I've been in Australia for four months now. Almost as long as South Korea. And in a similar unfolding of events, I'm beginning to feel like part of the local culture. Getting a feel for it. Not really Korean. Not really a born and bred resident. But I can now read all their letters even if I can't quite understand the actual words or meaning.
My hotel is quite nice although every Monday I’m expected to pay something. Must be some sort of exorbitant cleaner’s fee but I’m yet to see a small lady holding any sort of cleaning object and no-one has made my bed since we arrived. Odd.
Speaking of ‘we’, I seem to have mislaid the entire company and there’s nothing in the foyer to tell me where the show is on. Deano must be making a motza in understudy loadings. I’m surprised no-one has tried to text or Whatsapp me and yet I feel strangely liberated by the lack of attention. Unusual for me.
I’ve become very adept at finding my way about and there’s a ring of familiarity about it all. I’m wondering if it reminds me of Lisbon or Tel Aviv or – a long shot – Derby? I seem to recall certain streets and then quietly chuckle at my funny old brain while my Uber driver looks at me askance. Before I tell him not to look at me.
There’s a beach very near the hotel (boutique hotel methinks considering the size of the rooms) which has been wonderfully distracting, although now the weather is colder I tend not to swim. In the pristine waters. That lap the white sand beach. There’s a strange object floating a few hundred metres out from shore and I’m told it’s a very modern Shark Guard. Anything longer than a metre and it sends a signal to a lifeguard or nearby marine biologist or, one could hope, Tarzan. Hope Steve from the lighting department hasn’t been swimming and if he has I hope he’s not been speared, drugged or taken to some zoo. Then again, maybe he likes zoos. I never asked.
Like the Koreans, the Australian people love to meditate and then get drunk to the point of vomiting and texting ex-lovers about how much they still love them or give them a new angle on why they should accept that they were and are still cunts. It’s so popular they’ve found it helpful to pass some laws. You’re not allowed into certain bars after midnight but if you’re already in the bar you can stay. (Sounds a bit like ‘Les Mis’ re-cast week.) And you’re not allowed to buy shots after midnight either. (Sounds like every rigid theatre bar I’ve ever been in except that one where I broke the whole stereo system trying to reach the Sambuca. That was a fun night.)
Possibly the most brilliant thing about being in this country is the coffee. I’ve found a café right by the beach that does a soy flat white that is consistently miraculous. Right up there with God’s ability to impregnate virgins without getting his willy anywhere near them. So...both impressive and enough around which to base a whole religion. In fact, I think more people go to beach-side cafés here than church, so I suppose that makes it a kind of religion. But not a real religion. For example Jedis or Mormons.
For the first couple of months I discovered one of the local cuisine staples and became fond of it very quickly. The Meat Pie. Or ‘A Bag of Lips, Dicks and Arseholes’ as I’ve also heard it called. This being a reference to the lottery-like nature of what might be inside the pastry. Either way I was getting too big for my silver boots and jump suit (assuming I ever track down where the bloody coach leaves from) and so have returned to The Gym. My waist is thinning and my chest and shoulders are growing. I was even winked at the other day and then noticed it was a mirror. But as every gym-goer knows, that still counts.
And yes, for those of you with minds in the kerb-and-guttering of life, there has been some romance. Or as we like to call it in online dating world: Filth. Nothing to write home about and so I won’t. I’m genuinely considering removing myself from every single app and going analog. There’s some low joke in there about ‘Who put the **** in analog?’ but as everyone knows I loathe crudity.
Which reminds me. The local people just had a federal election. It’s so close there will probably be a hung parliament. Absolutely NO ONE is making jokes or puns with that gold mine of an expression. I may as well be in Korea.
Aanyong hasseyo for now.
(Massive penis.)
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