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Last Sunday (12 July) I had a very happy surprise.
A baby shower: organised by a group of close friends and my darling husband, whom I thought would never be able to keep a secret like this, or even manage an event like this, without me knowing.
Well, I was wrong. And boy, was I surprised! Especially when the lovely hostess and mastermind Caroline brandished a knife in my face and said “Eeeek, you’re too early, go back outside until we’re ready!” or something similar. After getting over the shock of being chased out of my own home with my own knives (obviously, I ignored her) it finally dawned on me that there were lots of lovely people in my house and stacks of delicious food. Yay!
The best present of the day (and thanks to everyone for all your lovely gifts) was the fact that our friends in Melbourne cared sufficiently about us to pull off something as wonderful as this! I think I was on a high for a week, just celebrating privately every time I thought about this.
The only low point is my wonderful friends NOT in Melbourne (you are probably reading this) whom I would have loved to share a moment like this with. Regardless, I am very thankful for all the support, celebration and good-natured ribbing that has enriched my life from all over the world. You guys are amazing.
BACKGROUND: Organising an ultrasound scan in Melbourne after our return.
An inacurrate transcript of our conversation:
Husband: “I can’t wait to find out the sex of the baby.”
Me: “You’re so impatient, why can’t you wait until the birth like everyone else… you’re the kind of person who would choose to get a baby made in 1 day.”
Husband: “Yeah, how about we get a packet baby – Just add water (and it’s ready).”
And when I emailed him this gorgeous nursery that I loved, all he had to say in his reply:
> It would almost a shame to have a baby in a room like that.
Sometimes I love my husband’s sense of humour.
Yesterday I attended the very cool, interesting and loving wedding of Ian and Jessi. Ian works with P and I had fun getting to know some of P’s colleagues better on my own. If we had attended as a couple I think I would only have had eyes for my husband (and rightly so!).
They married on the beach and we had the reception at the rainforest room in the zoo, eating with lush plants and some animals around us. There were some very cute tiny monkeys. I think they were macaques (but I’m no expert). Unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get a good photo from behind thick glass.
P flew overseas for work yesterday for 4 months. He won’t be back till April 2009 and I am slowly learning to cope without him here.
The worst thing about circulating in the international community in Melbourne is that when you meet cool people and become good friends, they end up leaving. It’s inevitable and annoying, but we’ve made some excellent friendships this way.
A beautiful example is this lovely couple, who IMHO are one of best couples we know. We first met them at Wilsons Prom and I blogged about it here. They are moving back to Spain, via northern Australia, SouthEast Asia and India.
This is our last photo together in Australia.
Us (and a blurry cat)
C is very confident that we’re one of the few people who will end up visiting them in Spain. We hope to prove him right!
The La Mirada film festival opened this week. I missed out last year, and as a fluent Spanish speaker, I like watching Spanish films and keeping up my langauge skills as much as possible. This year, I emailed C & M so we could go watch a movie or two together.
We passed on Thieves, as it was opening night and tickets were a horrifying $45 each! We ended up choosing Death of a Cyclist and I bought our tickets the same day. Funny enough, I ended up winning tickets to Thieves and the opening night gala the next day!
I’d never been to a premiere before. It was quite exciting, with paparazzi and beautiful people working the room. Other than waiting 1 hour for invited VIPs to show up, and the cost, it was quite enjoyable. Best of all was the jamon iberico.. yum!!
The next day, we met C & M for Death of a Cyclist. The film has been hailed as a masterpiece:
photo via The Criterion CollectionSpanish cinema under Franco was a stifled and sterile industry, kept under strict government control. Bardem, the film’s director, was one of the few brave filmmakers to question the psychological and political oppression of the day and deal with the realities of contemporary life.
When watching a “foreign language” film, I’m always fascinated at what amuses the native speakers vs. the non-native speakers. I remember laughing inanely to The World’s Fastest Indian in Mexico City while the Mexicans were silent. Something is always lost in translation. This film was the same, and it was a privilege sitting with C & M and getting a unique perspective from them, even though we were sushed very loudly by the person sitting in front of us! C’s stories of his family during in Franco’s era deepened my understanding of the film, which I’d found merely good (rather than great) at first glimpse. Unlike many others, I didn’t mind the ending too much.
After a very yummy dinner with C & M’s friends at Chocolate Buddha, we walked 30mins back to the car. The irony is that the car was parked further away than home, thanks to the bloody footy and rugby games nearby. Thankfully it was a beautiful night, and a very pleasant walk back.
Sometimes I love living in Melbourne!
Today I got 2 emails that said “hello friend”. One from an old friend, and one from a new friend. On top of that, I got a very pretty card from an eBay friend. It’s a great boost, especially when I’ve just had a rough day at work and am tired and sleep deprived. I just wanted to tell the world I’m happy today. I don’t often share much about how I feel or what makes me happy, and this will probably not happen again for a while.
So long for now. Back to being silly-smart-odd.
The rest of our trip went too fast, including a trip to KL, meeting more people and eating more food. I wish we’d had more time to meet more people (there are only 3 meals a day, and not enough time in between). If we’d made arrangements but never ended up meeting, I’m sorry, we’ll have to catch up on my next trip home (or you can fly here for a visit).
Here are some highlights.
More food (of course!) This time it’s P’s favourite food, murtabak.
