Around Adelaide

Vineyard Budlings in the Southern Spring outside the Chateau Dorien, Barossa Valley SA


Charming Village only an hour north of Adelaide CBD, SA


The View along a Forest Walk in the Mount Lofty Ranges, SA


Nursery wall display in Harndorf, Adelaide Hills, SA


The outdoor passion atop the Mount Lofty lookout point, SA


Trellis of mulberries over courtyard at Grant Burge, Barossa Valley SA

Impressions from Adelaide

It was just both fascinating and relaxing just to stroll along the several lanes leading to Rundle Street Mall. I was more than delightfully surprised. There were gems of shops, heritage stones, oases of bushes and flowery gardens and the straightness of good surveyed planning from days past. One lane brings me to the South Australian Art Gallery, another takes me to the main thoroughfare of King William Street and yet one more hides a well stocked lolly shop.

Adelaide always has a special place in my heart. The historical connections between my hometown of Georgetown, Penang and this outpost of hope and order surrounded by the dry South Australia landscape may seem unlikely. Yet, a series of remarkable events led to this unbreakable bond between a tropical island and a very well planned city. Captain Francis Light and his son Colonel William Light have each carved out their unique individual marks in this part of the world.

The question of water supplies in Adelaide posed a different ball game compared to the rain forests in South-east Asia. Stone buildings look so solid and charming in Adelaide, and yet they are there to face up to the harsh reality faced by settlers when there was a lack of tree wood. The tradition of Britannia still run strong like the rich veins of Cooper Pedy, unlike on Penang Island where other traditions have taken over. The presence of the imposing Catholic Cathedral near Victoria Square in the city centre of Adelaide acknowledges the influence of Saint Francis Xavier, the missionary who left a trail of influence from Goa to Nagasaki, but now has an Adelaide landmark run in the Italian way.

The trams still operate in Adelaide, where rides are free in the heart of the city and the conductor proceeds to issue tickets only outside this free zone. It was still nippy on the Thursday evening of 8 October in Adelaide CBD, where the office rush hour can be relatively tame and I can still ask a friendly face from the commuter crowds as to how to pay for a tram ride to Glenelg Beach. Some outsiders I think unfairly view Adelaide as a large country town, for to me, it is more than that - it is the heart and soul of central Australia, with a can-do attitude and fighting spirit shaped by the harshness of its hinterland. When I want to remember with respect the history of this land before the relative recent arrival of immigrants from the west just over 230 years ago, I can walk inside the fascinating world of the South Australia Museum at North Terrace, and this institution houses the largest collection of indigenous cultural artifacts in Australia.

The tenth of October, and I come across another surprising delight, a rather creative parade of post adolescents and young twenty somethings stumbling along the night quarter of Hindley Street. They were all splattered in make-believe paint blood, rather carefully pasted or splashed over their jeans, fake wedding gowns, faces, hair and shoes. The males carried toy sickles, knives and choppers. The females held black roses. The revellers on the balcony of the Woolshed Pub urged this motley crowd on and uniformed police officers casually accompanied this crowd at the back of this moving sensation.

More lasting fashion impressions are the almost synchronised pixie-like hairstyles of Adelaide youngsters - they remind me of the characters in my Merlin story book of long ago - and the wide sunglasses worn by most. I also recall with fondness the fascinating mechanical bull inside a nightclub, and how ready and flexible its riders - mostly male - were.

The sea perch Thai red curry at Red Rock was better than I anticipated, and I salute the early and long hours of business at the Boulevard cafe on Hindley Street, reliable for customers and hard work for their staff. The pulse of Adelaide can also be measured in its Central Markets and the surrounding Gouger Street precincts, with an upmarket Italian restaurant, an outstanding Argentinian grill and a whole host of choice across various ethnic food.

If one experience were to stand out on my recent sojourn to Adelaide, picture this. A helmeted RSPCA guy and his husky attract the attention of passer-bys in the centre of Rundle Street Mall, alive as it should be on a Friday evening, instead of being closed like in some other Australian capital cities. It is still school holidays. The groups of families merge with relieved office workers and all together, everyone literally walks into the sunset, for the east-west grid of the mall ensures that the setting sun shines into our faces. Hence those really big sunshades worn by Adelaide residents.

Memories of The Moon

A Man walked on the surface of the moon more than forty years ago.

Mooncake making has been in the process for thousands of years in East Asia. Obviously various communities and nations across Earth have been fascinated by this satelite, ever appearing to light up the night sky and missed when there is heavy and thick cloud cover.

