Lots of parrots

Our photo wall

I think that lots of my new blog posts are going to be about parrots.  We drove back home today to find all the cockatoos patiently waiting for us.  We'd been at the shops printing out a selection of photos that we had taken in the last year to make a "photo wall".  Tomorrow we're off to some garden centres to buy a lemon tree.

Sha is now an expert at making durian pasties.

We're both off to Parkes on Tuesday leaving Xinping in our house to feed the guinea pigs.

First impressions

We have a house!

Strange creature inside the house

You can keep drinking until the lines start to wobble

We found a use for the cutlery holder that didn't fit in our
kitchen

The view that I get each morning when leaving for work

We have a house!!  It's tall.   If you drive back from work (which is a bit pointless as it's quicker to walk) you first have to get yourself into the car port.  That's interesting as nothing seems to follow a straight line and is on an impressive slope.  You then walk up some stairs into the back garden.  From there you could, if necessary, walk onto the roof of the car port and perch yourself on the top along with the cockatoos.  In fact, as I was just getting the burnt croissants out of the oven a minute ago I saw a random guy smoking a cigarette on the roof.  Our garden is now full of cardboard boxes, two empty plant holders and a BBQ.    The plants that we put down have been eaten by the cockatoos.

Then you walk up some more steps into the dining area.  We don't have a curtain yet as Sha and I cannot agree on the colour or pattern.  Anyway, the curtain rail has been attached by a "real man" with a big drill.

You then have lots of options ...

If you turn left you enter our kitchen which must have been the height of fashion on 1971.  We have a new oven that burns the croissants.

Going straight a little and then turning left takes you to the laundry.  We have a drier that was stuck upside down on the wall by another "real man" and his son.  The real man scratched our wooden floors.  I managed to put up the plastic bag holder, but that has now fallen off.

If you go straight (past the IKEA dining table, that I put together all on my own and hasn't fallen down yet) then you reach the storage space.  It is not very exciting.

You can then continue upstairs to our level 4 (car port = 1, garden = 2, dining area = 3).  You have then reached the ground floor and can leave through the front door and our front garden.  Our front garden has some unidentifiable trees growing in it and possum droppings on the wall.  The living room has stripy wallpaper, lots of IKEA furniture and two guinea pigs.  The room has lots of lights (some of which actually work).

Continuing upstairs to level 5 you get to the spare room which currently contains a bed and my cello.  It has a view over the cockatoo landing areas.  I'm sure that our visitors will not require an alarm clock.  That level also contains the bathroom.

As you continue up to level 6 you pass some lights that are stuck high up on the ceiling and will be completely impossible to change.  Level 6 contains our bedroom and my new little study area.  The shelves in my study were put up by the "real man" with his big drill.

There also is an attic to give us 7 levels in our house, but I haven't brought the ladder upstairs yet and so I haven't looked in it.

Still alive

Hello!! This is just to check whether my blog still works :)

The Quest of King Zhao of Yan for a Capable Man

I should be writing about Tasmania, or Sha's parents in Australia, or work, or something.  Instead, I've been inspired by the book that I'm reading "Tales from 5000 Years of Chinese History - Volume 1" to write a story.  Here goes:

After King Huai of Chu was defeated at the hands of King Chu of Huai, King Zhaoziang of Qin decided to search for a capable man. However King Zhaoziang of Qin's son, Gongzi Zilan, disapproved of this idea.  He therefore killed his father, King Zhaoziang of Qin and went to a meeting in Wuguan (southeast of Danfeng County in Shaanxi Province).  At the meeting, Gongzi Zilan met King Zhao of Yan who tied daggers to the horns of his 1000 bulls and set fire to their tails.   This led to King Zhaoziang of Qin abdicating in favour of his son, Yue Yi, who was subsequently renamed King Gou Jian of Yue.  He knew that alone he couldn't conquer Qi and therefore formed an alliance with King Fu Chai of Wu and his advisor Ping.  King Min of Qi was scared by this alliance and therefore invited his prime minister, Meng Changjun and favourite concubine, to plan their defence.  Unfortunately, the defence failed and they all had their noses cut off.    King Fu Chai of Wu was deeply touched by all he saw.


----

I may not have the history completely correct, but that seems to be the gist of early Chinese politics.

Day 2 in Tasmania

Guarding Eaglehawk neck

I should continue writing about Tasmania before I forget everything that we did.  I'm getting far too behind in this blog.  Today, we had a walk in the Kuring-Gai national park, yesterday we saw the fireworks, the day before we hiked in the Lane Cove National Park (which reminded Sha's mum of where she and her friends secretly used to watch the firing squads executing the condemned prisoners). Another rather embarrassing cultural difference was at midnight last night.  At exactly midnight I held out my glass to say cheers, but everyone else was requesting a wish from a God. Sha's mum thought that I was very funny.


