"Dirt cheap leh. (You) can buy onions to throw (at) ppl to death"
- Fellow Singaporean sister in Perth, offering sound advice
From time to time, we encounter things like that in Perth. I felt compelled to drop by Jandakot tomorrow to look at how things are done here in circumstances like that. Do they drop by in Mercedes Benz, shove around, be a rude a little and then found struggling at the car park to fit that last sack of onions in the boot?
What can you do with so much onions on hand, Angel asked. Well, a quick search showed that onions can remove rust from knives, protect plants from insects, dye Easter eggs, clean your BBQ, soothe a bee sting, act as smelling salt, remove new pain smell, repel mosquitoes, remove warts and acne and the best use of it is of course, cook and eat it.
At 5 cents per kg, it is worth a go at each of the above uses just for the fun of it. They say Perth is boring. No, it is just that we have a different way of having fun. Just over the weekend, I was invited to a stranger's backyard to pick lemons fresh from a tree. I think I have an odd idea of having fun. I did have fun. All the owner requested for payment was labour in exchange. I picked up fallen lemons on the ground for her because she was heavily pregnant with twins and shouldn't do this sort of manual work. All I took was 5 minutes to clear the patch of rotten lemons and got 3 bags full of lemons in return.
It wasn't free stuff that made me happy. That came as a bonus. I enjoyed picking the fruits straight from the tree. It was those sort of things that I always wanted to do as a small boy but didn't have the chance to. What made me really happy was that though life here is as structured as any developed country, there is still room for bartering and community trust. I mean, if you consider where I came from, who lets a complete stranger of a different race into the house, let him raid her fruit tree, chat with his wife and gush a little over his baby?
With so many lemons in my stock again (I seriously don't mind that), I guess I'll give the 5 cents onions a miss, though I don't mind watching Mercedes people doing their ugly stuff. I suspect it will be a wasted trip, to be honest.
I love the idea of plucking fruits from trees! In my old neighbourhood, there were mangos and rambutans (15-20 years) ago, I rem plucking them incurring wrath of red ants. Then suddenly, I was told I would be fined. Eventually those trees were gone.
ReplyDelete10 years ago, I went to pulau Ubin and those rambutans near a house were too good to be true! Tried my luck but was chased down by dogs.
Fun then but these will only be memories...
Lemon --- lemon cake! 1st time I had that was on a cruise in Perth. I have since learnt how to bake that. Yummy! Here, s$0.50 each lei
0.50 for one cake or lemon?
DeletePer lemon la.
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Looks like i've gotten 30-40 bucks worth of them then
Deletemmm. who claims Australia has high cost of living and Perth is lifeless huh?
DeleteOne must experience before any conclusion.
Thank you for bringing us into your world!
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Yeah, I also enjoy picking fruits fresh from the vine. I have picked a punnet of fresh blackberries from the vine for free 'cos it was growing wild along a pavement. Fun!
ReplyDeleteCan you show me some pictures of the vines? I'll love to see them
DeleteDone. I have just posted the photos on my blog post "Picking blackberries".
Deletehttp://winkingdoll.blogspot.ca/2012/09/picking-blackberries.html
500 bucks for one ton of onions!
ReplyDeletewow i wanna move over there!!
You must really love onions a lot
DeleteQuality at spud shed can be up and down but prices are good.
ReplyDeleteNx mate ur so suitable for a aussie life! Steph
ReplyDelete