Finally some pictures! :o)

Hi! Yay! Finally some pictures! They are a little random, but I'll put some on the old bloggeroo so that you know that I am truly alive and well :o)

Happy St Patty's Day pics!

My first full day in Melbourne was St. Patrick's Day! (hence the green :o)) This is a pic of me and Nicole on the balcony of her fabulous Melbourne apartment. It's awesome, her building is right in the downtown area, so it's within walking distance to just about everything. We've gone to the Botanical Gardens, Queen Victoria Market, Alexander Gardens and tons of Commonwealth Games fun events!

I am in Melbourne during an exciting time, 72 countries participate in the Commonwealth Games every year and this year the games are in Melbourne from March 15-26th. It's sort of like a mini-Olympics without the States and Australia wins pretty much everything :o) We went to 3 events. On St. Patrick's Day we went to the semi-finals and finals of the Rugby 7s tourney, the next Monday and Tuesday we went to the Track and Fields Athletics events. It was awesome! I saw the fastest man in the world run the 100m dash! as well as hurdles, the 5000m, 200m, 400m, triple jump (Adam Pritch, I thought of you :o)) and tons more. It was an energetic environment, everyone clapping and excited about everything. 2 things stand out. One was at the 7s tourney. Kenya beat Samoa for one of the consolation cups and after the game the teams went around to each side of the field and did celebration dances. It was awesome! Samoa did a traditional dance and the Kenyans just danced around, but by the end the Kenyans joined in with the Samoans, learning the dance as they went. It was an awesome display of unity despite cometitive and cultural barriers :o) The next cool thing is a lot less profound, but still cool. Both nights of the athletics events the whole crowd (mon night there were 79,000 people!) did the wave, and an awesome, 3 level, 3-4 round wave at that! It was cool :o)

Me and Nicole in our All Blacks jerseys at the Rugby 7s matches.

Nicole's Dad Dennis, me, Nicole, and Nicole's Mom Carol :o)

JAPAN!

I have the rest of my pics at Nicole's house in Melbourne and we're in Sydney right now, but here are the pics I have with me!

Tuesday March 14th, my last day in Kawanoe...sadness.

Alexa, Sheryl and me after an o-mochi making session at Sheryl's house. Normally it's made with onco or fruit filling, but we brought chocolate, peanut butter, caramel, funny Japanese marshmallows and other fun goodies to put in ours :o)