While many visitors to Sydney attended events relating to the Catholic World Youth Day or Week, my parents and I attended the Waso Buddhist Festival at the Burmese Buddhist temple at Smithfield. Also, there was a ceremony for giving new robes to the monks, which you could buy and donate for $30. It was also the first official function at the new site of the temple so it was very nice to be invited to attend by our Burmese friends. You could not find a more friendly community. It was also good to meet the chief monk at the Temple - [View Full Entry]

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Lorenza, plus my Mum and Dad, took a short break on the north coast of New South Wales in Laurieton. The purpose of our little get away was to join in the celebrations of my Auntie Judy's 70th Birthday. The birthday bash was held at the Kendal RSL Club and it was in a great spot on the bank of the Camden-Haven River. It was great to catch up with various cousins, aunties, uncles and friends. Comboyne Quotes Lorenza and I also did some sight seeing and took a spin up to Comboyne, one of our favorite locations in that area. [View Full Entry]

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Since our last entry, life, as usual has been busy with: 1. Wine making 2. Vegetable gardening 3. Doing lots of cooking 4. Experimenting with lots of Asian food courtesy of the Panditarama Sydney Meditation Centre, run by the Sydney Burmese community. Visit their website if you want more info ... Panditarama Sydney Meditation Centre 5. Spending time with friends. 6. And Rob has almost finished designing a website for friends in Alsace . The Friends of the Twisted Steeple (or Les Amis du Clocher Vrillé) This was a challenge because it is all in French! The pictures tell some of [View Full Entry]

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Our friends Sandar, Terence and Ohnmar, invited us to the Songkran Asian New Year and Water festival at the Wat Pa Buddharangsee Buddhist Temple at Leumeah. One of the highlights being delicious asian food from Australia, Burma, Cambodia, Lao, Malaysia, Sri-Lanka and Thailand. Ohnmar, Sandar and their mother were working on the Burmese food stall, raising funds for the new temple that the Burmese community have recently purchased at Smithfield. Lots of interesting cuisine was on offer, including deep fried quail, melon and Sri-Lankan love cake. Most of the children and many of the adults got into the swing of the [View Full Entry]

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From the teachings of Buddhism comes the knowledge that nothing in life is permanent and that we should learn to let go of wanting and desire, in short the road to happiness is paved with discarded wants and desires. I got very excited when I found a lovely, second hand, variable capacity stainless steel wine storage tank for sale. I knew I had to have it after seeing them in some wineries on our recent travels in France. So, I shelled out the required cash and soon had my new purchase in our wine making room, eager to put it to [View Full Entry]

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Saturday was the inaugural meeting for over 30's Couch Surfing members. Lyn, who is a CS Ambassador for Sydney organised the meeting and it was attended by more than 20 CS members, prospective members and travel lovers. It was a fun afternoon talking travel and meeting some new people, including ... Robert who had just returned from an epic motorcycle trip through Nepal and Bhutan on a 350cc Royal Enfield. Nina who has been traveling in Australia for almost 12 months and is soon to return to Canada, Emmanuelle a French teacher who was recently teaching in Syria and now based [View Full Entry]

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Australia Day Recruitment Drive - 26th January 2008 (Video of new wine fermenting added - see below) Work on our 2008 vintage got started on the weekend, beginning with a recruitment drive on Australia Day! We invited all our neighbors and friends for a BBQ to celebrate Australia Day. Once they were fed and plied with alcohol we made the recruitment pitch for anyone who could: a) Get themselves out of bed at about 5am on Monday to help harvest the grapes, b) Get a good night sleep and join us later in the day when the grapes were ready to [View Full Entry]

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This Saturday was the opening of the Sydney Festival and all the events were free. Lorenza and I checked the program a few weeks ago and decided to book a hotel and make the trip to Sydney and enjoy the fun. On the program were 3 weddings in Macquarie Street, dance parties in Martin Place, Angel Place, Hyde Park and a concert in the Domain featuring Paul Kelly and Brian Wilson. The one and a half hour train ride to Sydney is a bit of a bore, but I could not be bothered driving and then searching for parking. The weather [View Full Entry]

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Lucky for Lorenza and I we have no problems deciding whose family to spend Christmas with each year. Lorenza's folks are originally from Holland and celebrate on Christmas Eve, whereas Rob's family follow the more Anglo-Aussie tradition of celebrating on Christmas Day. So, Christmas Eve we found our way to Bowral and celebrated at Manuela's place (Lorenza's sister), then on Christmas Day we continued a few hours down the Hume and Federal Highways to Rob's brothers place. Both celebrations consisted of the usual over indulging in food and wine, gift giving and the that fine Aussie tradition of a game of [View Full Entry]

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Arrived at about 9am and a bit dazed and confused. Trying to locate a shuttle bus to our hotel got us even more confused, but we eventually made it to Hong Kong at about 11am, once booked into our room we discovered the hotel was undergoing a serious make over and there was not much chance of catching a nap with the jack hammers pounding away. Instead we freshened up and decided to go in search of something to eat. There were a few restaurants close to the hotel but they looked very sterile. We noticed a market that had lots [View Full Entry]

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