Across the ditcH

We arrived at the idea of a week of London fun because of several circumstances... As a teacher I have several compulsory holidays throughout the year. These a normally a joyous occasion of sleep ins and time to take a whack at the pile of paper work which has normally built up. However, at this stage as a supply teacher the time off is shadowed by a compulsory pay cut! :( However this drive as the main bread winner of our little family has been eased as a few weeks ago Mike accepted a job! But as his first day is Tuesday 14th we had a week overlap of free time! (and a few pounds in the bank) So we launched our London week of fun, and attempted to get our head around all the tourist attractions in London, and as you can guess we barely scratched the surface! (being a tourist is exhausting!) We were also motivated by the fact that so many Kiwi and Aussie friends over here have been here for years and are yet to do some of the basics!
First up we hit the Tower of London. Which I thought of only as the major torture centre of England where it was only a one way bridge in and you never came out. Well we discovered as more of the old castle that it is (with one or two scary dungeons to be sure) but had an amazing few hours trying to get our heads around the history that had taken place there, where we were walking. We then wandered down to the pub where my Mum and Dad worked (and lived?) during there time in London. We were there before the 5 o'clock rush and the bar tender even let us behind the bar to take some shots of us serving!
We did a huge amount of walking, getting an overview of where everything is, Tower of London, Tower bridge, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey... and had a look around the Tate Modern Art Gallery (realising we don't really like very much modern art...) The British Museum (realising how much of the Parthenon is actually in London not Rome) and the Natural History Museum (seeing the Wild life photographer of the year exhibition... Mike was very inspired... with all the gear he 'needs' to buy that is :p ). We also got to see the Princess Diana memorial and have discovered a shared passion for royal history and are determined to get our selves immersed in some history while here! We also did a walking tour around the the old square mile of London city. This was really interesting with a very animated and classically English guy taking us around. So at the end of a huge week of tourist stuff we have concluded that.... we are going to try and fit a few more of these in while here.

So it is now Easter weekend, and also our first wedding anniversary :) So Mike has a few things planned in town and we are looking forward to when we are up to being dual income and will do our first long weekends away over the public holidays in May!

Check out our film clip of our week of fun and we will endeavor to make more short clips of our trips into Europe!



Karyn & Mike

Well the next pieces of the jigsaw are coming together, in saying that... Karyn has been the 'bread winner' for the last month, and has managed to get us our first pounds!! (of course I have been the solid 'bread winner' before... haha!) After negotiating the joys of getting a UK bank account, we are now officially living of UK pounds... and if you are travelling this way on the Kiwi, or Aussie Dollar you'll know what I am talking about. An example I seem to be sharing a lot lately was of going to see a movie and of course getting some popcorn and drink, cost us a mere£ 26, but after paying, I realised I had paid roughly $80 NZD to see a movie!!! WHAT THE!!!! That is a relatively good night out at a nice restuarant in Welly... Anyways after having heart pupitations, I am now able to enjoy the movies I so love to watch.


Soooooo.... to continue on the theme of this blog, I was going to share our new job situations. Karyn as I said before has been working as a temp at various schools around Central London, and from the outset it wasn't easy and I had her home in tears after having a rough school, but after some TLC she was all good to hit the schools again the next day, and to be honest it hasn't been as bad as that school from then on. She seemed to secure temp position after temp position quite easily and hasn't really had a day off since she started here, which has been a total blessing to us! As you would possibly know the school summer holidays here are from the end of July to early September, and so it was on for young and old to get a fulltime job locked in for the new school year. Well I gotta say I am pretty stoked and proud that Karyn was able to secure her first full-time job on the first interview here... it was no easy task either, in order for her to go for this particular interview she had to teach a full lesson to kids on the fly with minimal preparation. By later that afternoon she was called by the Principal to offer her not the job that she was going for but a position that had just become available that day, to teach year 3 boys in one of the most prestious school in London, called Northwood Prep check the link here, interestingly enough the school has been called 'educational heaven' by a governing school body of London.


