Photos from the road

Here are some photos from the trip for your eyeballs' pleasure.

Brisbane Water, Central Coast, NSW

The parental home, Brisbane, Queensland

Australia's most easterly mainland point, Byron Bay, NSW

Mountain range near Bellingen, NSW

On the road, Pacific Highway, NSW

National Gallery, London, UK

Punters at Pimlico Markets, London, UK

Fun Monday # 2 (well, it is for me)

** Fun Monday update: For those of you still doing the rounds, my friend carpetblogger was an unofficial Fun Monday entrant. Check out her Instanbul blogging environment (she has the best looking support staff in town).




Welcome to my second ever Fun Monday!

Today's Fun Monday is brought to you by my compatriot, Willowtree, and for the full list of participants this week, you can visit him at A Dingo's got my Barbie. I encourage you to visit, there's free vegemite sandwiches at the door. (Not really, but there should be).

The theme for this week's fun Monday is 'blogging environment'. This is fairly easy for me, seeing as I have an apartment the size of a shoe box. I have a living room, bedroom, teeny tiny kitchen and a bathroom. Not much choice really.

But I also have a laptop computer and wireless internet (not exactly reliable), so my blogging environment could really by anywhere within my 50 squares.

Mostly, though, my 'computer room' is the one that is also the telly room, the reading room, and, if we had a piano, it would be the piano room too.

Here's a picture of my blogging environment:

Jaw-dropping, isn't it? To afford you a closer look at my 'desk', I took another picture from a slightly different angle:

Notice the crochet nana-rug on my knees? Not only did I make it myself, but I hoiked it all the way to Ukraine to keep me warm. And they still haven't really fixed up the heating so I'm using it this morning.

Now, let's examine my desk in greater detail. Firstly, my mouse-pad. It's a small coffee-table book about Australia. "What's it doing on your desk?" you ask. Ay, there's the rub. My desk isn't a desk per se, rather, and this will shock you, it's a coffee table.

See the two glasses next to the computer? That's the remnants of last nights coupla glasses of Georgian red wine.

Underneath the desk there are a number of magazines, and a couple of hard drives to play music from. My speakers? They're built into the computer of course. And all the computer cords, when not in use, conveniently tuck away into the footstool you see in the backgrounds of the pics.

The true beauty of this position is that I can type at the computer, and without moving my head, I can also watch telly.

Talk about an assault of the senses.

So, that was a rather mediocre post, was it not?

Here's something to get you excited. Sunrise in Kyiv from the living room window you see shining in the photos above.

First, the sun just peeking over the buildings across the road...

Then a little more...

Then a little more than the one before....

Then even more than the one before and the one before that....

And finally way more than the one before x(times) four...
(Well, how the heck else can you commentate a sunrise?)

Have a great fun Monday. Love Little Miss Moi xx

PS Can you see the reflection of my in my pink pyjamas in the door?

Grocery shopping in Oo-kray-ii-na

I have a new blog friend, which is not surprising. I have only been blogging for one month, so all my friends are technically new friends.

My friend is Willowtree, and his blog is called 'A dingo's got my barbie' (what a tribute to Lindy). Willowtree lives in rural Australia (strangely considered the outback by a few of his readers), and he has inspired me to post about my grocery items. This is because he recently posted two rather entertaining pieces about groceries - part one is here. And part two is here.

So this one's for you, Willowtree.

Today I toddled off to the local supermarket to get some groceries. My local is called 'MegaMarket' and, like all supermarkets in Kyiv, it sells a random collection of goods. Whatever you want to buy is not there. What you don't want, is. For example, I might be looking for brown sugar, or cornflour. Not there. But if I want four aisles of Russian chocolate, I have it. Yum (err, not).

Or three aisles of vodka. Two aisles of beer. One of juice. One of really bad Crimean wine and champagne. Do you get the idea that Ukrainians don't mind a bit of a tipple? Well, you're right.

Really, it's not too hard to shop in Ukraine. Even if you can't understand the writing on pack, you can either see the product itself or a slightly representative picture on pack. Personally I sure can't tell from reading the label, because most labels are in Ukrainian. Never mind that most people speak Russian in this part of the country.

And, instead of stocking a range of goods, the store will only offer one good, in one brand. You want canned corn? You have to buy Bonnedelle. End of story. Instant noodles? Big Ben. Cornflakes? Nestle all the way, baby!

MegaMarket's range changes from week to week, so if I see something I like (like Heinz Baked Beans), I buy in bulk as there's every chance they will disappear within the week and not return for three years.

So. Today's shop was only a small shop. I purchased the following groceries for the royal sum of 70 gryvnias, or $US14.

Here's what you get for $14 in Kyiv:

(I have cropped the photo very close so you're not subjected to my landlord's horrid taste in wallpaper. Also, I already owned the toaster. The kitchen is so small, the toaster lives on the table).

