Sydney ADO

The 25th anniversary concert of the Australian Doctors Orchestra, at the Chatswood concourse over 3 - 5 November 2017.
Shostakovich - Symphony 10 
Rodrigo - Guitar concerto 
Ravel - Bolero 

Sri Lanka: Food and supermarkets

I always wanted to visit Sri Lanka - the civil war made it unsuitable to visit in 2008, and since then it has just been lurking at the back of my mind. All the Lankan food I've eaten, whether home made or in a restaurant, has always been delicious. So I was glad to finally have the opportunity to visit for a week.

Tourism in Sri Lanka is absolutely exploding at breakneck speed. Every place I went to was building guesthouses like crazy. Along with tourists is the development of the idea that tourists will pay anything even if it is absurd compared to local prices. There are plenty of hole-in-the-wall places to eat in Sri Lanka (except in Galle Fort, that is just Disneyland), but most tourists do not venture into them. Tourists prefer cleanliness, menus and cutlery - hence the tourist restaurants are all very overpriced.


Rice and Curry 

The mainstay of Lankan food is "rice and curry", which really doesn't describe anything. A mound of rice comes with any number of curries (usually 3 or 4) that reflect what is fresh and in season. There is always dal, often coconut sambol, and then vegetables.

The very first rice & curry outside Fort railway station. Delicious okra and eggplant. This delicious lunch set the bar incredibly high as I had no idea none of my future meals would be so cheap (120R = $1)!

One of the best - at Matey Hut in Ella. Top left is a whole cooked mango! At this restaurant the levels of spicy are - not spicy, Western spicy, Asian spicy, Lankan spicy. 

Another fine example from Ella - sweet eggplant, beetroot and jackfruit seeds 

A tourist restaurant standard "banquet' with lots of little curries - this one is from Mama's restaurant in Galle Fort. 

Kottu Roti

Another popular food / snack is the kottu roti. Here the roti - thin doughy pancakes - are added to a sizzling hotplate along with chopped veggies (usually onions, leeks, cabbage and carrot) and an egg. I often saw cheese on tourist menus but I wonder how authentic that must be.

As the whole lot is frying, the kottu man uses two giant choppers to slice everything up very finely - like a fried rice but fried roti. The rhythmic clatter of the choppers on the hotplate is what alerts you to a kottu place - there is no sound like it in the world!

My first kottu roti from a roadside restaurant in Mirissa

String hoppers

I actually didn't see string hoppers all that much, the only time I had it in Lanka was this lunch in Nuwara Eliya, ladled over with a glug of yellow curry sauce and a plop of the ubiquitous coconut sambol. The jackfruit cutlet in the corner is one of the tastiest things I ate in Lanka.

So spicy, so tender, so delicious. Immediately ate another two. 

Breakfast

I'm not really sure what Lankans eat for breakfast, but there were plenty of bakeries where people bought (mostly very white) bread and sweets. I found most sweet things way too sweet for my liking - obviously the locals have a way sweeter tooth!

Here is a typical breakfast - all fried, delicious and unhealthy. A fish roll and a cutlet of egg and mystery bits. 

Egg roti from Dewmini roti shop in Mirissa - super famous but somewhat bland.

Thosa - spelt like dosa, but nothing like dosa. It is also a fermented rice crepe but it is made more like an uttapam. Served with the very Lankan coconut sambol and very "Indian" sambhar, almost like a subcontinental fusion food!

Another dosa. Pretty, but it made me sick... Gotta love the help yourself buckets though

Other miscellaneous eats

Whole grilled fish rubbed in delicious spices, at Mango shade in Tangalle - one of the tastiest meals I had in lanka. 

 Snackies on the bus

 Strange looking sweets 

Random Supermarket photos

 

 Cos we all need a knife with our lentils

 Essential purchase for the hot weather!

 Instant noodles, Lanka style

Who doesn't love a prawn-flavoured non-prawn? 

Sri Lankan vegemite? 

 I eventually figured out devilled = spicy 

Four Sri Lanka dreams

Kung Fu Panda and the egg emoji

In this dream I'm using the maps app on my phone, and when I pressed the "localise" button it zoomed into Taiwan. I thought that was a little odd since I'm pretty far from Taiwan.. The little blue dot turned into a panda icon, and zoomed in until I could see it was actually Kung Fu panda. It started kicking something around, and it quickly went from country to country between cartoon characters.

