Morning ritual. A great coffee and brekkie surprise; today we had ricotta pancakes!
Sun was up! So How Crew didn’t even bother with the boats today. All rods in and the guys pulled up a couple of legal sized brim and another flatty!
Brimmy.
Zi’s amazing tempura using freshly caught flathead, brim and squid with Sapporo beer batter!
Then for our last dinner Colin and Mei served up Hiyashi chūka, a Japanese dish of chilled ramen noodles with various toppings, so healthy, so good!
Day 4 and the sun finally came out to play! Sausage and eggs muffins for brekkie!
“big boat”! Boat No.2 at the ready!
Before heading out fishing for the day Colin stuffed ribs in the smoker for tonight’s dinner!
Willy on the water.
Zi puling up a small squid.
For lunch we had nem nuong, bit of a tradition on our Easter trips, except this time Colin and Mei actually made the nem nuong themselves!
Julia and monster squid! Fishing after lunch until dark saw Zi pull up this decent sized squidy!
We’ve caught enough for salt and pepper squid, which will be lunch for tomorrow!
And tonight, we feast on smoked pork and beef ribs!!! My goodness we’re eating well!!!
So last night’s never ending jug of sangria saw a fair few of us get pretty pissed. Lots of lols were had. This morning I woke up to the sound of coffee being made, and then as expected, an amazing Colin and Mei breakfast, this time baked Spanish eggs!
And grilled halloumi!
Julia showing her awesome instincts putting baby Alyssa to sleep.
Straight after brekkie Colin was prepping this coffee rubbed pork butt!
And yeah, outdoing himself once again, this time he brought his own smoker!!!
It’s raining harder than yesterday today, so, laptops out!
Steve’s still rockin’ his Nanami Cowdroy Nuvango skin.
For lunch Colin and Mei made takoyaki with the squid Stevey and Zi caught.
And pancakes too!
Then Zi, who was the only guy who was super committed to fishing for hours in the rain caught, caught this 80cm monster flatty off the jetty! Posing with Mei.
Family photo lol! Done! He’s now got a great fishing story to tell, forever!
Despite the neighbours on both sides urging us to keep the monster female Zi decided to let her go. A billion kharma points his way!
So no flathead for dinner, but Colin’s smoked pork butt came out of the smoker after a huge 9hr stint, and amazing pork butt, slaw, crackling and BBQ sauce burgers were smashed, followed by the late arrival of Willie, who’s been unable to make it the past few nights due to food poisoning! He brought along boat number 2 and bottles of cognac!
Weather is looking up for day 4! Now that Willie and his huge tackle box has arrived… it’s game on!!!
Colin brought his entire coffee set-up from home, our private barista!
Colin and Mei at it again. Corn Fritters for breakfast! Next level!
Stevey taking photos of Alyssa.
Stevey having a go at Alyssa in front of Mum Gloria and Julia.
Boys setting up the boat.
Then the skies opened up, but it didn’t stop us. In the water she goes.
I stayed in the boot of Steve’s Tarago to take these shots!
First catch! Zi with a little squidy!
Colin’s pastrami has evolved since last time. It’s now fucking epic!!!
Reuben Sandwiches for lunch!
Best Reuben I’ve ever had in my life! I’m directing all my positive manifestation powers towards these guys to open their own cafe!
For dinner, Beef Rendang!
Traditional Indonesian yellow rice which always takes me back to my childhood.
Pickled veggies.
And Sangria!
The sun never came up on day 2. It’s been grey all day, and after an amazing breakfast (Mei and Colin made corn fritters!) it started raining. That didn’t stop the boys from fishing though. The aim was to catch squid for Jewfish bait. We all used squid jigs. An hour in we hadn’t caught a thing but then Zi pulled one up and it was game on. Zi ended up catching 3, Steve one, all on the one pink jig.
Back at the house Colin and Mei served up the best Reuben Sandwich I’ve ever! Damn these guys are so ready to open their own cafe. After lunch it really pissed down, which was cool as we all had food coma. Netflix, grandpa naps and more food in the form of dinner; an Indonesian feast of Beef Rendang, yellow rice and pickles accompanied by an evil jar of white win sangria!
View from the house. Private jetty, Lake Macquarie, it’s going to be an awesome week!
Under the house, a boat garage!
The other guys were going to get in really late but Colin and Mei cooked up an Indo feast! These guys are amazing cooks!
Colin with baby Alyssa! Zi, Gloria, Steve and Julia rocked up at around midnight.
Squidding! Of-course Zi wanted to check the waters right away!
It was dark out, but the Sony a7S just makes daylight of everything.
The house from the jetty.
