The Life of Pie

Ampelmann

2011-12-03T03:31:00.001+11:00

Enjoying some caffeine in my Ampelmann mug, from the Ampelmann Ostalgie shop in Berlin, via the parentals (thanks Lep & Père!!!!)

Christmas soon, and hopefully a much needed quick break from my Legal Practice Course. Seriously, I barely have a spare minute in the day at the moment. You're not missing much from my lack of posts - my entire life is study law/think about law/eat/sleep.

The Ship Song Project

2011-11-20T05:44:00.001+11:00

I cannot watch this without bawling my eyes out. It is amazing.

The Ship Song Project - Sydney Opera House reinterprets Nick Cave's iconic song. Performed by Neil Finn, Kev Carmody and The Australian Ballet, Sarah Blasko, John Bell, Angus and Julia Stone, Paul Kelly and Bangarra Dance Theatre, Teddy Tahu Rhodes and Opera Australia, Martha Wainwright, Katie Noonan and The Sydney Symphony, The Temper Trap, Daniel Johns and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.Directed by Paul Goldman.Arranged by Elliott Wheeler.Photography by Prudence Upton.

Take me back...

Long time no....

2011-10-23T08:01:00.001+11:00

Today was a Saturday and a sunny day, not even that cold. I put washing out and it even dried, mostly, which was nice.Unfortunately we spent most of the afternoon in Mark's office at Nottingham Uni, doing our Australian tax returns... you can only do the online thing on a PC, and it was the only place we have any PC access these days. I pretty much hate doing things you can't do on a Mac.

There's Mark in his office....see all those books? They were piled up in our living room for about 3 months until the new office was ready. I am so glad they are now more orderly.At about 5pm we decided to have a break and go for a walk in Wollaton Park. There was a big red sign up at the gate saying "DEER RUTTING SEASON - DEER MAY BE VERY AGGRESSIVE AND YOU SHOULD KEEP CLEAR". We steered clear as much as possible, but we did see this noble stag:

He didn't seem too threatened by us. But we tried not to look too interested in the lady deer, just in case.

Tax return is nearly done....the only annoyance is that National Australia Bank chose today (tonight? I guess?) to have their site down for maintenance, so Mark couldn't get his interest and tax figures! Which meant we'll have to go back to finish it. Grr.Now off to watch a French film we got from LoveFilm - Tell No One, and slumber.

Holidaying

2011-09-13T07:50:00.003+10:00

I feel like I haven't really had a holiday in a long time, not since the epic holiday trio (Canberra, Melbs, North NSW) of last October/November. But we did get away a little in July, cramming a lot into a short space of time, unfortunately that did mean it felt like it was over rather quickly!

Mark and I started out with a little trip down to Dorset, primarily for Sam and Georgina's wedding. We travelled down the previous day, but the journey took FOREVER due to traffic and roadworks and we arrived late. Add to that, the weather took a turn for the worst as we arrived and poured with rain all afternoon and evening.

We stayed in Stinsford, just outside Dorchester, which those in the know will know as the place where Thomas Hardy is buried (well, his heart is buried in Stinsford, his ashes are in Westminster Abbey, in Poet's Corner), and we walked over to the church to visit the grave. We were going to walk out into the wood bit with the stream so I could show Mark the scene of many a Fellows Family Picnic, but the weather was too misery so we headed back to the B+B. It's been a long while since there has been a Fellows Family Thomas Hardy Trip, I think it should be resurrected soon. Especially as the one time Mark came with us the cottage at Bockhampton was closed.

Anyway, we ended up driving into Dorchester for the evening, having pizza for tea and a few drinks in the Wetherspoons, before taking a bottle of port and some good chocolate back to the B+B and watching some TV. We had to be up early on Saturday for the wedding, before which an emergency shopping trip had to be made as I'd left part of my outfit in Bristol, error.

The wedding was at a Victorian hall in another village north of Dorchester, it was a nice place.

I won't bore you with details but it was a super fun day of friends, cider, dancing and even some sun at the right moments (i.e. photo time!)

Sam and Georgie had got this tandem bicycle that they both left on at the end of the night, they were obviously really well rehearsed on it but a lot of the rest of us were a bit wobbly! It requires a lot of teamwork.

My favourite thing was that they made (yes, hand-made!) an individual owl for EVERY SINGLE GUEST.

On Sunday, we scoffed our big veggie breakfast (any B+B that finds you Linda McCartney sausages when you tell them you are vegetarian gets a GOLD STAR in my book) and drove down into Weymouth to meet up with everyone again. Everyone was a bit lacklustre to say the least, haha, but we had a couple of drinks at the pub and Sam and Georgina came to say goodbye to everyone before they flew off back to Melbourne a couple of days later. Weymouth is nice on the sea front, the beach is really big and golden and it seems a smarter sort of place. Mark and I got in a few rounds of cricket (cricket? sort of....) on the beach with Ed, Gen, Cat and Alex, thanks to Ed's provision of the smallest cricket bat known to man.

And then it was time to drive home, Essex for Ed and Gen, Surrey for Alex and Cat and Bristol for Mark and I, ready for a good night's sleep and the next adventure....

Which involving an early start the next morning was not something I was originally overjoyed about! But I was off to London for a day of fun times. Mark wasn't joining me, preferring instead to stay in Bristol and have my mum make him cups of tea, but he did kindly drive me to the coach station nice and early.

Arriving after a couple of hours of motorway boredom, I made my way up to King's Cross and the British Library, to see their exhibition on Mervyn Peake, which was very interesting and very thorough. I learnt a good deal about Mervyn Peake I didn't know and it was great to see his early Gormenghast sketches and plans as well as those from when he illustrated Alice in Wonderland.

I then went over east to meet my old Sydney gang! Rosie, who was on my team at HCF, was visiting Europe with her bf Alex, and our other two teammates Mark and Daniella came into London so we could all have a meetup. I found them all in the Pride of Spitalfields off Brick Lane and we had a good old catch-up, before Mark and Daniella had to set off to make Daniella's flight back home to Glasgow. Rosie, Alex and I went to the Natural History Museum for the rest of the afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed the animals, especially this one:

I think the Natural History Museum is my favourite museum at the moment. It is certainly the one in London I go to the most. They also have a really great room with lifesize models of whales and sharks and dolphins and stuff, which is my favourite bit. I sound like I'm about 5 but it really is good!

Glastonbury!!!

2011-08-19T09:43:00.002+10:00

Glastonbury Festival seems ages ago now...well it is I guess - two months.

I put the photos up on my Flickr a couple of weeks back. To sum up, it was an enormous amount of fun. It's such a huge thing, like nothing I've ever been to before, and there's such a good feeling there. We were really lucky that we mostly had good weather as well.

That's our tent, taken on the Friday (the wet day) - that's as muddy as the campsite got, ie not very, so that made life a lot easier! I decided I actually love sleeping in a tent. It's like a cocoon or a womb or something, all snugglesome. Although we cheated and took an inflatable bed with us for ultimate comfort (we are old now).

We got the bus from Bristol on the Thursday lunchtime, found a good camping spot, ate our picnic, drank some of our box of wine and set out to explore the site.

The festival proper didn't start til Friday, so there wasn't a great deal to be done. The ground was thick with mud from the previous day's rain so even though the sun was shining, walking wasn't too fun. Getting a bit fed up, we ambled into a fun looking bar tent that had brilliant bright pink decor, fun music and cocktails. Best move ever. The mojitos were expensive and we thought they might be a rip off, but they were amazing! Generous and tasty. We cheered up no end.

That evening, we made our way to the Park area of the site, met a cool Irish couple and hung out with them in this amazing mirrored pergola for the night.

Friday started well with Metronomy on the Pyramid stage, can't believe I hadn't heard them before, amazing band! Their album 'The English Riviera' has been on repeat on my iPod for the last 2 months. Unfortunately, as they left the stage, the weather took a turn for the worst and the rain started. We grabbed coffee and toast and headed over to the Leftfield to see some comedy from Andy Zaltzman (an old Edinburgh Fest favourite and the man that can be credited secondly only to Mark for making me interested in cricket).
The Leftfield had the benefit of being in an indoor marquee, and was run by Billy Bragg, it had a really great mix of stuff on over the weekend. Political debate, music, comedy. It was a good place and we spent a large amount of time in there even when the sun was out! Friday evening we went back to watch Billy Bragg's live set and despite the fact that I was cold and wet and a bit miserable he is such an uplifting person to hear, so true to what he believes in. That evening we were stood next to this family, a couple and a little boy maybe 8 or 9 years old, and several times they leaned down to explain to him what Billy was saying, about why it's important we pay our taxes and what trade unions do. It gave me hope that there are still people who believe in good things, haha. Also in the Leftfield we discovered some brilliant artists, like this guy Jonny Neesom who played guitar and sang these really funny, perceptive songs (we got his CD in the tent) and this incredible spoken word artist named Kate Tempest. Seriously I've never heard anything like her, she was so powerful. I need to track down of her stuff recorded.

On Friday night we went to sleep really early, haha! We were lying in the tent and where we were camped you could hear Primal Scream playing in the distance. It was lovely to drift off listening to 'Country Girl' drift over the fields.

Saturday was a MUCH nicer day. The sun came out, it was really warm and the mud started drying up fast. We used our Green Passes to try out the solar showers (SO GOOD...well ok it was like washing under a low-pressure, luke-warm hose in a shed, but still....SO GOOD!) and feeling rested, healthier and CLEANER we hung out at the tent into the afternoon and drank some wine and ate a lot of cereal bars (main food source) before it was time for music. Annoyingly the two acts I wanted to see most out of the whole festival were on at overlapping times. So we decided to go to most of Anna Calvi, then skip the end (we saw Anna Calvi a month or two earlier at the Thekla in Bristol) and run over to Patrick Wolf for a full set. Anna Calvi turned out to be so captivating that we stayed the whole thing, but at least we still caught most of Patrick Wolf. Both were amazing, complete highlights. Patrick Wolf is pretty much the most upbeat person ever to exist. This is the video to his last single, The City. It is impossibly upbeat:

Saturday night was so amazing as we went over to the 'after-hours' part of the festival, it was the most incredible thing. I sound like I'm gushing but seriously, it took your mind to a whole other world. Block9 and Shangri-La are like whole worlds built at the festival.

That's the London Underground part of Block9, you don't get the sense of scale from the photo but that is a life size block of flats, with a life-size tube train hanging out, and underneath it is a club. The attention to detail is so amazing. Then round from Block9 is Shangri-La. This area has run on an ongoing futuristic, dystopian storyline for the last couple of years; in 2011 the city is being ravaged by a virus, so the inhabitants are moving out to a new planet, and this is the last party before they leave, 'a rave to end all raves…'

It's built like a film set, I have never seen anything like it. It's a whole town, the centre of which is the slum, a series of covered alleyways leading to all sorts of places...weird shops, crazy bars...half of it boarded up as the residents flee.

The Shangri-Spa!

This shop sold that well-known complementary trio of items phones, crack and biros, before the virus forced its untimely closure.

We went into this mad strip club behind a cage door named Fish and Tits...

...no really.

There was a bizarre mirrored nook inside.

At midnight we went through to the Arcadia midnight fire show at the 'spider', which was also fantastic.

Arcadia take military scrap and use it to make spectacular shows. They had live singers, musicians, acrobats, it was pretty impressive.

Sunday was consequently a lazy day, spent hanging out at Leftfield (trying to avoid heat this time, made a change to the rain!), eating potato wedges, seeing the epic danlesac vs Scroobius Pip show, relaxing in the green fields and the healing fields eating ice cream, and late in the evening watching the only appropriate alternative to Beyonce in existence - Simon Munnery in the Cabaret tent!

He had converted the League Against Tedium/Attention Scum hat into a BUBBLE MACHINE!

In a pleasing Simon Munnery-related side-note, I was packing up my books in Bristol to move them up to Nottingham last week and I found a book that an old friend had given me as a present in 2001, over a decade ago. I was flicking through it and I found he had inserted into the back cover a little Simon Munnery interview/article clipped out of a newspaper! That made me smile a lot and think about the many years in which my life has been made happier by Simon Munnery and his brilliance.

Sometimes Great Britain ain't that Great.

2011-08-17T04:31:00.006+10:00

Service has been suspended due to riots, but I think I'm back now! It seemed a bit inappropriate to write about how I done fun stuffs when the country was experiencing a moral and practical breakdown. And I felt an enormous urge to write about my thoughts on the events but it has taken me a few days to put them into order, and also pipe down my anger enough to write sensibly about it. I'm amazed how some journalists put out such insightful and reflective commentaries within hours of stuff taking place. But I guess that's why they get paid to do writing about important topics, while I don't get paid to write about what I did at the weekend...

I've been angered by the perpetrators themselves and their blatant disregard for the communities around them, a disgusting show of greed, violence and disrespect. That goes without saying. But that wasn't where my anger ended. I was astonished, over the first few days, by a complete refusal amongst much of the public to seek and discuss possible reasons for what was going on. I know full well that the rioters were on the whole not acting with any agenda, let alone one that justified their behaviour. When journalists managed to talk to youths involved, the reasons they gave were often confused, vague and showed a clear lack of understanding of political and social issues. But that does not mean there's no wider social issue to address.

This refusal to look for an explanation seemed to stem from the fact that people felt that by rationalising the behaviour, they were somehow justifying it, saying it was right. But you can rationalise and condemn, surely, just as you can rationalise and condone. In many ways, I feel the disorder we've seen across England is no more than a vastly overblown reflection of the kind of activity seen in certain areas of towns and cities every single day.

Neglection,
Kids carry guns for protection
Weapons, buy that on the street for pence
Direction
Kids lost that a long time ago

Cos all you hear is BRAP BRAP BRAP BRAP

There is a massive underlying problem at play in our society here. The riots were just the inevitable blow up, as a window of opportunity was seized by kids normally pushed to the fringes of society. We can't pretend it happened in a bubble.

The proposed solutions have so far done little to calm my nerves. Water cannons, rubber bullets, live ammunition (apparently people genuinely thought this should be used? If I ever meet one of these people, shoot me...), these are confrontational, aggravating methods of controlling disorder that long term risk reactionary blow-ups. I have renewed respect for the police for not resorting to these methods, despite the violence they were facing.

Cameron's initial statements recognised a problem and I was briefly optimistic. However, his more recent comments have been vague and I'm not sure he is showing an understanding of the bigger picture, nor the ability to engage with the right people. I was concerned by his announcement of a 'war' on gangs. We've had the war. We don't want it again. We need the peace talks now. I'm not sure such a loaded word was the right choice. And the 'marriage solves all society's problems' line needs to be dropped. Seriously. I hate the generalising absent father argument. What's the implication? That women make ineffectual parents?

Role models
They say we need some black role models
That ain't footballers, rappers actors and no models?
Father figures
They say we need some more father figures
Like you can't grow if your mothers there but your father isn't?
F*** that, I say we need to put something back
Into communities where they think the way out is shottin crack

And I think I'm most worried of all about the justice system. Yes, everyone involved needs to be punished, but this needs to be proportional, fair, and each offence must be punished individually as it would be if it had occurred outside the riot period. Politicians need to keep their noses, and policy, out of the judiciary.

Discipline is very necessary. But what about the longer term? We can lock everyone up, but last I heard, prisons were full? We can evict them from their council homes, but where will they go? Take away their rights and there will be a bigger backlash. I don't pretend to have the answers, but I think we need a wider plan, more investment in these communities. We need to work towards inclusion, education, greater communication. I believe in the goodness inherent in everyone, and we need to find a way to bring it out. I don't think that's 'liberal', I don't think that's 'hippy'. I think that's just basic, civilised humanity. That may not be what the rioters showed, but if we all abandon it, what hope for us then?

----

Title lyric from 'Great Britain' by danlesac vs Scroobius Pip; lyrics in the rest of this post from 'Don't Come Around Here' by Kano. Listen to the Kano track here. It's a favourite grime track of mine and one I think is pretty pertinent in its message, particularly at the moment.

Jack in the Green

2011-08-02T07:32:00.003+10:00
In Bristol, we have a traditional May Day celebration every year - Jack in the Green. The Green Man, Jack, is led through the city, attracting followers along the way and is led to Horfield Common, where he is killed and the spirit of summer is released.

This year it happened on the 7th of May, and, being in Bristol for Jack in the Green for the first time in a while, I decided to follow the procession. Pere also joined me.

After a quick stop in the Amnesty Bookstore on Gloucester Road, where they were having an epic sale and all books were about 10p, we joined Jack and his followers in Redland, where they were having a dance.

He was then led onwards through Redland, down to Gloucester Road, and all the way up towards Horfield, singing all the way.

Pere took the photo of me with Jack. As you may see, I have a green nose. That is Jack's magic - his followers offer some of Jack's magic to everyone we pass.

Jack was pretty wayward on the route. He tries to run into pubs, chases women and frightens children. He has to be controlled with sticks.

We turned up Ash Road and headed for the common, with quite a crowd following Jack now. There were a lot of people waiting on the common for Jack, as this is where he meets his death.

Jack tries to escape, but he is penned in for his final dance. His fate is sealed as his followers recite the Green Man verse...

Like antlers, like veins of the brain the birches
Mark patterns of mind on the red winter sky;
‘I am thought of all plants, ’ says the Green Man,
‘I am thought of all plants,’ says he.

The Hungry birds harry the last berries of rowan
But white is her bark in the darkness of rain;
‘I rise with the sap, ’ says the Green Man,
‘I rise with the sap,’ says he.

The ashes are clashing their boughs like sword-dancers,
Their black buds are tracing wild faces in the clouds;
‘I come with the wind, ’ says the Green Man,
‘I come with the wind, ’ says he.

The Alders are rattling as though ready for battle
Guarding the grove where she waits for her lover;
‘I burn with desire, ’ says the Green Man,
‘I burn with desire, ’ says he.

In and out of the yellowing wands of the willow
The pollen-bright bees are plundering the catkins;
‘I am honey of love, ’ says the Green Man,
‘I am honey of love, ’ says he.

The hedges of quick are thick with May blossom
As the dancers advance on the leaf-covered King:
‘It’s off with my head, ’ says the Green Man’
‘It’s off with my head, ’ Says he.

Jack is thrown to the ground and a spear is hurled through him. The spirit of summer is finally released!

Jack is pulled apart - if you take a piece of him home you will have good luck all summer!

And so summer began. And for me has been incredibly busy. I'll hopefully get some updates up this week so my faithful readers can see what I've been up to!

Paperwork mountain

2011-05-11T04:39:00.004+10:00

Even though we've been back in England for going on four months now, I still feel like I'm living in both Australia and the UK sometimes. Especially when I try to cope with my paperwork and finances. My red folder blows my mind right now. For every UK bank account there is an Australian one. I have separate plastic wallets for my separate tax returns, bills, statements....I started doing my UK tax return and got out all my Australian group certificates. Help?

Fun in the sun

2011-05-04T06:18:00.008+10:00

Photograph: Michael Lloyd/Bristol News and M/PA

Greetings from Bristol!

I have so much to post, but so much of it has accompanying photos and I have one big problem - my MacBook's hard drive is full. Stuffed. Clog. Oh dear. So photos must for the moment remain on my memory card, which is a shame as I have a mega awesome new camera that I currently have on generous loan (Canon EOS 30D) - THANKS PÈRE!!!! And it is full of lovely lovely photos of all the things Mark and I have been getting up to over the Easter holiday.

The weather has been amazing. Honestly, I don't even remember Sydney ever serving up such a long-lasting chunk of sun. As a result, many many daytrips have happened - to Caerphilly, Cheddar, Glastonbury, and all over Bristol. And Mark has been off on tour with his new band for a week up and down the country. I am loving England a bit right now. We had a brilliant Royal Wedding weekend, got up early to watch the whole wedding build up on the telly, loved it! It was so perfect. I want a wedding now, with visiting dignitaries and trees in Westminster Abbey. After the wedding, we caught the bus to Bedminster to hang out with Miri and Mark (other Mark) at a street party, ate lots of cake and drank cider, then ended up in Tobacco Factory with coffee and gin and tonics (not at the same time). Mark was working that evening in the Grapes so we all went up to Clifton and hung out there all night, and they screened the Sex Pistols movie the Filth and the Fury, haha. I had to work Saturday morning in the Post Office though, which was a bit painful! Monday we had a really long walk in Leigh Woods with Lep and Pere which was relaxing.

You may have seen the great BRISTOL VERSUS TESCO struggle in the news, which is where the first picture in this post is taken from. I don't really know what is going on at the minute, but there has been one full blown riot and another protest turned nasty. The area concerned, Stokes Croft, is close to my house, and is somewhere I have been spending a lot of time since I came back to Bristol. There has been an enormous campaign against the planned Tesco opening down there going on for ages, but they just didn't listen. They opened the store almost in secret overnight, one day it was boarded up shopfront, the next day open for business, which came as quite a shock to all, and a vocal group of protesters set up in front of it, chatting to people and giving out free cake (tasty) for the first few days.
A longstanding squat, Telepathic Heights, stands opposite the new store and it was a heavy handed police raid on this building that triggered the original night of trouble. We were driving home from pub tea and there were police EVERYWHERE, but it wasn't until next day we realised what went on. Tesco was smashed and has since been boarded over, someone has scrawled a very beautiful poem across it in black paint. There was a lot of criticism of the way police dealt with the situation, and this was the root of the second protest last Thursday.
I believe Tesco is planning to re-open, but I'm not sure why. Nobody wants it there. Stokes Croft is not a 'disgrace to Bristol' as certain people believe, but a thriving bohemian centre that does not need this business. It is the world of the co-operative, anti-capitalism, and Tesco is a direct threat to this ideology, as well as to the numerous small shops and businesses in the area. I love Stokes Croft, and I cannot be much happier than sitting in the window of favourite cafe Kino, with my flat white, looking out onto what can best be described by my mother as a 'slice of life'. There may well be the drug addicts and street drinkers that inevitable remain in the inner city areas, but also students, punks, middle class hippies and their families, artists and creatives and general interesting people making up the Peoples Republic of Stokes Croft - and none of them wants Tesco!!!!

The fiery portals of the east (and the west midlands)

2011-03-25T08:42:00.004+11:00
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England

What better way to mark a return my return to England, after almost three years away, than with John of Gaunt's monologue from Shakespeare's Richard II. Settling back in to life on the top end of the world has its ups and downs, but England has undeniable gravitas.

I was fortunate enough to see a brilliant production of Richard II at the Tobacco Factory last weekend. It was the first time I had seen Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory in action and they were so good. I think when you see a good Shakespeare production, you understand it completely even if you don't fully understand all the language. This was one of those.

John of Gaunt's son was Henry IV of England. Richard II's father was Edward Plantagenet, the Black Prince. The tombs of both lie in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, and I visited them a few weeks ago. Well, primarily I was visiting my sister, but Henry and Edward were almost as exciting. Bec was doing a concert with her Chamber Choir in the cathedral crypt, but we spent the day visiting firstly the Museum of Canterbury, then the Cathedral.

Canterbury is a lovely city, very small and neat and old and historic. We learnt its history in the museum, right through from its beginnings and Roman occupation, to the building of the Cathedral, Thomas Becket, Christopher Marlowe, Bagpuss, Clangers and Rupert the Bear (as a long-term collector of Rupert annuals, my dad was EXCITED).

Clangers are knitted bodies on a meccano skeleton! The museum is really good and at little over 3 quid quite a bargain.

Through the gate to the Cathedral. The Cathedral is huge, monumental and magnificent.

Inside there is so much atmosphere and history - a small flame marks the site where the tomb of Thomas Becket stood (destroyed by order of Henry VIII). Around this lie the aforementioned tombs of Henry IV and the Black Prince. We spent a good long time inside, gallivanting around. It was cold though, but I imagine the heating bills must be pretty high.

Bec's concert was really good, and well attended. The following day, we left her behind and journeyed up to Wolverhampton so Père could attend the football at Molineux and we could visit uncle Alan and auntie Jenny. We had a nice quiet Saturday evening in with them, then on Sunday morning went to the Beacon Hotel to drink the best beer in the world (if you are my dad), Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild (brewed at the pub). I am actually also a big fan of Ruby Mild, it is TASTY.

I love this picture of Père and uncle Alan as it shows what a serious business drinking Sarah Hughes Ruby Mild is. I also love the Beacon, as it is a perfectly preserved victorian pub. It's like a museum pub.

Return

2011-03-10T10:23:00.004+11:00
I think it is time to write again.

England is like another world. Adjusting back is strange and harder than I thought.

But I am not going to talk too much about England yet. On our way back from Sydney, we had an amazing stopover in Hong Kong and I must commit my memories to type.

We arrived direct from Sydney on Tuesday, early evening. The flight went well, plane was near empty so we had a row of seats to ourselves and it was really quiet, no queues for toilet etc. Landed in Hong Kong in some serious fog, boarded a train to HK Central station, then squeezed our mega amount of luggage into a Tardis-like HK taxi for a crazy-driving mad dash to our hotel in Wan Chai, on Hong Kong Island.

The hotel was amazing. We got a deluxe room which had plenty of space, and a great view over the racecourse and the edge of the skyscrapers. But we were hungry so headed straight out on the free shuttle bus to get the Star Ferry across to Tsim Sha Tsui on the mainland.

