i almost forgot...

i have something very important to tell you. 

yesterday i was out shopping with the lovely miss shelly and the fab miss yo, when into the large department store walks a guy looking like this:

ok so he wasn't wearing the head scarf, but he WAS carrying a massive falcon!  i almost peed my pants!  i am so scared of birds so imagine my heart as a large wild bird goes walking by my on the arm of a man, IN a store!  and it was looking at me!!!!
on the way out of the store it had it's eyes covered like this one, but on the way in, we made eye contact.  it was terrifying.  i must admit i was a bit intrigued when the man and the bird were far, far away from me...because who brings a falcon into a store?!?!  but apparently this isn't entirely uncommon here.  i just hope i don't have any more close encounters!! 

p.s. cindy, when you come to visit, we will avoid shops that are frequented by falcon bearing men.

spotted

yesterday at the mall:

• our vice principal and his super cute kids.  his son greeted us with high fives and left us with "bye ladies!!!!"
• a woman and her maid.  the woman was carrying her LV purse.  the maid was carrying a million shopping bags.
• empty shelves at build a bear....sigh....
• a baby dress for over $200.
• a jimmy choo purse for over $2000!!!!!!
• one of my grade 5 girls and her siblings.  she and her sister were wearing matching clothes.  so cute.
• men wearing their long white dishdashas with florescent green nike shoes. 
• more men actually jogging inside the mall!  work out time!
• a young man with a rat tail.

and who am i?  that's one secret i'll never tell...
xoxo
gossip girl

in less than a week, you'll find me here.....

and here.....

i can't wait!!  so if i'm MIA from april 30th to may 8th, you'll know why!  i'll be back with some pictures of my own in no time!! 

what the ????

today on our way home, we were standing by the motor bike when a CRAB walked by!!  YES!  a crab.  it was black and about the size of a CD including it's legs.  oh and it was BLACK!  more black than this picture.  but i just wanted you to get an idea of what we're dealing with here!!  where did it come from??  kelly informs me that there are land crabs.  i'm still freaked out by the whole thing....watch your toes!!

whoa nelly!

boy, did it ever STORM last night!!

the weather here has been so strange this season...as it is supposed to be dry season after all...we have had TONS of rain.  but last night's storm takes the cake!

it started raining just after school.  at about 5pm is was blowing SO hard that trees were been up-rooted, random things were blowing up to the 8th floor of our building, and roofs were being torn off shelters outside.  kelly was on his way home during this.  he came home looking like a drowned rat and said that he almost actually BLEW over on the way home!  INSANE!

THEN, later in the night, a thunder and lightning storm started.  it was SO loud!  like nothing i have ever heard before!  it woke me up multiple times in the night because it was SO SO SO loud!  

anywho, don't fret.  all is well today.  the sun is shining.  kelly, cow, and i are all safe and sound.  but WHOA NELLY.  that was a big one! 

what did one goose say to the other goose???

we were riding the motorbike to work on friday morning, as usual, and there on the side of the road were these two geese.  they are always there.  in the same spot.  awaiting their fate.  but on this particular morning, something was different.  they are the type of goose that is all white with orange feet and beaks but on friday, they had clearly been playing in the mud.  they were both really dirty but one of the geese had wet brown mud all over his beak.  immediately the following conversation popped in my head:

GOOSE 1:  ahhhh...do i have something on my face??

GOOSE 2:  no way bro!  you're good.  

GOOSE 1: oh ok good!  thanks man!

then i laughed out loud.  and told kelly.  he didn't think it was funny.  he thought i was weird.  

then the following conversation popped in my head:

GOOSE 2:  dude, you have mud ALL over your face!

GOOSE 1:  really?!?  where??  *wipes his beak with his wing* did i get it???

GOOSE 2: *rolls his eyes* ya you got it alright...*walks away from goose 1*

then i laughed out loud.  and told kelly.  he didn't think this was funny either!  he thought i was REALLY weird.

i proceeded to laugh to myself all day, every time i thought about the geese.  in fact, i still think its funny.  cause ducks must talk to each other right?!  i wonder what those two will be up to tomorrow morning....???

bad news

it seems that hammock boy is missing.  

i haven't seen him in weeks! 

i am getting worried!  

there has been a woman there somedays.  a man somedays.  a little girl somedays.  

but NO hammock boy! 

and NO swinging!

so sad.

