Christmas in Adelaide

We arrived back in Australia safely and were looking forward to slipping back into the Australian life style.
Our first stop was Adelaide as that was where we were spending Christmas.
It didn't take Paige long to find things to do, from riding Diesel the horse (Auntie Jacqui's horse), helping her Pa (John) brew his home made beer, making cakes and getting to know her new cousin Emily. Paige was making the best of being on holidays. For me and Ben, outings to the local supermarket was met with "There is to much choice, which one do I choose". Being able to do a one stop shop for food items I don't think will ever become boring again. All those friends still overseas will know what I mean.
Eating has been one of my favorite things to do since being back, I now think I have eaten everything on my imaginary list, my waist line isn't thanking me one bit.
My birthday was spent hanging out and trying to keep out of the kitchen as Paige and her Grandma (Margie) were trying to make the surprise chocolate birthday cake, so I think I acted surprised enough for Paige when she brought the cake to the table. My birthday dinner was spent down by the beach with Ben feasting on seafood which was very yummy and watching the sunset very romantic. "Who said romance was dead?".

Picture: Paige helping Bernadette blow out candles

Picture: Paige riding Diesel the horse

Picture: Paige helping her Pa (John) make home brew beer

Christmas Day started off quite late, Paige had a really good sleep in so when she finally woke thanks to her cousin Emily jumping on her with Uncle Tom's help, Paige found her present left by Santa. The funniest thing was that she was surprised that Santa had knocked over a chair and that was the topic of conversation for the whole day. It was hard to believe it was only a year ago we where in Mongolia spending Christmas Day with friends. How time flies. Its been a while since we have been able to have Christmas Day with some of our family so with being back in Australia, good food, good weather and being around family you could say it was just perfect.

Picture: Paige opening some of her Christmas presents with Ben trying to get the packaging off

Picture: The Family enjoying Christmas dinner

Picture: Paige with Spice the dog

Picture: Paige and Emily

Picture: Ben taking it easy after Christmas dinner

With Christmas Day over we had a chance to take in a couple of outing where we visited the Adelaide Zoo and Cleland Wildlife Park, two places we had never been so you could say we played tourist. Paige enjoyed seeing all the animals but she was surprised that there where no elephants at the zoo as was I. During our visit to the Wild Life Park Paige got to pat one of the local kolas she loved how soft it was. As we had being staying up in the Adelaide Hills with Paige's Grandma and Pa Paige had seen a number of koalas in the trees so this was the first time she was able to get close enough to pat one which I am sure was one of the highlights of her visit.

Picture: Paige patting a kola at the Wild Life Park

It was such a nice start to our adventure back in Australia, we are looking forward to getting to Perth to find our feet and a place we can call home. It will be nice to say those words once again "There is no place like home"...........................

Goodbye Hanoi

Picture: Local lady in the streets of Hanoi

Well as from the blog post title says "Good bye Hanoi" we are leaving this city and heading back to Australia.

This will be my last blog post from Vietnam. It only seems like yesterday that we arrived and the time has passed so fast, in away we are leaving here all too soon but that's the way life goes.

Living in Hanoi has been fun and an enjoyable city to have spent our short time in. In the past couple of weeks I have had time to reflect on why I have liked this city so much, from the people, the culture, sights and smells it is hard to put my finger on one single thing.

There seems to be something happening all the time from the traffic never stopping, women chatting, people eating on the side walk or just a baby sleeping in it's mothers arms in one of the many shops people call their home, the city of Hanoi seems to take on a life of it's own and all I can say is "I am glad we took the chance to come here".

Our near future will be in Perth, Australia which starts in January so never having lived there before I have decide that my blog will continue as I think it will be fun to keep it going.

We are all very excited in getting back to Australia as when you look at it we have been away for nearly four years so it is a chance to get back to what we call "normal life". Only time will tell where the road leads but in the near future it will be Perth.

Good Bye Hanoi...................................................................

Picture: Some artwork from local artists

Vietnamese Cooking Class

The food here in Hanoi is quite yummy so Ben, Sue (Ben's mum) , Nicole and myself decided to attend a local cooking class that is held here locally at Hidden Hanoi.

With just the four of us in the class we had a great time learning about the local food, how to prepare and cook it. Our menu consisted of BBQ pork, Vietnamese spring rolls and dipping sauce. It seemed to take ages to prepare chop this, dice this and as the minutes ticked by all I wanted to do was tuck in. The end products where worth the wait nothing was left to spare as we dined on our yummy creations. I think we will all recreate our master-pieces once we get back to Australia.

Picture: Ben, Sue, Linh, Nicole & Bernadette

Picture: Some fresh ingredients , some I had never seen before

Picture: Linh explaining about the rice paper used to wrap the ingredients for spring rolls

Picture: Sue & Ben chopping some ingredients

Picture: Nicole wrapping spring rolls

Picture: Tomato roses we all made

Picture: A feast fit for any domestic goddess