Linda's Walkabout

Second Trip to Singapore, First Class Back

2011-12-11T22:08:00.009+11:00

Now that I've got an expanded role at Cisco looking not only after Australia and New Zealand, but also having the PR leads for Japan and Korea report into me plus joining the Asia Pacific Corporate Communications leadership team so gaining regional responsibilities as well I've been spending more time in Singapore.

On this, my second trip to Singapore I'm supporting our first Partner-led Conference. With over 50 media and analyst from Asia Pacific and China, it was a very busy week (Nov. 13-19) and after several days of keynotes, business presentations and panel discussions we headed to the Singapore Flier for some sight seeing.

Then we head to Coup d'Etat for drinks. I get a bit closer to the infinity pool at the Marina Bay Sands and still hope to some day actually swim in the pool at the top of the world.

One evening after the media/analysts had head home, I checked out the original home of the Singapore Sling at Long Bar at The Raffles Hotel. It's the one place in Singapore you can throw peanut shells on the floor and not get arrested :)

And on the day of my departure Miin was a wonderful host and showed me around Sentosa which is a very upscale, 2 km island.

On my flight back to Sydney, I was very, very lucky to be upgraded to First Class on British Airways. I'm not sure how this happened , but think it was because I checked in on the late-side (an 1:15 before my flight was due to depart, but since Singapore International Airport is the gateway to Asia my friend Miin says you don't have to check in the typical 2 hours in advance) and economy was already checked in so I was informed I'd been checked into Economy Plus.

As I was settling into my seat, I heard my name called over the intercom to identify myself to the steward. So I headed to the front of the plane and was surprised when informed my seat was being changed to...she pointed to seat 14B...at the same time I realised I was standing in first class. And it was weird, there were all these "pods" that were set up in pairs with one facing forward and the other towards the back of the plane.

All of a sudden I had a stewardess asking me what newspaper I wanted (no Singapore Straits Newspaper or Sydney newspaper, only UK pubs) and if I'd like a glass of champagne (which I only got a few sips of before they had to take it away as we were taking off, but they quickly got me another as soon as we were up in the air). Then another was trying to get me to take my seat, however, what stumped me was there's was no place to put my purse as there was no "under the seat in front of you". Then I got shown the drawer, of course how obvious, a drawer.

The other thing that befuddled me was if I sit down and recline how does the passenger in the pod along the window get in and out - he steps over my feet/foot stool - which is rather inelegant.

Once we're up in the air, I have a chat with my pod-mate (you feel compelled to say "hello" as you're basically lying right next to each other, face-to-face with only a plastic divider that moves up and down as he's passed his meal/drinks) and find out he's the architect of the Surry Hills library just down the street (we commiserate on the rather useless kitchen in the front of the library and the need for more seating) as well as new Parliament House (I compliment him on the great symbolismy of having the roof open to public picnics, see my previous blog post on this).

Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi Beach

2011-12-11T20:53:00.004+11:00

Continuing with the theme from the previous day, I checked out the 11-11 sculpture at the Sculpture by the Sea which is a series of sculptures lining the ocean view walkway from Bondi to Bronte Beaches.

A turtle made of tires, not slow moving at all with all these car tires.

This wishbone reminds me of all the times my brother and I buttered the turkey on Thanksgiving and got more butter on each other than on the turkey. Mom's turkey was always moist and wonderful tasting! Tomu and I always enjoyed making our wish and after pulling the wish bone apart seeing whose wish came true!

This art work spells out "dreams".

My 11-11-11 Party

2011-12-11T20:41:00.003+11:00

After celebrating 1-1-11 in a big way, it was hard to resist hosting an 11-11-11 party at my place. I struggled to find a cool theme for the party.

I brainstormed with friends and did lots of Internet searches. The best I could come up with was "You're my #1", "To infinity and beyond" and "Lucky 11" but nothing really rang true.

Yet it was fun to have a few drinks with friends, get together for dinner afterwards then have a lovely dessert at the stroke of 11:11 p.m. on 11-11-11.

Scuba Diving Around Manly

2011-12-11T20:20:00.008+11:00

In the many ocean swims I've done around the Sydney-area I haven't been too impressed with the sea life I saw (or lack there of) so I've been focusing most of my diving further North.

But in a reunion dive with friends from my last Fish Rock I did my first dives in the Sydney area. It was very cold for one thing and in comparison to Fish Rock, I'd have to say so far my experience has been about average.

Nonetheless it was a good opportunity to practice using my new underwater camera. Thank you again to my brother Tomu for the great underwater camera!

This video is of a cuttlefish that was coaxed out of its cave but when I realised it was getting closer and closer to me, you'll see from the video that moved out of its way.

This last photo is of a rock fish, quite poisonous.

Sydney Zombie Fest on Halloween

2011-12-11T20:07:00.003+11:00

I've been going to a lot of activities organised by the Travel, Food and Wine Meetup and on Oct. 29 I joined them at the Sydney Food and Wine Festival at Hyde Park. While the wine and food was tasty - and expensive considering the quantity given for what you paid - it was hard to miss that there were a lot of people walking through Hyde Park looking like they should be in a Michael Jackson Thriller video.

After a few inquiries I find out that there's a Sydney Zombie Walk. What this? Well if you Google it, you'll find out that it originated in California and it's a bi-annual fundraiser but mostly it appears to just to be an occasion to dress up like you're a victim of the latest vampire or horror film and parade around the city (Sydney Police blockade the streets to let hundreds of people walk through the city). How bizarre is this!

Later that evening I checked out this Halloween Party at The Argyle (evidently the largest in Australia). Here's the "Post-it Man".

Singapore's a Small, Packed Modern Country

2011-12-11T19:40:00.003+11:00

On my first trip to Singapore (Oct. 19-23), I was most surprised at how from the tallest building you can cast your eyes about and see the whole country. It's 26 miles wide and 14 miles from north to south. It's filled with many tall buildings that are both business and residential and it's a city of opposites. One morning I had a peanut soup for $1 and a cocktail for $24.

After our first day at our work offsite, we went up to the rooftop for drinks and here's me having my first Singapore Sling cocktail drink.

Afterwards we went to dinner at this Noodle Market which had tons of vendors selling all kinds of traditional Singaporean foods.
.

And I loved this dessert... reminded me of mochii

After filling ourselves with food, we went karaoke.

And then my first sight-seeing activity in Singapore was to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel which is one of the highest buildings in the city.

After a day of shopping - where I purchased my very first pair of designer shoes (a la Carrie Bradshaw Salvatore Ferragamo) - we checked out the Merlion (head of a lion, body of a fish) which is the mascot of Singapore. And according to Wikipedia "the fish body represents Singapore's origin as a fishing village when it was called Temasek, which means 'sea town' in Javanese and the lion head represents Singapore's original name — Singapura — meaning "lion city" or 'kota singa'."

Not For the Faint Hearted - Cupcake Decorating Class

2011-12-11T19:00:00.005+11:00

In thanks for being such great Aunties to Calypso, Lisa gifted Nadia and I with "cupcake decorating" classes. Clearly Lisa has an ulterior motive that shows great foresight and planning for when Calypso's older and in school ... considering she's only 8 months old now.

When I was in the US this past August, I noted two TV show trends. New Jersey's getting a bad rap from several reality TV shows (Real Wives of New Jersey, Jersey Shore and Jerseyliciious) and cupcake decorating is not just for Martha Stewart anymore (Ace of Cakes).

So I should have suspected when I went to our cupcake decorating class (on Oct. 8) that it was going to be more than slabbing some frosting on top and taking colored tubes of frosting and decorating them with pretty flowers. In fact, when Nadia and I arrived, it was a packed room of 40+ women and when we watched the demonstrations the instructor used lots of tools, measuring circles and colored fondant (new word for me).

And everyone was quite serious about maximising their time executing each of the techniques demonstrated, using the tools and all the different colored fondant. It was quite intense and high pressure. So not what I was expecting from a morning of cupcake decorating.

In the end, Nadia and I decorated 6 cupcakes and you'll see our results here.

The cupcake that I think turned out best was the one that looks like a wedding cupcake with pearls - I used a "quilting tool" to create the patchwork pattern, then placed these silver balls at the intersections of the lines and added some of the flowers that I'd "punched and rounded" and put "shimmer" on to create the glistening effect.

I didn't get the scale of the "bear" cupcake right as the ears look more like moose ears, but note the attention to detail with the "blush" on its cheeks. And the same thing with the ladybugs, again I didn't get the proportion right as the head is supposed to be much smaller than the body.

Later that night I shared my cupcakes with friends at Cafe Sicilia in Surry Hills.

Multi-Ethnic Sydney at The Basement

2011-12-11T18:53:00.002+11:00

The Basement's an underground club where many live music bands have launched their careers. Spontaneously I went (on Oct. 7) with friends and we stumbled upon African Tribal Music at The Basement.

It's probably the most multi-ethnic scene I've seen in Sydney since I arrived.

Bubble cave, lion fish and sharks galore at Fish Rock!

2011-10-18T02:12:00.016+11:00

I had such a great time diving Fish Rock last March that with the Labour Day long weekend looming and no concrete plans (I wanted to goto Byron Bay but flights were booked out), I decided to go on the Pro Dive Manly scuba diving weekend to Fish Rock.

While the swells were higher, water was colder and the visibility was worse than the first time, I'm still totally amazed and impressed with the incredible plethora of sea life. Everything from sharks, sting rays, turtles, eels, lion fish and for the first time I heard a whale! It sounded like moaning, but eventually I connected the whale we saw at the surface to the sounds I heard between my breathing bubbles that eerily sounded just like the whale sounds in that Star Trek IV movie "The Voyage Home".

My brother had given me an underwater camera and I was very excited to take photos of mega sea life at Fish Rock that'll really knock the socks off my nephew Kai who loves sharks! When he watches the video below, my "cool Aunt" factor will hit the roof!

On Sat. Oct. 1, 2011

Dive #130, 24.1 meters (79 ft), 38 minutes, 17.6 degrees C (64 degrees F) to Fish Rock Cave
Dive #131, 23.8 meters (78 ft), 32 minutes, 19 degrees C (66 degrees F) to Fish Rock Fish and Chips

1. Got nice and close to this lobster!

2. This lion fish swam by and I got a few shots off of its graceful scales spread out

3. Can you see this small green moray eel in between the cracks?

4. I staked myself out near this bed of anemone and eventually these "nemo" fish came around and decided to face the camera.

5. This fish is quite big as you can see it compared to the two divers in front.

6. Nine times out of ten, when I see a wobbegong, they're laying around on the sea floor "sleeping". The one time I saw one swimming was when I was fiddling around with my camera and all of a sudden a wobbegong swam right beneath me - it startled me!

7. This sting ray's swimming away.

On Sun. Oct. 2, 1011

Dive #132, 50 ft, 52 minutes to Fish Rock Cave with 2 meter waves
Dive #133 15.2 m (50 ft), 38 minutes, 18 degrees C (64.4 degrees F) at Green Island as current and waves were so strong

At the surface, the waves, surge and current was so strong that the dive master had us go down to depth and wait near the line until everyone else geared up and entered the water. I got in first so hung around at the line for about 10 minutes. While waiting for everyone, I decided to try the movie feature on my under water camera. Here's my first "practice" movie.

When finally we were all at depth, we went into the cave from the shallow end with the plan being that we'd go about half way, until the "chimney" and then U-turn and come out again and spend the rest of the dive in "shark alley" (where about a dozen sharks hang out). You'll see that we're heading into the cave single file and I'm second after the dive master. What you'll see is that there are two sharks at the entrance to the cave and the dive master is pointing them out with his flash light - one is swimming at our level and the second is hovering near the bottom and we swim over it.

Then you see us head into the cave, do a U-turn and come out again. I'm thinking we're about to head out of the cave and into shark alley so I try a technique I'd seen a fellow diver, Matt, did with his camera/video yesterday. So you'll see me take my light, shine it near the fish against the backdrop of us exiting the cave. Then, strangely instead of swimming out of the cave, the dive master swims upwards.

And you'll see this in the video, as we swim upwards you see the surface of the water, while we're still in the cave. Then almost miraculously we "surface" yet we're still 5 meters (16 ft) underwater - we're in a "bubble cave"! You'll see the dive master takes his regulator out, talks and points his flashlight at me (in Oz they call them "torches"). Then in the video you see me do a 360 turn and you see Garrick and Matt taking photos in the back corner of the cave. After we're done, I put my regulator back in and swim down and out of the cave. How cool is that!

Still the same dive, we're now hanging out for several minutes watching a dozen or so shark swim/pace back and forth, back and forth. I'm hanging out near the far left, along the rocks watching these sharks with their steely, piercing eyes and even though I feel like I'm incredibly close to them, they don't seem bothered by our presence at all.

Kai, isn't this incredible!

8. I'd been taking all these photos from the top, finally I decided to take a photo from the front of this wobbegong.

9. I don't know which of my fellow divers this is, but this shark just whizzes by... with something in its mouth.

10. And by zooming into this photo, I can see that it's a fish hook. Which brings me to this research booklet on Fish Rock that was on the coffee table at the place we were staying (did I mention that all 8 of us from Pro Dive Manly were sleeping in a room with 4 sets of bunk beds, made me feel like I was back at summer camp). It said that while sharks "paced" and were a bit agitated while scuba divers were in the area, when the divers departed, a few hours later they work fine again. The same could not be said for those that fished near Fish Rock as sharks often got caught up in fish hooks and lines. And take a look here at the fish hook that's still caught in its mouth.

11. Here's a photo of the broken white shells that covered the ground of "shark alley". I should have been looking for shark teeth!

12. And here's a photo of a string ray along with a diver to show you it's size in scale.

13. Lots of fish...

14. And here are a bunch of my best shark photos, edited with Adobe Photoshop which I received from Mom and Papa a few years ago.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28. Again, I was lucky enough to get a few shots of this beautiful lion fish with its fins/gills spread out in all its glory.

29. And here's Rod, our dive master and instructor, taking photos of his own of the lionfish.

30. And another sleeping wobbegong. I wonder if there's a survey of percentage of time that wobbegong actually swim around, active (or is it a nighttime shark?)

More than my share of meat pies ... in one week

2011-10-18T01:31:00.002+11:00

Even after 2.5 years here, I still hadn't been to the iconic "Harry's cafe on Wheels" which is this longstanding mobile van well known for its meat pies. Or more specifically its mashed potato and mushy peas meat pies which was very, very filling.

In this same FlipVideo clip you'll not only see our visit to Harry's, but also another pie place on our way back from a scuba weekend where they had all sorts of pies from kangaroo, to crocodile to wild boar (what I didn't get a video of was the pie place on our way up to Southwest Rocks for the long weekend).

A Whirlwind Trip Back to the US to Visit Family and Friends

2011-09-24T18:15:00.024+10:00

It was nearly 2 years since I last went back to the US to catchup with family and friends. It was wonderful to see everyone, spend late nights talking, great splash fights at the pool and beach with my nephews and nieces (Aug. 23-Sept. 9, 2011).

Here are the highlights:

1. The Horiuchi Family had a spectacular time in Aruba in the Caribbean! We played it smart and stayed in one of the ABCs (Aruba, Barbados and Curacao) which are outside the hurricane corridor so fortunately we weren’t impacted by Hurricane Irene weather-wise. We did, however, have about a 1.5 days of anxiety around rebooking our flights back to NY after they were cancelled (big thank you call out to JetBlue who added an extra flight that meant we were only delayed by one day and to the Marriot Surf Club who let us extend our stay and only charged us a “distressed traveller” fee of $110 for the extra night).

In fact, this leads me to one of the funny moments on this vacation. Before we got on the JetBlue flight we were working with our various travel agents on Plan B. And our Plan B’s were so horribly inconvenient and just awful, that all we could do was joke about which one was worse:

• Tomu, Ellen and the two kids (one is a toddler) fly from Aruba to Miami, change planes for a connecting flight to Detroit, Michigan, spend a night in Detroit then fly to NY’s JFK the next morning.
• Linda departs Aruba for Atlanta, Georgia, changes planes for a connecting flight that lands in Buffalo, NY at 11 p.m., spend the night in Buffalo, NY and then wake up early, rent a car and drive 6-8 hours to NY city.

I really wasn’t looking forward to driving 6-8 hours, but the thought of spending a night in Detroit was even worse!

Random footnote: I met a guy at Sydney Airport on my way to Aruba who was headed to “see the ruins in Detroit”. I said, “what ruins, there’s no Manchu Picchu in Detroit”. To which he responded, “I’m going to see all the demolished, run down buildings in Detroit”. Detroit clearly has an image problem.

Aruba’s definitely one of the “high end” Caribbean islands with taxi cabs that were Lexus and Mercedes SUVs. The ocean was so warm, it literally was just like bath water. And thanks to my brother Tomu for getting us pointed in the right direction when it came to local restaurants to check out. We loved Chef’s Table (great taster desserts in shot glasses), Aqua Grill and Wacky Wahoo’s (great local seafood).

Here's my nephew Kai narrating our dinner at Aqua Grill Restaurant.

Each day followed a similar pattern – the morning was spent at the beach, lunch was at the beach protected from the sun in our “palapa hut” (thanks to Tomu and Papa for waking up early to reserve the huts and the chairs), then Tyler and Kai took a nap and in the afternoon we swam at the hotel pool which had a very relaxing lazy river and enjoyed “happy hour 2 for 1 drinks” and “bucket of beer for $24” (their local beer is Balashi which is pretty good).

