After Lassen, our next stop was the California Redwoods! This was the stop on the trip that I was most looking forward to as I've heard quite a bit about the Redwoods and always wanted to see them. The drive from Lassen to the Redwoods, however, was 4 hours straight of mountain driving. That was exhausting and taxing, but we made it through eventually.
After all that strenuous mountain driving, we decided to do a very easy walking path through the Redwoods. Neither of us wanted to wear hiking boots, so we went with a 1 mile walk through the Redwood groves. We had also planned to do more of a driving tour of the Redwoods up the coast the next day, so we didn't mind seeing less on foot.
On a completely different note, there are two food-oriented things that I will leave this trip with a greater appreciation for: black olives and sour cream. Neither of these things have I particularly liked before, but I do find them rather delicious now.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Lassen Volcanic National Park
The next day, we were to head to Lassen Volcanic National Park. Lassen peak erupted on May 19, 1915 and again on May 22, 1915 and really devastated the area. After the volcano erupted, the area was made into a national park to be able to study the way the forest rejuvenated itself. After the strenuous hike at Yosemite the day before, we decided to do a moderate 3 mile hike to all of the geothermal activity going on still near the volcano. At one point in the drive to this hike, we were at 8,053ft. elevation!
We stayed in Redding, CA for the night. This was quite nice because we had been staying in a lot of little podunk towns for awhile and it was nice to be back in the city. Haven't even made it back to Minneapolis yet and already I miss Sydney.
We stayed in Redding, CA for the night. This was quite nice because we had been staying in a lot of little podunk towns for awhile and it was nice to be back in the city. Haven't even made it back to Minneapolis yet and already I miss Sydney.
And We're Off to Yosemite!
After Bryce Canyon, our next planned destination was Yosemite National Park. This meant crossing all the way through Nevada and into CA again. Since we had already driven through Vegas once, we decided to take the roads less traveled and cut across Nevada via the Extraterrestrial Highway! Shortly into the drive we realized that these roads would commonly be boring, straight, and go on for as far as the eye could see. There were also many points that we were completely alone: No cell service, and no cars for at least 5 miles in either direction, and there was a good 150 mile stretch in there without a gas station.
Along the drive, we saw the most wildlife that we had seen in total on the trip. But with wildlife comes the possibility of hitting an animal. Remember that note of no one being around us for 5 miles in either direction? Well, in this exact moment there were 4 places on the road that a squirrel-sized animal couldn't be, and he decided to dart under JHG's back tire and die!! May you rest in peace, idiotic animal.
First, we stumbled upon a town called Rachel. As many of you know, my favorite coworker and closest friend's name is Rachel, so we decided to stop and take pictures of the lame sign that said "Welcome to Rachel". Rachel consisted of trailer homes that were extremely spread out, and an "Al`e Inn" - Hah! Get it? Alien! I don't even know if there was actually an inn there because the place was so small, but it cracked me up. They had junk that they claimed to space alien junk, and a faux flying sauce hooked up to a pick up truck. It was a good time!
After Rachel, we hit free range cattle country! Mmmm, dinner! There was one instance where a cow was scratching her head on a pole. We slowed down, and right as we were about to pass her, she decided to prance to the side of the road (yes, prance, it was a very strange gallop/prance) almost to say hello. We think that we thought we were a farmer or something because after she got about 5ft. away from the car, she looked at us and then bolted away!! Silly cow!
We made the rest of the drive in really good time and entered into the east side of Yosemite at about 2, and decided to take the hour and a half drive into the valley to do a 6mile 'strenuous' hike to two of the largest waterfalls in Yosemite. This hike was absolutely ridiculous. I will proceed the next few sentences by stating that the hike was gorgeous and (now) entirely worth it. But my god, the first 2.2miles of the hike was straight uphill. This was not a gradual uphill, but like...seriously uphill. At one point we had 600 stairs to go up and some of these stairs were 1.5ft tall and 6inches wide. Talk about steep!!! Of course, what you hike up, you must hike down. To say the least, I was sore the next day. The coolest part of this though is that right at the end of our hike, we saw a wild black bear about 20ft from us!! That's the first wild bear I've ever seen in my life, so I was pretty syched.
Along the drive, we saw the most wildlife that we had seen in total on the trip. But with wildlife comes the possibility of hitting an animal. Remember that note of no one being around us for 5 miles in either direction? Well, in this exact moment there were 4 places on the road that a squirrel-sized animal couldn't be, and he decided to dart under JHG's back tire and die!! May you rest in peace, idiotic animal.
First, we stumbled upon a town called Rachel. As many of you know, my favorite coworker and closest friend's name is Rachel, so we decided to stop and take pictures of the lame sign that said "Welcome to Rachel". Rachel consisted of trailer homes that were extremely spread out, and an "Al`e Inn" - Hah! Get it? Alien! I don't even know if there was actually an inn there because the place was so small, but it cracked me up. They had junk that they claimed to space alien junk, and a faux flying sauce hooked up to a pick up truck. It was a good time!
After Rachel, we hit free range cattle country! Mmmm, dinner! There was one instance where a cow was scratching her head on a pole. We slowed down, and right as we were about to pass her, she decided to prance to the side of the road (yes, prance, it was a very strange gallop/prance) almost to say hello. We think that we thought we were a farmer or something because after she got about 5ft. away from the car, she looked at us and then bolted away!! Silly cow!
We made the rest of the drive in really good time and entered into the east side of Yosemite at about 2, and decided to take the hour and a half drive into the valley to do a 6mile 'strenuous' hike to two of the largest waterfalls in Yosemite. This hike was absolutely ridiculous. I will proceed the next few sentences by stating that the hike was gorgeous and (now) entirely worth it. But my god, the first 2.2miles of the hike was straight uphill. This was not a gradual uphill, but like...seriously uphill. At one point we had 600 stairs to go up and some of these stairs were 1.5ft tall and 6inches wide. Talk about steep!!! Of course, what you hike up, you must hike down. To say the least, I was sore the next day. The coolest part of this though is that right at the end of our hike, we saw a wild black bear about 20ft from us!! That's the first wild bear I've ever seen in my life, so I was pretty syched.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Goodbye Sydney, Hello Summer!
So Sydney has come and gone. The flight home was worse than expected, but what can you do. I remember vividly having a terrible time when I flew home from New Zealand five years ago, and this flight from Sydney was a very close repeat of that. Not only did I sleep very little the night before the flight, but even after taking two Advil PM's, I was only able to sleep twenty minutes...on a 13 hour flight!!
Unfortunately, I did need to pay overweight charges on one of my bags. Apparently they weigh carry on's now, so all three suitcases started over weight. After shifting things around, I ended with two a few tenths of a kilo overweight, and on at 32 kilos with a limit of 20.5.
JHG picked me up from the airport A-Okay and after a lunch with his mom, sister, and nephew at In 'n Out, we hit the road for Vandenberg Air Force Base. He had been working at Vandenberg for most of the summer and wanted to show me what work he had been doing. We then went to Jocko's in Nipomo, CA for a steak dinner. Jocko's atmosphere is no where near what one would expect for a "welcome home" dinner (and I had been forewarned about this), but the steaks were well worth the lack of atmosphere!! Not only are the steaks local, but they're cooked Santa Maria barbeque style. A "little" Top Sirloin was still 2.5" thick and bigger than my hand!!! Oh man these were good steaks and if you ever find yourself in Central California, I highly recommend going!! By the end of this night (not including my 20 minute nap on the plane), I had been awake for close to 40 hours...and then I finally slept!!
The next day we started the drive to (ultimately) Bryce Canyon. There were a few stops we wanted to make on the way,a nd we intended to stay the night in Vegas and finish the drive to Bryce Canyon in the morning. If you've never seen it before, Honda created the Honda Civic Musical Road in Lancaster, CA. It was initially designed for a commercial, but after the commercial was shot, they decided to leave it in place. The locals (of course) complained, and the road has now been moved to the middle of nowhere, near Lancaster, CA.
The road was created by cutting groves into the pavement, similar to the groves that are on the side of the road and are meant to wake you up when you're drifting off. By changing the width between the grooves, the road produces different tones to create a song. Although it's designed to be driven over by a Honda Civic at 55mph, a Volvo S40 works perfectly fine as well!!
And to make things clear, the road is only 15 seconds long and we took a route that was an hour longer than we otherwise would have driven just to see this road. And every extra minute was worth it!
After the Honda Civic musical road we drove into Vegas for the night and stayed on the north end of the strip at the Sahara. After a few games of craps, blackjack, and a few pulls on the slots, we called it a night.
The following morning, the previous guest had conveniently set a 6am alarm for us and we thus started our day. After a delicious breakfast at the slowest 1970's cafe, we set out to finish the drive to Bryce Canyon. We stopped in St. George for a bit and Cedar City, but pretty much made this drive straight through. We stayed in Cedar City for the night depsite still being two hours from Bryce Canyon.
We finally arrive at Bryce Canyon at 4pm and took the "World's Greatest Three-Mile Hike". I don't know how you determine the world's greatest hike, but they claimed it. The hike was absolutely phenomenal and I highly recommend checking out the photos! Note: it may take a few days for these photos to be posted. It seems that finding internet on our road trip is just as difficult as it was in Australia!
Unfortunately, I did need to pay overweight charges on one of my bags. Apparently they weigh carry on's now, so all three suitcases started over weight. After shifting things around, I ended with two a few tenths of a kilo overweight, and on at 32 kilos with a limit of 20.5.
JHG picked me up from the airport A-Okay and after a lunch with his mom, sister, and nephew at In 'n Out, we hit the road for Vandenberg Air Force Base. He had been working at Vandenberg for most of the summer and wanted to show me what work he had been doing. We then went to Jocko's in Nipomo, CA for a steak dinner. Jocko's atmosphere is no where near what one would expect for a "welcome home" dinner (and I had been forewarned about this), but the steaks were well worth the lack of atmosphere!! Not only are the steaks local, but they're cooked Santa Maria barbeque style. A "little" Top Sirloin was still 2.5" thick and bigger than my hand!!! Oh man these were good steaks and if you ever find yourself in Central California, I highly recommend going!! By the end of this night (not including my 20 minute nap on the plane), I had been awake for close to 40 hours...and then I finally slept!!
The next day we started the drive to (ultimately) Bryce Canyon. There were a few stops we wanted to make on the way,a nd we intended to stay the night in Vegas and finish the drive to Bryce Canyon in the morning. If you've never seen it before, Honda created the Honda Civic Musical Road in Lancaster, CA. It was initially designed for a commercial, but after the commercial was shot, they decided to leave it in place. The locals (of course) complained, and the road has now been moved to the middle of nowhere, near Lancaster, CA.
The road was created by cutting groves into the pavement, similar to the groves that are on the side of the road and are meant to wake you up when you're drifting off. By changing the width between the grooves, the road produces different tones to create a song. Although it's designed to be driven over by a Honda Civic at 55mph, a Volvo S40 works perfectly fine as well!!
And to make things clear, the road is only 15 seconds long and we took a route that was an hour longer than we otherwise would have driven just to see this road. And every extra minute was worth it!
After the Honda Civic musical road we drove into Vegas for the night and stayed on the north end of the strip at the Sahara. After a few games of craps, blackjack, and a few pulls on the slots, we called it a night.
The following morning, the previous guest had conveniently set a 6am alarm for us and we thus started our day. After a delicious breakfast at the slowest 1970's cafe, we set out to finish the drive to Bryce Canyon. We stopped in St. George for a bit and Cedar City, but pretty much made this drive straight through. We stayed in Cedar City for the night depsite still being two hours from Bryce Canyon.
We finally arrive at Bryce Canyon at 4pm and took the "World's Greatest Three-Mile Hike". I don't know how you determine the world's greatest hike, but they claimed it. The hike was absolutely phenomenal and I highly recommend checking out the photos! Note: it may take a few days for these photos to be posted. It seems that finding internet on our road trip is just as difficult as it was in Australia!
Monday, July 6, 2009
If it isn't the rain, it's the wind. Thanks, Sydney.
I had such great plans for this weekend. I couldn't have told you how excited I was to jump out of a plane to celebrate the Fourth of July, and I had a great awesome bushwalk (hike) planned for the 5th, and this was how I was going to spend my last weekend in Sydney.
And then came the winds.
The weather was absolutely beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in site, it wasn't too cold, it was perfect. Until someone mentioned how windy it was. Ugh, Sydney, I hate your weather! I took a two hour train ride only to find out we were on "hold" from jumping until 11am (the jump was planned for 9am). Alright, no big deal, I'll hold out until 11. We were on a beach (hence the name, Skydive the beach), so I decided to walk around a bit. It was a gorgeous beach, I'll give you that, but I would have much rather been seeing it from 14,000 feet in the air.
And then 11 o'clock rolled around, and yet again we were put on hold. This time until noon, and at noon they would either send all jumpers up, or call off all jumps for the day. Judging by the amount of wind, they said it was highly unlikely that any jumps would be taking off for the day. And thus concluded my excitement over skydiving.
Luckily they were able to refund me all of my money. There was a disclaimer somewhere that stated that $110 was nonrefundable, regardless, but since I wasn't able to reschedule my jump, they were kind enough to give ma full refund. Alas, two hours and $20 for the train ride just to see a beach.
By the time I got back I was pretty cranky, so I headed home and started packing a bit (scary to think of)! I thought I would start Sunday fresh, with a clear mind. I had a bushwalk planned with another member of the group, but as I started to think about it more and more, I did not want to take that two hour train ride again (we were going to be hiking right where I was supposed to be jumping). So, I called off the bushwalk.
Anyway, in place of the bushwalk, I decided that I was going to head out to Manly Beach on Sunday. Do you know what I found at Manly Beach!? Another $20 ferry ticket, a beach, and MORE WIND!! After about an hour I realized just how sick of the beach and the wind I was after two straight days of it, so I decided to go back down to the CBD and my most favorite shop that I've found down here (www.supre.com.au), and buy myself something nice to meet a special someone in at the airport. Who would have thought that XXXS would be so addicting? If I could get all my Supre receipts on the same slip, I'd be able to get all the tax back (If you spend over $300 at one place, you can file a report that says you're a tourist and they'll give you the tax back). Alas.
I can't believe that it's already my last week in Sydney. On Friday at 9pm Minnesota time I leave to fly into LAX to start part #2 of the summer! We've finally started to plan out where we'll be and when. Those two weeks are going to be very jam packed and we're going to see over 5,000 miles of the country! Exciting stuff!
And then came the winds.
The weather was absolutely beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in site, it wasn't too cold, it was perfect. Until someone mentioned how windy it was. Ugh, Sydney, I hate your weather! I took a two hour train ride only to find out we were on "hold" from jumping until 11am (the jump was planned for 9am). Alright, no big deal, I'll hold out until 11. We were on a beach (hence the name, Skydive the beach), so I decided to walk around a bit. It was a gorgeous beach, I'll give you that, but I would have much rather been seeing it from 14,000 feet in the air.
