Why I love Brisbane

+ The sun is always shining (apart from when the summer storms blow in 90kmph winds;P)

+ You get random acts of kindness: it was raining yesterday afternoon and I was standing at the traffic lights. A lady came running (yes running) up to share her umbrella with me… so nice!

+ Romantic Brisbane: you know when you see movies and there is that thick tropical mist surrounding luscious green mountains and dramatic titanic music playing in the background? Well, that’s where I’m living. I was going home on the bus the other day, it had been raining all afternoon and Mt Coo-tha was shrouded in this thick mist and evening sunshine. Near enough to bring a tear to your eye.

+ My Shaz: my sis is here and you know the old saying “home is where the heart is” well I’ve missed her more then anything this year, and I’m loving being home.

+ Sunday morning pancakes: on my first day here we couldn’t decide between pancakes and bacon, so we had them both and it’s a wee tradition. Mix that with lovely morning sun on the outside deck and amazing coffee and it’s pretty close to heaven!

+ Sunshine: for some reason I’m happier then I’ve been all year and the only thing I can put it down to is the sunshine and LOTS of it! People keep bitching and moaning about the heat, but sunning my tummy has always made me happy (see carebear below).

+ 30 degree heat: I miss Singapore so much, but more then anything I missed being warm ALL THE TIME! Goodbye chill blains!

+ Ibis: these birds are the most horrible shitting machines ever, but for some reason slightly endearing (when they crap on others that is).

+ Suncorp Piazza: free movies on the big screen at South Bank! My favourite Christmas favourites back-to-back in the coming weeks.

+ NZ Wine: our local dealer has a good stock of Montana. Anybody planning on visiting… you must pay the toll!

Whilst I do love living here, I really do miss my mateys back home in NZ=(

The A380, as it lives and breaths.

EXCITING EXCITING EXCITING!!! It's taken me a while to actually get off my butt and get the photos of Sam's camera, but last week the A380 landed in Brisbane for the final time until late 2007... and I was there to see it!!! I traipsed through ankle-deep mud and cutty grass to get past the loser kids who were missing school to see the A380 land and hung out on the side of the runway for 40 minutes, snapping photos of EVERY SINGLE plane that landed. I even gave up my free train ticket back to the city to wade through the "sewer" to get a closer view of the A380 at the international terminal (maybe the sewer means I shouldn't have been there... but oh well). It was absolutely brilliant and it's a magnificant and really beautiful plane. I sat there for a good hour just watching it (and all the other planes as well). At the same time, there were 3 747s at the gates... I was in HEAVEN;) No, it's not lame, everybody has something that they love and are passionate about, mine just happens to be airplanes and airports (yes after, I hung out and people watched at the int terminal). Here are more photos of the A380 landing:








Now, you can't tell me that that isn't one of the most beautiful sights ever! OMG, one of the best days ever!


Just to prove that I'm not just proclaiming bragging rights to the A380, here are some more moments of last week that got me overly excited:



Who says that kiwis and aussies don't love each other!







So overall it was an amazing day, even if nobody else could understand my excitement. So, yes James, yes I did see the big plane land;) I don't expect you all to be reading this with your mouths hanging open and prancing around with excitement, but FYI... I was;)

Soccer, Rugby and ... WORK:)

After an exciting nail-biting finish, AUSTRALIA IS THROUGH TO THE SOCCER WORLD CUP!!! Okay, so I hate soccer, but it was hard not to get caught up in all the hype and excitement of the game. Come on, everybody loves a good penalty shootout;) The only downside is that is still seems to be headline news here everyday. It's almost as if the Australian memory is erased each night when they go to bed, so each day it's like "oh yeah, what was that thing?? OMG did we? OMG we won the soccer.... OMG OMG OMG...." and the vicious cycle starts all over again. Hehe, at least NZ got the 2001 Rugby World Cup... gonna be AWESOME!!!





Not that most people think that is a bad thing. I was out with Lama and Hildegunn the other night (yes they are in Brisbane) and we met with a few travellers that they had "bumped" into the night before;) While the German was going on about the bloody soccer, I was making discrete puking actions behind him. Of course I got caught out, but me shame??? never=) Actually (yes moving away from soccer now) it was quite a fun night, though I got guilt tripped into going home early by my sister. Had a couple of beers and then Hildegunn and I got a little tipsy on her lovely duty free wine. They are coming over tonight, so there should be a few laughs;)

Okay, now moving completely away from soccer. I started my new job yesterday. I'm a PA to two teams in an investment company. Just can't seem to get away from computers. The teams are technology and client services. So I pretty much bow and rush around doing everything that the boss wants done but can't be arsed doing himself. Oh well, hopefully it'll be fun! Apart from that, not really a lot else going on. Am working full time and long hours and hehe, am also waitressing next Saturday as a personal favour for my recruiter. But it'll be cool and it's out in Paddington, which I LOVE!

