Missing Photos

Here are the photos that have been previously promised in the blog. We've taken a few more but I don't want to wear your mouse fingers out by making you scroll though them all while trying to read the blog so I think we're going to try to get some storage for our photos on a different website (e.g. myspace). If you've researched this and have any suggestions - send us an email. (Or I think you can post a reply to the blog somehow, but I haven't worked out how to do that yet.)

>> Here is Zoe looking happy having eaten her strawberries
















>> Here is a photo Zoe took by accident of the fountain in the lounge
















>> I've just taken a photo of the flat and of the view

Tired and internet connection still slow

After waking up early yesterday we collapsed in the evening at about 8pm watching our new Star Wars: Droids DVD (they have the same marketing tactics in supermarkets here - put things near the counter so Sean can sneak it into the basket). However Sean still has to get up at 6am to commute for an hour to where he is working so we were both feeling it a bit this morning.

I think however that we are possibly living in the best place - Sean is 5 mins walk from the main Sydney train station, which helps with his journey. The only place we couold move to that would be better for commuting would be somewhere along the line that goes to Mount Druitt. The problem with that is that we won't be in the centre to do exciting things at the weekend and also we'll be further from the backgammon club!

Talking of the backgammon club - it meets tonight so if we are awake enough, we may go and check it out.

Our internet connection is still slow: I've had to come to Starbucks to download some files for work and I should be able to upload some pictures at the same time (it's too slow at home). My other must-do for today is to badger T3 (the broadband company) until they upgrade us!

I went swimming for the first time yesterday - the pool is really large (I'm sure it must be bigger than 25m) and there is a sauna and a bubbly pool (although I didn't try these). There don't seem to be changing rooms so I'm not quite sure of the etiquette - I wore a dress on my way down over my swimming costume, but I didn't want to put it back on when I was wet so I came back up in the lift wrapped in a towel. Maybe I should get a towelling robe? Suggestions welcome.

Connected to the internet, but slowly

We arrived in Sydney on Friday evening, both feeling a bit too awake for 9pm. Our plan had been to sleep for the first flight and stay awake for the second but we both didn't make it through the second flight. Still better too much sleep than not enough!

We were met at the airport by the National Manager of WorkDirections - star treatment! The drive from the airport was short and we were met at our apartment by Craig from the housing company who looked like he'd been waiting there a while just in order to show us round our new flat.

The flat is brilliant, it's really modern and on the 43rd floor, giving us a fantastic view of Sydney. I've just taken a photo of the flat and of the view but my internet connection is too slow to upload them so they will have to wait until I can make it faster.

We are living right in the centre of Sydney. When we entered our flat there seemed to be a party going on in the street outside. We dumped our stuff and went to a Korean restaurant that is in the complex that our apartment block forms part of. We saw lots of people going past in cars with radios blaring etc. and also a party bus! It's more of a party city than Newcastle and because of the different climate you don't have to feel sorry for the girls going past in skimpy tops.

We stayed up until 2am on Friday, which we thought would sort us out jet-lag wise, however we woke up at 6am on Saturday and then fell asleep at 8pm watching Gulliver's Travels. We woke up at 4:50am today so we clearly haven't got it quite cracked yet, however our hours are going to be dictated by Sean's job so we have to get acclimatised eventually!

I'm having trouble getting to my work email at the moment (because the internet is so slow), so if you want to email use zoeandsean@gmail.com. I've asked the broadband company to upgrade the connection so hopefully this should be in effect tomorrow and I can resume normal service, including finally uploading the promised pictures.

Currently sitting in the Business Centre of the Golden Lounge in Kuala Lumpur airport. This is what it looks like:


Flight was OK. Drank lots in the first couple of hours. Slept for a few hours. Woke up and watched Spiderman 2. Doctor Octopus was good but that was about it. Watched an episode of the American Office (not as good as the original). Watched some Frasier and Little Britain. Soundly whipped the computer at backgammon (on the in-flight games console rather than on Gnu Backgammon). Food was good - especially the satay.

We are currently about 9 hours away from landing in Sydney. Flight leaves in an hour - boarding in half an hour. Time for a quick shower.

