January 30, 2005
The King and I
It is cold in Beijing. It is that much more shocking coming from summer in Australia to winter in Northern China. Beijing is an amazing historical city with so many stories to tell. Thus far we have been learning about Chinese royalty and seeing the imperial palaces. It was an incredibly advanced, prosperous time for China. One thing is for sure, it is good to be the emperor.
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January 26, 2005
Free Lance Work for Todd
Found this beauty on the Alton Brown Blog. Todd we may have discovered another entire field of free lance work for you. Our sad kitchen aid is looking pretty plain jane right now.
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Riding the Deathstar and What's in a Name
We arrived in the bustling metropolis of Hong Kong after a long ride and some luggage difficulties from Australia. As if it wasn’t hard enough to reduce our worldly possesion to two suitcases each, we had the unfortunte discovery of learning that the 20 kilo (42 lbs) limit per person for luggage was going to be enforced by our airline carrier. One can take two pieces of luggage of 60lbs each out of
America, but you can only take 42 lbs per person total out of Australia on an international flight. So how does one get the other 42 lbs out of the country? Well at $5 per every 2.2lbs just to get our stuff to Syndey, we were in a big jam. Lukily our lifesaving friend Ruth was availible to take 50 lbs of lugage back to her home to be shiped sea mail at a later date. It still cost us $80AU to get our slightly over weight remaining lugage to Syndey. Thanks alot Jetstar.! :(
We met up with family in Hong Kong. It was really great to see my parents again. An important part of life in Hong Kong is one’s name engraved in a seal. It is actually more powerful than one’s signature and used for all types of official and unofficial buisness. Its so powerful, that people keep their seals locked in their home safe. We decided to make a seal for Erica. Of course, this required us to make a new Chinese name for Erica. So in the market, the elders from our family created a new name for Erica.
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January 22, 2005
Catcha' Launceston
It’s been an emotional week for me. Its has been a sad time of goodbyes and lasts in Launceston. We had our last walk in beautiful Cataract Gorge. Our last meals at some of our favorite restaurants. My last shift in Accident Emergency. Our last music lessons with our teachers. Our last Sunday at New Directions. Of course the most memorable ‘lasts’ was the time with freinds and colleagues. My colleagues at LGH Accident Emergency had a going away party for me and I was again reminded of how blessed I was to work with a woindeful team of caring and fun people. I was given and honorary authentic Aussie Akubra hat as a parting gift. It was an emotional but satisifying week to provide closure to our time in Launceston. Thanks for the memories eveyrone! We will miss you dearly!
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January 16, 2005
Our new home
If this doesn’t make you want to come visit us in New Zealand, I don’t know what will.
Check out these pictures of our new home in New Zealand!
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January 12, 2005
My favorite photos
As you know, we are going to China in a week. Of course, that means that our internet connections will be sporadic at best. Which is why we are going to leave you with a small collection of photos from Tasmania. This is not a marathon slideshow of our trip here; we will save that for you when we return, lucky you. These are some of my favorite memories preserved in pictures. I hope you enjoy them and I hope they are enough to tide you over until we settle in at Tauranga. Enjoy.
Click here for pictures of Tasmania.
By the way, there are a couple from other Australian states as well. I hope you will indulge me…
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January 09, 2005
Closing Time in Australia
Finally, click here for photos of bruny island.
I can’t believe that our time in Australia is almost coming to a close. It seems like this past 6 months were “choc a block” full of experiences. For some reason, I don’t feel like I have closure in Launceston yet. Maybe I don’t feel like I have had proper closure with the relationships that we have developed here. Perhaps, I’m just not looking foreward to re-learning the practice of emergency medicine in a different hospital with its own culture, values and peculiarities. Its probably that I hate to say good bye to a culture and surroundings that I am just starting to get comfortable with.
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January 03, 2005
Jet Set
So it’s been an incredibly busy time lately, but things are just getting started. I thought this would be a good time to tell you all Happy New Year! and also to let you know that we are going on a very exciting trip very soon. Yes, you say, we know, you are moving to New Zealand. But wait, there’s more!!
Yes folks, we have managed to squeeze another amazing trip in between moving from Australia to New Zealand. We’re going to China! We leave from Sydney on the 22 of January and arrive in Hong Kong late that night. I am so so so so excited.
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