I know there's been some pretty heavy mummy-blogging with all the potty this week so let's have an old-fashioned bitch of a travel blog sort of thing:
1. The three of us are heading to Thailand next month. Never been there before; all I've seen in Asia is lots of Shanghai and Singapore. It's not a big trip. A few days in Chiang Mai and a few days in Bangkok, with me working in Bangkok and the F-word celebrating his 40th. Man alive. His 40th. He was 24 or 25 when we met. I feel like he hasn't changed a bit, physically, and I don't think I've changed vastly either, but mentally and emotionally we might as well be different people altogether. And yet here we both are, two Ships of Theseus who passed in the night all those years ago and ended up sailing along together, the very harmony of the armada making a Godzilla erupt from the atomic seas (how many metaphors can I mix in one sentence? That many).
I'm getting excited. And I'm also glad we're heading to cities, silly as that may be given what I've heard about what a hot mess Bangkok is. I'm just not a beach person, as three years spent getting my tits bored off next to Byron Bay illustrated to me.
2. Godzilla and I are heading to Shanghai in June. Another work thing. I'm hoping to fly my niece out from Canada to help with Godzilla; failing that work will pay for a nanny. He's still nursing, and anyways I don't have the heart to go away from him for a week yet (I know, I know, I said travel blog rather than mummy blog, but mummies travel too). I'd initially asked to skip out of the Shanghai visit but I've decided I'm excited to go again. I'm very fond of Shanghai. It's so . . . I don't know . . . alive.
Godzilla is a bit of a Chinese Lady magnet and then they stick around to talk when they find out I know a few words of Mandarin, and the comment so many of them make about Melbourne and Australia is how boring it is. They're glad to be here, because it's not too polluted, because the traffic isn't too dangerous, the schools aren't too crowded, etc (all negative qualifiers, you'll note) but they're so fucking bored.
And I understand why. When I come back from German class around 9:30, 10 in the evening, it's like taking a train through the countryside - Melbourne is functionally dead by that time on a weeknight. But it's not as though you feel safe, because it's dark and because of Australia's drinking culture, which means the few cars that are about are being drag-raced by fucking rub-a-dubs and one is always looking over one's shoulder because even in heavily frequented areas women still get jumped.
In comparison, Shanghai - a city not known for its nightlife by Asian standards - is still buzzing at that time of the evening, and at least in the neighborhoods I was staying and working in, I felt absolutely and completely safe. It's just . . . I don't know. A lot less boring.
1. The three of us are heading to Thailand next month. Never been there before; all I've seen in Asia is lots of Shanghai and Singapore. It's not a big trip. A few days in Chiang Mai and a few days in Bangkok, with me working in Bangkok and the F-word celebrating his 40th. Man alive. His 40th. He was 24 or 25 when we met. I feel like he hasn't changed a bit, physically, and I don't think I've changed vastly either, but mentally and emotionally we might as well be different people altogether. And yet here we both are, two Ships of Theseus who passed in the night all those years ago and ended up sailing along together, the very harmony of the armada making a Godzilla erupt from the atomic seas (how many metaphors can I mix in one sentence? That many).
I'm getting excited. And I'm also glad we're heading to cities, silly as that may be given what I've heard about what a hot mess Bangkok is. I'm just not a beach person, as three years spent getting my tits bored off next to Byron Bay illustrated to me.
2. Godzilla and I are heading to Shanghai in June. Another work thing. I'm hoping to fly my niece out from Canada to help with Godzilla; failing that work will pay for a nanny. He's still nursing, and anyways I don't have the heart to go away from him for a week yet (I know, I know, I said travel blog rather than mummy blog, but mummies travel too). I'd initially asked to skip out of the Shanghai visit but I've decided I'm excited to go again. I'm very fond of Shanghai. It's so . . . I don't know . . . alive.
Godzilla is a bit of a Chinese Lady magnet and then they stick around to talk when they find out I know a few words of Mandarin, and the comment so many of them make about Melbourne and Australia is how boring it is. They're glad to be here, because it's not too polluted, because the traffic isn't too dangerous, the schools aren't too crowded, etc (all negative qualifiers, you'll note) but they're so fucking bored.
And I understand why. When I come back from German class around 9:30, 10 in the evening, it's like taking a train through the countryside - Melbourne is functionally dead by that time on a weeknight. But it's not as though you feel safe, because it's dark and because of Australia's drinking culture, which means the few cars that are about are being drag-raced by fucking rub-a-dubs and one is always looking over one's shoulder because even in heavily frequented areas women still get jumped.
In comparison, Shanghai - a city not known for its nightlife by Asian standards - is still buzzing at that time of the evening, and at least in the neighborhoods I was staying and working in, I felt absolutely and completely safe. It's just . . . I don't know. A lot less boring.