So I hear you wondering well what is Mike doing the bum who is no longer the bread winner... well when I arrived I had 3 interviews lined up in the first week here! got over my minor jetlag and went for the interviews all went well, but then I didn't hear anything for weeks on end. I was also given one of the companies a creature test to paint, which was interesting a quite fun to do anyways. I passed this on and waited longer, from there one of the guys sent me an email from a group of guys doing this short fan film called the hunt for Gollum. They wanted someone to paint Gollum and fast, as the release date was looming quickly, whilst it has been crazy trying to get together a texture for gollum in time, it has proven to be quite difficult to get hold of tools at home that you so redily had available at work. But nontheless we are tying up loose ends and making the shot work for the time we have had and the trailer for this looks amazing for a bunch of guys doing this for free!!. In the meantime I was trying to secure some work and I am glad to say that after some 1 and a bit months being here in London I will be starting my job at Framestore (who have worked on Dark Knight, Australia and many others... check link) on the 14th of August... the clincher is that I will be again working on Avatar the movie I was working on at Weta. I had joked with one of the guys before I left Weta that I bet I would arrive here to end up working on Avatar, little did I know that that reality was not far from my door.


anyways I will leave it there, but this has been another blog from across the ditch blogger Mike - dont forget to leave you comments below!

Well we arrived in Hong Kong on the 14th of February and had a wonderful week staying with the West’s! We are so grateful to them for having us to stay and little Noah was a wonderful host as well! We filled our days with wondering around the streets of Hong Kong and seeing the sights. One very exciting afternoon we came across a street meat market and we watched as one of the sections of fish, recently separated from the rest of the fish, lay on the table with the heart still beating! For a very long time might I add, so when we walked away the heart was still pumping away!

The high light was when we spoiled our selves and took a trip over to Macau island for a night in the Venetian Hotel, and went to Cirque du Soleil! The show was incredible and beautiful, with some of the most amazing acts of human skill I have ever seen! And the Hotel was an experience in itself, with an indoor canal, with boats and all, and the whole mall section set out like a Venetian street (plus fake sky to really set the mood!). Macau & Hong Kong Pics

So far in London we have been kept busy job hunting, organising bank details, and sorting out general life. We moved in with Dee and Daz, which has been an amazing blessing again, and will stay with these guys for a few months. But before moving we went to France!

France was amazing and is definitely on our list of places to explore some more! We were in Rural Normandy staying in a chateau with a group of Jens friends for her birthday. It was such a relaxed group and really a lovely time of chilling out, trying our hand at speaking French and of course eating French food! I got to see my first big old cathedral, which was super impressive. We met some wonderful French people who were so warm and kind even when we were fumbling our way through communication. The first night we arrived we found a local restaurant in a village close by and had an amazing four course meal with pate, cheese the works! And the host was so classic, cracking out all the cliché French phrases and kept us well entertained!

On our last day we went to some local markets with amazing fresh food and produce, all set out like a traditional street market. One section was what I kept telling myself was a pet store, with crates full of bunny rabbits, ducklings, geese and all so cute! And I am staying in my denial that people were buying them as pets…

So we are loving it over here, and I think we will only love it more once we settle down with jobs, routine, travel… and pounds . We are figuring out the tube system, although my experience has really been in the deep end when I get phone calls first thing in the morning and need to rush out the door to who knows where and follow the scraps of instructions a scribbled down from my agent… but it is all fun and games 

And of course we are still buzzing over seeing U2 play live on Regent st! READ THIS

By Karyn

WOW!! what an opportunity... we had heard through my sister, who had contacts that U2 were to be playing in Regent st, London... we check out the BBC building around lunch time and saw that there was speakers and lighting going up, so we knew it was on!

So around 4:30 we returned after racing home to pic up the cameras, anticipating a U2
display of their latest album. We were some of only a few on the street waiting, gradually people started to ask what was going on, and the streets began to fill with expectant viewers. Finally the sun set and the crowds surged to see U2 arrive... It was crazy to see these guys and such an amazing moment. They played 4 songs 2 of their latest tracks Get On Your Boots and Magnificent and then Vertigo, and Beautiful day! Here is a clip of the Regent street concert.

U2 Regent St - Magnificent

U2 Regent St - Get On Your Boots


U2 Regent St - Beautiful Day

U2 Regent St - Vertigo