And then 11 o'clock rolled around, and yet again we were put on hold. This time until noon, and at noon they would either send all jumpers up, or call off all jumps for the day. Judging by the amount of wind, they said it was highly unlikely that any jumps would be taking off for the day. And thus concluded my excitement over skydiving.
Luckily they were able to refund me all of my money. There was a disclaimer somewhere that stated that $110 was nonrefundable, regardless, but since I wasn't able to reschedule my jump, they were kind enough to give ma full refund. Alas, two hours and $20 for the train ride just to see a beach.
By the time I got back I was pretty cranky, so I headed home and started packing a bit (scary to think of)! I thought I would start Sunday fresh, with a clear mind. I had a bushwalk planned with another member of the group, but as I started to think about it more and more, I did not want to take that two hour train ride again (we were going to be hiking right where I was supposed to be jumping). So, I called off the bushwalk.
Anyway, in place of the bushwalk, I decided that I was going to head out to Manly Beach on Sunday. Do you know what I found at Manly Beach!? Another $20 ferry ticket, a beach, and MORE WIND!! After about an hour I realized just how sick of the beach and the wind I was after two straight days of it, so I decided to go back down to the CBD and my most favorite shop that I've found down here (www.supre.com.au), and buy myself something nice to meet a special someone in at the airport. Who would have thought that XXXS would be so addicting? If I could get all my Supre receipts on the same slip, I'd be able to get all the tax back (If you spend over $300 at one place, you can file a report that says you're a tourist and they'll give you the tax back). Alas.
I can't believe that it's already my last week in Sydney. On Friday at 9pm Minnesota time I leave to fly into LAX to start part #2 of the summer! We've finally started to plan out where we'll be and when. Those two weeks are going to be very jam packed and we're going to see over 5,000 miles of the country! Exciting stuff!
Monday, June 29, 2009
"One can never have too many Chinese friends…"
On Friday, after a catch-up text session with Rachel, I decided to go to the Chinese Garden of Friendship (her response to my attendance of this location was "One can never have too many Chinese friends"). The Chinese Garden of Friendship is a place located right in Darling Harbour and is just a small touch of China in Sydney. The gardens include a tea garden (with delicious Earl Grey tea), and then 27 stops along a path that demonstrate the Chinese culture. It was initiated by the local Chinese community to celebrate Australia's 1968 Bicentenary and share their rich cultural heritage. This place was extremely beautiful to walk through and was a nice break from the downtown city life that I have every day of the week. I didn't spend quite as much time here as I would have liked, but I did enjoy the time I spent here.
After the Chinese Garden of Friendship, I decided to finally do some souvenir shopping! I can't believe I'm only in Sydney for another two week!! With work and shops closing down at 6pm every day, it is very difficult to get any sort of shopping done during the week. This souvenir shopping took much longer than expected, and eventually turned into my whole day! Alas, I think only one more trip out specifically for souvenirs and I should be done.
After the Chinese Garden of Friendship, I decided to finally do some souvenir shopping! I can't believe I'm only in Sydney for another two week!! With work and shops closing down at 6pm every day, it is very difficult to get any sort of shopping done during the week. This souvenir shopping took much longer than expected, and eventually turned into my whole day! Alas, I think only one more trip out specifically for souvenirs and I should be done.
St. Mary's and the RBG
I had seen this church on my visit to Hyde Park on the first weekend in Sydney. The name was St. Mary's and I had thought even then that it was a beautiful church. I decided to attend a mass this weekend to see the inside of the church and to see what a mass was like in Sydney.
Thoughts on mass:
- Listening to mass in an Australian accent kind of cracks me up. It just doesn't sound like church, and it's difficult to take the priest seriously.
- St. Mary's is a gorgeous cathedral! While I didn't take a lot of photos, I was able to snap a few. Check Picasa if you'd like to see them.
- I don't feel that Australian's are huge into religion. There were hardly 250 people in this mass, and the church was larger than the Basilica. It seemed empty, and almost sad.
- We had joked about/discussed the lack of organization that Australian's seemed to have. This didn't stop at church, either. When going to receive communion in American church, things are very orderly, there are sometimes even usher's telling rows when they can go up to receive communion. Not in Australia. It's more so "go as you please". I found it interesting that even the Priest was giving communion, and even more interesting that I was able to receive communion from the Priest. That was pretty special.
I'm happy I went, and just like when I left to go to Australia, I'll be going to church the Sunday before I leave (next Sunday) to pray for safe travels home.
St. Mary's is located right near the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG). I have a photo of myself in Australia five years ago from a point called Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. In the spirit of watching the passage of time, I decided to head back to this point to get a photo of myself again. Last time I was at the RBG, five years ago, we did not take the time to walk around the gardens. Today, I decided to do so! I hadn't realized just how big the Royal Botanical Gardens really are. There were quite hilarious signs that were inviting visitors to walk on the grass and hug a tree. I walked on the grass, but never hugged a tree. :( Oh well. Throughout the gardens there were different themes (there were trees, plants, some flowers, etc): tropical, roses, endangered and threatened, and then just "lower gardens" and I think a "side garden" section. These lower and side just included species from all over the world that didn't need special conditions to grow.
As a shout out to my mother, I am sorry that there are yet again so many pictures of trees. The trees down here really are just spectacular, Mom, and if you had a camera in your hand and saw the greatness of them, you'd take a million pictures too! At least this time I tried to switch up the species of the tree, instead of just taking pictures of the same kinds of trees!!! :)
I was going to try to go to Centennial Park today as well (a park with a lot of Victorian Era statues in it), but after walking so much yesterday and already walking so much today, I was completely exhausted and decided to head home to relax before starting the work week. Maybe next weekend I'll be able to see Centennial Park. If not, I think maybe another trip in five years may be in order!
Thoughts on mass:
- Listening to mass in an Australian accent kind of cracks me up. It just doesn't sound like church, and it's difficult to take the priest seriously.
- St. Mary's is a gorgeous cathedral! While I didn't take a lot of photos, I was able to snap a few. Check Picasa if you'd like to see them.
- I don't feel that Australian's are huge into religion. There were hardly 250 people in this mass, and the church was larger than the Basilica. It seemed empty, and almost sad.
- We had joked about/discussed the lack of organization that Australian's seemed to have. This didn't stop at church, either. When going to receive communion in American church, things are very orderly, there are sometimes even usher's telling rows when they can go up to receive communion. Not in Australia. It's more so "go as you please". I found it interesting that even the Priest was giving communion, and even more interesting that I was able to receive communion from the Priest. That was pretty special.
I'm happy I went, and just like when I left to go to Australia, I'll be going to church the Sunday before I leave (next Sunday) to pray for safe travels home.
St. Mary's is located right near the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG). I have a photo of myself in Australia five years ago from a point called Mrs. Macquarie's Chair. In the spirit of watching the passage of time, I decided to head back to this point to get a photo of myself again. Last time I was at the RBG, five years ago, we did not take the time to walk around the gardens. Today, I decided to do so! I hadn't realized just how big the Royal Botanical Gardens really are. There were quite hilarious signs that were inviting visitors to walk on the grass and hug a tree. I walked on the grass, but never hugged a tree. :( Oh well. Throughout the gardens there were different themes (there were trees, plants, some flowers, etc): tropical, roses, endangered and threatened, and then just "lower gardens" and I think a "side garden" section. These lower and side just included species from all over the world that didn't need special conditions to grow.
As a shout out to my mother, I am sorry that there are yet again so many pictures of trees. The trees down here really are just spectacular, Mom, and if you had a camera in your hand and saw the greatness of them, you'd take a million pictures too! At least this time I tried to switch up the species of the tree, instead of just taking pictures of the same kinds of trees!!! :)
I was going to try to go to Centennial Park today as well (a park with a lot of Victorian Era statues in it), but after walking so much yesterday and already walking so much today, I was completely exhausted and decided to head home to relax before starting the work week. Maybe next weekend I'll be able to see Centennial Park. If not, I think maybe another trip in five years may be in order!
Monthversary of being in Sydney!
This Saturday was the one month anniversary of arriving in Sydney! To celebrate in the terrible weather, I decided to head over to the Contemporary Art Museum, and the Art Gallery of NSW (New South Wales).
I must say, these are my two favorite art museums that I have ever been to. Minneapolis (Walker and the MIA) are okay art museums, not to bash them, but I feel the Walker is too contemporary for it's own good (yellow, blue, and red canvases next to one another are not art, thank you very much), and the MIA is just a bit…snoozy.
The Contemporary Art Museum was filled with a current exhibit of photographs, mainly of people. The artist was looking for the viewer to see through the face and see more to the story of the person behind it. He stated (in quotes on the wall), that observing a new culture is not necessarily always about the other, but may also be about the you and your perception of the culture. His photographs were his perception of this new culture he was exploring. I LOVED this exhibit and since it is free, I may swing in again if I find myself in Circular Quay between 10am and 5pm.
After this, I took the train over to the stop nearest to the Art Gallery of NSW. Now, I knew the Art Gallery was NEAR the Royal Botanical Gardens, but I didn't realize it was actually IN the RBG. This was a pleasant surprise and led to Sunday's journey around the RBG. Anyway, the Art Gallery of NSW was a very tasteful blend of newer, 20th century art, and classic, yet still interesting, 18th and 19th century art. There was also a small gallery of contemporary art (which was a bit too walker-y for me), as well as some Asian art. I loved how this museum was set up, the atmosphere that the displays set, and just the overall collection. Fell. In. Love.
Yazi and I then met up and decided to try to find Paddy's Markets. People talk about Paddy's Markets like it's the greatest thing on the planet, so we wanted to see what was so great about them. We were sitting on a street corner in Hyde Park looking on the maps to see if Paddy's Markets was highlighted on any of them, and it wasn't. Conveniently, some man came up to us and asked us where we were trying to go. He gave us terrible, terrible directions (but mentioned my one beef about Sydney maps and how incredibly difficult they are to navigate - I'm happy I'm not alone in this sentiment), but at least got us heading in the right direction. We took off and, like most adventures, just hoped for the best.
Of course, we got lost. This was not our fault. He told us to look for the railroad in the street, and take a right after that. Well, needless to say, there's a monorail (a railroad, while in the sky, crosses the street), and then a lightrail about 3 blocks later (a railroad in the street). We took the right at the monorail, not the lightrail, which was where we went wrong.
Now, Paddy's Markets are located right outside of Chinatown, but Chinatown was located between where we were and Paddy's Markets. We opened up our maps again, hoping that someone would nicely ask us what we were looking for, but this clearly wasn't happening. I started to look around for someone to ask and before I knew it, Yazi was walking up to an elderly Asian lady who, as I could have guessed, didn't speak English. She understood English, but didn't speak. And after a few hand gestures, Yazi and I started to follow an Asian lady through an Arcade*
(*Note about Arcades: This is not an American Arcade, of course. Just like the hotels, I have no clue what an American Arcade is called, but an Arcade is a pathway from one block to another block and god only know where that other block is going to be. There are always billions of shops in Arcade's, and we always get lost in them. Honestly, you'll get into an Arcade and it'll say "Thru to Pitt Street" and you know Pitt Street, but the Pitt Street that you end up at is NOT the Pitt Street you know and you have no clue how you got there and it's just such a waste of time to walk back.)
Following, following, following, I'm about 10 steps behind Yazi who is essentially holding this lady's hand and I am just laughing at this situation. Yazi and I are both pretty confident in the city now that regardless of what happens, we'll find our way back, so this was getting pretty humorous to both of us (as opposed to the first couple weeks where we would have been freaking out since we had no clue where we were going). Eventually we exited the arcade (at god knows where), and watched the lady point with her hand to tell us where to keep going. As soon as we got outside of earshot of the lady, I asked Yazi if she knew where we were going. Of course she didn't! We got the first bit that we were supposed to walk in a certain direction, but after that we were just clueless. At this point we are in the HEART of Chinatown. There is hardly any English on any of the street signs, and our hope of finding someone else to ask is getting slim. Luckily! There was a police office giving a car a parking ticket, so we were able to ask him!!
Eventually we found our way to Paddy's Markets (which, btw, were a total let down. Apparently Yazi went back on Sunday though and found the real Paddy's Markets and they were much better, so that may be a "last weekend" adventure). After a couple hours here, we decided to head back to Surry Hills, grab a bite to eat, rent some movies, and get some groceries. We ate at a delicious wood-fired pizza place - I had the vegetarian supreme while Yazi had the seafood combo. Australian's don't joke when they state that "Baby Octopus" is on the pizza. It is quite literally a baby octopus, head, tentacles and all the works. The vegetarian supreme was DELICIOUS! Oh man, that was a good $20 pizza.
As a side note, I am extremely happy in my choice of shoes for this day. Generally, I stupidly wear heels to art galleries. Luckily, with all the walking I'm doing in Sydney, my choice of shoes was flats, and thus didn't make the overly loud heel noise through both museums!
I must say, these are my two favorite art museums that I have ever been to. Minneapolis (Walker and the MIA) are okay art museums, not to bash them, but I feel the Walker is too contemporary for it's own good (yellow, blue, and red canvases next to one another are not art, thank you very much), and the MIA is just a bit…snoozy.
The Contemporary Art Museum was filled with a current exhibit of photographs, mainly of people. The artist was looking for the viewer to see through the face and see more to the story of the person behind it. He stated (in quotes on the wall), that observing a new culture is not necessarily always about the other, but may also be about the you and your perception of the culture. His photographs were his perception of this new culture he was exploring. I LOVED this exhibit and since it is free, I may swing in again if I find myself in Circular Quay between 10am and 5pm.
After this, I took the train over to the stop nearest to the Art Gallery of NSW. Now, I knew the Art Gallery was NEAR the Royal Botanical Gardens, but I didn't realize it was actually IN the RBG. This was a pleasant surprise and led to Sunday's journey around the RBG. Anyway, the Art Gallery of NSW was a very tasteful blend of newer, 20th century art, and classic, yet still interesting, 18th and 19th century art. There was also a small gallery of contemporary art (which was a bit too walker-y for me), as well as some Asian art. I loved how this museum was set up, the atmosphere that the displays set, and just the overall collection. Fell. In. Love.
Yazi and I then met up and decided to try to find Paddy's Markets. People talk about Paddy's Markets like it's the greatest thing on the planet, so we wanted to see what was so great about them. We were sitting on a street corner in Hyde Park looking on the maps to see if Paddy's Markets was highlighted on any of them, and it wasn't. Conveniently, some man came up to us and asked us where we were trying to go. He gave us terrible, terrible directions (but mentioned my one beef about Sydney maps and how incredibly difficult they are to navigate - I'm happy I'm not alone in this sentiment), but at least got us heading in the right direction. We took off and, like most adventures, just hoped for the best.
