Expansion and other fine bullet-y things

Well, we're expanding. No, not the family (though it has been so long since last I blogged that we could almost have another child!!). We have bought this:

Not pretty and, it turns out, not quite high enough for Conrad to stand in - but it is a step in the right direction! We will be selling it at the end of the month so we can get a slightly higher vehicle *ahem*. Other cool discoveries this week:

• rediscovering e-bay and replacing expensive but disintegrating-from-sun sheers in living room for Ikea sheers on Ebay for an amazing bargain, even with postage (the cost of one panel from Freedom - crazy);
  
• today's discovery that the boring looking fish and chip shop in Alicetown has become the home of chinese dumpling specialists. $5 for 12, made right there, yummy vege ones with lashings of spring onions and little tiny pieces of vermicelli. Mmmm;
• our business growing by the day - new regulars and excellent corporate events. Definitely need two setups;
  
• lots of great feedback on our coffee - hurrah. Makes it all worthwhile;
• happy shiny children; and
  
• a teensy bit of contract work from home to help pay the bills as we grow our empire.

Glass of wine time. Night : )

Business as usual

Well you may have noticed I haven't exactly been a prolific blogger of late. I even went to a Wellington bloggers' catchup evening last week and felt like such a fraud! Great to meet some of the folks whose blogs/online journals I've been lurking around for a while - smart people. Not as much variety in our days, I guess - easy when the countries, foods and experiences are changing by the day to think of many bloggable tidbits! But things are going well following reentry.

We have a new Espresso Rescue site for weekday mornings (opposite the fire station in Marsden Street, just by the bridge into Lower Hutt) thanks to the Assembly of God and their nice big car park. It is going well and we have many regulars already, after only 5 days. Our (well, soon-to-be-ours) ambulance is being fixed up ready for a WOF in Rotorua - a 1984 Bedford, which will be most excellent for our vehicle 2.0. Finally a home for our lovely Wega. Then we can be two places at once with ease. At the moment we have several contemporaneous (don't you just LOVE that word?!) events on the weekend, which can be a bit of a challenge and requires much lugging of heavy things. This way we'll have two vehicles from which we can operate inside, no matter what the weather - essential in Wellington.

Conrad and I are taking turns doing morning coffee. Now I have worked out I can bring my laptop and woosh modem for the quiet times it is fantastic - great reception here!

The kids are very happily settled in their new learning environments, and enjoying their old haunts and friends again.


And we have chickens! Four extremely cute and industrious bantams, bought on Trade Me - contact me if you want some - Louise has hundreds. Literally. So Felicity, Snowy, Bernard and Malc (will post pics soon - lost camera in Korea) are happily pecking their way around the perimeter of the garden - great weeders, and there isn't much they can hurt within their reach. They are so cute, putting themselves "to bed" at night up in the grape vines at the top of the glass house. They will start laying in a couple of months, fingers crossed.

Well, stay tuned for the progress of our poor but happy (but with great potential) year, as we build our Espresso Rescue empire to sustain us OUT OF THE OFFICE.

: ) x

Adamsaway out of office reply...

Kia ora tatou, konichiwa, bonjour, hola. We're back home and, as my friend Mindi said on the weekend, it is all a bit "Good Life". Remember that wonderful show from the 70s? We have sealed it with 4 bantams, newly installed in the glasshouse, who are being very cute.

We have been back almost a month. In some ways it has flown, in other ways it seems like aeons ago that we were transiting in Narita Airport for our final longhaul leg of the trip. AirNZ is fabulous, btw - we have flown many airlines in the last six months and our last flight was the best (barring business class Lufthansa Toronto to Frankfurt of course!).

We eased our way back in with a few days at my brother Russell's, while he was in Australia and our (wonderful) tenants were moving out. We wandered around town in the searing hot sun like new tourists - it was quite an odd feeling. We bought kimchi (which we ate every day in Korea) and rediscovered an excellent flat white -something that we only got close to twice in Europe - Berlin and Rome. Now we've been back in our lovely home for 3 weeks o so. We are still kind of camping, due to a mix up with a friend who by mistake took the children's mattresses and a general reluctance to put our bed up - we are sleeping Korean style!

Only what we immediately need has been unpacked - we just haven't been able to face the rest! The children are delighted with school and kindy.

So we are poor but happy. We are so much richer for our experiences on the trip. The reconnections we made, the new friends we found and the places, food and atmospheres we fell in love with. And it is good to be back, so that is perfect. We are enjoying reconnecting bit by bit with our people here, on many fronts.

Work wise we are Espresso Rescuing - many big events coming up - and looking at how we will expand / extend the business to keep me out of an office as long as possible. And we are being a family, doing quiet things and making hay while the sun shines.

Not much news as such but all is well on the home front.

Bye bye Korea

What an amazing country, the Republic of Korea. We have been wonderfully hosted by Bernad and Su-Jin (now Mr and Mrs Adams), seen historical sights, eaten lashings of gimchi (sp?) and attended an extraordinary wedding - beautiful.

I can't upload the pics til I am back on my laptop, but may be able to en route in Tokyo. We leave later this morning for a transfer there, then on to NZ overnight. It feels a little odd but we are ready for the return home. What a luxury it will be to really unpack! We are staying at my brother Russell's in Mt Vic for the first few days, while we ease our way back into our place.