Okay, enough rambling, must be off shopping. We are going on an adventure to IKEA... YAY! Next post: my big plane ramble... TBC=)

Hankering for a Dance

Well, it was my first real weekend in Brisbane so I toddled off to spend the day sunbaking on South Bank. After the redness of my shoulders told me it was time to get out of the sun, I went for a nice romantic walk along the river and came across free dance lessons being held in a park. Brisbane City Council is really good about promoting active participation and has some fantastic programs aimed at getting regular lazy-arses (like myself) up and going. So this weekend they had an activate brisbane theme and ran free dance classes. They had salsa, Ethopian Bahil Dance, African hip hop and belly dancing... yes all out in public for the whole world to see=) At least it satisfied my craving for line dancing (Shaz just doesn't understand;P)

I was a little late for Salsa, but had a one hour Ethiopian session and a one hour belly dancing class. Was so much fun, and yes you look stupid, but then again so does everybody else. I wanted to try African hip-hop, but belly dancing came up and hip-hop looked just a tad out of my league (seen me line dance???). So overall, a lonely sunday turned into one of the most fun times I've had in a while and I made some new friends out of it. Will be going to the sessions they are holding at New Farm park in a couple of weeks and yay, my sister is going to come=)

Brisy Welcomes the A380

I was excited (nobody else was) but the Airbus A380 landed in Brisbane airport to celebrate the anniversary of Quantas. All yesterday I kept slipping in "A380" and "really big plane" into conversation, when my excited "oh my god the A380 is landing in Brisbane, oh my god oh my god" didn't really get Sharon and Sam in the mood. Actually, they didn't even bother to feign excitement (much eye-rolling went on) so my dream of going to the airport to watch it land was shattered=( BUT the Jens sent me an article and it seems that the A380 is landing again (in Brisbane) on Tuesday! It is so worth the $30 it's going to cost to get out there, but YAY! Second chance=)

Now I'm about to watch the appaling Australian news, so i can relive my fantasy through the television!

Amy= Happy Third Wheel

Well I'm finally in Australia and currently thnking how much I miss everybody back in Auckland, but on the other hand... I'M WARM and nothing can ruin that for me;) My sister and Sam kep complaining about the heat, but thankfully I came at the right time. As soon as I landed, the long-running drought in Queensland and NSW ended and not there is torrential rain and killer floods. Hmm... if only immigration knew at the time, they may never have let me in! =)

Sorry it's been a while. I meant to update a couple of days ago, but my photos wouldn't upload and well they still won't, but the blogging bug is forcing me to write anyway. So I arrived on Saturday and I think my suitcase (officially named Kung Fu bag) has finally had it. Customs and bagage handlers finally managed to break my bag, the one that's travelled around the world with me. Tis sad, but a good excuse to indulge my bag fetish! Anyways, so Sam and I had been keeping this secret from Sharon for about 3 weeks and we planned how to spring the suprise on her. So Samu let me into the complex and I waited outside their apartment door while he buzzed Shaz and said that the auto lock wasn't working and she had to come out and let him in. This preceeded a conversation of:

Sam "Sharon honey, can you let me in?"
Shaz "I just unlocked it... pull!"
Sam "Honey, it won't open, I think it's broken"
Shaz "You're bullshitting. You lazy bugger, open the door yourself"
Sam "no seriously, it won't open!"
Shaz "You lie, you bull shit"

Hehe, anyways she ot overly annoyed and came out the stood there staring like a stunned mullet:) Cue screaming, crying and more OMGs! So overall it was fun and sooo fantastic seeing her again. Missed my shaz so much and it didn't take long for me and Sam to get back into our old routine of bickering and him making it his daily mission to annoy the hell out of me;) Awww, I missed them! So I'm making a point of crashing all their little couply things lie the third wheel that I am.


So it's been a good couple of days of relaxing, but I started getting bored so I decided to tackle the Australian Bureaucracy that is the Australian Tax Office. I worked in Australia a few years ago and have a tax file number (IRD number) so decided that I needed to get it back.