Of course, we got lost. This was not our fault. He told us to look for the railroad in the street, and take a right after that. Well, needless to say, there's a monorail (a railroad, while in the sky, crosses the street), and then a lightrail about 3 blocks later (a railroad in the street). We took the right at the monorail, not the lightrail, which was where we went wrong.
Now, Paddy's Markets are located right outside of Chinatown, but Chinatown was located between where we were and Paddy's Markets. We opened up our maps again, hoping that someone would nicely ask us what we were looking for, but this clearly wasn't happening. I started to look around for someone to ask and before I knew it, Yazi was walking up to an elderly Asian lady who, as I could have guessed, didn't speak English. She understood English, but didn't speak. And after a few hand gestures, Yazi and I started to follow an Asian lady through an Arcade*
(*Note about Arcades: This is not an American Arcade, of course. Just like the hotels, I have no clue what an American Arcade is called, but an Arcade is a pathway from one block to another block and god only know where that other block is going to be. There are always billions of shops in Arcade's, and we always get lost in them. Honestly, you'll get into an Arcade and it'll say "Thru to Pitt Street" and you know Pitt Street, but the Pitt Street that you end up at is NOT the Pitt Street you know and you have no clue how you got there and it's just such a waste of time to walk back.)
Following, following, following, I'm about 10 steps behind Yazi who is essentially holding this lady's hand and I am just laughing at this situation. Yazi and I are both pretty confident in the city now that regardless of what happens, we'll find our way back, so this was getting pretty humorous to both of us (as opposed to the first couple weeks where we would have been freaking out since we had no clue where we were going). Eventually we exited the arcade (at god knows where), and watched the lady point with her hand to tell us where to keep going. As soon as we got outside of earshot of the lady, I asked Yazi if she knew where we were going. Of course she didn't! We got the first bit that we were supposed to walk in a certain direction, but after that we were just clueless. At this point we are in the HEART of Chinatown. There is hardly any English on any of the street signs, and our hope of finding someone else to ask is getting slim. Luckily! There was a police office giving a car a parking ticket, so we were able to ask him!!
Eventually we found our way to Paddy's Markets (which, btw, were a total let down. Apparently Yazi went back on Sunday though and found the real Paddy's Markets and they were much better, so that may be a "last weekend" adventure). After a couple hours here, we decided to head back to Surry Hills, grab a bite to eat, rent some movies, and get some groceries. We ate at a delicious wood-fired pizza place - I had the vegetarian supreme while Yazi had the seafood combo. Australian's don't joke when they state that "Baby Octopus" is on the pizza. It is quite literally a baby octopus, head, tentacles and all the works. The vegetarian supreme was DELICIOUS! Oh man, that was a good $20 pizza.
As a side note, I am extremely happy in my choice of shoes for this day. Generally, I stupidly wear heels to art galleries. Luckily, with all the walking I'm doing in Sydney, my choice of shoes was flats, and thus didn't make the overly loud heel noise through both museums!
Spontaneous Broadway!
I almost completely forgot to write about this! On Wednesday night of this week, we attended a show at the Opera House called Spontaneous Broadway! It was an impromptu show that, like most, took suggestions from the audience before the show, filtered through the suggestions, and took the top five. For the first part of the show, they took these top five and "set they stage" for five different musicals, performing one song from each of these musicals. After the faux intermission (the show was only 70 minutes long), the audience voted for which musical they would like to see further developed in the second half of the show.
Now, Yazi, April, Laura, Brian, and I all threw suggestions into the box. Yazi, having quite the difficult name to read and pronounce correctly (her real name is Yosmeriz, pronounced like "Rosemary", but with a Y, so it reads "Yosemary") decided to put "Monica" as her name. And of course, her suggestion was one of the ones picked! Laura, also being a lucky dog, not only had her suggestion of "No Upfront Fees, Tonight Only" picked, but was the suggestion the audience picked to be further developed into a musical called "Underground"! This was pretty neat, and awfully fun for us.
Overall, it was a pretty hilarious show given the fact that it was impromptu. We had a great time, and it was definitely worth the money. I would still like to see a opera in the Opera House, but alas, budgets exist and there are things I'd rather spend money on. Like skydiving.
Now, Yazi, April, Laura, Brian, and I all threw suggestions into the box. Yazi, having quite the difficult name to read and pronounce correctly (her real name is Yosmeriz, pronounced like "Rosemary", but with a Y, so it reads "Yosemary") decided to put "Monica" as her name. And of course, her suggestion was one of the ones picked! Laura, also being a lucky dog, not only had her suggestion of "No Upfront Fees, Tonight Only" picked, but was the suggestion the audience picked to be further developed into a musical called "Underground"! This was pretty neat, and awfully fun for us.
Overall, it was a pretty hilarious show given the fact that it was impromptu. We had a great time, and it was definitely worth the money. I would still like to see a opera in the Opera House, but alas, budgets exist and there are things I'd rather spend money on. Like skydiving.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Happy 4th of July!
Okay, so it isn't the 4th of July quite yet. But it is going to be very soon! Being my second 4th of July spent down under, and my last full weekend in Australia, I decided to do something special.
And then I saw an ad for Skydive the Beach - Sydney.
As of 15 minutes ago, I am officially booked, confirmed, and fully paid for a 9am jump on the 4th of July (that's...6:00pm on July 3rd for you). 14,000 feet in the air, 65 seconds of free fall, and 4-5 minutes of a relaxing descent back to earth. All captured on a DVD and in photos.
This will by far be the most expensive minute and five seconds of my life...
I can't wait!!
And then I saw an ad for Skydive the Beach - Sydney.
As of 15 minutes ago, I am officially booked, confirmed, and fully paid for a 9am jump on the 4th of July (that's...6:00pm on July 3rd for you). 14,000 feet in the air, 65 seconds of free fall, and 4-5 minutes of a relaxing descent back to earth. All captured on a DVD and in photos.
This will by far be the most expensive minute and five seconds of my life...
I can't wait!!
Monday, June 22, 2009
La Perouse and Deadly Snakes!
Saturday ended up being a pretty mild day. The weather has been so terrible here it's ridiculous. Torrential downpours almost every day. Saturday looked to be promising, but turned out to be a bust. I cooked myself enough stirfry for the week though (red and green peppers, corn, steak, and mushrooms, all in a hot sweet chili sauce, over noodles/rice/in a tortilla with cheese). It isn't quite as delicious when all of the ingredients ended up costing me $55US…and only $3 of that was for a sauce. Everything else will need to be purchased again if I want more stirfry. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw that it was $20/kg for a basic eye of the round steak. It is what it is though and that's part of living in Sydney.
Anyway, Sunday CAPA had organized a trip to La Perouse. I didn't really know what La Perouse was, but felt that I needed to get out of the city for a bit, so I boarded the bus. Apparently La Perouse is very far away! An hour bus ride later and we found ourselves at the site where the first white settlers landed in Australia. While there wasn't very much to do there (you could hardly even get lunch), it was quite stunning.
We did manage to listen to an Aboriginal talk about the items they used to use for hunting/killing other people. I learned this on my last trip, but I will reiterate, that the boomerang was never meant to be thrown and automatically returned. It is meant to be thrown at something and kill the target. After the man spoke, we headed down to the coast line and walked along the rocks for a bit. The coast at this point is made of sandstone and since sandstone is not a consistent density, the water had worn away the sandstone inconsistently to make some very interesting shapes in the coast. There are pictures of this up on Picasa for anyone who would like to see!
After this, we started to watch a reptile show. It was pretty standard, but he then pulled out one of the deadliest snakes in the world. Now Australian's, being typical Australian's, let their children's feet continue to dangle in the "pen" that this snake was roaming freely in. I decided I had seen enough at this point and boarded the bus back to the city.
The weather, unsurprisingly, decided to turn quite horrible after this and we all just decided to head back to the apartment. Oh Sydney. It looks like it should be 20C (70F) every day this week and sunny! Please hold out until the weekend!!
As a complete side note, I passed the 1,000 picture mark this weekend! Obviously I've spared you all the misery of looking through every photo, but I believe there are at least 500 of them on Picasa. At least you get the good ones!
Anyway, Sunday CAPA had organized a trip to La Perouse. I didn't really know what La Perouse was, but felt that I needed to get out of the city for a bit, so I boarded the bus. Apparently La Perouse is very far away! An hour bus ride later and we found ourselves at the site where the first white settlers landed in Australia. While there wasn't very much to do there (you could hardly even get lunch), it was quite stunning.
We did manage to listen to an Aboriginal talk about the items they used to use for hunting/killing other people. I learned this on my last trip, but I will reiterate, that the boomerang was never meant to be thrown and automatically returned. It is meant to be thrown at something and kill the target. After the man spoke, we headed down to the coast line and walked along the rocks for a bit. The coast at this point is made of sandstone and since sandstone is not a consistent density, the water had worn away the sandstone inconsistently to make some very interesting shapes in the coast. There are pictures of this up on Picasa for anyone who would like to see!
After this, we started to watch a reptile show. It was pretty standard, but he then pulled out one of the deadliest snakes in the world. Now Australian's, being typical Australian's, let their children's feet continue to dangle in the "pen" that this snake was roaming freely in. I decided I had seen enough at this point and boarded the bus back to the city.
The weather, unsurprisingly, decided to turn quite horrible after this and we all just decided to head back to the apartment. Oh Sydney. It looks like it should be 20C (70F) every day this week and sunny! Please hold out until the weekend!!
As a complete side note, I passed the 1,000 picture mark this weekend! Obviously I've spared you all the misery of looking through every photo, but I believe there are at least 500 of them on Picasa. At least you get the good ones!
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Winter Festival…What?
This weekend, Sydney has decided to throw a winter festival to try to get everyone out of "hibernation", as they advertised it. In the ads, they stated they had tons of food, drink, the largest ice rink in the CBD since the 1950's, as well as a petting zoo (one of these things is not like the other, but we'll get to that later).
So Yazi, Alexi, and Brian and I decided to head over to the festival. We all expected this to be a pretty amazing place. The website was really well developed, and the food looked amazing.
Boy, was that a disappointment.
First off, the ice rink was hardly larger than our living room. It was in the lower sixties outside, they were making fake snow, and had heaters placed around the perimeter of the ice rink. No joke. It was such a contradictory picture. Children were running around in short sleeve shirts, hats, and boots, people were wearing coats and scarves while standing on an ice rink under a heater. I just couldn't understand it.
The food was a major let down. I felt like I was at a baseball game back home, where everything is ridiculously over price. But, instead of finding $5 nachos, I found $20 Dutch pancakes, and $15 Calamari bites. I'd take my $5 nachos any day. As for the petting zoo, I just could understand this either. How does a petting zoo incorporate into a winter festival? There were about 20 animals stuck in a tiny pen, and were meant to fit in with the festival. This was just beyond comprehension.
I think we spent maybe 15 minutes at the festival overall. We browsed, but there wasn't much to see and we were all pretty hungry. We decided to leave, all being unwilling to spend so much on food. I had been craving Hungry Jacks for about a week now, so we decided to stop there for dinner.
Hungry Jacks = a fusion of American Burger King and American McDonalds (Sydney McDonalds is NOT an American McDonalds)! I had a whopper jr, which actually tasted just as a whopper jr. should taste! Even the onion rings were exactly as Burger King's onion rings are!!! The fries were closer to McDonald's fries, and they had some sundaes that were very similar to McFlurry's. Oh, this was heaven on earth. I had been craving an American hamburger for at least two weeks now, and had visited a couple different hamburger joints to try to find a good hamburger (see Adam Worling, week one, for info on finding hamburgers in Sydney). Craving #1, fulfilled!! I still can't wait for In n' Out when I get off the plane, though!!
On another note, before the Winter Festival today, I decided to walk around Sydney for a bit to try to find a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of Australia (I was really lenient on what the picture could be, I just wanted something relating to Australia). Now, I've done a pretty great job so far finding where to go for places by simply walking around and looking in shops until I see slightly what I'm looking for. I had asked Zara where I could find jigsaw puzzles, and she said any typical toy store. So I took off looking for a toy store, having not yet see anything in Sydney that represented a toy store. I walked around the CBD for nearly three hours looking for a toy store. I found nearly every other type of store, but nothing that resembled toys! I eventually stumbled upon a visitor's information booth, and asked them where I could find jigsaw puzzles. They stated that David Jones (a store that vaguely represents Macy's, but maybe a bit more of a Target/Macy's fusion…there also seems to be one of these every few blocks, and they're as gigantic as Target) would carry something like that, but my best bet would be a placed called Hobby Co in the QVB (Queen Victoria Building - a great shopping center). I had walked by this place probably about 20 times since I arrived in Sydney, and at least four times today alone. I had ventured so far down the CBD that I was nearly in Circular Quay though, so it was a good 15 minute walked back to the QVB.
Anyway, I finally found this place again, found the puzzles, and was nearly in heaven. There were SO many puzzles in this store, and the few I had looked at (without scenes of Australia, just wanted to check prices) seemed reasonably priced. I was so excited that I was finally going to find souvenirs for a couple different people. I started looking for scenes of Australia and looked and looked and looked. I eventually found one puzzle, just one, with a scene of Australia. It had the Opera House and it was so very beautiful. However, it was a 3,000 piece puzzle and was $70 (not to mention it weighed a TON).
That burst any bubble I had of bringing home a puzzle with a scene of Sydney. Looks like I'll be ordering some from the internet once I get home. Bummer.
So Yazi, Alexi, and Brian and I decided to head over to the festival. We all expected this to be a pretty amazing place. The website was really well developed, and the food looked amazing.
Boy, was that a disappointment.
First off, the ice rink was hardly larger than our living room. It was in the lower sixties outside, they were making fake snow, and had heaters placed around the perimeter of the ice rink. No joke. It was such a contradictory picture. Children were running around in short sleeve shirts, hats, and boots, people were wearing coats and scarves while standing on an ice rink under a heater. I just couldn't understand it.
The food was a major let down. I felt like I was at a baseball game back home, where everything is ridiculously over price. But, instead of finding $5 nachos, I found $20 Dutch pancakes, and $15 Calamari bites. I'd take my $5 nachos any day. As for the petting zoo, I just could understand this either. How does a petting zoo incorporate into a winter festival? There were about 20 animals stuck in a tiny pen, and were meant to fit in with the festival. This was just beyond comprehension.
I think we spent maybe 15 minutes at the festival overall. We browsed, but there wasn't much to see and we were all pretty hungry. We decided to leave, all being unwilling to spend so much on food. I had been craving Hungry Jacks for about a week now, so we decided to stop there for dinner.
Hungry Jacks = a fusion of American Burger King and American McDonalds (Sydney McDonalds is NOT an American McDonalds)! I had a whopper jr, which actually tasted just as a whopper jr. should taste! Even the onion rings were exactly as Burger King's onion rings are!!! The fries were closer to McDonald's fries, and they had some sundaes that were very similar to McFlurry's. Oh, this was heaven on earth. I had been craving an American hamburger for at least two weeks now, and had visited a couple different hamburger joints to try to find a good hamburger (see Adam Worling, week one, for info on finding hamburgers in Sydney). Craving #1, fulfilled!! I still can't wait for In n' Out when I get off the plane, though!!
