Anne turned 30 on Friday ~ as it is a ‘big birthday’ and we are away from most of our friends and family in the UK I treated us to a day out. I told Anne to pack an overnight bag (which had her fretting, cos she didn’t know what clothes to take!) and we jumped in the campervan and took a drive down to Rose Bay, a lovely party of Sydney that neither of us has visited before.

From Rose Bay we took a seaplane to Palm Beach. The flightpath took us all along the northern beaches so we could spot our apartment block. At Palm Beach we were met by a little boat which took us to the shore, and then jumped in the Jonah’s transfer car. At this point I think Anne knew we were going for dinner at Jonah’s, but she hadn’t realised that we would be staying overnight!

Jonah’s is famous in Sydney for its excellent food and superb accomodation, and it certainly didn’t dissapoint. The staff were all utterly charming and looked after us so well, a refreshing change from some of the service we have had recently. The atmosphere is very relaxed and casual for a good class hotel, being free to walk around in teeshirt, shorts and sandals is certainly welcome. Even the music was to my taste; chilled tracks from artists such as Moby we played in the dining room and bar area.

Dinner was a real treat ~ I had rock oysters for the first time ~ and breakfast was spot on too. Our flight back in the seaplane included a close flybay of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge (I’m still excited by the sight of Sydney Harbour).

We shall certainly be returning to Jonah’s in the future

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Just turned my laptop on to watch a film, and it instantly found a wifi network (thanks!) so here I am posting.

Bangkok is a real cool place and great fun, getting around on taxis & tuk-tuks & also the skytrain. We have been on riverboats, and wandered down khaosan road and seen a reclining budda.

Today (although I’ve been ill) we have been on a Thai cooking course at baipai.com

Will write more later

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Dubai is very different to anywhere I have been before, trust us to visit during Ramadan too… its a struggle to get food/drink from sunrise to sunset & ladies must dress modestly. Still, theyre a friendly lot over here… having a great time. Our hotel has made us welcome, so did the staff at the noodle house in the impressive emirates towers where we spent our first evening.

Yesterday we spent at the hotel pool, followed by a visit to the gold and spice souks & then off to Sheikh Zayed Road again, this time to The Olive House for a Lebanese feast, followed by ice cream at Bakin Robbins (yum).

Today we spent at the Jumeirah Beach Habtoor hiding from the 35′+ heat. Silly me got the time of the bus back wrong so we ended up with a long taxi ride.

The important bit that all you geeks out there will want to know is… how is the internet in the Emirates? Expensive in the hotel (LAN in the room, WiFi in the lobby) so this is coming to you from Al Jassa Internet Cafe & Restaurant, Al Ain Centre, Computer Plaza (like a geek souk, quite cool). I beleive that the net is also censored to some degree over here by the goverment. Also I don’t seem to be able to get on messenger (nevermind). Cost here is 10DHR/hr or about 1.50GBP & lasagne, bread & salad is about 3quid & tasty with it.

Next stop is Bangkok, easy day flight over there on Sunday so we should be in good shape when we land. We were jiggered when we got here… Hope we aren’t this jetlagged when we reach Sydney (another nightflight) or we will be in big trouble off Karen, Stu & Laura

Big thanks to all my online pals who wished us well on the trip… including GADOOD, SEOidiot & Esrun – I’ve got friends in all the wrong places.

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Well, not new domain (although I might take the .com.au), but new home/house/life…

• Sort out a (good, original) theme for the blog. ‘Enhance’ the structure.
• Revisit some neglected sites rather than spending on new projects.
• Exploit to the maximum some of the advantages I have.

Offline resolutions;

• Spend less than an average of 12hr/day driving the tube
• Get some exercise (and lose the two stone I gained over the last two years)
• Eat fresh! (thanks Subway)

When we find our place in Oz I will have these things in mind:

• Barbeques Galore
• Sea View
• Peace
• No commute (not that I have one now lol)

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Anyway, whats new?… had an enjoyable evening with SEOidiot on Friday… mmmm

Was doing some research into the paid blog industry before… it is wide open for anyone who has the time (not me ATM as you can guess). Maybe this is going to be one of those ‘if only I knew then what I know now’ things like we all say about the dotcom boom, housing boom, general stuff we should have all done.

Following the links out of the PayPerPost thread this scared the sh1te out of me… I followed the link expecting to find a professional outfit to help me with customer relations, but I think not! Especially scarey to think we will be in Thailand in two weeks with martial law and all.

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Blasted down to the Trafford Centre yesterday afternoon and picked up a Nokia N80 mobile phone and a 80gb ipod… between the functionality of the phone (wifi, MSN messenger etc) and the combined storage of 2x ipods and 2x 2.5″ hard disks in external cases (USB plug & play) and a bit of room on my server I should be able to take all my data and leave the lappy here.

Tried out mojopac…. it looks to be a superb piece of software. Will currently installing it on a 120gb 2.5″ disk.

Now I’m back to thinking I will take the lappy and to hell with it…. uhhh…

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Please forgive me if I am a bit slow with emails and payments over the next couple of months, I’m gonna be too busy having fun!

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We took the campervan off to Wakestock, Europes largest wakeboarding festival. I’m not a big wakeboarding fan or anything, it just seemed a cool thing to do, and it was! Great music from Feeder (yay!), The Zutons and The Automatic to name but a few.

After the weekend in Abersoch we headed down to St. Ives for a few nights, cream teas and pasties all around, and then onto Newquay, staying at Porth beach. Visited Jamie Oliver’s restaurant ’15′. Newquay is much quieter than I remember it, seemed a bit run down with quite a few places closed down and boarded up. Great beaches though.

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A totally awesome time was had by all, even tho the weather SUCKED!

So that pretty much finished me up for the weekend, most of Sunday was spent recovering and not doing my accounts like I should have been.

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Spent some (more) time today on the camper’s roof. Nearly finished fixing the canvas on – looking forward to spending some time actually camping rather than fixing up. Don’t ask me why I spend so much effort on this old machine rather than buying a shiny new one, or importing a shiny old one from Aus or the US – I haven’t got a sensible answer!

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