Currency...

After a summer spent computing exchange rates in my head and getting to grips with foreign notes and coins......



(Hong Kong notes: some these appear to have been printed by my bank, which I wouldn't trust to produce anything secure or technical...)



(Australian notes: all of which have a see-thru bit and have gone "polymer" meaning they can be recycled into bins and other stuff at the end of their life...)(not my fingers, by the way...)



(Australian coins: which have kangaroos and koalas and echidnas on the one side, but are reassuringly royal on the other...)



(She looks really grumpy, doesn't she...?)

It seems bizarre to come home and find the money is just as foreign...



2ps and pennies seem to be very prevalent already, but haven't seen the rest yet...



...only in the picture.

If you get asked what's on the front on a ten pence piece, you might hesitate then say "Britannia" or "portcullis" or "lion" or something else really random because we're a bit ignorant about something so common which we handle everyday, yet hardly look at.

Of course, what's really on the front of the ten pence piece is the Queen's head, because that's what's on the front of all the coins (something else most of us forget - the front is really the back and the back is really the front...)

That hasn't changed with the new designs, but the answer to what's on the back of the coins will now always be "a bit of shield...", which might make pub quizzes easier, but surely lacks a bit of variety...

Currently...

Currently have this view...



...as I type, from 25 floors up.

(Ab)Normal service will be resumed here in September. For goings-on in August, see the other side of the world.

OZ -6 (HK -3): Wired up...

I am in the process of not-quite-packing.

This is a procedure which involves gathering together things which might be necessary for my holiday without actually packing them into anything. The suitcase is still in the loft.

It's a very useful phase of the proceedings as I am also getting a number of other jobs done as a by-product. For instance, sorting out my "home file" (a product I swore I would never possess) while trying to find my passport in it. This involved a trip into town to purchase A4 filing wallets (or "slippy dippies" © Chris Kilby 1990s). These were cheap, which is good, because I could have just lifted some "used" ones from work... This led to several hours sorting out contents of aforementioned boxfile and categorising and shredding and wondering why, in the light of the advice I give my Dad, I still have the receipt for a printer I bought in 2001 and threw away in 2002.

Anyway, here is the collection of electronicage I have to take abroad...



USB cable, another USB cable with slightly different end (in white), camera batteries (why it can't take ordinary batteries, that you buy in a shop, I don't know...), charger for camera batteries, earphones for iPod, memory card for camera, USB stick to back up photos to avoid what happened to Tina's Australia photos, socket adapters to turn safe, earthed three-pin plugs into wonkily angled, two-pin, flimsy death-trap plugs, phone charger...

That's the luggage allowance gone then.

OZ -15 (HK -12): Too hot...

I am very excited that it's going to be winter in Australia. I like it being cold. (Actually it won't be cold, but it won't be boiling. It'll be comfortable.)

I've been so busy looking forward to the winter evenings, dark early etc that I totally failed to appreciate how hot it's going to be Hong Kong...

I realise there are ways of coping, but I really don't want to have to wear linen and sandals...

OZ -21: Apparently...

...people do person does read this blog, which is all very encouraging and spurs one on into making a bit of an effort.

With this in mind, I have invested time and coffee in producing the very nascent map below.

It shows the basic route and main destinations and its creation, in that it was bloody hard to do, gives the lie to Google's corporate "do no evil" philosophy (see number 6) and drives a cart and horses through most of its design principles (especially number 3).



(You can zoom in pan about and look at an aerial photo of Heathrow, if you wish...)

I intend to add those groovy little place markers in various colours and styles to bring some actual tourism to what is currently only flights, and they may (or may not) appear on this map (see number 5).

OZ -22: Countdown has begun...

With only three days officially left at work now (but probably about seven or eight left unofficially) and with some other people (who had sensible Easters actually at Easter) having finished work for the summer completely, I thought it was about time to start looking forward to the holidays.



The last time I did this properly was in 2005 when I went off to New Zealand and it's been really good to look back at the blog and the photos from them to remember what we did and saw, what with memory failing through age, early onset Alzheimers etc.



Being as I'm going nearly as far again this time, I have decided to "temperately"* interrupt this blog (no imposition as I haven't written on it since April and no-one reads it anyway...!) and produce a self-contained "interactive postcard" of...







(I really spend too much time on the computer...)



There are several good reasons for this:

1. It's cheaper than phoning people;


2. You don't have to master any foreign language to buy stamps for real postcards (in this case, Australian...);


3. It's a good back-up for all the photos in case the memory card goes tits-up;


4. It saves making a real scrapbook like I used to do when I was little (my OCD meaning that I would only ever buy John Hinde postcards...);


5. It will give Ann Crocker something to read (I still have a dog in my boot that's hers... fluffy, not real, so don't phone the RSPCA...);


6. It will divert attention away from the fact that I have failed Project366 (but kept going longer than some...).

* © Nicola, Pinkney Hydro (someone will get that....)