AUS-struck. more from down under.

geez....did we go to australia?  oh RIGHT, i started to tell you all about our awesome trip and then i dropped the ball and didn't finish the job.  BAH.  so i will do that.  right now. 

with the wonderful days 1 through 4 under our belts, we embarked on fantastic day number five!  we had planned to head to fremantle (a cute little city near perth) that day but rebecca, our guide from the day before told us about a place in perth that we could go to see all kinds of australia animals (read: kangaroos and koalas that we HAD to see while in australia).  so we used the wonderful public transit system to get ourselves to caversham wildlife park which houses about 200 species of animals in a walk-through type park.  many of the animals, like the kangaroos, aren't in cages...or i guess they are in really big cages but you can walk right through with them!  at caversham we saw wallabies, a wombat, a cassowary, emus, dingos, birds of prey, quoakkas, owls, kookaburras, black swans, echidnas and more.  we also got to see and TOUCH kangaroos and koalas!!  so exciting!  now we can officially say we have been to australia.  because obviously kangaroos and koalas are a big part of the experience!  

the kangaroos were so cool because i had never realized before how much they depend on their tails!  they use them almost like a third leg when they hop!  it's actually kind of strange if you think about it.  oh, and they were not shy at all!  they hopped right up to us hoping that they would get some food from us.  one of my favourite pics of the trip is this shot of kel and the kangaroo.  it hopped right up to him and he was talking to the kangaroo, telling him he was sorry but he didn't have any food!  too funny!  also, you will see in the pictures that some of the kangaroos are white.  they are not albino but they were actually bred this way because someone along the line decided that they would be attractive if they were white.  instead, these white animals have a hard time even opening their eyes in the sun because they are so sensitive.  it's a little sad. 

the koalas were also awesome because there is something so mystical about a koala.  we got to pet one of the older male koalas and he was so soft.  i don't know much about them, but i thought i had heard that they were an unpleasant animal but he didn't seem to mind having his bum patted at all!

 

now, with all of those australian animals checked off the list, we packed up our things and got on the train to fremantle.  i am IN LOVE with fremantle.  i want to move there.  and never leave.  it is such an amazing artsy little place with so much to do and only a short train ride from perth.  it's perfect!  plus i fit in.  i loved walking down the street and no one even took a second look.  i mean, i know i am tall, i get that, but always being the whitest, fattest, tallest....it gets old.  it was so nice to just blend in for a while.  oh and all the cute boys didn't hurt either ;)

anyway, we spent the next couple days wanding around fremantle, or freo as the locals call it and just enjoying the blue skies, fresh, cool air, and beautiful sights.  we walked around the harbour looking at the indian ocean and all the beautiful sailboats, ate ice cream, toured the fremantle prison on a ghost walk (YIKES!) and shopped and shopped.  we ate at fantastic restaurants, toured through the fremantle art market (many times), listened to buskers as they sang and played on the street, went back to the didgeridoo shop and listened to some AMAZING didj players.  it was fabulous.  relaxing, easy going and the perfect way to end our vacation.  but it was hard to leave!  i could have stayed forever...have i mentioned that?? 

 it's taken me so long to write all these australia posts that i'm not even sure if i have mentioned it yet, but i have to tell you about the people in australia.  we really found that everyone was more than helpful and always pleasant and super friendly.  we met aweomse people everywhere we went!  our guides on the pink bus and urban indigenous tours, the waitresses at almost every restaurant we went to, the guys at the didj shop, people at the hostels, bus drivers...everyone was fantastic!!  it made our trip just that much more memorable you know?!   

well, i guess that's all for now in the australia chronicles.  maybe my posts have inspired you to go and check it out for yourself.  i hope so.  cause it truly was amazing! 

AUS -SOME!

ok, so where were we?  day four i believe.  

day four was not in our original plan.  but LUCKILY our fabulous guide from day two on the pink bus passed along a wonderful bit of info to us.  after talking with her a lot that day, she said that she had a friend who did another great tour in perth and she just knew we would love it!  and guess what?!  she was RIGHT!  we spent the day with our fearless leader rebecca who has opened her own tour company called "urban indigenous tours" which explores australian aboriginal art, music and food.  you can check out the facebook group here.  anyway, it was an AMAZING day.  one of my favourite days on our trip for sure.  we started out at the home of an aboriginal artist who is part of the stolen generation in australia.  if you're like me and haven't heard of this, check it out.  it's worth a read and heart wrenching to hear first hand!  anyway, sheila told us her very personal story and then she talked to us about her artwork.  she does traditional aboriginal paintings using the symbols that were established originally to tell stories.  then we got to tell her our story by using the symbols in a drawing of our own.  we just loved her!!  next we were off to her sons gallery which he opened up in their community to sell art work made by himself, his mom, his wife, and other local artists.  everything there was so beautiful!  

