melbourne…food alleyways graffitis and other cool shiznits. i wanna go again!!
and it’s better than sydney…whaaaaaaat?
sydney: downtown redux//
because we couldn’t get enough the first time around…
party-metro’d it to the st. martin’s place to begin our cultural and historic journey through sydney. we had meant to hit up the state library, then work our way through the botanical gardens, to the opera house, then to the mca, then to the chinese tea garden—but as you know, things never go to according to plan. not that that was an issue.
ADD compelled us to mosey through the national reserve instead of following our fated path, because it looked so slick from the outside and hey! tours were free and we love free shit. we got to learn about australian money…fascinating!!!! not really, but it was neat nonetheless. learned that the australian banknote is made from polymer which is why it never seems to rip in half or get dirty. anddd when they reach the end of their shelf life, they can be recycled into all sorts of random things! us should adopt something similar—not only is it more aesthetically pleasing, but i’ve had too many $20 bills just rip in half on me! no bueno senorita.
we finally hit the parliament and the state library, both worth a stroll through for their old-style pretty-ness. then meandered through the botanical gardens, which was highlight number one of the day—soo pretty, soo serene. lots of people sitting around, lots of people going on a jog, in general, lotsa people being kind unproductive…i mean guys, i know it’s friday, but it’s still business hours! don’t ya’ll have jobs or something?!?!
after a romantic walk along the ocean, we ended up (again) at the opera house. we were hoping that we could get a tour because we were told they were free but……actually it was $30. as my friend would say, “fuck that noise,” i’m poor yo. we looked into seeing a show but alas, most of them are sold out. the nerd in me wanted to see the final fantasy orchestra. maybe it’s a good thing the shows were sold out (face-palm).
and then for highlight number two of the dayyy…(drum rollll) annie leibovitz exhibit at the museum of contemporary art!!! $10 well spent oohing and aahing at the aesthetically pleasing photographs (to say the least) of the uber talented lady. so yeah…we didn’t make it to the chinese tea garden. no biggie though, gotta say i would’ve preferred spending more time at the mca than there!!
had plans to go out, but those kind of fell apart upon realizing the place we wanted to go out was…well…not the kind of place we wanted to be at. so what do we do instead?!?! go on a romantic drive through sydney and see all the local lovers’ lanes and drunk peoples and so on and so forth. night time drives = the best; i have to say some of the bestest times i’ve spent with my friends were either sitting in my car or driving around aimlessly through the city. mmm…makes me miss drives down sunset blvd in la, laughing at them drunk hos stumbling around :)
sydney: bondi beach and brazilian bbq bonanza//
alliteration galore!!!!!
thursday was a lazy day: we slowly got up, slowly made our way to brunch. i forwent the brunch at dee bee’s (apparently lots of celebs go there) for a delicious falafal at the local little market, then bought my momma some truffle olive oil for momma’s day next month. it was a beautiful day and i was just content with everything in ma vie.
in the late afternoon we were driven over to bondi, which only made me even more content with life. there’s nothing like chillin’ on the beach on a nice sunny day. unfortunately it quickly got a little chilly and breezy (it is autumn over here, after all), but it didn’t quite ruin my mood at all. beaches = my favorite places anyway…and despite it being a touristy place it wasn’t too crowded, sand was nice, so was the water. better than, say, santa cruz beach boardwalk. YUCK.
killed a few hours at the beach for what has to be one of the highlights of this trip: ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT BRAZILIAN BBQ. oh em gee it was full of awesome. now normally ayce brazilian bbq is gonna cost ya, like $40+, but we were able to snag a deal and get it for measly $19/person—bringing it down to ayce korean bbq status, but with better quality meat. we were probably pretty obnoxious customers in that we were stupid young’uns who stayed in the restaurant for nearly 3 hours, didn’t buy anything outside of the bbq itself, and giggled like little middle school kids when trying to order our “banana balls”…but WHO DA FUCK CARES when you get to smash your face on unlimited qualities of corn, rump steak, sirloin, mint lamb, chorizo, chicken wings, etc etc etc!??!!? i’m tellin’ ya, we ate 15 diff types of meat + pineapple for dessert, along with 7 different types of sides. i ate more than my $19 worth. also, my waistline cries.
after our bbq bonanza, we walked along the promenade and stumbled upon a chocolatier. i ditched my usual fav of raspberry + dark chocolate truffle and went for something new (for me): rose truffle! it was quite tasty, quite rose-y—though i still think raspberry + dark choco will forever be my favorite. the others indulged in some supa rich dark chocolate and churros dipped in creamy chocolate dip…wins, all around. and yes, we all still did have the stomach for dessert :)
afterward it was home. this has to be the first thursday night i have not gone out—i am such a college student. but i was completely content with the day…and drinking on such a ridiculously full stomach probably would have been more painful than enjoyable.
