Darling Harbour

So I've had my phone number for just over a week now, and already I've gotten calls from 4 recruiters, 2 telemarketers, and 1 mystery person attempting to call me collect. Wow, I'm so popular. ;)

Anyway, the interview went okay, I think. The recruiter who hooked me up with this interview had given me a list of topics he thought they'd ask in the interview which was to be a combination of behavioural, technical, and lateral thinking questions. He was spot on with the interview structure and the exact lateral thinking question they asked me: "How many hairdressers are there in Australia?" That was fun to think about.

After the interview, I got a chance to explore Sydney, sans rain. It's been a while since I've seen blue in the sky. So I wandered over to Darling Harbour and snapped a few pics. The U-shaped harbour is surrounded by a boardwalk lined with fancy restaurants and hip little lounges and big chain hotels. It's got a touristy vibe to it, but it's nice. Lots of dinner-cruise type boats and catamarans were docked in the harbour. I even spotted a solar-powered catamaran (see second pic).

Phone mishap

Spent yesterday dodging raindrops, buying a new umbrella, and running from meeting to meeting with recruiters. Somewhere between buying the umbrella and meeting recruiters, I decided to get my phone from my purse to check the time when it slipped out of my butterfingers and, to my horror, landed straight into a puddle of water. Well, that's what I've been people I've just met, anyway.

The truth is that it fell into a toilet bowl. One that had already been flushed, fortunately. It spent a couple seconds in the porcelain pot before I was able to fish it out, and I then spent the next 10 minutes frantically drying it and shaking the water out of it. Little trooper of a phone kept going too, but I turned it off to hopefully prevent any further damage. Being a bit of an inopportune time to fry my phone, what with the job search and all, I decided to buy a replacement as soon as my meetings were done. A Sony Ericsson that bears a striking resemblance to the old phone.

I'm only telling you all this because you haven't just met me and are about to shake my hand. And no, I did not purposefully drop my phone in a toilet to give myself an excuse to get a new one :P

This morning I turned on my old phone, and to my amazement, it worked! Mostly, anyway. There is some funkiness with the colours and the display, but it worked well enough for me to copy my contacts onto my Australian SIM card.

Here they are side-by-side - the new one's on the right.

Darcy

An uneventful day on the picture front, so I'll introduce Darcy, the hostel cat. He's a neighbour's cat but spends a lot of time at our hostel because our building manager feeds him. Here's Darcy looking for a handout as I make dinner.

On the job hunt side of things, things were a bit more interesting today. Received one polite rejection letter, and one call back from the recruiter I met with last week, to interview with the company on Friday. Wish me luck!

Kangaroo for dinner

You may have heard that Australia is the only country that eats the animals on its coat of arms. At the supermarket today, I spotted this ready-to-roast kangaroo meat. Couldn't bring myself to try it though - I opted for chicken instead.

Picture-perfect Piha, Part II

Just wanted to share another pic of the beaches of Piha in New Zealand.

Artsy-fartsy Sydney

Yesterday, my roommates (or housemates, as they prefer to use here) and I went to check out a performance at the Sydney Opera House. We were in a rush to catch the 2pm show, so I didn't get a single photo of the place despite it being a nice sunny picture-perfect day. It's the first time I've seen the Opera House in real life, and the building did not disappoint. It's larger and more grand than I imagined.

The drama performance was amazing in all respects - the acting compelling, the dialogue engaging, and the story very real and familiar. For those under 30, the show was just $30! Yay for still counting as a "young person".

I had some time afterwards to wander around the CBD some more, and my ears perked up when I heard music from down the corridor that I could distinctly recognize as Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours". Like a bear to honey, I was drawn towards the music and led to a trio playing cover songs. What sets them apart from other cover bands and buskers is their violinist. Both the violinist and vocalist do a great job adding their own twist to this classic. So, no picture in this post, but here's a video of Set Sail covering Oasis' "Wonderwall".

Other songs they covered: Britney Spears' "Toxic" and "Hey Ya" by Outkast. If ya like them, check them out on Facebook. And if you like violin cover music, check out Vitamin String Quartet :)