On another note, before the Winter Festival today, I decided to walk around Sydney for a bit to try to find a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of Australia (I was really lenient on what the picture could be, I just wanted something relating to Australia). Now, I've done a pretty great job so far finding where to go for places by simply walking around and looking in shops until I see slightly what I'm looking for. I had asked Zara where I could find jigsaw puzzles, and she said any typical toy store. So I took off looking for a toy store, having not yet see anything in Sydney that represented a toy store. I walked around the CBD for nearly three hours looking for a toy store. I found nearly every other type of store, but nothing that resembled toys! I eventually stumbled upon a visitor's information booth, and asked them where I could find jigsaw puzzles. They stated that David Jones (a store that vaguely represents Macy's, but maybe a bit more of a Target/Macy's fusion…there also seems to be one of these every few blocks, and they're as gigantic as Target) would carry something like that, but my best bet would be a placed called Hobby Co in the QVB (Queen Victoria Building - a great shopping center). I had walked by this place probably about 20 times since I arrived in Sydney, and at least four times today alone. I had ventured so far down the CBD that I was nearly in Circular Quay though, so it was a good 15 minute walked back to the QVB.
Anyway, I finally found this place again, found the puzzles, and was nearly in heaven. There were SO many puzzles in this store, and the few I had looked at (without scenes of Australia, just wanted to check prices) seemed reasonably priced. I was so excited that I was finally going to find souvenirs for a couple different people. I started looking for scenes of Australia and looked and looked and looked. I eventually found one puzzle, just one, with a scene of Australia. It had the Opera House and it was so very beautiful. However, it was a 3,000 piece puzzle and was $70 (not to mention it weighed a TON).
That burst any bubble I had of bringing home a puzzle with a scene of Sydney. Looks like I'll be ordering some from the internet once I get home. Bummer.
Change in Internships
I learned on Wednesday this week that I would no longer be attending my internship at Anna Ro, World Men's Fashions. CAPA had called Adam Worling to see if they could take me the fourth day, and since they have already expressed both to CAPA and myself their love of me, they agreed to it!
I talked to CAPA this week to find out with had happened with Anna Ro, but either they hadn't really figured out why, or weren't willing to share that information with me. All I've been told is that Anna Ro called to say that she didn't want to do it anymore and had nothing left to teach me. Here are my thoughts on this:
- Initially, I am disappointed to have this internship end. While it was challenging, I was able to further develop my tailoring skills while at this internship. I may not have been learning many new skills, but I was working on developing knowledge that I already had. I'm disappointed that I won't have the opportunity to further develop these skills while I’m down here.
- On the positive side, I absolutely love my internship at Adam Worling PR. I'm learning a lot about Fashion PR, and I really enjoy the office atmosphere. I look forward to spending a fourth day here. It's odd to think that I will only be attending this internship twelve more times, and then I come home.
Overall, I suppose it's a draw. I was liking the dual internship and felt it was more tailored towards my interests, but everything happens for a reason and I'll still be leaving Australia having learned a lot about the fashion industry.
I talked to CAPA this week to find out with had happened with Anna Ro, but either they hadn't really figured out why, or weren't willing to share that information with me. All I've been told is that Anna Ro called to say that she didn't want to do it anymore and had nothing left to teach me. Here are my thoughts on this:
- Initially, I am disappointed to have this internship end. While it was challenging, I was able to further develop my tailoring skills while at this internship. I may not have been learning many new skills, but I was working on developing knowledge that I already had. I'm disappointed that I won't have the opportunity to further develop these skills while I’m down here.
- On the positive side, I absolutely love my internship at Adam Worling PR. I'm learning a lot about Fashion PR, and I really enjoy the office atmosphere. I look forward to spending a fourth day here. It's odd to think that I will only be attending this internship twelve more times, and then I come home.
Overall, I suppose it's a draw. I was liking the dual internship and felt it was more tailored towards my interests, but everything happens for a reason and I'll still be leaving Australia having learned a lot about the fashion industry.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Olympics, Koalas, and the Three Sisters, Oh My!
Today was the trip that was included in our program fees. The day included a stop at Sydney Olympic Park, the Featherdale Wildlife Park, and the Blue Mountains (which included a stop at a lookout, a hike to the valley, and then a train ride up).
Olympic Park was really kind of interesting. We didn't get to see much, but it was still fun to see the major buildings of Olympic Park. Today, a lot of businesses have moved in, and many of the buildings are now used for concerts. I never knew that the Sydney Olympics were one of the most "green" Olympics. Not only was the site built on a landfill/swamp, but they also managed to decrease the endangerment of a species of frog! They built up swamps close by and moved the endangered frog there, and now it's doing quite well. Way to go, Australia! One of the cooler things we got to see at this site were poles that were put in place after the Olympics that contained the names of all the volunteers during the Olympics.
After Olympic Park, we headed over to the Featherdale Wildlife Park…after we had to go around a round about at least four or five times since we couldn't decided which way to take the 4 (highway out of Sydney). I was nearly car sick; thank god I threw some ginger chews in my bag before I left. Anyway, we finally arrived at the Featherdale Wildlife Park, got our passes, and entered into the park. And what do you know, we're already walking freely with some Wallabies!
At the wildlife park, we saw kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, penguins, Tasmanian devils, alligators, emus, storks, wombats, and dingoes…as well as many, many birds! We were only able to pet the koalas since it's illegal to hold them in New South Wales (the last time I was in Australia, we were able to hold them, but I was in Queensland, where it's still legal to hold them). However, we were able to hold some baby dingoes! Oh they were cute, and reminded me of puppies! They sure were adorable. When we were feeding the kangaroos (some…crap put into an ice cream cone), these darn emu kept coming up and stealing the cones from people and from kangaroos. They were pretty intense, and I took a video of it! The kangaroos were fun to feed though…they were pretty nice and comfortable around people.
After our trip to Featherdale, we took a drive up to Leura, a small little town on the way to the Blue Mountains. Yazi and I grabbed lunch at a place called The Red Door Café. It was really, really expensive (the entire town was), so I decided to just get a kids meal. It was just a piece of turkish bread with cheese on top. Twas quite good. I had a hot chocolate as well and goodness that was DELICIOUS!
We walked around the town for a bit and stumbled upon a candy store. Almost everything in the store is made in Australia. It was quite good, I ended up buying a few things of candy (they're already gone). Yazi and I were making our way back to the bus when we saw a teapot museum! I've never seen anything like this place before in my life. I think I only saw two or three teapots, but the rest of the shop was just random trinkets. I saw these river rocks that I had meant to buy back in the states, but they're about 10 times more expensive in the states!
After Leura, we finally headed to the Blue Mountains. We found out that the Blue Mountains are called the Blue Mountains because there is oil in the Eucalyptus trees (there are 900 species of Eucalyptus trees in the world, 90 of them are in the Blue Mountains). When the sun shines on the leaves and illuminates this oil, it gives off a blue tint. The Blue Mountains then perpetually have a blue tint. We stopped at a look out point to see the Three Sisters. There are many stories behind the Three Sisters, but essentially, it all just boils down to three rocks that are placed in the Blue Mountains.
After the look out point, we went on a hike down the mountain. We had a tour guide who stopped at a few places and told us different things of the Aboriginal settlements that were in the Blue Mountains. It was pretty informative, and we had a wonderful time. There were so, so many stairs on this hike though and they were terribly awkward stairs. They started really killing my knees by the end. There were places that the stairs were only 4" deep, were 8" tall, and there were about 20 of them all together - very, very steep declines! We stopped by a waterfall look out, and we sort of bypassed the railing to get closer to the waterfall. The rocks (that weren't wet) were covered in mud, and if any water from the waterfall happened to get onto your shoes, this made for a very slippery situation. Zara was pretty well freaking out (our CAPA leader) and kept yelling that our CAPA medical insurance wouldn't cover us if we fell! Only Yazi fell (typical her!), and everyone else just ended with amazing photos. It was a wonderful, wonderful view. The entire "Bush Walk" (as they call a hike in the mountains) was beautiful, but this was exceptionally beautiful.
After the hike down, of course, there's always the hike back up! Luckily, the coal miners had started giving rides up the mountain long ago, and someone decided to make a business out of it. This train ride was INTENSE! The incline was roughly 52 degrees, and the trip was an entire five minutes. There were no doors to the train, no seat belts, no nothing. The seats were tilted so that when you were going up the hill, you were sitting up, but when on a flat landing, you're leaning back quite a bit. It was an experience to remember. The photos really don't do it justice, and you can't quite gauge how vertical this incline felt, but trust me…it was like the reverse of a roller coaster in the middle of the mountains.
After this, we boarded the bus and took the two hour bus ride back to Sydney. Overall, a great day. A lot of memories, and a lot of photos! Adventures are so much more enjoyable when someone else is planning them...
Olympic Park was really kind of interesting. We didn't get to see much, but it was still fun to see the major buildings of Olympic Park. Today, a lot of businesses have moved in, and many of the buildings are now used for concerts. I never knew that the Sydney Olympics were one of the most "green" Olympics. Not only was the site built on a landfill/swamp, but they also managed to decrease the endangerment of a species of frog! They built up swamps close by and moved the endangered frog there, and now it's doing quite well. Way to go, Australia! One of the cooler things we got to see at this site were poles that were put in place after the Olympics that contained the names of all the volunteers during the Olympics.
After Olympic Park, we headed over to the Featherdale Wildlife Park…after we had to go around a round about at least four or five times since we couldn't decided which way to take the 4 (highway out of Sydney). I was nearly car sick; thank god I threw some ginger chews in my bag before I left. Anyway, we finally arrived at the Featherdale Wildlife Park, got our passes, and entered into the park. And what do you know, we're already walking freely with some Wallabies!
At the wildlife park, we saw kangaroos, koalas, wallabies, penguins, Tasmanian devils, alligators, emus, storks, wombats, and dingoes…as well as many, many birds! We were only able to pet the koalas since it's illegal to hold them in New South Wales (the last time I was in Australia, we were able to hold them, but I was in Queensland, where it's still legal to hold them). However, we were able to hold some baby dingoes! Oh they were cute, and reminded me of puppies! They sure were adorable. When we were feeding the kangaroos (some…crap put into an ice cream cone), these darn emu kept coming up and stealing the cones from people and from kangaroos. They were pretty intense, and I took a video of it! The kangaroos were fun to feed though…they were pretty nice and comfortable around people.
After our trip to Featherdale, we took a drive up to Leura, a small little town on the way to the Blue Mountains. Yazi and I grabbed lunch at a place called The Red Door Café. It was really, really expensive (the entire town was), so I decided to just get a kids meal. It was just a piece of turkish bread with cheese on top. Twas quite good. I had a hot chocolate as well and goodness that was DELICIOUS!
We walked around the town for a bit and stumbled upon a candy store. Almost everything in the store is made in Australia. It was quite good, I ended up buying a few things of candy (they're already gone). Yazi and I were making our way back to the bus when we saw a teapot museum! I've never seen anything like this place before in my life. I think I only saw two or three teapots, but the rest of the shop was just random trinkets. I saw these river rocks that I had meant to buy back in the states, but they're about 10 times more expensive in the states!
After Leura, we finally headed to the Blue Mountains. We found out that the Blue Mountains are called the Blue Mountains because there is oil in the Eucalyptus trees (there are 900 species of Eucalyptus trees in the world, 90 of them are in the Blue Mountains). When the sun shines on the leaves and illuminates this oil, it gives off a blue tint. The Blue Mountains then perpetually have a blue tint. We stopped at a look out point to see the Three Sisters. There are many stories behind the Three Sisters, but essentially, it all just boils down to three rocks that are placed in the Blue Mountains.
After the look out point, we went on a hike down the mountain. We had a tour guide who stopped at a few places and told us different things of the Aboriginal settlements that were in the Blue Mountains. It was pretty informative, and we had a wonderful time. There were so, so many stairs on this hike though and they were terribly awkward stairs. They started really killing my knees by the end. There were places that the stairs were only 4" deep, were 8" tall, and there were about 20 of them all together - very, very steep declines! We stopped by a waterfall look out, and we sort of bypassed the railing to get closer to the waterfall. The rocks (that weren't wet) were covered in mud, and if any water from the waterfall happened to get onto your shoes, this made for a very slippery situation. Zara was pretty well freaking out (our CAPA leader) and kept yelling that our CAPA medical insurance wouldn't cover us if we fell! Only Yazi fell (typical her!), and everyone else just ended with amazing photos. It was a wonderful, wonderful view. The entire "Bush Walk" (as they call a hike in the mountains) was beautiful, but this was exceptionally beautiful.
After the hike down, of course, there's always the hike back up! Luckily, the coal miners had started giving rides up the mountain long ago, and someone decided to make a business out of it. This train ride was INTENSE! The incline was roughly 52 degrees, and the trip was an entire five minutes. There were no doors to the train, no seat belts, no nothing. The seats were tilted so that when you were going up the hill, you were sitting up, but when on a flat landing, you're leaning back quite a bit. It was an experience to remember. The photos really don't do it justice, and you can't quite gauge how vertical this incline felt, but trust me…it was like the reverse of a roller coaster in the middle of the mountains.
After this, we boarded the bus and took the two hour bus ride back to Sydney. Overall, a great day. A lot of memories, and a lot of photos! Adventures are so much more enjoyable when someone else is planning them...
Adam Worling, Week One
This past week, I started my internship at Adam Worling PR. After a miscommunication with CAPA and Adam Worling PR that sent me on an hour and a half rush across the city, the start wasn't fantastic, but became amazing towards the end of the week.
The firm recently moved, which led to the miscommunication. Anyway, the new showroom is located right near central station, which is convenient and within walking distance (40 minute walk, but sometimes that's faster than taking the bus). There are two people who run the company (Adam Worling himself, and a woman named Jenny), two girls who pull all the garments to send to magazines/work with stylists (Alicia and Emily), two people who work to ship/receive garments (Paul and Kris(tina)) and then a secretary (Carla). Then there's Gracie, who is Adam Worling's boxer puppy who is absolutely adorable. Currently, I've been working very closely with Paul and Kris in the shipping and receiving end of everything, but since the office is all an open floor plan and I work a mere 30 feet from Alicia/Emily/Adam, I overhear quite a bit. It sounds like next week I'll be starting to write press releases for the new lines, which is exciting! I'm really enjoying this internship so far, and the days really fly by while I'm there.
This week at Anna Ro, I learned how to hand-stitch a tie and a cravat. Apparently Australian men typically wear cravats instead of neckties to weddings. Cravats really aren't big in the states, and I don't think I've honestly ever seen someone wearing one (even when I used to work at The Men's Wearhouse). It was still interesting, and Anna let me keep my work for keepsake! My tie looks like a four year old made it, but alas, I'm learning! Hand stitching a tie is much more difficult than it looks.
