A sudden serious case of wanderlust

There must be something in my life story that tells me a tale like Chocolat. That says, wherever I go, I will always be dissatisfied with the Here and the Now, and be searching for something, longing and thirsty for something else that isn't to be found here, of where and what, I do not know.

Is there an imaginary Promised Land I am trying to get to? Or is it truly that with each new place I go to, with new faces, new relationships and new friends, I leave a little part of me behind and become more and more fragmented, not knowing a place that I can call home?

It's where the heart is. I try to believe that, when I'm lying in bed wondering where my heart is. I cannot truly believe that all of this life is about searching for something you cannot find. It is like being in a dream and trying to find an elusive door, waking up just before you place your fingertips on the handle. And trying to fall asleep again just to get back to that door, to try and not wake up before opening the door.

But I feel just that. Is this human nature or the way of the world? Do dogs press on faster on a leash because they think they'll get to their final destiny quicker? Curiosity killed the cat. So what drives the dog forward?

I am pretty sure how I feel is not just in the mythology of my mind. The lores and histories of ancient civilizations speak of a Promised Land, a case of Heaven, of an Eden, Shangri-La and of a perfect paradise. Is that too much to ask not to need a utopia, only a place to call home?

If you can take this wandering, wandering lost baby in the woods and cradle her in your arms, suddenly all the world melts away and it ceases to matter where I am. Only the sound of your heartbeat and the sudden, salient reality of your shoulders exist. Home is the warmth in the flesh of your arms, a cathedral in the architecture of your bones. Where the heart is. But not mine. Yours.

Casablanca

Surprisingly, an all-time favourite song of mine is Bertie Higgins' Casablanca. That's the only song I know that he did, and it definitely was from an era before my time. But some songs are timeless classics I guess.

Don't ask me why I love this song. I guess in some strange way, it reminds me of Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and T-.

Lyrics here:

I fell in love with you watching Casablanca
Back row at the drive in show in the flickering light
Popcorn and cokes beneath the stars
Became champagne and caviar
Making love on a long hot summer night

I thought you fell in love with me watching Casablanca
Holding hands neath the paddle fans
In Rick's candle lit cafe
Hiding the shadows from the spots
A rocky moonlight in your arms
Making magic in the movie in my old Chevrolet

Oh a kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca
But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh
Please come back to me in Casablanca
I love you more and more each day as time goes by

I guess there're many broken hearts in Casablanca
You know I've never been there so I don't know
I guess our love story will never be seen
On the big wide silver screen
But it hurts just as bad when I had to watch it go

Oh a kiss is still a kiss in Casablanca
But a kiss is not a kiss without your sigh
Please come back to me in Casablanca
I love you more and more each day as time goes by

World Traveller "Auntie"

As you probably already know by now, I relish being an "auntie" everywhere I go, and this auntie gets the chance to travel every now and then. So I'm writing to you now from the plush and lux J.W. Marriott resort in Phuket on tips and tricks I've come across to get the best from your hotel room, regardless of how many stars the hotel is plied with. Best of all, most of them I found doesn't require you to feel like a crummy pilferer, and are completely part of the service of the hotel.

Hotel Standard: Luxury

• Forgot your spectacles case? Fear a scratch on your Oakley's? Shoe shine cloth/mitt (a clean one of course!) are fantastic for storing or polishing sunglasses or spectacles. Remember to wash only with water and never with soap of any kind as they may dissolve the special expensive coating on your lenses. Trust me for experience on this one.
• While on the topic of shoes, look again in the shoe shine area to see if the hotel provides shoe bags. Those in linen are especially charming. They make great storage for knick knacks and I suggest you keep a few for storing small items like socks, jewellery, toiletry bottles, laptop chargers and undergarments when you travel.

