In chronological order: Sydney

To be honest, I was expecting my 6 hours in Sydney to be a boring waiting period before the real fun began - Bangkok! As often happens, this did not go to plan. While my first night in Bangkok was AWFUL, my day in Sydney was absolutely glorious and one of the nicer days of my life.

In my brief time there I managed to stroll through the Museum of Contemporary Art which was housing an exhibit on protest art (awesome!) and an entire floor of amazing digital art and video art. I thought a lot about lovely Jenna and the kinds of cool company she finds herself in (conceptually I mean, I'm not calling myself cool).

After my compulsory dose of High Culture, I headed for the more mass produced work of Paddy's Market. For anyone who hasn't been, this is a sprawling market housed in a brick industrial building where you can buy pretty much anything from organic chinese cabbage to oversize (and I mean oversize) calculators. I felt like I had already landed in Asia:


But no, there was still a distinctly Australian feel:


More on Sydney coming up! (for those not -in the know- it does not take four days to travel to Sydney, I am in fact in Chiang Mai now, but I thought I'd use this stationary month to gradually post things as I find the time/ inclination).

Question: If you could have any one of the undies/ soft toys/ dinosaur model things - which one would you choose? (you may want to click on the image for close-up detail to help with this important decision).

UBSeeya!

Today was my final day at the lovely bookshop I have come to love and loathe in equal measure. I feel quite melancholic about leaving. But just incase I was getting sooky, Niki made me delicious fudge and then chose the UBS leaving present for me. It is an AMAZING (!!) book called "Around the World with Mouk: a Trail of Adventure" about a small Parisian bear called Mouk who decides to travel the world, but keeps in contact with his lovely friends back home the whole time. It is written and, more importantly, illustrated by Marc Boutavant - a Parisian designer/ illustrator/ man about town. He's quite beautiful too. But anyway,

what is super beautiful is the cover of my book:

It makes me feel very positive about my current life choices.

Nautical Girls: Pei and Jing

I was having a birthday lunch with my mother at Fleur's in Moeraki (my favourite restaurant within a 200km radius of Dunedin) when I noticed these two ridiculously cute, stunning girls across the room. I nervously psyched myself up to go and ask them to let me take their photos, Anthony egging me on, and when I did they were completely sweet.

Pei (to the left to the left) studies Japanese at Otago and Jing just finished her accounting degree. My favourite part was when I asked them if there was a special occasion (considering that Fleur's is over an hours drive from Dunedin and not very cheap) and they said
"No, we just thought it was a nice day for some seafood."

Note: Jing's beautiful scarf looks like a Hermes scarf, but isn't (she found it in Hong Kong... I cannot wait to get to Asia, continent of beautiful things, already). Also, I've never been able to work out how to wear a scarf well - now I know. Thanks Jing!

Spooky Friday the 13th Kareoke

Matt and Hugh - two of the best Kareoke-ers that I have ever seen. As you can clearly see from this photograph.

This boy knows the value of a good hairdresser!

His name is Pete, although I would rather call him Peter because it sounds more classic, and he studies contemporary rock music at Otago. He admits that his hair is heinously expensive, unsurprising as platinum is the most high maintenance thing to do with your hair. But maybe it's worth it when you get to look like the masculine version of a playboy bunny? (I mean this as a huge compliment, if there is any confusion..)

Not quite: "I want to go natural soon, I want people to know me for me - not just my hair"

NB: This is the first stranger I approached and asked to pose and I couldn't have picked a nicer person. Thanks Pete for dealing with my ridiculous requests and being so sweet about it!

MORE FM - A Pleasure To Look At

This morning I had to rise at the ungodly hour of 6:40am to the tunes of Christian Rock (it gets me up in the morning). I had to attend a Retail Awards morning on behalf of UBS (yes, I did get paid and yes, there was free breakfast and no, there was No Champagne...).

The morning was awash with business types spouting such truisms as "Telling is not Selling!" and our "Our job is to make the customer want to purchase products."

I was hysterical from the irony.

Sitting across from us was a woman in some executive position at More Fm, local mainstream radio station, speakly WAY too loudly for 7am and gesticulating wildly every time someone won anything. She was making polite chit-chat with her neighbouring breakfaster about businesses and getting up early in the morning, when suddenly her face turns earnest and she says:

"Would you rather lose your sight, or your hearing? It's something I think about very often."

The other woman, clearly taken aback, murmured some polite answer pertaining to the fact she would rather lose her hearing.

More Fm lady replies thoughtfully and nods: "yes! I think so too, because seeing is ... pleasure."
Earnest, melancholic look.

Excuse me, but can't hearing also fall into the category of pleasure? And shouldn't an executive of a RADIO STATION understand this better than anyone?! Apparently not at More Fm (hardly surprising given their taste in music) where the people IN CHARGE cannot even imagine a world where listening to something (all their 'audience' can do) is not a potentially enjoyable activity.

I could have also entitled this blog "What is wrong with the mainstream music industry:"

Where's Wally?

My wonderful MOM, my small Brother Lukas who cannot be found and my LOVE Tony.

Fantastic Robbie!

I become invisible in that thing.

And finally, a horror themed photo of my brother Lukas: