Some pics!

Here are some pics from our first day. Our camera battery ran out when we reached St James Park (near buckingham palace) so we took the rest of the photos on Katherine's camera. When I upload her photos I'll put some of those up too.

Ed asleep at our stopover in KL airport

Ben and Kath meeting us at the tube!

Di and Kath in a garden of daffodils at St James Park

Di and Kath at Trafalgar Square

Ed pointing at Regent St!

Ed being superman in a red telephone box...

Piccadilly Circus

1st day in London

We arrived in London at 5:30am Monday morning and stepped out into 1 degree weather! What a shock to the system. It definitely woke us up.

After buying an Oyster card with 10 pounds of credit (Kath's instructions), we caught the tube to Green Park Station. We arrived and were thinking 'Where in the world do we meet Katherine?', when all of a sudden we hear 'WOO HOO!' and I thought 'That cannot be an English person!'. It was Kath! And she was with Ben, what a fantastic surprise! We had brekky, went back to their place with Kath commenting all the while that we had SO much stuff. We dumped our stuff and Kath took us on a whirlwind tour of London.

Things we covered included: Westminster Abbey, St Pauls Cathedral, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace with the changing of the guard, St James' Park, Tower of London, Big Ben, The London Eye... all in a matter of a few hours! We didn't actually go into any of these things we just walked around and saw them.
The weather is so strange here! It was sunny, then all of a sudden it was sleeting (which I thought meant heavy rain but is actually a light hail), then it was sunny again, then snow! How do people dress themselves??

We were so exhausted by 3pm but we didn't nap, we stayed up till about 8pm then crashed till about 8am the next morning. It's the third day now and we are feeling much better but by the afternoon we both still get tired. We're both wanting to start work tomorrow so we'll see how it goes! Photos up soon.

Sydney

We had a great time catching up with Celz, Jules, Cheryl and others in Sydney before we left for London. Of course it was very very sad leaving Celz and I'll miss her heaps. We had lots of 'twin moments' and for a second there I thought it was contagious as Ed and Jules starting thinking similar! Very weird...

Wearing a bib eating seafood! (waitress' thumb in the way!)

Di, Cheryl, Celz at The Rocks

Celz and Di

Farewell Brisbane

Well it was a tough night for us last night as we said goodbye to family and close friends at the Brisbane domestic airport leaving for Sydney. As we were one of the last to get onto the plane, we had to make the long journey down the aisle towards the back and we got many curious glances at my tear stained face, hopefully they were not thinking that Ed had contributed to it!
We arrived in Sydney exhausted but stayed up chatting with Celz and Jules till 1am in the morning! At least we could sleep in..they had to go to college and work respectively at 8 the next day. I think the lack of sleep I've had all week resulted in me waking up at 11am, I must've really needed it! So the next few days will be spent catching up with family and friends in Sydney then we're off to London on Sunday afternoon arriving Monday morning 5:30am local time. We are planning to take sleeping pills even though I've never tried them before so feeling a bit anxious about it. I'll try to sleep on the first half of the trip (Syd to Kuala Lumpur) without the pills and if I can't, I'll have to take them for the next half. Ed has tried sleeping pills before and taking 2 didn't knock him out, just made him more uncomfortable. So he might have to take 3! Please pray for us that we can get enough rest before the trip as I have an orientation day for work the day after I get there. Crazy I know but I get two weeks holiday from the 30th of March...such is life as a teacher!

Renovations

Kitchen

Before

After

Bathroom

Before (just the wall cos I couldn't find any other pic)


After (without the shower screen + mirror)

Backyard


Ed and Adz knocking down a fence using the trunk of a palm tree as a battering ram


Dan doing the paving with Ed and Adz in the backyard

One week to go

And counting down! Renovations finished, house has been rented out, tickets picked up, bags almost packed, goodbyes almost done... pics up soon of recent events! Been a while between posts due to the busyness of moving, hopefully it will be a bit more regular when we get into the swing of things. As we're getting closer to the trip, any tips for a long plane ride?