Singapore Shrines

Some old buildings are preserved in Singapore, you see a few of these when you are walking around Tiong Bahru, Joo Chiat, Tanjong Pagar and Little India, where these pictures were taken. On many of these buildings you often find a small metal shrine of red and gold either mounted on a column or on the ground.  Its a pretty simple affair, largely joss sticks and oranges. Sometimes what looks like a yellow sweetmeat. Though pretty much identical in a way, each is also quite different.  Some are well tended, some aren't cared for at all. And in Little India, sometimes a little idol of an Indian god is added.  

I couldn't get much information about them except of course that they seem to be shrines for houses and shops, for perhaps the usual purposes like bringing good luck or warding off the evil eye.  One old gentleman was amused by my interest in his shrine but didn't speak enough English, instead he pointed heavenwards and made a prayer sign so I take it that they are some kind of domestic gods.  It's possible that these are also present outside flats but of course they are not part of street life in the manner of older structures. 

In fact now and then walking around you see temporary structures for religious purposes. The other day there was a structure with a lot of red paper objects in it, from The Billion Shop I gather its some kind of old funeral ritual.  And it's not uncommon to stumble upon ceremonies that include singing and prayer. 

The pleasures of flaneuring:)

Strathfield, NSW 2216

My first Korean drama post I think was more interesting for its description of Strathfield - or so I was told:) So I thought I might write a bit about the Australian suburbs I have lived in.

When I first moved to Sydney in 2002, I did some preliminary research on suburbs and my heart was set on Wollstonecraft or Bronte, purely for literary reasons:) And there was Glebe, where on a November day in 1999 I thought to myself one day I will live in this city. But when I saw the houses I hesitated. The rentals were high and of course that made a difference. But the charming cottages that were advertised turned out to be pocket sized and inconvenient. These were after all workers cottages in the 19th and 20th century that had gained serious cred simply by aging.  Eventually I decided to be a proper Asian immigrant and take a flat in Strathfield.

Even this was perhaps a little left-field because most Indians are wedded to the mortgage and a  proper house (preferably somewhere out west like Fairfield and beyond) within months of arrival.  In my firm, which was predominantly white, European attorneys would move to the eastern fringes with its beaches or the north shore. In fact Sydney has a enormous deal of suburb snobbery and it can be quite amusing to see the silent judgements being made when you mention where you live.  It didn't bother me, all postcodes being born equal as far as I was concerned:)

The reason for moving to Strathfield was fairly simple. It was well connected by train and it took me about 20 minutes to get to work in the city. Apart from this, it was one of few suburbs at that point that had high rise buildings and flats. There were in fact just a couple, squeezed into land along the tracks as is common in Sydney.  The buildings were mediocre - I still hold that Australians cannot design high rises, plumping for impractical open arrangements with a great deal of glass (making them furnaces in summer) intended to look like advertisements for modern city living or buildings that resembled hotels with long dark corridors.  Mine was the latter. But it was still better than the large expanse of suburbia that is most of Sydney.  The fringes of Sydney are beautiful but its interior is the death of the soul, suddenly all the anti-suburbia literature of the West makes sense.  There is a nothingness to this, as if you would be slowly numbed by these suburbs of similarly lined houses, a strip of the same shops in each centre with liquor, gambling and a supermarket predominant and a station that always led to a Railway Street. Strathfield on the other hand was an old suburb with pretty houses but the influx of immigrants and buildings with shops beneath meant that it remained lively even at a late hour. This was a big deal to me, because at this point almost all of Sydney would fade away by 6 pm.  In fact everything started early and ended early, not the best situation for a night owl like me. The other factor was my father's intended visits, I did not want the usual fate of parents in these cities, the endless wait for someone with a car to take you around to show the sights. This way he could see the city on his own time.

My building in Strathfield had a formidable Russian lady as the manager who was completely intolerant regarding the rules of the building. To put it politely she was a f**king pain in the arse. There was, as can be common in Sydney, a Russian club around the corner and a few other Eastern European structures from memory. The flat itself was comfortable, I had taken a 2 bedder as my brother was to join me later. One peculiarity of the building (and later I found of every other building in Strathfield) was that the fire alarm went off every day. The building was full of Koreans and everyone blamed their cooking practices. But given the regularity I suspect there was something a little more to it, perhaps a cosy arrangement between building management and the fireies.