Always hanging for the annual fishing trip with the ‘So How’ Crew. This time the guys have hired a family friendly house in Eleebana, a suburb of the City of Lake Macquarie (’cause Zi and Gloria have 4 month yr old Alyssa!).
I woke up with a hang over from the beers and ciggies consumed with Indy my mechanic the night before. Not sure what’s wrong with me lately, but I’ve been copping day long headaches the morning after drinking. Usually it’s not this bad. Must drink more water.
Despite the headache I had to beat the Easter Traffic (I was considering going the day after), so I bought a cheap rod and reel combo from the local fishing store (it’s tradition for me haha!) and hit the road. Traffic was pretty bad in spots, made worse with my headache, but I ended up getting to the house before anyone else.
It’s going to be an awesome break! I’ve just had a shower and the water pressure kicks ass! Showers are something that I’ve not been able to enjoy since renovating my house with water saving devices (no pressure, drip drip drip).
First stop, some sustenance from Excelsior Jones in Ashfield.
Pork Hash, hearty goodness for a grey day.
Beans and peas.
Cheeseburger.
Time to hit thew road. Spotted! A Turbo Beetle! I love these!
We got up late, and only hit the road at 2pm, we finally got the the mountains close to 5PM which made it too late for us to catch the scenic railway, it turns out the three sisters trail was shut for maintenance in any case so we did another walk from the three sisters to scenic world instead.
Them blue mountains.
Jess.
Jess, Cacia and big views.
Big smiles too!
Cacia.
Just hanging out.
The Yellow Deli – Jess spotted this comfy looking cafe from the outside, and it was amazing on the inside!
Now this is what you call hearty comfort food. Something the hipster cafe’s in Sydney will never get right. Food that feels like it’s made with love and that it’s making you healthier with every spoon full, add to that a bill that surprises you to the point of leaving a generous tip.
On a plane, again. Nuts… right?!
Berty from Cars For Hope, Cam from ClubITR, Alain, Rob and Sean from Motorculture and Photographer Matthew Everingham on Tiger air.
Hello again Melbourne!
Our chariot.
Now a Zen Chariot.
Staying at the Quest, at the airport. Whaaaat?! Nice room but, even better room mate.
No food around the airport so we went out hunting. Mix Master Alain put some Beastie Boys on, we had arrived.
Money wall at Lazy Moe’s, a huge food stop we saw on the side of the road.
The menu was HUGE.
MB long necks (so much better than VB!) one for each of us!
V8 Supercar Driver for TEKNO Autosports Jonathon Webb, our pro driver for tomorrow’s drive day.
Chicken Parma, as huge as the menu!
And I’m jet setting again! This trip had initially been planned for QLD, but the cyclone hit, and it not only got postponed to after I got back from Sweden, but moved to Calder Park in Melbourne.
We’ll be testing new tyres on the circuit. I’m tired and still very much recovering from my Sweden trip, but hey… I’ll recover later!
Spotted, the new TT at Gothenburg Airport. Darren Cassey from Car Throttle was quick to point out it’s awesome interior (the new air-con vents in particular).
I went to sleep with Twigs. The 23hr journey back home was awesome thanks to the British Airways World Traveller Class. Big comfy seats, and much better food (with metal cutlery!).
I was the first in the cab line!
Coming into Maroubra Beach, home sweet home.
The whole household was asleep and Mia was the first to greet me. Nyaw! Found this on the kitchen bench. Jess mentioned a few days ago that she freaked out and lost Mia (but only mentioned it to me after she’d found her so as not to ruin my trip!). She was most likely just hiding and sooking that I was away, she knows these things!
I got up on the last day of our trip thinking about the long trip back home. A horrible feeling… a sense of impending doom. We had one last short day of work, and then we hit the pub and downed a few beers. One by one the guests left by cabs to the airport, in the end there were only a handful of us left who were en route to London.
We caught cabs to the airport and as soon as the cab pulled over I realised I’d left my big bag behind the counter at the hotel! The guys had all gone into the airport… panic. My cab driver was such a nice guy. He called the hotel, confirmed my bag was still there, and we tried to organise a cab to bring it to me, but if it did get to me, how was the cab driver meant to know who I was? I had no phone. In the end I just thanked the cabbie for trying to help out, but told him not to worry about it and that I would deal with it later. I caught up to the guys inside, who had phones. We tried to plan to get a cab to get me the bag, but baggage drop was going to shut in 15 minutes, so the bag was never going to make it.
