Ippoippo

Just like Ayrton Senna before him, Schumacher continues to be a flawed genius.

Story over at BBC here and here.

You can see the footage here and here.

Whilst Schumacher may have been one of the best drivers in F1 (I think he’s past his peak), he bloody annoys me sometimes with these stunts.

Winery Tour

Yuko and I have just got back from a Winery Tour up in Yarra Valley, as provided by Yarra Valley Winery Tours.
The day started at 09:00 when we walked over to Her Majesty’s Theatre, which would the collection point. As it was a bit chilly, and seeing it may be a good idea to settle our stomachs, we had some coffee and a large muffin breakfast.

So, we headed off for our tour at 09:30-ish, with the first stop at Yering Station. There, we were given a quick run down on how to taste wine, before we started to do so. Yering Station was pretty good, and a very informal place. (The Guide was using PacMan as metaphor on the wine fermentation process! ). Their fortified Shiraz (which for intense purposes was similar to a dessert wine, or a Port… but you can’t call it Port if it’s not from a region in Portugal) was bloody marvelous. We’ll have to get some of that.

Next off was Rochford Wines. Pretty good stuff, and the lunch there was very nice. The tasting was so-so though, and it place exuding a slightly posh-we-know-better-than-you feeling.

Third, we went to St. Huberts. Very casual again, and they had a cracking white wine, made from a German grape variety. 20% discount if you brought three bottles! So we did!

Last, we headed off to Domaine Chandon. That was pretty interesting walking around the plant to see how Sparkling Wine is made. The day was finished off with some Sparkling Wine and Cheese. Yuko and I did some more testing, and we purchased 2 further bottles of wine (this time Shiraz).

Great day out, and very casual. Now we want to explore all the other vineyards!!!

Other stuff

Bloody hell, reading the news, seems like the UK has run out of water… well not quite. But worrying nonetheless.

In Japan, a fair few months ago, the youngest daughter of the Emperor got married, and in the process became a commoner. I get a bit of a chuckle about how she is trying to adopt to normal life, and indeed how the Japanese tabloid press seems to be reporting on it. Here is a link on how she copes with shopping. Exciting stuff!

Meanwhile, over in Shibuya, it seems the politicians are trying to clean up the place by getting rid of the Love Hotels. If you ask me, that’s just stupid, because a lot of Japanese will no longer have a place to go to… well, get jiggy with each other. Looks like Yoyogi Park is going to get a lot more busy

One of my mates from Uni and Secondary school is riding from North Wales to South Wales to raise money for Charity.

Pay your spare money to my mate, at this site.

“Its for Charity mate”

At the moment, Yuko and I are watching the football (Soccer). Today is Australia vs Greece. Melbourne has gone footy mad. Part of this is because Melbourne has a huge Greek immigrant population. Part of this is because the Aussies are sports-mad.
Anyway, we are just soaking it all in.
Greece this year have not qualified for the World Cup, so they have sent their full strength squad for the game in Oz.

We are looking forward to the World Cup, and Australia’s first game will be against Japan (if I remember correctly). One of my Japanese collegues is coming out to Australia too (on Sunday), so I expect we’ll be organising a Australia vs Japan - down the pub - footy watching session.

Mind you, I don’t think Australia or Japan will be getting past the Group stage (Brazil and Australia are in the same group as Brazil and Croatia)