Another weekend on the other side of the world...

Well, yesterday and Friday both count as weekend, I think. My coworkers needed a break, so Friday turned into an extension of the weekend. We went into the city centre, and finally I bought a sim for this phone. Unfortunately, while I was in the city, rain began. Enormous drops began to fall, thunder pealed, lightning forked out of the sky (destroying a couple of mobile phone towers and giving me signal problems), and I became a thoroughly wet figure, riding with bowed head into the driving rain. I was so soaked that I ended up having to turn off and go back home to change, before taking the bus back to work, and from there out to a very long lunch. The afternoon was spent back in the lab talking, with a very long discussion about the biological aspects of homosexuality. It is interesting how, for someone speaking a second language, the language itself betrays prejudice. For example, my co-worker was trying to differentiate between homo- and heterosexual, and he said, "If he is gay, or if he is man"... I knew what he meant, but it's funny how the language shows part of his view (essentially that homosexuality is a mental disease, [though he wouldn't have put it quite like that] and that it bears no resemblance to "natural" [sic] relationships). It was a very interesting discussion, however, and continued on the walk home, even when the rain began anew. I'm so glad that my coworkers are people with whom one can have this kind of conversation.

Saturday and today were largely consumed by the need to shop. I rode down to Sainsbury's (a British supermarket chain), and it was not a supermarket but a hypermarket. It was the size of a large Bunnings, and had aisles or everything from organic fruits and vegetables, to stationary, toys, homewares, garden products, etc. They even had a cafe for tired customers! I suppose I shouldn't really be so shocked, but I am in a town not much larger than Frankston, and this is one of two of these monstrosities, and one of at least 10 supermarkets. There is a giant tesco, a small tesco, two small sainsbury's, etc etc etc. What I found strange was that for all the European and Indian foods available, the Asian food was limited to two varieties of soy sauce and some pot noodles. Worse than even safeways... Therefore today I went exploring and found two Asian supermarkets. They were somewhat pricy, but I managed to find most of what I wanted. The Chinese supermarket was funny, since the lady there didn't speak English, so I had to use my very very limited pidgin Chinese to ask for what I wanted, and didn't understand when she asked me if I wanted a bag. At least I know where those shops are, even I I'll hopefully only have to cook for another 3 months. Well, that will do for now. I might post something again soon.

My computer is still two days away if I am lucky. I hope that they give me a shiny new computer, though... Would be nice indeed! :)