Luckily there was nothing too valuable in the bag. Warm clothes and dirty laundry! The guys who flew me out will fly me the bag next week. I’m sorry for how much it’s going to cost them to send me my bag back from the other side of the world… but I’m also SO glad that I got to run out of the airport in Sydney as soon as I landed (IE: Not have to wait at the carousel for my bag to come out!).
On the flight to London I sat next to Darren Cassey who’s a writer at Car Throttle (check them out, they’re massive!). Even then I was up to my usual tricks. IE: Teleporting. Once I got to London I had absolutely no time at all to get to my gate for a connecting flight to Singapore. I found out my gate was C63, which ended up being on the other side of the airport to where I landed from Gothenburg. I took what felt like a billion escalators and even the airport’s internal train system to get to my gate. People were running, one guy that was running flew in the air and smashed his head on the hard marble floor, blood was pouring out immediately. Was it worth running? Not really as I saw him again the the queue to get onto the flight!
I’d been upgraded. The flight home was so much comfier than the flight to Sweden. I had no one sitting next to me on the London to Singapore leg, that was awesome. I had the same seat, albeit this time with a full flight from Singapore to Sydney, but I slept a lot of the way and after a hot shower, and another short nap after cuddles with Jess this morning I’m feeling pretty damn good!
I fly again tomorrow, to Melbourne for one night. I’m feeling like a jet setter, globe trotter. I’m smiling, this year’s off to a great start!
Best mug ever.
Larry Chen from Speedhunters on the left, Antonio from Motor Mavens on the right. It’s been awesome working with these guys.
I started a thing!
Later that night; Central Station, a huge square, super picturesque.
We wined and dined at the Norda Bar & Grill, an amazing restaurant in the Clarion Hotel Post which once used to be a Post Office.
Elk carpaccio! Amaze!
You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. Steak was next level. So soft. I’m not sure what cut it was, but the waitress suggested it was part of the inner leg.
The best dessert I’ve eaten in recent memory. In the tin was what looked like caviar, but it wasn’t. Urgh… SO good.
See the post office counters? They’ve done such a great job of preserving parts of the old post office. On point!
The matching wines got me pretty tipsy, so, onto the bar for more!
Hey Alexi!
Brandon, who was the man behind JTUNED, a site which inspired me so much when I was starting JDMST back in the day, such a rad dude.
Larry, he’s so sexy.
Great day of work yesterday, and even better dinner last night with the guys from the US and Japan. The topics that came up in conversation on our table were just so wrong, and had us laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes! It’s just so awesome to meet like minded people that you can click with almost instantly, and just be completely yourself around.
The US guys were in for just one night, so sad to not have more time with these cats. I’ll have to visit them in LA some time soon. I leave later this afternoon and I’m already beginning to freak out about the long 23hr trip back home.
I was in the hotel lift earlier today and noticed this framed certificate on the wall that proudly states that the Avalon Hotel here in Gothenburg, Sweden is Feng Shui Certified.
Despite the hotel being under covers on the outside (construction, or cleaning? I can’t be sure), I’ve been comfy ever since entering the front doors, and quite surprised that everything just seems to be in the right place.
The more I look, the more I see and understand what they’ve done. Rounding off sharp corners, the calming green curtains, the generous pile of pillows of different hardnesses. The in-house CD’s, one titled groovy, the other titled cozy.
I’ve always thought of Feng shui to be plain logic, it’s like any good design, when it’s really good you don’t even see it or question it as it just works so well. IE: When I entered my hotel room I was just comfy, straight off the bat. Now that I’ve seen the Feng Shui Certified poster on the wall I’ve gone through my hotel room in a little more detail and I swear, it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.
Hooks: There are places to hang things everywhere. My layers of clothes have a place to hang, as opposed to putting them on a chair or the bed (mess). There are even more places to hang things in the bathroom, towels (which are massive!) wherever you like (one hook close to the shower makes sense) and hooks to keep your clothes off the floor where they could get wet.
Bathroom: The buttons to flush the toilet are behind the lid. IE: You have to close the toilet lid to flush the toilet. It’s a smart move as keeping the toilet lid shut is good Feng shui. Why? Well you’ve heard the complaints many women make about guys leaving the lid up, or people dropping things into the loo by accident, and then there’s Mia, my cat who tends to like drinking out of the bowl. There’s a little bin next to the toilet, it’s raised off the floor, so too the toilet brush holder. This makes cleaning the floor around the toilet easy. Again, its the little things.
Whilst I can see the logic behind most of the common Feng shui tips I’ve heard of, the one that alludes me is stepping in shit, or being shat on, which the Chinese say is good luck. Come to think of it, now I’m certain that stepping in shit or being shat on has anything at all to do with Feng shui!
Visit: http://www.avalonhotel.se