Well, I stayed in bed and tried to get some sleep, but only managed to get a couple of hours or so. Anyway, after I got up again (I had got up about 8ish briefly) I set my computer to burn a DVD for me then Greg and I went out.

First up we went to a post shop, as Greg needed some stamps of various worth and they’ve just recently changed the price of postage here. The shop had a sign up saying they were out of 2c stamps (which is what Greg wanted so he could allow for the new postage costs), so we went to another, bigger post office which I don’t think had exactly what Greg was after, but had mostly what he needed.

From there we went to the library, where Greg had a book on reserve. Ok, this is a really weird system. All the books on reserve and just on shelves where anyone can go and get them, with a little bit of receipt paper in them with your name on them. How messed up is that? Anyone could come and take your book and check it out. Ah well. Silly American thing I guess.

After that we drove around for a bit and Greg pointed out more things to me, we stopped at this statue thing under a bridge and in a very tourist-like fashion took a picture of me with it. After driving for a while, we went to IKEA, which is a huge Swedish shop that sells a lot of stuff. Particularly modern furniture and house-ware. There weren’t any sheets I could get (which is one thing that we’re shopping for), but I did get some coat hangers and some Swedish Fish (kind of like Gummi Bears but not). Greg also got some of these ginger biscuits which tasted a bit like a cross between a Gingernut and a very thin malt biscuit. They were pretty good actually, although very much a light snack. We decided to do the rest of the shopping tomorrow and headed in to ‘Chinatown’.

We managed to get a park then went inside. Big Asian supermarket, along with a few ancillary shops like a florist, clothing store, etc. There was also a food court, which we went and had a bit of an early dinner at (Thai food) and did a bit of talking and people-watching. The Thai Orange Chicken was particularly good. After dinner it was back to the house to drop some things off and get some cough drops for Greg and off we went again.

We saw some of the sights at night (although it’s hard to be in pictures with decent backgrounds at night) including some gorgeous views of the bays and the cityscape. We also drove around some of the neighbourhoods on the hills which had some nice looking houses. I’m betting very, very expensive to boot.

We then went around to some friends of Greg’s place, Janice and Curt(is). They were in the middle of having a little party for their sons and their sons’ friends, but it was very clear we were most welcome. Good people, very friendly and kind with a good sense of humour. After a bit we sat down for a chat and a cup of coffee. Somehow (I think it was on the table) we ended up playing Scategories. This was quite fun, although quite taxing as well, as I haven’t done any lateral word games like that for a while. Greg was the winner at the end of the day by 3 points over Janice.

Anyway, after that it was back to the house, try a couple of the Swedish Fish (not bad, probably had been on the shelf a little longer than I prefer) and go to bed and try to shake off the insomnia by getting some sleep.