Stormy weather

Wild weather is something that has always filled me with a strange sense of comfort.  Whenever there are storms, my thoughts are almost always drawn back to childhood and thoughts of being in my warm bed listening the rain.  Growing up in Melbourne, rain was a constant and I missed it terribly living in Canberra through some awful drought years.

Living in Sydney had brought me back into contact with the rain.

What I didn't expect was the ferocity of some of the storms that Sydney could experience.

When I was in Singapore, I had experienced truly torrential rains where it felt as though the entire sky was falling.  In Sydney, it was windy and ferocious storms that I experienced.

I woke up one morning after a party (completely saturated) to find the kind volunteers from the SES cleaning out the partially destroyed tree outside of my apartment block.

Even with this destruction, I still find it all so calming.

Car-less

This is annoying.

I can't even imagine the inconvenience I have caused for the other person either.

Having smashed my car, I found myself relying entirely on public transport.  This is fine for the short daily commutes to and from work, but anything else becomes a mind numbing hassle.

Sydney is simply not built for public transport if you want to go anywhere other than the city centre.

I found myself having to go to Newcastle.

It's not very far from Sydney, being only 160 km away.  Yet somehow, this trip of 160 km takes about two and a half hours on the train.  It really is outrageous that this is considered acceptable in a first world country like Australia.

I really wish I had my car back...

Prang

Well this just sucks.

I feel like an idiot and I'm sure the guy who's car I just hit would be in complete agreement with those thoughts.

I was driving out of the golf course at the strange time of night when it isn't quite dark and when the street lights haven't come on yet.  Most cars don't have their head lights on and I was lucky enough to start pulling out into the road just as a car that did have its headlights on pulled up directly behind me, blinding me for only the briefest of moments.  Somehow, I managed to completely miss seeing the car that was driving past to my right.

I drove straight into the poor guy.

Luckily neither of us were hurt and we were both able to drive away from the accident... but again.... I sure feel stupid....

Look at the sky

I don't like Canberra.  Even when I was living there, I didn't like the place.  I have always found it to be sterile and manufactured.

I dread even the thought of having to go.  So whenever I am forced to return to Canberra, I generally try to accentuate the positives to reduce the annoyance of the entire experience.

One of these positives is the National Gallery of Australia.

The NGA has become an even nicer place now that the entrance has been completely refurbished.  Some may prefer the old entrance with its imposing brutalist style, but I personally think the new open scheme they have adopted is far better for the gallery and its patrons.  Instead of threatening and terrifying visitors, the new entrance actually welcomes people in.

I did my usual walk around, looking at the permanent displays and my old favourites such as Jackson Pollock's "Blue Poles".  I was even lucky enough to see an excellent exhibition of photographs by the Australian artist Carol Jerrems.  I was tempted to take a photo, but there was something strange about taking a photo of a photo that didn't seem quite right.

After I finished visiting the inside, I went for a walk on the grounds outside.  This was something I hadn't done before.  Visits to the National Gallery had usually occurred on bad days, so it was always an inside event.  I found something beautiful though.

It was an enormous installation piece.  An outside room that surrounded a central monolith.  Looking up, I the brightness of the sky filled into the entire room and gave it a lovely glowing effect.

The National Gallery is a lovely place.  It's a great shame that it always seems to be near empty.

Quack!

This giant duck in the middle of Darling Harbour is strangely endearing.

When it was first announced, most people scoffed at the concept.  Bringing a gigantic inflatable duck into Darling Harbour did not seem to be the best idea and it did not seem to be the best use of public money.

Yet in a relatively short amount of time, it seems to have won over most of the city.  People crowd around it taking photos, posing in all different manners.  All around the offices and in the city, people talk to each other about seeing the duck and others talk excitedly about how they are going to see the duck.

When I saw the duck myself, I was also quickly won over.

The duck seems to make light all of its surroundings.  Standing near it or even seeing it, makes it difficult to take anything seriously.  The stresses or the city and of work itself seem to disappear.

After all, how serious can a person truly be when standing next to a gigantic rubber duck?

Empire

This was so much better than Cirque.

Cirque has lost the special flavour it once had.  It is no longer the unique and inspirational company that it once was.  It is now part of a crowded market and it can no longer claim to be the best of the best.  Many of the acts that Cirque puts on are now mediocre and performed by artists that cannot claim to be the best in their field.  I'm sad (but not surprised) to say that fantastic shows like Empire have eclipsed it.

