Pretty uneventful week.  I think.  I think I was pretty busy at work.  I counted up my todo list and realised I'm in the middle of thirteen different projects at the moment.  Yikes.

This weekend I had a relatively productive Saturday.  Well sort of.  Did a few days of UK photo sorting.  And a bit of cleaning.  And some work.  And mostly cleared news feeds.  But mostly jigsaw.

Saturday night we went to Mishi's for our semi-regular catchup/games night, which was lovely as always.  First we played Pass the Popcorn (Thrills and Chills Edition).  Which would have been more fun as the regular edition.  I don't know enough about "scary" movies.  Then we played Way Back When in History, which was an American history board game where you answer questions and move your way around the board.  Most of the questions were completely basic, but a few things we'd never heard of.  I think Stu and I won in the end.  It wasn't very well thought through in terms of game play (well maybe it was, but the instructions certainly didn't help).  Like it said if you land on someone's token move to the next available space.  But there were some spaces that were "go back one space". But if someone was there you would end up in an infinite loop.  Silly.

Today was pretty much just jigsaw all morning.  And went and saw Excalibur at the Film and Sound archives (which I quite enjoyed, despite a faded and dirty print).  And went to Dumpling Inn for dinner.  And did our food shopping.  Might have gone to the multicultural festival but Stu was not up for crowds of people.

So this is the jigsaw.  Nearly finished.  Maybe a couple of hundred pieces left.  Should knock it over tomorrow.  Then can get back to regularly scheduled programming..

Then did our food shopping at the markets.

Not much this arvo, just on the computer.

Did a pork roast and Josh and Ally came over for dinner and it was a very pleasant little dinner party.  Pork was super awesome, good veggies, and dessert was some creme brulees we got from Knead this morning.  Yum yum yum :)  And a good excuse to trot out the nice dinnerware :)

Then the sweetie and I went into town to see Arietty.

What a delightful movie!!

Sweet, sad, and stunningly animated.

The sweetie wants to move into Sho's family's house heh.

So yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it.

We saw it in Japanese with English subtitles.  Which is at least one good thing about the Dodgy Dendy.

So after that we grabbed some lunch in the food court, then went and did out food shopping.  I debated buying some "Australia" but they only had big jars, and we'd *never* get through it.  So just documented them instead.

After putting away the shopping, we brought up Stu's new chair.  Well, brand new second hand.  But he got a pretty sweet deal (the person he bought it off had recently spent like $380 getting it reupholstered (Stu paid ~$100) and the dude's father in law wasn't too happy that he was getting so little for it).  This is not its final home (although I do like it where it is - I can sit and watch my screen saver from it :) )

Then I sat down to do a 1000 piece jigsaw.  It took about three and a half hours.  Probably the fastest I've ever done a 1000 piece jigsaw.  And because it promised to be so easy, I took a timelapse of it.  Which I might put together tomorrow.

Ok so I really haven't blogged all week.  Whoops.  This post will be really boring, feel free to leave now ;)

So after pondering over beer bottles and brewing equipment in Haymarket and the pink dots, I went online and found out the little pink dots all over Sydney were part of a street art project called "Beer Line - from Barley to the Bottle".  It started in Haymarket with some real barley planted in planter boxes.  Unfortunately the barley had been harvested when we were there and it was just grass left.  This morning I went to the start of the line and found some more information.  It was partly in memory of the Castlemaine Brewery, and went in two directions - right towards Redfern, and left towards Circular Quay.  I had intentions of walking the entire line, however I only managed to get as far as Wynyard before I had to get back for Art of the Brick, and then the rest of the week was too busy to finish it.

Beer bottles

Barley planter boxes (harvested, just grass now)

Start of the Beer Line

Space invaders in Haymarket

Footsteps on George Street

Hopscotch outside the QVB

Near Wynyard there was a branch off to the left with basketball lines

Here's some of the other stuff I stopped to take photos of along the walk

The hear/see/speak no evil monkeys had santa hats on

Queen Victoria statue outside the QVB

Dog sculpture outside the QVB

This was all kinds of awesome, but I'll put that in a separate entry

It seems Sydney Buses forgot that hundreds of people want to go to the beach during the school holidays, and were running a regular weekday timetable (actually there was probably a few extra buses that day otherwise we *never* would have gotten there).  So we queued for like half an hour, then had to squeeze onto a bus and stand the whole way.  I didn't have my swimmers since I'd been at Art of the Brick and was expecting Stu and Kore to have gone a lot earlier.  So I sat under a tree.  And got very grumpy at someone who was completely unsympathetic to my not being able to take photos at Harry Potter.  So sat there feeling pretty miserable.  Blah.  Had a snack later with Stu and Kore before heading back to the hotel to recover.

