Crowded House in Oakland

So this post was going to be about finally seeing in person the soundtrack to my last 11 years, and how awesome that was. Little was I to know the Crowded House concert in Oakland wouldn't be the most exciting thing to happen that night.

Anyway, I need to go back to '96. Legendary Aussie band Crowded House breaks up just as they are reaching the height of their fame and I am at the wrong end of the country when they play their farewell gig on the steps of the Opera House. I console myself with their Greatest Hits album, Recurring Dreams.

It would be the first time of many that that CD would do the trick. Through heartbreak, homesickness, loss and disappointment across three continents, there wasn't much a good cry and those tripping melodies couldn't remedy. Singer/songwriter Neil Finn just has a way of making depression delicious again.

Having reformed earlier this year at the Coachella festival, Yen and I were excited to finally be able to see them in concert–we had been too young to appreciate them live the first time round. So it was with a mixture of awe and anticipation that we headed to the beautiful Art Deco Paramount theater. We were clearly a good decade or so younger than most of the audience, and two of the maybe five Asian people there, but we know all the words and no one was bloody going to stop us using them!

Standing in the nosebleed seats, I finally got to use all of them. Being part of the 3000-strong audience singing "Better be home soon" acapella, was really one of the most sublime magic kind of sparkling moments I've had in awhile. If it is even possible, I am even more in love with those songs now. It must be one of the great joys in life to have people sing back the song you wrote. Apart from the obvious, it must majorly rock to be in a rock band.

After tripping out of the theater on a high from that, things took a sudden turn for the worse. Actually we got snapped off our cloud nine so fast we got whiplash, because when we got back to the car, it looked like this:

Some thugs had smashed the back window and rifled through everything. A young couple two cars in front were picking through the broken glass in their back seat as well. We called the police, but Oakland is a really bad part of the Bay area and they have bigger problems than a few vandalised cars. Bizarrely they took my cash-less purse, but left my Coach handbag, made off with the parking change but didn't notice the iPod shuffle!

Not that we were really laughing. With no window the ride home across the Bay was bloody freezing. Then there was the excitement of calling insurance to file a report and Singapore to cancel my cards. We did feel slightly CSI when we fished the screwdriver they had discarded off the seat with a tissue and put it into a zip loc bag! Not that anyone from the police dept would care to print it or speak to us or give us the time of day or anything.

I slept as usual though. Fear is exhausting.

Hard Partying

So amazing what hours of primping can do...for other people. We, on the other hand, rolled out of bed like this.

Partying in SF is not so much entertainment as an endurance test. Firstly, no matter what weather it's like near your house, or how cute your new dress is, a cardigan/jacket/both is required to brave the squally winds and b*tch of a fog in the city. Then there's the inordinate stress of finding the place. As head non-driver, I am constantly struggling with different retarded GPS systems. After that whole palaver, there's driving round and round for a park. Shouting and cursing at every godforsaken imbecile who takes one ahead of us. Then, finally, after the stars have aligned and a human sacrifice made, a space is found and the whole car erupts in a self-congratulatory cheer.

Mind you, we're still two blocks from the place. There's still picking your way through the unusual streets–here a posh new office block, there an alley populated by various homeless people and surly old security guards (is there any other kind?). Once accomplished, belly up to some bar small enough to fit into the private rooms at Zouk.

Aaah San Francisco. How much do I love thee?

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Graffiti Book Launch

One of the fake titles I place after my name is 'travel writer' and one of the publications helping to keep the facade in place, is the Graffiti Travel Guide: Singapore. It's a collection of locals writing about places they love in Singapore, set out in an arty kind of way. I wrote a shopping spread for it (but can't show it yet, cos still waiting on the PDF) and they're having the big launch party this Friday in Singapore which I'm very sad to be missing. There's going to be much alcohol and government-approved spray painting; a combination I just don't see often enough.

If you wanna go, email me for the rsvp number, and here's the cute invite:

And here's some of the other inside spreads:

I can't wait to get my copy in the mail!

