Malaysia

Well, what can I write about Malaysia that people haven't heard before? A land where lane markings on the road are merely a suggestion, a country which allows U-turns on highways, a government who introduced the $1 coin to replace the $1 note, only to reverse their decision a few years later reverting back to the old note. A place where blue skies are a rarity, and food is unbelievably cheap and abundant :)

The trip was predominantly family oriented, and not quite a holiday in the traditional sense. The majority of the time was spent with grandparents who are now nearing the end of their journey.

I visited the CSC office in the Maybank Menara building in KL. Unlike our Perth office, they have hardly any expats, all locals except for 2 aussies. It was good to hear that they experience the same challenges as we do in the Perth office, it would be interesting to manage a project in this environment.

The week passed by rather quickly, and thankfully we didn't have to commute down to Malacca as dad's mum came up to KL while we were in town. Despite food being ridiculously cheap, I didn't gorge myself at meal time (didn't put on any weight :) as I knew the next meal would only be a few hours away, I wanted room to try as many different types as possible. My discovery for this trip was mangosteen, and for those of you have never tried it before, it is fantastic! It's available here at selected markets for $14.95 a kilo, back in Malaysia, we were able to get 3 kilos for RM$5, which is about AU$1.74, which makes it less than AU$0.60 a kilo . . . yes, only 25 times more expensive :) Needless to say, this was one of the few fruits I ate in abundance during my trip! Other interesting fruits were the dragon fruit, and fresh longans (yes, the ones we normally eat from a can!).

What I found most interesting is that none of my relatives were particularly concerned about getting speeding fines of any sorts. Not that they drove around like madmen (arguable, in the aussie sense of driving), but apparently, unlike here (in Australia) where if you don't pay your fine before the due date, further penalties apply, but there (in Malaysia), your fines are halved! If you wait even longer, the King's pardon comes about every so many years, and so you don't have to pay a single cent! I'm sure there is some cultural significance in all of this, and since my polluted western thinking would be unable to grasp the underlying concept, why any country would want to do this, I don't know. If anyone would care to enlighten me, I am all ears . . .

The view from the back of my grandma's place:
Shopping was kept to a minimum, spending only 2 of 7 days walking through Mid Valley Mega Mall, Sungei Wang and Low Yat for electronic gadgets. Malaysians seem to really big in adding the words 'Mega' and 'Cyber' into the names of places around town.


The trip was well timed, with my grandfather passing on less than a fortnight after I left. Mum & dad were still in Malaysia when it occurred, so were able to stay on for the funeral. It's a little sad to know the he has passed on, but at least he was in his home surrounded by the people who he loves.

30th video

My dear brother has kindly posted some of the video footage from my 30th on YouTube.







enjoy!

Have since returned from Malaysia, will update soon!

off to Malaysia

off to Malaysia tomorrow for a week to spend time with my parents and all of my relatives. I haven't been back to Malaysia since February 2002!

Looking forward to all the great cheap food, although I doubt that I will do much shopping on this trip. Not much to pack, so suitcase will have plenty of capacity just in case :) Hopefully I will not return back to Perth too round :)

Have scheduled to visit the CSC KL office (Maybank) to have a look around. Odd, it can be easily located through Google Earth, but not through Google Maps. There may be opportunities in the future to run Malaysian projects (or Singaporean, HK) from the Perth office, or I might do a few month secondment over here just for the experience. Either way, work figured it would be a good opportunity to visit the branch and see how projects are managed in asia.

Will write more once I get back . . .

Swan Valley

In our continual bid to discover more of WA, Swan Valley was next on our list of places to visit. Better still, we had an offer of a driver (thanks Kendrick) and local guide (thanks Jeremy) to show us around on our day trip to the local wine region . . .

. . .less than an hour away, we all packed into Kendrick's Golf to make our first stop at the Sandalford vineyard to begin our day. An interesting winery with the main entrance to the tasting bar/cellar door at the side of the building. Although technically charging for tastings, our first 5 were free, so we had a sip but didn't find much to our liking. Lancaster was our next stop, a small boutique outfit which does not compete on the commercial market by only distributing from a tin shed. Literally a tin shed. The wine there was served with a selection of local gourmet cheese and crackers. They had a few interesting wines there, so we picked up a few bottles before moving on to Elmar's for lunch . . .

