Thursday, December 30, 2010
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| Would you take us to Hunter Valley? |
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| Welcome to the Vintage |
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| Our room was a mirror of this one |
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| It was cold, but we really wanted to jump in the pool |
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| And this is why we wanted to jump in the pool... The view |
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| From the restaurant |
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| Another picture of the restaurant... from the outside |
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| Our chef |
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| (Quoting Matt Preston...) Disgustingly GOOOOD! The image is huge... It also contains stitching issues... |
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| Ooooooh YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! |
| Our bed... before I took possession of it. |
| Decorations... |
| First dish, Salmon pastrami with Pyengana crisp, pickled cucumber, salad burnet and herbs jus |
| More wine... |
| Second dish, Four spiced bbq quail with a salad of green mango, toasted coconut, asian herbs and line caramel |
| Dessert, Blue cheese mousse with spiced pear puree and fruit toast |
| Well yes... someone got a rubber chicken! |
| Kathy got Aussie-Slangs! Woohoo! |
Labels: chirstmas, hunter valley
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
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| This year Santa was wondering if he really wanted to keep going around the world after he saw a nice weather down under |
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| We manage to draw a suspect detected in Sydney's north shore surfing with a bunch of animals... (no Rudolf seen on the scene) |
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| Screw you Rudolf!!! Here it comes roo-dolf! |
Edit: Thanks to Snap for sharing the Six White Boomers.
| Yup... We had to take every single plate we had. |
| Mixture of traditions... What do you think about it? |
| Jack-o the Snowman was the vigilante in our table. |
| Hopefully everyone enjoyed the evening |
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| Great game... Looks AWESOME in 3D |
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| Intense and great fitting programs... |
Sunday, December 26, 2010
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| Did someone said something about Christmas and tasty bread? Image taken from BlastOButter |
What do I need to cook Christmas bread?
| Yup, at the end my first batch... getting fat as I took the picture. |
- Yeast (3 tea spoons)
- Sugar (1 cup and 1 table spoon)
- Salt (1 tea spoon)
- Cooking oil (5 table spoon)
- Eggs (5 eggs plus another one to be used at the end)
- Milk (1 cup and a little bit... almost 1 and ¼ cup)
- Plain flour (1 kilogram and some other 200 grams for knead)
- Butter (100 grams, melted)
- Water (1 cup)
- Sliced smoked ham (250 to 300 grams per bread... If you are Jewish change it to turkey or chicken breast ham)
- Sliced bacon (200 grams... again if you want to remove the pork change it to turkey bacon)
- Raisins or sultanas (180 grams)
- Green olives without seeds (1 cup)
- Chopped capers (2 table spoons)
- Beers (six-pack... that’s for you... you need to be entertained while cooking...)
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Bowl big enough to mix up everything
- Rolling pin
- Trays
Note!The yeast is a living thing and need a warm place to keep growing... The cloth will prevent the mix from dropping its internal heat and will allow the yeast to breath. That adds flavour... don’t use plastic wrap or let it in a cold environment. Some people have told me an urban legend saying that yeast can’t receive sunshine... That’s not true... In fact, if the sun is strong and hot enough you might want to put your bowl outside to receive some sun till is ready.
Note!Let's create a reference point. I have my rectangle in front of me, being long from left to right.
| As I am describing it. |
Note!If you want the bacon to be well spaced, chop it into little pieces and spread it.
Note!The toothpicks aren't that important for the cooking process, but will allow cooking the bread completely while maintaining the shape (because it will try to expand a lot). The toothpicks will give you as well an indication of how well cooked the inside is... The picture shows the bread is well cook inside because it was no gooey bits.
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| As shown, is gooey... |
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| That's good! |
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| Mmmmmmmmm... looks nice! |
Labels: christmas, christmas bread, pan de jamon
Monday, December 6, 2010
This blog post is part of a bigger compilation. If you are interested on read it from the start. Click here.
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| Vivid... One of the Sydney events that shows the Opera House as a colourful magnificent piece of art |
So, back to our story… It was 3:30 P.M and we were already queued and waiting to enter for very first time to the building where everyone that has come to Australia has taking at least one picture with it; and then a sheila approached to us (we thought that she was in her 40ish) asking for directions…
‘Where is information?’ she asked.
‘Uhms… I dunno… but I can see from here a guide box… Maybe there is information…’ I said.