1) Call ATO to retrieve number

yeah, so this was challenge number one! After calling and progressivly moving up the virtual queue, I got this dude who I couldn't understand a word from. So he went into a long and indepth discription (told in stoy mode) about getting a tax file number and I reiterated after 5 minutes that I already had one and just needed to know it. so I gave him my name and he put me on hold for 10 minutes, came back (in that time I of course had vacuumed the house, been to the supemarket and painted my toenails) and just had to "reconfirm" that my name was spelt Frazier. Hmmm... strike one. Then my bad, I couldn't remember my mailing address from a random house in Eastern Melbourne from 3 years ago. So he said he couldn't give it to me. But then he established that I didn't have an Australian passport or Australian drivers licence and said "oh dear" several times... smooth. So I spent 10 minutes givng him the run down on Australian immigration policy and reciprocal rights of New Zealanders... we parted ways amicably;)

2) Go in person to the ATO Office

So I went along to the office with my NZ passport and and NZ drivers licence and guess what the lady said "well, we can't really geeve out your numba unless you can tell me the address that you had 3 years ago. No? Can you guess?" Well that is true class and top notch security if you ask me! So then I got to fill in an unbelievably long form only to get to the end and she said "yeah, I can't accept that weethout a cell phone number'. OMG my home phone was there, my next of kin's phone number was there, they knew my address, blood type, shoe size romantic history... but no, foiled by the bloody cellphone number! So after having spent 15 minutes filling in a form for a number that was on the screen 1 metre away from me, she reassured me that I could post it to the address printed on the front sheet that she had just thrown in the rubbish in (she gracefully searched through the garbage and got it for me... gee whizz, thanks). So now I have wasted a good 3 hours of my life trying to get a number that was only 1 metre away from me and will now be posted out in 4 weeks. God bless Australia and Amy.... just breath.

So aside from that it's really nice being over here and laughing at everybody;) Was at the wine shop across the road and a guy came up to me and said "you're that kiwi chick aren't you". Well I said tht was probably my sister, which was greeted by an over the top "well, you're a dead bloody ringer of'er". "I'm a twin" "Oh shit, did you hear that Darryn, she's a bloody twin mate". You'll be proud to know that I held my tongue and played along, feigning interest in their highly intelligent conversation.

So yep, that's about if for the moment. Have an interview tomorrow and till then I'm going to finish Dan Brown's Digital Fortress (wow computers have never seemed sexier!). So miss everybody but loving Brisy (Australians and all:) ).

Thanks Mum

Okay, so exams have finally ended. Overall, knew some things, guessed a lot and just plain made crap up for a big part of the 9 or so hours spend sitting on hard seats puzzling over obscure questions (lecturers just don't understand, if you want me to answer, you have to ask the question up front... I'm not a mindreader;P ).

It's really funny how, after five years of university my mother has finally changed her tune. She used to by the typical chinese mother.... 'you must gets As, you must do law, you must make money.... you get the drift". Times have changed and I think she has given up on me, which became apparent in our little conversation a couple of nights ago:

Me: Hey mum, how's it?
Mum: Hi dear. How was your exam? You must be very tired? Have you had dinner? What did you have? You should have dinner (one thing I learnt from mum was to have 3 different conversations in one sentence).
Me: Good good (ignoring dinner add-ons). So tired Finished my law degree oh and by the way probably failed first year stats.
Mum: oh well, it must be very hard.
Me: yeah, I hear STATS 108 is one of the most difficult papers at uni .
Mum: can you take it again or will they kick you out?
Me: Of course I can take it again.
Mum: oh good then, I'm so proud of you girls. What are you having for dinner?.... (and the cycle continues)

AND that was that! There was no "didn't you study hard enough? Well you'll just have to try harder next time!". This would have happened a couple of years ago. So either she has given up, or she realises that we don't need to be pushed anymore. So THANKS MUM! Sometimes all you need in life is that support from your mum and everything seems a hundred times better!



The reason I thought about that was because I decided to indulge and read a book . So I picked up "Beyond Indigo" by Preethi Nair, which is a book poking fun at arranged marriages. It really highlights the difference in mindset between Indian culture and how it fits in with a typically western mindset. Really interesting! There's a part in the book where Nina is philosophising about Matisse and art so she asks her father about he thinks of creativity and art as a living:

Nina: "An artist who is worth a lot of money said that there are always flowers for those who want to see them. What do you think about that?"


Father: "Yes, that is why he is the rich. Wastes no money buying the expensive flowers from the petrol shops and saves the money that the flowers are taking. Not giving the peoples the flowers every time he is seeing them".

So basically, it's all about the money, and I used to have the same view probably because we were brought up that way. But five years on I've been lucky enough to gain a very different insight. It's not about the money at all, it's about being happy and doing something you love. If you don't feel passionate about something, it's probably not worth doing at all as there is no reward in the end. So thanks mum for understanding and thanks to everybody else for being my inspiration!