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Melbourne

01/31/2006

Just thought I'd give a small plug to Melbourne as a tourist/business destination. The two times i've been there recently have the extrordinarily nice experiences. Melbournites are those genuinely friendly people who will literally stop their car in the middle of the road to let you cross and give you a cheerful wave while doing so, they give directions to any poor sod trying to navigate the tram system and will go out of their way to be friendly. The only person I met there who I didn't instantly think was nice was that horrible policeman who issued us a ticket for thinking a tram signal was a normal road signal - being told 'you will be sorry' will not go down nicely with those mega rich Commonwealth games followers.

The scenery is pretty nice - for a city. We quite enjoy eating there, when I am allowed to have lunch (normally this privelege (man I dont think I have ever spelt that before) is denied me during work hours in Melbourne by my collegues who seem to go on a simultaneus crash diet) we looovveee the gourmet sammies, dinner is just superb down lygon street or at southbank.

The bars are nice too. As is that street full of bakeries. Also, how cool is it to sit outside having a BBQ while a flock of Pelicans flies over? And it's good times when you come from a country where we think possums are terrorists, to go somewhere where they are so protected they act like they own the place.

17:05 Posted in Chatting | Permalink | Comments (4) | Email this

A Place Called Home

01/29/2006

We've been living in Ohope for over a year now, this is unintentional - we planned a fleeting two months to regroup before we were back off exploring the world. Tis a funny aspect of what it is a to be a kiwi, we live on two tiny islands yet see more of the rest of the world than this place we call home. The fact is, we love Ohope, we love it here so much we are perpetually torn between shouting it from the rooftops so that everyone can come and experience life at the beach and keeping it secret so they don't bring their ugly apartment dwellings with them. We love it so much, we thought we'd try a little investing in the area, so we thought we'd do the other kiwi thing and get into property.

Not people to enter into anything without falling passionately in love with it, we bypassed all far more stable recurring revenue rental property alternatives and dived headlong towards this little plot of land:

Which is right here at Ohope beach, down the other end from where we are now, seperated from the beach by an virtually unused road and a few meters of reserve land. Heaven.  

 

 We are busy exploring the brand new world of kitset/prefab homes to see the feasable options and talking to bankers and friends and family who are full of advice and tips on NZ's property market (which, by the way has been so out of control, prices have doubled in the last few years). So depending on finance, we may very soon become the owners of a little slice of heaven... 

20:47 Posted in Chatting | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

Not Talking

We were sitting down by the stunning Ohiwa Harbour on Friday night (post triathalon), with a couple of friends chatting about the world, the news etc etc, until one of us piped up "look I really don't care about Bird Flu or whether or not Hilary Clinton is the next US president, can we please not talk about it?". The comment, which was taken as an insult at the time, was actually quite an interesting thought. These days, we believe that freedom of speech is to be cherished, and to use that as our weapon at all times. Through open conversation comes education and hopefully action, also though, comes validation of things you really wish were not validated. So what if we did the opposite? What if, instead of spending one hour one the strip of sand overlooking thousands of stars talking about the things we neither influence or care about, we just didn't? What if instead of mass communication, came mass silence?

In the past few years we have had a variety of potential disasters paraded in front of us on the nightly news, from Y2K, to Mad Cow Disease, SARS and now the wildely mutating, out of control virus that comes from those dirty asian chickens Bird Flu (Wow, what a script for the 3rd rate horror movie). Yet none of them have arrived, none of them have led to a global plague, but what every single one has succeeded in is wasting our precious time, the time we spend talking about them, discussing with our neighbours, friends, relatives, shop keepers, idle conversation on the streets about impending doom. The time we spend validating what is otherwise simply a news story.

It's true, I actually don't give two hoots about the next American president, nor should I. They should have no ability whatsoever to influence my life over here on the other side of the world. They are americas president not the worlds president, and no amount of media hype about their power will do anything until we internalise it and we too believe that for some reason some person in a foreign country about as far away from here as you can get in both culture and geography has any right at all to influence us. At least until we can influence them right back, and to be hoest until everyone in the world gets a vote for the American president, that will never be the case.

So why do we bother to talk about it? How much less power do you think George Bush would wield if no one in any other part of the world aside from the US actually gave two seconds to thinking about him, let alone waste time talking about him while we could be talking about something that we can actually influence. What about if instead of invoking our right to freedom fo speech over every matter that comes to light, we invoke our right to simply ignore it? To respond with mass silence?

13:45 Posted in Chatting | Permalink | Comments (3) | Email this | Tags: Politics

The Mini Triathalete

01/27/2006

In an hour I will be in the midst of a crowd of women swimming round the harbour, before leaping on our bicycles, then staggering (f going at all) through a 2.5 km run, before dropping at the finish line. Well thats my story anyway. Have you ever tried one of these things? Man oh man, I thought I was reasonably fit, able to run 6ks easy, and pretty confident in my ability to bike 10 ks, but doing this all in a row?

Well, I thought it sounded simple too, so I left it till 2 days ago to give the whole thing a trial run. I had so much salt in my eyes from the sea, I could hardly see, and my arms became dead weights for the remainder of the event, and the run was a dead loss really.

But I have paid $20 and have a sneaky suspicion there are some kind of present for entering, so I shall slog it out again. Good reminder that you are never as fit as you think you are, well I'm not anyway.

 Wish me luck!

17:05 Posted in Chatting | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: exercise