Leaving Sydney!

I'm finally leaving the busy city of Sydney and going to a farm to WWOOF! I cannot wait to get to a more peaceful setting. I will be staying with a couple who have some rare breed animals (I don't know which), organic garden, and medieval crafts. I will get a chance to learn how to make metal armour, woodworking, sewing clothes, banners, etc. Really cool. If it all goes well with the people, I may stay there for at least 2 weeks. I don't know what the internet situation will be like there so you may not hear from me in a while. However, if I do have internet access I will definitely make contact! As you all know, I'm an internet addict.

My train leaves in about 4 hrs and the ride is about 3-4 hrs long. I'm going south of Sydney...my goal is to eventually end up in Melbourne area for a bit.

See you all later and thanks for reading!

Lunch and Monstrous Flying Creatures!

Last night, I was looking for a bathroom to brush my teeth so I found the one on the top floor unoccupied (I never used that one before). I was in the middle of brushing when I heard something land on the wall in front of me. It was a water bug! Those things are harmless but look like cockroaches. Then I heard another one fly onto the door...and then another one. Three in total that I was aware of. Two of them started to play with each other. I was so skeezed out that as soon as I finished brushing, I ran out of there without even washing my face! Shudder. Gross.

Earlier in the evening, when I went to the hostel kitchen to make a cheese and tomato sandwich, I saw that someone had the audacity to steal most of my cheese! They grated it! At the last hostel I was at, someone stole my Tim Tams! Tim Tams are a popular Aussie chocolate covered biscuit...it's big hit here. Grrr.

Today, I met up with a friend whom I met through IEP. Mariah and I walked around looking for a place to eat when we stumbled upon a cute little Italian cafe. We ordered the tortellini mocadore, which had mushroom, ham, scallions and a cream tomato sauce. We had that with a piece of bread so sop up the sauce. Mmmmm!

Then onwards to the Bontanic Gardens to find those huge bats we had heard about! We walked through the Rain Forest Walk outside when I looked up and saw heaps of bats sleeping up in the trees! They were hanging upside-down with their wings wrapped around their bodies. One of them had awoken and flew up above our path. Then it made noises to his slumbering friends. That thing was HUGE!!!! It's wingspan was about the size of a large seagull! It was so fast, I couldn't capture that on my camera. If we were there at dusk, we would've seen them all fly around. But we don't want to be there when that happens!

After that, we walked over to Chinatown looking for bubble tea (tea with tapioca balls) since Mariah had never tried it. There was a Ten Ren Teahouse so we went there. We couldn't decide what to order since there were so many choices! I tried a tea called Osmanthus which was sweet and apparently popular with the female drinkers and Mariah ordered the green tea ice cream in green tea flavour. That one was delicious!

I have to pack up today for my trip to my first WWOOFing host tomorrow. I will be taking the train ~3 hrs south of Sydney. Yay!

City Market, Paddy's Market, Fish Market

I ventured off to west of the CBD (Central Bisiness District) today, first stop being the City Market in Chinatown. It turned out to be a shopping mall...there was an IGA supermarket in there that sold both western and asian foods. I've been craving Indian food the last few days that I was excited to see a North Indian stand in the food court! I bought a vegetable pakora (fried veggie pancake) and 2 papadums (thin crispy wafers like chips). After looking around, I found myself in the chaotic Paddy's Market next door. Paddy's Market is basically a flee market with vendor stands everywhere. I couldn't stay too long because there was sooo many people milling around.

So I decided to go towards Darling Harbour and find the Sydney Fish Market. The Fish Market was crowded with people too. There are various stores with seafood all laid out on ice behind glass and workers opening oysters right there in front of you. Some stalls sold already cooked seafood....yum yum! I expected a bit more in terms of a fish market - I thought it would be like the one in Seattle (that one was a show in itself with the workers tossing fish to each other). Further down the market, there was a fruit store so I bought some oranges and cherry tomatoes and headed on back.

Chillaxin' at Bondi Beach!

I went to Bondi Beach with 3 of my roomates, the Swiss girl and 2 Koreans. We walked up to Hyde Park to catch the bus. We spent 15 min. looking around to buy bus tickets but couldn't find any since the express bus requires pre-paid. So we ended up catching the local bus and paid the bus driver $4. It took about 40 min to get to Bondi. This beach is well-known around the world but to the Aussies, it's" just another city beach". The sands were very pale yellow and clean. There were heaps of surfers riding the waves. We didn't go swimming because it was very windy and the water was quite cold. I hear that the water at Manly Beach is warmer (no, the guys there aren't more "manly"...there really is a place named Manly!).

