Seems like a jetlag

I haven't updated in so long that I feel guilty.

A lot has transpired within the last two weeks - uni exams, a weekend in Melbourne, and my 21st birthday. I haven't got any idea where to start off because I've had so many stuff lined up to blog about. I was hoping to write up on good shopping spots here, which I reckon would be extremely helpful for all the shopping aficionados. I also wanted to write a whole lot about Melbourne (my favourite Australian city by far, ever since I've first been in 2008!) but I reckon that might need an actual outline as I've seen so much this year compared to last! Also, my 21st has been quite eventful but the festivities aren't over yet so I'll have to save it for another time.

However, I really feel the need to put something up. I reckon I really just missed writing on here. Actually, there is something of interest to me now... This year, Darling Harbour celebrates its coming of age. The harbour has been there since the late 19th century, but it was only reopened to the public in 1988 after its redevelopment.

This year, different events have been organised to celebrate Darling Harbour's 21st. I've been to some of them, the first being Australia Day on the 26th of January this year. The only thing I was able to take part of was the fireworks:

Another event that I have witnessed (in passing) was Hoopla, where Darling Harbour turned into a circus playground for families to enjoy. At first my friends and I thought it was just something really random but I looked it up and it's actually done in conjuction with the Easter long weekend.

This is a really bad photo of it but the performances we've seen (mostly acrobatics and other street acts) were pretty cool! Or maybe I just haven't seen enough of circus acts when I was a kid... Who knows.

And of course, how can one say that one has fully celebrated one's birthday without having CAKE?! :-)

This is Darling Harbour's massive 21st birthday cake placed in the middle of Cockle Bay Wharf. I reckon it's an amazing cake and definitely spells P-A-R-T-Y!!! That said, wait for the blog spam coming your way within the next couple of days. I assure you it will be fun!!! :-)

Good morning

I should've posted this yesterday, but I just wanted to say:

HELLO WINTER. :-)

Wine me, dine me.

Last Friday, I went to out into the city to hang out with my aunty & cousin. I had no idea what we were doing that night; all I knew was that I was sure to be in for a new taste of the city.

When we all got together, we talked about whether we should get a drink or food first. Hah, not being alcos at all, we chose to go for a drink. They took me to Marble Bar - located in beautiful George Street, it's on the basement of the Hilton. It's such a classic place, as it was built in 1889. It was refurbished in 2005, still upholding that really dark, cozy & classy atmosphere. I feel terrible I haven't got any photos. :-( My new camera hasn't gotten into my hands yet, pardon me. Anyway, I had a Vesper Martini - very James Bond inspired. It was a pretty good drink, though I would say it lacked a little kick (salt maybe? But that would ruin it, I suppose). The Vesper costs $16, and most cocktails are, on average, from $16-18. Not too bad for that great an ambience.

After drinks we decided we were hungry. It was a tough decision to make, to be honest. We knew that we were having Asian for dinner, but the problem was where to get it. The consensus was to grab grub at DinTaiFung, as I've never eaten there before, and because it's supposed to be a really good place to get XiaoLongBao. It's at the top floor of World Square, that is also along George Street. We ordered heaps of stuff, and I mean heaps for 3 ladies. Hahaha. People stared at how much we had on our plates, and that is no exaggeration. Just a quick rundown of everything:

Steamed pork dumplings

Steamed crab meat & pork dumplings

Steamed shrimp & pork dumplings

Shrimp & pork shao-mai

Fried rice w/ eggs & shrimp

Green beans w/ mince

Obviously we didn't get that in just single orders... It's my secret to keep how much we really had. Hahaha. It was an AMAZING dinner, and definitely worth the (45-minute) wait (outside in

the rain). I was really, really, really pleased & for all of that we paid around $80-something. Not too bad. I can't wait to go there for dinner again :-) In my desperate attempt to show you guys how amazing the food there is, here's a photo from GrabYourFork (who happens to have amazing restaurant reviews, glad I discovered this site tonight!!! Subscription-worthy, people!):

DinTaiFung review by GrabYourFork here

After much catching up (and me thinking of where to head for dessert), we caught the bus from World Square to Glebe Point Road, which has got to be one of the streets I favour going to more often than usual. The food places on that street are just GOLD! That night we picked Badde Manors to indulge in mind-blowing dessert. We got 3 different cakes - carrot cake, Italian baked ricotta cake & sticky date pudding. To match, we got mokka, chai tea (the real deal guys not powdered stuff) & hot chocolate.

The carrot cake was good, it had a nice thick cream cheese icing and the actual cake wasn't too sweet. Definitely matched the fresh cream garnish and the good thing about it is that it had fruit & nut to taste. It does the job but it's not the best, maybe because it was a little bit dry. The Italian baked ricotta cake was fantastic. It's the first time I've ever tried it and it was good. It was powdered with cinnamon and confectioner's sugar and garnished with fresh cream. But these two don't compare to the sticky date pudding! It was a perfectly-sized one, topped with fresh cream and surrounded by a pool of mouth watering toffee sauce. Ah, it was heaven!

The drinks were pretty good too. The hot chocolate was not too thick and had the perfect amount of sweet & bitter fusing in every sip. The chai tea was brewed beautifully - there was a perfect amount of cinnamon & ginger in it and it's all about feeling warm all over ;-) As for the mokka I forgot to try it cos I was too busy with the sticky date. :-\ I'll try again next time. All that for about $35, I can't complain.

Badde Manors was the perfect place to end our girls' night out but my food adventure doesn't end there.

On Saturday night my aunty, uncle & I agreed on eating at Deli's Thai after church. It wasn't a first time for me, as we all personally love this humble restaurant down at Glebe Point Road. I told you, that road is gold. Lol. Our staple spring rolls & money bags were ordered for appetizer, and for mains we had the usual fried rice & pad thai, but this time I ordered chicken pad cashew nut sauce. Their spring rolls are always palatable, stuffed with vegetables and really thin noodles. The money bags are my favourite; basically they're deep fried minced chicken and dessicated coconut with beans and other good stuff. We devoured the fried rice in a flash and took some time to get to know the chicken pad cashew nut sauce. It's nicely seasoned, not too salty and not too spicy, and had lots of vegetables. I can't say I'd put it in the list of stuff I would re-order but it's definitely worth one try. :-) Deli's Thai offers amazing Thai food for a reasonable price. For all of that we paid around $35.

I may have gained good 5 pounds from this weekend, but it was definitely worth it! :-)

On autumn, and the promise of good days

(Written on the train at 0700H, edited 2204H)

My past visits to Australia have always been from mid-April to mid-May, but I never needed to wake up at dawn. This semester, my Wednesdays start as early as 0530H and I found out that if it's foggy when I step out of the house, it's going to be a really nice, sunny day out.

At dawn, the fog is heavy as anything; it seems as though snow will fall any second but it doesn't. Half an hour into the fog, it just almost suddenly clears up, and you see the sun right before you telling you it's a new day - and it assures you it's bound to be good.

To be honest, I've never been more thankful for waking up everyday. That said, I can't wait for my first Australian winter! :-)

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? :-)