Bristol Balloon Fiesta

 Gemma happens to be a pretty avid hot air balloonist. In fact, she used to be the President of the her university's Ballooning society.  Now, every now and then, these krazy kats get together and have a bit of meet and float around where ever the wind my take them.

Balloons landing at a chocolate factory .

Do this regularly in the same place often enough and it can become a fiesta. The Bristol Balloon Fiesta just happens to be the biggest balloon fiesta in Europe and I got to head along with a team! Fiesta's are more than just balloon flying as I thought it was. Nope, it turns out that people come from miles around just to watch other people fly...

Anyone got a light?

...and to set up a carnival. There were stalls and rides and food and beer and music. Even better I had a balloonists pass, which meant I got to camp in the balloonists colony and hang out in the pilots bar (didn't get to fly though). 

 And a giant little tikes car!

Throughout the day the were also some displays, including aerial demonstration by a British fight Jet, a hurricane, a spitfire, and some dude with a parachute and a big-arse fan.

I believe it is called a Mirage.

So, what did we do? The first morning I helped set up their University of Loughborough balloon and went then went to pick them up (did I mention the drop-zone was at a chocolate factory), wandered the carnival, and drank a lot of beer. 

Filling the balloon with air.

Once evening hit, though, the real party began; NightGlo. NightGlo is a genius idea, and whoever came up with it deserves a PhD. It essentially utilises the amazing property of fire to create light. This is placed inside inflated material, commonly known as a balloon, to create a 'glowing bulb'.

Baiky and I at NightGlo!

All the pilots involved follow a script and set their burners off in time to music that is played across the carnival space. It was epic. 

Pictured: Epicness!

After this is was back to the pilots bar; we needed beer to help us make the unadvised decision to continue camping despite the apparent hurricane warnings!

 

Plus I got an inspirational idea while I was there.

CNN Best 50 foods - number 1 Massaman Curry

Somewhere, somehow, I came across this lovely article - 50 best foods in the world. Essentially CNN travel have published what they think the most delicious foods in the ENTIRE world are and ranked them.

A very bold move, one might say...

Now, not surprisingly this has created no small amount of conjecture, with taste been somewhat subjective (WHY is buttered popcorn in there; I do not care for popcorn on little bit). In fact, it sparked so much debate that CNN ended up having to start a facebook poll to give the public their say, kinda like a reader's choice.

Personally, I don't think there is any need for debate. The number one food was nailed a long time ago.

Now, personally, I do think I can trust the opinion of all these people, so Gemma and I have decided the only way to truly solve this debate is to cook and eat the all of the meals on the original list. Now, it is limited to full meals, so I don't have to force popcorn down my gullet, nor do we have to waste our time making chocolate, ice cream, or ham. First up we decided on Thai Massaman Curry; ranked No. 1. Gemma found a recipe on at About Foods and away we went!

An idea of what we were aiming for (except we used chicken).

The ingredients we had to find a listed below: 

• 1/2 to 1 pound chicken breast
• 1-2 medium potatoes, cut into chunks
• 1 14 ounce (400 ml) can coconut milk
• 1 small red pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 medium tomato, sliced
•  vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup onion, sliced
• 1 thumb-piece ginger, grated
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 1 red chili, sliced, OR 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. chili flakes/cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup good-tasting chicken stock
• 2-3 Tbsp. frozen/bottled prepared lemongrass
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp. turmeric
• 1/4 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted cashews
• 1 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. whole cumin seed
• 1/2 tsp. white pepper
• 1/8 tsp. cardamon
• 1 tsp. tamarind
• 3/4 tsp. shrimp paste
• 2 Tbsp. fish sauce
• 1 brown sugar

 

Our ingredients!

The ingredients did not go to plan; Gemma couldn't find lemongrass, shrimp paste, or tamarind paste. When I found out I immediately made her drive me to the store; I mean honestly, thai food without lemongrass and shrimp paste is just food. We couldn't get tamarind paste and ended up using lemon juice instead (we didn't have lime juice either). After that we created the 'sauce' by combining the stock plus the following: lemongrass, bay leaves, turmeric, chopped cashews, ground coriander, whole cumin seed, white pepper, cardamon, lemon juice), shrimp paste, fish sauce, and sugar. we added this to onion, ginger, garlic and chili that had been stir fried for a few minutes.

YUMMY!

The chicken was thrown in and the while thing left to simmer for 30 minutes and then added the capsicum and tomato. Simmered for another 10 minutes and viola - awesomeness was created.

We also made some rice which I threw some turmeric into because yellow rice is clearly better than normal rice.

The final addition was some naan bread and beer. Visually. You can make your own judgements in the photo below. But I don't eat with my eyes - I can say that perhaps starting with massaman curry was a mistake because, DAMN, it's going to be hard to top this. It was one of the best meals I've ever had.

The leftovers lasted until lunchtime the next day. Personally I thought we showed incredible self restraint.

20 000 Visitors!

Today I hit 20 000 page views!

Its time to do a lazy sitcom special and have a look at some of our previous episodes along with some of my favourite photos:

Great Ocean Road - Touring Aus.

Most popular blog entry: Uro Levu - Sexy Gorgeous (Korovou).

This was about Fiji, and people may want to know how to say Sexy Gorgeous in Fijian do I can udnerstand. In fact, many of my Fiji articles are above the 200 mark.

Questacon Photo Shoot - the 2007 Science Circus with our truck. Yeah baby yeah!

Interesting note that My entry about Milan is catching up quick. Ironically, this is probably one of my most boring entries - I just did not do too much there, and frankly, I did not find it all that interesting.

The kegarator entry is also getting a crap load of hits. After I posted that little bite of info my daily page visits skyrocketed to 50+.

A gorgeous view of the Appenzell Alps, Switzerland. This photo still seems a little surreal

A couple of my sporting entries also get a inordinate amount of visits, and just wish I knew what the individual was actually searching for: Sports Weekend - Saturday, Most sports require only one ball, and an entry about Road Relay (honestly, it is a shit-boring event. I'm a runner and I spent every year trying not to be in the team). Sports Weekend Saturday is funny because it has over 230 visits, yet the Sports Weekend Sunday, literally the next entry about the very next day, has 5. Nope, I can't figure that one out.

A random Thursday night out with the Fenner Five! We five men...

 I also have an entry called Final Days - it has over 180 hits. Are people looking for a head's up in Armageddon? It is just about my last formal dinner at Fenner...

 Goof and I drinking beer on the Great Wall of China in the snow.

Overall I get the most visits from USA IP addresses (>5500), followed by Australia (nearly 4500), and the UK (approx. 1500).

The Ninja Turtles attend Toga New Years at Coggee Beach

Recently though I have received a lot from Romania and the Ukraine. I do wonder if this is due to kegarators again. There is every chance that Ukrainians are just checking out my own entries on their country or on my visit to Russia.

Sarah and I after winning the Australian University Rogaining Championship

Another interesting trend; of late there is an unexpected interest in my entry about the Wodonga Races; a horse race held on Boxing Day. The entry itself just shows a women (presumably a Hen) wearing a giant penis as a fascinator.

 The MotoCrew - Tarago for lunch and beers.

A final note, I have found a site references my blog! Trail Running Solo uses one of my photos, directly quotes my blog entry and links to my first entry on the North Face 100.

Soon, very soon, I will be famous!