500 forever

Yes the card school was in session last night.  We  called into the Hunky Dory fish shop near Puckle St. before that. Seems this is a new franchise, more restaurant than chip shop. It was pricey but also tasty. The best calamari I've had for a while as well as the huge scallops. On the card front there seems to be a stir about the King of Hearts having his moustache shuffled off.  There are decks with it on and decks with it off.  So which deck are we meant to be using?

World Aths 2015

I'm not convinced about Kenya leading the medal table and also dominating it by being double the Gold medal tally of the USA. But if you have some team members doing drugs then the team needs a closer examination particularly if you are suddenly leading the world.  Australia needs to pick up its socks as host of the next Commonwealth games in 2018.  We have three years to get something happening. One medal seems a lowly result so far.

Medals Table

Rank	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Kenya	6	3	2	11
2	United States	3	4	5	12
3	Jamaica	3	0	2	5
4	Great Britain & N.I.	3	0	0	3
5	Poland	2	1	3	6
6	Cuba	2	1	0	3
7	Germany	1	2	2	5
8	Ethiopia	1	2	0	3
9	Canada	1	1	2	4
10	South Africa	1	0	1	2

Are Insulators like Little Creatures?

We rendezvoused at little Creatures Brewery for a chinwag about family history.  Its a long story but it turns out that ELR Roberts has made a batch of glass insulators that are now worth $1000 each if you can find one.  Thanks to Paul and Noel we now have some more information about the insulators. No matter what it is someone will be interested in collecting it and Noel is the No1 collector of insulators in Australia.

Little Creatures

Noel's Insulator Heaven

Panel Frame Photos

This is a transient photo frame where pictures remain for a time but are then replaced. Currently I have just updated it with some photos of Europe 2015 which I will describe from top left down to bottom right.  From our deck in Cortina D'Ampezzo at the Grand Hotel Savoia we could see a church that rang bells at all odd hours.  The Victory Column is in Berlin celebrating a Prussian win. The hotels are often art gallery. This quirky guy is trying to find a power point.  The birdcage was a chairlift up Mount Capenne on Elba. The Sirmione Peninsula in Lake Garda has a huge Roman ruined Villa named Villa Catullus.  The Cinque Torre is a mountain in the Dolomites. Binz is a beach town in Germany where the rescue Stations are every km. The tower near Ufizzi Gallery in Florence. A Roman arch in Trieste. Sunset on Elba from the Grand Villa Otone Hotel. The cable car to Tofana. David in Florence. Our Saviours church steeple. It has a circular path up the outside. Singapore statue. Sirmione ruined Villa Catullus.

Euro iteration 2015

Euro 2015 Picture Frame

In keeping with the many ways of "remembering" there is nothing like a multi photo wall hanging as seen below.  I need to document it though as I am already forgetting where each photo was taken from earlier trips. There are four 5x7's down the left hand side. The top is Nyhavn in Copenhagan. Good atmosphere and people watching but pricey food. Below that is Cinque Torre in the Dolomites, great walking in this area.  Continuing down is a cross section of the Berlin Wall and at the bottom the Turning Torso building in Malmo. The largest is a 6x8 landscape which shows the Dolomites from lake Di Landro. The remaining 9 are 6x4's showing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai,  the Knotted Gun in Malmo, Sunset in Florence, Hans Christian Anderson in Copenhagan, the Duomo in Florence, a model with staircase in the Savoia Excelsior Palace Hotel in Trieste, The Castello Scaligero in Sirmione featuring its ship enclosure, the Grande Hotel Otone on Elba and lastly next to it the fountain at the Dubai Mall.

Euro 2015

Grill'd in Puckle

Went to the Grill'd eatery in Puckle St.  Not too many gladioli's on view but I recommend this place.  There was plenty of room and the food arrived quickly.  They have a bottle top scheme where you put your bottle top in one of three jars then at the end of the month the club with that jar gets $300 and the other two get $100.  What got me was that one club is North Old Boys footy club which I played some games for around 40 yar ago. Elsewhere in this blog I mentioned that the school is closed so there are no more old boys coming through so where are they getting the players?  It may be through one of the old feeder schools. I never thought about the footy club and its history when the school closed so I guess an amalgamation would have happened but not with a fruit company.



