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? :-)

New traditions

As I've said a million times over, moving to Australia would mean heaps of firsts. Well, recently I've celebrated my first Easter here and it was such a great experience. I had a long weekend packed with different things to do. On Maundy Thursday I attended the celebration of the washing of the feet (as I am Catholic) and on Good Friday attended the Good Friday mass.

Easter Saturday (or Black Saturday) was more exciting. I spent it with friends wandering around the city, and I found out that there are actually shows and some sort of a circus set up at Darling Harbour. It was cool how there were acrobats and different sorts of performers all over the Harbour because it made the walk so much more interesting than normal. I've got one really bad photo but I'll put it up anyhow:

Darling Harbour on Easter Saturday

Later on that night, we went salsa dancing as you may have read from my previous blog. Sunday was more relaxed. I spent time with my family and had my friend Brenda over with us the whole day. We also attended mass and had a simple dinner that we all put together.

We had Chicken Schnitzel, Cabbage & Pine Nut Salad, Fish Fillets in Ginger Sauce, Eggplant Omelette, Pork Chops and Lentil Salad.

My Easter weekend didn't end there. The next day, my girlfriends and I decided to go and see the Sydney Royal Easter Show which showcases the different farm animals, produce, and festival shows, among other things in Australia.

It is one of those events you wouldn't want to miss if you're in Australia during the Easter. Here are some photos from the Easter Show:

There are different rides that you could get on, such as this ferris wheel.

If you're not into that, there are farm animal shows like the Pet A Pig one. Others include Sheep Shearing and Cow Milking.

If you happen to enjoy food like I do, Wooly's has an exhibit of different fruits & vegetables!

There's heaps more to do in the Easter Show, like the Woodchop and the Equestrianism contests. There is also a dog show where you can see different breeds of dogs - I really enjoyed this one so much that I wasn't even able to take pictures! Also a fashion show featuring alcapa fur runs there.

The Sydney Royal Easter Show runs for 2 weeks each year and it is best to go on weekdays, where the place isn't too packed. It is located at the Sydney Olympic Park, and it is easily accessible by train as there is a station that stops directly there. The best part is that the ticket to the show comes in a package with the train ticket. University students pay $25, school children pay around $21 (these are rounded figures) and adults pay $32. I reckon there are packages for families but you may as well check out the website. I'm sure the rates would be different next year, but at least you have an idea.

To be honest this is the first Easter where I had more fun than I could ever have imagined! :-) Not only did I had heaps of fun, but I also gained so much more, in terms of things to be thankful about in life. Excuse the cheese, but I' m already looking forward to next year :-)

PS!

I've got a new profile photo up - besos y abrazos para mi amiga Tippy! She's an amazing Brisbane-based graphic designer, and I'll post the link to her online folio as soon as it gets set up :-)

Who knew

that I would find a love for salsa dancing and everything Latino here in Australia? Ever since I've started hanging out with my friends from Chile, I've been learning everything there is about South America. I've been learning Spanish on my own as well. It's quite interesting how closely it relates to Tagalog, which is the language of the Filipino people.

Anyway - back to salsa. The first time I went was when our friend from Greece dragged me and my Swiss and Chilean girlfriends to a place called Vivaz. At first I was being very resistant to it because I really had no idea how to salsa or anything. Of course, my friends finally got me to dance with them and by the end of the night I really couldn't wait to get back!

Two weeks later, we headed out to Vivaz yet again! I was really happy that we went there to dance the night away. Entry to Vivaz costs $15 but if you're there for dinner there's usually a buffet that costs $44 including the entry to dancing after. There are salsa classes which you can take for $10 for an hour I reckon.

It's pretty good in there, as there is a mix of a DJ spinning different latino tunes as well as a live band. The best thing about it is that it is located at the Rocks! The Rocks is such a wonderful place to take walks before and after good dancing and drinks. Obviously, I can't wait to go again next week :-) Anyway here are a few photos:

My friends Brenda & Erick dancing with the crowd

Hidden in this photo are my German & Swiss girlfriends dancing salsa like they're actually latino. See how much fun everyone's having? :-)

In other news, I realised that I haven't blogged in a month and I should probably should do some catching up with all the writing I've got to do with regards to my (mis)adventures here Down Under ;-)

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! ;-)