Still alive! Plus, more reasons I love Sydney.

Whoops. Somehow a day turned into a week, and the weeks turned into a month. It has been non-stop busy, and as is obviously evident, blogging was one of the first things to fall off the priority list. Cooking, sadly, has been replaced by more time-efficient methods of satisfying my food needs - namely, good ol' KD mac-and-cheese, cheap takeout kebabs and Turkish pide. However, my recent discovery of the George Foreman steamer in our kitchen has brought steamed vegetables back on the menu, if you can call that cooking. I love steamed veggies. You think I'm kidding! No joke!

In my attempt to roll a month's worth of updates into one post, I will summarize as follows:

- I got to spend some quality time with Mona before she returned to Germany. Sad to have to say goodbye to one of the first few friends I made when I initially arrived in Sydney.

- Then Alice and Michael visited from Vancouver. We took a trip to Melbourne where we stuffed ourselves silly with delicious food, got arrested at the Old Melbourne Jail, and went on a "safari" with Paul and Terrie where we spotted a mother and joey kangaroo hopping around the golf course. Back in Sydney, we climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge with Pauline and went to the opera at - you guessed it - the Opera House. I didn't think I'd like opera, but Rigoletto was really good!

- I completed a SCUBA diving class and now I'm certified as an open water diver! The past couple weekends have been filled with early mornings, tests of my (very poor) swimming ability, and bike commutes to and from Sydney University where my classmates and I were transported to dive sites. I have so much to say about diving and how awesome it is, but to summarize, it is like visiting another planet! I highly recommend taking up diving!

- Work is piquing my interest again. I'm learning a lot about traffic control theory - that is, the configuring of traffic lights to optimize car traffic flow. Car traffic is not like internet traffic! Also, this is amazingly complex stuff!

- Although not official, there is intent to have my work contract renewed, and by extension, have me moved onto a more proper work visa. This means I'll be in Sydney for another while! Don't ask me how long I will be here - I don't know :)

- I'm taking a month off starting December 3rd and returning sometime at the beginning of January. The plan is to hit up a couple out-of-the-way places in Australia - Darwin in the north, and Perth in the west. I'm looking forward also to doing some travelling in Southeast Asia where I'll be meeting up with various friends along the way. Exact countries to be determined, but Singapore and Vietnam are on the list so far.

I hope to be able to post again before I go on vacation! With that intent in mind, I'm not going to preemptively wish you a merry christmas and happy new year...

I leave you with 4 pics of Sydney's closest equivalent to Vancouver's Stanley Park Seawall, and one of oh, about a zillion reasons why I love this place.

What? I have a blog?

Oh, right that thing! Thanks to those of you who prodded me. :)

It's been a busy week... and the blog is one of several unfortunate victims of my neglect. The other might be my liver.

I think I mentioned I went on a trip to Canberra a couple weekends ago. More about that trip later though! What prompted the trip began a mysterious message in the sky. (See figures 1, 2, and 3 below :P )

It was a sunny day at the end of August, and my friend Zach and I were wandering the city when we noticed the skywriter... We were convinced that the skywriter was dyslexic and was trying to write "FLORIDA" but had made a mistake and then decided to tack an "E" to the end of it just to cover it up. I'd made a mental note to go home and google it but of course I forgot. Is it strange that I still wait to google things at home, even though I have internet access on my phone? Sometimes I think internet-enabled phones take the mystery and adventure out of life...

Anyway I digress. Later, in two separate conversations with different colleagues, I learned about a tulip festival in Canberra. ("Oh, a tulip festival? Are they your favourite flower?" *glazed-eye-look*) It was my second colleague who told me that the tulip festival that she went to was called Floriade, and then began to convince me how interesting this festival was. And so, that is the story of why I went to Canberra.

And now for the submarine...