sydney: paddys, chinatown, darling harbour//
wednesday rolled around and we had our day planned out: we’d snake our way through the paddy’s market, then get some dim sum (or yum cha, whichever you prefer) in chinatown, then catch an imax at the biggest imax screen in the wizzorld (even more special because one of my friends travellin’ with us has never seen an imax feature!!!).
paddy’s…ho-hum, not quite what i was expecting, but i personally enjoyed it myself. having not researched it myself, i figured it would be a big pleasant yuppie farmer’s markets of sorts where everyone would be selling their organic fruits and boutique olive oils. boy was i wrong. it’s comparable to a developed-nations’ central market of cambodia. as in it’s just merchants selling their cheap club clothes, tacky jewelry, cell phone accessories, souvenirs, etc etc. but you know, i kinda liked it—it was like a treasure hunt! bought myself a cozy cozy australian sweater for $9 and a silky wrap vest thinger for $5. attempted to practice my bargaining skillz, but as i was not hungover food poisoned and infection’d like in cambo (= cranky me that will demand whatever price i fucking want bro!!), i was not very successful. i mean, i’m not very successful with bargaining in the first place, so yeah.
chinatown was a lil walk from paddy’s and was chill; can’t really compare it to the other chinatowns i’ve been to. we went through the main drag and got accosted by 129387981723 little chinese ladies claiming they had the bestest dim sum…we settled for a place that had suspiciously too many white people, though the dim sum was not bad—just average. then again i am comparing it to san gabriel’s $2-you-call-it awesome delicious dim sum-ness; not sure you can beat that price-to-quality ratio unless you go to hong kong yourself. smashed my face on some pork buns and shu mais and chicken feet and fried taro pork buns for about $12/person. didn’t stop there though: wondered into a food court, found my fav viet dessert, and continued the food fiesta. ‘twas a delishhh melange of grass jelly and coconut milk and sweet beans and so on and so forth. stomach was very content and very full.
we continued to darling harbor which we were told is really not that cool. but i had a pretty zen moment just chillin’ on the planks while everyone else was moseyin’ about. people watching = the best. soon enough, though, it was time to watch some hubble telescope action in 3D MOTHAFUCKA! i was stoked because i love most things pertaining to space, and honestly, if i were good at math/physics…being an astronomer would be my DREAM JOB. if, though—if. the movie itself was just all right; to be honest, was falling asleep towards the end. you would think that space shizz would translate well into 3d, but i wasn’t that impressed. i was most impressed by the trailer of born to be free (about raising and releasing orphan elephants and orangutans back into the wild)…but that would be related to my love for orangutans and wanted to cuddle with one (as in, had to resist the urge to reach out into thin air to pet the 3d ape. hard to get that urge with a telescope floating in space).
ended the night at a bar down the street from the apartment we’re staying at in the golden sheaf hotel. it was…………….very la. by very la i mean everyone is dressed/looks the same and was entirely too pretentious and blew too much money for their barely-legal age. as in i only enjoyed my time there because i was drunk and in good company and my gin and tonics cost me only $5. other than that, not my scene, but everything is an experience in a new city, n’est-ce pas? it made me think that back in la i better get used to this scene…or work on finding a more chill one, which i’m sure is somewhere in la if i look hard enough. roller-derby girls perhaps? drag shows? goth industrial clubs? hm hm hm…
sydney: cronulla and touristy-ness//
one of our friends was a kind soul and drove us to sydney and let us stay in her house in the suburb of cronulla for a night. ‘twas a beautiful house and we nommed on some home-cooked food (you sure miss it when you pretty much only eat dining hall food everyday). went to bed, woke up and WHOA her house got this bee-yoo—ti-full view of the ocean. this kind of house is my dream house!! we enjoyed a pleasant meal on the patio, overlooking the ocean, for breakfast that day :] funny to think that before this, the only thing i knew about cronulla was race riots in 2005. but hard to believe that such a thing could happen in what seems like such a serene place!!!
drove into the centre-ville of sydney and of course we had to go to the opera house. it’s always so cool to finally see places that you always only imagined in tv shows and postcards…definitely checking another place off the bucket list. we pondered watching a show at the opera house, too. the nerd in me was really stoked on the possibility of watching the sydney symphony performing final fantasy music. i’manerdi’manerdi’manerdsorry.
afterwards we moseyed around downtown sydney. nothing but men and women in power suits power walkin’ their way through the city. i realized how odd it felt to be in a big city again; it was almost overwhelming. i guess it’s also because i’ve never been in such an environment—encroached upon by all this modernity and its hustle and bustle. europe was different—everything was old, you didn’t have all these immense skyscrapers towering over you. in la i’m sure i could find the same thing in downtown, but i have no reason to go through la during rush hour.
we stopped at a little cupcake shop tucked in between buildings in downtown. it was no sprinkles (cupcake-quality-wise) but it was a pleasant respite in the middle of the business of the downtown sydney.
