I’ve been home a week now and love Melbourne more than ever before.

I don’t want to leave.

I haven’t been many places, but I’m pretty sure Melbourne is the best place to live in the WHOLE WORLD.

It’s been a quiet first week home, as I try to revert back to normal sleeping patterns and get used to the fact that I am here, the sky really can look that blue, and I’ve a whole fridgeful of baby bocconcini.

I’m so looking forward to leading a bit of a normal life for a while and working out what it is I want to do.

Daily life in Hefei is just too bizarre, not at all possible to make rational decisions while here I have decided.

Yesterday the intercom rang and I ignored it, as I usually do if I don’t recognise the person.  Just a few minutes later my visitor was back with a guard, ringing again.  I like and trust our lovely guards so answered just in case he had something important to tell me.  The conversation went something along the lines of:

Hello?

Is anybody home?

Umm… no, there’s nobody home.

Ok (hangs up).

I’ve no idea who it was or why he enlisted the guard for help.

Not long after that, a girl from the washing machine company called and fired off a very rapid bunch of questions I didn’t understand a word of. Our washing machine has been “fixed” a number of times recently and each time I have got what I assume is a follow up call from the company to check all is well.

Generally once the caller realises I am clearly not fluent in Chinese, they ask a few simple questions, I give a few simple answers and I am left feeling quite impressed with my ability to hold a phone conversation in Chinese.

After a few attempts at answering”Washing machine, good” to each of yesterday’s long incomprehensible questions and not succeeding in making my caller go away, I decided instead to reply to each question with long English phrases.  Strangely enough, she wasn’t put off and we had quite a long conversation about who-knows-what.

I’m glad to have finally worked that out I guess.

It was always nice to think up all the things I would do with all that free time, to get back to doing all the things I always wanted to do but never got around to.

Now I find all these things are far more interesting to dream about than to do. And I’m bored.

Interior design, painting, photography… I still want to surround myself with beautiful things, but the thought of filling my time with such meaningless prettiness and nothing else is turning out to be more than I can bear.

I will always wish I could cook well, paint well, write well, take amazing photographs, and hope I’ll still learn how… but it’s not enough.

Patrick has set a vague timeline that we will stay in China for about 2 years. I’m really not sure I’ll manage that.

I was looking up the masters I want to do again this evening, it’s miles past the deadline for applications but I might be able to weasel my way in if I’m lucky.

Patrick plans to be in China for 2 years, the masters is 2 years… it seems well timed.

Pity it’s in Melbourne.

Would it be weird for us to live in different countries for this long? Patrick wants to go back to Melbourne for a few months during the Chinese summer, and maybe I would get that long uni holiday at the end of the year to come back to Hefei…

Maybe I wouldn’t get in on such late notice anyway.

I checked my Chinese horoscope for answers, as that seemed as good a place as any to look at 1 in the morning on a Sunday.

I found a description of my personality that was scarily accurate:

Thank goodness for open spaces, because the Horse needs plenty of room to roam! Energetic, good with money and very fond of travel, Horses are the nomads of the Chinese Zodiac, roaming from one place or project to the next. All of this Sign’s incessant activity and searching may be to satisfy a deep-rooted desire to fit in. Paradoxically, Horses feel a simultaneous yearning for independence and freedom.

An impatient streak can lead Horses to be less than sensitive to others’ needs. These colts would rather take a situation firmly in hand as opposed to waiting for others to weigh in or come to terms with it. The lone wolf inside the Horse can at times push others away, but this also makes this Sign stronger and is a key to its success. Horses are self-reliant and, though they might lose interest fast in a tedious, nine-to-five day job, are willing to do the work necessary to get ahead.

Horses tend not to look much at the big picture; instead they just follow their whims, which can result in a trail of prematurely ended relationships, jobs, projects and so on. This Sign really knows how to motivate others, though, and get a lot accomplished.

Once they find some peace within themselves, they can curb their wandering tendencies and learn to appreciate what’s in their own backyard.

All seems quite accurate, apart from the whole “impatient” thing. Oh, wait…

Anyway, I guess I need to find some peace within myself then… I think it is telling me to just stay here

Check your own horoscope if you dare: http://chinese.astrology.com/

I’ve been avoiding anything that looks even a little like responsibility this past fortnight or so, and because I feel like I should keep my blog updated regularly, have avoided that too.

We had a friend come to stay last week, which was a blast, and due to the amount of alcohol consumed during the week, was a huge boost to my spoken Chinese as well.

This week has been cold. Really cold.

If I had bothered to blog this week, it would have looked something along the lines of:

December 3rd, 2007

Hid in the bedroom with the heater on, ate some cereal, played sudoku, listened to 774, watched Prison Break.

December 4th, 2007

Played some sudoku while listening to 774 and watched Prison Break while hiding in the bedroom with the heater on and eating cereal.

December 5th, 2007

Watched a bit more Prison Break then listened to 774 as I enjoyed my cereal and hid in the bedroom all day with the heater on .

Oh, and played sudoku.

So… you’re glad I didn’t update now, aren’t you.

At the start of the week I turned on the exhaust fan above the stove only to have it make such a horrible rattle I had to turn it off again immediately.

The washing machine stopped functioning properly two days ago, which is very distressing. It is especially annoying as I have only one pair of trousers that fits me now, and they take bloody ages to dry. I’ll only be able to leave the house every second day now, or possibly just go along with local custom and head out in my pyjamas every now and then.

Yesterday I was clever enough to leave a candle on top of the oven when I was waiting for it to heat up, so wax dripped down inside and caused clouds of scary smoke to start appearing from the air vents.

