On the weekend we thought we'd give Coles shop at home a go.

We weren't really sure what we were doing, so just thought we'd stock up on some of our staples and non-perishable stuff.

Good points:

• can shop at own pace, from home, no crowds, online - the way we like to deal with people (or not ;) )
  
• pricing shows price per unit on different products, and you can sort by that too.  This is actually really cool and saves having to calculate it in the shop
  

Bad points:

• you can't read product labels.  All you get is a picture.  So you can't see the ingredients, which means we have to stick with what we know
  
• too many plastic bags! (ten for this shop - cause can't use green bags obviously)  Far too many bags than we'd ever get through. 
  
• fresh stuff came cold but don't know how much I'd trust things like ice cream
• we still need to do fruit and veg shopping every week (but can go to the markets for that)
• can't just browse and see what's available easily
  

So we may do it from time to time, but we'll need to build up a repertoire of "safe" food, and better plan the shops so don't forget things and have to go to the supermarket anyway!

So peoples came over for another anime night. 

Decided to cook a bucketload of pasta, with two different sauces for dinner (as we'd had pizza last night ;) )

Watched another couple of episodes of Abenobashi, then a couple of Starblazers (!!! haven't seen Starblazers in like twenty five years), and one of Speed Grapher. 

And then we played Mario Kart, which of course Nat won most races of ;)

My arms hurt from all the exertion yesterday .. hrmmmm...

Wasted plenty of time today.  Got a few things done too, but not much.  Got about half way through going through my Japan photos and selecting highlights for showing people.  Well a first pass go through.  They will still need more culling so people that we subject them to don't die of boredom.  And then when that's done will pick out the best of the highlights and update the blog entries.  I said I'd do that with our Europe photos too, so that will have to be next...

Electric blankie is waiting for me... :)

Been trying to figure out who owes who what for hotels in Japan. 
Trickier than it might sound when multiple people paid, deposits were paid on some hotels but not others, some were paid in AUD and others in Yen etc.
Plus then there was the borrowing of cash from peoples which needs to be calculated.

Messy :)

First up, we have a four-legged spider.  !!
Well that's what it looked like walking across the floor.  Like something had gotten a few of its legs (and its head!)

Friday I snapped this:



Yesterday was quite a busy day.

Went into town to spend lots of money on the Stubie.  He got an Olympus E-420 digital SLR camera.  He actually wanted an E-620, but that's not due out til April - after our Japan trip.  He also got a couple of pairs of jeans and some underwear.  Had lunch in the Canberra Centre - where I had a full roast pork meal for $8 - and it was very nom-worthy!.  And then we tried to spend a DJs gift card we got for our wedding.  Man that was hard work.  Who knew spending money in DJs could be so hard.  Unless you want to spend $300 of course :/ 




The rain yesterday was very cool, although we still need more of it!  Hint! Hint!
(in the morning Mt Ainslie was gone, in the afternoon it was decorated with a rainbow)






For dinner we went down Northbourne Ave to find some places in the Entertainment Book to use our card for.  The first place we went to (Zipp) claimed to be fully booked at 7:30pm, even though the place was only about 1/3 full.  hrmmm.  So went up to Breeze.  The food was good enough and the service was quite good, however yet again, we came across an Entertainment Book restaurant that didn't give the deal specified in the book.  We were supposed to get "buy one main course get one free", which would have been worth $28, however they only gave us a $17 discount.  I wanted to say something, but Stu is more allergic to confrontation than I am, so we just gave no tip.  Which made me feel a bit sorry for the dude cause he was actually pretty good.  <mails the Entertainment Book people>

Then we toddled off to see The Reader (via dessert at Baskin and Robbins), and got home very late.

Today was a bit quieter.  Got a bit of house tidying and Japan planning done.  Did our food shopping.

And that was it really. 

Less than two weeks to go!  Wheeeee!!

Had peoples over tonight to book the rest of the accommodation.. except Kyoto proved hard work so now staying in Osaka and doing day trips from around there.  So after three hours we only had one hotel booked.. oops!  But getting there slowly...

Stu and Dave and I toddled along to the Darwin exhibition at the museum today.  It wasn't too bad, but a lot of reading under not great lighting and lots of peoples to negotiate.  Spent around two and a half hours there.  Admittedly I actually learnt rather a lot, not having known too much about the story behind Darwin's life.

Of course I had to go look up the connection between him and the city, and sure enough, wikipedia notes that the city of Darwin was in fact name after Charles Darwin.  So there you go!

Tonight (after several vodkas and radiator fluid) watched an old video of Knight Rider (the recent pilot/movie).  Man it was lame!! I mean I used to love the old tv series, but the old series was exceedingly lame after repeat viewings in recent years.  But this telemovie was even lamer, if such a thing were possible.  And the voice of KITT (Knight Industries THREE Thousand) was just *wrong* !!  For some reason I found the cameo by the Hoff majorly cool!  (that's how lame the rest of the thing was!)  Maybe that's why the rest of the series was never broadcast here......

Not too much else this weekend.  Did a bit of house tidying, unpacking, towel washing, in-tray clearing, ip blocking, kitchen cleaning, Khan special features watching, etc.  Stu cooked another of his fantastic curries after I nagged asked him to use the cauliflower he bought a few weeks ago :)

Didn't get the puddle cleaned - was too cold outside, and it was raining, although did have another go at cleaning the front gutters yesterday.  Have slept in winter pjs that last couple of nights - craziness!!

Japan planning went backwards this week after people changed their minds.  Still hoping to have flights booked by Tuesday though....