The griller

 

Hakuna Matata

I never saw the Lion King when it first came to town 12 yar ago but I did check out the matinee version today.  I think these guys were doing the puppet approach before the "Warhorse" show which I also saw a couple of years back. This was a good show that I would recommend. Not sure how many kids skipped school but it was at least one quarter of the Regent theatre. Don't forget to save up for the extras. Like the new world record we spent on parking at $70 for 3.5 hrs. Then there is the $25 book and the $41 spent on three drinks. Oh well Hakuna Matata.

I still think "Shere Khan" is a better lion name than "Mufasa" or "Simba". "Scar" is not bad though.

 

 

Coast to Coast

Walking from one coast of England to the other side is a mean feat and doing it in 10 days like our mate Bill just did is a foot breaker particularly when you are nudging 60.  In the younger days we would have been carrying all our stuff. But it seems to me even then you couldn't walk 320 odd kms in 10 days without some sort of assistance. So the WAGs have an important role here not just the ferry service to the start and from the end each day but also the clothes washing, feeding etc.  I think I would cut down the distance and limit it to three days.  But what to call this type of walk. I don't believe it is a retiree's ramble more like chauffeured walking. The terms pampered walking have been uttered but maybe supported walking describes the method best.

Google Map Tips - alt 0176

I have numerous photo projects to complete after a trip one of which is to plot our track in Google maps. The philosophy being that if you have paid the time and the money on the trip then you should record and relive it as many ways as possible. You can also export this route to a file and import it to google earth where you can display a flypast of your trip.  I digress. Previously I have positioned each photo by already knowing its location. You can also type the co-ords from the photo into the google maps search box and let google locate the point. The trick is to get the format just right eg

53°33'27.78"N 10°13'16.6"E

 

This is the exact format, so type in the degree sign ° by using ALT 0176 which is the secret code.  Once I finish this map I can move onto the other photo projects eg the display board in the lounge or the more permanent wall picture frame or the newest addition to the list the "jigsaw puzzle".

 

 

On Display





Jimmy the Squire

I thought the noise in the James Squire Pub was loud enough for a Thursday night but when you get a bunch of bookkeepers together the noise suddenly goes up, especially after they have been hyped up at the Xero Con, Convention that is not Con Job. Docklands is only 15 minutes away so we may explore some of the other eateries there. I recommend the "Farmer Parma".

James Squire

Believe it or Not ...

I always take some reading material along on a trip mainly for the waiting periods between planes, trains and automobiles. I brought a copy of "Narrow Road to the Deep North" by Richard Flanagan. It's not the cheeriest holiday reading. Nevertheless this is an award winning book about the horrible treatment of Australian POWs in building the Burma railway.
How's this for coincidence. Early on, the main character Dorrigo Evans is perusing a bookshop when the love interest walks in. He picks a book off the shelf to hide behind because she is looking at him.
She sidles over and asks "What's the book?" He says "Catullus - A Roman poet".

 I can't believe I was about to visit Gaius Valerius Catullus' Villa in Sirmione and the book I am reading is quoting some of his stuff.

Let us live and love

And not care tuppence for old men

Who sermonise and disapprove

Suns when they sink can rise again

But we, when our brief light has shone,

Must sleep the long night on and on.

 

 

Catullus Mega Villa

 

Makes you wonder how much a Roman poet can earn when he can build a house 400 m long by 200m wide. But if his book is still around after 2000 yar then .. Believe it or Not.



 



Euro 2015 Summary

Just trying to sum up the experience this time around. I will try to list the best ofs.

The best beach is in Binz. It had real sand with lots of beach bars and shade options.
The best airport is Changi in Singapore as was also the best park being Gardens by the Bay.
The best hotel was Dei Castelli right at the end in Sestri Levante. This was part museum part hotel, it was spread across three castles. The grounds included rock pool swimming as well as cliff like walking paths and the Marconi tower.
The best experience was in the Dolomites, including walking, bike riding and historic WWI exploring. This was closely followed by the Sirmione peninsula where Gaius Valerius Catullus built his villa.
The best shopping was in Florence along with an amazing outdoor orchestral concert.