. . . a German restaurant, I was looking forward to finding a wide selection of kransky's for us to choose from. Not to be the case. Their claim to fame was a micro glass brewery used for their beer production. Unsure of what to select from their menu, we decided to share a tasting platter and some deep fried camembert to begin our meal. The description of their pork shank sounded quite enticing, so 2 of us decided to order them for our mains. There was no warning, or indication of size given on the menu for so we assumed it would be enough for one. We were wrong. Very wrong. The pork shank turned out be big enough to feed at least 2 or 3 people with left overs, and we had ordered 2 of them! So after carving off as much as possible to distribute to the others who had also ordered their own mains, we tried to work out what we could possibly do with all this left over meat. It seemed like such a waste to just leave it behind. So, falling back on our asian heritage, we decided to take it with us to make peas and ham soup for our entree at tonight's dinner!

Our next stop after our rather filling lunch was at a honey farm we passed earlier. Perhaps a generous title for this domestic operation, with just a friendly couple selling a number of different honeys out of their garage. With free tastings (no double dipping!) most of us decided on the Jarrah honey as the proprietor assured us that due to it's fructose(?) structure, it would not crystalize! Seeing oranges for sale, we picked up a crate of washington navel oranges weighing an outlandish 16 kilos for just $12, inspiring us (Jeremy) to envision crêpes suzette for tonight's dessert! The menu is growing!

The Black Swan Winery was nothing to write home about, although the open fire did give it a cozy feeling. Our final winery for the day however, Houghton's, had plenty to talk about. It does not seem possible to go out to eat or travel through Perth with Jeremy and/or Kendrick (especially Kendrick :) without bumping into somebody that they know. This time, it was much to our advantage as the lady on the other side of the counter was more than willing to lead us through the entire range from dry whites all the way through to the sweet sticky ports at the end. Better still, when we came to purchase, she gave us what must have been staff discount. Had we known she was going to be so generous, we could have bought a few more bottles, but probably better we limit our purchases as the boot of the Golf was quickly filling up from all of our stops.

No trip to the Swan Valley is complete without visiting the Margaret River Chocolate Factory to get our free samples! Perhaps a little misleading, the samples were limited to only chocolate buttons from their white, milk and dark chocolate stock. Armed with tissue in hand, we all had our fill of free chocolate, it was hard to believe how many people filled the store. Although the weather has been less than ideal, it's as if the entire Swan Valley is here with hardly any elbow room to move about.

Heading back to Perth, we stopped by one of those trucks which seemed to be scattered around Perth selling cheap frozen seafood to pick up our ingredients for tonight's dinner. Our original plans were to eat out, but Jeremy figured it would be just as easy to cook, and just as easy to invite over another 11 people to join us. So picking up more ingredients from the local supermarket and a bottle of Grand Marnier, we set about preparing for the evening meal at Kendrick's place under direction from head chef Tan.

The peas and ham soup was an outstanding success, followed by an angel hair marinara complete with mussels and finished off with crêpes suzette. Our guests brought along salad, cheese and fries to accompany our meal. There was plenty of wine and an eclectic mix of wine glasses from Kendrick's numerous wedding bonbonniere gifts to drink from!

It has been a fantastic day out. Unfortunately no photos to share as it was rather wet and overcast. So close to Perth, a great place to visit!

Kalbarri!

Given the success of our first trip to Rottnest Island last month, we decided to make plans to visit more of WA. Kalbarri was chosen thanks to a double page photo from 'Natures Window' in the 'Perth Insight City Guide' both Nic & I owned.

