“You *can* see the sea. It’s over there, between the land and the sky.”
After sleeping for 12 - count ‘em! - hours, this is the view I woke up to:
And here it is if you look slightly to the left:
Since I got up, I’ve been unpacking and ironing - how thrilling!* - all to the strains of some terribly cheesy ‘radio station’ (clue: I don’t think it’s an actual radio station) I’ve found on my TV.
I was listening to my own music via my iPod dock - but it felt very odd, I quickly realised, to be listening to, say Lloyd Cole, in a hotel room in Penang, looking out at that view. In short: it feels wrong to listen to music from back home while abroad. I’m not sure if this is a phenomenon restricted to hot countries (I know that when I’ve been to Ibiza, for example, I am overcome with the urge to listen to nothing but Cafe Del Mar albums); or whether it’s to do with properly throwing yourself into a new place and a new experience. Although the latter implies conscious thought, and it doesn’t feel conscious at all. In fact, it just feels instinctively wrong to be listening to ‘Jennifer She Said’, and instinctively right to be listening to ‘Fields of Gold’ played on a Spanish guitar.
Hopefully that’s the only time in my life that I will write that sentence.
And on that (easy-listening) note: I’m going to answer some emails, then hop in the shower, get dressed, and go out exploring. I’ll be back. With photos!**
*Actually, ironing here is thrilling. Because someone calls you up ten minutes into said ironing and says: “Hello Miss Andrea, just checking you received your ironing board?”
**Although given this post, that’s not guaranteed.
January 29th, 2008 at 4.47pm
Good to see you made it in one piece.
The question of the wrong music in a place is interesting. Recently when I was in Toronto I found it strange that in shops they were playing things such as The Smiths and even Rick Astley (mind you Rick Astley might be strange back home), music of a Mancunian not Canadian variety.
January 29th, 2008 at 4.52pm
Hmm, interesting. Although perhaps the Canadians are the Mancunians of North America, and therefore it makes sense?
January 29th, 2008 at 8.09pm
Errr I think Julie may have words to say about that actually…
January 29th, 2008 at 8.24pm
As a Mancunian by birth I’m not sure if that’s good or bad ?
We don’t say aboot though instead of about…
January 29th, 2008 at 8.37pm
Actually I take that as quite a compliment! Sounds pretty cool anyway…
Aaahhh…that view looks familiar. Have you checked out the hawker stall down there yet? There’s a guy selling tasty chicken-in-a-claypot and someone else with a coconut pancake stall. Sigh…
January 29th, 2008 at 8.42pm
John: ’tis true. although I can well imagine ‘On Ilkley Moor Boot ‘At’.
Julie/Tracy: hello ladies!
I did go through the square with all the hawker stalls earlier, but it was all such a sensory overload that I didn’t stop, and thought I’d take it in properly tomorrow. I fear I would stuff my face.
January 29th, 2008 at 8.46pm
well, that’s ok cos you are obviously going to go to the gym a lot
January 29th, 2008 at 11.18pm
We hear nowt but brass bands and urchins on penny whistles in Leeds…
January 30th, 2008 at 12.32am
really?! how quaint! do they play ‘Smoke On The Water’?
January 30th, 2008 at 4.36am
12 hours… i can only dream of that (so to speak)… zzzzzzz
January 30th, 2008 at 2.46pm
aww Charlotte.. come for a holiday and just leave Max with the concierge.