I had a few friends that I wanted to catch up with when I was in Brisbane but with only a limited time it meant short sweet visits! And as I don’t really drink – it meant catch ups over meals 😉 First up was a catch up with Teesh over lunch. We went to an favourite haunt of mine – Jo-Jo’s in the middle of the Queen Street Mall. I couldn’t go past having the Chips with Mushroom Sauce. Simple but gorgeous and a great venue for a summer lunch.

Lana was up next with dinner at Aria. More on that later but it was good to see her and share a good meal with her. Shame that Mikey couldn’t join us – though I caught up with him briefly when he came to pick us up after dinner.

The following day I had a quick catch up with Jen over breakfast. The lovely hotel I was staying at (the kind of hotel that has a Pillow Menu (!), that gives you a bottle of Moet) also had a great buffet breakfast for two so it seemed a waste to keep it to myself. Jen and Rita had actually planned a whole weekend of activities and events for me so I would be seeing Jen a bit later on too.

After I sent Jen off for a day of work, heh heh, Juanita came to pick me up at the train station and I spent the day with her and her kids. After some wii and Juanita’s infamous Spaghetti Pizza we took a dip in her pool.

Fittingly named Opulence it comes with a cute little water feature, which Ryan enjoyed getting under, and a spa. It was a little warm to be getting the spa going – but it was nice just getting in the pool and relaxing. After a dip we then headed over to pick up Hayden from school. It was all very domestic but I kind of liked it as its not something I would normally do when I’m in London!

For the rest of the weekend I was the mercy of Jen and Rita … but first the Aria experience.

Its only been about two weeks since I arrived in Oz and two weeks since the flooding of Brisbane and surrounding areas so I was quite amazed when I got to the Brisbane CBD today that it was like the flooding had never been.

Sure there was still some evidence of the carnage that the flooding had caused

But for the most part Brisbane had made a very fast and quick recovery.

The second instalment of my visit back home to the Gold Coast was a chance to spend quality time with my parents. It was fantastic that Dad and Mum could take some time off to do so and with Australia Day being a public holiday that meant my brother could also join us (for a day at least) when we went to take in some of the Gold Coast’s natural wonders.

All my days visiting back home were amazing but I did treasure the quiet times I spent with my family. Like spending a day shopping with my Mum (she was so cute and sweet when we were trying on clothes) and rocking it out on the Nintendo Wii on Rockstar with Dad (he really laughed when I was singing along). I really loved those moments.

One of the memorable moments for me was when Dad took us on this mega long giant drive to find this fish and chips shop (PKG) that he remembered from a very long time ago. Not in itself anything that sounds very funny but the journey to get there was a calamity of wrong turns and wrong guesses which we all found absolutely hilarious – probably because my Mum likes to say if she goes out with Dad she always goes hungry! Guess you had to be there! Anyway, we were rewarded in the end with a lovely late lunch.

From there Dad also took us to this lovely view point. Although the rain and subsequent flooding in Brisbane wasn’t very welcome for its extremity, the rain certainly gave nature a nice boost colour-wise. Last time I was home it had been very dry and everything was brown. What a change!

As I said on On Australia Day we decided to take a picnic up to Lamington National Park, or more specifically O’Reilly’s Rainforest. It was a nice day for it and plenty of other families had the same idea! It’s a bit of a drive but I think worth the effort to commune with nature. I was lucky to be a passenger so I could gaze out at the gorgeous greenery on the drive around. Dad has always wanted to live out in the bush, or away from the built up areas at least, and on a day like the day we had I could completely understand the quiet and the peace you would feel if you did. However on a longer term basis I think I’d miss the hustle and bustle and convenience of living centrally …

At O’Reilly’s they have this Tree Top Walk – it’s not very long (180 metres) or very high (15 metres on average) but it is a nice way to walk through a rainforest. Ok, it’s maybe a little bit high 😉

The walk consists mostly of suspension bridge- so those who are a bit unsteady at heights should be warned. There is also a point where there are observation decks, one on top of each other, and when you climb to the very top (you can only have a couple of people climbing at any one point in time) you will emerge out of the tree tops and feel like you’re on top of the world. Its only 30 metres above ground but certainly feels a lot taller than that.

Whilst in the area we stopped off at the Natural Arch in Springbrook National Park. Okay, it was another fairly long drive but only because of mountains you can’t just drive through! The Natural Arch or Natural Bridge is famous not only for its falls (the crazy will actually jump down from a height) and rock pools …

… but also for …the glow worms! They were tiny but really obvious once the sun started to dip. I tried to capture them on camera but it was really really difficult!

