Jells Park

This morning, it took a little prodding from hubby before I rolled out of bed ready for another day of riding. It had been a late night last night, compounded with a couple of beers and several glasses of wine had made for a tough time getting out of bed.
I wasn't disappointed with hubby's perseverance in getting me up though. It was a beautiful morning and although the route turned out to be the farthest thus far in my "10 days of riding", it wasn't the most strenuous. Plenty of gliding along and parts of short uphill with long downhill paths making it truly enjoyable. The greenery and peaceful surroundings were a definite plus.
We stopped by Jells Lake and I took a few pictures with my dad - hubby is notoriously camera-shy. There was even a beautiful black swan with a red beak.













Definitely a favourite route in my point of view and I will definitely request for more journeys to Jells Park - though I'm sure I'll hear no end of it from Mom, as she has been telling me for years to go to Jells Park!



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Uphill challenge

The daylight savings changeover happened last night, so I managed an extra hour of sleep - which only made it harder to wake up this morning.
I had suggested to hubby that I would like to explore the route that my son, Gabrial would likely use, if we agreed to allowing him to ride to school and perhaps after that to ride on to Rowville Lakes to enjoy the scenery.
Unfortunately for me, I had failed to research the terrain, having previously been to the area only by car, I had doomed myself to torture because the slopes were horrendous, although what goes up, had to come down! There were a few great downhill slopes, but I was absolutely exhausted from today's ride!
Gasping and breathless, I was relieved to finally make it home. But it was an enjoyable ride in parts and I must say, the new bike makes a whole world of difference as can be seen from my increased average speed below in the chart.
I seriously doubt I would have survived the hills on hubby's old bike, and am looking forward to tomorrow's ride - I have requested an extended route to the Eastlink one we took yesterday.
I hope I can still stand when I go back to work!!




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Venturing on the Eastlink trail

It's hard to wake up in the mornings, especially for such a bedbug like myself. I like nothing more than to huddle under the covers and just snooze or laze about reading a book or surfing the Internet on my MacBook.
However, having dragged myself out of bed and out into the morning air, it's invigorating to the mind and body, zooming along in the crisp, cool, early day, quiet except for the zinging metallic sounds of the bicycle wheel and the swooshing air as I gain speed going downhill.
I had indicated to hubby that, after yesterday's ride, I would like to venture further onto the Eastlink trail as that seemed to be the next level to our training and so off we went.
Down Wellington road, onto the bike trail. Past Chesterfield Farm, where I amused myself, hubby in front and my Dad behind me, by moo-ing at the cows and baa-ing at the sheep and quack-ing at the ducks as we zoomed by them.
We stopped at the Ferntree Gully road point and took some pictures, then headed home.



My Dad and I at the Ferntree Gully road point.


Boy, do I look chubby!! Hopefully this new hobby will help me lose some weight!
I was really happy at the end of this ride because we had managed 16.59km although with quite an even elevation. I was tired out by the time we got home and my body wad aching terribly by now especially at the neck, shoulders and lower back.
All this time, I had been riding hubby's mountain bike. I had attempted using his road bike, but the reach was just a little far for me and I found the handle a bit hard to hold.
So hubby brought me to his favourite bike shop and after an hour, I was the proud owner of my own bike!



By afternoon, my poor aching body had had too much and I had a nice nap so my muscles could regenerate! ;)

Easing into it.

So some people may or may not have heard that I have decided to face my fears and make my hubby insanely happy by joining him on his cycling adventures.
I actually decided this a few week before leaving for japan for holidays and we went for about 6 rides before. I'll get around to posting those later on, maybe ;)
So coming back after holidays, my first goal is to make sure that I am all trained up to go on the "around the bay" event. 50km. Westgate bridge. Fingers crossed, but it's in October so I have a little bit of time still!
So with this in mind and having had 5 weeks off cycling, I asked hubby to let me ease into it. However, we ended going further then I have previously gone, at 10km, albeit on a relatively even elevation. We ventured out on Wellington road, stopped before the Eastlink entry and did a quick round into Kingston Links golf course so my dad could book some golf time for later.
Back onto the road and headed home. My legs were wobbly at the end, but not too bad. A good workout to get me back into it. Not much downhill parts (my favourite with wind in my face), but then I found riding on the road not as scary as I had imagined. Might have helped that it was early and a public holiday (Good Friday).
It's going to be a hardcore training weekend!!