This weekend I'm off to Australia's capital city, Canberra. My visit will coincide with Floriade, a flower festival that runs throughout September. Canberra's just a three-hour bus ride away so it makes an ideal weekend getaway from the big city. I am told the city is unremarkable and dull, but I'm sure there is beauty and fun to be found... Guess I will find out for myself soon enough!

Now for some pics of the HMAS Onslow. This is the (disappointingly black and not yellow) submarine that sits in Sydney's Darling Harbour as a museum piece. Of the four vessels in the harbour that you can tour, I found the submarine the most fascinating of them all. A vessel of stealth and mystery!

The first pic is of the torpedo room at the bow of the submarine. There are 6 torpedo tubes and the one on the top left is loaded with torpedo power!

The second picture is of the periscope - something a submarine would be incomplete without. I was surprised to peer through the scope to see the top of Sydney Tower in clear view.

Third is the keyboard on one of the computers aboard the ship. I just thought it cool that it has a key with a picture of a crosshair on it. What would the instruction manual say about it? Press to aim torpedos? One can only imagine.

Figure 4. :P
Touring the inside of a submarine, let alone being a crew member, is not for the claustrophobic or overly giant! The length of the port and starboard sides of the submarine are lined with sleeping bunks. These cramped quarters are designed to hold 60 crew members who take shifts sleeping. I suspect that, compared to you and I, these sailors have a very different sense of what is a comfortable amount of personal space.

A little piece of Maritime history

Okay, I'm back! Life outside of work has been keeping me pretty occupied the past couple of weeks. Hoping to get back on track now!

I'm still finding opportunities to do touristy things, so it's not for a lack of material - the backlog of pictures I want to blog about continues to grow!

Time to share some pics and stories from a day of educational tourism. This tall ship, called the James Craig, sits in Sydney's Darling Harbour. She has a rather masculine name for a ship (why are ships always female anyway?) and was built in the late 1800's as a cargo ship. She recently underwent a meticulous restoration/makeover before being made available to the public for tours. Now if there is any vessel that might I envy, it would be the James Craig. It's not the makeover but it's that in her 25 years of duty, she has seen so much more of the world than I have... She would set sail from Britain and stop in Brazil, round the tip of Cape Horn, and sail up to Oregon before going back to Britain the same way. She has circumnavigated the southern seas, stopping in South America, Australia, and New Zealand, and has crossed vast expanses of ocean without seeing a day in port for months at a time.

The volunteer guide aboard the ship painted a really good picture of life aboard the ship as a crew member. Hearing about how the crew spent months at sea, having to ration water to something like 5 liters a day for drinking and washing, and eating rock-solid sea biscuits makes my 14-hour trans-Pacific flight with crappy airplane food seem insignificant really.

Spring is here!

It's official - Spring has arrived in Sydney. The cold wind has been replaced by a warm breeze, and the nights have warmed up considerably, meaning I can finally put away the baselayers!

Not that it is too cold to hit the beach in the winter... Here are some snaps at Bondi Beach a month ago, in the depths of winter.

Sunday shopping in Surry Hills

Well, here's the annoying thing about saying goodbye to a whole bunch of travelholic friends at once. They go off on their adventures, and soon, their tales and photos of exciting new places begin to give you a bad case of travel itch, and you can't scratch because you are desk-bound.

For the time being, I have need to concentrate my gaze on the glowing monitor and type gobbledygook. But I shall get my chance soon enough!

Pics below are of a weekend market in a hip little neighbourhood of Sydney called Surry Hills. If you're familiar with the neighbourhoods of Vancouver, this area might best be described as Gastown mixed with a little Main Street. And no, it does not carry the same notoriety as the city of Surrey.

It was a "vintage" market. I almost bought myself a Christmas sweater. :P

Saying goodbye

This past weekend was altogether celebratory but in an ambivalent sort of way. My housemate Andrea celebrated her birthday, my friend Keith wrapped up his year in Sydney, Doug and Zach returned from an epic roadtrip across Australia, while Mona, Angela, Jasmin, and Carina each embarked on their own Australian adventures. And so, it was a weekend of goodbyes to good friends old and new.

