Ah, Northbridge!

Skribe and I spent the better part of today exploring Northbridge, or more accurately, the grocery shops of Northbridge.

Kong's just isn't exotic enough for Skribe anymore, so we have been forced further afield in the quest for foodstuffs we can neither pronounce nor identify.

As we sat in the winter sunlight slurping spoonfuls of sweet tofu I reflected on how, despite its preponderance of Chinese medicine shops and restaurants, that it's true - Northbridge doesn't really have a Chinatown.

The concept of Chinatown might have meant something once, when there were communities of Chinese market gardeners living in Perth. But Northbridge today is such a patchwork of ethnic identities that a single over-riding term like Chinatown is rather inadequate. I love it.

I love it so much it's Northbridge I get homesick for these days, instead of Singapore. For years I hankered after the hawker centres and wet markets of Singapore. No more. Now I yearn for the little cafes and shops of deep Northbridge. Walking up William Street, just past Aberdeen, you gradually become aware of the aroma - it's almost physical, like when the wind billows the sun-warmed sheets into your face - and it smells like home.

Heading back towards the city, it feels like you're shifting shadows, as Zelazny might have described it, as with each step you move from one world towards a different one, a process so gradual you cannot say precisely when it is you left the heart of Northbridge behind and when you've returned to the rather more mundane Northbridge of pubs and souvenir shops and al fresco dining.

Not that that hasn't got its charms, but it doesn't feed the soul.