Keith's Birthday - in pictures

Order of Events.

Cake, presents and champagne on the balcony.

The Maritime Museum then Squires Brewery.

Dinner a Doyle's at Watsons Bay.

Water taxi home to Mosman

Cocktails at the library

We took a walk up to Mosman Library this evening. I had a somewhat overdue book, oops, got a fine, $3.20 and I hadn't even finished it. Keith spotted the Larousse Cocktail book whilst we were there and is now sitting pouring (ha ha) over it seeing what he can create. I think that will mean another trip to Dan Murphys (Booze supermarket) to stock up on goodies.
After the library we walked around to Fourth Corner Providores - which is a lovely Italian deli which is actually huge like a supermarket. It sells flowers, lovely fruit and veg and has a walk in cheese fridge. There is also a huge counter with hams, cheeses, salads and what not as well as fresh breads and a cafe through the back. Its not cheap but it is very good :-).
Just round the corner at Spit Junction is a nice selection of places to eat so we decided to forget cooking and grab dinner out. We settled for the Thai kitchen (there was also Japanese and Vietnamese) and it was a great choice. Crying tiger beef for starters was good rare with a great spicy, sweet, limey dipping sauce. For mains I had fish salad which had crisp snapper, mango, apple, basil, mint, kafir lime leaves, chili and tomato - totally yummy. Keith had a curry of beef and potato in a lovely sweet and creamy sauce. All very tasty and no room for pudding! Another one for our "menu" book - in which we are collecting all our faves to make a foody guide book.
We trudged down the road to home, laden with books and food and have just been sitting out on the balcony for a while with the fairy lights on (solar powered too). I got a new ipod thingy today that lets you connect it wirelessly to the stereo so we have that on. Pretty nifty we can take it in the NEW car too - ha ha, yes I caved and bought one - after all I said about not. We pick it up on Saturday. Its a little silver Yaris. Pretty good deal on it and a nice feeling to buy it cash down. Now we just need a road map and some swag and we'll be off!!

Coals to Newcastle?

Well no, but the Jones and Arkless went to Newcastle the weekend before last. It was Labour Day weekend so I took the Friday off work and we drove up to Newcastle, stopping on the way to check out Brooklyn. We arrived at Uncle Jon's about 2pm and after lugging all our junk into the house we all took a walk down to the town and had a nosey in the shops - picking up a couple of books in the second hand shop on the way. We also had a quick look down at the foreshore and had a walk along Nobbies Point and a cheeky little paddle in the sea.

We toddled back and sat on the veranda for a while, sweating our asses off in the 30C heat. Later on we headed out for a curry and sweated a bit more - before heading to bed to sweat there too!

Saturday morning we all heaved in the car and drove up to the Hunter Valley for a bit of wine tasting. Starting at Mount View we sipped and spat our way around a good few vineyards as well as a stinky cheese shop. We managed to pack in a few bottles of wine, white port, liqueur muscat, pomegranate balsamic, goats cheese and lemon olive oil. All produce direct from the Hunter Valley. We lunched in a little noodle place and then clanked our way back down to Newcastle itself.

Uncle Jon cooked us a lovely Chinese meal. Beef in Szechwan pepper (made your tongue go numb!), chicken with mango and stir fried veg - yum. The rest of the evening was spent reading Jon's cornucopia of cookery books - inside goes the temperature had plummeted to about 20C!

On Sunday Jon had to work in the morning so Keith and I headed down Darby Street, banged on the door on Jack and Yve's shop and got in just before the rush, which was lucky cos about ten mins later it was packed! We picked up some shopping and had a chat to Jack - Yve was too busy, ordered a Malayan and a ?Turkish wrap and after an unexpected invite to the Bay that evening we headed off down to the beach to eat our yummy wraps. It had been about 15 years since I had last been to Newcastle and the wrap with the Ginger Rice balls and chili sauce was as fabulous as I remembered it - well it was until Keith pinched it and he gave me his felafel wrap - cheeky monkey.

We walked down to see the fair that was on but it was a bit expensive so we just watched and Keith munched on a Crepe.