This is what it looks like close up:
It’s a fried Indian pancake/bread filled with yummy marinated mutton or chicken, served with a small dish of spicy curry. Traditionally it’s breakfast food. This sounds awful to the uninitiated, but honestly, it tastes fabulous. Just don’t eat it every morning, you might get a heart attack. We reckon since we only get to eat it about once a year, we can overindulge.
We also had a very very cool time dragonboating with S (and a rowdy bunch of Aussie expats). I was dragged into it whining loudly, because S & P said “it would be FUN!!”, but ended up having a great time. I was sore for days, but I can’t wait to do it again. I’m still kicking myself because we have a waterproof camera I didn’t take a single photo. My excuse is that I was too busy paddling, and I had to pull my own weight on the boat or risk getting thrown overboard. Oh well, we’ll just have to do it again.
That same evening we had a huge meal at T’s with some of my friends from secondary /high school. Thank goodness because after the workout I was starving hungry. I stuffed my face (of course).
I’m proud to say I’ve been friends with these guys for more than 15 years!
Then we were taken by A. to Samy’s Curry Restaurant (review) where we had Fish Head Curry (recipe).
Trust me, it tastes so much better than it looks. Just be thankful I didn’t take a photo like this one.
Of course, I spent lots of time with my little niece. Mum looks after her on weekdays so I got to see her quite a bit. Here are some of her antics.
They’re all a bit blurry because babies don’t understand the idea of “keep still” and I didn’t want to startle her with the flash of the camera.
And of course, here’s a photo from her birthday.
We also met up with a colleague from Mexico, who absolutely loved the food (of course) at People’s Park, in Chinatown, which is getting more and more touristy by the minute. Fortunately it still has some of the best places to eat in Singapore.
If you’re visiting (or living in) Singapore, check out this fantastic article on local food.
I also spent a fun evening with my ex-boss eating yet more hawker food, and walking by the river.
We flew home from Changi Airport’s new Terminal 3, after a yummy breakky at the staff canteen in T1. If you really want to go there, drag your luggage down the stairs behind the Burger King (map) and you should see it. Or ask anyone who works there.
The departure area of T3 has more shopping than I can handle (remarkable, really). And the women’s toilets are divine (and free)! It’s not one of the best airports in the world for nothing.
And here’s me in the powder room.
We were also lucky enough to fly back to Melbourne on a brand new plane. Look at the giant (for economy class) screen!
You can edit Word documents (very painfully) with the keyboard.
Goodbye Singapore, hello Melbourne!
We arrived after a mediocre SQ flight, and got right into things as it was the weekend.
We met a good friend for dinner at Maxwell hawker centre where we shared some food. The best photo ended up being of the carrot cake, so here it is:
Then we visited the Buddha tooth temple, which we found a beautiful but extremely commercial enterprise. It certainly wasn’t subtle asking for donations, something we didn’t expect from a respected religion.
However, as you can see, all that money must have been put to good use.
I also managed to spend time with my little niece, whom I’d never met. Here she is sitting on my lap.
The next day, we met A and ate to our heart’s content again, this time at VivoCity. We started with Japanese at Shin Kushiya, then celebrated Chinese New Year with yu sheng at Crystal Jade.
We had fun taking this photo, making more noise than any of the well-behaved kids in the restaurant:
We ended with dessert at Ben & Jerry’s. Yes!! There’s a Ben & Jerry’s in Singapore.. when are they opening one in Oz? (actually, that might not be such a good idea..)
Don’t worry, the brownie was shared.
On Monday, I was dragged to Sim Lim Square by my lovely husband, who was hoping to spend more than 30 mins in each and every store! Even though I like tech stuff, I cannot spend that long looking at hardware! I can understand how he feels when I go shopping now.. perhaps it’s revenge for all the shopping I drag him through?
On our walk back to the train station, Peter was asking: what are these?? We ended up eating a few. I used to love them when I was a kid: they’re crispy pancakes filled with chopped peanuts. Yum!
And the culinary adventure continues…
Para los dos fisicos guapos en mi vida… (que entienden espanol). Que les disfrutes! Aunque solo uno lean mi blog….
A New Year’s gift for all the nerds out there.
Some brain teasers from 2 Reasons Physics Doesn’t Work in the Real World via Mental Floss magazine blog.
You might think physicists have it all figured out. But the fact is, some of the best theories just don’t work anywhere but on the blackboard.
1. Science Friction: F = ma (Force = Mass x Acceleration)
Sure, this fundamental equation of physics is simple to memorize, but it’s virtually useless in real life. In fact, engineers almost never use it. The reason? Friction—that awful complication that keeps physics demonstrations from working. So, how do you calculate friction? If you ask an engineer, he’ll give you an empirical co-efficient that he measured from previous experiments.
But the truth of it is that physics is useless for most everyday phenomena.
That’s why physicists like to confine their research to atoms, nuclei, and space. In these realms, friction is either absent or it behaves according to simple rules. Anything that doesn’t obey simple rules in physics is labeled “engineering,” “chemistry,” or something else.
2. Light Concerns
The speed of light is about 186,284 miles per second. But when light goes through air or glass, it slows down. Einstein assumed when he made his theory of general relativity that everyone would know he was referring to the speed of light in a vacuum. Because light is thought to have no mass, it’ll always move at this fundamental speed. The concern here, though, is that if we discover someday that light has a very small but non-zero rest mass, then even light would never travel at the speed of light. Who knows? If that happens, we might have to rename the fundamental speed the Einstein velocity.
