Last week, Oli, a whole bunch of ex-pats and I went to see Billy Elliot the Musical - which was FANTASTIC. Bizarrely, although we have already seen it, the premiere was this week as Elton John was in town - he did the music.




As Tor who organised the night for us had bought the tickets months ago, we were about five rows from the front - thankfully there was not repeat of what happened at Swan Lake - sweat being thrown off the lead dancer!

In case, you don't know the story, it is set during the miners' strike, hence the Maggie Thatcher songs. As it is set around Newcastle, there were translations in the program for those that didn't understand the accents and slang.

I know it is only showing in London and Sydney, and then eventually New York, but if you get the chance, you should definitely go - I am thinking of going again.

On Sunday (25th Nov) we, and about 50,000 other Sydneysiders, went into the city to watch the inaugural Sydney Christmas Parade.

About 60 floats, marching bands, groups and Miss Teen Australia all walked past as we waved and sang along (although Christmas carols about snow in 30 degree heat is not right!)


It all ended with the main event . . . SANTA!!!

Although we don't live in Glebe, we still visited the Glebe Street Fair again this year - although with our weekly visit to our local market, the Glebe Fair wasn't quite as impressive as it was last year.

A couple of highlights were the man cutting silhouettes in two minutes with practically one cut


and the petting zoo

This month, ironically, I "ran" the JPMorgan Corporate Challenge - 5.6km round Centineial Park.



As ever, Jenny persuaded me to enter the race with her so Jen, Suong (new chick from my team - I love her - she does all my expenses for me!!) and I represented our department. As none of us had done any training - although Jen does a lot more exercise than me (not difficult, some would say) - we were not expecting great times.

So 47 minutes after the starting horn, I crossed the line - as someone so kindly pointed out, at least I have a good time to improve from for next year!!  Jen did it in 28 minutes  - not bad as the winning woman's time was  21 minutes. The winning man's time was 16 minutes!!! I suspect a ringer.

On Saturday, after getting my learner rider's licence on Thursday, we bought my new scooter!! It is much fun - it is a Yamaha Vino 125.

Instead of spending the best part of an hour on the bus to and from work, I can now do the same journey in twenty minutes. Once Adam starts school, and Emily will hopefully get into the new nursery that is opening next door to Adam's school, then I can leave work at 5.30 and pick them both up by 6.

In NSW, you cant just jump on a scooter and ride away, they treat scooters the same as motorbikes, which meant that I had to go to two 3-hour pre-learner lessons where a very nice man taught me how to ride - for the first two hours we didn't even get on the bikes/scooters - I had my scooter lesson with four guys learning to ride proper bikes - none of those nasty gears for me! After the lessons (one guy had to leave the class on the first day as he was dangerous - he had to go to remedial class!) I then had to do a driver knowledge test  - 45 multiple choice questions on general road safety as well as some bike-specific topics. The test was not difficult but of the 30 road safety questions asked, you are only allowed to get one wrong otherwise you fail - seriously, the questions were not difficult 'when you are drunk, should you drive?' - okay, I might have made that one up!!

I now have my L-plates and have to keep them for at least three months, then I need to do a Motorcycle Operators Safety Test - a practical - before my Ls run out (they last for 12 months). I will then have my Ps for a year - only after all that will I have a full licence and be allowed to go over 80 kph. Even after all that, I will NOT be doing what some scooter riders do in Sydney - drive round in shorts and t-shirts - I will have my "bike" jacket on at all times!!!!

It was nearly a month ago now, but I thought I would blog it anyway. On the 13th October, my office's annual ball was held at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. The day started early as the ball started at 6.30 and we hosted pre-ball cocktails at 5. Added to that, a few of the girls from my team were having a dress and make-up related crisis so they came round early to get ready.



I had a crisis at about 2pm when I realised the hairstyle the hairdresser had done would not tolerate the tie-on mask that I had bought - before you could say Blue Peter, with the help of one of Adam's pencils, some ribbon and super-glue, I had converted it into a mask on a stick.



Me, Suong and John
Taryn, Carly and Jenny


The ball was Italian themed so throughout the meal three "waiters" kept us entertained with opera and fake accents. The meal was great but very randomly, unless you were a vegetable, you had no choice as to the food - they alternated the chicken and the beef round the table so there was some horse-trading going on.



