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9 May 2008: I’m a bit reluctant to publish public performances of Celine because invariably it would be home recording quality. But it is not often that we get to record it. In most cases, recording of any kind will be prohibited because of copyright laws.

Early last week, a friend called us to request for Celine to sing in a charity fund raising dinner for a person in the advance stage of cervical cancer. Celine was in a middle of a number of University assessments, so I was surprised that she agreed to do this gig. With less than a week to prepare and a song not in her current repertoire, she barely had time to prepare for this.

I’m sharing this home video for a limited time before I mark it as private. Hopefully, enough time for friends and family get a glimpse of Celine’s public performance. The video was taken by her sister Jessica - it is a bit shaky and the poor lighting didn’t help either. You could also hear her (Jessica) making some comment as she and Ryan makes fun of the Italian part of the song.

4 May 2008: The Madrid Family are visiting Sydney from the Philippines. They flew in from Melbourne in the early morning and stayed at the beautiful Meriton Apartments right at the centre of downtown Sydney. Jeanne and I took the early train to meet up with them. The plan was to take them to Taronga Zoo if the weather is clear - or take the Red Bus around Sydney on a wet weather. The day turned out to be a perfect autumn day - bright and not so cold.

Taronga Zoo is a good place to visit for first time travellers to this city. Natz and Shirley have been to Sydney but has not yet seen the zoo. The day can begin with a ferry ride from Circular Quay which boast the water view of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. It is also a short ride between ports, before you know it - you’re at the zoo. There are 3 ways to get in to the park after reaching the port - a cable car (access to this was not operating today), a short walk to Gate 2, or a bus ride to Gate 1. We took the bus ride.

The zoo is spread over a slope, and Gate 1 is at the top. Once inside the park, we took a cable car ride and since there were not that many patrons using it, we went around twice. It gave us a bird’s eye view of the place and we were even surprised to see a large Orang-utan perching on top of his tower.

We visited animal displays of marsupials, birds, reptiles, cats, apes, etc at a leisurely pace. We even had the chance to touch and pet an elephant. The Madrid’s also had the obligatory photo with a real Koala.

I was specially fascinated by the antiques of some of the animals. My favourite is split between a tiger who paced his area so close to the public isolated only by a thick glass - and a chimpanzee who decided to give an acrobatic show while encouraging the public to clap. These are not trained show animals, for this chimp - it is definitely a learned behaviour from constant exposure to human. A third choice would be the Orang-utan who was relaxing on a hammock using a sack as a blanket. It looked like an old lady having a nap. When we were there watching, she decided to get moving, came down for a closer look and sat contented as people watch on.

Here are some photos of the day.

Ferry Ride to the Zoo	View from the Cable Car	View From the Zoo
Touching the Elephant	Obligatory Kangaroo Shot	Walking In The Park
	The Classmates

The complete set of photos in in our Gallery.

We just spent over 1 1/2 hours waiting for our dinner to be served in a posh restaurant in Sydney. The table next to ours simply walked-out as they could not wait anymore. When our order did arrive - one dish was so salty - we sent it back. The manager apologised and explained that they were short of one chef. Fortunately for them, we were desperately trying to keep our spirits up, not wanting our family time to turn sour. We were celebrating the last few days that Jessica is 18.

Which lead me to the question : Have you ever considered how much time is spent waiting? A great deal of our day are spent waiting - I’ll start a list:

1. For the lights to turn Green
2. For your turn at the bowser
3. For people to turn up in a meeting
4. For your computer to boot
5. For a web page to load
6. To be served in a restaurant
7. At a supermarket checkout
8. At a bank teller
9. At an automatic teller
10. For the bus/taxi/plane/train/ferry or jeep/tricycle/3-wheeler
11. For your turn in the toilet/shower
12. For someone to stop talking so that you can put in a word or two
13. For water to boil or coffee to drip