Now, I could translate for you. I really could... if I was learning Ukrainian. But, as I mentioned before, in that cruel twist of fate, everyone in this town speaks Russian, but not one sign or label is written in Russian. So not only is Russian a bloody hard language, but I can't even soak it up via osmosis.

Let's look at some of these items a little closer. Firstly, the mushrooms. By the time I left Sydney, mushrooms were retailing for $8.99 (aussie) a kilo.

grib'i shampin'on i vesov'ie

In Kyiv, these babies retail for $US3 per kilo. Yes, some people do choose to steer clear of mushies in Ukraine, as mushrooms (and berries) absorb a lot of radiation. But I'm putting my faith in MegaMarket not to sell me Chernobyl mushies.

Next the carrots. This ubiquitous root vegie sells here for 50 cents per kilo. What a bargain! At that price, they sometimes come dirty, but I can live with that. I've eaten so many carrots in Ukraine my skin is turning orange. And I can see in the dark.

morkov' vesovaya

The price here -1.78 gryvnias - is about 35 cents.

Next we have some delicious chips. The brand name is 'Lyuks'. I'm not sure what that means, but the flavour is cheese and I trust this brand because it's a Kraft brand. I figure that means no MSG and a certain level of quality assurance.

Lyuks nizhniy sir

You can also see my Gallina Blanca pasta sneaking a peak in there, and again below, along with my 'toonets', or tuna.

toonets

I don't usually eat much canned fish, but I figure: when you can't trust the meat, or the butcher of the meat, you can always trust fish in a can. This tuna cost about $US1 per can, and comes in springwater. Oh, no, make that simply, water.

Now. Thank God for globalisation, without which, I wouldn't be able to bring you the worthy Snickers Bar and Mars Bar.

Pictured here is part of my Mars Bar Max, and the side of the Snickers packaging. The packaging pictured reads:

superpitatel'niy batonchik. Ne tormozi. Snikersni. (Russian)

What it means, I have no idea. Something about Snickers, I guess... "Eat me, I'm delicious, I'll make you strong and muscly BUT only if you go to the gym and work me off". Etc.

Last but by no means least is the beer.

This brand of beer is called Chernigivskye (in Ukrainian it's Chernihivske). It's made in the town of Chernihiv, about 200kms from Kyiv. This is the beer my body rejects the least (no headaches, not too many evil hangovers), so it's quickly become my favoured (but by no means favourite) beer brand.

Chernigivs'kye svitle. Zvareno v Ookraiini

What you see pictured here is one litre of beer, packaged in a plastic bottle. I purchased two litres of beer, which cost me $US1.20. What a perfect price for beer, no?

Now, I would love to end with a whiz bang photo of me combining all the items above into some delicious gourmet meal, but that's not going to happen. Firstly, combining the above ingredients would create a meal of sludge that tastes like sludge. Secondly, I'm not that energetic.

And as for the fallout of today's grocery shop: I'm already kicking myself cause I bought apple and carrot juice instead of just apple. Last week I bought peach juice instead of apple.

Damn me not looking at the pictures properly. I think I need to take a five year old shopping with me next time, their powers of observation are far more sharply honed than mine.



PS Just looking at the vegie labels, I think they might be in Russian, but it's hard to tell because the printer has printed the letters crap. Not that you really care, do you?

The terrific Taras Shevchenko tour

Today was a beautiful day. So I will try not to be cynical.

To celebrate this beautiful day, Mr Moi and I nursed our mini-Caribbean-Club hangovers from the comfort of our couch, and looked at the beautiful day every now and then (basically, when we were game enough to expose our eyeballs to sunlight).

But, as fate would have it, I had agreed to babysit the kids of a couple we know. After a bolstering meal of chinese instant noodles, we set out in the crisp minus 3 air, and walked to our friends' house.

I took the point-and-shoot with me to capture the fleeting afternoon. And it wasn't until I downloaded these photos that I realised I've documented the terrific Taras Shevchenko tour.

Taras Shevchenko is a Ukrainian literary hero (not to be mistaken with Andriy Shevchenko, who is a Ukrainian soccer hero. And unlike Taras, he's still alive).

Walking to the end of our street, Mr Moi and I had to cut through Taras Shevchenko park.

Most of the snow on roads and paths recently melted, and has since been followed by a cold snap. So there's still snow on the grass, but not on the paths. This makes walking a pleasure, and despite there not being any other people in this photo besides Mr Moi, there really were a few people out and about.

The sun was actually shining through the trees, which I thought looked rather pretty, and not a little endearing.

As we walked through Taras Shevchenko Park, I couldn't help but notice Taras Shevchenko University. It's the big red building you see in the background.

