The icy wastelands of Brisbane

Global warming is obviously having an effect - the centre of Brisbane has iced up...

The council has put in an ice rink in the main city square. It's easy to be cynical - we're constantly being told we need to cut back on the power we're using, but they're running an  rink in the middle of a subtropical city for a month. Plus inline skating has been bannned on this square for a while - you can roll through it but stop to have a mess around in a quiet corner and you get moved on pretty quickly.

But it's looking to be very popular, and for some people it will be their first experience of ice outside. Hard to be curmudgeonly when so many people seem to be enjoying themselves.

Rickety plumbing

We live in an old rickety flat and the plumbing is slowly falling apart. Today we had a tap fail and run constantly. There's part of me that's a little embarrassed that we had to call a plumber instead of rolling up my sleeves and fixing out myself. But thats why we pay rent, and I'd also be scared that I twist the wrong bolt and create one of those comedy geysers. And with plumbing like this it could easily happen!

Chilly days

It's a cold cold morning today - the coldest june day in the last ten years. Brits will laugh but we're all shivering at 10 degree nights. The cold seems to be more bitey, with the wind feeling like it just came off the antarctic. Either that or I'm getting soft.
In other news I have a new toy - a desire s smart phone. This should allow me to blog on the go, so expect more random posts with random spelling as I get the hang of the swype keyboard. Which incidentally rocks...if you have an android phone download out and give out a go.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

We were in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland a couple of weeks ago for a wedding. We were staying at an apartment with an open fire, and it got us thinking about how nice a fire would be at home. But unfortunately we rent a 2 bedroom unit on the second floor, so it's hard to put a chimney in.

Then we thought about a brazier - the joy of an open fire, a wood-fired barbecue and all on our small balcony

It was a great idea and in many ways it was very relaxing sitting outside, watching the flames licking through the brazier walls, cooking sausages on the grill and (later) roasting chestnuts on the coals

 

It was a great idea, although slightly flawed in practice. Because the balcony only faces one way there is no through-flow of air, so the wind always blew in and swirled the smoke directly onto either one or both of us. So we kept the fire low, which in turn meant the sausages took a while to cook. The roast chestnuts were just as I remembered from the streets of London - extremely atmospheric, too hot to peel without the risk of third degree burns, flavourless and a little floury. It took me around an hour to tidy it all up the next day, and for a week or so afterwards the flat smelt of smoke. And one of the neighbours keeps giving us dirty looks, although she is a little bit odd so that could be for many reasons.

Don't think it will be a weekly thing, but it was fun and very relaxing to hang out watching the flames. Something to do when we want to spoil ourselves - as well as any washing left on the line downstairs :)

Laughing at foreigners

Of course one of the joys of being oversees is laughing at the 'silly' names & wierd signs, such as the tempting 'Great Oil Stick' cafe

along with it's mouth-watering symbol

For those who prefer a taste of home, there's the 'Old Trafford Burger

and you can even get a Northern English plumber

"Fook Man, that's gonna cost ya"

Of course the Australian way of speaking is also an easy target

This is my favourite though, a poster in the centre of Georgetown

Not much you can add to that.

Buddha Buddha Buddha

On my last day in Penang I visited a couple of the Buddhist temples, positioned opposite each other not far from the glitzy hotel strip which is the home of the 'G'. The first temple was the Wat Chaiyamangalaram temple, a Thai buddhist temple. which is the home of one of the largest reclining Buddhas around, built in 1958

Across the road is a Burmese Buddhist temple, featuring a less relaxed looking Buddha

along with vignettes illustrating his life
The Burmese temple also included over a dozen different Buddha statues, showing how the image of Buddha changes from country to country. That helped answer a question that had been bugging me for a while - why so many representations of Buddha? Buddha was traditionally an Indian prince & a warrior before he decided on his career change (an early mid-life crisis?), and each culture shows what was their ideal representation of a warrior of the time. An American Buddha statue built now would probably be wearing a Seal Team 6 uniform.

Incidentally the 'fat Buddha' image beloved of hippy cafes everywhere is a little different - that is a representation of a Chinese monk called 'Budai'. He was a major figure in Chinese folklore who was intergrated into the Chinese take on Buddhism, to the joy of lardy practitioners worldwide....

Malaysian countryside

One of the attractions on the North Coast of Penang is the Tropical Spice Farm, a beautiful little sanctuary away from the hussle & bustle of Georgetown. Unfortunately there's a lot of traffic noise, but there're also garden trails where you can see (& smell) the herbs that you cook with every day growing in glorious fecundity. After some very grown up wandering round it's a relief to find a swing suspended from a tree bough where you can drift off
The gardens aren't without their own hoodlums though. I turned a corner and found these guys waiting for me
I said hello and started to walk up the steps but they didn't back down, in fact they started coming towards me with what looked like evil monkey grins on their evil monkey faces

I could hear crashing in the tree canopy approacing from behind me, so word of a vulnerable tourist was obviously out on the (grape) vine. I was backing slowly away when either a leaf or an insect brushed my ear, so I jumped, spun round and ran away. Which was a little embaressing.

Fortunately the spice farm had a wonderful restaraunt overlooking the beach so I fortified myself with a Thai curry & some manly facial expressions.

After that I went to the butterly farm, which had as one of it's attractions a 'scorpion pit'

I chuckled to myself about this James Bond villain-ish attraction...well I laughed until I found out that their Malaysian scorpions glow under UV light

Now that's freaky.

Afterwards I relaxed at the beach

Looks idyllic but I wasn't going in the water. Gangs of monkeys roaming through the treetops, scorpions gleaming sinisterly in the darkness - I reckon there was a bunch of frikkin' sea bass waiting for me. With lasers.