There is a pause in the dream, and I find myself on a bus. It looks like a typical Sydney bus with the mosaic blue fabric covered seats. I'm on the bus with Tracey Ying who I haven't seen for so many years now. She's telling me about a trip she just did to Peru where they went around and ate all this amazing food. As I'm listening to her describe the food I felt this major sense of FOMO -  how wonderful would it be to go to Peru to eat! 

I ask her what her favourite place in Peru was, and she says, actually it was a Japanese Peruvian fusion place called Mabuki. The name sounds familiar but I struggle to remember the context. She starts to tell me about all the amazing fresh fish she ate at Mabuki, and my mind wanders. She says that it was great I could understand the love of fresh fish, as everyone other person she had told, had simply sent her an egg emoji.

I couldn't understand the link between Japanese food, Mabuki and the egg emoji. And anyway, in the dream I had reached my stop to get off the bus. The bus made a left turn and pulled up at the Rexalls on the corner of Queen & University - the Rexalls I used to go to all the time in Toronto. Tracey stood up with me and gave me a hug in the doorway of the bus. It was quite awkward, especially since after we let go we were both stuck in the doorway, unable to move.

Then I wake up.


Heartbroken stranger and the subway to the city

In this dream I am standing at an intersection. It looks quite busy with lots of cars coming and going, so probably in the middle of the city though I'm not sure which. A tall dark handsome stranger comes up to me and greets me in a friendly way to make me think that he knows me somehow. He doesn't introduce himself and I don't know who he is.

To be polite I ask him how he is after he asks me how I am. He bursts into tears and says that he just broke up with his partner two days prior and was in extreme pain. He is sobbing uncontrollably and I instinctively reach out to comfort him, though I do not even know who he is. He says he is working on some sort of app to numb the pain of breakups and I wonder - is that even possible? or advisable?

The awkward moment is broken by a small Japanese girl carrying a large backpack, who comes up to us to ask for instructions. She is looking for the train station to go to the city "to see things". I wonder what things she means. I look down the street and I see there are two entrances. I tell her that the one closer to us is the long distance train station, and that she wants the one further from us leading to the subway. She thanks us and walks towards the subway.

I look at the stranger again and wonder if he is one of the European critical care fellows, but then I know that he does not exist.

Then I wake up.


Maggots on the desk

Rarely do I have a dream that is so definitely localised in place. I am in the room I stayed in at the Rock view guesthouse in Ella, and the desk is exactly the one I had in the dream.

In the dream I am frantically clearing the desk of the things on it. Everything is crawling with maggots in various stages of development. The stench is awful and they seem to be reproducing in front of my eyes. MP the research nurse is helping me, mostly by encouraging me "don't look, just sweep it into the bin", "come on! you can do it!" 

There are lots of paper bags on the table and they are all crawling with maggots. I push them into the large plastic rubbish bag, holding my breath in the process. There is a piece of matcha cheesecake as well, which I also shove in.

Finally finished, MP staples the bag to a large cardboard box (like the ones used for moving) and I take it outside. As I'm walking away she calls out after me don't forget to bring the box back! We need it for more cleaning.

I walk to the bins along a muddy path dotted with stepping stones. I am pretty much covered in mud by the time I get there and dad is there - he says, be calm, grandma isn't with us anymore. 

Then I wake up.


Tree missing limbs and a wrongly authored book

In this dream I am so excited to see my friend B has published a book along with 3 other co-authors. It seems to be a book about current disasters in the world, each written as a short story of 3-4 pages. The book is printed in blue & white and I wonder why the colour scheme is that way.

I look up at that moment and see the most peculiar tree. It is huge with a thick trunk suggesting it is quite an old tree. The top of the tree seems to be normal with a dense canopy of leaves, but the bottom half of the branches is completely missing. It looks like someone has chopped off the limbs at the point where they join the trunk. The sight is most strange, and when I look closer I can see white flowers at the top of the tree.

What resilience. I think to myself.

At that moment Joz comes along with a bag of spicy nuts and offers me a hazelnut and a brazil nut - I take the brazil nut and she says Good choice! and walks away.

I get out my phone to take a photo of the weird tree, and I cannot make it focus. I look at the book again and now it seems as if the authors have completely changed - B is no longer one of them.