As I mentioned earlier, the parts of the suburb near the station were full of Koreans.  There used to be minor gripes from visitors about not understanding signage etc. but it never affected me. It stood to reason that if you were an immigrant with little or no knowledge of English, you would aggregate in an area and that any services provided would need to cater to the local community.  Often the lack of English meant that communication was difficult, not that many people tried. This was in fact a characteristic of Sydney, even someone you see for years may not acknowledge you-initially it feels racial till you realise that everyone has had the Sydney cold shoulder and even new arrivals slip into this mode of behaviour.  A lot of folk who ran small services were however pleasant. The flower seller was a a sweet lady. There was a store that did small time repairs on clothes, handbags etc - it's a little hard to explain here that there was a joy in this because it's so hard to find in Sydney. For the most part, we didn't really eat out at the Korean places - though I always wanted to try the piquantly named Mr Dduckbocki Miss Kkochi. Instead for Asian, almost all of Strathfield, went to the Saigon Bowl - though it wasn't the best in town it set me off on love for Vietnamese cuisine. And of course there was the little clothes shop which didn't break the bank but had stylish office wear that lasted forever.  For I found that all my shopping for Sydney had been for nought, nothing was proper for Sydney mores or the weather. One thing that came out of my stay in Strathfield was that to date I know when Korean is being spoken.  I heard a lot of it and it became easy to distinguish (the alphabets too but that is relatively simple to differentiate) from other Asian languages.

Strathfield in fact also had an Indian presence though this grew stronger as you moved towards Homebush. There were more than a few Indian stores and towards Homebush you could also get cheap dosais and the like.  In this sense, it was perfect for a newbie to the city.

I lived in two of the apartment complexes in Strathfield till I moved out in 2006. The second one had a Macedonian manager who was polite and never failed to remind me that Alexander the Great was Macedonian. He had learnt a bit of Korean which meant he was popular with the residents and was in fact planning a visit to Korea when I left.  The building itself was like a plush hotel complete with indoor swimming pool.  Despite all this staying in the complexes wasn't a bad decision given the fact the burglary was fairly common in Strathfield's small apartment blocks with little or no security.

In a way Strathfield was an ideal way to ease into Sydney. It had familiar Indian elements and wildly different ones. Travelling was simple. It was easy for my dad to get around. My family in Sydney was close and yet not too close. Old relos who came around actually liked the sound of trains and shops below, unlike the natives. Signs of life as it were. My decision to go neither East nor West of the city in the initial years served me well.

I had arrived in Sydney in the somewhat contradictory states of excitement and clinical depression. These ebbed and flowed, in the beginning I was anxious to return home once I got my degree. Events back home had left a peculiar kind of hurt, the reasons were insufficient to feel so much and yet all these messy emotions were there. A lot happened in those 4 years. By the time I left I was in a calmer frame of mind, I had settled into my job, I had a degree and I had decided to stay on a bit more.

Reading

One of the nice things about Singapore is that you get a lot of SE Asian and East Asian "cultural offerings".  Kinokuniya is not too far from my brother's place and it has a much larger stock of titles from the region (including Indian titles) than I ever saw in Australia.  I have been bingeing a bit on translated Japanese books, mostly from the early 20th century and I truly haven't had enough of them whether it is Tanizaki, Dazai or Soseki. There is a lot of non-fiction too, e.g. Essays in Idleness that I haven't got around to. Suffice it to say that one can send a few hours browsing titles.

I haven't read much contemporary Japanese literature, bar Banana Yoshimoto (many happy hours spent at Melbourne University devouring her books).  Almost all contemporary literature shelves are taken up by Murakami, a writer I have never taken to. So when I spotted Strange Weather in Tokyo, I decided to give it a spin. Like so many Japanese books I have read it is written with a spare simplicity but never feels facile or lightweight. Unfolding in bars and trips where a good deal of food and copious amounts of alcohol are consumed, it traces the growing affection between a 30 something woman in the city and the much older teacher she meets by chance. Though not as hypnotic and more quotidian than Banana Yoshimoto, it draws you in and you have finished it in one slow but constant gulp, at one point I was reading it while walking to and fro from the station:) Next up, Manazuru!

