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!
Friday, 11 May 2007
Tuesday, 8 May 2007
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
Friday, 13 April 2007
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. : )
Postscript #1. I'm at Sydney now. Observations:
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. : )Postscript #1. I'm at Sydney now. Observations:
- Internet access is free
- etickets are awesome - offers earlier flights by default!
- 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.
Wednesday, 11 April 2007
sunday in hanoi
As it turned out I did have a whole 2-day weekend, as work was delayed. Furthering my opportunities to be a tourist, one of the local engineers, Manh, took us out for a look around town. First stop was another of Hanoi's museum's, the Museum of Ethnology.
The museum attempts to preserve and display items from all the different ethnic groups in Vietnam - of which there are around 50. With such a varied landscape, from flat delta flood plains, to jungle covered mountains, you can imagine how varied the ethnic groups are too.
Some tribes operated along matrilineal lines, whereby a new married husband would live in his wife's family's home. This is or was common in parts of southern China, and so by extension some of Vietnam too. Other tribes operated along patrilineal lines whereby a newly married bridge would live in her husband's family's home. These kinds of traditions are all being eroded now as western influences take hold.
A common feature among the ethnic groups was to have a large common house in the village where guests of the village could be entertained, or indeed the village could meet and have entertainment for themselves. The different groups, however, had vastly differing designs for these common houses. One group built them very long: up to 100 metres in length, but only 6 metres wide. Another group built theirs very tall. Here is a photo of a reconstructed common house that is around 5 stories tall - pretty much exclusively constructed from bamboo and straw except for the foundations:
These common houses also helped out the local single men. At night they were able to sleep in them! A community sponsored bachelor pad?...
The best exhibition however was dedicated to life in Hanoi between 1975 and 1986. From the end of world war II until1986, Vietnam had strictly controlled economy. Central to this was a voucher system, which rationed goods. No matter how much money a person had, they could not purchase more than their allocation of a type of food or product.
There were personal anecdotes dotted among the exhibit which added a human touch and made the exhibition quite emotional and striking. Manh said that when "old" people visit the museum, often they cry when they view this exhibition. Half of Vietnam's 80 million people are born after 1975, so they don't even really remember this time. I asked Manh if the people who were lived through the period hoarded stuff - food, money, etc. "Of course!", even though they earn lots now, he said, they don't spend any money. He continued, "my generation earns and then spends." Sounds familiar : )
In those times licences were required to own radios and bicycles. If a bicycle was stolen, it could be traced by its registration! They even had number plates. Only mid-range public servants or higher could even hope to own radios and bicycles. The ration of meat for the lowest member of the public service was 400-grams a month, this increased to 4-kilograms a month for the most senior ministers.
The best students Vietnam had to offer at the time were able to study in the Soviet Union. The ultimate gift to bring back was a television! Of course other smaller items such as electric fans and clothing irons were also appreciated.
Now Vietnamese dream of owning cars, instead of just motorbikes. Another local engineer, Tung, told us that he thought there should be more cars. Mark and I weren't so sure. The streets would stop working! Permanent traffic jams would surely ensue. Tung answered that the government needed to build bigger, better roads anyway. I remain unconvinced. Then again... it rained the other day, and I was glad for a fully enclosed taxi-car, rather than a motorbike!!
Finally we visited Lake Hoan Kiem. This is a famous Hanoi landmark, with an equally as famous legend to match. It is said that emperor Lê Lợi had a magic sword given to him by a golden turtle, and that after defeating the Chinese the turtle took the sword back and took it to the bottom of the lake. Hoan Kiem Lake translates to the lake of the returned sword.
In the middle of the lake is a temple dedicated to another military figure in Vietnamese history. Trần Hưng Đạo defeated the Mongolians a couple of times when they attempted to invade Vietnam. He was well read, and especially liked Sun Tzu's "The art of war", and this was reflected in his tactics - often resorting to guerilla tactics to aggravate the enemy into mistakes.
The bridge to to the temple is a common sight in tourism brochures:
It was cool to see that even among the hundreds of tourists milling around that some locals could still find some space for a game of chess.
The museum attempts to preserve and display items from all the different ethnic groups in Vietnam - of which there are around 50. With such a varied landscape, from flat delta flood plains, to jungle covered mountains, you can imagine how varied the ethnic groups are too.
Some tribes operated along matrilineal lines, whereby a new married husband would live in his wife's family's home. This is or was common in parts of southern China, and so by extension some of Vietnam too. Other tribes operated along patrilineal lines whereby a newly married bridge would live in her husband's family's home. These kinds of traditions are all being eroded now as western influences take hold.
A common feature among the ethnic groups was to have a large common house in the village where guests of the village could be entertained, or indeed the village could meet and have entertainment for themselves. The different groups, however, had vastly differing designs for these common houses. One group built them very long: up to 100 metres in length, but only 6 metres wide. Another group built theirs very tall. Here is a photo of a reconstructed common house that is around 5 stories tall - pretty much exclusively constructed from bamboo and straw except for the foundations:
These common houses also helped out the local single men. At night they were able to sleep in them! A community sponsored bachelor pad?...The best exhibition however was dedicated to life in Hanoi between 1975 and 1986. From the end of world war II until1986, Vietnam had strictly controlled economy. Central to this was a voucher system, which rationed goods. No matter how much money a person had, they could not purchase more than their allocation of a type of food or product.
There were personal anecdotes dotted among the exhibit which added a human touch and made the exhibition quite emotional and striking. Manh said that when "old" people visit the museum, often they cry when they view this exhibition. Half of Vietnam's 80 million people are born after 1975, so they don't even really remember this time. I asked Manh if the people who were lived through the period hoarded stuff - food, money, etc. "Of course!", even though they earn lots now, he said, they don't spend any money. He continued, "my generation earns and then spends." Sounds familiar : )
In those times licences were required to own radios and bicycles. If a bicycle was stolen, it could be traced by its registration! They even had number plates. Only mid-range public servants or higher could even hope to own radios and bicycles. The ration of meat for the lowest member of the public service was 400-grams a month, this increased to 4-kilograms a month for the most senior ministers.
The best students Vietnam had to offer at the time were able to study in the Soviet Union. The ultimate gift to bring back was a television! Of course other smaller items such as electric fans and clothing irons were also appreciated.
Now Vietnamese dream of owning cars, instead of just motorbikes. Another local engineer, Tung, told us that he thought there should be more cars. Mark and I weren't so sure. The streets would stop working! Permanent traffic jams would surely ensue. Tung answered that the government needed to build bigger, better roads anyway. I remain unconvinced. Then again... it rained the other day, and I was glad for a fully enclosed taxi-car, rather than a motorbike!!
Finally we visited Lake Hoan Kiem. This is a famous Hanoi landmark, with an equally as famous legend to match. It is said that emperor Lê Lợi had a magic sword given to him by a golden turtle, and that after defeating the Chinese the turtle took the sword back and took it to the bottom of the lake. Hoan Kiem Lake translates to the lake of the returned sword.
In the middle of the lake is a temple dedicated to another military figure in Vietnamese history. Trần Hưng Đạo defeated the Mongolians a couple of times when they attempted to invade Vietnam. He was well read, and especially liked Sun Tzu's "The art of war", and this was reflected in his tactics - often resorting to guerilla tactics to aggravate the enemy into mistakes.
The bridge to to the temple is a common sight in tourism brochures:
It was cool to see that even among the hundreds of tourists milling around that some locals could still find some space for a game of chess.
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