The Star Ferry is brilliant! The view from the water is fantastic, and with all the bright lights at night the fog didn't matter so much. And it only costs about 20p for a crossing. The ferry dropped us off in the heart of Kowloon and we made our way towards HK's mega shopping street, Nathan Road, endless shops, designer and more traditional, huge crowds and the obligatory shady men offering "copy bag, copy rolex". I completely misunderstood what was going on at first and was wondering what "coffee bag" was, whether it was like a tea bag. Then I realised that was Chinese pronunciation of 'copy'.

Somewhere off Nathan Road we found a vegetarian restaurant recommended in our Rough Guide, which had all you can eat Cantonese vegetarian buffet. It was so cheap and had free green tea and the food was really good - we were so hungry that I definitely had my money's worth anyway! Then it was train back to HK Island and bed.

The following morning we made our way over to the central business area of Hong Kong Island, walking around super-smart malls on our way to get the Peak Tram. The Peak Tram is a funicular railway that takes you up to Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island, an upmarket residential area that until 1930 was reserved exclusively for non-Chinese.

The tram ejects you into a little shopping centre that seems especially designed to prevent you getting out. We did find the exit eventually though and had a good walk round. There's a great view from the top over the harbour, although unfortunately the fog was still thick so we couldn't see as much as we would have liked. We climbed up a bit further and found a pleasant garden, with a signposted walk that we did, thinking it would take us in a circuit but we ended up somewhere completely lost on the mountain with no people in sight! We retraced our steps in the end and found our way back to the tram.

We found a gallery cafe in Central for lunch with a thai vegetarian buffet - really nice. Then we caught the Star Ferry back over the Tsim Sha Tsui and wandered around a bit, got a coffee, then realised from the guide book that the Hong Kong Museum of History, which was just round the corner, was free entry for the afternoon. We went along and it was a brilliant museum - really well laid out and with plenty of detail covering the whole history of Hong Kong, from pre-history right through to HK being handed back to China and the creation of the Special Administrative Region. In one bit they had done a reconstruction of a Hong Kong street circa 1930 and you could wander into all the shops, it was fascinating!

We headed back to HK Island and got some sushi rolls in the mall near the hotel for dinner. We were stuffed after lunch still. We had a look round the shops too, which were really festive as they had late night shopping for Chinese New Year (a few days later) - it's like Christmas there! Then bed.

Thursday morning we made our way down to the Ferry Terminal once more, but this time not for the Star Ferry, oh no! We boarded the Lantau Island Ferry, to Mui Wo.

The ferry was pretty awful. Even though it only cost about 80p, it took almost an hour, was really rickety, and the route was really unscenic. The fog was still really thick so you couldn't see far enough to see anything interesting, but parked out in the sea between the islands are all these horrible huge industrial junky boats, container ships, some boats that just look like they are rotting away. These things kept looming out of the fog at us as we sailed past. Blah.

Lantau Island is the largest of HK's islands, and very mountainous. It feels very rural, even the town Mui Wo seemed rather sparse. We boarded a bus next in the main square and that wound its way up high into the mountains, giving some amazing views! Hong Kong is very craggy. After about half an hour, we arrived at our destination, Ngong Ping, next to which lies the Po Lin Monastery and its massive 26m high bronze Buddha statue.

The photos really don't give the best impression, the Tian Tan Buddha looms over you wherever you are.

It's very beautiful around the monastery. We went up into the dining hall where the monastery dishes up hearty vegetarian meals for a tiny price. The food was quite basic (mostly just plain rice and vegetables) but nice and there was plenty of it! We had about 5 different dishes.

After filling up, we made our way up to the summit and the statue.

After a good look round, we were back on the bus to Mui Wo and back on the boat to Hong Kong Island.

We wandered back to the hotel and kind of spent the rest of the afternoon lounging around in bed, drinking green tea and watching the sun set out of our huge window. It was really nice. We got up again eventually and went for a really nice dinner at a crazy cantonese vegetarian restaurant we found online. You had to go into this slightly grotty looking tenement building and up in a lift to get to it, but once in it was great, really busy, and even though there was a slightly awkward language barrier the staff were really welcoming - I think being slightly off the tourist trail, they weren't really used to international visitors!

A last look round the lights of Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, and we went back to the hotel to pack up and sleep before the long long long flight the next morning. There was a slight mis-hap checking in when my suitcase accidentally went down the luggage chute without a luggage tag, but it all got sorted in the end! The flight this time was not so fun. Halfway through I genuinely thought I was going to DIE of BOREDOM (13 hours aghhh) and this time the plane was really small and really crowded, and the seats didn't recline properly. McWrinkle wasn't too happy as he had his own seat on the first plane but this time had to go under the seat in front with my bag. I did fall asleep for an hour or so though, and the rest of the time watched Tudors.

Then we arrived back in Heathrow, passing through the corridors of arrivals with cheery photos of London sights on the walls, a positive beginning. Then it was COLD. SO COLD. And dark. I had two nights in a row without a day in between. And thus, with a seemingly endless night and some photos of London on the walls, began a new chapter of life.

Bye January, Bye Australia

2011-02-01T06:14:00.003+11:00
January has seen some crazy times, that seem a world away now as I sit here wrapped in blankets, fire blazing, looking out of the window over frosty English countryside...

...The new year 2011 started as it meant to go on with layers of thick, sticky heat falling over Sydney.

We took a trip out to visit our old house in Meadowbank and caught the Parramatta River ferry back to the city, like we always used to do back in the day.

We hung out at Sydney Observatory and on Observatory Hill, my favourite place in the world...we did the night tour at Sydney Observatory also, got to look at Jupiter and a lovely nebula!

We took our last day trip out to the Blue Mountains - where the air was fresh and clean and delicious - walked the giant steps, Furber steps and through the Jamison Valley. I ached for the next 3 days.

We've seen the sights, walked over the Harbour Bridge, swam at Balmoral, and spent a lovely evening with Dean at the free open-air concert in the Domain, Sydney Symphony performing a Shakespeare-themed set of works, with our accompanying selection of wine, cheese and antipasto. We saw Kitty, Daisy and Lewis play some fun rock 'n' roll at the Sydney Festival, and The National play an amazing gig at the Enmore Theatre. We braved the queue for the Annie Leibowitz retrospective at the MCA and found it thoroughly worth the wait. We had flat whites and falafels at Shenkin in Erskineville (my favourite home for always), thickshakes at BuzzzBar in Newtown, poached eggs at Baffi and Mo in Redfern, rojak and cendol at Mamak in Chinatown, polenta chips and many other delights with David and Kristie at Bloodwood in Newtown, Four Ate Five's excellent chips in Surry Hills, Crust Pizza in Neutral Bay (Crust Pizza!!!), and the most fabulous 3 course meal with the most delectable bottle of wine at Glebe Point Diner.

I had my last day at work and my colleagues bought me some beautiful antique silver rose earrings. Mark and I held our leaving party at Emma's shop, we had a vegetarian BBQ, and we drank our 2003 vintage Moet that I had been saving for such an occasion.

Our last day in Sydney was a busy one, made rather difficult by the fact the weather suddenly decided it was a good idea to be 36 degrees (THIRTY SIX DEGREES) for the day. Poor Mark had to carry an 8kg box to the Post Office, then we had to find lunch somewhere that had air conditioning before we passed out (Deus ex Machina sufficed with their lovely salads, giving us a chance to cool down). Then a trip to the bank where I lost the plot slightly and Mark had to do my accounting for me which probably made the bank people think he was trying to steal all my money or something.

Then a trip up the Sydney Tower!

For some last minute postcard sending and surveying of our beautiful land...

And the day was over. Just the evening was left, a last drink with Dean at the Art House Hotel and then onwards into the night to watch Priscilla Queen of the Desert at Emma's in Surry Hills.

On Tuesday 25th at 8am, a taxi came to Neutral Bay, a taxi came and took us away. It took us over the Harbour Bridge, past Circular Quay, and south to the airport. A final flat white later and we boarded a plane, one final loop over Sydney, beautiful Sydney, Sydney my home, and we were gone.

Neutral Bay

2011-01-18T22:09:00.004+11:00

My current bedroom in the Neutral Bay sharehouse. I like this house a lot, it has space in. The only downside is obviously that it is on the wrong (north) side of the bridge. It is SO straight here. So vanilla. And there are like, 5 supermarkets all within a few blocks of each other. At least we are not far from the beach. I am now one of those terrible people for whom there is no life outside the inner west.

In one week I will no longer live in Sydney. No longer live in Australia.

two thousand ten/eleven

2011-01-11T21:12:00.004+11:00
December rather flew by. I assume it happened, there wasn't anything on the news about it going missing. So it must have just gone really fast. I don't remember a whole lot happening, other than going to see the Australian Ballet's most wonderful production of the Nutcracker at the Opera House. We both loved it so much, I want to go to the ballet again soon. And it was so Christmassy, the perfect show to see the week before Christmas.

Christmas happened and passed almost unnoticed as we weren't really able to do much normal celebrating. We had a rather super Christmas Eve though. I left work at midday and we trooped on down to the Fish Market, not a particularly fun walk in the searing heat but all worth it in the end as we stocked up on tasty sea creatures.

The fish market was heaving as seafood is Australia's Christmas dinner of choice. It took us a while to get round, but we eventually came away with oysters, a huge tuna steak, and some salmon and tuna sashimi as well as smoked salmon. After taking the fishies home to the fridge, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the city, wandering around the shops (I bought a rather fancy new iPod for myself, naughty).

Walked up to Crown Street in the evening to eat at Yulli's, the vegetarian restaurant, had a lovely bottle of wine then emerged again once more onto streets full of festive cheer....the Clock Hotel across the road seemed to call us in, the bar staff were all dressed as elves, and we demanded glasses of port, which took rather a while to find, but finally some tasty christmassy port did emerge. We drank it out on the balcony, under the clock tower for which the pub is named.

Christmas morning saw a slow start. We got up and made our way over to our new friend Emma's house, on the way we walked passed the Salvation Army office, they were throwing a party with lots of families there and they had a truck loaded up with bags of toys they were giving out. It warmed our hearts. Collected Emma then altogether walked down to Central and took the train to Newtown. We spent the day under the beautiful sun in the garden of a King Street terrace, in the company of a number of miscellaneous adults, an 8 year old, and 18 month old, and the world's most excitable dog. We feasted endlessly on prawns, roast vegetables, salads and large amounts of wine. An excellent day.

The next three days rained. Solidly. We stayed at home and watched the cricket. On Tuesday, we moved up to our new (and final) house in Neutral Bay, where we will stay for the next couple of weeks until the time comes to make the journey back to the UK.

I had to work Tuesday-Friday, and it was frantic. I have never known it so busy and it was really hard to keep calm, especially as we had a couple of minor disasters involving things going wrong and a couple of member complaints. Especially demoralizing as it seemed every other person in Sydney was still on holiday! Oh well, come New Year's Eve I was ready for some fun, after a nap of course.

We met up with some friends at a barbecue at a house in Surry Hills, then walked over to Oxford Street to try our luck getting into a mythical secret party which may or may not have existed. That failed, and since midnight was approaching we taxied down to Moore Park to sit on a hill, drink wine and watch the fireworks. It was nice up on the hill, just a small crowd of people, mostly just local families and quite a few children. There were 2 policemen but they just let everyone carry on drinking even though it's technically an alcohol-free area, as no one was causing any trouble. It was nice.

Mark, Emma and Anya on the hill.

Mark and I

Our view of the Sydney city skyline.

We went back to Emma's shop afterwards and cleared the rails for a party.

Ended up dancing and drinking and dozing on and off until the sun came up on 2011, and Mark and I made our way back to the North Shore to sleep our way through the rest of an extremely hot New Year's Day.

Strawberry Fields forever

2010-12-21T22:19:00.005+11:00
I arrived at work this morning to find an inexplicable pile of avocados on my desk. Also on my desk, a present from our department's middle manager. I brought all of these things home. This brings the Christmas 2010 grand present total to a staggering....THREE. Oh well, at least I have a lot of avocados. Yum.

What HAS HAPPENED? It has been a long time since I last blogged. Oh, Mark's parents came to visit! We had a week up in Port Stephens around 3 hours drive from Sydney on the north coast of New South Wales, a week of perfect weather sandwiched in between days of heavy rain. Lady Luck smiled upon us.

We rented a little flat for the week in Nelson Bay and spent the first couple of days lazing around on the beach at the bottom of the road and buying mangos from the market. Around the third day, we caught the ferry over the bay to Tea Gardens and Hawk's Nest, watched dolphins play in the river and found the beautiful Jimmy's Beach.

We drove for a day to the Hunter Valley and visited some beautiful vineyards - wine tasted at Vinden Estates out in the most perfect courtyard with the most perfect view.

Also visited the well-known Tyrrell's wines and went on a very enjoyable and informative tour of their wine-making facilities.

There were so many big barrels!

A long drive home (and a dead kangaroo :( ) later, we refreshed ourselves with a good nights sleep ready for a hike up to Tomaree Head, which gave amazing views out over the ocean on one side, Shoal Bay on another and over the little ocean beachess of Zenith, Wreck and Box on the third.

One of my favourite things was our visit to see the sand dunes at Stockton Beach. At around 32km long and 1km wide they are one of the largest mobile sand masses in the world and are fascinating, desolate and desertlike, especially considering we visited on a savagely hot day.

It was kind of an odd pilgrimage as I have this fascination with sand dunes and their mythology. In my mind they are just places where everything is very hot and very absurd. I guess I have read too much Kobo Abe. But my goodness I loved that novel.

Weather

2010-12-19T23:05:00.002+11:00

The weather has gone crazy. That hail storm actually happened. *shakes head in disbelief* Global warming? I think it's just global bizarre combustion of all sense and reason.

Melbs

2010-12-07T20:27:00.004+11:00
My holidays are now complete. I think I went on 3 holidays in 5 weeks, which is rather decadent.

Holiday #2 involved a long weekend in Melbourne. Mark had been there all week, bumbling around at Melbourne Uni being philosophical and drinking coffee and wine and the rest of the time lounging around in a suite in a 4 star hotel. Oh the life of a philosopher.

I arrived on Friday via the aeroplane at around 10pm. Mark came to fetch me from the bus station and we caught the lovely tram up to Fitzroy to drink some wine and eat some late night desserts with some philosophy persons, before returning to the city and undertaking a lengthy slumber in the world's most comfortable bed.

Saturday it rained. And rained. And rained. And rained a bit more. We caught the trambulator to North Melbourne to a lovely cafe called the Auction Rooms and ate a wonderful brunch, accompanied by fresh juices and several coffees, giving us an excuse to sit there for almost 3 hours watching the rain fall outside. Not sure what to do, we ended up just heading back to the hotel and lying around for a bit, before heading back out on the tram back to Fitzroy to be our old friends Sam and Georgina's first ever houseguests in their new Melbourne flat!!! After a long stay working in NZ followed by several months travelling in South East Asia, they decided to move to Australia after visiting us in Sydney back in 2009. They had only been in the flat a few days and only had a mattress, 2 bar stools and an old TV to their names, but they also had a kitchen with wine so we had a bottle and talked about moving to Australia, moving to the UK, travelling.... It made me sad in a way that they are just arrived here and have a whole new life of fun to look forward to, while we are on our way out....I'm also sad that they are now in Australia just as we are leaving, so we won't get to hang out....the next time we see them will be at when they come back for their own wedding in the UK next July!

We walked out in the pouring rain over to the Veggie Bar and had a grand old meal and more and more wine before it was time to head to bed.

Sunday saw a slightly nicer day.

On the tram. Like the last time we went to Melbs, this time again I got so excited by the tram and took about 7386249372847 photos of the tram and us trambulating on it from inside and out. I have also used the word 'trambulating' so much now I think it might become a real word.

We went to Seven Seeds on Sunday for lunch - delicious toasted sandwiches and even more delicious coffee. We headed on down to the National Gallery of Victoria and had a little wander round, then back up to Brunswick Street for shopping and cafes. Sunday night was spent with Malaysian food and cocktails - we went back to Double Happiness, the bar we had been at on our last visit to Melbourne. It was brilliant.

I had a lychee based cocktail. Then we went over to our other favourite, the rooftop bar at Cookie and drank Kir Royale whilst gazing over the bright lights of Melbourne's CBD.

Monday we checked out of the hotel and went to the National Library of Victoria to print out boarding passes for the flight home. It's a pretty impressive place inside, all domed roofs and old books.

We were thinking about going up the Eureka Tower to the Skydeck on the 88th floor, the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere, but weren't sure as it was pretty expensive and the weather was still a bit grey. In the end though, we thought we'd go down there and have a look.

We decided to go up and it was so worth it! Seeing the city from so high up is really great. I didn't realise the sea was so close either, I thought Melbourne was inland, but you could see St Kilda and the coast really close by. It's also a lot higher than the Sydney tower so you get more of a sense of looking down rather than just out. Mark was clinging to the walls at first but he soon got used to it!

That's the view over the CBD.

From there we headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and make our way to the airport, where I proceeded to go mad for 2 hours as I had finished my Agatha Christie the day before (it was too exciting) and had literally nothing to do, until Mark went and bought me a newspaper to make me quieten down. Haha.

"The sun is but a tale; a children's story..."

2010-11-06T20:53:00.003+11:00
So yeah the Lady of the Green Kirtle may as well have been talking about Sydney when she said that, because the sun does seem like a bit of a long forgotten myth here at the moment. I am completely and utterly convinced by the very real existence of RAIN though.

All week, huddled under my umbrella as I scurry through Hyde Park on my way to work, scarf bundled up, hoodie zipped up tight i have to remind myself that it is November and I must not lose hope that soon it will be a little bit warmer and (PLEASE) a little bit dryer. It is so hard to dislike the rain in Australia as we should be grateful for any that comes, but being positive about it is becoming harder and harder. I think it's just training us up for our return to the UK.....

Fortunately, while last weekend rained on Sydney, we were down in (moderately) dry Canberra for a little trip. Mark had been working all week at Australian National University and so I spent 3 and a half hours on a bus last Friday night to join him. The bus was a very comfortable Murrays bus though, and this coupled with the bargain $25 fare made it rather more agreeable than you might imagine 3.5 hours on a bus to be.
I arrived off the bus into Canberra Civic at around 9.30pm and Mark was waiting at the bus stop to whisk me off for dinner at an Indian restaurant called Delhi 6 with some ANU Philosophy types. The food was delicious - something Sydney really lacks is really good Indian food (something we are also looking forward to getting back in the UK again). And it was good to meet some new Philosophy faces as well as some old favourites! After the meal, we went to a cool pub called The Phoenix, it was like a proper English rock/indie pub. Had some beers then realised it was really late so walked back to Mark's room on campus to sleep.

Saturday morning brought a long lie in, before heading out for brunch at the cafe in the National Film Archive. We then took a wander so I could see some Canberra...what an odd place. It's so rural, feels a bit like being on a big spread out business park, dual carriageways connecting everything, not very pedestrian friendly at all! There are two centres on each side of Lake Burley Griffin - Civic on one side and the Parliamentary centre on the other. ANU is next to Civic, so we walked over the lake on the big road bridge into the Parliamentary zone.

It was a horrible, grey, hot sticky day, really uncomfortable for walking. The view of Black Mountain was nice, but odd when you look at that photo and remember that that is technically the view from the middle of a city! It's so rural!

You can find most of the sights along one edge of one of the circuit roads on the Parliamentary side. We walked past the big imposing National Library and along past Questacon science museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the High Court and finally the National Gallery of Australia. The weather was pretty unbearable now so we decided to have a look in.

Sculpture outside the National Gallery

After a refreshing ginger beer in the cafe, the gallery turned out to be quite excellent, with a very comprehensive collection of Australian art including some very famous works such as Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly series which I love. We had a good look round - I love some of the early european style Australian paintings - the pastoral scenes of areas that are now built up towns and suburbs - it's interesting to see such a change over the course of a century. It's also very revealing to compare early depictions of Sydney and Melbourne - Melbourne was quite the grand European style city, while early Sydney seems to be mostly represented as a grubby collection of ramshackle houses!

We ventured next door to have a look at the Australian High Court, an imposing building of concrete and glass.

Some pretty exciting cases have gone on here, one of the most famous being the landmark case of Mabo v Queensland (No 2) in 1992, which finally directly rejected the legal concept of terra nullius in Australia and recognised Aboriginal land rights.

Then it started to rain. A lot. So we hurried back to campus over the bridge. Had a 2 hour nap, then went to meet some philosophers at a nice pub called the Wig and Pen for beer and fish and chips, followed by a trip to a Halloween house party! We failed in Halloween costumes due to lack of preparation, but I procured a lovely tail at some point and wore it all night. It felt so natural to have a tail! I really want to grow one - this prompted some discussion over tail-reassignment surgery.

Sunday was a far more pleasant day - a bit more breeze and sun. We headed back to the Parliamentary centre and visited Old Parliament House and its lovely rose gardens.

Seat of Parliament from 1927 to 1988, it is now the Museum of Democracy (with an agreeable $2 entry fee), which has some interesting displays about parliamentary history in Australia. Most interesting though is the fact that many of the original offices and rooms have been preserved as they would have been at various times, so you can see, for example, meeting rooms circa 1930 and office space circa 1970. You can also enter the original Senate and House of Representatives chambers.

In front of the Old Parliament House, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy has stood since 1972, despite continual controversy and several arson attacks against it. The Aboriginal activists that occupy the site promote the political movement of Aboriginal Sovereignty, which demands among other things land rights and compensation. Apparently there have been numerous attempts to remove it but I am glad it is still there as a reminder of some of Australia's more difficult political issues.

We climbed up Capital Hill to (new) Parliament House, as our last port of call before we had to head for the bus back to Sydney.

We were both pretty indifferent to the building, but there was a nice expansive view from outside over the Old Parliament and the War Memorial in the distance.

Let me remind you again, you are technically looking at a city centre in that picture! Ruuuural. We wanted to go inside, and you can, but you have to be scanned and metal detected and it was a bit involved and we only had 10 minutes before we had to leave for the long bus home, so that was the end. We arrived back to a sodden Sydney, 4 hours later.

And this weekend is sodden once more. Friday was our 7 year anniversary, and we spent it having a wonderful dinner at Yulli's on Crown Street followed by a cocktail at the Lounge. Today we managed to get a wonderful breakfast in at Four Ate Five before the drizzle began, Mark had the vegan mexican breakfast and I had poached eggs and avocado on rye toast. MMMM. I spent the afternoon reading Amsterdam by Ian McEwan. And so it goes.

Surry Hills

2010-10-24T17:46:00.003+11:00

It's odd how close to the city we are here. That's the view from the top of our road, the shiny modern towers of the Central Business District rising above the old warehouse buildings that make up much of Surry Hills*. A lot of industry was centred in the area, in particular the garment trade, and indeed some of this has survived the gentrification process to still exist today.

Surry Hills is an interesting area, really. From its beginnings as a village in the 1830s, to being swallowed up as a suburb by the growing city over the next few decades. Rapid population growth fuelled the minds of unruly developers, out to make money with little regard for the provision of basic amenities such as plumbing and drainage, and the area quickly declined into an overcrowded slum. By the early 20th century, Surry Hills was rife with the symptoms of poverty and destitution - alcoholism, prostitution and crime. Over the next few decades, various attempts were made by the city council to clean up the area, by demolishing and rebuilding parts where narrow lanes and derelict housing encouraged shady goings on. By the 1970s though, many original residents had moved away and been replaced by waves of immigrants from Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
But as is the way of things in so many places, during the 1980s and 90s, young professionals started to move back into the Hills, attracted by the affordable housing so close to the city. It's now a real mix of stuff, smart terraces and boutique shops, warehouses and older tenement buildings. Many charitable organisations also set up in the area in its darker days and are still based here, providing services for the homeless, those with drug problems, sex workers etc. At the top of our road is a Mission Australia home that provides accommodation for elderly people who are homeless or have mental health problems - I walk past it on my way to work and it looks like a happy enough place - all the residents sit out on the terrace in the morning having breakfast!

Today was a drizzly Sunday. But we pootled down to Bourke Street Bakery and I stuffed a DELICIOUS pain au chocolat down my digestive system so fast I had chocolate all over my face and pastry all in my hair and Mark laughed at me. We also bought a fennel and raisin sourdough loaf that is delicious in a sweet, herby way. It's good there in the Bourke Street Bakery, although VERY popular, even in the rain there was a huge queue. We went to the Gnome cafe on Crown Street for a coffee, then to the supermarket (boring) then home. Mark is off to Canberra tomorrow morning at 7am, I will join him there on Friday evening!

*And yes, the weather is as dismal as it looks. This weekend has been a write-off. And the forecast is continued rain ALL WEEK. And it's about 7 degrees in Canberra. And I sent my coats home in the crate. Ouch, Australia, you hurt me. :(

In which so many things have gone on

2010-10-23T16:52:00.005+11:00
Readers, dear readers, please do not think I have abandoned you!!! I have been moving and organising and all manner of other things.

So, back the the UK we go, arriving for February. Which, provided this Sydney February is as unpleasantly HOT as the last one, will be a nice time to leave. But, if this UK February is as unpleasantly COLD as the last one, it will likewise not be a particularly pleasant time to arrive. One cannot win, really.

We have moved out of Erskineville. Over to Surry Hills. All our worldly goods are in a container somewhere, waiting for their journey back across the sea. We got Crown to do our removals again this time - the guys that came were awesome, best removal ever - everything got so well wrapped and packed. Oddly a much better job was done than by the same company on the way over! They must have upped their stakes.

