post - weekend

Well on the tail end of the day after work waiting for the next train to come (Auckland trains are one every half hour ..)and this weekend had a big clean up around the house.. I am now the proud owner of a nice sofa i got for 250$ and had to have it moved by a helpful moving company. Once it was in the room, it set me off cleaning the place around it .. my housemate will be suprised as he wont have seen the place yet.

Its been a lovely day both Satuday and Sunday . Saturday post-sofa I went for a drive with an aussie friend and then we went to Villa Maria Winery, very pretty and rolling green rows of vines just off the main motorway and it was relaxing that afternoon we watched a dvd , and then met a mate of mine who was up visiting and we had dinner at a Korean restuarant worthy of KimChi in Carnegie. Sunday I did said clean up triggered by the sofa and the house feels more like a home.

Its a big week.. scrum prototyping workshops and no one leaves till we agree on things..

I'll need another visit to the winery after this lol. And exercise...*sighs and ponders time*

Work work work

just been working, I joined a social badminton group on Saturday afternoons. Whilst I don't suck totally at it, i hope to improve my game. Sudden shots in other directions are my bug bears.

life is good , food is more costly but ok .. the nice to look out the window and see green green green everywhere and poor Melbourne and Australia in the midst of one of the worst droughts ever..

I am on a client site in the burbs writing this in a break..thank goodness I got my laptop and they had a wireless network. It rocks..

ah yes broadband at home grrr. the telecom company tells me 'defintetly after 5pm' to get the technician around. He doesn't show and i found out he came around at 2pm. after ringing the intstaller company (ah the joys of outsource, AND i had to ring them myself) i found out they dont come after 4.30 and you can't fix a time. dont you hate that 'I'll be here between here and doomsday' aproach to it. You have to take the whole day off work ...

ooh Korean Snack-a-licious Day meltdown!

ok I had a late night last night and needed carbs.. so I went to the Korean grocery and got some different kind of chippies. my furry friend here sums up how I felt by the end of the day.. Happy World Usability Day everyone!!

Monday musings

well after a long weekend of dinner with friends and going out, it was Sunday at 1am in the morningI found myself watching 'South Park' and wondered if I was a South Park character what would I look like.. well after looking for a 'create your own South Park Character' website this was the result. for some reason the uploader cuts the image out.. but i love the shirt this guy has

on to Wellington

Thank goodness for cheap fares.. Last Thursday I flew to Wellington. (my first 'local' flight) and got to my friends place there..Friday I worked in the local office which was great, had after work drinks then went out on the town with my friends. Happily another friend was in town from Christchurch seeing his Wellington based other half so we were all able to meet and go out. After a slow wake up I had coffee and a good lunch with one of my Wellington friends, having a try of Schoc Chocolate

you gotta try it! Amazing creativity

After some nice Malaysian for lunch, we continued our walk until we parted ways and I went on to dinner at my hosts place. That night we walked to a great vantage point over Wellington harbour.. The full moon was lighting up the bay and we saw a massive fireworks display Saturday night, and went out again. Sunday I slept in, met my friend up from Christchurch for brunch and we walked around talking, looking at the harbour and went back to Schoc for trying more goodness and I had a chilli hot chocolate. Great! It was good to not have to rush back to Melbourne and have some leisurely time and socialise instead of feeling like exchanges between friends were pressure cooked because of time constraints.. I am lucky to have good friends here and in Australia :) unconditional happy is a great place to get to .. You gotta value those moments..

that afternoon continued picking up my friends new other half and after a coffee and snack they dropped me off to the air port..

despite the flight only taking an hour and two and a half hours from the air port to home (irony) I still felt rested at least in spirit :)

The Game & Rotorua

ok ok I am hopeless at putting stuff up in a timely manner having too much fun to come on and post I guess

21/10 Seeing my wellington mates was awesome too ..we had time to chat, chillout, drink, meet my friends family who were wonderful..One of my mates has met someone new and was wonderful to see him so happy and like his usual self again :)

Friday night in Hamilton at their place, everyone was sittting around talking, listening to music, sitting on a sofa in the drive way in the freezing cold but too fuzzy and rugged up to mind :) I think I wanted to adopt their cat who was cosying up to me..

Flapjacks in Hamilton a great brekkie place, wow generous food, call green peace and throw me back.

22/10 Saturday afternoon sitting at the pub in team colours, watching the rugby parade in the main street..

Saturday nite - the game was great. i never thought i'd be brought to my feet yelling as a player took the ball to the end of the field. getting caught up in a shared collective experience was great fun. the atmophere was great and i can see how people love going to sport games..Waikato my adopted team won.. so there was much celebrating and I even had a crack at Kareoke in one pub. but exhausted by the emotional expenditure of the game I headed back early for an early night.

23/10 Sunday - another side splitting brekkie at Flapjacks and on to Roturua , thermal springs, went to a Hangi and Concert at one of the hotels in Rotorua that night, my friends new other half and i got up on stage to do a Haka which was fun and the footage will never see the light of day.. afterwards we went to some outdoor thermal pools.. sitting in these pools looking over the lake at night was amazing . cold weather and 38 degree celcius pools ..a nice mix and very relaxing..

24/10 Monday - after a morning looking at Whakewerawere thermal village, I had my friend drop me at the bus station and caught the bus back to Auckland thanking my stars i had a laptop on which to watch a movie.. (long trip in bus on the way back from the holiday) as my mates then drove back to Wellington..

Attached are various pics of the trip. interestingly some of the folks from the Maori concert were the same ones from 2004, my first trip here. So a nice turn of the wheel.