We drove over to some beach somewhere so keith could fish - but it was really overcast and Keith kept loosing his bait to the Seagulls so we gave up and headed back to Darby Street for a look around the shops. Stopping once more to eat again, this time probably the best cheesecake I have ever had - caramel cheesecake in one of the little cafes. Cor, it was brilliant.

Realising we had forgotten to change our watches (and the clock in the car - the clocks had gone forward an hour) and it was actually an hour later than we thought it was we zoomed back to Jon's to pack up our kit and head on up to Shoal Bay, managing to arrive just for the end of the AFL final in which the Manly Sea Eagles absolutely annihilated Melbourne....before heading out to the pub for a couple with Jack and Yve. Just like being on holiday!

Jack and Yve have a new holiday place (Unit) up at Shoal Bay and its lovely, open plan downstairs, two bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms and a little garden. Compact and bijou Mostin. Very nice.

Our last day came far to fast and we spent the morning climbing the big hill/ mountain in the pouring rain, whilst sweating inside our jackets - or fetching kagools if you are Keith and forgot your jacket... it was nice seeing everyone after such a long time, everyone seemed well and well fed. If it hadn't of been for the horror drive home through Labour Day traffic it would have been perfect weekend. But then you can't have everything...

First day at the beach

Well, today has been the first day nice enough for the beach. We took the bus up to Palm Beach - at the very top of the Northern Beaches. Has a bit of lunch, a paddle - well, Keith had a swim, and walk along the shore. Lovely. It was about 25C which isn't bad for spring time.

The beach is lovely. No sea weed and a sea pool if you are scared of anything nibbling your toes...like a great white.

Last night we went out in town. A few drinks in the Bavarian Beer Bar and then a wander around the bustle of China Town, onto dinner at a Korean BBQ before catching the ferry home. Nice. Took some pretty cool pictures down at Circular Quay...

Meet me in .....

St.Louis, that's St.Lewis and definitely not St.Looey or else you get odd looks (is it just me or was this place named by a French person....?) however. Lesson 1) St.Lewis. The second lesson is if you haven't got a car forget trying to go anywhere. I am based in Chesterfield, just 20 miles from Downtown St.Louis and it took me 45mins on a bus and then a transfer to a train and a further 25mins to get to "The Arch" (down by the Mississippi). Or within 5 mins walk of it anyway - this is certainly not a pedestrian friendly part of the US.

I headed down there on Saturday and after looking at the arch - which is pretty spectacularly huge - I headed up towards the main part of town to try and find some stuff to do, something, anything, where is everything? Where are the shops, where are the people (the street scene was taken at 2pm on a Saturday)? Did someone do an evacuation of St.Louis when I wasn't looking? I have come to the conclusion that everyone lives and plays outside the city - in strip malls (that made me giggle) and out of town shopping villages. There was signs of this being reversed though, dozens of warehouses were being converted to chic apartments and bars and restaurants were coming back to service them - in a few years it could have a bit of a buzz back.

I strolled around, heading back in the direction of "home" and came across Union Station. Once a huge, heavily used rail station (it shifted a lot of the troops leaving for WWII) it is now an indoor shopping mall, but they have saved the basic architecture including the highly impressive Great Hall (photo) which was truly stunning. It also now houses the Hyatt Hotel inside the old station and it looks great sitting on an artificial lake with one heck of a lot of fish in it.

There didn't seem much else to see so I caught the metro rail and bus back and ended up going all the way to Chesterfield mall. Its a big mall about 20 mins walk from the hotel (ok, yes I could walk there) and it has a Macy's, Gap, Old Navy, cinema all the usual shops and entertainment. This trip all I bought was baseball boots for Keith but so far I have been stocking up on Gap (you can"t get it in Oz, amazing, eh), Mac makeup, Earth shoes and other goodies that are either cheaper here or you just can't get back down under.

An example of the huge differences in cost comes from simple stuff - I bought some John Frieda Frizz Ease hair gunk today. In the UK it would have cost me equivalent $8.37 US or ($9.95 AUD). In Australia the same stuff would cost me the equivalent of $11.79 US ($13.50 AUD). Here it cost me $4.60 US ($5.28 AUD) - do I feel I am getting ripped of in Australia - yup, I do, no way you can justify that with shipping costs. I think the problem is a lack of competition - might look into that when I get back.

