It was pretty good!

(probable spoilers below..)

Due to my own ignorance/stupidity/inattention, I missed a couple of key plot points .. like who was the kid at the beginning?  I didn't realise it was actually a girl!  (Ellie of course, but I didn't quite make the connection and was left wondering what happened to that kid, and where did his wife come from .. duuhhhhh!!)  .. and how the dogs could talk.. apparently some throwaway line about how Muntz had invented it (but how?? With what resources??)

Of course if it had been me, I'd have left the house *facing* the falls.  What's the point of being right next to them if you can't actually see them? :)

Since we saw it in 3D, we had the funky polarised glasses.  I didn't really notice while watching the movie (cause you get used to it, and the colours are so great anyway), but the colours do get diminished fairly significantly with the glasses.  During the credits I was doing comparisons with/without the glasses, and the difference was pretty huge.  Still, the 3D was pretty cool, and it'd be good to see other movies as they come out in 3D.

Squirrel!!   I totally love that line.. it reminds me of me soo much ;)

Friday night was just a quick trip out to get ice cream for dinner (I had a massively huge lunch at work).

View from the hotel balcony

The jackhammering began at 8:00am Saturday morning.  This whole piece of roof was gone by the afternoon.

Kent Brewery is no more

Brunch on Glebe Point Road

Walked up to the light rail station and caught it into Darling Harbour.  

Lombard St, Sydney

Sydney Light Rail

Wandered around a bit, then went to Sydney Wildlife World (photos in a separate entry).  

Fountain in Darling Harbour

Fountain in Darling Harbour

Ibis in Darling Harbour

After Wildlife World Stu felt like a beer, so we got beer and wedges.  It felt very much like our Europe trip.  Except a lot warmer :)

In fact the last couple of trips where we've stayed in hotels, we've been in other countries that don't speak English. So it felt really weird that hotel staff and the public actually spoke the same language as us... yeah I know, I'm strange.. 

Seagull vultures

Saw the Sun Princess docked at Darling Harbour

Wandered back to the hotel and were just in time to see the Sun Princess depart

Anzac Bridge

The Peak and Sydney buildings

For dinner we went to a sushi place on Hay St.  It was pretty good.  It's the one where you can watch them preparing the sushi and a big fish tank right in the middle.  I saw someone from work there.  Well actually, she and her friend saw me and was waving (through the fish tank), except I was expecting to see Sydney people (if anyone) and so didn't make the connection that I knew her.. heh oops.

Wandered up into the Capitol Theatre atrium thingie, where all these photo booths and claw machines were setup. That and the sushi made it just like being back in Japan for the evening. :)  Stu spent three dollars trying to get one of these dudes for Nat .. he even picked the thing up in the claw, only to have it get jammed at the top of the chute.  Rage!!

Then we went and saw Up in 3D.  It was pretty good, although I have to say the 3D glasses do dull the colours somewhat.

Sunday morning was relax, then head over to my parents for lunch.  Watched a slide show of all their Europe and UK photos, and they fell asleep through my Japan photos.

Then headed to Sunday Night Dinner, where I surprised most people there by coming.  No James and George tho :(  

Then commuted to work Monday morning.  

Sunday we decided to go to Tidbinbilla, as they were interested in seeing some kangaroos up close.  So off we went.

The funniest thing I didn't get a photo of was an emu being chased by an angry masked lapwing plover :)

Welcome Swallows

Various emus

Various kangaroos

A magpie

Through a gate

Some sort of ant

And then we left.  Could have spent longer there, but they needed to drive 450km.  So just had lunch in Belconnen and off they went.

On a lighter note.  I did get some stuff done at work that I really needed to.  Flowers and trees are budding and blossoming all over the place.  Got the kitchen significantly cleaner from the weekend.  Perfect score in walking in Wii Fit - and it thought I had a Wii fit age of just 20!