Dei Castelli

Built a Grand Design

Bag4Fit

Spent two days trying to wash all of the clothes we took on the trip. The washing was OK but the drying was the problem. This Winter business takes some getting used to. As well as that, the annual hard rubbish collection is on so we have dismantled a bed, removed an old table and manhandled a heavy duty indoor bike machine out to the front. We brought back numerous presents. 3 kilos of books and a 3 kilo exercise machine. One machine goes out the front and another one moves in.

Emirates films

I waded through another 10  films on the way back. The Water Diviner is worth a look but leans more towards fiction than fact. True Story and Cleveland Abduction are very true but the content is fairly unsavoury. Tomorrowland is a kids show with typical Disney sugar coating.  When you are half asleep already and its 1:00am and they are feeding you a meal, I tend to forget what film I am trying to watch. I know I watched some others.

Emirates has the best Entertainment System.

SuperTree Dining

Four years ago we visited Gardens by the Bay after the domes were completed. At that time there were other sections still under construction, including the SuperTree restaurant. You always find something different in this huge park. Anywhere else in the world and you would pay $20 just to get in.  This time around we found the large fish tank, the KingFisher statues, the children's waterpark and the cactus garden. These have all been completed in the last four years.
We went up the highest supertree for lunch. The foliage is progressing up each tree. I would say that the trunks are now filled in and the crowns are next to be populated. This might take some years.

SuperTrees

Fullerton Light Show

Currently we are unwitting participants in a night time light show where the lighting and sound projection are aimed directly at our hotel room.  It is similar to the White Night experience where scenes are displayed on the outside of the building. In this case the Fullerton being the former very grandiose post office and one of only a few older buildings, is being targeted for the 50th birthday celebrations.  However on the hour every night at 8:00, 9:00 and 10:00pm the world outside gets very colourful and loud and when you go out on the balcony to investigate, half of Singapore are gathered down below to see you emerge in your jockey shorts like the Queen greeting the masses. How Regal.

Fullerton day time

Our Balcony is above the columns

Marina Bay

 

The Polo Club

Yes grab some mallets, a ball, 8 horses and riders an umpire and of course 400 metres by 100 metres of very prime, flat, buildable land (rarer in Singapore) and you have a polo match. We met the Carney's at the Singapore Polo Club for dinner. Now this is a page out of your Colonial English expansion era and it is still here. Most of old Singaore buildings are gone but not this.  I found what happened here in 1965. It was on the 9th August when Singapore went its own way as an independent nation, after Lee Kuan Yew tried to integrate into a larger Malaysia.

A rare paddock

Ponies not Horses

More Singapore

Yes we find ourselves in Singapore again.  A good spot to get off the plane. We are at the Fullerton Hotel not to be confused with where we were last year at the Fullerton Bay Hotel just over the road. Both are opulent and worth a look.  It has taken 24 hours to get here and we need a snooze before catching up with the Carney's this evening.  There is a 50th birthday celebration here but I am not sure what happened in 1965.

French Alps from Milan terminal

Fullerton Hotel Atrium

Marconi's Sunset

One last thing we discovered at the top of the hill behind the castle was a round tower built by Marconi in 1935. He won a Nobel prize for his demo from the tower of blind naval navigation using radio waves. We stayed on until sunset and saw a very good one from a high vantage. There was boat action, yacht action and a cruise ship cruising past as they do. The sky colours were good to end another Europe adventure.



Marconi's Tower

Sunset on 2015

Lake Maggiore 2018



The Rock Pool

Spent the afternoon at a cleft in the rock that has been made into a pool. Before that we climbed the hill at the back of the castle for a good view over the bay. The pool has its own lift down through the hillside. They have used a lot of concrete to shore up this place but at least there were chairs.

from Torre Marconi

I'm being followed by a pool tunnel

Pool