Merry Christmas

Last year we spent Christmas eve sipping egg nog in front of a fireplace in freezing cold Winnipeg. This year Christmas eve dinner was enjoyed with the family at Baan Rim Pa on Patong Beach. Beautiful setting, amazing view, delicious food and lovely company. Sasha is down with a high fever but she is still worried about Santa being able to locate her. We reassured her that Santa will indeed find her but to make sure, we wrote a letter to Santa and drew him a map of our exact location on the Cape Panwa side of Chalong Bay.

So much has been happening is such a short time. I feel that we barely spent any time in KL before coming out here to Phuket. But the few minutes in KL were well spent catching up with friends and all the relatives during a traditional ceremony held for Dylan and his cousin Eva. Pics will be uploaded soon. I have no idea where the UBS cable for my camera is.

Not doing much in Phuket. The villa we are renting is on the beach so after breakfast Doug, Sasha and I will head down to the pool or the beach, swim a bit, sun alot, head out to the beach cafe for a double hit of fresh coconut and watermelon shake (watermelon juice ice blended), and repeat. We have been to an impressive cultural show, hung out on Patong beach, had many massages (at $15 an hour), and copious amounts of seafood. In 6 days we will have to shovel ourselves back into our home. I am definitely getting as many massages as possible.

Update

Well, after our self-imposed punishment, we decided to (again) salvage the day. We forced Sasha to take a walk with us on the boardwalk. We bought a couple of grilled barramundis, chips and salad and ate under the covered tarps on the boardwalk while Sasha played in the sand. After lunch we brought Sasha and Dylan to the pool where she splashed about a bit and then to the playground. We headed out to North Sydney for the BBQ after. So all in all things may have not gone according to plan, but we had a great day anyway. Now to arrange for a babysitter tomorrow...yet another Christmas party. I am not sure whether it is because it is Summer, or because Chrismas is a coming, but man they really party here in Sydney.

I am pissed. Seriously pissed. Absolutely livid with Sasha. It all started with a plan. We have a BBQ this evening organised as sort of farewell and thanks for Doug as his visit is ending this Wednesday and we are off to KL. So we thought we would spend the day at the beach and playground, just chilling and enjoying the beautiful weather. Our last Sunday here. Then Sasha woke up and refused to go to the beach. We should have guessed then that it would be one of those days. After much persuasion by her Daddy, she finally agreed to go out, but she wanted to wear her jammies. D then had to persuade her out of her jammies and into a dress while I packed her swimsuit as we figured that she would want to be playing on the beach once we were there. Wrong. She refused to get on the beach and wanted the playground instead. D was dissapointed as he wanted to have a last swim in the ocean and I was dissapointed because I too wanted to spend our last Sunday on the beach. But we wanted to salvage the day so we headed to the playground, where Sash refused to wear her hat and started crying. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. And she knows I have a short temper. So I packed the kids up, headed home and told D he should go for his swim as there was no point in both of us staying in on such a beautiful day. I told Sasha that we were staying home where there would be no TV and I would be doing work because she was being a brat and not listening to us. So as I type this Sasha is sitting on the couch and D is swimming his last swim on Coogee. She keeps asking me if I am mad and asking if she can say sorry. I told her she shouldnt say sorry if she doesnt mean it and no, I am no longer mad, but sad because such a nice day has been spoiled. I hate days like this.

Sasha asked us this morning if Dylan had a family. She thinks he should go back to his family. How do you explain the concept of family to a two year old?

I started feeding Dylan solids this morning. Well, extremely watery rice cereal. He still doesnt get the concept of swallowing and his tongue pushes most of the 3 tablespoons of mixture out. Slowly but surely.

D bought Sash a tiara and glass slippers on one of their Daddy Dot trips to get milk. I swear one day 14 years from now she is probably going to persuade him to buy her a car on another milk run. Anyway, the slippers are too big and flimsy to wear out and her other "glass slippers" are in her brick house (she refers to home as her brick house in [address]...we have taught her our address, especially city in the event there is an emergency whoever finds her will send her to the closest Canadian embassy). So now I have to go buy her shoes..I swear this child is blessed with pushover parents.

Family Fun Day

Last Saturday Coogee held its annual Family Fun Day. I was interested in taking Sasha to see Santa Claus on the beach to save the trip into the city. It was however too hot so after taking in a few rides, the haunted house, the show, and a couple of snowcones, we called it a morning and headed back to the hotel pool to have a swim, indoors. Good thing we did as the UV levels were later announced to be extreme.











