Soundtrack: “Departure”, R.E.M. Filling in the last few gaps from a couch in Nyungar Boodjar, home at last. My final morning in Belfast was full of rain. I had a plan: check out of hotel, take my case down to the Central Train Station and store it for a couple of hours, go get breakfast and last minute souvenirs, then […]
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Soundtrack: “Cemetery Gates”, The Smiths Sadly it seems the crowds in the Metro have got me, and I can feel the first hints of getting a cold. The Paris Metro system, generally seems to work okay, once you work out how the ticketing goes. Took me a while, it all hinges on little paper cards that can be recharged. In […]
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Soundtrack: something old and French It’s another day for cool art, this time from the last 200 years or so at the Musee d’Orsay. I’m finding my French comprehension to be a little better when I see things like that and don’t bother to pause at the apostrophe, so it’s Musee dOrsay, and he apostrophe is just for show. Speaking […]
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Soundtrack: “Never can say goodbye”, The Communards I have Louvred. Somehow I managed to get up early (probably due to my body not yet knowing what time it’s supposed to be) and headed down to that big old museum. Stopped for breakfast at an artisanal boulangerie, where I couldn’t decide if I wanted the croissant or the the pain au […]
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Soundtrack: “This Flight Tonight”, Joni Mitchell It’s a 15 hour flight from Sydney to Doha, then another 6 to Paris. I’m not sure I fully worked this out when I booked the trip, I was more just being amused that the journey started at a Charles (Kingsford-Smith) and ended at a Charles (de Gaulle). I’ve done the 18+ hour Singapore […]
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Soundtrack: “Flame Trees”, Cold Chisel Well shit. I wrote the Day 1.1 entry from the Virgin Lounge at Melbourne airport, while waiting for my flight back to Perth. Possible the less said the better about the food there: very ordinary machine coffee, a chicken wrap that looked to be 50-50 chicken to salad, but the chicken rapidly tapered out leaving […]
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Soundtrack: a Lady Gaga medley This one’s for the work folks who said I should write about going out on a Friday night, so blame them. Well, it sounded like a silly idea, writing a travel blog post about a night out in a city I’ve lived in for the best part of a half century, and maybe it is. […]
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Soundtrack: anything and everything by Lady Gaga; “Without a Trace”, Soul Asylum “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.” — Dylan Thomas Figured I’d mix up the quote, as I know I tend to use the opening from Sylvia Plath’s “Two […]
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Soundtrack: “The Edge of Glory”, Lady Gaga Today is the most important day of the trip, because today I had laksa. Noodle 13: Katong Laksa (Sungei Road Laksa) Right or wrong, I’ve always considered laksa to be more of a malay/indonesian dish, so have not had it in Singapore (despite Singapore’s malay heritage, yeah, I know, I never said I […]
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Soundtrack: “Holiday”, Madonna Waking and checking social media, it turns out that if I’d stayed in the basement parking lot of the first venue for another hour or so, I’d have spent all that time sweating and queueing but at least seen Lady Gaga, who turned up and did a few minutes in the club. I still probably wouldn’t have […]
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Soundtrack: “Hotel Womb”, The Church While my last few days in Singapore were still fairly active, they weren’t nearly as exciting individually as the rest of the trip for at least a couple of reasons: it’s my 5th time here, so there’s less of the novel experiences to be had; and after close to 35 days living out of the […]
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Soundtrack: First full day in Singapore, and first priority is sorting laundry so I have enough clean clothes to get me through. I failed to find a laundry service nearby (a mall might have one but I walked around it and couldn’t find the place, I did find a second hand bookshop to check later). Instead I headed for a […]
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