A Walk in the Park ...

On a hill overlooking the city of Perth and the Swan River sits King's Park, a large and beautifully landscaped city park that has an extensive botanical garden, long walks, water fountains, a fine restaurant, cafe and snack shop, and an aboriginal art gallery. Since late September is spring "down under," there are wild flowers of all kinds throughout the park. So, while Nancy was on her all-day Monday tour of libraries, I spent a good part of the afternoon enjoying a walk in the park! -rw

Visiting School Libraries

The first day of the library conference I spent visiting exemplary school libraries in the Perth area. It was fun to get lots of new ideas. - Nancy

St. Hilga's Anglican School for Girls

Hale School for boys opened in February 2009



Edith Cowan University Library Built in 2006














Nancy is much too modest to report of one of the great honors bestowed upon her at this gathering of Australian librarians. The "honor" was a beautiful penguin and a large jar of delicious jellybeans -- both awarded since her guess of 168 jellybeans in the jar was the closest to the actual count (162?). Reeve, Gabi and Rania obviously enjoyed the fruits of her prize after she returned to KL. -rw

A Sunday Afternoon in Fremantle

Our second full day in Perth began with a 9:30 a.m. worship service in a Presbyterian Church that had a pastor who really knew how to preach! (very helpful and inspirational) In mid-day our gracious hostess, Sherry Vaughan, drove us south to the port city of Fremantle where we had fish and chips and then explored some of the town on a beautiful sunny day. Nancy and I spent over an hour on a fascinating tour of the old Fremantle Prison that was built with convict labor in the mid nineteenth century and not de-commissioned as a working prison until 1991. (Convicts were imported from England and subjected to hard labor immediately on a limestone hill in order to quarry out the limestone blocks to build their own prison!) For over a hundred years conditions were harsh and primitive. - rw

Views of Perth

Ron and I are in Perth for a week for a library conference. We stayed the weekend with friends we knew from KL who are now posted in Perth. Here are some views of the city skyline from their condo. - Nancy

Off into the sunset ...

Well, not exactly ... But just two days after I arrived in Kuala Lumpur, Nancy and I got on an Air Asia plane for a one-hour flight to Langkawi for three nights and a part of four days in Malaysia's premier beach resort. (It was the Hari Raya holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan) We rented a car and stayed at a small and moderately priced resort on the beach where the food was excellent and the sunsets spectacular.
Since we didn't need to rely on taxis, we put our rental car to good use driving around the island where we stopped to see Langkawi Falls and scoped-out some of the high-end resorts on the north coast. Also on our first full day we plunked-down our 30 ringgit ($8.60) to ride the Langkawi cable car to the top of a peak to take-in some impressive views.







Other highlights of the trip included a visit to a huge and impressive Craft Complex which featured batiks, jewelry, woodcarvings and a host of other locally-made crafts. On our last full day in Langkawi we signed-on for an "island hopping tour" in a small motor boat that seated 10-11 people and consumed about three hours taking us to three different locations where, in order, we hiked to a fresh-water lake to swim, visited a bay to watch eagles feeding, and landed on another beach where we could swim and/or relax. - rw
Nancy at the Craft Complex

Back in Kuala Lumpur ...

After long but uneventful flights across the Pacific, I arrived "back home" with Nancy in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday morning, September 17th. With an invitation to have dinner with Doug and Tracy, Reeve, Gabi and Rania, an early opportunity was presented to reunite with three special grandkids and get big hugs and welcome-home screams from Gabi and Rania. Tasha's small gifts for two nieces and a nephew were happily received. All I have to do now is get over jet-lag! - rw

The Last of the U.S. Summer!

I fly to KL from PDX on Tuesday, September 15th but celebrated "the last of the U.S. summer" in Silver Spring, MD with Mark and Marta, Daniel, Eli and Micah for two weeks over Labor Day. One of the highlights of the trip was on Saturday of the Labor Day week-end when we drove a couple hours on a beautiful day to Shenandoah NP in Virginia which gave me my first-ever chance to set foot on the Appalachian Trail. (Our hike to a Compton Gap viewpoint was about 3 miles rt.)




At the viewpoint we had snacks, a nice rest and a gorgeous view of the Shenandoah River and the surrounding countryside. After hiking back to the trailhead, a nice picnic lunch at Noon which Marta had prepared was enjoyed by all. A great trip!


Since Daniel and Eli started school on the week before Labor Day, I had plenty of time to spend with Micah who bonded early with G'pa. (We mananged a couple trips to the Starbucks (mocha for me) at Safeway in Kensington (donut for Micah).









One of Grandpa's occasional duties was picking up Daniel and Eli at 4:10 p.m. at the Oakland Terrace Elementary School where they were bussed from their own school across town. (Could it be that both boys are Redskins fans?!) Also while I was in Silver Spring I had the chance to get-in-on a 75th birthday celeb-ration for Marta's Dad, Naigzy, who was staying with Moges and Donica. Needless to say, the cake -- in partial celebration of Naigzy's plan to climb Kilimanjaro during his 75th year -- was most impressive! - rw