Anaesthesia dreams

Well, well. Perhaps sevoflurane has damaged my brain... or perhaps I just have had more sleep since studying less, but I've been dreaming a lot recently.

The one where propofol doesn't work.
I'm in one of the anaesthetic bays at RPA, working with an older consultant who I don't recognise. He's grey and grumpy, constantly muttering under his breath and not talking to me much.

The patient in the bed is a young Chinese woman who doesn't seem to speak English. She has about 10 relatives around the bed, all dressed in white patient gowns with malaligned theatre caps resting comically on their heads. She is talking rubbish in Chinese, and her relatives are trying to talk sense into her "everything will be all right, you are going to have an operation now". Suddenly she sits up, grabs the handrails tightly and tries to jump out of the bed, but her relatives manage to talk her into lying down again.

I ask the consultant if I should ask the relatives to leave, and he snaps can't you see she's terribly encephalopathic! if you ask them to leave she will fall out of bed.

We get ready to anaesthetise her, but he gestures we should not approach with the oxygen mask for fear of making her go mad and get out of bed again. He injects the entire syringe of propofol (at which point I think.. that's a lot of propofol) and we wait for her to fall asleep. Nothing happens, and her relatives look at us anxiously while the patient continues to babble in Chinese. I check the drip and it's running well. The consultant asks for more propofol and I draw up another ampoule, which he gives promptly. I feel nervous that we have given this woman so much propofol, but she continues to grab the handrails, pulling herself up and trying to swing her legs over the side of the bed.

By this point the relatives are looking quite nervous and start talking amongst themselves. The boss shouts at me for more propofol, and I draw up the other 3 ampoules in the box. He injects all 3... and thus the patient has had a whole box of propofol. I start trying to figure out how many milligrams that is... 1g! 

As the woman thrashes on the bed, one of the transplant surgeons (MC) walks in and he immediately starts complaining: you morons! how am I supposed to do this liver transplant? under local anaesthesia??

Liver transplant.. liver transplant...  I think in the dream, all the pieces falling into place. I say to the boss - she must have a veno-occlusive disorder which has caused liver failure and also blocked the SVC, so the propofol can't get into her circulation no matter how much we give. We need to do an inhalational induction..

He gets very angry and says - inhalational induction for a transplant! that's ridiculous!! and MC says wait a minute, maybe we can just thrombolyse her and not have to worry about the transplant..

Then I wake up. 


The one where the world is at war
In this dream, I am standing at a busy harbour port, where there are hundreds of ships small and large. All around me there are people milling around, organising themselves, luggage and crates of stuff. Huge cranes loom in the distance, loading huge warships with containers.

It's night time, the sky is a peculiar inky dark blue and the atmosphere is surreal. Briefly I wonder where I am supposed to be, but I am swept up in a crowd and carried onto one of the giant ships. It looks so impossibly big that I wonder what it's for. I stand on the deck and watch the activity on the port from the other side, filled with this ominous feeling.

And then we pull away to sea, and soon we are in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by complete darkness. I stand for some time, listening to the waves crash up against the sides of the ship. Soon I see lights in the distance, and realise with a start that is the front line of the war. I don't know where this war is, or who the participants are, but I know that is the war.

People run out onto the deck, and organise themselves into groups. I try to anonymously blend into one, and am carried along with my group into a smaller raft like a lifeboat. There are about 10 of us, and we sit solemnly in our raft as we are lowered to the surface of the ocean. We hit the water with a splash, and the waves immediately start rocking our raft with a vicious violence.

We are carried closer and closer to the lights in the distance, and we see that they are huge warships engaged in heavy artillery fire. No one speaks, but we feel absolutely dwarved by these ships, being in such a flimsy little raft. We get so close to one that we are almost about to touch it, and finally a man asks is everyone ready?

Ready for what? I think. Then there is a massive explosion of light and noise, and everything is a white out.

When I wake up from the explosion, I realise I have survived a suicide bombing and I am lying in a hospital bed. I move my limbs and feel that I have no pain. No one is around so I gingerly sit up and feel my face, which feels intact. I swing my legs down and touch the cool tile floor, everything feels fine so I stand up. I feel intrinsically that something is wrong with me but I can't tell what it is.

