more sydney

After a nice long weekend touring the Rutherglen region of Victoria, I'm back in Sydney. Due to more delays in the project I'll be here next week as well. The nice thing about interstate as opposed to international travel is I can fly home for the weekend. And so I'll be doing that again. A good choice as it turns out it'll be raining in Sydney all weekend. Rain is good of course, but not quite to the same damaging extent as last weekend's storms I hope!

Luckily during the week days there has been fine weather. Warm during the day, but not quite warm enough in the morning to catch the ferry to work, still waiting to do that. By lunchtime however it's quite nice to head to Parramatta park to eat lunch. I was even able to donate blood yesterday at lunchtime. Parramatta has an impressive donation centre.

Last week I found some other Ericsson engineers to have a few dinners with; Stan and Dave. It's always nice to have company at dinner, to relax with and have a chat. I was able to give them a hard time about being old, and they got to give me a hard time about young. All in good fun. This week however I'm on my own again as they're back in Melbourne. Spanish tapas bars are a lone traveller's best friend - instead of looking like a loser sitting alone on a table, the traveller can look cool and sit at the bar. Other than looking cool, it's easy to befriend the barman and get some of that aforementioned dinner-time conversation.

Hence two of three nights I've had Spanish for dinner. Last night however, I headed out to Mark's house for dinner. As mentioned in an earlier post, Liz and Mark have just had twin girls. The twin's are now 15 weeks old and just starting to become self aware. For instance they're starting to listen to themselves when they make noises. This is a good thing as they don't scream as much : ) They're also starting to put their hands in their mouths and work out that it's part of their own body. Very cool stuff. They know who mum and dad are too. The twins would look at Mark or Liz if they were talking... and they'd cry if left with me!

Warning: if you don't like pink - do not have twin girls.

We watched the Rugby League state of origin match last night too. Alas, the Blue's couldn't quite pull a victory out for Mark though. It was Queensland's first victory at Homebush stadium. Tough times.

sydney by suburbs

Being a tourist in Sydney, you might get the impression that, historically, the whole town was once a slum. Over the weekend I visited The Rocks, which used to be the dodgy end of town. In the 1970's there was a push to demolish most of the area and build high rise apartments and offices. The local community and unions protested until the area was preserved. It's now rejuvenated - but basically only exists (as far as I can see) as a tourist trap. The historical pub's looked like they are over-priced places - but I didn't bother checking if that was true or not. There was plenty of boomerangs for sale and other souvenirs at the weekend market. For lunch I found a German themed pub, which served dark wheat beer; yum! To be honest though I suspect there isn't a real historical German presence in The Rocks.

In and around The Rocks are two of the world's most photographed structures. Of course this means that it's mandatory to take more photos of them: the Opera House, and the Harbour Bridge. They look damn good on a sunny day.

I'd never considered the contrast between these two landmarks. The Opera House is like nothing else, soaring, white and modern - whereas the bridge is dark grey and industrial.

When I wandered over to Circular Quay I found out that there is a ferry service to Parramatta. I'll catch that to work one day. It only takes 15 minutes longer. A nice sunny day is a pre-requisite however!

Back onto the topic of Sydney being all slums at some stage... On Sunday I went for brunch at Newtown, which has a reputation for good cafes these days. It didn't disappoint - I had some excellent poached eggs and smoked salmon. Newtown's history however, is one of a poor area. This means that low rents in the 80's and 90's attracted migrants and students, which gradually made the suburb a trendy place (and rent pricing rise).

Wandering around Newtown and neighbouring Stanmore it is possible to think that it'd be a good area to move to... until the inevitable happens... A 747 takes off over your head! They are noisy mongrels! Now I know what the inner west Sydney citizens complain about. This will probably stop the area being as popular as its Melbourne "equivalents" of Carlton or Fitzroy.

sydney take #2

I'm back on the road (or rather... in the sky). This past week I've been in Sydney again. This time the trip is a bit longer - at least until the end of next week. Unfortunately some of the equipment I need to use has been playing up, so the project is a bit behind. Hence Sydney might be graced with my presence even longer than expected!

Work this time around is out at Parramatta, but the hotel I'm staying in is in the CBD. So I've been catching the train out to work. The nice thing is there are plenty of express trains; strangely though the express trains don't seem to go as fast as express trains in Melbourne. (Nothing beats a 280km/h train trip in Japan though!)