Hotel Standard: Business

• Have laundry to do and don't want to buy expensive travel washing detergent for delicates and hand-wash? Use hotel provided shampoo or shower gel! These tiny looking shampoo bottles are usually standard issue these days, and besides washing your hair, come in handy as detergent for doing the occassional laundry in the sink or shower. They foam easily and rinse off easily and best thing is, are usually conditioner free and so generally have more soap content than commercial shampoos. These make them perfect as laundry detergent. Bottom line is, you use them for your hair, they're free, why not use them for your clothes?
  
  Some less experienced aunties will take these bottles home with usually one of two excuses: 1) I would use them at home (really? They're of lower quality than generic brands used at home) or 2) They come in handy when I need travel size bottles to pack my home brands when I travel (or you can just find more of these travel sized filled bottles with the soap provided free when you travel...)
• Can't remember what time zone you're in because you've travelled halfway around the world? Fret not! Utilize the morning call service usually found in most business hotels to wake you up. Most places have an actual real life person from the Concierge call to wake you, which helps most people get up faster than does a routine rhythmic ring. What's better (and less known) is that if you have a real life person, you can actually request a snooze by asking them to call you back in 5/10 minutes time to make sure you wake up. Automated wake up call systems also typically have snooze features these days. Just make sure you're awake enough to figure out which button to press.
• Fancy cold feet? Me neither. Many people bring bedroom slippers back home but unless you do actually use them at home (like in the kitchen where it could be grimy on the floor) honestly, why bother? Sure they're flat packed and generally troublesome to find when you need them, but I can't remember the last time I used a pair of bedroom slippers at home. Most of the time, they come in handy only when you visit a country in which it isn't standard practice to issue bedroom slippers. And mind you, quite a few good, expensive hotels in Europe and the US miss these out.
  
  Which brings me to my favourite pet peeve. Griping about the disparity of amenities provided by hotels across the globe. Seriously, there should be an international standard of amenities provided which goes into the assessment of the star system. I can go to a 4 star hotel in Asia and be provided with cotton buds, facial cotton, bedroom slippers (of course!), comb, toothbrush and internet connection, or find myself in a similar 4 star in Europe where none of these exist! Some of them are even from the same hotel chain, which is even more appalling.
  
  Generally, I find that Asian hotels are fantastic in providing mass manufactured, small size hotel amenities. My favourites are the ones in LCLMs (low cost labor markets) like India, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand... as they tend to make laundry bags in linen, which make excellent excellent laundry bags and for all purpose use any time you need a drawstring bag. I tend to find myself pilfering a few of these for use at home - good for most things like as laundry bags back home, storing books (reduces yellowing), delicate clothes and other knick knacks.

Thai Cooking Class

Green Papaya Salad
Originally uploaded by metaphoric.

Attended a Thai cooking class just today at the resort as part of a team building exercise. Surprisingly, the food turned out pretty good despite our bumbling and burning.

Note to Self: Cooking class instructors need to be very good at "rescuing" dishes that have gone astray. We added too much salt, too much sugar to some dishes, and still it could be salvaged and very palatable!

Recipes that we made were... Kiew Wan Gai (chicken green curry), Som Tum Thai (Thai Green Papaya Salad) and Tom Yum Goong (spicy prawn soup). The recipes were a little messed up in the order that they were made, but by and large, from memory, here they are... tried and (somewhat) tested.

Tom Yum Goong

Ingredients:
1 piece red shallot, cut into wedges
1 stalk coriander root, pound with flat side of knife
1 stalk lemon grass, white root end sliced at 45 degree angle (smash to get more flavor)
4 slices galangal (young ginger), slice into strips for more flavor (smash to get more flavor)
60g straw mushrooms
1/2 tbsp Chilli paste
1 tomato, cut into wedges
1 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tbsp sugar (to taste)
1/4 tbsp salt (to taste)
4 river prawns (optional: can add chicken)
4 Kaffir lime leaves, remove stalk and tear up
2 small red chillis (halved)
400ml chicken stock or prawn stock
2 tbsp lime juice

Method:

