Really back in Adelaide now. Urgh. Any initial happiness on my homecoming has been drastically overshadowed by the severe urge to claw my brains out as a result of the sheer URBANITY of Adelaide.
I spent alot of my time trying to convince people overseas that, no, really, Adelaide was a fine place to live in. I think it probably still is, and maybe later when I calm down, I’ll believe myself too.
When I got to the boarding gate in KLIA (Kuala Lumpur –> Adelaide), I was greeted by the sight of a milling crowd of caucasians who were oh so fat large in size and stature (seems like my perspective has changed after being among those skinny asians). The Australian accent floated throughout the room as I took a seat and marvelled: it was rare enough seeing a fellow Australian in Hong Kong; and most people had not even heard of Adelaide. Suddenly being in the midst of so many *Adelaideans* was …already sort of a homecoming.
Maybe the reason why I feel so discomfited is because…I’m still not home. I’m not Chinese enough to be a Hongkee, I’m not white enough to be an Australian. Where do I belong?
——-
I watched Constantine (Gabriel and Lu are such interesting interpretations), Johnny English (painful at times seeing Rowan Atkinson making such a fool of himself -_-), a documentary on the founder of IKEA (I love IKEA!), and the first half hour or so of “It has to be you”, some Hong Kong movie with Ekin Cheng in it (the only reason why I watched it). Ekin Cheng looks adorable in his thick-framed black Hongkee-style glasses ;D.
I wanted to get the most value out of my flight so I spent all my time using the personal entertainment system, and didn’t sleep. It was an overnight flight (10pm - 6am), so even though it was only 6 hours, I was still pretty shot when I arrived.
Adelaide airport is one of the few airports left where you actually have to walk on the tarmac between the plane and the airport. It’s quite quaint. I quite like it.
But it’s winter now, and it’s COLD at 6am.
Customs in Australia is a pain in the arse. But don’t blame the officers, they are only doing what they are told. My customs officer seemed to think it was slightly rificulous to charge GST on something that one bought overseas, and which has already been used for a few months. I only just avoided get taxed GST on my laptop. Which is a good thing because I had absolutely no Australian currency at all (I did have RMB1.10, a few baht, HK$6, SGD$7 and RM$40).
I got too used to hard beds overseas (St John’s mattress = wooden board with a layer of fabric). So my soft bed at home, consisting of a spring mattress and a futon on top) actually gave me a backache. Cracked it last night, so at 6am I was pulling out my spring mattress. Now it’s just futon on the floor. I remember last time I didn’t do it this way because it was too hard. But this is nothing compared to STJ -_-. Mattresses and futon are deceivingly heavy and horribly bulky.