Janet & Ali's Big Adventure - April 2008 - Day 1 - the longest day.

Ok so we stayed awake for over 24 hours. And this was the day AFTER the Celine concert, so we had only 3 hours of snooze the night before. This explains why I am all showered and snuggly in bed at 6pm.

We arrived in San Francisco at about 11 am (half an hour befor we left Brisbane). We braved the Hotel's public transport instructions and caiught the BART (train) from the airport to downtown. From here we had to work out wich way was west and walk a few blocks to the bus. (fortunately for us directionally challenged, the roads all had south, west etc. signs). So we caught the correct bus and then hiked up one of the many hills around here to our hotel (wouldn't have been so bad without luggage!).

They let us check in early, so we popped our bags inthe room and headed out to explore a little and to find some food.

We walked through Japan Town with its lovely cherry blossums snowing down around us. Then we saw a Denny's restaurant so in we went. once inside we realised we would have to work out how to tip on our own. Our meals were served with the best chips we ever tasted. Yummmmm. (So much for eating healthily!!)

now for a step back in time.....

yes, a year has passed and it is now possible to tell the tale of Janet & Ali's Big Adventure.



You have to imagine that tinkling sounding music playing and a bit of fading in and out going on now.....

25 Things About Me

1. I have been vegetarian since Jan 1 2000. But I have occasionally tasted meat since then. To see if I like it. I don't
2. I collect things. lots of things. Like Snowdomes and caps, and magazines, and M&M's stuff and postcards and ummmm. thats enough.
3. I don't like to throw anything away, it might be useful sometime!!
4. I can't watch movies or tv shows with animals in them. I have to change the channel when there are adds for Animal Rescue or Bondi Vet.
5. I have a list of movies I never want to see again. Most of the movies on it are ones that Janet loves.
6. I like to sleep with a doona over my ear.
7. I have saved every birthday card I have ever received
8. I love to watch cooking shows on tv
9. Sometimes (or maybe often) I pretend I am ON a cooking show.
10. I borrow recipe books from the library, buy and read lots of cooking magazines, but rarely cook anything using an actual recipe.
11. In 2008 I shook hands with Celine Dion, went to her concert in Brisbane, went to one of her restaurants in Montreal and shared a piece of Celine cake. And I'm not even a fan.
12. I first saw snow falling in 2008. and it was magical and wonderful and amazing
13. I don't drink anything hot. Not tea, or coffee. Or cuppa soup (I eat this with a spoon)
14. I love to drink out of cups with lids and straws (like McDonalds cups)
15. Straight people way out numbered gay people at our wedding.
16. When I was in primary school, my Mum made me go to handwritting lessons with a lady at the "Pen Shoppe" in the city. I still have messy writing.
17. I have lived in Brisbane, Glenden, Longreach and Logan.
18. I once went to Chicago to meet up with a group of people I met on an internet message board. And I survived :-)
19. I think you have to decide to be happy. It doesn't just happen.
20. I have a tattoo of the Southern Cross on my arm. With 5-pointed stars. Because I like 5-pointed stars.
21. When I watch "So You Think You Can Dance", I think I can dance. But I can't.
22. I love Bonds undies. Especially green.
23. I had tennis lessons for ever when I was young. And went to tennis camp things during the holidays. Lots and lots of tennis. I haven't played in many many years.
24. I have very strict rules regarding milk. It has to be icy cold. It cannot sit on the bench. It should be almost the last thing to go in the shopping trolley, and it needs to be driven straight home. And my cup of milk needs to go in the freezer for a few minutes before I will drink it.
25. I found it very difficult to think of 25 things for this list!!

Earth Hour

Saturday night after dinner and cake, it was time to turn off the lights for Earth Hour. So we sat around a candle. And laughed. Mum & Dad had found the book where we used to write the agendas of our Family Meetings. Oh dear. It seems we used to have to discuss the "3 C's" at every meeting. Which I think were consideration, cooperation & compromise. We mustn't have been very good at that, because it waws mentioned on just about every page. Along with things like Alison's Temper Tantrums, Alisons Floor and the mysterious Alison - barking. (which we later deciphered to be Alison - banking). Oh what fun a trip down memory lane is. hmmmm.

Scott's Birthday Dinner

On Saturday night we went out to dinner for Scotts birthday. Unfortunately Gina was sick, so couldn't make it. We went to the Stir Fry Cafe at Jindalee. Which we have been to quite a few times before.

To start with we had some prawn toast.