I walk away from my bed, and as I walk into the corridor outside I am struck by the nauseating smell of rotting flesh and the strong disinfectant that attempts to cover the smell. I sink to my knees, gag and try to vomit, but nothing comes up. I stand up again and walk further down the corridor. At the end of the corridor there is an operating theatre, where a nurse is opening trays of equipment.

Thank god, someone is finally here. She says, and grabs me by the hand.


I'm a patient, I'm not here to work. I protest, trying to get away from her.

She turns around and looks me straight in the eye. Listen love, this is the war. All the anaesthetists in this hospital are no longer with us. We need you to anaesthetise this next patient, or the surgeon will have to do it.... and you don't want that, do you?

I swallow hard as I go into the bay and am faced with a mangled victim, guts hanging out by his side. I am wondering if he's still alive, but he groans weakly and I can see he's still breathing, though shallowly and rapidly. I check my equipment and give him some drugs. As I put the laryngoscope into his mouth, I realise I know who he is, and I'm so shocked that I am temporarily paralysed, unable to move.

The surgeon walks in and says, why have you stopped? he must be dead.

Then I wake up.

Dream: driving to work through the sea, and giant purple macaroons

In this dream I am driving to work. I'm dressed in my usual casual clothes so I must be going to do anaesthetics, and I'm driving alone in my little car.

It could almost be a scene from real life, but I quickly notice the differences. There's nothing on the side of the road at all - a landscape completely devoid of features. As such I can't tell where I am or where I'm going. There are also no cars on the road, and no lane markings on the road. It seems to go on forever, just a smooth grey skinny strip of gravel.

Just as I start to feel vaguely bored of this, a foamy wave catches the corner of my vision. I look over to the right but there is nothing there - I feel like I must have imagined it, and continue to drive. Soon it happens again, and again until I start to see little waves washing up on the side of the road. They look so small and unthreatening though, that I am not disturbed by this at all.

As I continue to drive, the waves seem to come a little closer, and soon I can see the sea, a shimmering mass of blue on both sides of the road. I marvel at the genius engineering of this road which allows me to drive through the sea.

Soon the waves start encroaching on the road and I think, hold on! this is not supposed to happen! This is the road, where cars drive. Waves are supposed to stay just where they belong, in the sea. The waves seem to be getting larger with each tide onto the road, and soon I am driving through patches of water, which don't seem to have any pull to them. Though the car doesn't seem to be moving away into the sea, I am alarmed and look up ahead.

I can see only the sea, a tall homogenous blue stillness that I cannot comprehend. I decide to go back home, but as I start doing a 3-point turn, I realise how silly it is to do a 3-point turn in the sea.

I am shifted in the next scene to a country town I do not recognise, but I think it may be in New Zealand. As I wander around I see an old fashioned butcher, a fruit &veg shop and a paper shop. I come to a shop with a sign "Everything is $5!" and decide to poke around inside. It's full of junk like a $2 shop, and I wonder how the price has gone up to $5 so quickly. I pick up a few kitchen utensils but put them back when I realise they are made of brittle plastic. There are a few American soft drinks like Dr Pepper, and bags of snacks I don't recognise. In the bakery section I see these macaroons which look nice, so I pick some up for a closer look. On closer inspection this pair of purple macaroons are positively huge, each the size of a discus and as tall as a big mac. They look grotesque, as if they were macaroon models that have gone wrong.

How do you fit your mouth around these? I think, and then am transported to the next scene within my own ICU. It's 7:30pm and I am trying to handover to the night registrar. We are standing in front of a ventilated patient hooked up to a bunch of things, obviously a complex patient as I am describing whatever it is that's wrong with the patient. After a few minutes I realise there is a look of utter incomprehension in this guy's eyes. I wonder if maybe he doesn't speak English, so I try to speak to him in Chinese, but all the words come out like pidgin.

This man no good, he die soon. Is the equivalent of my words. Then I wake up. 

Dream: seeking a mountain for a Tibetan sunset

I'm travelling in Tibet. The temperature is cool and I am in the mountains, but it's not somewhere I recognise. I'm at the bus station where people seem to be milling around, like they do in bus stations all over the world. There are lots of monks dressed in the traditional deep maroon robes, travelling solo or in groups.

I start talking to a few people who strangely all speak English. They tell me that there has been a massive revolt recently and that the roads are not safe. People are being pulled off the buses and shot randomly by the police. It's not safe to hitchhike, and as a foreigner taking the bus is not really an option.

