The following photos are from a very enjoyable and relaxing new years eve with old friends up at Kev and Lucy’s eco-house at Flaxley, near Mount Barker.
After the ladies went to bed, Kev, Dave and Richie schooled me in Texas hold ’em poker. After learning how to play it, I can now see why the game is so popular amongst gamblers and non-gamblers alike.
Dave took me up there in his Sigma station wagon, giving me flashbacks of my old Sigma wagon.
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The end of the year is nigh so it is finally time to get on my backside and post an update. More will come soon, I promise…
I hope everyone had a special bayram or Christmas and wish you all a wonderful new year and healthy and happy 2008.
Christmas this year was my first at home since 2008. I was very lucky to have my grandparents from Mum’s side fly over from Ceduna for the occasion.
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Continuing on with posts from my trip to Malaysia in October…
Li Ching and Carina brought me to a well-known satay celup restaurant for our main evening meal in Malacca (Melaka). I’ve forgotten the restaurant’s name but it was the original restaurant on the street. We had to wait for a table to eat at, in contrast to the almost identical satay celup place (opened by a former employee of the original’s) which was almost empty.
The satay celup tables are specially-designed with a pot set-in in the centre containing boiling satay sauce, heated by gas from table-specific bottles.
The attendant brings around various satay sticks for the guests to choose what they want and cook them in the satay in their own time.
The pigs ear was crunchy. Carina and Li Ching did not want to tell me what it was before I ate it as they were scared I would refuse to eat it if I knew beforehand. I did find out and was not put off 🙂
The staff calculated our meal cost by adding up the number of sticks left on our table. Each stick cost half a Malaysian ringgit (about 16 Aussie cents).
As I like to try everything, I tried every single different type of satay stick. Needless to write, by the end of the delicious meal I could eat very little more.
After several months of unofficial and 6 weeks of official electioneering, today, 24 November 2007, Australia finally votes. Thank goodness I have been out of the country for all but the last 6 weeks and I have not had to put up with the constant politicking.
The polls have just closed in some of the Eastern states and they will close soon in my state of South Australia. Tonight I will enjoy a hardcore election evening via both the Internet and television.
I yearn for a change of government. The current Liberal-National Coalition have been corrupted by 11 years of power, control of both houses of parliament and a rodent named John Winston Howard.
The opposition Labor Party (ALP) have been favourites in both the opinion polls and betting markets for months but they are not certainties to win back government. I doubt anybody will be celebrating until the election result is certain.
Both major parties have similar policies in many areas and a common feature of this election campaign is the me-tooism. The Labor Party haven’t wanted to differentiate themselves from the governing parties except for policies that they believe most people support.
Despite their name, the Liberal Party are socially conservative and have increased governmental powers, taxes and spending during their time in power. Unfortunately, their spending decisions were often made in a knee-jerk fashion and not based on evidence, leading to poor outcomes. The Liberal party has campaigned on fear and negativities. Their posters at the polling booth didn’t even mention the party or their leader and instead focused on bad things that might happen if Labor get elected. The Liberals lack a vision.
I did not vote in the last few elections as I lived abroad, mainly in Mersin, Turkey, and years ago my name was taken off the electoral roll.
I am located in the Federal electorate of Hindmarsh, suburban Adelaide. It is currently a marginal Labor seat held by Steve Georganas. The Liberal contestant is Rita Bouras. An interesting side note: both major party candidates are of Greek ancestry.
This morning I voted at the Fulham Gardens Primary School (located in Henley Beach, not the neighbouring suburb Fulham Gardens) election booth. The different party posters were on display and their supporters were handing out how-to-vote (HTV) cards. I refused to take any cards stating I cared for the environment. Instead of following a certain political party’s preferences, I chose my own.
The voter line up extended for about 20 metres. Upon booth entry, I was directed to an electoral roll worker. She asked for my surname and name, asked if I had voted before, and then signed and gave me the Senate and House of Representative ballot papers. The lack of an ID check surprised me.
Because of the honesty and openess portrayed over the years by Queensland Senator Andrew Bartlett in his blog I gave the Australian Democrats candidates high preferences on both ballot papers. I placed Coalition and fundamentalist parties like Family First Christian Democratic Party (CDP) and One Nation very low down. I also placed ALP fairly low, although always above the Liberals. This was particularly true for ALP’s lead Senate candidate Don Farrell.
Don was my union boss during the time I worked at Foodland Fulham Gardens. Every Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) newsletter contained 6-15 photos of himself and I did not appreciate his self-promotion. I also am not impressed by his very conservative values. I did appreciate the work done by the SDA though.
