Best of 2011

I was gonna write a really meaningful reflection on 2011, but I realised that I didn’t really have anything that interesting to say. Well, if i did I probably already said it to Aaron the other night when we caught up over a few quiet drinks (which I hope you get to do before the year is out. I’m really glad we did it. Parties are cool, but a low-key session is important too)

So instead I present to you… a completely self-indulgent list of things I think are cool which I discovered throughout the year. Stop reading now if you are after some well-thought-out reflections.

Here are some things that brought joy into my life in 2011:

Eat & Drink:
- Sunday afternoon music at Cloudland. A light-filled fantasy garden sanctuary amidst the dark Fortitude Valley seedy-ness
- MoVeda Bar de Tapas, Melbourne CBD
- Babimpup at Hong Depot Korean BBQ in West End
- Kimono Sushi, Melbourne St, South Brisbane
- Swampdog: new gourmet Fish & Chips joint on Vulture St, South Brisbane
- The End, new-ish bar on Vulture St where Trash Video used to be, has their own amazing locally brewed beers
- Kerbside, a mishmash of used furniture and random stuff in a warehouse filled with the biggest collection of beers and wines in Brisbane Fortitude Valley, with very well-dressed staff
- Russian Market in Phnom Penh (also shopping)
- Doi Chang Coffee, Thailand, especially their cafe in Chiang Rai
- Kinyei Cafe, Battambang, Cambodia (http://www.kinyei.org/projects/kinyei-cafe)
- Brews Brothers, micro-brewery in Wooloongabba, make your own beer that’s actually guaranteed to taste awesome
- Soy Flat-White on a cup of ice @ Blackstar Coffee Roasters, especially when Alan pours it

Read, Listen, Watch:
- Everything Belongs, book by Richard Rohr
- In The Name Of Jesus, really short book Henry Nouwen (thanks to my dad)
- Mission Bell CD, by Amos Lee
- The Big Issue magazine
- Peppa Pig (Mali’s favourite cartoon on ABC iView)
- It Might Get Loud, a guitar doco with Jack White, The Edge and Tommy Page
- GOMA (Queensland Gallery of Modern Art), especially when The Quadratic Contingency performed live to Alfred Hitcock’s films
- Feet Teeth, post-jazz improv’s from Brisbane
- Jimmy Watts Band, soulful blues
- Dave Carter, gritty bluesman & recording/mastering engineer extraodinare responsible for UnConvention Brisbane

Other:
- Occupy Brisbane
- The awesome/troubled sincere daggy/funky people (like me) at St Andrew’s South Brisbane
- Cigar Heaven, Moorooka
- Community Orientation Course (Waiters Union, West End) – exploring how to live as Christ would amongst the marginalised in a local community in Brisbane
- Pants To Poverty briefs for men and ladies (New Internationalist Online Shop)
- Phil & Ted’s double decker pram
- Multi Track Song Recorder app for iPhone. Free 4-track recorder
- Servants, a group of people incarnating Christ by living with the poorest of the urban poor around the world (www.servantsasia.org)
- Wishbone Bike, buy your kid a trike when they are 2 and convert it into a pre-bike they can use until they’re 5
- Mali’s awesome Day Care called Kids @ West End
- Vein Shoes on Adelaide St, CBD
- Meeting Barry Peters (www.barrypeters.com.au) at a songwriting workshop at TEAR Victoria conference on Philip Island
- Mekong Minority Foundation, local hilltribe-run development NGO in Chiang Rai, Thailand
- Maton Guitars

Enough. I forgot to put my friends on the list, but you know who you are. None of the above actually means anything without people like you. Thank you. Have a lovely New Year filled with joyful moments! Would be fun to hear your list too, if you wanna share. Cheers

Goodbye Brisbane. Hello Mae Sot.

Hi All

You may remember that Rachel, Mali and i went away for 6 weeks earlier this year to Thailand and Cambodia, and we asked you to keep us in your thoughts and prayers on the journey. Well we had an amazing few weeks, thank you! and we were seriously thinking about going back to Thailand a period of time to live and work there, and for Rachel and Mali to learn the culture and language more.

Our rough plan was to come home for a couple of years and save up some money or maybe get a house first and then go back. But a few weeks before we left Bangkok we saw a pharmacist position at a Burmese-run clinic in Thailand through AVI (Australian Volunteers International, an AusAid funded organisaition) advertised and just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. So we went for it, and after a long process of interviews, training, health checks and etc, we are happy to report that we have been approved to go in February 2012 for 2 years!

This is good for many reasons. It is good for you because we won’t be asking you to sponsor us with money. It is also good for you because you now have a very good excuse to come to Thailand or a neighbouring country in the next 2 years!!! In fact we’ve already got some visitors booked in for 2012. By making the journey to Thailand you will be playing a very important role in our journey: support from home. We’re really looking forward to this away-from-home adventure, but we know how much we will miss everyone here. So please let us know nice and early if you’d like to come and visit so that we can try and accommodate you and/or travel around with you. Also let us know if you’re planning to be near Thailand because we have to get out of the country and re-enter every 3 months to stamp our visas anyway. We will be a couple of hours away from Chiang Mai.

My assignment is to get alongside the pharmacy staff at Mae Tao Clinic, Mae Sot, Tak Province, Thailand, and hopefully improve some inventory and clinical issues. There’s also a doctor and a social worker from Melbourne starting at the Clinic at the same time. Rachel will try her hands on being a full-time mum for a bit, although many people reckon that her background in financial counselling will be highly sort-after by NGO’s in the region. Mali is looking forward to Thailand, and insists she already knows how to speak Thai.

Not much else to say, except that we’d like to catch up with you before we leave in early February. Otherwise we’ll be online pretty regularly so please keep in touch and let us know what’s happening in your world.

Have a safe holiday & a lovely New Year

Peter (+ Rachel, and Mali)