The long 6 hour drive up to Kalbarri well out of reach of most radio stations proved an opportune time to use the iPod wirelessly with the FM transceiver to deliver us with an eclectic mix of music for our enjoyment. A shame that the iPod battery of course doesn't last that long, so we had to resolve to old fashioned CDs for the last stretch of the journey there :)

Our accommodation moved up a notch from the luxuriously converted army barracks of Rottnest Island to camping in tents! Although warm on the first night due to the cloud cover (which soon turned to rain), the subsequent nights got colder and colder. My new sleeping bag and mat proved up to the task keeping me toasty warm and giving me a good sleep on all 3 nights. Many of the people at the caravan park appeared to be permanent residents, with some of the travellers towing their caravans from as far away as Victoria. We were, by quite a margin, amongst the youngest there.

With the rain brought about millions of newly hatched flies the next day, looking for anything with moisture to settle on and buzz about. Our time spent at the highly publicised 'Natures Window' in the Kalbarri National Park was marred by the ever present flies and unfortunately, the terribly over cast weather didn't help our photographic ambitions. Without sounding cruel and unusual, we couldn't decide between the 3 of us if the tour guides friend was male or female. With a name of 'Joe', he/she sounded male/female and looked like . . . fortunately after visiting the standard lookouts, our guide 'Davo' took us down into the Murchison Gorge to where we would be canoeing for the afternoon. Although it has been a dry winter, underground springs avoided us having to paddle through sand. We thought that canoeing in a canoe built for 3 would be quite a simple task, but somehow we just couldn't paddle straight. Swapping across to 2 man canoes proved much easier and more fun as we enjoyed the tranquil environment. Besides the guide and the German couple (and the flies!), there was nobody else about. We had the whole gorge (or at least this section of it) entirely to ourselves.

We had been discussing amongst ourselves what activity we should engage in the next day, and thought that abseiling down the gorge sounded like fun. However one of us (not me!) had never hung off the end of a rope before, and was quite reluctant at first to entertain the idea. Thankfully with some encouragement from our canoe guide and a photo of a 6 year old in action at the information centre, we were able to confirm our abseiling adventure for the following day . . .

. . . so the next morning we were transported back into the national park to carry out our abseil over a 25m ledge over looking the Murchison Gorge. A quick demonstration by our trusty abseiling instructors using a figure 8 descender (never used in SES) showed us how simple the abseil would be, and that we had nothing to be afraid of. It was fun, although I was hoping that we'd be able to abseil down other cliff faces as the morning progressed. This was not to be the case. For the others in the group, this was probably enough excitement for one day, our instructor demonstrated how we could abseil facing forward (ie looking down the cliff face) towards the ground. Very UniSol and a bit of a thrill, no actual technical value, but why not, just for the experience. Simply a case of mind over matter.

Kalbarri presented itself with many 'firsts' for some in our group, including seeing kangaroos, emus & an echidna along our travels. Mushrooms in sandwiches, canoeing, travelling at high speed, abseiling, discovering the 'petrol' light in the car and baileys at night :)

Although restricted to camping in the caravan park, we had uninhibited views of the glorious night sky. There were plenty of 'natural bridges' and other spectacular view of nature which we checked out along the coast before heading back to Perth. It was a spectacular 4 days at Kalbarri, and although our accomodation was fairly humble, the dinners we great, having crayfish for 2 of the 3 nights there. Kalbarri is a lovely place to visit, highly recommended!

foundation day

unlike the rest of Australia, WA doesn't celebrate the Queen's birthday in June, so instead we have 'foundation day' a week earlier. Any excuse for a long weekend, who really cares . . .

. . . my only plans for weekend was to finally get a sofa for the lounge. Contacting Kendrick to see if we might be able to borrow his parent's Forrester to transport the sofa home, I managed to score a last minute invite for lunch at his place for Jeremy's famous seafood paella! Along with some lovely brie cheese before the meal, it was a much heartier lunch than the instant noodles I had originally planned . . .