1. Heat up soup stock in pot at low fire until stock begins to simmer
2. Add shallots, coriander roots, galangal and lemongrass and bring to a boil.
3. Add straw mushrooms and continue boiling.
4. Season with fish sauce, salt, sugar and chili paste. (At this time, the soup turns into characteristic color. Some people prefer less color and more spice, in which case, tune less of the chili paste, and add more chilli later.)
5. Add the prawns/chicken and boil until prawns/chicken are cooked.
6. Add Kaffir lime leaves and chili.
7. Add tomatoes and continue simmer boiling. (Tomatoes will disintegrate into soup if cooked too long, so its ok to have nearly raw tomatoes in the soup.)
8. Season with lime juice and turn off the heat.
9. Serve.

Som Tum Thai (Green Papaya Salad)

Ingredients:

100g shredded green papaya (Don't get those that are too sour. Replace with carrots or radish if green papayas cannot be found.)
1 clove garlic
1 1/2 pieces sri da tomato (cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes)
1 string string beans
2 small red chilli
10 pieces of dried shrimps (soaked in water and dried with kitchen towel)
1 tbsp roasted peanuts
2-3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tbsp palm sugar
1 tbsp lime juice

Method: this dish is combined in a mortar and pestle, so you need a fairly large one

1. Pound garlic and chilli into large pieces using a mortar and pestle
2. Cut string beans into pieces and add into mortar together with shredded papaya
3. Add dried shrimps and roasted peanuts and pound/rub everything together again
4. Add palm sugar, fish sauce and lime juice and pound well together
5. Add tomato last and mix gently to avoid crushing tomatoes.
6. Serve immediately.

Kiew Wan Gai (Chicken Green Curry)

I like this version as its savoury and not too strong on the basil and coconut if done right. I'm usually allergic to green curry - they give me a headache, even the supposedly good restaurant done ones. Surprisingly, this soup like curry didn't have that effect on me and tasted savoury and good!

Ingredients:

1 tbsp green curry paste (I suspect you'll have to go to a Thai supermarket shop to get this)
200ml chicken stock
200ml coconut milk (fresh is better, Suntan is acceptable but use less or dilute with water to avoid the heavy texture)
2 Thai green eggplant
2 tbsp palm sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 handful sweet Thai basil
4 Kaffir lime leaves
4 slices large red chillis
200g chicken fillet, cut in large slices

Method:

1. Heat oil in sauce pan on low-medium fire until oil is hot enough to bubble.
2. Stir fry curry paste in oil until aroma is released.
3. Sear meat by stir frying in curry paste (optional) or combine chicken stock and coconut milk with meat at the same time. Boil until chicken is just cooked through and still juicy.
4. Add eggplant and boil until cooked.
5. Season with palm sugar, salt and fish sauce.
6. Remove from heat and add sweet Thai basil, kaffir lime leaves and chilli. Leave sitting for about a minute and stir through.
7. Serve immediately.

Animal Ken and Human Kindness

A couple of days ago I realised something amazing. Jolene, the vet assistant at my dog's vet clinic, who has kindly agreed to house the dog while I'm away has two dogs of her own. Benji, a border collie and Chiyo, a mixed breed who had followed her home. She tells me Chiyo doesn't usually like people, but when I was there to drop my dog off, Chiyo came up to me and sniffed and nudged and licked. Jolene was surprised, "Wah! You can go and buy lottery already, Chiyo never does that to people!"

Apparently I have a certain dog magnetism I've never realised before. (haha)

But that made me think about a few things in my life. I've always had an affinity for animals. When I was younger, I have had (at one point) 2 budgies, 40+ guppies, a few (on average 2 - 5) re-homed kittens and a dog. I think my parents never expected they'd end up with a zoo when they had me. Neither of them are completely animal people. They're friendly enough, but too concerned about practical things like personal hygiene and responsibility to commit to keeping an animal in the house for the long term.