And some vegie Spring Rolls. The spring rolls might look a little over done, but they tasted delicious.

Then there was some Salt & Pepper White Bait, which is what my parents always order here. It looks a little like crispy white worms. But is reportedly delicious.

Mixed Vegetables - a little too heavy on the onion and very light on the carrot and red capsicum. Nice and crunchy though!

Mongolian Lamb. Scott's Choice. The waitress suggested this as being a very popular dish. Was quite heavy on the vegetables.

My choice - Crispy fried tofu with Salt & Pepper. Really crispy chunks of tofu with a spicy sauce on the side. Inside the crunchy shell was soft silken tofu. Yum!!



Janet's Choice - Honey King Prawns. Shock!!!! Its not Sweet & Sour Pork!!

Then it was off to Mum & Dad's place for present opening. AND CAKE!!

I was playing around with the settings on the camera - trying out the candle light setting.


MMMMMMMM Cake - yummmmmmmm!

Random Photos

Southbank

Here are some pictures I took at Southbank on Saturday Afternoon/night. The big wheel thing is a giant ferris wheer you can go on and get a nice (I presume) view of the city. It costs $15 per person for a ride. We didn;t go on it. We went and saw Chicago instead. We had front row seats and it was excellent!!

The Wheel behind a tree

Out to Dinner - March - Amici's Southbank

Before we went to see Chicago on Saturday night, we went to Amici's at Southbank for some dinner. We got there just around 6pm, so quite early and the place was very busy. We last ate here on the night before our wedding, so almost 4 years ago.

Tonight we were seated outside not quite under an umbrella, so when the breeze picked up we briefly wondered what would happen if it started to rain (I guess we would have gotten wet, but it didn't happen, so it didn't matter!)

We both ordered lasagne - and whilst it was quite tasty, I think we could have made it better ourselves.


Vegetarian Lasagne $17

Whilst this was tasty enough, it had vry large chunks of carrot & squash in it as the vegetable component. I think they could do better than this. What about some zuccinni, eggplant and spinach? Large chunks of vegetables don't really go so well.

Lasagne (Meatertarian) $16

Janet thought the sauce was a bit too runny.

So not the best meal of all time, but we cleaned our plates, so it can't have been too bad!

This was our dining companion -it sat behind me for most of the meal.

Happy Birthday Janet!

So on Saturday it was Janet's birthday, and we seem to have spent the whole weekend eating.



A bit of present opening was followed by pancakes for breakfast. Then I mowed the lawn while Janet finished reading her Library book. Then it was off to the library for an exciting birthday outing, followed by a stop at Amart Allsports for some new running shoes for me. Stupid lady tried to tell me that the size 10 shoes I was about to try on wouldn'
t fit me and I should try a size 6. Even though I had previouslt tried on an 8 1/2 which was toooo small. Stupid woman then made some comment about not needing a boat if I went fishing when the 10's fit me.

Anyway, next stop was Brodies for lunch - Chicken Roll for Janet, and a Brodie Burger minus the meat for me. Plus some delicious chippies. THey make them fresh, so they are deliciously crunchy.

For dinner we went with Pam & Sid to Sizzler. This is my plate....

This is Janet's salad bar plate.....

And her Fisherman's something or other meal.....

Then on Sunday it was off to my parent's place for a barbeque.... and my Mum made us crepes for desert...yum!!! I made an experimental cake.... because janet likes doughnuts, I call it a doughnut inspired sponge cake. It was Nigella's Victoria Sponge cake with some cinnamon added, I then brushed the 2 cakes with melted butter and rolled them in cinnamon sugar, and sandwiched them together with Mock cream. It worked quite well, although if I did it again, I would not add the cinnamon to the cake, I'd just make it vanilla-ey.

Come on February - enough now!

I am ready for this month to be over. Lots of strange and stupid things have happened!

1. My heart rate monitor has been playing up. (either that or I am dead). So I have had to send it away to be serviced. Theres a very strange feeling as you drop your watch into a post box. (I did of course bubble wrap it and put it in an express post thingy).
2. My sneakers have broken. I love my sneakers. I hope I can find ones that I like as much. Or there will be trouble.
3. Optus told me they would be increasing our home phone to $57 per month. (this was to include all local calls). We currently never spend over $40 a month on that phone. After much debate with the Indians during which I got no-where. (they suggested that I could disconnect my Optus intrnet from them in order to get a cheaper phone????), they were also going to charge me $99 to check if I could still be their internet customer if I changed phone providers)I have jumped off the Optus ship and joined up elsewhere. For $0 connection fee and $20.95 home phone. We will pay more for the internet, but get HEAPS more downloads.
4. I might be called up for Jury duty again in April. I have sent the form back, so we will wait and see.
5. We are going to see the musical Chicago next month. We had front row seats. I got an email saying they had added an extra front row. If we want to be in it, I just had to reply. A guy rang me and told me to send back the original tickets and they will send me the new ones. Now I am hoping there isn't a scam to steal Chicago tickets from people. Wait and see on that one!

