Spill - da - beans

Signing Off

2007-08-01T21:31:00.000Z

Quick note to let you know this is my last blog... I'm finding that the Aussies aren't really reading the blog (and that was the main reason for setting it up in the first place)... they prefer their personal emails and phonecalls. I've also started doing the Facebook thing recently too.

But it seems I have have had many other readers from around the world and in the UK. So thanks for reading :) And happy blogging.

Take care,
Beano

July Update

2007-07-26T17:41:00.000Z

Hey sorry for the delay in posting, things have been so busy here with work etc

Some highlights of the fun stuff (not the work grunge part) are:

July 7 - went to see Elvis Costello at the Tower of London with some friends. We had nibblies and champagne and Pimms and Lemonade at the Wapping pad and walked up to the tower. It was a good show, and we had good seats, but we were all a bit disappointed it only went for an hour and he didn't do an encore. It was £70 a ticket too! So for that kind of money we thought we would get a little more. For me, the best part of the night was catching up with everyone and the drinks before and after. I was too 'merry' to take any photos of this event, so I will have to see if I can get one from my mates to put up on this site.

The following weekend (well actually from Wed/Thurs during the week, I can't remember), P's sister came over from Northern Ireland. P mostly kept her entertained as I was quite busy with work and then a bit sick, so I don't remember everything they did, but I know they did go to see the Star Trek convention on Saturday and quite enjoyed it. P got a signed mouse matt by 'Holly' from Red Dwarf. On the Sunday we went on a speedboat trip up the Thames which was excellent. It was great to feel the wind in my hair as we sped along. The tour guide was hilarious too... he was the typical eccentric englishman with the very very well spoken accent (sounded like he should have been leading a rowing team for an exclusive school up the river instead of a speedboat full of tourists). Here's the photo of P and 'da sista' A before boarding the speedboat.

And last weekend, we went to the 'Toast' festival (the Australian one, not the Kiwi one) and saw Kath and Kim. It was great to see them and hear their accents. But they weren't on the stage very long. Just ad libbing while doing a 'sandwich making competition' and the they also had their alter - ego's on the other stage. The festival was a good excuse to drink some wine and sit in the sun. I even got a bit of sunburn which is nice! I also bought.. are you ready.. cheezels, chicken twisties, cherry ripes, and burger rings. And they were all eaten by Wednesday! mmm I really miss cheezels. The closest thing they have here is cheesy puffs and even the ones from M&S aren't up to scratch..

This weekend I will probably have to work on one of the days, but I am hoping to get hold of one of the bargain £5 tickets to Shakespeares' globe.... if its not raining of course (the globe is open to the elements).

Which reminds me, you have probably heard about the flooding that is happening over here during the wettest summer on record ever! At first it didn't seem too serious, and I remember that when we went to see that comedy show when P's parents were over (must be at least a month ago) he was making jokes about people being 'rescued' by being taken out in dinghys, while the rescuers were only walking in water up to their shins. But the rains have just kept coming and I do feel really sorry for people who thought that the flooding was over, then went back to their homes and cleaned up only for it to happen again not long after! Its also really bad for people who have just bought new homes and not realised that they had bought on a flood plain, they will have alot of trouble selling their homes now. Bizarrely, several people have also died from the floods. On the news tonight they reported that two men died from the fumes of the pump they were using to pump water out. The flooding is mostly in the west and hasn't really affected London except for some parts in the south west.

Sarkozy's jogging

2007-07-06T21:23:00.000Z

This article in The Times was so funny! The french intellectuals' reaction to the new President's penchant for jogging:

Le jogging, originally known as le footing and now more fashionably as le running, caught on in France, as elsewhere, in the 1980s and eight million claim to indulge. But Mr Sarkozy has rekindled a French suspicion that the habit is for self-centred individualists such as the Americans who popularised it. “Jogging is of course about performance and individualism, values that are traditionally ascribed to the Right,” Odile Baudrier, editor of V02 magazine, a sports publication, told Libération. Patrick Mignon, a sports sociologist, noted that French intellectuals had always held sport in contempt, while totalitarian regimes cultivated physical fitness.

I have even written a comment on this Times article, look for the one of the only positive comments on this article in a sea of defensive American responses...

I met a french guy this week who told me he though it was really embarrassing that Sarkozy only speaks French, apparently he can't speak a word of English.

Big green owl eyes

2007-07-06T18:25:00.000Z

Apparently I have big green eyes like an Owl (according to P)! Ah, but isn't it cute..

Snowpatrol gig at O2 Arena

2007-07-01T08:57:00.000Z

Went to see Snowpatrol at the brand new O2 Arena last Thursday. I was lucky to pick up the tickets for only £15! They were special tickets that were made available for the workers who built the new complex and also for people in the local community. It was a good gig... I had forgotten that the band are actually from Northern Island, but quickly noticed their accents once they were chatting away between songs.

The O2 Arena is the old Millenium Dome, which was built at the start of the millenium. From what I understand it cost a lot of money to build, but never really had any visitors in the past so it just sat there as a 'white elephant' in the past. But now it has been redeveloped as massive entertainment centre, with the arena, and also restaurants, bars and cinemas. Its good that we have a venue like this so close to us...only 4 tube stops away in North Greenwich.

Work Summer Party and visit from P's parents

2007-06-21T20:25:00.000Z

Last Friday night was a work summer party. Really fun night! I managed to aquire the feathers towards the end of the night! Food, dancing, wine and song. They also gave out free massages by professional massuese. The two girls either side of me are both Aussies who work in HR. The guy on the right is J, who is a mate of mine too (we both started our job on the same day). It was so nice to go to a party and have fun after a couple of weeks of messy flat due to the kitchen dust and hayfever.

When I got back home it was about 1am, and P's parents had arrived for their weekend vist (is was Father's day here in the UK) , it was nice to see them again. We took them to see the Borough markets and bought loads of yummy food: plum tomatoes, cheese, olives, organic lettuce, fresh pumkin and feta ravioli, some flan/quiche things AND a slice of cake each. this was much easier than cooking when I had a sliiiight hangover.

In the evening we went to the Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green, which was excellent. P insisted on sitting in the first row. And I was feeling tired so wasn't feeling up to being challenged by a comedian, so of course every comedian had to direct their questions to me!

The next day P's parents took turns to try out the porsche. In the evening we went for dinner at our local Italian.

2007-06-17T17:24:00.000Z

Here you can see the all the parts of the new kitchen sitting in our old dining area....

Then by the end of the week we have this lovely new kitchen, complete with replastered walls.

And also the old carpet in the lounge room was replaced too. Much nicer. Although it did create quite alot of dust and I have had really really bad hayfever ever since.

You can't quite make it out, but that is P's Dad, lying on the lounge. It is Father's Day and P's Mum and Dad are over visiting from Northern Ireland.

The company we used is 'Kitchens Direct'. They were great.. no issues. We are having trouble deciding which new appliance is the best. The washing machine, because it is so quiet and the last one sounded like a helicopter was taking off. Or the fridge as its big, not one of those silly English under the bench ones where you have to bend over to find stuff. Or the dishwasher, because we didn't have one before at all! Has to be the dishwasher I think!

The scary swimming centre

2007-06-17T17:18:00.000Z

This is the outside to the St George's swimming pool in my local borough of Tower Hamlets. Scary isnt' it? They seemed to have closed the original entrance and now use one at the back of the building. No-one seemed to have thought that putting a sign up to alert people to this might be a good idea. Therefore new people to the area wander past what looks like a deserted building, when there is acutually a fully functional swimming pool inside. Its quite dated inside and the diving board is cordoned off as the structure looks unsafe. But hey, the water appears clean and its at least 50m, so great to have a pool close-by.

Tim Flannery- The Weather Makers

2007-06-11T20:18:00.000Z

The 5th of June was World Environment day and Advance (an association for professional Australians) held a free event where Tim Flannery gave a presentation. He is Australian of the Year and has a new book out called 'The Weather Makers'.

I took a few notes at his presentation and thought I would share them with you as it's such an important topic.