We are reduced again to a life out of a suitcase for the next few months. Until the novelty wears off I must admit it is a pleasant state of affairs, to have your life that simple that it all fits into one bag.

The living room in the new house... It's small but cosy. Surry Hills is ok, it doesn't have the community feel of Erskineville/Newtown. Lots of cafes, bars, restaurants, but doesn't feel like there's a lot to do unless you have a lot of money to burn. There's no bookshops, really. Although there is a great library.

We said a sad goodbye to two of our dear friends - Chesney and Totoro! Off they went in the crate!

The weather is very up and down at the moment. Which I guess is usual for this time of year as the skies adjust to being warmer. The rain is abundant but we we have had a few nice days. They have tended to be during the week though, unfortunately for me stuck in my office. Today we are rained off and stuck inside, although we did get a good brunch in at Four Ate Five on Crown Street (vegan mexican bean breakfast - YUM).

I should be off to Canberra next weekend, and definitely Melbourne the weekend after that, so there should be some more fun stuff to write about soon. Mark has been to a rockabilly-only barbershop and is sporting an excellent new hair-do. Last Saturday night we went to an astonomy open evening at Macquarie Uni and got to look through a telescope to see Jupiter and its moons, and Uranus. Also we learnt about how to find south using the Southern Cross constellation. We have eaten at Atom Thai, Cafe Sopra, Kai on King, Sofia, Bloodwood and Mamak.

I am spending the afternoon in Narnia, or more precisely in Ettinsmoor on the way to Harfang.....yes I raided the children's section of the library! Also watching the rain fall outside the window.....hope for a nicer day tomorrow.

roller derby & melancholia

2010-09-11T23:10:00.006+10:00
Tonight I went to Roller Derby at Hordern Pavillion with Dean, Zane, Erin, etc (I was the heterosexual minority which was novel!) - Sydney versus Wollongong Illawara (Sydney thrashed them woo woo woo!). It was my first Roller Derby experience and I had a great time! The rules seem complicated but it's actually quite simple. And there is a lot of shoving - I was quite surprised how violent it was! The best thing about it is the showmanship aspect - all the girls have fun 'skating names' like "Peaches Obscene" and "Babycakes" and "Miss Sin Doll" and "Vindi Vicious" and the style is really burlesque - lots of make-up, minimal clothing, lots of lace and ruffles and tattoos and glitter and showing off.

Now I am home eating beans on toast and watching some awful film called Before Sunrise despite the fact the Ethan Hawke character is grating on my brain (keeps coming out with such cringe-worthy/scientifically disastrous/irrational gems as 'so 10 thousand years ago there were only a million souls, today there are x million, so where did all those extra souls come from, they must be reincarnated'). But it's set in Vienna and the premise is the characters meet on a train and spend the night in Vienna together, walking around. It makes me want to go to Vienna.

I kind of feel like Vienna might be one of those places like Sydney, that are just so close to reaching near perfection as a place to be. Vienna has, for me, almost everything. A beautiful city, beautiful surrounding countryside, great weather (reliably hot, sunny summers and reliably real, cold, snowy winters), low living costs (comparative to most western european capitals), amazing culture and history, great bars and fun nightlife (surprisingly, and something Sydney definitely lacks), plus plenty to fill your days with. It is safe, and quiet, the transport is amazing and everything is just so well run. The only thing it lacks is coastline and good food (austrian food has tendencies to make my insides revolt, rather quickly - it is just meat and stodge! No fish! No vegetables!). Two things that Sydney of course can offer, in abundance.

It is places like these, like Vienna, like Sydney, like Paris, like Melbourne, like Berlin....that make me feel sometimes there is no hope for me in the United Kingdom. But then I think, I have to find something. I have to look really hard and find something there, because I have to live there. This makes me feel a strange mixture of determination, hope, and confused melancholy.

'Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.'

2010-09-07T20:47:00.005+10:00

I just made the BEST dinner - thai yellow coconut curry with prawn, red pepper* and pak choi. I love asian greens, I always like to eat them whilst Mark is away as he doesn't like them so much. I like the bitterness and the crunch. I guess I've always liked things like that, cabbage, sprouts etc. Green leafy things as part of a hot meal.

I really don't have that much to report. Stress continues to plague me in various guises - all UK-move-related. But I am calmer today due to a possible step forward on the temporary accommodation front and after a long discussion with one of my staff (Rosie) about Port Stephens and all the things we can do when we go up there in November with Mark's parents. I am planning a lot of swimming, walking, relaxing, whale and dolphin watching, fish eating, and horse riding. Spring break!!!

Since Mark went away I've not been really doing that much, which I'm hoping to change this weekend with at least one proper day out. Last Saturday I got the train to Redfern then walked into Glebe and met Dean at about 10.30am, we visited La Banette, the bakery/patisserie and bought many pastry and cakey and bread based items. La Banette is great - can't believe I've not been before. They do this mini brioche thing stuffed with nutella, omg so nice!!!
We got the bus back to Newtown and dropped the food at Dean's before heading round to Shenkin to drink coffee and milkshakes and eat hommous and falafel and greek salad. Mmmm Shenkin falafel is amazing, and their hommous is pretty much the best ever. Possibly even better than the chile dip from Sultan's Table. We sat for a long long time then went back to Dean's to while away another couple of hours playing with the dogs. Then I walked back down the road to mine and watched the last of my DVDs before I had to take them back to the video shop, the last one being Notting Hill, which was enjoyable enough but Love Actually is SO much better. Then I walked up to the video shop to put my DVDs in the returns chute.

Sunday I woke up feeling a little ill. Lay around feeling sorry for myself for a while but then had a shower and caught the train to Circular Quay for a walk and to take some more photos. Then bought some AMAZING CHEESE from David Jones on the way home. Like mega creamy brie with a blue vein. Oh and also 6 oysters to try to make myself feel healthy. Oh oysters. How I love thee.

'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,
'You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

*Yes, pepper. I may have slipped comfortably into 'eggplant' for aubergine, come around to 'chips' for crisps, and eventually even forced myself to adopt 'lollies' for sweets, I cannot and will not ever bring myself to call a pepper a 'capsicum'.

Musings on the present and the future.

2010-08-29T20:02:00.003+10:00
Part of the Kaldor Public Art Projects 2010 is currently on just down the road from us in the former brickworks on the edge of Sydney Park. They are currently being used to contain Stephen Vitiello's sound installation "The Sound of Red Earth" - sounds recorded in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Each of the buildings is a different theme - my favourite being the coastal one with sand on the floor and the sound of the ocean.

Mark has left for Europe for 3 weeks and thusly I am lonesome. Although I did go to the video shop and rent The Boat that Rocked, Notting Hill, and series 1 of Pushing Daisies, so I have many hours of entertainment. On Friday night we had a goodbye meal for Mark (the other Mark) and Daniella down at the Sultan's Table in Enmore, as they are leaving for India for the next few months! I've never really wanted to go to India before, well, not really been bothered about it I suppose, but I'm quite into the idea now! Thinking about an Indian holiday at some point. I am getting Japan cravings again, too - can't wait to go back but that's an expensive one so will probably be a few years before we make it back. I would love to visit the onsen (hot springs) and go down to Hiroshima.

Went to an election party the other week at Nick's house in Stanmore! Got confused when the coverage on different channels was showing completely different results, ended up dancing to video channels instead, drank a lot of red wine, and set fire to a picture of Tony Abbott in the garden. There is a hung parliament now, deja vu!!! Hung parliaments are à la mode.

Election aside, the main news over here for us is that it looks like we are moving back to the UK in 2011. Which feels incredibly soon and I'm not really sure I want to....but more on that another time.

Anyway, I need ideas for entertaining myself in Sydney over the next 3 weeks! I'm usually full of ideas for stuff I want to do when Mark goes away, but this time I'm at a slight loss, oddly. I'll have to plan some walks I guess. I think it's Pyrmont Markets next Saturday so I'll hopefully make it down there (although it's SUCH an early start!). I guess he's only been away over the hot times before, so I normally just go to the beach. No beach yet, not yet. In a few weeks hopefully the beach weather will come. Although I am fond of the beaches on a nice winter day for a walk - beaches are a lot more attractive when there aren't oodles of people slathered all over them.

We were saying recently how maybe one benefit of being back in the UK is that we will perhaps be a bit more sociable again. We have both been a little lonely in Sydney, Mark doesn't really see many people and most of the people I meet through work are not permanent in Aus, or they are just...'work people'...you know? Like...nice people.....but, you wouldn't necessarily socialise outside because you only have work in common really.
I've always made an effort to stay away from the "expat community" and all that business, because I always thought it seemed a bit counter-productive...like, if you move abroad and only socialise with people from the country you've moved from, you can only really be looking back, and I'm not one for looking back if I can help it. As it turned out, most of the people who became my closest friends were expats, non-australian, so maybe I shouldn't have tried to avoid that so much!

Aaaanyway, just looked up Mark's flights, he'll be in Berlin in about a hour, finally! Such a long journey, I've had two full days and one whole night's sleep since he started travelling. Actually can't wait to be in Europe again - not UK but Europe. A magical place where you can get a flight for an hour and a half and actually land in a different country from the one you set off from! Ahh. Going to watch this film now. Work tomorrow. Goodnight!

In which I make a rare foray outside Sydney

2010-08-16T20:51:00.003+10:00
My goodness the weather has gone wonderful. Walking around the last few days in glorious sunshine, no coat, not even a jumper on. Perhaps spring has made it through. Time to plant some herbs.

Last week I was down in Wollongong, a couple of hours south of Sydney, for a work conference. It was long and tiring, but this was the view from my hotel room:

At 5pm on Thursday evening.

At 7am the following morning.

A busy few days were punctuated with walks on the beach and evening fun times with my work buddies. The last night was a Friday 13th themed dinner and ball, and everyone went all out on the fancy dress! I went as Alex from Clockwork Orange, borrowing Mark's white skinny jeans and braces and adding a black bowler hat to complete the look!

On Saturday, after it was all over, I checked out of the hotel and had a little walk round Wollongong. It's a hit and miss kind of place. Nice along one stretch of the water, a bit bland in the town itself and some parts seemed a bit run down.

I didn't hang around too long and headed for the station, where I caught a south coast line train 50 minutes further south to the little town of Kiama.

Kiama is a very attractive place and has a lot of historic buildings in its little centre. It's set around a little bay with a shingle beach, the main sandy surf beach being in the next bay down.

The main attraction however is the blowhole, up on the cliff, a natural feature where seawater is forced up through a hole in the cliff creating a huge plume and a very loud gurgle. There is a viewing platform built all around the blowhole, so I hung out there for a bit. I could have watched it for hours, it was brilliant! I never expected it to shoot out so high in the air.

Lighthouse and blowhole viewing platform.

Blowhole visited, I had a slow wander back to the station. My bag with all my stuff in from the conference was becoming pretty heavy so it was time to head for home. Unfortunately, the train ride was a long 3 hours, but there was a lot of great scenery on the way, along the coast and, further north, the Royal National Park.

Got home and Mark met me at the station with much needed Shenkin coffee! Then we spent the evening eating thai food and drinking wine up at Thai Passion in Newtown, before a long long sleep.

In which I am uplifted and have adventures.

2010-08-09T19:54:00.005+10:00
A couple of weeks ago, Mark and I ate at Mamak, drank a cocktail at Opera Bar and finally attended an evening at the Opera House with Stephen Fry. Which was an entirely enjoyable evening and indeed an inspiring one, as Mr Fry recounted tales from his youth and not-so-youth, such as when he met Hugh Laurie for the first time and holidaying with Peter Cook in Egypt. He also ate a Tim Tam on stage and liked it a good deal.

Last Saturday, we scoffed coffee and pie at Black Star in Newtown before making our way to Oxford Street. Popped into old haunt Ampersand cafe bookstore to look for books and drink chai latte. Mark got a couple of philos books but I didn't find anything. I am starting to find that in second hand bookstores, I just gravitate towards editions of books I already know and love and want to buy them again....Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Goethe's Faust, anything by Joe Orton...I had to stop myself buying a great 1970s edition of What the Butler Saw - I really don't need a third copy!

Wandered on down into Paddington and stopped in at the newly opened Paddington Reservoir - the old site having been transformed into a new landscaped urban park. It's great in there - very calm - and there are chairs you can sit in so we did that for a bit.

Wandered around the market in Paddo for a bit, then back up Oxford Street for a look in Incu. We turned off in the direction of Rushcutters Bay and found some lovely streets, but got hungry so headed back up to Crown Street for late late lunch at Kawa (actually, Mark ordered breakfast even though it was 4pm!).
Then retired to the cinema for wine and to watch The Special Relationship which was good.

Sunday saw a nice bit of relaxation in favourite cafe, The Kick Inside up on Erskineville Road. Coffee and apple crumble, and a long hour's indulgence in my new David Mitchell.

Reading this is like slipping into a pool of velvet. Every page is so wonderfully evocative. And The Kick Inside is a great reading environment with its sofas and lovable coffee.

Then we caught the train to Circular Quay and did something I've had on my to-do list for a long, long time: Susannah Place museum.

Susannah Place is a row of terraced houses built in 1844 in The Rocks. The houses were continuously occupied from that point up until the mid 1970s, the last tenants moving out in 1990 at which point the terraces were handed over to the Historic Houses Trust.
We paid our $8 and joined the last tour of the day, and the guide took us through the houses, telling us stories of all the tenants along the way. The houses have been largely left as they were when last vacated, but have been furnished for different eras using the memories and photographs provided by former tenants.
The walls and ceilings were cracked and peeling, and you could see layers of paint and paper. The rooms were very small and cramped, with low ceilings, kitchens in the basement, toilets in the backyard. It was amazing the number of people that lived in those small rooms together - it was a real insight into the life of the working classes in Sydney in the 19th and 20th centuries. One had a double bed and a single bed crammed into a tiny bedroom, which had been shared by 3 sisters. Another house had a rudimentary shower installed in the basement, constructed it seemed from corrugated plastic, after the owner had become fed up of taking baths in the outhouse!
The tour also included watching a video where they took former tenants of the houses, people who had grown up in Susannah Place, and asked them about their memories. They seemed to remember a lot of hardship from their lives there, but it was fascinating watching them walk round the houses and say things like "we had our table here". It reminded you that real people had spent their lives there. Really interesting.

winter brrrrrrrrr

2010-07-21T20:05:00.003+10:00
I am currently going through my third Sydney winter. With this vast experience behind me, I can now share with you some extensive research I have conducted into Sydney winters. I have learnt the following things:

- No matter how old or new, rickety or solid your house is, during winter, the inside temperature will maintain a constant 10 degrees colder than the outside temperature.

- This is due to the Australian insistence that insulation is on the whole unnecessary.

- This in turn means that, no matter how old or new, rickety or solid your house is, you will constantly find patches of mould on your walls.

- To combat this, the advice is to ventilate your rooms thoroughly, everyday. This lowers even further the indoor temperature of your house.

- The disparity between indoor and outdoor temperature may trick you into putting on 64782 layers before you leave the house. Don't. You will be sweating within minutes.

- No matter how hot I am hurrying around with one too many layers on, I still see plenty of Sydneysiders all bundled up in hats, scarves and big padded coats as though they were off for a polar expedition.

- To cope with indoor temperatures, I have established from talking to Australians that it is normal to have an array of thick winter houseclothes, far more than you would ever need outside.

- As well as the above, it is normal to have a duvet on your sofa during winter, to sit under when you are watching tv, reading, or other sofa-based activities. I went in for this this winter and it's lovable!

In which the sky is blue and the Opera House gleams

2010-07-19T18:52:00.003+10:00

Opera House in mid-winter......

Sunday was the most beautiful, sunny warm day. I took the train to Circular Quay and walked up to the Opera House, out of boredom more than anything. There were so many people. Opera Bar was heaving and they had live music outside.

The sails look so smooth from a distance. It always surprises me to see the mosaic effect close up.

The city gleams. I took a very similar photo back on the first day I arrived in Sydney.

From the Opera House, I walked back round Circular Quay and into the Rocks, stopping at that little cafe for a Florentine (my favourite ever biscuit). Wandered further on up George Street suffering a severe coffee craving and trying to find a flat white that wasn't $4.50 ($3.50 is really my upper limit when paying for coffee) but failed. Sat around Susannah Place for a little while, then gandered back down George Street all the way to St James for the train home.

Tonight I am working uggh. Although it is less painful when at home on the sofa with a cup of tea and the tv on. I'm out of the office on a management course for the next couple of days, so it's going to be very busy trying to catch up. Mark is back home first thing in the morning, so hopefully I'll see him before I go to work!

In which Luna Park is very enjoyable.

2010-07-18T20:58:00.005+10:00
Mark has been away this week, on a fleeting visit (really fleeting - less than a week between arrival and departure!) back to the UK for a job interview. But more on that another time.

With Mark away, my last week passed rather quietly, but not unpleasantly. Friday however was an exciting day. Dean (my boss) took Sharon (the other team leader in our unit) and I out for a lovely lunch at Grasshopper, a little restaurant and bar just down from our office on Temperance Lane (off George Street - you can't actually see it from George Street and I always thought the lane was just a place where bins were kept, it was surprising to see a restaurant at the end of it!). It was a great meal. I had Sydney Rock oysters to start followed by Kingfish with aioli. Delicious!! Dean had a scotch quail's egg for his starter which looked like the greatest thing ever. It's a cool little restaurant, and the bar downstairs looked good too, although I imagine considering its location right in the city, it probably gets a little 'businessy' most nights.

After work was Aisling and Louise's leaving party (they are off back to Ireland), for which they came up with the ingenious idea of a trip to Luna Park, Sydney's famous, historic amusement park.

We caught the train to Milson's Point, just the other side of the Harbour Bridge, and trundled our way downhill until the lights of the great big Luna Park Face stood before us!

The entry is through the mouth! On Friday you can get an unlimited pass for all rides for $35, so with wristbands installed on our wrists, off we went. First up was the Tango Train, a music express ride that spun you round and round and up and down. Then, Mark, Geaspar and May went on the Rotor, while the rest of us sensibly watched from the viewing platform at the top. The Rotor is like a human-sized salad spinner - it starts spinning and then they take the floor away and you stick to the wall because of the centrifugal force! It made us feel dizzy watching it. Then, Aisling and I squeezed into a car on the Wild Mouse rollercoaster, which is a real olden days style rickety wooden roller coaster and is actually terrifying because it is right on the edge of the harbour and tricks you into thinking you are going to fall into the water!

Then we rode the swings which made us cold as we breezed through the night air, then Mark, Daniella, May, Geaspar and I went off to ride the Dodgems while everyone else went for the Waltzer. The dodgems were my favourite I think - it was amazing fun!!!

A lot of candy floss later and Daniella and I went to ride the Carousel whilst everyone else went on something more spinny and less charming.

The Carousel is a genuine 19th Century carousel and is beautiful! It plays music from an organ dating from 1904, all tinkly.

I rode a horse, Daniella rode a cockerel. Finally, we rode the ferris wheel, which, with this view over Sydney Harbour, is pretty much worth the entry price alone:

Then it was almost 11pm and time for the park to close and us all to go home to our beds, not least because it was a very chilly night and we had been swooping around outside getting chilled for too long. But we could not leave before Mark and Geaspar went on the Rotor again because they are INSANE. I'll have to go back to take Mark on the ferris wheel. I did have a surprising amount of fun at Luna Park - there are enough rides to please pretty much anyone, and there was a good mix of people there, not just big groups of irritating teenagers like you would get at british funfairs.

legislate everything !!!

2010-06-28T21:08:00.002+10:00
On the weekend, Mark and I made a visit to the Justice and Police Museum down at Circular Quay, which had been on our weekend agenda for some time but delayed due to the surprise onslaught of very pleasant weather over the last couple of weeks.

The museum is housed in the building that held various different police and court functions throughout the 19th century, and has been restored to its former 1890s glory. Thus, you can wander through a reconstructed court room, police charge room and cells.

The cells were so dingy, and according to my guide leaflet, each would have held up to 12 prisoners at a time. There was only a tiny slit of natural light and each one was barely larger than my own small bedroom! It was a bit spooky.

What was good about the room set ups was that you could wander around everywhere - nothing was fenced off. You could go behind the desk and prod around, and there were lots of original 19th century court and police documents around so you could really get a sense of what went on there.

The rest of the building was more of a traditional museum set up, with exhibition sections on bushrangers, the development of forensic science and how it was used in some famous Australian cases, the history of the police in Australia, the development of various punishment methods, and a rather creepy room full of a collection of weapons confiscated from criminals over the years, the walls around the cases decorated with a disconcerting series of mugshots.

They were a random selection of mugshots of people arrested between 1913 and 1930 in Sydney. There were some really rather unpleasant faces staring out!

The main exhibition space was currently hosting the Sin City exhibition - a fascinating exposé of police corruption in Sydney, from the beginnings of the settlement through to the modern day. It's disturbing what has gone on, and the links between those at the top of the justice system and those at the top of the criminal world. Australia's criminal history (and present, to be honest) is fascinating to me as it has these big kingpin figures, gangs and crime families. The system of organised crime is much more open here, even a little more accepted. That's an aspect of life we just don't really get a lot of exposure to in the UK.
I remember when I first arrived here and started working at HCF, a girl at work was having a lot of trouble with a certain police station in Sydney, and some other colleagues were agreeing that that police station was corrupt and she would never get anywhere with them. At the time I just thought "naah that's silly", but after seeing this exhibition and the kind of stuff that's happened even in the last few years, it's made me wonder. There were endless bribes and high ranking police officials socialising with known criminal masterminds.
One of the most illustrative topics covered in the exhibition was the story of the Victoria Point Development in the 1970s. A property developer with dubious connections decided he wanted to knock down all the houses of Victoria Street in Pott's Point, to build a new complex. This would involve evicting many people from their houses, but they refused. The developer employed thugs, organised by a former NSW police detective, to terrorise the residents. Residents were threatened, assaulted in one case kidnapped. Eventually, video footage showed NSW police standing by in the street whilst the gang dragged people from their homes. Juanita Nielson, a publisher and vocal opponent of the development was mysteriously 'disappeared', presumed murdered, in 1975, an inquiry held during the 90s stating that police corruption had impeded the police investigation at the time.

The rest of the weekend was spent eating malaysian delights at Mamak in Chinatown (Mamak! Long time no see!), and brunching at South End on King Street (first time I've ever had food here in this homely little cafe - it was great!), in which the back room reminds me so much of the upstairs of Boston Tea Party in Bristol it's quite a delight. Also Doctor Who, of course. I don't know what I will do once Doctor Who finishes. What will I do on Sunday nights?? And Poirot has finished now too! I am frightened.

I want to make a food map of Sydney with all my favourite places on. Like a little guide to good things in each area, what they do, what they cost, what the vibe is like, who goes there, kind of thing. Best coffee, best takeaway, best for a chill out, best for a special occasion, all that. It will be very Inner West/Redfern/Surry Hills centred, I guess, but still. I might do it, even if only for my own reference! So I don't do UTTERLY DAFT THINGS again like forget about Mamak and leave it unvisited for the best part of a YEAR.
MEIN GOTT I love food. (P.S. I'm joining the gym. It's come to this!)

Seaplane birthday

2010-06-25T21:44:00.004+10:00
Well I mentioned my birthday in the previous post, but I have not yet mentioned someone else who had a rather important birthday recently - Mark turned 30 back in the middle of May!

It was a really good day and I was really glad we were in Sydney for it as it gave me the chance to organise something really special that you just couldn't really match in the UK - a trip on the seaplane!

I booked us a 30 minute scenic flight with Sydney Seaplanes in Rose Bay. I also kept it a secret from Mark so he didn't really work it out until we got on the Rose Bay ferry from Circular Quay at 9am that morning! We had a lovely quiet 10 minute ferry trip across the harbour (it was a weekday and everything always seems very peaceful on a weekday when you are used to only doing stuff at weekends!), and we were a bit early so had a gander round the park in Rose Bay, which was full of Rose Bay yummy mummies watching their toddler groups or whatever it is you do when you are a Rose Bay yummy mummy.

Then we went over to the Seaplane office - I think Mark was just relieved we weren't doing the Harbour Bridge Climb or doing a skydive or something (vertigoooo)! Had a quick safety talk (exactly like you get on a big plane!) and boarded the plane ready to go! There were 7 of us on the plane - Mark & I, a couple and their young son from Melbourne, a guy on holiday from the UK who was really into light aircraft, and the pilot. It was actually really comfortable - the inside of the plane was really nicely done out and very clean and comfortable. Our pilot was great too - he told us all about the plane and pointed out everything we flew past so we knew what we were looking down at. It looked so different from the air!

We were off! It was a really clear day, but quite windy, which meant it was a little bumpy but on the upside, you could literally see for miles. Right out into the Blue Mountains inland, and out over endless sea the other side. It was great. We flew up over the harbour, along the cliffs and up the Northern Beaches, hugging the coast all the way.

Within 15 minutes, we were up flying over Pittwater, the water dotted with hundreds of boats. Kuringai National Park stretched out to our left, while we curved to the left and circled Barrenjoey Head and a magnificently gleaming Palm Beach.

Heading back south again, we ended on a loop over the Harbour and the towers of the CBD before coming into land in Rose Bay again.

After getting our land-legs back again, we took the ferry back to the city and made our way to Waterloo for lunch at Cafe Sopra, before home for a cup of tea. The evening was spent splashing out on an absolutely wonderful 8-course degustation at Bécasse in the city. Hopefully a memorable 30th birthday!

