A Bridge Too Far...

The new leader of the opposition in Aus...John Howard has taken a bridge too far. A bridge too far on industrial relations, a bridge too far when it comes to Iraq, and a bridge too far on climate change by not going far enough across the bridge.
Oh if only Private Eye existed here!

Daylight Saving

Daylight saving has arrived in Perth (on trial for 3 years) so we are now 9 hours different to the UK.
Time will tell whether everyones curtains will fade, the children will be crotchety from going to be in the light (remembering sunset is still around 8pm,)everyone will be exhausted from an extra hour in the day, the skin cancer rate will be even higher as more time in the sun, the road accidents will go up as everyone will have more drinks after work and one of the best reasons against heard... from Bruce Donaldson, Shadow Minister for Fisheries and Opposition Whip, given in parliament:“I have a feeling our major take-away outlets will love daylight saving because mum will say to dad: ‘We’ve had a great time in the park but I didn’t put the chops and potatoes on” Go girls - Oh you lazy Mums, finding better ways to use your time than grilling chops!

Robbie Concert - 30 November 2006

FANTASTIC! With 77 trucks worth of stage and lighting he even beat George Michael. Definitely the liveliest thing to happen in sleepy Perth for a while.

Even better - I got asked for ID to get into a pub beforehand - RESULT! Only 15 years older than the age limit! Who needs botox??

The Zoo...

The amazing tortoise threesome... (gosh, male tortoises are grunters when they are boshing!) Amusingly, 2 muslim girls were hurried along by their Aussie chaperone before she had to explain!

Did you know that frogs have to blink when eating as it's their eyeballs that push the food down their throats!

Red Bull Air Race

www.redbullairrace.com

Excellent hot, sunny day watching the finals of the Red Bull Air Race with around 300,000 others! If you catch it on TV watch out for us waving madly at the cameras walking behind the winners car! Piccies to add soon.

Dame Edna

Getting into the Aussie spirit! A night at the theatre to see Dame Edna perform her 50 year anniversary show.

Ultimate Frisbee...

Watched the finals of "Ultimate" a game played with a frisbee that is a cross between rugby and netball with no referee. Fantastic sport! If you get the chance to watch or play - go for it!

http://www.wucc2006.org/

The glamorous Mrs Gorton...

and Dazza the man with a flat head! Great to catch up with Sonya and Darren, and lovely to be staying in a house for a few days - many thanks guys for your hospitality.

Pink Beach

The gorgeous Bunker Bay, near the Margaret River Wine Valley in the very South West of Aus. Dolphins were hopping in and out of the Indian Ocean behind me, and we saw our first herd of wild kangaroo on the way down. Thanks Jack for recommending this place - it really is amazingly beautiful.

Watch out you Ashes fans...

The new campaign to ensure a pleasant Ashes is to text the names of any rowdies subtly to the marshalls. Good idea. Aussie plain speaking campaign slogan...
"Dob in a yob".

Where the bloody hell are you?

The campaign to attract overseas visitors to Aus - particularly aimed at the Japanese and Brits - isn't working. Slogan - "Where the bloody hell are you?"
Hmmm, what a surpirse!

We thought that staying in Perth the lost in translation stories would be over, but oh no! Ash went to the pharmacy and asked for a sea salt water nasal spray. "No, mate, sorry, don't sell that here" After a bit more questionning they suggested "We've got this saline spray..."

Vodafone instruction manual - "Step 1: Stick the sim card in your phone."

Our new home for a few weeks - East Perth

The view from our balcony...

Arrived in Perth

What a contrast after HK! Sleepyville, but lovely to have fresh air, green scenery and blue sky. (Excuse the reflection, no balcony!)

Disneyland

Ash loved being spun really, really fast in a teacup and didn't feel sick at all. He was also an expert at the Buzz Lightyear shooting ride and Sam didn't beat him, and he thoroughly enjoyed keeping Sam company on the rollercoaster! (Ok, Ok, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit!)

Watching a theatre full of Chinese people all trying to grab the air in the 3D cinema was priceless!

A City of Contrasts...

Caught up with our 3 HK friends - tick, Wireless Internet - tick, laundry - tick, tidying - tick, close veggie/organic/perfect Mantha food restaurant and other eating options found (Krispy Kreme donuts for Ashey, me thinks they maybe the new pizza) - tick, nightlife explored - tick, good gym found - tick, shopping malled out but suitcases now sorted - phew! - tick.

Must be time to finally start site seeing. Went on a Harbour Cruise.

Below are some photos showing "A city of contrasts"...

HAPPY DIWALI

A happy and Prosperous 2063 to all!

Went out for a spicy meal with Raj and a group of his friends - Vietnamese rather than Indian, is that cheating? - and then headed for LFK district. Nice to see so many people out celebrating Diwali!

Hello Foxy!

Picture of us to be added.

More U2...

