We're off tomorrow to go to Thailand until Jan 4th. We're both really excited about it. I've been before but this is Tiff's first time.
We're going to Phuket, Railay, and Ko Phi Phi (this is the area that they filmed "The Beach" at). We'll be sunning, diving, and doing some rock climbing in Tonsai.
We picked up Loki last Wednesday night, and after a couple of rough separated days, the boys are now best buddies.
Some pics are here
We just got back from Port Douglas (tropical north Queensland). We had an amazing time -- did some scuba on the barrier reef, a crocodile river cruise (saw 2 small crocs), had some good beach time, a wildlife park, and generally just relaxed. Can't believe that all of that is only 3 hours away :)
It was stinger (box jellyfish == potentially lethal) season there, so you could only swim within the netted area, but that worked out fine.
The diving on the reef was really nice. We saw 2 white tip reef sharks, some really amazing fish and some giant clams.
The photoset is here.
It's been a while since our last post because we've been extremely busy. We are all moved into our new apartment now, and very happy about it. We're not quite ready to post photos of it yet, though, as we still have some setting up to do :)
Last Saturday Tiff got her scuba dive certification! She is now officially an Open Water Diver! Just in time for our trip next week to Port Douglas (barrier reef) in tropical Queensland (the deep north).
Tiff's mum, Mary, arrived on Sunday and will be going with us to Port Douglas as part of her 2 week stay here. We'll be sure to post a lot of photos from there.
It's spring in Sydney, and that mean get ready for Christmas (so weird for us), and get ready for the Melbourne Cup (horse racing).
Ducks in Victoria Park
Victoria Park
University of Sydney
University of Sydney
Broadway Shopping Centre, Christmas Time!
Tiff with the Fascinator (the "hat") and Thor
I was in LA all last week working from the Evite office. It was good to see the people I knew again and meet the new people.
I got to catch up with a few friends there as well.
Photoset is here.
I had no trouble getting back into "LA mode". Have to say I don't miss the traffic :)
Had a burger craving today, so I went to Burgerfuel in Newtown. It's one of the only places I have found that doesn't mix in chopped onions with the meat. Being an onion hater, I find that to be repulsive.
Mostly just playing with the new camera, really :)
This is Thor, a marbled bengal which will be our latest addition to the family. We will be able to pick him on Oct 28th. He'll be Loki's big brother once we get them together.
Tiff got her first tattoo today. It turned out quite nice. Very fitting :)
We spent the day buying furniture for our new place... If someone had told me 10 years ago that I would really enjoy shopping for furniture when I was this age, I would have never believed them. Go figure :)
We have finished negotiations on the Surry Hills place! To refresh your memory, it's the first place listed in this posting.
Today we're out looking at furniture and such for it, so it's finally starting to sink in :)
We should be able to move in near the end of the month.
Woohoo!
Last night we went to the Roof Bar (such an inspired name) which is at the top of the Skygarden shopping centre in CBD.
Very nice day to be outside in the evening, although it was scorching during the day (it got up to 34 C, or 93 F for those of you on antiquated measurement systems ;) yes i will be making that joke every time in case you were wondering.
It's beach weather again! Monday was Labour day here, so we celebrated and went to the beach with the rest of the entire city it seems like :)
We have a deposit down on Loki, a spring '07 model spotted bengal kitten that will be ours at the end of November. He was born at the beginning of this month. We're still looking for a marble bengal as well, to be named Thor (Loki is the Norse god of mischief, and Thor, his brother, is the god of Thunder).
Until we get him, the breeder has agreed to send us pictures of his development:
We desperately need to get out of Sydney, so we hired a convertible and drove up the coast.
We started out in Kings Cross in Sydney (the car hire place) and went up to The Entrance (little beach town) where we had lunch.
We then continued up the coast to Newcastle.
Along the way, we stopped at the Australian Reptile Park.
We stayed the night in Newcastle and we're heading back today to Sydney to our friend's place to have a bbq.
Here's the photoset (we lost our real camera so it's phone photos). Oh well we need a new camera anyway.
We were pre-approved for the mortgage on Friday, so we went out Saturday looking at some open houses.
The first place was very small and expensive, the second place was much larger but would need LOTS of work to be what we wanted, and we agreed that we're not ready to take on a project at this point. We've been waiting for like 3 years to get a place and we just want to be in something and comfortable without constant work being done on it.
The third place we looked at we absolutely fell in love with. It's a 1 bedroom, but it's fairly spacious for a Surry Hills apartment (it's generally a pricey neighbourhood because of it's close in location).
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The building is brand new, designed by Turner + Associates, who are apparently award-winning architects. You can tell when you see it, the building and the apartment are stunning.
Here's the whole photoset
We're meeting with our mortgage broker this week, and after that the hunt is on! We had to wait a bit so I could be officially employed by Ticketmaster Australia (this is a sister company to Evite). I'm still working for Evite, but they are routing the money thru TM AU so that I can get a loan easier. Pretty nice of them actually.
We're looking in Darlinghurst, East Sydney, and Surry Hills (all are fairly close to downtown, or as we call it CBD).
Here's an artist's rendition of what we might look like in our new place:
Notice the 2 kittens. We are in talks now with Bengal breeders, the new models are coming out in September and we're gonna get us a couple of them :)
We ran the City2Surf race yesterday. It's a 14km foot race from Hyde Park (downtown) to Bondi Beach in the east. There were 60,000+ people in this year's race. We signed up late so we got put in the "Back of the Pack" which is for slower people, so we did more walking than running (too crowded to get thru all the walkers), but it was still a blast!
There are a lot of photos, so I'm just posting link to them: click here to see the rest on flickr
Video of our triumphant finish:
We took a sushi class with some friends (Ian, Liz and Nick). Liz and Nick are from Colorado -- Nick is from Berthoud which is about 5 mi from Loveland where I grew up (small world). We met them thru Terrence and Ian (pictured), who are friends of ours from San Francisco that live here now.
It was really amazing although we are still trying to figure out how to get the fish smell off of our hands :)
We went out shopping around the CBD (downtown) today, then hung out in Hyde Park for a bit
I love trains :) This is the city circle line that takes us right to the park :)
This is a gigantic chess board that's in the park.
The lovely Tiffy.