Finally, this evening I plugged in my hair drier in and started to dry my hair, only to remember as sparks started leaping out at me that I brought it with me from Japan, so probably should have used an adaptor…

Now the kitchen smells of melted wax, the laundry smells of damp wool and everywhere I go I am followed by a small cloud of slightly burnt hair smell.

I probably shouldn’t touch my laptop again for a while…

It’s very much autumn now.

Sunny afternoons and clear skies have made for perfect sitting-by-the-lake weather, and the park keepers have been kept very busy sweeping all the falling leaves.

Lucky Chandler is away, as the sight of a broom made of twigs is just too tempting, and he tends to pee on the sweeper’s brooms if they ever dare to stop for a rest.

Today as we lay in the sun, the sound of someone playing an erhu came floating across from the island. I begged for Patrick to take me over to see, but he said it was “just a normal thing”, so weird for me to want to go and stare.

By the time I had convinced him that it was ok for me to stare as I am a foreigner, and we do strange things, our erhu uncle had moved on to playing Chinese chess instead.

I think I’ll just have hurry over and stare by myself next time.

Jana is exceptionally good at buying presents.  Really, scarily good.

I’m terrible at buying gifts, I wish I knew whatever it is she knows.

Next time anyone is shopping in London, I can now personally recommend Cath Kidston and Molton Brown.

Thanks to Jana’s thoughtfulness, I can now take my new shopping bag to the supermarket, buy up on groceries, then come home and bake away to my heart’s content in my new apron.

According to Patrick, the matching tea towel would look nice if I wore it scarf-like on my head, but I think I shall just use it for it’s original purpose.

After all my baking and dish-washing is finished, I will be able to bring my hands back to their naturally lovely state with my new white mulberry hand wash and lotion.

Happy days!

All thanks to Wincy, while in Hong Kong, I managed to buy TWO of the products that I have previously blogged about wanting.

I was delighted to discover the Causeway Bay Francfranc stocks Oh! Bear, the very ugly but very lovable bear I found online not long ago.  I now have an ugly little Oh! Bear all my own, who sits on the tea table looking rather forlorn and I am sure, just a little embarrassed by his somewhat scruffy appearance.

Wincy read my post about egglings and had seen some in Harbour City, so took me to buy a couple to bring home.  I bought a little lavender for myself and adopted a basil for Wincy, who can’t take it home to Melbourne with her.

I managed to crack their tops without smashing them all into tiny bits, which was an excellent start, but failed to notice the sunny days and relatively warm weather we have been having have completely disappeared, so the poor little things probably wont sprout.

They have been sitting with me in Patrick’s office with the heater on, so fingers crossed something might happen yet.

Although we really had very little time, and no plans, we managed to see a surprising amount over the weekend.

Friday afternoon Michael and I went to Ocean park, as I was busily avoiding Wincy before Jana arrived so as not to blow the surprise.

We took the double decker bus there and back, managing to excitedly elbow and shove our way to the top front seat both times… well, to unintentionally get to the bus stop at the front of the line both times at least.

I was a little disappointed with Ocean park, I don’t remember much of it, but I remember it being better than it was.  There were far too many people in the aquarium to enjoy much fish-watching, and after walking past the chairlift once and seeing no-one there, we returned about 30 minutes later to find an unmoving queue of hundreds lined as far as we could see.  No chairlift ride for us this time.

Saturday afternoon in Stanley was much more enjoyable, possible because it involved eating things and buying things.  After we had spent the last 24 hours being laughed at when we bought things (including train tickets!!??) we came to the decision that we should probably be bargaining.  We left the market feeling very impressed with ourselves after each buying one item at a knocked down price.

Saturday evening, our bad luck with queues continued and we ended up taking a taxi up to the peak rather than the tram, and our hard work bargaining in the afternoon was all undone when we bought tickets to the new observation deck.

We found it a little odd that when we bought the tickets to the observation deck the girl immediately told us there would be no refund, but weren’t too worried by it at the time.

After a short time enjoying the view from the observation deck, we headed back inside to find a coffee.  Eagle-eyed Wincy  spotted an outdoor seating area at Pacific Coffee, where we discovered that the view was just the same as the observation deck, but there were no crowds and we could sit and drink coffee while enjoying the view.

The reason for the ticket girls insistence that we wouldn’t get a refund became clear when we found that in addition to the comfortable and free view from the cafe, the old observation area is still open and also free to enter.

Just a little annoyed about that.

Despite our few small annoyances, the whole experience was hugely enjoyable. We walked through Kowloon park each day, visited the waterfront in the daytime and at night, saw the lighting show over the city twice, had drinks at Lan Kwai Fong in the evening, and generally enjoyed how easy it is to get about in HK. ..

So forget all that negative stuff I wrote.  It was good.

It is so good having friends who know where to eat.

We ate at The Pasar in Wanchai on Friday, clever James’ selection.   We were devastated to hear they had run out of chili crab, but more than made up for it will all the other dishes.  After having spent the day at Ocean Park, Michael and I felt a little guilty eating the grilled sambal stingray… but enjoyed it anyway.

Michael and I spent Saturday afternoon in Stanley, eating fish and chips by the shore, and pathetically haggling for items from the market.  It seems neither of us are cut out for bargaining, but the fish and chips were just our scene.

Saturday evening, Wincy took us to Knutsford Terrace in Tsim Sha Tsui for Italian at Pappa Razzi, where we sat outside and felt just a little like we were home in Melbourne. How nice to once again eat Italian food that tastes like Italian food.

Sunday lunch was Vietnamese in Rice Paper at the world trade centre in Causeway Bay.   The food was beautiful to look at and to eat and the view of the harbour and the decor were lovely, easily making up for the fact that service was a little slow.   The soft shell crab is well worth going back for.

I really should have taken more photos…