Tomu asked me to help his son, my nephew Kai with his front crawl and back crawl with the aim of getting Kai into “Dolphins” at the local YMCA. But we had more splash fights than we did swimming lessons. Tomu, here’s the “Little Nemo” swim drills I prepared for Kai if you’d like to work on them with him next time you’re at the pool:

FREESTYLE
• Freestyle kick with board - chin at waterlevel
• Freestyle kick with board – head in water, breath on side
• Freestyle kick with board – one arm on board, breathing on the side
• Freestyle kick no board- one arm in front, breath on side
• Single arm stroke with board (without board); 3 strokes on each arm
• Arm catchup drill (with and without kick board)
• Zipper arms, chicken wing (aka shark arms, elbow high)
• Kick facing the right, left
• Fist swim
• Fingertip drag
• Long armed dog, underwater recovery (freestyle)

BACKSTROKE
• Push and Glide with kickboard, with arms above head
• Penny on forehead to encourage "still head position" during drills.
• Single arm backstroke, 3 strokes each arm
• Backstroke – Single arm pull
• Double arm pulling and leg kick

Background:
• Zipper arms/chicken wing: Maintain contact between your [extended] thumb and your body up to your armpit throughout the recovery. When your thumb reaches your armpit reach forward and enter the hand in the water. Keep stroke extended; watch entry. MUST Rotate!! Purpose:- Encourages forward momentum in entry that characterizes efficient arm recovery. Also relaxed recovery, and length of stroke.
• Long-Armed Dog/ Underwater Recovery Swim Freestyle making your arm recovery completely under the water. Essentially combining a long-armed dog paddle with the head position and side breathing of Freestyle. Reach long on each side and focus on making a good catch; then rotate your body past the arm as you focus on lengthening your stroke. NOTE!! Should only be <= 4 strokes of your Stroke Count! Purpose:- Lengthen stroke, focus on catch and pull through, rotation.
• Push and glide The most obvious practice to start with is the push-and-glide. This is exactly what it suggests you push and then glide. Face the pool wall and hold onto the side. Put both feet against the wall with bent legs. You should be in a ready to spring position. You will then push hard against the pool wall with both arms to your side. With your head back stomach up you will then glide for about 4-5 meters. This is a good backstroke drill/ practice to help to gain good body position in the water when swimming backstroke. You can use some variations of this for example you can link your hands together holding the side. Then as you push off the side you then throw your arms over your head keeping your arms straight and together. You could then use the push and glide to begin your backstroke maintaining good body position throughout. Make sure that you push off the wall nice and hard to achieve good momentum then begin the arm action as soon as your legs straighten.
• Backstroke – Single arm pull Another way you can use one arm at a time when practicing your backstroke arms is to swim with on arm resting and then change over and each different position for the resting arm has different benefits for the backstroke swimmer. So now we will go through each one and look at each benefit. A single arm pull with one resting on your thigh, this is very good for improving your technique by allowing greater roll to increase the amount of propulsion. It also encourages more shoulder lift for recovery of the arm. A single arm pull with one arm resting extended above the head in the water, this refines your technique epically the entry to the catch. It also lengthens the stroke.
• Backstroke drills/ Double arm pulling and leg kick Try swimming with both arms at the same time it develops the bent arm action as well as a shallow push through to your hips. Your aim is to reduce the number of strokes across the pool.

Papa and Ellen did a fantastic job project managing the building of a very feng shui sandcastle that had water, movement and tall towers from multiple directions. Aruba’s very easy going, relaxing and like their license plate says “one happy island”.

On our last night, as Kai had been so patient as we rebooked our flights to New York we treated him to “game night” in the arcade room. Here’s a FlipVideo of the arcade game Kai enjoyed the most – he went several rounds!

2. Scuba diving in Aruba was rather disappointing. Other than seeing the wrecks, there weren’t many spectacular fish or coral.

And my brother had just gotten me an underwater camera (Canon G12) for my belated birthday/Christmas so I was really hoping to capture some photos of vibrant colored fish and sharks to show Kai.

I’d researched JADS Dive Shop on TripAdvisor and comments said they were well known for small groups, friendly staff and well taken care of gear. While the staff were very friendly, it was a very tight fit on the boat with many people and the biggest complaint is that the tanks were not topped up/full. They said they’d been having some trouble with vandalism and hopefully they’ll get that fixed soon as when I switched over to a new tank for the second dive it only had 1800 PSI in the tank (my tank was switched to one that had 2800 PSI which was clearly better but not the same as 3000PSI).

Dive #128 on Aug. 26, 2011 with JADS Dive Shop
Location: Airplanes
Max depth: 80ft
Bottom time: 33 minutes

Dive #129
Location: Harbour Reef
Max depth: 18 meters
Bottom time: 56 minutes

Can you see the green moray eel here?

While their colors are complimentary, I thought it quite poignant that in every other way they're different yet here they are - this oddest pairing of fish - swimming around the ocean like best friends.

3. On my way to Aruba, I had a day in LA to hang out with my best friend since 5th gradea – Ana and her husband Scott. We went for breakfast for a badly needed latte and then we bicycled around Santa Monica beach which was fantastic because after an 14 hour flight being in the fresh air and getting some exercise was just what I needed! We walked around the shops and Ana got us this great card game called “Set” that we played in Aruba which takes a while to get the hang of but once you understand the concept is quite fun.

Then we went for Mexican food – one of the cuisines I miss most here in Australia. While we were having lunch, the funny coincidence is that I received an email from Mom that back in Hoffman Estates she’d run into Ana’s mom Carmen at the swimming pool.

We walked around this Venice-like neighborhood nearby which had some amazing homes.

Then it was on to LA Japantown for manju snack, some more browsing of shops before we heading out for sushi dinner!

Thank you Ana and Scott – it was wonderful to spend the day with you and catching up! I can’t wait to host you here in Sydney some day!

4.Bachan remembered my name!

My Grandmother has Alzheimer’s and everyone told me she probably won’t remember my name. I was absolutely thrilled when she did! I saw her all 4 mornings I was in New Jersey and she remembered my name each day! Here's Kalea narrating my visit with Bachan:

Bachan’s doing incredibly well, particularly considering she’s 93 years old. She’s very articulate and has clear memories of when she was in 6th grade and when she was raising the family, but she’s a bit unclear on more recent happenings.

My fondest memories of our visits were of watching Bachan do her daily workout to “Who let the dogs out” and “Macarena”, re-reading my letters together with her, watching her enjoy time with her great grand children and reminiscing about our family with Mom. Here are three-generations - Bachan, Mom and me.

5. Nieces and Nephews Galore! My nephews Kai Kenichi and Tyler are outnumbered by all the nieces Kalea, Keilani, Aila and Soriya.

I had a ball playing chess with Kai and Kalea, watching Kalea’s dance recitals DVDs and Kai and I cooked lamingtons and he continued the tradition of licking the bowl after everything was baked, coated with chocolate and sprinkled with coconut.

And the cousins got to hang out as well ! Yas and Cindy joined us for dinner at the Italian restaurant along with Auntie Eiko. Just today heard from Mieko that Tom’s Mom has been discharged from the hospital so thrilled to hear that all our best wishes for a speedy recovery came true!

And on my way home to Sydney, I stopped off in San Francisco to catchup with Tetsuya and Chamnan and was happy to join Soriya for her “swim class” at the local pool. She loves the water and did this balancing on the foam board thing really well so I predict she has a future in surfing ☺

Auntie Vivian and Uncle Yori joined us for Thai dinner in one of Westfield’s oldest dinner cars with Buburry napkins (quite the anomaly). One thing I learned is that it’s tough to get a liquor license in New Jersey so many restaurants are BYO beer and wine. For Amanda and Uncle Yori, here are the wines we enjoyed (mostly Californian as it reminded me of home): Rombauer Zinfandel, Sterling Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc, Bogle Old Vine Zinfandel and Stag’s Leap Riesling.

6. Congratulations to Ryu and Amanda who are engaged to be married next year! We went to an outstanding restaurant called Culin Ariane in New Jersey which is owned by Ariane Duarte who was on Bravo TV’s Top Chef TV Show.

Amazingly, during my vacation I even ran a 5k race thanks to Ryu and his coordinating this early morning run around Verona, New Jersey.

7. With the aim of helping my nephew to understand responsibility and that when you do what you've agreed to in your employment contract, you'll receive your payment. Just after this was signed, Verizon's union workers went on strike over renewal of their employment contract and Tomu was able to use it as an example to explain to Kai why his Mom was holding a sign and walking the picket line.

#7 prompted a discussion between Tomu and I that revealed that Papa's habit from when we were growing up of always making sure there was enough TP has become a habit with both of us and now Kai - we had a good laugh. Thank you Mom and Papa for a wonderful and memorable vacation in Aruba! I love you very much and can't wait for our Explore Asia vacation!

Ski Weekend at Perisher

2011-08-16T21:26:00.005+10:00

The past two ski seasons I skied Threadbo, so I was keen to ski Perisher which is the only other ski resort in the Sydney-area. Now that I've been to both, I definitely prefer Threadbo for its longer ski runs, ski village and night life.

Perisher had its charm though. Before I even arrived I knew that getting to Perisher was going to be half the adventure. It was like "planes, trains and automobiles". But at Perisher - it's more like "ski tube, on snow and Aeropelican".

To get to Perisher, we parked the car and piled all our luggage and ski gear on to a push cart that we took onto the ski tube which is a train that goes through a mountain tunnel right up to the ski slopes. Then we piled all our gear on to an "over snow" (not "over-the-snow", but "oversnow") which is like a massive army tank outfitted with ski and luggage racks on top and on the side. We took this "over snow" to our on mountain lodge - called the Sun Deck.

My friends Georgina, Paul, Tiffany and Kevin were staying an extra day so I took a flight back to Sydney on the Aeropelican. What an odd name for a regional airline - can pelican's even fly? I sat in seat A1 so had a "bird's eye" view of the pilots - what surprised me was there was no door between the passengers and the pilots - I could look right in and see all the controls, lights and buttons!

In an interesting side-note, when we say "banking holiday" we mean any official holiday when the banks are closed in the US. But in Australia, there is an actual holiday called "Banking Holiday" (Aug. 1) which was designed for bank employees in compensation for all the extra hours they worked. Paul works for a bank so he had a long weekend of skiing.

We were booked into the Sun Deck for two-nights and it included breakfast and dinner. Which was a good thing as the "ski village" was down the mountain and hard to get to and we later discovered didn't have much going on in terms of apres ski activities. So our daily routine became, wake up early as if we're going to get a fresh start before everyone else when the reality was we waited until the espresso machine came alive at 9:30 a.m., ski starting at around 10 a.m. then after skiing we hit the bar, rolled into dinner and then back into the bar.

Ice Skating on Bondi Beach

2011-08-16T21:09:00.002+10:00

What will the Aussie's think of next - an ice skating rink right on Bondi Beach!

It was a gorgeous day (July 10), bright blue skies and waves coming right up to the ice skating rink. It was so warm out that the conditions on the ice skating rink weren't very good. So my friend Sandy and I skated a few times around the rink and then headed into the "ski chalet" for some refreshments.

Lions, Tigers and Eel… Going on an Adventure in Parramatta

2011-07-03T23:46:00.005+10:00

Australia’s a sport-crazy country and while I’ve been to see Aussie Rules Football and Rugby Union, I had yet to check out Rugby League.

In a very surprising turns of events and unexpected surprises, this past Friday (July 1) I not only saw my first rugby league game between the Parramatta Eels and the Brisbane Broncos but I also met some of rugby league’s greatest players!

Travelling back from a vacation and on her way to the Sydney Airport Long Term Parking lot, Sandy met Roy Spagnolo, the CEO and President, of the Parramatta Eels and several of its players. Through this connection Sandy was able to secure us free tickets to the game.

We were expecting general admission tickets to the game and were totally flabbergasted when we picked up our tickets and were escorted to box seats in the Ray Price suite!

What amazing generosity! We had canapés, wine, dessert and most importantly meat pies and sausage rolls in the suite! Meat pies are a tradition at league games so in spite of trying hard to watch my carbs, I had my first meat pies and found they were very saucy and tasty!

And using her keen observation and celeb spotting skills, Kate pointed out that Ray Price was also in the suite (how ironic, Ray Price was in the suite named after him). Only afterwards, when I’ve told people I met Ray Price do I understand what a big deal this is – he’s a legend in both Rugby Union, Rugby League and he’s even been recognized as the first rugby league player to win the Order of Australia Medal (OAM).

The game itself was very spirited and a close game until the end when the Broncos pulled a last minute try and won. The biggest difference between rugby union and league is that in the latter a team only has 6 attempts to move the ball down the field and if they don’t score a try, they have to kick the ball into their opponent’s end zone (in union there is no limit). Now that I’ve watched a few rugby games, I’ve noticed how symmetrical the game is – all the players are lined up, making a wall which their opponent tries to penetrate. There are no long passes (they only throw short passes to the player running alongside them) and not a lot of ground gained in each play as there are no running backs that are weaving around trying to get open for the quarterback to throw them a pass.

After the game, we went to the local RSL (reserve service league) to watch the presentation of the team and met another famous league player named Eric Grothe, Sr. who won four premierships when playing for the Parramatta Eels.

On final note, when I think of names of sports teams I think of ferocious animals and intimidating characters like the St. George Dragons, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Bears or the San Diego Chargers. But eels? I know it’s my Japanese heritage that makes me think “unagi” (eel in Japanese) which is an incredible delicacy BBQ’s in a flavorful sauce and served over rice. I just can’t imagine a team mascot that’s an eel! What I’ve since learned is that the town of Parramatta has a river and evidently there are a lot of eels in the river (yikes, won’t be swimming there).

Nevertheless, what a HUGE and LEGENDARY night it was – Go Eels!

Cringe-worthy, but for a Good Cause

2011-07-03T23:45:00.004+10:00

There was only one item on the “List of the Oddest Things in Australia” and that was the cane toad racing earlier this year up in Port Douglas. Now I’m adding the #2 Oddest Thing I’ve seen here in Australia.

I was invited by friends to a fundraiser for a young lady with cancer last Saturday, June 25. While they had the typical things you’d expect at a fundraiser like raffle tickets and a live auction, there was also one of the oddest and most cringe-worthy things I’ve ever seen. A male coworker of the young lady volunteered to have his chest waxed to help raise money.

While it was clearly a very generous act and helped raise much needed money for the young lady and her family, for me it was like watching a scary movie. You really don’t want to watch, but somehow you do anyway.

It was hard to believe how many people jumped at the chance to pay anywhere from $20-$30 for the chance to wax this guy!

It’s Called the Bondi Icebergs for a Reason!

2011-07-03T23:45:00.003+10:00

Last Saturday (June 25) I had lunch with friends at Bondi Icebergs, an iconic Sydney landmark, because of its location on the famous Bondi Beach. We were in luck as the sun was out, we could sit outdoors and the views were amazing. We event saw whales playing out in the ocean!

Dori joined us for lunch on Saturday and invited me back the next day to swim as her guest in the Bondi Iceberg Winter Relays.

Now, in addition to having a great location, the Bondi Icebergs is also a world famous winter swimming club with a rock pool” that’s built off the cliff side rocks of Bondi Beach. It’s literally built right in the ocean so the waves, sand and seaweed crash over the rocks into the pool – so it’s really cold.

Dori’s a member and trains with the Bondi Icebergs because the water’s so “English-channel” cold it’s the perfect training for the double crossing she’s planning (she’s already swum across the English Channel twice before and now she’s aiming to do a round-trip or “double crossing”). And as a Bondi Iceberg member, Dori must swim at least 3 weekends a month every month from May-October (these are the winter months in Sydney) for at least 5 years before becoming a permanent member.

As the weather was so amazingly beautiful and sunny that weekend, I thought this was great opportunity to get some bragging rights on “swimming with the Bondi Icebergs”.

When I arrived on Sunday the pool was jam packed with people and the races had already started so I didn’t get a chance to jump in the water for a warm-up. So when I jumped in to do the 40 meter swim, my first thought was “**** this water is cold!”

I swim in the heated outdoor pool at North Sydney during the winter at night and this was during the late morning and the sun had been out all day so I didn’t think it’d be that bad. I had no idea it’d be so cold!

Gymea, Chocolate Echidna and a Smelly Club

2011-06-15T00:45:00.002+10:00

In my past blogs you’ve read about how I’ve butchered the pronunciation of towns in Australia (e.g., Kogarah and Maunka). But here’s a first – a town name that sounds like a communicable disease – Gymea (pronounced guy-me-ah).

Gymea is considered a bedroom suburb as many families live there and commute into the city – which takes about an hour during rush hour. And in this FlipVideo you’ll see that while there’s poverty there are also some real gems like Nina’s Handmade Chocolate – check out the chocolate penguin, koala and echidna! How cute are they! And sooo Australian!

After Sandy’s exhibition we went to the Gymea pub, dinner and then we headed to The Vinyl, which is a retro 80s dance club that we were warned “smelled bad”.

That was the understatement of the century! The Vinyl totally reeked! The smell was so bad, I felt nauseous immediately upon entering the club. And it wasn’t just the smell of stale beer it was more like kitty litter, moth balls and putrid chemicals combined! When I stepped outside the club to clear my head I talked to the guys at the door and reportedly they steam clean the carpet every weekend (although I don’t think they let it properly air out) and change the carpet every six months.

The good thing about The Vinyl was the range of ages of people at the club. It wasn’t just teeny boppers, but people in their 40s and 50s too. And you couldn’t help but feel secure as the cops (or constables as they’re called here) went through the club a few times checking for underage drinking and trouble.

The unbelievable thing is that when we left (early!) there was a long line of people waiting outside the door to get in! I felt like yelling – “it smells in there” to warn them but figured they would find out for themselves soon enough.

In thinking about why The Vinyl’s so popular – my theory is that unlike in the city where there’s a lot of competition and no smelly club could possibly survive, The Vinyl’s the only club in Gymea so patrons don’t have a choice.

On the flip side in Sydney, due to a change in the local council rules, a lot of new small pubs have opened up in the city. The little “hideaway” bars I’d recommend are Shady Pines Saloon, The Fox Hole, Stitch Bar and The Grasshopper.

Sandy’s Painting Opens the Hazelhurst Art Exhibit

2011-06-15T00:39:00.001+10:00

My friend Sandy’s a very talented portrait painter and on June 12 her submission to the Archibald was the show piece of the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery’s Advanced Oil Painting student exhibition. Her painting was of Australian actor Salvatore Coco from the gangster TV series Underbelly: The Golden Mile.

Wine Tasting Weekend in Mudgee

2011-06-15T00:38:00.000+10:00

The first weekend (June 3-5) in June, Kate and her brothers Ian and Pete invited their friends to join them for a weekend of wine tasting in Mudgee - which is an Aboriginal word for “nest in the hills” - about 4 hours drive outside of Sydney. It was a great weekend in a wine region known for its big, bold red wines and wineries that are largely family owned.

In the city, “hotels” are really pubs. Yet, when we arrived in Mudgee our hotel was the pub. Believe it or not, I can now claim to have slept two nights in a pub! And ironically it was called “The Oriental Hotel” or “The Ori” – I say ironic because from what I observed that weekend I was one of the few “orientals” in Mudgee.