A 19th century scientist, Wallace, said that the atmosphere was a 'great aerial ocean', because we are as dependent on the atmosphere as a fish is to the sea

if you shrunk the atmosphere into a liquid, it would be 1/500th the size of the ocean

since in the industrial revolution, 80 parts per million (ppm) of CO (carbon monoxide) has been added.

since 1997, and the general dithering of governments at Kyoto, 20 ppm of CO has been added

it is generally accepted that we need to keep below 2 degrees of warming to stop very extreme climate changes from occuring. This is is 450 ppm and we are already at 420 -430 ppm

key message: climate change is a fast-moving threat

an inter-governmental panel on climate change set a conservative projection that there would be a 3% rise in temperature over the century... this is proving too conservative considering that they predicted that there would be a 8% melt of ice caps over decade and in 2006 there was a 5-fold increase in melting. The ice-caps could be gone completely in 30 years.

the next 'Kyoto' type summit will be held in 2009, in Copenhagen

things that Tim Flannery would like to see agreed for the sake of humanity are 1) agree a threshold that greenhouse gases cannot go past, 2) agree on a carbon price, 3) forestry price

The top two things we can do to help to reduce greenhouse gases are 1) introduce a regulatory environment that recognises the true cost of energy, and make businesses/people pay on a user-pays basis, and 2) make use of technology

He believes that efficiency gains of 50% are possible in houses

Someone asked if population control should be addressed as strategy to manage, and his response was that there was not enough time for this to make an impact. Any population initiatives would take decades to come into effect, and this is too late

Another person asked about people's high level of consumption patterns, and pointed out the need to change this. Again he agreed, but said that change would take too long.

One more question about developing countries and that as they become more industrialised, are contributing large amounts of greenhouse gases. He said that in his view he saw that we have an 'historic debt': since the 1800's onwards, industrial countries have pumped 100ppm into the atmosphere, making us rich. Therefore we have a debt to pay

trees have a mechanism for drawing out carbon dioxide. Growing tropical trees is a great way to reduce carbon dioxide. There could be a role here for developing countries to be paid for growing trees. Maybe people in developing countries could use of the $85 computers that are being developed at MIT to monitor logging.

Some interesting points about Australia:

the impacts of global warming on Australia will be catastrophic. There has been a 10-20% reduction in rainfall in the past 20 years. Streamflow has reduced 60-70% over 30 years.

rainfall is predicted to decline by 90% due to global warming. As the soil gets hotter, it soaks up the rain faster. There is also more evapotranspiration from the plants.

soon the Murray River in Australia will not be able to be used for commercial purposes and this will affect a major food region in Australia - olives, citrus fruit is grown here among other things. He knows people who are shooting their dairy cattle there because they think there won't be any pasture for them later this year

Adelaide is reliant on the rivers from up North, and soon the water will be too salty to be drinkable

Brisbane's dam is already at 20% capacity and people are on water rationing. There has been some rain lately, enough to make the country look green, but not enough to reverse the trend

the price of electricity is set to double next year as there is not enough water to run the power stations. Every MW (mega watt) produced, consumes 2 tonnes of water

It was a good talk as he is a scientist who 'tells it like it is'. A not all a tale of woe either as he does point to some constructive things that can be done to make changes. I liked it when he said 'why is it when ever you see a cartoon and to indicate that someone has had a good idea, they show an 18century incandescent lightbulb above their head. It should be an energy saving one!'

Cheltenham

2007-06-03T17:55:00.000Z

Around 1st June we went to Cheltenham for the weekend. Visited Nanna's 90 year old friend Daisy. Nanna has been friends with her for years, since her step-daughter married Daisy's son. It was nice to meet her. Stayed at a nice B&B Lonsdale house, the owners have looked after Nanna when she stayed there in the past. The photos at the top are of a lovely village called 'Old Slaughter', outside of Cheltenham. There was an old mill that served home made ice-cream and tea and scones by the stream. Lovely stream with ducks. Gorgeous. Just like you imagine an English village to be.

Hypermobility

2007-05-27T22:46:00.000Z

I went to see a physiotherapist recently with a pain in my hip/knee/foot that occurs when I have been walking around for a while. And I found out that I have 'hypermobility' is when some or all of your joints have an unusually large range of movement. It occurs because connective tissue in the joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments are more loose and stretchy than in most people. This means the joints are move flexible and can extend further. Because of this flexibilty, it means that the joint can get out of alignment and put pressure on the joint in the wrong way.

Apparently lots of people go through life with 'hypermobility' and do not even know that they have it. It is only if something changes e.g. loss of muscle strength, that you notice it (because the muscles help hold the joint in place). In fact, there are some advantages of having hypermobility: alot of athletes, or muscians have found advantages of having joints that can flex that bit further. A tennis player has an extended reach, or a violinist/guitarist can flex their wrist to reach further. So, if I can get this back in check it is actually not a bad thing

However, the fact that I have put on 15kg since arriving in the UK (!) and that my muscle tone has probably deteriorated somewhat are both contributing to why I am now experiencing some discomfort with it.

So from Friday, I have exercises to do every second day which are about building core stability, and I need to take up swimming again (a good exercise because it does not put pressure on my joints). He has also recommended pilates classes.

My body seems to rebel against me being bad: I have to clean the house regularly because I get an allergic reaction to housedust and hayfever. I have had to give up smoking as it was affecting my circulation. In order to give up smoking I have had to practically give up alcohol as if I get tipsy then I would need a ciggie. And now, I have to get fit or otherwise I am going to be in pain/have trouble walking!

So I'll let you know how I get on. I have a big job ahead of me.. 15 kg to lose and also seriously improved core stability. Here we go!

Koi Carp

2007-05-27T13:40:00.000Z

Yesterday we were looking at tiles for the kitchen and found an aquarium next door. While in there, we found a huge tank full of Koi carp. A big white one was right at the surface, with its snout poking out. P and I were leaning over to look at it when it suddenly turned and with one big swish of its tail, splashed a wall of water right over P!! It was more than just a little splash, P was drenched. It was so funny :)

This Hikari white one was quite old and very 'friendly' and cost £500. The other less friendly and younger ones were £250. Apparently it take 20 years to grow to this size. The babies were being sold for £4-50 so a bargain!

When we were in Tokyo we saw hundreds of Koi in the moat of the Emperor's palace. They were so friendly (or at least thought that they were going to be fed) as we had hundreds converge towards us once they realised we were there.

How to spake proper (Norn Iron)

2007-05-26T12:59:00.000Z

P sent me this...