Like with Murakami, I don't get the appeal of graphic novels aka comic books either.  I don't mean to diss them but they are just not my thing. Of course the Japanese produce a LOT of this, Kinokuniya in its English section itself has titles that run into several books.  But I was attracted to Oishinbo (Japanese Cuisine) - a bit strange given my usual reaction to books about the preparation of food is:

It turned out to be quite fun, an easy read. informative but never weighed down by descriptions of food. Though getting the hang of right to left reading takes a few pages. And what is with fictional Japanese and Korean fathers, on the 1 to 10 bastards scale, they are doing an admirable job holding up the 10 end:) 

K-Drama Overload

Eun-chan and food

I feel like I have watched one too many Korean dramas. This was partially because I was knocked out by a minor illness for nearly a month and it was an easy watch to while away the hours. In retrospect it wasn't a huge number of dramas though sufficient to pick up Korean TV tropes:)  Hello My Teacher and Pasta was largely because of my Gong Hyo-jin love (I first saw her in this segment on a flight, nothing special about the segment but I noticed her and I have liked her in almost everything I have seen, the best of her work being Crush and Blush). Hello My Teacher's "noona romance" was cute and I surprisingly liked Pasta's depiction of a somewhat sadomasochistic romance. I tried Lovers in Prague (what's with lame Korean drama titles-and let's never speak of the soundtracks) but gave up despite it starring one of my favourite Korean actresses, Jun Do-yeon.  But the best was reserved for the last, Coffee Prince. It was one of those dramas that suffuse one with a happy feeling at the end, kind of like watching 17 episodes of Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (though the lead actor reminded me more of Shahrukh).  It's a great ensemble cast, where the casting is right for even the small parts.  And it has a secondary romance with a girl who doesn't go in for simpering innocence or fidelity. And it is based on a novel - novels that are rooted in genres (in this case romantic fiction and with more than a nod to Shakespearean cross-dressing tropes) but try to do more with it than a paint by numbers plot are always intriguing, if the TV serial is any indication the novel is neatly plotted and well thought out. But without doubt, the thing that makes Coffee Prince such a great drama is Yoon Eun-hye's portrayal of the garçon manqué, Eun chan, who never changes colours.  There has never been a better or more adorable tomboy on film. So if you have to watch a Korean drama, let it be Coffee Prince!

I am not the greatest fan of TV dramas, it is hard for me to sustain interest even in something like Mad Men.  Few K-dramas are perfect and there is a similarity to them once you watch a few - yet they have a certain hook which keeps you watching. But I can't see anything topping Coffee Prince so I will give it a rest. Though for research sake I should probably watch the original K-drama that started it all, Winter Sonata:)

Watching K-Dramas

I miss the DVD/CD shops in Sydney, for the most part English titles here are predictable American fare and its quite rare to spot a world section. So basically no European cinema. You do see a lot of Asian titles though, particularly TV Drama box-sets, and browsing through them is educational and a tad amusing. The other day a mega sale was on and the enterprising salesman, eager to break my K-Drama virginity (well he didn't use those exact words), recommended a few.  Apparently they are quite the thing around these parts. Ultimately I went with Jejungwon because it seemed a sciencey historical as opposed to the spicy sexy court intrigue saga which many appeared to be. At $10 for 40 episodes, it wasn't exactly expensive either. Also HANBOKS! If there is one garment that I will concede right away is superior to the sari, it is the hanbok. And indeed behold their glory in Jejungwon. 

 

HANBOK LUST

In the end it turned out to be not quite the epic it wanted to be and at 40 eps it was a bit much for me but it did get me thinking of a few things. Like I had kind of forgotten that in my first few years in Sydney I lived in a suburb that was very much Little Korea. There wasn't any particular reason for choosing the suburb except it was close to work. Plus I lived in several suburbs in Sydney simply to get a flavour of different cultures.  The Koreans were considered insular but this hardly bothered me, in my experience as an Army brat it's rare not to encounter insularity.  And they were  nice enough people, there were a lot of smiles but little talk due to the language barrier though now and then someone would use a few words of Hindi.  I in turn got used to the pleasant cadences of the Korean language. The suburb was pretty much run by and for Koreans, at the cafe below staff would look a bit bemused if we wandered in for coffee.  The best part for me was a wonderful clothes store which was affordable and stocked clothing in sizes I could wear, the stuff there lasted me for ever.  Several years later I moved out to a very white part of Sydney which was a different experience in itself.

