My Life in Words

All right. Blog post number 1 from Asia. Where to start..... Our flight to Beijing was uneventful and easy; 11 hours direct. I felt ok when we landed, but it was only 2:30pm local time when we did. By 8pm local time (5am Vancouver time) I was dead on my feet. Unfortunately the beds in Beijing were like bricks, and despite my fatigue I did not sleep well that night. It actually took about 3 days to fully get over the jet lag.... It was terrible. DAY1: The only thing of interest that happened on the day we arrived was that we met our tour group. There are 11 of us all together plus the guide. Overall an interesting group. Firstly, there is an old couple from Sweden. They took the trans-siberia railway here. Not sure what inspired them to do an adventure tour, but good for them i guess. There is also a semi-crazy middle aged Aussie from Melbourne. All she talks about is Chinese propaganda. Her plan for one day was to go down to the university and "talk to some well educated people ...

I know people say that "all good things must come to an end," but that doesn't mean that i have to be happy about it. As I write this (for the second time because my piece of shit iPad just froze and deleted an hour of typing), I am somewhere over the pacific, about 4 hours away from Vancouver. As this was out last week in Perth, we all made a pact that we would go out every night. That started monday with a "chili mussel challenge". Emma had seen a sign at a pub in Freo during our first week that offered a free pint to anyone who could eat their largest spiciest bowl of mussels. From then on she was determined to do it. Unfortunately it ended last week, so we were forced to create our own challenge. Sarah found a place in Northbridge that served good chili mussels and the challenge was basically to eat as many as you could as spicy as you could. Emma and i did large and hot, but Sarah and our friend Kristen did extra large, extra spicy. I wasn't eve...

My second to last week in Australia. Soooo upsetting. We had a fun week, but unlike the past weeks, we didn't really have any major activities or sight seeing planned. After 7 weeks here, I feel like I have seen all of the things on my "must see" list, so this week was about enjoying the last bit of time here. Wednesday night we all went over to the guys' house and Jeff cooked dinner. A nice low key night. Thursday night a few of us went for Tapas in the CBD and then for drinks at a bar/lounge called Helvetica . We have been there before a few weeks ago, and I really like it there. Definitely one of my favourite bars in Perth. We had a fun night; once again nothing too crazy. I was not feeling well Friday morning. All I drank Thursday night was white wine, but I guess it didnt agree with me because I felt hungover alllllll day. Friday night we all went for a nice dinner and then hit the bars/clubs. We had tickets to a DJ playing at a club called Ambar , ...

What a rollercoaster of a week. Monday evening when I got home from work, I was not feeling great. I had a bit of a fever and a headache. Tuesday morning I was feeling a little ill, but the cold medication I have helped me get through the day. Wednesday morning I woke up extremely sick and only was able to do a half day at work. Thursday I woke up feeling like I might be dying and worked from home. I paid $120 to go to the doctor and got some medicine, which proved to be a great decision because within 12 hours I was feeling decent again. Friday I woke up feeling good; Just in time for the weekend. So my week was pretty crappy because I was quite sick for most of it, but luckily I got over it in time for the weekend; which turned out to be one of the best ones yet. Friday night drinks after work turned into the typical gongshow. Jeff's friend was visiting from Sydney where he is doing a 2 year secondment, so everyone was keen for a big weekend. We went to Tiger Lils and proceeded t...

So I wrote a big blog post on my ipad last night and posted it on a wifi network. At the time, it said "Blog posted", so I closed it and forgot about it, but when I checked today, its not updated and not saved. So im pretty pissed off that now I get to type it out all over again. So I have 3 weeks left to go. I can't believe how fast the time is going. Im sure these last 3 weeks are going to fly by as well. This week was a bit of a mess. Tuesday night we all went out for dinner and drinks which was a lot of fun. We had dinner at a steakhouse in the CBD (central business district) and then went to a bar/lounge after for a few more drinks. I really liked the bar we went to; yummy cocktails and a good vibe. We had a bit of fun taking pictures of everyone trying to be creepy in the background of the photos, which turned out pretty well. We got home at a reasonable time, so it was nothing crazy, but a fun night none the less Wednesday was quiet, but Thursday turned into a big...

Today marks the exact half way point of my trip. I left Vancouver 4 weeks ago and I will be home in 4 weeks. In some ways it feels like I have been gone a long time, but in other ways it's hard to believe that I am already half way through my secondment. This week has been busy. Monday-Wednesday was uneventful, but Thursday night I went out for Indian food with Jeff and Bart in Northbridge. We had a good meal and then went to a couple of bars with live music. Friday night we went for Friday drinks and then the group split up. The guys went out with work people, and the girls and I went for dinner. Ashley had been given a recommendation for a wine bar north of the city, so we checked it out. The place was called 'Must' and it was really good. Small portions, but the prices were quite reasonable. I had a prawn and cheese soufflé which was fantastic. I skipped on dessert (the other girls shared a chocolate dish) but I had a nice dessert wine. Afterwards we went ac...

So this week was an interesting one, and not always in a good way. Firstly, our long awaited 7th secondee (Bart-Jan) finally arrived from the Netherlands on monday night. He fit into the group right away and has been keen to go out and party and do activities. Before he arrived we were all speculating as to what he was going to be like. For some reason every speculation we had turned into into an extreme; for example one guess was that he was going to be a huge accounting nerd who brought the Australian IFRS standards with him on the plane to study. Another guess involved him picking up girls at the airport and bringing them home. Fortunately we were wrong. We all went out on wednesday to Northbridge and went for Mexican food. The food itself was not the best Mexican I have ever had, but the prices were reasonable and it was cheap cocktail night. We stopped at the brass monkey pub down the street for a drink on the way home. Over all a fun night, but nothing crazy. That night I wa...