In which I become older, eat a lot, and be spoilt.

2010-06-25T20:57:00.004+10:00
It's so waaarm today. Well, me with my English-person-temperature-tolerance thought it was warm anyway. I also saw a mega-cockroach scuttling across the pavement on the way home from work this evening, a sight normally reserved for summer, so I'm obviously not the only one that thought it was warm.

Mark and I walked the full Bondi-Coogee cliff walk over the June bank holiday weekend. It was actually the first time we'd ever done the whole thing in one go, which was surprising! We did it both directions for good measure, which took about 3 hours with a good bit of dilly-dallying thrown in. It was a glorious day for it, blazing sun, warm but not hot. I carried my jacket most of the way but wasn't sticky and uncomfortable. I guess something like this is much better done in winter than summer.
When we got back to Bondi we went straight to Fishmongers on Hall Road and STUFFED ourselves on fish and chips.

My birthday was fun! I especially liked having a birthday on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend! And it was the Queen's Birthday Holiday so I was able to fib that I was actually the Queen and the day off was in my honour. We got up and went for breakfast at Black Star in Newtown - delicious pastries and coffee and it was great to sit out on the pavement in the winter sun. Then we hit the CBD for some shopping - I ended up with a great leather jacket and a new blouse - and we ate lunch at the antipasto bar in the food hall of David Jones. Cheese and antipasto plates and a glass of wine later, we headed to Surry Hills for a little more shopping and a coffee in Kawa on Crown Street, before heading back to Newtown for a cocktail in Corridor followed by dinner at new restaurant Bloodwood.

Bloodwood was a really good experience. It's quite an industrial looking place, with exposed bulbs and pipes along the ceilings, so a bit different to the average cosy restaurant set up. The menu consists of lots of smaller dishes made for sharing. We ordered cuttlefish salad, polenta chips with gorgonzola dipping sauce, mushrooms in red wine sauce and trifle for pudding (posh trifle!). Haha, I was on the phone to mi madre and told her I had "mushrooms on toast and then trifle" and realised it sounded like I'd been to a rubbish cafe in the 70s or something. It was good, honest!

For my birthday I got cake forks, cheese knife, cake slice, the new Snow Leopard operating system for Mac (haha, a bit like the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge the bowling ball that says "Homer" on it hahaha), and SEWING MACHINE(!!!) from Mark, sewing bits (including the best pin cushion EVER) and books from Mark's parents, and Alice in Wonderland DVD, jewellry and poems from mi madre and padre. What a lucky pie !!

After all that fun it was so hard to go back to work after the bank holiday! It doesn't help that my job has been a bit frenetic these past couple of weeks. It's the end of financial year on wednesday this week so the pressure is on!

Mark has been a bit under the weather this week - on Thursday morning he was in bed until 9.30am which is quite worrying for someone who considers 7am to be an EPIC lie in. He's a bit better today though so hopefully a great deal of marauding can be done at the weekend. We need sun to be healthy!

100th post!!!

2010-06-16T21:34:00.006+10:00
I just finished writing the last post and clicked back to the main dashboard page when I noticed my blog stats:

'The Life of Pie' - 99 posts.

So this is my 100th post! That doesn't really seem like many, since I've had this blog since I guess May or June 2008. Oh, 2 years!

Just a couple of weeks time will mark my two year anniversary of being in Australia. It's strange how settled we've become in that time. I never expected to get on this well, looking back on it, the first few months were quite hard for me. Mark had a far easier time, as he obviously went straight into his job as he arrived and Macquarie Uni pretty much did everything for him in terms of organising our move and sorting out all his bits for him. The first day we caught the bus out to the uni (pre Epping-Chatswood rail link!) his office was waiting with his name on the door and all the staff took us out for coffee.

For me it was a lot harder - I didn't work at first but ended up just being left on my own a lot of the time, which is quite daunting in a big city like Sydney with a non-comprehensive public transport network. Especially since we were accommodated up in middle of nowhere North Ryde, great for Mark (next to uni) but terrible for me as it took an hour to get anywhere. Then I started temping but it was very sporadic and I didn't really have a routine or guaranteed income. Stuff got a bit better when we moved down to Meadowbank and I started working at HCF, and then even better still since we moved into the Inner West. I LOVE the Inner West. I honestly cannot think of a better place in the world to live. And now I have my new job that I love (mostly, obviously not when I'm still there at 6.30pm like today) and a good salary and an awesome apartment and a piano and a brand new SEWING MACHING (thanks, Mark!) and great coffee on my doorstep and great food on my doorstep and an amazing park on my doorstep (Sydney Park) and I live in a city where just a 15 minute train ride to Circular Quay and stepping onto the Manly ferry can make me feel like I am on holiday all year round.

The weather is beautiful at the moment. Cold, so cold but glorious in the sunshine. Even Bondi looked beautiful at the weekend (I love Bondi in winter sun. Shame about the trashiness of it in Summer). This week is due to be warmer. It certainly makes up for the month of rain that we just suffered through. I'm wondering how this winter will be. 2008 was so cold, record low Sydney temperatures and it didn't even start to warm up until October. 2009 had the cold snap in June but by August was a delight.

Anyway, thanks for reading 100 posts, people. Or 50 or 20 or 1 or however many you've persevered through. In honour of the 100th post, let's all say hello! Leave me a comment, tell me who you are, where you are, why you read!

I'll start. I'm Anna. I live in Sydney ....

Japan - a long weekend in Tokyo

2010-06-16T19:33:00.002+10:00
Friday 2nd - Monday 5th April

Friday saw us back on the bullet train to Tokyo, where we arrived in the mid-afternoon. Read my Japanese fashion magazines on the train...well looked at the pictures, Japanese remains thus far incomprehensible, although we did start to recognise a few bits of lettering in Kyoto. Kyoto on the whole was much less well English-language-filled than Tokyo, although still enough English to find your way round.

We checked into our rather nice hotel back in Tokyo (Sunroute Plaza in Shinjuku), after navigating Shinjuku station yet again very unsuccessfully (Shinjuku station = nightmare). As the sun was due to start setting in an hour or so, we decided to walk a few blocks to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices - an imposing, Gotham City style office complex in West Shinjuku.

There is a viewing point at the top, which is free to go up to, so we went up and watched night fall and the lights of Tokyo start to twinkle.

Retired to Harajuku after descending to find dinner. After trying to find one restaurant from the guidebook and then another, and failing on both, we were despairing that we'd end up with sushi again! I love sushi but not for every single meal. We were hesitating on going into the kaitensushi we'd been in the week before when we noticed an italian place underneath it so took a desperate chance. Fortunately it ended up pretty good, and was obviously pretty popular, very busy.

One thing I definitely found in Japan which is very different to the UK and even to Australia is that it's much harder to find bad food. Everywhere we randomly went into was at least above average. They seem to have pretty high standards of food preparation and have many more laws about hygiene (and a generally much higher standard) than what I am used to. You can even eat raw prawns safely in Japan (and I did try but it was eww slimy!), something I would never do here or in the UK.
Consequently, I was amazed to find that for the first time in the history of me going on holiday and eating out a lot, I had absolutely none of my usual belly trouble. Not a single moment. All the food we ate seemed so much fresher and lighter than what we are used to!

The day of travelling and several beers made us sleep well and we woke up on Saturday morning ready for a trip to the Tokyo National Museum, which is a bit like the Louvre of Japan, and sits up on one side of Ueno Park.

It is spread across several buildings and this is the main building with the main exhibitions. It was fascinating, as everything was so different. There were just some amazing things in there like nothing you see in the European equivalent museums. We spent the whole day there in the end, looking at 1000 year old painted screens and jewellry and samurai armour. We also had a surprisingly good lunch in the cafe - delicious steaming ramen with tempura prawns. They didn't have anything vegetarian but plenty with fish. I think if you are proper vegetarian in Tokyo it would be very very hard. Kyoto is much easier as their traditional cuisine is veggie and you could really just live on inari-sushi all day mmmmmm.

We headed back to Shinjuku for dinner and ended up in the Mango Tree thai restaurant in the mall! It was tasty as though. Plus also that meal may have begun my current cuttlefish obsession....

Sunday saw us on our way to Harajuku as it was cos-play day, the day when all the teenagers dress up crazy! We got there quite late but still saw some crazy dressed people. Lots of girls in the babydoll type outfits - dyed blonde hair, everything pink and frilly and white and carrying loads of soft toys and dolls around with them.
We had a good look round the shops. I loved La Foret, which was like an amazing big building of boutiques, even Topshop was there. In the basement there were lots of crazy stalls, with all the cos-play clothes and the people who worked in there were dressed in the clothes! Pirates and everything! I bought a jacket in Topshop (ahhhh), and then pootled up the road where we spent ages in Japanese toy shop Kiddyland (SO MANY TOTOROS!!) before back to sushi for dinner. The sushi hiatus didn't last!

Monday was a wet wet wet day. A perfect museum day, except that Monday is closing day in Tokyo for all that type of thing. We were up super early and went to Tsukiji fishmarket, the biggest fish market in the world (i think)? It's an odd place to go as a tourist, but really quite fun. There were HUGE fish (whole fish, like, bigger than me!) being pulled around on trailers on the back of these little motor trolleys and price tags sitting on top of boxes of huge crabs that were trying to crawl out! It was fun.

We then took the long trip back round to Ginza, a business/shopping district, where we ate a quick pizza for lunch and decided to stay in the shops for the rest of the day, which was a bit blah at first as we'd done our shopping the day before. However, we found the Tokyo branch of French department store Printemps, which was bizarre and good and they made all the announcements in French on the store intercom oddly so I actually understood something, although I'm not sure the Japanese shoppers did! Printemps had a lovely little cafe inside, where we had a wonderful cup of coffee (the Japanese simply cannot do coffee. It's for the most part quite vile) with the ladies who lunch.

After caffeining up, we explored the Sony centre, which was a cross between a shop and a showroom of all their latest technology, which you could play with! The had some very impressive things in there. We watched the 3D tv for quite some time! They also had a home-cinema set up where we relaxed for a bit!

We also walked over supposedly the busiest crossing in the world, although it was quite quiet! Then we caught the train back to Harajuku and ate dinner in a pleasant pizza restaurant, before walking back to Shinjuku. When we got back, we were quite awake so decided to go have a look at night time Shinjuku, which is pretty much the image you get when you think of modern day Tokyo! It is crazy!

The main streets are awash with people and neon, games arcades, bars....the sidestreets filled with clubs and people waiting to meet other people, then as you head further in to the warren of streets the sleaze takes over and you are left with hostess bars, strip clubs and various unnamed venues, doorways hidden behind thick curtains...

After all that fun, we watched some amusing Japanese TV back at the hotel and got some sleep, ready for the last 3 days of our holiday.

Japan - Nara and a final day in Kyoto

2010-06-10T19:30:00.003+10:00
Wednesday 31st March and Thursday 1st April 2010

Up early on Wednesday for a visit to Nara. After picking up a picnic lunch of sushi bento boxes from the Isetan foodhall, we jumped on the rapid train and 45 minutes later alighted at Nara station, which was apparently being renovated and was consequently a bit of a scaffolded mass of semi-constructed tunnels.

Nara was Japan's capital from 710 to 784 AD while the country was undergoing a very strong Buddhist influence. Consequently there are a LOT of buildings and things designated National Treasures and like Kyoto, a large area forms a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We made our way up the main street, which was oddly dull. It was like a bad recreation of a 70s British High Street, with an inexplicable abundance of wedding dress shops. Fortunately, it wasn't long before we emerged at the other end into Nara Koen (Nara Park), and went in by the entrance leading straight to Kofuku-ji Temple and its impressive Five Story Pagoda. It's kind of unfortunate that from this day, very few of our photos came out very well as the light was very harsh and the sky very white.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by deer! Nara Koen is a deer park. There is a myth that a god came to Nara on a deer and so they are seen as envoys of a god and have protected status. They have gone wild all over the park though and today there are over 1000 of them.

We made our way through the crowds (people and deer) to Todai-ji Temple and followed the crowds through to the Daibutsu-den, the Great Buddha Hall, said to be the largest wooden structure in the world.

The Daibutsu-den houses the Daibutsu, Japan's largest bronze statue and one of the largest in the world, a 15 metre high Buddha on a throne. It was cast in the 8th century and almost bankrupted Japan as it used up most of the bronze supplies of the time. You can imagine it all you like but nothing prepares you for the scale of it as you walk through the door! You just don't get the same sense of it from the photos.

This one has a few people at the bottom to give you an idea. It was also really dark in the Daibutsu-den so the people are really over-exposed. The Buddha was looming in the dark. Mark didn't like the Daibutsu, he thought it wasn't good, just big, and big doesn't equal good. I liked it though.

We left the crowds at Todai-ji and headed deeper into the park, finding some beautiful secluded temple buildings on the hillside, where we stopped to eat our lunch in peace, looking out over Nara.

Had a lovely afternoon walking around yet more quiet bits of the path, regularly coming across beautiful little shrines and the occasional wandering deer.

Caught the train back as the sun began to set. The train went through some really pretty looking rural areas, which was lovely to see, as I was beginning to wander if all of Japan was just really industrial in its landscape! Had a great dinner back in Kyoto at Musashi in the city, a kaitensushi where all the dishes were 137 yen!! So cheap and so good!

After another cozy night on the futons, we woke on Thursday to a disappointing amount of rain falling outside our window. We headed down to the Imperial Palace under umbrellas to see if we could book on a tour inside, but the tour was unfortunately full. We headed back to Musashi, this time for lunch, to ponder a back up plan over more sushi, and decided to head down the road to Nijo-jo, a castle built as the Kyoto residence of a 17th century Shogun.

After being disappointed and dwelling on the fact we couldn't get into the Imperial Palace, we weren't expecting that much from Nijo-jo, but were actually really surprised by how good it was. You could go inside the castle (leaving shoes in the shoe racks at the door of course!) and walk around, and the inside was amazing. It was fascinating to see a building that was lived in, gives you a much different experience from the temples we had been to. It was all tatami mats and dark wood, gold and elaborately painted sliding doors. You weren't allowed to take photos inside, but it was quite good to be able to walk around in peace without flashes going off everywhere.

After the castle, we walked around the gardens a bit, it wasn't raining too much now and they were very pretty, with different sections done in different styles.

We headed out after a good look round and walked back into Kyoto to relax in Starbucks for a while and warm up. As it was our last night in Kyoto, we headed off to Sarasa, the cafe we went to on the second night and enjoyed so much, for beers, dinner and hot sake, then headed back for a moderately early night so as to be up for our 10.29am Shinkansen reservation the next day.

We both really came round to Kyoto in the end and were sad to leave. It's a great little city, more relaxed and easygoing than Tokyo, with what seemed like a great mix of scenery and outdoor stuff as well as great cafes and restaurants and culture.

Japan - two days in Kyoto

2010-05-23T18:58:00.004+10:00
Sunday 28th- Tuesday 30th March 2010

Just when it seemed like we were settled in Tokyo, we were up again and off to Kyoto, over 200 miles west in the Kansai region of Japan.

Kyoto was Japan's capital city from the 8th century right through until 1868 when the government transferred to Edo (since renamed Tokyo). Although originally one of the chosen atomic bomb targets, Kyoto escaped the heavy WW2 bombing suffered by much of the rest of Japan and is one of the few areas with a large number of prewar buildings, including traditional narrow wooden townhouses known as 'machiya'. This also means that many of the temples and other historic buildings are still standing in their original settings. 20% of Japan's National Treasures exist in Kyoto and a large area of the city and its surroundings is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Getting to Kyoto from Tokyo involved a highly exciting trip on the Shinkansen (bullet train)! On Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel in Asakusa and made our way to Ueno station on the subway, where we joined a large queue to pick up our Japan Rail Passes (you purchase the pass from outside Japan and get an exchange order, which you swap for a pass at one of the Japan Rail offices in the main stations). The whole process took an immense amount of time, not helped along by the fact that we seemed to be the only people in the queue who had bothered to fill out the exchange form in advance. But eventually we got our passes - they have a shiny cover with a picture of the great wave on - and rode the JR line down to Tokyo station.

The next stage was to try to make a seat reservation on the shinkansen (there are some unreserved seats but we had been warned they can be busy, and we didn't fancy standing for 2 hours!). This was easier than we expected as there is a dedicated reservation counter and you can just point to the time train you want, although the girl on the counter helpfully spoke some english and told us our train and platform number. This done, we were off!

I guess I knew Japan was mountainous but I didn't realise quite HOW moutainous it is. It's very up and down! Taking the train across the country was a good way to see the landscape. It is also very industrial, which is also unexpected as I suppose you think of rural Japan as a little bit quaint. It is very modern though, which I guess makes sense as it's almost all post-war built.

We scoffed bento boxes for lunch on the train and pulled into Kyoto Station just over two hours later. Not as busy as Tokyo and with fewer connection options easier to navigate around. It took us a hugely long time to work out the subway tickets and there were no english instructions anywhere, but eventually we got it. It's actually very easy, just not really immediately obvious! 20 minutes later, we stepped out of the subway into a quiet, freezing cold street on the eastern edge of the city and followed a map along a beautifully picturesque canal path for a few minutes til we arrived at our hotel, the Kyoto Traveller's Inn.

Our Japanese style tatami room! We weren't expecting that at all, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. The futons you sleep on are rolled up in the cupboard during the day! There was a little bathroom, fridge and kettle with a large supply of green tea. It was like camping but indoors I guess (and with heating, fortunately). It was a great find.

We unpacked a bit then headed out to eat, heading into the city centre. It was absolutely freezing so we headed for a vegetarian restaurant we picked from the book, called Hale. We found it in a back street, an old-style machiya which you entered and walked down a long corridor, then through a sliding door into the restaurant itself, where we were greeted at the door by the two ladies who ran the place - a younger lady who served the food and an older lady who seemed to be cooking it. It turned out to be one of the best dining experiences either of us had ever had! We left our soggy, cold shoes next to a glowing heater and stepped up into the raised dining room. There were only two tables, each seating four people, and we sat down on cushions at the only two places left. The menu was very simple and was actually all vegan. I don't really know what a lot of it was but there were steamed vegetables, fried tofu, pickles, a dish of something that was a bit like rice but not... half the vegetables I didn't even recognise but I've since found out that there are some vegetables unique to the Kyoto region!
We accompanied the meal with hot sake and plum wine and green tea. It was so comfortable sitting in the traditional dining room, all dark wood and exposed beams I didn't want to leave! But leave we had to, with the two ladies coming out of the kitchen to bow to us as we went out (I love this custom in Japan - the whole staff of a restaurant will come out to greet you and bid you farewell). It was a fantastic meal and a fantastic experience - as close as we came to trying the high-class Buddhist vegetarian cuisine Kyoto is famous for.

After a long sleep on our futons, Monday began with a trip into the hills to visit Nanzen-ji, one of the most important Zen temples in Japan. We had a look round the main gate which is HUGE and imposing in dark heavy wood. Then, we sidestepped into Tenjuan, one of the little sub-temples. You had to pay to enter (only about $2 though) but it was well worth a visit as it was so peaceful. A neat little temple building stands in a wonderful garden, with a large pond of koi. It was so magical!

We were the only people there for most of the time, and we spent a good long while walking around and enjoying the peace, before heading back out and further up towards Nanzen-ji, at the top of the hill. However, we decided that Tenjuan had been so enjoyable that we wouldn't bother to pay to go into Nanzen-ji so instead we began the Philosopher's Path walk up the mountainside, a lovely walk along a canal with overhanging cherry trees and lovely old style houses and little cafes lining the sides. We stopped in for a cup of tea and slice of cake at one, as it was really bitterly cold and we had been outside a long while. The Philosopher's Path is so named as it was the favourite walk of one of Kyoto's more eminent philosophy academics.

At the end of the path, high up on the mountainside, lies Ginkaku-ji, the Temple of the Silver Pavilion, built in the 15th century. It was intended to be coated in silver to match the existing Golden Pavilion (more on that later!), but even though this never happened, the nickname stuck.

It is set in large gardens, the most interesting feature of which was this 'dry garden' - shaped mounds of sand - which is supposed to aid contemplation.

The gardens were like a fairytale - we realised then that all of what we thought was grass was actually moss, giving it this unusual, incandescent glowing green look.

The temple itself.

After exploring the gardens, we walked back to our hotel, picking up takeout sushi for lunch on the way which we ate in our room. Caught the subway to the city and wandered round the department stores for a bit, then had a hot starbucks. It had started snowing when we were at Ginkaku-ji and was still snowing now quite heavily.
The city centre area of Kyoto is nice. After Tokyo it felt very provincial, but it reminded me of a larger UK city centre but a bit more stylish, neater I guess. It felt very safe and cheerful.
We found a really cool cafe to have dinner at, called Sarasa. It did kind of modern Japanese cafe type food - lots of salads with different types of mushrooms, noodles, rice dishes, vegetables. It was really friendly and there were a lot of interesting looking younger people there, definitely somewhere to go back to. Then, back to the room to roll out our futons for the night!

Tuesday morning began with a trip right across town on the bus to visit the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Kinkak-ji. This temple dates from the 14th Century, but has actually been rebuilt 3 times as it was burned down twice in the Onin War in the 15th Century, then again more recently by a suicidal monk in 1950. Nevertheless, it is a fantastic sight!

It gleams across the Kyoko-chi (Mirror Pond) and all around it is a beautiful Japanese stroll garden which gives some lovely views over the temple itself as well as further afield. It was however enormously busy, so we didn't stay too long in the gardens, just enjoyed the views for a little while, especially the layers of snow starting to melt and drip from the walls and fence posts.

We walked down the road a little way for the next stop on our day's agenda - the Kyoto Museum for World Peace. This had an interesting little write up in the Rough Guide and since the entry fee was cheap and it was close by, we thought we'd check it out. It turned out to be brilliant. Most of the displays were just in one large room, but they are enormously detailed and comprehensive without being overwhelming. Everything in the displays is in Japanese, but the lady on the desk at the entrance gave us English-language guides which were very good - A4 booklets which described each part of the display, as well as giving you a general history lesson on the relevant facts.

The exhibition traced the history of the 15-Year-War, which is what the Japanese call WW2 - they had already been at war with China for some years before WW2 proper started. It focused on Japan's militarism and the terrible effects it had on other Asian countries as Japan strove to colonise pretty much everywhere and make their empire the biggest in the world. The tried to 'Japanise' all the countries they took over, forcing people there to speak Japanese, celebrate Japanese holidays etc. It also didn't gloss over atrocities commited by Japanese soldiers, including the Nanking Massacre and the use of 'comfort women' - Japanese women shipped over and forced to act as sex slaves for the soldiers. However it was also very balanced and told of the hard life of the soldiers - enforced conscription and great onuses placed on them - for example, they had to promise to commit suicide if they were to "undergo the humility of being captured alive". There was also a big section on the privations felt by the rest of the Japanese people - extreme rationing (it was unbelievable what they survived on) and constant air raids, whilst being force fed ideas about the greatness of being at war - no dissent on this point was allowed. It was just drummed into them that war=good. There were even children's colouring books on display with pictures of tanks and guns, which was a little disturbing.
It went on to talk about war elsewhere in the world, basically touching on every modern war however small or large from WW2 through to Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland even. The basic message was just that war is bad. For everyone.

We left the museum and caught the slowest bus EVER to Kyoto station, ducked into the Isetan store for bento boxes and caught the train using our JR passes to Inari, 2.5km south of Kyoto.

Next to the station is Fushimi-Inari Taisha, the head shrine of the cult of Inari (Shinto god of rice and sake - yay!) The colourful shrine buildings at the entrance were great, but we had come to climb a mountain, Inari-san!

There is a 4km maze of paths climbing to the top, lined the whole way with hundreds of red 'torii' gates, each donated by a company wishing for business success.

It was a pretty steep climb, but every now and again the path would open out into a little clearing with tiny shrines and perhaps a little tea house to rest in.

The view from the top was well worth the climb. But by this point it was starting to get dark so we pootled back down to the bottom and caught the train back to Kyoto. Got a big bowl of ramen from a little place in the station food court for dinner, excellent!

Please visit Flickr to see ADDITIONAL BONUS PHOTOS! and also to see these same photos in a less rubbish, washed-out format (i have no idea what photobucket does to them but I don't like it!)

Get your democratic hat on.

2010-05-06T21:34:00.006+10:00
So the UK is voting now! Go vote, British people, use your power, cherish your democracy, weeeee!

I've been doing a lot of reading of manifestos over the past few days - Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats...

I've nervously giggled my way through the BNP's main policies (they don't really have any...or at least they don't seem very well thought out unless they involve hating on black people or women) - you know the way you laugh a bit but on the inside you are very, VERY frightened? Their stuff always sounds to me like it's been written by an irrational 8-year-old doing a "How would you run the country?" primary school project.

I'm also interested to see the newly launched TUSC (Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition). I'm very pleased to see a left coalition which will work to decrease the split in the left vote, giving it more chance against the right where the vote is only essentially split between 3 parties. Their main policies seem slightly on the vague side though, although of course as a coalition and not a party each candidate is acting for their own individual party I suppose. They seem opposed to the EU, a viewpoint which I strongly disagree with, as well as pledging to immediately withdraw troops from Afghanistan, which I don't think is the most sensible solution - what's started must be finished (all the 'big three' aim to support the continuing presence of British troops in Afghanistan, the Lib Dems suggesting that they would try to bring them home as soon as reasonable).

