Back in Melbourne

After sleeping for 16 hours straight yesterday, I went out and had dinner with Jesse at Shanghai Dumpling, followed by coffee at one of the greek cake shops on Lonsdale. A Late night bicycle courier (or perhaps he was just insane and liked dressing up like a courier) recommended a type of greek vanilla slice for virtue of being "softer than a womans breastmate" . Possibly there have been times throughout history when a japanese person has told another that such and such a sweet could be likened to a womans breast for the quality of its texture, but its nice to be back in an english speaking country again.

Went to a club near chinatown that took three attempts for my brother to remember what lane it was in. the club was called eurotrash, inside, the habit of taking photos of yourself without any sign embarssment seemed fashionable, while acceptable conversation topics limited to talking about yourself or other people, in a fake bored ambisexual way and when that runs out of steam, take another photo of yourself. To put it simply they were a cunts. sometimes those bad words come out of me. sorry

Today i spent most of the morning talking to mum. i like talking to mum. She laughs occasionaly but usually doesnt pretend to be the slightest bit interested in a word your saying while she goes on with her sewing and i crap on about thai girly bars , work problems, my students, neurotic americans and good lsd trips. she doesnt talk about herself and what other people are wearing any more than a decent person should and she doesnt stop the conversationan to take photos or say "YEAH..PARTY!"

And now im off to meet Ronan, another person i like talking to, he sounds more and more like a mild mannered museum curate everyday.

Shopping Malls in Thailand

After catching a 9 hour overnight bus from ko tao island and arriving in bankok in the wee hours this morning i have decided to opt out of the traffic jams and heat and spend my afternoon in the air conditioned Emporium Shopping Centre in the Sukhumvit district.

I have two and a half days left in Bankok with absolutely nothing to do and Im trying to stay as far away from temples and backpacker areas as possible and perhaps get an idea of what living in this city might be like for an extremley wealthy thai person.

First stop was a international supermarket which was about as pointles as you would expect when you have no intention of buying anything. The bus ride and possibly an lsd trip from five years ago left me seeing small flickers of light in the corner of my eyes and thinking about buying a huge jar of olives.

I decided to sit down in starbucks and do some people watching which would no doubt be enahnaced by the veritable light show in my minds eye. As people around me came and went I noticed I was as likely to overhear conversations in Japanese or English than Thai. Frustrated by the lack of culturtal insight that could be gleaned from drinking starbucks inside an air conditioned shopping mall I picked up a Thai english newspaper and read a fairly interesting article about how many serviced apartments and upmarket realestate agents run by thai businesses refused to rent to thai people on the grounds that they are too unreliable and often dont pay the rent. The conclusion was that althought this consitituted a breach of thai law, no one had bothered to object because it was all too much effort. Add Lazy to unreliable and stingy and I was beggining to get the idea that the Thai were my kind of people.

The positive side of this neo colonial rascism I read on was that, as is the case in Japan, there is a certain type of Thai woman who takes an interest in the Faran men (whether the word comes from France or Foriegn im not sure but its baciclly the same as Japanese word Hakojin = white person = little old me). The article was based on the confessions of a Thai university student who admitted she preffered Foriegn men even the ugly onese. Reading this, I had a Eureka moment, threw my newspaper down decided my mission over the nextcouple of days is to find this woman.

My only other plan involves taking photos of lampshades from various angles in my hotel room and reading Hanif Kureshis Buddhist of Suburbia.

I hate timed internet use.