What a wonderful whirlwind it has been. Much delicious food (our winter layer now firmly in place - perfect for the summer in NZ!); many lovely people; much kindness and many adventures. 13 countries for me, 12 for the children and Conrad. It has cost us an arm and a leg but this time away has been an excellent investment. We have seen our little people grow and blossom in front of our eyes. They have managed so much travelling, waiting, being patted by strangers, so many temperatures, times zones and beds, with little whining and much gusto. They are well prepared for their forays into school and kindergarten on our return - we have no concerns about that!

Ok - sayonara til Tokyo, and hopefully some pics.

: )

On the home straight...

It has been nearly a week since my last posting (St Peter's almost made me want to convert...) . Almost all my (meager) online time has been spent trying to get home. Our agent in NZ has been doing battle on our behalf with both Lufthansa and Air NZ to get us back the seats that were cancelled by mistake. We had duplicate seats held by a nice Lufthansa agent in Nuremberg who was trying to help with a flight change (but actually couldn't from her end), which caused a bit of a system problem and our seats to disappear on our (now oversold) flight out of Shanghai. However, we will get home - still to be confirmed whether it will be via Tokyo or Shanghai. Flight Centre has fronted up with tickets Pusan-Tokyo in case we need them, so yay for that.

Anyway...not interesting, but has taken a lot of time and energy to sort out the options across the world and between time zones. Luckily the internet cafes in Rome were excellent, and even smoke free. That has been fantastic these last two weeks - hitting Paris on January 2nd, going to have dinner and realising all of a sudden that NO-ONE was smoking! We didn't have to rush through our dinner as everyone around us lit up as soon as they finished! Yay.

So. we had a lovely 5 days in Rome. We really did and saw a lot. Hen walked around 5 kms most days, fuelled by excellent pizza and gelato. Oh yes, and just a sip of the best coffee in Rome, at St Eustachio Cafe. Soooooooooooooo good, I reckon they may have a secret ingredient.

We saw so many cool things - when I have more time I will add more and links too. Our accommodation was wonderfl. A little out of Rome proper, but so peaceful and lovely friendly people. Self-catering is so much easier with little people too, evening s at home. We were sad to leave.


Yesterday we arrived in Shanghai - all was ok despite no visas, as we have ongoing tickets to Korea (today). We didn't have the time or energy (those all night flights - seem like such a good idea but C and I can never really sleep) to go far from our hotel (which is excellent - another very good deal through expedia.com). We did manage a great meal which, with beer, cost 20 NZD for many dishes - incredible. Managed to restrain myself from ordering fried pig tails, various stuffed tripey things and sliced snake heads, much to Hen's disappointment. They all ate little hairy-looking cold fried fish as a starter - rugged stomachs, this family!

It is spectacular here. The skyline, the efficiency at the airport, the range of amazing food and, I expect, shopping. It feels safe and pretty friendly, and we have provided much entertainment for the locals with our little blonde children - they are like rock stars here, it is very funny. Ok - now for a couple of pics as we must go off to breakfast before getting back on the maglev to the airport (400kph!!!)


: )

Rome is fabulous

We love it here. Will do a more detailed update when I am properly back online (internet cafes only right now as we are not online at our lovely accommodation).

Mild temperatures, extraordinary buildings, friendly and great food. As in most places we've been, but with the pantheon and coliseum thrown in!

Henry is even happy to run all day with some gelato and pizza to fuel him, so we are all sleeping like logs.

Only slight blight is the remaining issue with flights back home, as some complex and unintended things have happened with our tickets, but I have faith that it will all work out in the end. It has to. We are going to see/hear the Pope speak on Sunday, so maybe that will help...I will take all the assistance I can get at this point!

Ciao x

Pretty, pretty Paris

No matter that it is cold and grey, this is such a pretty old town. We spent ALL DAY (well, from 12 til 9) driving here yesterday and most of this morning bickering over driving directions and other silly things, but even so we managed to have a lovely time foux-de-fa-fa-ing around today.

We managed to tick off:

• the metro (duhh)
• the Eiffel Tower - great excitement from Hen, who has a real affection for it (at 6). Who knew?
• the Musee du Quai Branly, which is dedicated to the 'first arts' of asia, the americas and oceania
  
• mooching along beside the Seine
• crepe au chocilat (one between four was actually enough - yum!)
  
• Notre Dame all lit up and pretty-like with a gorgeous christmas tree - as above
  
• the Centre Pompidou and
• groovy ice skating outside the Palais de Justice (not participating, sadly, just a wee bit too late in the day for small people at their limits)

And we made it back to our hotel in one piece and married. Hallelujah. We changed hotels this morning as I was so incensed with the extraordinarily rude service on arrival last night where we had originally booked. It is a chain we have used in Germany and France several times, but we have never on this trip (except perhaps the Chinese Embassy in London, but let's not go there...) had such patronising customer service. And yes, I have given formal feedback that will make a difference - well it made me feel better anyway.

So now we are at our nice Novotel for an excellent online rate including breakfast, a short metro ride from the centre of Paris.

It can be v difficult and expensive to find quad/family rooms in Europe, with many hotels only allowing one child per room, so Novotels with their 'kids stay free" family rooms can be an excellent fallback option. Tip for the day. Sadly parking is 20 euro a day, but that is just part of being here.

Tomorrow the Louvre and other touristy things. Thank goodness for off season.

x