Returning Home.

Wow, I'm finally back in Bristol and almost settled in my house again. Naheed was still staying in my house till the end of the month so we had two house loads of crap stored about in one house. Then my Sydney boxes of stuff arrived last Wednesday which made even more clutter. I went out with one big box and one snowboard all weighing 50kgs and came back with six smaller boxes ane one snowboard weighing 110kgs.

I got back last Thursday and went straight down to the Honda garage to pick up my car. Naheed has been very helpful in helping me get my car back on the road. Around £800 for a service and MOT and my car is going again. Mind you it did need two new rear tyres and a new battery. It was a major service for it as well. To say that I was happy to get back in my car and drive it was an understatement! It was like buying it again from new, after a year of hire cars I was very happy to get back into a car which was more responsive in every way.

One of the first things that I really wanted to do when I got back was to go and buy a new bike. I decided to get a top banana full suspension bike with disc brakes and other bells and whistles. In the end it came down to two models, one from Trek and one from Kona. Both were around the same price and had similar components. I finally made a decision to buy the Trek one, if only because I trusted the brand and it also came in a better looking colour. Colour is very important in buying a bike. :-)

Here you can see the bike on the back of my car. It took quite a while for Jason (The Mud Dock bike shop assistant) and me to be able to mount the bike on my car. I bought a bike rack specially that I knew fitted my car. Needless to say that I drove very carefully back home and I also noticed that cars behind me kept their distance as well! I felt like a kid at Christmas getting his new bike and I went out on it as soon as I could when I got home. The cycle lanes around here are crazy. They just stop and start for no apparent reason, sometimes there are signs indicating that you should ride on the pavement and the signs don't ever tell you when you should stop. I'm quite looking forward to exploring the cycle tracks around Bristol and Bath and also doing some off road cycling.

One thing that I've noticed since being back home is that people do drive really fast on the motorway. In Sydney people generally tend to keep to the speed limits, while over here everyone obviously breaks the speed limits and quite often by quite a bit. I'm sure that I used to be one of those people before I left for Sydney. Now I don't tend to drive as fast and am more aware of my speed when driving around which is probably a good thing.

I've also managed to join a gym back here. I decided to join the local Esporta gym, not because of their extortionate prices that's for sure. They're more expensive than gyms in London! The reason I joined them is that they are the biggest gym within a fifteen-minute drive of my house and they aren't even all that big. At least they have a 25m pool which will get some use from me now. Not quite the same as Manly but I'm sure I'll get used to it. Do you think they'll let me in there with a body board?

Settling back in is sometimes quite difficult. It's very much like taking a step back after over a year of living in such a great place and having such a good time. I'm having to come back to earth and try to get back to my life before I set off. I'm sure there are many changes that I'm going to make over the next few months back here, but I can't help but think that I've had to take a big step backwards in my life. One thing that I'll try to do is make the most of my time and try to make more of my weekends.

The range of available food and more expensive meals when eating out is something that I'll really miss. No more sushi or CBD noodles that's for sure. I've already been out for a couple of meals and they were both curries. Dave and Steve came to welcome me back to Bristol last weekend and we did the usual Clifton curry and beers.

One thing that I've gained since being away is a cat! Naheed has two cats, Jeff and Lola. Jeff (pictured here in my bed) is the friendly one while Lola is a bit more feral. Lola doesn't even like people touching here. She wouldn't go into Naheed's house and seeing as I have a garage with a cat flap she does use it to sleep in. So she's probably better off in my house rather than Naheed's.

I do have to remember to feed her, as I'm not used to having a cat and the extra responsibility involved. I'm sure I'll remember with all the paw prints on my car every morning when I get my car out, as she likes to sleep on top of my car!

Finally one more thing that I've noticed, is that it's bloody cold and rains a lot in this country! How do Britains cope?

Climbing Big Hills.

I took a few hours off from shopping in Hong Kong to take a hike up the hill behind my parents’ village of Chau Tau. Here is the view of the village from the highest point that I managed to walk up to.

