It’s big and it’s busy. It never gets quiet and it never gets dark. I get the bus from Canberra to Sydney and when you arrive at Central a wall of humidity, busyness and smells hit you in the face. I like to go to downtown and get some Vietnamese food from the restaurant in the Haymarket mall. I know it’s not cool but I kind of love malls in a weird sort of way. They’re a bubble, a regulated air conditioned paradise. A diving bell. It gives me time to acclimatise.

SCENT

Petrol, coriander, fish sauce, fresh cucumber, cheap clothes, sweat, humidity, gum stuck to the footpath.

By

Isabella