Dim Sum and Downtown

The next day, Geoff had the whole day off, and Joe (his sister) was free as well. Ash stuck around that night (being in no shape to drive anyway) and we piled into Joe's car around 11 and headed off for Dim Sum.

The Dim Sum place in question was one James (Geoff's Kung Fu instructor) had introduced him to many years before, and Claire was to meet us there. It turned out to be an absolutely great place, where I got to try Chicken feet (not bad, though, to borrow Geoff's brilliant description, they were "fiddly") and had lots of other amazing Dim Sum--prawn dumplings and steamed beef rolls and beef tendons and squid tentacles and cup after cup of really fresh Chinese tea.

Five minutes after we were seated, a bright eyed young Asian lady with high cheekbones and a perpetual smile flurries in and joins us. Her accent was remarkable to me--clear, classic Aussie coming from an Asian body is not something I'm used to, even though I work every day with a bunch of Asians who have distinctly American accents.

Geoff does introductions, and so it is that I meet the irrepressible Junglebunny (Claire, AFK), who immediately helps us order (she's studying Mandarin on the side just now, and it's improving her Cantonese food-ordering skills as well), starts telling us about the recent adventures of her Australian Rules Football club (which she captains) and pulls pliers (!) and metal from her purse and begins completing a bracelet. The weave is really unique and. . . well, here's a picture. It turns out the bracelet is a gift for me, and she sizes my wrist and completes the last few links at the table so that it will fit correctly before slipping it on my wrist.

Despite my normal aversion to jewelry, and actually rather like this piece, and I couldn't be more pleased that I have a wearable memory of my trip that was a gift made by someone I know, rather than than something I purchased for myself.

Part of the reason I like the piece, of course, is that with the practicality of a martial artist, Claire has made it with a simple set of copper links for the last centimeter of the bracelet leading up to the slip-through clasp, meaning that in a tight spot it will fail long before it has any hope of injuring its wearer.

When I've been fitted with my gift, and lunch has finally defeated all of us to the point that we can't eat another bite, Claire takes off (as she has an afternoon appointment) and we eventually clamber up, perform some bistromathics to pay for lunch, and head out again.

Joe has shopping she wants to do, and decides to take her son, Daniel, along, figuring that we'll tire him out with walking in our afternoon's perambulations. So, with promises that there will be dinner at home when we return, we set out into the city of Perth.

It's a pretty neat place, with a mixture of modern and victorian style buildings and a distinctly British architectural influence. I mention that I love to hit museums in new cities, because they're such a good way to learn about local culture, environments and history when compared to trying to read up about it on your own, and the boys point out that there is a pretty great museum just a few blocks away, and we head off to it.

The museum is mainly natural history, with lots of preserved animals that I won't be seeing since they're bush creatures, and plenty of history thrown in. I've got two of the best possible guides, since Geoff is a voracious reader who, through working a pub for the past few years, knowns plenty of old Australian legends that are examples of its current social condition and history, and Ash, as a miner and all-around smart guy, has an encyclopedic knowledge of rocks and minerals that kicks in as soon as we get to the geology section. We tell stories about learning both in and outside of traditional educational settings, and they teach me more about Australian history, culture, and ecology than I would have learned in a month of Sundays if it was up to me to read it.

After that, we wander through town for a bit, the two of them stopping and being patient while I take random shots to convey the feeling of Perth, and we stop for a half a pint of Stout at a local pub and talk for a while, then catch the train back to Geoff's neighborhood and walk to his place.

We arrive in time for dinner, and Joe has made a really fantastic roast chicken, with potatoes and carrots and pumpkin to go along with it, and she's got Ice Cream and homemade Apple Turnovers for dessert. It's really wonderful comfort food, and absolutely delicious. Peter comes home just in time and we dig in and chat about my plans over dinner.

My tentative plans were to leave for a little mining town on Saturday if I was overstaying my welcome, but when I mentioned it to Ash and Geoff they responded with "Why the hell would you want to go there?" and discouraged me, and so Geoff told me to stick around Perth for a couple days instead and we'd see the sights when he wasn't working.

Happy to have a place to lay my head that felt so much like home already, I readily agreed, and so Geoff sat on the back porch until midnight telling stories about our lives both before, during, and after our time on the MAAC forum. The next day, we decided, we were going to Fremantle.