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Yesterday I attended the very cool, interesting and loving wedding of Ian and Jessi. Ian works with P and I had fun getting to know some of P’s colleagues better on my own. If we had attended as a couple I think I would only have had eyes for my husband (and rightly so!).
They married on the beach and we had the reception at the rainforest room in the zoo, eating with lush plants and some animals around us. There were some very cute tiny monkeys. I think they were macaques (but I’m no expert). Unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get a good photo from behind thick glass.
The La Mirada film festival opened this week. I missed out last year, and as a fluent Spanish speaker, I like watching Spanish films and keeping up my langauge skills as much as possible. This year, I emailed C & M so we could go watch a movie or two together.
We passed on Thieves, as it was opening night and tickets were a horrifying $45 each! We ended up choosing Death of a Cyclist and I bought our tickets the same day. Funny enough, I ended up winning tickets to Thieves and the opening night gala the next day!
I’d never been to a premiere before. It was quite exciting, with paparazzi and beautiful people working the room. Other than waiting 1 hour for invited VIPs to show up, and the cost, it was quite enjoyable. Best of all was the jamon iberico.. yum!!
The next day, we met C & M for Death of a Cyclist. The film has been hailed as a masterpiece:
photo via The Criterion CollectionSpanish cinema under Franco was a stifled and sterile industry, kept under strict government control. Bardem, the film’s director, was one of the few brave filmmakers to question the psychological and political oppression of the day and deal with the realities of contemporary life.
When watching a “foreign language” film, I’m always fascinated at what amuses the native speakers vs. the non-native speakers. I remember laughing inanely to The World’s Fastest Indian in Mexico City while the Mexicans were silent. Something is always lost in translation. This film was the same, and it was a privilege sitting with C & M and getting a unique perspective from them, even though we were sushed very loudly by the person sitting in front of us! C’s stories of his family during in Franco’s era deepened my understanding of the film, which I’d found merely good (rather than great) at first glimpse. Unlike many others, I didn’t mind the ending too much.
After a very yummy dinner with C & M’s friends at Chocolate Buddha, we walked 30mins back to the car. The irony is that the car was parked further away than home, thanks to the bloody footy and rugby games nearby. Thankfully it was a beautiful night, and a very pleasant walk back.
Sometimes I love living in Melbourne!
This is a continuation of our NZ trip in December 2007. For previous posts about the trip check out the December archive.
I swam with dolphins in New Zealand!! Yayyy.
I had booked a dolphin swim with Dolphin Encounter. It cost $150NZ BUT if you are lazy or disorganised like me and book LESS than a week ahead, you will have to swim at the ungodly hour of 5.30 am!! Thankfully, it’s also the best time for dolphin spotting: there’s less wind + the water is calmer = less seasickness & more dolphins. And believe me, you wake up very fast when you hit the cold water!
I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I’d heard complaints of seasickness and very little time on the water, it wasn’t worth the price, etc. from other travellers, but for me, it was a dream come true and I just had to pray for a calm, beautiful day. I was so excited I only got about 2 hours sleep, and I kept waking up because I was so worried I would sleep through my alarm.
There was a large bus-load of people swimming, and we all had to queue up for our gear: they supply a thick full-length wetsuit, a head cover thing, fins, mask & snorkel. The company was very well-equipped and made sure everyone’s stuff fit well and was comfortable. Then it was off to a state-of the art auditorium for a safety video before we hopped onto a bus. It was a short drive to another part of the bay where 3 boats awaited to take us out. A smooth, half hour ride later, they spotted the dolphins!
We were in luck!
There was a large pod of about 300 dolphins frolicking, flipping and fornicating (YES!!) right in front of me. It was 50mins of pure mammal bliss! These gorgeous, graceful creatures were a joy to hang out with.
I drained both my rechargable batteries trying to capture their exuberance but I didn’t do it justice. Hey, at least I tried!
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| Kaikoura dolphins photo album |
The rest of our trip went too fast, including a trip to KL, meeting more people and eating more food. I wish we’d had more time to meet more people (there are only 3 meals a day, and not enough time in between). If we’d made arrangements but never ended up meeting, I’m sorry, we’ll have to catch up on my next trip home (or you can fly here for a visit).
