‘Smores in Sydney

Fancy that! An American classic comes to Australia.

Our friends invited us around to their place for dinner and a campfire in their backyard!

‘Smores are a delightful sweet thing made from two Honey Graham crackers, sandwiching American marshmallows toasted and roasted and a piece of Hershey’s chocolate showed into the middle! MMmmm.. yum, and super-sticky!

We found Ned Kelly!

If Ned Kelly lived in NSW, why is there a memorial to him at Maryborough, QLD? Maybe he took a holiday from all his highway robbery there… like it was his four weeks of Annual Leave!

Anyway, it’s quite funny that when you pull up at the motel, the first thing you see it the barrel of Ned’s gun pointing right at your head… maybe that’s not so funny…

Breakfast at the truck-stop

We went to the motel’s breakfast facility…

It’s nice to know that what you see is what you get… self-service cereals and toast…

… and convenient shopping at arm’s reach for P-plates, batteries, globes, lubricants and additives for your engine….

We had Nutri-grain and Vegemite and jam on toast… a very Aussie breakfast!

Wedding Bells are ringing… and Ned Kelly is singing… well not quite…

Not quite yet. That’s for tomorrow.

I (Ben) am in Maryborough, Queensland, for Renae and Sebastian’s wedding!

For some history, Renae came to Kairos Cafe when she was invited to provide the evening’s entertainment. Sebastian came along as he was staying at our place and we invited him. This is their first meeting (circa 2005-2006):

A few years went by without anything happening, then suddenly one day Sebastian Skypes me and tells us that he and Renae are getting married!

So here I am in Maryborough the day before their wedding…

   

 

Maryborough is such a nice town! And the weather is fantastic! 25 degrees and sunny with a cool breeze…. mmm…. nice (or ‘fantastisch!’ as Sebastian would say)!

 

Sebastian tried to lie down on the railway tracks, but after being given the big FAIL by Winston, he then decided he’d settle for playing some cricket…

… and we didn’t know Ned Kelly was able to stop coaches and rob them because he put a speed limit sign under his mailbox!

When is a pan-roll not a pan-roll?

After being in Sri Lanka for three weeks and eating very spicy tasty pancake rolls (savoury delights that are made from a pancake wrapped around some kind of delicacy like meat, fish, veggies or seeni sambol, then crumbed and deep-fried to crunchy golden perfection), I got back to Australia. Here’s a typical shop that sells them, in Dambulla, Sri Lanka:

I was up in Maryborough, Queensland, for Sebastian and Renae’s wedding, and we were feeling a bit peckish, so Winston (my father-in-law) went out and bought some food. Upon his return, I spied something that looked like a pan-roll (on the outside).

I bit into it with relish, only to find that the pleasant but oh so mild chicken and corn taste just couldn’t compete with the spicy flavours of those pan-rolls. Sigh… I wish I was back there…

We’re off to Sri Lanka!

The Wu family, unlike our other kin, tend to blog after the event because we’re busier and less organised. So you may get a sense of déjà vu as you read our blog. Or maybe not, since you’re getting the unique WUHOOZ perspective on things!
Our trip to Sri Lanka involved an 8 hr flight to Singapore, then a short layover, then a 3.5 hour flight to Colombo.
Getting seats allocated, boarding passes printed, luggage checked and customs and immigration cleared was a game of trying to listen to the counter staff while herding a bunch of kids which included a very rambunctious, active 2.5 year old (plus Ben, who kept fiddling with his ‘absence greeting’ on his phone).
Once we got through, it was a quick trip to McDonald's playland inside the airport and a quick peek at the toy shop before boarding.
Mikaela and Jayden made the most of the entertainment system on the aeroplane. This one was on a newer Singapore Airlines plane. It sports a wide screen, on-demand videos and games, and even USB, Ethernet and iPhone/iPod compatibility.

Of course, some of the family members were a bit tired, so took the opportunity to catch up on sleep!

We (Ben and Sharon) managed to watch about 1.5 movies during the 8 hour flight, due to having to pause the movie for 5 minutes for every 2 minutes of running time to attend to ‘child management issues’. Oh well, at least we were kept busy!
In Singapore, the staff speak ‘Singlish’ which is English words spoke with a strange accent and unconventional grammar. Sometimes, getting the airport staff to understand what we were on about required us to speak slowly and repeat many times. Reminds us of the old TV ad for the SumSing 3000 Turbo…
Sumsing Turbo 3000
We arrived in Sri Lanka in the late evening… more on that later…

Counting Crows at the EMC World 2010 opening night

The EMC World opening night was a corporate event worthy of the title 'big' as in HUUUGE!'





And the highlight of the night was a pretty good gig by Counting Crows!

I can flyyyyyyy! Indoor Skydiving!

Wow! I got to go indoor skydiving, and boy was it a treat!

It's like falling into a pillow made of air and just floating there like a feather!



If you forget to adjust your hands, arms and legs properly, hitting the walls and spinning out gives you a firm reminder that you need to pay attention!

Quack, quack! Boston Duck Tours

Boston has these funny amphibious buses called Ducks. Apparently, they go on the road and in the water.



We thought about doing a tour, but given that it was around 14 degC (with a wind chill of -10degC), we hesitated.



After hearing that someone had seen one of them take on water and go down in the Boston Harbor, we thought maybe not!

Berklee College of Music

For the musically inclined, I found the Berklee College of Music by accident (while we were looking for a night spot to hang out at)!



http://www.berklee.edu/

Welcome to Boston!

After a long flight from Sydney to LA, then from LA to Boston (about 24 hours travel time end-to-end), I'm finally here!

And the first thing that greets me when I get off is some weird sulpture of a surreal seascape! Pretty cool!



Travelling in the cab to the hotel, I got to see a lot of Boston... at night. It was a bit hard to see, but it looked a lot like any other city, with some unique architecture.

Then it was off to the hotel. The Marriott Copley Place was a very nice hotel. Clean and smoke-free! The room was spacious and comfy. The beds were really goooood...



After checking in and dumping our stuff, we were all very hungry (plane food has improved, but there's only so much plain chicken and beef you can handle!). We headed out to a 'recommended' place called Abe and Louie's. Oh, boy it was good. I had a Fillet Mignon on the bone with blue cheese melted over it. When they say 1pound, they MEAN 1 pound! And when they say 'medium rare' it is cooked to perfection! More on Abe and Louie's later...

Here are the views from the room the next morning... if you look closely, you might even see that I had water views...

It's off to EMC World!

As part of my job, I need to know about the latest in storage infrastructure.

So I'm off to EMC World in Boston to get the lowdown on all the new bright, shiny data storage solutions for big business!

Our trip to the fire station

We got to go somewhere special today! Mum took us on an excursion to the Menai Fire Station to see how a fire station and the firemen work.

At the fire station we met lots of other homeschooling children.

A fireman showed us some pictures, and asked us if the fires were safe or not. The pictures had camp fires, birthday candles and fireplaces. He explained that we should never have a fire without adult supervision. It was funny when they demonstrated how to stop, drop, cover and roll on the dirty firestation pavement.

They managed to squish 25 kids into the firetruck and drive us around to the back. We all got to have a turn of squirting the firehose and half the kids got simply drenched. It was bucket-full's of fun!