Reconnecting

A beautiful August afternoon in Central Park

 It's been a long summer, over here it is still going on with temperatures still in the high thirties... Can't wait for it to cool down a little bit.

But I should not complain, I got to spend a couple of lovely weeks in Finland and a few brilliant weeks in Canada and the US. The latter was for my husband's annual leave and for the first time in years I felt like he was actually off from work. It was a great break for both young and old :)

I decided to take a bit of a break from my online life. No Facebook, no Instagram and also no updates on the blog. Instead I took the time to concentrate on family life. Trying to stop a two-year-old from killing herself in her wonderful adventures in life is quite enough of work on some days.

Now that she is back in day care, it's time to try to reconnect online. At least to a certain extent, I think Facebook will have to remain on the back burner for a while. It just ends up taking too much time, time that I would like to spend doing other things.

Time to pick up the young one, have a lovely weekend everyone!

Miyajima, Japan

Sigh... I know... Its been an awful long time between drinks. We've been traveling (again) or just busy in general. But lets go back in time 12 months or so, to our Japan trip.

these photos where taken on the island of Miyajima that is just about an hour from Hiroshima, just a tram and a boat ride away. We didnt even know about this place until they lady at the Horshima tourist information suggested we pay the island a visit.

The island is home to a stupendous amount of shrines and some rather nosy deer a well.

Tokyo, Japan

It has been nearly a year since we traveled to Japan and I never posted ay pictures from our trip because soon after our trip my laptop came down with a virus.

I took well over a thousand photos, here are some of snapshots from our days in Tokyo. We got to catch up with my husband's friend from university as well as her family and at the end of our trip we all celebrated our daughter's first birthday together.

We had a wonderful time in Japan and we would love to go back to see more!

I quickly decided which Tokyo high rise is my favourite - the cocoon building that you can see
the top bit of in this photo

Our little girl leaving her baby year behind her way too soon...

For such a densely populated city, Tokyo has some really lovely green areas

Tsukuji Fish Market. We did not get here until lunch time, there were a few of these fellas still hanging around.
Rejected perhaps?

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, Gold Coast

Our recent trip to Australia consisted of a lot of car riding, up the hill, down the hill. Me telling my husband to go left, him turning right - and so on...

We revisited one of our favourite spots on the Gold Coast - Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. After all, one cannot visit Australia and not have a photo taken with a koala bear, and some kangaroos, oh and my husband wanted our daughter to touch a snake too. As you can see, she was not quite in agreement with his plan.

She was not so impressed by the feeding of the kangaroos. We teied to explain that we were giving some "nam, nam" to the kangaroos. She put the food in her own mouth...

That loving feeling

It's day two of our Australian (ad)venture. It means that the jet lag is weighing heavily on my shoulders but I am happy!

 

It feels great to have brought our daughter to her home country, she does have dual citizenship but for some reason I primarily think of her as Australian, don't know why. I obviously (try to) raise her with my Scandinavian values in mind, but I also wan to incorporate with that all that I love about Australia and it's people. Because to me Australians are friendly, open, easygoing and warm. Australia is a country that is accepting and encouraging to people of all sorts of background. I'm sure it's not perfect, I doubt any place is. It may not be my home country, but it very well could be. It's a country that I have been in love with since I was 12 and that feeling is still there :)

The mission for today is to get over this jet lag somehow (I feel like I have gone through a mincer) and most importantly, teach our daughter to say "G'day".

Happy Sunday everyone! If you have that loving feeling, share it with those around you!

 

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Leaving on a jet plane

In transit at the moment, can't wait to reach our destination (as usual), but it's a 14 hour flight to get us there. Oh, and there's the fact that the flight is delayed... And not by a cute 10-15 minutes, rife flight is expected to leave an hour and a half late! So I am spending my time people watching and eating chocolate croissants...

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Here are some photos from our Jeddah visit in December. These are all taken with my iPhone so don't expect anything of awesome quality.