‘No… is not… I have been there… Do you know if I need to provide any kind of confirmation for this [the Open Day]?’ she replied
‘I really don’t know… this is our first time… but if you want my husband could go with you to find where it is. And maybe check if we are too early…’ Kathy replied and I thought (Ouh! Thanks!)
So we approached to a girl with a ‘SOH-OpenDay’ t-shirt and she kindly checked out papers saying at the very end ‘don’t worry… I think most of the people leave these papers home and we don’t check them in the afternoon…’
I started walking at the same time the woman asked ‘do you mind if I stay with you? You wife seems nice and I am alone…’
‘Yeah, sure… no worries’ I said
‘Where are you from?’ She asked and I started thinking… damn accent!
‘From Venezuela…’ Kathy replied
‘Oh, nice… Is that… South America?’
‘Yes Ma’am’
‘Good… I am from Thailand… I have been here for more than 35 years! How long have you been here?’
‘A bit more than a year’ Kathy replies.
‘A year? Oh my… I thought that you had more than 5 years! Your English is great! Does Venezuelan speak English in their daily basis?’
‘No. We speak Spanish every single day… My wife practiced since Uni and myself… well I learned it when I was a teenager… I think my English isn’t that good though…’
She looked a bit shocked for the last statement (I have no idea if she felt that I was not giving her enough credit to her comment) and changed the topic to the Opera House, saying that in 35 years she didn’t has come the first time and wanted to take a picture of everything…
Once in it was difficult to keep together so she started walking on her own and we started taking pictures of every little corner of the Opera House…. I even thought to take pictures of the bathroom (with their waving shape) but decided that it wasn’t a good idea to go in the bathroom, camera in hand and start taking pictures =P
Obviously we captured images till the memory was full… we walked everywhere and enjoyed every minute of our presence.
100% recommended.
Anyway, you already have the month of the Open day just in case you are planning to visit Sydney!
Labels: Sydney, Sydney Events, Sydney Opera House Open Day
This blog post is part of a bigger compilation. If you are interested on read it from the start. Click here.
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| The Rocks. Starting point of our walking experience |
Ending the Anzac Bridge... Already? Uh! P.I.E.C.E O.F C.A.K.E as in Piece of cake!
Somewhere at the end of the Iron Cove Bridge... Boy... is these people going faster or are we getting slower??? Nah... they are just trying to get ahead a little bit... We will catch up on the next one.
Stating Gladesville Bridge... Oh! There is the pain again... and where the bloody hell went those guys? Oh I can barely see them at the end of the bridge... we will totally catch up with them on the next one...
Totally...
Stating Tarban Creek Bridge... did those f**king blokes start running or what? Bloody knee... I hate you knee... I just get one of those robotic knees my buddies at work comment on every week...
Fig Tree Bridge... f**king painful f**king knee that doesn’t f**king work as I f**king want to! I am going to blame the f**king shoes as well... 13 kilometres and my feet are in pain??? Piece of crap...
Somewhere in Woolstonecraft... f**king f**k f**k! An old woman has just left me behind? Pain or not I am not going to let this happen... (Opened my mouth and said to Kathy) Come on... let’s walk faster that oldie just passed us by... we need to make the effort to at least match her!
Somewhere close to Milson’s Point village... I can’t feel my legs... this is not good... I shouldn’t have tried to beat that woman... certainly she could be the mother of those bastards at the middle of the event.
Come on knee... don’t fail me now!
Somewhere finishing the Harbour Bridge... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close... We’re close...
OH F**KKKKKKKKKK more stairs?
It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts... It hurts...
(handing over my passport to get the last stamp) we have finished! We have finished! We have finished! ....
The girl smiles to me and says ‘congratulations you have finished the 7 bridges walk’ and I keep waiting for her to pop up a giant poster with the map and a stamp saying ‘walk completed’, just like we had the year before... but... nothing... NOT A THING AT ALL........ then she told me to move on because the old lady was getting her stamp to keep walking to her next checkpoint.
Yes.... the same that left me behind in Woolstonecraft.... probably she did a loo stop and that was when I went ahead...
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| Yeah... she looks like an angel... but is pure evil... I tell'ya... PURE E.V.I.L |
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| 1600 calories burned during the day... 2000 calories gained back in one meal... |
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| Maybe I am starting to understand why the event was so hard on me... |
Something interesting to point was watching several houses with Halloween decorations. Partially because we didn’t expected but mainly because lots of people told us how Halloween is a foreign thing for the US totally alien to Aussie culture.