The Oriental was an up-scale youth hostel with shared bathroom and shower facilities and no TV in the room. It was an ideal place for our group to stay, however, as we had the run of the place and open access to the veranda where we could (literally) chill out at night as it was quite cold in Mudgee at night.

The wine tour Kate’s brother Pete organised was a progressive lunch with something to eat with each wine tasting.

The first winery was also the friendliest winery and had the best views of the hills – Moothi Estate. A lovely couple had morning tea for us and opened up their 2011 Riesling, which is the first time they’ve ever produced a riesling. I loved the creativity they put into their wine label. It’s a splotch of mud (as in Mud-gee) and the ring of the bottom of a wine bottle.

The next winery was the best all-around winery – Bunnamagoo Winery - and the wines were all top quality, beautiful reds. We had Bunnamagoo wine at the pub the night we arrived and it was a great blend of different red varietals.

The Blue Wren was where we had lunch and it’s a good thing the meal was good as the service and the wines were poor. What this winery’s best known for is its white port which they served over ice with a squeeze of lime. It tasted like sweet water with lime so nothing very special about it, but I could see how it might be nice to serve at a summer party for its cool, refreshing taste.

The next winery had the most congenial host – the wine maker himself! Tim Stevens is the winemaker of Huntington Winery and he walked us through our flight of wines paired with cheese. When we arrived, the tour guide said that Tim’s very well regarded and that if we had a question – he’d have an answer!

The last stop was Mudgee Brewery where they had banana beer (there’s a “call out” to my best friend Ana) and chocolate/coffee flavored dessert beer. I didn’t do the beer tasting as I’d already moved on to a skinny flat white (non-fat, no-foam latte) and warm scone with cream and jam. Here’s everyone else giving a toast – “bums up” (Aussie version of “bottom’s up”)!

And here’s the funniest (and only) Aussie beer drinking song I’ve heard – a twist on Julie Andrew’s Sound of Music song.

On Sunday, we had a “Big Brekkie” which was huge amounts of eggs, sausages, bacon, toast, tempura veggies and roasted tomatoes and mushrooms. Then we hit the road and checked out a few more wineries.

Our first stop was Robert Stein Winery which is known for its rum cask port. Many years ago for whatever reason they ran out of the wood needed to make wine barrels so they used old rum casks to make port. Thus the port had a light flavor of rum. To this day, the winery makes port the same way and it was an amazing port, very smooth with a light rum taste.

Then we went to The Olive Nest and 1838 Wines where I learned about what’s special about extra virgin olive oil (it’s the healthiest and processed free of heat or chemicals, thus it is best used in less than a year). I bought the lime infused extra virgin olive oil which I plan to stir fry with and for dukkah which is where you dip bread into an herb seasoned extra virgin olive oil.

This FlipVideo refers to an inside joke with my brother about this US commercial we watched when we were little. The commercial was about where spaghetti comes from and the tag line was and “everybody knows spaghetti grows on trees”. At this point my brother turns to me and in all seriousness says, “I didn’t know spaghetti grew on trees” and I had a really good laugh! Tomu, I’m sorry it’s still funny even after all these years ☺

We went to Robert Oakley Winery next which is Mudgee’s oldest winery and they have many different wine labels including Craigmoor which is well known for their champagne.

Then we went to Elliot Rocke Estate which is known for its ice wine. I tried it and it was tasty, but the shiraz ice wine was even better as it had a bit of berry flavor to the sweet wine.

I did what I could for the Mudgee economy with my wine purchases:
2004 Moothi Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
2011 Moothi Estate Riesling
2004 Tim Stevens Signature Range Cab/Shiraz/Merlot Blend
Craigmoor Sparkling Pinot Noir Chardonnay
2007 Bunnamagoo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon
2009 Bunnamagoo Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz Merlot
2008 Bunnamagoo Estate Shiraz

West Australia... the Final Frontier of my Australian Walkabout

2011-05-29T22:04:00.018+10:00

Since moving to Australia just over 2 years ago, it's been my mission to visit all 6 states and two territories of Australia. And with my visit to West Australia this past Easter/ANZAC long weekend (April 20-27) I have visited them all!

Interestingly, unlike in the US, Good Friday is an official holiday and almost everything is closed. Until I arrived in Australia I never heard of "Easter Monday" but the Monday after Easter is also an official holiday.

And this year, in a rare occurrence, ANZAC day (like our Memorial Day, it's in honor of all who've served in the Australian and New Zealand military) fell on the same day as Easter Monday so it was an exceptionally long holiday weekend as the Australian government officially announced the Tuesday as ANZAC day. So, I decided to take advantage of this by heading to Perth which is a 5 hour flight from Sydney (East Coast) to Perth (West Coast) and a three time zone difference.

The first night I arrived, I had dinner on the outdoor patio of Coco's which had a wonderful view of downtown Perth.

In another interesting coincidence - the day after I arrived in Australia was Good Friday (Friday, April 10, 2009). And I'll always remember that all tourist attractions - except the Sydney Fish Market (which is where I ended up going) - and stores were closed. Since then I've always made a mental note to deliberately plan something on Good Friday. Last year for Good Friday I was on Kangaroo Island on a driving tour and this year I was on yet another island - Rottnest Island. I'm detecting a trend here...

On Good Friday morning I took the Rottnest Ferry (40 minutes) from Freemantle to Rottnest Island and once there I rented a bicycle and set out to tour the island (there are very few cars allowed on the island). The island itself is only 11km long (6.8 miles) and 4.5 km (3 miles) wide and hilly so I was expecting to get a good workout. Yet, due to a mixup at the bike shop, rather than getting the multi-gear bike I requested I got a single gear bike and didn't realise this until I hit the first big hill. I should have gone back, but the line was so long at the shop I decided to persevere and take this as a sign that I could use this as an opportunity to burn a few more calories. Oh my goodness, it was really hard work! And I more than deserved the glasses of wine at the end of the bike ride around the island!

Rottnest Island itself is full of dry shrubbery and short trees and lots of dirt. And of course there were lots of quokkas which is what Rottnest Island is known for. When the Dutch explorers first arrived on the island, they saw these huge rats and thus called the island (in Dutch) Rat's Nest Island or Rottnest Island.

And while these quokkas look like humongous rats, they are quite friendly and cute. And they're not afraid to get up close to the tourists. My cousin Tetsuya has either a hamster or a gerbil (I honestly can't tell the difference between the two) but these quokkas remind me of tremendously overfed hamster/gerbil.

About halfway around the island I visited Wadjemup Lighthouse on Rottnest Island and climbed up 150 stairs (as if the bike ride alone wasn't enough, I had to climb up a 30 meter lighthouse) to see the panoramic view of the island.

I stopped at Ricey Beach along the North Shore of Rottnest Island and enjoyed dipping my toes into the water which was very refreshing. There was this hard as rock, sandy surface that when the waves crashed over it was very zen-like, mesmerising and soothing.

Here's an overview of my bike ride around Rottnest Island

On April 23 I went dove with Perth Diving Academy to Rottnest Island. I did two boat dives on this huge boat what had a max capacity of 50 but there were only about 15 of us. Surprisingly no dive master dove with us, but it was fine as my two dive buddies were Tony and Keith and they were locals and had dived Rottnest Island before.

Dive 1 (My dive #126) to Parker Point Wall depth was 56 ft for 60 minutes. I saw West Australian Blue Devil fish hanging out under the rocks, cliff hangs. They were sparkley blue and hand fancy long fins. There were also a few string rays and a purple cuttle fish.

Dive 2 (My dive #127) to Porpoise Bay Caves we went down to 52 ft for another 60 minutes and I enjoyed the swim throughs.

Since I don't have an underwater camera yet (my brother's going to get me a new one - I've pretty much decided on a Canon G12) I'm thrilled that my dive buddy Tony Newman was kind enough to share the FANTASTIC photos that he took! Thank you so much for letting me share your photos with my friends and family!

These next two photos are of the West Australian Blue Devil - fancy fish!

And here's me trying to see if there are any fish or other sea life in and around all that seaweed! Wow, didn't realize I was putting so much effort into my swim kicks. Which reminds me - on this dive there was a young diver in his 20s who carried what I thought was a small fan when in reality it was like an underwater scooter so he could get around underwater much faster - quite ridiculous really and created a noisy, distracting lawnmotor sound that ruined the serenity of the underwater experience (it's like someone bringing a boom box to a beautiful mountain top where you're just trying to appreciate the majestic views).

And here are several shots of cuttlefish, isn't it cool how they change color to blend in with their surroundings!

Here's a stingray:

This is Keith, one of the other divers and you could see that we had 60 minute dives and it did eventually get cold even though we were wearing 5 mm wetsuits.

After a day of diving, I went to do a beer tasting at Little Creatures (when I first moved to Australia, I went to this local Glebe bar called Little Drummer and found I liked Little Creatures) which originates here in Freemantle (or Freo as it's called by the locals). I tried the pale ale, bright ale, pilsner, and a dark beer. My favorite is the bright ale which is described as:

"Bright Ale is a smooth, full flavoured beer that is uniquely Australian. As the name suggests it is a filtered, top fermented ale with a striking clarity in the glass. A selection of specialty malts are balanced with a gentle dose of crisp bitterness from all Australian hop flowers. Clean, fresh and refreshingly balanced. 4.5%"

Then on Sun. April 24 I headed to the Freemantle Markets for some shopping of local arts and crafts (Kenichi and Hiroshi, this is where I got your puzzles) and Morish Nuts also from West Australia - they're roasted and carmelised and I didn't know this but macadamia nuts are also grown in WA.

Then I drove about 3 hours South of Perth to Margaret River the very famous wine region in West Australia to join my good friend Lousie Runkle and her family at their family home in Dunsbourough. Louise and I met when we both worked on the HP account at Cunningham Communication (high tech PR agency) in Palo Alto, Calif. I had a wonderful time hanging out with Louise, her husband Sean, their two boys Jasper and Zachary and her parents David and Julie.

We walked along the beautiful shoreline and of course did plenty of wine tasting!

Saracen Estates and Duckstein Brewary - This is where we met up with Louise's friend and her boyfriend (also from Sydney)

Woody Nook Winery - This is where we had a lovely lunch

Howard Park - I didn't buy any wine here as while the wine was good, it was also very, very expensive and I can probably get it at a local bottle shop cheaper.

Hay Shed Hill - They'd won a number of awards for their wines. I had a case shipped home!

Palmer Wines - This was the last winery I visited, they had a great sale one, you could get a case of wines for less than $99. I purchased a case and split it with Louise and Sean.

Next time, I'll check out Moss Brothers, Leeuwin Estate.

Royal Easter Show - A Country Fair "Sydney Style"

2011-04-17T23:02:00.009+10:00

Yesterday (April 16) Kate invited me to join her and her brother Ian at the Sydney Royal Easter Show which is like a huge country fair that features all things Australian. I had a blast and it was a rich experience of new tastes, smells and up-close-sights.

When we first arrived, I saw this store of "electric T-shirts" that was perfect for my best friend Ana's husband Scott who loves to mix music on his t-shirt. The t-shirt simulates an electric sound mixer.

Then we checked out the Woolworth Food Dome where I was expecting to see really big pumpkins and other large vegetables. Instead the first thing I saw was the National Honey Centre where we saw champion liquid honey, bee wax and creamed honey. Then there was this learning and tasting area where I learned that the state of New South Wales (the state I live in) has a big honey industry. The big learning for me was that much like how what the wine is stored in - whether french oak or American oak (I did a barrel tasting once) - the type of eucalyptus tree a honey bee gets its pollen from also makes a difference to the taste of the honey. After that tasting, I found I liked iron oak the most.

The highlight of the show is a display representing the best produce, herbs, preserves and grains from each of the regions of New South Wales plus Southeast Queensland. You'll see the scoreboard on how the best display was chosen - and I looked up "cucurbit" and they are gourds and melons. I also purchased a custard apple (I have yet to try it as I'm still waiting for it to soften).

Then we moved to the seafood section where I saw a number of prawns swimming fast in their tank only to bump up against a glass tank wall.

And I'm still finding cute differences in what Australian's call things - Fairy Floss for Cotton Candy (do they even have chocolate cotton candy in the US?) and Pluto Pups for Corn Dogs.

Then we headed to the cattle barns where I saw the bulls, studs, heffers and lots and lots of other cows (cattle) of many different breeds, colors and sizes. Here are the Galloway cattle (one is $5,000) - they're solid, white belt and white in color. At the end of this you'll see I get confused when Kate says "they sleep in here" thinking she meant the cows when she really meant the cattle caretakers. The rest of the evening I'm on a mission to find "the men who sleep with the cows".

Here are more different cattle - Murry Gray (yes they're grey).

And here's the Brahman cattle which have a hump on their backs, flat foreheads like cavemen and long floppy ears that are more like dogs than cows.

Then just as we're leaving the cattle section, we see this GIGANTIC cow named Fonzy which is Australia's largest holstein steer and he's 6'7".

Then we went to a cattle judging of a group of cattle (stud, heffer and child).

And from the judging we went to the cattle auctions. Now the cattle auction in my FlipVideo is of heffers that they're looking to breed. But I did learn a new term from Ian (Kate and Ian's dad sold cattle for the Australia Meat Association) which is when cattle is sold for stores - it's "judge them on the hoof, sell them on the hook".

As it was about 7 p.m. it was time for a few drinks in the member club as we watched the rodeo. In this FlipVideo you'll see the Australian Rodeo Champion for 2010 Sean (don't know his last name) ride this bull and he did really, really well. And in a fun coincidence Kate and I met Mr. Australian Rodeo Champion himself at the bar and I got this FlipVideo of meeting my first Australian cowboy (at least part-time, he's also a carpenter and married with 4 kids).

After the rodeo there was a ute racing team that put on a performance. They did a few maneuvers but because it had been raining all day and the conditions were bad they only did a few things.

And while the Sydney New Year's Eve Fireworks are still the best ever - the fireworks last night were fantastic. First, it was the closest I think I'll ever be to the actual fireworks - they were right in the middle of the stadium we were in - and second they had an accompanying laser light show.

After the fireworks we went back into the members bar for several more drinks and while I didn't find "man who sleeps with the cows" I did meet this Australian cowboy - Don - who said he's the "man who sleeps in the hut and takes care of the horses" as "man who sleeps with horses" just didn't sound in any way right.

Melbourne's Smallest Island - Ponyfish

2011-04-17T22:57:00.002+10:00

On Sun. April 3 (I said April 4th in the video as I was thinking it was already my cousin Tetsuya's birthday) I checked out the Art Centre's Market and then went for breakfast on Ponyfish Island.

Melbourne's Top Media at the Quill Awards

2011-04-17T22:46:00.002+10:00

I was very honored to be seated at ABC's table at Melbourne's Quill Awards where the state's top media were recognised by the Melbourne Press Club. And it was a very winning table as you'll see that Belinda Hawkins won for Best Current Affairs Feature over 10 minutes.

Mission Accomplished - Cisco Live Australia!

2011-04-17T22:32:00.003+10:00

The weeks leading up to Cisco Live Australia! were incredibly busy and involved a lot of late nights working but I was very pleased with the final results*. So by March 31 when most of my responsibilities were over, I was really looking forward to the party where the Hoodoo Gurus - an Australian band from the 1980s - was playing.

I didn't know any of the songs but it was clear they're a popular band as the crowd was bouncing!

* For the first time Cisco was featured on ABC Lateline Business TV news - click here. And our customers/partners were featured on ABC Radio AM which you can listen to here.

New South Wales State Elections

2011-04-17T21:55:00.004+10:00

A month after I moved to my apartment I got this letter from the Australian government which asked whether I (the new tenant) was an eligible voter (I checked "no" and mailed the letter back). I was quite impressed with the efficiency of the government in quickly tracking down potential voters. It certainly showed that there was "teeth" behind the legal requirement for Australians to vote, I mean how could they fine Australians who didn't vote if they didn't know where to send the bill.

Since I'd checked the "no" box stating I was ineligible to vote, I was surprised to get campaign mail.

Side-note... Speaking of what I get in the mail (or rather what I don't). In the 2 years I've lived here I have not received a single credit card application in the mail (I got tons in the US). I wanted to apply for an Australia MC/Visa card that would get me Qantas airline milage but I can't apply as I'm not a permanent resident. What a crazy rule!

Here are photos of two pieces of the campaign mail I received. Clover Moore is the current representative of Sydney and the second flier looks like a hybrid of a tacky car sales brochure and the front page of the National Enquirer. Could they be more different?

Frocomm New Media Summit

2011-04-16T10:32:00.002+10:00

On March 22, I was invited by Glen Frost to speak on a panel at Frocomm New Media Summit on "The Trials and Opportunities of Cyberspace" where I discussed my social media experiences and suggested that PR professionals amplify their communications with video and shift.

The panel that followed ours was very interesting as it was the two PR mavens behind Oprah's Australia Adventure. Here are some of the highlights of their experience.

Prodive Coogee and Fish Rock

2011-03-28T02:18:00.019+11:00

The Fish Rock scuba diving weekend really rocked! Our Dive Master Amber Kennedy had dived earlier that week and was so excited to go back and after doing 4 dives at Fish Rock I'm in total agreement!

I must admit I've never seen so many fish, sharks, turtles and rays all in one place. It was like were were swimming in a fish aquarium (coincidentally one of my fellow divers Jack actually does swim in Oceanworld's aquarium in Manly).

My nephew Kenichi loves sharks - well he'd be so excited to learn that his Ee Masa dove with a dozen wobbygong and grey nurse sharks! It was so surreal to be swimming around with all of these sharks! And I must admit to staring into their beady little eyes I was so close. We were at 80-90 feet and surprisingly the visibility was very good in spite of how deep we were and dark it was.

In the movie Finding Nemo there's a scene where there's a highway of fish traveling all together. I was reminded of this scene because at certain points I was swimming with thousands upon thousands of fish and then at the outskirts of this school of fish I'd see these sharks lurking around.

And the wobbygong (I still love saying that word) were everywhere too and blended in so well with the rocks that if you weren't careful you might fin kick one of them.

We dove the two same dive sites on both Saturday and Sunday (March 18-20) - they were called Fish Rock and Fish and Chips.

Fish Rock is this cave is 108 meters long and 24 meters deep. We start on the right side of the below diagram and navigate through with a torch (flashlight) and up this "chimney" and then traverse to this bubble cave where at this exit are tons of fish and sea life.