Another thing I loved was the eating. Oh my. Dad and Mum did their best to really stuff me with food when I was at home. Whilst I do appreciate that many products, whether it be food, restaurants, clothing, toys, equipment etc. are now widely available globally I also do like the fact that some products still stay local. And although this does mean that I miss indulging in them when I’m away in the UK when I do get to have them it is all the sweeter. Two of my favourite items include the simple cheese and bacon roll (which admittedly you get variants over here in Europe but its just not the same) and my Dad’s fantastic fried ice cream. Yes, Dad did get a bit carried away with the size of the fried ice cream … not that I was complaining 😉

Oh … and let’s not forget THE best ice cream/ice block in the world – The Golden Gaytime. Seriously.The.Best.Ice.Cream.Ever.

Mum took us to her hotel’s new restaurant – The Bazaar. Priced at a hefty £65 – it was just as well we were dining with an employee discount! The concept behind The Bazaar was to refresh the concept of traditional buffet with a market-style feel. Most foods are cooked fresh on order, and you can see the raw foods (such as the cool room of meats), the fridges of fresh produce, etc with the chefs out in the open and at your disposal. Food ranges from Oriental to Western. The salads are gorgeous and refreshing and there is a very generous and varied dessert selection. An interesting concept – time will tell how successful it will be.

Before I headed off to Brisbane for the weekend Dad made me pancakes … whether they were supposed to be butterflies or hearts – it was still sweet!

When I wasn’t busy with my wedding duties, ha ha, I spent some time with my brother seeing the sights of Melbourne.

Melbourne put on a very good show of weather for us – so it wasn’t a hardship to just pick a direction and start walking. I certainly would have enjoyed just sitting out on the grass and enjoying the sun for a bit … if only I had had more time!

Day 1 in Melbourne was the Australian Open. I must say it was nice of Pauline to time her wedding around the first major tennis tournament of the year. ;-P I’ve never once been to my own country’s biggest tennis tournament but I’ve been to Wimbledon pretty much every year I’ve been living in the UK! … though I have visited Melbourne Park in the past to watch one of the Davis Cup rubbers against Spain. The Australian Open was very blue!!! … to match the sky!!

One of the very big differences I found between Wimbledon and the Australian Open was that the Australian Open had heaps of extra-curricular stalls so to speak – even including this water zorbing type thing, heaps of stores, Imperial Leather had this luxury lounge where all the ladies, and little girls, were getting pampered, and there was a Nintendo Wii station etc. Heaps of stuff to keep you occupied next to the tennis!

Stephen and I had only purchased grounds tickets so had to make do with hanging out on the outside courts. Saw one of my former favourite players Xavier Malisse, caught literally the end of Victoria Azarenka’s match, watched the number 6 seed Francesca Schiavone take a comfortable lead in her match and saw Jelena Dokic presumably cooling down from her loss earlier in the day. We couldn’t stay long though as we had our Vue De Monde dinner.

Day 2 was a bit of a wedding prep day but I squeezed in a catch up with an ex school chum Lucia – it has easily been seven years if not more since I’ve seen her. Very good to see her and hear how she was going. Then it was a Melbourne by night exploration … okay admittedly mainly a walk over the river to visit Crown casino. But still …

Day 3 saw us take a trip on the tram to visit St Kilda. Great day for it – very relaxing to have a late lunch, ice cream, take a walk by the beach etc. We found this really cute ice cream shop, trampoline. Not sure what drew us in – it was just very cute, and had places to sit outside on the sidewalk.

Then it was a whole heap of wedding stuff until our final day in Melbourne where Stephen and I had time for more ice cream on Lygon Street … after we had some lunch and visited Brunetti, a very popular coffee and cake place. One of the largest displays of desserts and macaroons I’ve seen ever!

I have to say a big thanks to Stephen for being so patient and being able to entertain himself whilst I was busy with wedding stuff. It was nice to spend some time with him considering how far I live these days. I’m going to miss Pauline, boy did I cry at her wedding when we were all saying goodbye, but hopefully it won’t be too long before I see her again.

I had a couple of days on the Gold Coast before having to head down to Melbourne for just under a week so aiming to make the most of it I squeezed in a couple of catch ups with some friends who go way back to primary and high school respectively.