I walk out of the bus station compound. Outside there is a straight long highway, reaching into the distance as far as one can see, into the fluffy white clouds. The sun is bright and fierce. I decide to walk because that is an option not involving taking a bus or hitchhiking.

As I walk along the highway I am struck by the barrenness of the Tibetan landscape. Hardly any vegetation survives up here, the ground is rubbly and brown. The air feels thin and I can hear my laboured breathing, the only sound in the stillness of my surroundings. No vehicles come up the road, no animals graze on the side of the road, and I am amazed I don't see any pilgrims.

After what feels like a long, long time, I come to a solitary wooden sign announcing the next village. Soon I come to another weather worn sign with a rudimentary map, which I study carefully. I know I want to get to a mountain to watch the sunset, but I'm not sure how far it is. The map shows the road diverging up ahead, with the left side going up to the mountain.

I look at my watch and it's 5pm, the sun is slung lowly on the horizon and I feel strangely energised, like I'm going to make it to watch the sunset! I walk ahead through the village, a collection of mud huts painted bright white with colourful window frames, like many Tibetan villages I have been through.

Further along the road, I see a collection of trees. Trees? I wonder, why are there trees in Tibet? Suddenly I'm amongst the trees, a densely wooded forest. The canopy is so thick that I am surrounded, overwhelmed by the fresh green scent of the forest and completely enveloped by darkness. I can barely make out the road.

After a few more steps, I look at my watch and the time is 8pm. I wonder how I could have taken so long to get to the forest, and acknowledge to myself that the sun has already set and I must go back to the village which I passed.

I come out of the forest and walk back along the barren road, this time in the darkness. In the distance I see the village with a few fires emitting thin trails of smoke, a homely comforting scene. Yet as I get closer, I hear the sound of excited voices. All of a sudden I am worried about a demonstration in the village, or perhaps the police have come to execute people?

I walk into the village and the first few houses seem to be deserted. Then I see a collection of several dozen people crowded around a makeshift platform, on which several people stand clutching microphones.

They call out: Welcome! Try Fanta's new flavour - cherry flavoured Fanta makes your day brighter! They are throwing cans of cherry Fanta into the crowd, and people scramble to catch the cans.

It's a trick, don't do it! I shout silently, and wake up.

Ramen club: Ramen Zundo

The first rule of Ramen club is: one shall eat ramen and only ramen.

Ramen Zundo in World Square is a small space in one of the side alleyways, the shopfront decorated with lanterns that are often seen in Japan. I had the Mount Chashu ramen - couldn't go past the cheesy name! It comes with a choice of base soups, this was the white (original tonkotsu). Black (with garlic oil), red (with chilli miso), soy and double (half tonkotsu with half chicken soup base) are also available.

The roast pork here is quiveringly divine with long strips of jellied fat that slide down well. The ramen base is thick but not as sticky as Gumshara's, stronger in flavour than the average tonkotsu. Though not quite traditional, I really liked how sprouts and cabbage injected some vegetables into the dish.

I like this one. Round one: success.

Dream: OJ in microwave = exploding broad beans

It is early morning in this dream, it is just becoming light outside. I'm heating up some orange juice in the microwave, except it's contained within a saline bag.

I contemplate the thought of vitamin C absorption by the bag once it's been microwaved, as it spins around.

Ding! it goes, followed by a whining shhhhhhh... noise. I open the door and the bag explodes.

My housemate is standing next to me and the top of his hair is completely blasted off, leaving the sides untouched. I can't help but laugh because it is so hilarious. Then I apologise profusely..

Then we are in the next scene, where we are sitting in a lecture theatre, listening to a talk comparing oral and IV contrast in cardiac surgery.

And I think - since when did they use contrast in cardiac surgery anyway?

Then we are walking home and the time is late afternoon. It has just rained and a pleasant scent of fresh grass is in the air. As we come to a corner, I realise that the house we live in is the house on this very corner.

It's a huge old wooden house with peeling weatherboards and chipped paint. Set slightly back from the street, there is a heavy hedge at the front which is made of broad beans. I marvel at these broad beans which are ripe and plump, almost like they are ready to burst out of their pods.

I can't resisting picking a pod and popping the beans in my mouth. It explodes in a sweet juicy mess and I exclaim to my housemate how delicious the broad beans are.