Here are some highlights.
More food (of course!) This time it’s P’s favourite food, murtabak.
This is what it looks like close up:
It’s a fried Indian pancake/bread filled with yummy marinated mutton or chicken, served with a small dish of spicy curry. Traditionally it’s breakfast food. This sounds awful to the uninitiated, but honestly, it tastes fabulous. Just don’t eat it every morning, you might get a heart attack. We reckon since we only get to eat it about once a year, we can overindulge.
We also had a very very cool time dragonboating with S (and a rowdy bunch of Aussie expats). I was dragged into it whining loudly, because S & P said “it would be FUN!!”, but ended up having a great time. I was sore for days, but I can’t wait to do it again. I’m still kicking myself because we have a waterproof camera I didn’t take a single photo. My excuse is that I was too busy paddling, and I had to pull my own weight on the boat or risk getting thrown overboard. Oh well, we’ll just have to do it again.
That same evening we had a huge meal at T’s with some of my friends from secondary /high school. Thank goodness because after the workout I was starving hungry. I stuffed my face (of course).
I’m proud to say I’ve been friends with these guys for more than 15 years!
Then we were taken by A. to Samy’s Curry Restaurant (review) where we had Fish Head Curry (recipe).
Trust me, it tastes so much better than it looks. Just be thankful I didn’t take a photo like this one.
Of course, I spent lots of time with my little niece. Mum looks after her on weekdays so I got to see her quite a bit. Here are some of her antics.
They’re all a bit blurry because babies don’t understand the idea of “keep still” and I didn’t want to startle her with the flash of the camera.
And of course, here’s a photo from her birthday.
We also met up with a colleague from Mexico, who absolutely loved the food (of course) at People’s Park, in Chinatown, which is getting more and more touristy by the minute. Fortunately it still has some of the best places to eat in Singapore.
If you’re visiting (or living in) Singapore, check out this fantastic article on local food.
I also spent a fun evening with my ex-boss eating yet more hawker food, and walking by the river.
We flew home from Changi Airport’s new Terminal 3, after a yummy breakky at the staff canteen in T1. If you really want to go there, drag your luggage down the stairs behind the Burger King (map) and you should see it. Or ask anyone who works there.
The departure area of T3 has more shopping than I can handle (remarkable, really). And the women’s toilets are divine (and free)! It’s not one of the best airports in the world for nothing.
And here’s me in the powder room.
We were also lucky enough to fly back to Melbourne on a brand new plane. Look at the giant (for economy class) screen!
You can edit Word documents (very painfully) with the keyboard.
Goodbye Singapore, hello Melbourne!
We have an Olympus 725 that we bought in Singapore less than a year ago and have take lots of cool shots with. I still wish I’d found it before we went kayaking in Baja California, it would have been excellent to get some underwater photos…
Anyhow, today we got a brand new Olympus 790 thanks to my cat Oscar, who batted our old Olympus off the mantelpiece straight onto some tile. The LCD went white, even though the rest of the camera worked just perfectly. It is drop-proof up to 1.5m and the mantelpiece is about 1.2m, so we sent it in for repairs under warranty. After being repaired, it was sent back to us but the courier lost the camera! As a result, we have a brand spanking new camera!!! Olympus asked us to pick a colour: so we picked orange, but the warehouse only had black or silver ones and we decided on black but they sent us a silver one instead! I know I should be happy but I’m still dreaming about my bright orange camera…
First Impressions: The software, LCD screen and image quality is better, but the camera doesn’t feel as well-made. The buttons are plasticky even though they work well. The interface is better though, and there are some very cool tools to help casual photographers take better photos, like the face recognition technology (even works on cats) and this cool grid that splits the screen up into 9 squares so you can follow, or play with, the rule of thirds. Very cool!
I’ve only had the camera for about 2 hours now, so stay tuned for updates.. I start work again tomorrow so we’ll see when I can find time to play around with it.