Queue for buses at Bondi Junction

Squeezed onto a bus

Super crowded Bondi Beach

Too many annoying people, but there was a whole collection of nautical-themed Lego setup which made it pretty awesome.  Apparently the company that owns that Aquarium also owns Legoland, so they were doing a promotion.  Worked for me :):)

Triton in Lego

Freshwater crayfish

Some sort of dragon

Either a Murray or a Trout Cod

Eastern Water Dragon

Minifig with penguin

Red Indianfish

Cowfish

Little Penguin

Common Sydney Octopus

Jellyfish

Mermaid in Lego

Dory the blue tang

Fish in the dugong tank

Fish in the dugong tank

Fish in the dugong tank

Dugong

Stingray

Cuttlefish

Shark

Turtle

Nautical-themed cupcakes

Shark in the final tank

Sawfish

Fish in the final tank

Kore in the final tank

Kore about to be stabbed by a sawfish

Kore found Nemo (well Marlin actually)

Clownfish

Super awesome Lego display at the end - the white whale made out of Duplo and the biggest Lego mosaic I've ever seen in the background.  The baseboards had been spraypainted with the colour to be used, and plates attached on top.  But the plates weren't glued down, so there were patches around the edges (and even in the middle) where people had pulled off the plates and stolen them :(

Had a few super yummy pizzas and a couple of drinks and had a nice chat

Crazy pizza stands

Salumi and prosciutto - sopressa, prosciutto crudo, mixed mushrooms, roast garlic and fior de latte.  This pizza was awesome!

Kangaroo - potato base with marinated kangaroo, roasted pumpkin, pine nuts, feta and chopped parsley.  I also really liked this pizza, and it was Kore's first taste of kangaroo.

Marinara - tiger prawns, mussels, vongole, calamari, chili, mozzarella and parmesan cheese.  I didn't actually have any of this one, not a bit fan of seafood pizzas.  I'm told it was good though.

As we left Eat Love Pizza we saw a bunch of people seated watching the Pyrophone Juggernaut.  There were people there testing the flames etc for tomorrow night.  Unfortunately no show, we would have had to come back the next night :(

So we went to Maccas again, and the little brother met us again.

Pink dots are all around Sydney.  Possibly part of Street Works

Had a bit of a wander through Darling Harbour, including climbing a rope pyramid.

Billions of bins

Tumbalong Park

Me up the rope tower

Me up the rope tower

The rope tower

View from the rope tower

For Dave2: the Hard Rock Cafe building

Darling Harbour

Brolgas dancing at Cockle Bay Wharf

Darling Harbour

Then to Wildlife World.  Spent a couple of hours there with Kore squeeing over kangaroos and koalas.

Fluttery

Kore and a flutterby

Koala

Gak gak bird!

Didn't catch the name of this guy

Zebra finch

Cunningham's skinks

Kookaburra

Yellow-footed rock wallaby

Wombat

Bull ant

Cassowary

A tiny dragon (kid's hand next to it)

Central bearded dragon

Ridge-tailed monitor

Kangaroos

Face-plant kanga

Juvenile emu

Emerald dove

A few seconds later - the dove being chased out of the food by an emu!

Stu, Kore and emus

Salt water crocodile

Yvonne could tell me what these finches are...

Nom!

Salt water crocodile

Didn't catch the name of this monitor either

Kore and bat

Kore touching a stick insect

Koala

Fiona the curlew upstages the koala keeper talk

Capture!

Rainbow lorikeet

Frilled-neck lizard

Kore and a kangaroo

Salt water crocodile

Was later leaving there than we hoped and had to meet David and Yvonne at a Korean place.  Our original instructions were "on Pitt St, south of Town Hall near Capitol Square, on the right".  As we were walking I asked what the name of the place was.  NaruOne.  OK, so into Google Maps.  No probs.  Except Google Maps was wrong by a whole block.  Got the address (375 Pitt St, Lower Ground) and then had to go back a block (after Stu led us downstairs under 395 Pitt St).  So anyway.  Fifteen minutes late, hot and stressed.  *sigh*

Had bibambap at Yvonne's recommendation.  

So left there at 2:00 and headed down to the Powerhouse museum for a special exhibition, which might have been awesome, had it not been for stoopid money-hungry corporations.  Made me very upset.

So came back to the hotel and crashed, because frankly both Stu and I were completely done with the afternoon.

Although Kore and I did pop out for takeaway - we got some Turkish because she'd never had pide or dolmatas or falafel before.  

Watched a heartbreaking documentary on the township of Iitate in Japan that was affected by the Fukushima reactor disaster.  

Didn't sleep very well *again* last night :(:(  Blah.

Headed out a bit after nine and met the little brother at the local McCafe.  Had brekky (bacon and egg mcmuffin and a hash brown.. yumm) then wandered through the Devonshire Street tunnel to the station to buy our tickets.  We decided to get a MyMulti (Zone 1).  

Art in the Devonshire Street Tunnel

Headed to Town Hall.  I went down and got myself a ticket to the Art of the Brick show on Friday morning! 

Kore's first ever train!

