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Monthly Archives: May 2011

right after the easter break, noa and john were in sydney for two weekends in a row. brenda had piqued john’s curiousity about raw food over easter, so we invited them over for a raw dinner. our mutual friend rebecca (whom noa and i went to high school with) and her husband geremy (not a typo!) have also been keen to get a taste of gourmet raw food so it turned into a bit of a party. brenda prepared an amazing spread – corn chips, guacamole, lasagna and chocolate pudding (all raw!). any skeptics in the room were converted by the end of the night. geremy, who is a chef, has decided to try his hand at raw food and has promised to invite us over soon for a raw feast at his place!

nayou of course was overjoyed at the prospect of meeting play mates, old and new!

brenda has also been busy as a seamstress. on friday she converted one of her old sweaters into a new one for nayou! which is perfect, because it is starting to get seriously cold in sydney. the sun is still shining, but the chill is winning. nayou’s not going to be very cold though!

and here is what went down on saturday morning 🙂

 

this year for easter we went up to see noa and her parents in brisbane and the sunshine coast, respectively. i had an extra long holiday due to a public holiday right after easter monday, and the air fares were really cheap so it was a no brainer!

after nearly missing our flight thanks to a very tardy shuttle service, we managed to board with time to spare. nayou loves going on planes and its so cute to see him get excited about travelling! he occupied himself quite happily for most of the short flight.

we spent the first two days in brisbane with noa. driving through brisbane we barely saw any damage from the floods – just a couple of shuttered shops. they have done an amazing job picking themselves up!

noa has a really cute place in an area called annerley. nayou wasted little time settling in and attaching himself to noa. especially once he saw her babushka dolls 🙂 here he is helping her water her plants.

the best part of brisbane for me was our visit to the gallery of modern art (aka “the goma”). i love the exterior of the building, and the inside is just as beautiful as well. we managed to catch the final day of an exhibition looking at art in the 21st century. there was lots of interactive installations, including a lego table that nayou and i spent most of our time at.

we built a pretty cool turret thing.

the rest of our holiday was spent up at the sunshine coast with noa, her friend john, and her parents. her family and my family have been friends since i was in high school, so hanging out with them is a bit like a homecoming. brenda and nayou hit it off with them too which was really nice.


nayou was especially enamoured with noa’s dad – he warmed up to him within half an our of us being there and after that they were inseparable!

noa’s mum is one of the most respected suzuki teachers in the world. we all got in touch with our inner musician at her studio, which is in the lower half of their house.

the sunshine coast is very close to noosa, and one of the things we wanted to do was to go surfing. unfortunately it was rainy the whole time we were there, and the swell was very small. we made it out to a local beach for a swim, but will have to come back for some wave riding. it was really fun just hanging out and relaxing though! having lots of adults for nayou to play with makes life much easier for us, plus everyone has fun in the process so it was a win-win situation!

for our final night in queensland we went back to brisbane to stay with some friends from wellington. these were our friends who kindly stored our stuff in their garage while we were in mexico. unfortunately by that time we had left our camera in noa’s car so we didn’t get any snaps 🙁

we managed to take much more video than photos, so here are the greatest hits!

aya just keeps the good times coming. hot on the heels of our wonderful soiree at the arthur premiere, she scored us two tickets to go and see katy perry in concert last night. we even had a chance to meet her and have a chat! i ended up going with our friend john, who we met through noa over easter break. he was a good wingman to have as we both kept each other sane as the screams of teenage and not-so-teenage girls swirled around us.

we rocked up to the sydney entertainment center around 6.30, got our passes and went in. the meet & greet started at 6 so we were a bit late and had to wait outside the vip room for a while because the grumpy bouncer wouldn’t let us in. they were letting people in in groups so that everyone can spend some 1-on-1 time with katy. john and i eventually sneaked ourselves in with another group where we were greeted (and hence validated by mr. grumpy bouncer) by angela (katy’s sister).

the whole room had plastic lollipops, fairy floss with blinky lights in it, candy in jars and lots of pink clouds. it was a bit like walking into one of her music videos. john and i marvelled at it all and watch katy spending quality time with her fans. i was struck by how genuine she was with everyone. definitely no diva stuff going on there. eventually katy came up and introduced herself. we shot the breeze for about ten minutes and then angela ushered us away to make way for the next wave of fans. but not before i got her to sign a poster for my department at work. i put it up this morning and it has been a huge hit. many people walk by and don’t believe its real. but then i show them these photos 😉

the concert was pretty much everything you would expect – lots of pastel, costume changes, pyrotechnics, confetti, dancers, the works. katy definitely knows how to put on a good show. john and i had a great time despite ourselves. hehehe. it was a sold out show and there were a lot of people.

i didn’t take many photos (was too busy singing along), but there are some official ones here if you want some visuals.

all in all a great night! thanks again aya!!