We dove with Southwest Dive Centre. The second dive site is called Fish and Chips because that's where all the sharks hang out!

Since my brother's going to buy me an underwater camera for my belated birthday, I've been paying particular attention to the underwater camera's my fellow divers are using. Amber, our dive master, was taking photos with her Canon G12 underwater camera and as you'll see in her photos below (with her permission I'm sharing them with you - thank you Amber!) she's not only got a great camera, she's also a terrific photographer as she took some AMAZING photos of Fish Rock!!!

Here's the Dive Master and Master Photographer Amber Kennedy from Prodive Coogee:

This is a wobbygong or carpet shark - a fun word to say that reminds me of the word "jabberwocky" from Alice in Wonderland

This is me!

And this is me hanging out at the anchor line doing my 5 minute safety stop.

Here's what you see upon coming out of Fish Rock Cave. This is where I saw that gigantic turtle the size of a coffee table, right at the exit to the cave!

And here's Fish Rock!

On Saturday after our dives we checked out the sights of South West Rocks.

Amber's from the UK so was very keen to stroke (pet) and feed a kangaroo. While she and others tried many times (all in a very respectful way without getting aggressive) it was not to be. We did have some fun with the attempts to feed a kangaroo to the point in true Aussie fashion a challenge was set - with the prize of a beer of course!

We had a great panoramic view of Fish Rock from the Lighthouse

This is the hand-sign you use underwater when you want to tell a fellow diver "there's a shark".

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil...

On the drive back home after an amazing weekend of diving, we stopped off at Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. I had a taste for a vanilla milkshake and yet couldn't find it listed as one of the choices. There was this Golden Gaytime Milkshake though - and upon asking I learned it was a vanilla milkshake - so I ordered it. But when it was served up - it looked more like a carmel shake with black dots and not very appetizing so I exchanged it for a chocolate shake.

James later explained that Golden Gametime is actually an old time Aussie favorite ice cream popsicle that's vanilla ice-creme with honeycomb biscuits on the outside. Evidently Golden Gaytime goes back to like 1940s so not a product named in recent times...

I also learned a few cartoony phrases for my nephews and nieces. It's "cockney" which mean's they're originally UK phrases (probably like words you'd expect Oliver Twist to say) but since Australia's a commonwealth of the UK you often hear them here.

I asked James to let me Flip him going through these saying as I felt it was important you hear them directly from an Aussie.

Scooby Doo (rhymes with clue) - Don't have a clue.
Mr. Magoo (rhymes with poo) - Take a poo
Barney Rubble (rhymes with trouble) - I'm in trouble

I love this swim...

2011-03-28T02:09:00.007+11:00

I love swimming in the Sydney Harbour. There's just something about stroking, turning your head to the side to breathe and seeing the Sydney Opera House.

Just before the 2K swim, this fire boat put on a water show (I suppose they do this to show the Australian taxpayers that they can not only serve and protect but also distribute large amounts of water in a fireworks-like display).

I seem to be consistent in this swim - last year I did the swim in 32:34 - and this year I did it in about the same time 32:22. Well, at least I’m consistent even though my goal is to improve.

My friends Christina, Colin and Melanie placed in their age groups - congrats!

It was a gorgeous day and after the swim we went to the Sydney House Opera Bar Cafe for brekkie.

Baby Buzzerina: Space ships and Calculus

2011-03-28T01:54:00.004+11:00

Nadia and I hosted Lisa's baby shower on March 12 and in the invite there was only a one "request" and that was no pink (red was acceptable).

Yes, Baby Calypso Susan's Mom has "out of this world" aspirations for her and they include learning multiple languages (Chinese and French), being smart in maths (as one of her honorary Auntie's my responsibility is to teach her algebra and calculus by age 3), eating rice (oops, that's actually Auntie Nadia's wish for Baby Calypso) and traveling into outer space like Buzz Aldrin (this is where I'd insert the photo of Lisa and Buzz Aldrin).

Among the games I planned for the baby shower, one included a "Space Quiz'. And did you know that Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon? This was one of the quiz questions...

Without knowing this, Lisa's cleverly incorporated a space theme into her daughter's name - Calpyso means "moon of Saturn". Maybe this'll mean a spaceship flight to Saturn for Calypso some day...

Missed Mardi Gras...

2011-03-28T01:43:00.004+11:00

Did you know that Sydney is the second most populous city for gays after San Francisco? One proof point of this is the HUGE Mardi Gras parade that Sydney hosts every year and that everyone checks out. The Mardi Gras Parade is even re-broadcast that evening on one of the major TV channel.

Last year I missed it as it was on the same weekend that the North Sydney Masters had their Mollymook Swim Weekend. But this year, Matt and his partner Thomas were having a party at their place in celebration of Thomas' party. And in the invite they said that since they lived so close to the parade route, we'd pop out and go see the Mardi Gras Parade.

But everyone was having so much fun, they didn't want to leave the party! So I missed it again this year.

Here I am on my way home from the party, running into all the parade-goers heading back from the parade.

The next morning, I supported Melody's Freshwater Surf Lifesaving Club which hosted the Barney Mullins 1.5K swim. I did the swim last year and am happy to report that I beat my time. Last year I did it in 29:56 and this year I did it in 28:11. The tricky part of this swim is that the current was strong so I was almost pushed to shore so had to backtrack a bit to the orange buoy before I could swim to shore and the finish line.

Terra Cotta Warriors and Sydney's Convict History

2011-03-28T01:09:00.006+11:00

China's still on my list of places I'd like to visit someday. I got a taste of one of China's great historic treasures at the Art Museum of New South Wales (March 5) when I checked out the First Emperor Exhibit. The highlight of the exhibit was several warriors, horses and carriages that were almost lifesize. Each was unique and very realistically posed to "protect" the Emperor once he'd been buried in the tomb that thousands of Chinese workers had built.

Afterwards, I wanted to check out The Mint where I was going to host a work event later that week. Right next door was The Hyde Park Barracks Museum which is a museum about its own history. Having gone to one museum already, I was in the mood to check out another.

The Barracks was built in 1819 to house convict men and boys. Then in 1848 it was like Ellis Island (NY) and Angel Island (California) whereby immigrants were processed into the country and then later in 1862 it was used as an asylum.

The Hyde Park Baracks Museum is listed as a World Heritage Site - Interesting that everything from national parks, islands (Lord Howe Island), reefs (Great Barrier Reef) to former jails can be listed as world heritage sites.

I read this museum exhibit description which says that Australians "treat their convict past with pride" and it didn't ring true - especially the word "pride". What I think might be more accurate is that Australians acknowledge their past and are instead more focused on the beautiful country and the great quality of life they enjoy today.

This part of the museum was about the punishments that were lashed out to the convicts. What's most shocking about these descriptions is how detailed yet unfeeling the observations of the punishment are.

Rock'n and Dancing with Ric and Jacqui's Band

2011-03-28T01:03:00.004+11:00

It's great when you find a band that plays music that's fun to dance to and it's even better when the band members are your friends.

George's mother from Perth was still in town after Paul's birthday so we went to check out Ric and Jacqui's band which was playing at the Monkey Bar in Balmain (March 3).

Happy 50th Birthday Paul!

2011-03-28T00:42:00.003+11:00

The Victoria Room, a richly decorated Bombay-style restaurant, was the place Paul selected to invite all of his friends to celebrate his 50th birthday (Feb. 26).

And it was a brilliant choice because The Victorian Room also had the setup necessary for Georgina (Paul's wife) to showcase her Aerial Silk Dance that she's been practicing on for months. For those that have been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I took a few trapeze lessons with George. Well, while I "paused" from trapeze, George continued on with not only trapeze, but bungee trapeze and aerial silk dancing.

The best I can describe aerial silk dancing is like Cirque de Soleil - ballet and trapeze all in one!

And what a special show it was - Paul was in the front row and just beaming with delight at this very special birthday present! The party itself was a blast with great champagne, wine, food and friends. The party continued on at George and Paul's place where you'll see the birthday boy commemorating his special evening.

Scuba Diving Weekend Trip to Nelson Bay

2011-02-24T00:39:00.006+11:00

When I was diving the Great Barrier Reef last month I thought to myself, "you live just hours away from the best diving in the world how could I not dive more often!". So upon settling back into the routine of work, I checked out Pro Dive Coogee (referred to by Tas who I dove with on Lord Howe Island) and signed up for a weekend scuba diving trip to Nelson Bay (Feb. 18-20).

Where's Nelson Bay? It's about a 3 hour drive north of Sydney. And because I signed up early, I caught a ride up to Nelson Bay with the Pro Dive Coogee van which conveniently picked me up in the city.

It was a fun group of people and a good range of ages - Adrian the dive master/instructor (who is awesome), his girlfriend Candice (both from Canada), Stefan from Switzerland (don't ask if he's German he gets quite insulted) who's here in Sydney for 10 weeks learning English, Greg, Daniel (who's just barely legal to drink at 18) and Chris.

On Friday night we arrived at this youth-hostel like house which was filled with bunk beds and a definite retro 80's feel (complete with a sofa that's cookie-monster blue with a funky backboard). We had drinks at the RSL (Retired Service League) directly across the street (there are RSL's everywhere across Australia and they're usually situated in the most scenic spots) which is part casino / community gathering / pub and cheap meals (a roast dinner costs $10.50). Upon registering with a photo ID and entering the RSL, it was very evident that Nelson Bay and/or the Nelson Bay RSL is not a very ethnically diverse establishment... but all very friendly and upbeat.

On Saturday our first dive was a shore dive in Halifax Park. It'd been a very long time since I've done a shore dive - it certainly is more physically exerting to do a shore dive than to just step off the back of a boat. All went smoothly and there was a ton of fish, several rock fish, a 4-foot spotted white eel and rather large nudibranch, very large grouper and a few stingrays. Dive: 52 feet/16.1m, 38 minutes, water temp 24C/75.2F.

The second dive was at Shoal Bay - but it was aborted. We had on all of our gear and surface swam for about 200 meters in fairly strong current but there was nothing to see and we never even put our regulators in nor tried to goto depth. So we turned around and swam right back. It was exhausting!

So our dive master Adrian drove us around to the other side of Shoal Bay and we did successfully complete our second dive where we saw a pair of cuttlefish and a fiddle ray (a GI joe camouflage colored stingray). Dive: 13 ft/4m, 51 minutes.

And because three of the group were doing their Advanced Certification (which I already have) we also did a night dive. And since it's done at high tide we did this dive after dinner at 10:30 p.m. I have to admit night dives have not overly impressed me as I fail to see a whole lot of cool sea life. And this dive was no exception - I didn't see much, only the luminescent sea life when we turned all of our torches (flashlights) off. Dive: 9.2m/30f, 30 minutes. After we cleaned up this meant we didn't get to sleep until after midnight.

Which made waking up at 6 a.m. Sunday morning really, really tough! We arrived at the Let's Go Dive Shop to get our tanks refilled at 7 a.m. and eventually got on a boat which took us out about an hour to "North Rock" for our first dive. On this dive I saw a 2.5m/8f grey nurse shark with what I was astounded to see several fins on the top (2 plus a fin shape on the back fin) and bottom (2 fins) and the beadiest eyes I've ever seen. We weren't that far from the shark, but it made no move towards us - we really just intently stared at each other then moved along. Dive: Max depth 18.9m/62ft, 40 minutes, 69.8F.

Our second dive was at "Looking Glass" where we swam along this "swim through" that reminded me a lot of that cave in the first part of Little Mermaid where it's long, wide and tall and you swim along the wall single file (up and down and around rocks) until we reached the end where there were 2-3 sharks, eel and a large puffer fish. It was like a fish tank of sealife.

And my coolest, most fun word to say now - Wobbygong - I saw one just after we came out of the swim through. A wobbygong is a carpet shark or as I'd describe it - a shark, that had a flat, stingray shaped head with stubbly whisker on its chin and the funkiest thing is it's GI Joe camouflage colored! Dive: 16.8m/55f, 42 minutes, 69.8F.

I didn't have an underwater camera but here's an image of a wobbygong from Google images:

My Backstroke Needs a lot of Work!

2011-02-23T23:29:00.007+11:00

The swim squad I swim with - North Sydney Masters - hosted the 2011 Sensational Summer Sprints (Sat. Feb. 12 at 7 p.m.) at our pool in Milson's Point. This means that we're responsible for organising the raffle, marshalling swimmers so they're lined up for their races, the timing, officiating - basically everything having to do with hosting a swim carnival.

It was a busy night as not only did I help out with selling raffle tickets and timekeeping, I also swam in 3 individual races and one relay.

My times were only so-so:

* 50m Freestyle - 40.73 (last year my time was 40.75 so about the same time)
* 50m Backstroke - 55.92 (this was the first time I've gotten a time for this stroke and I was last in my age category and terribly slow; definitely a stroke I need to improve on)
* 50m Fly - 52.93 (last year my time was 53.32 so it's good to see improvement in at least one of my strokes)

I was the backstroke leg in the 4x50m Relay (age group 160-199) and our team time was 3:26.12; I didn't help the team much at all on this one. And here I thought that breast stroke was my weakest stroke...

The next morning I did the 2K swim at North Bondi and surprisingly my time was 37:35. I say "surprisingly" because the Sunday prior I did the Shelley-to-Manly 2k in 45:40. And the year prior I did the 1k swim at North Bondi in 24:51.

For the swim I followed the lead of other swimmers and took advantage of the rip which propelled me very quickly to the first buoy before I realised it! But angling in around that buoy and swimming to the next was really hard as the waves were massive!

Mel Gibson, Short + Sweet and Amazing Theatre!

2011-02-23T22:56:00.005+11:00

NIDA (pronounced n-eye-duh) stands for the National Institute of Dramatic Art and is known for being the training ground for Mel Gibson and Cate Blanchett. However, on Friday, Feb. 11 it hosted the Short + Sweet Festival which is a competition of 10 minute live theatre performances.

George's friend Maggie was the director and writer of "Night Visitors" which was (from the program) physical theatre involving movement and aerial trapeze. It was a story of young woman's journey of grief and reconnection after her boyfriends death from a car accident. It was very moving and paired beautifully with music, trapeze and dance. I voted it my favorite of the evening (and I would have voted it #1 even if Maggie wasn't a friend because it was that amazing).

Another "short + sweet" performance was meant to be a modern depiction of how inside an old woman lies the sticky, taped, fragments of a tattered heart - however - in my view it was so absurd and bizarre that it made me laugh. It literally looked like a limp sock puppet that was danced around the stage and bopped up and down on a sheet covered horizontal body.

The other "short + sweet" that I enjoyed for the societal message it conveyed was called "An Ordinary Street" and was commentary on how on an ordinary street in Australia people are starting to chose to not notice or care when things are falling apart for one of their neighbors. Frankly, I don't think this is unique to Australia as many other places where there's urban sprawl - neighbors don't necessarily know each other.

Me - I'm happy to report - I know both my previous neighbors Nina, Andrew, Rocco and Bono and my new neighbor Hugh!

Streak of Hot Summer Days Finally Breaks in Time for Cole Classic Swim

2011-02-06T23:52:00.006+11:00

For the past several days we've had a streak of super hot days where the mercury has hit 38C (100F). And it's not just been hot days but very warm nights too!

I went to buy a fan as it had become unbearable but one store had sold out and another was selling a pretty basic fan for $90 which is price gauging to me so I passed on buying a fan. I had an invite to join friends for a BBQ that night in an air conditioned home with a pool in back - just the answer for sweltering heat!

Earlier that morning at the EQ Market (which I love) I purchased blue cheese from Victoria that paired nicely with the marinated figs I picked up at the Eveleigh Christmas Market and a goat cheese from Byron Bay that paired nicely with the Henry Jones IXL Raspberry Jam I got in Hobart, Tasmania (I had help selecting these cheeses, which were a hit). Thanks so much Sandy for the hospitality and remembering the moscato wine- it was great fun!

In a slight tangent: If you ever goto the EQ Market near Surry Hills be sure to check out:
* Top Nosh Foods - They sell the closest thing I can find to crunchy granola here in Australia - of course it's still muesli which is all they seem to have here but it's toasted so it's great with yogurt or even as cereal on its own.
* Pukara Estate - Not only am I a big fan of these flavored oils and vinegars but my friends Sam and Venecia are too! I love to BBQ with the carmelised balsamic vinegar and when they were over for New Year's Sam had a chance to BBQ with it and loved it so much he took the rest of the bottle home with him to Taiwan. I purchased a brand new bottle for Sam along with the chilli flavored extra olive virgin oil but when I tried to mail it from Australia Post they said the oil was a flamable substance and thus a prohibited item to mail.
* Amore Di Cucina - Since it's been too hot to cook in the kitchen I've (believe it or not) been using my BBQ to prepare dinner. And the sun dried tomato tapinade and the Pesto Genovese have been wonderful to add to fish and vegetables for a flavorful meal.
* Be Enlightened Candles - My friend Angela turned me on to these candles which are very fragrant and a lot better priced than the Glasshouse Candles. Ang's birthday celebration drinks were on Feb. 6 at the Winery in Manly (sister place to the Winery by Gazebo near me) and I got her one of these candles to enjoy!
* Brilliant Food - The smoked ocean trout spread is to die for! And when you buy it with these leaf shaped pastry shells it makes for a very easy appetiser (or entre as it's called here) to bring with little/no preparation which is a plus to me. Emma and Pat - who really know and appreciate good quality seafood - enjoyed this.

Thankfully the heat wave broke just in time for the Cole Classic (Sun. Feb. 6) which is a 2K swim that starts on Shelley Beach and ends on Manly Beach. My learning after this swim is that I have to do a better job counting the buoys so I know when I'm nearing the end. Throughout the second-half of this swim, I kept thinking "we have to be heading back to the beach soon" yet we kept passing buoy after buoy making this swim seem never ending!

In looking at how my time stacks up against past swims, there's definitely a big difference between swimming in the harbour vs. the ocean. Whereas in the 2.5K on Australia Day I swam in Syndney Harbour in 43:16 - the Cole Classic 2K I swam in 45:40. These ocean swims are tough!

Here are the rest of the stats:
* My 1K pace is 22:50
* I placed 1282/2042 total finishers (37.22%) *** Yes, this was a very crowded swim ***
* 360/690 of female total finishers (47.83%)
* In my category of Female 40-44 I placed 28/63 (55.56%)

The cool thing about the Cole Classic is that it's sponsored in the Sydney Morning Herald so the next day my name and time were in this daily national newspaper.