The police are coming! He says, nervously looking down the street. How will we explain the explosion this morning and all those broken windows? Panic grips his voice.

I think for a moment, and say maybe we can just tell them, that the broad beans got too ripe and we didn't have time to pick them, so they exploded!

Then I woke up.

Brisbane & Byron

You know you are in Queensland when the hospitals have banana vending machines, maybe it should have a big warning sticker on it for renal patients.

Fancy dark chocolate mousse cake with mandarin jelly from a French patisserie Le Bon Choix in the city.


When I typed "food Brisbane CBD" into google, Urbanspoon presented me with a top 10 list which I can't remember any of, but one immediately caught my eye - Bun Mobile! (Every time I said this out loud, someone would mishear this as bum mobile).

So on Friday night after our course, Johanna drove us around the burbs of Brisbane until we found the Bun Mobile.. and where else would it be parked but be outside Kevin Rudd's office! So we sat on the pavement outside KRudd's office and ate our fluffy white Chinese-style buns stuffed with burger fillings like pulled pork and beef with chorizo.. what a perfect Brisbane dinner.

The next day we went to Byron and stopped off in Gold Coast for lunch. This was the ridiculously crispy roti with smoked salmon and tahini yoghurt (their name, not mine), which was delicious if a little small..

When we got to Byron Bay, we ran down to the beautiful Tallows beach (at the Suffolk Park end), where the sun had migrated to just the right place on the horizon to give these lovely long shadows.

Sunset bathing the town in a golden glow.

Sunrise the next morning.

An almond croissant from the Suffolk Park bakery, where we discussed vaccination and obesity.. thought we might get stoned to death by all the hippies there!

Another view of Tallows beach from the lighthouse headland. At the lighthouse we saw so many whales it was incredible - there was a mother with a calf who were frolicking just a few hundred metres away from the shore, and some kayakers had gotten so close up to it I thought they might just get flicked by the whale.

Waffles with fruit, greek yoghurt and honey from the Byron markets.

We went up to Bangalow for lunch, which was such a lovely little town away from the hustle and bustle of Byron, which felt like it had grown way too big for its own good. We had trouble deciding between the Town cafe and Utopia, but in the end decided Utopia looked more airy and spacious. Our waiter was so ridiculously friendly I wanted some of what he was on.

This was the excellent handmade papardelle with chilli crab and basil I had there - it was so good it made me want to go home and make pasta myself.. more on that another day. 

Memories are so strange

If something happens, and you form a memory of it, but then you forget it completely and no longer have awareness of its very existence, does that mean that it's the same as if it never happened?
If you then remember it some years later, when you find something random that triggers the secret path to that memory, and it seems so hyperacute, how is it possible for that lost moment to surface so quickly?

Why is it that even if you try really really hard to hold onto something, you still inevitably forget some things that you really really don't want to forget, because it was part of you.. but it's gone, and there's nothing you can do about it.

I feel like Watanabe, except I'm not yet 37 and not yet experienced a descent into Hamburg, but the feeling is exactly the same.

As time goes by, it gets harder and harder to recall him. The sound of his voice, the feel of his skin, the warmth of the feeling of being in love. At the beginning, it took a second, then a minute, then several.. and now even with the utmost concentration it feels as if one is looking through a fog and those memories are fuzzy in the past. 

Now I understand why we desperately wanted to affirm that we loved each other, because somehow we knew it would come to this.. that we would forget, and that it would all fade. Like ripples on the surface of water, once it passes it's as if the ripples were never there. 

But they were, and you were real. I have just moved to another place in my mind.

Dream: a riot in East Timor and stroke diagnosis with kava

In this dream, I'm attending a conference on developing world medicine. The venue is in a large swanky hotel in Dili, East Timor - though it appears modern, on closer inspection it's actually somewhat rundown - bits of paint peel and there's light mould growing in the corners.

We are in the conference room, and whilst having a tea break, see on TV that it is the day of the Timorese election. There aren't many people at this conference - 20 at most including a handful of local doctors. We watch the TV together intently, as the votes are counted.

Suddenly the TV coverage switches to the street, where there are people protesting in the street. We decide to go outside to see what is happening for ourselves, but when we get to the lobby of the hotel, we find the heavy doors closed and surrounded by security guards.