Afeard - scared
Ah - I or me, ie Ah don't feel well
Aminal -common mispronounciation of Animal
Amptinat? -I most definitely am
Ar$ehole -calling someone a rectum
Aye -meaning "yes"Balleex -"b0ll0cks"
Thats balleex - Used in context when disagreeing with someone
Bake -someones face
Baltic - quite cold
Banjaxed - drunk
Bate -beat, I bate her up so ah did
Bate The Wife - bottle of cider
Beef -male sexual organ ie "Ah slipped her the beef lawst nite"
Beezer - Very good, Thats Beezer
Beg -wafer thin plastic vessel, good for carrying shopping :also oul' beg" when referring to an elderly female
Blurt -Slang for female genetalia
Boggen - dirty, unclean
Boulin' -messing about
Bout Ye -"Hello"
Brave - largeBrew - weekly benefit
Buggered -brokenCameracorder -grannies use of the word "camcorder"
Cheeser -like Beezer, meaning "very good" or "exellent"Chicken -child slang for "afraid"
Chinks -popular Chinese food Take Aways
Childer -children
Cracker -not something you put cheese on, means beezer
Creamed -tired
Dander -a walk, ie I'm goin fer a dander
Dawg -canine, dog
Digikil -common mis-prounciation of "Digital"Drawers -underwear
Dour -a door
Duncher -CapEarlee-er -before the present
Eejit -derived from "Idiot", means "Idiot"
Eff Aaf - F*ck Off
FaakAaf - Excuse me my good man, kindly vacate the premises
Faaler -father
Fally - follow
Fillum -a movie or film
Fingy -someone whose name you can't remember
Frig -polite word for "F*ck", also used: FlipFlour - a floorFut - footGat -slang, You're a wee gat or getGeg -fun, "Ats a geg"Getawaydaf*ck -go away nowGivuz -give meGlass -Half-PintGoes -replaces the word "Said" ie And I goes: What? Are you slabberin'?" And then she goes,Yip."
Gutties -training shoes
Happy Days - that's good
Hardly -meaning "Thats not true" ie Hardly now. Hardly.
Hectic - See MadHeel -not to be confused with the back of your foot, means end of a loafHeerzme - "And then I said..."
Hippy - someone who likes Bon Jovi
Houl On -please waitJob -activity usually carried out under the cover of night
Joken -joking
Kudn't -couldn't ie Ah kudn't do that...Lairdindeyit -please do start eating (or drinking) see also"wiredintillit"
Leenantarsapees -Famous Italian landmark
Lifted - arrested
Lingo -language
Mad - See Hectic
Mairshen -Emersion Heater
Magic -not tricks, but another word meaning great or good
Majassif - large
Mawn -a man, male
Meat Wagon -RUC Landrovers
Melt -no actual meaning, used as: "I'll knock your melt in"
Messages - weekly shopping
Milly -name given to teenage females. See also: SteekMoufycunt - rather outspoken person
Mucker -a friend or mate
Muller -Mother or "Ma"
Nek it - drink that drink in one
Nice One -that was good
Norman -bullying term for someone with no friends
Norwegain - Another Gin please
Now Yer Sucken Deezel -that's a good way of going about that
Offees -alchohol retailer
Oi -a yelp for someones attention ie Oi! You! C'mere!"
Oxters -Armpits
Pat - container in which food is boiled
Prably -maybe, its likely
Passion -heavy rain in Ballymena
Parfil - strongPeeler -a police officer
Piece-sandwich
Pot - short for Patrick
Pssskety -common misprounciation of "Spaghetti"
Pump - to urinate
Purdie -countryside slang for Potato
Quim -slang for female genetalia
Ragin' -angry, Ahm bloody ragin' so ah am.
Ration -you'd be doing this if you were trying to get to somewherein a hurry, in Ballymena
Rare -not to be confused with "scarce", means crap
Samitch -mispronunciation of "Sandwhich"
Scundered - embarrassed
Sebm -seven [7]
Shap -shop
Shar -a shower
Sicken' Ye - would annoy you
Skinned Ye! - Haha my good friend, I do believe I won that particular game by a significant margin
Slabber -someone who makes bad comments about you behind your back or to your face
Spoofen - lyingSpide - see SteekSpoon -someone with a low IQSteek -male with bad dress and hair sense
Stroked - stolen / ripped off
Ta -Thank You
Tarl - a towel
Theee -the number three
Till -replaces the word "to" ie Goin till the shap"
Tube -see: Spoon
Undurstawnd -understand ie Do ye undurstawnd me?
Vaka -VodkaWeaker -yet another word for "brilliant"
Wee -put in front of words such as "drink", "dander", and basically anything
Wick -not exactly brilliant
Willik - nose
Wiredintillit -"Got wiredintillit earlee-er"
Windie -a windowWindielickurs -horrid term for the mentally disadvantage
Windie Still -a window sill
Wheelie bin - a bin
Wooden One -not a clever person
X-Acktlee-exactly
Yermaa -an insult said when nothing else can be thought of
Yeegittin? -Are you being served?
Yip -yes
Yousens - When addressing more than one person

Whelan the Wrecker

2007-05-22T19:39:00.000Z

My Nanna has always called me Whelan the Wrecker, after the demolition company in Melbourne. This is a reference to my abilty to break things, often in an absent minded way.
P has recently made a mention to this on his blog after a recent episode driving his new porche... anyway, he found an original Whelan the Wrecker sign so I was intrigued, and dug around a little and found out the following info about history.

For over a hundred years in Melbourne, Whelan the Wrecker were agents of change. They cleared the way for skyscrapers, wine bars, motorcars and modernity. During the wreckers’ halcyon days of the 50s and 60s, their sign could be seen on every city block, and it remains etched in the memory of Melburnians today: WHELAN THE WRECKER IS HERE.But paradoxically the Whelan family were lovers of history. They passed on the stories of the buildings they wrecked, one generation to the next. And they made sure the best bits of the doomed buildings were recycled through the weird wonderland of their legendary salvage yard. Even today, fragments of long-gone Melbourne landmarks live on in unlikely places.

Update on my new job

2007-05-13T17:07:00.000Z

For the past fortnight I have been quite busy working on my first project. I am working for one of the big banks out at Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf is the major financial district of London, and is one of the only places where you get skyscrapers in London. Before, when I worked in central London, most of the buildings are only 2 or three storeys high, as they like the city to be designed in a way to allow for an unimpeded view of St Paul's Cathedral. Canary Wharf was built on the old docklands area in the east of London, and is about 20 mins from central London on a light rail. It was really different to be out in one of the high-rise buildings and see the view of London from there.

This is a view from the building I am working in, looking out to the east. You can see the 'Millenium Dome' in the foreground. The city airport is also in this frame.

The project I am working on is quite interesting, and is around helping the bank improve its customer service. It is quite a large project and we are a small team from the consultancy and are working with alot of internal people to get the project done. At the moment I am starting at 8-30am and going through until about 6-30pm. On Friday I was at work until 7-15pm. My Manager is doing even longer hours than this... On a positive note, there is a good canteen and with lovely salads, so I am hoping I can get healthy by eating lots of lovely food. Although I am finding it hard to get the energy to go the gym when I get home, but will have to do it really. Anyway, so far so good. The project seems interesting, and I am working with a good team of people. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

This photo shows how the glass comes right down to the floor. You can get quite giddy if you stand to close to the edge.

In the centre of the floor is a huge atrium, which is a nice way to bring some light into the office.

New kitchen

2007-05-13T16:54:00.000Z

Hooray! On Wednesday last week, P finally signed up for a new kitchen to be installed in Wapping pad. We have been here for well over a year now and surviving without a dishwasher, so it is good that we are finally getting around to it:) We are using a firm called Kitchen Direct. We had them out in January when I wasn't working to look at it. It was a good quote, but we didn't really have any other quotes or any other experience with kitchens to compare it to. So after doing our research we have ended up coming back to them afterall. The kitchen takes about 3 -5 days to install. But before that the company delivers the kitchen components to our house and these will be in our living room for about a week. So there will be a bit of disruption in the coming weeks, but it will be fantastic once it is all sorted. We are buying the fridge and washer separately so spent yesterday traipsing around a retail park in outer London looking at models (what fun... not) so will be happy once it is sorted.

Royal Windsor Horse Show

2007-05-13T16:47:00.000Z

Today we went to the Royal Windsor Horse Show, which P has renamed the 'Royal Windsor Mud Show'. I bought the tickets through a deal at work a few weeks ago when the weather was lovely, so I imagined a nice wholesome day in the sun ... but it absolutely poured with rain and there lightning in the sky and everything.

Given the porsche is still under repair, P had picked up a Dolomite Triumph 1974 from the classic car club and we drove that there instead. The brakes weren't fantastic and we were aquaplaning a few times along the highway which was a bit hairy (!) but got there in the end.

Look at the lovely wooden dash

Little red triumph

Ahh, doesn't P look happy?

Our friends C and S were there a little earlier and were already drenched by the time we arrived, poor things.

It was amazing to see how high the jumps were. You don't really get an appreciation of it when you are watching on TV, but the height of them comes up to the horses' nose

Bournemouth

2007-05-13T16:30:00.000Z

Last weekend was a long weekend in the UK, and we decided to visit D and S in Bournemouth. We drove down there in the porshe (which is nicknamed 'Black Betty'). The traffic wasn't too bad on the way down there, it took us just over two hours. But we did leave quite late on Friday night so we probably missed the worst of the traffic.