Disneyland day 1. Part 3

We than made our way to a golden classic ride "It's a Small World" but the kids didn't seem to enjoy it as much as my sister and I used to 27 years ago. I guess that things were much simpler than and kids nowadays prefer either terrifying rides or ones with high tech effects!




We had a bit of time to kill and needed to get out of the rain and cold wind, so we sat through a few kiddie rides.
There was a ride through the story of Snow white in Japanese. A ride on the carousel.




After that was a stroll to Cinderella's castle although we couldn't go through because the walkway beneath the castle was under maintenance.



It was now time for Poohs hunny hunt which was a wild and enjoyable ride mainly for it's random magnetic routes as the honey pots did not run on traditional tracks.



By the time came out out of the ride, night had fallen and the buildings were all lit up beautifully.



We decided to have dinner and made our way to one of the many food courts. The meals were cheaper then expected, but altogether palatable enough.
Here is Xander's "meat in Chinese bao".


Gabrial's food was theore sedate egg and minced beef on rice.



While the adults all had Japanese curry rice.



After dinner, we went in the Space mountain ride, which was fast and absolutely thrilling. I could barely stand up after the ride, and it wasn't a scary ride as it was pretty straight except for a few turns and the most one goes is sideways, but the speed! Fast!
After this we deemed it time to go home although our plan wad to stay till closing fireworks, we were all tired out and satisfied with our day. Also, the fact that by now lines took about 90 mins to line up was not so appealing when it was dark and cold.
We took a few final pictures and then began our long journey home.

Disney day 1. Continued.

I had to break my blog up a bit because my blog app that I m using to write it up kept hanging midway through typing or when I was saving as I think my draft was just too long. So instead I m breaking it up a bit to test that theory.

Next on, was a delightful musical show with a robotronic Stitch to a Hawaiian theme filled with tropical singing birds and flowers.




The sun was out in full force now and we walked onto the jungle cruise ride. Not too long a wait with this one, just a boat ride along an amazon-like area with animatronic jungle animals. Would have been extremely boring but for the hilarious boat captain we had. We didn't understand much of what he said but his exagerated exclamations and face pulling were enough to have us rolling with laughter.



Coming out of the cruise we encountered this sea of prams. There is even an attendant who goes about straightening th neatly into lines!



We ventured about and decided to get some finger food for lunch. So while the men headed to get us some food, the kids and I browsed one of the many carts filled with Disney merchandise which are scattered all about the place. This was a very cute hat that I struggled against buying.



Almost looks like Xander has been gobbled up by Stitch!
The guys returned with 8 turkey legs for lunch. Really huge and tasted like chicken ;)



It was then time for our fast pass at monsters Inc which turned out to be a really mild ride for kids to shoot a torchlight at monsters popping out during a narrated story of monsters Inc. We really did needed English instructions...we did not get what the whole ride was but at least the kids enjoyed it.



Next we stopped at Microadventures. A 3D show featuring casts from the movie "Honey, I shrunk the kids". Since it was originally an American production that had been dubbed with Japanese, we were able to get headphones to listen to the English version.

Coming out of that, the kids wanted to play with these racing cars. Even though the cars sat on a track that did not allow it to venture off course much, and you can only press on the gas pedal to accelerate to about 10km/h, the kids had plenty of fun.




It was starting to drizzle now as we made our way to Toon Town to sit on Roger Rabbit's ride. A bit of a queue but at least for most of it, we were out of the rain.



After the ride, the kids got themselves into a spot of trouble but managed to break out of jail and make a run for it!

Finally there...

