Aaron's blog

Some of the stuff I bought

Goods are cheap in the US (e.g. basketball shoes for USD$9). Much cheaper than England

Little boy treks across the snow dusted Square

This felt like a Dickensien moment - cold, snow, and the lone figure of a small boy...

This pic shows more of the context - the Square really is quite grand

Tina in the snow

It snowed!

!!

visual illusions in spain

We had lots of fun creating these photos

with the help of the lovely Carolynn (fun personified).

Cinque terre

Cinque Terre

Some of the villages in Cinque Terre

Which car should I take??

Swiss travels

St Moritz

The best hotel room in St Moritz

UPA conference, then Vancouver

Tina wanted to come with me

This was a local town hall. somewhere in the middle of no where in the Colorado rocky mountains.

It was quite hard remembering what to do under different circumstances. e.g. if you meet a bear vs mountain lion thingy. do you run, walk, look up, down, etc. I guess these signs had limited effectiveness if people can't remember what to do...even when there is no danger

Rant

Warning

I'm trying not to be so negative but the UK government bodies are really useless in a lot of things. The systems are old, unresponsive and not user friendly.

I won't go into the details except to say that getting an NI Number (like a tax file number) is so painful. Getting the interview is really difficult. They have made this easier as you can now fill in a Word doc online, that you send in. They then send you time for an interview.

When you get there, they transcribe the printout of your word document onto a paper based form!

They were sposed to get back to me after 2 weeks. After waiting
2 months, and endlessly trying to call them to get an update (no answer), I finally got through to a department that could help.

I had attempted to call the place where I applied for the NI number, (using the phone number on the website and the application form) but found out the phone number was wrong (it just rung out). Emails resulted in no answer. The websites were not any help as they also had the wrong phone numbers and could not tell me who to call.

After weeks of fruitmess calling, I then tried to call HM Revenue and Customs - NI registration helpline (who told me that they had not received my application). They then gave me the right number for the place where I had orginally applied so I called them, then they said to call a place in Glasgow who finally admitted they sent the application to the wrong address.

They then asked me to physically go back to the original office I had applied to verify my address (which I refused to do since it's over an hour commute away). I told them that they had countless copies of my address already (rental agreement, bank statements, etc). I was then asked to fax a confirmation of my address (they didn't have email) before they can resend out the number (I refused to do this and asked to speak to the manager).

It's clear that they don't live in 2006.

Anyway, now I have an NI number. My friend said she it took her 3 years to bother getting one cause of similar issues.

Food highlights

One of the fun things is trying different foods. Although the microwave hamburgers in Amsterdam remained untested.

Riksmuseum

One of the famous museums in Amsterdam was the Riks. Since it is currently undergoing refurbishment, they put all their best stuff into a smaller exhibition space which was good for us. You see Dutch Masters such as Rembrandt, in a smaller space. Unfortunately, because of hte smaller space we missed out on seeing the Miffy exhibition. Yes, that's right - Miffy the rabbit (The artist was Dutch)

Beef cuts

Have you ever wondered where all the bits come from? I have. Now I know which part of the cow it is from, I just need someone to tell me which part I should use in different recipes....and what about pork? or lamb?

Tulips

I've never seen so many flowers in one place in my life. We visited Keukenhof with Mum Lee. It's about an hour's drive from Amsterdam and very pretty. Lots of people. Even more flowers (mostly tulips).

Mum managed to lose us as we were going too fast for her. Lucky she had our mobile phone. Even luckier that it had global roaming activated by default. Otherwise, she could still be wandering around a tulip garden

Bit sick and run down

We are recovering from sickness, having Tina's mum with us for two weeks, travelling to Paris and Amsterdam. Was kinda funny since we were like the parents and she was the child. We had previously decided on all the travel, how we would get there and some of the things we would do. We also had to figure out how to travel, public transport, map reading, etc. She also lost us a couple of times and we couldn't find her.

Very much a role reversal...

Costumes in Bath

This is the result of the corset putting on. Took 15 minutes.

This is one of hte old dresses. they actually wore them like it is displayed. I can imagine that if it was functional it would be good. e.g. when y

ou stand still, the frame would rest and you could put drinks on it. Would be great at cocktail parties to hold all your food. If you can get to the food table in the first place

Bath

Bath is a very pretty place, UNESCO listed city. This is the Abbey - went there on Easter Sunday and the sermon was really

good.

Bridge over the Avon river. Avon means river in Celtic. So, when the Romans asked the locals what that river was called, the locals said "Avon". Like asking someone what that is, and they tell you the obvious - only thing is that y

ou don't realise they are telling you the obvious

The Roman Baths at Bath were quite nice. the water's green because of the sunlight. It was still warm though.

Tina also went to the Costume museum and we spent ages getting her into a corset.

Bristol

Popped off to see Bristol which is near Bath. Tina's parents used to live here briefly.

Didn't see any evidence of their stay 30+ years ago.

Very industrial, still functioning harbour. Can't beat Sydney harbour though.

Crescents of Bath

Of course Bath is famous for the buildings - crescents. Lots of them. Very nice. Only a million pounds or so for one of them.

Also, they still have old hanging loos (see the black box hanging off the side of the house).

These were put in when they started getting flushing toilets. Apparently most houses have flushing loos now.

This is near the Roy

al Crescent.

Priory Park Gardens, Bath

These gardens were near Bath and very pretty. It's nice to get out and see some nature for a change, even though the nature had manicured lawns. (There were a few cows around too

)

Royal Yacht Brittania

We visited the Ro

yal Yacht Brittania at Leith (very close to Edinburgh).