We had a nice slow start on Saturday morning, and by about 2pm we headed off for a 12km walk around Wiltshire, up to see where some of the paragliders were taking off from. D and S recently learnt how to do paragliding when they were back in Australia, and they have just joined the club in Bournemouth. The countryside was really beautiful, and it was a good walk there. On the way there, we walked past a house which looked really lovely. I told P that it was pretty good, but a bit low down in the valley and a shame that it didn't have any views. Then we saw the main house a little further along. It was higher up on the hill and looked beautiful. I told P that I would prefer this house instead. Later on in the day we found out from the local paragliders that the house I had admired actually belonged to Madonna! It is her English country mansion.. Apparently the walking trails used to go through her property but she has closed them to walkers since she bought the place. I had wondered why the acres of lawns were mowed leading up to the driveway - it makes sense now to know it was a celebrity hangout..

Here is a photo of D, S and P in Wiltshire, Dorset.

I got to drive the porsche for the first time, back from Wiltshre into Bournemouth. S was in the front with me and we had a great time. Although I think I was expected to drive it faster because P said that it was the first time he had seen cars backed up behind a porshce. When we got back we discovered that the car had a problem with a loss of power steering fluid. We ended up having to spend most of Monday morning trying to find a porshe parts store open on a bank holiday so we could get it sorted before driving home... the porsche is now nicknamed 'broken Betty'!

The second day we went along the beachfront in Bournemouth and had a look at an area near 'Christchurch'. We saw a beach hut for sale, meters from the beach but absolutely tiny for £120,000! Madness.

Here is S, D and I on our walk near Christchurch.

S told us an interesting story about how Christchurch found its name, and I have found a copy of it here for you:

During the building of the Priory there worked a carpenter who never mixed with his fellow workers, drew no pay and never appeared at communal meals. One day it became necessary to fashion a beam to support the roof. The place where it was to be fitted was measured and the wood cut to the required length. However, when the beam was raised into position it was found to be several inches too short. Disappointed with the work, the carpenters lowered the beam to the ground and, as evening had come, went home expecting to have to cut a new beam in the morning. When they arrived the next day the beam was already in position in the roof and of the right length. The mysterious carpenter was not seen again, and so the people imagined that it must have been Christ the carpenter working on His church. Thereafter the church became known as Christ's Church of Twynham and the name of the town Christchurch-Twynham. Over the years the Twynham has been dropped and the name of this ancient borough changed to Christchurch.

We had a great weekend, staying with D and S. If/when they finally move back to Australia, we will miss them:)

London Marathon

2007-04-22T22:17:00.000Z

Our friend D ran in the London Marathon today. It is about 26 miles long and runs from Greenwich, through the Docklands and ends up near Buckingham Palace. D did the marathon in about 6 hours and raised money for Shelter (a homeless charity) which is fantastic!

P and I went up with Mrs D to watch him run past. Wapping has a great vantage point as the runners go along Wapping Highway in both directions.

A training course in Chicago

2007-04-22T20:56:00.000Z

When I first arrived on Saturday I had an interesting journey from Chicago airport to central. I caught a train (only $10 for a two day pass to use on the trains). When I got on my train though it was a bit yucky. There were two really big black women sitting opposite me eating fried chicken and dunking it in some kind of mayonnaise. They were dropping bits on the seat and I was it was so gross. Some poor person ended up sitting on one of those seats as the train got closer to central chicago too, bet they didn't know they were sitting in chicken bits. Ewww so grotty.

I wasn't sure of the closest station to my hotel. So I was planning to get of at the most central station in the city and get a cab from there (I knew my hotel was somewhere pretty central). I asked this guy sitting next to me and he started pulling out map after map out of his backpack, as he tried to explain exactly where to get off and then how to walk several blocks to my hotel. He ended up getting off at the same stop as me, then helping me to carry my bags up the steps and then walking me to the hotel. All the time I was trying to decide if he was a weirdo or not - but when he started encouraging me to go to church on my visit, I realised it was because he was a Christian! He told me that Chicago was much better than New York, because people in NY were 'snabby'. I was like, 'what is 'snabby'' and then I realised he was saying 'snobby'....

I was a bit too jet-lagged to head out on Saturday night (Chicago is 6 hours behind UK -so at 8pm it was 2am UK time!) The following are some snaps from out and about Chicago Saturday afternoon and Sunday, before I headed out to the training facility.

Macy's department store on State St. I ended up chatting to one of the sales assistants there who was quite helpful. She recommended I go and check out millenium park, and the cultural centre which were close by.

At the cultural centre I was really pleased to discover that a free session of the symphony orchestra was about to start - so I got to see some of this. They were doing Dvork.

'The Bean', Millenium Park.

Stage at Millenium Park. They hold big music concerts here in the summer.

The 'L' railway makes a loop around the central part of Chicago. It is an elevated railway, going right through the heart of the skyscaper centre. I liked the wooden platforms.

View from Sears Tower. Sears Tower was once the tallest building in the world, it has now been slightly overtaken by ones in Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Korea. It is still very impressive as you travel in the lift for 60 seconds to get to the top, and get off at the 106 floor. P and I went to the building in KL last year and I prefer this one. The views over Lake Michigan are spectactular, as I realised just how big the lake is - it is almost like an ocean it is so big. You can only faintly make out buildings on the other side of the lake.

A sign I spotted in the training complex where I stayed. Definately haven't seen one of these before! The weather in the states was quite crazy. Tornadoes in the south. Heavy snows in the north (I loved the description that the weatherman gave: thick, wet messy snow). A risk of major coastal flooding in the North East with winds of 60-70 mph

A bus we caught from the training complex to a local shopping mall. I just loved these buses they are so chunky and wide and look exactly like you expect American school buses to look like.

On the way to the shopping malls, and on the way back to the airport I got to see some of the suburban sprawl outside of Chicago. There are really large retail parks with drive through ATM's and drive through fast food. The thing that really struck me was the availability of land - most of the homes are quite large and on big blocks . In the wealthy areas, some of the homes are made to look like castles, complete with turrets and have 7-8 bedrooms!

Also the Virginia Tech massacre happened while I was there, which was quite awful and very shocking. It really bought home the tragedy as Indiana is a state on just the other side of Lake Michigan. I noticed that all the flags at the front of people's houses and at the towns were all flying half mast.

I have to say, I was really pleased to return back to London and get back home after this trip. Chicago itself was interesting, but it was quite a tiring trip as the training course was quite intense, and also involved 'networking' activities after class - so the days were quite long.

Chicago

2007-04-13T18:04:00.000Z

ARRrrrr.. .. still at work on Friday afternoon madly trying to get the all the pre-work done. I'm going to Chicago in the morning for a week-long training course! The course is supposed to be quite intense and its actually in a conference centre about 20 miles outside of Chicago.

This is why I'm arriving early so I will have the whole weekend in Chicago before the course starts. In hindsight I wish I had the weekend after the course in Chicago as it would have given me some time to do the 14 hours (!) of pre-work that I started at 4-30 this afternoon. Yes, this will be interesting to see how I cope!

Nevertheless, I will be able to tell you if it really is 'the windy city' when I get back. And at the very least I will be able to tell you how well the pound does when shopping over there!

Wapping links with Australia

2007-04-12T20:05:00.000Z

The grip of international brotherhood.
© National Maritime Museum, London

At the risk of going on and on about Wapping here is some other info for the Aussie readers..

The crisis of the 1889 dock strike was reached at the beginning of September and without more money it seemed that the strike could not continue. Then, out of the blue, money began to pour in from Australia. Donations were sent by the wharf labourers of BRISBANE and then by almost every Australian trade union. About £30,000 in all was sent. The money ensured that the dockers could hold out and made the dock companies more disposed to negotiate. Thanks to the Australian donation, the dock strike ended in victory after both sides agreed a settlement at the Mansion House talks.
Source: http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/ConNarrative.77/chapterId/1863/The-Great-Dock-Strike-of-1889.html

Captain Cook lived down the road! He was originally sacked from his job as an assistant in a haberdashers shop in Whitby (North Yorkshire), and signed up as an apprentice on the merchant ship of Captain John Walker. He was set to work on the regular runs of the merchantman Freelove as it hauled coal from Whitby to Wapping. http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/cook.htm

he is believed to have had lodgings at the Bell Alehouse near Execution Dock in Wapping see http://pages.quicksilver.net.nz/jcr/~cookbio1.html

he married a girl from Wapping (Elizabeth Batts) http://www.captaincooksociety.com/ccsu418.htm

he is belived to have learnt his humanitarian approach (no beatings and preventing scruvy) from the Quakers in Wapping http://www.eastlondonhistory.com/cook.htm

Also, in 1986, Rupert Murdoch moved to introduce electronic production processes to his newspapers in Australia, Britain and United States, placing a greater workload on journalists and reducing staff overall. In England, the move aroused the anger of the print unions resulting in a long and often violent dispute fought in London's docklands area of Wapping, where Murdoch had secretly installed the very latest electronic newspaper publishing factory in an old warehouse. 5000 people lost their jobs in this bitter dispute that was played out in Wapping. Union opposition in Australia caved in after the Wapping battle and now most newspapers around the world are produced by this method.