It is strange to think that other than the trip to Zoo, the wedding and the Sydney Museum, we have not had the itch to go into the city. I find things here more expensive so there is no point is shopping. Other then the odd swimsuit and hat for the kids, that admittedly are just too adorable to pass up (although more expensive), we have not really bothered to buy anything. I still have a ways to go before I can say I have lost the preggy fat so am not interested in buying clothes, and well, Doug will wear the same $5 T-Shirt till it disintegrates. Back to Santa. We are at that stage in life where we either perpetuate the Santa belief that is starting to dawn on Sash, let her dream the dream or we shoot down the dream and instill in her the realities of life..at age 2. I think we are going to strike a balance. No cookies and milk left out near the fireplace, but we will let her believe there is always potential for magic in life. We cant do the whole cookies and milk thing anyway as we will more often than not be away from our fireplace at Christmas. If we are not in Asia, then we will be in middle Canada where D's Dad does set out the cookies and milk. All the rellies on D's side have sent the kids their presents to our home, labelled "From Santa", so even if we wanted to shoot Santa, we would face some major opposition. As a kid, living in the States, I must admit that I sort of believed in Santa although it wasn't really part of my upbringing. My Mum didn't exactly let me disbelieve either as we had a Christmas tree every year. And presents. D was initially worried that I would not be a part of the whole Santa conspiracy as he really wants Sasha and Dylan to have fun with Santa, as much fun as he did. I told D that considering that I believed in the tooth fairy, spent ages sniffing around toadstools in my garden for fairies and was convinced that my house must, just had to, have a couple of secret passageways, whats a few years of Santa. So we are going the Santa route. Although this year Santa has left all her presents in her brick house in Toronto as he didnt want to risk sending them to someone else by mistake in Phuket. She is very impressed with his thoughtfulness.

We attended a wedding last Sunday. It was a sweet ceremony held in the Botanical Gardens, overlooking the harbour. I met the groom in Shanghai in 2005 and it was very kind and generous of him to invite us as a family to his wedding. And I must add, there are worse ways to spend a Sunday than sipping champagne at 11am, nibbling asian finger food while looking on towards the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.

I am a creature of habit. I like my routines. Part of my routine at home is to have my morning coffee in my favourite mug. We bought a bunch of these mugs at the Iitala shop in Utrecht the last time we were in the Netherlands. After a major discussion in the shop about numbers to be bought, where D wanted to but 8 mugs, and I wanted to buy 2, we settled on 4 mugs. I dont see the point of buying more than that because there are only 2 of us drinking coffee in the morning, so the extra mugs will just be taking up valuable real estate/storage space. D worries about having people over and not having enough mugs. I have to remind him that if our guests feel insulted about not getting matching mugs, well then, they would not be our friends and who needs such anal people in our lives anyway. There were only 3 colours available so we bought one red mug, two blue ones and my favourite, a white one. The apartment here provides us with crockery, but the mugs are small and so uninspiring. I miss my mug. I cant wait to see you mug. I love you.

Tis the season

They say that the Christmas season officially starts after the office Christmas party. Well, I guess it is officially the Christmas season. I joined Doug and the crew (literally) for the annual office Christmas do last night. Considering that it is not technically his office, and I hardly knew anyone other than the management and a few PhD students, I must say I had a blast. The party was held on board a chartered cruise ship which toured the harbour for 4 hours. I knew it was going to be fun as Champagne was served upon boarding. We left the Rocks, which was the pick-up point, and initiated the festivities with assorted sushi and antipasto. We were then escorted below deck to the dining area where we started dinner with Coffin Bay scallops, grilled scampi and carpaccio of smoked salmon. Dinner was held buffet style and it was definitely a spread. Whole king prawns, freshly shucked oysters, bluewater barramundi, seared wagyu beef, salt & pepper squid, mango and lobster salad, and of course beautiful Aussie white wine. Desert was a tropical fruit plate with sorbet and passion fruit coulis (whats up with passion fruit...the seeds are just irritating). I have been craving good seafood but other than the odd barramundi fillet at the local restaurants, we have not had a chance to get to the popular seafood destinations like Doyles. I can tell you that last night's party has fully satisfied my craving and now on the the next... a great Rib Eye.

There was a disco on board and lots more to drink. I have a huge hangover and I dont even want to think about my cholesterol level.

