Day 2: Sydney

I awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed the next morning, my migraine gone. After bidding my gracious hostess farewell (she was off to church and my host was still asleep), I hopped on the 461 to the city.

One of the best things about Sydney is how the locals are so blase about foreigners. Throughout my 8 months in Queensland, I've hardly ever had a sranger strike up random conversation with me. Which is highly unusual because I am seriously the sort of person whose forehead screams "Talk to Me!" in flashing neon lights. At the bus stop, I chatted with a beautiful northern Italian chef whom I mistook as Scandinavian at first.

Unnvervingly enough, Sydney buses have CCTVs on them. On a related note, Brisbane bus drivers are now equipped with DNA kits to weed out the spitters. Scary stuff.

I alighted at the ubiquitous Central stop and begun wandering about in search of my hotel. I stumbled upon Market City, where my uncle once operated his stall. Sadly, a phone call revealed that he had shifted business to some other suburb 1.5 hours away. It was nice to catch up with him though, even if only by phone.

Translates to "Four seas, one family", probably referring to how Chinese people are everywhere. Like EVERYWHERE. Sydney's Chinatown is sprawling and will probably colonise the whole of Sydney in another decade. Or less.

I bought a fantastic strand of cultured pearls from this charming Chinese lady and her Middle Eastern/ Eastern European husband. I'll probably do a post on that one separately to pass on her knowledge of How to Wear Your Pearls in a Gazillion Different Ways.

After dumping my duffle bag at Vibe Hotel, I began my rambling walk. A somewhat inadequate map in hand, I somehow made my way to Oxford St, determined to make it to the infamous Paddington markets, nevermind the grey skies. I love Oxford St. Back in spring 2007, jackaranda trees were aplenty. This time around, skeletal branches expressed winter (Gold Coast is green all year round).

Vibe Hotel is decent enough for AUD135 a night. The staff are mostly half baked though, save one nice lady. They messed up my check in details and misplaced my bag twice (within 2 days!).

I breezed in and out of shops. One of my personal must-do's was to get the Le Sac dress (AUD64/ USD38) from American Apparel. Fortunately enough, the only Australian outlet is located along Oxford St. However, the appropriately named garment overwhelmed my petite figure unflatteringly. It would be a great buy for people 5'3" and a size 8 and above though. Within 15 minutes, I'd already found about 5 ways to wear it.

My walk took me to the back streets of Paddington, where old townhouses with finely latticed balconies were interspersed with independent art galleries. It was amazing. I felt as if I'd been transported to Europe (nevermind I've never been there). I can't remember all the street names, but Glenwood and Glenview Rds come to mind. It was really lovely being away from the madding crowds.









I spent an hour or so ambling around, with no idea where I was. I was off the tourist track now. Finally, I got to a main road, where I met a lovely gentleman who showed me the way to Edgecliffe station ("Bondi is just one station after that"), in spite of being in danger of late for a meeting.

The last time we were in Bondi, X and I failed to make it to the beach thanks to an overcast sky. Sadly, it was deja vu as I ducked into the Bondi Junction mall to escape fat droplets of rain.

After an hour or so there, I returned to the city and trawled the streets a bit before returning to the hotel, takeaway from the nearby Thainatown at hand. As you can see, my room was extremely spacious.





My fried rice was pretty alright. I spent the next hour soaked in the hot bath (no bath bubbles provided so I used shampoo instead), with Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (the man seriously needs some lessons on paragraphing - took me a week to get through even half the book) and a Korean face mask from some random grocery shop plastered on my tired skin.

After jumping about on the bed (Mummy never let me as a kid - "You'll spoil the springs!") to Toploader's Dancing in the Moonlight, I settled in and fell fast asleep.

Day 1: Sydney

I had some training to attend on a Monday. And decided to fly in 2 days earlier for a quick getaway. This was my second time in Sydney. Back in 2007 on one of our month long marathon dates (we were still doing the whole long distance relationship thing then), X and I did a roadtrip there and back.

My favourite colleague CF, who hails from the city had reiterated several times, "You must go to DFO! They've renovated it! It's amazing! They have G-Star Raw!" I'd gone to the Homebush DFO before and found it a bit of a disappointment but fueled by her enthusiasm, decided to dedicate my first day to that mall anyway.

It turned out to be a big mistake. Although it's not actually that far from the airport, it took me 2.5 hours to get there, via 2 buses and a train ride. Sydney traffic is scary! It never fails to give me a heart attack amaze me how the buses squiggle and squirm into the tiniest nooks and crannies.

