So near, yet so feared: Feeling the heat

One day in July I woke up and thought: I must wear a jacket. I love the hot weather and am blessed with a lizard-like constitution. It was just that I suddenly felt this urge to step out of a house wearing a thick jacket.

Not even China (a country that has pretty much everything, as far as I'm concerned) could offer this in summer, so off to Australia I went.

My friend L had offered to take me on a road trip of New South Wales and Victoria, stopping at each Chinese restaurant in the two states. Unlike in the United States, where I carried out similar research last year, no one in Australia warned me against the Chinese food. They just said, "G'Day!" and "No worries!".

After a quick, and extremely satisfying, yum cha in the Emperor's Garden in Sydney - it's the fresher, plumper prawns that make Australian ha gau (prawn dumplings) so much better than those in Hong Kong - we jumped in the van and drove down the east coast.

"My body is screaming for life-giving Chinese, but what if there are no Chinese restaurants?" I worried as we drove through towns with weird names like Gerringong and Ulladulla.

"Don't worry, where there are people there are Chinese restaurants," L said.