Sean

Kuala Lumpur Business Lounge

(As the clever ones of you will have noticed the post below was written by Sean in the lounge at Heathrow but has just been posted now when we got wireless connection.)

So much seems to have happened since we left Heathrow. Firstly Business Class is absolutely great. It started with the Heathrow lounge: the Strawberries were good but the Power Supply absolutely topped it.

The actual flight was very different from going in economy - no one could be scared of flying in business: it's just too comfy. You can move your chair around and pull your feet up under you to read. Watching the chair transform into a bed is great. The bed still isn't exactly horizontal and you're not going to get a good night's sleep but it's still pretty cool.

The food on the plane was also not only edible but brilliant. We had satay and some pretty decent beef fillet for lunch before we went to sleep and I had a Malaysian breakfast of some kind of prawn curry with coconut rice this morning.

We went to sleep for as long as we could after lunch. This turned out to be about 3 hours. We were trying to think in Malay time and this meant that we had woken up about 11:30pm. Not good. We persisted with intermittent sleep until about 3:00am and then we called it a day (night?) and then Sean watched a video and I finished "Wealth and Poverty of Nations". It took surprisingly less time than I was expecting.

Then came the best bit - I started reading "Ender's Game". There is nothing better than reading science fiction in a plane; planes are exciting anyway (you're suspended in the air!) and I was sitting in a pretty space age chair.

By the time we got the Kuala Lumpur airport, I was starting to feel a little less excited by everything. In particular, despite brushing my teeth, I was desparately in need of a shower. This has now been rectified by the even shinier KL business lounge which has giant showers in futuristic individual pods. I meant to take a photo but didn't have the camera. I may go back.

Now I'm feeling pretty excited again. I'm feeling confident to stay awake all day and hence slip nicely into Australian time- it's definitely better to arrive and go straight to sleep than to arrive and pretend to stay awake all day. I plan to finish Ender's Game on the next flight.

Too exciting!

"Golden Lounge" Heathrow Airport

We are sitting in the airline lounge of Malaysia Airlines waiting to get on the plane. Zoe is very excited as she has got to eat strawberries and can plug her computer in. It was very sad leaving Pam and Paul at the departures check-in. We will have to get the webcams and telephone conferencing working asap. Looking forward to coming back in August and seeing them again.

Here is Zoe looking happy having eaten her strawberries (to follow when Zoe has uploaded the pictures from the camera).

Here is a photo Zoe took by accident of the fountain in the lounge (to follow when Zoe has uploaded the pictures from the camera).

I am quite disappointed by the lounge as although the tea and coffee making facilities are good there is a distinct lack of alcohol. Will go and get another cup of tea.

Thanks to everyone for some fantastic leaving parties. One of the good things about being delayed was that we got to say goodbye to everyone on numerous occasions. I haven't got photos from all the various goodbyes but there are some great photos from our Australia Leaving Party and Coach Leaving Drinks on Jo's msn space:

http://spaces.msn.com/theonlyskyla/

Zoe even 'enhanced' one of the photos removing some random drunk bloke and digitally inserting Mr Hitchings who had gone home early as he is a lightweight.

We are really going to miss everyone and hope to see as many of you as possible in Australia at some point over the next 18 months. We are also back in August for a few weeks and will see you all then.

Next time we update this blog we should be in sunny Australia.

This is where we are staying for our first month in Sydney:

http://www.meritonapartments.com.au/ecms/home/pages/common/show-story.cfm?story_id=864

Sean

Just about to leave the UK
After months of waiting for the visas to come through, we've suddenly found ourselves doing everything in a rush at the last minute. We've been packing all weekend and sorted out all our final bits and pieces today.
We went to see the estate agent this morning and he came round to look at our flat again. He has suggested that we get the whole place painted (especially the nasty green bedroom) to improve rentability and we got a quote from their resident painter decorator for a rather reasonable sum. So along with the nice shiny new bathroom our tenants are going to have it considerably better than we did!
We fly at 10:50am tomorrow morning from Heathrow. We've managed to get everything into 3 suitcases which I think is pretty good going; including Sean's guitar this means we can carry one item in each hand.
Goodbye everyone, see you in August!