. . . this will now be the third time I have been back to Furniture Bazaar with the aim of buying the Craigie Clic Clac Sofa bed. Service at this less than fine establishment is hardly ideal, but having visited a few other furniture stores, this particular sofa bed seems to be the best value for money. Freedom has several sofa bed in it's catalogue, but none on display. In an embarrassing admission by one of their staff, they informed me that their sofa beds were not very comfortable, which is why none of them were on display! I hesitantly chose the colour 'aubergine' (purple to us guys) from the tiny 3x3 sample as the other options didn't seem that appealing. Thankfully, the finished product looks more maroon, what do you think? It was a very tight fit in the Forrester with both of us having to adjust our car seats to the front most position to fit it in with a rope holding the boot down. Mission accomplished :)

Went to Wesley College on Sunday for my weekly badminton fix, but before we could even start play, we were ushered out by the warden informing us there was an 'emergency' and that this was not a drill. Not that we could see any smoke or flames, we quietly exited the building. Upon enquiring what exactly was the emergency, we were told that there was a 'medical emergency'. Apparently one of the girls who had just finished her volleyball match had had a seizure, and an ambulance was on it's way. Without wanting to sound unkind, but we all wondered why we couldn't just continue on with our badminton. Something to do about liability. Ambulance finally arrived, so we eventually got to play our badminton.

Foundation Day - organised to go for a bush walk along the first section of the famous Bibbulmun Track. As the link will inform you, it starts at Kalamunda near Perth, and heads all the way down to Albany. With perfect weather, one of the locals (thanks Kendrick :) guiding us with a map, we figured we couldn't possibly get lost. Hehe. The sign posting along the track was somewhat lacking, with one of the signs missing at one of the critical turns offs, which caused us to trek along a fire trail beneath the oh-so-picturesque powerlines. Had lunch at a camel riding place we stumbled upon along the way before looping back on the track which we were meant to have arrived on!

It was a great day's hiking, a nice prelude to our trip up to Kalbarri in a fortnight's time. The end of my second long weekend here in Perth.

30

. . . headed back to Adelaide on Friday night to celebrate my 30th with family and a few friends with a brunch at mum 'n dads. The trip coincided with Sam & Kim returning from their holiday in Vietnam, Aaron kindly picking them up early Saturday morning. They came straight over to help put up all the decorations they had created before leaving for their trip. Sam painted a fantastic canvas for guests to write on which I will later hang up in Perth.

Brunch was held outside in the unbelievably perfect weather. Guests arrived and quickly helped themselves to the buffet of western & eastern offerings. We had almost everything from the continental breakfast with stewed fruit, and home made muesli, to bacon'n eggs with hash browns, mushrooms and tomatoes. The chinese porridge (congee) prepared with dried scallops and served with ginger, spring onions, 'fried bread sticks' and fried bacon pieces was surprisingly popular. We had minimal formality with the day's proceedings, just the cutting of a delectable chocolate mud cake and a poem/speech prepared by my artistic brother describing me to a T!

As quickly as the brunch had started, it ended with the last person leaving just before 2. Sam & Kim went straight to bed having put in a mammoth effort to stay upright after their long flight back helping with the brunch and serving of all the food. The day wouldn't have been possible without the effort of both my dear cousins Kai Tian & YJ who stayed overnight so they could make an early start. My parents of course were the organisers of the day allowing me to just fly in and enjoy the party.

I was blessed in receiving many generous gifts, although with the alcoholic persuasion of a good portion of them, I was surprised not to have received a trial membership to AA. The evening was spent at home catching up with family and going through the weird and wonderful things Sam & Kim brought back from Vietnam.

Sunday was equally as rushed with lunch at Bravo with a few close friends then one last look at my Burnside property before the much needed tenants move in on Monday. A quick stop by a friends place to pick up my gorilla pod and see the latest in big screen displays, I had to rush on home to pack my bags to head back to Perth!

Boarding the plane back to Perth, the chap checking tickets at the gate looked awfully familiar, but I couldn't quite pick where we might have met before. As it turns out, he used to work at Myers with me many moons ago, and has since moved onto the airline industry. Once the plane had levelled out after take off, he came around to have a chat and catch up on old times, and just like in the movies, offered me free drinks throughout the flight. Had I not had to drive home, I might have indulged in his free offer, but limited myself to just 2 . . .