As there was no ceilidh dancing - quite odd, what do you do at a ball apart from a Gay Gordon? - we went straight into the disco combined with slagging off other people's outfits - I ended up wearing an outfit decided on at the last moment - I was early for my hair appointment so stopped at a "vintage" shop and bought a fab sparkly top to go with a skirt I already had, but had lent to someone else - luckily she had also borrowed a dress from another work-mate. The only problem with my late-choice outfit was that I couldn't wear my super-high heels so my plan to be not so small next to Jenny, failed!

There was more entertainment throughout the evening - a roving magician and a photo-booth!

 me, Taryn and Carly pulling faces

After the ball, some of us headed to a club on Oxford Street to meet up with Jade, who just happens to be Jenny's flatmate and our babysitter. As it was Jade's birthday she couldn't babysit for us, so Colin didn't go to the ball - which actually worked out well as this was right in the middle of Emily's unwellness.

After a beverage or two too many, we all eventually headed back to Jade and Jenny's to end what had been a very good night - but what didn't end up being a very good Sunday for me!!

The season of fancy dress has come and gone. Leigh and I went out at the weekend to a party dressed as a vampire and a priest.  We joined a Traffic light, cheerleader, several pirates, a mummy, Shrek and several other at a flat in Manly.

Great spot on the 9th floor right on the beach with a view over the water. Was a fun party with everyone dressed up. The flat was decorated with spiders webs and bloodied fingers and ears.

The kids had a party too at nursery and as you can see Spiderman and the Cinderella made quite an impression at the bus stop and walking up George street. Adam asked me, "why is everyone looking at me". We walked in to nursery to a chorus of "look its spiderman" this made Adam very excited and he turned and ran off to play.

The evening was a bit of a let down. After stopping and buying a ton of lollies, (sweets), we only had a single visitor. Leigh and I made up for it by devouring them all ourselves

We went to the Motor Show a couple of weeks ago. It is the first event that has come round a second time and it really sunk home that we have been here over a year.

Not sure if it was as good this year or just because we had been before. Will still fun although I think we because we went on the last weekend it was especially busy and the kids were not at there best.

Didnt take as many photos, but still managed to get the obligatory Ferrari and  of course a Lotus for Dave.

Emily had a lot of fun jumping  in and out of cars and UTEs.

The first commercial flight for the A380 flies into Sydney Airport in about 45mins. It is, weather permitting, going to fly past my office. Will keep an eye out.

 

Well, much excitement in my predominantly female team at work as the annual social club ball is in a couple of weeks and this year is a masquerade event. We have been suitably distracted by deciding what type (with a stick or tie-on), colour, etc.

Before the ball, we are hosting a cocktail party - partly because Colin is not going (couldn't get a babysitter) and partly as the kids will find it very amusing.

We are moved, and now are back online.

The move went very well - with only 5kms to travel the movers (or removalists as the Australians call them) did two quick loads rather than one big move which meant we were in our new house by (late) lunchtime. Adam and Emily were in nursery so we managed to get plenty unpacked although Adam was very disappointed he wasn't there to show the men where to put the boxes.

On Saturday morning we took a walk to the local organic farmers market - it runs every Saturday morning in the grounds of Adam's new school - we have decided we are going to turn into hippies and shop there every week! We did originally go to see the Shetland ponies that they have to ride at the market but with the equine flu thing going on here, no horses are allowed to move.

After getting the TV and Internet connected this week, we are now fully moved in - although we have the obligatory couple of boxes that refuse to unpack themselves - we are struggling to find places for all our pictures as the new place doesn't have a picture rail and the "stickers" we use cant be used above beds (I guess in case they fall off!!)

Yesterday, we went and registered Adam at his new school (as well as celebrating Colin's birthday) and then explored our new area a little more. We are really close to Balmain and there are lots of really nice shops and restaurants on Darling St - we are looking forward to trying them all out.

After a fairly dull start to APEC, today was a bit more interesting - yesterday has some extra excitement when a fighter jet flew over the city - I was not that moved but a few girls in the office got excited - they obviously haven't spent much time on the Mull of Kintyre! Also, an email made its way around Sydney with pictures of snipers:



The other top story was that a girl in the office where this photo was taken held up a sign with her number on it and one of the snipers called her - I don't believe it but it is entertaining none the less.