Then I wake up.

Dream: escape from boxes

This dream occurred in Sydney, during this strange blurry week after Thailand.

It starts in a house that I do not recognise. I am there with M and soon we see that the house will be open for inspection soon. He says we should go somewhere so as not to be in the way, so we go into the garage.

Inside there are many boxes stacked almost to the ceiling. We climb onto some boxes and sit there chatting. An older couple comes in with a tape measure to measure the dimensions of the garage. They ask if we will buy the house and we say no.

After they leave, I decide I want to get down from the boxes. I get to the edge and look over - the ground looks like it's suddenly very far away - 2 or 3 storeys? M is saying something which I don't catch - is he telling me to jump or not jump?

I feel afraid and my heart pounds like crazy. I psyche myself up to jump and close my eyes. All I feel is a musty stillness. Then I jump and wake up with a start. 

Dream: lost in the tunnel

The dream starts with the utterly heavy knowledge that Emily is dead. I don't know how I know this, or how it came about, but I know it is true. It is the only thing on my mind for most of the dream.

I am in an underground tunnel. Isn't it funny how tunnels remove all evidence of the outside - one has no idea what season it is, the time of day, the weather, or even where one is. I am walking around in this tunnel without any direction, but with this vague sense that I need to be somewhere.

I am carrying a cello which I don't recognise. It has no case and no bow, I'm just holding it by its neck. In fact, I don't even know if it is a real cello, or maybe it's just something that looks like a cello. I am wearing my dark red coat, and I become aware of the fact that I am wearing nothing underneath.

I feel momentarily confused - am I on my way to the funeral? or to rehearsal? either occasion would feel awkward for me showing up like that.

I walk around several corners and am unable to find any clue to the direction I'm going in. I see some type of poster in the distance, which turns out to be a 3D map. It is no help though, as I don't know the name of what I am looking for. An exit, I think to myself, there must be an exit somewhere.

The signs are sometimes in English, and sometimes in Chinese. Other languages feature too, and it's not clear exactly which country I might be in. I see a L'Occitane store and go inside to ask the staff where the exit might be, but I can not understand whatever language they may be speaking in.

In one of the side branches of the tunnels, I find a stairwell. I go up the stairs and try the doors at each level, but they are all locked and I cannot get out. After a few flights up, I start to worry that I won't be able to get out where I came into the tunnel. At that moment, the door opens and I am in a hospital meeting room.

Gareth is standing at the head of the table, and some type of meeting is in progress. He is talking about capturing certain people as they come into the hospital. I start to sweat and feel like he might be talking about me. Still holding the cello, I back away slowly. I bump into the door, or where the door was, except now it has completely smoothed over and I cannot see where the exit is.

Right, I need to get to this funeral. I think to myself. Then I wake up. 

Dream: lost in the forest

This was a long and complicated dream.

It starts at a train station on a dark night - the clouds are hanging low in the sky and there is just a silvery glimpse of the moon through the clouds. I am on a platform waiting for a train to Coogee, but it is cancelled and I go outside to the Eddy Ave bus stop instead to get a bus.

While I'm there I have a serious case of disorientation - since when was there a train to Coogee?

I get on the bus and inside there is a meeting of various people. Some are my colleagues from Darwin and others from Canadia, a real mix of people. The bus is cleared of all the seats and there is a large oval table in the middle, around which everyone is congregated. I've arrived just as they are discussing the case of a 20 year old woman who presented with cardiogenic shock. The story sounds typical for Darwin - very young, very sick, unable to get to the right place at the right time, so they died.

Except one of the surgeons was making comments about how we limited her treatment, capping her treatment options so that she died. As I am listening to this, my blood begins to boil, millions of questions racing through my head. I stand up and start ranting about how it is grossly inappropriate to limit treatment for a young person, that they should be treated equally to how young people are treated in big cities.

Would she have had a better chance in Sydney? in Melbourne? I shout to the stunned group.

Then Ghislaine stands up and starts talking about the Emergency Department - but of course she doesn't work in Darwin! She talks about the limitations of working in scarcely resourced environments, and it feels strange because Toronto is hardly a place like that.

There is no end to this scene (or perhaps i have forgotten). The next thing I know, I am walking with a friend in the forest. It is impossibly green, the trees huddled so close together that there is almost no natural light. Looking up through the dense canopy, it's hard to tell what time of the day it is now. We are walking along a tiny path, scratched out in dirt between the trees.

