Saturday 31 January 2015

Spitting it out

Today I learnt a few new skills at my wine tasting course.  Hosted by the Wine Society, I went to a fairly intensive course called Introduction to wine - Level 1.  

It was a 6 hour course starting at 10am (which I had thought was a little too early to start drinking!). The course included learning about how wine is made, different types of grapes, learning what goes with what food, different harvesting methods, what regions produce what types of wine best due to their climate.  The course presenter was great, he has been in the industry for 35+ years, working at wineries, working in the industry, being a sales rep, being a taster and a judge, his knowledge was fantastic and he ran a great day.

And there were 36 wines to taste!  We had 6 chapters and each one had 6 wines.  We were advised that they encourage when learning to taste wine, to use the spittoon and literally swivel and swish the wine around your mouth and then spit it out like the professional tasters do. As I'm racing the next day and had to drive to dinner, I decided that it would be a good idea, I was also intrigued on how the wine was going to taste without swallowing it.  The answer... it tastes exactly the same except it doesn't affect your mind and body... I tasted 36 different wines and was sober!  We got to take home leftover wines from they day so I took my 2 favourites from the day - a Pinot Noir and a Merlot.

Thoroughly recommend doing the course, whether you think you know a lot about wine already or know nothing... we had a range of all in the room!


Monday 26 January 2015

Racing in the rain

Well this is officially my 10th thing completed on The List!

Today, Australia Day, I participated in my first ever ski race.  I borrowed a ski from Steve and a paddle from Annett (I have done a few training sessions on the craft but really not very many).  The event is the Cockatoo & Cupcake Cups (I competed in the Cupcake Cup - the short course event), which is a good & fun handicapped race that has been an official race now for around 6 years now, hosted by my paddling club the Pacific Dragons.  I raced at pretty much exactly the speed I had been handicapped at (luckily I changed my group with the handicapper the day before!).

It was a good race and when I had someone catch up to me from the starting group behind, I managed to keep up with him until the end of the race which I was happy with.


Astrology

I asked my friend Kay for the name of her clairvoyant recently as she had been to a lady a couple of years earlier who she believed was fairly accurate with some of her reading.  I looked up the website ready to make a booking and it turns out that this medium and clairvoyant was taking a sabbatical... literally starting the next day!  

So, by chance when I was in Agra, India recently for a work trip, and I saw the words 'Astrologer' near the lobby of my fancy hotel, and a nice looking older Indian man sitting at a table with no clients, I thought - why not!

My Astrologer read my palm, talked about my past, talked about what he saw in my future and we had a good chat.  I asked a couple of questions and he was fairly accurate about big events in my past. I have kept the piece of paper and hidden it in my drawer to let the universe take it's course. 

So... let's see what happens in my future!


The Bonus

When I started writing The List, I asked some friends to help come up with suggestions as to what I could put on it.  One of my friends, Michelle, suggested I added 'visit a country I have never been to'. It didn't make the final list as I already had a point to book and plan a trip to Hawai'i in 2015 which meant really there was no additional time (or money) to add another country within the 8 month period.

As it turns out, work decided to send me to India to visit a company we do a lot of business with and a couple of areas I work closely with, for introductions, relationship building and training.
I went for 7 days of work which also included a weekend, and then onto Hong Kong for a couple of days before coming home.

India is an interesting country... 
I was in a city that was regional of sorts (not the type of regional town you would find in Australia... it still has 4-odd million people in it) and as I was there for work, so I spent a lot of my days in a car to and from the office to the hotel.  I did eat out a couple of times, and everyone thought I was very brave, India is just not safe for women to go out by themselves, especially after hours.
On the weekend, I took a flight to Delhi where a driver picked me up and I went to Agra, the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal (you can't go to India with out going to the Taj if you haven't been before!!). The weekend was great, the Taj amazing and all the people I met were great.  I was quite lucky in that I didn't get sick, I didn't get harassed, I ate lots of Indian food (and put on 2kgs), I stayed in nice places but I was ready to leave when I did.  India reminds me of old school Asia: dirty; crowded; poor in some parts (although there is also a cast system in the slums and the more fortunate than some have satellite dishes on their slum for cable tv); but also very fascinating, it's hard to describe.

I was very glad to land in Hong Kong, which was great as usual, and I got to catch up with Greg who I haven't seen in a few years. Working in our HK office was also good, and so was the food and shopping!  And I could have a shower with my mouth open without fear of getting sick... you would be amazed at how important this little bit of luxury is.