Aussie

We've kind of finished our big holiday now. Well, the exotic places anyway. Mel's back working and I've been sorting out all the usual stuff you have to in a new country (bank account, driver's licence etc).

I survived meeting the family. They've all been very nice. They've teased me about the cricket of course. Hey, it's not my fault that they're so bad at the moment!

Mel's Mum and Neil took us to Doyle's Seafood Restaurant in Watson's Bay. That was spectacular. You have views back across the harbour to the centre of Sydney. We've also done the Bondi to Coogee walk with Mel's sister Jo.

Peter and Julie have been very generous and are looking after Mel and I very well. Mel's kid sister, Amanda, has proven to be very easy to get along with. It is a bit odd sharing a house with three other people after having a place to ourselves in London. Still, it seems to be working out.

We are looking forward to getting our own place though - either to rent or buy. Then we'll be able to properly unpack and start our Sydney lives in earnest.

Not sure that they'll be much more blogging. I might include an NZ post or two but that might be about it. Thanks for reading!

Hong Kong fluey

OK, not quite the Hong Kong flu but Mel did have the last bit of her Nile belly to contend with. All sorted thanks to a very good doctor in Hong Kong.

We loved Hong Kong. It's quite an amazing place. Lots and lots of skyscrapers like I've never seen anywhere. I also had in my mind that the Bank of China building was still the tallest building there. No! The new IFC 2 (International Finance Centre Building 2) is 88 floors and dwarfs the BoC building.

Of course, Hong Kong has great Chinese food. We had some amazing duck pancakes (served with Hou Sin sauce, spring onions (shallots) and cucumber). Very nice.

We also went to the Jumbo floating restaurant. That was a bit overrated. The food was nice but over-priced and the idea of dining on a floating restaurant really doesn't mean much when you can even tell it's a boat once you go through the main doors.

We went to the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery. That was cool. The path up to it is lined with life size Budda statues. Each of them is unique. They look quite different from each other and are dressed differently or holding something unique. The Monastery itself has some 12,000+ minature Buddhas inside. The place looks like an amusement park though with all the brightly coloured Buddhas around the place.

We did a bit of shopping in Hong Kong too but we were well overloaded with the last of our possessions from London. Prices are generally very good. I didn't bother to look at electronics or computer stuff too much as I hadn't done my research. I certainly wouldn't have known what to expect to pay for anything. And, then of course, there's always the worry of it breaking down.

We did a day trip to Macau too. We kind of fancied this as the Portugese owned Macau for hundreds of years. The idea of a Portugese flavoured China appealed. There were certainly some nice Portugese buildings there and some of the food but mostly it was very Chinese. Macau is very well known and popular for it's casinos. Mel and I didn't bother with these though. When we were there they were just setting up for the Grand Prix. We meant to watch the Grand Prix when we got to Oz to see what places we could spot. As you can imagine, we forgot as we were very busy with relatives.

We'd go back to Hong Kong again but probably as a stopover rather than as a trip in itself. Next time I'd like to go to Lantau Island where there is a huge outdoor Buddha.