. . . it was a good thing I didn't bring the canvas Sam had created with me back to Perth as it would have been ruined with the torrential down pour I came back to. I somehow had to navigate from the domestic terminal to the security parking lot without being run over by all the suicidal motorists. Long story short, there were no signs or foot path to follow so I had to trudge in the dark with a trolley full of luggage with fogged up glasses towards the not so bright lights of the security parking depot. Not a highly recommended experience.

The trip back to Adelaide was short but sweet. Here are the photos from the day thanks to my photographer for the day (thanx Keng!) on Flickr.

Rottnest Island

Planned a weekend away with 2 friends who like me, have only just arrived in Perth. Decided to visit Rottnest Island like the locals for a bit of R&R. Rottnest Island is kind of like SA's Kangaroo Island, only smaller (7km x 4km), closer to the main land (half hour from Freemantle) and unlike Kangaroo Island, visitors cannot bring their car over, which makes it a perfect place to cycle about. This place is apparently so popular with the locals during school holidays that they have a 'ballot' system for allocating accommodation! Anyway, our adventure began even before we even left for the island . . .

We had agreed to meet at McDonalds for breakfast before catching the ferry from the Barrack st terminal. My bus didn't arrive till I called Transperth asking where the scheduled bus was, and they then sent one out from their depot! Reliability . . .

Quokka's. Have discovered that there is no upper limit for girls commenting on how cute these little rat like critters are. Spent most of the first day looking for these creatures, only to find out later on that these nocturnal animals come out in swarms after dark.


Bikes. The bikes rented as part of our package turned out to be of the rusted, single gear, foot brake variety. Quite frustrating. Even more frustrating was to see other people who had rented bikes of a higher grade, not knowing how to use the gears! Will definitely have to get better bikes next time.



Lighthouses. There are 2 on the island, one covering the entire island in one revolution, the other half the size and only covering a quarter with each revolution. The larger one (Wadjemup) sits pretty much in the centre of the island, the smaller one near Pinky Bay.


Kingstown Barracks. Our luxurious accommodation for the weekend. The old disused army barracks has been converted into YHA lodging and dormitories. Quite remote from the main 'township' of Thomson Bay, it's extremely quiet in the evenings. Plenty of quokka's roaming around at night in the centre quadrangle, kind of eerie :)

Rottnest really isn't a 'must see' place in WA, aside from beaches, quokka's and other cyclists there are probably more exciting places to visit. But it was a great weekend away from the 'mainland' to just chill out and enjoy the serenity. Will probably try and organise to go scuba diving around the island next time with the local dive club, there are plenty of wrecks (hence the light houses) and reefs teeming with fish life.

laptop

I won a laptop at work this week! However, let me clarify . . .

. . . like all new starters in the company, I got issued a 'hand me down' laptop, an old IBM Thinkpad T42 notebook. Nothing flash, it allows me to get on with business. Since I've joined CSC, we've taken on one more PM, with another PM starting next Monday. Somehow, CSC bought him a brand new IBM Thinkpad T60 notebook to use! My manager came to quick decision that there was no way we could give the 'new guy' a brand new laptop, so decided to 'raffle' it off by putting everyone's name into a hat (except the contractors of course) to see who would 'win' the new laptop. The first 2 names which were drawn from the hat were not present, so when he drew the 3rd name, it was me!

So I was now in charge of organising my old laptop to be reimaged for the new guy, getting the new laptop reimaged for me, and contacting records to inform them of the 'asset reallocation'. My lucky day :)

. . . steam boat . . .

considering that I am yet to actually plan one single weekend with things to do, a lot of things seem to happen on their own accord.

I got invited out to have all-you-can-eat steamboat at the Dragon Seafood Chinese Restaurant (yes, once again in Northbridge . . . ) on Friday night which turned out to be a lot of fun. Trying to find parking of course is never fun in this area. Dinner was great, scallops, prawns, crabs and various mushrooms along with the usual meat and vegies were all included, as well as some really cheap nasty WA Emu beer which I highly recommend not to ever drink again. Dessert included tou fu fa, red bean soup, grass jelly and the very non-asian dessert of sponge cake. All for $32, we were one of the last to leave.