Sitting in the Spiegeltent and watching this new show gave me the thrill of seeing something new and edgy.

I could only imagine that this was close to what Cirque would have been like when it was first starting.  It wasn't as polished or as produced as what I had become used to in Cirque, but it was intense and there was a thrill to each act.  There was a sense of possible failure and that the performers were trying to push themselves further with each move and twist.

I watched with all my attention focused.  I was no longer dismissive as I had become with other shows.  My applause wasn't polite and my laughter wasn't forced.  I felt a true emotional response.  It was incredible.

I also found myself edging forward.  The show is so intimate and the performers are so close to the audience that edging forward actually had a real impact.  I was actually bringing myself closer to the stage.  Closer to the action.  Closer to these feelings that I thought I wouldn't have again!

Back to the future

I was in a new job in an old place.

I had been away from Martin Place in the middle of Sydney's CBD for about 3 years.  This move back to Martin Place (albeit up the street) made me feel as though nothing had changed in 5 years.  In fact, I was so close that I was able to see my old office from the windows of the new office.

My surroundings were completely the same, the walk to walk was almost identical and even the way people around me looked had barely altered.

There was a horrifying feeling of being on a stationary bike or a treadmill.  It felt as though a huge amount of energy had been extended to get myself absolutely nowhere.

Inside a Cracker Jack box

Cracker Jacks aren't Australian.  They are not something I have grown up with and they are not part of my childhood.

Yet I still remember the first box I ever ate.

The intense sweetness combined with the malty flavour was something I had never experienced before.  It was a complex flavour that I did not expect to come from something so mass produced.

Inside the box I found my "surprise" as well.  This I found a touch disappointing.  I had read that in the past you would get toys, but now it seemed that a sticker or a piece of fold out cardboard was all that you could get.

It made me think about that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany's when George Peppard paid for a ring he found in a Cracker Jack box to be engraved for Audrey Hepburn.

Paul Varjak: [reaches into his pocket at the Tiffany's counter] We could have something engraved, couldn't we? 
Tiffany's salesman: Yes, I suppose so, yes indeed... the only problem is you would more or less have to buy something first if only in order to have some object upon which to place the engraving... You see the difficulty... 
Paul Varjak: Well, uh 
[holds up ring from Cracker Jack box] 
Paul Varjak: , we could have this engraved, couldn't we? I think it would be very smart. 
Tiffany's salesman: [taking ring and examining it] This, I take it, was not purchased at Tiffany's? 
Paul Varjak: No, actually it was purchased concurrent with, uh, well, actually, came inside of... well, a box of Cracker Jack. 
Tiffany's salesman: I see... 
[continuing to look at ring] 
Tiffany's salesman: Do they still really have prizes in Cracker Jack boxes? 
Paul Varjak: Oh yes. 
Tiffany's salesman: That's nice to know... It gives one a feeling of solidarity, almost of continuity with the past, that sort of thing. 

The words just didn't seem to ring true anymore.

Apparently this is a thing now

So my brother and his girlfriend just came back from a holiday to New York.  They kindly brought back a present for me, a compost cookie from the famed Momofuku.

It was a tasty cookie.

But it was still just a cookie.

I don't even know what a compost cookie is to be completely honest, but apparently it's a thing and it's famous as well (allegedly).

I honestly believe the global obsession with celebrity chefs is overdone and must surely have peaked.  I am not saying that there will be no more celebrity chefs, but I doubt we will continue to live in times where every chef, irrespective of their true talent, seems to be feted as someone of great importance.

Hong Kong Tang

My views of Hong Kong have been completely changed by this trip.

I had always had a mild dislike for Hong Kong.  For me it had always been a city that was just missing something, almost like it was a machine without a soul.

It didn't help that didn't like the atmosphere of Hong Kong.  It was filled with a constant need for spending for no real purpose.  The lifestyle seemed to involve nothing more than moving from restaurant to bar to restaurant to bar.  The entire purpose of existence in Hong Kong has always been geared towards a never ending cycile of spending that has amazed me.  This was not the type of life that I wanted to be drawn into.  This was Mammon's city.

I was very surprised when I was taken to a Buddhist park near Diamond Hill.

