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A thousand years ago Scott and I flew to Brisbane to meet MEP and Paul.

Our Airbnb was right by the botanic gardens. The view was amazing!

They asked if there was anything I would like from Canada and I said MINI EGGS!! Paul delivered!! They are just as great as I remembered. The Mini Eggs in Australia are gross… the shell is really thick and kind of gummy, not very nice.

So actually a big part of the reason we decided to go to Brisbane was because this year’s Lions-Demons game was IN Brisbane, on the same weekend. Scott and I love going to watch that game every year and tbh if it’s in Brisbane again next year I will consider going again haha.

Anyway we dragged MEP and Paul out the very same day as they arrived from their super long flights. What troopers. MEP decided to nap before the game, Paul decided to nap AT the game. :D :D

Which was amusing because it was LOUD!! And exciting!!

Melbourne dominated for the first half of the game, then like Paul, decided to fall asleep in the 3rd quarter. Brisbane had a HUGE comeback, which obviously re-invigorated the crowd a lot, and made me extremely extremely stressed. Thankfully Melbourne pulled themselves together and got a few more goals at the end and the win.

Overall it was a great game, especially to watch in Brisbane. MEP liked it a lot!

Nice views on the walk back to the apartment.

We walked a bit too much that first day, so the next day we decided to see the city by Segway. It was Scott and my first time trying them. It’s fun!!! It didn’t take long to master. The company runs out of a storage locker. They did a quick lesson with each of us individually, and then we set out on a tour of the city. Minus one star because they didn’t really give us any information about any of the things we were zooming past, but plus one star because we got to go really far and fast, haha.

I’M NEVER WALKING ANYWHERE AGAIN!!!!

That night we went out for dinner by the river, and the next morning we headed North to Noosa via the Australia Zoo. To be continued.

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A thousand years ago Scott and I went to Wilsons Prom for a weekend.

We drove down on Friday night after work, stopping for dinner in Fish Creek. We wanted to have a quick meal so we’d arrive at the campground before dark but the food took 5ever to come out. Oh well, other than it making a bit difficult to pick out a good campsite (Tidal River Campground is first come first serve) we were fine setting up in the dark because we are Master Campers.

**This just reminded me I need to change the batteries in my headlamp. Thanks guys.

Anyway after setting up we just chilled in our camp chairs and watched the wombats wander around and surprise people. Very entertaining. They are brave wombats!! And so pudgy. :D :D

 

After a delicious camp breakfast of bacon and eggs we set out on a little hike. Check out this wombat hidey hole!! And check out my muscley legs!!

We walked out to Pillar Point Lookout and then down to Squeaky Beach. We ate our sandwiches and decided we wanted to swim but it would be a lot easier if we headed back to the beach near our campsite. It was sunny and nice out, but close to the end of summer so the water wasn’t super warm, but once we got in it was pretty nice. I put my head under and everything.

Later that afternoon we put our shoes back on and drove to the car park for the Mount Oberon “hike”. I put that in quotation marks because it was just a road that goes up up up up up up forever. I did not care for that much up hill. It’s not very scenic until you get to the very very top and then it’s SCENIC AF, as you can tell from that picture. We timed it so that we’d get to the peak at sunset, and succeeded, but unfortunately the sunset was a bit boring that evening. Unlucky because the night before the sunset was spectacular!! (We saw it as we were driving to the campground.) Then we hustled back down the mountain and only had to use our headlamps for the last ten minutes back to the car.

PS that’s Tidal River Campground on the right side of the picture. Scott used extreme zoom on my camera and took a picture of our tent. He debated running up the next morning so I could wave at him from down there and now I have ragret that we didn’t actually do it.

We actually had a really miserable night though. It suddenly got super windy, and sand was blowing everywhere. Our tent has a full fly but somehow sand was flying under the edges and into the tent and EVERYTHING was covered. Our pillows were gritty. Our sleeping bags were gritty. Our lips were gritty. To make it worse, it was super hot but we couldn’t open anything up because we would have been covered with even more sand. So sweaty. I did not sleep very well at all. When we woke up in the morning we had grey faces!!

Our breakfast pancakes came out horribly rubbery for some reason and then we felt a few drops of rain so we shook everything out and packed up in record time.

We had planned on doing another hike that day but instead decided to just give up and head home, via a cidery and cheesery.

We went to Gurney’s Cider, which is a family run farm that makes very simple and tasty dry cider. I loved their Scrumpy cider made from foraged apples but it was a bit too pricey for me. I did get a bottle of Wild though.