Had Yum Cha for lunch on Saturday at 'Good Fortune' at the first non-Northbridge restaurant I have dined in since arriving in Perth. The food was nothing spectacular, and came out rather slowly, but still filled the niche of not having Yum Cha since leaving Adelaide. Visited 2 more bike stores in the quest for the best value road bike in Perth, will have to buy one soon, so many places to ride.

The fund raising quiz night at the Subiaco Church of Christ was very well organised and a lot of fun. Our table finished in the top 10 (out of 23) but unfortunately no prizes for us. The evening was won by a 'professional' group of quiz goers. The group of elderly people apparently attend quiz nights every weekend all over town, so blitzed the field by quite a margin. Kind of spoilt the fun as they didn't really into the swing of things as they just answered the questions but didn't get 'involved'.

Played badminton on Saturday and Sunday with different groups of people. Will have to bring my racquet over from Adelaide, my exercise for the week. Had dinner at a New Orleans restaurant in Northbridge on Sunday night with a friend from the UK. Great place, live music and an interesting menu, I had a crabmeat cheesecake concoction which was apparently the house specialty. Not particularly big, but very filling. Something a little different.

Another weekend gone.

go-karting

0830 Received a phonecall from Jeremy to see if I might be interested in coming along go-karting after church. Absolutely! I know how much trouble it is to organise a group, so if somebody else has organised it, I'm happy to come along for the ride . . .

. . .the weather was looking a little cloudy, but none of us expected the torrential downpour we received, an entire month's worth of rain on one day, over 40mm! Fortunately, it didn't start raining immediately, so our warm up and qualifying laps were in the dry. After our first race, it really started to bucket down, so the owners asked if we'd like to stop and get refunded for the remaining laps, or continue on. Since we were already all wet, the majority voted to continue, the girls however decided to stay inside. We were drifting around corners, and unfortunately (or otherwise) the karts differed ever so slighlty in both their speed and handling, so how one performed from one race to the next would not necessarily be the same. The whole idea of reversing the direction of the steering while fish tailing around the corner to control the kart worked part of the time, as the outside edge of the track had a lot more grip than the inside, it sometimes caused the karts to spin out in the most spectacular fashion :)

It was a great day, apart from getting saturated and covered in mud, I think anyone who's ever been karting knows not to wear good clothes. But hey, the rain made it all that much more fun! A view from above :D

Easter

Easter was awesome. From having absolutely no plans, to fishing at Freemantle, dinner in Northbridge at HK BBQ with a new group of friends, then cycling around south Perth and having morning tea at Raffles in Applecross on Easter Monday!

I didn't expect us to catch anything, but within seconds, literally of casting the line into the water off the rocks, Jeremy had a garfish on his line! Followed by another, and another and another. There were quite a few people fishing in the same area, but no one seem to be having the same luck Jeremy was. I however wasn't catching anything. So we decided to swap rods to see if it was a lucky rod, or if Jeremy indeed had the magic touch. It was the rod! No sooner had I cast the line, I immediately had a bite! Followed by another, and another . . . Jeremy ended up catching a few more with the rod I was using, as it turns out the rod just wasn't quite as sensitive. We managed to catch 19 garfish and herring (Tommy's for us Adeladians) within 2 hours, not a bad effort eh?

