Ahh, well our house sit doesn't have Foxtel, but my daughter does. We have been watching the US Open, tennis, and yesterday Serena Williams won the women's title and today its a marathon between Andy Murray and Djokovic. They are both exhausted, well into the fifth set, and they have been going for about four hours.
The winner of the men's and women's titles gets 1.9 million US$. Not bad for a few hours work. Of course they train for years for this, but I reckon it will take me nearly 160 years on the pension to get that sort of money. Ah well, Andy Murray has finally won, and it was just a couple of minutes under 5 hours.
I got quite cold yesterday when we were out, and I have woken up with a sore throat again, and a sore foot, so am having an easy day. Peter has gone out for a walk round the local area.
Tomorrow is my graduation, the reason for the trip down here and on Thursday morning we fly back. I don't want to be sick for either of those things. It is a nice day today but the forecast for tomorrow evening and Thursday morning is lousy.
Showing posts with label Melbourne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Melbourne. Show all posts
Monday, 10 September 2012
Sunday, 9 September 2012
Day two in Melbourne.
I should have taken my jacket! The wind was really cold out there. Anyway we had a good day, lots of walking. Today was my book sales day. First stop the National Library. They don't buy for all the Melbourne libraries, but I left one with the buyer there in case they want some for the National Library. Then to the 'Chinese book shop', which was quite small, but I left one there and they may stock it.
Then to Xinhua bookshop. Well this was a magnificent flop. We found the place ok. The website says it opens at 11am. The door says it opens at 11.30. In reality it opens whenever the guy feels like turning up. He rolled up about midday, spoke very limited English and using a student at the shop as an interpreter, it seems that I need to work through a Chinese publisher to get books into the Xinhua book shops. So I have some contacts, I'll work on that next.
We did the rounds on the city circle tram. This is a free tram that continuously circles the city center.
That was good, it goes round round the city, so we got a good look around. We had a coffee and sandwich and checked out the Immigration Museum. We were quite disappointed with it. The Adelaide Immigration Museum seemed to be much better, more personal stories, and just generally much more interesting.
There are some very interesting buildings around the city center.
This is the Flinders Street train station. It is the main central station for all the suburban trains.
Outside City Hall they had some lovely flower beds, with all the colder climate sorts of flowers we don't get in Queensland. Cyclamen, primulas, cyclamen. It was very pretty.
More flowers and some unusual elephants advertising the Melbourne Zoo.
Below is a very tall building. Our oldest son is a builder. When he was a new apprentice, he thought he would show off his newly acquired skills and put a shelf in his bedroom. The shelf was a triangular shape. He spent most of the day trying to get the thing to fit. In the end, Peter took over and got the measurements right, getting the shelf in the right spot in just a few minutes. This has become a family joke, talking about corner shelves. This building reminded us of that. I think he would have had some problems getting all the angles right for the corner shelves in this building. I didn't count how many floors it has, but I think about 40.
Right in the city center there was a woman with the music playing doing Tai Chi. It is very common to see men and women doing this in China, but not so usual in our Aussie cities. Mind you, there are thousands of Chinese people here, they are just everywhere.
This is part of the RMIT, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. A lovely old building, although it looks like it needs a really good clean.
So all in all, a good day, and the busiest day since we have got over our really bad colds. At least we got to do quite a lot of walking. Tomorrow, if the weather is good we'll go back to Victoria markets.
Then to Xinhua bookshop. Well this was a magnificent flop. We found the place ok. The website says it opens at 11am. The door says it opens at 11.30. In reality it opens whenever the guy feels like turning up. He rolled up about midday, spoke very limited English and using a student at the shop as an interpreter, it seems that I need to work through a Chinese publisher to get books into the Xinhua book shops. So I have some contacts, I'll work on that next.
We did the rounds on the city circle tram. This is a free tram that continuously circles the city center.
That was good, it goes round round the city, so we got a good look around. We had a coffee and sandwich and checked out the Immigration Museum. We were quite disappointed with it. The Adelaide Immigration Museum seemed to be much better, more personal stories, and just generally much more interesting.
There are some very interesting buildings around the city center.
This is the Flinders Street train station. It is the main central station for all the suburban trains.
Outside City Hall they had some lovely flower beds, with all the colder climate sorts of flowers we don't get in Queensland. Cyclamen, primulas, cyclamen. It was very pretty.
More flowers and some unusual elephants advertising the Melbourne Zoo.
Below is a very tall building. Our oldest son is a builder. When he was a new apprentice, he thought he would show off his newly acquired skills and put a shelf in his bedroom. The shelf was a triangular shape. He spent most of the day trying to get the thing to fit. In the end, Peter took over and got the measurements right, getting the shelf in the right spot in just a few minutes. This has become a family joke, talking about corner shelves. This building reminded us of that. I think he would have had some problems getting all the angles right for the corner shelves in this building. I didn't count how many floors it has, but I think about 40.
Right in the city center there was a woman with the music playing doing Tai Chi. It is very common to see men and women doing this in China, but not so usual in our Aussie cities. Mind you, there are thousands of Chinese people here, they are just everywhere.
So all in all, a good day, and the busiest day since we have got over our really bad colds. At least we got to do quite a lot of walking. Tomorrow, if the weather is good we'll go back to Victoria markets.
Day one in Melbourne
We have had our first day in Melbourne. After a short delay, we had a smooth trip down, landing just on dusk. It was cold, brrr...about 16 degrees, much colder than home. Everyone is all rugged up with coats and hats and scarves. I had warm clothes, but Peter left the plane in shorts and t-shirt.
