Tomorrow morning I am off to New Zealand for 10 days to visit my family and all my favourite coastal places.  There will be small port towns (Lyttelton), delicious food (Oamaru and Moeraki), estuary walks (Waikouaiti), and cliff walks up and down the coast.  I will be hanging out with sheep, and I may even get to milk them.  If the weather is good I’ll help my parents make hay.  If the weather is bad I’ll sit in the sunroom with Ben the cat and watch the rain on the glass.

Earl Grey Ice Cream (adapted from David Lebovitz)

1 cup (250 ml) whole milk
2 cups (500 ml) heavy cream
2/3 cup of sugar
1/4 cup French Earl Grey tea leaves
5 large egg yolks

Warm tea leaves, milk, half the cream and sugar in a medium saucepan. Cover and set aside to steep for 1 hour.

Rewarm the tea-infused milk.  Pour the remaining cup of cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks.  Slowly pour the warm mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.  Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula.  Pour the custard through the strainer into the cream, pressing gently on the tea leaves toextract the maximum flavor from them, then discard the leaves.

Chill and then churn in an ice cream maker for 30 minutes.

This predominantly country mix was one of the soundtracks to my summer this year.  Many miles were traveled to this music, and many a game of scrabble played.

For Portia.

Little Mountain Town – The Unfaithful Ways
Wagon Wheel – Old Crow Medicine Show
Frankie’s Gun – The Felice Brothers
Love Vigilantes – Iron + Wine
South Tacoma Way – Neko Case
Helpless – Neil Young
Each Coming Night – Iron + Wine
The Ship Song – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Please Be Patient with Me – Wilco
Nobody’s Baby Now – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Across the Border – Bruce Springsteen
Look at Miss Ohio – Gillian Welch
New York Times – Simone Felice
Wings – Joan Baez (cover of Josh Ritter)
You and I Belong – Simone Felice
Bad Luck – Langhorne Slim
Locesick Blues – Hank Williams
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry – Hank Williams
Amanda – Waylon Jennings
I Ain’t Marching Anymore – Phil Ochs
Workin’ for the MTA – Justin Townes Earle
No Depression – Uncle Tupelo
Wichita Lineman – Glen Campbell
The Stable Song – Gregory Alan Isakov
Into My Arms – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

It can be nice having something gorgeous to wear when you are traveling.  Clothes are our shelter, but in the absence of a home or place to rest, they can also help remind us of who we are.  Travel clothes need to be practical, however.  They have to be lightweight, versatile, easy to wear with almost anything, and okay to get a little crumpled.

I had this in mind recently when I sewed my new favourite top – a Wiksten tank in a lovely Liberty print.  It’s the perfect summer top.  It goes well with shorts, jeans and loose pants, but can also be worn tucked into a high waisted skirt or pants.  It looks lovely under a cardigan or a blazer and could also been worn pinny-style over a merino base layer in winter. It will need an iron occasionally, but if it gets a little crumpled I can hang it in the shower with me to smooth out the wrinkles.

But most importantly, it makes me feel really pretty.

I have a song that I like, by Lyttelton band The Unfaithful Ways, called Little Mountain Town (sometimes I wish I lived in a little mountain town, where everybody knows  your name and nobody gets you down).  This summer, I discovered an adjacent fantasy – longing to live in a little seaside town.

I never really understood the idea of what Australians call a Sea Change.  Shakespeare makes it sound rather uncomfortable (but doth suffer a sea change, into something rich and strange).   But that is what people call the change of lifestyle that comes with a move to the small beach towns up and down the East Coast.  I’ve never really been a beach person.  I grew up being able to see the ocean, but never really went there.  My parents now live 5 minutes walk from the beach, but I always considered it a place for quiet solitary walks, not swimming.  I lived in Australia for 8 years before I swam in this side of the Pacific.

That all started to change this summer, with a week spent in Coffs Harbour.  Where I discovered that a stay at the beach does indeed have it’s own special transformative power.