Back from Yosemite

Am interrupting my Harry Potter reading time to let you know I got back from Yosemite in one piece. There's something about communing with nature that..well...ack I got nothin. It looks the same as the time I was there last September. We did go on a 7km hike though, which we didn't do last time (w00t!). I must say the views were worth it. Enjoy!

On top of Sentinel Point

Valleyscape

Merced River–some of the very little water that was flowing at this dry time of year.

Not the only one struggling with the heat.

Aaaah, nothing like a long walk to make you feel like jumping off a cliff.

Summer in the Bay

Hello my lovelies,

Oh how I've sucked at posting this month! Mucho sucketh. I promise I've been busy and not just bone-arsed lazy. Well, mostly anyway. The thing is, it's summer now. Apparently that's a cause for celebration. In Australia, there is vicious amounts of sunshine, causing one to have a guarded respect for it; all Aussies know the dangers of skin cancer. Here, however, copious amounts of mostly weak sunshine makes walking about fun, and makes all food taste better on a paper plate.

On the 'travel' front, I've been over to Half Moon Bay twice. I use the quotes because it's not really out of town, though it does feel like it.



Just 15 minutes west from us, and on the coast south of San Francisco, is the little town of Half Moon Bay. It's cute like the way you imagine American seaside towns to be. Even though there's only one road through the hills to it, causing huge bottlenecks at peak times, people still commute from there. Once you get over the hills it's no longer a suburb in the Bay area but a country-style escape—market gardens and flower farms and such. I guess I can see why some would think it's worth the hassle.



The photos above are from the front garden of a lovely and bizarre antiques shop in town called 'Half to Have It', which is bursting at the seams inside with all manner of vintagey goodness. Those birdhouses above are made in China though, muahaha.

Meanwhile, we were also quite chockful of activities in the 'Sitting on a blanket outside' category. Actually Yen and I have become quite pro at packing a picnic.


First up was the radio-sponsored 'Summerthing' concert at Golden Gate Park, featuring the musical stylings of Everclear and Smashmouth. They should have called it 'Remember those guys from the 90s?'


Yen, me and Yee striking a pose—you really got to entertain yourselves whilst waiting for a song you recognise.


Next up, 4th of July fireworks. There was no national anthem or music of any kind actually. The fireworks were big, but kind of random. What's up with that? Also there seems to be a much shorter minimum distance from crowd to firework. I was stoked to be right under the exploding sky, but the jury's still out on my hearing.


Then a trip out to Tomales Bay, north of the city, for cheap oysters by the water. It takes either one and a half or two and a half hours to get there, depending on whether you Google the right place or not(!) Suffice to say the long and windy car ride left me unsociable. I am only smiling here because they have oyster knives in my back.


Finally, the piece de resistance, the Stern Grove festival. It's a concert series held in a large-ish umm ..grove..in the city. We saw Lavay Smith and a New Orleans jazz band, and the SF Symphony Orchestra here. Because it's a smallish space, you have to go early to stake your claim on some real estate and watch a lot of shirtless men before the music. Awesome.

My most exciting news is this most rubbish picture. I know you can't tell, but I had a cut and colour as a hair model for the first time ever. Being skint will do that to you. I wasn't sure whether I'd have to start wearing hats afterwards or not, but both my trainee stylists did great jobs. They were at big name salons, so they had very good seniors supervising them. It takes longer than it might usually, but it's so worth it. Colour was US$30 and cut US$15. Bargain, no?

Actual conversation:
Me: Hi, can I make an appointment for a cut and colour?
Apprentice: Is it virgin?
Me: Excuse me?
Apprentice: Is your hair virgin?
Me: Ummm. Yeah, it's uncoloured.
Apprentice: Ooh great. it's really hard to find virgin hair.
Me: I see...

Lookit! My book cover on Singapore TV!

Just to prove I haven't been faffing around getting attached to the couch.