Buying ice cream in Manila

Well, it's late, we've been on a plane all day, and theres another flight to go. And it's hot here. Ice Cream Time! We just spent about $6 on ice cream all round. Mango is delish! Oh, and Thomas say hi.

A handy language guide

Traveling between the Philippines and Indonesia? Nope, me neither. But here's a little vocab to help you out if you do. It's brief, but it may help if you are attacked by five dogs. Or one dog five times. Or a five headed dog.

Cooked breakfast? Wow!

I was pleased and surprised when they announced a "cooked breakfast" on our international flight. Yes, it was cake. Cake is cooked.

Travel blogging...

We're off traveling again soon. So you know what that means... Time to get the tech ready! That's iPods, iPads, Kindles, cameras, and chargers for all of them. AND, make sure I can blog while away.

This is a test post - I'm trying out the Blogger app.

The photo is from Mariage Freres, the tea shop I always go to in Paris.

The most completely non-suspicious thing I've seen in ages

The other day Jeff and I went out for an excuse to get away from the kids important shopping trip. At Chadstone we saw a terrific display for the new Samsung Galaxy Note. Kind of a slightly oversized phone that really lends itself to being your personal buddy.
















 It has some fabulous features to encourage you to incorporate photos, sketches and text to make your own collaged notes. I really loved that! (See, like this...)

We took the brochure and walked on. We stopped at Capital Kitchen for excellent lattes. Oh, all right, and chips. As we waited for our order, I browsed through the cute brochure they gave us. There was an illustration of what the gadget looks like when you send a message. There was a sample message.





Here's the text of the message, in case you can't read it :

How are you today? I was sick in bed last night. Sometimes I do miss the liberty of US life. I used to go to Yankee Stadium, a famous Baseball Park.


See what I mean? This message is totally non suspicious and the recipient would never imagine that the sender is some kind of SPY!


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the bike shop. Bicycling is a very popular pastime here in Australia where I definitely live and enjoy the liberty.

We rode to Chadstone

Jonathan and I have successfully ridden to Chadstone - that's nearly 15km from home. Here's his reward - fries from Lord of the Fries ( they really are the best, worth riding for). I'm so dainty I'm just having coffee.

Alien abductions in Melbourne imminent

It's a wonder there haven't been more alien abductions reported in Melbourne lately... There's a jolly great spaceship in Fed Square! It's standing on a tripod, so you know it's properly alien.

Of course, any furniture maker will tell you, a three legged stool is more stable than a four legged one. So at least we've been invaded by sensible aliens.

Dodgy label of the day

This coconut water tells me it's "delivered to you as nature intended". I think we are making some pretty big assumptions about what nature intends. If she'd wanted me to drink the juice out of coconuts, would she really have encased it in a seamless wooden box, high up in a tree, in another country?

Why am I trying all these new things? We went to the food show on the weekend and staggered home with show bags, two of which were full of miscellaneous stuff. We will be working through it over the next few weeks. So far my brand loyalty has not been shaken.

Evaporated cane juice?

That'd be normal sugar, right? Nice try, yoghurt company.