And when I did finally get there, I realised lugging your unwieldy baggage around tends to further ruin the shopping experience. The mall was crowded and shops revealed items which could have easily been bought in Queensland for less. I wandered about for an hour before giving up.

In spite of her crazy busy schedule, I had forced Eliss to take me inEliss had kindly offered me to stay a night. Prior to this, we had never met or spoken, our only correspondence via email/ Facebook. When I had been desperately seeking work, she had tried to help pass my resume around. With husband and two friends in tow, we'd met up later and headed through the jam to the harbourfront. The ViVd festival going on and throngs of tourists and locals were keen to see the different light projections on the Opera House sails. We spent some time taking pictures (including lots of Asian poses) as the patterns evolved behind us.



We'd later gone to the Harbour Hotel for dinner, where I had a very yummy Rib-Eye Steak. The weather was freezing. In spite of my triple-layers, I shivered and lingered at every standing heater I came across. I was pretty exhausted by the time we got back and fell into peaceful dreamless slumber on the surprisingly comfortable air mattress.

This poor guy resides in Eliss' kitchen. RIP.

Much thanks to Eliss and Ernest for their hospitality.

Interesting noms

One of my favourite things about winter (apart from having the excuse to dress up in lacey leggings and peacoats) is what it does to my metabolism. I'm always hungry (which most would say is the norm for me anyway) and am able to consume abnormally vast quantities of food with no or little effect to my waistline. It's eat, eat, eat from the word go. Friends disagree with this theory, but in my case, I'm more likely to get fat during summer than now.

Here are some of the more fancy things to have graced my tummy recently.

I flew to Sydney over last weekend for training and a quick getaway (more on that later). Back in 2007, X and I were simply too poor to savour the long list of Sydney Must Eat's given by well-meaning friends. This time round, I still haven't tried Hurricane's (sorry Juju), Marigold (sorry Brian), Kelly's (sorry Eliss) or Sydney Fish Market (sorry Wei Sze), but I did manage to get myself a hot Chocolate with Waffle Balls (AUD5.50) at the Bondi Junction Max Brenner's Chocolate Bar...


...which brings us to my next point. Max Brenner can now be found in Gold Coast! We now have a chocolate bar AND Border's! Hurray for capitalism! After a so-so dinner at Groove Train (I conclude that Paella wins Risotto hands down), we shared some dessert at the fancy-schmancy new waterfront dining area at Robina Town Centre. This waffle thingamajig (AUD16), whose name I forget was scrumptious. There were crunchy bits embedded in the waffles. The only pity was how it wasn't made on the spot hence a little soggy.


The Chocolate Dip (AUD8) was pretty good too. Wish the strawberries were a wee bigger, but the yummy chocolate dip more than made up for it.

Apart from that, I'd had tea with a new found friend at a Balinese/ Thai cafe in South Bank. It was really interesting - they give you a tray with a glass and hot water. There's a ball of unappetising looking dried stuff in the glass which literally blooms upon application of hot water (like Gremlins, but more pleasant).

How we celebrated QEII's birthday

When I was a kid, my mother was a faithful subscriber of New Idea. The magazine's cover issues always related to Princess Diana, her pastel suits and her neverending quibbles with the Queen. As a result, I'd grown up thinking of Australia as some sort of British colony.

X's boss, who is my adoptive aunt of sorts, had promised to give him Sundays off, in view of my current work arrangements. On the eve of Queen E's big day, we headed off to the Hinze Dam, which unfortunately turned out to be closed to the public due to road works.



Undeterred, we continued towards the Natural Bridge National Park. Where apparently there are stinging plants and ginormous vegetation galore.





The main attraction was the park's namesake. It's basically a waterfall through a rock in a hole. The water is icy cold. Now I've completely de-romanticised it, take a look at the pictures my lousy 5MGPX cameraphone has produced.









The cave is home to a colony of glow worms. Sadly we'd made the trip during the day, so it was a no glowshow.

The view on the way to Tyalgum was so beautiful, I had to take a picture. Behold my atrocious camera skills, my amateur attempt at panorama.



Tyalgum is located right in the middle of an inactive volcano, hence the slogan "The Heart of the Caldera". It's a charming little village with a few cutesie English-centric shops dominating the tourist scene. Lots of roses and china and antique-y stuff. It was really weird because just 20 metres up the road, it was full of rotund middle aged men with long grey beards on Harleys/ cradling beer.