then we went back to maalinup art gallery, where we had been the day of our pink bus tour, but this time we got to do some bush tastings.  we ate all kinds of delicious snacks made with native australian ingredients including quondong jam tarts, lemon myrtle cake, bush tomato sauce, and various sauces, chutneys and infused oils.  YUM!  oh and speaking of YUM, it was lunch time after this stop and at lunch, kelly, valerie, and cindy ate EMU!  i'm not that adventurous but i took pictures to prove they ate it! 

 

 

the last stop of the day was in fremantle (a little town that we later fell in LOVE with) just outside of perth.  we went to an awesome (i use the words awesome and amazing a lot...) store called didgeridoo breath where we took our (you guessed it...) didgeridoo lesson!!  it was so much fun!  our teacher tim was great and he was really positive with the four canadian amateurs!  by the end of the lesson we were pros (ya right!!!) and we had a lot of fun!  i even decided to buy a didgeridoo but i had to have it shipped to canada instead of vietnam because i wouldnt ever be able to get it home from here...good news is, it has arrived safely in wawa and has made quite a showing so far from what i hear!  anyway, check out the store at their site (above) or on their facebook page here.

 

yikes...day four was a long one....maybe i'll post now and come back for more later....yup.  i'm going to leave you there.

<3 day four. 

days 5 through 7 coming soon...................................................

all about AUS...finally!

i am sorry.  i know this has taken a long time and i am also sorry that i have neglected the blog this week.  getting back into the swing of things is a lot of work!  plus with report cards, meetings, and catching up on sleep, the blog has taken the back burner.  

but here i am, FINALLY, ready to share the highlights of our trip to Perth, Australia from October 23-31, 2010.

we arrived late on the 23rd so we just went to our hotel and went to bed.  BUT the next morning, we were SO excited we couldn't stand it!  we were going WHALE WATCHING!!!!!!!  we got to the harbour in plenty of time, paid for our tickets and waited for the whales.  finally, we were off in a boat with about 35 other people, and having "the talk" about barf bags!!  i thought to myself that this was probably a waste of time, but like on an airplane, it's there job.  so i listened.  we were officially in a boat in the indian ocean, looking for hump back whales!  and the first one we saw was SO exciting!!  and turns out, that it was one of a hundred or so because they just kept coming and coming!  they swam up so close to our boat that a couple times i even got a bit nervous about how close they were!  oh and then comes the part about the barf bags....there were a few children with us - they were all being sick, as were a few adults.  it was a very bumpy ride and some people's stomachs were not very happy about it!  cindy and i both got a little queasy but we managed to keep it together.  anyway, we saw many whales throughout the morning and one even jumped out of the water in front of us, just like we were at marine land or something!  it was SO exciting!  we spent the afternoon at the aquarium which was really cool and then went out for dinner for cindy's birthday!  it was a GREAT first day in australia!

 day two was also wonderful but included less animals and MUCH MORE food and drink!  we spent the day doing a "taste it all!" trip with swan valley pink bus tours.  what a day!  we drank, drank, ate, drank some more and ate.  our tour consisted of four wineries, a brewery, a chocolate factory, a lavender tasting/store, a coffee tasting, and an art gallery.  how could that NOT be wonderful right?!  we tasted wonderful wines, beers, jams, chocolates, scones, and a delicious lunch.  we bought art work.  we smelled and bought soaps and sprays.  it was wonderful!  and thanks to our wonderful guide, marielle!

 

which brings us to day three and PENGUIN island!  cindy was so excited to see the penguins because they are her favourite animal and they were definitely worth seeing!  they type of penguin that we saw were "little penguins" which is the smallest of the penguins (conveniently) at only 40 cm tall!  they were SO cute!  from the island, we also went in a glass bottom boat and on our trip around the area we saw hundreds of pelicans (which were HUGE) and sea lions!  definitely a day packed with animal excitement! 

 

because there are so many stories and so many pictures from our trip, i will leave you now.  post some pictures and then continue with our stories in another entry.  this way i'll feel more productive and you won't have to wait as long! :)  good for everyone!

see you soon for more tales from the land down under! oh and thanks for reading! xo