Australia Day

Saturday was Australia Day, basically a big celebration of Australia and it's people .

Hyde Park was filled with people celebrating. They had a show of classic cars, a LOT of food booths, airshows, etc.

Photos here.

Trip to US in August

We are planning a trip to the US and Mexico (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sayulita) for August. We would love to see as many people as possible...
Here are the details.

Bronte Beach

Bronte Beach, just south of Bondi Beach in Sydney's east, is our new favourite beach.

Tiff tried out her new sunnies.

Dive stuff

I picked up our waterproof enclosure for our camera from the post office today. I got the notice for it the Friday before we left, but they were closed by the time I got there :( We'll just have to do more diving I suppose :)


Also, don't believe what it says on stuff that you buy from shops in Thailand. This is my "50m water resistant" watch after going down only 33m. Notice the complete lack of any signs of life on it. *sigh*. Pretty much what I expected I suppose from a 1000 Baht ($33 USD) dive watch purchase.

Thailand Decompression

Today we were ambitious, we put to practice our Thai cooking skills, which turned out to be overall a success.
First we went to the Asian grocery and got supplies (an adventure in of itself).
We made basil and pepper minced chicken, and red curry paste on chicken (all from scratch).
Tiff (not usually into cooking), got into it and cooked the basil chicken herself!




Tiff slicing onions using 2 internet remedies for eye irritation (swim goggles and holding a match in your mouth). It worked, no tears!



Tiff's dish -- minced chicken with basil and chili


Jeff's dish -- red curry paste and chicken

Holiday in Thailand

We spent 12 amazing days on the west coast of Thailand. It's fair to say that we both feel that this was the best vacation we've had. We quickly got to the point where we didn't even know the date or day of the week (a first for Tiff, and a good sign that you've really let go).
We flew directly from Sydney to Phuket (9 hours, not bad ;) We spent our first 2 nights in Patong Beach, Phuket, which is not exactly a relaxing place (it's extremely touristy). There are people everywhere on the street trying to shake your hand and sell you crap you don't need. It's noisy and unpleasant.
This was one of the places that was hit hard by the tsunami, we noticed that most of the beachfront development was new.
We arranged for a mini-bus (basically a craptastic minivan configured to cram 12 people into it) to take us to Krabi (near our next destination, Railay). It arrived nearly 1 hour late and then proceeded to drive around for another 30 min looking for a hotel they couldn't find. After getting on the road, we had to avoid watching through the front window due to the driving.
They have a system of driving that is terrifying to the outsider, but seems to work for them. You can overtake at any time (hills, blind corners, etc), and if there happens to be someone coming the other way they just kinda drive on the shoulder for a while and let you by.
From Krabi we took a longtail boat to Railay (mainland, but not accessible by car).
Railay is the most beautiful place that either of us has been. I (Jeff) was there before in 2001, and could not wait to show it to Tiff.
We met a few cool people there that we kept bumping into (small place). Kendra and Michael from the Gold Coast (AUS), and Chris and Jill and from Cincinnati.
We spent one day taking a Thai cooking class in the morning and then an elephant trek in the afternoon.
The sunsets on Railay East were absolutely stunning. Everyone would gather on the beach to watch it and take photos.
We went to Pranang Beach one day and met a bunch of monkeys that were there stealing food from beachgoers cooling off in the water. Tiff was hungry and bought chicken satay skewers from a beach vendor there. Big mistake... Not recommended.

On 30 Dec we took a massively overcrowded ferry to Koh Phi Phi Don, our next and final destination.
We mainly went there for the diving, which was absolutely amazing. We did 5 dives, including a deep dive (30m, or 90 ft) and a wreck dive (King Cruiser Ferry, crashed for insurance fraud in 1997). At Palong (a sight off of Koh Phi Phi Lei, where they filmed "The Beach"), we saw about 12 black tip reef sharks hanging around for no apparent reason. We saw a Leopard shark and a Cuttlefish on another dive. We got to see a Peacock Mantis Shrimp on one dive, what a strange, yet beautiful creature.

New year's eve was a dive day, and we were extremely tired from it. We napped until 10pm and then dragged ourselves out of bed and down to the Sunflower Bar for NYE celebration, where we met Joanna and Patrick, a lovely French couple on a world tour.
I think we were in bed by 2:30am... we must be getting old ;)

In closing, this trip reminded us of all of the things that we have to be thankful for, but also allowed us to see areas for improvement for a more balanced life in 08.

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and look forward to hearing about your adventures and seeing you soon.

Photos here. Videos here.

Back home safe

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are safely back home now. It was a really amazing trip, very soon we will post a full description with the many many photos and videos that we took.