Deck chairs outside Town Hall



Then we had a wander through the QVB.  Stopped in to look at HobbyCo.  Nearly didn't get Stu and Kore away from the anime section ;)

Old freight trains
Thomas!
Crystal pavilion thing in the QVB

Christmas Tree in the QVB

Left there and went and got our tickets for the Tower/Wildlife World/Aquarium from NRMA (10% discount - same as online).  Then to Sydney Tower!  I didn't worry about panoramas this time since I did that last time.  Just zoomed in on all sorts of things, and did the tour guide thing for Kore.  And far out it was crowded!  Queued to go up, queued to go down.  And then got stuck in the lift.  Well not really, it just didn't start.  Ended up just hitting the door open button to get out.

Sydney Tower from King Street

Sydney Tower under construction

In the "4D" show
Harbour from the tower

Don't know what this kid was looking at..

Kore up the tower

Darling Harbour

Pacific Jewel

Highest post box.  Except you can't actually buy stamps up the tower.  Pointless!

By this time it was lunch time, so we went to the Westfield foodcourt.  I had subway! heh. Poor sweetie.  Sydney is super crazy busy at the moment, and even at 2pm the food court was packed.  Basically the sweetie's idea of hell :( 

Then headed across to Hyde Park to see the Archibald Fountain and St Mary's cathedral (didn't bother going in - since "pics or it didn't happen" would mean it didn't happen heh).

Kore and Stu inspecting the wicker concrete on a building in Market Street

Kore in Hyde Park

Archibald Fountain

St Mary's Cathedral

A bit of a wander down Macquarie Street.

Hyde Park Barracks

Stu picks hogwart's nose

Parliament House

State Library

Ibis

I told Kore they look better in flight

Conservatorium of Music

And down to Circular Quay, to go see the Opera House.

Obligatory Harbour Bridge photo

Kore discovers the Opera House is tiled

And back to Circular Quay and the Manly Ferry!

Circular Quay station with barricades up to stop people watching the fireworks there

Circular Quay

This was Kore's first ever ferry

Manly Wharf

Wandered up The Corso to the beach.  

Smiley face in sweat

Bubbles!

There are several taps along the Corso for filling up water bottles.  Best idea ever!

The Corso

Manly men in Manly

Manly beach

Kore dipped her feet in :)

Then back to the Steyne hotel for a beer.  We originally had a table in the middle, but then noticed a window seat was free, so we all moved over there.  I tell you what, a nice cold beer, seat by the window with a lovely sea breeze and a view of the ocean was AWESOME!!  Really really nice.  Even the sweetie felt better after the stressful morning.  Decided to get "fish and chips" there because that's a traditional beachy thing to do (and Kore had never had it before, in fact she'd never even been to a pub before!).

Then wandered back to the ferry, which we timed nicely for some lovely sunset pictures over the harbour.  

They haven't finished the barricades on this side yet

Kore's second train

And finally back to the hotel.  

Had to point out that the moon is upside down here

Bat!

Took over 1100 photos today .. whoops!!  Not sure how my experiment to deal with photos on a daily basis is going to work!  OK so an hour and a half later and I'm still not finished processing photos, let alone select some to blog, resize, upload and enter them into the blog.  Might work on that tomorrow morning if I get a decent nights' sleep and wake up early enough.

Apart from general house cleaning, there was Christmas present wrapping and a bunch of food preparation for tomorrow (a couple of sauces for some proscuitto-wrapped prawns - 24 prawns is a lot of work to de-head and de-poop!!).  I had to use two egg yolks for one of the recipes so had to separate my first eggs.  Ever.  Yup, never done it before.  It was actually pretty easy.  But that left me with two egg whites.  What to do!?  Meringues!!  Found a recipe online, and they turned out a lot better than my last attempt.  And they also didn't last very long.  I went back to the oven just then and the rats had been to steal a couple ;)

Evening viewing was Carols by Candlelight (it's a tradition!) and another Christmas movie - Die Hard! :)

Merry Christmas and all that :)

So much so that even with a fridge full of healthy food we ordered pizza.  And waited over an hour and a half for Crust to deliver it.  Shoulda gotten Dominos.

At least three brownouts tonight.  Stoopid storms.  We need to replace the batteries in our UPS.

And saw this bunny hopping around the front yard.  Stu didn't believe me, he said it was a rat.  I thought so too until I saw it hopping.

Wherein proving my camera has better eyesight than me - it was practically invisible where it was.

(TMI post, you've been warned)

To summarise:

* bad flu after Sydney in September that had me off work for most of the week

* ear infection, probably bacterial, took three weeks of antibiotics to get over

* gastro or food poisoning the night of our work ball (during the antibiotics run)

* weird eye infection just after I finished the antibiotics, don't know if viral or bacterial (both tests were negative)

* cold from one of the boys at the coast, done by the time I went to Melbourne

* bad cold or flu that started the Sunday night in Melbourne which made my training week pretty miserable

* persistent sore throat since about Saturday that I'm convinced is another bacterial infection (still coughing too)

Being stressed about being sick sabotages my means of getting better (ie, sleeping) and haven't felt up to doing any proper exercise in forever.

*sigh*