X and I wandered in and out of a few knick knack shops. The Laughing Cat Gallery (complete with smiley anime feline on signboard) held a few treasures. X got this cutesie dragonfly pin for me, who has found a permanent home on my bag.



We took up the shopkeeper's recommendation and sat down to have lunch at the Flutterbies' Cottage Cafe. I ordered the Mushroom, Spinach and Feta on Sourdough (AUD10.50) while X satiated his curry cravings with the Chicken Curry Pot Pie with Mango Chutney (AUD12.50).





I ordered Elderflower Soda, which sounded Swiss and exotic but they'd run out of the concentrate. We settled for Rosewater Lemonade (kinda blah) and capuccinno.



Then I went to through the alfresco dining area, past a bunch of schoolkids dressed up to the nines (there was a '20's themed birthday party going on), through the well-tended garden, up a flight of steps to release it all.

Wintersun

Wintersun is a festival celebrating the '50s and '60s, held annually at Coolangatta. X and I spontaneously decided to pop over on Friday night last week. This impulsion was tinged with regret as I wasn't wearing my vintage polka dot skirt, which would have been extremely appropriate.

Anyway, the vehicles parked along the street were pretty eye catching. Sorry the pictures are so dark and blurry, this is the best one can do with a pathetic camera phone.











The guys below deserve an honourable mention for their repeated thumbings-up and enthusiasm.

This is why you don't plan your outfits in advance in Australia

It was 2C this morning. I could see puffs escape my lips with every exhalation. Intelligently enough, I chose to wear shorts to work. This proves that eligibility to join MENSA does not equal common sense.

Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!

It's official. I am ageing.

All these years, I'd taken my youth for granted, revelling in the frequency of being mistaken as a teen. Yet now, my former apple cheeks have sunken alarmingly, giving way to hollows beneath my cheekbones. I am frequently told I've lost weight, yet my scales remain inert. I actually have prominent dark eye circles now.

Then that morning whilst on the train, I was applying lipstick and something caught my eye. A reflection of -no, it couldn't be- a whisker on my chin!



Didn't those things only happen to unattractive old women with hunchbacks, warty aquiline noses and gnarled fingers? I carefully checked my own digits for any signs of arthritis.

As if that wasn't bad enough, when I arrived at the office TT observed, "You have white hair."

"Where? Pull it out, pull it out!" This couldn't be happening to me, of all people! Why, my dad only starting sprouting them at the ripe old age of 50-

Lo and behold.

Cadbury eyebrow ad

I thought this was really funny during a commercial break the other day.



Wonder if it was CGI or real spastic eyebrows?

Scallop penises and balloons

The weather over at the East Coast has been kind of loony. Over the past couple of weeks, the beaches have evolved into cliffs and the murky seawaters churned and frothed threateningly. We're not directly affected apart from having our socks frozen off.

This week's temperateness has been marked by the rise of the balloons.

X and I went for Date Night on Friday. We went to the Currumbin RSL for dinner. The service was pretty lukewarm and slow but the food was above average, for Gold Coast standards anyway. X had Beer Battered Flathead (AUD19) and I had Seafood Marinara (AUD23.50). Forgot to take pictures, but we did discover the rubbery thing attached to the scallop in my pasta is the membrane/ gills, not penis, as I'd thought.

The restaurant was quite pretty. Yes that's the sleeve of X's suit.

The SoundLounge was packed with teeny boppers. This is Cool Calm Collective. They were good, but X and I aren't into reggae/ funk so we left after about half an hour. Plus there were loads of overweight girls wearing spikey shoes who threatened to step on my ballet flats-ed toes.

Flowers because I needed cheering up. (Did I also mention he voluntarily took me to a shopping centre last week?) I ♥ my man.

Hot chocolate - the lazy way

As anyone who has known me for more than 3 days will attest, I am physically the laziest being on earth, perhaps only second to the sloth. I would rather languish amidst piles of JATZ wrappers and unlaundered stockings than get up. I would rather have instant soup/ noodles than actually cook something. I would rather hover over the kitchen sink eating stuff straight out of the packets rather than have to clean a dish.

You get the idea.

So here's a little recipe for those winter nights.

1. Microwave 200ml of milk for about 80 seconds.
2. Stir in 2 heaping teaspoonfuls of Quick.
3. Drop in 2 marshmallows.

Tada!

p/s: JATZ should take over Vegemite as Australia's national food! At any random day, we'll have about 3 or 4 packets open and lying around in the office.
pp/s: I hate raspberry marshmallows. Can't find a packet which sells only the plain ones.