Wild Flag

Matthew, Jon, Adrian and I saw the Portland band Wild Flag last night, and it was a great show. I was towards the front on Carrie's side, and I danced like a silly person.

Japanese Class

Konnichiwa. I started a beginners Japanese class last week. It seems good so far, as there are only 5 or 6 people in the class, and the teacher has been teaching Japanese for 25+ years. Wish me luck!

BTW, if you haven't already discovered the website Forvo, it's pretty cool. If a user has a word they don't know how to pronounce, they submit it, and another user (native-speaker of that language) records the requested word for the website.

Around the House

As I've already mentioned, we've had a lot of rain. All the moisture has caused some mold in our house, so we bought several containers of Damp Rid brand desiccant. One was a hanger-type, which we put in our wardrobe. Well, it's really working! I can't believe how much moisture it absorbed in only one week:

It works!

In other news, we finally got a microwave. We haven't had one in a year and a half, because we thought "maybe we don't really need one?" and also were holding out on buying yet another device with an Aussie plug that we'll have to get rid of when we move back to the USA. However, I got tired of not wanting to eat leftovers because reheating on the stove takes too long! So, we got one second-hand through Gumtree, an Aussie website that's similar to Craigslist. Hooray!

So convenient!

Finally, we also bought a second-hand wine fridge. (So much for restraint on extra devices!) Unfortunately, the only spot it fits gets a few hours of direct sunlight every day. So, Matthew was very crafty and made a decorative heat and light barrier out of some styrofoam, poster board and decorative paper.

So pretty!

Rainy Summer

You may have already heard me complaining on Google+ and FB that this summer has been quite rainy in Sydney. We really only got to the beach once or twice. :(

Chicago Daily News negatives collection, courtesy of Chicago History Museum.

Well, an article in today's Sydney Morning Herald totally backs me up:
- Sydney has not had a December so cool since 1960
- It has not been this wet since 1991
- Observatory Hill had 48 days of rain, the most since the bicentenary [1988]
- The summer hasn't been so overcast since 1954.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy we didn't have crazy hot days in the 40s like last summer, it was just a bit of a bummer we had so much rain. I guess Sydney didn't want us to feel homesick for Portland weather!

Anyway, hope you had a happy Leap Day, and now we're on to Autumn down here in the Southern Hemisphere.

Photos from Japan

Our snowboarding trip to Japan was pretty awesome - heaps of snow, Japanese food and sake, onsen, and the people were very nice.

At the New Chitose Airport near Sapporo, there was a display celebrating cantaloupe (yubari melon) from Hokkaido. Here's Amanda and the melon-head bear from Hokkaido:

Here's the link to the rest of our Niseko photos.

Niseko, Japan

Snowboarding in Japan

Konnichiwa from Hokkaido, Japan! Today was day 4 of snowboarding in Niseko, and we're having a wonderful time. It's been snowing like crazy!

Here's a short video from outside our window today.

2011 - My Year in Numbers

Looking back at 2011, here's my year by the numbers:
My current age: 35.
Years Matthew and I have been married: 5.
Number of houses we’ve lived in this year: 2.
Number of blog posts: 68.
Number of photos from 2011 added to our Picasa: 2,260.
Number of countries visited: 6 - Australia, USA, Argentina, Uruguay, Ireland and Belgium.
Number of trips we took within Australia: 2.
Number of Australian native animals patted: 3 - koala, dingo and kangaroo.
Number of friends who visited us this year: 2.
Number of times I climbed to the top of the Harbour Bridge: 1.
New relatives: 1 - nephew Warren Stamile, born April 2011.
Weddings attended: 1 - Tamara and Andy, September 2011.
Number of books read: 27.
Number of houseplants acquired: 1.
Number of performances I’ve seen (live music, plays, etc): about 11.
Number of free Google swag items Matthew has been given: around 10, including a pair of socks. (Last year he got a Google snuggie.)
Number of times I’ve complained about how expensive things are in Australia: too high to count.
Average number of times per week I walk up and down King Street in Newtown: 16.
3 things I love about living in Sydney: sunshine, beautiful beaches, hearing a pair of kookaburras outside my window.
3 things I don’t love about living in Sydney: roaches, drivers’ aggressiveness to cyclists, how far away it really is from everywhere else.