Anyhoo, this morning I arrived at work to see a group of about 20 people standing outside the office (it has to be said, most of them were from my department) and apparently George was on his way. So we all had much fun standing around and getting excited anytime the police (of which there were loads) moved. After a while they stopped all traffic on our road and the cross-roads and a series of small motorcades came through - most of them with two police cars and two dignitary's cars. A little later (was not feeling in the mood for work having left the office at 10.30 the previous night) some police bikes pulled up and we saw the start of George's motorcade - a whole load of police cars, two limos, what seemed like 20 other cars, an ambulance and one massive 4x4 that one guy claimed had the nuclear "football" (he had obviously been watching too many films). Much excitement for a Thursday morning.



(orange building on the left is new Amex building, the next building is mine, then there is George and his friends, then the curved stone building is Moretons - a pub we go to when we are too unimaginative to think of going anywhere else)

Later we watched (what we think) was George's boat motorcade going to Darling Harbour - big cruiser boat, a couple of rubber boats, the police on jet skis and a few other police boats.

Final adventure for the day was the sad accountants in my office staging a mock anti-globalisation demo:


You can tell I work in the technical department!! (their signs are against International accounting standards- I know, how sad)

Adam and Emily were also most entertained seeing the riot police out - we saw about 10 riot squad cars and water canon on Monday - today we saw three riot buses. It is all very entertaining and slightly distracting from the fact we move house in a week! I have tomorrow (Friday) off work as it is an APEC holiday - but only in some parts of the city - all of the city centre but not all of greater Sydney - so there will be much throwing of things in boxes.

Not wanting to be smug or anything, but today is the last day of winter and we had a quick drink after work sitting in a beer garden enjoying the 20+ degree heat!!

It has been a while but on the 12th I took part in the City 2 Surf along with four workmates - only Jenny decided to run as she is a whole lot fitter than the rest of us - Carly didn't even own a pair of trainers. We met, along with about 64,000 other people in the city at 8am -the race was due to start at 9am but we wanted to get a good position - Karen didn't want to get stuck behind all the Mums and prams!! The best bit was that the weather was brilliant - the City 2 Surf effect apparently - it is always a glorious day - I had to put my factor 30 on. After the elite runners took off and after the "fun runners" (don't know how much fun it is running 14km) we were allowed to go - as we had registered so late we had to go in the "back of the pack" group. We started 20 minutes after the elite runners who finish around the 40 minute mark meaning they were half way there before we had even started!!

The gun sounded and we walked round the corner to the top of the hill that marked the start and looked out on a sea of people - it was a pretty amazing site.




Along the way we were entertained by various sites - bands playing at the side of the road, people dressed up, people dressed down


and some beautiful houses - City 2 Surf takes a route through some of Eastern suburbs which are some of the nicest places to live in Sydney - water views and only about 10 minutes to the city!


After three hours - less 20 minutes for our start time and about 30 minutes for a loo stop - we arrived into Bondi and the motivation we had to keep going . . . the corporate tents with food, drink, entertainment and masseuses!!

Colin and the kids had been at Bondi for a while and were enjoying the sand. We decided to stay at the beach for a while as the buses to get back into the city were chock-a block. Adam really enjoyed playing in the surf but Emily wasn't so pleased and she kept running away



It was a really fun day and the walk wasn't too bad - Heartbreak hill was quite bad - like Rottenrow in Glasgow at parts but not so bad - Colin thinks that we might all do the run next year!

In September the APEC leaders are meeting in Sydney and is a right royal pain. Today we had a evacuation drill  . . . I am on the 13th floor  . . . so we walked down 13 floors (I had forgotten we were having the drill so happened to have my highest heels on) went outside and turned round and went back in again!

It has also meant more CCTV cameras and loud speaker systems going up in the city - apparently the city is going to be surrounded by a ring of concrete!! We have also been issued with a booklet to help us plan for emergencies - although this is not specific to APEC.

The only good thing has been that we get an extra public holiday of APEC week and there are huge holiday promotions going on for residents basically telling us to get out of the city!!

This weekend is City 2 Surf - 14km run/walk from the city to Bondi beach and guess what? . . .  I have agreed to do it. Along with 4 others from work I will be walking (Jenny has a great idea to run it but that is not happening)
all the way to the beach including Heartbreak Hill that is shockingly steep at the halfway point. Click here for the route.

