pinku

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My very talented husband made an e-zine about our roadtrip in Australia. Check it out!

Although I loved the snow on Saturday, my heart will always be where the warm weather is...

In knitting news (yes, I still do knit) I am working on Forecast by Stephanie Japel. I will be adapting the sleeves as Winnie did for hers and I will also add a few inches to the length of the body. Oh and I also opted for plain unmirrored 4x4 cables instead of the bobbles and braided cables...basically because I am lazy and don't want to have to refer to the chart. I happened to have a full bag of Rowan Cork in light blue so I am using that. I would prefer a red cardie, but hooray to me for using stash. I'm nearly finished the body so I should have an FO soon.

Oh and I'm so excited because I finally got to sign up for Alison's Sockapalooza event!!! Go now and sign up too - you've got 23 hours to do so!

Oh and lastly here's one of my most recent FOs - Squarey from you know where. I finished up squarey in Australia and gave him to my mum for Christmas - I think he was a hit!!

Diary of a failed gym junkie!!

When I was home, I was really happy that I had timed my trip perfectly so that I could check out my big brother Stephen's new exhibition, 'Diary of a failed gym junkie' at the Doggett Street Studio. It opened on the night before I left Brisbane and there was a fantastic turnout. It is his biggest exhibition to date and I especially loved his black and white installation.

Check out all of his paintings here, there are four galleries and another section called installation.

ps if you are lucky enough to be in Brisbane, go and see the exhibition in person.

Sorry about my mug in the way of the paintings :P

For homesick Aussies in Japan

This post will be of very little interest to many of you, but it makes me very happy. The Foreign Buyer's Club in Japan has now opened its Aussie store. Shipping is cheap at around 500 yen and it takes just over a week for your order to arrive from Australia, and although the prices are obviously higher than normal - it's worth it when you receive little treats from home (e.g. Chicken in a Biskit, the Woman's Day, Pascall Wine Gums, etc). I have no idea why it happens, but I actually long for food more than anything when I am away from home. Basically food dictated my week at home and I deprived myself of NOTHING. It was fabulous. I did pay the price though in adding a couple of kilos to my happy Aussie frame, but I'm back to jogging, swimming and eating a rice ball for lunch so no doubt I'll be back to normal soon enough. My mother never worried about me having an eating disorder just because she REALLY knows just how much I LOVE food. Not massive quantities but the variety of tastes and textures. I think it's one of the best things about being alive!!!

Happy shopping and happy eating!!

ps Flower pin swap blog has been updated!!!

Bonds + Hipsters

To an Aussie girl, these words have nothing to do with financial istruments or people who think they're hot! However, if you do wear them you will look hot! Bonds hipsters are undies - really comfy, cotton, Aussie undies that come in a bunch of different styles and funky colours.

This post was inspired by a post in Nicole's blog that was all about being an Aussie and some of the girls mentioned loving Bonds. Basically Bonds is an old Australian company that revamped its business by introducing a funky line of underwear (which every Aussie girl loves). I always buy some when I am at home - I mean ALWAYS!

For those of us far from home, particularly in countries like Japan where the lingerie options are well....lacy, frilly, very padded and come with lots of bows - buying lingerie on trips home is a must. Since living in Tokyo, Victoria's Secret has been my main on-line undie and bra shopping source, but a google search today introduced me to Zodee - an on-line AUSSIE lingerie shop THAT delivers overseas!! They carry Elle Macpherson, Bonds, Bendon, Berlei, Formfit, Finelines, Love Kylie, Playtex, Simone Perele, Hey Sister, Sloggi (now that's a classic) and lots more. They also carry swimwear.

You can sign up to join their club (FREE) and you get 5% off all purchases, a $10 voucher, and 2.5% of every purchase is credited back to your account for future use. Sounds like good value to me, mate!!!

I expect lots of dodgy google searches because of this post.

My grandad

This is such a great photo. It was taken at my brother's 21st birthday party in Australia about a month ago. It's just me and my grandad, Fred Thompson. He is such a character - always making jokes and known to laugh at his own whether they are funny or not. Not only funny, this guy is talented. A turner and fitter by trade - grandad has worked outfitting ship interiors and over the years he has constantly been building us all something. He made me the most amazing set of drawers for my eraser collection of all things. All hand turned, there are eight little drawers made out of the most beautiful wood and he put a little musical box in the back of the bottom drawer, so every time I opened it pretty music would play. Talented and funny. My grandmother, Kitty Thompson is also a character - they make the most perfect couple and have been married for nearly 65 years. An amazing feat. My mother is their only daughter.

