South Australia

I realised I have been MIA like anything, having 0 entries for February and just 1 for March! That's insane! I was hoping to blog more this year given that I thought that I would have more time on my hands but I guess not. Anyway. Just before summer holidays ended, I was given the chance to set foot on South Australia for the first time ever! Imagine the excitement in my bones when I got on the plane. It was a comfortable 1.5 hour flight, and was 30 minutes behind from AEST. Thank you, dear brother for the plane ticket and thank you JetStar for cheap flights (I'm becoming a loyal patron aren't I)

Much of my time was spent eating (as you all know it's my favourite thing to do) and resting. It was a very laid back holiday and I didn't do much running around to see sights like I would usually do. Admittedly there are too few photos from my stay in Adelaide. I did see a few gorgeous places though, and I think it would be terrible not to share.

Christies Beach, which is 30-45 minutes from the CBD.

Christies Beach shoreline, on the way to O'Sullivan Beach

Close to O'Sullivan Beach (if you look closely there are a lot of tractors and other construction equipment - new developments are coming to this area! Prime property I'd say)

Glenelg's Town Hall's classic architecture maintained. LOVE IT

More of the Glenelg Bay

Very nostalgic sunset at the jetty in Glenelg

Outside the South Australian Museum - I like the blending of the old and the new structures!

Outside the Art Gallery of SA - the collections aren't that impressive compared to the NGV but it's all right. Still worth a look.

Pigs lurking about in Rundle Street Mall.You know what's coming next, Adelaide wining & dining! Cyasssss!

Beached as, bro

This is just a quick post on the beaches I visited when I went to Queensland.

First up, the Gold Coast, which is located at the south of Brisbane. A trip to Queensland is never complete if you don't go to Surfers Paradise. I swear, this place really is GOLD. I went in 08 for a night and I knew I had to go back. This year we just stayed for an entire day (a TOTAL MISTAKE!), as we had other places to cover.

Tourists and locals soaking up the Gold Coast's sun

Caloy and I with the Gold Coast as our backdrop

I had heaps of fun - a full day at the beach with good food and good company can't ever go wrong. The waves weren't as big as expected, so we spent a lot of time in the water. A lot of surfers and body boarders were about as well. If you're just out of school and about to turn 18 (or already are), this is the perfect time to go. I went just the day before schoolies, a well celebrated event for people who've just graduated from high school. Next year it starts on the 20th of November and runs for a week.

Mosaic art on the walk to Surfers, cool beans

The Gold Coast is a fantastic place to get wet and wild. That's all I have to say about it. You might need a week to fully experience it, which is what I'm planning to do next year.

However if you're with your family and wish to just have a laid back trip, I suggest you head on over to the Sunshine Coast, located to the north of Brisbane. Expect a lot of children running around and making sandcastles. We went to King's Beach and spent the whole day swimming and eating fish and chips.

The beach was pretty packed that day

Kings Beach is good for skimboarding

I enjoyed myself as I lounged about and chased the kids we had brought along with us. I'm all for lazy days and you can definitely have lots and lots of lazy days at the Sunshine Coast.

With that I leave you with the carefree (and for some, careless) spirit of summer and 2009. Surely there'll be better things to do and see in 2010. 'Til then, xoxo.

Welcome to Brisbane!

When the spring semester ended, my friend Caloy and I decided to go on a 6-day adventure to Queensland. My best friend was kind enough to give us a roof to live under and good food to eat throughout the trip. It's funny how we're all from different cities. I live in Sydney, Caloy in Melbourne and Tippy in Brisbane. Because of this, we have had a lot of chances to compare Queensland to our places of residence. Of course Tippy has her own biases being a Queenslander.

Caloy and I took a plane up to Brisbane (Thank you, JetStar!) and after a hearty breakfast and a long early morning nap, we decided to first explore Brisbane's CBD. We took public transport which I may say is quite different from Sydney and Melbourne. The QR trains are one level as in Melbourne, but they're all pretty vintage. I actually liked it but I assume there might be a lack of seating capacity come rush hour. It comes out really cheap though, right about $5-6 for FIVE ZONES! Even much less if you have QLD concession.

Me enjoying the train ride.

In the city we went to see the Anzac Square. We had our photo taken at the Shrine of Remembrance. I think it's one of the places that are really worth seeing because it has a lot of history behind it.

Shrine of Remembrance with Caloy

Close by was the Central Station, but I wasn't able to go inside. Here's a photo from the outside:

Central Station is not their biggest station, but Roma Station

I must say their CBD is quite quaint and definitely much smaller than the Sydney one. It also isn't overflowing with people during lunch. What I like most about it is that everything is close to everything else. For examplem, The Cathedral of St Stephen's is merely a 5 minute walk from the shops where we had lunch.

