New Holland Honeyeater

I finally managed to get a close up shot from our New Holland Honeyeaters as the parents came in and fed the young chicks. I even recorded a video - have fun watching it. We enjoy sitting in the front yard and watching the birds being very busy collecting lots of food for the small chicks :-)

Curry Wurst Wednesday

On Wednesday after work we all felt like a nice BBQ on the foreshore – so we thought of a reason to have one ;-) We ended up celebrated Curry – Wurst – Wednesday :-)
Someone organised yummy German sausages from the local German butcher and we bought curry powder and curry flavoured ketchup – perfect!
So we had Curry Wurst with a really great look over the skyline of Perth!

Dunsborough

We went to Dunsborough on Friday after work to catch up with Ian’s sister and her family who usually live in Darwin. His parents were there as well and we all stayed in a huge holiday house near Dunsborough.
We had a very nice and relaxing weekend. Ian’s little nephews loved the beach because they can’t go swimming in the ocean up in Darwin – too many crocodiles and box jelly fish. We saw the lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste and went to the Bootleg brewery for lunch.
But since I’ve last been around Dunsborough about 2 years ago a lot has changed. They are building houses everywhere! Huge housing complexes, golf courses, supermarkets and hardware stores where once were only small camping areas and lonely beaches :-(

Proud parents

Ian and I are proud parents of two cute little New Holland Honey Eaters :-) About 3 weeks ago we discovered the little nest just above our door that leads to our front yard and a couple of days later we saw 2 eggs. Just after we came back from Japan we can now see 2 little peaks screaming for food every time the parents come in with food – very nice.

Busy socialising

After we came back from Japan last Sunday we have been very busy socialising. After arriving on Sunday morning we went straight to a birthday BBQ on Sunday afternoon, another birthday BBQ on Monday night, Pizza with friends on Tuesday night.
And after I had a chicks-only night on Thursday we are going to drive down south to Dunsborough on Friday after work.

Japan

The thing that I like about doing a PhD is being able to work with my laptop all around the world – literally. So I was working in Japan last week :-)

We took the aeroplane from Perth to Tokyo, then to Sapporo and a bus to Nesiko. Together with 6 other friends we were sharing a house in the ski resort here on the bottom of an old volcano.
Japan is great – I like it. It is actually the first Asian country that I visited and that I can think of living in for a while, also because it is probably the most “western” of all Asian countries.
Nonetheless arriving in Tokyo is like stepping into a different world / culture. I was very surprised how well everything is organised and how smoothly everything works. People are so friendly, they bow all the time – they bow when the bus departs, the signal guy at the airport when the plane stopped, all the service people,…

Starting at the airport and continuing the whole trip through we had lots of fun trying different toilets ;-) They come with heated seats (very good when you have a cold bum after snowboarding) and lots of different mystery buttons in Japanese. There are buttons that make different flushing sounds, others will give you a shower and clean your bum :-)


Japan – is also about the food!! And Japanese food is so yummy!! We ate sushi, sashimi (raw fish is one of my favourite), noodles, ramen, miso soup, tofu, … some of the not so nice stuff was cod semen or fermented soy beans.


But the actual reason we came to Japan was – Snowboarding!! Some of our friends have been in Niseko last year and said it was their best skiing / boarding ever. And it is!!! The old volcano Mt. Niseko is only just 1300m high but it gets cold wind and snow from Siberia.
And we were really luck!! The temperatures rose at the beginning of March and everyone thought winter might be over. But just a couple of days before we arrived a HUGE cold front came through with lots of snow!! It snowed pretty much every day.

And the snow there is so soft! It is really snow powder wonderland. I have actually never seen such light and fluffy snow! It was awesome! We had a ball of a time!
My snowboarding skills improved heaps! Because falling in soft deep powder doesn’t hurt at all :-) But I also expanded my snowboard equipment collection – I bought a gimp mask (the wind on the mountain was sometimes really nasty and cold) and some spikes to strap onto my boots (the streets were very icy).
Onsens are the best thing after a long day of snowboarding! They are thermal springs with very hot mineral water. Most of them are divided into a male and female section as one usually doesn’t wear swim suits. You go in, undress, and then there are lots of little plastic stools where you would sit on in front of a mirror and wash your hair and body. After that we would go outside (-10°C!!) and sit in this hot pool – very relaxing!!!
Back to food… Japanese somehow like plastic food :-) In front of restaurant would be a big display with all the meals they offer. They look so real and I had to look twice to discover that they are made from plastic. And apparently there are whole shops specialised in plastic food. But you can also buy hot(!) food at a vending machine. And on the mountain there would be a vending machine next to the display with plastic food. The vending machine takes your money and you choose a meal – you get a ticket from the machine – you give the ticket to another person – you will be called once your meal is ready. As a previous mentioned – everything is very organised!

Hot weather

This week was sooo hot!! We even had 2 consecutive days up in the 40’s.
And because there was hardly any wind during the night, the house didn’t cool down anymore :-( So we decided to spend a couple of nights outside in the courtyard. It was really good – sleeping beneath the stars, waking up with the birds and lots of mosquitoes (I have at least 30 bites on each hand!) :-)