It’s fair to say that the first half of the year was a lot of fun. While not a problem according to BMI, I was starting to feel a little bit overweight. Over the years I have crept up to 94kg, since being around 82kg at 18 years old. I had developed some habits over the years such as having pizza after basketball and poor diet while studying for exams.
I finished the OMSCS program in May 2019. While the stress has faded, yet the memories are fresh, I wanted to take the time to write up some notes about the program that I hope others find useful. The main focus for the article will be on synergies between the classes. I’ll also talk more generally about what is good and bad about each class.
It’s been almost two months since Bri and I tied the knot. We’re on our final days of holiday and honeymoon at the moment as we prepare to enter the United States for work. While the experience is still fresh in my head I wanted to write an article about our wedding experience. Planning a wedding is a stressful experience, and I made lots of use of online lists and guides. This article is intended to be a guide to having a cheap or modest wedding in Melbourne, Australia. Most of the content will be relevant for anyone wanting to plan your own wedding day, but I’ll also discuss a bit more about the paperwork process in Melbourne, Australia for getting married. In a seperate post I’ll add our wedding day video and talk more personally about mine and my wife’s experience on the day. This article is more intended to be a practical guide to the planning and costs of the day.
If you’ve found yourself here, we may have had a discussion about an upcoming family holiday of yours to Australia, and you wanted to know how best to organise a trip to stay for a week. I have lived in Melbourne, Australia pretty much my whole life up until a few years ago. I have visited a few places but have generally preferred to travel overseas. I always figured I would leave the in-depth touring until later in life when travelling with kids. That being said, I discussed this topic with family and came up with some great suggestions of how to spend a week in Australia. This is particularly relevant to people coming here for two weekends worth of time.
My partner and I spent 6 weeks in Porto, Portugal in late 2018. During that time we were working remote, usually in the morning and late evenings, leaving us most of the day, evenings and weekend to explore Porto. We arrived in the colder, rainier month of November, and didn’t end up venturing outside the city at all. Along the way we found some great places to eat, have a drink and various things to do. The following is a list of what we found to be good.
Hobart has been a destination for some great weekend trips over the years. Very accessible from Melbourne, and with low cost airlines making it easy and cheap to visit, it’s likely a destination we’ll continue to visit every so often. I’ve been wanting to jot down some notes on ideas for people taking holidays there, so this article will list some top picks.
My partner Bri and I spent two months in Split as part of our six month trip in Europe. Although we spent most of that time working, studying or at the beach, we had a lot of fun in and around Split. Split boasts a historic castle old town, a great park for walks and cycling, a long coastline of pebble beaches, and small but growing communities of interest (tech, startup, expat, sport and coffee). Outside of Split the best way to enjoy Croatia is on a boat, either the common ferries to islands or Dubrovnik, or small boats for day trips to famous spots, or whole week cruises.
One of my top recommendations for anyone visiting Japan is to visit Koyasan. Koyasan is high in the mountains of the Wakayama prefecture. It is a historically relevant village, considered the centre of Shingon Buddism in Japan. It is here that you can experience a temple stay (Shukubo), many of which include vegetarian haite cuisine and onsen. Guests are welcome to attend early morning meditations. The town and its surrounds are perfect for walks, with the long graveyards nested in forests, large gates, and pilgrimage trails with great views.