What has struck me the most is the essential similarity between key Conservative and Labour policies. But I suppose that, although there may well still be a bunch of old, rich toffs in the Tories, and a bunch of old staunch socialists in the Labour Party, the people who now have the power are essentially in the centre - white, middle class, educated people with similar ideas.

The Liberal Democrats' policies most closely represent my views, particularly on a couple of points that are particularly important to me.

Firstly, whilst the Conservatives and Labour faff on trying to get more and more people into university, leading to a degree simply being a standard, expected qualification that no longer guarantees you anything in life, the Lib Dems are the only party that will scrap the '50% in uni' aim.

Secondly, both the Tories and Labour want an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This is a non-promise. No short-term promise allows them to ignore it. The Liberal Democrats also have the same 2050 target, but also pledge to reduce emissions by 40% by 2020. That's soon, people! That's immediate action! And that's what we need.

If you want 10 reasons why not to vote Labour, look here - it may be a bit of an attack, but it's all backed up by evidence.

If you want reasons not to vote Tory, I can give you a few :-P

Philippa Stroud and her 'gay cures'; bizarre tax breaks for couples who have a marriage certificate and have one member who doesn't want to work (do I really need to point out how discriminatory this is against families who don't fit some old-fashioned, stuffy stereotype of how they should live their lives?); the fact in itself that they seem to see marriage as some quick fix to society's problems (I could rant on about root causes of poverty and social disintegration for hours if anyone would like....); their plans to repeal the Human Rights Act, effectively removing easy access to the European Court of Human Rights and the Convention; David Cameron's face.... (he likes Radiohead!, AND he sometimes leaves his SOCKS on the FLOOR! He's so TRENDY!)

The impression I get from the Liberal Democrats' policies is one of fairness. Fairness and rationality. Obviously I realise that certain Tory and Labour policies appeal more to other sectors of society than the one i inhabit, but I don't believe I'm so mentally odd that my reaction is not that of the majority. I worry sometimes that so many votes come from ill-informed voters, making a decision based on age-old prejudices that the Tories are going to make us all go fox hunting and give all our money to rich people and that Labour are going to make us give all our money to poor people and join a waiting list for a telephone. That cannot be democracy.

I'm going to bed now. Go vote, dear compatriots, and in an informed and intelligent manner.

I'll leave you with a link. If you want a wonderful, eloquent, balanced article that is basically nice about all the main parties and doesn't try to tell you who to vote for, please visit Stephen Fry.

Japan - a day in Tokyo

2010-05-01T23:21:00.002+10:00
It's time I begun to blog on Japan, don't you think, hm? I am ill with a bunged up head and a terrible chesty cough (thanks, sudden temperature drop) so my inability to do anything else leaves me some spare time.

SO on Friday morning we boarded the plane for the 6 hour flight from Singapore to Tokyo. The flight was dull as it was all over sea apart from the first 10 minutes and the last 15 minutes. Tokyo Narita airport is actually about 60km from Tokyo itself and looks to be in a pretty rural area. As we flew in, I looked out of the window at the landscape of and thought "oh my god, it's all flooded!" - later I realised they were paddy fields and meant to be like that, haha!

At the airport, we managed to buy tickets for the Narita Express train into Tokyo (possibly the nicest, cleanest, most spacious train I have ever had the pleasure of spending 55 minutes on!) as well as PASMO prepaid electronic swipe cards for the subway, which we then used to get from the main Tokyo station to Asakusa on the subway line.

The Tokyo subway is surprisingly easy to navigate as everything is bilingual, clearly colour coded and mapped, and generally well-signposted. Ticket machines also have english instructions, although it helps if you know the name of the ticket you want to buy as the passes are sold under brand names rather than descriptions. I think the only subway slip-up we had in the entire trip was accidentally boarding an 'express' train with limited stops, not realising it sped right through the station we wanted.

We emerged in Asakusa in darkness, freezing rain. Used the helpful station map to orientate us, we walked the short distance to our hotel and checked in - the hotel room was tiny but very clean, warm and comfortable. After a quick rest we headed out to find some dinner as it was getting late. We walked back into Asakusa and found the central area, a bustling street of little shops and restaurants. Asakusa is a quiet suburb compared to the modern centres of Tokyo so none of the crazy lights and huge crowds yet! We tried one restaurant but they were closing, so worried we were a bit late, we just ducked into the next place we saw that had an english menu, a tiny little place. Turned out to be a good bet and we warmed up with stir-fried eggplant and tofu, miso soup and hot sake. Then to bed.

Saturday was our first full day in Tokyo. After a Japanese buffet breakfast (weird!) at the hotel, we headed back down to the main street of Asakusa again to visit the Senso-ji Temple, Tokyo's oldest and most sacred Buddhist temple. It was founded in AD 628 as a shrine to Kannon, goddess of mercy, after two fishermen fished a tiny statue of the goddess out of the river. The statue is stored in the main hall, but is considered too holy to be on display.

The main entrance to the temple is through the Kaminarimon Gate, in which a HUGE paper lantern hangs.

Once through, you make your way along Nakamise-dori, a street of little shops and food stands, before you make it into the heart of the site.

The temple is obviously a massive attraction for visitors from Japan and the whole world and it was VERY busy.

The Belfry, which stands at the centre of the site.

We had a good explore, including inside the main hall which was incredibly ornate - the main shrine was covered in gold and fantastically detailed paintings on the ceilings. Outside stands the incense burner - wafting the smoke over yourself is meant to keep you healthy. I got a cold so it doesn't work, sorry.

After having a good explore, we wandered through the little gardens and shrines surrounding the temple. There was a pond, full of massive koi, with cherry blossoms hanging over it.

There were also loads of these little Jizo statues:

Jizo is a very popular god and there are statues of him EVERWHERE. He is guardian of children and especially of children who die before their parents. Japanese mythology says that these children are unable to cross into the afterlife as they may not have not had a chance to do enough good deeds and they have made their parents suffer. Jizo can save them, and the red bibs are put there by parents asking him to protect their children. The other clothes are just because it's winter (non-living things have a soul too!) - lots of them had little woolly hats on!

From Senso-ji we walked a couple of kilometres west to Ueno, through quiet suburban streets of local shops. One thing that surprised me was the huge number of people on bicycles, and the lines of bicycles lined up in front of every building. I never realised the Japanese were such big cyclists, it seems at odds with the image of the ultra-modern, neon city-scapes you think of. But really that side of Japan is in such a relatively small area, bikes seem perfectly natural elsewhere.

Ueno is home to Ueno Park, Tokyo's largest public park. Cherry blossom season was underway and we had no idea what to expect, we certainly weren't prepared for the sight that greeted us! The park was heaving! There were people everywhere, and loads of parties were going on under the trees. A lot of preparation seems to go into the viewing parties, and some people had some incredible spreads including low fold-up tables.

There were a number of food stalls set up in the centre of the park, and Mark managed to use the power of mime to procure a dish of delicious fried octopus which we ate with the bento box we'd bought in the station.

See those things on sticks? That's a whole fish on a stick!

We then had a good wander around the park, joining the multitudes of people photographing the blossom and visiting the Tosho-gu Shrine and Gojo Shrine which lie in the park.

Inari fox statue at Gojo Shrine. Inari is a Shinto rice god, and foxes are the messengers of Inari. You see a lot of fox statues around shrines.

Prayers hung outside Tosho-gu Shrine

From Ueno we took the subway a little more north to Yanaka, Tokyo's old town, to do a walk that was in the guide book. Yanaka has a very different atmosphere again to Asakusa and Ueno - it feels far more traditional, and there is a lot to see - a shrine practically every few steps!

These Jizo were just lined up at the side of the road. Yanaka has a little main shopping street called Yanaka Ginza, with lots of traditional tea houses and food stores - we bought a beautiful tea canister and boxes of edemame and sweet potato to snack on. Then as the sun started to drop and with it the temperature, we decided to make our way towards the bright lights of Tokyo's modern centre, Shinjuku!

Shinjuku station is the busiest in the world, and has 60+ exits. It was, as you can imagine, a NIGHTMARE to get out of! We eventually just picked one that sounded about right, deciding to orientate ourselves once on the street instead. We came out under skyscrapers, lights and business to rival London's Oxford Street in the last few days of christmas shopping. It was intense! Freezing cold, we headed into a department store and found a rather posh starbucks, which cheered us up no end. We perused the guidebooks over coffees, deciding on a conveyer belt sushi restaurant in nearby Harajuku for dinner - turned out to be a good choice and we made the journey back to the hotel quite stuffed!

Singapore 2010

2010-04-19T21:35:00.003+10:00
It's high time I did a holiday-blogging overload. Don't you love it when I do that? So, as you are probably all aware, dear readership, I am lately returned from a two week holiday in Japan.

We flew with Singapore Airlines, which meant a changeover in Singapore (it's a slightly circuitous route between Sydney and Tokyo but hey). It was my first time flying over Australia in daylight, which was cool as I got to see the desert. It's exciting at first, but after a couple of hours it's dull. Australia really is a big old country of nothing!

On the way out to Tokyo, we spent two nights in Singapore, staying with Neil (and his mum, who was also visiting from the US, as it happened!) in his lovely condo.

We arrived after a 7 hour flight on Wednesday evening, and after dropping our stuff headed out with Neil to Little India for dinner. We had a really great meal at a restaurant, and since Neil's mother grew up in India (they are Indian although he grew up in the US) we learnt a lot from her about Indian food and ways of cooking! After the meal, we went for a walk through the area - Little India is great, it's an area of Indian immigrants and it feels like being in India! Really different to the shiny calm of the rest of the city. A lot of shops were open even late at night and it was really interesting. We wandered down to the Temple, which entertained us by being quite traditional in style, but then having a big neon front. Haha.

On Thursday we had the whole day in Singapore. We got up and caught a taxi from Neil's to Orchard Road and looked around the shops for an hour or so and got some breakfast in a food court. We looked in a camera shop and Mark bought a really good Canon camera bag for only AU$40! (About £20 - we'd seen the same bag in Sydney for about $80!).

We also found good old Marks and Spencer and bought Percy Pigs and square crisps (omg I love M&S square crisps SO much).

CBD view.

Walked down to the marina and found a thai restaurant on the water where we had a pretty good lunch, but while we were eating it starting POURING with rain. We sat in the restaurant for as long as possible but eventually had to go, so we retreated next door into the Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay building. The building is pretty cool and they didn't seem to mind people sitting around inside, there was even a free exhibition on how they designed it.

It's nicknamed the 'Durian' after the prickly tropical fruit native to the area. More on durians later.

It stopped raining so we made our way back towards Raffles Hotel.

Raffles is so colonial it's crazy! It makes you feel like at the beginning of Empire of the Sun, like drinking cocktails in the middle of the afternoon is perfectly natural.

We went into the Long Bar and enjoyed our Singapore Slings (we had one each cus we're not stingy like Pere :-P).

Mark enjoyed the abundance of peanuts to eat on each table.
We got kind of bored after our cocktails. Just wanted to get off to Tokyo by that point I think. We did the best bits of Singapore on our previous visit, I think (Botanic Gardens and the Zoo) and to be honest there's not that much to do there. Other than shop. We looked round another mall but I wanted to save money for Japan so we didn't really look properly. Eventually it was time to head back to meet Neil and his mum and we walked up the road for a meal - it was a crazy buffet type place with all sorts of asian cuisine - I got to try a lot of fun things! I tried three new fruits, I shall review them here.

1. Durian

Wikipedia on Durian. The Durian is an odd fruit. It has a very unique smell and taste and is very popular in south east asia. Inexplicably popular. It has an intense stench, such that it is banned on planes, in hotels and on the Singapore subway system (there are signs forbidding durians next to the usual 'no smoking' signs, it's quite an amusing sight!). If you read the wiki page there are some wonderful descriptions of durian eating by different people. I ate mine in a 'durian puff' - a chunk of fruit wrapped in thin pastry - a popular dessert. The flesh is creamy and pulpy and pungent, the smell is like gone off milk and smelly feet. It was, quite frankly, revolting.

2. Soursop

Wikipedia on the Soursop. The Soursop was a far more pleasant experience. Again it's soft and fleshy, but sweet and creamy and pleasant. It's quite light and refreshing.

3. Longan

Wikipedia on the Longan. The Longan is even more pleasant still. It's like a small lychee, but slightly less stringy and much much sweeter. I find lychees can be a bit bland, but these were delicious.

Fruit tested, we returned to bed, for an early start on Friday as we were off on the plane again, this time to Tokyo!!

Back again

2010-04-12T20:17:00.003+10:00
Back from Japan! It was amazing.

I have a huge pile of photos to come, but it'll be a few days while I get them sorted out. We did so much!
This week I'm starting my new job and going to the ballet tomorrow night. Busy busy.

Fridays and Saturdays

2010-03-20T21:58:00.006+11:00
Last Friday - Karl's Farewell Dinner and Drinks at Blackbird Cafe, Darling Harbour

Karl has left Australia to go back to the England (he's from Chelmsford, haha) as his visa finally ended. I was sad - I've worked with Karl for well over a year and it's strange without him. He was always someone I had a lot of time for.

Aisling, Michael and May

We went to Blackbird straight from work to take full advantage of cocktail happy hour. It was very bright sitting in the big windows, but the view over Darling Harbour was lovely.

Me and Emer

Aisling and Dean (our boss) - He put on her sunglasses and brushed all his hair forward and looked like a pimp. Aisling was scared!

We all ordered and ate and then after dinner we presented Karl with the photobook we made for him!! We got photos of everyone at work, loads from the christmas party, various nights out, some we got from Josie (his gf) from their trips to Jervis Bay. Michael, Aisling and I made the book, and then everyone at work wrote messages in it. It took us 3 days to make but it looked so good! He was so chuffed with it as well!

Karl looking at the book

After Blackbird, we moved up the road to another bar for more drinks.

Aisling and Karl

Me, Karl and May

I left about 10pm and went back to Newtown to meet Mark for yet another cocktail in Madame Fling Flong, to celebrate him getting another paper accepted for publication that week.

Last Saturday - lazing in Balmain and Surry Hills

Saturday morning saw us up early and off on the bus to Balmain to go back to Adriano Zumbo! Mark saw what I bought when I went with Dean and wanted to see for himself! Zumbo is Mark-heaven to be honest - he does love his sugar. We got a new stash of macaroons as well as our new favourite food, almond croissants.

Then back to Surry Hills for coffee drinking and writing at Kawa and Surry Hills library. Surry Hills library is amazing! So nice and airy and so many magazines you can read.

This weekend has been thus far a quieter affair. Friday night - fish and chips from Erskineville Fish and Chips and an early night. Today, a visit to Shenkin for coffee and Buzzzbar for milkshake and a bite to eat. Note-taking for Japan. 3 days until we leave! I bought a new journal for the trip. Can't wait!

Darling Harbour, 14th March 2010

2010-03-14T21:47:00.002+11:00

Busy busy Friday and Saturday, quiet Sunday.

Late late brunch at Baffi & Mo in Redfern. Mark had fritters, I branched out from my usual poached eggs on sourdough with avocado and went for poached eggs on sourdough with potato hash. OMG it was delicious! Baffi & Mo also make the best poached eggs in Sydney, in my opinion. Believe me, I've tried a LOT. Perfect shape, perfect consistency. I almost don't want to tell people about Baffi & Mo because it's getting harder and harder to get a table in there these days, but I cannot help it.

Train to the city and I bought a pen, which took a great deal of time, but I wanted a good pen. Trip to David Jones to choose a new food processor (our old one is dying), and bought more pumpkin and lentil sausages. Walk down to Darling Harbour for photo opportunities, then home for aforementioned sausages with roast potatoes, courgette, eggplant and carrots. Now episode of House which seems to have a remarkable amount of backstory that I've missed...hmmm. Lovable.

I am popular

2010-03-11T20:08:00.003+11:00
Last weekend, it seemed unlikely that it would be a good weekend. Mark was going away canoeing and camping, and I couldn't go because my ears prevent water-based activities. However, upon making an unnecessary fuss one day in work, I suddenly found myself inundated with people wishing to entertain me!

It actually began on Thursday, when Mark commiserated my being left behind by taking me to see Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. I was so excited! It's had some bad reviews but I did still enjoy it a lot. I liked the darkness of it and I liked the bandersnatch. Afterwards we went for dinner at Atom Thai on King Street, sooo delicious. Best thai on King Street without a doubt.

On Friday we had a super early night and Mark left before 6am on Saturday. I got up when he left and at 7am met Dean (my boss) and Zane (his boyfriend) at Erko station and we caught the train to the city, then walked over the Darling Harbour bridge into Pyrmont for Pyrmont Markets.

Pyrmont Markets are a monthly organic produce market, where loads of farms and other food producers bring their wares to sell. There was so much stuff! Bread, honey, lamb, cheese, vegetables, all sorts of things. We had a good wander round and I bought an olive sourdough loaf from the Sonoma stall, Zane and I bought boxes of honeycomb and Dean bought me marshmellows from the Sweetness stall and then got some lamb.

After exhausting the markets, we walked back to Town Hall and caught a bus to Balmain to visit Adriano Zumbo's patisserie. Dean and Zane are obsessed with Zumbo, who is the new big name on the pastry/macaroon scene. He has a tiny little patisserie on Darling Street and we crowded in and stocked up on pain au chocolat, almond croissants (literally the best thing I have ever eaten, ever, and I don't even like croissants!), macaroons and cakes. All the little cakes have entertaining name and everything looks so finely crafted, yet it's not really that expensive. Mark and I are going back this weekend for more!

My macaroons, whilst waiting for the bus back to the city. Can you see I crushed the bottom one already? I fail. The flavours are, top to bottom, grapefruit and jasmine, strawberry and balsamic, pineapple.

We pootled off home via David Jones' food hall, where I bought pumpkin and lentil sausages for my breakfast (it was 10am now) and then I went back home to cook them.

I had them on my olive bread. DJ's vege sausages are SO GOOD. My favourite thing is that they are actually made in skins, like real sausages, rather than just being a clump of soy/whatever.

After breakfast I had a few hours before Aisling arrived in Erskineville, and I went to meet her at the station. We went to visit Shenkin for coffee and frappes and sat there a good hour or so before wandering up to Newtown and along King Street. Had a look in a few shops then into Max Brenner for a hot chocolate. Then we got wine in the bottle shop and went to Ice and Slice for pizza then to Madame Fling Flong for cocktails! Then all of a sudden it was gone 11pm and I was suddenly sleepy, so we rolled back down to the station for Aisling to get her train, and I went straight to bed.

On Sunday, I got up and got the train to the city for open doors day at Sydney Town Hall. They were having a special open weekend to celebrate the re-opening of renovated parts of the Town Hall, and were allowing access to parts that are normally closed to the public. It was really good fun to have a look round, I had no idea it was so impressive inside!

Centennial Hall, and the Grand Organ. The Organ is quite famous, considered to be the finest 19th century concert organ in the world and is the world's largest entirely mechanical pipe organ. It is HUGE!

Mosaic crest of the hall.

There was a room with a picture of every mayor of Sydney.

At the end of the tour, I had a look around the new exhibition they have on, called 'Unvaulted', which is a display of the City of Sydney collection of artefacts and treasures, many of which have never been seen by the public. There were some pretty good things there, various exotic gifts donated to the City from all over the world, as well as stories and photos of various state visits, including several by the British royal family. It's a free exhibition and worth dropping in on.

Following this, I walked back up through Darling Harbour to the Maritime Museum, which currently has an exhibition on Mythical Creatures on, again with free entry. This was brilliant! I am fascinated by mythical creatures and there was a lot of information there on the origins of the myths, appearance of the animals, different attitudes etc. All the well-known ones (dragons, unicorns, mermaids etc) were there as well as some lesser known ones like the Kappa, a Japanese water-dwelling creature that drags children into rivers if disturbed, and the Kraken, a sea-monster most likely inspired by sailors early sightings of dead giant squids floating at sea.

Barong costume - a creature that fights chaos in Bali.

This guy is HUGE. Giant apes existed in asia before becoming extinct around 300,000 years ago. Remains found possibly led to idea of Big Foot.

"Fiji Mermaid" - fraudulent model mermaid exhibited in side-shows in the late 19th century. It's made from a monkey stitched to a fish! I thought it was quite convincing? Haha.

Mark came back later that evening, all stinky. He wants to do all the same things next weekend, so I may have a repeat of some of the above!

Mardi Gras 2010 + Spencer Tunick

2010-03-02T20:56:00.005+11:00
Let me tell you of a vague memory. Sit comfortably.

It was a few years ago and I was...somewhere. I warned you it was vague, right? Well OK, let's narrow it down. I was in an art gallery. In, most likely, either Berlin, Paris, Vienna or London. Or there was a mild chance it was Liverpool. But that sounds less glamourous, right?
Anyway, I was in an art gallery, in ...a city... and I was marauding in my usual style. My eyes came to rest on a particular work, a photo of an installation in New York's Grand Central Station. An installation of naked people.
Gradually, over the next year or so, I became more aware of the artist, Spencer Tunick. An American artist who specialises in installations of nude people arranged in urban locations across the world.

Tunick on Wiki - see wiki for all the installations he has been involved in.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago, and in the run up to Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, it was announced that Spencer Tunick was coming to Sydney, to stage a large-scale nude installation called 'The Base' at Sydney Opera House. And he needed volunteers. So Mark and I signed up.

Fast forward to Monday the 1st of March 2010. Our alarms went off at 3am. By 4am, a taxi dropped us off to join over 5000 other people in pitch dark at Circular Quay where we handed in consent forms and received plastic bags in which to place our belongings, before being led into a specially fenced off area of the Botanic Gardens to await the sunrise and our instructions.

It was a chilly morning, under 15 degrees, and the prospect of being naked wasn't too appealing at that point. But still, as 6am rolled around the organisers instructed us to remove our clothes and make our way in groups towards the front steps of the Opera House. Everything had to be left, except obviously tattoos. We were told "unless you came out of your mother with it, leave it in your bag". People with glasses were allowed to take them but shown how to hold them in such a way that they would not be seen on the camera.

It was such a strange experience! Worth it entirely for the bizarre experience of being legitimately completely naked in such an iconic location. The whole thing actually felt strangely natural. A cheer went up as each group were led onto the steps. There was such a variety of people there - young people, old people, some you could even describe as elderly, fat people, thin people, pregnant women, all walks of life! My overriding impression was that without clothes, everyone looks strangely similar. It goes to show how much identity comes from our clothes and other bodily additions.

We were posing in the end for about an hour, being directed into all sorts of different positions, including lying down, embracing the people around you (Mark and I were both glad the other was there at that point as some people had to hug a stranger!), looking up, facing the front, facing the back, facing the bridge... The whole area was fenced off but very occasionally a stray jogger appeared in the gardens, only to be faced by several security guards running towards them waving their arms. We got a lot of honks from passing ferries!

By the end, I was glad to put my clothes back on as it was becoming seriously cold - I felt chilled right through and a bit ill. It was all over by before 8am and I made my way into work to find the Sydney papers already had the event covered on their online headlines!

[from http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/spencer-tunick/2010/03/01/1267291832800.html]

You can actually see us both quite clearly in this picture! We were quite near the front on the left! Any guesses? Haha. Also, I was kind of disappointed at the time that the sky was so overcast, but I actually really like the contrast of all the greys of the Opera House and the sky, and then the pink of all the naked people.

There was a much clearer, closer up photo on the MX (free commuter paper, like the british Metro) later that day in which I was more clearly visible. I'll scan it if I can. I am quite excited that I've been on the front page of the MX, although slightly weirded that everyone in my work has seen me naked! Haha. I'm excited to see the finished photos, which will be at a different angle (the press area was off to the side), as well as the ones he took later of people inside the Opera House.

I felt rubbish for the rest of the day, so sleepy, but now I've recovered I'm so glad I went. It was such a crazy, unique experience and it's exciting to think I might see myself hanging on the wall of an art gallery one day in the future!

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We didn't do a lot else for Mardi Gras this year. We missed the parade on Saturday night as we had both been out drinking on Friday and didn't really feel like it, but I'm a bit annoyed looking back that we missed it.
I did see a really good short film documentary on tv the other night though, about a Sydney drag queen and personality who was a big human rights activist and who had been HIV positive for many years. I cannot remember the name of the guy or his alter ego which is disappointing, but they showed interviews with him both as his self and as queen and it was really interesting. He seemed such a wonderful, selfless, intelligent person who really understood the big picture: if you want rights for yourself, you need to want them for every single person, whoever and whatever they are.

Das Erdbeben in Chile

2010-03-02T19:16:00.003+11:00
The week began with a major tsunami warning along Australia's east coast on Sunday, after Chile's earthquake. Ocean beaches were closed from Bondi and Manly in Sydney right up to Queensland, as raised water levels and dangerous currents were predicted. Fortunately, we escaped unscathed.

What I found astounding though was the way people still continued to visit the beaches, even going in the sea, while the warning was in place, exasperating lifeguards. Quite a contrast to the situation shown in a news report on Samoa, also on tsunami alert, which was devastated by a tsunami last year. People there were panicking, fearing a repeat performance, while in Sydney people were travelling to the ocean to 'watch the waves'. What do people need in order to learn? Do they need a 50ft wave to crush them to death? People are stupid. They make no sense.

