Apologies to all those who have been missing my blog entries (ie. mum, ebby, and zeina) but I will try to do better in the future. The truth is, somewhere between christmas and January I managed to develop a social life. Not one that involves a hot straight boy, but a pretty fun existance never the less... I will do my best to get you up to speed, mainly giving you highlights!
Hmmm where should I start? At the moment I am sitting in the Qantas Club Lounge in the Perth Airport, having just said good bye to Will, and spent a lovely long weekend in the Margaret River region celebrating Jason & Hales wedding. Photos to follow. I am on my way back to HK, going an indirect route through Singapore (due to the cheapness of flights) and will probably get home about midnight tonight. Bet I'm going to be cheery tomorrow when I have to teach these 2 stupid girls, who don't seem to talk.
I've had a lovely week in WA, and want to come back for a proper holiday. It is such an extreme change from Hong Kong. Lots of open spaces, fresh air, blue skies, clear water and the most stars I have seen in a long time.
I arrived in Perth Wednesday afternoon, and spent a lovely night with Will heading down to the local yuppy pub for a very yummy fish meal. Pretty much all I've eaten this week has been fresh fish and meat pies. Yummo! (oh and lots of beer, wine and aussie chocolate.)
Thursday Eden picked me up and we were to drive down to Dunsborough together, but first she had to pick up a few things from home. We were about to leave, after selecting a few CDs from the boot of her car, and managed to lock the keys in the car! We then had to wait for the RAA (or whatever its called in WA) to open up the car and get us on the way. Very amusing start.
Eden had organised an amazing house in Dunsborough, 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, huge balconies - it was amazing. So 11 of us spent the weekend there, and after an afternoon of winery touring on Thursday afternoon, we all headed back for a big group bbq on the balcony. Friday and Saturday involved lots of lazing around the house, swimming on empty beaches (beautiful) and drinking cocktails and eating meat pies. Very relaxing.
As most of you know, I am basically anti social. The one point I forgot about, is that when it is a wedding, the groom and bride have no time to hang out. So I basically spent the whole weekend with a bunch of strangers (and Eden - thankfully!). They are a lovely bunch of strangers, very friendly and have known Hales and Jason forever - but it was a bit of an effort at times, and I found myself wishing that the family had joined me on this trip (or at least Mandy!).
The wedding on Saturday night proved far more fun than I imagined, with gorgeous food (more yummy fish), delicious wine and a kicking band. I was on a table with a couple of HK coppers, and some outward bound people, so yep they were all crazy. We had a great time, and ended up back at our house for the afterparty - I made some punch that went down well!
I will upload some photos soon, and talk more about how gorgeous they both looked etc ;)
Got back to Perth last night and stayed with Will again. Had dinner with his mum and bro, which was funny as they call me Grace (as if it's my real name). Actually didn't have fish or meat pie, but beautiful fillet steak with pepper sauce (and a gin and tonic on the side) perfect. Then we stayed up too late watching "5 Straight with Will & Grace" - rather appropriate I feel.
Boz is heading to HK in a few weeks, and then I believe my mum is coming the end of April, so lots of family time coming up. Guess I should get Lida in again to clean ;)
Other highlights of the last couple of months -
* Went to UK for Chris & Char's wedding celebrations. Very fun, great to see them . They are so settled now, great friends, charming village and a beautiful house with the most amazing oven I have ever seen. So far the best reason I have known for getting married ;)
* Had another trip to Singapore for work. Was good, work was boring, but they put me up in the Fullerton yet again, so I slept well and had bubble baths - which is a nice change from the drunken mess of my life in HK ;)
* Trudi visited just before I headed off to Perth. It was great to see her and she had a great time, even though it was only a couple of days. She managed to get off the plane and party til 1am! I stayed out and Trudi headed home alone. She found the flat OK and had my spare keys.
Let me describe my door for you - it is a normal standard door, with 2 locks on it. Then in front of that, is a stupid iron grill gate that slides open (very "in" in HK). Before we left, Trudi asked if there was any trick to the door. "Nope" and off we went.
Well she got home at 1am, and couldn't work out how to open the gate. I was drunk (as is standard) and saw her text, something along the lines of "How do you open the door", to which I probably replied - "Use the key". I believe before going any further she then went to get assistance from the doorman.
For those of you who have not been to my flat, I have a few doormen. None speak english, but the morning one is pretty friendly and smiley. The afternoon one is not bad, and the night one is rude and moody and without any appealing features. Well Trudi attempted to get the night doorman to come and help her. Firstly, Trudi doesn't speak cantonese or mandarin. He doesn't speak English (or smile). So Trudi, being a resourceful gal, started miming. (Her re-enactment the next day was damn funny). Finally he followed her upstairs and half assed tried opening the door, and then left again.
Trudi decided to try texting me again - this time "How do you open the gate?"
"Press the button" - drunk Nat
"What button" - Trudi after searching for the button
"The one at the bottom" - drunk Nat with probably not the most helpful instructions, but thankfully Trudi's higher intellect won out.
Of course I then woke her for a chat, when I got home at 3am. The important thing is Trudi assures me that she had fun (oh and the night doorman is scared of her!).
Alright that's probably enough for the moment. I've still got a couple more hours to kill so I may write more later. I still need to tell you about the "Family".
