Enough fireworks to sink a ship!

Simon and I flew to Thailand for New Years with my parents and nine days of fun before Simon returned home to Aus - I'm staying on until the end of January when I will return to move house and fly up for Camille's wedding.

First, we were off to the salon for Simon to have his first manicure and pedicure, hehe! His face said it all....

He escaped unscathed (well,... reasonably, his toes may say otherwise).







But I think his stance by the pool later sums up the Thailand experience!











We had a feast at one of Mum and Dad's favourite restaurants in Pattaya, Cabbages and Condoms - yes, a strange name, but let me explain before you draw any conclusions!

The Resort and Restaurant were started to provide a funding source for a local NGO who has been extremely active in the community, particularly in the area of AIDS awareness and prevention - more info here, they have done some pretty amazing work.

Thus, when you walk from the carpark to the restaurant you come across information about the schools that have been set up, a shop that sells community work and two pathways, a 'capitalist' and a 'communist' walk. Along the walks, you cross over creeks where you can 'feed the politicians' (read into that everything you wish), and signs like this one:

You walk past lawned areas where pet rabbits (especially large white ones) nibble at the grass and as you head into the restaurant, you pass a pile of free condoms, and mannequins that are dressed in condoms of assorted colours - even one named Tiger Woods - the Nike slogan was used to advantage here!

But away from all that - the food is amazing (just ask Simon about their lemongrass and chilli steamed fish, or their Mango and Coconut sticky rice!), the view is incredible (you are seated on decking out over the water - Mum loves booking 'treetops', which is a level of decking constructed around a large tree, with a lovely view) and at the end of the day, you are supporting a great cause - awesome all round!

My parent's apartment overlooks Pattaya (Pat-i-ya) Bay and the area where all of the local celebrations happen is about 500m away on the water - in the lead up to New Years, this area became a bustling market with five stages set up, 15 utes with speaker systems hooked up to power and fireworks set up to explode over the 'PATTAYA city' sign (in mock HOLLYWOOD design!). This sign is on the hill just below the apartment, so the fireworks were exploding literally in front of our noses - just incredible. Earplugs went in as the soundwaves reverberated through our bodies!

Fireworks went off every night in the week leading up to New Years (each a pretty impressive display - the concerts were good too, we missed Bob Sinclair by a night on arrival) and were amazing on New Years night - there were fireworks in front of us, fireworks of each of the major resorts and across the entire view of the bay - a sight to behold! Fireworks and cocktails (the pureed lychee and cointreau was a great combo!) were a great way to experience New Years! Earlier in the night Simon and I had walked around the market/concert area - it was pretty hectic, but good to see - we were happy to be back up in the apartment rather than waiting down there for 5 hours squished in with the crowd!

While our time in Thailand was filled with many activities (courtesy of Dad's inclination for 'doing stuff'!),  I'll detail a few things:

For Simon's birthday I took him off to Koh Samet, an island a few hours drive from Pattaya, we lunched on the rock-side restaurant (while dodging the crabs crawling out under the table to nibble our feet!), enjoyed the view from our little cabin and relaxed on the beach. Lovely!

A nice view, huh?!

Lunching on the rocks

Heading in to the beach

Grand Palace

Simon dragged me to sightsee Bangkok for the day – we caught a bus in, train-ed to the river and cruised up to tour the Grand Palace and then went off to Jim Thompson house.

Grand Palace

Jim Thompson house - all made from Teak

After Simon left Thailand work-bound, I stayed on with Mum and Dad until almost the end of January.

An almost white Christmas in Seoul

Simon and I flew over to Seoul a week before Christmas, to catch up with the lovely Kerrie and Pierre.

Many, many photos were taken (encouraged by the new camera Kerrie asked us to procure from Melbourne for her), which makes for hard decisions on my part as to which to include here!

We had a great time sightseeing around Seoul, with Kerrie and Pierre organising an itinerary that was full of varying activities, sights and cultural experiences.

We went to the National Museum to see a display of traditional and contemporary Korean dancing that was organised especially for foreigners.

The display took a turn to become a 'workshop' with the choreographer grappling with us foreigners to convey grace, poise and delicate but deliberate movements

The photo of Simon and Pierre says it all, its just a pity we didn't capture the audio - the singing they had to accompany their graceful moves with is sorely missing here!





Coffee shops and Korean sweets were an absolute treat - especially the enormous range of options at 'Kim's Club' (think DJ's food court, but three times the size). Coffee Buns were Simon's fav!



This photo was taken in a French patisserie, with macaroons in a display cabinet and specialty chocolates displayed like a jeweller dresses up their wares!