On our way back, we managed to buy a bus ticket from 2 public transportation guys standing on the street. This time it was only $3. I'm glad I got to see Bondi Beach...it was quite nice. The water starts out greenish and turns blue as it goes out farther.

Socializing and Bank Stuff

Last night I went on an outing with the IEP group. We went to the Glenmore Hotel for some drinks and food. I had 2 beers and fries...hmmm, very healthy. I met more Germans (a couple) and finally some other North Americans. I met 2 girls from Florida, 1 from Texas, and 1 from Toronto. The Americans I've met are here on the 4-month visa because they can use as many of those as they want whereas, the 1 year visa can only be used once. One girl from FL is working at a high end Italian restaurant at Hyde Park. The pay isn't the best but she gets to eat yummy food and watch people play the huge chess game in the park. She told us that we can get ice cream cones from McD's for only 30 cents! All the McD's here look like high end restaurants with nice decor and beautiful displays of pastries. Apparently, McD's in Europe are similar.  On our way back to the hostel, we dropped into the McD's for an ice cream on a windy cold night.

This morning, I woke up to find none of the bathrooms had toilet paper. Ugh. But alas, I went into the guy's bathroom and stole their only roll. Hahaha. Sorry guys. I can't wait to go to my WWOOF thing next week and do medieval crafts! Yay!

I'm going to visit Hyde Park today to see the huge chess game and the Botanic Gardens to see the large bats in the trees.  Tomorrow, I will be going to the famous Bondi Beach with 2 of my roomates (a Korean, and a Swiss). I turns out that girl who didn't really talk is Swiss. I got to talk to her last night and she's very friendly. I think a lot of people want to talk but are too shy because english isn't their first language.

I picked up my bank card today! Yay! Now I can leave Sydney! This city is too chaotic like NYC...I need peace. I heard that Melbourne is really cool. Apparently, Sydney is like Toronto (busy city), Melbourne is like Montreal (cobblestones, beautiful, cool, amazing.....biased, am I?), and Canberra is like Ottawa (BORING). I will see and let you know if this is true!

By the way, if you guys need to wire transfer money it can be a pain if you don't know what to do (because the bank people don't know either). I called the general number and I was told to either do it automatically on the phone with my phone code OR call my branch during their hours. Since I don't have my code on me, I decided to call my branch between 12:30am-9am Sydney time (9:30am-5pm EST). I got up early to call and my branch tells me I cannot do it through them. I had to fax a request. Arrrgh. So I faxed it and now hopefully everything works out.

Found my 1st WWOOF place!

I found a WWOOF host 2 hrs south of Sydney! I will be helping a couple with gardening and making medieval things such as armour, woodwork, sewing banners, etc!!! How cool is that? I will be taking the train down there next Tuesday. I can't wait!

Who am I rooming with now? There are 2 french women, 3 Koreans, 1 Chinese, and 1 white girl (who doesn't talk but stares). There are a lot of Koreans here because most of them were studying english on the Gold Coast and now they are just traveling. I always go to the hostel kitchen and tv room for breakfast and supper where I meet a lot of people. Last night, I met another German girl (there are many Germans too) who is also looking for fruit picking work. She said that there is not much out there - she called 30 places and nothing. She wants to WWOOF too and I told her that's a better bet right now. It's high season right now and very competitive because many students are off for summer vacation. So I will look for work next year and I will most likely go to the west coast since no one ever thinks to go there (thus, less competition!). And I will be able to meet up with my cousin while I'm there.

Looking for my next destination

Yesterday, I checked into another hostel which is cheaper but also ghetto. It's really not that bad if you compare it to other places I've stayed at and at least there are no cockroaches. I'm there for a week, I check out next Tuesday (today is Wed). I've been looking for WWOOFing opportunities -- Willing Workers On Organic Farms, where you work with a host in exchange for food and shelter. It looks like I may be headed off to a place 2 hrs south if Sydney where I can learn organic gardening, rare animal tending, medieval crafts.

So I've been sitting in Hyde Park lately and just reading my WWOOF book to look for hosts. The weather has been nice for that. Many office workers go to the park to nap or eat during lunchtime. I saw a group of people playing touch rugby today.

Last night at the hostel kitchen, I met 2 Indian men. One was making utthapam, which is a type of pancake with coconut. I tried some and it was delicious! I eat my breakfast (PB & J all the way!) and dinner in the tv room. There's only American shows/movies on. We saw Scream and there was also Family guy and The Simpsons. I feel right at home but also makes me miss home.

Today, I hung out at the park again. Ok, that's about it for now. Kind of a slow day.