Life at 247-1

We were invited to a nice buffet lunch with Nao-kun and his family. A 40 minute drive from home up in the mountains, the view was spectacular.

All our kids love animals so we decided to make a trip to the zoo. Being a popular and very cheap place to entertain children the carpark gets full in no time at all. We aimed to be there by 9am which meant leaving home at just after 8am...

We managed to keep to our plan fairly well and even then the closest carpark was already full, we managed to get a spot at the botanical garden side and that filled up pretty quickly too.

At the entrance we were happily surprised to find out that today was free entry for all....lucky us! A short 10 minute walk took us to the zoo side.

To make the most of the little sunshine we have, today's lunch was on the deck, healthy sandwiches, some fruit and lots of fresh air! So nice to eat outdoors!

Something new in Melbourne, the Aquarium. Curious to see inside we went down to the city for the day, just along the Yarra River across from the Crown Complex. The wind was chilly but the view of the yarra and city were beautiful. A short walk from our carpark, the boys ran freely for a bit.

Just about 30 minutes drive from home down the freeway, I took the kids to the Farm today. A bit cloudy but good enough weather to enjoy the outdoors.

A morning walk with coufu this morning took us to the nearby Aquarena centre, a place for swimming and fitness. We got a tour of the facilities and the boys wanted to swim rightaway. Maybe next time!

On the way home Jamie insisted he wanted to see coufu's house so we stopped by and took a pic outside. At the moment it's being rented out so we can't see inside but from what I can see outside it's a pretty big house and just a 5 minute walk from where we are now.

The boys went out the back with goong goong and picked a couple bags of lemons from our lemon tree...we'll have to make some lemon meringue pie from those!

After a spicy lunch at a favourite chinese restaurant we parked at the Fukuoka library and took a nice afternoon walk towards the tower and momochi beach.

A beautiful birthday present from Akane and her mother...

Apparently these Cymbidium Orchids are quite easy to keep and hardly need any maintenance.

The kids were quick enough to get out into the snow, Markie and Kaori made a very cute snowman which I think looked very much like a koala!