This is the interior of the church where we said our prayers before going to Southbank.

Crisp white, classic structure. Notice that there are individual seats and not pews

At the dock you can see Story Bridge, which is something like the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is much smaller, and its main difference from the Sydney Harbour Bridge is that it is a cantilever bridge where as the latter is a steel arch bridge. I heard you can also climb the bridge just like you can in Harbour.

The Story Bridge

We tried to catch the CityCat to get to South Bank but failed miserably so we just caught the usual ferry. The CityCat is bigger and it just sounds so much cooler.

City view from the ferry :-)

At South Bank, we walked until our legs gave away. Lol jokes. We went around the South Bank Parklands and it's really pretty. Seems as though it's so easy to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life in Brisbane. It's like a 10 minute ferry ride!

This is what welcomes you to South Bank!

What's even more awesome about it is that there is a man-made beach called Streets Beach (click on link for 360º view). I find that such an insanely gooooood idea. In Sydney, you can easily hop on a bus to get to Bondi or other nearby beaches or get a ferry that can take you to Manly in half an hour. In Brisbane it takes like 10 minutes, and there aren't any sharks!!! Haha I'm so sold to this idea since I can't swim properly but love the beach anyway.

Super awesome, right?

As we continued walking towards the Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) & Queensland Art Gallery (QAG), we passed by the tourist attraction Wheel of Brisbane. It is, of course, like other ferris wheels in other countries, a great (aerial) way to view the city.

Didn't want to try it cos I get insane dizzy spells!

Tippy & Caloy on the bridge to the Galleries. This provides such a good view of the city!

Our last stop for the day was the GoMA and QAG. Unfortunately, the GoMA was still in the process of being set up for the upcoming exhibits. The Queensland Art Gallery, however, had quite a selection of artists and artworks, ranging from indigenous Aussie art, Picasso, Warhol, to Queenslander art. I really enjoyed our visit there but maybe not as much as I had enjoyed the National Galleries Victoria in Melbourne. What I loved most of all about it though is the very modern look of the building!

I love the colours they used! So easy on the eye.

This may be rather weird but this is one of the highlights of our city trip ---

Ceiling decor made of paper & clips (!!!)

This simple decoration of the GoMA looks really really good in real life. The best part is that it's simple and anyone can do it. I swear, I'm considering putting the exact same thing up when I finally have a house (with a high ceiling to match)! :-)

For the lack of coherence I promise you better entries about the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and many more of Queensland's pride! Happy holidays, all! :-)

Touring the city

Finally, after so long I have found the time to write. I've been meaning to share my first experience at touring someone new to Sydney with you guys the last couple of weeks but I have just been buried in assignments!

Now, we begin (I'm heaps excited)!

Every time I've been here (first when I was 6, then when I was 19, now that I'm almost 21 and living here), I've always been the one being toured. I always liked the idea of seeing new places, and seeing things so different from home. Things have changed ever since I moved here to Sydney. I've been going from the city to the suburbs on a weekly basis - not much of a touristy thing to do. I've been learning to know the ins and outs of the city by heart (and by foot!) and it feels like right now, this is home.

Anyway, I met a friend of a friend who came to Australia to work for a year. During her first few days I kept her company, because my friend was in Tasmania on a holiday. Cathy is Chilean, and when I asked her what she wanted to see - she immediately told me that she wanted to see the Opera House.

I thought, okay, cool, we can head off to the city and spend the day there. I also thought that maybe I should show her other parts of the city that were worth the visit. The night before, I set up our itinerary. It was an odd feeling, having to pick places to show someone who's new, considering I'm new here myself. Here is the list:

The Opera House

Darling Harbour

Royal Botanic Gardens

Queen Victoria Building (!)

Mrs Macquarie's Chair

Manly Beach

Circular Quay

At 8.30AM we took the train from Blacktown to the city - we both purchased DayHopper tickets, which cost $17. The DayTripper is really useful if you know you're going all over the place via public transport. It covers payments for the trains, ferries and buses. It's really worth it!

At Central we changed to catch the line that goes to Circular Quay. As soon as we stepped off, we already saw a place to take photos:

Me, trying to act touristy at the Circular Quay platform.

Me, again, on the other side. Lol

We then walked out of the station, and went straight for The Opera House. It was such a nice day, with the sun out and the cool breeze brushing past.

Approaching The Opera House for the nth time, I still needed a photo. LOL

This time, however, I actually paid attention to the tiny details of this magnificent structure. I had no idea that the roof, that was designed like a sail, was TILED. I always thought it was painted, or shingled, but I thought wrong. I became more impressed!