Near the end of 2012, a friend and I drove the 8 hours north of Sydney to spend Christmas with two people I had never met, but who opened their house to us and made us feel so at home.  There were morning swims, and evening swims, and long walks through mangroves or bush and over cliffs.  The sound of cicadas was everywhere and the ocean was always sitting just offstage, waiting for us.  It was incredibly special to have a nice little weatherboard house two blocks from the beach to rest in as I nursed the beginnings of a broken heart.  There were G+Ts and scrabble and cryptic crosswords and lazy afternoons spent reading.  The unofficial Coffs Harbour Pentenque court was just over the fence, and there was an entire row of strawberry plants begging me to creep up to the top of the garden to sit in the grass and eat them.  The new love of my life quickly became an aging burmese cat named Hamish, and our hosts are now two great new old and dear friends.

And every time I started to get sad, the sea was there waiting for me.  I could float in oblivion and be calm and be only myself.

So Coffs is now officially my favourite small Australian town.  A place where you go to a christmas party at the local antiques store and get served lime cordial.  A place where you get a perfect halter neck suntan from your red swimsuit.  A place where the fish and chips are plentiful and you can smell the salt on the wind and hear the biota teeming all around you.  A place where tawny frogmouths nest in the poinsiata tree outside your window.  A place to just check out for a little while and remind yourself how to live – quietly, slowly, and with growing wonder at the world around you.

The day is slow to get going in Singapore… Singaporeans start work at about 9.30am and shops usually don’t open until 11am. The good news is that this means the shops are also open really late – it’s not unheard of for people to go shopping at midnight!

But if you’ve just arrived from Australia or New Zealand, you’ll probably be awake at the crack of dawn.  When you’re in a city for a short period of time, every day is valuable.  You don’t want to waste a minute.

Here are some things in Singapore that you can do during the morning before the shops abnd museums open

1. Spend a peaceful hour with the 1000 buddhas in the rooftop garden of the Buddhist Temple in Chinatown.  The ground and top floors are open from very early in the morning, and then at 10.30am the other floors open, including a museum.
2. Find your local wet market and have a walk around looking at all the produce that’s available.  Find a vendor to buy some of the ubiquitous packs of tissues you see everywhere in Singapore.  You’ll need them for #3
3. Go to your nearest Hawker Centre and queue up with all the Singaporeans buying takeaway food for later in the day. You can have a second breakfast or get something wrapped up to eat later.  It’s a great way to check the Food Centres out before it gets crazy busy later in the day.
4. Make an early morning trip to Singapore Zoo or Jurong Bird Park.  By the time you get there the park will be open and ready for business.  You can have breakfast with the fauna while all the stores on Orchard Road remain closed.
5. Go for an early morning walk (before it heats up!) at Macritchie Reservoir or Canning Fort Park, or sneak your way into a hotel to go swimming.

You might think that Singapore is all skyscrapers and shopping malls, but there is a quiet little oasis in the middle of the island called MacRitchie Reservoir that is perfect for an escape from the city one afternoon.  By catching a train and then a short bus ride, you can find the start of a bush walk that takes you on swing bridges across bush canopy, past cheeky monkeys and other wildlife, to a large network of boardwalk around the edge of Singapore’s main water supply and then through a public park.  You will meet lots of joggers and other walkers, but for the most part this 10+ kilometer walk is very peaceful, and teeming with wildlife (we saw monkeys, birds, terrapins and giant water lizards).

Lots of people who aren’t used to tropical heat balk at the idea of being out in the open for any length of time during the day, but if you load up on water and nice cold calamansi lime drinks from the supermarket before you go, you should be fine.  Just take it slow and pack snacks and lunch to stop and eat on the way.  Be warned, though.  The monkeys will definitely try and steal your sushi!

Directions: Catch the MRT to Marymount MRT Station, and then catch bus services 52, 74, 165, 166, 852, or 855 to various points in the park.  A map of the area on your phone (and directions from the excellent Singapore Public Transport App) will help you know when to get off the bus.  It will be super easy to find another bus to take you back to an MRT station when you emerge from the park.

We caught the 166 bus from Marymount Station up Upper Thompson Road and then walked a a few minutes to the Venus Loop park entrance near the Tree Top Walk.

If anyone tells you that Singapore is sterile and boring, ignore them.

This cosmopolitan island may have a lot of shopping centres, flash hotels and fancy restaurants, but it also has an incredible local food scene, a rich and multi-layered cultural history, and lush wilderness.  And with a brilliant (and cheap) public transport system, it’s easy to get around and explore.  I spent 10 days in Singapore in November, and didn’t come close to running out of things to do.  I felt really at home and all the locals I met were very enthusiastic about their city.  I think that rubbed off on me a little bit.  I’ll definitely go back.