There were visits to Seoul’s huge markets where we stocked up on western cooking goods and had a squiz at the fabric market, check out the range of this store!

Pierre took us up to Seoul Tower for a fantastic view of the city, you really get a taste of just how large Seoul is, it sprawls across hills as far as the eye can see (or as far as my eye could see on the mildly smoggy day we encountered!).

Simon got very excited on our walk down the mountain when he passed a bus hooked up to an electric charging station and had an animated hand gesture conversation with the driver who spoke little English but got the gist of Simon’s thumbs up!

As well as the amazing restaurants we went to, Kerrie cooked us delicious Korean dishes – yum! Korean food is a new favourite of mine, particularly dolsot bibimbap - a rice, meat, veggies and egg dish placed on a very hot stone boal, you mix and cook the egg using the stone's heat, while the rice goes crispy against the bowl - it is high on my all time food favourites!

For Christmas we were joined by Simon's friends Lachlan and Emma, who are currently living and teaching in Japan. We had lots of fun exchanging amusing gifts such as couples rugs, finger twister and mickey mouse underwear to name a few!

Simon got into the Christmas spirit, making a swag of gingerbread stars and piling them into a gingerbread Christmas centerpiece, which we dribbled with melted chocolate and covered with icing 'snow' - it didn't last past Christmas night!

Kerrie cooked up a storm, with a banquet of Christmas food and even a flaming Christmas pudding!


There was lots of sightseeing around the city centre and it sure was chilly! We were pretty lucky with the weather, instead of the -20'C that hit Seoul the week after we left, we had about 4'C to -10'C or so - still enough for thermals, scarfs, beanies and feet and hand warming packs!

Oh, and there was snow! It snowed the day after Christmas, and was incredibly pretty - but slippery for those of us (*cough* Simon *cough*) who had worn out his soles and had to hang on to others walking down the street!

After Christmas, Kerrie and Pierre had lined up shows and tours for us! There was the B-boys whose energy was incredible, a cultural food tour of seoul and a Cooking with Nanta show - lots of fun!

Guys making strings of sugar/honey and
filling them with peanuts - all with a
performance and characters to boot!

Enjoying traditional tea in a cute tea room complete
with free-flying finches flying overhead and cats
licking their lips outside the window!

One of our tour stops was a traditional
korean lunch, with many dishes,
lots of chilli and new tastes!

Pots of kim-chi stored outside the
lunch restaurant to escape their
permeating smell!

A dried mushroom store - on our food tour

Outside our last bar stop - Korean wine with mugwort
It looked very murky, but was yum!

 There's so much that I could have included here - Simon's tanty during family Scrabble(!), further food experiences, visiting the running club, braving the cold of walking along the river at -10'C and hearing Lachlan and Emma's Japanese stories.

It was an unforgettable 9 days - Thanks Kerrie and Pierre :)

^Photos courtesy of Kerrie's new SLR and Lachlan and Emma - thanks guys!

Graduation!

It's all done.... six years of sweat and tears (but mainly tears at times!) culminated in my graduation in December 2010. 

I wore my white law sash - (for my Chem Eng buddies, I did have the yellow Eng sash for some shots ...... but for those with an arts/eng double degree, did you wear your arts sash?!!)

No, it was more that I knew I was getting my law degree but wasn't sure if student admin had put my eng through, so I didn't want to wear a sash of a degree I wasn't receiving on the day - semantics!

But I did get both degrees - certificates in hand, good bye Uni of Melb.....

Hello!

So I'm doing the ubiquitous thing and starting a blog to capture and share moments of 2011 with you all. 

I can't promise avid entertainment, but it should be enough to give you an idea of what I have been up to. 

My travels won't be done in 80 days, instead, the plan for 2010-2011 is as follows:

• Dec 2010: Finish university (woo hoo! six years of my double degree completed), graduation certificates in hand. Fly to Seoul, South Korea for Christmas with the Matthee's ...... Brrrrrr it was chilly in the snow!
• Jan 2011: New Years watching the fireworks with my parents and Simon in Pattaya, Thailand. Relaxation and planning of the year ahead. 
• Feb 2011: Back to Aus for Camille and Tom's wedding in Pt Macquarie. Moving from Rankins to Pt Melbourne with Simon and some work here and there. 
• April 2011: Off to Europe for two months
• June 2011: Back to Melbourne 
• July 2011: Off to Thailand again for travels through South East Asia!
• August 2011: Two weeks in China with Simon
• September 2011: Back to Aus for cousins' weddings
• November 2011: Off to Thailand for more South East Asia travels!
• Christmas 2011: To be decided!

That's the rough plan anyhow!