Besides the Democrats, I also gave high preferences to the libertarian Liberty and Democracy Party (LDP) and independent candidates.
The South Australian Senate race was made more interesting after Nick Xenophon of No-Pokies fame announced his Senate candidature. As Nick’s grouping received 20% of the upper house vote in the last state election he is expected to gain the 13.4% quota required for a Senate seat.
Let the election night begin!
The ABC with their election guru Antony Green generally has the best election coverage.
As always, wikipedia has a good run-down of the Australian electoral system for those who want to learn more.
PS: I still have many posts about Malaysia and Australia to write and photos to upload. Sorry about the slackness… 🙂
POST-ELECTION UPDATE: The incumbent Liberal/National Coalition has been kicked out and the Labor Party has won the most seats enabling them to form the next government. To my delight, the former Prime Minister John Howard looks highly likely to lose his Bennelong seat to Maxine McKew. Unfortunately, the blogging Andrew Bartlett was not re-elected to the Senate.
Let’s wish for a more accountable and open government and less cynical wedge politics.
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As mentioned earlier, I ate masses of wonderful food in Malaysia. I ate Chinese the most but also sampled Indian, Malay and Nonya (Peranakan) cuisines. Later I will write a specific posting on the Satay Celup I ate in Malacca.
The first meal I ate after arriving on the overnight flight from Istanbul was dim sum somewhere near Bandar Tasik Selatan, the 3rd stop on the KLIA Transit train between the airport and KL. Kim took me to an outdoor restaurant full of people eating their Sunday dim sum breakfasts.
Dim sum involved different waiters coming around with trays offering their portion-sized dishes. We were free to select whatever we wanted of the huge variety on offer. Each dish was on a distinct plate and at the end of the meal our bill was calculated by the number and kind of plates left on our table.
The above 3 photos come from the Chinese hawker centre Kim took me to on my first night in Malaysia.
Two nights later I met up with Yinli and Pek Yen at another Chinese hawker centre for some good food and beer and great conversations. Afterwards I took a taxi back to Flic’s place in Brickfields. The taxi rate was very cheap even allowing for the 100% after midnight loading (when it should have only been %50) 🙂
Prior to the satay celup meal, Li Ching, Carina and I ate ‘entree’ at a critically acclaimed but difficult to find and (on the surface) somewhat seedy backstreet restaurant. The hole behind the plate in the centre of the photos is an integrated rubbish bin.
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Before this trip I only knew one friend currently living in Malaysia: Flic. However, mainly with the help of expat Malaysian Fiona, I met several new friends.
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Thank you all for helping make a fantastic trip!
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The South-East Asian nation of Malaysia was my home from the morning of 7 October to the evening of 12 October.
My brief 6 days there were fabulous and sometime I’d like to go back for a longer period to explore more places and eat more foods. I will eventually upload many photos in differently-themed posts.
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Being able to walk 10 minutes to a clean, white and almost empty sandy beach is brilliant…
I’m back in Adelaide, Australia, staying with my family in Henley Beach.
Coming from Mersin, Turkey, following are a few of the differences I have noticed in Adelaide:
– distances are far greater around the city
– many more people are overweight
– the standard of dress is less formal
– home is so quiet. The loudest noise during the day comes from wild birds squawking and nights are dead quiet. Each night of my first week when going to bed I had ringing in my ears because I was used to a continual background noise.
I returned from Turkey to Australia via 6 wonderful days in Malaysia. I will write more about Malaysia and upload photos from there soon.
For the first time ever I arrived to Adelaide Airport on an international flight. The immigration guy scanned my passport but he did not obviously indicate to the interrogator that I was a “special” case. After passing through, an interrogator asked me to stand aside. She looked through my passport and questioned me where I had come from; how long I was going to stay in Australia; why had I gone to Pakistan; why had I gone to Iran; why I had visited so many Muslim countries; what I did in Turkey; proof of of my stay in Turkey (I showed the traineeship and work visas in my passport); etcetera; and then let me go to the customs line-up. I doubt the official could read Arabic as she did not ask about my multiple Syrian visas.
Even if I didn’t have the Turkish apple tea and duty free chocolates to declare I would have been hauled through the red customs channel anyway. The same interrogator asked me to place my bags on the table and then proceeded to ask me several disclaimer questions before advising me to open my laptop bag for inspection. After putting on the gloves she went through some of my documents, asking more questions on the way. Once satisfied I was not a terrorist threat I was waved on my way.
All through my questioning the official was jovial and calm with a forced smile on her face. I enjoyed the questioning and, as I could justify everything I’ve done, had no problems answering her questions. I’m sure if I visited the USA with the same passport I would face a much tougher time.
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