No travelling today — just the short drive up to Carlingford Court and the serious business of recovery. The centre is really four places at once: a mall, a market, a food court and a plaza. It reads as thoroughly Australian and yet unmistakably Asian in its energy — the big supermarket chains hold the floor, but around them cluster Chinese banks, grocers and small kitchens. We worked our way through a couple of noodle plates and then simply sat, watching the crowd move past like slow reality television.
Carlingford lies in Sydney’s north-west — not as far out as Parramatta, but a fair way from the harbour. Its character comes from a large and layered Chinese community: an established Cantonese population and a newer wave from mainland China. The food is very good, and the prices, to a British eye, are comfortingly familiar.
An afternoon nap followed, and I surfaced feeling almost human again.
There’s a reason the recovery matters. Flying east, as we have, is the harder direction to absorb: you are asking your body clock to jump forward rather than fall back, and it resists. Which is why, however sound the afternoon nap, the 2am wide-awake hours are almost certainly still loading.