2012 Adelaide All Japan Day #1

On the 26th of February the 2012 All Japan Day car show was held at Wigley Reserve, Glenelg. There was a great turnout, with row after row of cool Japanese cars of all ages, shapes and sizes filling up the oval.

I parked next to this tidy white M35 Nissan Stagea.

You can see AJD organiser Kristian Appelt of Iron Chef Imports in front of my Ceffy here.

On the other side was this slammed Toyota Celsior.

A few spaces further down was this very clean and tastefully modified Cefiro, the dished meshies really work well on it.

There were several immaculate Datsun 1600s/510s on display.

Quite a few cars came in on trailers, and also a couple of tilt trays, including this awesome Toyota JZX100 Chaser, which needed a couple of pieces of wood to drive onto the grass without ripping the front bar off.

Next to it was Kelly Wong's distinctive pink and black Cefiro drifter.

At first I was wondering if this Nissan 180SX had some sort of sticker-bomb wrap on the exterior panels, but on closer inspection and talking to the owner, I learned that they're all individual stickers. That's dedication for you, although this sticker-bomb method was probably a lot cheaper than nice paint.

Nissan Cedrics of any vintage are quite a rare sight, and this late model Y34 example in black looked really nice.

There was a slight difference in ride height for these two Nissans; a very early model Patrol 4WD parked next to a lawnmower spec S14.5 200SX.

The owner of this Toyota Cressida wagon shied away from using the original engine, giving it a 1JZ-GTE heart transplant.

There were only a couple of C33 Nissan Laurels in attendance, including Daniel's black one.

I don't know how this tough looking Toyota JZX100 Chaser Mark II drives anywhere without getting beached.

A few different siblings lined up; R34, R33 and R32 Nissan Skylines respectively.

Stageas are pretty popular now, the black/white combo on this wagon worked well.

Nissan R34 Skyline GT-R in Bayside Blue...one of my dream cars.

There were loads of JZX100s at the show, with various body styling and rim choices.

Plenty more cool cars to come in Post #2....

Ella's Story: Family dinner at Baba's #2

If you missed the first post, have a look at it here: http://carscameraschronicillness.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/ellas-story-family-dinner-at-babas-1.html

Being a pleasant summer evening, after dinner everybody headed outside. After exploring the yard a bit, Ella was very keen on taking the dog for a walk.

With some help from Auntie Anita, Ella took Lilo for a walk around the yard.

Scarlett took the opportunity to start working on her biceps.

The backyard wasn't quite big enough for a decent dog walk, so they all trotted off down the street together.

After walking to the end of the street, Ella and Anita made their way back into the yard.

Fresh from her workout, Scarlett rushed over to show off her guns.

Lilo was pretty excited about it, struggling to get inside.

Emily offered Ella a high-five for walking the dog so well...

...while Daniel had his head stuck under the bonnet of one of the cars, with Lilo safely tied up again on the lawn.

Ella's Story: Family dinner at Baba's #1

Last night the Jakas family got together for a nice family dinner at Baba's (grandma's) house.

Having just completed a marriage counselling session with Sally, she quickly rushed over to her hip-hop/breakdance class, run by a couple of our good friends, Angie and Jege. You can have a look at their website here, which includes some photos I've taken for them: http://www.breakandenterdance.webs.com/
 

After hearing about Ella's disheartening test results a couple of days beforehand, I wanted to see her and everybody else, so headed over to Daniel's mum's house.

I arrived a bit late for the food part, not that it's relevant to me anyway, but came in while the older people (over 5) were sitting at the dinner table. I'd had my jejunostomy tube switched over on Tuesday which was rather brutal, mainly consisting of a doctor trying hard to pull the old tube out, before snipping the bottom part off and putting the new small port in. I'm in the middle of writing another blog post about that, so keep an eye out for that in the near future.

But anyway, after showing them the changed tube site, I walked into the main room where Ella and Scarlett were watching The Wiggles on TV. Ella was sitting back on a mini lounge chair, while Scarlett was half-buried in a large beanbag.

Going up to say hello, Scarlett waved her arms and legs around like a turtle stuck on its back in the beanbag, while Ella quickly looked at me and said hello. Still watching the TV, a few seconds later she called out 'Sally...?!, expecting her to be with me. She asked 'Where's Sally?' and I said she was having some fun at her dance class.

I said hello to Scarlett as well, and helped her struggle out of the big dip she'd made in the beanbag. Ella went up closer to the TV, while Scarlett wandered and jumped around a bit.

I'm not sure what was happening here, but it looks like something on the floor was funny.

She then jumped back onto the beanbag.

Bored with the current DVD, Baba and Zoe helped Ella pick out a new Fairies DVD to watch; who are generally at least more bearable than the Wiggles. Or maybe I just haven't heard them repeated quite as frequently.

With the new show playing, Ella settled back down on her little lounge, fixed on the screen.

Obviously that was way too boring a viewing choice for Scarlett, and she decided to see what the fairies looked like upside down.

She scampered off again shortly afterwards, leaving Ella enthralled with the dancing routines taking place on the beaches of Second Valley. (A guess that was confirmed by the end credits; having been there in person several times, the coastline and rock formations looked very familiar)

Scarlett and Zoe came back in with a weird looking knobbly ball, and mucked around with that for a bit, before Scarlett ran back out of the room again.

She had a bit of a cuddle with Baba, before struggling to escape so she could get a drink of water from her backpack near the kitchen bench.

The family dog Lilo (The name has a couple of Ls in it, but that's probably not right) was pretty keen on playing with Scarlett. 

Holding the bottle out towards her briefly, Scarlett then gulped some water down while Lilo pawed at the window.

A short time later some desserts were on the table, including rice pudding, chocolate and a nice bottle of red wine.

After clambering onto a couple of different chairs, Scarlett sat down between Daniel and Emily and shoveled spoonfuls of rice pudding into her mouth as we all chatted.

Scarlett takes after her mum in quite a few ways, one of which is a love for chocolate.

After a few pieces, playing in the backyard started to look like fun....

Coming up in Post #2: Playing outside.