I’ve known Nance since I was 13 (Grade 8) and Nic for even longer from when we were both 9 (Grade 4) and as it is with good friends – even though many years may pass since you’ve last seen each other, its like you’ve never really been apart. Nic I’ve kept in touch with on and off over the years but I lost touch with Nance when I came to London – not for want of trying but she has only recently discovered technology, emails and facebook! Ha ha!

It was great to see them both that’s for sure.

I had afternoon tea with Nic so she had her brood (all totally beautiful and charming – just like their Mum!) with her. Great to meet the latest addition to the family and it was also great to see Nic’s Mum – all us kids loved her when we were growing up – and it was so nice to see her so happy! I missed out on seeing Nic’s husband though as he had to fly off somewhere for work 🙁 But not to worry – Nic and her family are planning a trip to the UK in the next few months so I’m aiming to catch up with them all again then.

This first part of my trip has been a little baby/toddler oriented come to think of it. I caught up with some family friends of ours and both at Twin Towns (something they do most Saturday nights) and at a barbecue held at one of their houses (thanks Rose!) we were surrounded by the little ones. That’s the stage of life everyone’s life is at I guess!

I am long overdue a visit to Oz with my last one being three years ago so I am looking forward to the next three or so weeks of what will hopefully be sun, sun, sun! I’ve got a lot to pack in with a visit firstly to Melbourne for Pauline’s wedding followed up by catching up with friends in Brisbane, catching up with friends on the Gold Coast and of course, most importantly, spending time with the family.

The excitement has been dampened a little bit by the fact that floods have hit Brisbane (and with the promise of more crazy weather all over the place.) Ironically, apart from the fact that the whole CBD and other areas in Brisbane are currently under water the weather is promising to actually be pretty good over the next few weeks. I’m having a day of rest today to recover from the looooong journey over from London. Its hard not to stay glued to the television and googling video and images from the flooding. But, in true Aussie spirit, there is a great sense of just getting on with it and helping the neighbour. For example, I already know that heaps of my friends from my ex-work place are planning to volunteer if they aren’t already out there helping out. Its moments like these that makes you feel to be proud to be a Queenslander.

Third time’s the charm!

So 2010 is the year of repeat travel with this weekend being the third time for a visit to Copenhagen. Pat was in town for a conference so of course I piggy-backed on to his weekend in between conferences. Heh. We weren’t planning any sort of crazy weekend of running around seeing the sights since between us we’d seem most things so this weekend was about relaxing and eating our way around Copenhagen!

The Sightseeing

We did see some of the sights including a visit inside City Hall where they were having an art exhibition. I really liked the stuff that Soren Bjorn Maleri does especially his “On Tape” work:

It being Christmas the “trees” had also started to come out

One of the places I hadn’t visited before in Copenhagen was Kronborg Castle. The Castle is a fortress located in Helsingør on the sound between Denmark and Sweden. This part of the water is not very wide and therefore the fortress was an important strategic stronghold – whoever controlled the pass would have control of the revenue. A UNESCO World Heritage site the Castle is a good option for a half day trip from central Copenhagen.

Krongborg has embraced the future with interactive elements, such as using your own mobile phone to hear the dramatisation of the life of a prisoner in the fortress and the “light”, the sounds of cannons, soldiers and horses as you walk about giving you a feel of being surrounded by activity and then the “light” show which brings the stone statue to life.

Getting on the guided tours of both the Casemates and the Royal Apartments is worth your time. Our tour guide was especially excited and energetic in her story telling. A tour of the Casemates takes you deep underground to where the soldiers used to live. I couldn’t believe the conditions they were kept in – underground cramped conditions with little access to fresh air and terrible food. The 8 litres of watered down beer probably made it a little easier to cope but you wouldn’t think that you’d treat the people you expect to defend you so terribly. And the types of men mixing down there ranged from 12 year old boys to murderers. I don’t know how they survived mentally with nothing to do but walk for 15 hours in a 10 meter diameter circle.

In contrast the tour of the Royal Apartments showed that life for the upper class couldn’t have been more different. Our tour guide talked about excesses and eating to the point where you were sick (it was a sign of status that you actually got to that point and they even had official tonsil ticklers responsible for shoving a peacock feather down your throat to make you throw up) and to holes in chairs so that royalty didn’t have to get up out of their chairs to stop their eating and go to the toilet.

The castle is also renown for featuring in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Every year the Castle hosts a version of Hamlet and our tour guide was gushing about the time Jude Law came and did his version.

Things to look out for in the Royal Apartments are the trick tapestries and the C4 designs. The below tapestry was cool – depending on where you walk the main guy’s leg gets thinner and thinner. Cool optical illusions. There is also a lot of meaning within the tapestries and social commentary.