Well... I think this is a sum up of the Sydney Crave events... we will post some more soon...
Cheerios
Labels: Seven Bridge Walk, Sydney, Sydney Events
Believe it or not I have been writing this post for at least 8 days (maybe more) and trying to post it for almost four weeks… It has been a bit weird to have the idea developed to its fullest and then not know how to put it on paper (e-paper) or what images to set up… And believe me when I tell you that I am the kind of guy that doesn’t publish if the post doesn’t have the right ideas or images to enhance it.
These posts started as a conglomerate of ideas related to different event of October and it materialised into a bunch of posts (that requires tons of works, but looks great afterwards). Hope you find it entertaining and leave a comment if you want.
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| Images speak by themselves Don't get me wrong, I love fall... But this is not what I can see everyday walking to work. |
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| And yes, I remember that October is pretty well known by Halloween... |
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| Jacaranda trees |
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| Another Jacaranda tree |
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| And some Fire tree which a Jacaranda tree as background. |
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| What about this flowers? |
So I have come to tell you about recent events in our life since September in a not-so-confusing-that-you-won't-try-to-commit-suicide way.
I have so many things to tell… I know, I know… I have been away for quite a while now, but work and some other stuff keep me busy; and trying to find the spot to write a little bit and shape the idea in my head wasn’t as easy as I wanted or expected.
So I have come to tell you about recent events in our life since September in a not-so-confusing-that-you-won’t-try-to-commit-suicide way.
Spring started with September, but the days have been changing between cold and warm every 5 to 7 days and long weeks of just pouring rain… Australians pouring rains (which in comparison to America, these rains are nothing else than drizzles)… and the changes in the weather oscillate between 8C to 26C in just 12 or 16 hours. All that had a direct impact in our health (negative impact) sending us to the deep jaws of sickness at least for 3 weeks; but that didn’t diminish the desire to participate in the Sydney Crave Festival or the Sydney’s Seven Bridges Walk (which is part of the same Sydney Crave event).
Sydney Crave is a international event celebrated in every corner of Sydney. Includes events such as:
- Sydney Morning Herald International Food Festival (Yummy!!)
- Sydney harbour Island hopping
- Breakfast on the bridge
- Eat Street Sunday
- Darling Harbour Fiesta
- Sydney Opera House Open Day (to read my post click here)
- Seven Bridges Walk (to read my post click here)
Of which we wanted to assist to the Breakfast on the bridge, Darling Harbour Fiesta, the Open day and the seven bridges walk as we did last year.
So the first thing we tried to do was the Breakfast on the bridge… but we didn’t get the invitation, to which I am going to file a formal complaint to ‘Breakfast on the Bridge’ for not picking me to participate…
Why? Well… because it could have been extremely special for us to be in the harbour bridge, with some of this views!
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| One of those could've been me! |
Plus it was our anniversary since our arrival to this wonderful land… So we kind of wished to have a special moment in the harbour. Oh well, it will be next time.
Moving on… Kathy wanted to go to the Darling Harbour Fiesta, which is a festival for Latin-Americans, in which some good Latin-American artists have done presentations. This year’s performers were from Mexico, Colombia and Argentina and even though I wanted to take a look to the tango dancers we decided not to go, given our very limited understanding or knowledge of most of the artists.
As you might guess… No pictures (or comments) related to that event…
With those events checked off the list, the next items were
Sydney Opera House – Open Day
And the Seven Bridges Walk
Friday, December 3, 2010
What can I tell you... I have been trying to recompose myself to write a little bit about the FIFA World Cup bid results.
Despise the brilliant advertising campaign made by the Australian government…
Despise the incredible message… ‘Bring the cup to an ancient land and young nation’ and the fact that Asia is going to become one of the biggest economical powers by 2020… the FIFA has decided that Qatar is better to host that magnificent event.
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| The roo is just sad... But no worries, we will hop again... |
They had decided that Qatar, rich in money but with limited man power to move the entire world cup was better than this marvellous land that has never taken the cup as its home…
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| Qatar, grow as fast as possible and do your best... |
For that I just need to say… Thank you… Ignorant and stupid FIFA
Labels: World Cup
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Do you know the story of 'when roo took the cup'?
No?
Well... here you have it!
Labels: Come and Play, World Cup









