In my first few years in Sydney I used to watch a lot of Asian cinema, partly because my brother had been in Shanghai and I had spent a few weeks there. The rental stores always carried Asian titles and you could count on a few releases given this was a time when a few independent cinemas actually existed in Sydney.  Korean cinema was hyped up in the papers as must see cinema so we duly went along to see a few. Plus SBS would screen a lot of foreign cinema (sadly this is also a casualty of restructuring and changes at the station and the fare is less varied these days).  Offhand now I can recollect Spring Summer..., 3-Iron, Oldboy (probably the most well known), Il Mare etc.  Each of the movies was engaging but it left you feeling that something was not right or incomplete (I often have this feeling with Indian movies too) and more often than not if I had to compile a top ten list in those years it would have included a Chinese or Japanese movie instead of a Korean one.  I still watch Korean movies, particularly on flights. They are always watchable, beautiful to look at and stocked with beautiful people and yet its hard to find a piece that is exceptional. And more often than not they are marred by a sense of melodrama. The only exception to this is Untold Scandal, which to me is the best version EVER of Dangerous Liaisons. So it maybe that I prefer the restraint and amorality of the Japanese:) Having said that the Koreans employ melodrama very well. It never rings false as in a Hollywood movie neither is it loud and stretched beyond belief as in an Indian movie. It can be a superior work like Pieta. Or a shamelessly manipulative movie like The Way Home. But some underlying purity of intent will make you bawl at the end, promise yourself to call your grandmother often and be completely embarrassed at being taken in by its manipulation:) 

So much ink has been spilled on K-Pop, Hallyu, K-Drama and the like that it's not my intention to add to it (though no doubt my take on it is different being Indian). Suffice it to say that they are inventive and dabble in far more genres than Indian cinema is capable of but also have the "hook" that reels in devotees of popular culture.  It is a created world that is as enticing as anything set up by Hollywood or Bollywood.  There is one small difference - perhaps because the vitality of the industry is fairly recent - and that is that despite all the artifice and created glamour and melodrama, some kind of true and pure feeling runs underneath. It is there in varying degrees, in the best it is there in spades, in the worst absent.  What Korean visual culture lacks in subtlety it makes up with this. All the more because it is so much absent in most modern cinema where more often than not the only  two modes available are irony and crassness. In that context, a number of Korean films are also chaste, the TV dramas even more so. While the movies are more experimental, there is still some degree of sexual reserve.

Coming back to Jejungwon, all of this is true of the serial (which as it happens was not entirely successful). Taking in the rise of its hero from a member of the untouchable caste  to a senior doctor in Korea's first Western hospital (the eponymous Jejungwon), it opts for a broad brush treatment.  The good are very good, the bad are very bad, it is timid in its treatment of the politics of the era and the hero rarely catches a break before ultimately triumphing.  Really not terribly different from an Indian drama of the 1950s, this in fact comes equipped with a Nagesh like light relief character too.  All its tropes will be familiar from Indian cinema (this is not to say it is inspired by Indian cinema, rather there are some common sensibilities at work in Asia). Despite all this it has its pleasures. And it is subtle and moving in parts.

#EXCUSE THEIR BEAUTY

#WEST IS BEST

One of the pleasures for a history buff of course is that you can go back and look at actual events that took place (most wtf moment, what the Japanese killed and burned a Korean Queen?!). Unsurprisingly most of the Japanese in the series exist only as villains (except for the filmic cliche of a Japanese girl falling in love with a Korean aristocrat-doctor). Neither was I aware of a rigid caste system in Korea, in fact the country appears to have been in the grip of strangulating mores for a long time. It also turned out that a number of run of the mill dramas I had seen inflight (Masquerade, A Frozen Flower) were not set in some vaguely mythical past but set in specific periods of the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties (the Koreans seem to be on par with the British in their love of period dramas). As far as I can see even the costuming is specific, the hanboks of Jejungwon change with time.

The other is that its three main characters, roughly the poor, ostracised and bright boy, the aristocrat-scientist and the emancipated beauty, are nicely etched.  Their actions for the most part make sense and despite the archetypes they are cast as, they seem real and the actors do their parts more than justice. The three main leads and some of the smaller parts are solidly cast (though at times some visible plastic surgery is a distraction:)). Again despite the flaws - the melodrama and lack of subtlety principally - something runs underneath that tugs at you in much the same way as if it were real. But the most remarkable feature of the drama for me was the female protagonist, Seok-Ran (played by Han Hye-jin). Neither an aristocrat nor middle class, her character has freedom and an understanding father who allows her to make her own choices which include becoming a doctor.  Her choice of the outcast hero makes perfect sense within the context of the drama.  But at no point does the drama confine her or define her by this romance.  Which is remarkable given how much I have read about sexism in Korea and its arts (obviously not all that true or rather more complex than usually portrayed). Everything about the character is so perfectly judged that neither does it set up the progressive/reactionary doomed sexual relationship like many Western dramas (Howard's End, South Riding) nor does it go in for the complete devotion and self-abasement demanded of women in Indian dramas. Rather Seok-Ran is intellectually curious and devoted to her career, tops the exams over the two men who love her and if required chooses her calling over her husband.  None of this is shown as out of the ordinary nor does she lose her husband over it, rather throughout she is strong and compassionate and respected for it. She is an inspirational heroine in a middling drama and Hye-jin's performance never falters even for a moment.  You know you cannot be her but you would like to be Seok-Ran. It also reminded me of a movie I saw in Australia which was much lighter in tone (Private Eye) and where the actress had a small role but the character was similarly a turn of the century inventor in firm charge of her own life.