---

Saturday was a scorching hot, clear day with bright blue skies over Sydney. We pottered around the corner for a late breakfast at Bitton (amazing scrambled eggs), then to Sydney Park for a lie down under the shade of the trees, then back up to King Street for a juice in South End Cafe. I'd not been to South End before but had read some good reviews, and it seemed like a really nice cafe. Lovely decor and a really homely, cosy feel. They had a really good range of juice options (I had my usual apple and ginger but they offered a good selection including beetroot which I always think is a good sign that people are taking their juice seriously). I must return to try the food at some point.

Sunday we were up early and off to Balmoral Beach, which being further in the harbour seemed to have no tsunami issues to be raised. It wasn't that nice a day in the end, overcast and windy, but we lay a long time on the beach, reading.

---

I lost an earring having a picnic in Sydney Park a couple of weeks ago, one that Lep sent me for Christmas, little hoops with birds on. We were sitting in a more secluded area of the park and by the time we left it was dark and there were no lights. We had only walked about 20 metres across the grass when I realised it had falled out so I assumed that if I went back in the light, I would probably find it as it was unlikely anyone would have been through and picked it up. But unfortunately it was nowhere to be found in the grass. I keep finding the other one all lonesome in the bottom of my bag - I never know what to do with lone earrings - and it makes me sad :(

Eurasia

2010-02-23T20:45:00.003+11:00
Watching Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour is giving me itchy feet. I've been in one place so long, and Australia can feel so restricting. I want to see Greece, I want to see Sarajevo, I want to see Rome, I want to swim off Croatian beaches, I want to dance all night in Berlin clubs, I want to wander down side streets in St Germain eating crepes in Paris. Try to find somewhere interesting to go for 3 days or so that can be easily accessed from Sydney, and you basically come up with....Melbourne.

Now, Melbourne is a great place. I possibly had more fun there than I've ever had anywhere else in my life, in terms of marauding and gallivanting and generally drinking too much and going to bed at 6am. It's attractive, clean, easy to navigate, friendly, varied, cultural, affordable and generally an all round good, interesting place to pass some time. But, both of us having spent some time there, it's no longer perhaps the most exciting destination. It's essentially Sydney, with trams.

You can get onto a plane in Sydney, fly for over 5 hours, get off the plane, and still be in the same country. I'm yearning for some variety. The kind of variety you get in Europe in such abundance. I know there are some beautiful places relatively nearby, but most are inaccessible or at least difficult to come by by public transport (Hawkesbury River, Hunter Valley and the Snowy Mountains to name just a few I seem to be coming up against a google-brick-wall of useful transport options).

I find the programs shown on Aus TV, in particular ABC which buys a lot of BBC imports, somewhat odd sometimes. A lot of the shows are very Euro-centric, or even British-centric, and I wonder how this really goes down with the average aussie viewer. One night, I found myself watching an episode of a Bristish property show, 'Escape to the Country', which was extolling the virtues of the common dream of moving to Cornwall. I highly doubt there are large numbers of aussies desperately interested in the trials and tribulations of buying an overpriced pokey seventies' stone-clad cottage with a view of a dismal grey drizzly coastline. I do wonder though, if some Australians ever share this feeling of being stuck in a big expanse of the cultural same old.

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After a scorching hot day yesterday, we took a picnic down to Sydney Park and sat out on the hill until it got too dark to see. Last night was the warmest night for 13 years, with the temperature 'dropping' to an overnight low of 26 degrees. Today is all change, however, and there is a distinct wintery chill in the air, especially as it is now starting to get dark a little earlier. I have a stressful week this week, but I'm looking forward to a bit of relaxation at the weekend, perhaps a trip to the beach as there will not be many more opportunities now.

Last weekend we saw British Sea Power play at the Manning Bar and they were excellent. Afterwards we trundled to the townie (what is that pub's full name??) for gin and I met a man from Cheltenham who is seconding at the British High Commission in Canberra, which was interesting as I secretly would love to work for the British High Commission. I did also secretly want to work for the government but not if it means I have to get bitch-slapped by a raging Gordon Brown. *quiver*

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I was going to end this post by querying whether I should watch QI or go to bed but I appear to now be watching QI so there we go.

Cultural Review - January 2010

2010-02-07T14:35:00.002+11:00
Not so much a resolution, more of a notion, but in any case I decided that I needed to get out more.

January in Sydney signifies the annual rolling round of the Sydney Festival, an arts festival in a similar vein to the Edinburgh International Festival with elements of the more lowbrow 'fringe'. A perfect opportunity for some cultural pursuits!

But, before getting on to that, I must just say what brilliant fun I had at the cricket! We attended the first day of the second test between Australia and Pakistan at Sydney Cricket Ground on 3rd January. It was so exciting!! Unfortunately the weather was bad and the start of play was delayed until after lunch by rain (wow, just like in England), but they finished an hour later so we still got the best part of a full day.

The SCG is so big and shiny! I'd only been to Trent Bridge before, which is nice and pleasant in a way that you imagine an English cricket ground should be, but the SCG is just so different. And so huge. I'd only seen county cricket at Trent Bridge so the ground wasn't that full, but the SCG was heaving!

Pakistan bowled first and they managed to bowl out all the Australians! Which was crazy but also good because we got to see the whole team bat, although none of them for very long. Mark was excited to see Ricky Ponting bat but he ended up being out on the first ball! We bought tickets for the non-alcohol stand and there were quite a few Pakistan supporters sitting near by, so we got quite into Pakistan and did a lot of cheering!

After Australia all got out, we got to see Pakistan bat briefly, but only a couple of overs. I never realised cricket could be so exciting, and I can't wait to go again!

Sydney Festival

If you go down to Martin Place very early in the morning (like, 6am - the stall opens at 8 but you will need to get in the queue and some people camp overnight) on every day of the Festival, there are a few tickets available for every show that day for just $25. Mark decided to give this a go to see if we could get tickets for a new German production of Hamlet by Thomas Ostermeier of Schaubühne Berlin that was on at Sydney Theatre. He went to queue in Martin Place at 6.30am on a Monday morning, but this proved too late, although we did get one $25 ticket. Still, we really wanted to see it and there were a few full price tickets left for that night, so we got one of those.

And we were glad we did because it was great (there were subtitles on a screen at the top for anyone who's wondering if it's easy to understand Hamlet in German!). The pace was very fast and the whole thing was very in your face, with a set that came right out into the stalls. The guy who played Hamlet was really quite good at going mad, and his performance went from hilarious to shocking to repulsive and back again. And they had rain on stage and I'm always a fan of rain on stage.

Another play we wanted to see, and did manage to get $25 tickets for this time, was a new adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Six Characters is a metafictional play, concerning the arrival of the eponymous characters during the editing process of a documentary (in the original play it was during rehearsals for another play). They insist that they are characters looking for an author, and demand that one of the production staff step into this role. One of them eventually agrees, and they begin to play out the life stories of the characters, in the process posing many questions about the increasingly blurred boundaries between fiction and reality.

The idea is a pretty clever one and I would actually like to see the original play to see if it works better. The first half of this production was very good, but it seemed to lose its way slightly towards the end, becoming a little bit too clever and trying to incorporate various in-jokes which led to it seeming a little rambling. It was super-well acted though, particularly on the part of the Father (I didn't know the actor's name but his CV included a lot of big-name British tv drama work) and the Stepdaughter.

Last weekend, the Festival drew to a close with the Opera in the Domain. This year's offering was a production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, which seems an odd choice for an opera, since it...well...isn't an opera. It's a musical. Still, I thought it was great and we had a fun time, although Mark was not convinced since he hates musicals (except Cabaret)!

So there we go, that's the more interesting features of January. We also had some days out at Manly and Balmoral, but other than that, just money-saving and trying to keep cool, really.

Now I shall go and spend the rest of my Sunday afternoon making scones I think.

Avalon - Palm Beach - Pittwater

2010-02-06T18:57:00.005+11:00
February is off to a wet start. It's rained everyday in varying degrees, and this weekend has so far seen some serious torrential rain that shows no sign of letting up (it's so heavy and loud this afternoon I couldn't hear the sound on the film I was watching!).
Being confined to the house does make for a pleasant, relaxing break every now and again though, and gives me a chance to catch up on a few things. This afternoon I booked us vegan meals on our Japan flights and then embarked on several hours of note-taking from our Japan guidebooks. My goodness there are so many things I want to see and do! I've only covered the Northern Tokyo areas of Asakusa, Ueno and Yanaka so far and I already have about a month's worth of sightseeing opportunities!

January gave us some changeable weather, regular showers but enough sunny days to make up for it. One of the best days turned out to be the Australia Day public holiday, on Tuesday 26th, so Mark and I headed off for a day out up in the northernmost edge of Sydney.

Our final destination was Palm Beach, the furthest north of Sydney's Northern Beaches suburbs, just over 40km from the city. We made an early start, arriving at Wynyard in good time to board the 9.30am L90 bus. As the bus journey was a long one (over 90 minutes in total), we had decided to get day tickets so we could get on and off the bus to break the journey up a bit.

The L90 meanders up through most of the Northern Beaches and you get some good views of the coastline at Dee Why, Collaroy, Narrabeen and Newport. After a perusal of our guidebooks, we settled on stopping off at Avalon, which is actually the last suburb the bus goes through before Palm Beach itself. Whale Beach actually lies in between the two, but the bus doesn't visit it, sticking to the main road into Palm Beach.

Australia Day events in some areas led to the limited road infrastructure of the more northerly suburbs becoming rather busy, so we ended up being on the bus 90 minutes just to get to Avalon, when it should have been little more than an hour. But oh, it was worth it! We hopped off the bus when we saw a sign for the beach carpark and pootled across the wide uninspiring main road to find the view opening out in front of us into a glorious golden sandy beach bordered by rocky, bush-covered headland.

It had such a different feel to the built-up city beach suburbs. From the beach you can only see a handful of buildings, most of which are just the toilet block and changing rooms. That, coupled with the distinct lack of people when compared to the more central beaches gave it a very tucked away feel and made you feel so lucky to have discovered it.

We had planned to just stop off for 30 minutes or so but we ended up lying under the shade of the trees for over an hour and ate most of our picnic lunch. We then headed back for the next bus to take us the last 20 minutes or so journey into Palm Beach. Palm Beach is basically a slender peninsula, on the eastern side of which lies the ocean, and on the western side is Pittwater and the mouth of the Hawkesbury River. As the bus continued north, the land grew narrower until at some points you could almost see water on both sides.

We hopped off the bus just before it pulled onto the beach road and walked across the park onto the sand. Palm Beach is home to some of Australia's most affluent people and this is very clearly reflected in a lot of the real estate in the area. As we walked onto the beach, you could see why it attracts people. It is absolutely stunning. And huge. I didn't realise what a long beach it was, it goes on for miles!

I didn't end up taking many photos in the end, but you can see some posh houses up on the cliff there!
Palm Beach was a lot busier than Avalon, which makes sense. Palm Beach is quite a tourist attraction due to it doubling up as the fictional Summer Bay, setting of long running soap opera Home & Away. So whereas Avalon was populated mostly with local families, Palm Beach had a greater mix of younger people. I don't think I have ever watched Home & Away in my life, so I can't tell you much in relation to that, although there is apparently some bit of set you can see!

We swam in the sea for a good long while and it was entirely enjoyable. Then we packed up and used our bus passes to hop round to the western, Pittwater side of the peninsula. This side has the Palm Beach ferry wharf, from where you can get ferries to locations around Pittwater, as well as up to Wagstaff and Ettalong to the north of the area.

We decided to take a trip just across to the other side of the water to Great Mackarel Beach, and we had a little walk up and down the wharf side whilst waiting for the boat.

The ferry return trip at about $13 is worth it in itself, even if you don't get off the boat. The views from the boat are spectacular. As you leave Palm Beach's shores behind, you get some great views of Barrenjoey Head and the lighthouse, as well as a good view of the west side of Palm Beach itself.

Across Pittwater are the shores of Kuringai National Park. All the stops on this ferry trip are within the park.

The ferry makes a few stop-offs at some tiny wharves nestled in dense bushland, followed by Currawong Beach and, finally, Great Mackerel Beach, where we get off.

Great Mackerel Beach is a tiny beach on the shores of the National Park, accessible only by boat. It was glorious. Aside from a few rustic looking beachhouses there was nothing there and you just felt so far away from everything, bliss! Steep cliffs on each side were coated in thick, dark bush and the expanse of Pittwater stretched peacefully out in front of you.

There had obviously been a few people over there earlier in the day having Australia Day celebrations, but most people had packed up now so we had the beach practically to ourselves. The only downside was that we could only stay on the beach for an hour as the last ferry service of the day soon came by to collect us and we returned to the mainland.

The sun was going down by now and there were some amazing views in the fading light back across the water.

Unfortunately, we then had to get back on the L90 for an uninspiring and long journey back to the city in the dark. But it was a brilliant day out and I couldn't believe we'd not been up there before. I guess we just didn't really know what was there before I looked into it. Hope we can find time to go back before too long!

SYD.NYE 2009/10

2010-01-28T19:09:00.004+11:00
New Year's Eve this time around passed in a similar manner to the previous year's. I wanted to go to Balmain again to watch the fireworks on the harbour, but some friends were heading for Observatory Hill in the CBD, and so swayed by that fact as well as the promise of a much shorter trip home (last year it took us over an hour to even get out of Balmain) we set off to meet them at about 5pm.

When we arrived, the hill was pretty busy but it was still possible to get a patch of grass. Unfortunately said patch of grass was on a rather steep slope, which proved rather uncomfortable. And you had to attach all your bags to you to stop them rolling down. Still, it's not something you have to do every day so we wedged ourselves in.

Mark, Lise, Mel and Dom.

Me and Mark.

The view is bridge end-on. Which means you don't get the great symmetrical side-on view you get from Balmain, and you don't get to see the light show properly on the side of the bridge. But since you are right in the centre of the action, with fireworks going off on all sides, it does make for an equally good, if different, experience.

It was a pretty drizzly, grey day and we were slightly concerned about it being a bit wet to sit out. But the worst of the rain seemed to dry up around lunch time and by the evening there was even a little bit of sun poking out through the clouds.

It starts to get dark. I'm not sure if I'd been up on Observatory Hill properly before. It's actually a great view over north Sydney and as the sun goes down and the lights go on you can see the lights of Luna Park glittering away on the opposite side of the water.

The first fireworks began at 9pm, not long after it properly got dark. It was a short teaser of what was to come. Following that was the Harbour of Light parade on the harbour, where numerous ships decked out in light displays processed across the water.
We ate cherries and drank some gin and tonic and gathered more evidence for our theory that all Irish people know all other Irish people. We found some passing Danish people and forced Lise to talk to them (she is Danish), haha.

Suddenly midnight was upon us and we cracked out our sparkling wine and oohed and aahed in the appropriate places as gunpowder exploded on all sides. It was brilliant. And 2010 began.

After a lengthy slumber, we spent New Year's Day going to watch Fantastic Mr Fox at the cinema, which was almost as good as the fireworks!

[More photos as usual at Flickr]

New Year's Resolutions

I am usually terrible with making new year's resolution. I am terrified of failure, really. And I prefer not to commit to anything until at least March, by which time I am usually able to make a better informed assessment of my chances of success.
My 2009 resolutions were to keep giving up sucking my thumb (I am now 22 months thumb-sucking 'clean'!) and to write down every book I read. Both I managed. Here are this years.

- Knowledge: Become better informed. I already get the weekly Guardian Politics and Media podcasts, but I'm going to subscribe to the News and Culture ones as well for this year. And any important events I shall try to keep a brief commentary of in my paper-diary.

- Health: Go for a 45 minute run at least once a week. I am currently doing 2-3 runs a week so this should be ok. Also, stop creeping into the realms of a junk food diet. I eat healthily at home but we are eating out an increasing amount and I must remember that it still counts. Order fresh sashimi rather than tempura when eating sushi. Order poached eggs not scrambled for brunch. Get grilled fish not battered with my chips.

- Money: Try to save a decent amount of money whilst I still have a steady income. At least 25% of my weekly income must be moved into savings. I've been doing this since September so must continue!

- Write down every book I read. Again!

- Keep my scrapbook better. I have a huge pile of stuff to paste in and I never seem to get around to it!

2009 Life of Pie Review of the Year

2010-01-24T21:29:00.000+11:00
Well, the New Year's honeymoon period is over and the hope that a slight change in date can alter your life completely has faded.
I'm back to the old realisation that I am still too lazy to exercise more than twice a week or get out of bed until 20 minutes after I'm meant to leave the house, I'm still an unbrilliant writer with two unfinished and bizarre novels lying around, I still can't write song lyrics, or music for that matter, I still don't clean the floors as often as I should, I still can't stay focussed on one thing for more than 10 minutes, I still have bad skin and I still don't understand the fabric of the cosmos.

Who fancies a plunder of the old 2009 memory box, hmm? Hands up!

(Yes, my ego is such that I believe myself to be worthy of a 'review of the year', of the manner usually accorded to politics or the news)

January

Summer in January?? You better believe it, you filthy heathens!

It was hot, up to the late 30s (celsius) over the Australia Day holiday weekend. Mark's parents came to stay and thus sightseeing commenced, all over Sydney, foraying into the Blue Mountains and continuing into February.
We saw an epic Sydney Theatre Company production based on Shakespeare's War of the Roses plays, running over two evenings and starring Cate Blanchett. Also open-air productions of Cav and Pag as the Opera(s) in the Domain, ending the Sydney Festival.

February

February ambled past quite pleasantly, with little worth commenting on. It was hot, but not *quite* as hot as January. We endeavoured to save money...

March

We came back to life just in time for Sydney Mardi Gras! I hyperventilated over Russell's visit to Sydney.

The weather cooled down pleasantly as we headed into autumn.

April

We daytripped out to a Blue Mountains covered in mist over the Easter Weekend

The weather was iffy, fairly wet in parts which resulted in a fairly relaxed month of staying in.

May

We celebrated Mark's birthday with pizza followed by cocktails at Madam Fling Flong in Newtown.
Rainbow Lorikeets flocked to our garden in Meadowbank to eat the flowers.

June

Temperatures plummet. The night of my birthday hits 0 degrees, the record low recorded for Sydney. Sydneysiders are horrified by frost warnings. We REALLY miss central heating.

Fortunately things warm up again towards the end of the month - enough for a trip to the beach (with coats on!).
Goodness I do faff on about the weather don't I? You can tell I'm English.

July

Mark was away in Melbourne for a long while for conferences. I went to join him for a long weekend and oh my god it was SO MUCH FUN!!!

There was a great deal of riding on trams and not quite enough sleep.I decided I absolutely love Melbourne to the exclusion of all logic and rationale.
Also, back in Sydney at the end of the month saw the Flaming Lips gig at the Hordern which immediately became one of the best gigs of my life!

August

The Fellows arrived in Sydney!!! We did some sightseeing, and as it was an unseasonably mild August even managed to patronise the beach (with a cardigan on, of course). Did some old favourites such as the Aquarium and Manly, as well as some new delights, including the Sydney Tower and the Hyde Park Barracks.

So as to give the Fellows some summer on their summer holiday, we also jetted off up to tropical north Queensland for a week. It was the best holiday of my life! So stereotypically beautiful it was almost unreal....empty golden beaches, palm trees, sea as warm as a bath....it was incredible to see the rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.

September

All quiet again after the departure of the Fellows. Mark works hard, I work hard and we try to save some money. We also start househunting with a view to moving further into the city, looking around Stanmore, Newtown, Erskineville and Redfern.
Sam and Georgina visit us in the final days of the month and we have some fun for a couple of days. Unfortunately torrential rain scuppers some of our plans, but we hope they can come back again soon!

October

The first week saw our move from Meadowbank to Erskineville and the interesting task of trying to cram the contents of a 3 bed house into a 2 bed flat.
The rest of the month is spent unpacking and sorting, and I go to see the musical Wicked!!

November

We have a housewarming! Following this, we try to relax as temperatures soar in one of the hottest Sydney Novembers on record.

Mostly by going to the coast.

December

We get to watch Patrick Wolf and Jarvis Cocker play in the same week. I think my life may be complete, at least for that week!
We get champagne to celebrate the birth of Joshua, Mark's nephew ! (and mine under Australian law since I am legally Mark's de facto wife)

Chesney the Erskineville Wombat comes to live with us on Christmas Day! We eat oysters.

After an intensely dry start to summer, rain is what everyone in outback NSW wants for Christmas. The newspapers show an aerial image of a herd of cows huddled around a tiny patch of green in a vast expanse of dust. In true English Bank Holiday style, it rains right through the Christmas break, but at least the cows have a drink at last!

Our final evening of 2009 is spent on Observatory Hill in The Rocks, drinking gin and watching fireworks!

Japan

2010-01-06T20:26:00.001+11:00
Very early this morning, Mark and I booked our flights to JAPAN!!!!

We leave on 24th March, spend two nights in Singapore, then 26th March - 9th April in Tokyo and Kyoto.

CAN'T WAIT!!!

Christmas !!!

2009-12-27T21:21:00.003+11:00

Very quiet Christmas this year. Were it not for the presents and the days off work I don't think I would have noticed it at all!
We decided to have it that way due to saving money to go to Japan in April, and also because of my currently slightly shaky work situation (although at the moment things seem stable for the foreseeable first weeks of 2010...).

On Christmas Eve I had to work until 3pm, had 3 new temp staff to supervise for the day also so it was pretty tiring. After work, Mark and I went to the Hive Bar up the road from us for some wine and a cocktail that we ordered on the basis of it being called 'Myra Hindley' but which turned out to be rather nice. Then we retired home and began dinner. We had gazpacho, from the Delia vegetarian book (which is without a doubt THE best cook book for meat-free special occasion food) with some homemade croutons (Mark was Crouton Manager), then later ate some tuna sashimi with soy sauce. After dinner, we watched Doctor Who - the end of the 'Logopolis' serial, where Tom Baker as 4th Doctor regenerates into Peter Davison, followed by 3 episodes of the first 5th Doctor serial, 'Castrovalva'.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day began by waking up to the slightly bizarre (to an English person) sight of the bin men emptying the dustbins outside. Christmas in Australia is very much a case of keep calm carry on - especially if you are a bin man obviously!

On Christmas Eve, we left out some quince paste to see if we could attract in a wombat to live with us, to be the Erskineville Wombat after we fell in love with the wombat we sent to England a bit too much. And it worked!!!!

This is Chesney, the Erskineville Wombat!

We continued the day with bagels and cream cheese and smoked salmon, then took a stroll down to Sydney Park to play a bit of cricket. Unfortunately the weather was very overcast and began to drizzle not long after we arrived, so home again we headed.

Then we engaged in presents! We got so many good things!!! I got a lot of clothes, jewels and Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen biography and the Nigella Express book from the Fellows (which definitely looks like it will become a new favourite), Russell's new DVD and earrings and PERCY PIGS!!!!!! yes PERCY PIGS!!!!!!!!!! from Becca. If you ever want to make Mark and I really happy send us Percy Pigs. Also got a really good scarf from Mark's parents - similar to the pink one I wear all the time but in green so now I have variation! Bristol calendar and Cambridge calendar and Chatsworth House calendar (we always get a lot of calendars but we like the pictures).
Mark spent literally hours playing with his new Rubiks cube, also from his parents! I got him Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (they are GROSS but he loves them), Paul Smith socks (as usual haha) and new Poste chelsea boots (thanks to Lep for aiding their arrival!!) McWrinkle and the Platypus bought us Harry Potter DVD and also new speakers!!! with their lovely credit cards! Our music sounds so good now, haha.
We also got MASSES of other DVDS (Skins series 3, Inbetweeners series 1 & 2, new BBC version of Emma, Inglorious Basterds, The Snowman (!!) and Psychoville (which is so WRONG but I am hooked!)).
Mark bought me Mark Jacobs perfume, and two handbags (one of which is in the photo below, it is GOOD), and the skirt and top in the photo too!

The clothes are from Cue. The skirt has like a bustle, it is amazing! I wanted the top for a while after seeing it in the Cue window, I actually went to look for it in Myer because work gave me a $150 Myer gift card for xmas, but the Cue section in Myer didn't have my size - which turned out to be a good thing because Mark already got it!

Christmas Dinner

Mark has been testing out his skills as a food photographer. We had a dozen pacific oysters on the half shell, grilled in garlic butter, with roast tomato salad and a roast eggplant, goats cheese and walnut salad.

It was delicious. We drank a sparkling shiraz and then some desert wine that our friend Lise got us from the Hunter Valley as a gift.

Boxing Day

The weather worsened and boxing day was a bit of a write-off. It rained the whole day, so slept in til midday then stayed in for the afternoon. In the evening we went up to the cinema to see Bright Star the film about John Keats, which was very good. Then when we got home we ate mussels in white wine sauce.

Sunday

Today the weather was predicted to be similar to the previous day, but turned out to be dryer. So we caught the train to Circular Quay and looked at the Fiona Foley exhibition in the MCA, which was pretty though provoking. Then we walked up to the Rocks, and over the Harbour Bridge as we realised we'd never walked over it together! Back on the south side again, we rewarded ourselves with a quick half of porter in the Lord Nelson before heading home. There were so many weddings going on today, it was crazy, every corner we walked around saw another wedding party having photos!
Now I am off to watch more Psychoville and eat Guylian shells....mmm shells.

based on a novel by a man named Lear

2009-12-21T21:10:00.004+11:00

Is everyone calm? I hope so.