As for the C4 designs, a symbol for Christian IV who rebuilt the castle, there are supposedly hundreds of these crests hidden all over the place.

The Food

Next to the sight-seeing, being in Copenhagen provided more opportunities to visit some more nice eating places. First up on Friday night was Reef ‘N’ Beef – I’ve never had Aussie food so posh before! The restaurant is a popular place so that even at 9.30pm the place was crowded and we were lucky to get the last spare table in the joint. Service was, as Patrick was quick to defend, typically Danish, casual, slow but friendly. Just as well we weren’t in a big rush to go anywhere! Food was excellent – great quality and very good balance in the ingredients, beautiful and thoughtful presentation as well.

My starter was a “Oz Wildfire Wonton” (Crocodile Wonton) with a Honey and Passion Fruit Chili Drizzle. A bit of a take on sweet and sour sauce over Chinese wantons. I loved this starter but it didn’t last nearly long enough. Pat went for the “Ranina Ranina”. Panko crumbed saffron and chive spanner crab cakes with bush tomato romesco, jalapeno aioli and pickled vegetables. From all reports it was a winner with Pat though the jalapeno didn’t have as much bite as I was expecting.

I moved on to a fish dish for my main course with the “Red emperor”: Deep sea fish with macadamia and lemon sauce, cauliflower puree and seasonal vegetables. The cauliflower puree was something special and I loved the touch of the macadamia and lemon sauce. A nice light and filling dish. Pat went for meat with “Redcliff Beef” marinated with garlic, native thyme and tasmanian mountain pepper served with potato fondant, crispy onion rings, caramelised onion puree, seasonal vegetables and shiraz sauce. Lots of ingredients and gee it looked good and tasty. Beef was cooked to perfection.

Finally, dessert was an “Oz trilogy” for me. This consisted of pavlova, passionfruit cheescake and mango olida eucalyptus sorbet and Pat had the richer “Death by chocolate” of five individual chocolate desserts.

If I’m ever in Copenhagen again I’d definitely come back to Reef ‘N’ Beef.

On Saturday night we spoiled ourselves with a meal at Michelin-rated Italian restaurant Era Ora.

On Sunday we had buffet brunch at Lele Nha Hang. Brunch in Copenhagen is very popular and this was no less evident than at Lele Nha Hang. A combination of Western and Eastern food it’s a great value for money meal. Offerings at the buffet include the usual Eggs, Bacon, Waffle etc. plus sushi, wonton, Chinese soup, porridge, satay, spring rolls, fried rice and then a giant dessert table including chocolate fondant.

Accommodation

We found that accommodation was actually a bit hard to find this weekend but we couldn’t work out why until we saw all these people in white going out on Saturday night. Apparently Copenhagen was hosting one of those famous White Parties. We ended up staying at the Omena Hotel which was part hostel part hotel. You don’t check in or check out – you are given a door code which locks you out strictly come check out time. Really weird! On Saturday morning there was a false fire alarm so we got to see that most people staying in the hotel were young nearly teenie boppers!

Great weekend in Copenhagen once again.

The overnight journey into Rome went a lot smoother than our first. We all kind of felt into a routine to prepare for bed time – rather amusing how easily we slipped into it! Pat flew in from London (he couldn’t take the time off from work for the other Europe legs) so we were all reunited again as a family. Rome gave us an absolutely amazing start to the trip with gorgeous blue skies and extremely warm weather. I kind of accidentally led the family the long way around to our apartment … but we got there in the end!

Rome was absolutely heaving with tourists in a way that Salzburg wasn’t. Even after only a couple of days of relative quiet it was a bit of a shock to the system!

Highlights of the trip included:

Walking around seeing all the Squares, buildings and markets

Touring the Vatican. Lines and crowds at the Vatican were ridiculously long and large. Something to do with a tourist alert so security was really tough – and of course this had a knock on effect on the number of people inside. Great idea to do the guided tour though – everyone really appreciated the almost insider information to the Vatican. Even though I’d been on that tour before because we had a different tour guide he gave his spin and chose different art to discuss.

Touring the Colosseum. Again it was very worth doing the guided tour of the Colosseum. Despite the large number of people milling about with your own tour there is a sort of sense of privacy or exclusiveness which makes the visit more meaningful than it would otherwise be.