Here are a few pics from the swim - you can't really see it but Shelley Beach and the start of the race is right in front of that tall building along the right and then we swam parallel along Manly Beach (which is in the foreground) for quite a while then turned and swam back before turning back into the beach - effectively we did this rectangular swim. I've put a map of the course but there were definitely more buoys than you see here.

After the swim, I enjoyed a really nice breakfast at The Pantry right on the beach (Note to self: They have a great cheese board and charcuterie plate and great views of Manly Beach. Be sure to take future visitors here but remember to make a reservation). That's when the storm came in - see this very cool "storm brewing" photo:

Impressive Australian Swim Team in the Inaugural Summer Swim Series

2011-02-05T19:06:00.002+11:00

After squad practice on Sun. Jan. 30, Robin gave me extra tickets to see the inaugural Swim Summer Series at the North Sydney Pool (the same pool I train at and which I truly believe is the best pool in the world). While I'd seen it advertised around the pool I wasn't quite sure what it was.

I checked it out and it was fun to watch! The Australian national swim team was divided into four teams (designated by colors) and over two days they competed in races and relays. One of the interesting races was called "knockouts" and it involved a swimmer from each team swimming a stroke for 50 meters and the slowest swimmer was "knocked out". Then the remaining 3 swimmers had 2 minutes to line up again and swim the same stroke for another 50 meters with the slowest swimmer being "knocked out" so that the final time it was down to 2 swimmers. The butterfly knockout was impressive - it also showed how fit the swimmers are - to see them swim 50 meters of butterfly three times over in fast succession swimming at an all out sprint was very impressive!

It's a Colorful Country - Funky Trunks, Politicians and Ferries

2011-02-05T14:11:00.006+11:00

While it was my second Australia day - it was my first in Sydney as last year I was in Melbourne enjoying the Australia Open Tennis. Australia Day's always on Jan. 26 which this year meant it was on a Wednesday which made it feel like a really long week for some reason (probably because it felt like a quick, whiplash weekend and then we were back at work again).

The plan was to go to The Rocks later in the afternoon with my friends Sandy and Kate for a pub crawl interspersed with bands so I decided to pay the calories forward by doing a 2.5 swim in the Sydney Habour early that morning. A number of my fellow swimmers from Aussie Masters joined in the swim and we were all decked out in our club cossie (that's what they call swimsuits here - cossies - which is short for swim costumes).

As you'll see here - our club cossies are quite funky and quite bright and colorful. Which is typical of "Funky Trunks" which is the brand of the swim suit that we selected. You can check out the other designs here (they're chlorine resistant so ideal for swimmers).

Overall the swim was fine, but there was one pretty challenging section when I felt like I was swimming hard but not moving the current was so strong. As I was swimming the image of the Greek God Sisyphus came to mind as he was pushing a huge boulder up hill. I could see the bottom of the harbour and was very tempted to stand up and walk - but quickly thought against it as I'm sure there's some rule that disqualifies swimmer who stand and walk in a swimming competition.

Once I completed that exhausting section, I thought all I had to do was swim back to the Opera House - but all of a sudden there was a whoosh of swimmer passing right in front of me and heading the opposite direction. That's when I remember the "box in a box" as Christina called it. To make the distance 2.5 K, there's this circuitous added section to swim before heading for the final stretch back to the Opera House.

Check out the map below and you'll see what I mean (the orange line is the 2.5k swim).

But finally I reached the finish line and I'm happy with my time which was:

* 2.5k (1.55 miles) completed in 43:16. I almost forgot to mention that this was also my first time swimming in the 40-49 age category which supposedly means I have an "edge" this year
* Placed 304/399 overall the 2.5K swimmers
* Placed 100/140 of all the female 2.5 k swimmers
* Place 26/85 in my age category

In the age category above me (50-59) the Australian Federal Government's Opposition leader Tony Abbott (age 53) competed in the Great Sydney Swim. I checked his results and he did it in 55:11 - which means somewhere along the way I swam past him (his heat would have started 5 minutes before).

Since i wasn't in Sydney last Australia Day I wasn't aware that one of the traditions was a ferry race. All the ferry boats that commuters take to-from places like Manly to Cirqular Quay race around the Sydney Harbour ending up under the bridge (the finish line). Alvin, a friend from the swim club who's a Kiwi and while he's lived here for many years had never seen the ferry race either, and I decided to head to the base of the Sydney Harbour Bridge to stake out a spot to watch the ferry boats finish the race.

It took about 45 minutes for the ferries to complete the race but in the end the ferry with the inflated "whale tail" won the race. As you can see from these photos it was quite a hazy and overcast day. The only way we could tell the ferries were coming our way was due to the TV news helicopters hovering overhead.

There were lots of boats on the harbour decorated to celebrate Australia Day!

Little lost fairy penguin...

2011-01-29T21:37:00.004+11:00

On another glorious day (Jan. 23) on the Emski (Pat and Emma's boat) we were cruising along the Sydney Harbour when we spotted this fairy penguin drifting rather lacksidaisily (is this a word?).

The good samaritan and nature lover that he is - Pat hailed the harbour police down and reported the distressed fairy penguin who was right in the pathway of many boats.

Last time I saw a fairy penguin was on Kangaroo Island... they're most commonly found in South Australia so this little penguin was far from home!

Photos from Friends from New Year's Eve 2010/2011

2011-01-16T21:56:00.005+11:00

The Disappearing Blue Mountains, So off to the Jenolan Caves

2011-01-16T19:17:00.005+11:00

When we arrived there were no Blue Mountains or Three Sisters to be seen due to the thick fog so we headed instead to the Jenolan Caves.

The drive there was incredibly scary because not only were the roads narrow and windy but on the side of a cliff and sometimes only room for one car.

We did the easy tour to the Imperial Caves - but as "easy" as it was promoted to be I managed to stumble on a rocky edge of the path (imagine that, in a cave) and tripped and cut my knee. Michelle was not without her own "incident" as she banged her head on what of the cliff overhangs. It's hard to believe that we survived our previous week of snorkeling/diving with sharks, bone crushing river snorkeling and ziplining through the oldest rainforest!

After the guided tour, we did a self-guided tour of Nettle Caves.

River Drift Snorkeling Down the Mossman River

2011-01-16T18:45:00.005+11:00

Our guide Barney described it the best when he said it's about the serenity and the immersive experience in nature in one of the oldest rainforests on earth. On top of that the Mossman River is the most pure and refreshing water I've ever swum in - you could literally drink the water!

We learned a new phrase too - bone crushing - which means drifting through shallow water and bashing your bones against the rocks. Michelle demonstrated this by banging her leg into one of these bone crushing rocks but while in pain for a few days she too had a great time.

The most beautiful part was the last segment when we drifted through "The Cathedral" which is the beautiful stream of river that's covered with a canopy of trees that arches upward and to the sky and curves inward with its light green leaves and think trunks.

We spontaneously signed up for this adventure with Back Country River Drift Snorkeling on the Mossman River (Fri. Jan. 7) and are very, very glad we did as it was a fantastic experience and a ton of fun!

Not Quite Jane or Tarzan - Jungle Surfing through the Daintree

2011-01-16T18:03:00.008+11:00

Well, we weren't quite swinging through the trees on vines but it was a lot of fun! We got harnessed up and given helmet's for our protection as we jungle surfed across five platforms through the Daintree Rainforest which is over 135 million years old. My helmet said "Tinkerbell" (which when our guide Gordon said it in his Jamaican accent sounded very cute) and Shell's said "Catwoman".

Here's Michelle ziplining in the Daintree - there's one part where she's dangling upside down for a while. The aim was for Shell to swing her arms as if she was swimming (or at least that's what one of the guides was trying to instruct her to do) so that she could turn herself around for a photo but after a few attempts Shell exlaims "just let me go" and so they did and she completed her zipline to the end.

After ziplining (Jan. 6) we had some time to kill as we'd signed up for a Nightwalk in the Daintree. We checked out a beach on Cape Tribulation (a deserted one) as well as Myle Beach where we walked around on a boardwalk in the pouring rain.

Here we are totally drenched:

Everywhere we'd go whether the opera house or the beach we'd see other tourists taking photos of people jumping. We couldn't quite understand why, but after giving it a go and seeing the resulting photos we think it's pretty funny!

We don't have any photos or video from this Nightwalk excursion but it was one of the highlights of the trip. Particularly when we shut all of our torches off and just watched the flickering lightning bug or some of the glow in the dark fungi. And in an incredible stroke of good luck - we saw not one Boyd's Forest Dragon (or as I mistakenly initially thought I heard our guide say - Boyd's Fire Dragon) but a whole family. We saw the young dragon, the Mom and then finally the Father all hanging around on these branches in the same vicinity.

The nightwalk ended at around 9:30 p.m. and then there was this winding drive back to the 5 minute ferry (the most expensive ferry ride - it cost $21 for the roundtrip) in the complete dark!

Here are photos of the 5-minute ferry from earlier in the day as well as the "beware of the cassowary" we saw all along the way:

The Oldest Rainforest in the World: The Daintree

2011-01-16T17:35:00.005+11:00

After a bit of shopping, Shell and I visited 4-mile beach in Port Douglas (Jan. 5)...

Here Shell is in the protected swim area safe from the box jellyfish:

Ana and Scott, what's making these little balls of sand in the sand? Little white sand crabs?

We miss you Ana and Scott!

Shell and I then headed up to the oldest rainforest - The Daintree - where we checked into a 5-star resort called The Daintree Eco-Lodge. We stayed in cabin #3 which overlooked the pond and the restaurant we had breakfast at each morning and dinner the first night. I enjoyed breakfast - especially the new fruit of the rainforest that I was introduced to - called the abiu which has the texture of jelly but a nice soft sweet taste that is very refreshing.

The Daintree Eco-Lodge's rooms are beautiful, the setting is serene and since the patio is screened in we could sleep with the doors wide open and truly experience the sounds of the rainforest all night (the cicadas are very loud).

As we walked to the waterfall on the lodge's property along this pathway twisted with tree roots, I was caught off guard by I swear a dinosaur like out of Jurassic Park. It scampered across on two legs and looked like one of those little dragons in the movie. Upon closer inspection it turned out to be a lizard or as we'd learn a few days later on a nightwalk at Cape Tribulation that it was a Boyd's Forest Dragon.

Gold Class on the Kuranda Scenic Rail and Gigantic Spiders down on the Skyrail

2011-01-16T16:23:00.003+11:00

While we visited Kuranda on the day we arrived, on Jan. 4 we travelled to Kuranda in two very different and more luxurious and scenic means of transportation.

We enjoyed Gold Class VIP tickets on the Kuranda Scenic Railway which traversed along postcard picture perfect bridges alongside waterfalls and the view of the Barren Gorge with pastries, champagne and appetizers in hand and consumed along the way.

Once we reached Kuranda we wandered through the shops, including the Kuranda Candy Kitchen where we watched them make these hard candies with a little strawberry in the middle. How they created the perfectly shaped strawberry with black seeds and stems was true art and very impressive! And it was yummy too - definitely something to keep in mind for a special event in the future.

For the trip back down to the bottom of the mountain, we took the Skyrail which had us cruising over the trees of the rainforest. Along the way we stopped off twice to see the Barren Falls as well as an interactive visitor's centre that had humongous spiders along the walkway.

While we were in Port Douglas, we stayed at Villa San Michele which were these great self-contained apartments that had the best location right in the centre of Port Douglas' main street. Shell wasn't feeling well that evening, so I went out on my own for dinner that night and on the way stopped off at the Iron Bar where I'd noticed that each evening they held Cane Toad Races. It was the strangest and most bizarre thing I've ever seen.

As you'll see in the FlipVideo, each of the cane toads raced had a "jockey" who "kissed" the toad for good luck- yuck! I wouldn't even want to hold the toad.

Scuba and Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef - Then Cane Toad Racing at the Iron Bar

2011-01-16T16:18:00.006+11:00

On Jan. 3, Shell snorkeled and I scuba dived with Quicksilver in the Great Barrier Reef. As I was on my third dive, I thought to myself that with Cairns only a 2.5 hour flight away, I should be taking advantage of my proximity to great diving more often. So this year, I'll definitely be doing more diving Down Under!

Later that evening we went to dinner with two Californian gals we met on the Quicksilver tour at a restaurant called Salsa in Port Douglas. At the end of the evening, we noticed that there was a signed autograph on the wall with Bill Clinton's signature and it was dated Sept. 11, 2001. With the time difference, it was clear he'd had dinner before 9/11 but it was eerie and troubling reminder of the tragic and horrific attacks.

Adventure up in the Great Barrier Reef

2011-01-16T15:59:00.003+11:00

On Jan. 2 Shell and I flew up to Cairns because no trip to Australia is complete without a trip to the Great Barrier Reef. As Queensland is the only place you can cuddle a koala, I took Michelle to the Kuranda Koala Garden where we visited koala, wallabies, snakes and crocodiles.

Then we headed to the Australian Butterfly Conservatory where we were pleasantly surprised to experience that rather than see butterflies behind glass they were flittering all around this huge glass conservatory out in the open!

It's like "Where's Waldo" at Bondi Beach on New Year's Day

2011-01-16T14:58:00.004+11:00

If you've never seen a Where's Waldo book they are like word searches except they are a page full of 100s of cartoon people at a particular place and you need to find Waldo who's dressed in a red and white search. Here's an example:

So you'll understand what I mean when you look at this FlipVideo that it reminded me of a Where's Waldo because Bondi Beach was just so crowded!

After dipping our toes in the water at Bondi, Shell and I walked to Tamarama Beach and then to Coogee Beach.

A Magical New Year's Eve that I'll Always Remember!

2011-01-16T02:54:00.011+11:00

Even now as I reflect back on my first New Year's Eve here in Sydney, I know it could not have been more perfect! I was so fortunate to have so many dear friends, a beautiful sunny day with calm winds on the bay and a truly spectacular fireworks celebration like I've never seen before!

We departed from Rose Bay at 6 p.m. and immediately headed towards the area right in front of Taronga Zoo where we had a very clear view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and in fact the whole bay! And it was a parking lot of other boats who were all positioning themselves for a spot on the harbour.

As we are in Australia, almost immediately we opened up the bubbles and started to check out the boat - being a 34' Seawind Woorabinda Sailing Catamaran - we were allowed to climb up on top and in front and all around.

For about a week or so prior I'd been religiously checking the weather forecast hoping for a beautiful weather day and I was so thrilled with the bright sun, clear blue skies and especially the calm wind on the bay on New Year's Eve.

We were tremendously lucky to have Captain Joe at the helm as he found us the perfect spot! And he's a great BBQ-er! Thanks to Captain Pat, who took his boat out 60 kilometres the day before, we had the most scrumptious salmon on the BBQ - it was beautiful!

What I didn't learn until recently is that in addition to the midnight fireworks, Sydney also has a 9 p.m. fireworks show for families with children so they can be put to sleep while the adults continue partying on! Here's the warmup fireworks that are a prelude to the midnight show:

After the first fireworks, the Harbour of Light Parade began with about 50 vessels circling around the Sydney Harbour.

My friend Venecia gave me flashing color-technic bunny ears to wear on my birthday that everyone could see - even if they couldn't see me in the dark - which made me look a little disembodied :)

And as Michelled was FlipVideo-ing me in my bunny ears, she coincidentally recorded the funniest moment of the evening! Since I was standing on the stairs to the main seating area, Sandy mistakenly took a "shortcut" through an opening on the side of the boat and made a not-so graceful landing in the bin.

In this FlipVideo you'll hear the "swoosh" of Sandy falling into the bin and then the catchphrase of the evening "You're in the bin" from Dori who happened to be standing nearby and told a bewildered Sandy very matter-of-factly that she's just landed in the bin. Thank goodness she was not injured (there were lots of empty wine bottles in the bin by this time of the evening so this was a big worry) and after we made sure she was ok we helped her out - still holding her wine glass and all.

Then just before the midnight fireworks, we had birthday cake. I'd like to thank all my friends again for the gift of their presence on what is the best New Year's Eve and happiest birthday ever!

Each year it seems there's a theme to the New Year's Eve fireworks and this year it was "Make Your Mark" with the aim of having us reflect on the decade that has just finished and how we can make our mark by contributing to a better future. On the bridge we saw an "X" in lights in the middle of the bridge as in "X marks the spot". There was also a "hand" in lights to symbolise how a hand is a unique identifier for "making your mark".

As you watch these FlipVideos, you'll see that the fireworks are not just on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, they are all along the harbour! From where our boat was we were right in the middle of fireworks behind us, next to us, above the city, on the bridge and even beyond the bridge. It was literally like we had a front row, center point of view of the most spectacular fireworks I've ever seen!

And take a listen to the music that was played over the radio - it was perfectly coordinated. They played "What a Wonderful Life" by Louis Armstrong who when he sang "I see trees of green, red roses too" you saw green and red fireworks and then (yes you guessed it) when he sang "The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky" we saw a rainbow of colors in the fireworks.

Animals at Taronga Zoo get the Best View!

2011-01-16T02:20:00.004+11:00

While my parents have been to Taronga Zoo twice, I have never been until this day (Dec. 30). What I found so amazing is that they'd give animals the most magnificent view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House!

After an indulgent BBQ dinner and much red wine at my place...

...we headed to the Sydney Opera House to enjoy "The Year that Was" which was a retrospective of 2010 by Australia's top comedians.

More Overseas Visitors!

2011-01-16T01:54:00.005+11:00

On Wed. Dec. 29 my friends Venecia and her husband Sam arrived in Sydney from their home in Taiwan (via Phuket and Bangkok). This was Sam's second visit to Australia and Venecia's third visit (in fact Venecia has the honor of being my very first visitor back in May 2009 before I'd even moved into my Surry Hills place).

I'd heard about "The Pancake House on the Rocks" and was keen to check it out so that's where we went for breakfast - it's a very popular place with a line out the door and up the stairs!

After breakfast we took a ferry to Manly and were amazed at how packed the beach was!

Then we walked to Shelly Beach, had a bottle of wine and some snacks before walking around the cliffs.

Here I am in a "crevice" on the cliffs. Did you know there's also a "crevice" in the Sydney Opera House (I learned this on the Opera House tour?

Chicago Meets Sydney

2011-01-16T01:30:00.004+11:00

Michelle, my best friend since 3rd grade, arrived here in Sydney on Tues., Dec. 28 for a 2-week vacation and to help me celebrate my first New Year's in Sydney (last year I travelled back to NY to meet my nephew Tyler Hiroshi and neice Keilani).