Had our Japan travelling friends - Nat and Andrew, Natty and Sandra over and ate lots and were quite merry.

Had a brilliant day for it.  If anything a little too hot heh.  There was even this storm that came through *after* we'd finished up.

Stu preparing some sushi (cucumber and pickled radish and tuna)

The hanami setup (a blue tarpaulin is a must!)

Stu's sushi

Nat arranging the Pocky and the Crunky

This random dog turned up and stayed all of lunch.  No idea where it came from - never seen it before!  It was very friendly but kept threatening to steal the food ;)

The food - sooo much food!  Lots of leftovers!

Everything and everyone setup

A bee

Andrew hanami-ing (yes Dave, that's my cap :) )

After lunch we played Trivial Pursuit.  We actually started with my very lame 80s trivial pursuit (which wouldn't have been so lame had any of us actually not been just kids in the 80s), but switched over to "real" Trivial Pursuit.  Lots of fun.  I think Stu won :)

Nat made this super awesome swirl cake with white chocolate icing :)

And then everyone went home.  And I got depressed cause I had to come down off somewhat of a high :(

But then we watched this cool documentary on Yellowstone National Park, and followed that with Fantasia 2000.  Really must get myself a copy of that Bluray some time.  Except for the very minor detail that we don't have a Bluray player .. hrmmm.

And so endeth the weekend.  

Canberra Centre

APK lasagna last night

Dramatic clouds this arvo

So the rest of today was general house cleaning, finishing an evil 1000-piece jigsaw that we started down at the coast in April, reading news feeds, cleaning the house etc.  

For dinner we went to the Dumpling Inn - one of our favourite restaurants.  Had the shredded beef Peking style like we always do (epic nommm) and shantung chicken (which unfortunately they'd left the bones in, so was pretty fiddly).  Super quick service.  Then we did our shopping, and got home in time to watch Harry Potter with ads :)

Saturday (as usual) was mostly a cleaning/tidying/organising/shopping day.  

Cooked a nomm roast pork and potato bake and had Julia and Paul over to enjoy it.  They brought their PS3 and Queen Singstar over, but their PS3 wouldn't talk to our TV, so most disheartened about that.  So watched Rockwiz instead.  Dessert was a chocolate fondue with strawberries, banana, rockmelon, and biscuits to dip. 

We were very full by the end of the night :)

Sunday was fairly quiet.  Stu went out for a bit, which left me alone to tidy up, and then feel a bit down.  Not really sure why.  Maybe all the rain.  

Sunday arvo I got NRMA to jump start my car.  Really need to drive it more often.  Every three or four weeks is just not enough.  Took it for a drive out to Mitchell to dump some speakers, a (working) CRT monitor and a few bits and pieces.  I decided it would be better to go late in the day rather than early. WISE DECISION!  We were in and out of the place in about two minutes (whereas people who went early Saturday were waiting in traffic for an hour or more).  The piles of CRTs (monitors, tvs) and computers were amazing.  Would have been good to take some photos, but we were in and out so fast and I was driving so didn't have the chance.  The guys were having fun throwing things around on the piles to smash them heh.

Geotagged just about all my Japan Day 2 photos, most of them to within a few metres of where they were taken.  

And then it was Monday.  It really felt like a Monday too :/  Got home, had dinner and watched a special on the Lockerbie bombing, and suddenly it's nearly 9:30 .. how??

And the interwebs is broked.  So think will just go to bed and read some more of The Daily Coyote.  .. Edit, internet is back.  Posting, but then going to bed anyway.

So an a hour and a half of prep time and about an hour and a quarter cooking time and we had this:

Actually there was enough "meat" sauce and pasta sheets for three lasagnas. I made two because that's all the baking dishes I had available.  I might make up some more bechamel sauce and do a third on the weekend.

The only problem I had was perhaps leaving them in the oven a little too long - they were very slightly overcooked.  But oh so delicious!! :) Definitely a leftover winner! :)