Hot Melbourne

What do you do when the weather turns red hot?

Put on the barbeque and have a nice cold cider/beer.

Everything looks better gift wrapped ..

Blessed Christmas to everyone.

Santa Claus is coming to town...

Laptop woes

Fine, the blasted laptop (work one even!) had to get all virused on me, giving me a near heart attack just thinking of all those lost data and what not. To make matters worse, I was in Cairns that week ( I plugged into the hotel net and hence my problem started) and had no time to go back into the office to get it fixed by IT!

So with a rush of drama, arrived in the wee hrs of the morning, dropped the laptop off with the Facilities Manager (who is fortunately a friend and I asked a favour of from) who kindly dropped it off with IT while I worked without a laptop for the morning appointment. Fortunately, it was salvageable but it apparently needs a serious case of rebuilding.

Oh well, I haven't lost my data at least - and we ARE up for new laptops soon :).

Will update on Cairns once and Falls Creek once I get my head sorted.

Upcoming work trips this month-

1. Brisbane, QLD
2. Wagga Wagga, NSW

Upcoming fun trips

1. Falls Creek, VIC - to catch the last bits of snow before the season ends.

Spring is a mere day away.. I love my winters, but I do like spring. It is summer I dislike :)

You know ....

You know ...

That spring is in the air when the daffodils start a-blooming! (and all these from the bulbs I planted last yr)

And not to mention my tulip bulbs that I planted last yr also start sprouting.

Pix taken with my Nokia E71 cameraphone thus resolution is kinda so so

Up and Down the hill she went..

So its happens.

BF and I went to Mt Buller as we did last yr but the rush feeling just isn't there anymore. I blame it on being "spoilt" by Hakuba Japan. The snow fields didn't feel as fluffy - instead it felt more like boarding on a sheet of ice.

Furthermore, any falls simply sets the bones a-jarring and I came out with a sprained wrist and a slight neck-ache after taking a rather nasty spill on the simplest run there was! Blame it on whats-so-not, I fare better on the intermediate runs than on the easier runs where newbies try their luck.

I don't think we will be going back to Buller, at least not for this season - or the next either. We are planning a weekend trip some time in Aug with some mates up to Falls Creek which ought to be fun but depending on how things pan-out, we might head back to Japan - to Shiga Kogen this time.

For now, my board and snowboots are put up to dry and into storage.

Holiday snaps - Japan 2009

Just figured its time for me to upload some of my favourite snaps from last months snow bound trip in Japan.

We opted out of Tokyo this time around, seeing that we spent the yr before in the city. Moreover, some of our mates kept raving about the excellent ski conditions in Japan and BF was simply itching to try it out esp as the snow conditions here are rather more icy than powdery most times.

As we only had a week to spare, we decided to stick to the main island of Honshu rather than go up to Hokkaido which would have mean at least another wasted day. After weighing our options, the destination was Hakuba which was in the location of the 1998 Winter Olympics.

I'll get into the details of how and what we did over there but in the meantime - my snaps are below!

Me doing my "thang"

After a bruising week, we decided to take a day trip to relax and we went to Matsumoto. This is the main tourist attraction and the Matsumoto Castle also known as "Crow Castle" due to its dark exterior.



Snow all around seeing that we had a gala choice of 12 ski resorts to pick!

Imagine waking up to this every morning.Yes - this was the view from our bedroom - we stayed in a B & B which was a lot more personal.

Mt Fuji - that towers over Tokyo scape - as taken from the bullet train (shinkansen) on the way to Nagano.

Beating the heat wave

Konnichiwa!

Yeah, its my last night here in Hakuba and despite the falling overs and the numerous black and blues all over my legs - this getaway has not only been fun but a blessing in disguise! The over 40'C heatwave that hit Melbourne this week... well - we beat it lol!

More details and pics when we head back to Melbourne.

Heat Wave!

Typical Melbourne.

It was a nice and manageable earlier this week - and at times we even had to turn the heater on-low because it was rather chilly and the whole of this week has it on the high 30's!

The A/C has been on a constant switch-on and the fan on the whole night.

I am actually looking double forward to the nice winter weather and a snowboarding in Hakuba next week. Will be staying in a boutique hotel by the snowfields itself which means waking up and walking over - whoo hoo. No side trips to Tokyo as will be there for the full week but perhaps might head to Nagano for a day trip.

Knowing me - I might start whinging that it is too cold! Lol.

Typical eh?

No weekend

Spring is very much in season, there is this nip in the air but the sun is shining. It is good to be back in Mel again; was out in country Victoria the whole of this week and its good to be back - saying that tho, what the heck am I doing indoors? Oh right, bloody tax returns. *boo*

Spring in here!

Planted some daffodil bulbs last autumn and its in bloom.

It is amazing how little things can start the day off with a cheer.

p/s: First try at gardening - hopefully the tulip bulbs come out too.