The funny thing is that throughout her visit here, she heard more about Oprah here in Australia than she does in Chicago where Oprah tapes her shows!

After her arrival at 6:30 a.m. we stopped off at my place and then headed to Bill's for breakfast. Then to help her through the jet lag, I walked her around town. We started at the Sydney Opera House then headed to the Royal Botanic Garden.

Christmas in Tasmania (Part 2)

2011-01-13T21:19:00.004+11:00

SATURDAY, DEC. 25
Since everything is shut down on Christmas day, I took my friend from North Sydney Masters Christina's advice to head to Wineglass Bay. So, after a 2.5 hour drive I arrived in the Freycinet National Park's Coles Bay and did the 6k roundtrip bushwalk to Wineglass Bay.

Yes, hard to believe but on Christmas Day I went bushwalking! And in my backpack I brought a picnic lunch and my painting gear so I could really enjoy the view and the experience.

It does look like a wineglass and it's very pristine and beautiful so was well worth the very, very steep hike. Not as steep and difficult as the Giant Staircase Hike down to the base of the Blue Mountains, but it is a close second!

SUNDAY, DEC. 26
I was very lucky that on Boxing Day they still held the Salamanca Markets! I had great fun checking out all the vendors and did what I could for the Tasmanian economy with my purchases.

And only in Tasmania can you purchase an echidna toothpick holder - how cool is this! :)

After a morning of shopping I went to check out the wineries in the Hobart area. Again, from a friend's recommendations I visited Moorilla Winery (this one was my favorite) and after doing my own research checked out Meadow Bank Winery and Coal Creek Winery. Tasmania is mostly known for pinot and riesling and grapes that do best in a cool weather region.

Shout out to Tomu: You have to check out this FlipVideo - I actually tasted beer for you!

Then I headed to the Royal Botanic Garden in Hobart and learned about the trees and ferns indigenous to Tasmania - my fave is the Huon Pine.

And while it was already a busy day - I fit one more thing in - a drive to the top of Mount Wellington. For anyone that's driven to John Muir Woods north of San Francisco, you'll understand when I say this is a very, scary drive. Basically, it's along the lines of the opening scenes of a James Bond movie whereby you have this windy road on the side of a cliff with a very, very steep drop. I got to nearly the top when I started to really get freaked out because although I was focusing on the road in my peripheral vision I could see this huge drop. I found a rest area and actually turned around and headed back down to the bottom. Then feeling like a total wimp, turned around again, gritted my teeth and drove all the way to the top.

The top is 1,270 meters above sea level and absolutely freezing (the next day I heard there was snow) and had a great panoramic view that really showed just how much of Hobart I was able to cover in my short stay there.

And here's the cute light blue car that I zipped around in over my Tasmanian Christmas holiday!

Christmas in Tasmania (Part 1)

2011-01-12T23:49:00.003+11:00

For all those that thought Warner Brothers made up the Tasmanian Devil along with Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner, I can confidently state that Tasmania is indeed home to the Tasmanian Devil. In fact, the Tasmanian Devil has been wiped out on the mainland of Australia and now is primarily only on the southernmost state of Australia - Tasmania.

And considering that Australia has a population of 22 million (compared to the US population which is 311 million yet has a similar land mass), Tasmania's one of the smaller Australian states. Tasmania has a population of 500,000 and is comparable in size to Ireland (which has a population of 4 million). It's capital is Hobart.

I'm on this mission to visit all 6 states and 2 territories in Australia and now that I've been to Tasmania - only West Australia remains!

In a funny coincidence, it also occurred to me that this past Easter was spent on Kangaroo Island and this past Christmas was spent in Tasmania the home of the Tasmanian Devil.

THURSDAY, DEC. 23
On Thursday, Dec. 23 I arrived in Hobart, Tasmania and on advice from my work colleague Kirsty went to Jackman and Ross Cafe which is widely regarded as an "institution" (the good kind, restaurant) in Battery Point. Then, this date being my nephew Kenichi's birthday and knowing he loves to visit the zoo, I decided to visit Bonorong Wildlife Centre to say "G'day" from Kenichi to the Tasmanian Devils.

Happy birthday Kenichi! Make sure you watch the video to the end...

I also fed the kangaroos - a cute joey as well as a medium-sized kangaroo that gobbled up all the roo food I had!

Shout out to Ryu - There was this great t-shirt that I thought about getting for you, it said "Who let the roos out?" but didn't think you'd wear it (it was a funky colored orange with cheesy sketch drawing of kangaroos). It was a funny play on that song lyric so I thought I'd share :)

And ever since first learning about echidnas on Kangaroo Island, I've been fascinated with these spiny anteaters. I saw them again in Hobart and these two echidnas reminded me of that Walden Pond story about how he always took the same beaten path to the pond thus missing out on all the different approaches to the pond that could bring new, fresh perspectives. As you'll see in this Flip, these two echidna follow a figure eight beaten path. I love their little snout and how the wobble around their beaten path.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24
On Dec. 24 I was signed up to go on this Bruny Island cruise with Peppermint Bay. Although I enjoyed the cruise, I was disappointed to learn that while we boated past Bruny Island we never actually stopped there. We stopped instead in Peppermint Bay which was a tiny, tiny town with a large commercial building bar and gift shop managed by Peppermint Bay so felt rather inauthentic.

On the positive side, I did get upgraded to the Captain's Deck on the cruise (which meant free drinks, access to the upper deck and captain's deck) and it was very roomy with comfortable seats. Along the way, we visited an Atlantic salmon fish farm just as they were being fed. What surprised me was how the salmon actually leap out of the water to catch the food - you see dolphins at Sea World leaping through the air through hoops but not fish! Who knew?

After to boat cruise, I rushed over to the Henry Jones Art Hotel which is part of this trend of fusing art, hotels and museums. My friend Matt highly recommended staying here but because I planned this trip relatively last minute there were booked and I ended up staying at the Grand Chancellor Hotel across the street.

Anyway, on my first day I checked out the bar at the Henry Jones Art Hotel and learned about this tour they offer for free. Since I missed out staying here, I thought at least I'll get to scope it out on the tour and next time I'll definitely plan in advance to book a room here. Henry Jones years ago made jam and it's branded IXL Jam because Henry Jones' motto is "I excel (in everything I do)" (IXL) which I thought was very clever.

Amazing Seats, Great Friends and a Fantastic U2 Concert!

2010-12-30T00:07:00.002+11:00

When U2 came into town on Dec. 13, I was thrilled that my friends could join me for an amazing concert! They played most of my favorite songs from Mysterious Ways, Sunday Bloody Sunday, With or Without You, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and Beautiful Day

The only song that I wished they'd played but they didn't was New Year's Day...

We had amazing seats in the 7th row, but in reality they were 4th row seats really close to the 360Degree stage.

North Sydney Masters Christmas Party

2010-12-30T00:01:00.005+11:00

At this year's Christmas Party (Dec. 11) we recognized two retiring coaches Kevin and Alvin. They're both amazing coaches who I learned a lot from and I'm happy that they'll still be swimming and coaching with us when they are in town.

Here's Kevin saying a few words to us:

And here are the two framed pictures we signed and presented to each of them:

Bondi to Bronte Swim: Tough Going at Bronte

2010-12-29T23:27:00.010+11:00

This was the first swim where I started at one beach (Bondi Beach) and ended at another (Bronte Beach). It was tough going, particularly at the end when I got "dumped" at Bronte Beach.

Essentially, you're swimming along and you catch a big wave that dumps you on Bronte Beach but because it's such a long, shallow beach you either have to keep swimming in shallow water or start walking up on to the beach (which is hard as I'm exhausted from swimming) - all while battling wave, upon wave that keeps tumbling you head over heals and is so strongly pulling you back.

Here are some photos of the big waves and the surf life savers assisting us.

A few surf life savers came over to assist me but I was able to manage to get across the finish line on my own.

The Bondi-to-Bronte Swim was on Dec. 5 and was 2.4K (1.5 miles) and it took me 46:24. I placed 39/65 in my age category (F35-39). Here's the map of the course:

Here's the view of Bondi Beach - we started the swim in the middle of this beach:

Then once we rounded the corner, we headed to the beach you see here:

And here we are walking back to Bondi Beach after the swim and breakfast (interestingly, it took us longer to walk back than swim).

Big Disappointment in Australia's Loss of the 2022 FIFA World Cup

2010-12-29T22:55:00.002+11:00

It was so disappointing that Australia didn't win the bid to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Here I am at 2 a.m. in the morning on Dec. 3 with colleagues from Cisco and the FFA as we await the announcement of the host countries for FIFA World Cup 2018 and 2022.

Not for the Faint of Heart: Coogee Beach Ocean Swim in 60F

2010-12-29T22:33:00.003+11:00

In my first ocean swim for the 2010-2011 season - on Nov. 28 - I joined friends from North Sydney Masters in what is surely my coldest ocean swim to date without a wetsuit!

It was the Coogee Beach Island Challenge Ocean Swim and to kick off the season I selected a 1K (.62 miles) and completed it in 26:33 which for my age category (F35-39) I was 24/32 in my category and 118/164 of all females racing that day.

The water was 16C (60F), it was overcast with no sun and absolutely freezing. In swimming to the first buoy I could barely put my face in the water it was so cold and I felt my chest constrict and it was hard to take a full breadth it was that shockingly cold! By the time I was headed to the second buoy I'd acclimated to the temperature, yet there were strong swells on the back stretch so I'd definitely rate this one of the tougher swims.

In this FlipVideo you'll see the course I swam and then the swim finishes of my friends who did the longer 2.4 "Island Challenge" swim.

Papa Gets (another) Belt at RM Williams

2010-12-04T23:13:00.002+11:00

I almost titled this blog entry "The never ending saga of Papa's belt" because there's a bigger back story to this than is told in the FlipVideo:

1. (Distance 5k) Last time Papa was here in Sydney (Sept. 2009) he mentioned how he wanted a belt for Christmas 2009. So I measured his belt to be size 38 and went out and purchased him a 38 belt from RM Williams which is quintessential Australian.

2. (Distance 5K) I mentioned that I'd done this on a Skype session and Papa exclaimed that he was a size 42, so back I went to the store and got him a 42.

3. (16,000k x 2 = 32,000 k) This size 42 belt, I took in my suitcase all the way to New York for Christmas. And have you already guessed what happened - it was too big for Papa! So I took it back (in my suitcase again) all the way back to Sydney.

4. (Distance 10k) Then I took this belt back to RM Williams and exchanged it back to a size 38.

5. (Distance 15,000) And then I mailed it to Papa in Chicago.

6. (Distance 13,000k) Papa loved the belt so much he of course had to wear it on his flight here on his most recent visit. And because the Qantas A380s were exchanged for 747s due to worry there was something at fault in the A380s, Mom and Papa got bumped and delayed and then diverted to Auckland, New Zealand before finally arriving in Sydney. Long story short, while going through security in Auckland, New Zealand Papa removed his belt and forgot to pick it up again. So the belt's now lost and Papa was using a tie with a pattern of a tennis racket and balls as a belt while here on vacation (although in thinking about this some more, would he have gone through security? Maybe he lost the belt in LA?).

7. (Distance 15,000k) Then the day before they returned home to Chicago, I took Papa to RM Williams in the new Westfield Pitt Street Mall and we purchased him a brand new belt which Papa packed in his suitcase for the trip home so there was not another "left it at airport security" incident.

Total Distance Belt(s) has Travelled: 75,000k

Tomu, while we were at RM Williams I not only purchased Papa his new belt, I also purchased him a new long sleeve shirt and another pair of shorts (this time navy) for his birthday/Christmas present from us.

Enjoy the video here:

Dinner in the Loo

2010-12-04T23:09:00.002+11:00

After returning from Lord Howe Island, we enjoyed dinner at China Doll in Woolamaloo where Mom and Papa enjoyed the Sydney city horizon view.

Scuba Diving with Pro Dive Lord Howe Island

2010-12-04T22:07:00.004+11:00

It's hard to believe that since I moved here to Australia in April 2009, I haven't yet been scuba diving. Finally on this trip to Lord Howe Island I corrected that and had an amazing 6 dives!

You'll see the highlights from my dive log, but first I'd like to shout out to Tas the owner of Pro Dive Lord Howe Island and dive masters Kyla and Kit for an amazing dive experience! They were professional, fun and very well organised... and they're so very lucky to have great diving, sea life and coral right in their backyard!

Day 1 (Nov. 15, 2010) Dive# 108 Dive location: Octopus Garden Max depth: 50 ft Visibility 15 metres
On my first dive on Lord Howe Island I found the water colder than I expected (20 degrees Celcius) and in quite a bummer it was recommended I wear a 5 mm wet suit, hooded vest and gloves (I much prefer not wearing a wet suit). The underwater beauty of LHI was incredible though - I loved the Autumn color of the soft coral.

Day 1 (Nov. 15, 2010) Dive#109 Dive location: Le Meurthe Max depth: 40 ft Visibility 15 metres
The highlight of this dive was this alien-like, massive (I mean HUGE) bullray that my dive buddy Paul pointed out for me. I'd swum by it without noticing it and it took Paul pointing it out to me before I realised it was not a rock but a HUGE sting ray which is called a "bull ray". This FlipVideo doesn't really do it justice, as it's at least 10 meters wide but I know I'll always remember how incredulous I was that there was such an oversized stingray - I remember thinking "what kind of steroids was this stingray on that it grew to be so big".

I'll be emailing this FlipVideo to my dive buddy Paul with hope he'll comment on this blog that it was indeed the biggest ray he's every seen!

Day 2 (Nov. 16, 2010) Dive#110 Dive location Cathedral Cave Max depth: 71 ft Visibility 25 ft
It was like that scene in Little Mermaid when Ariel finds Eric's statue except in Cathedral Cave there were massive grouper, sweet lip fish, this Medusa-like "head" made up of tiny, dark and swarming fish and a a lot of other colorful fish. On this dive I saw a plethora of sea life including 2 eels and 3 stingrays.

Day 2 (Nov. 16, 2010) Dive #111 Dive location North Passage Max depth 40 ft Visibility 25 ft
I saw so much on this dive! There was a fun Cinderella Slipper scenario played out by David and our dive master Kyla (note: it's an empty shell of a slip lobster) in this FlipVideo:

And on many of the dives I'd see these stone fish and I at first thought they were being friendly as they'd hang around, come up real close and looked like they wanted to play with you. Only after did I learn that they're quite territorial and in fact not so friendly. In this Flip you'll also see that I found a stonefish at the 1:00 (yes it's named because it looks like a stone).

A few year's ago at the Monterey Aquarium I remember enjoying a jellyfish exhibit. Here in this FlipVideo you'll see this beautiful jellyfish that reminds me of an old fashioned, cream colored wedding dress.

And you'll see that there was an abundance of sting rays on this dive as well. And if you look real close, at the 2:00 you'll see an eel.

And here's a sea urchin that looks blue and shiny:

And in this Flip you'll see Nemo in the anemone.

Day 3 (Nov. 17, 2010) Dive #112 Dive Location Yellow Rock Max depth 50 ft Visibility 25 metres
At about 2:10 you'll see that we went through this archway and while there's lot of things stirred up in the water so it's not the most clear FlipVideo you can sort of see a lion fish with its very long (and venomous) spines.

This Flip starts out with a large school of fish and then at :40 you see another huge bull ray. If you see 1:13 you see that I try to swim out a bit to give you some perspective and scope for just how large it is (at one point you see two fish in the foreground swim by).

Day 3 (Nov. 17, 2010) Dive#113 Dive location The Arch Max depth 40 ft Visibility 25 metres
A big thank you to Beck and Tim from Sydney for agreeing to a second dive (otherwise I would have only did the one dive on my last day). It was another gorgeous dive and a lasting memory of my dives on Lord Howe Island which has beautiful and very healthy coral and sea life going for it!

A Lost Paradise: Lord Howe Island

2010-12-04T20:33:00.009+11:00

Since moving here, it's been my goal to visit all 6 states and 2 territories of Australia. So when we were planning my parents trip to Australia during one of our Skype sessions, I suggested that we goto Tasmania the second week of their trip (our pattern has been that they spend a week with me in Sydney and then the second week we go somewhere - last year we went to Christchurch, NZ).

But Papa quickly chimed in that he'd watched some NHK travel show on Tasmania and he was uninterested as it looked rather boring. I tried to pump Tasmania up talking up Tasmanian Devils and the beauty of the island along with Cradle Mountain which is supposed to be beautiful but Papa was adamant.

I next suggested Fiji, but Papa was uncomfortable with the political turmoil there. I let him know that they left the tourists alone as it was a big source of the country's income but again Papa held strong.

So, imagine my surprise when Papa said "Masa, I want to goto Lord Howe Island. It's listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site". I'd never heard of "Lord Howe Island" and had no clue where it was nor did I realise that it was in Australia and more specifically in the state of New South Wales (state I live in).

Evidently, Papa has seen yet another NHK travel show about Lord Howe Island and was impressed by the natural beauty and the birds endemic to Lord Howe Island (meaning they're found only on Lord Howe Island).

I had to Google-search Lord Howe Island to figure out more about this place my Dad wanted to visit. What I found out was:
* It's a two hour plane ride from Sydney - heading East into the ocean.
* There are very few cars, most people ride bikes.
* There's a limit to how many visitors can travel to LHI at any one time (there's a max number of people who can live there as well)
* There's no mobile phone coverage on LHI. When we arrived I asked and was told that the LHI resident's don't want mobile phone coverage as they enjoy the freedom of not being reachable by mobile anytime, anywhere.

Now that I've been there, what I'd add about LHI is:
* It's like that 1980s TV show "Fantasy Island" in it's beauty and remoteness.
* There's an amazing "small town village" feel to LHI in that everyone knows everyone and there's incredible trust that you won't steal from your neighbor. This is seen in the fact that there were absolutely no locks or keys in our hotel - we stayed at the Pinetrees Resort. This made my Dad feel uncomfortable at first that there was no lock (and thus no need for keys) on any of the doors to our room (a one bedroom suite). Also, when we rented our bikes we'd ride around the island and just leave them unlocked in front of the stores (there were like 5 stores in total on the island) or along the path.
* It's incredibly friendly on LHI. You waved hello to everyone that passed you by (even when you're riding on your bike, you give a friendly wave to people cycling or driving by).
* LHI is like the place that time forgot. So many beautiful trees, plant life that's unpolluted and thus thriving.