It was a little hairy on my walk up to the top of the bigger hill. At some points I almost gave up thinking it would be quite tricky to walk back down. However I figured I would regret it if I didn’t try to make it up to the top of the hill. There was a narrow path up to the top but it was quite steep at points and if I stopped to look down then it would make my knees shake a little.

I did push onwards and upwards and was rewarded with a great view of the surrounding area. The views were a little obscured with the smog in the air. You can clearly see the amount of pollution in the photos.

This is a shot of the big city of Shenzen just on the other side of the hill. It used to be a small town before China took over Hong Kong. Since then it’s been ever growing and growing. Also in the photo you can clearly see markings in the hills. These are actually barbed wire fences put there to stop people from China from getting into Hong Kong. The borders are still closed between China and Hong Kong to people without the proper passes. This scene always reminds me of Steve McQueen trying to escape in the film The Great Escape.

Walking back down the hill wasn’t as bad as I expected. There were a couple of points where I slipped but I didn’t slip very far and managed to catch the slide after a foot or two.

Finally here’s a shot of my grandparents old house in the village. You can see how small and old the house is. No one lives in the house anymore as my grandparents have passed away and I suspect it’s only kept for sentimental reasons.

The paths in the village are very narrow in places with only a meter between the fronts of the houses. I guess even out here in the countryside of Hong Kong space was a premium and they had to build houses close together.

Stop off in Shopping Central.

I’m back in Hong Kong again for six days before finally coming back to Blighty. It was very hot and humid on the day after I arrived. I hadn’t been here for more than 12 hours before I was bitten a dozen times by whatever insects are here. Mainly mosquitos and midge like things I hope. The weather has turned much colder recently and it even rained quite a lot last night. It’s probably good preparation for my return to even colder climates later this month. Going straight from sunny Manly beach on the pacific to not so sunny Bristol mud flats in the English channel would be too much of a shock to my system.

Unfortunately I can’t really do too much shopping over here. My backpack is much too full to be able to carry anymore back to the UK. It weighed in at a hefty 22kg at the airport. Fortunately I could stuff as much into my coat and laptop bag without them being weighed which helped. Unfortunately that does mean I end up with monkey arms.

I’m always amazed by the public transport system in Hong Kong. Well I suppose most of the population does use it here to get around. There are TV’s on just about every train and bus. Probably to take your mind off the fact that you’re more than likely stuck in the terrible traffic jams that they have here. Their general solution to the traffic problems here is to build more and more roads. The roads appear to be ever wider and ever higher up each time I come back here.

The housing is continually growing to cope with the ever-expanding population as well. There are always new high-rise flats going up to house people. This shot was taken from the 15th floor of one of my auntie’s flats. She lives in a one-bed apartment that is probably about a third the size of my Sydney place. I had problems turning around to close the door in her bathroom it was such a space saver. If you can imagine a shower, toilet, washbasin and in swinging door all in the space of a metre square space you can get the idea.

I’ve been to see my mum’s side of the family who mostly live on Llama Island. It’s a very nice island that is just off the Hong Kong mainland. It’s much quieter there as there aren’t any roads and hence no cars. There are also much less people on the island and it’s roughly divided up into four sections. One with a coal power station and the others being general communities. I believe that there’s a hippy section but I’ve only been to the area where my relatives live.

Here’s a photo of my mum, one of her brothers and an older cousin. I’m sure you can see where my family good looks come from. ☺ My mum was telling me about how she used to be quite a good swimmer when she was younger. She once almost drowned when she was chasing a inflatable ball out to sea and she didn’t think about how far she was swimming out only about trying to get the ball. Once she caught up with it she then looked back and realised how far she had swam out. Then she forgot about the ball and just concentrated on trying to swim back to the shore.

Just behind one of my uncle’s house there are some small hills. Apparently just last weekend there was a mountain biking event up and around the hills. It’s a shame that I missed that because I would have really liked to see where they rode and how difficult it would have been. I suspect that because there aren’t any trails going up to the mountains they have to either make their own way up there or they mark out a rough course. I think I’ll have to try to make my own way up there the next time I’m back here. Everyone is quite impressed with my skydiving and mountain biking exploits, probably less impressed with my scars from my mistakes!

Last full day in Sydney.