I go up to my room and from its window, I can see people rioting in the streets. It looks violent, with the distinct smell of burning tyres and short bursts of gunfire. People lie in pools of blood on every corner, and police tear around with large gas canisters spraying groups of shouting men.

There is an announcement on the PA system for us to re-attend the conference room. When we get there, the man who appears to have won the election (against whom everyone is protesting perhaps?) is standing on the podium. He starts a long speech about how he, as the newly elected president, will bring peace and prosperity to the Timorese people. He is the owner of this swanky hotel and he plans to take western money spent at the hotel, and give it to the poor.

Bullshit, I think. Another dictator in the making.

Suddenly he collapses and lies motionless on the ground. A few of the doctors from the conference and I go up to the stage and check on him - he's breathing with a good volume pulse, but is profoundly unconscious.

We start debating how we should get him to a hospital for a scan of his head, as it looks like he's had a stroke. Two of the doctors start saying he needs a CT angio! no, he needs a MRI. Someone points out that there is no MRI machine in the whole country.

A local doctor comes up with the idea that he has an ancient X-ray machine he was using as a museum exhibit item at the conference, a sort of show-and-tell item. He thought that we could maybe use it to do a contrast study. Another doctor suggests that we could use the local kava, which is apparently extremely radio-opaque. One of the president's bodyguards produces a bottle of the stuff, which is crusted with dirt and looks extremely dodgy.

It is a white liquid as we pour it out and down a funnel into a long metal needle we have inserted into the president's femoral vein. The first doctor snaps the X-rays efficiently, and soon we have a handful of images which develop slowly much like film. When the pictures come out they look amazingly like CT scans and I immediately spot the basilar artery thrombosis.

Look, he has basilar artery thrombosis causing posterior circulation stroke! I say to the crowd. We need to get him to a hospital for embolectomy.

The security guards step in and say that there's no way we can take the president to a hospital. Then I wake up. 

Hiram: moving out of the nest

We went to pick up Hiram on a sunny Sunday when the Guide Dogs association had their annual open day. Hiram and his brothers & sisters were part of the dog demonstrations where the trainers showed them off for their maximal cuteness value.

Of course we wondered which one of them we would get! Afterwards we headed over to the puppy pen.

And there was one lazy puppy sleeping whilst the others played around him.

Then there were two.

And then there were three.

The fourth to come was particularly pale and we thought this was our one because the trainers told us we had a light coloured one.

One of the six puppies had already gone to their home, so this is all five that were in the pen at the time.

This lazy puppy didn't even wake up for food!!

Time for a drink.

Training to sit.


All along we thought we had the super white one, but I secretly wanted the one that was sleeping the whole time. In the end when we were about to take our puppy home, the trainer came and picked out the sleepy one and he was ours after all! Hiram said goodbye to his brothers and sisters, and came home with us.

2 recent dreams: A touchable cloud and anaesthesia for prisoners

A touchable cloud

In this dream I was at the resort on daydream island - I can picture it so well, with the faint disinfectant smell in the corridors, the slightly dark corners, the mild tang of mustiness in our room. Sim and I had attended the  bedside critical care conference here last year, and everything was just as I remembered it.

I was walking along the corridor in a hurry, and the place was deserted. I knew I had to get back to my room because I had to get changed to go on a trip to a beach somewhere.

As I walked, I realised I had no idea which room I was in, so I started looking around for something to prompt me. I walked past the stairwell where you can see the pool just next to the building, but strangely there was no-one in the pool. The sun shone brightly and the surface of the water glimmered.

I paused there for a second. The sky suddenly darkened and I looked up to see the rapid approach of a large rain cloud. It was thick, dense and grey, signifying the imminent onset of rain.

I thought for a moment that maybe our beach trip was going to be ruined. Then I realised the cloud was coming down towards the earth like it was going to smother the whole resort. It was moving sideways as well as downwards and as it got closer, I could feel a whoosh of cold air brush my face.

I reached out and touched the cloud as it moved past me. I could feel it just in my fingertips, a roughness that resembled unprocessed wool. Then I felt an edge and realised that I was holding the edge of the cloud in my hand.

Then I woke up.


Anaesthesia for prisoners
In this dream I'm moderately old, maybe around 50.

I receive an email from someone, which says that the newly elected government has deemed that prisoners have no human rights and thus will no longer receive free healthcare under this government. I feel suitably enraged.