Like last week, I wasn't able to do very much this week after work. I tried to find an American hamburger on Tuesday, but it just wasn't happening. I didn't realize that beets came standard on hamburgers. And instead of using American cheese (obviously they don't have that here), they use something called tasty cheese. While it's rather good cheese, it doesn't taste the same as American cheese and thus, hamburgers (cheeseburgers) don't taste the same. Oh well. I'll be home in four weeks and can eat all the hamburgers I want then (the first visit of the road trip is in n' out)!
Friday night was the first SRC organized event, which was Australian movie night! We showed Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. There was a game of trivia between the two movies and we ordered pizza. I'd say roughly 50 people turned out, but nobody felt like staying for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, so we never ended up showing it. I was actually quite thrilled about this because it hadn't occurred to me how much of a pain in the butt getting home from North Sydney at 10pm was going to be. Buses supposedly stop running around 11:30pm, and since the timetables really mean nothing, the bus stops running when it wants to stop running.
Tomorrow we head to Olympic Park and the Blue Mountains. Not really sure what to expect, so it should be an interesting day.
The firm recently moved, which led to the miscommunication. Anyway, the new showroom is located right near central station, which is convenient and within walking distance (40 minute walk, but sometimes that's faster than taking the bus). There are two people who run the company (Adam Worling himself, and a woman named Jenny), two girls who pull all the garments to send to magazines/work with stylists (Alicia and Emily), two people who work to ship/receive garments (Paul and Kris(tina)) and then a secretary (Carla). Then there's Gracie, who is Adam Worling's boxer puppy who is absolutely adorable. Currently, I've been working very closely with Paul and Kris in the shipping and receiving end of everything, but since the office is all an open floor plan and I work a mere 30 feet from Alicia/Emily/Adam, I overhear quite a bit. It sounds like next week I'll be starting to write press releases for the new lines, which is exciting! I'm really enjoying this internship so far, and the days really fly by while I'm there.
This week at Anna Ro, I learned how to hand-stitch a tie and a cravat. Apparently Australian men typically wear cravats instead of neckties to weddings. Cravats really aren't big in the states, and I don't think I've honestly ever seen someone wearing one (even when I used to work at The Men's Wearhouse). It was still interesting, and Anna let me keep my work for keepsake! My tie looks like a four year old made it, but alas, I'm learning! Hand stitching a tie is much more difficult than it looks.
Like last week, I wasn't able to do very much this week after work. I tried to find an American hamburger on Tuesday, but it just wasn't happening. I didn't realize that beets came standard on hamburgers. And instead of using American cheese (obviously they don't have that here), they use something called tasty cheese. While it's rather good cheese, it doesn't taste the same as American cheese and thus, hamburgers (cheeseburgers) don't taste the same. Oh well. I'll be home in four weeks and can eat all the hamburgers I want then (the first visit of the road trip is in n' out)!
Friday night was the first SRC organized event, which was Australian movie night! We showed Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. There was a game of trivia between the two movies and we ordered pizza. I'd say roughly 50 people turned out, but nobody felt like staying for Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, so we never ended up showing it. I was actually quite thrilled about this because it hadn't occurred to me how much of a pain in the butt getting home from North Sydney at 10pm was going to be. Buses supposedly stop running around 11:30pm, and since the timetables really mean nothing, the bus stops running when it wants to stop running.
Tomorrow we head to Olympic Park and the Blue Mountains. Not really sure what to expect, so it should be an interesting day.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Wait, I have to walk 10 minutes to find a map of a city that takes 5 minutes to walk through!?
So yet again, we tried to take the ferry to Kissing Point. Here was our day as planned:
Leave the apartment at 9, eat pancakes at Circular Quay, board a ferry at 10:45 for Kissing Point, explore Kissing Point a bit, head back to Circular Quay, and then head over to Darling Harbour for fireworks and the Vivid Sydney Light Tour.
We left the apartment at planned, but when we got to Circular Quay, the restaurant where we had seen pancakes on the menu was no longer making pancakes (never again, seriously, cross it off the menu). This should have been a red flag for the day that was about to come, but we decided to push on, hoping for better luck at Kissing Point.
We got to the wharf where we were to board the ferry. There was a ferry already docked at the left, but no information on the ferry, and it didn't look like anyone was working the ferry. Another ferry pulled up to the right, and there was information about where it was going and what time, so we decided to board that ferry (probably should have double checked that it was going to Kissing Point).
Nope, this ferry headed straight to Parramatta. Parramatta is about a 90 minute ferry ride away from Sydney. It's so far out of our travel pass that it's nearly $7 to get back. We talked to one of the men on the ferry and he said that if we started running early, the could make a special stop for us at Kissing Point. Alright, this day wasn't a complete bust.
Until we arrived at Parramatta.
There had to have been close to 350 people waiting to get on a ferry that held no where near 350 people. The kind man who once offered to drop us off at Kissing Point now promptly asked us to get off the ferry and join the queue…meaning that we weren't catching that ferry back, and we probably weren't catching a ferry for the next hour (at least, as the ferries only come once an hour).
We all became pretty negative Nancy at this point. There was a sign that said "Map of Parramatta" and pointed. We thought the map would be nearby, so we started looking for it. NOPE! The map of Parramatta was a 10 minute walk. 10 minutes to find a map. We saw many signs pointing to a map, and drawings on the ground of Parramatta's history, and we concluded we would have preferred less signs, more maps, and less drawings, more maps.
Regardless, we finally arrived at the map, and it was also a visitor's center. I decided to kindly as a lady what there was to see in Parramatta since we were stuck there for an hour. She tried to give me every way back to the city instead of telling me what to see. Should she, as a worker at the visitor's center, be trying to encourage us to stay in her city and spend money, instead of giving us every way possible back to Sydney?? We finally ended up at this park, and boy was that park a disappointment. Everything was dead, so we tried to go to the Rose Gardens. Again, it's winter, it's all dead! Everything was dead! Eventually, we caught a train back to the city (after paying our $7). 5 hours later and we still hadn't seen Kissing Point.
Later that evening, we decided to head to Darling Harbour to watch fireworks. Firework shows in Australia are incredibly short (5 minutes) since they happen quite frequently. Darling Harbour did look spectacular though, so I was glad we were able to see them. After the fireworks, we started on this Vivid Sydney Lighted walk tour, a tour that represents Sydney's past, present, and future. There were 25 stops along this tour, some more interesting than others. Overall, it was a good night, at least compared to the treachery of the day.
Just another day lost in Sydney…today I get to find my other internship site. Oh joy!
Leave the apartment at 9, eat pancakes at Circular Quay, board a ferry at 10:45 for Kissing Point, explore Kissing Point a bit, head back to Circular Quay, and then head over to Darling Harbour for fireworks and the Vivid Sydney Light Tour.
We left the apartment at planned, but when we got to Circular Quay, the restaurant where we had seen pancakes on the menu was no longer making pancakes (never again, seriously, cross it off the menu). This should have been a red flag for the day that was about to come, but we decided to push on, hoping for better luck at Kissing Point.
We got to the wharf where we were to board the ferry. There was a ferry already docked at the left, but no information on the ferry, and it didn't look like anyone was working the ferry. Another ferry pulled up to the right, and there was information about where it was going and what time, so we decided to board that ferry (probably should have double checked that it was going to Kissing Point).
Nope, this ferry headed straight to Parramatta. Parramatta is about a 90 minute ferry ride away from Sydney. It's so far out of our travel pass that it's nearly $7 to get back. We talked to one of the men on the ferry and he said that if we started running early, the could make a special stop for us at Kissing Point. Alright, this day wasn't a complete bust.
Until we arrived at Parramatta.
There had to have been close to 350 people waiting to get on a ferry that held no where near 350 people. The kind man who once offered to drop us off at Kissing Point now promptly asked us to get off the ferry and join the queue…meaning that we weren't catching that ferry back, and we probably weren't catching a ferry for the next hour (at least, as the ferries only come once an hour).
We all became pretty negative Nancy at this point. There was a sign that said "Map of Parramatta" and pointed. We thought the map would be nearby, so we started looking for it. NOPE! The map of Parramatta was a 10 minute walk. 10 minutes to find a map. We saw many signs pointing to a map, and drawings on the ground of Parramatta's history, and we concluded we would have preferred less signs, more maps, and less drawings, more maps.
Regardless, we finally arrived at the map, and it was also a visitor's center. I decided to kindly as a lady what there was to see in Parramatta since we were stuck there for an hour. She tried to give me every way back to the city instead of telling me what to see. Should she, as a worker at the visitor's center, be trying to encourage us to stay in her city and spend money, instead of giving us every way possible back to Sydney?? We finally ended up at this park, and boy was that park a disappointment. Everything was dead, so we tried to go to the Rose Gardens. Again, it's winter, it's all dead! Everything was dead! Eventually, we caught a train back to the city (after paying our $7). 5 hours later and we still hadn't seen Kissing Point.
Later that evening, we decided to head to Darling Harbour to watch fireworks. Firework shows in Australia are incredibly short (5 minutes) since they happen quite frequently. Darling Harbour did look spectacular though, so I was glad we were able to see them. After the fireworks, we started on this Vivid Sydney Lighted walk tour, a tour that represents Sydney's past, present, and future. There were 25 stops along this tour, some more interesting than others. Overall, it was a good night, at least compared to the treachery of the day.
Just another day lost in Sydney…today I get to find my other internship site. Oh joy!
Bondi Beach and Darling Harbour
And I thought yesterday's 7 hours of walking was bad.
The nine of us (one guy, eight girls) who decided not to go surfing decided to head over to Bondi Beach on this gorgeously sunny day! We met at 10 in the lobby, boarded a bus, a train, and another bus and found ourselves facing the Pacific Ocean 90 minutes later. The group seemed to be divided between sitting on the beach and getting a tan, and going on a few infamous walks along the coast. I joined the group doing the latter, and despite our best intentions, we never did see that other group again.
The walk was from Bondi to Bronte. I wanted to go all the way to Coogee (Say each letter: cooooo-geeeeee, not cog eee), but we decided to stop after the two hour walk instead of continuing onto the five hour walk. The walk was spectacular! The views were gorgeous, the company was grand, and the weather was beautiful. I don't think we could have asked for a better day to do this walk. Be sure to check Picasa for photos!
After our walk, we boarded a bus back to Bondi Junction (a gigantic shopping mall/train station) to grab some lunch. I managed to find the only Mexican food in Australia (you could hardly call it Mexican, though), while the rest of the clan grabbed McDonalds. After lunch, we decided to board another bus back to Bondi Beach to try to meet up with the group.
Amber (a member of a CAPA group consisting of two people whom we've adopted our group) decided she wanted to buy a surf board so that she could go surfing at Bondi (she's down here until August, so she'll spend a lot more time out here than we will). The first shop she stopped in happened to have a surf board that was in rough shape (it wasn't pretty, but would do the job) for US$68!!! New surf boards were going for (reasonably priced, that is) US$600 so she got a really great deal on it, especially given the fact that she's planning to throw it away/donate it when she leaves.
After walking around Bondi for another hour or so (total walking time thus far: 5 hours), we decided to head over to Darling Harbor to check out the free Jazz and Blues festival this weekend since Darling Harbor turned 21!! Yazi and I were both very wiped out at this point since we had been walking all day yesterday, and our walk around Bondi to Bronte was no easy walk this morning. I felt like a zombie. The harbor was beautiful, though, and we took some good pictures. The Jazz and Blues festival was pretty good, there's more going on tomorrow so we plan to actually watch some shows then.
After Darling Harbor (total walking time so far: 8 hours), a few wanted to go see the Opera House all lit up, and check out this Vivid Sydney Light Tour that's going on right now. The light tour celebrates Sydney's past, present, and future. Some of the light spectacles are incredibly lame and not worth the effort to walk, while others are breathtaking! We plan to do the full thing tomorrow (I think that's another 1-2 hour walk, and we were all falling off the train at this point). Anyway, so we boarded another train to head back over to Circular Quay to see the Opera House.
I never knew this, but apparently there are light shows on the Opera House as night. Tonight's show must have been "specimen" because some of the lights looked like cells under a microscope. It was…interesting…and sort of ugly. Sorry, Opera House. We'll try again tomorrow.
Total walking time today (and more intense walking than yesterday): 10 hours!!
The nine of us (one guy, eight girls) who decided not to go surfing decided to head over to Bondi Beach on this gorgeously sunny day! We met at 10 in the lobby, boarded a bus, a train, and another bus and found ourselves facing the Pacific Ocean 90 minutes later. The group seemed to be divided between sitting on the beach and getting a tan, and going on a few infamous walks along the coast. I joined the group doing the latter, and despite our best intentions, we never did see that other group again.
The walk was from Bondi to Bronte. I wanted to go all the way to Coogee (Say each letter: cooooo-geeeeee, not cog eee), but we decided to stop after the two hour walk instead of continuing onto the five hour walk. The walk was spectacular! The views were gorgeous, the company was grand, and the weather was beautiful. I don't think we could have asked for a better day to do this walk. Be sure to check Picasa for photos!
After our walk, we boarded a bus back to Bondi Junction (a gigantic shopping mall/train station) to grab some lunch. I managed to find the only Mexican food in Australia (you could hardly call it Mexican, though), while the rest of the clan grabbed McDonalds. After lunch, we decided to board another bus back to Bondi Beach to try to meet up with the group.
Amber (a member of a CAPA group consisting of two people whom we've adopted our group) decided she wanted to buy a surf board so that she could go surfing at Bondi (she's down here until August, so she'll spend a lot more time out here than we will). The first shop she stopped in happened to have a surf board that was in rough shape (it wasn't pretty, but would do the job) for US$68!!! New surf boards were going for (reasonably priced, that is) US$600 so she got a really great deal on it, especially given the fact that she's planning to throw it away/donate it when she leaves.
After walking around Bondi for another hour or so (total walking time thus far: 5 hours), we decided to head over to Darling Harbor to check out the free Jazz and Blues festival this weekend since Darling Harbor turned 21!! Yazi and I were both very wiped out at this point since we had been walking all day yesterday, and our walk around Bondi to Bronte was no easy walk this morning. I felt like a zombie. The harbor was beautiful, though, and we took some good pictures. The Jazz and Blues festival was pretty good, there's more going on tomorrow so we plan to actually watch some shows then.
After Darling Harbor (total walking time so far: 8 hours), a few wanted to go see the Opera House all lit up, and check out this Vivid Sydney Light Tour that's going on right now. The light tour celebrates Sydney's past, present, and future. Some of the light spectacles are incredibly lame and not worth the effort to walk, while others are breathtaking! We plan to do the full thing tomorrow (I think that's another 1-2 hour walk, and we were all falling off the train at this point). Anyway, so we boarded another train to head back over to Circular Quay to see the Opera House.
