Hong Kong no Phooey TR (Apr 2012)! The Yee's have it....TR finish #1101, 07/09

[PrincessInOz]

OT - December in Melbourne and Life's Perspective through a camera lens

It's December over here and nearly Christmas time. To say that life has been a juggling act in the last 6 weeks would be an understatement.

But I thought I'd share with you a bit of my perspective of December through my camera lens. This might take a couple of posts...

Firstly, it was about food preparation.

My cherry tree had an unusually bumper crop this year. The cherries could have done with a couple more weeks on the tree but the birds were having a field day....and it was wet. They were starting to mould...





...so we picked over 10 kilos (more than 20 lbs) from the tree.





We ate them over a course of about 3 - 4 weeks; and then I noticed that the last few of them were going off.

So, I made me...





...a batch of cherry muffins.





YUM!






I also cooked up some Bourbon Fruit cake.






They are all ready to go for Christmas presents!






I also made some Rum Balls to give away as presents...





I plan on making another batch if there ends up being 26 hours in the day over the next couple of days.



Christmas around my place is taking shape. Between the tree and presents, I'm pretty much done. Only food left.

My tree looks like this!





It's a musical theme...


















And yes, I do have Disney references on there too..











(Continued in Next Post)

[PrincessInOz]

(Continued from Previous Post)


Life has also been about one merry-go-round of activities, catch ups and events.

Such was life for me that sometimes, I just felt like I was herded along like in school....





...barely keeping up with the swimming...





...waiting for the sharks to go away!










But there is always a light at the end of the tunnel...






And we turned our attention towards an event of starry proportions.





I'm really lucky to be working for an organisation that still holds the annual christmas party.

It was really dark in the venue and I had to push the camera and lens to get some shots.





Our dinner menu:






Starters:

The Taste of Victoria





The Duck





The vegetarian option






Mains:

The lamb





The fish (definitely no longer swimming)





The delicious vegetarian option





Desserts:

My company understands that we all like to eat desserts. So, desserts is always of finger food bite-size and PLENTY of it.

Each table gets served a platter like this and then it just keeps on coming out in the foyer area outside the venue, which is where I went to take these shots. Much.more.light!





I loved the lemon tarts.






The mango sorbets were also amazing.








This was chocolate cake with chocolate mouse on top encased in that dark chocolate shell. It was delicious but a little too rich for me.









(Continued in Next Post)

[DisneyFirefly]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

The fish (definitely no longer swimming)

This made me literally LOL Anyway, the pictures are gorgeous! I particularly like the one of the guys in suits in the fish tunnel!

[PrincessInOz]

(Continued from Previous Post)


Christmas is my favourite holiday of year. I just love the decorations and everywhere I walk in the city....there is the colour and glitter of Christmas, albeit in a summer setting.

Every year, one of the departmental stores will decorate the City store windows with a Christmas theme. They get a local celebrity to sing a song and sell the CD in aid of charity.

This year's theme is Santa Claus is coming to town.





These are snapshots of the windows...and really, it is nothing more than mechanical puppets; but its about the tradition of the Myer windows!































I took the above shots in daytime. Just so you know...the people come all day until late. This is outside the Myer windows at 10 pm at night!








Melbourne City decorations are reasonable. They aren't a patch on the ones in Europe; but they do hold their own as a collection of pictures....









The city has a number of arcades...













...and a number of grand old buildings that are just beautiful inside. This is the outside of my favourite building in Melbourne...





Why? Check out the interior!





And that domed roof!





This is walking out the back of the foyer.






This bridge over the Yarra River is supposed to have a large 'mistletoe' hanging....well....kiss my bahookie.....no one is fooled!





Town Hall is decorated with a ribbon this year...






...and some of the squares around town look quite festive.















Take note of the church in the background....






(Continued in the next post)

[PrincessInOz]

(Continued from Previous Post)


I went on a little walk the other night round the city. Ended up walking for over 3 hours.

It definitely isn't Vegas....but there is ONE casino in Melbourne. Competition for Vegas it definitely isn't; but they do try to have a Christmas display in the hotel foyer. It's sound and light....













Remember that church from the previous post? The front of the church looks like this from Federation Square...