Once back in Sydney, I couldn't resist heading back to Captain Torres for another batch of pan-fried flounder : ) This time I tried some Portuguese beers, which were very nice. For the home-brew enthusiasts the Portuguese beer even had the original gravity listed on the back label. (Gravity is the measure of the density of unfermented beer). My phone is fixed now, so I've uploaded photo's of various beers for the beer competition, such as the one below:

Wednesday night I had the worst Thai meal ever! I was wandering around the city looking for dinner, and found a place that looked good. What should have alerted me to the fact that it wasn't good at all, was the large bain-marie at the back of the restaurant. When I asked for the menu I was told there is none, you just pick your meal out from the bain-marie. Suspiciously all the meals were in take away containers... Being naïve I thought maybe this was just for take-away customers, so I asked for the Pad Thai. The waitress opened a take away container of Pad Thai and emptied it on to a plate for me. It was the worst tasting meal ever!! I gave up after a couple of mouthfuls, and went back to the hotel.

The French Open is on at the moment, and even better the hotel has "Fox Sports 2" in every room. Fox Sports has 24 hour coverage of the open : ) There is also a "sports" bar in the hotel, with a couple of big TV screens. After my Thai horror dinner, I retired to the sports bar to have a better meal, a local beer, and to watch Marat Safin bomb out of the open in the second round.

Tomorrow I'll head to The Rocks and Circular Quay and check out the famous sights (and pubs) of Sydney.

eating locally

Despite not being overseas, I emulated an overseas trip this week by eating at not one, not two, but three Spanish restaurants. It turned out I was staying in the "Spanish Quarter" of Sydney. All three of these restaurants were within 50 metres of my hotel! If I was staying longer, I believe there were more just around the corner too.

Monday night: Don Quixote. A huge meal! Roast suckling pig - awesome stuff. A clear path to my heart via my stomach. This was a traditional meal from the Madrid region in the middle of Spain. It was followed up with a "Spanish Coffee", which was a strong espresso with some kind of liquor and cream.

Tuesday night: My non-Spanish night. Counter meal at a pub with Mark. Tandoori Pizza - a dish of confused origins!!

Wednesday night: Miro Tapas Bar. I thought I might have a few dishes, but after two I was full! Firstly, fried white bait, followed by chilli mushrooms. They served some beer from Barcelona called Estrella Damm; it was really nice. I had to consume two : )

Thursday night: Captain Torres. Named after Torres who was the first European to sail thought the straits between PNG & Australia - hence Torres Straits. Anyway, this was a restaurant upstairs and tapas bar downstairs. I was going to have tapas again, and sat at the bar. The barman however convinced me to have a meal at the bar, he told me the fried flounder was way better than the baby octopus that was on my mind. I suspect he was right too, the flounder was excellent! This place also served Spanish beers. I didn't recognise (and can't remember now anyway) the towns in which they were brewed. First I had an Ambar, which could be the brand, or the type of brew - it did taste like an amber ale. The second one was Estrella Cerveza Especial, which wasn't as good as Esrtella Damm from the previous night.

Hence this caps off my week of Spanish culinary delights. Work went well too! We were able to finish 2 days ahead of schedule, even after fixing a few problems along the way. My phone died during some testing which is annoying. I took some photos of beers for the beer challenge, but now they are stuck on my broken phone. *grumbles*

I've started mapping my travels on travellerspoint.com/member_map.cfm. It's not too interesting yet, but it'll grow!

sydney... a short trip?

This week (and maybe a couple more days after that) I'm in Sydney. Not quite as exotic as Hanoi, but a trip non-the-less : ) And I think the "localness" of the trip lulled me into a false sense of security. Instead of carefully making sure I'd packed everything, I whacked everything together Sunday night. Here's a list of things I forgot as a consequence:

• USB 'stick'
• VPN password card
• Laptop charger
• Small wireless access point
• Camera
• iPod <-> USB cable

Not an insignificant list of items! Luckily I can work around most of them - for instance I drove to work before the flight and picked up my laptop charger. Even so, it's a good trip to be reminded of the ease of such oversights - good because it's only going to be a week long, and it's not too far from home.