I never knew this, but apparently there are light shows on the Opera House as night. Tonight's show must have been "specimen" because some of the lights looked like cells under a microscope. It was…interesting…and sort of ugly. Sorry, Opera House. We'll try again tomorrow.
Total walking time today (and more intense walking than yesterday): 10 hours!!
Circular Quay and more of the CBD
This weekend, two of my roommates are gone to a surf camp. This leaves me and Yazi on our own, and luckily, this means that we both get our own bedrooms! Friday was the first day that I had seen sun in almost a week! Seeing that, I decided to invite Yazi on a ferry ride to a point on a map that I thought may be interesting to explore (not with Yazi, of course, but to explore with the man back home that is on our mind (Jon, for her, and a secret someone for me!)): Kissing Point.
Unfortunately, Yazi had to run to CAPA and work to fill out some paper work, so I tagged along to take care of some SRC stuff, and then we were going to head out when we were both finished. Unfortunately, on the way to CAPA, the clouds rolled back in and overcast it became. Shucks. We both decided that Kissing Point would be better to do in the sun, so we postponed the plans until a later date.
The day didn't turn out to be terribly interesting. We walked around Circular Quay (pronounced Key) a bit and took in the sites, and then explored more of the CBD. Circular Quay is where all the ferries depart from and resides between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. There were sites, there were little souvenir shops, and many restaurants. As soon as we got off the train, a gelato place caught our eye and we promptly returned for a $5.00, single scoop gelato. Mmmmm, it was delicious, and we will be returning! There was a restaurant right in Circular Quay that has a breakfast on Sunday mornings consisting of (primarily) pancakes. Sunday, Yazi and I intend to get pancakes in the Quay, board a ferry, and arrive (an hour later) as Kissing Point. We joked about sticking around to watch the sunset at Kissing Point, but that may be pushing it a bit too far!
All in all, a very uneventful day. While walking through the CBD, I bought myself a new trench coat for a whole US$20! I'm so sick of wearing the same coat every day, and it doesn't appear that I'll be able to ditch my jacket any time soon. Alas. Total walking time: 7 hours.
Unfortunately, Yazi had to run to CAPA and work to fill out some paper work, so I tagged along to take care of some SRC stuff, and then we were going to head out when we were both finished. Unfortunately, on the way to CAPA, the clouds rolled back in and overcast it became. Shucks. We both decided that Kissing Point would be better to do in the sun, so we postponed the plans until a later date.
The day didn't turn out to be terribly interesting. We walked around Circular Quay (pronounced Key) a bit and took in the sites, and then explored more of the CBD. Circular Quay is where all the ferries depart from and resides between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. There were sites, there were little souvenir shops, and many restaurants. As soon as we got off the train, a gelato place caught our eye and we promptly returned for a $5.00, single scoop gelato. Mmmmm, it was delicious, and we will be returning! There was a restaurant right in Circular Quay that has a breakfast on Sunday mornings consisting of (primarily) pancakes. Sunday, Yazi and I intend to get pancakes in the Quay, board a ferry, and arrive (an hour later) as Kissing Point. We joked about sticking around to watch the sunset at Kissing Point, but that may be pushing it a bit too far!
All in all, a very uneventful day. While walking through the CBD, I bought myself a new trench coat for a whole US$20! I'm so sick of wearing the same coat every day, and it doesn't appear that I'll be able to ditch my jacket any time soon. Alas. Total walking time: 7 hours.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
And then one day, Anna drove.
I've gotten the sentiment on more than one occasion that Australian drivers are on the border of nuts. The bus drivers fly through the city (and are ruthless, if you're not at that stop, they're not stopping - and you do actually have to WAVE the bus down to get him to stop, even if there are 50 people waiting). Now, I really don't understand Anna Ro. Not in the slightest bit. I was certain she was says dots for at least 15 minutes before she pointed to a dart on a pant. Yesterday, she was saying something to me (that may as well have been in Korean), and then handed me my coat. I put it on and proceeded to follow her, not having a clue where we were going.
And this was when things got interesting. Picture this: A tiny Korean woman (she's shorter than I am) driving a Kia Mini Van, and flying through Australia, screaming at other drivers in Korean, Italian, and English. Two things I learned: stop signs and speed limits are only suggestions. Pedestrians don't have the right of way in Australia, so no one seems to see the point in actually stopping at a stop sign. There are also speed bumps to get people to slow down, the suggested speed limit is 25kph (the speed bumps are also pedestrian right-of-way "zebras", as they call cross walks). Anna Ro decided that 60kph was an appropriate speed for these bumps! Oh dear god!
I still don't understand the point of the trip, but she showed me a few beautiful placed in Annandale, and drove through Little Italy. I do intend to take a bus out there at some point and walk around…without the angry Korean in a mini van.
That internship is going a bit rough at the moment. I'm happy it's not my internship site every day after this week. She frequently gets into yelling fits with customers and really doesn't listen to anyone (I wonder if this is a language barrier, or just her stubbornness). Tailors are a cut of their own, and she's no different.
Needless to say, I look forward to this weekend, taking a break, and starting at Adam Worling on Tuesday (we have Monday off for the Queen's birthday). I have a lot of fun things planned for this weekend as most of the group is heading to a surf camp!
And this was when things got interesting. Picture this: A tiny Korean woman (she's shorter than I am) driving a Kia Mini Van, and flying through Australia, screaming at other drivers in Korean, Italian, and English. Two things I learned: stop signs and speed limits are only suggestions. Pedestrians don't have the right of way in Australia, so no one seems to see the point in actually stopping at a stop sign. There are also speed bumps to get people to slow down, the suggested speed limit is 25kph (the speed bumps are also pedestrian right-of-way "zebras", as they call cross walks). Anna Ro decided that 60kph was an appropriate speed for these bumps! Oh dear god!
I still don't understand the point of the trip, but she showed me a few beautiful placed in Annandale, and drove through Little Italy. I do intend to take a bus out there at some point and walk around…without the angry Korean in a mini van.
That internship is going a bit rough at the moment. I'm happy it's not my internship site every day after this week. She frequently gets into yelling fits with customers and really doesn't listen to anyone (I wonder if this is a language barrier, or just her stubbornness). Tailors are a cut of their own, and she's no different.
Needless to say, I look forward to this weekend, taking a break, and starting at Adam Worling on Tuesday (we have Monday off for the Queen's birthday). I have a lot of fun things planned for this weekend as most of the group is heading to a surf camp!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Anna Ro, day one
Today was the first day of my internship at Anna Ro. Fall semester 2008, we happened to do a pretty intense study of tailoring in studio with Carlos Chavez, a local tailor who makes custom suits (running about $4,000 a piece). Anna Ro is the Australian Korean Carlos Chavez. First day of work and she's already got me pad stitching (a very time intensive stitch that makes hand made suits look impeccable). She was very impressed with my skills and has me now working on fixing a suit with some serious problems (the lining and shell of the wool shrank up when it was steamed, but the horse hair remained the same size, so there is some intense pulling. The lining was also stitched too tightly, so I have to pull most of it out and loosen it, after fixing the front/front facing). It's pretty intense and I really didn't think I would be tailoring at all, but it is great to be learning under her.
The shop is located in a neighborhood with a lot of Italians who immigrated from Italy. Most of the people coming into her shop speak to her in Italian (she speaks Korean, Japanese, Italian, English, and French), and I finally found a use for my Italian skills! This one very interesting character came in and said that the entire Italian community comes to her for tailoring because she's the only tailor who speaks Italian. A high-profile man with the FBI also came in and Anna instructed me to measure him under her direction. That was uncomfortable, but I survived.
There's a guitar shop a few stores down, and the owner is apparently teaching Anna how to play guitar. He comes into the shop every day at three and forces her to play. His name is Phil and he is a very nice man. He was joking today that I came to Australia to work with Koreans and listen to them play American music. Australia is great! There's another girl who works in the shop as well named Sylvia (Korean) who semi-has a job offer with Calvin Klein back in Korea. They'll give her the job if she learns how to speak English and she was given a year. She moves back to Korea in two months to take her job.
I think I'm going to enjoy my time at Anna Ro, but at the same time, I'm happy that I'm only there one day a week. It's an interesting shop dynamic and I think I'll enjoy Adam Worling PR a bit more. We'll see though. Pad Stitching is quite fun!!
On another note, I was elected to Student Representative Council! I will be working with representatives from other CAPA groups (our group is 18, but there are roughly 85 total CAPA students here this summer) to plan events around Sydney. Congratulations to me!
The shop is located in a neighborhood with a lot of Italians who immigrated from Italy. Most of the people coming into her shop speak to her in Italian (she speaks Korean, Japanese, Italian, English, and French), and I finally found a use for my Italian skills! This one very interesting character came in and said that the entire Italian community comes to her for tailoring because she's the only tailor who speaks Italian. A high-profile man with the FBI also came in and Anna instructed me to measure him under her direction. That was uncomfortable, but I survived.
There's a guitar shop a few stores down, and the owner is apparently teaching Anna how to play guitar. He comes into the shop every day at three and forces her to play. His name is Phil and he is a very nice man. He was joking today that I came to Australia to work with Koreans and listen to them play American music. Australia is great! There's another girl who works in the shop as well named Sylvia (Korean) who semi-has a job offer with Calvin Klein back in Korea. They'll give her the job if she learns how to speak English and she was given a year. She moves back to Korea in two months to take her job.
I think I'm going to enjoy my time at Anna Ro, but at the same time, I'm happy that I'm only there one day a week. It's an interesting shop dynamic and I think I'll enjoy Adam Worling PR a bit more. We'll see though. Pad Stitching is quite fun!!
On another note, I was elected to Student Representative Council! I will be working with representatives from other CAPA groups (our group is 18, but there are roughly 85 total CAPA students here this summer) to plan events around Sydney. Congratulations to me!
"Don't ever go to Redfern," they said on the plane...
So, I generally have a pretty great sense of direction, not going to lie. Today, maybe it was the vertigo, but my sense of direction was completely off. I don't know what it is, but ever since landing in Sydney I feel like I've been unable to read a map properly. I miss my google maps on my blackberry, that's for sure! Anyway, here's how today unfolded.
Unannounced to me, school is closed on Sunday. I found this out while standing outside school, the school that's an hour away from my apartment. I was able to pick up internet outside of the building so I managed to call home for a bit, send some pre-typed e-mails, but was unable to really do anything else. After my battery died a short hour later, I had recalled our CAPA leader Zara stating that there was a pretty spectacular view of the bridge and the opera house just down the hill from school. So I took off, down a hill (not even knowing if it was the right hill), following the two signs there were for McMahon's Point (assuming this was what she was talking about).
Her statement of Sydney hills rivaling San Francisco hills seemed to have escaped my mine at this point.
Holy cow are my legs sore! I walked down a hill for a good 35-40 minutes. I kept doubting that I was going the right direction, but I didn't have anything else to do so I figured why not. Eventually I made it, and yes it was worth it, but man that was a long walk! The views were spectacular and there wasn't anyone else in the area so I was able to sit and enjoy the view for awhile. But then came the task of getting back up the hill…
There was a ferry stop right around the corner from the point. I went and waited for a ferry for a good thirty minutes. After seeing that still none were coming, I left, and decided to walk back up the darn hill that took me forty minutes to walk down. Mind you, I still have my laptop on me at this point, so I'm carrying an extra 10 pounds. After an hour I was back at the top, exhausted, and back on a train over the harbor. My next quest was to find my internship site.
I wanted to follow the path I would be taking on a usual basis, so I backtracked nearly all the way to my apartment (even though I saw a bus I would eventually be taking while in downtown). I found my first bus stop and bus perfectly fine. Now, the first bus I take is to a train station, but there are three different train stations in this area. I should note here that train stations are not well marked in Sydney. Usually you have to walk through a mall to get to them, and I was actually very confused at this point as to how many train stations were in this area. But, the bus I needed to take supposedly ended its route at the station I needed to get off at. Sounds easy enough, right?
Nope.
The first train station is Central - the biggest train station in Sydney. It has four bus stops to access it. At the fourth bus stop, everyone got off the bus. I, stupidly, assumed this was the last stop so rushed off the bus as well ONLY TO SEE HIM CONTINUE ON HIS ROUTE! First mistake. Not knowing quite where he was heading, and my map not notifying me what stations were in the area, I started to make assumptions (second mistake). I knew I needed to get to Railway Station, and I was at Central Station. I walked into Central thinking I could just easily hop a train to Railway Station. Remember that note about Central being the biggest train station in Sydney? Yeah, there are over 30 platforms. Try easily catching a train ANYWHERE! From Central, I had two options for next stops: Town Hall and Redfern. I knew Town Hall wasn't right, so I assumed (third mistake) that Railway Stations was Redfern and headed over to Redfern.
Apparently, Redfern = the ghetto of Sydney. And yes, I still had my laptop on me. Thinking I may still vaguely be in the right area, I walked 20 feet to the left, 50 feet to the right, and promptly ran back into the station. Being in the ghetto of Sydney, however, the train platforms were not well marked and it ended up taking me twenty five minutes to get back to a station that was 30 seconds away! Ugh, after getting back to Central and finding my way out of that maze, I pulled out my maps and started walking again. Eventually (20 minutes later) I found my stop…where I needed to be over an hour ago…and it was fifty feet from where I had gotten off the bus in the first place (please, Sydney, label your streets better).
For the second leg of my trip, there are 5-6 different buses I can take. Two of the buses that I could take pulled up at the same time so I hoped on the second one. After 20 minutes of riding that bus, a red flag really, really, REALLY should have gone off when the first bus turned off the road my internship is on and my bus didn't (fourth mistake - if I could take either of these buses, my internship really should have been before the first bus turned off). But, I kept going. (There were a few indicators for other peoples internships that I was looking for; my only indicator is a street name, and Sydney does not label the streets at every street corner.) I kept going for another forty minutes. And then my bus turned, and I wasn't at my internship, and I knew I was in the wrong place.
This was the point where I sent my roommates a text stating that I was incredibly lost. They were unable to locate me on a map, and I knew that was trouble (ahaha, oh god that was trouble). I crossed the street and checked the timetables and thank god the same bus I was on was coming back in 12 minutes (supposedly, the numbers are really just suggestions). I boarded the bus, however, to find out that I had gone so far out of the zones that my travel pass covers that it would cost me an additional $5 to get back to the city!! AHAHAH! $5 for a flippin' bus ride all because I was lost! Hah! Of course I had to pay it, and I asked the bus driver to let me off at Johnston Street (I still needed to find my internship). The sad thing was that as soon as he let me off at Johnston Street, I turned around and the shop was right there - I easily could have taken his bus back to the city. But nope, he pulled away right as I was about to get back on and there I was, waiting for another 20 minutes.
I eventually got home, and stayed in the rest of the night (enough being lost for one day). What will take me 40 minutes on a usual basis took me nearly four hours today. And this is why we find places in advance...
