+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | _______ | "Nuclear war can ruin your whole | | ,--'.:::::.`-._ | compile." -- Karl Lehenbauer | | /..:::::::::::..\ | | | /..:::::::::_;::::| | | | || `---'----' _|:::| | | | || `;:::| | | | |' ==== ==== |-::| | | | |-( @ )-( @ )--|O):| | | | | ` | ` |/::' | | | . v |:/ jeremy@ | | | | ___, || malcolm | | | \ -- _/| .id.au | | | \_____.-'__/-.__ | | | _| _/|::.\.::-._ | | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | [*] news [ ] about [ ] writing [ ] journal [ ] images [ ] guests | | +->> last 5 | | |--- archive | | `--- search | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "Cameron Highlands" :: [2010-03-08 07:19PM] | | | | We just returned from a quick weekend trip to the Cameron Highlands in | | Pahang state. On the way up the winding mountain roads, we saw many bamboo | | roadside stalls from which the indigenous inhabitants, the orang asli, sold | | bottles of local honey, as well as strings of bean pods, and I think | | tongkat ali which is believed to be an aphrodisiac. | | | | Incongruously, the favoured architectural style in the Highlands seems to | | be Tudor. Then again, it is quite an English holiday retreat, with its | | cool temperatures, and the wide availability of Devonshire teas, served | | with locally-grown orange pekoe, and locally-made strawberry jam. We also | | picked some strawberries at a farm next to our hotel, and can attest to | | their freshness. If only I wasn't so busy at work, we could easily have | | spent longer. | | | | reply (0 comments) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "New Haven" :: [2010-02-15 09:00AM] | | | | I am about to leave New Haven, where I have been staying for a conference | | at Yale University. I had the bad timing to schedule my visit for the | | height of Snowmageddon, with the result that both my flight to the USA, and | | the internal connecting flight, were cancelled. Happily I was placed on a | | new flight to Boston (and upgraded to business class - what a revelation!), | | from where I connected to New Haven by rail, actually arriving earlier than | | if my original flight hadn't been cancelled. | | | | Yale is a beautiful campus as you'd expect, and it dominates the stately | | and quiet town of New Haven. I had some time to stroll through it on my | | first day, so I took in a couple of galleries and a museum, most notably | | the Yale University Art Gallery, which exhibited artists such as Monet, Van | | Gogh, Cézanne, Duchamp, Pollock, Lichtenstein and Warhol. On my final day I | | spent time further out in suburbia (while waiting to check in at the tiny | | airport), and admired the distinctive wood-panelled New England houses, a | | couple of them with friendly snowmen standing guard outside. | | | | To matters culinary, since New Haven was supposedly the first American | | city to which pizza was introduced (their local variant is actually called | | "apizza"), I had to try a slice here - it had that crunchy texture that | | you can't seem to find outside the States, even if you order a "New York" | | crust. Before I left I visited another Italian restaurant for a lasagne, | | which came with two crusty garlic bread rolls and a side salad, and a | | slice of cheesecake. And I shouldn't omit to mention the New England clam | | chowder that was served with our steaks at the speakers' dinner. | | | | On the way back, I have a ten hour layover in Amsterdam, so I might check | | back in to the Yotel at the airport: it's a bit like a Japanese capsule | | hotel, or a ship cabin, and you can rent one for as little as four hours | | for a shower, nap and to get some work done, if you don't have access to | | an airline lounge. It costs about half as much as a full night at my much | | larger hotel room in New Haven and without the free breakfast (admittedly, | | the budget American hotel chains are very good value), but it's probably | | worth it ahead of another 12-hour flight. | | | | reply (0 comments) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "Kuching" :: [2010-02-08 02:05AM] | | | | We spent this weekend in Kuching, capital of Sarawak, which is the largest | | state of Malaysia. Like Western Australia it is the largest but most | | sparsely populated state, and is situated to the south of the other East | | Malaysian state of Sabah (with Brunei sandwiched in between), and to the | | north of the Indonesian part of Borneo. We stayed in the Tune Hotel, | | which is a chain owned by the same group as Air Asia, and with much the | | same philosophy - pay extra for the frills (which are meals for the | | airline, and towels and air conditioning for the hotel). But the bed was | | comfy and it was situated right on the riverfront - indeed, opposite the | | Hilton. | | | | On our first day we took in the sights on the waterfront, which included a | | colonial English courthouse and jail, a couple of brightly-coloured Chinese | | temples and an ethnological museum (Chinese of various ethnicities form | | close to a majority in Kuching). Then after lunch we took a tambang (a | | small, mostly oar-powered ferry) across the river to the spectacular | | hat-shaped legislative building, for a fare of 40 sen each (less than 15 | | cents). | | | | We then did a spot of shopping, and it struck me that there are some | | things commonly sold here that we will never, in a million years, buy; for | | example, margarine (I think) is sold unrefrigerated from open vats, beside | | mounds of preserved fish and over-ripe fruit over which flies buzz. In | | the more touristy pedestrian mall of Jalan India, sexual pills and potions | | are sold from open briefcases (for a quick getaway, I presume); most | | prominent is a botanical paste called Gambir Sarawak, but also knock-offs | | of the V and C drugs (I won't spell out their names here to avoid lowering | | my pagerank!). | | | | The locals are more friendly than in