we thought they'd never end

I took ballet lessons as a wee pony-tailed-spindly-legged lass, and, when my hour was over, I pirouetted myself downstairs to Lattimer's Drugstore and perched myself on a stool till my Mum or my Dad picked me up to take me home. I was given 35 cents to buy a soda or a sundae while I waited, and I remember spinning, alone, to the hiss of the fountain, in my leotard and my ballerinas, on scarlet leatherette, and feeling very Grown Up indeed.
I thought of this, decades later, in Penang, when I saw these fluted coupes: my mind jeté'd back to then, when "chocolate" or "butterscotch" was pretty much the most important decision I had to make.

so, so semiprecious

I've almost finished writing tripadvisor reviews of all the guest houses and hotels we stayed at during our month away. Only two remain: this one

(the beautiful Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Georgetown/Penang), and our final-night splurge, the fabulous Pan Pacific in Singapore...which still, in all its glory - and with a buffet breakfast the sumptuous likes of which I have never seen - cost less than a mediocre 3* hotel in Amsterdam on a weekend night.

Yes, I'm still in a nostalgic state of mind, and this is still Southeast Asia. Hey, it's still Penang, even. Bear with me.

i guess that's why they call it

The Cameron Highlands is a kind of Malaysian Escape to the Country : temperate climates, stunning panoramas, and decidedly non-tropical vegetation, like roses, and strawberries, and tea.

And morning glories.

ad infinitum

i am so busy joyously scanning endless negatives (i had 20 rolls of 120 and 3 rolls of 220 processed at the wonderful IQ Lab in bangkok a week before we came home) that i am forgetting to post!

this is the charmingly dilapidated and stunningly blue f.m.s.. building in ipoh. it was love at first glimpse.

imminent flight

i've been so looking forward to this holiday, and it begins, happily, in an hour.

i'll be back in april.