Archive for August, 2005

Trip to Freo

We had a nice day in Fremantle yesterday, although it was overcast and vaguely drizzly for much of the time.

On arrival we went straight to the Fremantle Markets to say hello to the folks. It was quite busy when we got there so we didn’t hang around too much and made our way to Benny’s on South Terrace for breakfast. We each had a big breakfast (eggs, bacon, tomato, mushroom and sausage served with toast) and shared a pot of tea. After the frenzy of last weekend, it was nice to enjoy a breakfast that I didn’t have to rush around preparing.

After breakfast we waddled down the street and browsed briefly at Elizabeth’s. I’m surprised at how restrained I was - I didn’t buy anything!

M did, though. He picked up this book.

Perhaps one of the most sought-after and elusive conditions, the pursuit of happiness has been one of the central themes in human history. Yet do we even know what it is, much less how to attain it?”

(I didn’t need to think about what happiness is, yesterday. I just felt happy. Shucks.)

After the bookshop we wandered down the streets until we came to the Round House, a former gaol and now the oldest standing building in Western Australia. I was surprised that in all my years of visiting Fremantle, I had not visited it until yesterday! There were quite a few tourists there, including a small group of Chinese tourists who happily allowed themselves to be “locked” in the stockade to have their pictures taken.

From the Round House we went down to the Esplanade and decided to visit the Little Creatures Brewery. By this time I was really regretting not having brought the camera, because it would have been quite nice to have taken pictures of the place. Little Creatures is a so-called micro-brewery with a bar and restaurant set right in the middle of the actual brewery. So you can have your beer and food and stare at the huge tanks in which the beer is actually made. I had a middy of pale ale, while M had some Rogers’ amber ale. The flavours were excellent. They do a nice pilsner too. (Cherry, Mister might like to try it - maybe we should see if we can fit in a visit to Little Creatures when you’re here in September!) The place has a nice atmosphere and it was packed with people yesterday. Quite family-friendly too, with lots of groups of Mum, Dad, kids and grandparents having lunch.

On the way back to the markets and the car, we stopped in the park across the road from the brewery to look at the series of rally cars that had arrived in the short time we were in the pub. We joined a largeish crowd which had gathered to watch a team of middle-aged men dressed in Spiderman suits play with a series of ropes and pulleys attached to a Norfolk pine tree and a Mini car. They had great fun going up and down the ropes, pretending to be Spiderman and shooting the crowd with water pistols.

When we got back to the markets we chatted with M’s parents for a while, and then hopped in the car for home.

Thus endeth our four-day holiday.

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Meme again

Inspired by Nighthawk and milescoverdale’s Journal (how do you link to a specific post in LJ?? See the post for 22 August).

1. Ten years ago: I had finished uni and was living with Baubles the Cat in a tiny dilapidated flat in the inner city. I had no idea what I was going to do with myself, and was working for M’s dad and doing private tutoring jobs (Mandarin for Beginners, and Indonesian). M was just the Son of the Boss.

2. Five years ago: I was studying to become a librarian, having recently given up my chef’s apprenticeship due to recurring tendonitis (Boo to weak girly wrists!). M was living with me and Baubles the Cat in the tiny dilapidated flat in the inner city.

3. One year ago: I was working in my dream job as an academic librarian. (I won’t say if my illusions have been shattered, but I am still quite happy to go to work. Most days.) We were no longer living in the tiny dilapidated flat in the inner city, but had become home owners.

4. Yesterday: I did nothing in particular and enjoyed myself immensely. Had a nap on the sofa bed in M’s room. (We each have our own studies. Mine is smaller than M’s but his room also doubles as our guest room so I shouldn’t complain too loudly. Also he has like fifteen computers in there so he needs the space. Ok, I exaggerate, he has three computers, I think. If I had a sofa bed in my room, I suspect I’d get nothing done ever because I’d be too busy lounging on it.) Read a book: A bit of earth by Suchen Christine Lim. Started to write a review of it but that got too hard which is why I am writing this instead. Watched two DVDs, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, and Dawn of the Dead (last year’s version). I am not overly fond of horror movies (ghosts are creepy) but zombie flicks, I have decided, are funny in a gruesome sort of way.