Accommodation

Two great suburbs to stay in are Chinatown and Little India.  Food is plentiful in both of these suburbs, accommodation is cheap, and both are within walking distance of Singapore’s main shopping and business districts, plus the waterfront etc.  Another great thing about both of these suburbs is that they are lively at night and provide early morning activities.  The day often doesn’t get started in Singapore until after 11am, but there are Hindu and Buddhist temples that can be visited from 6am.  The garden on the roof of the Buddhist temple in Chinatown is a lovely place to spend a peaceful early morning hour.

I stayed my first two nights in Singapore at a midrange boutique hotel in Chinatown called Hotel 1929 (about $140 a night on agoda) and then at Bunc Hostel in Little India ($25 a night).  Both were clean and stylish and well located.  I slept just as well and had as good a time at Bunc as I did at 1929.  There are plenty of other excellent hostels around as well.  Forget the Marina Bay Sands – you really don’t need to spend a lot of money to stay in Singapore.

Eating

Find your closest hawker centre and queue up at the most popular stall.  While you’re waiting in line you’ll have time to decide what to order.  If it is busy, you can place a small pack of tissues on an empty table to reserve it.  No one will steal your tissues or your seat (there is a code!).  Some centres have table numbers and the food will be brought to your table, or you carry your food back to your table yourself.  A meal at a hawker centre will only cost you $3-5, but even at the flashier food courts in the shopping centres (like Food Republic at 313 Somerset and VivoCity Harbourfront) you still only pay about $7 for a meal.

The ieathawker app (99c on itunes) is a great way to familiarise yourself with Singapore’s signature dishes and where to find them.  This article from the Sydney Morning Herald inspired my trip to Singapore and explains the ways in which food and culture are so connected.  It was really useful having some information about the food I was eating and the traditions behind it.  There is a great deal of nostalgia attached to the street food of Singapore and it is a common topic of conversation with locals you might meet.

Outdoors

Singapore offers real jungle as well as the urban variety.  There are many places in Singapore to go for a bit of green.  My favourites are the Botanic Gardens (a short bus ride from Orchard Road), Macritchie Reservoir (a short bus ride from Marymount MRT Station), and Fort Canning Park (next door to Clarke Quay).  Even Singapore Zoo welcomes rambling (and has a tree top walk with lots of wildlife).  The Singapore National Parks Board offers details of all nature walks on the island, and has a great education program.

Shopping

Singapore might not be as exciting a shopping destination for Americans and Londeners as it is for Australians and Kiwis.  We are yet to welcome H&M and Uniqlo to Australia, so Singapore chain stores still offer some novelty.  I’m a sucker for Japanese things, and so the highlights of my shopping time in Singapore were the Japanese fabric stores in the People’s Centre complex in Chinatown, homewares store Muji, the cheap plaids and button downs at Uniqlo and amazing thousand yen store Daiso ($2 dumpling shaper and onigiri moulds!)  There is such a shopping culture in Singapore that it’s easy to get sucked into the giant malls on Orchard Road, so maybe if you are going and you don’t want to spend a fortune you could set yourself a shopping challenge and stick to it.  I spent the better part of an afternoon hunting for the perfect blazer.  I tried on many and had a great time, but none were perfect - so I walked away without spending a cent (although I still dream about that bright teal number I tried on in H&M).  Haji Lane is an interesting shopping destination if you are looking for something a little quirky.

Two of my standout memories of Singapore are walking through Macritchie Reservoir, fighting off monkeys who wanted to steal my sushi and sitting with locals at a crowded table in a Komala Vilas restaurant during Deepavali and eating dosa for the first time.  Not a shopping centre or amusement park in sight! (although Singapore Zoo was excellent and swimming at Sentosa Island with the giant ships in Singapore Straigh in sight was just plain surreal).

I didn’t intend for them to all be asian, but that’s how it worked out (the bonus for me is that this makes it easy to avoid gluten!)

