretty happy with that.

Snapper Rocks

Liz works for Camp Quality, an organisation that arranges events for kids with cancer, and last weekend she was running a 'surf camp' down at the famous Snapper Rocks in Coolangatta. It was an early start, with us out of the door at 6am and arriving on site at 7.30.

My plan was to get us down there as safely as possible and then find a comfortable tree to doze off underneath. Then go for a ride, maybe go for a swim or a bodyboard or maybe just stay under my tree reading a book. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and it rained continually and consistently all morning, so I had to content myselt with wandering around in a leaky gore-tex trying to find coffee shops to lurk in.

We weren't the only ones suffering. There was a kids surf lifesavers competition on the beach just around the headland

This is a really big thing in Australia - all the local surf lifesaving clubs have a 'gromit' section for their under 16s and the competition between them is fierce. The competitions are mainly based around running, swimming & surf skis, skis being bouyant surfboard-type boards with a cutout section for kneeling on whilst paddling with the arms. You can see a line stretching out mid-picture here Despite the rain, the water looked very clear and inviting

I'm not the best of swimmers, but figured with that many lifesavers around I was probably pretty safe. However I'm ashamed to say that I didn't venture in all day - in fact after the event was over we looked at the drizzle and headed straight back to Brisbane. At least some of the locals were enjoying the rainMost importantly the surf event was a success - the surf school still ran its lesson, pro-surfer Jeremy Flores turned up to sign autographs and 30 kids had a great morning.

Melbourne

My flight didn't leave until late afternoon the next day so I thought I'd take a wander around Melbourne - a beautiful city with an architecture very different to that of Brisbane. In some ways it's reminiscent of Manchester - not surprisingly, as it was built at around the same time. This is the old Melbourne Gaol, just opposite the room I was staying in. This is where Ned Kelly was hanged, supposedly his last words as he was lead to the gallows were 'Such is life' and this phrase lives on in a thousand bogan tattoos.

Flinders St Station, on mainly deserted streets (well, it was only around 10am)
For some reason my bike hire was valid for the whole weekend so I amused myself for a bit by trying to get pictures of me riding next to trams
and then I found out that the 'Moomba festival' was on that weekend. This included a 'Birdman of Melbourne' competition where hopefull souls hurl themselves off of a platform in the Yarra.This guy's heading for a painful bellyflop

and this lady put her faith in some black balloons
Further up the river was a water-skiing contest - I'd like to pretend that this guy just had a massive change of heart when he saw the ramp, but sadly I was only there for the slalom competition and not the ski-jumping
although I did catch a bit of BMX action at the skatepark - some of these kids were incredible
My time in Melbourne was coming to an end all too soon so after some fantastic chinese food and a couple of craft beers I had one last ride, returned my helmet and got the bus out to the airport. My timings were a little out so I was lucky to make the flight home with about 15 mins to spare.

All in all an awesome weekend, I just need some time to recover now.

Hawkwind

The mighty Hawkwind played in Melbourne last weekend, so I thought I'd treat myself to a weekend away and flew down to see them. I was also keen to check out Melbournes new city bike scheme and compare it to its Brisbane equivalent.

I managed to get a 'budget' flight to Avalon airport, 'the second Melbourne airport', on Friday night. It's actually in Geelong, a good hours cab ride & $100 from Melbourne CBD, so that's not something I will be doing again. Still, I got to have a good chat with the cabbie.

On Saturday I went out for breakfast and remembered that Melbourne is different to Brisbane - people just don't get up early. At 9am the city was deserted. I was lucky enough to find a place offering Mexican breakfasts and my bacon, green chilli & olive breakfast burrito hit the spot. The sauce is a green habanero hot sauce.

Suitably refreshed I headed down to the tourist information centre to get my bike access sorted out. The tourist info people weren't much help and suggested I get a 'proper' bike from a bike hire company, but I persevered. The process is easy - you swipe your credit card and for a fee of $2.50 you can then take out a bike from one of the bike stations for upto half an hour for no additional charge. Once you dock a bike you have to wait 5 minutes or so before you can get another one out. There are stations all over the city, but unfortunately none down by the seaside. And oddly there are no take-away maps showing you the location of the bike stations - you need to get a city map and mark it up based on the maps they have at the bike station.

They've also addressed the problem of compulsary bike helmets - you can buy a helmet for $5 at a 7-11 or at a helmet vending machine

Once you're done with it, return it for a $3 refund. Easy.
The bikes themselves are a little more basic than the Brisbane bikes, but just as good. Or just as bad, as my bike snob mates would probably prefer :)
I had a great time pedalling around the various Melbourne sites in what was beautiful weather - 29 degrees & not a cloud in the skyEventually I returned to the lowly status of pedestrian and accidentally walked down from Toorak to St Kilda - I was looking for a bike shop on a specific street and it later turned out that it had closed down. Still, it was a nice day for a walk so I just kept on going and worked up a thirst. St Kilda is home to what is now one of my favourite pubs - 'The Taphouse' - on the junction of Chapel St & Carlisle St. They have a rotating menu of 20 beers on tap, including (on my visit) two separate Saisons. Above is a pint of Mornington Peninsula Saison, a lovely brew. Sadly this is not available in Queensland, but if my Saison ends up anything like that I'll be a happy man.
After a few beers the New Scientist I was reading stopped making much sense so I thought it was time to leave. I wandered through St Kilda enjoying the sights
I also noticed this dude, rocking courier style on a full downhill bike. With barends.
Time was pressing on so I went back to my room to freshen up, and after a quick and not entirely intentional nap I made it out to the gig venue. It was a bit of a wierd place - a teeny bopper club after 10pm, so the support band started at 6.30pm and Hawkwind at 7.40pm. It was a good gig - not great, and not as good as I've seen them in the past, but it was still well worth the visit. Dancers, guitar solos, wibbly wobbly synthesisers, strobe lights, synth breaks on a guitar-synth and lots of smoke - everything that a space rock band should have. No pictures unfortunately as I'd forgotton my camera.

To be honest I was secretly glad that it finished early - after a long day I was exhausted....