December has been an extraordinarily busy month.

We began with an evening at the Opera at the City Recital Hall in Martin Place. Sydney opera company Pinchgut Opera specialise in staging obscure operas, and this year was L'Ormindo by Francesco Cavalli dating from 1644. It's quite good, it was well performed. I do love Italian operas as they are so over the top on the soap-opera drama. The ending was a bit rubbish though, which is probably why it's not a very famous opera. Back to the drawing board for you, Mr Cavalli !

Then I got to see my MUSICAL IDOL, JARVIS COCKER!!!! at the Metro theatre.

Oh my goodness he was brilliant!! He is such a great performer, and has such a great personality on stage, be it in distributing a chocolate bar to the crowd ("I know it won't go very far...."), querying the existence of an Australian Ipswich ("do you have an Ipswich? Is it nice? Ours is chronic."), and questioning the diet of koalas ("if eucalyptus just makes them sleep, why don't they just eat something else?")
He played a great mix of songs from both his solo albums and it all sounded so good! Ahh Jarvis.

Then two days after Jarvis was PATRICK WOLF!! which also was utterly brilliant.

The show even featured three costume changes from Patrick, and numerous instruments including an appalachian dulcimer ("I got it on eBay..."). I think I even enjoyed it as much as when we saw him on the Wind in the Wires tour at the Borderline in London back in 2004, when it was just him and a baby grand. This show was with a full live band, and he played all the best songs from his new album The Bachelor , as well as a lot from previous albums (only wish he could have played 'Bloodbeats', but it was not to be!) He seemed in a really good mood compared to some reports of recent gigs, he seemed to really love being in Sydney and changed several lyrics to be Sydney-appropriate, as well as expressing his love for the Sydney dining scene ("sorry if I look a bit fat - I just love your food so much").

Us at Patrick Wolf.

I got that blouse on the uber-bargain rail in that big vintage store in Surry Hills. It washed up well.

It's been really amazing for music here lately, what with Jarvis and Patrick, and we have also seen local Sydney band the Jezabels several times after months of silence from them - they are a brilliant band, a lot of Tori Amos influence. Also just a few weeks until the YEAH YEAH YEAHS which I am ecstatically excited for.

Other than that we have just been bumbling around, really. Trying to relax. Had a few good meals at old favourites Mamak, Kammandhenu, and Fatima's, brunches almost every weekend at Baffi & Mo (poached eggs on sourdough with extra avocado + skim flat white + fresh orange juice = best saturday breakfast ever). Also new discoveries in Cafe Sopra in Waterloo (great fennel salad), Bottom of the Harbour and their delicious fish and chips up on the esplanade at Balmoral, and a great new sushi discovery just a few minutes walk away on King Street in Newtown - Kai on King and their delicious chunky sashimi and steaming tempura.

All this has made us a little rotund so we have also been engaging in regular exercise in Sydney Park, where Mark and I compete in our pug count (extra points if you see the elusive black pug!). Pug count daily record so far has been 4 pugs. There are a lot of pugs in Sydney. OH puggy puggy puggy puggle how I want to scoop you all up and take you all home!

I am now off to do the washing up and watch Doctor Who. Mark recently discovered Newtown library has an extensive collection of old Doctor Who DVDs, which was pretty exciting! We are working our way through Tom Baker, currently.

escapism

2009-11-29T23:28:00.004+11:00
The weather has been a little too much of late.

If you have never been in 41 degrees, you cannot imagine what it is like to be in 41 degrees. The air is like a desert bubble that clings around you, oppressive and suffocating. Haze and dust obscures the distance, and your immediate surroundings wobble and wave like you are viewing them through water. Being outside makes your head swim and your eyes sticky. The bushfire risk level is set at the grimly informal 'Catastrophic'.
That was the second day of 40+ degrees in less than a month, and the rest of the time has maintained a near-constant high 20s - mid-30s. Hot, endless, relentless heat.

I can't sleep at night, only in the early hours. I am zombied-out all week, then when the weekend comes I sleep endlessly and when I'm awake I am woozy and empty-headed.
This week looks set to be cool so I'm hoping to recover in 20 degree days and chilly nights.

We've both had various stresses of late so have been trying to take time to get out of the city and break routine a little. Last week we tripped out to Watson's Bay, where we sat under the trees and read and relaxed and got fish and chips and ice cream and coca cola.

An outdoor wedding was taking place just off to our right, and they had their photos done along the esplanade.

Today (Sunday) we tripped out to beautiful Balmoral, one of my favourite suburbs of Sydney. Lise, a friend of ours who's a PhD philosophy student at Macquarie uni joined us for a while and we sat in the shade, then retreated to the Bather's Pavillion for darjeeling and coffees.

Yesterday, we spent a long time in Redfern at my current favourite Sydney cafe, Baffi and Mo. Then I spent a delightful evening barbecuing prawns at Katherine and Darren's in Petersham.

Now I need to STOP watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 and go seek out my poop hat for slumber.

Flat photos!

2009-11-29T22:59:00.003+11:00
Here's some (bad) photos of the new(ish) flat in Erskineville.

The living room, and doors out to the balcony.

Kitchen.... small but a lot of cupboards so not too bad.

To give a better idea of the layout. View from dining area towards living area and kitchen.

Dining area/books/piano.

Dining area back towards kitchen.

Mark's office, featuring the new Norman Foster desk!

There's no bedroom photo as yet because it seems to be in permanent state of disarray. It looks like the office but bigger and with a bed in. There's also a bathroom and utility room, but boorrrriiing.

The balcony you can see in another post below...

Lovable balcony

2009-11-20T22:55:00.004+11:00

My chair

Mark's chair

Me in my chair

I do love the balcony. It's super hot tonight, about 36 degrees today, but there's a bit of a breeze going now and it keeps vaguely trying to rain but failing.

We got those outdoor fairy lights last year sometime but never put them up, so it's nice to use them! They make me think of Paris a bit, not sure why.

My foot has improved well after mosquito trauma, and I hope to maraude a little this weekend.

mosquito hell

2009-11-15T13:20:00.002+11:00
We are meant to be off out on a fun Sunday marauding adventure BUT all has turned to misery. I sat on the balcony last night for barely 5 minutes when I felt a tingle on my foot. Looking down, I saw a MONSTROUS mosquito, about the size of a 50p, hopping happily around and treating my foot like a soda fountain.

This morning my foot and ankle were super swollen and I could barely walk properly. Mark went to the chemist and got me superstrength anti-histamine, and it's gone down a bit, but I still have a big fat foot and it looks like I'm stuck on the couch for the day :(

Tonight with Trevor McDonald....

2009-11-10T19:57:00.003+11:00
I completely need to write the blog more regularly so that when I do go to write in it I am not overwhelmed by all the many many things I need to report about.

Some things that have happened recently are:

Vintage Fair at Canterbury Racecourse - huge fair of vintage clothing, homewares, accessories etc - loads of stalls and lots of fun to look around! I fell in love with an antique pearl and silver ring but at $450 it was a bit out of my price range :(

Der müde Tod - I know I mentioned this before, but to elaborate: this was part of the Sydney Silent Film Festival, for which somehow we managed to gain free tickets for a showing of our choice. We chose Fritz Lang's 1921 film Der müde Tod, called Destiny in English-speaking world for some reason. The greatest thing about it was that it was with live musical accompaniment from a pianist, which was awesome. It's actually a really good film, really spooky and with really good special effects considering the time it was made! It's the story of a young couple, who are very happy until Death comes to take the man. The woman bargains with Death and he says that if she can save just one of three people from their fate of death she can have her lover's life back...

Opera House open day. On a Sunday of horrendous torrential rain we battled on over to the Opera House for their doors-open day, in which you can walk around the whole place - all the venues including backstage areas - for free.

We made sure we sat in all the seats we wouldn't normally be able to afford (haha) and it was good to see inside the Opera Theatre!

The Opera stage is set for the Mikado.

In the Concert Hall.

Wicked

OH MY GOODNESS Wicked was amazing!! I had to think about whether I could afford to go, but it was SO worth the money. It's such a fun story and it's fun to spot all the references to the original Wizard of Oz story (including the origins of the cowardly lion, tin man and scarecrow).

In the bar, they were serving 'Oz-mopolitans' in light-up green glasses!!! We could not resist.

Katherine and Caroline, my Wicked companions.

Melbourne Cup. Tuesday 3rd November.

Australia is properly into racing season, and the biggest event of the season is the Melbourne Cup, which is possibly also one of the biggest sporting events of the Australian calendar. At 9.30am I found myself in a betting shop, with Karl and Sally helping me to place the first proper bet of my life - $10 on a horse named C'est La Guerre. I then entered the sweep at work and got Master O'Reilley. Unfortunately, neither horse even placed! What a fail. And thus ended my short-lived gambling addiction.

That Tuesday was also an insanely hot day. It hit 37 degrees in the city and was really unbearable. It was windy and the wind was hot, exactly like standing in front of a huge fan heater, if you can imagine such a thing. This unfortunately coincided with two non-air conditioned, rush-hour trains breaking down on the Harbour Bridge and being stuck for 40 minutes. This created quite a kerfuffle with a lot of criticism of CityRail for still running the 30 year old, non-aircon trains in excessively hot weather during rush hour, as it obviously creates a health risk. There were a lot of people arguing that they should have evacuated passengers from the stuck trains. I went home on a non-aircon tin can train, not in rush hour so it was empty, and I still felt ill after 10 minutes, so I can't imagine what being stuck for 40 minutes was like.

That is all for now I think. I just went to check to see if I've been paid (I've been living on $10 since Sunday..boooo) and found my tax return had...returned!!!! AND I got $1500! Brilliant! Rich beyond my wiiiiildest dreaaaaams!!!

frolicking

2009-10-24T23:36:00.003+11:00
I am sleepy, and am yet refusing to go to bed because I am punk innit.

A few weekends ago, back at the beginning of October, in fact the weekend before we moved house, our old friends Sam and Georgina came to stay. They are currently inhabiting Auckland, just the other side of the pond from us, and dropped in on their way back from a holiday in Fiji, all brown they were. Well, Georgina was brown, Sam was more pink.

On our first evening together, a wednesday, shortly after their arrival, Mark took us all to a philosophy of maths lecture. Yes, a philosophy of maths lecture. Opera house? No! Harbour Bridge? No! Philosophy of maths lecture. Philosophy. Of. Maths. We foolishly agreed to this and along we went. Actually, it was ok. It was part of a public lecture series and was easy to follow and quite interesting. The questions did drag on a bit though.
The trouble with allowing a long time for discussion in a public lecture is that you do get some rather bizarre questions from members of the public. Mark says that it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between a brilliant question badly put, and just a bizarre question asked by a crazy person. So in a public lecture when the speaker doesn't know everyone, it is always best to assume the former, rather than risk offending the person. In case they are a maths genius who just doesn't know how to form a sentence. Unfortunately this does sometimes mean that daft questions slip through the net.

After the lecture, we gandered down King Street into Newtown for a meal at Kammandhenu.

I love Kammandhenu. Last week we accidentally unintentionally ate there 3 times. But it is so good and so cheap. Yay Sri Lankan/Indian/Malaysian fusion.

All dosed up on dosa, hoppers, roti and lassi, we then pootled a few doors up for a cocktail at Madam Fling Flong before retiring home to slumber.

The following day I had to go to work, but everyone else went to the beach at Manly :( Unfortunately it was a crazily hot day and it made Georgina rather ill, so we headed home rather earlier than planned. This did mean however that due to a lack of food, we ended up being forced to check out the Italian restaurant in Meadowbank, down at the Shepherd's Bay centre. But wow! We got some pizzas and they were amazing! Some of the best pizza I've had in Sydney. The service was also really friendly. It was generally an all round surprisingly good meal! This knowledge turned out to be useful as during the week we moved, Mark and I got takeout pizza from there everyday for about 3 nights in a row!

On Friday I worked again, but afternoon only and we had plans for the evening. We joined the lengthy queue for Mamak after some beers in the city, and had yet another brilliant Mamak meal. Mamak always seems to impress our visitors greatly as well! We ended up trying pretty much one of everything, including old favourite cone-shaped roti tisu, and we all enjoyed the rojak salad so much we got overexcited and ordered another one!

Me and Georgina full of the delights of Mamak.

Afterwards, we headed down to the Clare Hotel on Broadway for some beverages and just made the last train home!

Saturday was unfortunately a bit of a write-off due to the weather. It began to get rather wet on Friday night, and we woke up on Saturday to torrential rain. Unlike English rain, when it rains in Sydney it rains with attitude. You literally cannot go outside because you will get soaked in 3 seconds, even with an umbrella. And it won't 'brighten up in a minute' either. Rain rain and rain and rain a bit more.

We caught the train to King's Cross and ran to Bill's as fast as our leggy pegs could carry us. And we still arrived SOAKED.

Normal.

Frightening.

Fortunately, a lovely Bill's brunch soon cheered us up and dried us off.
Unfortunately, it was then time to go outside again. We headed back to the city, but after a couple of hours of hiding in shops were feeling pretty miserable. So we decided to give up, bought Peep Show series 1 from JB HiFi, went home and cooked a big chilli, drank wine and watched DVDs all night! Brilliant.

The next day Sam and Georgina flew back to Auckland, which was sad :( It was so good to have them over, and we are already planning to join them for a bit when they begin their tour of New Zealand in the New Year, in their new camper van!

Now I must head off to get my Poop hat on. We had to get up rather early to watch a Fritz Lang film named Der Müde Tod. It was the wrong time of day for Fritz Lang really, but was rather good! More soon. Nightypoos.

PS all photos other than the two at Bill's are by Sam or Georgina!

New house !!!

2009-10-18T21:49:00.003+11:00
Here is our new building in Erskineville. It is great!!!

It's a converted factory, and they left the chimney on top. I think it's quite a new conversion, only done a few years ago. It's a small block, only I think 40 apartments in the building, and only 12 apartments per each staircase so each communal area is only shared by a small number of people.

Our unit is off the main road, which is nice.

Our balcony is the middle floor, which is good because it means it's covered over by the one above, thus less exposed to rain and hot hot sun.

Queensland: Day 6 - 17th August 2009

2009-10-17T18:07:00.002+11:00
Day 6: The Daintree and Cape Tribulation

FINALLY here is the lowdown on our final day up in the tropics. And it was a good'un. We wanted to head up into the Daintree National Park, as far as Cape Tribulation, so named by Captain Cook in 1770 after his ship ran aground on the reef just off the coast. It now is also referred to as 'Kulki', the original aboriginal name for the site. People are now shifting back towards using the aboriginal names for certain parts of Australia (such as 'Uluru' instead of Ayer's Rock) as they have realised that renaming sacred sites in reference to Australia's European colonialists was actually quite offensive.

We made a moderately (by Fellows standards) early start and headed north out of Port Douglas to the Daintree River, which marks the entrance to the National Park. There is no bridge across the river: instead, they have preserved the original way of entering the rainforest, which involves the Daintree River Ferry. This is basically a flat topped boat which you drive your car onto, and then drive off when the boat reaches the other side! Quite an experience! There is also a little section for pedestrians to stand in.

It holds quite a number of cars at once, so we didn't have to wait too long to board. Once over the other side, we were off into the rainforest!

The road is narrow and windy within the National Park, and since we were stuck near the back of all the cars that had been on our ferry-load, it was a bit slow going as people drove carefully. So, we decided to stop off for a bit and do the Jindalba boardwalk.
There are a handful of these boardwalks in the Daintree. They basically build a raised wooden path along a short route, which allows you to enter the forest and have a look. Of course, it would be near impossible otherwise to go for a walk as the forest is too thick and the ground to uneven, in some areas too swampy, and of course the undergrowth may harbour all manor of deadly wildlifes.

Bec on the boardwalk.

It is surprisingly cool under the canopy, and it's a quiet, peaceful place. Although we were on constant guard for any wandering Cassowaries that might appear! The Cassowary is a huge, flightless bird - as big as a man - that inhabits this area. It is critically endangered, only an estimated 1500-3000 currently exist in north Queensland, but they all live in a very small area in the wet tropics and are actually sighted on a reasonably regular basis. This does make them sound rather fascinating, but the trouble is, they are incredibly aggressive and have razor sharp spurs on their legs. They run at you to attack, and are capable of disemboweling you, probably before you've even realised what you are looking at. The Guiness World Records book lists the Cassowary as the world's most dangerous bird. So we didn't really want to meet one of them. There are numerous advice signs around the boardwalk areas advising you that if you see one, to try to put something in between you and it, like a tree.

After the boardwalk, we continued on up the road, which was now clearer of traffic. After stopping at a cafe for lunch, we arrived at Cape Tribulation in the mid-afternoon.

[Perephoto]

Cape Tribulation has such an amazing feel, it is like nowhere else I have ever been. The light is strong and very harsh, which meant my photos didn't come out that well. It is a beautiful, golden sandy beach but is eerily quiet and relatively person-bare. There were a few people walking up and down, but none of the usual beach activity, like swimming and sunbathing. The main reason for the lack of swimming is clear from the prominent warning signs all along the beach - you are deep into crocodile territory. Crocodile attacks can kill you in an instant, and the croc population is thriving in the rivers and creeks that open into the sea around Cape Tribulation due to the area's relatively untouched state. My Rough Guide says that you may even see them sunbathing on the beach at Cape Trib.!

Cape Tribulation feels like the End of the World might feel. A calm, peaceful place with an undercurrent of vague unease. It is also literally the End of the World for many visitors to the north Queensland tropics. The sealed road to the north ends just after the turn off to the small car park, and continues as a mere dirt track up to Cooktown and the nothingness of the northernmost tip. Impassable to all but experienced 4WD drivers most of the time, and for parts of the wet summer season completely impassable to all due to flooding, many travellers simply make Cape Tribulation the end of the road.

Cape Tribulation is also one of the only places in the world where two World Heritage Sites meet - the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef. From the lookout point up on the Cape, you get a good view out over the Coral Sea.

We had a stroll up and down the sand and up to the lookout point. Mangroves line the edges of the sand, feeding from the salt water. Beyond is dense rainforest.

After a good bit of exploring and crocodile aversion, we drove a short distance back down the road to the Dubuji boardwalk, a longer boardwalk that takes in mangrove swamps.

These leaves were HUGE!

Swampy. There were a lot of shapes moving in the water. I don't imagine that stagnant brown water is a particularly healthy environment in which to live, but apparently in the wet season there is a lot more water so the creatures must just cling on to life until it gets good again.

Mangroves!

On the way back to Port Douglas, we stopped off at another couple of beaches on the Daintree coast - Myall beach just the southern side of the Cape, and Cow Bay further south.

Stinger warning. Fortunately, dry season is stinger safe as they are all vacationing in other waters. There seems to have been a lot of worry about dangerous animals in this blog post so I'll round it out with some info about marine stingers - or to give them their correct title, Box Jellyfish.
Box Jellies are, quite simply and quite officially, the deadliest living thing on earth. They contain enough venom to instantly kill 60 adult humans, and there have been over 5500 recorded deaths since 1954. Even if you survive the sting, you may suffer a heart attack and drown before you can get back to shore. Their tentacles can be up to 3 meters long and in the water they are so transparent that they are practically invisible. The pain of the sting is agonizing, and tales are told of victims continuing to scream even after being knocked out with morphine. Best avoided.

---

So that is almost all for Queensland. The following day was the day of our return to cold cold Sydney. But before the flight we just had time to go check out the marina side of Port Douglas, and the resort of Palm Cove north of Cairns. Pictures to follow in another entry!

As usual, additional bonus photos!! can be found at Flickr.

Please hold !

2009-10-15T21:23:00.004+11:00

Not lost in the Daintree rainforest, honestly....just moving house! Normal (i.e. moderately less infrequent) blog service will be resumed shortly!

Daintree Wet Tropics National Park, Tropical North Queensland

copyright Perephoto

Fish and Chips at Doyle's

2009-09-07T20:01:00.004+10:00

Me: "HOLLOOO!!!!"
Mark: "I do not know this person. I am not with this person. I do not know this person. I am not with this person."

At Doyle's in Watson's Bay, Sydney , August 23rd 2009.

[photo by Pere - http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamfellows/]

Queensland: Day 5 - 16th August 2009

2009-09-06T12:14:00.004+10:00
Day 5: Port Douglas

When one lives on the east coast of Australia, one cannot ever watch a sunset over the sea as one could if one lived on the west coast. One can however watch a sunrise. This was an impossibility in Sydney however as we do not live next to a beach and could not get to a beach in time for the sunrise. Cue Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas - 5 minutes walk from our apartment. Sunrise approximately 06.35am, easy. So on Sunday morning, that's what we did.

Arrived at the beach at about 5.55am, it was deserted aside from for a hippy family who were hurriedly stamping out a campfire and packing up their children, having obviously ignored the 'no camping on the beach' signs.

The Sunrise Team, at this stage consisting of Bec, Mark and me.

The sky starts to brighten shortly after 6am.

Pere joined the Sunrise Team (sounds like we are getting ready to present an early morning daytime TV show??) at around 06.15am.

Light, but not quite full sun....

Lovely sea. It was still warm, I tested it.

Here it comes....!

Woohoo!

Eerie light -everything went bright orange.

Looonnnng shadows.

People started to appear on the beach as the sun arrived. A large number of joggers, cyclists and a surprising number of people with all their beach stuff ready to start sunbathing!

We went home for a nap, then Bec went to the Sunday Markets where she drank a coconut (they stick a straw in it for you - it wasn't very tasty, apparently), Mark and I went to the ice cream shop, then we all went on the beach for the rest of the day.

Queensland: Day 4 - 15th August 2009

2009-09-02T20:35:00.003+10:00
Day 4: Kuranda Skyrail

After being exhausted from Green Island the day before, we all went for a good big long slumber and a big lie in. After lunch on the Saturday, we pondered a trip on the Skyrail, which is a cablecar route starting north of Cairns, going over the rainforest and ending in Kuranda, a village in the Atherton Tablelands.

We arrived at the terminal at 2pm and boarded the car, then were swept off high up the side of a rainforest-covered mountain! Pere and I were greatly excited, while Mark, Lep and Bec suffered brief panic attacks before they got used to it!

The ride gives you two stops where you can do a boardwalk in the rainforest. The first is at the top of the peak, the second at Barron Gorge.

Since it was dry season, Barron River was pretty dry! There was a photo on the information board which showed it as a HUGE river and waterfall in the height of summer (wet season).

No sign of a crocodile :(

At the other end of the skyrail is the village of Kuranda. Since the skyrail brings so many tourists, it's a very touristy place, which would probably be very pleasant if it hadn't been tackified up by the tourist industry. Still, it wasn't unpleasant having a stroll around, and we didn't have long anyway before it was time for the skyrail back to Cairns.

On the drive back up to Port Douglas, we stopped of at Rex Lookout on the coastal road (just as the sun was setting), which gives you this fantastic view:

Back in Port Douglas, we went for fish and chips at the Fresq cafe for dinner. Mmmmm fish and chips.

Queensland: Day 3 - 14th August 2009

2009-08-29T16:29:00.003+10:00
Day 3: Green Island

The one last thing we did in Cairns on day 1, before we drove to Port Douglas was to go to the tourist information office and book ourselves onto the Big Cat tour to Green Island for the Friday, as we wanted to be able to see the Great Barrier Reef close up and Green Island seemed like a good place to do that from.

It was a good tour for us as well since a lot of the Reef tours are for diving and snorkelling only - bad for us as my mother and I cannot engage in underwater activities because of our silly ears - whereas on the Green Island tour you get to spend time on the island itself and have the option of a glass-bottomed boat tour if you do not want to do snorkelling. The Big Cat tour cost $73 each for the full day and included in the price was either glass-bottom boat trip or snorkel equipment hire.

Since we were staying in Port Douglas (60km north of Cairns) and the we had to be in Cairns at 8am to be registered and board the boat, the day required rather an early start! We all rolled out of bed at 5am and were in the car at 6am, quite an achievement really! The road at this time was pretty clear, and we had an amazing view of the sunrise on the coastal part of the road, off Ellis Beach.
I also had my query answered over "does it EVER get cold in tropical north queensland?" the answer is NO, not really, although you do need a cardigan on at 5am in winter.

We arrived into Cairns and put the car in the carpark by about 7.15am, so decided to go for breakfast at Perotto's, the cafe at the gallery we had visited on day 1.

Toast and coffee later, we were ready to head to the boat...place. Sorry, the word for where you get on a boat has completely escaped me. But in any case we queued up and got out tickets, then boarded the catamaran. It was a nice big shiny boat! The three snorkellers (Bec, Pere and Mark) collected their snorkel stuff and we were off!

Leaving Cairns behind....it looks like such a teensy uneventful place compare to the views of Sydney from the water.

Beautiful, rainforest-coated coastline.

After around an hour, Green Island loomed in the distance!! The island is a coral cay (small, flat, sandy island formed on the surface of a coral reef) and is about 17 miles off the queensland coast.

First view of the island! Just after I'd stepped off the boat onto the long jetty.

Coral reef! The water is so clear, you can just see all this coral just beneath the surface for miles around. I'd never seen anything like it in my life, it was incredible.

It was about 10.15am when we arrived. Lep and I were to go on the glass-bottomed boat at 11.45, so we sat on the beach for a bit while the snorkellers prepared!

Very fetching!