I cherish and relish the sight of the the full round moon, with warts and all, hanging so close above the horizon, like one year memorably over Eastwood in Sydney's north-west. The clarity of the sky was superseded by the sharpness of features of the still inhabitable Moon. Other planets may have several moons, but we have only one special one.

Another fond memory is that of the moon looking down on Earth over a sheep grazing farm in South Island, New Zealand - this was surrounded by a plethora of visible stars - and that over Koh Samui, with all the heaviness of the balmy equatorial air and the soothing lightness of the sounds of gentle waves in the Gulf of Thailand.

Lanterns at the Jurong Gardens in Singapore, red, pink and orange, were the highlights of a September or October evening after a hard earned day's work in Singapore. The lantern lights were reflected over the still and calm waters of a man made lake, remniscent of Suzhou in central China but really, this was on a tropical island in South-east Asia.

The increasing price of mooncakes and its affliate pastries in Sydney's Asian suburbs have been both a disturbing and fascinating reflection of the economics of products made only once a year. Mum tells me that the prices even back in my hometown of Penang have taken a steep rise this year.

The combination of sweet bean paste and emulsified egg yolks in mooncakes may not go down well with the office audience in the Illawarra, but I love the five nuts package, with bits of healthy crunchy stuff like breakfast cereal, except that they are then coated with other stuff. The spread of more challenging varieties like yam and durian are only the stuff of my dreams here but I did spot them in boxes in some shops in Sydney suburbs.

This year there was no moon to be seen on the fifteenth night of the eighth moon, only passing showers and an overcast sky. Not that the heavenly creation was not there.

I recall migrating to Australia just when the Mooncake festivities were getting on. This had made it harder to leave my hometown. many years later, the festivities symbolise a comfort zone and also of leaving behind to face a new dimension. It makes the festival even more special. I have not walked on the Moon, but I may have tried.

Mid-Spring

The mulberry plant was nearly uprooted and a new nursery plant had half its branches and leaves snapped from gusty winds on the last Sunday of September 2009. I had got off relatively light, there were roofs blown off in nearby suburbs.

The air plunged into obvious cold temperatures after a rather warm day on the following day,September 28. Daylight savings was to begin on the first Sunday of October, when 2am became 3am. The sun had already risen by 530am, and this made me even easier to get to work early. Apart from the red dust storms of Wednesday dawn on 23 September 2009, sunlight was already intense by breakfast time.



Malaysian nasi lemak, Aussie cupcakes, Shanghai crispy chicken and Chinese dessert of white fungus with paw paw slices were the order of the day on the last weekend of September. Not being able to go away from the Sydney or Wollongong areas as planned that day, I plunged into a series of other appointments that were punctuated by hanging around in shopping centres, an unexpected friendly encounter and another late night coming home. The multi-coloured solar powered garden lights - alternating blue, green and pink - outside my home are a current welcome sight after having to drive so many kilometres to return. The three colours reflect my Aussie residency, Straits Chinese influences and Chinese roots.

I could not resist getting a pot of hardy ferns and a budding young muscat grape plant to add to my home garden. They are just a low bunch of green leaves now but promise to be more. Apparently this has been the hottest September on my side of the woods in 150 years.

Sweet September, Not Too Long Ago

September, and I have memories of misty nights on top of a hill. How it seemed to be only yesterday, and how clearly I can still see it now. My mates and I had budding ambitions, growing urges and a convulating sense of togetherness. For a few nights we relished this escape from the routine and the usual. More than that, each of us could look out into the bright lights - and expanse - of our otherwise ordinary lives back there below the lookout point. Was that first week of September a momentary escapade, or an opportunity of a pause between what we were leaving behind - early adolescence - and what we had to build ourselves - future adulthood?

The bungalow offered lazy afternoons and group nights, where we could gather to offer our inner thoughts, make fun of each other and unknowlingly get to know each other better. The cooler air induced us into a kind of comfort zone that we longed for in contrast to where we first met - the humid heat of classrooms in regimented schedules. We dabbled in discovering and experiencing then forbidden areas - which with the benefit of hindsight now, were passing phases possibly necesary to our individual development. The fireplace, the foreboding darkness outside the colonial styled windows and the wavering of leafy branches threatened with moving fog - it all added to a certain comforting charm, a dramatic backdrop and a unique perspective to our apparent liberation to talk about anything, to do without constraint and to realise that things were not forever.

I recall the sight of the twinkling stars above the dark night sky, and how we were all decked out in sweaters seated on the patio looking out literally at the world waiting before us. What magical evenings they were. They then added to our resolve to build a unique life in each of us. They now offer a refuge to inspiring memory.