Caught up with our friend Mikey this evening and then headed to Insomnia, a bar in LKF with live music. A Chinese band was playing U2, surprisingly good but not as good as the Italians.

Came home in the early hours to find Raj in his favourite spot!

Hello Hong Kong!

Woke up (lunchtime - only because we are on UK hours, of course!), booked a flight, called Raj and said we're arriving this evening and he very kindly invited us to stay, 2 hours later at the airport and off to Hong Kong. All a bit of a rush! As it is both Divali and Hari Rai (Muslim end of Ramadan fasting) at the weekend it is a long bank hol in Singapore so all the flights were booked up or way more expensive so we had to make a quick decision so as not to get stuck.

OK, now you can laugh at us escaping a polluted city and heading instead for Hong Kong!

We are on the 31st floor, Penthouse, sweetie. For those of you who know HK we are a couple of streets up from SoHo near the escalator. Very mad being overlooked by literally thousands of windows, even when on the roof terrace - but great if you want to be a nosey parker! Above is the view from the living room, below left from the kitchen, and below right from the dining room.

Just don't look down...

Great to be back??

Bad karma, bad luck, feng shui?? Who knows, but we can take a hint! When pollution levels yesterday are at their highest for 10 years (Indonesian forest fires & SE winds), think permenantly stood by a bonfire, your lips are burning, and the health warnings are to go outside as little as possible, and (the final straw) the very positive newspapers saying expect at least a month of the same, we know that now is not our time! Hitting the road again. Sadly Ashey is not going to be able to celebrate Divali properly. Anyway, onwards and upwards. Likely plan is to go to Hong Kong on Thursday - just confirming flight. From there, who knows? Perth, Bangkok, NZ, South America, back to Singas?? Any offers of a spare room anyone??

Back in Singapore

Nice to be back! (apart from the air quality) Tried apartment on the seventh floor this time but there was traffic noise up this high so we will be moving back down to apartment 2! Hopefully that will be the only move - we made 4 at Hotel 1898 before a happy Ashey :)
Vivo City (artist impression without haze, above) has partially opened and is an amazingly designed shopping mall 2 blocks down with M&S, Top Shop, Gap, Mexx and hundreds of other shops, 2 food courts, a cinema, a big gym overlooking the water, restaurants and a whole new nightclub area. Will be fully opened by 1st Dec. Booked a massage at our favourite Kenko for tomorrow and sorted out a new phone and local sim card each.

Sorry re the attractiveness of the ladies! But you get the idea of the phone size! Amazing new Samsung phones just 6.9mm (less than a 1/3in for you oldies/Americans!) thick but with camera, video camera, internet etc. highly recommend. Definitely 007 worthy. Click for more info

Dragon Fruit are only 12p at the mo - that's my brekkie sorted!

Gas Mask Wanted!

As new condition.

Preferably one owner or less.

Good price paid.

Must be fashionable and originally from a shopping mall.

Ling, eee, arr, san, su...

Amazing what you can learn on a Singapore Airlines flight nowadays! Read a whole book, slept a bit, ate Ash's Indian veggie meal as too much chili for him, watched a lovely sunrise then ...discovered I could start learning Mandarin (or tonnes of other languages)! By the way, 女 Is the sign for ladies toilets - most important! The title is 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 (ish). The following is a useful internet place to start if you are interested... bbc languages website

Flew into Singapore to "it's a bit hazey". Hmmm......

Final Goodbyes in Barcelona

The excellent 1898 night staff plus the lovely pouting Rebecca, our TEFL friend with a very demanding teaching job!!

Segway fun!

http://www.segway.com/

Why are they illegal in the UK? So much fun. You must try if you get the chance. They work totally with your body balance. Excellent way to spend our final 3 hours of "play" before packing, revisiting everywhere we had been. Brilliant to finally catch up with Johnny too, and meet his lovely new girlfriend.

Vix our first UK visitor!

It was lovely to have a couple of visitors on our final day in Barcelona. Number one was Vix, and her friends, on a school trip - her teachers were understandably nervous at letting her go off with such undesirables as us!

Lucky people...well other than the rain!

As we have been Hotel 1898's longest guests they very kindly treated us to a night in their £1000 a night suite, with private pool. Unfortunately we couldn't use it to it's full advantage because of the weather (but as I am writing this retrospectively I can predict the future and say it was wonderfully sunny again on Friday and we kept it until 5pm, to appreciate it)

(left) View up La Rambla.

Last Bar Lobo meal and Patagonia evening...

Did we ever tell you Lobo is Spanish for wolf? Very sad saying goodbye. In an Arnie stylie...We'll be back.

Emiliano is not looking at his best as he turned 28 the previous evening and is still hung over. He is also off to extend the Patagonia ice cream and bar empire in Hungary, Poland and then Shanghai. So hopefully we will meet up with him there in 2007.
The beautiful Patagonia staff - Italiana Stephanie and Venezualan manager Michalengelo + the obviously equally glamorous Ash.