Fine China...

After a long layover in Hong Kong, I'm finally back from Xiamen, China. I had some interesting adventures and yes, am happy to say that the presentation went off with only a minor microphone mishap. Unfortunately Blogger was banned in China so I'm just logging on now to get caught up. I'll be back tomorrow with more photos and a recap of some of the more amusing moments of my trip including how I came to eat intestine, jellied eel and somehow ended up wearing a mascot-like Koala costume...

Smells Like Teen Spirit...

In the wake of such tragedy in Queensland, it seems trivial to write an ordinary post.  I have been reading so many stories about lives destroyed it just breaks my heart...may those affected know we are thinking of them.

We could all use a smile right about now so I figured that I'd post some embarrassing photos and give everyone a laugh - at my expense. For the past 2 days I've been away at a company retreat - yes, it was like something out of 'The Office' - and had the joy of dancing in our group skit. This year's theme was musicals so we drew 'High School Musical' out of a hat and channeled our inner cheerleaders. Complete with pigtails and pom poms, I did my best Zac Efron dance routine and happily made a fool of myself.

At the moment, I'm frantically packing my bags because tomorrow I head to China for a sales and marketing conference. The conference is run by our head office in the UK and there are a handful of us from Australia going. I'm excited because it's my first trip to China and the line-up of speakers looks really interesting - that is until I realized that I am one of the speakers. What??? As I was glancing over the agenda I saw (much to my horror) that I was presenting with the director of my company.  This was the first time I had heard anything about it and for those that know me, understand the sense of panic that came over me. I have a paralysing fear of speaking in public. It's like the second I try and speak in front of a group (large or small) my face turns bright read, my voice quivers and my brain shuts down.  Fun times.  I managed to throw together a PowerPoint presentation and hopefully will be able to report a few amusing stories from my trip...back in a few days!

The Birthday Girl...

Today I am 32 years young. 

In honor of my birthday I took the day off work so that J and I could hang out together and be as lazy as I wanted without the interruption of sales meetings, spreadsheets and other work related annoyances. Okay, it's also because I've got a conference coming up and will be working for the next 10 days straight but since my birthday just happened to fall at the right time, I figured why not?  

I've thoroughly enjoyed my big day - sleeping in, talking to my family, a voicemail from my sisters with a rendition of 'Happy Birthday', a trip to finally get my iPhone, shopping in the city, sitting by the pool and flipping through magazines, getting a hilarious book from the 80's from J's parents and finally dinner with J. I'm not a big present person (I got spoiled anyways) but I only had one special request - Mexican for dinner.  I was not disappointed and many margaritas later I am welcoming 32 with a smile...this also happens to be my 100th post - where did the time go?

*On a side note and a very humble one at that - I am sending thoughts and prayers to friends up north - may you all stay safe during such a devastating time...

Family Matters...

Any weekend that involves eggs and hollandaise sauce is going to be a good one.  Combine that with some strong coffee and sunshine and you've got yourself a pretty perfect weekend if you ask me.  

I feel guilty admitting that I managed to stay in my pj's until noon on Saturday while I caught up on emails and laundry.  The weather was too nice to stay inside any longer so J and I grabbed our towels and hit the beach, only leaving when our skin began to sizzle (okay, this is a slight exaggeration but it was really hot and you get the point).  Back home, we got ready to head out to a friend's bbq but not before I managed to work a bit on my presentation for next week's work trip to China (more on that later, but let me just say it involves public speaking -gulp).

Sunday was a family affair.  Over breakfast we celebrated the arrival of a new little cousin and while the exhausted parents opened their gifts, I took a few photos of this beautiful cafe in Glebe, which is the restored Belleveue House.   With bellies full of eggs, toast and way too many cups of coffee we wrapped up the weekend by reading books and looking up how to make the perfect, wait for it - hollandaise sauce. yum...

Santa Surprise

We put away the Christmas tree this weekend.  There were almost tears.  I hate this part of the holidays, when the decorations go away, the baking stops and I have to go back to secretly listening to Christmas carols on my iPod.  