The other major factor in Korean dramas from what I can see is the parental relationship. Almost everything I have seen explores the bond from its most dysfunctional and yet unbreakable (many fathers with an undercurrent of violence!) to filial devotion, especially for a mother. Korean cinema treats this particularly well and it also embeds the romance in the context of these relationships, often in a far better way than Indian movies. Jejungwon is no different.  For e.g. Jejungwon's central scene is the acknowledgement by a son of his father and though played for effect and very weepy, it is also strangely affecting.

And on that note let it be said that no Korean man in cinema or TV land is afraid of crying-the violence, the romance, the tears must have surely resulted in many pop cultural studies  deconstructing Korean masculinity:) This being Korea the tears are bountiful and perfect, almost beautiful on the male face so to say:)  Move over Rajendra Kumar and Shahrukh, your cry face is simply no match!

#CRY FOR KOREA

#UNSPILLED TEARS FOR KOREA

I may or may not be on my way to a K-Drama addiction...we will see:) In the meantime though I do need a break from 40 hrs of viewing so you might have to wait awhile.  Next up...possibly The Painter of the Wind.

Valentine's Day

The Caurapañcāśikā is a series of lyric verses in which the parted lover evokes his mistress’s presence by recollecting her beauty and the pleasures of their love. Each verse is a quatrain in the Sanskrit meter Vasantatilaka (Spring’s ornament), beginning with the phrase adyapi (even now), and voiced in the first person. [X]

My niece - ever hopeful about my love life - queried me on a special someone today.  I joked that I was more at an age for hot flushes than hot crushes:) Which is not entirely true, as a former boyfriend told me the spark of love should be present in one even at 80 provided one gets there. And it is Valentine's Day. Though if there is to be a “Valentine’s Day” in India, it is probably Holi since it is also sometimes known as Madana Mahotsava i.e. Festival of the Love God (Madan/Kamadeva).  Still any excuse is good enough to put up Sanskrit love poetry - of which god knows there is plenty and more.

Probably the most translated of love texts is Bilhana’s Caurapañcāśikā which recreates both the pleasure of union and that of separation, both of which are subjects of Sanskrit poetry. It's just a perfect little thing. And luckily there are heaps of translations around (X, X), this extract from Stoler-Miller’s book.

Poem for Today

Your Pilgrimage (Ko Un)

A slower pace, a somewhat slower pace will do.
Of a sudden, should it start to rain,
let yourself get soaked.
An old friend, the rain.

One thing alone is beautiful: setting off.
The world’s too vast
to live in a single place,
or three or four.

Walk on and on
until the sun sets,
with your old accomplice,
shadow, late as ever.
If the day clouds over,
go on anyway
regardless.

Forest, Singapore

 “Here is Menard's own intimate forest: 'Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade...I live in great density...Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage...In the forest, I am my entire self. Everything is possible in my heart just as it is in the hiding places in ravines. Thickly wooded distance separates me from moral codes and cities.”
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Click pics for larger view.  

 

Balestier Road

One of the good things about not having had a car for the past ten odd years is that walking everywhere became easier.  It's actually not that difficult to walk a couple of kilometers though parents who did it back in the day everyday to school would have you think otherwise.  By walk of course I mean amble because its rare for my walk to be a power walk, I stop to look at things or photograph things often.  Small things come to your attention in a way they never do when you have a vehicle, even in the simplest of these - like a bicycle - the pleasure is in the movement not in observation.