Here's us arriving at Lord Howe Island's airport (Nov. 14-18, 2010).

After my first day of scuba diving, I rejoined Mom and Papa and we went to the beach in the lagoon, checked out the small town and rented our bicycles.

Just beyond our cabin at Pinetrees is a boat shed where we enjoyed watching sunrises and sunsets.

Since we rented bicycles and there was no phone or TV in our cabin, we typically went to sleep early and woke up early. Papa and I got into the habit of waking up early before breakfast and going bicycling around the island. On one such morning we went to Blinky's Beach.

After Blinky's Beach we cycled a bit further to the end of the airport runway where we saw a number of cows. Here's a FlipVideo that recognises that Papa is Year of the Cow.

One afternoon Papa and I rode our bicycles to the North end of the island and the ocean, green pastures with cows, sunset, and mountains inspired us to compose Haikus.

Two of the most remarkable trees found on Lord Howe Island are the native Kentia Palm Tree which LHI exports to Europe and Australia and the Banyan Tree with its many, many roots.

One afternoon Papa and I rode to Ned's Beach and saw a lady feeding the fish there. So the next afternoon we brought the left over bread from our airplane lunch and fed the fish. As you'll see in this FlipVideo it was TOTALLY UNREAL how many fish swam around our ankles to eat the bread we were tossing into the water.

On another morning, Papa and I rode to the South end of the island and on the golf course there we found more Banyan trees with multiple roots and the Kentia palms. Here's Papa having fun with these native trees.

I've talked a lot about the trees, but there were also many birds that are only found on Lord Howe Island. The woodhen was many years ago almost extinct (only 30 remained at one point) but thanks to a regeneration program on LHI, they were brought back and now there's a population of over 300. These woodhen don't have any predators on the island (pigs and cats and other rodents aren't allowed on the island which helps) and thus are very friendly and bold and so frequently approach people as they're relatively unafraid of losing their lives. So, I couldn't figure out why I was having such a hard time finding a woodhen.

One morning, Papa and I cycled around the island trying to find a woodhen. At one point we gave up and Papa insisted that we use these yellow signs as a substitute. As an aside, just before this FlipVideo was taken, Papa was slowing his bike as he reached me (I'd already stopped and gotten off my bike) and for some reason he didn't judge the distance correctly and ran into me and fell off his bike. So in the Flip you'll here commentary that I tried to hurt him when the reality is that Papa drove his bike into me!

And then wouldn't you know it, when we head back to Pinetrees for breakfast we find a woodhen right behind the lodge.

On our last morning as Papa and I were walking around Pinetrees Resort we found this gargantuan banyan tree that was horizontal, vertical and so huge that it's many "tree trunks" actually crossed the street! My brother - who loves interesting trees - would have been amazed at this tree!

On our last afternoon on Lord Howe Island, Pinetrees Resort arranged for us to have a BBQ at Cubby's Corner. And we could not have asked for a more perfect afternoon. We had this lovely BBQ spot all to ourselves, an amazing view, gorgeous weather and we even had friendly woodhens and a dog come by and play with us!

And Mom made a friend - this woodhen she named "Pecky" because he'd break up the bread she fed him into tiny pieces before eating them with a typewriter-like peck, peck head motion. You'll see it has colored bands on its legs - that's what the rangers use to keep track of and to count the woodhen population.

2nd Make Your Own Gyoza and Sushi Party

2010-12-04T20:28:00.003+11:00

As many of my friends in California will know, my Dad makes amazing gyoza and whenever he visits I host a gyoza party so all my friends can also enjoy this homestyle "Horiuchi secret recipe" gyoza.

This year my Dad also came up with a fun game (and Mom and Dad also brought prizes from LA Japantown too) where you had to juggle chopsticks and to increase the difficulty we added more chopsticks!

Road Trip to Cowra (5 hours west of Sydney)

2010-12-04T19:31:00.004+11:00

From his first visit to Australia in October 2008, my Dad wanted to visit Cowra which he'd read had a Japanese Prisoner of War Camp during WWII. And that in association with this POW Camp - there was this "Cowra Breakout" where on Aug. 5, 1944 over 1,000 Japanese POWs attempted a mass breakout from this camp making this the largest prison attempt escape in the world. Most of the Japanese POWs were either recaptured or committed suicide as they felt shame at being caught in the first place.

The deceased Japanese were buried in Cowra in a specially created Japanese War Cemetery. Considering Australian's were at war with Japan during WWII the fact that the residents of Cowra treated the Japanese soldiers with such respect by burying them in a beautifully constructed cemetery was acknowledged by all of us and Papa played his shakuhachi at the cemetery in recognition of this sentiment.

The Cowra POW camp was similar to the Heart Mountain Camp outside Cody. Wyoming where my Mom and her family were interned during WWII in that there was also a very tall guard tower, barbed wire fencing, wood-constructed barracks and in the middle of nowhere.

On our way to Cowra, we visited Lithgow and spent one night in Bathurst at the Winter Rose Bed and Breakfast where we stayed in this lovely cabin surrounded by a beautiful garden.

In addition to the Japanese POW camp and the cemetery, we also visited the Japanese Garden in Cowra. It reminded me of the Japanese Garden in Saratoga, Calif. in that it too had a lake, canopy of wisteria and an elevated part of the garden where you could rest and look down on the rest of the garden and the horizon beyond.

Winnings from Melbourne Cup

2010-11-27T19:14:00.004+11:00

My strategy for choosing horses to bet on for Melbourne Cup (the world's richest and most prestigious "two mile" handicaped horse race which takes place every year on the second Tuesday of November) is not very sophisticated.

1. I bet Americain to win and to place as I found the irony funny that a French horse would be named Americain. And of course the obvious fact that I'm an American betting on an Australian horse race - and wouldn't it be amazing if a horse named "Americain" actually won this Australian horse race?

2.I bet on So You Think to win and place as it's a twist on a funny American phrase "ya think" that's a great come back to stupid things some people say.

3. And I bet on Tokai Trick to place because embedded in the horse's name is my "Kai" which is my oldest nephew and the horse is Japanese so I thought it'd be a solid nod to my Dad's home country.

And 2 out of 3 of the horses I bet on placed!

Americian won (my winnings were $70) and So You Think came in 3rd (my winnings here was $7.25). I only bet $40 total so at the end of the day I was up $37.25.

Here are my winning tickets... as you can see I'm not a big better :)

Border Security Australia: Case of the Toothpaste Tubes

2010-11-09T02:06:00.003+11:00

I'm so excited to have my parents visiting me again this year. And what a trip it was! They departed Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, Nov. 4, arrived in San Francisco, California and then connected to a plane in LA. That's when they learned that due to recent issues with the A380 Qantas Planes they were bumped from their flight from LA-Sydney.

After a frustrating day spent going back and forth between the hotel, LA Japantown and the airport on Sunday they were booked onto a flight from LA-Auckland, New Zealand and then a connecting flight finally to Sydney.

They finally arrived today, Monday, Nov. 8 into Sydney. And when we arrived back at my place, I heard about how customs seemed to have a heightened interest in the 5 tubes of Aquafresh toothpaste my parents were bringing me over from the US (it's been my favorite toothpaste for years and for the life of me I can't find it here in Sydney).

Here's the FlipVideo with my Mom's discovery of Border Security's interest in my toothpaste:

Note: With all of my "Border Security Australia" experiences, I've hooked my Mom on the reality TV series which you can believe we'll be watching while they are here.

Halloween Party at My Place

2010-11-09T01:48:00.007+11:00

On the eve of Saturday, October 30 I invited friends over to celebrate Halloween. This was initially inspired by Helen who has never been to a Halloween Party. While it's a known holiday here in Australia it's considered a holiday mostly for kids although a few articles I read reported how interest in Halloween was growing in Australia.

In my Evite I encouraged costumes but realistically didn't expect many of my friends to actually wear costumes. What a surprise to find that my friends had more Halloween spirit than I even gave them credit for!

Check out these creative costumes:

And to keep the guests spooked and scared I arranged a few fun games. This game had a premise - everyone was a Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) and as there had been a murder their job was to identify the body parts found (fingers, eye balls, brain, liver and teeth). Their task was to put their hand into these boxes and by touch only identify what was inside. As you'll see I kept the room deliberately dark and all they could use was the light from their torches (or as we would call it - a flashlight).

It was funny watching how grossed out they got:

What would a Halloween Party be like without Apple Bobbing. Both Matt and Thomas did an incredible job bobbing for apples. Meanwhile Lisa and I need to work on our technique of either grabbing the stems with our teeth or using the walls of the container more strategically.

Now, for the coup de grace - the Halloween Pumpkin which I literally had to goto 4 stores before I found this ONE pumpkin. I swear it was the last pumpkin in all of Sydney! Here in Australia they are so hard to come by! And can you guess how much I paid for this pumpkin - AUD$40 and it didn't even have its stem! Can you imagine an Australian going to our big pumpkin patches where there are heaps and heaps of pumpkins?

I must have mentioned a hundred times how much I love my place in Surry Hills! And the only thing it was missing was a BBQ so I could invite friends over for an Aussie Barbie. I went to BBQ Galore at Moorepark on my own and with the help of a nice young sales guy purchased my first Weber BBQ (I didn't even own one in the US). And on the eve of Halloween, Captain Pat was the Captain of my BBQ and he did an amazing job BBQ-ing for 15 friends. Well done Pat!

Experience in Vietnam

2010-11-07T22:48:00.029+11:00

Part of the adventure in moving to Australia was to explore more of this side of the world as other than Japan, I haven't been to any other Asian country. I have a pretty long list but candidly, Vietnam wasn't very high on that list. Yet as the Cisco Asia/Greater China/Japan Corporate Communications team was having an off-site in Ho Chi Minh (Oct.19-22), I decided to take advantage of this trip by adding a few days at the front- and back-end of the business trip to explore the country. And happily my friend and Cisco Japan PR colleague Mari agreed to join me for a side-trip to Hanoi.

I arrived on the evening Friday, Oct. 15 via a direct flight from Sydney to Hanoi (via Ho Chi Minh) on Vietnam Airlines. The first morning I took a personal "Glimpse of Hanoi" tour with a guide named Hai. Our first stop was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. The guide Hai was telling me that typically it's open to visitors in the mornings (not the afternoons as that's when Uncle Ho as he's affectionately called by the Vietnamese is working in the garden) but from October-November it's closed as specialists from Russia are touching up the embalming of Ho Chi Minh so that his body is well preserved for when he comes back sometime in the future and they evidently do a beautiful job as he looks very natural and peaceful.

That's when what the guide Hai was saying actually hit me - the Vietnamese people believe he's going to come back (he died in 1969) - and had I gone in to see the coffin I would have seen Ho Chi Minh through a glass coffin (I was thinking it'd be like seeing Napoleon's coffin where you only see a short wooden coffin).

Here's the changing of the guard in front of Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum:

Then we went to visit the Presidential Palace of this communist run country.

And saw the gardens Ho Chi Minh so enjoyed taking care of.

And here's the one-legged pagoda which looks like a lotus flower also on the grounds of the Presidential Palace.

Our next stop was the Temple of Learning which is dedicated to Confucius. In this FlipVideo you'll see the "stone tablets" that list the names of elite Vietnamese who passed several tests to achieve the level of "doctorate" and went on to become leaders of towns and villages.

Temple of Learning - Part 2

One of the most lasting impressions of Vietnam is the heavy and chaotic traffic - mostly made up of not cars but motorcycles (and I'm not talking about the Harley Davidson-type of motorcycles, but mopeds). In fact families of 4 would be riding on one motorcycle - the father, mother, 4 year old and a baby squashed between everyone. And more often than not - in Hanoi they didn't wear helmets. With Ho Chi Minh being more the commercial center, I not only saw new motorcycles but more people wore helmets. And when there was traffic or a hold up of some sort, these motorcycles would run up on the side walk or even go against traffic to get wherever they were going. And there was no appreciation of lanes - they would just travel on mass. In many of the shuttle vans, cars I rode in when the cars ahead weren't going fast enough, they'd move into oncoming traffic and just before a head on collision would swerve back into their lane. I must admit that one evening I even had a nightmare that a motorcyclist crashed head on into our tour shuttle van and died.

And did I mention that there's a LOT of honking! There were absolutely no turn signals used when passing or turning so everyone just honked when they wanted to pass, when someone was going to slow or no reason at all. You'd have these big trucks honking at motorcycles and from the look on their faces they were totally unfazed - if it were me on a motorcycle and a big truck was honking at me I'd move fast out of the way because in a crash I'd come out the worse.

The last stop was to Turtle Island where I crossed a red bridge to hear the legend of the green lake. Note to Papa: Take a look at the black ornamental metal gong that looks a lot like the one we have at home.

On the walk back to the Hanoi Hilton Opera Hotel I stopped off at the Hanoi Post Office where I purchased postcards and stamps to send to family and friends.

Later that evening, Mari finally arrived from Tokyo and we headed to the Hanoi Night Markets. That evening we sat down with the locals and had "chicken hot pot". Little did we realise that from the moment we ordered they sent a guy to kill the chicken and next thing we knew we heard a "chop, chop" behind us and voila out appeared a plate with the whole chicken - head, feet and all.

On. Sun. Oct. 17 we headed to Halong Bay which after the traffic, noise and pollution of Hanoi was beautiful, serene and like stepping into a Chinese ink painting. There are 1,969 islands in Halong Bay and on the Emotion Junket Boat we sailed through many of these.

Here's a little tour of Emotion Junket:

After lunch on the boat we headed to this cave and it was massive inside. Here we are entering the Caves:

Here we are in the caves:

In the Caves Part 2:

After exploring the cave we went to this other island where we climbed to the top of "Ti Top Mountain" (I call it "Tip Top Mountain" as we climbed to the tip top).

Then I went for a swim in Halong Bay which was quite warm. Here's a FlipVideo that I took and since I have a waterproof case I was able to take it into Halong Bay with me:

At 6:00 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 18 we did tai chi on the top deck of the boat. It was what I call a "Zen moment" where I fully concentrated on breathing in and out, stretching, relaxing and just being in the moment amongst these majestic islands, sailing on an ancient style boat in this place that feels trapped in time with no sign of modern buildings in sight.

After breakfast we headed to a fishing village where Mari and I rented a kayak and while everyone else was rowed around we kayaked ourselves into this Blue Lagoon-type area and around a fishing village.

There is actually fish in a fishing village:

On our last night in Hanoi, we went to see the Hanoi Water Puppet Show.

The morning of our departure to Ho Chi Minh (in the past it was known as Saigon) I took a run around Hoan Kien Lake. It was a 1.5 K around and I was going to take a second lap but the humidity and the bad polluted air was making it tremendously hard to take a full breadth so I passed and just headed back to the hotel.

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh on Tues. Oct. 19 and the team off-site started with an informal dinner that night and over the next two days. It was a great opportunity to meet many of the colleagues I've never met before and those that I hadn't seen in a very long time. There were mostly workshops and discussions so it was a very productive session. On the afternoon of Thurs. Oct. 21 we had a team-building exercise that took us on an "Amazing Race-like" jaunt around Ho Chi Minh. I led "Team We Rock 'n Roll" and we came in second place but won most spirited for our creativity and presentation.

That last evening we went to Cham Charm Restaurant which was this amazing buffet restaurant in what was like a museum.

On Friday, Oct. 22 those of us that were staying through the weekend went to the Ben Tahn Market for some shopping. Here's a Flip Video of me purchasing these flip flops for myself and my nieces.

On the way back from the markets we took a mini-bicycle tour of Ho Chi Minh.

In the afternoon, we went to a Vietnamese Spa. I paid about US$75 for a 70 minute massage and a manicure and pedicure. The massage was unusual in that rather than using a typical massage table, they use a low twin-sized bed. And the masseuse was a tiny Vietnamese woman who got up on the table to contort and twist my arms and legs in a few different positions while putting her foot in my back. It was uncomfortable and I felt like I'd suddenly found myself in a acrobatic training camp for Cirque du Soleil. Before it went too much further and because I'm definitely not as flexible as an acrobat, I asked her to stop.

On. Sat., Oct. 23 we took a tour to this religious sect called "Dai Dao":

Then we ultimately arrived at the Cuchi Tunnels located about 35 km outside of Ho Chi Minh. They are an immense network of connecting underground tunnels that were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong's base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968.

I'd never truly understood the meaning of a guerrilla war, but visiting the Cuchi Tunnels gave me a glimpse of what American soldiers were confronted with in the Vietnam War (or as the Vietnamese call it - the American War). I found the tunnels and the traps the Vietnamese used to be ingenious and very simple yet vicious in the damage they inflicted. The jungles were hot and humid and it was pretty unbearable in the tunnels - very tight, pitch black, damp and hard to breath.

When we first arrived, we were shown a overview video from 1969 that many times referred to the "crazy, devil, bad Americans attacking the peaceful, tranquil Vietnamese villagers". It was intimidating to watch the video surrounded by Vietnamese soldiers who also demonstrated entering the tunnel entries and the dozen of traps that were used.

Here are demonstrations of the traps they made by hand:

Here's the soldier as well as me and my work colleagues Terry Anderson and Peter Witts entering the tunnels through this very small entry hole.

Vietnamese soldier's demonstration:

Terry enters the tunnel:

My boss Peter enters the tunnel:

And finally, here I am entering the tunnel:

Here's more on how they hid air holes in termite holes and the larger entry ways if you have to carry in guns and food:

There was also the option to purchase a round of 10 bullets to fire in the firing range (I decided not to). My boss Peter, however, wanted to fire an AK-47 as it's illegal to do so in Australia and asked me to take a FlipVideo of him shooting the AK-47s. Since only shooters were allowed into the shooting range (where they were provided with ear protections) I took this FlipVideo from behind and as you'll hear in the Flip, the sound for Peter firing the AK-47 was incredibly, ear-splittingly loud!

Near the end of the tour, we went into the tunnels ourselves. The first one was 30 meters and as you'll see it's very, very dark but you'll hear my narrative as we walked through the tunnel.