Since J knows how much I love Christmas he surprised me with a belated Christmas dinner when I came home from work last week.  My family had sent us a box of presents from Boston so we turned up Bing Crosby's 'White Christmas' for the last time, poured ourselves a glass of eggnog and sat under the tree unwrapping our presents.  We restocked our Dunkin Donuts coffee supply, J got a headlamp for camping that provided some fun photo opps and I got the bread making book I've been wanting (yup, I'm a bit of a dork) among other awesome goodies from back home. It was the perfect way to wrap up an amazing holiday and I can't thank J or my family enough for making it so special, I love you all. x

Bali Bliss...

Okay I promise this is the last Bali post...

I just had to share a few final photos before I come to grips with the fact that I'm no longer on holiday (I'm finding it hard to adjust to reality).  Now, I could sing the praises of Bali for weeks however I think I'll leave you with a few deep thoughts to ponder over:

• Do not - I repeat - do not get a spray tan right before you leave for vacation.  Even if your friend got one at the same place and looked really cool, don't do it, you will look orange - very uncool. 
• When walking in Ubud, avoid slippery sidewalks or you will most likely fall into a drainage ditch on your first day, causing not only embarrassment but unsightly bruising all over your legs. Again, very uncool.
• If you happen to wear contacts, I strongly suggest putting on your glasses when stumbling to the bathroom at night. You never know when you are going to find a snake waiting for you. Yes, this actually happened. 
• 'Bali Belly', much like it's cousin, Montezuma's Revenge, is not enjoyable in any way, shape or form. This is true even if you try very hard to convince yourself that it's  similar to a 'cleanse' or 'detox'
• The movie 'Stepbrothers' -even while suffering from Bali Belly- is still hilarious.

Well that's it folks - back to reality...

Santa in Sanur...

Santa was good to me this year, he brought sun to Sanur on Christmas day and I couldn't have asked for a better present.  When we left Ubud we traveled to the coastal town of Sanur.  It was here that we met up with our friends Cia and Nick from Boston, buried our feet in the sand and let the holiday pass us by in uneventful bliss.  I did, however, manage to snap a few quick photos of our Christmas lunch before we all fell into food coma and I need my annual xmas nap  - this time on the beach...

Hello 2011...

I'm going to take a small break from showing the forty million photos from our Bali trip to wish everyone a belated happy new year!

Considering I don't normally like New Year's Eve, I found it fitting that when the clock struck midnight I was in a plane, sound asleep, on my way back to Sydney.  There was no count down, champagne toast or midnight kiss, we just landed a few hours later and it was 2011.

For some reason I always find the night to be a little sad, so instead I like to say goodbye to the past year and look forward to a clean slate, a chance to start fresh.  I'm not a resolution type of person but I do believe in setting goals and god knows I love a good list so this is the perfect time for a list maniac like myself to draft up all the projects and goals I'd like to accomplish in the coming months. But I'm also a procrastinator which means it normally takes me until mid-June to finish my list of 'non-resolutions'.


Anyways before the opportunity was lost, I just wanted wish those in my life, both old and new, a happy, healthy start to the new year - may good things come your way. x

Incense & Offerings...

No matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs are, the moment you enter Bali you are overcome with the beauty of the Hindu religion.  Every home has their own temple and you'll find offerings to their gods all over the place - in taxis, on the sidewalk, in stores, hotels - everywhere.  It was beautiful to see entire villages walking through the streets to temple and the smell of incense is always in the air.  I found the people to be amazing and their spirituality refreshing...

Postcards From The Edge...

Bali. 

I'm back and it was amazing. I had the best of intentions to wake up each day, sit leisurely by the pool and type away. In this fantasy land, I would update posts daily accompanied by stunning photographs and tidbits of local information and I might even go so far as to provide some deep insight into the Hindu culture.  But who am I kidding? What really happened was that I lost all motivation to do anything productive yet somehow mustered the energy to wrap my hands around a cold bottle of Bintang beer and stroll the streets of Ubud just taking it all in.  

We took far too many photos to post them all at once so I'll try to spread them out over the next few days. Our first few nights were spent in Ubud, which is in the mountains and looking back was one of my favourite places.  It is here that we strolled back streets surrounded by rice paddies and tried to channel my inner Julia Roberts straight out of 'Eat, Pray, Love'. You'll notice that J got an iPhone right before we left so many of our photos were taken with some of the retro photo applications and all credit goes to him - I was too busy eating Nasi Goreng to take many photos...x.