My brother lives in a neighbourhood that is quite expat. Largely white, a few others.  There are tall, well maintained condos. Maids out with their charges.  Joggers. That sort of thing. But if you walk around a bit it changes. The other day when I was walking the neighbourhood got a bit more grungy and a bit more run down.  There were housing estates that had seen better days. The neighbourhood was also more "local" than the immediate area where my brother lives.  More lighting shops than you would care to count. Not picturesque local but merely the slightly ramshackle, fraying at the edges feel of the ordinary suburbs of Asian cities.

Of course this is Singapore so you do run immediately into a mall that has the familiar set of eateries and shops. Albeit a mall where the shops were crammed with items for the forthcoming Chinese New Year.

At some point in my walk it began to rain heavily.  There are plenty of frangipani trees planted around the city. The flowers fall now and then which kind of makes a walk pleasant. But it all looks wondrous after a thundershower as I discovered. Particularly if the trees are clustered around a small area.

This is a city that is lent character by the rain. Partly because it's a break from the constant, oppressive heat (the city lies close to the equator).  Partly because rain like snow is a climatic feature that evokes a myriad of emotions.

On my walk I came across the Sun Yat Sen memorial but left a visit there for another day.  Those fallen flowers are the nandiyavattai or crepe jasmine, also common here.  Almost every garden here has people at work, their maintenance requires constant attention though once in a while you do wish they would allow in a bit of chaos instead of the constant manicuring.

Right next to this is the Burmese Buddhist temple.  Street clusters in Singapore are often united by theme and around here a lot of street names are of towns in Burma.

The temple is a fairly new one. There are some elements familiar from Indian temples, the small shrines outside, the lamps, joss sticks though the whole is a lot more spick and span than you would find in an Indian temple. Everything is shiny new and the flowers are plastic. With temples for the large part I find that very few invoke a certain feeling - maybe not a religious experience but the feeling that something ineffable lies within. And there is a certain feeling to this temple, a quietness and calm, something beneath all that shine and colour.

I had been walking for 4 hours and yet it had felt like nothing (of course my days are idle and this makes a difference). But a walk in the pouring rain though a drab, old neighbourhood is sometimes good for the soul.

Bras Basah

The other day I went to the Bras Basah complex. While the city is largely a mall town, there are a few of the old complexes still around, including at Chinatown. This one is given over to books, including second hand ones, so I thought I would saunter along. Not that I need anymore given 5 boxes of books are in storage at the moment....

The complex has several floors with a central atrium that is open to the elements.  There are a few bookstores, some English, a large number Chinese.  And there are specialised bookshops too-school books, medical books etc. And there are the art supply stores, the music stores.  But little else. Something about it stirred some dim memory of childhood, I had a sense of deja vu but couldn't recollect a similar place. Was it in Delhi?

On the first floor there is a shop called Cat Socrates, named after the owner's cat. I have been to many a lovely knick-knack place but none as adorable as this shop. Partly I think because it's charm is not studied, you are just as likely to stumble upon a linen tunic as a hand made magazine.

The rest of it was good for a meander.  There is a very good second hand bookshop which for some reason stocks even ordinary titles at higher prices. My new copy of The Makioka Sisters that I bought in Sydney was cheaper than a copy here.  It didn't seem to be a rare or special edition too. There is a graphic book store.  And three floors of Popular....er...the most popular, well at least, ubiquitous bookshop here.  Several things struck me. One browsing shops is not as tiring as in a mall (and definitely not as disorienting) in this - I am guessing - 70s kind of layout. For one it is not closed, second the same handful of shops do not stare back at you. Though there is a food court adjacent to the complex, it is in fact refreshing to not stumble into cafes now and then (I reckon the first six months here even a non-foodie would be tempted to sample everything but post this food fatigue must set in in this town).

 

I did end up buying a few books, at 4 for 10$ it was hard to resist.  And I am just finished with the first, At Fault. Its an e-book but I still prefer the dead tree version:) And I feel soothed when walking around bookshops, when I hold one in my hand.

Just a few minutes walk away there is the National Library.  They had a few events on but I suspect the best of it is in the book collections itself.  Perhaps some other day...

I more often than not end up taking photographs on my phone or a basic camera that I have and perhaps need a more sophisticated one, I have certainly been urged to.  Initially I meant to photograph as many suburbs as possible.  But it isn't always possible. For one, I find it difficult to take photographs here due to the light. In Sydney and Mumbai it is entirely different, here the humidity seems to provide a pervasive film through which one views the world. And if you simply want to photograph small moments, the moments are fleeting and serendipitous.  Only once in a while does it all feel right. And on one day it was absolutely right. So next post on a day it poured and I went for a walk.