After the ease of the last post I thought I would hook up the phone and upload a few quickie pictures of what has happened over the last week. The ‘new’ (2 month old) gadget is a Nokia N95 8gig version which has a great camera (5mp) inbuilt which is all very funky.

This is some home brewing, just look at this beast:

Co-brewer Nick has just returned from Thailand / Cambodia / Other such places, and it seems some of the local brews take a ‘NOB’ approach to their ABV %ages. We know the one pictured above is around 10-13% abv, however what exactly we do not no. We brewed this beast a few months back and it has certainly matured into a decent moreish beer, however in 750ml bottles it is a fair amount so one for the night is the reccomended dose.

This is a baby tree frog, taken while clinging to someones t-shirt so the fibres give some scale to it. It still makes you stop and think sometimes when you hear what appears to be jurassic park outside, hear tales of brown snakes (super venomous ones) or the local 12 foot python that has just eaten a neighbours cat in full view of the owners.

This place is quite wild compared to Europe, but I am slowly coming around to the auzzy way of getting on with it rather than worrying about what is about to leap out at you. I did see what could have been a snake tail slithering outside the other day, however I was told it was more likely to be a blue tounge lizard. I must admit I was tempted for a split second to investigate further, then then decided it was quite nippy so gave it a miss.

We were out having a great meal that night and then cocktails later on at the wonderful Bowery Bar , and bumped into these guys above kicking off the Chinese New Year celebrations plus a load of kids juggling knives / axes and banging drums. All good fun , and certainly at 29C and humid in the evening, a fair bit warmer than back in China!
Australia are playing Qatar tomorrow, the Roar v Sydney on Friday so a footballing feast to come plus the prospect of my big project actually going live for the first time means a busy yet fun week ahead.

As there is too much to update since last post I will do a quick photo tour of whats what. Initally flying into the UK for Christmas;

Chester in the winter… brr!

From there is was to Prague for more coldness and the Christmas markets

Which was shockingly rammed with idiots from England.

We squeezed in a decent game of football, Bohemians!

And of course the local beer… this one was from the famous U Flecku .

So Christmas was excellent, leaving a quick round the world dash from -5C in the land of the gods down under to 30C and sun for New Years Eve in Sydney

Top right white splodge is the opera house, coogee is one of those beaches at the tip of the wing.

Mrs Macquaries Point from which we saw the fireworks. I would post pictures but the internet could not cope it was that good.
There is a great load on Flickr of the whole harbour explosion which is well worth a look.

So there we go, right up to date. As they say round these ‘ere parts… Where the bloody hell are you?

After showing someone how WordPress works yesterday I realised that I had not posted for a couple of months – whoops! A catch up: I didn’t travel back over in September, rather staying out for the wonderful weather in Brisbane and coming over a couple of weeks ago.

So what have I missed? Tescos now has two floors and a gladiator style travelator for the pikeys to play on, there are quite bland looking £20 notes and there seems to be a need to speak Polish as well as English to get anything done.

Lets not even go into the murky weather, which is fine when you are going around the green fields of Nantwich as it looks quite quaint, but venture towards Liverpool and the hellscape of Stanlow/Ellsmere Port area loom up like some prehistoric volcanoes erupting with smoke and fire. I half expected to be swooped by some pterodactyl, however it turned out to be a pigeon that has been breathing in the fumes too long. Nice.
Saying that, the 3000BC burial chambers on Anglesea are quite cultural, anywhere else it would be £15 to get in rather than jump over a gate and away you go. It was good to go through North Wales into Snowdonia, the proper bit of Wales, with proper welsh weather sadly.
The main thing that has struck me looking ‘outside in’ on the UK is how parochial things can be, established systems such as legal, banks, companies house, the post etc can be slow slow slow – yet no one complains. We nipped down to london the other day (don’t stay at the Grange City – it isnt 5* like it claims) and so being an internet type, I bought the tickets online. Get to Chester station and the machines are broken, and I am asked why did I bother to buy online?! Nothing like customer service.
Also, I just have to mention this, £1.05 for a litre of petrol!? Try 43p Again, do you see anyone complaining? What is wrong with people?
Brisbane, Singapore, Duabi and London so far this month, and we are looking at a mini euro tour as well, so hopefully some nice geo-located pictures up once the new gadget arrives – so more then!