There's a story behind the colour of the university - I think some young bolsheviks were protesting against the Tsars, so Nikolai II ordered them to be killed. They happened to be students at the university, who were protesting at the university. So, to remind the public of the bloodshed, Nikolai ordered that the building be painted red.

If that's not enough Taras Shevchenko for you, then here's the main man himself. Everyday, he keeps watch over his park and his university.

Unfortunately, because of the way his statue is positioned, he can't keep watch over his boulevard.

This is Bulvar Taras Shevchenko.

Well, part of it. It's actually quite long, and lined with poplar trees. I'm looking forward to seeing it in the summer.

Walking down Bulvar Taras Shevchenko on a Sunday night, as we were, we could hear the bells of Volodomyrsky ringing.

This old church is still operating as a Russian Orthodox church. The bells were calling people to church, I guess, and unlike other bells you see around the place, they were being rung by humans.

I love the blue domes with the gold stars painted on. Even religious people must be three year old kids deep down.

Kyiv, as with all former soviet countries, is full of underpasses. Because the driving is so bad, and humans act as something to target rather than dodge, the soviets wisely built a lot of underpasses around the cities.

This is one of them. It's also an entry to the Universityet metro station, one of the deepest in the world.
The sun is running out, so here are a couple of last ditch shots to capture the prettiness of the day.


And finally, here's what brings me back to earth: garbage piled high right on the footpath of one of the city's flagship streets.

And here's one of the trams from the 1940s that hopefully will get replaced by a Swiss-issue 'new'* tram.
I hope you enjoyed these colour photos from Kyiv.


*old

The adventures of Mr and Little Miss Moi

One day, not so long ago, Mr and Little Miss Moi got up sorta late, feasted on delicious Chinese instant noodles for breakfast, splashed some water on their faces, and scooted out of their flat.

They were going to watch football at a friendly place called 'The Pub'.

Although both Mr Moi and Little Miss Moi were looking forward to watching the football, they had varying degrees of enthusiasm. Mr Moi was banking on an all day-er. Little Miss Moi was planning a pouting tantrum around afternoon-tea-time, which would trigger the pair's departure.

Mr and Little Miss Moi decided to dodge the snow and travel to 'The Pub' by metro. They think that descending on the Kyiv metro is a little like going into the depths of hell.

It goes a long way down.

Once they were down down down, Little Miss Moi snapped a cheeky photo of Mr Moi. See? That's his cheek. She also snapped some Kyiv winter fashion. Many Kyiv-ites are wearing big coats with fluffy bits all over them.

If you look closely, there's even a couple of big furry shapkas in the photo too.

Mr and Little Miss Moi were transported by metro to Little Miss Moi's favourite station: Maidan Nezalezhnosti. She often copies the announcing man in order to perfect her pronunciation of her blog name. She didn't take a photo of the metro, as the camera was safely tucked away against theives.

Once off the metro, Mr and Little Miss Moi took the escalator up and up and re-emerged from the bowels of the earth.

Before they knew it, they were at 'The Pub'. Here, Mr and Little Miss Moi met up with some fellow rugby lovers, and watched what seemed like match after match. First they watched Mr and Little Miss Moi's home team Queensland play the Hurricanes. Then they watched some soccer.

The soccer was a real low-light, because all of a sudden, 'The Pub' filled up with people of the pommy persuasion, dressed in red jerseys. They were so loud that Little Miss Moi had to yell, and it hurt her throat.

The mid afternoon pouting tantrum was blithely unrecognised by Mr Moi, so Little Miss Moi ordered some hot chips instead. It's funny how the tomato sauce bottle looks only a little weird with Russian writing on it.

Then, the room started to fill up with lots of people from the lovely country of France. They were here to watch their team, The Frogs, play their next-door neighbours and the inventors of pizza, the Italian Stallions. It was rugby time again, and this was the third game all day that Little Miss Moi had been subjected to. She was getting a bit cranky.

So she bought a couple of beers and took some photos of the punters with her ever-steady hand.

After the Frog vs. Stallions match, which The Frogs won, it was time to watch England play Scotland. There were a lot of people in the room in their white English jerseys, drinking a lot of beer. Including a few twelve year olds.

After nine hours in 'The Pub', it occurred to Little Miss Moi that her bottom was really sore from sitting on the one seat for so long. It was time to go home.

Walking down from 'The Pub', Little Miss Moi was struck by how pretty everything looked in the fresh snow that had banked up in her nine-hour absence from the world. She walked through Independence Square, looking about wonderously as the snow sparkled in the streetlights.

Mr and Little Miss Moi, despite eating all afternoon, agreed to join their friends The Chenkos for dinner at Mokka in The Passage. Little Miss Moi discovered that Mokka had nothing to do with coffee, and was rather amused at the black tiger spotted uniforms the waitstaff were forced to wear. Mokka was decorated like the inside of a ship.