I had been spending some quality time with my parents and my father had been invited to lunch by some of his pharmaceutical industry peers.  My mother and I are never ones to pass up a free meal at the best of times, so we happily invited ourselves to join him.

The location of the lunch was completely unexpected.  The local Buddhist community had come into possession of a large piece of land and had developed it into a traditional Tang dynasty style park.  They could have sold it or turned it into more apartments, but unstead they made something that was truly for the common good of the community.

It was beautiful.

This was an enormous park that was large enough that it sheltered everyone from the noise and intensity of the outside world.

Walking through the park, I wasn't sure where we were going for lunch.  All I could see was the immaculately maintained gardens, some pagodas and a large waterfall.  I didn't see anything that looked like it could provide me with lunch.

We kept walking towards the waterfall and it became clear to me that it was actually the waterfall that was our destination.

Behind its cascade of water was the restaurant.

Inside we were fed with a lunch of vegetarian Buddhist dishes.

The food was clean and simple, with none of the adulteration or additives so common in Hong Kong.

This had been a very surprising trip to Hong Kong.

A greener Hong Kong

It had been several years since I had been in Hong Kong.  I had never been all that enamoured with Hong Kong.  To me, the city was nothing more than a temple to capitalism.  I found the constant consumerism to be suffocating and boring.  The repetition of a life dedicated to nothing more than purchasing to be mindless.

This trip was different.

I never expected this from Hong Kong.

The local building and construction society or association (I forget) had a large piece of land in the middle of Kowloon that had previously been used to train construction workers in the use of heavy equipment.  Over time, the land had become valuable as it had become surrounded by increasingly high end residential and commercial developments.

The response to such events that I would have expected would have been that the land would have been in some way developed for as much profit as possible.

Instead, this land was turned into their new headquarters that acted as a model of environmental design and green building.  It had been turned into a beautiful beacon of sustainable living that was intended to give the community and school children an example of what could be achieved with better planning.

It was a small step, but it was a step none the less.  Hong Kong had made a decision that had been motivated not by money or profit margins, but rather based on a concept aimed at promoting a better life for future generations.  This was something that I did NOT ever see happening!

Egypt?

Do I really like the place?

This was a question that I had been asking myself since my first week in the country.  What I knew was that I would be unlikely to ever return.  The country did not give me the joy and excitement that I had hoped for when I first arrived.

The whole country is in a state of almost permanent ruin.  It didn't matter where I went, there was always a prevailing feeling that better times were in the past, which is an astounding thought when you consider the troubles that have been experienced by this country.  Even the new buildings felt tired and slightly run down, as though neglect had managed to seep into their very foundations.  I had been particularly disturbed by my time in the Cairo Museum, where I was shocked to find priceless artefacts slowly falling apart in the display cases and cabinets that were meant to protect them.  Thousands of years in the tombs hadn't been enough to destroy them, but a few decades in these museums would likely see them gone forever.

This was just a part of what was a generally just a poor treatment of people on the whole by this country.  That is an understatement.  It was more than just poor treatment, it was a horrible treatment of people.  Tourists were merely walking sacks of money to be targeted.  Even the locals were subject to an aggressiveness rudeness by those working in the tourism industry.

I could understand the terrible infrastructure in the country either.

For a country so dependent on tourist dollars for survival, I would have assumed that it would have been protective of these dollars.  I would have assumed that it would have done everything necessary to ensure that the tourists were well catered for with adequate infrastructure to support their travels.

This was not the case.

Instead there was a distinct lack of simple transport options.  The accommodation on offer was usually overpriced and of poor quality.  The services being provided almost always second rate.

The entire pharonic link purported to exist between the people of Egypt and its past was also a lie.  This was an Arabic country and the continued insistence that they were the decendents of the Pharoahs was as frustrating as it was tiring.  Many of the ancient locations had been completely forgotten and covered in sand until they had been rediscovered by French and British archaeologists.  To claim that they were an integral part of the culture of the local people did not resonate with any truth.

What surprised and horrified me the most of all was the treatment that tourists were specifically subjected to.

As I have noted time and time again, Egypt is a country that is heavily dependent on tourism.  In fact, to say that it is "dependent" is completely inadequate in describing the complete reliance that the people and economy have on tourist dollars.  It was difficult to find any part of the country that wasn't in some way either directly or indirectly geared towards the servicing of tourist needs.

