Gentlefolk,
This post covers events/activities in the first half of November 2017.
Caroline went on a business trip to Indonesia, so Vera & I spent 8 - 16 November in Sydney to give Andrew a helping hand with Fast Eddie (3.5 years) and Little Jay-Jay (8 months). We had forgotten just how "full on" looking after little kids can be....
Here are some photos of the last two weeks.
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| Old friend Will Costin visited Canberra and we went to the Peter Dombrovskis exhibition at the National Library of Australia. Many wonderful photographs of the Tasmanian wilderness. |
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| The annual Panda Competition run by the Australia - China Friendship Society. This year the theme was "Chinese clothing/dress". Many fine entries by Canberra school students. |
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| The prize-giving ceremony was held at the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, an impressive building. Afterwards the Embassy also provided lunch for all the competitors and parents & staff. |
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| Corinne and Vera sorting through the winning entries. |
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| About 60 "winners" attended from different primary and high schools around Canberra. Some proud teachers and parents also attended. I was surprised at how "multi-cultural" the students were: Caucasian, kids of Asian (mainly Chinese and Indian) heritage, Middle East, even some African kids. Australia has changed dramatically from its largely British-and-Irish ancestry 70 years ago; first migrants from a range of European countries, and then Asia and Middle East migrants. |
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| A group photo with all the winners holding their certificates and prizes. |
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| The Cultural Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy, Mr Yang, was very helpful in supporting the Panda Competition, |
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| We spent 8 - 16 November in Sydney, helping Andrew look after the kids, while Caroline was in Indonesia. Here is Vera with little Jay-Jay (now 8 months old). |
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| Another photo of Little Jay-Jay. Uber cute! |
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| Andrew taking Eddie to the day-care center, a 15 minute walk from their apartment in Surry Hills. |
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| On Saturday 11 November we took the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly, and arrived just in time for the Remembrance Day commemorations (WW1 Armistice came into effect at 11am on 11 November 1918). WW1 was such a horrible war, especially in the trenches of France; so many young Aussie men, basically looking for adventure, either killed or injured. |
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| Despite still being Spring, 11 November was a lovely warm day and there were crowds of people on the Corso and on Manly Beach. Quite a number surfing and swimming. The water is still too cold for us (20 C), but Andrew had a swim. |
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| In Manly we met up with old friends Emil de Graaff and Katie. We first met them in Rio de Janiero back in 1979, and then caught up again in Hong Kong, Jakarta and Singapore - it was really quite strange how we followed each other around. They live in a beach suburb just north of Manly, and have a hobby-farm at Muggee. |
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| The following day, Sunday 12 November, we drove down to Maroubra Beach in Andrew's new Peugeot 3008; an impressive SUV. Another beautiful day, lots of people on the beach and surfing & swimming. |
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| Caught this ibis getting into a trash can. |
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15 November 2017 the results of the postal survey on Same Sex Marriage were announced. 80% of adult Australians participated, and of those 62% voted Yes, and 38% voted No; a clear majority. So now the Government will introduce legislation to make Same Sex Marriage legal in Australia.
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That's it for this post.
I've changed the blog title from "Letters from China" to "Letters from Down Under" to better reflect that we are now living in Australia again.
Best wishes, stay healthy and keep smiling.
Alex Olah and Vera Olah
Sydney, Australia
Wednesday 15 November 2017.