After two mohitos and some food in between, it was time to leave Mokka. Little Miss Moi drank so much that she almost thought this Bentley was hers. Even if it was, it had probably been parked there for too long to get out of the snow.

While she pondered why someone would leave a Bentley out to rust in the snow, she took some pretty pictures of the punters in The Passage.

It was quite snowy indeed.


Then it was time to go home. Luckily being with someone who can talk the local lingo, Mr and Little Miss Moi didn't have to face either the sloppy snow, or the bowels of the earth metro in order to get home. They got a cab.

Little Miss Moi snapped this photo at the same time she got whiplash from the driver pulling a U-turn at Maidan.

When they got home, Mr and Little Miss Moi were very tired indeed. They drank some water and a few Neurofen and went to bed. And Mr Moi still hasn't woken up.

This post is dedicated to enid. It's too hard to read her blog without wanting to write in third person.

This is a Clayton's post

I would like to dedicate this post to my little brother, Clayton. He was named after the non-alcoholic spirit, Clayton's: The drink you have when you're not having a drink. Being born six years after the four other well-spaced kids in the family, my parents deemed him the baby you have when you're not having any more babies. Growing up with this stigma, it's a wonder he turned out normal.

This is a pic I took of myself in London's Regent's Park in September. In many ways, the weather pattern we experienced there was one I've experienced here: unseasonably warm, lots of flowers where there should be dead foliage, and people out and about, making the most of the weather. Of course, one major difference between London in September and Kyiv in January is that the sun was out.

I look at these photos from time to time when I need to remember what a shadow is.

So why is this a Clayton's post? Two reasons:

1) I want to put a pic on my profile without using the crappy Hello software recommended by blogger. That software just does not work for me. I have circumvented the need to use the software by posting this, and using the URL from the pic above to put a pic of me in the profile section. So darn smart of me.

2) This post has nothing to do with anything. It's the post you post when you're not posting a post.


POST SCRIPT:
I am a bit concerned on reading the Wikipedia entry on Claytons, that my readers will think I am an unloving daughter and older sister. One of the definitions given for Claytons on Wikipedia is:

... Subsequently, the term "Claytons" entered the vocabulary of both countries [Australia and New Zealand], used as an adjective to signify a compromise which satisfies no-one, or any form of inferior substitute or low-quality imitation, largely synonymous with the word "ersatz". For example, a hasty or temporary repair may be only a Claytons solution to a problem.

I would like to point out that I'm not trying to make a commentary on my parents' decision to have another child after they reached perfection (Little_Miss_Moi). Simply make reference to the second definition provided on the page.

Greetings

Hello one and all. While I have hitherto been successful in relatively keeping you up to date with what's been going on in my life via group emails and flickr photographs, I am, indeed, guilty of 'slacking off'. Partly because there simply haven't been any new photos to add for a while.

There may have been, but I've been a bit lazy on the photo front to be honest. Here are some really good photos that you missed out on, because I was too lazy to take them:

1. A photo of the Kyiv New Year's tree at Maidan. It's 35 metres high and made of the branches of real fir trees. Looks impressive but I just can't be bothered to go out, remember to take the camera, and hike all the way up to Maidan to take a photo. I just keep thinking, "There's always next year..."

2. A photo of the yummy goose I got to munch on a Christmas lunch. We were kindly invited around to someone's house, but there were a lot of strangers there; I felt shy so I didn't take the camera around.

3. Photos of Mr_Moi's Christmas party. He didn't take the camera, and lucky he didn't because, considering he lost his phone that night, there's a very real possibility that he may have lost the camera also.

4. Photos of the New Year's fireworks that banged in the sky for not one, not two, not three, not four, but five - yes, five - hours after New Year struck. And there's another new year coming up on 14th January (Orthodox).

5. A photo of Mr_Moi and me at the pub at 8am this morning, watching the final session of day three of the Ashes on Sky Sport. We didn't have a beer, but it was the earliest we've been up since we've been here.

So there's the lowdown on what's been going on in the life of Mr and Miss_Moi.

To give you all an update on what's going on specifically in my life... The job front isn't looking too great for me at the moment, so I'm looking into kicking my Russian lessons into high gear, and I'm considering taking German lessons too.

I have also joined the International Women's Club of Kyiv (IWCK), where I am hoping to become a part of the cooking group, tennis group, and the Russian literature group. I also go to Monday morning coffee, but not sure I will continue that because, after seeing the inside of a few rich-o apartments and diplomat houses, I just don't think my little box of an apartment will adequately deliver when times comes to reciprocate the horse-pit-ality.

That's about it for now, crew. See you later.