It was difficult to maintain much respect for a country where an old lady (a tourist) getting robbed elicited little surprise from the girl working at the hostel.  She seemed to be more annoyed that the lady hadn't heeded her advice to be careful than that the lady had been robbed at all.  When such events become common occurrences to the point of indifference, I hold grave concerns for its social structure.

Thankfully, there was one thing that I was able to consistently enjoy throughout my time in Egypt.  The elegantly simple pleasure of being able to sit down and quietly drink a cup of tea.

The less of Egypt I experienced and more of Arabia I found, the happier I seemed to be. 

Food in Egypt

I expected more.  I expected much more.

My memories of the Middle East have always included particularly fond experiences of incredible meals with intense flavours and unique textures.  I had grown to love the food of this region and my tastes had become far more sophisticated as a result of my travels.  The old kebabs I used to savour in high school and which sustained me through my university days were no longer what I considered to be the height of Middle Eastern fare.

Egypt really offered only a shadow of these memories.  It was a dull image compared to the bright and vivid recollections in my mind.  It is definitely unique in its offerings, but it lacked character and quality in what I had come to love.

Almost everywhere I went, there seemed to be one food that just dominated the entire culinary landscape of Egypt.  That dish was kushori.  It was without a doubt the national dish of the country.  This was a dish of rice, macaroni, tomato sauce and fried onions that appears to be almost universally eaten throughout Egypt by every class of Egyptian.  There's nothing wrong with kushori.  I actually quite enjoyed the dish and found myself craving it for dinner most nights as the easiest available option.  However, it was distinctly utilitarian and tasted more Italian than Middle Eastern.  This was unsurprising considering the Italian influence that Egypt once had.

Much like many other experiences in Egypt, it was just not memorable.

Most of the other culinary experiences were the same, with no meals being able to recapture in me the joy I had once had.  I wondered whether it was because I had become so accustomed to foods of the region or whether it was the food itself.  Had I reached a point in my traveling where even one of the most basic and primal of physical experiences, that of taste, had become dulled?

It concerned me.

Instead, I found that it was often not the food or drink itself, but the events surrounding them that I found myself enjoying the most.  Sitting in an old Egyptian bar with other travelers drinking the insipid and tasteless Egyptian beer gave me no end of delight, but it was the noise and atmosphere of the place that I captivated me.  It was the feeling of being in a place and time that no longer fit in with the rest of the country.

Even my morning meals were not immune to this disease of apathy.  I no longer looked forward to the actual food itself, but instead found myself reveling in the wonderful drama of the routine itself.  It was like a perfect procession, with the careful and deliberate actions of the waiters, the settings on the table and the stark white or everything that made the entire event so memorable to me.

I began to find that I was actually seeking out the simple things, for the things that I found comfort in.  I was no longer reveling in my searching for the new and unknown.

My old favourites such as the Arabian pastries were soon providing me more joy than I could have imagined.  The baklava in Egypt was nothing compared to what was available in Turkey, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.

I found myself returning time and time again to the same gelato store in the middle of Cairo with Emily.  The smooth and creamy dessert was uniquely Italian, yet it had a definite Egyptian twist in the flavours.  I was surprised that could be so happy with this lack of compulsion to explore.  I was content with the familiar.

It seemed to all go back to the kushori.

The dish that was eaten everywhere and by everyone for every meal.  Was my repetitive behaviour merely a reflection of the Egyptian experience that I was meant to have?  Was the lack of exploring a sign that I had actually embraced the nation more closely that I realised?

I cannot be overly critical of everything though.  It wasn't as though the food was bad.  The food was generally good, but it was just that it seemed overly simplistic and bland in comparison to what I wanted.  It was probably a failure of the realities to match my overly lofty expectations that had no doubt grown and expanded in the years since I had last been in the region.

For instance, there were still definite highlights (relatively speaking) to what I was able to eat, such as the poultry and the spinach soup, malokhia.

The soup was nourishing, full of the goodness of all things green.  I was also surprised by just how good a roasted bird the Egyptians can do.

I should probably stop complaining so much.  Expectations can be painful thing.  A burden that destroys the beauty of what is there through the comparison.

A revolutionary place

When I told people I was planning a trip to Egypt, I was usually confronted with looks of horror and disbelief.