After it will be relaxing in the corporate tent!!

So... got into the lift to head down to get my lunch with another eleven people (including a pregnant chick) and guess what... it gets stuck!!! It took five minutes for someone to answer the emergency call and then they told us it would be another five minutes until they could tell us when the engineer would be available... eventually, 45 minutes later they managed to prize the doors open and we had to jump down about three feet to get to the ground floor. FUN!!

Nine foot bi-fold doors covering two walls
High ceilinged lounge area
Air vents (ie holes in walls)
Wooden and tiled floors - feels like ice in the middle of the night
Single glazing
Air conditioning  - it blows "warm" air that only seems to heat our walk in wardrobe - being the smallest room in the house

Can you tell I am not enjoying the cold  - but at least it is not just me - apparently it is the coldest in 21 years

Next weekend we are going, with some of the ex-pats, whale watching. Instead of going on the usual big boat, we are going on a yacht - we weren't sure whether to go until we found out we can tie the kids to the boat - well not literally but there are safety lines.

On Saturday morning, Shruti and I hit the shops - after our cooked breakfast - you selected what you wanted, handed it to the chef and he barbequed/cooked it in front of you. We also visited the temple - see photos - and Shruti attempted to explain it all to me - it is not quite her religion but similar. After we did our best to buy every souvenir in Nadi, we headed back to the hotel before heading out for a tour of some of the islands (we didn't think we would manage all 330!)

The bus picked us up and then went to pick up other guests so we had a fun game of "how the other half live" - the bus went to the resort/port of Denarau and stopped at the Hilton, Radisson, Sheraton, Westin and Sofitel - although I checked our the prices when I got home and they are not as expensive as they look - but then palm trees and sunshine make everything seem nice.

The boat took us on a tour of several of the local islands - mainly to pick up and drop off people at the resorts. It was great fun to watch as a small boat would come out to our boat and take the people back to the island. It was also fun to play spot the Brits - the ones with sunburn.

After the trip (and a huge delay getting back to the hotel) we had dinner in the hotel as they were having a Meke - a traditional Fijian dance - then men's version is similar to the Haka - and a BBQ of sorts - select all your veg and meat, choose your sauce and they cook it for you.

Sunday morning was just the flight home - not too delayed and great service - I was in seat 1A - right at the pointy end but not first class.

It is now nearly the end of my trip to Fiji - although I still have a full day of tourist activities on Saturday in Nadi (rather bizarrely, pronounced Nandi).

The training has gone really well - nice small class and they are all very diligent and keen - I haven't once had to shout at them for being mouthy or rude. They are also very competitive - we run various activities where their teams get points and they are all super keen to get even more - it also means we can deduct points for lateness, etc, so they all rush back into the training rooms after the breaks to make sure no points get deducted!! It has also been very nice as the whole week has been catered (we don't have the budget for such luxuries in Sydney).

The best bit is that the partner wants us to come out again in September to run the next lot of courses - but then again he hasn't received our invoice yet!!

I am now in Fiji after leaving Sydney Saturday lunchtime. The trip did not start well as when we went to get into the car, it wouldn't start - the battery was totally dead. I ended up getting a taxi to the airport and Colin got to know our neighbour Mike who jumped started the car.

The flight to Nadi was pretty good - sitting at the pointy end of the 'plane - it was nice not to have to try to sleep on the flight, just enjoy the service!! Unfortunatley, our flight was delayed (I am travelling with Shruit who will lead one of the other training courses whilst I present mine) about an hour which was a bit of a worry as our connecting flight to Suva was due to leave about five minutes after we landed. Thankfully the incoming flight was also delayed so we ended up having plenty of time - including time to argue with the Customs official that no we did not need to pay duty on our training materials. The flight down to Suva was nice and short - 30 mins - by the time we got up, it was just about time to land.

Suva airport was a glorified shed so we easily got our luggage (they did have a carousel but we all stood and watched them unload the plane and then drive it over to us - had a small hear-attack when I couldnt see my bag (it is bright pink and flowery so not difficult to spot) but then realised there was another hold to unload.

The drive to our hotel took about 35 minutes and we had four police checks to drive through on the way – quite unsettling. Haven’t seen very much of Fiji – all the resorts are at the other side of the island – so what we have seen is pretty poor and run down.

