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 :)
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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)!
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!
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.
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.
