Sunday, April 22, 2012

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I have now decided to take a brief hiatus from the green island, my home for the last 10 years. The plan is to do some travelling in India before heading back to Malaysia. It'll be my first proper backpacking trip in oh, some 13 years! I shall miss my bed and lovely, pocket-sprung mattress.

Some things still to do before leaving:
- Defrost and clean fridge. Tip: use an odour neutraliser/ remover in empty fridge. Instant noodles good fallback when cannot use fridge.
- Compile music.
- Pack everything I may need over the next 2 months into a 60L backpack and aim for a max 12kg weight. Phew! Tip: If you are thinking twice about taking something, you probably don't need it.
- Get decent reading material. I heart my Kindle, which is a superb space saver! I've recently bought a physical version of 'Bad Samaritans' by Ha-Joon Chang, which I'm bringing with me.
- Entrust plants to friend.

Preparation has been relatively hectic-free because I've already started my sabbatical a couple of weeks ago. It hasn't been all cleaning and packing. I've been doing a few things I've enjoyed:
- Baked bread
- Cycle training
- Played badminton
- Watched Game of Thrones (still stuck on George RR Martin's 2nd last book - as long as ever, more descriptive than ever, and where's the action??) . Watched this and other movies eg The Help, The Kite Runner, with the Lovefilm 30-day free trial.
- Caught up on Facebook. Sadly realised I'm not a Facebook-generation baby, but one of my recent FB highlights was an uncle finding a tourist guide to Tampin, our cool little border hometown in Melaka/N9.
- Caught up with people. The benefits of a physical meet-up are cups of tea, walks in sunshiney rain/rainy sunshine (it is April in London after all), cultural injections from galleries visits.

A poignant exhibition at the Barbican Centre of stuff the artist's mother has collected throughout her life.







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