Well, what a New Year we had. We hopped on a plane and in no time at all (well, actually it was about 11 hours and via Shanghai) we were in gloriously warm and sunny Sydney to prepare ourselves for the New Year festivities.
We nearly didn't get there. A lovely check in desk attendant at Beijing airport tried to check us in, once, twice and a third time. This accompanied by much tooth sucking and sighing, did alert us to the fact that all was apparently not well with our paperwork, as far as she was concerned.
She asked us if we had a visa for Australia. We did. Could we produce it? We did. Could she read it? She couldn't so off she went to some higher authority to have it looked at. We, of course, we not being told anything, were holding up a very long queue at the desk and slowly but surely losing all hope of getting the flight we were supposed to. We were curtly told to stand aside to let others check in. I won't go into detail but Dave, by this time, was not a happy bunny and was beginning to take it out on the girl. Not a good idea I thought as this generally prolongs the proceedings. Dave was worried he wouldn't get the seat with leg room and I was worried he would have a heart attack!!
However, as the photo shows, all's well that ends well and we did actually make the flight after a phonecall to Sydney Immigration by Air China who agreed that our electronic visa was perfectly acceptable after all! Dave and I headed for Starbucks and a celebratory cup of coffee!
We were met at the airport by a great chap who drove us about a bit in Sydney and showed us our first view of the Opera House and the Harbour. We were blown away by it all. He ddropped us at the Marriott Hotel and we were soon drawing back the curtains in our room to discover we had an amzing view of the very same Opera House from our window! If I sat up in bed and leaned slightly to the right I could see it every morning! What a start to the day.
We did some wonderful things. We ate in some amazing places - some well off the tourist trail - and saw some amazing things. Our New Year was spent actually in the harbour (on a boat!) with a ring side view of the fireworks. There were, quite simply, the most stunning fireworks we have ever seen. It was Aus $5 million worth - and boy! were they something. We walked back after all the frolics against the tide of people who were leaving the other harbour and a friendly lot of drunks they were too!!
We managed to get tickets to see Madam Butterfly in THE Opera House. A magical evening, sipping champagne watching the Harbour Bridge from the balcony of the Opera House. The opera was terrific too. Shame about the unhappy ending!!
Our friends Peter and Christine were extremely kind to us and took us out and about on a couple of occasions. We went to the Blue Mountains - a wonderful trip ending up in a 1930's cafe for scones and cream! We also went south a bit to places like Bulli Beach and Ruby's Cafe and had a wonderful day seeing that wilder section of coast line. Charming. We wer entracned by the place.
We ate on the 47th Floor in a revolving restaurant - with a changing view every few minutes; we ate at a Franco Vietnamese place just off the tourist track which served food to die for. The VERY best of both countries! There were restaurants with amazing views of the harbour and others tucked away in back streets - like the German Restaurant where I was humoured by the waiter and he allowed me to use my rusty German to order!
Anyway enough of all that. The BIG news in the last month or so is that we will be leaving China in August 2009. We are off to another mystical place in the East here. It's only a short hop away. We are off to Japan - to Tokyo where Dave has been asked to be Head of School at The British School in Tokyo. We are thrilled by the prospect of yet another interesting place and on our brief visit there we decided we would love the change of pace and the sheer vibrancy of the city. The photo shows the famous Shibuya crossing in Tokyo - what do you mean you haven't seen 'Lost in Translation'?
Tokyo is Manhattan with knobs on and we will make the best of every moment we have there.
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