New...

A few new things for me (and the formatting is absolutely garbage!! :( )
New nephew in June.

















New nephew in July.













New nephew in August.

New sister-in-law in September.

New job in January.
New university degree (started) in February.





New bathroom in March (no more pink!) - see pic below of progress...

















Probably new kitchen and new front landscaping (once it's not 35 degrees each day on the weekend anymore) in the next few months.
Bring it on....

Last post was Vietnam and that is light years ago now!
Spent six weeks in Adelaide through August and September last year (after trip to Vietnam). Was usual cold and blustery Adelaide winter. Did get a trip up to the Flinders Ranges one weekend - way too far to go for a weekend, but absolutely spectacular. Glad we were only camping one night because our airbed went completely flat after 10 minutes... The ground was very cold and very hard (even with a flat airbed and the tent floor between us and it!)

Since starting new job in January have spent two and a bit weeks in Singapore, two days in Kuala Lumpur and now currently spending two weeks in Houston (more about Houston later) with a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur on may way home.

Flight to Houston via Singapore and Moscow (from Perth) and apart from being very long (about 31 hours total flying time, in zoo class) it was really interesting. Flew over the north eastern corner of Afghanistan and the mountains, with snow on them, were absolutely stunning. Flying across Uzbekistan and Kasachstan also beautiful - pretty much total snow cover all the way to Moscow. Was -4C in Moscow, and although I stayed inside the airport, the walk up the non-airconditioned aero-bridge from the plane was very nippy, particularly around my ankles. From Moscow we flew west over Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Greenland then across the North Atlantic to Canada. A lot of the way was cloudy, but over Hudson Bay in Canada - WOW! - the ice sheets were just starting to melt and move and the dark blue water showing between the sheets of glaringly white ice was spectacular. Steward on the plane kept asking me to close the window blind because people were sleeping, but I have to look out the window when there is stuff to see!

Now, Houston... My impressions of Houston (and may apply to the USA more generally). If ever there was an example of extreme capitalism, this place has to be it! Massive 14 lane highways (seven lanes in each direction) with six lane feeder roads along each side. About 20% of the cars (perhaps more) are those massive American 'trucks' like the F250 and even F350s (which I have never seen before). The ads on TV say that the F250 averages about 20mpg highway driving. Very obvious that fuel is too cheap here - it's about $3.50 per gallon (about 3.8 litres). At home we are currently paying about $1.50 per litre so just more than half.

Population of the city about 2.5million and the local county (containing Houston) has a population about 4.1million. The public transport system consists of buses (and there are lots of bus routes), but no one uses them. Took particular notice on my way home yesterday afternoon and the five buses that I saw had about ten passengers in total. Everyone else drives, hence the need for the largest roadways I have ever seen. Bigger than Europe and Australia.

Everything is throw away and hugely over-packaged! Breakfast at the hotel is served on plastic (picnic) plates, the cutlery is plastic and so are the coffee and juice cups. There are individual yoghurt and milk containers. Can't even begin to imagine how that is justifiable! It really makes me see how any little thing I could possibly do to help the environment would be immediately undone by all the CO2 and waste just pouring out of this place!

Anyway for now (again) that's all folks....

Ho Chi Minh City

I am on the final night of two weeks in Ho Chi Minh City. I love this place for it's dirtiness, noise and 'ordered' chaos. Where do all the bikes come from - I am convinced there is a factory somewhere that spits them out in vast quantities on major roadways and at major intersections.
My first week was a work week where I stayed in a five star hotel, got waited on hand and foot, and trudged off every morning to an airconditioned office. I had to cross two major roads to get there and that was at least hair-raising! I have never seen so many small motorbikes, cheek by jowl, 10 wide and 10 deep - and there's me trying to cross the road between them all without getting flattened.
The second week started when I finished work about lunch time on Saturday and Simon arrived.
For the first time in my life I did a tour - ouch! It made me feel like an old lady. We were herded onto a bus, driven along merrily to our stop, hunted out of the bus to gawk at the poor hapless 'peasants' making / doing something and get hassled to buy things, and then repeat! There were a few variations - herded onto a boat instead of a bus, for example. We saw 'traditional' coconut candy being made, 'traditional' rice noodle manufacture, listened to 'traditional' music and singing, visited a minority village (the Cham people), visited a fish farm and an orchard, and all where the people were paid between 25,000 and 30,000 Vietnam Dong per day (about AUD $1.75 to $2.00 at current exchange rate) - so they don't quite fit the definition of living in absolute poverty.
It is sad to see the large number of small children selling things and working with their parents rather than going to school. We visited the Cai Rang floating market on a Monday and almost all the boats from the rural areas had small children on them who should have been at school. Makes the difference between the haves and have nots here seem all the more stark, because the have nots don't even have a basic education - and so continues the vicious cycle.
No photos yet - have no way to download them off the camera - so they'll come later.

I just bought an iPhone (yes I have become one of the millions that have joined the bandwagon) and am playing with it. It is a pretty thing - and hopefully I will use all the fancy stuff at some point to make it worthwhile. Wouldn't have bought it if I wasn't at the point of upgrading my phone and if it had been more expensive then... no way!

