Persepolis

I'm loving Marjane Satrapi and her graphic novels. I read Persepolis and Persepolis 2 in, like, two days because they were easy to read and very engrossing.


The first book is about a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq. It's a humorous yet poignant take on Iran and its internal crises.

The second novel continues her story but this time she's a migrant in Austria. It tells of her feelings of displacement and adventures in a western world as an Iranian. It also chronicles her return back to Iran. Funny as well but I think I preferred the first one. Still a must-read though.

I related to her story, having lived in the Middle East and actually having to wear a veil while I was a teenager. I not only connected with her feeling of displacement while she was abroad but also with how she felt when she went back home. It was so familiar, it was eerie.

I'm not a great big fan of graphic novels but her take on it is completely different which makes her novels readable.

I highly recommend reading Persepolis 1 and 2. I've heard they made it into a movie as well -- I'll have to go get my hands on a copy.

Long Time Between Posts

I was aiming to blog regularly and this week long gap between posts is unacceptable. But life happens. What can you do?

We were at our friends' wedding over the weekend in Metung (over 300kms from Melbourne) and it was great fun. We also had to go to a friend's baby christening which was good but became tiresome as we went straight from Metung to the church on Sunday. Lunch was yum but long.

As you can probably tell, I'm a bit tired today and can't be bothered to do anything. Not even blog. You'll have to make do with a few photos from the wedding for now.

Getting my finances into order

I'm an accountant by profession (although not in practice) but I've never, ever, done a personal budget before. Ever.

I did my first one today and it's all very exciting. I can't believe I've never budgeted before. If I knew it was going to be so fun and rewarding, I'd have done it ages ago.

Of course, I had to make it pretty in Excel/Numbers and I even created charts. I guess that makes me nerdy. Oh well.

To make things even more nerdier, I've just discovered a template in Numbers that's perfect! How cool is that?
Hang on, I have to go. I've suddenly remembered I have something urgent I have to do...

Tassie Trip, Day 4

On our last day in Hobart, we took it pretty easy. We had to check out by 10am and return the car before 11am, so after having breakfast at the apartment, we headed out to put fuel in the car and drop it off.

We had a small problem about lugging our bags while we waiting for our airport pickup (2pm) and luckily, the guy at Thrifty let us leave our bags in their office. Righteous.

We tried to do some shopping but Hobart doesn't have a great selection so we decided to just lounge and read our books at a park nearby.

How random then that we found a giant chessboard.

Of course we had to play

My chess strategy is shit but D was nice enough to let me win.

Aside from food and drinks, these are the only things I bought in Tassie.

Lip balm from Salamanca Market ($5), Le Carre book (50c), Connelly book ($1)

We went down to Salamanca Place to have lunch.

Found this pub that wasn't too touristy or pricey.

I hadn't had coffee served with m&ms before

Lunch was quite yum

This church was our airport pickup

And we were off! We had a really good time in Tasmania.

P.S. I'm so happy to be done with blogging about the trip though.

General Update

I've been sick since the hot springs -- I firmly believe my flu was caused by the public bathing. Either it was the cold/hot/cold/hot combination or I caught someone else's bacteria/germs/virus. I've been sick for 4 days now, which is crap.

On another note, I've been addicted to Australia's Next Top Model (Cycle 3) via YouTube and Spooks (we're up to Season 5 now) via some loaned DVDs. I've also been watching Project Runway Philippines and Project Runway Australia. Hehe.

If I slack off blogging in the next few days, at least you'll know why.

Tassie Trip, Day 3, Port Arthur

Home stretch! Last 2 posts then I'm done.

What's Port Arthur, you ask? Good question, as I didn't know what it was all about until I went there.

From wikipedia:
"Port Arthur is a small town and former convict settlement on the Tasman Peninsula, in Tasmania, Australia. Port Arthur is one of Australia's most significant heritage areas and the open air museum is officially Tasmania's top tourist attraction."

Read more about it here. I'm too lazy to write about it.

A picture is worth a thousand words anyway, so here's a few thousand...

Man, I'm so glad I didn't live during those times. Life was tough! And those shackles were way heavy.

The tour price ($28/person) included a ferry tour and a walking tour. They were quite interesting.

I'd definitely recommend this place. Gorgeous sites, great architecture, interesting history. Just allow a whole day for a visit. Our legs were killing us by the time we finished. And we didn't even go to everything.

Tassie Trip, Day 3

This feels like the longest trip, doesn't it? Certainly documenting it is taking longer than the actual trip.

To help you along, why don't you listen to Jack Johnson while browsing through this day's pictures.


Sunday was bright and sunny. Perfect for a road trip. Our main destination was Port Arthur but we stopped at all the touristy and scenic spots along the way.

And, of course, we couldn't pass up a market when we passed one.

I bought a Le Carre book for 50c! Woohoo!

Got suckered into visiting this monument

Oh well, it was a good view and we stumbled onto an antique store because of it.

More importantly, I scored another book for $1.

We stopped at a tourist spot, called the Tessellated Pavement. We had to check it out, especially since we didn't know what tessellated meant.

We found out that this is what tessellated looks like:
Still, don't ask me to define it.

Gorgeous views abound in Tassie and everywhere we stopped was absolutely beautiful.

Have you been wondering who has been taking our couple shots? No one, that's who. I've been so adept at time delay and camera positioning that none of our couple shots have been taken by anyone else. It's all about finding the best stable camera position and running quickly enough to get yourself in the picture.

After a lot of faffing about and photo shoots, we finally made it to Port Arthur.

I have to admit that I didn't do a lot of research on this place. I saw mention of Port Arthur in a couple of tourist brochures and there were pretty pictures so I thought it was worth going to.

We realised when we got there that the place was HUGE and it was going to take the whole afternoon just to get through the place. As it was way past noon and we were starving (all that driving and picture taking is hard work!), we decided to find something quick and edible to eat at the Port Arthur tourist cafe.

This is what we found:

Yes, I know, it doesn't look at all appetising. Fortunately, it tasted better than it looked and I wolfed down my bolognaise pasta. D had a veggie pasta and a (bland) meat pie.

Duly fortified, we were ready to take on Port Arthur...