The next scene, I am inside an operating theatre and I intuitively know that I'm inside a jail. Everything is absolutely ancient - the ventilator is operated with rusted levers and a bellows that sticks to the sides of the canister, there's halothane in the vaporiser, everything looks non-disposable.. It's a scene from the developing world of yesteryear.

I realise that I am working with a volunteer surgeon as a volunteer anaesthetist, and we are operating on a man's lung cancer. The surgeon tells me with great regret that the cancer is too far advanced and that he wouldn't be able to cure the man, but if he had been there just months before he may well have been able to complete the operation.

We exchange angry words about the government, and finish the case. We walk outside and join some other volunteer surgeons and anaesthetists, and discuss our next mission. As we leave the jail, it is quite dark outside. We go in separate cars to the next jail, and it starts raining along the way. I'm in the car with a handful of other doctors, but I seem to be only interested in looking out the window.

When we get to the other jail, it is on a hilltop surrounded by huge fences. I wonder if it's a super maximum security jail, then we pull up into an empty carpark. We look around for the entrance but don't seem to see any. The rain is quite heavy and we are all getting soaked.

Finally a guard points us around the corner, and when we get to the entrance it's actually a large noisy bar full of tourists. The entrance to the jail is through a bar? I think in the dream, but we need to be sober to keep operating.

Then I wake up.

Food: Brisbane

Weekend of relaxation and eating in Brisbane.

Gunshop cafe, West End

This was a super popular cafe and it was easy to see why. The decor was a little quirky with a few antiques strewn casually about the place. The front part is a cosy old room (the old gun shop), and the back an open space with a wall of strawberry pot plants, so cute!

 This was the standout dish: french toast brioche with maple syrup, crispy bacon and bananas. None of us were hardcore bacon fans, but the elements of crisp/mushy, sweet/salty really worked in this dish. 

Lamb cutlets for breakfast.. a little unusual but well paired with tasty tomato relish and bubble&squeak.

Salmon bagel with poached egg.


Chouquette, New Farm

A French patisserie with all sorts of tempting cakes and slices. We had strawberry tart, lemon tart and a chocolate caramel slice.


Two

 A little change to our usual cheap & cheerful eating style, this was serious sit down food with tablecloths and polished cutlery. This was their special dish, roast suckling pig which was served with roasted winter vegetables (including an impossibly intense caramelised carrot). 


Boggo Rd Jail markets

Have to love the name! Mostly a fresh food market, it sold lots of local produce and had an interesting selection of breakfast stalls. We had a Venezuelan arepa (corn cake) filled with pulled pork and served with hot spicy sauce, an okonomiyaki with local pork and eggs (so much cheesy goodness) and a Hungarian langos. What a delicious way to increase one's cholesterol - deep fried puffy bread topped with cream cheese, smoked salmon and herbs. 

Riverbend Books, Bulimba

As usual we ate too much, so had to stop for a drink and browse through the funky suburb of Bulimba. This iced coffee was at the Riverbend Books & Teahouse, where they had adorable magnolias in mini bottles at every table.

Yeshi Buna, Moorooka
We debated where to have our last meal, a late Sunday lunch. I had woken in the morning with a craving for injera, and so though my companions were pretty sceptical, we headed to Moorooka to search out African food.

This is apparently the place where many Sudanese refugees have settled, and it's pretty obvious they have settled in well. A group of young men were perched on the footpath playing dominos outside the Sudanese restaurant (spaghetti, chicken & chips - is that what they really eat in Sudan??). One of the shopping arcades held an Ethiopian bakery in which young people lingered playing cards. We went into a shop that sold all sorts of strange things imported from the Middle East, and the random collection (jeans, next to palm oil) made us wonder if shops were like this in Sudan.

We were grateful for the shopkeeper's suggestion that we try the restaurant next to the post office. I was highly amused to see that it's called Yeshi Buna, the name of a popular cafe chain in Addis Ababa. The place was super bright (yellow) and cheerful, with traditional Ethiopian eating tables scattered around simple normal tables. The owner was friendly and the food was homely, could not ask for more.

We had a mixed plate with meat & vegetable options - as in Ethiopia the tastiest were the lentil dish and the spinach dish. My friends didn';t like the injera, but it did take me quite a while to get used to it when I visited Ethiopia as well. This was a toned down version, hardly fermented at all with only a very mild sour taste. I was impressed that they even had breakfast options like firfir and chechebsa - I wish they were in Sydney so I could go there for breakfast! The coffee came served in the old school Ethiopian claypots, intensely strong and sweet, albeit without the popcorn that was served to other customers.