The second tunnel was 20 meters but had steps that went up and down (at one point I bump into Supriya who was ahead of me and had abruptly stopped to climb up some steps) and then just before we exited the tunnel there was a turn of the tunnel. The guide played a trick on me and jumped out from around the corner, totally catching me off guard (and yes, I scream in surprise as well). I'm glad I was able to give everyone a good laugh at my expense :)

Later that evening we headed back to the markets and Supriya had the option of purchasing the Weasel Coffee we'd heard about earlier from the tour guide (she politely declined). As an aside, I did very much enjoy the filtered Vietnamese coffee with the sweet condensed milk.

On Sun. Oct. 24, Terry, Veronica and I went on a private tour of the Mekong Delta. It was a cultural tour as well. When we arrived at the Mekong Delta we took a boat to the island where we had honey tea a few short meters from a honey bee hive. We also had other dried fruits as a snack. What was amazing is that with so many bees we didn't get stung!

Next we visited a coconut candy making shop. Check out the fast-wrapper lady packaging these candies!

We were also presented with local fruits, singing and music in the village alongside the Mekong Delta.

Then we jumped into these boats and were rowed along the Mekong Delta back to our boat for a refreshing coconut drink.

In the last afternoon in Vietnam, I took the opportunity to goto the Independence Palace which my team didn't get a chance to check out in the "Amazing Race" as it had already closed.

And then had my last Vietnamese coffee outside the American Embassy which is the location (although since rebuilt) where the Broadway Musical Miss Saigon took place.

Simply Red's Last Australian Concert

2010-11-07T22:31:00.003+11:00

My friend Angela invited me at the last minute to join her at the Simply Red Concert at the Sydney Opera House on Wed., Oct. 13. Or as I would later learn - it wasn't so much "in" the Sydney Opera House as I expected, but outside on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.

We arrived a bit earlier to have a drink at the Sydney Opera Bar and it was pouring down rain, so we were contemplating not going after all. Fortunately, the rain stopped and we had a ball at Simply Red's Farewell Concert.

Now here's my confession - when Ang invited me to see Simply Red - for the life of me I couldn't name even one song that they sang. But she assured me that I'd know several of their songs so I went along with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised that I knew many of their songs - like "If You Don't Know Me By Now".

This evening was one of those treasured moments when I'm so glad to be here in Sydney - it was an unexpected, spontaneous evening of music, we were lucky that the rain stopped just in time, we were rocking it out and dancing on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, had a fantastic panoramic view of the city and surprisingly it was a warm night too!

Inspiring Women in Australia

2010-11-07T22:26:00.003+11:00

On Oct. 11, I had the honour of attending the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce's lunch honoring Inspiring Women in Australia. This was also my first time to actually be in the same room as the new Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The other women were Gail Kelly the CEO of Westpac Bank and Catherine Livingstone the Chair of Telstra the #1 telecom company in Australia.

Creativity Galore!

2010-11-07T22:22:00.002+11:00

There's this great market at the Entertainment Quarter that I love going to on Saturday's. And I always love to get fresh flowers yet didn't have enough vases to put them in - so I made one!

Here's me and my friend Lisa at Colour Me Mine - a great creative outlet (Oct. 10)!

Breakfast on the Bridge

2010-11-07T22:16:00.003+11:00

As the Sydney Harbour Bridge is such an icon I guess it's not a surprise that it's a recurring theme on my blog. Last year I did the "Sydney Harbour Bridge Swim", then a few weeks ago I did a 9K run across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and now here I wake up insanely early (arrived at the bridge at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 10) for Breakfast on the Bridge.

It started out great - so impressed that they actually put real grass (I expected turf) on the bridge - only to be poured on with rain! Fortunately the folks I was with had a good sense of humor and fun spirit that rose above the rain soaked picnic and dreary rain!

Soccer: Australia vs. Paraguay

2010-11-07T22:12:00.002+11:00

As Cisco is a technology bid sponsor of Football Federation of Australia and their drive to bring the World Cup to Australia in 2022, I hosted media at the Australia vs. Paraguay soccer match (or as they call it here in Australia - football) on Oct. 9.

Long Labour Day Weekend In Canberra (Yes, Canberra)

2010-11-07T21:09:00.007+11:00

Whenever I told someone that for the long Labour Day Weekend (Oct. 1-4) I was going to Canberra inevitably their first response was "why, it's so boring".

I was surprised at this response as the only other time I went to Canberra for work to attend the Network Centric Warfare Conference (April 2010), I managed to squeeze in a visit to the Australian War Museum and was impressed and knew then that I wanted to see more of Canberra. And with a recommendation from Peter Blasina that the Floriade is Canberra at it's best I decided to go on the Labour Day Long Weekend (next to last weekend of the Floriade).

Now that I've spent the long weekend there, I can say that Canberra's like a city with a split personality. There are tons of museums to visit and explore (this is something Canberra shares with Washington, DC) during the day yet after-hours when you goto the highly recommended towns of Manuka (pronounced Monica) and Kingston known for their shopping and restaurants - it's like a ghost town.

I was thrilled that my friend Lisa could join me as it made the trip all the more fun and it was great to have the company!

We left on Friday, Oct. 1 and what was supposed to be a 1.5 hour drive ended up being closer to 2.5 hours due to the holiday traffic. Which meant that we arrived too late to see the Bowral Tulip Time Festival so we had to appreciate it from outside.

Side-note: I have a hard time pronouncing the names of Australian towns (remember the Kogarah Mayoral Ball which I kept pronouncing "cougar-ah"). Bowral is not "bow-ral" (like the bow of a boat) it's actually pronounced "barrel" (like pork barrel).

On Sat. Oct. 2 we first headed to the National Portrait Gallery and candidly we weren't all that impressed with the standing exhibit. We were more impressed with the "Young Talent" exhibit where young Australian middle and high school students' artwork was presented.

Then we headed to the Canberra Glassworks where made our own piece of glasswork - a paperweight.

A week later we actually received our finished glasswork.

Here's mine - I used a technique called "Fireworks" where I pinched (3x) into the glass to create this "firework" effect:

And here's Lisa's paperweight - she pinched 10-12 times into the glass to create many beautiful translucent bubbles. With the deep blue, it's like water bubbles in an ocean.

Then we headed to The Floriade which is a flower festival combined with a state fair (although Canberra's not technically a "state" but a territory). While there - as you'll see in the Flip Video - we participated in a "hanging flower basket" contest and we both better keep our day jobs as they were not spectacular.

The next day, Sunday, we headed to Kingston Markets where I did a bit of local artisan shopping:

Then onwards to the Royal Australian Mint where they make coinage not just for Australia but Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Indonesia. I was really keen to visit the mint as I had many questions about Australia's coinage that I was looking for answers to...

* Australia is a commonwealth country so initially used the British coin system of pence/shilling/pound. And I learned that in early 1960 Australia moved to its own "decimal" money system.
* The Australian $.50 coin has 12 sides (docedadon) and started out as a rounded edge coin until the coin's silver contents exceeded its face value so they changed it (now why they changed it to a docededon which is quite a large heavy coin, wasn't answered).
* Originally the $1 started out as a paper note but as it was wearing out too quickly they replaced it with a $1 coin (has 5 kangaroos).
* In 1988 the $2 coin was introduced (what's odd is that while both the $1 and the $2 coins are both gold in color, the $2 coin is smaller than the $1 - go figure).
* In 1991, Australia did away with the $.01 and $.02 because they were more expensive to make than their face value. So believe it or not, no pennies in Australia. Their smallest value coin is $.05.

And in the Royal Australian Mint's gift shop I made my own $1 coin and give a shout out to my nephew Kai and niece Kalea (I also purchased each of them a $1 coin from their birth year):

While at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, we were encouraged to check out James Turrell's Sky Scape which when you go into this pyramid you see a small slice of the sky. Imagine my surprise when I actually saw it that it was just like another James Turrell Sky Scape I've been to near the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Tetsuya, you'll recognise this!

Having just seen Australia elect its first female Prime Minister by a very, very small margin between the Labour, Liberal/Coalition and Independent Parties it was very educational to visit the Old Parliament House which had great explanations of the basics of Australian Federal Government.

Then of course, I had to go and visit the current or "new" Australian Parliament House where the House of Representatives and the Senate meet. And this was one of the highlights of my trip to Canberra.

I was so impressed and amazed with how "open" Parliament House was - I could actually go to the roof of the Parliament House where it's covered with grass and you can enjoy a 360 degree panoramic view of the city. Conceptually the architects built it this way to represent that the people are always "on top" guiding the politicians on the direction of the country. Also, before driving back home I enjoyed a coffee in the cafe at Parliament House that was quite literally right "front and center" of the building and again enjoy a great view of Old Parliament House and the Australian War Museum in the distance.

Sydney Harbour Bridge 9K Run

2010-09-22T00:08:00.002+10:00

In the beginning of July, my friend Angela and I made a "fitness resolution" to find a personal trainer to help us loose weight, get fit and eat healthier. We found this great trainer named John Donaghey who we work out with two mornings a week (yes can you actually believe I get up at 6 a.m. for a 7 a.m. training session), has helped us build a nutrition plan and on top of this we also take a boxing class at Mcmahon's Point which offers this amazing view of the bridge.

We also said we wanted to train to run the 9K Sydney Harbour Bridge Race (that's 5.6 miles). And that's exactly what we did this past Sunday.

I did it in 1:03 (which means a 11:25 mile which isn't so great, but certainly gives me room to improve next year) and Angela beat me by at least 10 minutes. Amazingly after the race I felt really good - so I definitely think the training's helped!

What I enjoyed about the race was the run across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (it's longer running across it than it is commuting across it each day) and the scenic route it took us through the Royal Botanical Garden and Sydney's CBD.

Check out this FlipVideo:

After our race, we went to breakfast in The Rocks and my friends Matt and Thomas joined us. Earlier that morning, Thomas completed the half-marathon! Here's his take on it:

Sociable Birds at the NSW Art Museum

2010-09-21T23:29:00.003+10:00

There seems to be a common theme of "things that fly" in my outings with Lisa (check out my last blog when we helped an injured bat).

While having afternoon tea at the New South Wales Art Museum these "Australian Parrots" came to visit. And they were very friendly and the most colorful birds you've ever seen - emerald green, lemon yellow, orange, lime green and Monet blue.

If I've identified them correctly (Ana and Scott will double check me I'm sure) I believe they are Rainbow Lorikeets. And they are arboreal, which means they like trees, and can be very noisy, active, gregarious (sociable) and as you'll see in this FlipVideo they like the company of other birds.

ARN Awards and Australia's Got Talent's Justice Crew

2010-09-21T22:59:00.003+10:00

Last week Thursday (Sept. 16) ARN - an Australian publication focused on IT channel resellers - hosted an awards dinner at the Sydney Hilton Hotel. Here's some of us at the cocktail party - you'd think we coordinated our colors.

The Ladies in Red:

After the awards dinner there was a performance by Justice Crew. And until I Googled them just now, I didn't realise that they were local celebrities. So what is their claim to fame?

Justice Crew are an all-male hip-hop dance and musical group from Sydney who won Australia's Got Talent in 2010. And more recently they released their single "And Then We Dance", which is at No. 46 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart.

And my super hip chic friend Emma joined Justice Crew up on stage and really rocked it out! Check out the FlipVideo:

Don't Count out the All Blacks

2010-09-12T19:56:00.006+10:00

At the half time break of last night's Australia's Wallabies vs. New Zealand's All Blacks, I was hopeful that the Wallabies were going to break their 9 game losing streak as they were winning 14-6. But Peter Ryan wisely said "never count out the All Blacks" and wouldn't you know it - in the last 15 minutes the All Blacks got two trys and won 22-23!

The All Blacks were impressive as they showed their strength in pushing the ball inch by inch closer to the goal line in the ruck to the point where (as I was looking through binoculars) it didn't look like they were moving at all. After multiple attempts they finally managed to get the "try" (over the goal line). And the fact that they did it twice in the last 15 minutes of the game showed their "never back down" push to 'til the very end.

In the last 15 minutes I was also happy to see that Luke Burgess of the Wallabies was substituted onto the field (I met him in my first few months in Sydney at a seafood BBQ class) so I got to see him play.

I also learned a new Australian phrase - "Dead rubber". There's this "Bledisloe Cup" match that's contested between New Zealand and Australia and before last night's game New Zealand had already racked up enough matches to win the cup. So to use it in a sentence, last night's game was "dead rubber" but a good opportunity for the Wallabies to show a strong competitive spirit and that they weren't going to give the game away.

In this Flip you'll hear Peter Witts (with a call out to our colleague Gareth Pettigrew in Vancouver) predicting the All Blacks win while his father Phillip optimistically cheers for the Wallabies.

Planning for Boxing Day...

2010-09-06T22:47:00.003+10:00

My friends Venecia and Sam are coming to visit me for Christmas and so I've begun thinking about things to do while they're here. Plus as this'll be my first Christmas/New Year's here in Australia I'm really looking forward to the experience myself!

One of the things I've been told is a great thing to do on Boxing Day (Dec. 26) is to check out the Sydney-to-Hobart Sailing Race that starts at 1 p.m. near the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Then the sail boats leave between North and South Head and then all the way down to Hobart, Tasmania. Watson's Bay is on the top of what's referred to as "South Head".

Evidently a great view can be had if you take the ferry to an island close to the race start and alternatively at Watson's Bay which is right where the sail boats pass before they start to sail South. After swimming yesterday (Sept. 5) where we did a 3.8k swim and lunch, I had some free time so I thought I'd check out Watson's Bay (see map below - on the far right in the middle).

Watson's Bay is really a beautiful and quaint town with amazing views of Sydney Harbour and the ocean. There's a nice national park which has very easy walking paths that lead you to these magestic views. There's also Doyle's on Watson's Bay and it's right on the beach, with a perfect view of the harbour so I booked us a table for lunch on the outdoor patio so we can enjoy the sail boats and the ambiance of a day at the races on Boxing Day.

While Boxing Day is sure to be beautiful as we'll be right in the middle of summer, when I visited yesterday it was quite windy. In fact it was so windy the birds hovered instead of truly flying. Check out this FlipVideo:

So Excited to Finally Connect with Louise!

2010-09-06T22:35:00.002+10:00

Louise is my first Australian friend. We met at Cunningham Communications a high tech PR firm in Silicon Valley and we were both on the HP account.

Louise moved back to Australia 6 years ago with her family to Perth which is on the West Coast (a 5 hour flight) of Australia. She happened to be in Sydney and we had a wonderful time catching up!

With the 9th anniversary of 9/11 coming up, we both remembered that the last time either of us were in the World Trade Center was when we were in NY to support an HP press event around 1998. We arrived a few days early - Louise to sightsee and me to visit my brother and family. It was a work day and my cousin Yasushi used to work in the World Trade Center (on 9/11 he was thank goodness working at another accounting firm somewhere else) so I went to meet him for coffee while Louise took the elevator to the top to check out the view.

On a more cheerful note, we also laughed about how much we both hated doing time sheets and were glad to finally go "in house" to do PR.

I have yet to visit Perth - but the plan now is to head there in Easter 2011. Can't wait to meet Louise's second son and to see the rest of the family again ... and check out the Margaret River which is world renowned for its shiraz wine.

Moto - Check out Izakaya Den

2010-09-06T22:22:00.003+10:00

An "Izakaya" restaurant is a type of restaurant that is primarily a Japanese sake bar but it also serves the type of food that typically goes with sake. My cousin Moto has an izakaya-type restaurant in New York and it's called "Izakaya Ten". If you're ever in New York you should check it out - it's in Chelsea at 207 10th Ave. at 23rd St.

I was in Melbourne on business and on Aug. 25 on the recommendation of my hotel concierge, I went to check out "Izakaya Den" (I assume it's called a "den" because it's located in the basement) and I LOVED it. It had great ambiance, a great selection of sake and really tasty dishes.

It's tricky to find as it's down this non-descript stairwell next to a cafe on Little Collins/Russell Streets and when you peak down the stairs you see a clothing shop which leads you to believe it couldn't possibly be down there, but if you persevere you'll find this great izakaya:

Beautiful Weekend of Skiing at Thredbo!

2010-09-06T21:34:00.005+10:00

It took us 8 hours to drive from Sydney to Thredbo for a ski weekend (and 6 hours to drive back)! Thank goodness we had amazing snow and beautiful weather (Aug. 20-22)!

Actually - it'd be more accurate to say that my friends Georgina (George) and her husband Paul drove and I kept everyone company with lively conversation and snacks. Thank you Paul and George for driving!

On the way up, it started to snow and as Thredbo Ski Resort is in a National Park we're required to have chains so we got a little instruction:

Now before I show the next FlipVideo I have to do a mea culpa - I confused the NY Mets hat for a NY Yankees hat. And my brother's a big Mets fan so I'm embarrassed I couldn't tell the difference! They're so similar?!???

Here's an image of a NY Mets Baseball Cap (the "Y" is below and overlapping the "N")

And here's an image of a NY Yankees Baseball Cap ("N" and "Y" are right on top of each other)

Now that I've got my mea culpa out of the way - you'll see in this series of FlipVideo clips the chronicles of what I'll call "Survival of the NY Yankees Baseball Cap (which I continually call a Mets Cap) on the slopes of Thredbo Ski Resort".

Essentially at the very top of the Kosciuszko Express Chair Lift (see ski trail map here) - the highest elevation, it was very, very windy and cold. When we reached the very top, Paul's NY Yankees baseball cap blew away (it was not attached in any way) and miraculously he was able to ski down and recover it.

Then just before lunch at the exact same spot - the NY Yankees baseball cap blew away again and -again luckily - Paul was able to ski down and recover it!

It became the running joke of the weekend. And the happy ending to the story is that the NY Yankee's Baseball Cap survived the weekend and went home with Paul.

In a weekend of "small wonders" George was confronted with of all animals - a wombat on the ski slopes of Thredbo. I'd seen the wombat (which looks like a very, very fat cat) from the ski lift on the way up and was excited to see it dash by and pause to say "hello" to George so that I had enough time to pull out my FlipVideo and take this:

In trying to go up the Snowgums ski lift, we found ourselves on the opposite mountain (we ended up going on Merritt's chair lift). So we had to traverse back and somehow found ourselves skiing down the slope right under the Gunbarrel chair lift. It was a tough go!

This is my second ski trip to Thredbo and the weather was much, much better! Last year it rained and the snow was more like slush so I spent more time in the pubs/ski lodge than on the slopes.

But that's not to say that we avoided the pubs entirely...we still found plenty of time to hit Black Sally's for "Schnappy Hour" where we did schnapps shots.