I wasn't completely surprised by the reaction.  After all, Egypt had been a frequent topic on the nightly news, and not for the best reasons.

My usual response was to further their shock by telling them that not only was I going to Egypt, but I would also be going for a stroll to the very centre of the revolutionary violence in Tahir Square.

At this point, I was usually greeted with a roll of the eyes and a "whatever".

Most people didn't realise that I wasn't joking though.

Getting to Midan Tahir was far easier than I expected.  I was able to catch the Cairo metro which took me to directly to "Midan Tahir Station".  A very convenient thing to assist me with my all my rioting needs.

It was a relatively quiet day which disappointed me.  I had been hoping there would be a bit more in the way of disturbances.  There was plenty of evidence of the violence and upheaval that had occured, but on the whole it was relatively calm.

After walking through the middle of the square and waving to some of the locals in the tents, I decided that I had seen enough and that I needed a nice cup of tea.

Islamic Cairo

My time in Egypt has changed significantly since I arrived in Cairo.  It's been a positive change.

I correlate this with the move in focus away from Pharonic Egypt and towards Arabic Egypt.  The Egypt that is seen in all the tourist books is a manufactured product.  I could not mentally escape from the Egypt that is a staged creation and it dominated my entire perception of what this country was.  However, the Pharonic history may be a part of the land that is Egypt, but what I had been seeing was a faint echo of what was once there.  There was little evidence to me that Pharonic Egypt had anything to do with the modern political entity that is Egypt or the culture of the people other than as something to be appropriated and sold.  In fact, the more time I spent in Egypt, the more I realised that even the Egyptian people themselves had very little to do with the Pharonic history.  They had barely even known that many of the great monuments I had seen were there, having been covered by sand until they had been excavated by the English and French archaeologists.

The Arabic side of this country was different though.  This was true history of this country as it currently was.  It is the past of the people that is continuing to change and develop through to this day.  This side of Egypt represented the culture of the people and I quickly realised that this was what I had been seeking out in my travels.

Accompanied by my lovely American friend Emily, we started walking through the old part of Cairo, also known as "Islamic Cairo".

It didn't take us very long at all to find some towering heights from which to get some better views.  I tried to climb to the highest level of the tower, but my courage deserted my legs.  I was content with staying at the same level as Emily and taking a photo of her in her corresponding tower.

The buildings in this area were captivating.  They were all still working buildings, but that didn't mean that they weren't jewels from the past.

The intricate patterns and designs on almost every building was the highlight of the Islamic architecture I had seen on the trip.  Every details was a beautiful reminder to me of everything I loved about the Arabic world and the imagery it created.  There is a perfect symmetry to each piece of design.  They all sit together within something greater and yet everything is still so unique even when so crowded.

We continued walking through the streets of Islamic Cairo.  There was a dirtiness and grittiness to the place that added a realism to the surroundings.  Some may recoil at the filth, but once again I found it to be just another wonderful part of this place.

As Emily and continued walking, we encountered a particularly ornate building.  We were welcomed into the building by a friendly custodian who explained to us that we were actually looking at one of the major attractions of Islamic Cairo, the old Ottoman sabil.

The place was a clean water dispensary to the local people, providing a source of clean drinking water to the local community.  The building was decorated in lovely Ottoman designs and Turkish script.  This building made me think of what King Faisal said in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, that centuries ago the city of Cordoba had miles of public housing when London was only a village.  The sibal was like Cordoba for Faisal.  It was a beacon of just how progressive the Islamic world had been so many centuries ago in comparison to their Western counterparts.

Standing inside the cistern of the sibal itself I closed my eyes and listened to Emily singing.  Her voice echoed softly inside the amazing acoustics of the empty space.  There was a soft glow of light that bounced off the walls.  It was hard to believe that this had been here for so long.

We left the sabil and continued our walk.

The number of foreigners began to grow and it was clear that we were now in the truly touristy part of Islamic Cairo.  We had in fact reached the "famous" market known as Khan Al Khalili.

This place was awful.

The touts were in full force and the relatively low number of tourists meant that we were receiving the full attention of touts.  Poor blonde Emily from the American mid-west was receiving some particularly intense attention and I was particularly shocked when a child that looked about 12 ran up to her and started screaming truly filthy expletives at her.  Just lovely.

It seemed to be the nature of Egypt that even the beautiful things were more often than not ruined by the horrific.