Taronga

We decided to take the kids to Taronga Zoo a few days ago. It was our first attempt at taking the bus from Coogee to Circular Quay so we didnt know what to expect ie how difficult it would be to take the kids with the stroller on the bus. And the stroller was necessary because we would be walking for ages at the zoo. Luckily it was much easier than expected as the bus was wheelchair accessible so we were able to wheel the stroller onto the bus easily and park it on the bus without having to fold it. We took the ferry at Circular Quay and were at Taronga within 15 minutes. I have always liked Taronga. You essentially walk downhill and the areas/displays are unique and interesting. The views from the zoo are also phenomenal. Sasha freaked out at the Koala Bear display so we were quite surprised that she was quite happy walking amongst the kangaroos.







We were able to catch the seal show but not the bird show as Sasha was losing steam and Dylan looked like he had had enough of the sun.





We took the ferry back to Circular Quay, and the bus back to Coogee where we spent the rest of the evening enjoying our favourite past of Sydney.

Sasha can be over-affectionate, over-exuberant and just generally over whatever when it comes to her little brother. But it is very difficult for us keep her from her brother generally as we keep reminding her that we made him for her, so she has to love and adore him as every big sister should adore their little brothers. Also, she comes back with the most innovative retorts that we admit we use their contact sports as entertainment. I usually tell her her to be gentle, to stop hitting, to stop stepping on him, to whatever that involves possible bodily harm to the little dude at least 10 times a day. Her comebacks are classic, and include:

I am hitting GENTly Mummy!
I am not poking his mouth, I am cleaning my fingers!
I am hugging Dylan Mummy! (This after I found her lying her full body on Dylan)
I am just patting him.
Dylan wants to kiss my toes.
Dylan wants to dance.
Dylan hit me first.
I am PLAYing with him Mummy!

She is going to be a lawyer I think.

The babysitter's name was Desiree and we were asked to call her Dez. She called us Darlin. Older, obviously tanned herself and extremely friendly. Sash showed Dez her toys as soon as she stepped foot into the apartment and Dylan giggled when she picked him up [He rarely giggles for us...whats up with that??]. We knew then that they kids were in good hands. I think it helped that we had prepped Sasha the night before, telling her a friend was coming over to play with her. She takes the "friend" label at face value, very much like a wiseguy in any mafia family. So after checking ID, giving Dez the rundown on emergency telephone numbers, location of passports and signing the necessary medication and ambulance release forms, Doug and I legged it out of there. Precious mintues were awasting...

We started our walk along the Eastern Coast by first going out to the ledge where we used to spend every evening having a beer. It was where Doug proposed too. Since we have been back at Coogee we have only been on the ledge once. Too dangerous to take the kids.





We then walked along to Gordons Bay.



Then to Clovelly.





Next to Coogee, our second favourite beach is Clovelly. The beach is child friendly, the pool excellent and the Sea Salt Cafe serves the best angel hair pasta. We will try and take the kids there next Sunday. They may not be able to do the whole 3 hour coastal walk with us this year, but they should at least enjoy part of it. After Clovelly, there is a beautiful cemetary. We always say that the dead guys are on prime real estate. Before reaching the cemetary, we stopped to enjoy some Aussie wildlife.







After Clovelly, we headed towards Bronte beach.





It is really only after Bronte that the walk really gets interesting. This is where you really feel like you are walking along the edge of Australia.





In all my travels, I have yet to experience a more interesting walking route. Well, the 4 hour walking tour of the fairy chimneys in Capadocia, Turkey comes a close second, but there you need a guide whereas here on the Coastal Walk, all you need are your trainers and a hell of alot of sunscreen.



We reached Bondi and realised that we had taken longer than expected. I guess when we used to live here we took the views foregranted and used the walk mainly for exercise. We never took a camera along and we wouldnt have stopped to check out the squatter camp that had been set up. So now not only do the dead guys have a great view for free.





We decided to forego lunch and just grab a Boost Juice to enjoy on the way back. Got us thinking about how much free time we had before kids. We used to do this walk every weekend, sometimes twice a week, have lunch at Icebergs or a random cafe in Bondi, explore the North side of Bondi, then head back leisurely. Those were the days when alone time did not cost Au$155 for four hours...we made it back in 3.5 hours, bought a couple of Burgers at Chish and Fips, and ate lunch while hanging out with Sasha and Dylan at the playground. It was another excellent Sunday.