It's 6.30 am and dark dreary and raining outside. Perfect day for Disneyland? Unfortunately weather is the only factor we cannot plan for.
The plane ride was long and uneventful. Even though it was day time, the adults spent most of the time asleep (we didn't sleep the night before) and the kids played the DS and iPods. My dad splurged on one of the media players for AUD 15 and the 3 kids took it in turns to watch assorted shows on it.
We arrived last nite at about 6.50-ish local time. And by the time we cleared customs n arrived outside. Got our japan rail pass and then spent 10 mins staring at the actual train ticket machines trying to figure out which buttons to press!
Our train ride from the airport spanned 3 train exchanges, 2 different train passes and when we arrived at our hotel destination near Disneyland, it was almost 10.15!!
An interesting experience to say the least but not unebjoyable.
Checked in and had dinner at a nearby family western restaurant as everything else was closed. It was now past 10.30 and we were starving. The weather was a nice cooling wind and after running about sometimes towing luggage, other times carrying Kaitlyn, I had worked up a sweat for some beer! Here's my dad with our frothy goodness.






The beer was absolutely yummy and slid down my throat do easily that I was giggling incontrolloby!! Food was yummy. Tried escargot for the first time, French food in japan makes sense?! By the time food arrived, we were so hungry we pounced before I remembered to take pictures, so this was taken halfway!





I was so tired by the time we got to the hotel and got all 3 kids settled that I forgot to take pictures of the room. Plopped into the bed and fell asleep in my yutaka around 1.30 am.

I'm filling this blog up as we line up for rides at Disneyland. We got into the train about 7.30 this morning. Luckily the rain had stopped and it was a nice cooling temp of 14-18 degrees celcius.
The train during peak hour is certainly scary. We were literally sardines in the tin can. And when we thought it was full too bursting, somehow we managed to get another 20 ppl on. They pushed their way inwards walking backwards into the carriage. My poor kaitlyn got squashed abit and only the bribery of toy shopping at the end of the day abated the ensuing tears.
We bought onigiri and pancakes at the convenience store at the train station and started our long long waiting game at the queues.
Disneyland opens at 9am. We started queueing to go in at about 8.15, already late as the crowd before us indicated.













The minute the gates opened, a surge of people poured in through the gates and ppl were literally running to get to the fastpast stations (to get express tickets for a predetermined time for selected popular rides, only 1 fastpast per person at any one time). We managed to get fast passes for monsters Inc for 1pm. And took this pic of Mike's car.






Then it was a run to Haunted Mansion. Scary in itself. But would have been scarier if we actually understood the Japanese storyline being narrated.







Which basically updates me to where I am now. 30 mins in for a 2 hr estimated queue for big thunder mountain ride.







2 hrs for a 10 minute ride? Oh wait I see the end of the queue. Might only take 45 mins!

That was fun. Not extremely scary that kaitlyn couldn't go, but thrilling enough not to be a kiddies ride!

Then on to country bear theatre to watch some bear animatronics.






On the way to the next show, we stopped by to get some curry popcorn, churros and drinks. We also came across these guys from UP!







There's so much more to record but lack of Internet access and time, our days starting early (about 6am) until past midnight and basically walking about the whole day does not leave much time for updating blogs!!

To be continued!!

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Not quite there yet..

Just had breakfast in the international lounge.



Food is always yummy when u r hungry!

Now we have an hour to kill before our flight and not enough duty free shopping to do. There's only 1 shop n 1 newsagent! Thank god for my trusty iPhone to distract me! Kids will probably run out of batteries for their pods midflight at the rate they r going..mine too prob ;(



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Warm winds and humid air

We've just arrived in Gold Coast and am awaiting our baggage before proceeding to the international area. Managed an hour of sleep on that 2 hr flight. Only sleep I've had so far last night!
Had to spend the last 30 mins of the flight amusing my daughter with looking at the clouds out the window.
Now we are waiting for the counter to check our luggage in before our 11am flight. It's 7.30 here now.



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Is it time yet?

Time till departure: not soon enough
Things left to do: can't remember anymore

I'm running about like a headless chicken and trying to make sure that I've got everything organised. But yet I procrastinate to the very end and stop to take a deep breath and blog.
Not too long now before I'm gobbling down sashimi like there's no tomorrow.


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Final Countdown

This time tomorrow and I will be in a near frenzy of excitement and panic over the coming adventure we will be having in the next few weeks.
For the moment however, I m procrastinating by testing out this blog even though my suitcase is still empty and the house...not empty enough.
Looks like I'll be sleeping on the plane...


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