 

A tale of two water villages

The area around Shanghai is well known for its water villages, where people traditionally lived around a canal system. The water supplied all their needs, served as a form of transport, and most importantly contributed to the agriculture around the region, such that this became a prosperous area.

I first heard about all this 15 years ago when I was still in high school, back in China on a visit. A friend told me about taking an overnight trip to discover Zhouzhuang, and like so many other things it just got filed at the back of my mind. In the years between then and now, I've been to a number of water villages, most of which fell to tourism much before my visit. I never entertained the thought of visiting the "original" water village to open up to tourism, because I always thought it would be awful.

And it was, in the tacky Chinese way of being overcrowded with groups and megaphones, shops and touts, terrible food, rubbish everywhere..

Yet one could not deny the natural beauty of Zhouzhuang, with canals sprouting everywhere you turn and quaint old stone bridges connecting different residential areas.. I mean tourist shops.

People still live here in these old houses, but now the whole town caters only to the whims of tourists. These blue canvas-topped gondolas were everywhere, cluttering up the canals and creating mini gondola-jams. Looking away from the crowds, one could still find a little hint of nature.

  Ivy covering an abandoned house.

Pretty little flowers by the canal

Like so many things in China, some places are super "hot" and others near it might be just the same but no-one goes there because it's not famous. We went to Jinze, the town adjacent to Zhouzhuang, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much. Was I really the first person ever to think, hey maybe the town next to this place would be similar but not so touristy?? 

Apparently, I'm not so Chinese in thought, for we couldn't even find the village and had to stop in the "new town" to ask for directions to the "old town". 

We parked near the canal leading up to the entrance to the old town. As we approached the bridge, a local man came up to us and said (rather proudly): you can drive inside now! we've done up all the streets so cars can get in. 

Jinze is famous for its bridges, which are each attached to a temple. Many of the temples are now ruined, but some were being renovated when we were visiting. 

Refreshingly, there was no steep entrance fee (Y130 ~ $20 to enter Zhouzhuang) and the streets were practically deserted. A few old people came out of their houses to stare at us, and children played by the canal. 

A shopkeeper stopped us and directed us to the "gondola kiosk" which I was somewhat sceptical about (thinking it would be like every other gondola trip in south China). When we got there, the shutters were closed and a mobile number was scrawled across in red paint. When we called the number, the man told us to wait while he was finishing his meal. Our Chinese family friends complained about his lack of earnestness in moneymaking, but I didn't mind the idling by the river.

One of the bridges had been redone to be "modern" and it was interesting to see what the ideas of "modern" are. It's painted entirely in red, in contrast to all the other bridges in original stone or wood. Garish lion heads poked out of random beams, and the whole thing looked like it fitted better in a playground.

An old bridge

I'm pretty anti touristy boat rides, but this guy was enthusiastic as he showed us around. He told us he was the only boat operator in Jinze so far (indeed his business name is No. 1 boat of Jinze), and he was praying that the tourism trade would take off as it did in so many other water towns in the region. His wife came in at the end, made us all tea in their little shop and beseeched us to advertise Jinze to the outside world. It felt like the China of yesteryear, I couldn't believe we were merely 20km from Zhouzhuang..

Shanghai - a little nostalgia

I grew up in a grand old house in the heart of Shanghai's French Concession. No one knows how old the place is, but it was probably built during the period of French occupation and eventually fell into the hands of a rich businessman. After he and his family fled to Hong Kong, the government divided the house into ten separate living spaces and gave them out to various families. This is how my family came to live in this place in 1959.

The house has been crumbling for as long as I can remember - the walls peel, the floors creak and the space under the floors is occupied by all sorts of random animals from wild rats to wild cats. The pipes freeze over in winter and sometimes the water stops. Despite this, it has a real charm to it that perhaps everyone attaches to their childhood home.

 The original windows leading out to the deck

Spring is a beautiful season to be in Shanghai. The maple trees in the French Concession somehow escaped the exploding development of metropolitan Shanghai, standing stubbornly by the roadside as they have done for many decades.

Looking down the street near my house.

Alley near the German consulate on my street

 

 I wonder who carved my street name on a tree?

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