We come to a house, and this is our destination. We knock on the door and an older couple come to the door. They are probably in their 50s, dressed in dowdy-ish clothes. They open the door wide and gesture for us to come in.

As I step inside, there is a sudden chill. The woman slams the front door shut behind my friend with such a violent force that the wind is knocked out of both our souls. We become frightened immediately. As I breathe in, it smells so musty that I almost choke. The man starts to drag me by the arm whilst the woman has grabbed my friend. My eyes find it difficult to adjust to the dim light, but as I am pulled towards the inner room, I see outdated furniture all around us - a blast from the past? The man pulls harder and I fall awkwardly. He is dragging me now, my feet catching on the threadbare brown carpet. We reach the door to the inner room, and he pushes me hard into it. My friend is pushed in as well, and I rush to the door to jam it open with my foot. The man puts his hand on the door to slam it shut, and I swing my bag (my blue Antler bag I bought at Winners in Toronto) at his head.

Whoosh. and I miss. It goes over his head - too high. He seems momentarily stunned, then laughs at me.
Whoosh. I swing again and I miss again. I stare at the man really hard, but I can't focus on his face. He laughs louder and the woman joins in again.
Whoosh. I swing as hard as I can, and the effort makes my vision blank out for a moment. But of course I miss a third time, and as I stumble backwards from the recoil, he slams the door and we are left in the dark inner room.

There is no furniture in the room at all, just the same brown carpet. My friend and I touch the walls together, hoping for some sort of defect. There is no window. The door is completely soundproof and doesn't even register the thuds of us banging on it. We sit down on the ground, feeling rather defeated. In the corner of the room, there is a single video camera.

I look straight into the lens of the camera, and I can see the footage it is taking of us - slightly grainy, dark blue, shadowy. The film is playing at the local pub, a Swedish pub? A bunch of men sitting in front of the bar watch us intently, waiting for our next step.

Are we in a reality show? Break out from the impossible room? I think to myself, and wake up.

The black cormorant

Two weeks ago, I returned from my strings group and found a dead bird on my balcony.

I had gone out to get my washing, and just next to the clothes rack, alongside the rack's simple shadow was a much larger shadow.

It didn't register in my brain for a few seconds - an actual bird with wings spread, dark (black?) against the white tile of the balcony. It was smaller than a pelican and larger than a seagull, not entirely evident what it actually was.

I heard someone screaming and realised it was me. I had picked up the broom and swept it off the side. Get it out! Was the only thought in my head. The second of contact was nauseating - the stiff bristles of he room against its soft lifeless body. It landed on the driveway below with a muted plop.

All of this happened in maybe five seconds, after which I felt awfully embarrassed about the screaming and the non elegant way I disposed of this poor bird.

The bird must be symbolic of something, I thought.
Life is not a Murakami novel, I repeated to myself every time I had the thought.

Nevertheless I read my favourite novel The Wind up bird chronicle yet again, enjoying the random but rich imagery.. meanwhile my friend looked up "black tropical birds" and identified it as a cormorant. So there it was, I had a black cormorant die on my balcony.

If life was a Murakami novel, it would have some symbolic meaning like some part of my life ended that day on the balcony. And perhaps it did.

A few nights ago, the black cormorant appeared in my dream. P was telling me about an elaborate ornate ceremonial knife that he purchased somewhere, which got confiscated by customs. He was furious that they wouldn't let him bring it in, citing all the clauses which it didn't fit under. I didn't really understand what he was saying but I listened anyway, whilst sitting on the balcony.

Near the gate to the apartment, a man was washing his car. Though I couldn't hear what he was singing (a pop tune of some kind), I knew instinctively that he was Thai. He soaped the car carefully using a large yellow sponge. The suds that fell on the ground he swept away with a broom. I watched him as he swept the suds a little at a time into the gutter - what an ineffective way that is! I thought.

The suds piled up more and more, until he was shovelling a pile, practically a wall of them. His broom struck something that made a silent sound - what was that? I squinted to see as he brushed around the object. It lay still, the soap brushing around it. Soon it was apparent that it was the black cormorant.. laying in the gutter covered in soap, being brushed around by the man singing whilst washing his car.

Then I woke up. But is it the end of the black cormorant?