I borrowed Jeremy's bike to ride with my new friends from Sunday night's dinner. The weather was fantastic, riding on bike paths all along the river's edge. I now have a renewed desire to get my own bike so I can ride around and explore Perth from 2 wheels. Morning tea at Raffles was delightful, I had a glass of freshly squeezed watermelon & passionfruit juice (for $7.50, I had to try it at least once!) with a white chocolate and raspberry muffin. We were debating sharing a few items from the delectable breakfast menu, but they only serve it on the weekends. We thought they might make an exception since it was Easter Monday, but alas that was not to be the case.

hair bands

Hair bands. Doesn't that generally conjure up images of girls attending junior primary school or perhaps ladies in the gym doing a body attack class? Catching public transport to work each day has given me the chance to observe a whole assortment of different people, including at least 3 guys last week who were all wearing hair bands! Since when has it been fashionable for guys to be wearing them, and I'm not talking bandanas! Did I miss the memo? Can someone enlighten me to this new phenomena?

moved in

Had to take Friday off because the removalists wouldn't come on the weekend to deliver my belongings from Adelaide. Spent the majority of the weekend unpacking and sorting through things, thankfully everything turned up and damage has been minimal. Co-ordinated the phone line to be activated the day I took they keys and applied for DSL the same day which has been successfully activated today! Nice to finally be in my own place, at least for the next 12 months.

sydney trip

Have just returned from a whirlwind trip over in Sydney, attending a friend's wedding and as always, cramming in as much as I possibly could for the 36 hours I was there . . .

. . . it might surprise you how many people catch the 0055 flight over to Sydney from Perth. Well it surprised me. I thought it would be next to empty, with nobody quite as crazy as me willing to attempt to fly over at this time. I was sorely mistaken, literally. I couldn't get my usual window seat to try and catch some Z's, and our flight had to take an unscheduled stop over in Adelaide because an elderly gentleman that had boarded the flight with us in Perth fell deathly ill 15 minutes after taking off, vomiting and falling in and and out of conciousness. Even after they wheeled him off the plane, we couldn't take off for another 25 minutes because of Adelaide airport's curfew being nestled within suburbia! This resulted in our flight arriving in at the Kingsford terminal at 8am . . .

. . . giving me exactly 3 hours to catch a train to the Wynyard station to catch a connecting bus to Mosman junction so that I could meet up with Tom & Jenni and get change at his sister-in-law's place before we raced along the M2 towards Baulkham hills to attend Caesar & Jenny's wedding. All the while with Jenni using a 2004 UBD (supplied by Avis) to navigate along roads so new that haven't made it into the street directory! Good thing I brought along my tomtom GPS :D Thankfully, we made it to the ultra modern chapel (apparently only less than a year old) before the arrival of the beautiful bride, and sat through a lovely service in greatly appreciated air conditioning. Caught up with a swag of old friends from Adelaide who had all turned up for the wedding and went for lunch nearby.

The evening reception was held at Bicentennial park, and with the number of other functions going on at the same time, we could have just as easily walked in the wrong hall. The food was positively scrumptious, and the red was surprisingly smooth. Our bonboniere was a tealight candle with the cherry blossom insignia which has covered everything in today's celebrations. It was a good atmosphere, nothing too stiff or formal about the proceedings with everyone enjoying the occasion. Did the usual updating of contact details with friends from long ago, and managed to chat and get a photo with the newly weds for a whole of 5 minutes. With daylight saving, we all had our extra hour to stay out, but we still all made tracks by 11. Stayed with a good friend in Pyrmont and chatted till the wee hours of Sunday morning on life and all it's challenges.

Caught up with Vince & Ida along with Tom & Jenni for brunch at Concrete in Pyrmont (224 Harris st). Tried something a little different this time instead of the usual eggs benedict with smoked salmon and hollandaise sauce, I went for the italian fried eggs! Italian fried eggs turned out to be a fried egg upon fried bacon and sweet corn pancakes, covered in napolitana sauce surrounded by small fried potato cubes. Interesting combination, worth trying next time you are up in Sydney :) Have not caught up with Vince since he got married, so it was a great catching up on old times. Spent the afternoon walking about Darling Harbour trying to take photos, but it was an awfully wet and windy day, so unlike yesterday which was far too hot for comfort!

