Sigh... How quickly six months go by... How quickly you get totally used to a place, and grow to love it, and then miss it terribly when you have to leave...

Don't get me wrong. The reason I'm sad to be leaving Singapore is not that I don't like Melbourne. I love Melbourne. It's just that Southeast Asia feels like so much the right place for me to be at the moment, and there's a kind of ripping feeling as I head away.

Melbourne is cold, of course, it being June. But it's looking autumnal, rather than wintry -- yellow and gold leaves cling to the trees, and carpet the ground, and flutter in the breeze.

We had breakfast in one of the cafes that populate Melbourne's network of lanes and alleyways and arcades. We read The Age, and listened to that clanging of trams that is quintessentially Melbourne. Then, because it was too early to get into our temporary accommodation, we went to the National Gallery of Victoria at Fed Square, and looked at wonderful aboriginal art, and paintings by early European settlers adjusting their eyes to Australian light and landscapes. It was a kind of reorientation.

We spent what seemed like a shocking amount at the supermarket, and drank a glass of Australian Shiraz with dinner. We had to think hard about what making dinner actually involved, as meals for the last six months have been purchased ready-made from the local hawker centre. We popped out for coffee at 7.30, and realized all the small cafes and shops were shut.

It's all very confusing. I like it here. I like it there. I can't be in two places at once...

But if we can do nothing else, let's celebrate the differences. May we never live in a world where everything is the same. Far better to be torn between places, than for it not to matter where we are.