The hotel is not the best in the world – all a bit dingy and in need of a renovation – the pool and the view are good though and everyone seems very friendly.

Have spent today (Sunday) trying to read through all the material I am meant to be presenting this week – I have got as far as Tuesday! – so there will be lots of late nights for me.

I was down in Melbourne again - for even less time this trip - I flew down Monday morning (7am- urg) and then flew home on Tuesday evening. We had our annual strategy conference where we try and decide what we are going to do all year and how we are going to manage it. There was, of course, the obligatory team meal but this time with entertainment. . .  It was one of those murder mystery nights, the MC was a "policeman" who was there to interrogate different groups  accused of the murder - bikers (my table), cowboys, dodgy businessmen (how appropriate as it contained our big boss), the village people, hippies and party people. So with the help of some costumes (black t-shirt, bandanna, sunnies and skull and cross bones necklace for my table) we had to get into character - I was Ripper!! It was very funny (also much funnier after several glasses of wine!)

Colin and I went to see the fantabulous Priscilla on Friday night. Colin had bought the tickets to celebrate our wedding anniversary but we had to reschedule when he had to go to Hong Kong.

It was a brilliant show with amazing costumes and one fabulous prop . . . the bus (Priscilla!). It follows the same story line as the film but is a musical using lots of disco classics, and John Denver!

It is a real shame it is finishing in September (it is being replaced by Miss Saigon).

This is me as a Priscilla cast member!!!

We have been back a couple of weeks and the weather is awful. The headlines this morning were "30 year storm". 8 people have died.



Last weekend though we made it out to the Powerhouse Museum. The kids had lots of fun. There is a "zoe's house", where they have a kids building site. They can build walls and windows using play bricks. Also have winches and wheel barrows.

Next day, we headed to the Koala Sanctuary. It is not as well presented as the zoo, and could do with an injection of cash, but you get much much closer to the animals. Being able to stroke the Koalas and hand feed the kangaroos was amazing. The Koalas are very woolly, but we were warned that they will scratch your eyes out if they get annoyed too much. The ones there are hand reared and so are very tame.

We have also been to see Sherk the Third at the cinema. Adam loved it, Emily went to the toilet 6 times, (we are toilet training, JOY!, at the moment), and ran up and down the aisle.

I am now participating in the Global Corporate Challenge - with a team of people from my department, we have to "walk" around the world - I track the number of steps I take every day with a pedometer, enter the info onto the website and it tells me where I am.

We are meant to walk at least 10,000 steps a day (approx. 6 km) but as it is about 9,000 steps from our house to nursery and then to my office, I think I will manage the steps most days.

I was in Melbourne this week and just outside the office was Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Chanel, and others. Unfortunately for me (but fortunately for Colin), I worked late on Thursday thinking I would have time to do a bit of late night shopping... Melbourne has late night shopping on a Friday!

My flying visit was good but hopefully next time I go, I will see more than airport, hotel and office.

I am just back from Hong Kong. It is quite a place. My first experience of Asia and it made quite an impression.

You are instantly struck by the built up nature of the center of Hong Kong. Most cities have there tall buildings, but HK how no buildings less than about 20 stories and it is so condensed. The sky scrapers are about 20 feet from each other. You are also struck by the extremes of rich and poor, you have people selling clothes for peanuts in the side streets of Gucci and Prada. Also you just look up and see how dilapidated the place is.

I got there on the Thursday night and we walked off the plane about midnight and got through customs and onto the airport express. Very handy and took us (when I say us, I mean me and my colleague Stuart, who lived in HK for 3 years) straight to  the CBD. (Central Business District)  A quick walk and we were at the hotel. You can walk around lots of HK via raised walkways which connect the the first floor of the buildings. They stay open 24 hours so that you can use the walkways. They are needed because of the monsoons that Hk gets, otherwise you would be soaked. Fortunately it stayed dry for the entire trip.

Arrived at the hotel and a nice little porter showed me to my room. Having just stayed that the Savoy, I was getting used to nice hotels, but this was even better. It had jsut be refurbed a couple of months ago and everything was shiny and new. For example I had a 40 inch Samsung HD Plasma TV hanging on the wall of the room. It also had another small LCD in the rotating mirror in the bathroom. I had bath and separate shower with twin heads. The room also had 3 telephones, disturbingly one beside the toilet. All the toiletries were made by Hermes!  Funny enough some found their way into my suitcase.