Technically, Rupert Murdoch is actually no longer an Australian, as he surrendered his Australian citizenship and became an American citizen in order to further his business interests in the US.

CTV Cameras - Science Museum

2007-04-08T22:27:00.000Z

P and I went to see the Science of Spying exhibition at the Science Museum over Easter. I found these signs about CCTV amusing.

Goodnight Irene

2007-04-06T13:05:00.000Z

I'm not a huge fan of football, but as Club Songs go, you can't do better than the one the Rovers have:

Its not only a great song (!) but the crowd is so fantastic. I went to a match at Twickenham when I first arrived over here with my cousin Neil, and was surprised to see all the footie fans singing. It really is the nicest part of football.

New babies

2007-04-06T10:43:00.000Z

P has a new baby called 'Betty' - its a Porche Boxter S 3.2! Here is info from the add for those who like the technical details:

Porsche Boxster S 3.2, metallic black paintwork, 6 disc cd player and iPod connection, facelift with Porsche sports pack, competition wheels, sports suspension brakes, exhaust and slightly more bhp. It has a full Porsche service history and last service 17/2/07. Has had new brake disks and pads at 65000 miles. Is fitted with a tracker, full leather seats and half leather dash. All round a very clean car in great condition. Selling due to baby on the way.

P is completely enraptured with it. I have had to get him to confirm that he will still love me more than his car! He is still saying that he will. But the car isn't here yet so lets see :) We should pick it up next week.

The other little delight is that some friends of ours just bought the most gorgeous puppy. Check it out in this photo. It is a Springle, which is a special type of gun dog when they cross a Beagle with an English Springer Spaniel. Isn't it the most gorgeous thing? C & S are away over Easter but I can't wait to go and visit so we can meet little Jessie. Interestingly we met C & S when P sold them his old MX5. It turned out they were lovely and also live just across the river so we have stayed in contact. They have just bought a house in Dorset though so unfortunately we'll see less of them when they move.

And my sister A has a new kitty of her own called Peppi. Its 3-4 months old in this photo. Another cutie!

A view of Tower Hill and Wapping (snaps on my way home from work)

2007-04-02T20:25:00.000Z

It was the magnolia's that did it. I haven't seen these trees before, and when I saw these amazing flowers in St Olave's churchyard, I just had to wander in. Its a lovely churchyard too, although it has three skulls at the entrance to the courtyard!

Samuel Pepys and Mother Goose (!) are buried here according to Wikipedia.

Anyway so I decided to keep going and the following are some snapshots of my walk home from work through Tower Hill and Wapping.

Tower of London

Tower Gateway. And the daffodils are out...

Here's a busy intersection leading onto Tower bridge. Tower of London is on the right. Wapping is to the left of the bridge.

Just to the left of Tower Bridge is St Katherine's Dock. The old docks area is now filled with shops and restaurants and you can see the Charles Dickens pub here on the left.

Yachts in St Katherine Docks

This could be a Turner painting, but I actually took this on my camera-phone... Its about 7pm by now and the sun is setting over Tower Bridge.

Now, heading into Wapping. There are some new developments along the river, these all have amazing views of Tower Bridge.

Further along, here are my favourite apartments in Wapping - Pier Head Wharf. These would be over a million pounds each so the closest ever get to them is taking some photos through the fence unfortunately! There are some beautiful sketches and info on the history of this place here. Apparently there are a couple of celebrities living here now (I won't say who!).

Close by, you have the Town of Ramsgate pub, one of the oldest riverside pubs in London and located near where captured pirates were hanged then left in the river to let three tides pass over them!

A little further along Wapping High St is Olivers Wharf. I like this one too as apparently this was one of the first warehouses to be converted into units by a group of artists.

Across the road, and just in one of the side streets is an old school. Maybe a boys school on the right, and a girls on the left?

A park on the left of Wapping High St. The daffodils were recently out but have just died off. Some council homes in the background.

And a little further along Wapping High St. This is just before you reach the Tube station. I love this part too. It is so narrow, and tall. Walking along here at night can be quite spooky, especially if there is alot of fog. You can also feel like you are walking along in a movie set for some reason!

And then not too much further and I am home. At a good pace it takes me about 45 mins to walk home. Cheaper and better than the Tube and some lovely scenery too!

The Weekend

2007-04-01T19:34:00.000Z

A couple of fun things on the weekend - P and I went to see '300' at the BFI IMAX theatre. There is a good preview of the film you can see if you click here. It was P's idea and it turned out to be quite a good one for a Friday night (as not too heavy). Action movies with lots of blood and splatter aren't something I would usually go for but somehow in the IMAX it seemed far more attention-grabbing.

Today we finally had some lovely weather - 15 degrees and sunny - so we decided to make the most of it and get out and aobut. We walked along the Thames from Wapping to Greenwich, then saw a play at the Greenwich Playhouse. It took us about two hours to walk there, at a quite a leisurely pace. I have only walked as far as Canarf Wharf before so it was great to walk further along and see a new area. Here are some photos so you can check it out too.

This is one of the many canals in the docklands area.

P outside Greenwich Tunnel

Entrance to the tunnel.

There is a descent about 85 steps down to the Greenwich tunnel. It's a pedestrian tunnel that goes right under the river. I had heard it was wet and damp but I am glad to confirm it wasn't leaking! I was surprised to see how many people were using it - it was quite busy.

Once in Greenwich we went to see Noel Cowards' 'Relative Values'. I booked it this morning on lastminute.com and we paid £10 for the ticket, not much of a saving since they were normally £11. When we arrived we were surprised to see that the theatre is really just a room upstairs in a pub. A very intimate space, all the chairs were crowded around stage, and there were maybe only 100 people in the room (this photo is a bit dark but I wanted to show you how cute it was). The play was fantastic - great dialogue -and really well performed. Especially Brigid Lohrey who played the Countess of Marshwood. Her vowels were so crisp that when I looked up her bio, I was surprised to see that she is actually Australian :) Really good fun!

Still on the bench

2007-03-29T20:18:00.000Z

This is my third week in my new job and so far I haven't been placed in my first role. Its getting a bit frustrating to be honest as I have been doing on-line training until I can't bear it anymore! There were a couple roles as possibilities, but they never eventuated. For the first one, it turned out that they didn't really have a budget to go ahead with the project (possibly one of the biggest bug-bears for consultants?), and for the second, they decided they needed a more junior person for the role. Oh well. Ah, so guess what I ended up doing today? Spreadsheeting work to manage the resourcing of other people on one of the big accounts! I haven't done much spreadsheeting work since I was a graduate. I cheered myself up by thinking of how much they were acutally paying me to do spreadsheeting now though!

Speaking of money, I am getting more money that I expected in this pay. When I checked the details I realise I have received a tax refund because I had almost 5 months off work. I really don't know how the employer refunds it here (in Oz you would have to wait until you have competed a tax return). But somehow, they can do it - yipee! This means that with the increase in my base salary, and the tax refund I haven't actually lost any money by having a break from work (compared to just staying at my old employer for the equivalent amount of time). So it seems resigning from my old job was a risky maneouvre but it's worked out fine afterall.