See how cool that detailing is? Wow. How could I have ever overlooked it!

After taking all of Cathy's photos, we decided to take an even longer walk towards the Royal Botanic Gardens. It's an amazing place to people-watch, as well as to have picnics. Lots of the people who live in the city do their morning runs here as well - I suppose it's a good location to just leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind even for a short while.

The Botanic Gardens have lots of trees.

Fishing is also an option here

I'm jealous of the lady just breathing in life, she seemed so relaxed.

I happen to love rocks/rock formations, and this is the big one leading to Mrs Mac Chair

This is the spot where Queen Elizabeth first landed on Australian soil!

I have a soft spot for old trees.

After that long exhausting morning, we took the bus back to QVB by midday.

We're pretty good at concealing exhaustion, aren't we? :-D

We had lunch with my aunty at De Costi Seafoods (if memory serves me right!), which is in the lower ground of The Galleries Victoria. Food there is fantastic! I didn't get the chance to take photos of what we ate because they were in take-away packs and they weren't too photogenic.

After which, we walked to Darling Harbour, which is a place that I usually frequent, for some strange reason. A lot of tourists hang out there and take water taxi rides or those jet boat things. They cost quite a fair amount, which is why I've never tried it. At the Darling Harbour, one can find a lot of food places and bars; I reckon it's best to go there at night ;-) However, look at this!

The spiral fountain fixture at Darling, which I love the most (compared to all the other fountains present - I tell you, there's heaps)!

Then we walked back to QVB to catch the bus to Circular Quay once again! It was at that time that we decided to take the ferry to Manly (More details on here). The ferry ride was windier than usual, but it felt so nice and calming! We took a stroll at the beach, where I found this particularly interesting:

Haha. I know it's common here, and I see them more often than not, but I thought it was just cute that they were huddling. We did some shopping in Manly, and by the time the clock struck 4.30PM, we were just beat. So we caught the ferry going back to the city, took the bus to the train station, and caught the earliest one home. I can now proudly say I know Sydney, and I really love being here. :-)

(Aussie flag along Pyrmont Bridge)

Not too bad for a 17-dollar worth day, isn't it? :-)

Get beached!

It's probably not the perfect time to be blogging about beaches, but I thought I had to sometime. Since I can't sleep I will now. Hah.

The first two times I've been to Australia, the only beaches I've seen were 2 of the most popular ones, which are Bondi Beach and of course the Gold Coast. Below is my photograph of Bondi from 2009

And this was from 2008:

Bondi is such a nice place to go to as it is close to the shops and there are a lot of food options and of course, lots of girls and boys to watch all day. But if you actually want to absorb the scenery and feel the serene ebb and flow of the ocean waters, I reckon it would be best to go to Palm Beach. It is about an hour drive from the city, and it is not crowded at all. Here is a photo from when I went around last month:

(In photo: my friend Cecile taking photos! LOL)

My experience of Palm Beach was pretty good - it was quite a drive from where I live and upon getting there you can see that it really is a place to unwind. It's also close to Whale Beach, which, unfortunately, I haven't been to yet. We tried walking it through the cliffs but the rocks just got really sharp and the tide was getting high so we decided to walk back probably less than halfway to it.

Most recently, I've been to Manly Beach, which is probably my favourite one so far. It is crowded as there are lots of tourists that visit, and it's a pretty commercial area. It seems a little bit like Gold Coast, but it is smaller and it's a little bit more peaceful, I suppose. I reckon the most fun way to get to Manly is to take a ferry from the Circular Quay, which now costs $12.80 for a return ticket. The trip is about half an hour long and note that the gates close 2 minutes before it actually departs! I'm emphasising that because my friend and I got left behind just because we got chips&wedges 5minutes before the ferry's departure and had to wait another half an hour. Hahaha.

This is the walk towards the beach, where the shops and food places are at:

And this is the actual beach:

(In photo: my friends Brenda & Nadine getting splashed really hard by the waves)

We've discovered as well that there is a scenic walk in Manly, and a calmer (but deeper) beach called Cabbage Tree Bay Reserve (will have to double check that name). We went for a swim there as well and it was pretty good. The water was freezing but it was okay because there wasn't a strong current pulling us in. It looks like this:

There is also Bronte Beach that is about a half an hour drive from the city (if you know your way) but I haven't got any photo of it. It is nice because there are grounds for picnics and a barbeque. We went there last week, but we arrived late and so it was too dark to take actual beach photos.

So far those are the beaches I've been to this year (and when I say I've been to it means I stayed there for a day and not just drove by because I've seen most of the beaches along the coast but never actually got to stop and enjoy it), and all I can say is that I'm sure there's so much more to see and I can't wait for our next beach adventure! ;-)