I spent all yesterday walking around Sydney taking as many photos as I could to try to remember the moment. My fifteen minute walk into work, all the places that I would eat lunch and shop in. In the afternoon I caught the Manly ferry to see Manly beach. I only had about an hour on the beach but I still managed to catch the sun a little!

Well I'm all packed up now and finally ready to leave Sydney. We went out for some final drinks and food last night in the CBD.

Started out in the Bavarian Beer Cafe for a swift 300ml (it's all metric here) and then on to the Orbit Bar for some great views of Sydney at night. For food we went to Wagamamas, and strangely enough it was the same Waggas that I first ate at when I got here on my own. What a strange coincidence.

We ended up at the Opera Bar for some drinks into the night. Deirdre, Allen and I wanted to have one more drink but unfortunately at 12.30am we couldn't think of anywhere close to my hotel that was still serving. The Forbes bar was strangely closed as it's normally still open at this time during week days.

Well what can I say. I am very sad to be leaving Sydney and Australia. No question that it has been one of the best years of my life. Like all good things it has to come to an end eventually. I have done so many things over here that I would never have thought of doing in the UK. If there is one thing that I have learnt while here is to make more of an effort to do things with my free weekends. Rome is only a short and relatively cheap flight away from Bristol!

I have really appreciated it when friends visited me over here in the past year and seeing them over here while on holiday in a city that I lived in is very strange.

Best of all, better than sky diving, ice climbing, mountain biking, snorkelling and bush walking, is that I've made some really good friends in Deirdre, Allen, Roger, Ian and Joe. I'd like to think that we have all had lots of fun here and hopefully if the coming year can be half as good as this one then I'll be very happy.

Hong Kong again next... Hopefully I won't be married off before I leave the country!

Why jump out of a perfectly good plane?

I went sky diving with Roger from work last Friday. I really wanted to go again before I returned to England and Roger kind of wanted to go but just needed someone else to get round to booking it.

There are only two places in Sydney which do sky diving and the one I chose was in Penrith just west of Sydney. It’s only an hours drive from the centre and the place was right next to the Olympic rowing lakes. The weather wasn’t’ fantastic for the jump and I felt it could have been cancelled because of the low cloud.

They went ahead anyhow and after a brief training session Roger and I were lucky enough to be going in the first group of people. I must admit the people at Simply Skydive weren’t the best, as they weren’t that friendly really and there wasn’t much confidence when their set-up was literally just a tent in the middle of a field. At $500 including a DVD and photos it was a little more expensive than the New Zealand sky dive as well.

The actual air field was also a twenty minute car ride from the landing zone as well. When we got to the airfield I met my instructor, Bernie. Roger met his instructor on the mini bus and he wasn’t the nicest guy in the world either. I think he was just a little angry against everything and hardly spoke to Roger and didn’t really talk about the jump we were going to make at all.

Well the plane that we were going to go up in looked like a patchwork of metal just pained over red and I was frankly surprised that it managed to take off. I was sat almost right next to the pilot and was going to be last to jump out of the group of three sky divers in our plane. There were some great views from my wing seat, more so when we rose above the clouds and saw the full sun.

I realised at this point that I would be jumping through the clouds and thought, fantastic! Roger is on the very left of this photo. I’m sure his instructor was yawning during the flight and kept closing his eyes all the time. I thought not to mention this to Roger at the time.

We only had a video camera attached to each instructors arm and this was to provide the video and still photos. The New Zealand sky dive had a digital SLR for still shots and a separate cameraman jumper. I guess they both have advantages as the separate jumper can take better shots when falling, while the camera on the arm can capture shots while parachuting.

This is me just after jumping out of the plane. I pretty much had an insane grin all the way down. My mouth was quite dry at the end of the jump because it was open for so long too.

I was a little disappointed because the jump was advertised as being from 14,000 ft, but I noticed on the altimeter that we jumped at around 12-13,000 ft. So we probably only had around 45 seconds of freefall.

It was one hell of a 45 seconds though. The feeling I got when doing a somersalt out of the plane was fantastic, something that I didn’t do on my first jump. Even better was falling towards the clouds and then falling though them to see the ground below them. I could also see Roger just below me as well.

