Opera House Concert - Lang Lang - Sunday 22nd June

After finishing the epic travel post its time to catch up on what else we have been doing over the past couple of months. Poor doggies, we were only home a couple of weeks and then we were away again..

 

First event was at the Sydney Opera House where we went to see Lang Lang, with Michael and Gail.

 

And it was wonderful, the man is a mega star!

 

 

 

It was a sell out crowd, with lots of younger people.

Here he is high five-ing  those in the front row! What a nice bloke.

 

 

 He came out for about 5 encores! I know your not suppose to take photos during a performance but this was his last encore and every one  else was taking pics so I snuck some as well.

 

 

It was like a rock concert,  the poor Opera House ushers didn't know what to do when people started to very politely rush the stage, I guess that is a rare event at a classical music concert.

 

We first met Lang Lang in the U.K. version of 'The Piano', were amateur pianists play in railway stations. He was a judge, although no one actually wins, they just get invited to perform at a big concert. There has recently been an Australian version of  'The Piano'  which we missed as we were overseas. Might catch up with it later in the year.

 

Here is Lang Lang and his 'The Piano' co stars, Mika and Claudia.

 

 Anyway, great concert and we have another concert on the next weekend, so to fill in the week we flew to Melbourne, as you do! More about that in the following post..

 

 

 

 

 

And in the End.....

We are home and two doggies are very pleased to see us.

Although they had lost a lot of weight at the kennel. Teddy was extremely thin (he has cancer, see the growth on his head, we are letting nature take its course). The vet said that Miss Lizzy is still a butterball even though she lost 1kg. Running around all day and no treats was the cause. They have gained all the weight back now and Teddy is still going okay. 

 

The fuffies all made it home as well as the little carpet we bought in Egypt.

 This has been epic work recording this trip and when I get a moment I'll go back and do some editing and fix the typos and spelling mistakes. 

I've also made a small donation to Wikipedia for their assistance with facts.

Now I have a big backlog of posts! I'll try to get up to date before I go into hospital to get the dodgy hip fixed.

Next posts are concerts and trip to Melbourne. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homeward bound - Thursday 29th May

 We were luckier than some. We had a late checkout and didn't need to leave the hotel until 2:30.

So we had a leisurely late breakfast in the most beautiful restaurant.

 Then it gave us a chance to repack our bags and change our clothes before our flight.

Three hours to Dubai in economy, I know why we don't do that anymore. But I did watch Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade..

More than a 5 hour wait in Dubai airport in the middle of the night.

Then a 13 hour leg to Sydney, this time in Premium Economy.

We arrived back in Sydney after 10pm on the Saturday night. Trying to get a taxi at 10 o'clock at night to take us 1/2 km to our hotel was not easy when you are both tired and cranky.

Flight home on the Sunday.

This epic adventure is nearly at an end with one last post coming soon.

 

 

Jordan - Wednesday 28th May - Amman

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600th POST!!!! 

In My Life - Established 2010

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But back in Jordan. Last tour day and I can't wait to get home!

But I will briefly mention the plastic pollution that is a blight on Jordan. No so much the plastic bottle here, but plastic bags, everywhere. They are trying to clean it up but they have a long way to go.

Then the coach broke down....

So we had a fleet of yellow taxis to take us to our next stop

Which was Kerak Castle. Another crusaders castle and also on a big hill...

 I think this was just supposed to be a quick photo stop, but we needed to wait for a new coach and driver to come from Petra so we were there for a few hours.

We had to take all our carry on luggage with us and lug it around! Usually we would have left it on the coach. They are building a new visitors centre but its not finished and the only toilets were the disgusting builders port-a-loos.

But they did give us watermelon. 

 Poor Mo was so stressed and lots of phone calls were made..

Finally the new coach arrived and we went for a very, very late lunch at a restaurant in Jerash.

Then it was a visit to the Roman ruins in Jerash, and now I'm really over it! 

 Then one of the ladies in our group fell down the hill. Everyone is tired. Fortunately in was only cuts and bruises and there was an ambulance at the bottom of the hill so they patched her up.

It was a long day, especially after the long day at Petra yesterday. 

Because of our breakdown we missed the panoramic tour of Amman, which was a shame I would have preferred to do that than the Roman ruins...

Amman looks like a beautiful city, clean and tidy with lots of white buildings, beautiful gardens and street trees.

 Here is our stop for the night, the Fairmont Amman.

We didn't arrive until after 6:30 and some in our group only had time to use the bathroom and run a brush through their hair before they had a transfer to the airport. Poor things, because it was one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever stayed in. No take that back, it is the best. I'll compare them all to this from now on.

 

 The bathroom was like a suite all of its own.

And from our window....

 As we had a big late lunch we just went to the bar for something simple.

 

Its a bit fancy, that is the sweets above. Felt a bit under dressed.

 Goodnight Amman.

 

Jordan - Tuesday 27th May - Petra part 2

After leaving you on a cliff hanger at the end of part 1, we have arrived at the Treasury building. 

AKA-Al-Khazna

Pity that the light is in the wrong spot for photos, but you can't always time these things. 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Khazneh

 Below, here is another sweaty hat hair photo.

 And another group photo from Mo.

 But there is a lot more the further you walk into Petra.

 Then there is the coloured stone.

 This below is the street of facades.

More of the coloured stone and another Mo photo of us.

 Then we split up, most of the group went on an uphill  trek to see the Royal Tombs. I thought that would be a bit much for my dodgy hip so myself and one of the blokes in the group went for a cup of mint tea, with our policeman.

Graham took the camera so these are his photos. 

 

Mo pointing out the sights.

 

 

That is where I was in that building below. Nice cup of tea, just normal black tea with fresh mint leaves, very nice. As soon as I sat down there was a ginger cat on my lap!

 

Now I'm back with the group and we venture even further down the hill.

 There are some Temple ruins and Mo took a photo of a lizard..

 

 Some gumtrees at the bottom of the hill.

You can continue on from here to the monastery, but that was another several km.

 Then we made our way back up the hill. It was hotter now. We made it halfway back to the treasury building then took a golf cart for the final part . The cheeky driver played the Indiana Jones theme music and we were leaving the treasury which was hilarious. (I'll have to watch the movie again now).

Here is a still from the 1989 film.

John Ryhs-Davies, Sean Connery and Harrison Ford, the very last scene, before they rode up the chasm and into the sunset. We did it by golf cart with the same music!

 

You can watch it on youtube!

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGN0LuEXBYY

 

Then we had a free afternoon,  we visited the Petra Museum.

Then it was dinner at our own expense, and we visited the Cave Bar across the road from our hotel. 

 

We found some of our fellow tour mates already there so we joined them for dinner.

It was once a tomb 

 

 

I seemed to have managed to restyle my hair to get rid of the hat hair. 

 Second ginger cat for the day!

Phew so that's the end of that epic two part post, last tour day tomorrow and then its time to head home.