I have been thinking about risk-taking traits lately. I met a woman at work whose decision to work as a management consultant was so measured and planned: years ago she had an aptitude test done to determine the best career for her, then worked in it for awhile before doing an MBA, then tried out contracting to see if she liked and only THEN did she apply for the consultant's role! I seem to be the opposite as I have kind of just taken up opportunities as they arise. If anyone had told me only a few years ago that I would be living in London and working as a consultant, I would have been shocked! So my new friend is quite risk-adverse and I'm abit of risk-taker. It was funny when I commented on her blouse they other day, do you know what she said? She said, 'thanks I had my colours done by a colour consultant recently so I know this is the right one for me'!! I love it :)

Tomorrow we are have a big team event held at Lord's Cricket Ground which should be interesting. I've always wanted to check out the venue, but never thought I would as I couldn't see myself buying a ticket for the cricket! It will be good because I will get to meet everyone in the global team (well maybe not everyone as there are hundreds!) and hear about the strategy going forward. Then, P and I are also going to see the movie 300 at the Imax theatre tomorrow night - will give you an up date on this later.

De La Soul

2007-03-24T10:51:00.000Z

As I was downloading some photos off my phone, I came across this photo of the De La Soul gig in February. It was such a great gig and a great birthday present, so I thought I'd give it a mention here.

The gig was at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, there is an excellent review here. They are a New York hip-hop band that had some big hits in the early nineties. I really like them because musically they are brilliant, without having to resort to gangsta tactics or by treating women as sexual objects as alot of hip hop artists do.

Yuppies: F*ck Off

2007-03-24T10:09:00.000Z

P spotted this the other day. It's been spray painted onto a building site, close to where we live. It is quite surprising, because you don't normally see graffiti in Wapping.

The current building was a completely dilapidated (and un-liveable) warehouse with smashed windows and dirt floors. It is being converted into swish apartments that are probably priced around £500k (even though no river views).

The interesting thing about Wapping is that there is such a mixture of people living here. All along Wapping High St you have the converted warehouses, and cobblestone streets. But just a couple of streets back it is the 'old' East End, with the council estates.

As in most places, working full-time means that you don't have alot of time to spend in the community and I think that really impacts on places like Wapping as it feels alittle like a segregation. Its not easy for people to meet eachother so that barriers can be broken down. I have joined the local council gym, at the George Orwell centre, and one of the things I like about going there is that I do get to meet people from all around Wapping.

I know what it is like to see your neighbourhood change around you and become 'gentrified'. I saw this in Brisbane, living in places like West End and New Farm. So I do sympathise. But at the same time, I suppose P and I are now the type of people this message is directed to. And we say back, 'We love it here and we are not going anywhere!!' In fact, P wants to get some chalk, and cross out 'Yuppies' and replace it with 'Chav's'..... but let's not go there.

Sony Playstation 3 and Elvis Costello

2007-03-24T08:31:00.000Z

P, being gorgeous geek boy was actually standing in a queue at 12 midnight on Thursday night to be one of the very first owners of the new Sony Playstation. By the time he got back from the store it was 3am, then of course he had to spend another another hour assembling the thing so that he could make sure his new toy was fully functioning before he could get to bed! It costs close to £500 once you buy the extra gadgets such as a remote control and also some software to put on it. But P says this is still cheaper than buying a stand-alone blue-ray player.

I had a look at it last night and it does seem quite impressive. The graphics are really amazing. We even tried watching a normal DVD by using it, and the blue ray capability actually improved the picture, even though we have a standard TV. Oh, yes, which reminds me - next thing on P's list is 46 inch Sony Bravia TV. Apparently John Lewis is out of stock at the moment, but this is next on P's list.... has someone just had their bonus paid I wonder??

Tickets for Elvis Costello at Tower of London went on sale yesterday. Incredibly unlike me, but I have actually been organised enough to get a group of us to go on July 7. Its a long-way off, but I am looking forward to it already.

Executive Presence for Women

2007-03-23T18:41:00.000Z

I was lucky enough to get onto an 'Executive Presence' workshop held at work for women in senior management. It was about how to be aware of and work with power and politics in organisations. An excellent course, run by Tricia Cusden.

The course came at a great time, as I am just starting my new job as a Consultant and some of the roles that are coming are abit daunting. So the course was a good for some 'confidence in a bottle'. I thought I would share with you the titles that are 'suggested reading', as I am going to try and work my way through them:

Postively Fearless - Vera Peiffer
60 Tips for Self Esteem - Lynda Field
The Assertiveness Workshop - Joanna Gutmann
Creating Self-Esteem - Lynda Field
The Assertive Woman - S. Phelps/N. Austin
Notes from a friend - Anthony Robbins
She who dares wins - E. Gillibrand/J. Mosley
Stepping into the Magic - Gill Edwards
Women who love too much - Robin Norwood
Body Language - Alan Pease
I'm OK - You're OK - T. A. Harris
Games People Play - Eric Berne
Giant Steps - Anthony Robbins
Unlimited Power - Anthony Robbins
Awaken the Giant within - Anthony Robbins
Being Happy - Andrew Matthews
You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay
Love Yourself , Heal Your Life - Louise Hay
Two Hearts are Better than One - Bob Mandel
Be Your Own Best Friend - Louis Proto
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway - Susan Jeffries
Jonathon Livingston Segull - Richard Bach
Illusions - Richard Bach
Bridge Across Forever - Richard Bach
Secret Life of the Unborn Child - Thomas Vemy
Handbook to Higher Consciousness - Ken Keyes
The Power of Unconditional Love - Ken Keyes
The Continuum Concept - Jean Liedloff
Living Magically - Gill Edwards
Primal Scream - Arthur Janov
Pschocybemetics - Maxwell Maltz
Creative Vizualisation - Shakti Gawain
Families and How to Survive Them - Robin Skynner & John Cleese
Presenting Yourself - A personal image guide for women - Mary Spillane

How about this weather?

2007-03-20T19:28:00.000Z

Last week it felt like we were approaching spring. The daffodils were out, it was sunny, and not too cold (just a light mac required outside). It was so nice, I even felt compelled to take this photo of the sun trapped daffodils from our balcony! BUT this week the temperature has dropped dramatically and the hats, gloves, scarfs and winter coats are back on. There was even some snow today! Brrr When will this winter end? I remember my first winter in London - you could tell the anitpodeans in the office as whenever there was snow, we would be pressed against the windows to watch it. Now I am more passe but not quite to the point where I don't check it out at all (like most people in the office). Perhaps there will always be a bit of a child in me that likes to appreciate the weather. Who couldn't watch enjoy an afternoon thunderstorm in the middle of a Brisbane summer for instance?

New job

2007-03-17T07:57:00.000Z

OK just had my first week at my new job in one of the large consulting firms. The first two days were induction/orientation, then Thurs/Fri I have been in the office getting through the administration and doing on-line training. The building is fabulous and there is a great canteen. I might have my first project to start on as early as next week! It sounds a bit scary as I will be working at a client site completely automously and the project has a large budget and could go for 6 - 12 months!

I love the Catherine Tate show, and so I especially enjoyed the Red Nose Day Charity Event on the tv last night was great. Catherine did a skit with Tony Blair, and Tony did the 'am I bovvered' part so well! http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1256141,00.html

This weekend is St Patricks day and I am taking P out for a guinness to celebrate. I'll probably also try and get the gym (haven't been since before Japan trip) and do some shopping for some new work clothes.

Japan

2007-03-07T13:11:00.000Z

We have just returned from Japan. Here is what we got up to.

The journey there
This does require a mention as it my worst flight experience ever! Not a fault of the airline, but because I had the most dreadful cold, felt so unwell, and worst of all could not stop sneezing. The Japanese woman sitting next to me felt compelled to keep her face mask on for the entire journey!

Our itinerary
P arrives on Sunday 12 Feb, but is there for work. I arrive on Friday 16 Feb. We are staying at the Palace hotel, which is opposite the Imperial Palace and near Tokyo station, so very convenient.

Saturday 17 Feb - we sleep in then head off on a half day orientation bus tour of Tokyo which took us to Asakusa Kannon Buddhist temple, and a drive through Kappabashi and Ueno and Akihabara. We got off at Akiharbara to explore at night, before heading back to the hotel for dinner.