The instructor let me have a go at making turns once the parachute had been deployed. This was really fun as this time I was in control of what we did. I could pull really tight turns and almost fall horizontal downwards which gives that falling feeling in your stomach.

Even though Roger jumped before me I managed to catch him up and land before him while doing turns. Probably because I was doing more turns to fall quicker. The instructor did say before the jump not to pull both cords at once otherwise you collapse the parachute!

It was a very good jump and really encouraged me to want to try to do a jump on my own. It will cost quite a lot though so I have to weigh up whether it’s really worth it.

Just behind me you can see the Olympic rowing course in Penrith. I could see quite a few rowers in the lake. I wonder what they made of people falling out of the sky towards them.

Roger appeared to quite enjoy the jump as well. He looked very happy that he had done it and enjoyed it too. We both have a DVD of the jump which is quite good fun to watch. Unfortunately you can’t hear what I’m yelling on my way down. If you could hear it I’m sure you would hear me shouting “I’m alive, I’m alive, I feel so alive!”

Something quite funny happened on our way back from Penrith. The sky diving company are quite happy to pick us up from the CBD but wouldn't give us a lift back. Anyhow, we caught a lift from their next set of jumpers to the Penrith train station as it was on their way. In the next set of jumpers there were three younger lads who looked quite sure of themself earlier on. Now that they were in the mini bus they looked very quiet and stressed. We mentioned that we were heading back to work and one of them said in a very surprised voice. "What you're going back to work, after what you've just done!". We just replied, "Yes morning sky dive and then afternoon back to work as usual.". Tee hee.

Last night I went out for a final evening out with Ian and Anita. We went for some beers right after work and then he took me to a really cool steak restaurant called Prime. It’s located in the cellar of a very old post office building. The old post office building is amazing. It has all sorts of designer shops and bars as well.

It was very posh in the restaurant and we did feel very underdressed while there. The wine menu looked more like an encyclopaedia with all manner of wines, the most expensive was just over a thousand dollars.

You could have waggu beef here too, which was the most expensive thing on the menu. I decided to plump for the 500g T bone which was cooked to perfection and just melted in my mouth. I’m sure that everything was probably so high in calories that I’ll have to take a week of gym time to work it off while not eating anything but lettuce and plain boiled rice.

Almost there...

Last Saturday night I went to a National Rugby League (NRL) game with Ian and a few of his friends. The game was only a pre-season friendly game to play for a charity shield.

The game was played at the Olympic stadium in Sydney that was built for the 2000 Olympics. The stadium was really big, probably one of the bigger stadiums that I've been to. It seated around 90,000 people, but unfortunately because it was only a friendly game only 24,000 people were there. It was lacking in atmosphere and to be honest the game wasn't really a great one. The South Sydney Rabbitos were playing the St George Dragons.

It was more fun to chat with some of Ian's friends about their life in Australia and how great it is to live here. The reason that I managed to get free tickets to this game was because one of Ian's friends Shane. His dad's manager has come over from Germany to start a four year stint working in Sydney. Sounds very familiar! Because he works for a big CAD company they own an executive box in the Olympic Stadium. The box had eight seats, a TV to watch highlights and a padlocked fridge. We never did find out how to get into the fridge. There was also seat service by some waiters if you wanted it. This was one of the first times that I've been to a stadium to watch a game in which there was carpet in the aisles, instead of just concrete. How very posh. :-)

We were planning to go to the Bennelong in the Opera House for a celebration with everyone involved in the project. However unfortunately the Sydney Water employees can't accept any sort of free meals from their contractors. It wouldn't be looked upon very well if a Sydney Water employee was found to be in the Bennelong eating a free meal paid for by one of their contractors. You could imagine the headlines, public water employees living it up in the Bennelong with your money while your pipes are leaking. It would be a great exclusive on Today Tonight, which is one of those trashy documentary programs on TV here in Australia. Its typical headlines are something like immigrants are taking over Australia and living on welfare while you work to pay them.

Instead of having a meal with everyone involved in the project we had some beer and snacks in the Sydney Water offices. It was all a very civilised affair and there were a few speeches and back patting on how well the first part of the project has gone.

