Citra Malaysia

 In another part of Brisbane the local Malaysian community had a festival day.

One of the joys of Brisbane is that it's becoming a very multi-cultural city, and it seems like there's a festival for one county or another every second week. This adds a lot of colour to the city scene, and also means that there is plenty of tasty food to sample. This is my first roti since coming back from Penang. Combine with decent espresso coffee and watch the world go past. A fine way to spend the morning.

Occupy Brisbane

Brisbane has joined other large cities around the world with an occupation of part of the CBD by protestors. I think that the focus of the protest is a little vague - what exactly does 'anti-capitalist' mean? - but I can understand the frustrations behind the action. It's hard watching the guys at the top consistently get richer regardless of their mistakes or (worse) their malevolant economic policies. Unfortunately in my view those people control the game and sure as hell aren't going to change the rules to their disadvantage, so whilst I applaud the dedication of people who are prepared to take action for change I don't think it will ultimately make much difference. Of course that is the approach that most people take, and inaction for the majority is all that is required to maintain the status quo.

The protest is in Post Office square, which is a patch of grass built on top of shops and a foodcourt. It's now become a small tent city.

I just hope it all ends peacefully. We'll see.

International Day of the Nacho

As I'm sure you already know, Friday was the international day of the Nacho. This was created in honour of the creation of the nacho in 1943 by Ignacio 'Nacho' Anya. And what better way to celebrate this life-changing event?

God bless you Ignacio.

(Re) fine city views

I was down in Sydney for a day last week for a flying visit. We arrived at the hotel at around 7pm, left again at 7am the next day and was starting a demo at the prospective clients at 7.30am. Given timezone changes that's 6.30am Qld time - I'm normally not awake enough to even talk to myself at that time.

We were staying in a hotel in Paramatta and my room had great views over the famous Rose Hill horse-racing track in the foreground, ANZ stadium and the Olympic park in middle distance and on the horizon the cityscape of Sydney CBD and the silhouette of the Harbour Bridge. And slap bang in the middle of the suburbs, an oil refinery.........

Never trust a weather forecast

This morning dawned wet, with a big storm rolling in around 8am to put the knackers on the thought of any rides other than the fun & puerile

After updating the blog I took another look at the mid-range forecasts and it wasn't good. Intermittent rain all day, storms forecast for mid-afternoon. I was planning to go for a ride, but there's no point sitting inside with your nose pressed to the window watching the water trickle down the outside. It looked to be the perfect weather for making cheese instead, so we nipped down the shops and  got 8 litres of milk. We can't store that much, so it needed to be used today. 

Predictably by the time we got home the forecast had reversed itself. No rain, fluffy clouds against a blue sky and a bit of wind to keep the heat off. Perfect for a ride, and a couple of the boys are having a roll around the CBD as I type.

Ah well. We should hopefully get a block of halloumi the size of your head out of this, so it's not all bad!  

Kickin' back on the Sunny Coast

So much for enjoying the sunshine - we have a wet weekend ahead. Ah well, gives me time to post up some holiday snaps.

First off a wine tasting tour with Nev at (the highly recommended) http://www.sunshinewinetours.com.au/ - after we were picked up the driver / tour guide cracked open a bottle of sparkling wine to get us in the mood. It was 9.30am.



We visited a couple of wineries - by far the best being Mason Wines for both their wines and the spiel (and generous samples) of the guy in the shop. Their Petit Verdot is amazing.

We also found the time for some site-seeing - the Glasshouse Mountains were particuarly beautiful that day

and it was clear enough to see the towers of Brisbane in the distance (far right)

 As well as the olde-worlde charm of Montville

 and dinner at 'The Edge' - this view from our table!

During the rest of the week there was of course lots of time at the beach

and some Baywatch style antics - this pic posted to prove to the guys in the UK who I'm going climbing with next year that I'm not sandbagging when I say how out of condition I am!

How do you get a physique like that? I'd suggest lots of this...(Alex Headland surf club)

accompanied by plenty of this (Chicken Parmigiana with a seafood topping) 

worked off by plenty of this - the joy of lazyboys. And comfy chairs too...

There was plenty of activities to do if you were so inclined, and I blush to think of what my more active friends would think of me lounging around when I could have been doing this

 or, further up the evolutionary tree, this

As it was, the only exercise I managed was a ride on the BMX early one morning (with accompanying magpie strike - 3 solid impacts on the side of my helmet!)

The coastal paths are teeming with exercisers on the Sunshine Coast - power walkers, runners, PT classes - and it looks like you need a fitness test before you can buy a property up there. I also encountered a social group even more dismissive of other people than middle aged men riding road bikes on shared use bikeways - exercising pensioners. I got tutted by a posse of older ladies strung out across the pathway because I rode on the grass at the side of the path to avoid them!

There was also the chance to see strange wildlife, both out in the wild (this is some kind of giant sea snake I think)

and in 'Underwater World', a theme park / zoo in Maroochydore. They had seals

some very cute otters

 odd sea-horsey things

 lots of barramundi

and other beautiful underwater beasties

Best of all an impressive plexiglass underwater tunnel that threaded it's way through a large aquarium

This meant you could get up close & personal with all types of fish 

 Although some were more friendly looking than others

I went a bit nuts taking pictures of sharks - it's hard to get a good shot under low light and through plexiglass and slightly hazy water, and my camera skills are not the most developed. So I ended up guessing random settings on the camera and snapping away for what must have seemed like hours. Fortunately I have a very patient girlfriend! I'll do a full 'shark pictures' thread later on if you're really lucky....



Digital Cold Turkey

We've just been away on holiday at Maroochydoore, on the Sunshine Coast. It was a very relaxed time away interspersed with a wine tasting tour, walks on the beach, the odd swim, bike rides, reading books and of course plentiful food & drink. I also went digital cold turkey for 5 days - no internet, no email and just one phone call. It was surprisingly easy. In fact the hard bit was getting back into the digitial lifestyle - I found myself putting off turning on a computer or even using my phone.

Back now and back in front of the keyboard, so I'll post some pictures up soon. Ish. Until then, I'm off to read a book and sit in the sunshine.