Anyway , back to St.Louis. Everything here is big, the cars, the houses, the portions and no surprise, the people. Half a sandwich is enough for any mere mortal and an area who fries ice cream, cheesecake, ravioli and pickles (gherkins) could perhaps even teach the Scots a thing or two about poor diets. Having said that the fruit and veg on offer in the supermarket is tasty and well priced, the seasonal fruit (peaches at the moment) look amazing. Its so cheap to buy food here - both out and in the shops that I am not surprised portions are big. Put it this way - I am not going to starve in the near future!

Its a different mix of people from LA here. There are more black people and less hispanic (I have no idea of the current pc terms for non-Caucasians so sorry if that's not right). Noticeably on the bus all my fellow passengers were black or elderly white people. Is it a social or class thing? Not really sure. I guess it really doesn't make a difference more of an observation.

I am heading back off now to watch some more of the Olympics, its the woman's gymnastics and the laws of physics are once again being destroyed by young ladies in leotards. Interestingly per the American TV the US of A are leading in the medal tables - cos they just use how many instead of weighting for colour. So everyone else in the world thinks China is winning and the US thinks they are....I think there is a metaphor in there somewhere...

LA la la la

Well i decided that the best way to see the most of LA was a tour. I took a "VIP Tour" grand tour of LA. We started of at Marina Del Wray - the largest man made boat harbour in the world - not all that exciting but lots of people were cycling which was an odd sight in LA. Next Venice Beach passing the restaurant John Wayne owned on the way. Venice actually does have canals I never knew that - in fact it has six. Both Angelica Houston and Julia Roberts live there and I guess it was quite nice. I had a look at Venice Beach and was disappointed to see that there was no-one at Muscle Beach - must have been too early. The beach was lovely - perfect California, but we had to be back on the bus in 20 mins and push on to Santica Monica. This was a very much posher area than Venice and has a very nice looking pier. We didn't stop though and drove onto Westwood, passing the building that was the Makatomi Tower in Die Hard 1. Westwood has the Veterans of Foreign Wars cemetery and also the Pierre Brothers Westwood Cemetery where Roy Orbison and Frank Zappa are buried. From there it was onto Beverly Hills which is actually a private city with its own laws, street signs etc. Certainly people didn't seem to want to hang about on the streets there - there was no-one and I mean no-one walking about - it was like 28 days later, weird. We drove down Rodeo Drive and saw all the high end stores, then down to Sunset Strip passing Marilyn Monroes last house.

On Sunset boulevard we saw the Viper Room and "Carneys" where Elvis ate his burgers as well as Chateux Marmont where the stars hang out (apparently).

For lunch we stopped at a "Farmers Market" which was really a outdoor food court - but I got some nice shrimp (prawns) and some cucumber salad and a beer. Which was a pretty yummy lunch. They had the craziest place there - a bakery for dogs! It sold pupcakes and doggy donughts - I have never seen anything like it - I thought the dog deli in Mosman was crazy.

We headed onto Hollywood, saw the sign, the Chinese Theatre, the pavement stars, the hand prints and the Kodak theatre. It was very busy down there and there was a lot of people dressed as movie stars looking for cash for photos. It wasn't great.

Next was Olivera Street - where LA started as a Spanish town. It had lovely little spanish style buildings, a lovely old firestation with an antique horse drawn fire engine and lots of stalls selling souvenirs and cactus candy - some of which I got for Keith. It had a lovely party atmosphere and although it was small there was lots of stuff to look at. We pressed onto Chinatown and Little Tokyo past the Walt Disney concert hall (big, shiny) and eventually got dropped back at my hotel.

After I dumped some stuff I walked back to Olivera Street and then onto Little Tokyo where I got Tempura (prawns and veg), rice, salad, salmon and eel nigri and tea all for $13US. Which is just mad. I also sampled some green tea and plum wine ice cream and maybe a couple of things in the Hello Kitty store....

Sunday I went back to Santa Monica beach and enjoyed the sunshine (and played with the new panoramic setting on my camera!