After some sleep I had to unfortunately get up for work. I had a meeting that was due to last from 8am -> 6pm. Stuart took me out for some lunch to a place he swears serve the best local noodles. We eventually found the place, but not before we passed the markets selling live fish and bits of unrefrigerated meat. Anyway after queuing to get into the noodle bar, I ordered some beef noodles. I think I managed about half a noddle and a small bit of meat. I say meat as I have no idea what type it was. I started to have flashbacks to the dodgy markets and just couldn't eat another piece. Luckily for me on the way back we passed a Pret A Manger and I had a nice Brie and Tomato bagette. Much more to the liking of my sensitive Scottish palette.

My work went on until about 8pm when we headed off for some dinner at the hotel. I really nice buffet with all sorts of tasty stuff.

Saturday started with another 8am meeting which dragged on until 6:30pm. The meeting was catered and so I was good. We then headed for dinner to a posh Chinese restaurant. We were served about a 10 course banquette. Some was tasty and some, Jelly Fish for example, was not my favourite.

Saturday after dinner, Alison and myself got a taxi up to Victoria Peak. Hong Kong is built on the side of a hill so you can climb to the top and view all the buildings. Quite a spectacular view when all the smog and cloud clears. I think there are only around 3 clear sky days a year when you can actually see anything. You can get your picture taken there in front of the view and then they photoshop you on a better background.

Sunday was a day of shopping for guilt presents. Got lots of kids clothes. T-shirts for about 35 HK dollars. About 2 pounds 50. I got a ferry over to the other side and had a great view of the city. I also visited a tailor and got a couple of pairs of trousers made. They are shipping them over to Sydney. Takes about 3 days. Cost me about 30 pounds for a pair of trousers and 20 pounds for a shirt. The strangest thing about Sunday is that all the maids get the day off and spend it sitting on the pavements playing cards and swapping photos. There are so many of them they close off streets so they have enough space. Very weird.

The rest of the day I dossed about the hotel and the markets before getting on the night flight back to Sydney.

I now have the split times for the triathlon:

swim 7 mins 20 secs
cycle 26 mins
run 19 mins 17 secs

I am super pleased with my times especially as I didn't do as much training as I should have.

Today was triathlon day and I did it!!

The day started shockingly early as we had to all be there with our bikes and equipment for 6.30 am.  So after picking Jen up, we headed to Domain along with 4,500 other triathletes (or try-athletes) in all our corporate coloured glory.  Because of the number of people competing the race started in five minute increments from 7.30 am til 10.40... guess what time we had... 10.25. So after getting our bike and run stuff all set up, Jen and I had close to three hours to hang around for our start.



We watched the swim leg for a while and started setting ourselves some (basic) goals:

1. not need rescued in the harbour - one guy swimming in the first leg needed helped along by the lifesavers, who by the way were from Bondi beach - I only know this as we have been watching Bondi Rescue and I recognised one of the lifesavers
2. not be over-taken by people start in the next wave
3. not fall off our bikes
4. finish

After wandering around and drinking a bit too much coffee, we met Colin who arrived with some essential supplies for Jen - she had forgotten her running shorts and her goggles.

We eventually made our way to the swim start and jumped into the harbour, which was cold but not unbearable. After what seemed an age, our swim leg started and it was absolute chaos - legs and arms everywhere. After a little bit it calmed down and I was able to get a relatively good rhythm going for the 400 metres - well the 325 metres, the last 75 metres were also chaotic as everyone tried to go round the buoy at one time. After that it was out the water and a run/jog/stagger up a hill to the bike compound -



A bit of planning might have come in handy as trying to remember where your bike was amongst 4,500 others was a little tricky!!



The bike run was not too bad - a couple of short but steep hills but also a couple of pretty nice downhills. As the cycle leg was two laps, there was a pretty nasty sharp turn. Devastatingly, just as I was coming down a hill and had some good speed going to take me up the next hill, my shoelace came undone and I had to stop and then peddle from a standing start up a hill - urg. After that, it was back to the monster bike compound and more confusion as to where to put my bike.