Unannounced to me, school is closed on Sunday. I found this out while standing outside school, the school that's an hour away from my apartment. I was able to pick up internet outside of the building so I managed to call home for a bit, send some pre-typed e-mails, but was unable to really do anything else. After my battery died a short hour later, I had recalled our CAPA leader Zara stating that there was a pretty spectacular view of the bridge and the opera house just down the hill from school. So I took off, down a hill (not even knowing if it was the right hill), following the two signs there were for McMahon's Point (assuming this was what she was talking about).
Her statement of Sydney hills rivaling San Francisco hills seemed to have escaped my mine at this point.
Holy cow are my legs sore! I walked down a hill for a good 35-40 minutes. I kept doubting that I was going the right direction, but I didn't have anything else to do so I figured why not. Eventually I made it, and yes it was worth it, but man that was a long walk! The views were spectacular and there wasn't anyone else in the area so I was able to sit and enjoy the view for awhile. But then came the task of getting back up the hill…
There was a ferry stop right around the corner from the point. I went and waited for a ferry for a good thirty minutes. After seeing that still none were coming, I left, and decided to walk back up the darn hill that took me forty minutes to walk down. Mind you, I still have my laptop on me at this point, so I'm carrying an extra 10 pounds. After an hour I was back at the top, exhausted, and back on a train over the harbor. My next quest was to find my internship site.
I wanted to follow the path I would be taking on a usual basis, so I backtracked nearly all the way to my apartment (even though I saw a bus I would eventually be taking while in downtown). I found my first bus stop and bus perfectly fine. Now, the first bus I take is to a train station, but there are three different train stations in this area. I should note here that train stations are not well marked in Sydney. Usually you have to walk through a mall to get to them, and I was actually very confused at this point as to how many train stations were in this area. But, the bus I needed to take supposedly ended its route at the station I needed to get off at. Sounds easy enough, right?
Nope.
The first train station is Central - the biggest train station in Sydney. It has four bus stops to access it. At the fourth bus stop, everyone got off the bus. I, stupidly, assumed this was the last stop so rushed off the bus as well ONLY TO SEE HIM CONTINUE ON HIS ROUTE! First mistake. Not knowing quite where he was heading, and my map not notifying me what stations were in the area, I started to make assumptions (second mistake). I knew I needed to get to Railway Station, and I was at Central Station. I walked into Central thinking I could just easily hop a train to Railway Station. Remember that note about Central being the biggest train station in Sydney? Yeah, there are over 30 platforms. Try easily catching a train ANYWHERE! From Central, I had two options for next stops: Town Hall and Redfern. I knew Town Hall wasn't right, so I assumed (third mistake) that Railway Stations was Redfern and headed over to Redfern.
Apparently, Redfern = the ghetto of Sydney. And yes, I still had my laptop on me. Thinking I may still vaguely be in the right area, I walked 20 feet to the left, 50 feet to the right, and promptly ran back into the station. Being in the ghetto of Sydney, however, the train platforms were not well marked and it ended up taking me twenty five minutes to get back to a station that was 30 seconds away! Ugh, after getting back to Central and finding my way out of that maze, I pulled out my maps and started walking again. Eventually (20 minutes later) I found my stop…where I needed to be over an hour ago…and it was fifty feet from where I had gotten off the bus in the first place (please, Sydney, label your streets better).
For the second leg of my trip, there are 5-6 different buses I can take. Two of the buses that I could take pulled up at the same time so I hoped on the second one. After 20 minutes of riding that bus, a red flag really, really, REALLY should have gone off when the first bus turned off the road my internship is on and my bus didn't (fourth mistake - if I could take either of these buses, my internship really should have been before the first bus turned off). But, I kept going. (There were a few indicators for other peoples internships that I was looking for; my only indicator is a street name, and Sydney does not label the streets at every street corner.) I kept going for another forty minutes. And then my bus turned, and I wasn't at my internship, and I knew I was in the wrong place.
This was the point where I sent my roommates a text stating that I was incredibly lost. They were unable to locate me on a map, and I knew that was trouble (ahaha, oh god that was trouble). I crossed the street and checked the timetables and thank god the same bus I was on was coming back in 12 minutes (supposedly, the numbers are really just suggestions). I boarded the bus, however, to find out that I had gone so far out of the zones that my travel pass covers that it would cost me an additional $5 to get back to the city!! AHAHAH! $5 for a flippin' bus ride all because I was lost! Hah! Of course I had to pay it, and I asked the bus driver to let me off at Johnston Street (I still needed to find my internship). The sad thing was that as soon as he let me off at Johnston Street, I turned around and the shop was right there - I easily could have taken his bus back to the city. But nope, he pulled away right as I was about to get back on and there I was, waiting for another 20 minutes.
I eventually got home, and stayed in the rest of the night (enough being lost for one day). What will take me 40 minutes on a usual basis took me nearly four hours today. And this is why we find places in advance...
Sydneysiders and their dogs
The dogs around here are amazing. They don't look like US dogs, that's for sure. Yes, there are four paws, there's fur and wet noses, but they just aren't built like American dogs. I believe they're a bit stockier, and the breeds are almost unrecognizable. Also, the dogs are AMAZINGLY well trained. I don't think there are necessarily leash laws around Australia because 75% of the dogs I've seen haven't had leashes on. These dogs are, quite literally, a matter of feet from busy downtown streets, and stay within 3-4 feet of their owners. There doesn't seem to be any real effort made by the owners either to keep their dogs near. Even passing perfect strangers, they don't bark, don't sniff, don't make any effort to acknowledge their existence. It's quite amazing.
Paddington Markets (Oxford Street) and the CBD
Saturday I decided to ditch the rest of the group and travel solo. I was finally given a map of the bus system, so I decided I could do well enough on my own. Besides, getting lost every now and then is good for you.
I started the day off by heading into Town Hall to catch a bus down Oxford Street. Now, Oxford Street heads all the way out to Bondi Beach and I know I didn't want to go that far (A - I plan to do Bondi on another day, and B- I had no clue where these "markets" were on Oxford, so I decided to ride the bus until things no longer looked interesting, get off, and walk all the way back through the interestingness). I rode down Oxford for 30-35 minutes, and when I got off I was ready for Breakfast #2 (my meals in Australia consist of breakfast at 7, breakfast 2 at 9, and lunch at 2, no dinner). I stopped by a juice bar and picked up a ridiculously expensive "medium" (small) smoothie (this was not the last expensive drink I encountered this day - I almost paid $10 for an Earl Grey, no thanks). I then started my trek back to town, stopping in almost ever shop along the way. Every Saturday morning, Paddington (a district in Sydney) has a market that allows designers who are just starting out to sell their goods. Of course, it was ridiculously expensive. There was a very cute (very, very cute) artistic print that I wanted (4x6, 8x10 with the mat), but it was $130. Adorable, but I could have done it in Illustrator in 5 minutes for free. Disappointing, but inspiring too. I bought two scarves and no more. I've noticed that I'm wearing my black trench and a scarf everywhere, so all photos of me consist of these two things. I need more scarves, and I plan to find another (cheap) trench coat to switch up my photos a bit. I found some good shops though that I intend to return to at another point.
By the time I returned to the city, I was already kind of tired. I'm certain that this was at least a three mile walk so far, if not closer to four when you include all of the walking around in the shops. However, the stop I needed to go to in order to get back to the apartment was right next to Hyde Park. The trees in Hyde Park are absolutely beautiful. They are breathtaking and quite fantastic. I spent a great deal of time taking photos of them (not all of them were uploaded - I thought I would spare you the 40 pictures of the exact same kind of tree). I didn't realize it, but I was actually walking on quite the path through the park and ended up at a fountain, a memorial to King George IV and King George V, St. Mary's church. Behind these two things turned out to be the Hyde Park Barrack's Museum, which had a student entrance rate of $5. There was a special going on about the convicts and their journey to Australia, so I decided to go in. It was an interesting, but small museum. Not much to write about it. There are some photos posted on Picasa if you're interested. I'm happy I went; I found out that there were five Hanson's registered as convicts who came to Australia!
After the museum, I knew it was time for food. Seeing nothing around me that looked good, I started to head towards things that looked interesting until I found something to eat. Oh boy was that a mistake! I somehow ended up in the most expensive part of Sydney. This is where all of the high-end designer's shops were (Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, Burberry, etc.). This was interesting because in Minneapolis we don't have any of those shops, but at the same time, food was much more expensive in this part of town than other parts (and food is already quite expensive in Sydney)! This is where I managed to encounter a $10 cuppa tea. Yikes. Luckily I caught that one before ordering. I was also able to find a "designer chocolates" shop where chocolate bars were roughly $63, and a box of chocolates was $160 (in US: $39 and $128, roughly). Just like my mother says that I have an amazing ability to pick out the most expensive item in the store, I also have an amazing ability to find the most expensive parts of Sydney. :D
I eventually found Sydney Central, a congregation of 140 restaurants serving international cuisine. I had a Tropical Crepe, which consisted of ham, pineapple, and cheese inside of a crepe. It was pretty good - I prefer sweet, breakfast-y crepes though. After this, I tooled around a few more malls for a couple hours and eventually headed home.
I started the day off by heading into Town Hall to catch a bus down Oxford Street. Now, Oxford Street heads all the way out to Bondi Beach and I know I didn't want to go that far (A - I plan to do Bondi on another day, and B- I had no clue where these "markets" were on Oxford, so I decided to ride the bus until things no longer looked interesting, get off, and walk all the way back through the interestingness). I rode down Oxford for 30-35 minutes, and when I got off I was ready for Breakfast #2 (my meals in Australia consist of breakfast at 7, breakfast 2 at 9, and lunch at 2, no dinner). I stopped by a juice bar and picked up a ridiculously expensive "medium" (small) smoothie (this was not the last expensive drink I encountered this day - I almost paid $10 for an Earl Grey, no thanks). I then started my trek back to town, stopping in almost ever shop along the way. Every Saturday morning, Paddington (a district in Sydney) has a market that allows designers who are just starting out to sell their goods. Of course, it was ridiculously expensive. There was a very cute (very, very cute) artistic print that I wanted (4x6, 8x10 with the mat), but it was $130. Adorable, but I could have done it in Illustrator in 5 minutes for free. Disappointing, but inspiring too. I bought two scarves and no more. I've noticed that I'm wearing my black trench and a scarf everywhere, so all photos of me consist of these two things. I need more scarves, and I plan to find another (cheap) trench coat to switch up my photos a bit. I found some good shops though that I intend to return to at another point.
By the time I returned to the city, I was already kind of tired. I'm certain that this was at least a three mile walk so far, if not closer to four when you include all of the walking around in the shops. However, the stop I needed to go to in order to get back to the apartment was right next to Hyde Park. The trees in Hyde Park are absolutely beautiful. They are breathtaking and quite fantastic. I spent a great deal of time taking photos of them (not all of them were uploaded - I thought I would spare you the 40 pictures of the exact same kind of tree). I didn't realize it, but I was actually walking on quite the path through the park and ended up at a fountain, a memorial to King George IV and King George V, St. Mary's church. Behind these two things turned out to be the Hyde Park Barrack's Museum, which had a student entrance rate of $5. There was a special going on about the convicts and their journey to Australia, so I decided to go in. It was an interesting, but small museum. Not much to write about it. There are some photos posted on Picasa if you're interested. I'm happy I went; I found out that there were five Hanson's registered as convicts who came to Australia!
After the museum, I knew it was time for food. Seeing nothing around me that looked good, I started to head towards things that looked interesting until I found something to eat. Oh boy was that a mistake! I somehow ended up in the most expensive part of Sydney. This is where all of the high-end designer's shops were (Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo, Burberry, etc.). This was interesting because in Minneapolis we don't have any of those shops, but at the same time, food was much more expensive in this part of town than other parts (and food is already quite expensive in Sydney)! This is where I managed to encounter a $10 cuppa tea. Yikes. Luckily I caught that one before ordering. I was also able to find a "designer chocolates" shop where chocolate bars were roughly $63, and a box of chocolates was $160 (in US: $39 and $128, roughly). Just like my mother says that I have an amazing ability to pick out the most expensive item in the store, I also have an amazing ability to find the most expensive parts of Sydney. :D
I eventually found Sydney Central, a congregation of 140 restaurants serving international cuisine. I had a Tropical Crepe, which consisted of ham, pineapple, and cheese inside of a crepe. It was pretty good - I prefer sweet, breakfast-y crepes though. After this, I tooled around a few more malls for a couple hours and eventually headed home.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Opals, opals, opals!
OH MY GOD, WHAT A DAY!!
Story time: Five years ago, during the summer of 2004, I traveled to Australia with People to People. We stopped by an Opal shop (a quite nice one, with very nice jewelry and quite reasonable prices), and I planned to buy a gift for a few relatives back home. This was the one day during the trip that Visa decided to have a problem with my debit card being used internationally so I was unable to buy the gifts that I was now relatively attached to. When I started booking this trip, I had absolutely no recollection of the name of this shop, the location, absolutely nothing. I remember what the showroom looked like, vaguely, but didn't even know where in Sydney we were at the time.
Now, since being in Australia, small things have started to come back to me. I'll be standing on street corners and realizing that something looks vaguely familiar. Well, yesterday we were taken from Surry Hills (home) to North Sydney across the harbor, and then we were set free to find our way back home. Of course we're not all just going to go straight home, so a group of travel mates and I decided to go on the quest for cell phones. We tried a few stores and had given up and decided to just head towards the Opera House to see some sites. Upon coming out of one of the train stations, we saw a cell phone company shop that we had been looking for. Surprisingly enough, we finally found what we were looking for and five of us bought the same phone and the same plan. I was the first to be activated, so I went and sat outside with two other girls while the rest were finishing up. Now, while sitting there, facing the building, I started to look at the other shops that were facing the street. I was looking at this shop, and something finally ticked that it looked familiar. IT WAS THE OPAL SHOP I WENT TO FIVE YEARS AGO! I decided to go upstairs and started talking to the people at the store and, wow, that was just amazing. The owner of the store, James Costello came out and gave me an "ambassador of the year" koala pin because I had returned to his store five years later! They are still having People to People groups travel through, and they're still giving their presentations about Opal mining. All of these things came back to me as soon as I walked into the store!
The owner was also nice enough to give me his card and is going to set us up with his daughter (who is our age) to show us the city. Oh the things that people will do for you…all because I sat on a bench!! And yes, my visa worked this time…unfortunately for my credit card bill!
We walked so much yesterday. To fill you in, the people I am traveling around the city with on this day were Alexi (NY - Roommate), Yazi (NY - Roommate), April (IL - Roommate), Brian (NY), Alexandra (NY), and Laura (NY). We took the bus/train to North Sydney, walked around North Sydney after an orientation at school (Billy Blue), then took the train back over the harbor bridge, walked all around Circular Quay, saw the Opera House, saw the Harbor Bridge, and then found our way back to Surry Hills. This doesn't sound like much walking, but it is…my feet would like to tell you all about it.