I got the bus there and the driver was really friendly I stood beside him and chatted almost all the way (its nearly a half hour journey). I think people really take to you when they found out you are Scottish...

Finally I headed back to the airport and caught my flight, with no delays, to St.Louis. Arriving at my hotel around 1am - and I guess now the work actually starts....lol.

First day at work

Yesterday was my first day at work. It only takes me 20mins to walk there which is great. Nice to start the day without the hassle of driving your car to work.
The office is at Australia Square, sitting at one end of a courtyard area, which has seating and a food court (more later). I work on the 9th floor with the rest of the RGA Australia guys, RGA South East Asia sit on the 8th floor. The office is modern and bright and I have a nice big desk (but no window...booo). As usual the first day was made up of introductions, meetings, HR stuff and getting to know the people and my way around. Everyone is lovely and friendly and judging by the cheeky emails flying around a good laugh.
We have a kitchen which contains a fridge, coffee machine, toastie maker, dishwasher, vending machine and a seating area to have your lunch. Twice a week we get a huge basket of fruit delivered which is great.
After lunch (when I nipped up to the NAB to open my bank account and grabbed some sushi) I had to go over to the main building on the other side of the quad to get my picture done for my pass. I was a bit early so took a turn around the food court - well, I won't go hungry or get bored. There was Japanese, Vietnamese, Salad Bar, Italian, Sandwich bar, Mexican, Juice Bar, Hot meat rolls (roast beef and the like), a pub, Indian, Fish and Seafood, Coffee, plus a hairdresser, post office and newsagent.
Other lovely little perks are dress down Fridays, fairly flexible working hours (within reason) and the option of an at desk massage twice a week! How good is that. And that's on top of all your usual benefits. I think I am going to like it there....

The Road to Sydney

The road to sydney started at Edinburgh airport. My brother dropped me off and Helen (his wife) and Owen came along too. The cars suspension took a bit of a hammering from the suitcases and rucksacks but we got there in plenty of time. All was fine until I made my move to go through security and started giving out hugs - that's when I started crying. Then Helen started - the boys stood impassively and by brother commented "she's my sister, why are you crying?" which is about typical!
Anyway we headed through security and it was only yesterday that I realised that I never turned around to wave to them - not sure if that was deliberate or not - certainly not a conscious decision I had made. I felt a bit bad about that later.

The flight was late leaving in Edinburgh by about 90 mins (isn't it always) and so we had less time to mess about in Heathrow We came in at Terminal 5 (no idea what all the fuss was about, it wasn't anything special) and then transferred to Terminal 4 - where we bought books and magazines and what not before boarding the 747.

I had managed to get two seats at the back, in a row with only two seats - so no climbing over people, which was good. It was reasonably cramped and far too hot but at least the movie and TV were on demand. The flight to Bangkok was reasonably uneventful expect a few bits of turbulence and a dizzy air stewardess. Dinner was fish pie, hmmm.

We had 4 hours to mince around in Bangkok airport - which looked nice but didn't have much in it. You aren't allowed to bring in duty free to Oz anyway - have to buy it when you get there (crafty devils) so shopping wasn't even a pastime to indulge in. Eventually we hauled ourselves back on board and settled down for another 8 hours of overheated torture. Dinner this time was Thai Beef and the oddest cheesecake type thing I have ever seen. Hmmm. I managed to get a few hours of fitful sleep and at 5 am was woken up for breakfast of a yogurt and stale croissant (really does it need to be this bad?)before our landing at 6am.

You cleverly have to pass through Australian duty free before you get your bags back so we decided to make use of it and got a bottle of Laphroig, one of Bowmore, and one each of Frangelico and Chambord (need a cocktail shaker now). As well as some perfume for me. We then headed through passport control, got our bags and cleared customs with no more questions than what we had in our bags of value (laptop, jewelry) and did we have any food (yes, t-bags) to which we were fast tracked out without a customs search.

We got in the taxi q and pretty quickly we were heading towards our apartment on Kent Street, which turned out to be on the 50th Floor with a very nice view of Darling Harbour. More of that and our first day in sydney on my next post.