Most of the 'apps' everyone raves about are garbage, but there are some useful things. Will be using the grammar ones for my weekly English tutoring with my student. My grammar is useless and I am learning as fast as I can so I can help her with her questions....

Wasted all afternoon on it, but...

Alsa have a fabulous 'in town' style vegie patch that is about 1m wide and 1.5m long. It is in the front yard because we don't get enough sun in the back yard. Put one compost bin full of beautiful compost in the patch to give the sand some substance and nutrition. Planted red cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and some Chinese broccoli. They are absolutely thriving - no grubs and one broccoli is starting to set a head already! About a million (slight exaggeration) tomatoes and capsicums have come up as well (compost surprise!). Have pulled most of them out, but left some growing at one end of the patch where I put some stakes for them to grow up. Not expecting any tomatoes until late in the spring, but hopefully I can keep them alive through winter and they'll produce late in the spring. Am so pleased with my little patch :)

My Silver Princess's also have three buds each! They are such beautiful little trees and starting to bend over in their usual habit already. I have some pics of the bark which is absolutely beautiful - see right.

Nothing else for the moment.

Just stuff...

No photos this time, just some stuff...
Off to Adelaide tomorrow for a bit of R&R (need it already and it's only the middle of Feb!)
Planning on a good food and wine weekend - how can one help it when we are staying at Normanville on the edge of McLaren Vale. Also catching up with the parents who are finally on their way to Perth (it's only taken them 5 years to finally come and visit).
Will upload more pics in the near future. Have just about finished making my series of panoramas from our last two trips down south (over the past two Christmases - 2008 and 2009) and also our trip out through what's called the Granite Belt over the October long weekend in 2009.
The Granite Belt is full of fabulous granite rock structures that just stick up out of the flat, salty and essentailly treeless wheat belt that cuts a big swathe through the inland parts of WA (before you get to the gold mines)!
The southern coast between Albany and Esperance is one of the wildest and most beautiful places in the world. Full of untouched beaches, beautiful rugged coastlines and national parks. In so many places (except the caravan parks, which were busting at the seams) we were the only people as far as we could see. The heathy scrubland that is the Cape Arid and Cape Le Grande National Parks is amazing. Not a tree to be seen (just like the wheatbelt) but with much more soul and variation and character (of course) and for a totally different reason... Designed and built by nature instead of ploughs and massive combine harvesters / headers.
The south western forests have to be seen to be believed. There is one spot along Caves Road south of Margaret River where the road rounds a bend to the left and the view is just too amazing not to stop and stare for a good long while. The beautiful karri forest is so stunning and no photograph, or series of photographs, can ever really show the colours and the huge gentleness of the long straight trunks. Trees are the most beautiful things in the world and every time is see big old grand ones, I can help but think how wise they must be, all the change they have seen and heard and felt.
Anyway, enough ramblings. The next series of photos will punctuate this few paragraphs.
xx

2009 Number 2

Hmmm... always seem to have an issue with the 'add pictures' button operating as the save button instead of letting me add pictures - GRRRR!!! Might have send a note to Mr Google and ask why his blogspot hates me so much!

What a boring post this will be with no pics.

Simon and I bought a townhouse (investment) together a couple of weeks ago. Not built yet and probably not finished until middle of next year. It is a nice little place though.

Going home in October for the Gibson family reunion and for the 125th Anniversary of Pearces Creek Public School. Really looking forward to catching up with old school friends and family I haven't seen for yonks.

Will try blogspot again another day and see if it will let me add pictures, and in the mean time I will just be cross....

xx

2009 - First update

Hi folks,
What I've been up to -

• researching my family tree
• finishing of my master's degree (got a high distinction for m research project which was nice)
  
• having holidays to Esperance and the south coast of WA
• spending a week at my parent's place for the wedding of one of my sisters (wedding didn't go for a week!)
• sorting out my thousands of photos from all my 2008 trips and wanderings
• ......
  

Will have some photos of our Europe trip (June and July 2008) one day - when they are finally all sorted out, labelled, stitched together, touched up and generally suitable for public consumption....

Avon Valley National Park

Some photos from a recent trip to the Avon Valley National Park about 40km inland from Perth. Wild flower season (Spring) at the moment and the place was absolutely beautiful.

This is the flower from some plant I have no idea what it is - very pretty though.

A few rusty things attached to a rusting thing! Not idea what it was in its past life, but the rusty stuff was cool.

This is the leaf (one of three) from a very small plant which grows low to the ground. Amazing that the little plant even survives in the rocky, non-water holding ground it grows in.

Absolutely LOVE gum nuts and will never have enough photos of them!

And a new kangaroo paw - not fully out yet, but very beautiful none the less.

A frond (maybe the right word). Beautiful (said that a lot of times)!

More flowers - this is some type of ground cover plant. Very cool.

This is the sap from an eucalypt - very dark red (looks like blood).

Some beautiful bark from gum trees.