Today was all about opals. I am so, so happy that I was able to find that shop. :) Good day in Sydney today!
Story time: Five years ago, during the summer of 2004, I traveled to Australia with People to People. We stopped by an Opal shop (a quite nice one, with very nice jewelry and quite reasonable prices), and I planned to buy a gift for a few relatives back home. This was the one day during the trip that Visa decided to have a problem with my debit card being used internationally so I was unable to buy the gifts that I was now relatively attached to. When I started booking this trip, I had absolutely no recollection of the name of this shop, the location, absolutely nothing. I remember what the showroom looked like, vaguely, but didn't even know where in Sydney we were at the time.
Now, since being in Australia, small things have started to come back to me. I'll be standing on street corners and realizing that something looks vaguely familiar. Well, yesterday we were taken from Surry Hills (home) to North Sydney across the harbor, and then we were set free to find our way back home. Of course we're not all just going to go straight home, so a group of travel mates and I decided to go on the quest for cell phones. We tried a few stores and had given up and decided to just head towards the Opera House to see some sites. Upon coming out of one of the train stations, we saw a cell phone company shop that we had been looking for. Surprisingly enough, we finally found what we were looking for and five of us bought the same phone and the same plan. I was the first to be activated, so I went and sat outside with two other girls while the rest were finishing up. Now, while sitting there, facing the building, I started to look at the other shops that were facing the street. I was looking at this shop, and something finally ticked that it looked familiar. IT WAS THE OPAL SHOP I WENT TO FIVE YEARS AGO! I decided to go upstairs and started talking to the people at the store and, wow, that was just amazing. The owner of the store, James Costello came out and gave me an "ambassador of the year" koala pin because I had returned to his store five years later! They are still having People to People groups travel through, and they're still giving their presentations about Opal mining. All of these things came back to me as soon as I walked into the store!
The owner was also nice enough to give me his card and is going to set us up with his daughter (who is our age) to show us the city. Oh the things that people will do for you…all because I sat on a bench!! And yes, my visa worked this time…unfortunately for my credit card bill!
We walked so much yesterday. To fill you in, the people I am traveling around the city with on this day were Alexi (NY - Roommate), Yazi (NY - Roommate), April (IL - Roommate), Brian (NY), Alexandra (NY), and Laura (NY). We took the bus/train to North Sydney, walked around North Sydney after an orientation at school (Billy Blue), then took the train back over the harbor bridge, walked all around Circular Quay, saw the Opera House, saw the Harbor Bridge, and then found our way back to Surry Hills. This doesn't sound like much walking, but it is…my feet would like to tell you all about it.
Today was all about opals. I am so, so happy that I was able to find that shop. :) Good day in Sydney today!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Flying, flying, flying some more!
As suspected, that was an incredibly long flight.
The trip started off quite uneventful. MSP to DEN, one of the smoothest/quickest flights I've been on. Not that the air time was all that short, but the pilot got us out of the gate and in the air quite quickly! It was rather refreshing. When we landed in DEN, I should have known that the incredibly long taxi was just the tip of an interesting iceberg that was going to soon unfold itself.
I met a friend in DEN. I know him from Minneapolis and he happens to work at DIA. I won't get into too many details, but in summary, we toured at least four different elevators, checked out a few stairwells (I understand what this sounds like, but here's what really happened), had a fiasco with a moving sidewalk, and iphone image searched the "possessed" horse at the entrance to DIA…you know, as opposed to actually going and looking at it ourselves. Needless to say, a better layover than I otherwise would have had!
Getting on the plane from DEN to LAX…oh god, I should have just turned around then. First off, I saw the ugliest baby I've ever seen. Straight out of Wicked and your favorite goblin movie, this kid would one day need serious help. He had the hiccups shortly after, and who can't just love a kid with the hiccups!? BUT THEN his dad let him start jumping on his tray table…the table that was connected to MY chair! Ugly baby, may hope be with you!! The plane continued with not getting out of the gate on time because the safety video wouldn't play (and all of us having to listen to the exact same line over and over), needed to be rerouted because of thunderstorms, which caused us to taxi all the way across DEN (which, as my friend had just told me, is an INCREDIBLY large airport), and then there was extremely violent turbulence. I was happy to land in LAX!
LAX to SYD was nothing special. It was a long, long, long flight. I had the seat next to me open, but a man along the window. He was Persian, and one of the first things he said to me was "If you want to put your feet on me to sleep, you're more than welcome to." Um. Thanks bud, but no thanks. My word of advice though is that if you're ever flying to Australia, fly QANTAS. United just is no where near the par that QANTAS is. I'm almost disappointed for my flight home, but whatever.
So far we've had a walking tour of the neighborhood that our apartment complex is in. Surry Hills (a joining district) has tons of restaurants and little boutiques. We headed over to Trinity Bar in Surry Hills last night. I had a delicious BLT on Turkish Bread (they really do love their Turkish Bread over here). After that we decided to head to the grocery store for some food for the apartment. Hilarity did not ensure.
First off, boy am I happy I drink soy milk! A gallon of milk is $5 and a 16oz box of fruit loops is $5.50! OUCH! Soy milk is the same price that it is at home, which is at least familiar to me and I'm used to paying that much. Bananas are about $4.00/kg, as opposed to $.80/lb back home, so bananas are going to be scarce for the next seven weeks. Food just seems to be quite expensive here, and our $45 a week stipend doesn't go far.
One of the coolest things so far about Sydney is the buses!! In Minneapolis, only one person can get on the bus at the time. If there's a long line, it takes quite a bit for the bus to get going. HOWEVER, in Sydney, bus riders can form two separate, side by side lines to board the bus and two people can pay at the same time! It makes the time the bus is stopped much shorter, and (Mike, you'll be so happy about this) PEOPLE ACTUALLY GET OFF AT THE REAR EXIT INSTEAD OF WALKING TO THE FRONT!! It's so much more fluid and flows much more nicely than Minneapolis buses.
The trip started off quite uneventful. MSP to DEN, one of the smoothest/quickest flights I've been on. Not that the air time was all that short, but the pilot got us out of the gate and in the air quite quickly! It was rather refreshing. When we landed in DEN, I should have known that the incredibly long taxi was just the tip of an interesting iceberg that was going to soon unfold itself.
I met a friend in DEN. I know him from Minneapolis and he happens to work at DIA. I won't get into too many details, but in summary, we toured at least four different elevators, checked out a few stairwells (I understand what this sounds like, but here's what really happened), had a fiasco with a moving sidewalk, and iphone image searched the "possessed" horse at the entrance to DIA…you know, as opposed to actually going and looking at it ourselves. Needless to say, a better layover than I otherwise would have had!
Getting on the plane from DEN to LAX…oh god, I should have just turned around then. First off, I saw the ugliest baby I've ever seen. Straight out of Wicked and your favorite goblin movie, this kid would one day need serious help. He had the hiccups shortly after, and who can't just love a kid with the hiccups!? BUT THEN his dad let him start jumping on his tray table…the table that was connected to MY chair! Ugly baby, may hope be with you!! The plane continued with not getting out of the gate on time because the safety video wouldn't play (and all of us having to listen to the exact same line over and over), needed to be rerouted because of thunderstorms, which caused us to taxi all the way across DEN (which, as my friend had just told me, is an INCREDIBLY large airport), and then there was extremely violent turbulence. I was happy to land in LAX!
LAX to SYD was nothing special. It was a long, long, long flight. I had the seat next to me open, but a man along the window. He was Persian, and one of the first things he said to me was "If you want to put your feet on me to sleep, you're more than welcome to." Um. Thanks bud, but no thanks. My word of advice though is that if you're ever flying to Australia, fly QANTAS. United just is no where near the par that QANTAS is. I'm almost disappointed for my flight home, but whatever.
So far we've had a walking tour of the neighborhood that our apartment complex is in. Surry Hills (a joining district) has tons of restaurants and little boutiques. We headed over to Trinity Bar in Surry Hills last night. I had a delicious BLT on Turkish Bread (they really do love their Turkish Bread over here). After that we decided to head to the grocery store for some food for the apartment. Hilarity did not ensure.
First off, boy am I happy I drink soy milk! A gallon of milk is $5 and a 16oz box of fruit loops is $5.50! OUCH! Soy milk is the same price that it is at home, which is at least familiar to me and I'm used to paying that much. Bananas are about $4.00/kg, as opposed to $.80/lb back home, so bananas are going to be scarce for the next seven weeks. Food just seems to be quite expensive here, and our $45 a week stipend doesn't go far.
One of the coolest things so far about Sydney is the buses!! In Minneapolis, only one person can get on the bus at the time. If there's a long line, it takes quite a bit for the bus to get going. HOWEVER, in Sydney, bus riders can form two separate, side by side lines to board the bus and two people can pay at the same time! It makes the time the bus is stopped much shorter, and (Mike, you'll be so happy about this) PEOPLE ACTUALLY GET OFF AT THE REAR EXIT INSTEAD OF WALKING TO THE FRONT!! It's so much more fluid and flows much more nicely than Minneapolis buses.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Preparation...complete?
I leave my apartment in 15 hours. This trip will single handed-ly triple the maximum length of time I have be away from home at once. Nine weeks without my plants, without my bed, without my car, without my parents, without Rae Rae, without slow Minnesota drivers, without a same-old same-old daily routine. While that may sound absolutely terrible, I. Cannot. Wait. I am going to learn so much and experience so many new things. Sounds wonderful.
With that, my car has been tucked in, my plants' water has been changed, I have eaten through all perishable food (the current contents of my fridge, excluding condiments: Salsa, butter, Crisco), emptied the garbage, and have written three months worth of checks for bills (OUCH!). In t-minus 17 hours I will take off, and in t-minus 41 hours I will land in Sydney, Australia, for round two of a life down under.
*sigh* That's a darn long plane ride...
With that, my car has been tucked in, my plants' water has been changed, I have eaten through all perishable food (the current contents of my fridge, excluding condiments: Salsa, butter, Crisco), emptied the garbage, and have written three months worth of checks for bills (OUCH!). In t-minus 17 hours I will take off, and in t-minus 41 hours I will land in Sydney, Australia, for round two of a life down under.
*sigh* That's a darn long plane ride...
Friday, May 15, 2009
And Oh What an Adventure it will Be!
This summer I have been given the amazing opportunity to travel to Sydney, Australia to experience an international fashion internship. The program is through the Learning Abroad Center with the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, and operates very similarly to a study abroad experience, except I will be interning instead of going to class.
To remain in line with my interests, CAPA (the company that puts on the program) found two separate internships. The first, and then one I will be at primarily, is with Adam Worling PR . I'm unsure yet what exactly I will be doing, but the client list is rather impressive (Geoffrey Beane, Rock n' Republic jeans, Biore skin products, Bebe Sydney, etc.) and I'm very excited for it. The second internship that I will be partaking in is with Anna Ho World of Fashion (1 day a week). With Anna Ho I will be able to gain experience tailoring made-t0-measure suits, as well as business operations. There is no website for Anna Ho, so I'm a little more hesitant about this internship. Nonetheless, it will be an amazing experience!
Our housing is going to be absolutely phenomenal! There are two types of housing in Sydney - really cheap backpacker housing, or really nice temporary business housing. Australia students tend to rent apartments instead of move into dorms, so there are no dorms for us to stay in. I highly recommend following the link to a brochure!
Lastly, to get things started, I've created a Google Map with significant points highlighted that are of importance to me (for instance, housing, school, work, etc.), put it all in relation to the Opera House, and have slapped a place on the map that I'd like to see while I'm out there (there will be more to come)!
Now, the trip to Australia is from May 25 to July 11. I am flying back through LAX and, after realizing that I don't have a job when I came back, learned that one of my friends is going to be going on a road trip from LA to MN, leaving right around the time that I'm flying through LAX. Being jobless, there is no real point in returning to Minneapolis with such haste, so instead of continuing on to Minneapolis, I will be leaving the LA airport and going on a road trip with a friend of mine! I will be back in Minneapolis by July 25, but fully intend to finally see the Northwest!
The places we have planned to see are (in visiting order), starting from LA: the Honda Civic Musical Road, Bryce Canyon, Yosemite National Park, the California Redwoods, Yaquina Head (one of Oregon's beautiful light houses), Multnomah Falls, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and the South Dakota Badlands!
Oddly enough, and not planned to be as such, our path resembles the profile of a Scottish Terrier! Below is a rough outline of how we we will be going. Nearly 5,000 miles, baby! Ai caramba!
View Larger Map
Anyway, it will be an amazing summer full of adventures and exciting experiences. Please feel free to follow me on my adventures by checking back sporatically. I hope you all have a wonderful and safe summer and I will see you when I return!
To remain in line with my interests, CAPA (the company that puts on the program) found two separate internships. The first, and then one I will be at primarily, is with Adam Worling PR . I'm unsure yet what exactly I will be doing, but the client list is rather impressive (Geoffrey Beane, Rock n' Republic jeans, Biore skin products, Bebe Sydney, etc.) and I'm very excited for it. The second internship that I will be partaking in is with Anna Ho World of Fashion (1 day a week). With Anna Ho I will be able to gain experience tailoring made-t0-measure suits, as well as business operations. There is no website for Anna Ho, so I'm a little more hesitant about this internship. Nonetheless, it will be an amazing experience!
Our housing is going to be absolutely phenomenal! There are two types of housing in Sydney - really cheap backpacker housing, or really nice temporary business housing. Australia students tend to rent apartments instead of move into dorms, so there are no dorms for us to stay in. I highly recommend following the link to a brochure!
Lastly, to get things started, I've created a Google Map with significant points highlighted that are of importance to me (for instance, housing, school, work, etc.), put it all in relation to the Opera House, and have slapped a place on the map that I'd like to see while I'm out there (there will be more to come)!
Now, the trip to Australia is from May 25 to July 11. I am flying back through LAX and, after realizing that I don't have a job when I came back, learned that one of my friends is going to be going on a road trip from LA to MN, leaving right around the time that I'm flying through LAX. Being jobless, there is no real point in returning to Minneapolis with such haste, so instead of continuing on to Minneapolis, I will be leaving the LA airport and going on a road trip with a friend of mine! I will be back in Minneapolis by July 25, but fully intend to finally see the Northwest!
The places we have planned to see are (in visiting order), starting from LA: the Honda Civic Musical Road, Bryce Canyon, Yosemite National Park, the California Redwoods, Yaquina Head (one of Oregon's beautiful light houses), Multnomah Falls, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone National Park, and the South Dakota Badlands!
Oddly enough, and not planned to be as such, our path resembles the profile of a Scottish Terrier! Below is a rough outline of how we we will be going. Nearly 5,000 miles, baby! Ai caramba!
View Larger Map
Anyway, it will be an amazing summer full of adventures and exciting experiences. Please feel free to follow me on my adventures by checking back sporatically. I hope you all have a wonderful and safe summer and I will see you when I return!
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