The island has two beaches, one on each side of the jetty. The snorkelling action seemed mostly centred on this one.

You can see our boat in the distance at the end of the jetty.

At 11.30, Lep and I set off down the jetty for our glass-bottomed boat. I wasn't expecting to see too much (I was mostly grumpy at my inability to go snorkel) but it was actually amazing! The took us out to the deeper parts of the water and there were some HUGE fish, and so brightly coloured. It was also good because the guide on the boat gave you loads of information about what you were looking at, and we learnt lots of interesting things, such as that the Nemo clownfish (who is meant to be a boy child) in Finding Nemo is innacurate because only adult females are orange and white. Males are grey, and there are no young female clownfish, they are all born male and some turn into females as they mature.

Most of my photos weren't very good, but here is one to give an idea.

After the boat we ate some chips on the island, and I went for a dip in the sea.

At 3.45pm it was unfortunately time to head back to the boat for the trip back into Cairns, so we waved bye bye to Green Island.

The boat ride back was fun, the more ice-cream-orientated of our party (Mark and Bec) had ice creams on the boat and we watched out for humpback whales (some had been sighted that morning in the area, apparently), although didn't see any.

We made it back to Cairns at 5pm and then did the drive back along the coastal road, watching the sunset this time. Sunrise and sunset in one day.

Mark and Pere hired an underwater camera, and they also had a waterproof case for one of our compact cameras, so there are quite a few underwatery photos. I'll put those up somewhere when I get hold of them and will notify here. As usual there are tons more photos from the day at Flickr, click the Green Island set on the right hand side of the page.

Fishy says bye!

Queensland: Day 2 - 13th August 2009

2009-08-23T22:10:00.005+10:00
Day 2: Port Douglas: Four Mile Beach

On the Thursday, we decided to have a quiet day and enjoyed the sun on Port Douglas' 'Four Mile Beach'! Lots of sunbathing and swimming in the wonderful warm sea. Then home for the evening for some pasta and wine in the apartment.

Here are some photos of the apartment (Nautilus apartments, Port Douglas - HIGHLY recommend them)

Open plan living/dining area.

Balcony - ripening my avocados out there.

View from my and Mark's bedroom window! Palms and ferns. This was also the same view from the bathroom window - having a shower next to the open window was like showering in a rainforest - bliss!

Queensland: Day 1 - 12th August 2009

2009-08-20T23:25:00.004+10:00
I shall have to blog events in sections as otherwise the overload of information and photos is likely to make you/me/the blog explode. Here is part 1. I'll also add the photos (and as usual some ADDITIONAL BONUS PHOTOS!) to FLICKR as I go along, so you can view them there also in improved size and quality (how photobucket and blogspot manage make photos look so awful and washed out I shall never understand).

Day 1: Cairns - Ellis Beach - Port Douglas

We flew to Cairns in the afternoon of Tuesday 11th August, arrived at the airport, picked up our hired car for the week and drove off to our hotel (fairly basic but clean and comfortable enough for one night), before immediately walking into the city centre for a pizza and wine and cocktails (for Mark, anyway) at Rattle and Hum bar. It was SO warm! Even late in the evening, we sat out on the restaurant terrace in our summer clothes, delightful. After enjoying the balmy evening air, we headed back to bed.

On Wednesday 12th we got to look at the city properly. It's an odd place, Cairns. It has no beach but its shoreline is all mudflats. The road along the front is called the Esplanade, so we wandered along there to see what was afoot. Saw some big pelicans, which was quite good.

Looks like sand but it's just sandy mud.

Saltwater crocodiles are a big danger of the tropical north Queensland area. Signs regularly warn you of their presence in watery areas.

We went and had a lovely breakfast in a lovely cafe, then had a look at the city. To be honest, there is not a lot to see. Cairns is tiny and unimpressive, and all the buildings look like prefabs to me. It certainly doesn't have the looks of Sydney and Melbourne, anyway. But nevermind, we were not to be there long. After a couple of hours, we hopped in the car and whizzed off up the coast towards Port Douglas, our home for the week.

The coastal road suddenly opened out with views over this amazing beach. Ellis Beach is the northernmost of Cairn's Northern Beaches, and since it has no resort and no public transport access, it is nearly deserted. So we stopped off for a bit.

The sea was amazingly warm - like a bath that's semi-cooled but still just warm enough.

Everyone was quite excited!!

Double Island, as seen from the beach.

Our transport for the week. It was well comfy! And huge. Pere had fun learning to drive an automatic too, haha.

We then continued the remainder of the journey to Port Douglas, upon which I shall write in the very near future.....

In which procrastination benefits the blog

2009-08-01T21:50:00.003+10:00
My parents and Bec arrive upon the morrow, after they have finished marauding through Singapore. I thusly really ought to be cleaning the house and getting all organized for their arrival. I kept telling myself 'I won't leave everything til the last minute' all week, but still found myself bumbling around IKEA at 5pm this afternoon faffing over buying a new pillow I should have gone to buy about six months ago.
Last Friday I went to a party in the apartment block above the Coke sign in King's Cross, which was a novelty! It was a philosopher friend of Mark's who is from USA and is just visiting Sydney to work there for a month.
Went to see The Flaming Lips on Tuesday night at Hordern Pavillion. Best gig EVER! Came out feeling so revitalised and joyful, they let tons of balloons out into the crowd to play with, Do You Realise?? sounded so good!!

Went to Ice and Slice in Newtown with Katherine on Thursday for some good old pizza (slice) and gelato (ice). I also managed to impressively get home from Newtown to Meadowbank in just 45 minutes. Mark didn't believe me, but you can just do it if you pay attention and time the stupidly infrequent trains right! Friday night I was planning to be good and come home to tidy but ended up in the pub with Becky, Richeal, Cian and Karl. Foolish. And while I was podging up on beer and potato wedges Mark was in the gym so I felt doubly guilty and must try to live a healthier life. Friday was also my last day of work - I have 4 and a half weeks off!!!! SPRING BREAK!!!

And now I am here on the blog and STILL not sorting the house out ! :(

I never wrote about Melbourne properly...

I arrived on the Thursday, on a surprisingly on-time Jetstar flight to Avalon and caught the bus into Melbourne, arriving at Southern Cross station. From there, I walked all the way up to the university, trundling my case, because I did not understand how to buy a tram ticket at that stage. This later turned out to be a good thing because it gave me a good idea of where stuff was, while most of the people who had been around for the conference for over a week already didn't have a clue!
Once there, we went to the last conference talk of the day which was Matt Kennedy (one of Mark's old Nottingham colleagues) and then went for some drinks in a pub with a few people in tow. Then pizza, then we decided to investigate some bars, the first being the rooftop bar at Cookie! It was so good! We went back again on our last night to say goodbye, which is when these photos were taken.

It was very busy and had heaters and amazing views and was playing some awesome Boards of Canada-type electronica out of speakers on a post which suited the view so well. Would be great in summer!
After that we went to a cocktail bar which may or may not have been called Double Happiness. It was so good in there, with a proper cocktail waiter who could make you custom cocktails if you just told him what you wanted it to taste like. It also had an open fire which was so nice to get all cosy by. Quite a few people from the conference ended up joining us so it was very jolly. Ended up spending a shocking amount of money but hey ho, and walked back to the uni (we were staying in a college room there) to discover oh dear it was 4.30am.

BUT still four hours later we were up again for Kit Fine's talk at 9am on Friday morning. I have no idea what it was about but it was nice to see. I drank a lot of coke and then we headed back to bed for a bit. Mark then went off to the conference farewell lunch and I dozed some more in the room before meeting him on Brunswick Street for juice, then getting the tram to Greg Restall's house to which we had been invited for dinner, which was lovely.

On Saturday we had a big scrambled egg brunch and a gallon of coffee followed by a look round the shops, including this amazing stationary shop that I am going to order a ton of stuff from (we couldn't buy stuff there as we couldn't get it home on the plane!).

In the evening we went to the Vegie Bar and had a vegie roast! With a really nice bottle of some wine called 'Tempranillo', which I'd not heard of but is a spanish grape or something. Mark made me put my fangs in to laugh at me.

Then we went to a bar called the Carlton where there were all these big taxidermy animals (giraffe and ostrich etc) for some gin, then back to the rooftop bar for more more more wine!

We love the tram! Mark also managed to maintain his new quiff all week, which is quite impressive because normally when he gets quiffed he lets it drop after about 2 days.

On Sunday we had most of the day until our flights so we went to the Dali exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It was an amazing exhibition, they had so much stuff there, including full length screenings of Un chien andalou. It was also really well laid out and the little information bits were written really well, obviously curated by Dali experts rather than just general curators who sometimes seem to miss the point of everything. It is also nice to see some big name art in Australia, because it does seem like they miss out a little in general, although that's perhaps just my European perspective.

Then after some food we headed for our planes, Mark to Tullamarine and me back to Avalon, but fortunately our flights arrived at Sydney at the same time at the other end at about 10pm Sunday night and we pootled off home to bed.

I want to go back to Melbourne :( But I must stop procrastinating and TIDY UP. I have the sorest throat in the world, I can barely swallow and it's been like that for two days. I must also therefore get healthy. The cricket also appears to have been rained off, I wonder if there will be any at all today.

Melba

2009-07-16T22:07:00.004+10:00
I had possibly the most fun in my life EVER in Melbourne last week. I keep desperately trying to find ways to go back very soon for another few days. It is an amazing city, feels so much more vibrant and cultural and alive than Sydney.

It was also made great by trams, amazing cocktails, vegetarian roast dinners, endless wine, Kit Fine, open fires in all the pubs and bars, and central heating. Central Heating! I hadn't seen a proper radiator in over a year, I wanted to hug it.

So right now I am feeling rather flat, post-fun blues. I need a good night out, but I ought to save some money after Melbourne seems to have eaten rather a large sum!

I put up some photos and I shall do a full update shortly.

Aw Ricky Ponting's chubby little face. The Ashes coverage keeps showing wide shots over London. It makes me homesick.

spanakopita

2009-07-05T18:22:00.002+10:00

[From FBI radio flickr]

We keep getting photographed at these things, like we're Syd-celebs or something, haha. This was at the Daisy Tulley show at the Hopetoun a week ago on Tuesday. I like Daisy, she puts on a good show and her music is quite original.

The thursday after that, I met Katherine after work for thai food and wine in Newtown. It was funnn to see Katherine again. On the way home the train from Newtown was late so I missed the 11.10pm connecting train in Strathfield by ONE MINUTE and had to wait for the 11.40pm. Well annoying. When I finally did get home though, Mark was waiting for me with hot chocolate: lovable.

Last weekend, the weather was AMAZING. On Sunday we went to Bondi and it was actually warm. People were on the beach and everything. We were not brave enough for the beach, so we went to the market. Bondi Beach Public School (where they hold the market) is amazing, it's got huge grounds and it's RIGHT on the beach. How awesome would it be to go there? I might have to have a child and put it in that school so I can live vicariously through it.

Mark went to Melbourne on Thursday morning so I am having a quiet weekend of pottering. On Friday night I went out with Karl and Sally and Richeal for some drinks at the Lowenbrau and fish and chips. Yesterday I walked a lot around Surry Hills, but it was cold so once I ran out of places to walk I went home.
I baked spanakopitas (sp?) earlier, so nice! I am terrible at folding pastry so they look like they were made by a 3-year-old, but they are pretty tasty.
Only three days of work this week because I am off to join Mark in Melbourne on Thursday! Woooooo.

OH ALSO, Friday was the 1 year anniversary of me being in Australia!!!!!

12. juni - geburtstag usw.

2009-06-21T17:41:00.007+10:00
Letzte Woche hatte ich meinen 25. Geburtstag. I opened my presents before I went to work which made me all late, haha.

Got these books by Chimamanda Adichie from Mark' parents. I've read most of 'Half of a Yellow Sun' so far and it is really good. I have been learning lots about Biafra and the Nigerian Civil War.

Beads from my mummy. Also got earrings that look similar.

And this scarf. Also, a new black cardigan (super long one!) Got new belt and a stripy top and a pink top/dress from Bec, but they are in the wash and I cannot show you today...

Mark got me the P.A.M. Perks and Mini fang necklace !!!!!! I have wanted it for so long!

It is amazing. People get confused by it, it's great. Someone at work went to me "oh, you're into that kind of thing are you?" and I didn't really know what they meant by "that kind of thing" so I sort of went "oh well, y'know" and ambled off quickly. I suppose they mean goffs. Sally at work loves my fangs and we talked for a long while about goffs and going to Whitby and enjoying the old goffic. I miss Whitby a great deal, I realise.

After work I met Mark by Hyde Park and we went for martinis on Crown Street and then went to eat at Bill's (Surry Hills one which is a full restaurant - I'd not been to that one before), which was lovable. Then got a taxi up to the rocks to watch a band at the wharf. Bridezilla played, who we also saw on the bank holiday at the FBi benefit gig. They were good, but I was tired and afterwards we pootled very quickly home to slumber.

This is all to report...since then it has rained....A LOT.

Got this ring for $5 at Glebe markets a few weeks ago. Woo. Off to watch The Singing Detective on DVD now. Watched 5 hours of it yesterday afternoon while the rain came down! It makes no sense and yet is strangely captivating.

Mark is getting old...

2009-06-20T10:34:00.002+10:00
Here is what happened at 10am this saturday morning:

Mark gets into the shower. I am confused....

Anna: "Did you not already have a shower this morning??"
Mark: "No, I've been waiting to have one"
Anna: "But weren't you using the hair dryer earlier?"
Mark: "......no....."
Anna: "But why is your bath towel all wet?"
Mark: ".......ermmm........ohhh......I've already had a shower."

He had genuinely forgotten he'd had a shower only a couple of hours before!!

out and about

2009-06-15T20:52:00.002+10:00

Mark and I at the FBi radio fundraiser gig last bank holiday Monday, 8th June.

[ not my photo, taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/fbi945/3610396077/ ]

http://www.fbiradio.com/

will pose for $$$$

2009-06-10T22:11:00.002+10:00

new haircut wooo!

It is SO COLD. It was 14 today and is going to be 1 degree overnight apparently!!!! Woe. I am going to wrap up in bed now and read The Wasp Factory until it worries me too much to sleep.

planting passionfruit

2009-06-07T00:11:00.002+10:00

Mark insisted I poladroid all these photos for some reason. They're not too good I'm afraid, the light was starting to go.

After a super-annoying trip to Macquarie Shopping Centre this morning to get some decent soil-y stuff we dug up the side bed and put the passionfruit vine in. It seems happy.

It looks so teeny. I hope it's ok.

The original photos are on Flickr. You can just about see the state of our lawn in them. After all the rain and walking on it today, it's pretty much just turned to mud :(

We are being naughty and staying up too late to watch the 20/20 West Indies - Australia from the Oval. The weather looks dismal in London. The sun came out here today! I might actually get in bed and let Mark update me in the morning.

whinging pom

2009-06-04T20:05:00.003+10:00
Oh hello there.

I am so fed up of winter! It feels so odd complaining so much about it since it still hits 17-18 degrees most days which for most Englishy types in England is lovely and warm. BUT it is just SO COLD?? Things don't really get a chance to warm up properly because of the short winter days, so 18 degrees in wintery Australia feels significantly cooler than the same temperature in summertime UK. The house is freezing because all the older houses here are just made to not get too hot in summer, rather than stay all warm in winter. Mark has taken to wearing two jumpers, a dressing gown, gloves and a blanket whilst working at home, which is an amusing sight to behold. No washing dries and consequently everything just smells of damp the whole time. It doesn't help either that we are now well into our FOURTH WEEK OF RAIN. EVERY DAY. I can't actually remember what the sun looks like? Not good enough, Australia, not good enough. The house is dark and depressing all the time because, like most houses in Australia seem to be, it is built in a way that no direct sunlight comes into the windows (presumably again to prevent excessive summer overheating). WA WA WAHHH!!!!

Ok enough complaining.

We have mostly been sitting in and getting over our colds and watching DVDs. Last night watched Charade, a 1963 thriller with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, that Mark's parents got me on DVD when I was in Paris, cus it's set in Paris. It's a good, silly film. Good but silly. I wish they'd remaster it or something though. The sound quality is quite poor, particularly in the first 30 minutes and in the scene on the boat, and the picture quality varies throughout. It's a shame cus it's a good film, I bet there's lots of good, forgotten classic films out there that could be rereleased quite successfully with a bit of polishing up.

Bank holiday weekend this coming weekend, for the old Queen's birthday, would you believe! I intend to do gardening - we acquired a passionfruit vine that needs putting out. I'm pretending it's Bank Holiday for My Birthday. One week tomorrow and I'm 25, officially a bit old. I suppose nothing much changes. I suppose I might have to finally accept the fact that I'm not going to grow out of my bad skin. I've been living for years in the mistaken belief that my greasy, blotchy visage will soon develop into nice, normal, smooth adult skin, and that I'll be able to gander about in public all fresh-faced without a layer of oil-control foundation coating my face for security. But no. Oh well. For any miserable 14 year olds reading this who are currently battling the terrors of adolescent skin, here's a bit of news: IT MIGHT NEVER END!!!!

failure to be sensible, ill, too much rain

2009-05-22T21:46:00.003+10:00
Not much has happened recently that has been particularly conducive to bloggery as of late. I apologise once more to those people (all two of you?!) who may or may not have been on tenterhooks awaiting the next exciting installment of my life.

Mark and I are both currently ill with colds. Mark with his second cold in only a couple of months. Mine is not quite as bad as his, although I fear that since he had it first and I may therefore be a couple of days behind in the cold timeline... To be quite honest I think I deserve lifelong immunity from colds after the horrific, almost-3-month-long cold I had starting immediately after we arrived in Australia, which included a period of almost a solid fortnight during which I could not breath through my nose at all. Not even slightly, not even with all the decongestants money could buy.

Mark had his birthday t'other week. I got him RayBan Wayfarers, crème brulée tea from T2 and the two Yeah Yeah Yeahs EPs ('Yeah Yeah Yeah' and 'Is Is'). He also has some books, including David Starkey's Monarchy which arrived from Bristol which he has already finished and which I am now reading - it's really exciting! And I now understand the Wars of the Roses which would have been helpful *before* I went to see the plays. Gah. We went to Ice and Slice in Newtown for dinner with USyd phil dept. (usual wednesday night dinner). Some of them didn't realise it was Mark's actual birthday until near the end of the meal, then started singing Happy Birthday and the WHOLE restaurant joined in!! Mark looked like he wanted to die a bit, it was so funny.
After food Mark and I went for cocktails in Madame Fling Flong, then had to head home because it was a school night.

Not much else has occurred. It is torrentially raining. Has been for a few days. Some towns in Vic/NSW are flooded.....this country seems to be permanently on fire or underwater....hmm. I am trying to save a lot of money, but keep failing by shopping. Had 17 minutes to wait for the train home from work last night and instead of waiting patiently in the station I went and bought another new top and new skirt! Aghh. Sense, pie. Sense. *shakes head*

Birds and Tofu

2009-05-03T20:09:00.003+10:00

These lovely bright shiny birds seem to be around a lot in our garden at the moment, they come to eat the flowers on our big bush. I have no idea what they are, but they are fascinatingly bright. There were two faffing around out there earlier today, so I photographed them.

Today was a lazy Sunday, got up late and ate two lunches. Then we walked down to Rhodes to the IKEA, to buy a mixing bowl and a doormat. Mark is making his own honey nut muesli for breakfast, hence the need for a huge bowl to mix it all up in. He has toasted all the oats and nuts in honey in the oven and it tastes so good already.

Just had a tofu stir fry for tea, drained tofu for 45 mins then marinated it for 45 mins in teriyake sauce before frying today. It came out SO good. I love tofu, it is brilliant if done the right way, it can get so flavoursome. Mark started pondering how tofu was made and where it originated, so I looked it up on wikipedia. Apparently it originated in Ancient China, and is made from soy milk in a similar way to the process of making cheese from normal milk. Fascinating! I remember when we first came to Australia and were so amazed at the extent of tofu on sale. In the UK you could barely get more than one brand, tucked away in a weird part of the supermarket, whereas here it is awarded it's own section of the supermarket! Our grocery store has a whole aisle of tofu products even! We got addicted to the deep fried crispy tofu they have until Mark read the nutritional information and realised it was really unhealthy, so now we cannot have it anymore.

The Wiki article is here: Tofu on wiki and is very detailed and interesting. Who knew there were so many types of tofu ??!

Pootling and bumbling

2009-05-02T18:24:00.004+10:00
After two weeks of running every morning at 7am (well, 90% of mornings!), I can now not only get all the way up the hill but half way down the other side without my heart and lungs feeling sick! Today is Saturday and involved a successful extra-long run. I will become healthy, I will! I feel much better already!

We went to see Mary and Max, Adam Elliot's new claymation film. I really enjoyed it, it was so funny but also really heartwarming and I almost cried at the end! It's about the friendship that develops between a lonely 8 year old girl in Melbourne and an equally lonely obese man with Asperger's Syndrome in New York.
She picks his address out of a US phone book and writes to ask him where babies in America comes from. Receiving her letter triggers an anxiety attack in Max, but eventually he writes back, and the film follows the ups and downs of their relationship and their separate lives over 20 years.
It's also quite funny in its send-up of Australian suburban life and you should all watch it. There's a bit where Mary sends Max a Cherry Ripe too and it reminded me that I must send EVERYONE a Cherry Ripe. Best chocolate bar EVER. UK Cadbury's should SO make them.

I went to the dentist on Wednesday and had my teeth prodded and cleaned to within an inch of their lives. It was so good, even if it did cost me $200 ! OUCH. I also got to go on the new Epping-Chatswood rail link which was exciting (yes I am tragic).

This week was SO cold. A couple of days were only 15 or 16 degrees and it apparently went down to 5 degrees overnight! Waa. The platypus, Mr L. Rogue, even registered a formal complaint about the cold with the platypus embassy, although we doubt he got very far. We bought a big electric radiator on Friday, and it is SO good. Heating me up all nice. Today the weather was much nicer though - it felt like a lovely English summer's day. After my run I did not one, not two, but THREE loads of washing and pegged it all in the garden. We had eggs and toast and coffee for late brunch and now Mark is working away on his shiny new Mac. I am going to work on a short story I have been poking around with for about 3 months. Spaghetti for dinner with Pie Special Tomato, Garlic and Basil Sauce, if I can remember how to make it!

Easter housekeeping

2009-04-20T18:27:00.005+10:00

Poirot Egg says a belated Happy Easter. He has three eyes because when he solves a crime he turns to the perpetrator and says "trois yeux!!" ......twas you.....with French accent.......hm?....

Good Friday was spent trying to buy a bottle of wine, with no success. So we resorted to spending way too much on cocktails in Glebe before Raami's birthday party. Saturday was food shopping (the only opportunity to shop in the whole 4 days!) then watching Elegy at the cinema.
On Sunday, we took the train to Bondi and found an amazing fish and chip shop (Fishmongers) where we podged up, before walking around the cliff path to Tamarama and then Bronte beaches. I love Bronte. I think I could literally be happy forever if I could get a nice spacious apartment in Bronte, with Mark and a lovely puggy and I would walk along the sea and swim in the little open air pool and never leave ever. Unfortunately we are priced out of the area for the foreseeable, but who knows for the future...
We sat on the beach for a while then wandered back as it got dark. Walking back from Bronte to Bondi is how I imagine walking back from the French Riviera into Blackpool Pleasure Beach to be. Not that you could really walk from one to the other, and not that I have actually visited either, but UH Bondi is so tacky.

On Monday we took the train to the Blue Mountains, getting off at Katoomba to walk the Giant's Steps. The weather was rather different from last time we were there!

Echo Point, the viewing platform for the three sisters, where we ended our first mountains walk in February. Not much viewing to be done this time!

A bit like Narnia!

It did make for some quite dramatic views though.

After making our way to the bottom of Giant's Steps (believe me, it was HARD even going down, they are practically vertical!), we pootled along the path at the bottom, then back up Furber steps at the other end to the Scenic World centre. Unfortunately it started to pour with rain about half way up Furber steps, leaving us ABSOLUTELY soaked and having to navigate a path that had become more of a swamp. It was quite invigorating all the same, and fortunately we both had a spare dry t-shirt, but the train ride home was not what i would call comfortable!

It was then back to work for a short week. Last weekend, we took a trip to Parramatta so Mark could investigate the bike he is getting from Parramatta Bike Barn. Parramatta is actually ok. It is Sydney's biggest suburb with a big shopping and business centre in it, but it also has some nice old buildings and a pleasant square (which was hosting 'Parramatta Chess Festival', much to Mark's excitement!), setting it apart from most of the West which is just bland. It has a bit of history as a town in its own right, so it's worth passing through for an hour or so if you have an excuse to go there!

And now it's Monday again, *yawn*. I must away to bed. After discovering the shocking state of my fitness on our Mountains walk, I am on a new exercise regime and was dragged out in my jogging gear before the clock even hit 7am this morning. And it was raining so double sad face :( We're on again for tomorrow morning. I almost died going up a gentle slope so something must be done!

Also please spare a thought for a guy I know named James. He worked at HCF with me until a couple of weeks ago when he left to go travelling, and is a close friend of my friend Karl. He was involved in a serious accident on Fraser Island, Queensland on Saturday morning, reported in the Times here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article6125177.ece. He is one of the two passengers who were airlifted to Brisbane and is currently in intensive care.