Today we had a lazy day, but went to Victoria Markets. This is a terrific place. We will go back and have a full day there. Its a bit like Ladies Market in Hong Kong, or the main market places along the main street in Phuket. Just the sort of place we like to meander around.
We went there for the meat, fish and veges. I wish we had something like this on the Gold Coast! The quality of the meat and fish is obvious, and the prices much cheaper than the supermarket.
It was easy to see the freshness of the fish on sale.
A large area of butchery shops are all together, with the shop owners yelling out their specials. Its a really noisy place.
Melbourne is a very multicultural city, people from all over the world live here, and lots of them come here for their food. Outside there were food stalls with authentic food from counties all over the world.
My daughter lives right in the CBD, so instead of having photos of suburban homes, little green gardens and driveways full of cars, from her place on the 5th floor, we get to see the backs of lots of shops.
This view from the spare room shows many fire escapes from the backs of buildings. The fronts of these buildings are mostly shops and restaurants and are probably about 100 to 120 years old, pretty old for Australia.
My daughter, like most of our family is an avid reader and she has some terrific books. I have started on a book called 'The time traveler's wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. Its the most unusual story. Apparently it has been made into a movie, and it must be the most confusing movie to watch until you really get into the story.
The book is about a guy who has some genetic problem that means he suddenly, without control, moves from one time zone to another, mostly into the past, but sometimes into the future. He flits from time zone to time zone, always turning up naked, and having to find food and clothes etc until he flips back to his 'now' time. In the movie 'Back to the future,' Marty McFly sort of did a similar thing, but he was never allowed to come face to face with himself. In this book, Henry often meets up with himself in different time zones, so he, as a 30 year old may zip back to be with himself as a 9 year old.
The basics of the story is how he met Clare and fell in love with her and married her over an extended life time. I am about three quarters of the way through so far so don't know how it will end, but it must have been a terrible job writing it, keeping track of not only everything that happened, but constantly in and out of time zones.
Tomorrow is a busier day, on the bus and trams, going around the city and trying to sell some books.
Today we had a lazy day, but went to Victoria Markets. This is a terrific place. We will go back and have a full day there. Its a bit like Ladies Market in Hong Kong, or the main market places along the main street in Phuket. Just the sort of place we like to meander around.
We went there for the meat, fish and veges. I wish we had something like this on the Gold Coast! The quality of the meat and fish is obvious, and the prices much cheaper than the supermarket.
My daughter lives right in the CBD, so instead of having photos of suburban homes, little green gardens and driveways full of cars, from her place on the 5th floor, we get to see the backs of lots of shops.
My daughter, like most of our family is an avid reader and she has some terrific books. I have started on a book called 'The time traveler's wife' by Audrey Niffenegger. Its the most unusual story. Apparently it has been made into a movie, and it must be the most confusing movie to watch until you really get into the story.
The book is about a guy who has some genetic problem that means he suddenly, without control, moves from one time zone to another, mostly into the past, but sometimes into the future. He flits from time zone to time zone, always turning up naked, and having to find food and clothes etc until he flips back to his 'now' time. In the movie 'Back to the future,' Marty McFly sort of did a similar thing, but he was never allowed to come face to face with himself. In this book, Henry often meets up with himself in different time zones, so he, as a 30 year old may zip back to be with himself as a 9 year old.
The basics of the story is how he met Clare and fell in love with her and married her over an extended life time. I am about three quarters of the way through so far so don't know how it will end, but it must have been a terrible job writing it, keeping track of not only everything that happened, but constantly in and out of time zones.
Tomorrow is a busier day, on the bus and trams, going around the city and trying to sell some books.
Friday, 7 September 2012
Off to Melbourne.....
One of the drawbacks of house sitting is that you can't take a few days and wander off for a bit of a break. If you have pets to care for, then you must be home morning and night at the least. We often do day trips if we have pets to care for, but you have to be here for the feeding and watering etc.
However, our present house sit is pet free. Even so, we need to be here, so we don't get to have weekends away. If one of us wants to go somewhere, the other one stays home. Still, this weekend we are going away. With the home owners permission we have asked a friend to come in for the days we are away. We are off to Melbourne to stay with one of our daughters. After two years of full time study and passing all the exams, I go down for my Masters Degree graduation at Swinburne University. I'll put up a picture once its over. The thesis, or in this case as it was a writing degree, what they call 'The artifact', or in lay-mens terms 'the end result' of all this work was my book recently published called China or Bust, the story about Peter and I going to China to teach English and our life there.
I use the English version of my Chinese name for writing.
So we are both looking forward to a few days away, some time with our daughter, doing some sightseeing around Melbourne, and unfortunately, we are going to have some cold weather.....brrrrr....we have to take our winter woollies.
I'll keep you posted.
However, our present house sit is pet free. Even so, we need to be here, so we don't get to have weekends away. If one of us wants to go somewhere, the other one stays home. Still, this weekend we are going away. With the home owners permission we have asked a friend to come in for the days we are away. We are off to Melbourne to stay with one of our daughters. After two years of full time study and passing all the exams, I go down for my Masters Degree graduation at Swinburne University. I'll put up a picture once its over. The thesis, or in this case as it was a writing degree, what they call 'The artifact', or in lay-mens terms 'the end result' of all this work was my book recently published called China or Bust, the story about Peter and I going to China to teach English and our life there.
I use the English version of my Chinese name for writing.
So we are both looking forward to a few days away, some time with our daughter, doing some sightseeing around Melbourne, and unfortunately, we are going to have some cold weather.....brrrrr....we have to take our winter woollies.
I'll keep you posted.
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