Archive for October, 2015

Sydney trip

Wednesday, October 28th, 2015

This blog post about my Sydney business trip is a work in progress. Check back in a little while.

At the end of October I went to Sydney on a business trip. It was my fifth overseas trip in two months, and I was beginning to feel like I was a band on a tour or something.

I’d been to Sydney before, and hadn’t been very impressed. Somehow it didn’t seem like much more than a bunch of modern buildings, an opera house, a big park, and a lot of consrtuction; better than many cities around the world, but nothing to scream about either.

This time I saw a Sydney with a lot more character – plenty of Victorian buildings, a vinyl shop, a seedy area with good music, and a bit of London vibe. I also paid two visits to the massive botanical gardens (huge fan), and saw the opera house and harbour in both the evening light and in the morning light. Nice!

I went from this gig straight to the airport, stopping by my home to pick up my luggage. I took off at 1:45 AM, landed at noon, slept fitfully most of the way.
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Downtown Sydney’s pretty.
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Very pretty indeed!
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Purple.
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Victorian hall.
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Old building.
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Nice arcade.
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See the swastikas inlaid in the CBA building facade?
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Shoop!
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Arcade.
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Arcade.
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Arcade elevator. I rode it!
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I bought a Keith Richards LP here, and some books.
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Weird park birds, part 1.
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Weird park birds, part 2.
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Sydney opera house at dusk.
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Sydney opera house at dusk.
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Sydney opera house at dusk.
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Sydney harbour at dusk.
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Sydney harbour bridge at dusk.
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Sydney opera house at dusk.
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Sydney opera house at dusk.
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Sydney opera house roof tiles.
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Sydney opera roof tiles.
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Sydney harbour bridge.
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Dinner olives – yum!
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Dinner – yum!
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Hyde Park lighting.
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“Great Tunes” indeed!
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Nice at night.
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Nice at night again.
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And nice at night again!
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A Hyde Park morning.
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Hyde Park morning.
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Hyde Park gates.
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More strange park birds.
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Even more strange park birds.
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Birds!
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An island of birds, and one in flight.
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Bird on grass.
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Birds in tree!
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Sydney opera house.
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The opera house and the Knives of Summer CD.
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Me ‘n’ my Chugga Ritual.
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Cool tree.
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Purple!
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Big tree!.
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Tree.
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Sydney opera house in the morning.
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Sydney harbour bridge in the morning.
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Sydney opera house.
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Sydney opera house and harbour bridge.
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Sydney hospital, with a sausage shop under the stairs.
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Seems very British still… or are there lions and unicorns in Aus?
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Victorian?
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The crown…
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The Sydnagogue.
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I wore this Acid Eater shirt in Sydney.
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Beijing trip

Wednesday, October 21st, 2015

This blog post about my recent trip to Beijing is a work-in-progress.

I saw a lot of enclosed motorcycles in Beijing; but… WHY!?!?
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Little provisions shop where I bought some  beer.
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Quiet lane; felt like Chicago.
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Power to the people.
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Hutong moon.
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Zen’s shop!
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View of the hutong from my hotel.
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Time to hit the road… but first an Asahi!
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Weird control tower looks like a prop from Lord Of The Rings.
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My “window” seat didn’t even have a window!
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Moving house

Sunday, October 4th, 2015

We moved house on August 29th. It took a long time for us to settle in properly, due to all the travelling that I/we were doing, and the fact that we had to buy a lot of furniture this time around. But we took care of it, and now it’s done – hooray!

We made it!
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Sleepy moving day Zen.
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Chaos on Day 1.
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Day 1 dinner – pizzy!!
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View from the balcony (1).
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View from the balcony (2).
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View from the balcony (3).
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View from the balcony (4) – night!
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View from the balcony (5) – night (lasers courtesy of Marina Bay Sands)!
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View from the balcony (6) – the morning sunrise!!
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Early balcony arrangement.
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This is more like what the balcony looks like now.
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Sometimes the view is just gorgeous!
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Zen with his birthday books…
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This is what the space in front of the sofa looked like before the TV was mounted.
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And here it is… mounted!
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Our apartment seen from street level.
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Tuck shop hours.
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Farrer Road – just down the street, but a world away…
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Changing faces – how it looked on:

August 29th.
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August 30th.
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October 4th.
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October 4th.
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November 13th.
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Here’s a video showing the whole setup:

By the way, this is what the old apartment looked like after we removed all of our stuff. I wonder what it’ll look like when the owners have finished renovating it.

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