Riding these kind of pedalo type things in the Villa Borghese – a beautiful park in Rome. I’ve never laughed so much in my life. If you didn’t get one of electric pedalos it was very hard to ride – unfortunately that was us! Getting around these sculptures were tricky too!

Gelati. Lots and lots of gelati. In one day we had about five cones I’m sure including about three of them in the space of about an hour! Patrick had this list of top gelati stores to go to – one store was absolutely overwhelmingly busy. You had to get your “ticket” first and then fight your way through three people thick layer crowds just to even see the flavours on offer. Crazy.

We had less than 48 hours to spend in Salzburg! Eek! I don’t know how we managed – but we did actually get around to do quite a lot of things, including fitting in visits to the Aldi for my Dad! Ha ha! Was this the reason Dad fell in love with Salzburg? He even had cause to comment that he was considering a crazy notion of getting a vacation house in Salzburg. Well – who could blame him – Salzburg is just one of those really naturally pretty places.

With our train pulling into the station the weather that greeted us was much the same as what we had when first arriving in Paris – gray and wet. But, just like Paris, the weather did go on to improve much to my delight.

We decided to walk from the main station into the Old Town which is where we were staying. Luckily Salzburg isn’t that huge – and it did us wonders to wake us all up from our long train ride from Paris! I have to make a special mention of Hotel Elefant – although a Best Western Inn its actually independently run and we were well taken of from the beginning. Everyone was very friendly and helpful and even better we were able to be checked in to at least one room straight away.

So what were the highlights of our stay in Salzburg. As I mentioned earlier we certainly got around to a lot of places. On our first day we simply walked around exploring the Old Town, and also set about organising to get on to the Sound of Music tour for the following day (yes a must-do for all.) We also picked up the Salzburg card which we made sure to make maximum use – from free public transportation and to reduced and free entry into attractions.

That night we even found ourselves making our way to the Salzburg Casino! Yep – double whammy of being Chinese and Australian is that gambling is in our blood! The Casino was a bit spooky walking up to – with the mist rising from the ground and the architecture of what I think was a former palace of sorts – it all combined to give a very vampire-esque feel to the area.

The second day was our Sound of Music tour. There are a couple of Sound of Music tours you can go on – I asked to be put on the original one but I don’t think we were as our bus was called the “most unique” Sound of Music Tour . Nevertheless, we still had a good time and saw all the sights we needed to. Plus had the all important soundtrack playing on the bus – Dad loved that! As an added bonus we even stopped long enough to do a toboggan ride down the mountain-side! Dad loved that too!

On the tour we had stops in all the relevant places including Leopoldskron Lake so we could look over to Leopoldskron Castle (the front being used as the Trapp family home), Hellbrunn Castle to see the glass pavillion, driving past St.Gilgen and Lake Wolfgang and stopping for some apple strudel at Mondsee – and any interested could visit Mondsee Cathedral, the site of the wedding between Maria and the Baron. The final stop was Mirabell Gardens.

Here’s the family and their funny posing again!

Dinner was at one of the recommended beer halls. I ordered the pork knuckle and the look on our waiters face when he went to put it on the table in front of me cracked us all up. He actually went to put it in front of Stephen before Dad corrected him. He was shocked. Loves me my pork knuckle!

Our final day in Salzburg was the day that we got around all over the place. We first stopped at Hellbrunn Castle where we toured the famous trick fountains. I can’t give away the trick but suffice to say – wear waterproofs! And that includes protecting your camera or any electronic goods! We then did a whirlwind audio tour of the castle itself – when I say whirlwind I mean less than probably 15 minutes. How terrible! Ha ha. But we had lots more to see that day! The art inside was actually pretty fascinating but its not that huge in there so didn’t take long to whip around.

We then hopped on the bus to get over to Untersburg to get the Cable-Car to the top of Untersberg mountain. I must admit that it was looking a bit sketchy for any sort of clear weather but once we cleared the clouds – wow! We were joined by a bunch of hikers who were hiking down I guess! It was truly a memorable experience for all of us and simply breath-taking.

I had worn my thongs that day and everyone at the top of the mountain was laughing at me – even the army dudes! It was rather amusing.

From the top of one mountain it was back into town, after a bit of lunch, to then climb up to Hohensalzburg Fortress – central Europe’s largest, completely preserved fortress dating from the 11th century. I would recommend doing a tour of the ramparts because then you get to climb to the tallest point of the Fortress for some nice 360 degree views.

After some more tomfoolery that was sadly the end of our visit to the beautiful Salzburg. Off to the train station then to catch another overnight train …