The lack of a camera - dodgy camera phone excluded - is annoying me. I decided against taking the bulky SLR as I wasn't going to be touring, but I did forget to grab a little point 'n shoot. Once in Sydney I've been wanting to take photos ever since! My hotel room is on the 2nd storey, and looks directly out onto the Sydney monorail - not so exiting for a local, but pretty cool for me. Last night I went for dinner at a Spanish restaurant and got served a magnificent (although slightly too big) roast pork meal. It was definitely worth a photo!! The fish markets in Pyrmont were also worth a few photos: if I had a camera!

Okay enough ranting about that - lesson has been learnt. More observations about Sydney: it's damned haphazard! None of the streets are straight, some are one way, and all of them cause me to get lost. Luckily this new fangled phone can be used to look up maps of the city : ) The skyline looks imposing too, as the buildings "overlap", whereas in Melbourne, due to the city grid if you are walking along the street the buildings "line up" and have gaps between them where the roads are.

Tonight I met up with Mark who I worked with a few years back at Dynamic Hearing. He's recently become the father of two twin girls, and so it was great to catch up with him. We had fun comparing notes on transition stages of life. Me getting more involved in my work and career, and him winding back work a bit to help his wife Liz look after two demanding little people.

Another thing I forgot - I didn't find out if they were identical twins or not. Not so important : P

on my way home

I'm on my way home now, writing this on the plane. Hopefully I can find some free Internet access in Sydney airport to upload it! I'm transiting via Sydney so that I could come home. Mark and I were "wait listed" on our flights back to Melbourne on Saturday. So we pestered the travel agent about it. As it turns out, the end of school holidays causes busy times for airlines (who would have thought?!). We couldn't get flights on Saturday, nor Sunday, nor Monday. Since we had finished our part of the project, we could leave early. So we tried for a flight on Friday - unsuccessfully. Finally the travel agent said there was one seat left for Thursday, otherwise we could transit via Sydney or Adelaide. Mark was the one on the phone, so he wisely took the one seat on the direct flight! And hence, I'm on my way to Sydney.

With the changes to airport safety regulations, this transit has unfortunately put a dent in my planned alcoholic purchases. Carry on liquids are now restricted to 100-millilitres, ruling 1-litre bottles right out! You can still buy duty-free alcohol, and take it on board so long as you have a direct flight, and don't transit anywhere. The theory being that the alcohol goes directly from the duty-free store to the plane. If you transit however, then you may have the opportunity to turn your lovely gin or whisky into a plastic explosive. Bah humbug.

I've got a plan though. I bought one bottle of "getting around the restrictions" experimental gin. When I arrive in Sydney, I have to collect my check-in luggage and clear customs. Once I have the check-in luggage, I add the aforementioned bottle of gin, and the check it back in for the domestic flight. This way it's not in my carry-on luggage any more, and therefore not subject to restriction. Should work, but then I'm not gambling more than one bottle on it!

The duty-free industry must be screaming about this. When I went to make $150 worth of purchases, they found out I was transiting in Australia. They had to put it all back on the shelves. There must be a better way...

Some people out there in blog-land might want to see what I travelled 7,700 kilometres for. The photo below shows the "GGSN", this is what I've been installing. Fairly nondescript really. Normally it wouldn't even have that big yellow light turned on! In fact, in its final configuration it will not have two of the cables shown up the top connected either. It will however, gain one more orange fibre optic cable.

This beige and blue box makes the Internet work on mobiles phones. I'm listening to Nick Cave at the moment, and to take a lyric I just heard completely out of context... "we are magicians".

Compare my box with the box that Mark had to install (below). Heaps more cables and flashing lights on his! Essentially does the same thing however: cooperates with my box to make the Internet work on mobile phones. It looks more impressive with the extra cables and lights though.

I've crossed back over the equator, and dinner is about to be served. Time to wrap up this post. I'll be home in around 12-hours. : )

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Postscript #1. I'm at Sydney now. Observations:

1. Internet access is free
2. etickets are awesome - offers earlier flights by default!
3. The airport itself is stupid!! Three totally separate terminals?!

Postscript #2. As it turns out the Singaporeans don't know the restrictions like they think they do. There aren't any restrictions for liquids on domestic flights - so it would have been okay to buy drinks anyway.