Sunday

We head to Ueno park in central Tokyo to see the museum. You can see the several museums and theatres here, along with the zoo and general parklands. We were very fortunate that there were some of the beautiful cherry blossoms out. They are not all out usually until Spring.

The Japanese were excited about the cherry blossoms too, and you can see them here taking photos!

It was also in this park that we discovered the cats! There were about a dozen cats, obviously residents of the park that like to get a bit of attention as you walk past. They were not afraid at all and would roll over and get you to pat their bellies! The locals seemed to treat them very kindly and feed them too.

The museum was excellent, there were four separate buildings. Sadly to say we only got around one of the buildings as I was still feeling a bit delicate. But we saw some great things, including this helmet with the benefit of adding a good 3 feet in height to the wearer!

Monday
P was back at work, so I went off to explore on my own. Firstly I needed a copy of the Tokyo Subway Map. It is quite daunting when you first look at it as there are so many stations and the whole thing is much bigger than London. However, once you get the hang of things, it is quite easy to get around as they have this excellent process of numbering the stations so you don't have to remember the Japanese names. Unfortunately not all of the stations have English signs when you are buying your tickets so we had to guess the fare a couple of times. But the worst that can happen at the other end is that you go to the fare adjustment machine and do a 'top up'.

The other thing I realised is that the streets in Tokyo aren't full of people, because they are all underground or in buildings! The subway network is massive and when you change stations you can walk underground up to 500m to get from one line to another. There is also a very sophisiticated exit system that takes you underground from the station to most of the buildings in the radius of the station. Some of the exits can be over 500m from the station too! When you get off the train, you consult a map to check which exit you need or you could end up miles away from where you want to be!

This day I went out on foot. I had read in the guide book that the Nihombashi bridge was close by. This bridge was supposed to be historically significant, and it showed old woodblock paintings of this bridge from the Edo period alongside the description. But as you can see from this photo, it is no longer a quaint wooden bridge, and an expressway has been built over the top of it!

Other interesting architecture I came across was the Tokyo International Forum.

Most of the day was spent checking out Ginza, and a massive long street, lined with department stores on either side.

Tuesday
I am back in Ginza. I hadn't bought a light jumper with me, and I was lucky to find one at Uni Qlo - cashmere for only £7 - bargain!

He is another picture of Ginza, it is spectactular at night.

Wednesday

We found a one-day itinerary for Tokyo that looked pretty jam packed. I decided to do a portion of the tour today and went off to visit the Meji Jingu Shrine. This Shinto shrine is in central Tokyo. I was interested to learn that the Emperor Meiji embraced 'modernisation' and actually cut off his topknot, dressed in western clothes and encouraged people to drink wine with their meals.

At the shrine, you can leave messages that the Priests will offer up the following morning.

Now I am virtually across the road from the Shrine, in Takeshita Dori. Here it is a fairly young area, with lots of interesting fashions. Check out the fashions they have for dogs though! What you see here are dog prams, dog mannequins and dog outfits. And yes, we saw plenty of dogs dressed in clothes AND in handbags...

I also went along a bit further to the Ometsando tree-lined boulevard. This was a bit similar to Ginza in that it had all the expensive stores. Chanel, Gucci, etc etc. It just goes on for miles. I got exhausted from walking at one point and stopped for a coffee. Appears I stopped at the equivalent of the Champ Elysees for coffee and they charged me 1000 yen (approx £4-50 or $A10). I thought it was such a ridiculous amount to pay for a coffee in a place that didn't seem that great to me, so I decided to even the balance a bit by pinching their unusual teaspoon as a souvenir!

Next I am in Shibuya, a place that claims to have the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. But I have to admit that after braving Oxford St, London on Saturday this seemed tame to me!

Thursday Went to the Kappabashi Street which is an 800m long street lined up with more than 170 stores containing all sorts of tableware and cooking items. Including the plastic food models that all the restaurants seem to put out the front. I did see some good bargains there, but too bulky to bring home unfortunately.

On the way there, I met an English woman who had been teaching in Japan for the last 13 years. She said she had finally had enough of Japan and was about to head off to teach in Egypt. I asked her if it is hard to learn the language and she commented that although you can learn the words, the grammar is very different so this makes it difficult. Also the chinese characters take years to learn. I also bought some lovely art from one of the locals in a back street on the way to Kappabashi. I am sure it will cost more to get it framed than I paid for his painting, but it is beautiful.

Walking from the station to the zoo, I went through Ueno park. There is a large parkland here with a big lake. People were hiring boats and sailing on the lake or just sitting around enjoying the peace and quiet in the middle of the city.

Here is a cat watching the giant carp at Ueno park. Seconds later the cat reached down with his paw and poked one of the fish! I wish I had been able to catch that one on film..

I am at Ueno zoo now, on a mission to see pandas. I did find one, but I wasn't the only one - there were crowds of photographers around his cage!

I thought you might enjoy to see the red panda. He obviously isn't as popular as there was no-one at his cage except me. But I thought he was just as cute. Not a great photo though, sorry. He was pacing around in this small pen and doing laps!

Friday During the day, I was back at Ginza, and located the 3 Floor Muji and the 7 Floor sony centre. But a I didn't traipse around too much today, as we had an exciting evening ahead with dinner at the Grand Hyatt hotel.

Here we are dressed up for the evening at the New York Grill bar, on the 52nd level of the Grand Hyatt. When the lift doors open you see the view, and our jaws literally dropped. It really was THE most spectacular view from a restaurant I have ever seen... as far as they eye can see in every direction are the city lights. We were lucky to get a table, it was the fact that P's employer does alot of business with them that did it. It was worth lugging a pair of high heels and an evening dress half way across the world for this..

I just had to take a photo of our meal at this place (the Japanese don't mind this, they are into photos). Here we have steak which cost the equivalent of £40 for $A100. It was extra for the mashed potato!

Saturday

We caught a bullet train (Shinkansen) to Kyoto. This takes about 3 hours. You can't really see from this photo, but the trains are incredibly long. P had to jog for ages to get to the front to take this photo. They are the most comfortable trains, so smooth you don't realise you are going so fast.

By the time we got there it was late, so we went for a walk and found the 5 storey wooden pagoda, apparently the tallest wooden structure in Japan. P took this excellent photo using a tripod.

Sunday
We are up early and caught a train to Arashima, north west of Tokyo. We found a bike hire place and hired some bikes for the day. It was really cheap and made all the difference as we could cover alot of ground around see alot of the area. We got a bit lost and didn't quite see all the things we planned, but as always when you get lost, you discover some things you hadn't planned to see. A cycling pit-stop in the Bamboo Forest.

P tries some traditional japanese food at a restaurant we found along the river.

And the best part of the day - monkeys! We had a steep walk up a mountain to see them, but it was worth it. For 100 yen (about 40p or $A1) you can get some peanuts or fruit to feed them. Although you must feed them through the wire of an enclosure (humans are enclosed) as they can be quite nasty when it comes to food! But if you are not feeding them, you can walk around outside as they run around on the mountain.

Seconds later this innocent-looking fellow was shooed away from the keeper, who claimed 'he is agressive monkey'. There are lots of signs around the place saying 'don't stare at the monkeys'. I wonder what happens if you do!

We went on a walking tour this evening and we have to thank the 0n-line guidebook at Wikipedia for this excellent tip - we found a yummy Thai restaurant. But we did walk for miles before we found it. Walking along the streets I was interested to see that people would have potted plants out the front of their house. In London I imagine these would have been stolen!

Monday

We had to get the Shinkansen back at 2pm so we didn't have a full day. But we worked out we could do a quick trip to the Inari shrine, a couple of stops on the train from Kyoto central. This is an Inari shrine and dedicated to the Japanese Fox Goddess. There were lots of fox colours and ornaments everywhere!

Behind the shrine, and extending up into the hills was this amazing pathway (torii). Each of these red pillars was made out of wood and the pathway and seemed to lead up into the mountain and go on for miles. We walked part of it and could have easily have spent all day there exploring the pathway.