Fortunately after the tame Sydney Water celebrations the Earth Tech and Wallingford employees continued the celebrations, we had the Earth Tech project manager Shane take us all out for a paid meal.

In the photo you can see (left to right), Archie, Ian, Stephanie, Me, Paul and Cathy. Other than Ian and Me the others are all Earth Tech employees who are taking on the next portion of the project after us. They are going to use the software that I've helped to develop to actually model the water systems in the Sydney area.

I've finally started packing up the contents of my apartment and have been making preparations to come back to Blighty.

It's all been a little stressful and hectic while trying to organise leaving Australia and also return to the UK. There is so much to sort out, so many people to call and things to cancel. My apartment is a bit of a mess with things in a partial packed state ready to ship back on the 12th.

I've just had my last gym session with Quentin and it's a real shame that I won't be able to train with him anymore. Here's a photo of him for all you curious fans out there. He's made a big difference to my life in the past year and also the way that I train.

I also went for another sky dive in Penrith just outside of Sydney yesterday with Roger. Like so many people Roger wanted to have a go but just never got round to organising it, so I took the lead and booked a couple of places. I'll have some photos of the day soon and will publish them with a report next time.

Paul's BBQ Part II. The return of the BBQ.

We've almost completed the Sydney Project over here and all has gone very well. Generally lots of pats on the back and congratulations for everyone involved. Paul invited us all over to his place for a BBQ on Thursday night to celebrate. We were also there to break in and show off his new BBQ, which he recently bought. I'm sure the size of your BBQ here is the equivalent of the size of your manhood! :-)

Paul has obviously learnt to not let his wife near the BBQ now and Ian, the only local Australian there was suitably impressed with the BBQ as well. I quite like the union jack dartboard just behind the BBQ.

There were some very noisy rainbow lorikeets in Paul's back garden. There were very colourful but so noisy that at times it was difficult to talk over them. Mind you Paul didn't help matters as he does encourage them by putting out birdseed. There are stories of dozens of these birds covering some houses and eating their way through the roofs!

We all ate more than we should have and had a good time talking through the night. Most of the conversation was about how great Australia is to live in and also what an easy and stress free project it had been in the past year. Joe said that all the previous projects that he had been involved in had had some major problems but this one was as easy as it could be for him. We even managed it only three weeks over schedule and well under budget.

This is Paul's new BBQ I'm sure it's bigger than the stove in my kitchen in the UK. Actually it's bigger than my UK and Australian cookers combined.

It's a bit of a fake BBQ though, as it all works on gas, but then again just about all the BBQ's in Australia work on gas rather than the traditional coal and lighter fuels. Probably something to do with bush fires and the dry climate here.

Sydney Storms.

They've been having some anti terrorist exercises over Sydney over the past few days. From what we could see this involved a few helicopters hovering over various parts of Sydney and causing accidents in the traffic and people to walk into each other when looking up. Well that and Dick Cheney was visiting too so there was considerable security around as well. The locals weren't too pleased when they closed the harbour bridge to allow him to cross over in his stretch limo.

There were quite a few protests while he was visiting and some fighting in the streets. Even though he was staying in the Shangri-La just a couple of blocks away from my place, I managed to avoid all the clashes between the police and the protesters. I couldn't avoid the night time helicopters though. One night they were hovering outside my apartment when I was trying to get to sleep. I walked downstairs to see what they were up to and their searchlight passed right over me. They must have had quite a shock to see me half dressed looking right up at them from my apartment!

Last weekend I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Gallery of NSW again, for a last visit before finishing here. There wasn't much on that interested me in the MCA, but the AGNSW had a very good exhibition on from this years senior art students.

The ideas were really fresh and really reminded me of when I was a student and I went to see some exhibitions from back students then. I was very impressed with some of the work and I felt it was generally much better than the established works in the place. It must have been the first few days of the exhibition as there were quite a few people there and lots of students were around talking about their works.

There was a good storm on a few days ago and I managed to get some good shots from my camera. It has a feature where you can take multiple shots per second, albeit at lower resolutions. These pictures look as if Sydney is being wiped out by a bomb. Here are the shots that I managed to get from my apartment...