And we checked out Prom Country Cheese for lunch. We had a massive cheese board. It was intense. It came with a whole bunch of huge pieces of sheep, cow and goat cheese, warm bread and crackers, meat and more. I’m drooling reminiscing about it. Lovely place.

Anyway other than the sand we had a lovely time at the Prom. I would like to go back again next summer, for a bit longer. The beaches there are really great, and wombats are soooo cuuuute. It’s really competitive/expensive to reserve spots there though so dunno. Maybe somewhere else along the coast is better.

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We swung by Sydney on the way to Korea to visit Jess, Rae and Felix, Ben Folds, and Reynold’s dessert bar, all in one day.

Always nice to catch up with Rae. And we finally got to meet Felix, who is very close in age to Cassia’s boy. I forced them to meet us at Koi Dessert Bar, even though Rae doesn’t really like sweet things, hahaha.

Strawberry Pillow – almond sable, strawberry lychee mousse, strawberry jelly, lychee slices

Mango Yuzu – almond sable, mango mousse, yuzu curd

Peach – white peach mousse with sudachi fruit

They were all nice, although all very similar, since they were all fruity and soft. Forgot to take a picture of the insides, oops. The mango yuzu one was Scott and my favourite. I chose the peach one purely because it REALLY looked like a peach. Ended up being my least favourite. Next time I will try something chocolatey I think. Reynold is currently doing a pop-up in Melbourne so maybe it will happen soon actually.

The Ben Folds concert was at the Sydney Opera House, which I was very excited about. How iconic! Jess came too but we apparently took no pictures of ourselves, doh.

The concert was AWESOME. I wasn’t sure about our seats because although we were in the front row, we were directly behind him so I thought we might ONLY get to see the back of his head. But he waved back at me when he first came in (we’re pretty much BFFs now) and turned around slightly when he was chatting (LOTS of chatting!), and we got to see his crazy hands and crazy feet really close which was neat. So many forearm keyboard bashings!!!

The first half was just a normal set, including some old favourites like Annie Waits (which we happily did the claps), and songs that I had never heard before like Phone In A Pool. He told lots of stories and jokes. When he started playing You Don’t Know Me I turned to Scott and said “this is a DUET, how is this going to work??” but then the audience just did all the Regina Spektor parts and it was great!!

Then he started transitioned to drums and Tim Minchin literally RAN on stage. Everyone went nuts!

They played One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces together while everyone was cheering and singing along. So fun. Tim is also a master pianist.

Then for the second half we were supposed to write our requests on pieces of paper and all together throw them on stage. FUN! I requested Dr. Yang which actually hit the piano and landed near his feet, but he didn’t pick it up. :( Anyway he would pick up an airplane and play it no matter what (unless it was something he already played, or something he didn’t know), ten times. So awesome.

There were some pretty standard requests, like The Luckiest, Lullaby, and Emaline, although some were a bit more obscure and he couldn’t remember the words so he had to improvise some parts haha. Lots of Ben Folds Five songs. My favourite was Underground because it’s a four part harmony and we all had to get real involved.

On his way out. Although he even came back to play an encore, which apparently is rare for this tour! So we got to hear Army too before having to leave.

All in all, 10/10 concert experience. Would Ben Folds again in a heartbeat.

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We had a really busy January. I thought life would slow down after Christmas but it did not. I feel like I’ve barely been home at all over the last month and I’ve been perpetually 15 minutes late for everything.

Last year I would go months without getting called into work, but I’ve now been called in 7 times in the last 6 weeks. Insane. But insanely good for our bank account!!

Anyway we’re on holiday now though so it’s ALLLLLL GOOOOOD.

Cassia and baby Cedric came to visit the other weekend. I was a bit unsure how the visit would go since it was the first time we’ve had a baby guest, but it ended up good! Cedric is 6 months old and requires a lot of bouncing. Between the bouncing we went out for brunch, played Ticket To Ride, went to the Camberwell Sunday Market, went to the city to shop at H&M and Uniqlo (they don’t have those in Adelaide), made pizza, drank milkshakes, and of course lots of catching up chats.

We played the present Rosemarie gave me for my birthday.. (mostly) Canadian themed Wits and Wagers cards! They were fun although we had some questions… for example, does the surface area of the worlds largest pizza account for the top and the bottom?