Had scheduled to catch up with yet another friend in the afternoon, but due to some last minute changes, could only meet up for an early dinner before my flight back at 1945. We managed to navigate our way with a slightly suspect PocketPC GPS to Bill's of Surry Hills (Bill Granger). Since we had arrived early, we received their 'something small' menu having to wait till 6 before they served their dinner menu. Not really the type of restaurant to rush in to for a quick meal, but my seared tuna steak with vine ripened tomatoes and olive tapenade was an enjoyable meal before dashing off to catch my flight. It would seem that there were a lot of people dashing to the airport as traffic seemed particularly heavy that evening.
Once again, I was stuck in a middle seat, but thankfully, our flight was otherwise not delayed which made for a smoother 4 1/2 hour flight back west . . .

KFC

Did you know that they serve hot'n spicy KFC all year round here in Perth? I'm not aware if this happens in the other states, but it definitely isn't the case in Adelaide, so I went to get my 2 piece feed for lunch yesterday . . .
. . . there was a sign at the counter indicating that the lass behind the register was in training, so requested for people's patience. No big deal, I was only ordering a 2 piece feed after all, how complicated could that be? After taking my order, she dutifully asked if I would be dining in or taking away, I informed her I would be dining in. Things started to get strange when after she asked what drink I would like, she asked again if that would be dine in or take away? After placing my hearty meal on a tray, she continued to get a bag and asked for the third and final time - would that be dine in or take away !?! I'm guessing she must have been grilled for not asking the previous customer, or KFC must have one very strange training program for new staff . . .

car

Picked up my Vectra today from Kewdale (once again, think Elizabeth) after the delay due to the quarantine procedures. In the back of my mind I was thinking . . . great, they've cleaned my car for me . . . very foolish assumption, there was still sand in the boot from the paving, and the car mats had definitely not been vacuumed. Thankfully however, there were no extra scratches (well, none that I could see) and there was no horrible lingering smell from any fumigation they may have pumped through the car, so I guess I should count my blessings.

My first week

Now I realise that personal blogs are generally supposed to be short, witty, inspirational or comical prose that will grab the reader's attention to encourage them to come back and read it again at a later date. Unlike political or journalistic blogs which are generally factual with a writer's personal bias. However, given that I have just recently relocated to Perth and everybody is asking me how I am settling in, I figure that the easiest way to update everybody with the same information is to post it here for everyone to read. So, here goes :)

As most of you are aware, I have accepted a role in Perth as an IT Project Manager for CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) within the GIS (Global Infrastructure Services) department. Now rather than rattling off some meaningless statistics on how large the multinational organisation is, if you are not IT inclined or into cycling, they are the primary sponsor for the Tour de France each year. Capiche? :)

I started on Monday 12/3 and flew over the evening before. They have placed me on the Justice account (Dept of the Attorney General and the Dept of Corrective Services) together with 2 other Senior PMs to help out with the huge work load that they currently have. Looks like they are throwing me in the deep end to see if I sink or swim. I have already been assigned my first project to upgrade all the existing Oracle & SQL databases for this account, although scope is yet to be defined. I will be meeting with the client for the first time this Tuesday.

I am currently staying at my father's friend's place in Dalkeith, my rental apartment in Nedlands should be ready for settlement by the end of March. For some odd reason, my car which I shipped over from Adelaide had to be quarantined so I should hopefully be picking it up later this week from Kewdale (think Elizabeth!).

For those unfamiliar with Perth, CSC is based in Subiaco, which is just west of Perth itself.

Nedlands is just south of Subiaco, and so approximately 10-12 minutes from town. Parking at CSC is ridiculous (70 car bays for 400 onsite employees!?!) so I catch a bus to the Claremont train station, and then train it in to Subiaco. It's not a long trip, and costs me $1.79 each way. Perth have just introduced this 'Smart Rider' electronic card system which allows you to charge up a card with credit, to be debited the exact amount depending on your distance of travel. Much like what they have had over in HK & S'pore for some years now.

Attended Kingsway Methodist Church this morning through a friend of a friend (thanks Elaine!), and will be visiting their young adult group this coming Thursday. So far so good :)

succumbed . . .

Have finally succumbed to creating my own blog since moving over to Perth. Figured it would be the best way to keep everyone up to date with the settling in process and other useless trivia. Will add pretty photos and other window dressing once I work all of this out.