Soundtrack: “My Island Home”, Warumpi Band Another holiday comes to an end. In one of the many bookshops in Spain I flicked through a Spanish edition of Sylvia Plath’s Selected Poems, and flicked to my favourite, “Dos amantes y un buscador de conchas junto al Mar Real” so it seems appropriate to finish with the opening in Spanish, “Fría y […]
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Soundtrack: “Juice”, Headless Chickens The last full day in Singapore, and the last full day of the trip. Tomorrow I’ve got the morning, then a flight to be back in Perth for the evening, back to work on Monday, back to the other world. (I’m actually writing this on Sunday morning, having been awake since a bit after 4am, trying […]
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Soundtrack: Lady Gaga medley It will come as no surprise to anyone who has taken a flight in the last 30 years that standard economy seats are not designed for comfortable sleeping for any normal sized person. So when I say that the Finnair flight from Helsinki to Singapore was pretty good, it should be read with the above caveat, […]
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Soundtrack: “The Four Corners of the Earth”, Weddings Parties Anything Slept pretty well in a very soft bed. Woke a few times, having no idea what the local time was, but eventually was too awake to go back to sleep bout 30 minutes before I’d set my alarm. I find it a little depressing when I wake and reach for […]
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Soundtrack: every song by every band about spending time in airports and travelling (on repeat) So it begins again. Having spent 4 months back in the real world of day jobs, traffic, kicking against the pricks and generally just doing what has to be done these days, it’s time to dust off the passport. It’s been a long few months, […]
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Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M. Filling in the last few gaps from a couch in Nyungar Boodjar, home at last. My final morning in Belfast was full of rain. I had a plan: check out of hotel, take my case down to the Central Train Station and store it for a couple of hours, go get breakfast and last minute souvenirs, then […]
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Soundtrack: anything and everything by Lady Gaga; “Without a Trace”, Soul Asylum “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.” — Dylan Thomas Figured I’d mix up the quote, as I know I tend to use the opening from Sylvia Plath’s “Two […]
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Soundtrack: “The Edge of Glory”, Lady Gaga Today is the most important day of the trip, because today I had laksa. Noodle 13: Katong Laksa (Sungei Road Laksa) Right or wrong, I’ve always considered laksa to be more of a malay/indonesian dish, so have not had it in Singapore (despite Singapore’s malay heritage, yeah, I know, I never said I […]
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Soundtrack: “Holiday”, Madonna Waking and checking social media, it turns out that if I’d stayed in the basement parking lot of the first venue for another hour or so, I’d have spent all that time sweating and queueing but at least seen Lady Gaga, who turned up and did a few minutes in the club. I still probably wouldn’t have […]
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Soundtrack: “Hotel Womb”, The Church While my last few days in Singapore were still fairly active, they weren’t nearly as exciting individually as the rest of the trip for at least a couple of reasons: it’s my 5th time here, so there’s less of the novel experiences to be had; and after close to 35 days living out of the […]
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Soundtrack: First full day in Singapore, and first priority is sorting laundry so I have enough clean clothes to get me through. I failed to find a laundry service nearby (a mall might have one but I walked around it and couldn’t find the place, I did find a second hand bookshop to check later). Instead I headed for a […]
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Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M. Of course I was up before the alarm, at least an hour before. The whole travel day body clock thing is good, I guess, but when I’m setting an alarm to give me more time than I need, and then a second alarm in case anything goes wrong with the first, surely I’ve got enough conscious measures […]
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