It's another thing however, to come to the happy realization that perhaps, if only and just, perhaps, that affinity for animals might be reciprocated. That as much as you love animals, animals can sense the difference between friend and foe, and have an affinity for pet-friendly people likewise.

I used to think that I had a soporific effect on small animals, and once contemplated a career as a pet anaesthetist. Notably in the course of my childhood, I've had an angora rabbit fall asleep on me during history class - a classmate brought her to school and I didn't think it was the History tutorial that put her to sleep. My godfather's Alsatian did likewise for half an hour, nearly cutting off blood supply to my lap while I was sitting down reading a book. And my brother's quite unfriendly cat... when she was a newfound stray kitten.

I have a long-kept belief that the goodness of one's heart as humans can be, in some strange and inexplicable way, sensed by animals. Animals sense danger and threat far keenly than humans do, and their perceptions can be uncanny at times. It usually is the initial stirrings of horses that sound the alarm of approaching storms, and the inexplicable hissing of a usually friendly cat that heralds a person with ill intent. That's not unheard of.

So I've always believed in a rawer than religion sort of way that animals can inadvertently sense the hidden intents of the human heart. Sometimes more so than humans can. Sometimes even before humans know it themselves. As such, I'd run my prospective mate by with my dog on principle, and their "pass/fail" verdict would ring more true to me than the opinions of my mother.

Chiyo's lick was a wake-up realisation to me in some ways. It reminded me that as long as there are animals out there who think I am possibly a good and not evil person, then I am a person whose life is worth living.

My newfound resolution is to always be a person that animals will instinctively find friendly. That sort of karma, I believe, is something that cannot be faked. It goes beyond false smiles and the pretence of words. It speaks in body language, in universal and unmistakable terms. And to be that someone who can so easily put people and animals at ease, who is genuinely warm and friendly. Now that is someone who honestly has the innocence to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Seeking Effortlessly Brilliant Individual for Long Term Life Partner Job

Over (and after) coffee with one of Rebecca's business school friends today, I've finally realised what I'm looking for in that someone special. In case you didn't realise, this is a realization akin to a personal epiphany.

Quite simply (and this is an original answer) - I am looking for someone who is effortlessly brilliant.

Skip the must-have-a-sense-of-humour crap. It took me a good effort of walking back to figure out what exactly "effortlessly brilliant" meant.

An easy smile. A sense of social ease and grace. This is someone who can talk to anyone easily and blend in with any crowd. Someone who has the street smarts and common sense to assess a person from a conversation, yet put a stranger at ease with ease.

If you ask me to describe in two or three words the person I'm looking for, I'd say - a luminous personality.

There is a certain sense of self, an assuredness without necessarily becoming smug confidence. It's the relaxed state of being that doesn't sweat the small stuff, while having big enough dreams to look up and towards a lofty goal. I'd want someone who looks at a problem that cannot be solved on the face of it and whose first reaction is to laugh. Heartily.

This is someone who's lithe, but not athletic or sporty. Toned, healthy, with a nice shrug... OK OK, now I'm dreaming...

So far, the only one whose met the bill happens to be a golden retriever.

2 AM and she calls me 'cos I'm still awake...

Very nice lyrics, as I'm sure has been blogged in numerous blogs nearly a thousand times before.

Times like this, you wish you had someone to call. And life's like the hour glass glued to the table. There's no rewind button, girl...


Lyrics to Anna Malick's Breathe (2 a.m.)

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

May he turn 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
"Just today" he said down to the flask in his fist,
"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year."
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

There's a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.

And breathe, just breathe
Woah breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.

The smallness of the world

Brother called all the way from Prague to put me through on the phone to someone who simply walked up to him and said, "I know your sister."

The freakiness of the coincidence made him give me a buzz to verify that. My goodness. Turns out his university is helping organize the event that my brother is doing.

The world is too small. Times like this really makes me happy/surprised/excited at how tiny 6 degrees of separation can truly be.