Weightlifting is going ok. I got told a new cue a couple weeks ago which has made some things click finally, although I’m still terrible and weak AF. Don’t know if I’ll be able to lift in Korea at all though so maybe I’ll forget everything. :/ If things go ok when I get back though I will do another competition in March, the Victorian Weightlifting Open. We’ll see.

Sailing has been fun. They’re slowly giving me more things to do as I get more comfortable on the boat again. Although last week I tried to help by loading the winch, but I did it wrong and caused an override and we came in (extreme) last place in the race. We almost had to cut the rope. It was real bad. They’re probably glad to have a couple weeks without me haha.

Scott and I have started a new thing where he is supposed to plan something for us to do once a month. Last month he organized a night out at the Big Bash League. I am slowly figuring out cricket. I actually don’t mind big bash because it plays at a pretty good pace and they try more exciting shots. However the game we went to turned out to be more of a Medium Bash and was kinda dull. Melbourne only hit one 6 (and no 9’s hahahahahah).

Da boys cashed in their Christmas present voucher from us, which was to take them to the Aquapark at Melbourne Cable Park. It was really fun! Although Scott and I struggled to keep up with them, haha. I also feel like I pulled Seth out of the water about 900 times. The next day my arms were so sore!! We got slurpees after and no one hurt themselves, so I would consider it a success all around.

Kate sent over a whole bunch of Canada Olympic gear for Scott and I, and all the kids. They are very ready to cheer for Canada starting next week!!

Scott and I leave tonight!! We’re stopping in Sydney to see Jess and Rae and Ben Folds, and then we fly to Seoul on Wednesday. Rosemarie will arrive on Thursday. :D :D Back in two weeks (unless we get nuked).

I’ve been asked to write out a list of what we are going to so you can look for us on TV. I apologize if there are any mistakes… time zones are hard. Look for the Aussie-Canadian duo! I’ll try to post on Facebook or something about what we are wearing on the day. I’d guess that it will be easiest to see us at skeleton, but who knows.

All for now. I’ll probably be posting the most on Instagram while we’re away. #instagramthatshit

GO CANADA GO! AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!

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I really enjoyed last years cider advent calendar, but I didn’t want to order it again if the ciders were going to be the same. So instead Scott made me one himself! What a good egg. He put together a great mix, many of which I had never tried before.

Here are my thoughts, again mostly for my own reference.

  • Mercury Draught Cider – 8/10 – better than I expected, pretty normal tasting, not too sweet
  • Pipsqueak Apple Cider – 9/10 – dry, tart, natural taste, great
  • Rekorderlig Apple Cider – 1/10 – smells like nail polish remover and doesn’t taste any better, couldn’t finish
  • Saxton Apple Cider – 8/10 – a bit funky like French cider
  • Montague Cider House – can’t remember
  • Monteith’s Crushed Apple Cider – 7/10 – a bit sweet

  • 5 Seeds Crisp Apple Cider – 8/10 – fine
  • The Cider Lab Pink Lady Apple – 6.5/10 – ok. a little sweet, a little artificial tasting
  • Orchard Thieves Apple Cider – can’t remember
  • Spring Cider Co Apple & Pomegranate – 5/10 – this is cider watered down 50% with soda water, tastes fine but gets a half score for only being half cider
  • Strongbow Dry – 8/10 – fine
  • Pressman’s Original All Australian Apple Cider – 8/10 – very apple juice-y, nice

  • Little Green Apple Cider – 3/10 – nooooo, fake apple flavour, sweet, like Sommersby (my least favourite cider ever)
  • Bonamy’s Apple Cider – 6/10 – don’t like it that much, don’t know why exactly
  • Willie Smith Bone Dry Apple Cider – 7/10 – dry but not sure about fermented flavour

  • Twisted Sister Apple Cider – can’t remember
  • Batlow Cloudy Cider – 8/10 – good
  • James Squire Orchard Crush Apple – 8/10 – tart, has chunks, I still like it

  • Cheeky Rascal Passionfruit Cider – 6/10 – fine I guess, a little passionfruit flavour, sweet
  • Sunshack Feijoa Elderflower Cider – 6/10 – i just don’t think i really like feijoa or elderflower
  • Dr. Pilkington’s Miracle Cider – 9/10 – light taste, refreshing AF
  • Renberg Apple – 7/10 – Aldi version of Rekordelig, tastes ok
  • Cheeky Rascal Apple Lime Mint Chilli – 6/10 – not as spicy as i hoped