I took my tripod along that night and staked out a position. These might be repetitive...but hey....between staking out my spot and waiting for the lights to start and then taking the bazillion shots, I figured that if I had to take them, SOMEONE has to see them!






(I think we've decided that if you play connect the dots, you might make out a PIG in this shot.)































The other building that was lit up was the State Library of Victoria. The theme there was the Nutcracker.





























DH and I are contemplating heading into the city again tomorrow night. Rumour has it that there might be fireworks at the Docklands. I am so definitely checking it out if this is the case.

Who knows? There might be a follow up posting on life through the camera lens!


If I don't catch you later, I wish you all a Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading along and sharing my PTR with me.

[PrincessInOz]

Originally Posted by DisneyFirefly

This made me literally LOL Anyway, the pictures are gorgeous! I particularly like the one of the guys in suits in the fish tunnel!

Thanks for reading!

[aussietravellers]

Fabulous Fabulous posts! I was and at the fish/shark portion

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

This was chocolate cake with chocolate mouse on top encased in that dark chocolate shell. It was delicious but a little too rich for me.

They served a mouse with the chocolate cake? YUMMY

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

[SIZE="3"]

Christmas is my favourite holiday of year. I just love the decorations and everywhere I walk in the city....there is the colour and glitter of Christmas, albeit in a summer setting.

Mine too





[COLOR="rgb(255, 0, 255)"]Absolutely gorgeous! [/COLOR]

I took the above shots in daytime. Just so you know...the people come all day until late. This is outside the Myer windows at 10 pm at night!








Melbourne City decorations are reasonable. They aren't a patch on the ones in Europe; but they do hold their own as a collection of pictures....

They are heaps better than on the Gold Coast! We hardly have any, it's SO sad!



...and a number of grand old buildings that are just beautiful inside. This is the outside of my favourite building in Melbourne...





Why? Check out the interior!





And that domed roof!





This is walking out the back of the foyer.




Stunning!!! Absolutely Stunning!

Thank you for sharing your photos PIO, they were all absolutely gorgeous. Your Christmas party meal look divine, made me hungry looking at it (especially the desserts, as really, dessert is the most important part of a meal )

[aussietravellers]

Were some of those photos from outside the Westin hotel? That's where we always stay when in Melbourne.

[PrincessInOz]

You know....I might just leave that mouse alone!

[PrincessInOz]

Originally Posted by aussietravellers

Were some of those photos from outside the Westin hotel? That's where we always stay when in Melbourne.

The ones of the square with the large nutcracker and the boxes are of the old City Square outside the Westin.

I do have some night shots of the same place taken at night. I walked into the Westin and headed out that balcony...just haven't loaded it up yet.

[aussietravellers]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

You know....I might just leave that mouse alone!

You have to leave the mouse there! I thought you may have put it there on purpose being a "Mouse" related board/forum

[aussietravellers]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

The ones of the square with the large nutcracker and the boxes are of the old City Square outside the Westin.

I do have some night shots of the same place taken at night. I walked into the Westin and headed out that balcony...just haven't loaded it up yet.

It's not the normal view that we see from our window. I can't tell you how many times my DS has looked out of the hotel window in the morning and drawn in the sandy/gravely stuff below is a very large drawing of the male anatomy. He finds it hysterical.

[PrincessInOz]

Let's pretend it was deliberate!

[PrincessInOz]

Originally Posted by aussietravellers

It's not the normal view that we see from our window. I can't tell you how many times my DS has looked out of the hotel window in the morning and drawn in the sandy/gravely stuff below is a very large drawing of the male anatomy. He finds it hysterical.

I'm going to have to take a look in the early morning now.....

[aussietravellers]

Originally Posted by PrincessInOz

I'm going to have to take a look in the early morning now.....

Yes, make sure you go up to the lobby balcony as it wouldn't be the same view at street level and more likely to find some interesting artwork in that gravel on a Saturday or Sunday morning . We are often on the 3rd floor (it's the starwood floor or something) and the few times we have seen it, they have drawn it quite large Oh the things intoxicated youth get up to That gravel is just too tempting to not draw big things in

I just went through my photos to see if I'd snapped a photo but I haven't. If we ever see it again, I'll snap a photo for you