KL, with many of them greeting us | | (not only Doyle, which we're used to) with a cheery hello. In one case, | | admittedly, a youth greeted me with the more dubious "Hello, Orang Putih" | | (white person), to which I was sorely tempted to reply "Hello, Orang | | Melayu!" | | | | The next day we took a coach to the Sarawak Cultural Village. Sarawak is | | Malaysia's most multicultural state, where Muslims are in the minority, | | and a variety of indigenous inhabitants still live and practice their | | traditions. The Cultural Village showcased these minorities through | | recreations of their houses, inside which locals were practising their | | traditional arts: cooking biscuits, grinding rice or tapioca, blowing | | darts, threshing pepper, forging swords, dancing and making music. All | | this in a steamy rainforest between mountain and sea, where red-winged | | dragonflies hovered and wood-boring insects the size of birds buzzed. A | | cultural performance featuring dances from all the ethnic groups rounded | | out the attraction. | | | | It was a little sad to consider how much of this culture was lost when the | | country embraced Islam, which has certainly made as much of a mark on | | Malaysia as the secular West, and not all for the better. Indeed, the | | traditional practices of the local ethnic groups are still being | | marginalised by the government, which for example still has an active | | policy of resettling the nomadic Penan tribes into towns (why am I put in | | mind of Australia of the early-to-mid 20th century?) | | | | My lunch at the Village was Sarawak laksa, a noodle soup, slightly milder | | than the Penang variety, but fragrant with coconut milk and coriander, and | | brimming with shredded chicken, bean sprouts, strings of egg and prawns. | | Another specialty we tried on this trip was kolo mee: a noodle dish | | featuring both minced and sliced pork, a meat which is much rarer on our | | side of Malaysia. We also learned about, but weren't brave enough to try, | | Chinese birds-nest soup, which - yes - is a real birds nest, or rather the | | remains of which after the twigs and feathers are removed: to be precise, | | the bird's solidified saliva. Rather more appetising are the | | rainbow-coloured kuei lapis (layer cakes) that are a local speciality; real | | cake, too, rather than the glutinous jelly that is sold under the same name | | in KL. | | | | reply (0 comments) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "sadlittlewebjournal 2.9.2 released" :: [2010-02-02 04:35AM] | | | | Since it was a public holiday today, I put the time to good use by (a) | | fixing our front door; and (b) releasing another point version of the | | software that runs this blog, sadlittlewebjournal. This version fixes a | | few annoyances - that the facility to post by email didn't work with | | complex MIME emails (for example, mine are digitally signed), that the RSS | | feed didn't preserve the line feeds in the original post, and that special | | characters such as € didn't come out correctly. Additionally, I have also | | improved the comment spam filtering in this release. Download from the | | link below, and please let me know if you have any difficulties. | | | | [related link] reply (2 comments) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | "The Netherlands" :: [2010-01-13 05:39AM] | | | | The last country we visited on our European holiday this year was the | | Netherlands. We stayed at the home of two expat friends from Australia, | | now living in Amsterdam but currently on holiday back home. One of them | | is an amateur interior designer, so their classy apartment looks like | | something straight out of a catalogue! | | | | Amsterdam is a city built around a series of concentric canals. Walking | | around them takes you around some beautiful old gabled buildings and | | churches, as well as the infamous Red Light District - which I encountered | | largely by accident when women in lingerie or swimsuits started looming | | out of the windows as I walked by. However the closest I got to seeing | | the inside of one of these red-lit apartments was a mock-up in a nearby | | museum (honest!). | | | | Amsterdam's inner city is, to be frank, probably a bit too touristy, | | without any free museums or galleries that we could find (even most of its | | churches have been converted to other uses), and it is overcrowded with | | "coffeeshops" (which sell more joints and space cakes than coffee - magic | | mushrooms are also legally sold). So after I'd had my fill of the inner | | city I ventured out to a nearby suburb, away from the tourist crowds, to | | soak in some warmth at a local sauna. | | | | Because we were staying in an apartment with a kitchen, we cooked most of | | our meals - but trying to choose local dishes and ingredients where | | possible. These included, on our first night, meatballs with stamppot, | | which is a mixture of mashed potato and spinach, and "bitterballen" which | | seem to be little crumbed and fried balls of a gravy-like mixture. (OK, | | we didn't make that at home; we had it at McDonalds.) | | | | We also had an unexpected taste of home in Amsterdam, because of the | | Indonesian culinary influence that was inherited from Holland's colonial | | past. This is found in the number of Indonesian restaurants, in the | | serving of satay sauce rather than gravy with meat (though it's quite | | awful compared to the real thing), and even in the name of one of the | | country's biggest seasonal markets - "pasar malam besar"! | | | | reply (0 comments) | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Links: portal / wedding / calendar / honours / phd / iq / igfwatch / random | | page generated in 0.252 seconds sadlittlewebjournal 2.9.3 | | content (c) its respective creator(s) web administration | | valid html 4.01 transitional foaf / rss feed | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+