Right now my grandad is in hospital - he is 89 and had a stroke on Tuesday. I just wanted to write about him coz he's so great, and even though I can't be there with him now I am thinking about him every minute. I love you grandad.

the rest of my photos

I finally found the time to resize and post the rest of my Australia photos. They are in no particular order. If I could change one thing about the typepad photo albums, I would make it much easier to change the order of the photos.

In knitting news I have been madly working on my first ever knitting design. Will update when closer to completion - it is a lacy knit and I have working hard not to forget yarn overs - it is SO easy to do. I also don't like fixing mistakes in the pattern coz sometimes I have no idea what goes where. Have you ever had the same problem?? ......I hope so.

click on photo to go to australia :)

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road!

Finally got around to resizing the second half of our photos from Australia. I have put up the first gallery including photos from Melbourne and our trip along the Great Ocean Road. Hopefully I will be able to put up photos from the first half of our trip including Brisbane and Stradbroke Island by the end of the week.

Our Valentine's Day this year was H.O.T - no I mean it was literally hot around 41 degrees in Melbourne. Luckily we spent most of the day at the Globe WorldCup Skateboarding Event at the Rod Laver Arena (the same place where they hold the Australian Open Tennis) which was air conditioned and indoors. They were planning to open the roof of the arena, but it was just way too hot.

The next day we set off on a journey along the Great Ocean Road. If you travel to Victoria, this is not to be missed. Our day was filled with koalas, kangaroos, surf lifesaving contests, beaches, rainforests, fish and chips, amazing scenery and sunsets. You just gotta go.

click on photo to go to album

Australia the beautiful!

Well, darin and I are back in Japan. We only flew in last night, so I haven't had a chance yet to sort through my photos and the first half of my photos are still on my brother's hard drive in Australia!! The past ten days really flew by (knew they would) and I truly couldn't have had a better time. We basked in the sun (maybe for a little too long considering both of us have already started peeling), ate steaks, drank cold Aussie beer in the sunshine, went for long drives and walks, spent time with my family, and spent a lot of time on the beach.

The following three photos are from our last day in Australia. We rented a car and drove along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. It was spectacular.

The famous 12 apostles - absolutely stunning BUT they don't tell you about all of the flies that live there. People taking photos were literally covered in flies!!! funny!

we didn't end up making it to any zoos while in Australia, and thought that Darin may have to leave without seeing some of our famous kangas, but during the last couple of hours of our Great Ocean Road trip, we made it to the Anglesea Golf Course, which is famous for its kangaroos that live freely on the golf course. There were hundreds, possibly thousands just roaming all over the course - I wonder how many have been hit by golf balls!! A definite must if you are in the area! We also saw three koalas in the wild!

On the way towards Geelong in Victoria, we were driving through Torquay when the sun set - I have never seen such a big, beautiful sky!! A fabulous way to end the perfect holiday!!

Pinku goes tropical!!!

Oh golly!! Dear visitors I haven't been posting because I am on a secret holiday. Well, actually it was only a secret prior to coming - now it is secret no more. I am in Australia (Brisbane to be exact) visiting family and friends with dazza AND the weather is awesome. I am seriously sunburnt which I know is not something to be proud of, but my god it is the height of summer here and we have already spent three of five days at the beach.

Photos to follow. Having problems uploading photos to the Internet and we don't have another memory stick so here's to hoping that we will be able to solve this problem soon. Also this is the first time that we have had access to cable internet and to be honest I love not checking my email.

So, just to make you jealous we just spent two absolutely perfect days on Stradbroke Island which is a short trip from Brisbane. The skies were blue, the weather warm, the beer cold, and the beaches white. We saw a pod of about 60 dolphins frolicking in the water and had many great swims.

Gotta go now and enjoy the rest of my holiday. I am currently doing NO crafting whatsoever - I love holidays.

Will be back in cold miserable Japan next week, so no doubt we'll be back to regular posting then.

cheers,
kat

Happy 'to be an Australian' Day!

We had the great pleasure of celebrating being Australian yesterday with a bunch of great Aussies and one great American. Daz and I finally got to meet Kim,Matt, and Martine. They were all 'great' value.

I have some really 'special' pics from karaoke that I will put up tonight, but here's one to give you a hint of the great night we had.