5. Today: We are going to Fremantle. It is still early and I hope it doesn’t keep raining too heavily.

6. Tomorrow: Back to work after four gloriously lazy days off. I can’t even remember what I have to do tomorrow. Apart from getting through all my email…

7. Five snacks I enjoy: Dried mango. Pistachios. Melon seeds. Homemade murukku. (A rare treat because I only know one person who makes murukku!) Hot chips with mayonnaise.

8. Five bands I know the lyrics of most of their songs: REM, U2, Cocteau Twins (okay, they don’t have lyrics, but I make the sounds up in my head and sing along anyway), Duran Duran, Crowded House.

9. Five things I would do with $100,000,000: Pay off the mortgages of everyone in my family. Be paralysed with indecision…

10. Five locations I’d like to run away to: A fjord in the South Island of New Zealand. Kakadu. Mongolia. Alaska. New York City.

11. Five Bad Habits: Procrastination. Fountain pens. Indecisiveness. Jumping to conclusions based on not enough evidence. Impatience.

12. Five things I like doing: Blogging, reading, going on bookshop crawls with M, hot baths, drying Baubles the Cat with a towel after she has stupidly gone outside and stood in the rain (this is the only time you are allowed to drape towels over Baubles without her expecting to be taken to vet and reacting badly).

13. Five TV shows I like: The Bill. Veronica Mars. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Bill. Errr… Does it count that some of these are no longer/have never been shown on Australian tv? I don’t watch enough tv to make up my quota!

14. Famous People I’d like to meet: Michael Stipe, REM singer. Just to swoon. Dubya. Is he as stupid as he sometimes sounds?? I’d love to tell him I disagree with almost everything I think he stands for. Politely, of course. The Dalai Lama. Iain M Banks: I’d like to thank him, in person, for The Culture. Morrissey. Every gloomy teenager needs songs like Bigmouth strikes again.

15. Biggest joys at the moment: The fact that the sun is rising a whole hour earlier than it did three months ago. Quiet time in the mornings. Listening to the birds sing. Baubles the Cat purring. Meditating.

16. Favorite toys: Fountain pens. (I have more than five!)

17. Five people to tag: I won’t, but feel free to do this and let me know :)

Memes are great for when you don’t know what to write, or when you are trying unsuccessfully to write something else.

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Supernova is new again!

For anyone who’s actually been following the Saga of Supernova Books on this blog: it’s finally reopened in its new premises. Located at shop number 8, Shafto Lane, it’s now known as Fantastic Planet (take a look at their LiveJournal page for more information and some pictures; the manager told M that their website is being done at the moment). It’s close to the Murray Street end of Shafto Lane. So we have gone from almost having no science fiction/fantasy bookshop in Perth, to having one bookshop, and now TWO.

Window of Fantastic Planet, the new Supernova.

The shelves in Fantastic Planet are fully stocked and the shop is light and airy and generally pleasant to be in. I like the display shelves in the window, which are definitely an improvement on the rickety old shelves in the old Supernova. They have also kept the old Supernova sign, which has been stuck to one of the walls in the shop.

I wonder how both shops will go, given the size of this town. Fantastic Planet is situated near a few ‘fun’ shops, “close to 78 Records, Quality Comics, Empire Toys, and Millenium Products*” (to quote the shop’s managers), but some might argue that White Dwarf Books is a little more centrally located, and it is very near the old location of Supernova. It may be that each shop will have slightly different clientele. Judging from their LJ site, Fantastic Planet’s managers are writers and have a fair few writer friends, while White Dwarf’s managers seem to be more your regular run-of-the-mill geekboys (hopefully this does not get me banned from either shop!). Not that I am all that sure how this ‘difference’ will make any difference at all. Such incisive analysis of the SF/Fantasy market in Perth. Uh huh.

*AKA Millenium Exposition of Wonders. They don’t seem to have a website, but Perthites wandering or driving along Hay Street may have seen the shop with the full suits of armour, swords, pikes and halberds in the window.

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