Friday night was good fun. I met Dave for a 'coffee' (yes, you know my coffees usually end up being something a bit stronger!) after work, we had a couple of drinks and a chat, was nice to see him again as it'd been a couple of weeks since the last time. Then it was onto Sue's for a 'quiet night in'. I hadn't been to her place before, and I must say when I was outside it, I thought wow this is posh, and inside didn't disapoint either, it was absolutely lovely, she's got the biggest window with a fantastic view of the city, I was very jealous! but then again she pays nearly as much in a week as I do in a month! She had got lots of nibbles ready which was really sweet. We were planning on watching Big Brother and then Love Actually, but we never actually got round to any of them, well we caught the end of Big Brother and then put the dvd on to watch the film, but we were gassing too much to watch it...actually I felt a bit bad, I didn't realise she hadn't seen the film before, and she had no idea what was going on when we eventually stopped talking for a minute!!

Saturday morning I felt just a little bit rough as we'd managed to polish off 2 bottles of wine between us the night before ! I had to drag myself out of bed cos I'd arranged to meet Dave for Yum Cha (which I'll explain in a mo) at 12. His kids were here, so there was a big group of us invited out. It was really sweet to see him with his kids, they don't live in Sydney, and it's obvious he really misses them, Sophie his little girl is defintely the apple of his eye ;o) Anyway, back to Yum Cha, this is a very new concept to me, I've never heard of it before, (it's chinese food, but you probably knew that) it's very very popular out here cos of the big Asian community, apparently the restaurant we went to is one of the best in the city. Basically, the place is heaving, Saturday lunchtime is the time to go, you have to fight to get to your table, it's like an obstacle course with all the trolleys going around getting in your way. Our table was full, I met a few new people who were really nice. There was about 12 of us in the end, the waitresses just walk around with a trolley of food and you basically grab whatever you like the look of, there are all sorts of foods, tofu, octopus, pork dumpling, suckling pig, chicken feet (blurgh)...yes, not the best for a vegetarian. All the food goes in the middle of the table, and everyone just eats what they want..quite a messy business I have to say. I felt a bit of a lightweight though, as I was feeling a bit delicate I didn't actually eat anything there, it all looked really slimy, I did try some coconut dessert though, and it was like eating slime, the taste was nice, but the texture wasn't...but at least I tried it. I had a really nice afternoon, we were there for a couple of hours, that's what it's like, I was told yum cha roughly translates as talk food, and that's just what it is, the more people the better and you can just keep eating and talking for hours. Some of them decided they wanted to take me to a Vegan Yum cha restaurant, so we'll be doing that in a couple of weeks...I'll make sure I'm feeling 100% next time ;o)

Yum Cha

After that I made the mistake of going to the shops, and Iwas a bit naughty and bought myself a top and some trousers...well there was 20% off and I haven't been shopping for over a month....I was getting withdrawl symptoms, feel a bit guilty now....oh well! and it was raining too, typical for our long weekend!! Actually, it's a really good thing, they are having really big problems here due to lack of rain, the main reservoir is dangerously low, there are all sorts of water bans and rules on using water, it's quite scary really, we think that water is always going to be there, it's not until you live somewhere with this climate that you realise how we do take it for granted.

Last night I met with Sue and her friend Deborah, who she met through work. Deborah was on about going to one of these singles parties, so we thought we'd go along for the laugh! It was at a hotel and it looked pretty good when we arrived, they had bars and music outside, it reminded me of a couple of places I used to go to back in Munich. There was such a variety of people there, and all sorts of ages....there were loads of old men there eyeing up all the woman! I actually didn't really feel comfortable all night, the men were blatently obvious when they checking us out, it felt like a cattle market, not really my scene, I guess it was good, because everyone was there for the same thing, but when you're not really looking for someone then it's not the best place to be, and you can't use the 'sorry, I've got a boyfriend excuse' Anyway, we did have fun, it wasn't all that bad, but I probably wouldn't go to one again!

Today I didn't get up til late, I saw the sun shining through my window and thought I'd better get out there and enjoy the day. I took a walk down to Darling Harbour where they were having a Jazz Festival. It was really buzzing down there and the music was really good. I stopped for a while for a sit in the sun and a listen and that's been my day really. It's funny sometimes my phone doesn't stop ringing, but other times it doesn't make a sound at all....today has been one of those days, but it's quite nice to have a bit of time to yourself sometimes. Anyway, I might go back down the harbour again in a bit as they are having fireworks and I think Dave and his kids will be there, but to be honest I could do with going back to bed! I should be out partying cos we've got the day off tomorrow, and everyone will be celebrating the Queens birthday...oh well.