Here is the royal bedroom. Not very impressive. Unfortunately it reminded me of a 80s motel room. I guess if the queen updated her furnishings in all her places, she would get blasted for being extravagent.
This is Prince Phillip's bedroom.

The official places where visitors would come look a lot nicer, such as the dining room and the drawing rooms. But still, somewhat tacky and old.

We all have different tastes though. And if someone offered me a Royal Yacht to live in, I probably wouldn't turn it down.

We were lucky enough to visit Edinburgh for Dorcas and Angelo's wedding, which meant we also hung out a bit with family ... including Maya (the bee), Kiri, Peter and their parents. Nice to see some family and

be welcomed.

Happy Australia Day

G'Day all. Missed having Australia day back home. Ended up at my work's (belated) Christmas party on Australia day at a Scandinavian bar in London. It was fun trying all different drinks from Finland (beer), Sweden (vodka drinking it via an ice luge), and Denmark (water!). Will have to break out the Tim Tams next week

Play School - for adults

We were lucky enough to see a pantomine on our wedding anniversary eve. It was Aladdin and the headline actor was Sir Ian McKellen (aka Gandalf and Magneto). Now, I've never seen a pantomine before so I was slightly mystified when people started booing and hissing at one of the evil lead characters until Tina explained that you are sposed to interact by booing, hissing, clapping and generally helping those on stage when given the appropriate cues. (For those with psych or design backgrounds, I could start digressing about schemas and scripts and how people who do not have the appropriate scripts will not understand what and how to behave, but I won't).

Basically, a pantomine is like Play School for adults and quite enjoyable once you grasp this concept. For some reason, I enjoyed it more than Tina. I guess that says something about my maturity/cultural levels since she likes the ballet, and I like Play School for adults.

Anyway, Sir Ian McKellen was playing Dame Twanky - the mother to Aladdin. As you expect for someone who has been in so many big name films, he is a really good actor - even when playing a woman. And to top it all off - they worked in the Gandalf line for Ian McKellen "one ring to rule them all". That was worth the ticket price...

Carol service

Cold weather, mulled wine, mince pies and Christmas services.

Christmas day

Our pheasant experiment for Christmas lunch at Shazza's.

Nutcracker at the Royal opera house

This was my view of the Nutcracker Ballet when I fell asleep in the first act. I woke up quickly when Tina reminded me that the seat cost AUD $75.

Tower Bridge and the Thames

Some of the sights just before Christmas.

Great to see Friends

It was really nice to see friends from back home, and the night went all too quickly.

Are you cereal?

I thought Coco Pops were unhealthy until I saw this. Jocelyn, (food tech) this is for you. Tina took multiple shots of this cereal packet

Spelling out the obvious

Who would have thought it huh?

Christmas fun

I was lucky enough to go on a work sponsored ice skating trip at Canary Wharf. It was fun but my feet were killing me afterwards.

Asia

This was taken for Wad. If you don't get it, ask him. He's not racist by the way.

cold feet

Told you the pigeons had cold feet

Snowing in Regent's Park

It snowed in central London on the 28th, and it actually stayed on the ground. While we were really cold, I'm sure that the pigeons had really cold feet.

Bad design meets life

This was the worst design "feature" that a London apartment had.
It was a pull out storage drawer that you had to stand on while cooking. An accident waiting to happen. Really stupid idea.

And, it was a newly refurbished place so the landlord had specifically put it in. It wasn't a relic of an ancient age.

Bath Christmas markets

This was quite fun but not that many Christmas items. Mostly general stuff from markets

Stonehenge - traditional shot

A more traditional view

Stonehenge

Just a different view of stonehenge. was very wet actually. will start using this blog a bit more since Flickr can be limiting

Blogger vs Flickr

Just wondering whether I should migrate content from Flickr to here, or vice versa. I know they are built for different purposes but neither really suits me. Flickr is great since it is primarily photos, has easy upload facilities (for some reason my Picasa doesn't upload to here well) and is better known. This is better for blogging...wait and see.

Bad design strikes again.
This is the entrance to the toilets in a Chinese restaurant.
Someone had drawn a suit on the man to help people tell the difference between the mens and womens. Too bad it didn't help as several people still got it wrong.

I knew I'd find a use for my new smartphone.

After entering the toilets (from the previous door), this was the first sign you see. In case you aren't sure, it is the mens toilet. At a glance, it looks like the ladies.

They got the design of the man wrong as the arms and body should be straight. As a result, several men (me included) turned (right) to go into the other door

This is actually what the womens toilet sign looks like. There were several men mistakenly walked in here when my wife was in the ladies.

I'm glad that no one caught me taking photos in the toilet vestibule. Not a good look if you know what I mean.

Routeburn pool, amazingly blue

Franz Josef Glacier walk-this is as far as we got and the bodgy company only gave us $15 refund after we had to turn back after only about 25 minutes on the ice

Rob Roy glacier walk. We were told it was 3-4 hours return, ended up 5-6 hours

NZ Photos uploaded

Just uploaded photos from my trip to the South Island of NZ (Jan-Feb). Enjoy

Funyak on the Dart River

Lakeside rocks

Milford Sound

Lake Tekapo

mirror lakes

Fantail falls

Go Aaron!

hi

this is my first blog

Aaron's blog

Monday, March 17, 2008

Some of the stuff I bought

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Little boy treks across the snow dusted Square

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Tina in the snow

Saturday, January 20, 2007

visual illusions in spain

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Cinque terre

Cinque Terre

Monday, August 14, 2006

Which car should I take??

Swiss travels

Sunday, July 16, 2006

St Moritz

UPA conference, then Vancouver

Friday, May 26, 2006

Rant

Sunday, May 21, 2006