Sushi Hotaru
Galleries Victora, Level 1

Fresh and varied sushi train, one level down from Japanese bookstore heaven Kinokuniya.  What really makes this place great is that everything (except sashimi) is $3 – so you can pull off all the scallop, prawn and salmon sushi you like and know that it will only cost you $3 a plate.  Really easy to keep track of what you’re spending, and I almost always walk out of there spending less than $15 (unless I order the chawan mushi!).

Oiden
537-551 George St

You could go to Wagamama (next door to Hotaru in the Galleries Victoria) and order a small rice and side of curry sauce for $5, or you could walk a block down George Street to Oiden (in a small arcade half a block down from Event Cinemas) and get a choice of curries, side salads and tempura for about $8.  This place is a small canteen style eatery that offers amazing value.  You get your basic rice and curry for about $3.80, and then just load on the extras until you feel you’ve spent enough.  There’s a sister udon restaurant next door that uses the same basic meal + extras model.  Perfect comfort food.

Miss Chu: Queen of Rice Paper Rolls
Regent Centre, 501 George Street (take the escaltor down to the underground level)

A good place to grab food on the run before a movie (I ate here a lot during the last Sydney Film Festival).  They do fast and portable rice paper rolls, dumplings and rice noodle salads for $7-15.  Fresh and delicious.  There’s another location in the Opera Bar food strip under Sydney Opera House as well.

Iku Wholefood
Westfield Plaza, Level 5 (Daytime only)

Delicious and filling vegan and gluten free options that will cost you under $10.  It’s just an over the counter place in a food court, but I love their minimal plastic-free packaging (they just twist a sushi roll in a piece of paper, like a giant lolly).  Wraps, rice paper rolls and brown rice sushi rolls are all healthy options, and the fact that everything is made with unrefined ingredients means that a quick over the counter lunch will keep you going all afternoon.

Yama
Queen Victoria Building, Level 2

More of a cafe than a restaurant.  While this place on does serve tasty Japanese food like green tea noodle salad, I would really recommend it as a cheap, peaceful place to sit and rest your feet during a day in the city.  I don’t drink coffee, so most CBD cafes leave me cold.  But this place does Tea - ALL the TEA.  They have an extensive menu and every pot of tea I’ve had here has been delicious.  An affordable alternative to the fancy Tea Room on the very top level of the QVB.

Garage Sales are brilliant for so many reasons.  You get to meet your neighbours, hang out with your friends, feel like a part of a community, get rid of all the things you don’t want, and make some quick cash.  It takes a little organising, but is totally worth it.  Here are our tips for a successful and stress free garage sale:

• Find a house with a large front yard, preferably on a busy street
• Choose a date when something else is on in the area, guaranteeing lots of foot traffic (a local organic market and a vintage fair were both within walking distance of our house on our garage sale day)
• Get friends and anyone else you know to collect/donate things they no longer want
• Sort things into kitchen stuff, stationary, tools, games, books, clothing, sewing things, fabric etc
• Make ALL the ice cream
• Get a talented friend to paint you some signs for the day.  The bigger the better.  If you can hang them from your front porch so that they can be seen from a distance, awesome
• Make signs to hang up in your neighbourhood promoting the event (make sure you put a date on them)
• Organise fold out tables and clothing racks
• Get a float ($50 in gold coins and small notes should be enough)
• Find a bright, easy to spot tin to keep your float and all your takings in
• Invite all your friends so you have company on the day
• Make sure you have a comfy couch to sit on, and music to play
• Don’t forget to think about food – you’ll be there all day and it’s hard work (make sure breakfast and lunch are available)
• On the day, set up tables and shelves to display all your wares on
• Put all the tech-y stuff and tools where guys can see it all – seriously (they will be way happier stopping with their partner/family if they think there is something they will want to buy, too)
• Make big jugs of iced tea
• Have a big sign listing your ice cream flavours
• Offer ice cream to everyone who stops by
• But most importantly… for optimum decluttering and altruism… sell everything for $1 – it doesn’t matter how much it is worth, or how much it cost you – you’re getting rid of this stuff because you no longer want it.

A $1 garage sale is a stress free garage sale – no need to deliberate over how much you should sell things for, no constant questions about ‘what’s this worth?’ or ’what’s that worth?’, no haggling or bargaining.  What you see is what you get, and everything is $1.

Even the ice cream :)

(All credit for the idea of a $1 garage sale goes to my wonderful housemate/partner in crime Beth Allen.  She is a genius.  The end.)