These little cats are for sale all over Japan, and there were lots of them outside this shrine in particular. P can't stand them and neither could I at first. But then I learnt that they are like good luck charms. A raised right paw invites money, a left paw invites friends. I had to buy one as a souvenir. Can you guess which paw I chose?

Next, back in Kyoto, we had time to go to the Kyoto Tower, and see the views across Kyoto before boarding the Shikansen. At the train station I spotted another westerner... it was then that I realised that we had hardly seen any other westerners in Kyoto!

At Tokyo we checked into the 'Tokyo Green Hotel'. Obviously, P's work were no longer paying so we have gone for a budget version, that got good reviews on a TripAdvisor. The hotel was alot more geared for Japanese and was tiny! It made our last hotel in Tokyo, the 'Palace Hotel' really seem like a Palace in comparison. But it was cheap and cheerful and P was very happy he was close to Ikehabar (or geek city) with all the electronic shops!

The sega centre in Akihabara. Participants climb into these pod things and to play the computer games. It looked very popular - all the people sitting in the centre were waiting their turn to play.

Tuesday
Up early and off to Tsjuki fish market. Apparently 1/6 of the fish of the world's fish is handled in this market every day. We really should have been there at 5am to see the tuna sale, but the best we could manage was 7am (and there was enough grumbling from P and me about that!)

When we finally found it, we didn't know how to enter the market. I had read that you could get a sushi breakfast there, and I was expecting it to be reasonably organised with stall etc. But no, there were these little tractor things whizzing around, people around, large knives - all in all a health and safety nightmare! You can see some of the tuna in this photo, towards the back. There was every type of fish imaginable. I was also interested to see that they have wholesale vegetables here too - so all the food for Tokyo seems to arrive at this place every morning (except the meat!)

Next we are at the Edo Tokyo museum and were surprised to find that they offer guided tours in English. Our guide, Yamamoto Ichiro, patiently took P and I around the whole museum for 2 hours and explained the history of Japan from the Edo period to present day Tokyo. It was absolutely fascinating, and I learnt so much. They have real life replicas of kabuki theatres and georgian style 'western' mansions inside this multi-storey museum. Yamamoto said that America was very important to Japan as people were starving after the war and they helped out. That is why Japan really respects USA now and aspires to western things. This is something I am still trying to get my head around. If the US drop a bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and kill more than 100 million people in the process, I just don't understand how they can be friends. It has made me realise I need to learn alot more about America's influence in Japan..

While we were in Japan, US Vice-President Dick Cheney visited and received a warm welcome. The Japanese Defence Minister had in the past made some comments and he was barred from meeting with him, so keen were they to maintain relations. I was amused to see the contrast when Dick Cheney arrived in Australia as he was met by protesters against the war!

After the museum, we caught a train over the Rainbow Bridge. This is a private trainline, and is basically built high in the sky, between buildings and takes you from central Tokyo over to the east to the docks area. This was a truly spectactular trainride, and the buildings seem very futuristic.

We then arrived at a Japense Onsen spa, and spent hours there. This is one of my favourite experiences of the whole holiday. It is an Edo (old style Japanese) themed bathhouse. When you arrive you put all your stuff into a locker and change into a yukata (summer cotton kimono) and they give you a key which you can charge items onto. In the complex they have restaurants, fortune tellers, shops, and areas to sit around and relax and drink green tea. P found the Doctor Fish which are small fish that will nibble the loose flakes of skin off your hands. He made me try it too and it was the most bizarre experience. Of course there is also the indoor and outdoor onsen spa itself which is alot of fun. You have to wash yourself thoroughly with soap and water (and rinse) before entering the onsen. No swimming costumes are allowed, and the only thing you have for modesty is a small towel (there are separate male and female onsens). The water is around 40 degrees and contains lots of minerals that are supposed to be good for the skin. There are also steam rooms and saunas there and I indulged by having a full body seaweed scrub and a shiatsu massage! Ah, bliss. We were there for hours all up before heading for dinner in Rappongi. Rappongi is a more westernised area of Tokyo as there are lots of embassys in the area. There are also more girly bars around this area, geared up for foreign men. We found a good indian restaurant in the area.

Wednesday

We tried to go and see Kabuki at the National Theatre but unfortunately the season had finished. Here we are now at the Imperial Palace Gardens, right in the centre of Tokyo. From the planting that goes on, it looks like this garden would be very colourful in the spring and summer.

In the afternoon, P went camera shopping in Ikehabara and I went back to Ginza to visit Muji and do some pearl shopping. By the way, pearls are not cheap. The most exclusive brand appears to be Mikimoto, and their pearls start at about £750 ($A1600) for a single strand. I did manage to find some for P to buy me for my birthday, but they were from a department store and while genuine, were nowhere near that expensive...!

Thursday

We decided to give up on the self-navigation and take a guided tour on our last full-day in Japan. We are off to Mt Fuji and Hakone.

The tour took us to the second level on the mountain, this is the highest level you can go to during the winter due to the snow. There are two months in summer when you can climb to the top and guide tells us that about 170,000 people do this every year. It is not particulary steep but quite arduous as you have to climb for hours. The experienced climbers leave 3rd level at 1am and then they are at the top for sunrise. Less experienced climbers walk part of the way, then stay at a hotel overnight, then leave at 3am to walk to the summit. The funniest thing is that apparently there is even a coke vending machine on top of Mt Fuji. It costs 500 yen to buy a coke there (about £2 or $A5)

Here is P at 'second level'. The other thing the guide mentioned in the past it was only climbed for spiritual reasons. The notion of climbing a mountain as a sport or for 'fun' was unheard of!

A ride in the cable car over the hot springs. Apparently in high season you have to queue for ages to get on this, but being winter we were able to walk straight on!

Hakone is a resort area and nearly all the hotels in the area have their own onsen spas. The water is syphoned off from the area you can see in this picture. There are hundreds of little pipes to carry the water off.

While there you are also encouraged to purchase these boiled eggs which have been boiled in the springs. They turn black from a reaction with the sulphur in the spring. And they are HOT to hold! The legend has it that eating one egg is supposed to extend your life for 7 years. I ate one and a half so that is an extra 10 and a half years for me!

A long drive back to Tokyo, then dinner at one of the few vegetarian restaurants in London finishes our last day in Japan.

p.s. on the flight home I was lucky enough to be treated to P's business class flight. When the cabin crew on Air France realised that he wanted to swap his Business Class flight for my economy, they said 'He is a gentleman, no?' I couldn't have agreed more! And the flight home almost made up for my horrendous journey there.

Other surprising things we found about Japan

'Western-style' toilets that have a recorded flushing noise and more buttons than you could know what to do with!

Face masks. People wonder why they wear them. Is it for pollution? No, it is actually because they have a cold and they don't want to spread germs. Germs are a big deal in Japan, and the culture seems very geared up to combat it. The woman on the plane actually offered me a face mask to wear when I was sneezing. But how can you wear a face mask when you have torrents of exploding stuff coming out of your nose and you constantly need to blow I ask? They must do alot of sniffing! When I was googling for a picture of the face masks for you I came across a radio interview with my old lecturer David Bromwich at Griffith University who says they don't really do much!

Vending machines that serve hot cans Phil got a fright when he picked up his first can of 'iced coffee'.... it is really really hot! The trick is, we later worked out is that anything that is in the red section is hot, blue for cold. Not really that hard once you know... These vending machines are EVERYWHERE.

Pachinko These places are like the pokie machines in Australia but even more noisy. And there are lots of them.

Begetarian? 'You wouldn't want to be fish in Japan' says P. Or a cow for that matter. In this once vegetarian nation it is now extremely difficult to find a meal without meat or fish. This made things pretty difficult for P as even things that appear vegetarian like miso soup can have fish broth in it. Even I, as a meat eater find some of the cuts and the raw fish unfathomable. We ended up asking the conceirge at the hotel to find us a begetarian (their work for vegetarian) restaurant and they did find us a good one, close by. There are also Italian, Indian and even the odd Thai restaurant around that helped us get by. Most of the japanese restaurants have menus only in Japanese. Harder once outside Tokyo though.