I think that is all, but its not over yet, so you never know what else just might happen!

Out to Dinner - February - Seoul BBQ

Restaurant #2 on the quest for one new restaurant per month. This one might not be considered quite so successful.....

We went to a Korean BBQ Restaurant at Sunnybank. It was filled with Koreans which was a good sign. It was also staffed by waitresses without a great grasp of english. So we had some problems. Since we have absolutely no grasp of Korean.

Each table has a hotplate in the middle of it, ad we could see that everyone was cooking their own food. Large plates of raw meat kept going past us.

Browsing the menu I was a tad worried, as there was not a great deal of explanation, and everything looked like meat. Even the tofu dishes had meat.

I asked the waitress for help and she pointed me to a beef dish that could be served without the beef. YAY. I was taken care of. Next problem - Miss Janet. I asked the waitress to reccommend something for her. SHe said that the BBQ dishes were for 2 or more people, so that ruled them out. Finally, Janet decided to have the same as me, only with the beef & the egg.

About 8 little white dishes were placed on our table, each containing different kinds of vegetables in sauces. There was also a small dish of chilli sauce for each of us. Then our meals were brought to us. They were served in large stone bowls that were sizzling! My bowl contained rice and assorted vegetables (like carrot, bean shoots, strange mushrooms) Janets had the same as well as some beef & a freshly cracked egg on top, and a bowl of beef stock on the side. As you stired everything together, it sizzled away. I added the chilli sauce and some of the vegies delivered earlier. It was really quite tasty. It was a short grain rice, and the chilli sauce was not toooo hot. The sizzling bowls were really cool though (in a non-chilly way).

It was a very busy place, with food being constantly brought out to the many tables. It looks like the BBQ is the most popular thing here, so maybe another trip with more meat-eaters would be the way to go, in order to have the true Kprean BBQ experience. (It might pay to take a Korean along as well)

January Dinner = Cafe @ Bayliss

This year we are trying to go to a different restaurant for dinner each month. Just the two of us (which is why the earleir dinner with my parent's did not count :-) )

Since it was the last day of January, we had to get ourselves into gear and find somewhere to go. The answer was Cafe @ Bayliss. THis is very close to our house. In fact I think if I took the bike path, I could run there faster than we could drive. We did drive, but this was because we have had very rainy weather lately. Nothing to do with being lazy.

So Cafe @ Bayliss... it descibes its self as a Cafe & Asian style restaurant. It has a small air conditioned indoor area as well as tables outside. We sat inside and had the worlds most forgetful waitress. Janet ordered a coke, I asked for water. In the 2 minutes it took her to go to the fridge and get the can of coke and the water bottle & glasses, she had forgotten who wanted the coke. SHe did give us lovely glasses full of ice for our water though, so this earns her some points.

We decided to start with the vegetarian spring rolls and these came out piping hot and deliciously crunchy. In fact I do believe I burnt my tongue because I was so eager to try them. They were goooood. I can see more of these in my near future :-)

For mains I had a selection of items to choose from the vegetarian section of the menu. These were all "vegetable-only" versions of other items on the main menu. So I went for the Terryaki Stir Fry with steamed rice. THis was good. The sauce was delicious. I just wish they would actually add some protein to the meal instead of just removing the meat. How hard is it to have some tofu on stand by?

Janet had Sweet & Sour pork (surprise surprise!!) and said it was good.

We would like to go back here someday to try the all day breakfast.

"new" table!

The other excitement of our Saturday was that Sid brought around a table and chairs for us. The table extends, so it can seat 6! We then had to go out on a quest to find a non-ugly covering for it. We ended up getting a length of plasticy stuff from Spotlight. We still have to find a proper table cloth, but we couldn't find one we liked.

Jaspa had to check out the chairs.

Let there be light!

I do believe that on Friday I declared I was not cooking another meal in our kitchen until we had our new lights up. Just before 8 on Saturday morning the electrician arrived. And now we have light! Bright light. Brilliant!!