Yummy

All my favourites!

Thought I'd post a selection of recent photos that we took down under - this is from the kitchen wall of a very nice motel that we stayed at in Rotorua. This place, The Malfroy Motel, was run by a Chinese family and at the back of the motel they had a hot pool fed straight from their own hot spring - full of nice minerals it was, so a very good relaxing soak for our aching limbs was called for. (Note for those who are puzzled with the first item - Kimchi is a fermented Korean dish that we never quite got round to sampling.)

All good stuff!

However what we did try (well Vicky did) was something called Emma Datshi, from a Nepalese street food merchant in Christchurch - this is the national dish of Bhutan and is apparently made using Yak's milk! I did a mountain race in Dunedin two days later - maybe I should have had some of this tasty grub as well. Christchurch had a strange feel to it - well the city centre did! It's still not recovered from the earthquakes of a few years ago and the middle of town is full of building projects and car parks on land that clearly had been cleared of demolished buildings. There's some controversy about what to do with the ruined cathedral which sits behind rather unattractive fences - do they repair, rebuild or knock it down - nobody seemed to know.

Invisible chair?

And here's a bit of levitation on the streets of Brisbane! I dropped a couple of dollars in the hat and he/she gestured me over and gave me a fortune cookie (nothing to eat for me though - I just got the slip of paper with a motto on it - mine said: "You will own a brand new sports car soon.") So that was goodbye to Brisbane for another year or two - it's a lovely city with a mix of very friendly people originating from all over the world. It can be quite hot and humid in midsummer but the beer is nearly as good as that in New Zealand and the pies are nearly as good as Kiwi pies. The Lions' supporters are bound to be enjoying themselves right now whatever the results.