Exciting letter

Dear Mr Hobbs

On behalf of the Government and people of Australia, I am delighted to advise that your application for Australian citizenship has been approved ... The final step in becoming an Australian citizen is to make the pledge of commitment. You will not be an Australian citizen until you have made the pledge ....

Chinese quotes

In Parkes. Parkes is good. The observing is fine. Lots of kangaroos. Missing Sha. I've been discovering translations of Chinese sayings. Here are a few:

He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.

Do not remove a fly from your friend's head with a hatchet.

A dish of carrot hastily cooked may still has soil uncleaned off the vegetable.

So there we go.

Forms are stupid ... floods are annoying

Happy New Year everyone. It's the Year of the Tiger (actually, it will be tomorrow). "The Tiger is ... a sign of bravery. This courageous and fiery fighter is admired by the ancient Chinese as the sign that keeps away the three main tragedies of a household. These are fire, thieves and ghosts." Sha and I haven't had too much trouble with fire, thieves or ghosts, but we have had problems with floods. We had our third flood in a couple of months last night. This time it wasn't my fault. The rain was torrential, the road was completely submerged, my rubbish bin went floating off down the road and our house got flooded. The carpet smells of mold. It's still raining.

I should be helping Sha make Jiao zi at the moment. Apparently making Jiao zi and playing Mah jong is traditional on New Year eve.

Forms are so silly. I've just been thanked on an automatic form for "shopping with the British High Commission". Sha's VISA application for Spain asks for her "Numero del documento de identidad (optativo)" which is different to her "Numero de passaporte". We have space for three characters to write "If you reside in a country other than your country of origin, have you permission to return to that country?. No Si/Yes (number and validity)"? What do you tick if do reside in your country of origin? We also have about 3 characters to fill in our "telephone and telefax" numbers. There's also an interesting box labelled "Personal data of the EU or EEA citizen you depend on"

We went to the aquarium with Willem last week. We're going into Chinatown tomorrow!

F is for the Flemington and Fish Markets and G for Gong yuan

We decided to ignore "E". "E" could be for Epping or Eastwood, but it did seem a bit silly to make that part of our travels around the Sydney area. Anyway, last week we moved on to "F" and headed off to the markets at Flemington. We bought a lot of fruit and six crabs. We then bought a steamer in order to cook the crabs. Sha can cook seafood so well!!

Yesterday we went to see Bran nu dae a very funny Aboriginal Australian film. I've been reading up more on the history of Australia as I've applied to become an Australian citizen. I decided to get hold of the controversial history book: "A short history of Australia" by Manning Clark. The 350-ish page book contains one page on the Indigenous population before the arrival of other groups of people. "The Europeans offered the Aborigines the previous gift of their civilization, abandon the life of the nomad, and become a labourer on the bottom rung of the ladder of Euopean society. But in the beginning the Aborigine resisted every attempt to approach him." and "On 26 January the convict transports moved into their new home as a handful of Aborigines on the shore set up a horrid howl ..." Apparently though such issues are not addressed on the Citizen test (apart, perhaps, for me having to declare that I understand that "the English language is an important unifying element of Australian society".

Today we went to "G for Gong Yuan" or the "Chinese Garden of Friendship". I like the garden. There were lots of big lizards, huge fish and it was very relaxing ambling around. Apparently the garden was made in conjunction with Sydney's sister city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, China.

We then jumped on a tram and headed off to the Fish market. We arrived near closing time, but still managed to pick up a heap of fish. This included some salmon that Sha intends to eat raw. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to take part in this or not. Anyway Sha cooked the most amazing scallops with something and something else. They were stunning.

A sunset

I can't think of much to write at 3:30am, but here are some more pictures. These are from the sunset this evening.

A few more pictures

Just a few more pics taken at the end of last year (in no particular order).

Windparked at Parkes

Being windparked at Parkes at 11:30pm is not so fun. However, it does mean that I can get a bit of work done (and finally update my blog). Sha, Yu Meng and I drove here a few days ago (stopping for a while in the Blue Mountains and to have lunch in Bathurst). It's Sha's first time at Parkes and she seems to be enjoying herself - she's got through the safety induction and also listened in on the observer training. The photos on this blog entry were taken by Sha (I haven't downloaded the photos from my camera yet).

Sha and Yu Meng have been helping me with my Chinese. I've written a story!! It's very exciting.

一个大袋鼠住在澳大利亚
袋鼠叫包子
今天包子在田野里吃草
包子有一个朋友叫莎
莎是一个白色小兔兔

which translates to: A large kangaroo lives in Australia. The kangaroo is called Bao zi. Today Bao zi is eating grass in a field. Bao zi has a friend called Sha. Sha is a white, small rabbit.

There you go!! What an exciting story.

Sha and I also just watched "The Dish" whilst sitting in "The Dish". Now I need another tea.