Katy G In Sing Sing: Aussie x 2 & Home Visitors x 3!!!

It's that time of year again when it's so hot you can't even bear to stand and wait for the bus without creeping behind a pole, wall or in the shadow of a tree leaf to find some relief from the shade.

I have been very delinquent on the blog, looking back at my last post I was writing about events in February and now it's June, shame on me!

I should start with my trip to South Australia, it was wonderful. A group of us from Singapore made the journey about and 8 hour flight to Adelaide and then drove the Great Ocean road to Melbourne which we did in about a week, stopping at wineries and beach towns along the way.

We started our trip in Adelaide and headed up to McLaren Vale for delicious wines. One of our friends on the trip is from Adelaide so we got to meet up with his friends at the winery which was fun to hang out with locals. It was heading into Aussie winter so it was nice to need a sweater and not be sweating to death :)

After McLaren Vale we headed to Barossa Valley; the O'Malley'd did some major planning and we had gorgeous house rentals in each stop. This was the patio in our Barossa house. The wines here were amazing too, it was so great, I think i drank enough red wine for a year, or ten.

Making wine, on site at the Rockford Winery. The tastings are free in Aussie and they call the area for tastings the Cellar Door. So you just pull up to the wineries and head into the Cellar Doors for the tastings. The prices were very reasonable to buy wine, unlike in Singapore where a bottle of Barefoot costs $25 USD, ouch!

Great view from Murray Hill Winery.

Wynn's Estate in Coonawara

Sunset from the patio in Warrnambool, this was a really cute town that reminded me of South Haven or something along those lines, it was fairly quiet since it was winter...50 degrees.

Along the great Ocean Road, this was Bay of Martyrs

The 12 Apostles, reminded me of the Goonies :)

My favorite stop along the way, Lorne. It was an adorable beach town and as you can see we had a great view of the ocean. This is a big surf town but since it was 'winter' it was pretty quiet.

These huge, beautiful, scary birds just fly around town and hang out on the patio.

Water fall at Erskine Falls, the walk back up was a work out!

Bells Beach

I love kangaroos and I can't believe we got to see this lil joey jump in his mom's pouch! This was a major improvement from the first 'roo I saw, which was road kill..depressing...

It was an amazing trip that ended in Melbourne which is a major city in Aussie land. I didn't know what to expect but it was a beautiful city that reminded me of San Fran with lots of hills and cable cars, great shopping and food. They even had a target!!! (although slightly different from Target as we know it bit still better than shopping here :) The trip was amazing but, the one thing I would leave people with: that the Great Ocean road has a lot of farm views, so if I was in charge I would call it the Great Road with some Ocean Views.

I don't even know how to summarize having three friends from home visit at once, we had the time of our lives, well I did! I will share some pics. (many photo credits go to the Duffey's!)

KOC's first dinner in Singapore, we took her out for French food, why not, the Mexican place was closed!

Coupla besties hanging at my pool while I was at the old grind....work.

Tourists enjoying the beautiful colorful bridge in Robertson Quay

The Duffey's enjoying a few local brews

Singapore looking all dressed up at night

Boat Cruising

More boat cruising

Marina Bay Sands Pool

O'Malley's splish splashin'

Matt Duffey and his fancy photos of MBS pool at dusk

We made is to Thailand

Sunset Cocktails

Mobile Absolution: Walk up to a monk with a Buddha on the back of a pick up, for your daily blessing

Beautiful water in Phuket

Chilling before dinner at the hotel

The Bennihana of Phuket; he had some mad skillz

Day trip to the Phi Phi's, look at that water!! #nofilter

Crazy Songkran aka Thai New Year's. It was a 24/7 water gun fight and it was crazy!

We ventured out into the madness, it took less than 5 seconds to get 100% soaked in water

I think this picture sums up Songkran in Thailand, doused in water and red lights a blazing.

To give you a live view of Songran, here are a few videos.

Note the guy on the far right...

Erika and I venturing out into the street, there are water guns and people that smear talc/chalk all over your face, but it smells good, so there is that!

I should mention that it was after a delish thai dinner that we decided to let our hair down and partake in the fun! Apparently there was a water shortage in Thailand this year, you would not have known it if you saw what was going on. None of us had any idea what we were walking into when we decided to pop into town to shop around, and I am quite sure we won't forget!

It was an absolutely amazing trip!!! I was so sad to let them go. I wish I could transport all my people over here to share in these amazing experiences but I guess that's part of the journey. Thank you for making the journey Katie, Erika and Matt XOX

So much Aussie in so little time. Just after the Chicago crew left I headed back to Australia this time to the West side/Perth for work. Perth is a very wealthy town b.c. there is a ton of mining business there. So while you would think you could get a decent priced hotel room it's hard to find one under $300 b.c. the mining companies have to pay to have their staff stay there as they usually work 3 weeks on and 1 week off. Perth was beautiful: the weather, the food and the people. I looked at my boss after sitting at lunch one day and said, everyone here is so pretty men and women alike and he said, I was thinking the same thing. It was strange.

You don't realize how much you miss Western things until you turn on the TV in your hotel room and see this! I clapped and cheered I was so excited. Frankly, I 'd probably clap no matter what country I was in if this came on tv, but we don't get these gems in Singapore.

Another Target!! As you can see the font is different and there is a . at the end of Target. but I'll take it. As they say in Singapore 'Same Same, but different'

This is the version of target we have in Singapore, can you understand my excitement now!

Freemantle is a cute little town about 20 minutes from the Perth business district that had a lovely market with fruits, food, coffee, and local soaps, etc.

The famous Cottesloe beach, it was gorgeous, the water was an amazing blue that I was not expecting from a 'city' beach

Surf's up

Really beautiful and New Orleans type architecture in Perth

All the major 'to do's' in Perth. For a business trip I checked a lot off the list. The main attraction to head back for: Margaret River. It's a wine region about 3 hours south of Perth and I have yet to meet someone that doesn't absolutely RAVE about it.