On the second day, we checked out of the hotel and then went to look at the chain of dogs that used to stand guard across Eaglehawk bay.  At Eaglehawk bay the land is so narrow that the guard dogs were placed in a line stopping any convicts trying to escape.  The small museum was excellent and Sha's dad sat on a statue of a fierce dog.  We then went on to the Wildlife park to show Sha's parents a Tasmanian devil.  We started with an excellent bird show (but, as always in Australia, the native birds that were just flying around were as interesting

This parrot was not meant to be part of the bird show

as the birds in the show -- we had to wait a while as a huge wedge-tailed eagle flew overhead).  We saw some baby Tasmanian devils.

We then went to the exhibition of "tree cutting and chocolate making" and bought some chocolate.  We checked-in at our hotel (in the style of an old English pub), went for a short walk around and then went to visit Port Arthur.  Port Arthur is massive and impressive!  We started on a boat tour to see what the convicts would have seen as they arrived.  Actually, it looked very nice and pretty.  I'm sure that it didn't in the past!

In the evening we went for a walk to the bay near our hotel and watched some huge sting-rays (or something similar) swim around.  Then we went for a very odd walk in what seemed to be a lost garden.  There were obvious signs of paths, bridges etc., but everything was falling down and we had to push our way through the bushes. 

We saw a lot of wallabies.

Our hotel in Port Arthur

The bay next to our hotel

The first view of Port Arthur

The island of the dead (and a cruise ship)

The rays in the bay

An interlude: to the Jenolan Caves

 

Christmas Day kite flying!

Ready for lunch?

Getting ready to make the pavlova

It's ready!

Eel in the botanical gardens

It's hard to keep up with this blog.  On Christmas Day we had a massive, traditional Christmas lunch.  This included turkey and even brussel spouts (but Sha's dad only let me boil them for about 20 minutes).  Sha also made lots of cupcakes, a pavlova and we had a Christmas pudding.  It was a massive feast.   I spent a lot of the day trying to get X-Plane10 installed, but then was disappointed to find that Sydney airport is in the wrong place :(  Sha's dad had also found me a bonsai tree.   My New Year resolution will have to be that I don't kill the tree!

The waves were a little big for swimming

My Chinese is getting worse.  On Boxing Day, I kept asking Sha's dad whether he wanted to go back home on a "princess" (instead of a "bus").  That led to some confusion.  And, I've just told him that I don't want any more breakfast because I'm drunk (I meant to say "enough"). 

Arrival at the Jenolan Caves

Look at the colour of the water

On Boxing Day we tried to see the start of the Sydney-Hobart boat race, but we didn't go far enough around the harbour to see the start.  Instead we watched the eels in the botanic gardens and then Sha''s dad and I went on the ferry to Manly.  We walked around for half-an-hour and then took the boat back again.  There were some large waves!!

Yesterday we went to the Jenolan Caves.  It's a long way.  It took about 3 hours each way and the last 20km or so is on a rather dramatic, windy road.  Everything is fine until a crazy 4wd comes from the opposite direction.  At the end the carpark was full and we had to drive up another windy, dirt road to find another carpark.  We went on the "diamond" tour that took us through some spectacular caves and then down to an underground river. 

A troll that we found in the caves

Day 1 in Tasmania: around the Peninsula

The beach somewhere near Doo Town

After a lunch of Fish 'n' chips and being unable to convince Sha to go on a boat ride, we decided to drive around the Peninsula and find a place to have a hike.  We first had a quick look at a beach where we thought the penguins might sleep before deciding to do a walk to the Devil's Kitchen and then on to Waterfall Bay.  Sha thought that she might be able to get something more to eat at the Devil's Kitchen, but unfortunately was disappointed. 

The walk was great.  Lots of cliff edges on one side and forests on the other. On the way back, Sha's dad found a "furry triangle" that turned out to be a small wallaby.    After the walk, we continued our drive and spotted three echidnas in a garden.  We then got lost, but found a very white beach (called "white beach").

Walking to the Waterfall Bay

We drove back through Port Arthur looking for somewhere to eat.  I'd expected Port Arthur to be a little town, with ice cream shops, a supermarket and some small restaurants.  Unfortunately, it wasn't. It is a convict prison and has lots of hotels.  So we kept driving and had a very fun, but slow, dinner at our hotel.  The ladies sitting next to us had cycled from Hobart, but were going to take the bus back! 

Waterfall bay

In the evening, we drove back out to look for the penguins.  Whilst waiting for it to get dark (it didn't get dark until about 9pm), we won breakfast by winning the three-legged race and then we went searching for the penguins.  Instead we found a water rat and were feeling a bit upset, but then we found a penguin sitting on the path next to our car!

White Beach

A very long and enjoyable day! :)