The one good thing about saying goodbye to travel-holic friends is that you can be pretty sure you'll get to cross paths again, somewhere in the world. Reunions then become things to look forward to. Or at least this is what I tell myself to make saying goodbye a lot less difficult. :)

The Opera House by day

If watching shows at the Opera House makes one cultured, I have never been more cultured in my life. In the 3 months that I've been here, various friends have convinced me to watch 4 different shows: a dramatic play, a contemporary dance performance, a kids' version of Macbeth, and soon to be added to the list, a comic opera about pirates. Well, I can probably only assert that I have cultured friends unless culturedness is transitive through friendship.

1st. aforementioned cultured friends in front of building oozing with culture.
2nd. the sails of the Opera House up close.
3rd. view of Circular Quay from the steps of the Opera House.

Like bees to honey

I don't know if this kid thought he'd found a good hiding spot. He seemed to be timidly watching one of the "live statues" from afar. When I turned around, a mob of children had appeared out of thin air, surrounding the statue we had been taking pictures with, just minutes ago. Lollipops. That oughta do it.

Speaking of candy, I had a bag of Jolly Ranchers smuggled to me from Canada (thanks Mom! And Nhung and Mai!) I brought some to work today to share my rich North American culture with colleagues, and have serendipitously discovered that my boss really likes Jolly Ranchers. I mean REALLY. I shall have to source more for special circumstances, like... bribing my boss. So, if you're coming to visit, please bring Jolly Ranchers!

Being touristy

There are the touristy things I couldn't be bothered with - like riding giant ferris wheels and watching street artists create sci-fi artwork with spray paint and a plastic lid. But there is a category of touristy that, even though I've seen time and again, never seems to get old. Like watching street performers and taking pictures with "live statues". When Nhung and Mai came to visit Sydney, I brought them to my most favourite touristy place in the city - Circular Quay.

With cheesy photo-ops abound, it did not take long before my paparazzi-like tendencies came unleashed. Luckily for me, Nhung and Mai seemed happy to oblige. :)

1st. Duct-tape sage reveals to the girls that they are deeply in love... with themselves. :P
2nd. Space-age Lady Liberty trio?
3rd. Camel rides. Good pose, Nhung. Not compromising at all. :)

Palm Cove

On my last day in Cairns, my friends and I decided to head up to Palm Cove, a little beach town just a short drive from the city. A relaxing day at the beach with good company - what a wonderful way to round out the end of semi-retirement.

At the risk of sounding like a sand snob, I have to say that the sand at this beach was perfect. Not the superfine stuff that is impossible to brush off, but with just enough texture to still feel soft and unabrasive. If you looked at the individual grains of sand - and I did - you'd see that they were like snowflakes - no two the same colour or shape. I don't think I have ever made so many conscious observations about sand before. It was just that nice!

More Cairns

This weekend I realized there was one thing I was really missing in my room - a radio. In the age of streaming radio and podcasts and bittorrent, I still prefer my music over a good old FM receiver. In many ways, I'm a very reluctant adopter of new technology. Or maybe it's not so much that I don't want the latest new-fangled gadgets but rather I always find something more important to spend my money on. Like plane tickets, for one. Anyway, I went shopping with the intent to buy a radio and came back with this digitally-tunable alarm clock radio with an ipod dock and remote control! (All for only $20 more than what I'd have had to pay for just a radio.) Yes, this grandma has finally gotten with the times.

More pics of Cairns to follow.

1st: my travel buddies and I, decked out in Canada tattoos.
2nd: tree with a huge mess of vines on it. Or is it part of the tree? I can't tell.
3rd: these trees look like they are tiptoeing above the ground. It amazes me how such a large tree supports itself with all those thin little trunks.
4th: UPS has a special box for didgeridoos! Only in Australia...