Is like
every shit shopping centre you’ve ever been in, all put together, but no one is
allowed to leave, so there’s a frantic air – a mix of stress and boredom. And no one is there just to hang about but
all anyone is doing is just hanging about.
Also, everything costs more.
We’re
excited, mind, so we start drinking pretty much straight away. What’s to stress about for us? Holidays, yo.
The most
exciting thing that happens on this leg of the journey is racing through the
airport in an excitable attempt to prove that the travellator walkway things
they have in airports are a dismal waste of energy. (1)
Hong Kong
Airport
Grey. Very
very grey. A combination of dreech and
smog. Drog. (2) (3)
There were
some screaming children on the plane.
Their parents took a relaxed approach, deciding to do absolutely shit
all about it, having apparently tuned out this uniquely distressing sound. So, the polite and mild-mannered passengers
sat back and tried to enjoy the ride by imagining all the ways those children’s
dreams might go unfulfilled. A couple of
other young passengers enjoyed their flight by kicking our seatbacks, which is
a brilliant game. Hahaha, very funny,
kids. You’ll die alone.
Taking off
in a plane is brilliant fun, I don’t care what anyone says (4). Airports are fucking awful, though; the
logical conclusion of late capitalism: an enclosed space, offering the very
worst products at high prices, in an air-free, misery-rich environment, advertised
with the wildly fanciful notion that it could be a destination in itself.
Sydney
The
Hong-Kong-Sydney flight had only one errant child, a baby that screamed like he
was having a baby during the landing. It
was strange and jarring, a really difficult noise to bear. The boychild had hitherto been mercifully
quiet. I fleetingly hoped that whatever
was troubling the poor mite would quickly kill him. Fleetingly, mark you.
We touched
down and could hardly get our shoes on; our feet, ankles and calves have
swollen beyond recognition. A mild case
of DVT, presumably. That’s what happens
in pleb class. (5)
It’s 8.30 AM
on a Monday and we’ve been up for 48 hours.
(6) It’s already pretty warm. The lack of cloud above made it possible for
us to watch Sydney approaching beneath us as we descended back to earth, on the
opposite side of the globe to where we live.
It was a spectacular view.
Mr & Mrs
M greet us at the airport and take us to Glebe, where we’re staying this week. We catch up over a coffee and they give us
the lowdown on all the neighbourhoods in the city (or “seedy” as it’s called
here). (7)
Jet lag is a
bitch, apparently. I don’t think it’s
kicked in yet, because I feel alright.
We are strongly advised to stay up and resist the temptation to sleep
today. Three coffees and a cold shower
later, I feel fantastic. Fresh as a
summer breeze.
Jet lag
ain’t shit. (8)
An hour
later, I am really struggling (9). It’s a bit like a really bad hangover, coupled
with a vicious comedown, but it’s not exactly like that. I’ve never experienced it before, and it’s
quite difficult to describe. Despite my
verbosity. Everything becomes oddly
disorientating and fraught: walking to a shop, being in a shop, talking to a
person serving in a shop, or any people shopping in a shop. I feel very wobbly – not like I will fall
over, but I’ve got a strong sense that it’s a viable option with every
movement, so my movements seem simultaneously normal and yet freakish, as if
every step was my first. It’s strange,
and mostly, but not entirely, unpleasant.
Jet lag is a
bitch.
We skitter
about our neighbourhood; we can’t stay in the flat, we’ll be asleep and ruin
our plan to keep the jet lag under control.
We are determined. I’ve never
drank so much coffee in such a short space of time.
We’re still
excited to be here, and keep reminding each other that “we’re in Australia!”,
as if someone will stop us in the street and tell us not to be so daft, of
course we’re not, this is Bishops Stortford, what’s wrong with you?
It’s warm
and sunny, which helps. Weeks before the
trip, we’d been expecting dizzyingly-high temperatures, as well as some heavy
storms. But we’ve missed the worst of
it; someone tells us it was 42 degrees a couple of weeks ago, and I am very
grateful to have been in the dismal British winter at the time. (10)
We are
here. Right then, what’s Australia all
about…?
Notes
1. I forget who won the race. It’s not important, anyway, so shut up.
2. For those who don’t speak Scots,
“dreech” is the word for that hanging grey misery that makes a place cold and
damp and look really unappealing to sunshiney people. Most English people pronounce it “dreek”. Which is all wrong. “Drog” is my own compound.
3. Hong Kong Airport also has the World
Record-breaking Most Expensive Drinks Ever.
(HK$174.90 for a small glass of wine and a pint of lager, if you’re
interested. (If you’re a Scottish
tourist/visitor to London, you will be.)
That’s about £17, plus a charge for paying with the card. Plus whatever the bank charges for using the
card abroad. We are proper tourists now. I feel
like a walking cliché for moaning about it, so I sit down. And just smile and enjoy my pint. We’re only having one, and even that seems
daft, since there’s free drinks on the plane.
But here I am, the stupid British tourist. I don’t care, it’s still exciting. (In case you’re wondering, a £8 pint of Asahi
tastes the same as a £4 one.))
4. I’ve always enjoyed flying, mostly
for the views. I always try for a window
seat, and have a right good look. It’s
still a real novelty – I think I’d have to fly a lot more than I do/have for it
to wear off.
5. We exit the plane through the front,
which means we walk through the better classes: economy (us; normal seats,
enough legroom for a shortarse like me), economy plus (for people who like to
spend a little bit more for no discernible benefit; 38 mm more legroom and a
tragically petty sense of superiority), first class (for well-off pensioners
who’ve realised they a) can’t take it with them and b) need to sleep a lot) and
finally, business class (for those who get someone else to pay for their
massive, fold-down seats, big folding TV screens and folded blankets (all of
which allow for un-folded bodies, stretched across the space of 3 or 4
economy-size seats), the free gifts – all left behind – and the accompanying
smug sense of self-satisfaction.)
6. If you’re looking for something to
help with this, taking advantage of free whisky on the plane is strongly
recommended. It will, least, take the
edge off. (“Take the edge off” is a phrase
my brother uses a lot, although I sometimes feel he could do with putting some
edge on.)
7. Glebe is quiet but cool, with good
restaurants and cafes. Adjoining Newtown
is also cool. As ever, I think of
neighbourhoods back home they might be like, like the tourist I am, instead of
just accepting things the way they are.
8. Yes, obviously, my comeuppance is
rapidly approaching.
9. There it is, look.
10. If the first few hours are anything
to go by, we will presumably speak to every single person in Australia about
weather.
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