We had been planning to go overseas since forever. Our wedding saw us coordinating through a garden ceremony, 2 dinner receptions at 2 different countries with families flying all over the Indian Ocean. We had exhausted all annual leave for the year, and was forced to postpone our honeymoon to a later date.
We pretty much spent 04 fighting through which country to visit. And finally in January 2005. We decided that we will be off to the Land of the rising Sun, Japan.
It is now only less than a month to go before I set foot on another foreign soil. I can't wait!!
Every year, in February. In celebration of the Australian short film festival, aussie filmmakers together, with some 130,000 people all over Australia gather together to view the work of 16 finalist films selected from over 700 entries in major cities like Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Canberra and Hobart.
This year. It's on the gounds of Sydney Domain.
We were there amongst the crowd with friends camped in the open waiting in anticipation for the films to begin.
Equipped with picnic mats, bread buns, sausage rolls, junk food and beer. We had a great time catching up with friends, and laying out in the sun.
The winner of this year Sony Tropfest is Luke Eve with his film “Australian Summer”.
It features 2 Australian homeless men’s desperate attempt to escape from the harsh reality of their worlds - While warming themselves over a bin of fire. They talked about trips to exotic places. Surfing the beaches of the Gold Coast. Having a time of their lives.
For that short moment, they were healthy young men with not a care in the world. They were not hungry, sad, helplessly trapped in a desolated life.
Reality soon hit cruelly back to them as the fantasy ended. Both men slump back into the torn sofa with one dozing off to sleep with a smile on his face. And the other residing to fate.
I felt the actors were brilliant.
I made a trip to the city to visit a slat wall vendor for my laboratory. My work hardly brings me into the city, so I was quite happy for the change.
As expected, traffic was pretty heavy. I felt so grateful that work is just 20 minutes drive away from home. I could never go back to the frustration and irritation of peak hour traffic. Grr
Met up with Mel for lunch. He brought me to a pub corner of Boardway. Apparently they serve great Thai food there. Yes, you heard me right. A true blue aussie pub that woks up amazing thai cusines. Strange como eh.
I ordered my Pad Thai and happily ate away while watching the busy lunch hour crowd go by.
It’s Chinese New Year. The year of the Rooster.
I always miss home during this time of the year. Celebrations at home would have reached it’s peak.
Mum would have baked her ration of almond nut cookies and pineapple tarts.
Homes would have been be thoroughly spring cleaned. New clothes bought. And stacks of crisp new two dollar bills.
Determined to carry on traditions in my adopted country, a couple of my friends and I got together to plan a festive reunion dinner.
We sent out invitations. Everyone was meant to bring along a special dish. We were to have Lou Hai. I was ecstatic!
Mel made a special trip to Chinatown to get the necessary danglings and plastic fire crackers. It was starting to feel like Chinese New Year.
The party was a hit. Everyone had a good time. We shouted our well wishes while mixing the Lou Hai, and made a huge mess. It was great!
The only thing missing were the red packets. Thank goodness my single friends did not pick that up. Hee….
I had spent the last 3 days attending our yearly sales and marketing business conference. It was at a resort called Raffertys, just 90mins drive north of Sydney located nicely by the serene Lake Macquarie.
Some 8 months ago, I left my world of engineering and entered the fire zone, unpredictable and somewhat infamous world of Sales & Marketing. I seem to be liking it so far. I had just presented my very first sales plan and had managed to hit my very first quarterly quota. So. In a hut shell. I think it's fair to say that I'm doing alright so far.
Besides work, we did the usual "team building" activities over the past 3 days. One of which was sailing. Together with 2 of the more game on board. I took a swim [when we anchored] in the lake after 1hr of breezing in the wind. We found oysters off the rocks by the shore and dodged little harmless jelly fish [one cannot be too careful]. Than I spent the next 5 minutes thinking of the last sighting of sharks [apparently 2 years ago] while desperately trying to keep up swimming back to the boat.
The highlight of the activities was the trivia / treasure hunt. I always enjoy these sort of activities. It brings out the child in anyone.
Teams had to race around the 35 acres resort looking for answers to a never-ending list of questions and performing mini tasks to earn points. My team came up last. I was a little disappointed. I secretly swore to get one of those shinny medal thingy’s next year. *grr*
It is valentine's day. To the delight of my husband [I'm sure], I have never really bought into this "day of professing ones love" celebration. It is just another ploy by those multibillion retail giants to squeeze an extra buck or two from us mere mortals.
I did however caved and bought my cat a gourmet cat feast. He gratefully purred away as I pealed open the simmering gold foil and served up a nice juicy salmon steak. After dinner. He reciprocated by curling up on my lap. Now that's true love..... isn't it??
I am really excited today. My company has just announced the sale of their 50 hectar St Mary's site (to which I work on). And will be relocating everyone to their Pymble site. "yes.... good for you ... and soooooo?? " (yes. I could just hear it.)Well. This insignificant piece of information that has somehow wondered its way into my blog for your reading pleasure is really really MASSIVE news for me. For my overseas readers, St Mary is located about 24km from the city and about 26km away from home. The travel to St Mary is plagued with really bad traffic of big trucks and trailers and has really narrow bendy lanes. A one way trip usually takes me 1 & 1/2 hrs to complete. Plain painful road torture I tell ya. So. This new site that we are moving to is ... *drum roll*..... only 6 km away from home! And travel time is nicely tucked under a quarter of on hour!!!! Yay!That's a massive time save of a good 2 hrs of my life a day!! Which equates to a massive"r" time save of 10hrs a week, and a MASSIVE"r"r" 520hrs a year!!!!!Imagine the things I could do with my new found freedom! More books. New recipes. Maybe gym. More time in the sun. On. Time. Dinners! Ok. I get to go home before The simpsons airs.... woohoo!!I'm SOOooooOOOOooooOOO happy. *wide smile*