Then it was up a few steps with seriously wobbly bike-legs and on to the 4km run. I power walked quite a bit of this leg and managed to finish in a fairly respectable time of about 52 minutes. Respectable for me but nowhere near the guy who came in first .... he did it in 25 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am really pleased that I did it as I can add it to my list of random things I have done here - run across the Harbour Bridge and now swim in the harbour.

(not suffering too badly now but I think I may hurt tomorrow!)

Last Sunday we went to the Sydney Easter Show which, just like the Royal Highland Show has all the animals on show but here, as with most things, they like to do it to a bigger scale.

We arrived at about 9.30 am at Olympic Park and parked really easily - a brilliant bit of planning on the part of the Olympic Park people meant that there were next to no queues and you could pay when you arrived so no need to queue to leave at the end of the day. Once we got inside the exhibition space, we decided to ignore all the carnival rides and head straight tot eh animals - goats first and then on to see some cows. We can now add cows to the list of things that scare Emily nearly to tears (along with Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny!!!) although, to be fair, I don't think I would have liked an animal about 10 times bigger than me moo-ing in my ear! After a quick pit stop for pancakes we went to see some of the millions of horses - again not Emily's favourite but Adam liked watching the dressage for a while.

After horses, it was on to dogs for the agility show. Both Adam and Emily loved seeing the dogs run, jump, etc. Once we had had enough of dogs, it was on to Colin's favourite bit of the show... the wood chop. It was amazing to see the men shimmy up the "trees" and then chop the top off in under 5 minutes especially when the announcer told us that one of the competitors was 64!! Adam has decided that he wants to do wood chop when he is older.



We watched some of the show-jumping finals whilst we had lunch and then wandered round some of the non-animal exhibitions. We then discovered a new phenomenon... show bags. Show bags sell for anything from $3 to $25 and contain toys, dress up items, chocolate, etc. The idea is that you are getting a bargain (not convinced of that one) but Adam wanted a Power Rangers one and Emily had a Fifi (and the flower-tots bag). They even had grown up versions. Apparently they are the most popular bits of the show and some people queue for hours to get them (weird!).



After more exploring we found the pony-rides - Adam wanted to go on a horse from the minute he saw one when we arrived. I bought the ticket for the pony-ride fully expecting that I would have to ask for my money back as Adam is quite good at changing his mind about these sorts of things... I was proved wrong when, without a backward glance to us, he went with the handler and sat on the pony with the biggest grin on his face.



We then watched more horse action with the "tent-pegging" competition - four riders spear bits of cardboard with various implements whilst galloping along - quite fun but not sure why. After that we had a lovely dinner in a proper restaurant - one of my new favourite (but not slimming) foods - spicy potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili dip - soooo tasty.

Unfortunately, not long after dinner, the rain started and there was chaos as everyone tried to find a (dry) seat in the stadium in preparation for the evening's show. We had brought two huge umbrellas so found a relatively dry spot and set up camp. Thankfully the rain stopped really quickly so we settled in for the Rodeo - Australia v USA. It was really good fun with bare back steer riding, a couple races and then the bull riding - only for the really brave or really stupid.


 
After the rodeo the rain came on again which meant that all the ramps that had been set up for the motor-cross jumps were too slippy for them to do anything so headed home... 12 hours after we arrived!! It was a great day and, unsurprisingly both Adam and Emily were sound asleep by the time we got home (cunningly we had changed them into pjs at the show!)

I am heading to Hong Kong on a business trip. I will be leaving on the 18th and getting back on the 21st. It is a very quick visit, but hope to take my camera and come back with some cool photos.

I am staying in the most swanky hotel ever, Mandarin Oriental. May even be better than the Savoy in London which was well over priced. My junior suite would have cost 580 pounds per night. My collegue made a 3 minute call to Australia and it cost 34 pounds!

I had a very quick 5 day trip to the UK. 3 days in Glasgow and 2 in London.

It was lovely to see everyone and catch up. Good to have some nice "Scottish" food. Beer stew and Indian Kashmiri Korma were the highlights. It was also strange to see snow and actually feel cold. I had to search for my jumper and jacket which honestly had dust on them!

Still a bit jet lagged I flew down to Londinium and stayed at the Savoy. I got a free upgrade when I arrived. Very nice. A junior suite overlooking the Thames and London Eye. Complete with Savoy slippers and robes. Had lots of posh shampoo and girly things that just happened to fall into my suitcase.