Category: Random

  • My REM hacked my memory

    I’ve always wondered how my dreams work because I get some weird ones – not just in terms of what happens but also the timing. I’ve had crazy dreams where I’ve had part 2 before part 1, and episodic dreams. They’re pretty amazing if somewhat trippy.

    So last night I had this great one where I was at a set of markets, where there were all sorts of stalls, but there were three distinct ones that I interacted with – a stall where I bought a pastry and promptly lost it, which was a reference to the handmade croissant I left behind on my trip back to Adelaide from Sydney; a portuguese tart stall which had custard in a bucket and would put the custard in as you ordered and they had a special that was 3 for $4, and in my dream I knew it was a good deal but didn’t get one; and lastly a pastry stall that I bought another pastry from to replace the first.

    As I was walking I entered a watch shop, where I was acquainted with the watchmaker from a past dream – though I can’t actually be certain that it was truly from a past dream. In my dream I remember it being a real past dream, but I’m not so sure. Looking for a watch, I initially tried on a silver one, but I didn’t really like it, so I asked for another. I wanted something more elegant, so out came an Omega, a rose gold watch, and at the time it reminded me of the one that Nicole Kidman modelled. Full of rose gold, with diamonds to indicate the hours. However, I didn’t like the colour against my skin, even though it was a very pretty watch.

    At the end I asked for the price, at which point he jokingly said $9. I knew it was in the thousands, so I asked if it was 10, and the answer was yes. That’s when I said I couldn’t afford it, but that I’d come back for a watch one day – a watch that would capture my heart. He seemed to understand.

    And with that, I gathered the pastry crumbs that I’d spilt while trying on the watches and walked off.

    The end!

  • London, September 2014

    Oh wow, London. This is going to be a massive post with a lot of pictures!

    I’ve been tempted to go to London for a while now, but New York is still the place I want to visit the most. I took advantage of the fact that I was going to be in Shanghai to travel through the Northern hemisphere, and managed to get a very beautiful stopover at Helsinki too – a place that’s a little bit of an in-joke with my friend from a radio play called Cabin Pressure, but also because I think Finland is a cool place – and the view from the plane is certainly pristine and amazing!

    I guess I start at Hyde Park – the first place we walked through as it was near where we stayed. I absolutely love the royal gardens here, and it’s a bonus when the birds aren’t afraid of people, so I could get fairly close them and take all the pretty photos.

     
    I had a few goals in London, the default is always to find coffee – and lucky for me I had a list created, but me being me, I have my own methods too, which simply involves walking around until I see something interesting, and two, following the conversational trail when visiting places. First stop is the cafe where my barista used to work – Workshop Marylebone. It’s small and pretty, and I can see where my barista got his idea for the wooden benchtop from.

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  • China, August 2014

    I keep telling myself I’ll never go back to China, but family matters always come up and I inevitably revisit. I’d consider my expectations of the place to be so low that I really shouldn’t be disappointed, but alas, but I’ve actually increased the amount of spoiledness (I know that isn’t a word) from polite, Western society that I continue to be surprised.

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  • Backlog >>> futurelog

    So it turns out that returning from epic adventures has resulted in a backlog, giving me plenty to do till the end of the year.

    I NEED TO BLOG AND DRAW AND READ AND WATCH THINGS

  • 6AM Caffeine Ravers

    Is what I would call a cafe if I went ahead with a brilliant idea that I thought up while in the back of a taxi in China, random english radio playing some weirdo dance music.

    It would open bright and shiny some time before 6am, trance blaring out from some massive speakers, and the barista would pull shots. Guess the correct region you’re drinking from, get a free one! You’d be buzzing from the get go, perfect for a Monday morning.

    Doof doof

  • Jam Packed July

    Is what I wanted to call the post, because it has a better ring to it than “Jam Packed June”.

    HOWEVER since I have posted this before July, I should make it clear that I am not a time traveller… yet. So all this did not happen in July!!!

    As always, food is first. But this wasn’t an exercise in cooking or eating, it’s part of what I like to call “intense palate training” as for the coffee I drink, I cannot identify flavours within them. So, after having collected a variety of sour citrus, I ended up doing a lemon and lime taste test – to see what I could figure out.

    Say hello to meyer lemon, lisbon lemon, tahitian lime, keffir lime, blood lime! I stopped buying normal lemons after tasting a meyer lemon, because I perceived the meyer lemons to be sweeter. And then I saw tasting notes for a coffee that said meyer lemon… so then I wondered if you really could taste the difference between different kinds of lemons.

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  • Fancy cooking? What’s that?

    Watching Masterchef and eating baked bean allsorts – baked beans and frankfurt, baked beans on toast, baked beans + bacon + egg bake. Oh, and some mi goreng instant noodles, why not. 🙂

  • Oz Comic Con, Benedict, Amanda, Corin, and a quartet of vocally active troublemakers and the heartless dog

    Where do I start in a world where I like to begin at the beginning, where the beginning is relative to my train of thought, the view of others, my out of body view of myself and the order of events as I recall and the actual happenings. Oh and of course, my own ability to prioritise each of the events in the title.

    Oz Comic Con? I went for Benedict. That silly, adorkable person who is just so polite, and silly and so polite and nice.

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  • Running, jumping, and vivid succulent trees

    Every now and again, I get my weird, random dreams that I actually remember in enough detail that I can actually blog about it like an epic story. And when I get really lucky, it comes illustrated!

    Turns out dreaming can really tire you, especially if you spend 2-3 dream hours running away from what you think are bad guys, but you’re not really sure because it’s not explained in your dream why they’re chasing you, your friend simply says so, and they’re waving guns about, so you may as well run for your life.

    In my case, I was with a friend and we were getting ready to be in a play. First we’re getting our costumes ready, next we’re sitting in the audience, staring at an empty stage waiting for things to happen. My friend got up and started walking off, and indicated for me to do the same. I was confused, but followed her lead. It turns out she just wanted to escape, so we spent the first part of our night out on the streets, just walking about, when I came across a succulent tree. With chunky, triangular leaves and bright orange and red flowers as big as my hand, the branches weighed down from all the water in the leaves, enough that the flowers were within my reach. I also wanted to take a cutting so I could grow them at home. I reached out, plucked one, but then found that the entire tree was infested! White caterpillars and a bright green gummy worm (yes, a gummy worm) were all over my flower, so I threw it back on the ground. I had no time to be disappointed as some mysterious guy started walking towards us – possibly a council worker or something, so my friend and I quickly disappeared.

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  • Snobbery snob snob

    So the other day, I met my first real snob. Not just a pretend snob, or wannabe snob, this was an absolutely real, fully fledged snob, and it was an amazing experience.

    Basically, I was frequenting my cafe, sitting at the communal table eating waffles, and eventually the barista asked me how my coffee was. The person diagonally opposite me then got asked the same thing. Due to my response (which was usually some panicked survival instinct kicking in to help me describe my coffee in the hopes of not sounding like I have no clue), he started talking to me. It always starts out the same, “so you like coffee?” which then turned into a very interesting conversation.

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