Titanic

Today we've been to the much hyped Titanic Exhibit at the Melbourne Museum. It has been sold out on the internet at weekends for weeks so we turned up early to buy tickets on the day. The exhibit is, as you would expect showing various relics recovered from the ship but they've also recreated stories and life size mock ups of cabins and the famous stairwell. Unfortunately you weren't allowed a camera inside (so they could fleece you for $25 by having a photographer on tap obviously!) - so we don't have any internal pics. The rest of the pictures of today & the museum though are here.

Loperamide Hydrochloride 2mg

(AKA Immodium, Diacalm etc etc) That's the stuff you need after visiting a traditional food restaurant in Manila apparently....  The last day of the trip included a bout of Gastro for about 5 people, me being one of them !  Perhaps the prawns, pork or beef was to blame - who knows.   Anyway, after that sour note to an interesting trip, I'm now back with the family in Melbourne.

Thriller in Manila

This week work has taken me to Manila in the Philippines. Population 20 million - man it is packed. This time it is in happier circumstances as the last time I was in Manlia there was a car sized hole in the 747 we were all in !!  I'm over here for 5 days as we form a new IS organisation in Asia Pacific and its a great opportunity to see another part of the world.  As it's in the tropics, the weather is hot and sticky but you move from one air-conditioned place to the next. As part of Kraft's community efforts, today we took some time out to work in a local school which is managed by 'Save the Children' and other NPOs.  It has 4000 kids there who attend in 2 'shifts' for 4 hours each in class sizes of 50! To say it was an eye opener was understatement of the year.  We broke off into small groups to help out in classes and we helped serve food to the kids who get a meal there each day (mainly to get them to attend). My class was for 7 year olds (Grade 1s) which happens to be Ethan's age.  Hearing some of the background stories and the prospects for these fantasic kids was heart wrenching.  It was one of the best work experiences I've had and stopped to make me think how lucky we are..... the irony of returning to the 5 star Shangri-La hotel wasn't lost on me.

Ethan's first live match

Our adopted AFL team were playing at the Etihad Stadium today and Ethan has been mad keen on going to a game since he turned 7 and I promised him he could go. So along with Uncle "Anfany", off we went on a cool winter's day to watch St.Kilda (Saints) vs Port Adelaide.  The Saints ran out very easy winners 151 to 57 so Ethan watched his first ever Aussie Rules game as a winning supporter (something which would have been unlikely supporting NUFC I may add !). All the pictures from the day are here.

View from above

View Large Map

Our house from above - zoom in and out on the buttons above, one day you'll probably find Maxine on the sun lounger.

Just found this cool application ( http://www.nearmap.com/ ) a bit like Google maps only the images are updated every month.  Would have been great to have discovered this as we were building the pool !  Only works for Australia as far as I can tell.

Snakes Alive!

Ethan had his 7th Birthday party at home today and we had a 'Reptile Encounter Party' with various assorted creatures for the 7 year old creatures to get up close & personal to. Ethan loved it and had giant stick insects, lizards and snakes crawling all over him. Aidan was not so sure though - he wasn't having any of them sitting on him!  We even got in on the action including a "baby" 4 metre long constrictor around our necks. All good fun. Check out some of the pictures here - especially the excellent cake Maxine made!