Some of the traditional buildings in the historical district of Jeddah, the oldest dating back to the seventh century. Many buildings have fallen into disrepair and is sad to see how little the Saudi government is doing to restore the area. To the right in this picture is a building that has gotten a facelift, at least on the outside.

Walking through the historical district I felt lucky that I was not hit by an air conditioning unit, sattelite dish or other random object falling down from one of the half rotten wooden balconies.

My brother insisted on me taking a photo showing the price of the fuel. Not sure if I have posted one of these before. A litre of fuel costs 45 halalas, that's less than half a riyal. One riyal equals approximately 20 euro cents! Cheap as chips, cheaper than chips actually.

Taif, Saudi Arabia

When my family visited in December we decided to do some traveling in Saudi, rather than traveling somewhere else in the Middle East. We chose to travel to Jeddah and nearby Taif, mainly because we wanted something that was easily accessible and not too far off the beaten track.

Here are some photos from the area around Taif, a city in the mountains 2 hours drive from Jeddah.

One of the biggest attractions were, quite surprisingly, baboons. Maybe because all the water parks were closed.

The last few kilometres the road was anything but straight.

Lots of hazy weather because of the changes in temperature. Our woollen sweaters did get a good exercise while in Taif.

See the building immediately to the left of the bridge, that was our hotel. Do. Not. Recommend. It. If you wake me twice during the night just to check what time I want my breakfast the next morning, I will not be a happy camper!!!

I have a feeling Taif becomes overloaded with Jeddawis during the hotter summer months, hence all the water parks. Good for a one night stay I'd say, but not longer.

Adios Spain, Merhaba Turkey

A week in Spain is over, it's time to head back east. But before we land back home we have a 24 hour stopover in beautiful Istanbul.

Granada, Spain

The answer to the question in my previous post. The last four days we have spent in beautiful Granada in Spain. So much history and ao much to see, Alhambra being the highlight of it all.

Eid Mubarak & Hajj Mabrour

We are back from an experience of a lifetime. We have performed Hajj, alhamdulillah.

I will come back with some pictures and some tales from our week. But right now I am gearing up for a quick trip to Finland to pick up our daughter who has spent the lat fortnight in my parents' care.

Meanwhile we can only hope and pray that our Hajj was accepted, or as they say in Arabic : Hajj Mabrour.

Gate 32

At the gate, waiting to board my flight to Istanbul. I wonder if we will all fit om the plane..

Väntar på att stiga på flyget och undrar om det finns plats för oss alla...

Our Indian Adventure - Day14

Another day spent at home. The trip ended on a slightly negative note because me and the young one fell sick. Rather than going anywhere, we concentrated on spending our time with our family. Our daughter has a bunch of lovely and doting cousins. It was just amazing to see how well the older cousins took care of her and how the younger cousins adapted their play to suit her. These are the things you miss when you leave away from family.

I just thought I'd share a photo that I took one day while driving through the neighboring township. I just thought that the name was hilarious!

Our Indian Adventure - Day 11 &12

Woman down. Food poisoning. Not really sure what it was that I ate/drank to bring this on. Today has been spent mostly in a horizontal position. Thank God for my in-laws and my hubby for taking care of the little one.

Tonight we got to enjoy an evening snack by candle light as the power went out just often sunset.

Our Indian Adventure - Day 10

Indian Independence Day. All kids were off from school so it was time to take them all out for a little excursion.

So we take a Maruti Suzuki Wagon R (pictured above), a car that is comfortable for four people at best. And what do we do? We squeeze 6 adults, four kids and one infant in there!

A normal feat for anyone in India. I have also see. 2 adults + 2 kids on a moped, four adults at the back of a rickshaw and 6 adults and three kids in a Maruti Suzuki Zen. Combine that with pothole filled roads, a crazy amount of honking and you're ready for another adventure in Incredible India.