Word of the week: Pleng - Song

In my life: The last day of the long weekend involved a meet-up with a friend I knew from college and catching up on life since we both went away for holidays in December. We drove down to Mosman, had brunch at Frenchys cafe and then did a short walk in the area. We then wanted to find a beach to relax at but our usual beach, Balmoral was super packed likely cause of the long weekend. We came back home and took a nice nap to finish off the day. All in all, a good long weekend with friends and some good food.

View from George's Head Lookout

Summer in Sydney is sometimes weird. Tuesday, we had a 40C day that was followed by a sudden storm (hailstones included). This is apparently called a Southerly buster. It reminds me of hot Bangalore days that are followed by cooling rains in the evening. It has also meant I’m a little off track on the C25K program (nobody wants to run in 40-degree Aussie heat). But hey, at least I’ve done two runs this week and that feels good right now.

Art Gallery of NSW, South building

On Wednesday evening we ended up at the Art Gallery again. They usually have an Art After Hours program but this time they also had a performance by the ACO string quartet. Since it involved works by Eric Satie (and I’ve always wanted to listen to Gnossienne 1 live) I asked Sathya if we could go. He said okay, so we had an early dinner and took the metro. It was pretty packed when we reached but Sathya managed to find two seats and I had a good time listening to all the pieces they performed.

My favorite of the evening outside Satie was a piece called the Carrot Revolution by Gabriella Smith. It was an eclectic song reminding me at times of classical music and at times of pop or rock or Celtic tunes or folk music. Something that could have been a cacophony of noise in the hands of someone even slightly less talented was performed brilliantly by the quartet.

Twilight Food Fair stalls

Friday evening marked the return of Twilight Food Fair. They have a few food stalls, some kids activities and some live music at these events so it’s a decent visit. We tried some Spanish food and then watched the singer & guitarist duo perform some old numbers.

Saturday morning, we went to the park for a run (for me)/walk (for Sathya). We went a bit later than usual as it was the weekend, and the time coincided with the Parkrun event. This happens every Saturday where people gather to walk/run/jog a 5k loop in the park. I hadn’t actually seen a full event before (as we usually have guitar on Saturdays) and was surprised to see how many people turned up. There were people from all walks of life - teenagers and young professionals, pregnant folk, parents with strollers, families with young children, older folk and even a blind person running with a guide and the pace varied quite a bit amongst all the people. Hugely inspiring to see it in action but it meant I had to try hard to avoid blocking the way for people while I was doing my interval run.

We went to the Produce market after our park visit (sunflowers are in season again!) and grabbed some necessities before grabbing a bagel (running really makes me crave carbs) and some coffee for breakfast. Spent the rest of the day trying to find a good manga to read and finishing up chores.

I always want to get a good number of steps in over the weekend and having something to visit is hugely motivating in actually getting them in. So today (Sunday) we went to Kirribilli to get some brunch and browse Kirribilli market stalls. This week's market was an Art, Design and Fashion one with a lot of stalls focusing on handmade jewelry and new as well as vintage fashion. I've been on the lookout for a long neck piece to replace my old, broken dog tag necklace and I finally managed to find something I liked.

I had bought a pair of linen pants for summer and wore them everywhere this week and realized just how comfortable they were for the Aussie heat. They are a nice, full length on me, so it helps cover up from the harsh sun but they're still very breathable. Considering we have at least another month or so of hot days to go I decided to go to Uniqlo Chatswood in the afternoon and grab a pair in another color.

Chatswood has a high population of Asian community living there. Since the Lunar New Year celebrations are on, they had some live music on at Westfield Chatswood. The guitarist was a young teen, but he played brilliantly and even took requests from patrons there. Check out his YouTube channel here.

On my screens:

  1. ThamePo (Thai, Queer, YouTube, Ongoing) - Finally a showdown between Thame and Jun and our lead boys sort of get together. This show is so calm, and it is still infinitely romantic. How are they managing that balance so well?
  2. The Boy Next World (Thai, Queer, IQIYI) - This one is a Mame show which are usually a miss for me (too much power imbalance between the leads generally). But this one has some supernatural (or does it?) aspects in the story. That plus the OST have really hooked me in.
  3. Dear My Secretary (Thai, Romcom, Grey) - This one is a remake of one of the Kdrama's I've enjoyed before called What's Wrong with Secretary Kim. So far it holds up to the spirit of the original and is a pretty fun watch. Excited to see what Thai elements are pulled into the show as it goes forward.

On my bookshelf:

Read some manhwa translations but nothing really great. Out of the books I was reading I'm still continuing with

  1. Downbelow Station by CJ Cherryh: The book starts out with a bit of an info dump to setup the world building and has been slowly ramping up in plot. Surprised by some of the concepts that are showing up in this 1981 book, that are still picked up by modern day authors, though that might just be my lack of knowledge in this genre.
  2. The Secret Runners Of New York by Matthew Reilly: This one was a reserve I had placed at my library which finally came through today, so I'm reading it via Borrowbox. So far, it's been pretty fast paced, and I can't wait to read more.

    Reilly is one of my favorite authors whose books I randomly discovered as a teenager browsing the library stacks in Mangalore. I read Ice Station first and was instantly hooked. There's never a single dull moment in his books - how I wish someone would make a movie out of one of the Scarecrow series.

On my playlist:

I discovered a new Thai band thanks to this video which popped up on my feed. Out of the bands they mentioned I've really enjoyed listening to the music produced by the T-Pop band BUS and my favorite out of their songs is Liar. The MV is well made, and the chorus is very catchy.

On my camera:

Bubbles are fun at any age, no?

Thanks for tagging along!