Holy ****: One month left

Sorry for the profanity, it's the only way to express my amazement that my time here has FLOWN past. I still remember writing my first post about being alive and finding it amusing that Asian people can have Australian accents. The theme of this post is basically summarizing what I've been doing in Sydney lately and what I have coming up in the near future.

Like I said in the last post, I feel like I have been neglecting my adventures here in Sydney. After all, I am studying here so I should have more stories about being here. All throughout October has been the Crave Sydney Festival. It is a combination of food, art, culture, etc. I've gone to a bunch of events with a bunch of people. I went to the Latin festival in Darling Harbor at the end of Spring Break with my friends Matt and Ken who were stopping over in Sydney after their trip to New Zealand. Some of my roommates also came with us. There was a ton of Latin food, music, art, crafts. There was a woman at a booth who told us if we got our picture taken we would get cupcakes. So, that we did. They gave us this little gift bag with 2 cupcakes each! That pretty much made my day. We roamed around for a little while and then it started POURING so we decided to go to happy hour. Logical, right?

Actually, the day before I decided to roam around Sydney by myself and I was looking for the Latin Festival but I couldn't find it. (Turns out I was in the wrong part of the Harbor. Clearly, I don't go there enough.) I did stumble upon a craft fair in The Rocks, one of my favorite parts of Sydney. It's hard to explain The Rocks. Everything is kind of old fashion looking. There are a bunch of bars and little pubs. One of the most popular clubs, The Argyle, is down there. It's right by the water. Some of the sidewalks are cobblestone, maybe giving it the name "The Rocks." Anyway, it's really nice down there. Quaint, in a way. So I wandered through the market stopping at some of the booths and talked to a few of the vendors. Asked them their stories, suggestions they had for things to do in Sydney and around Australia, etc. I got a few presents for people (and myself...) while I was there as well.

Also in The Rocks is this restaurant Pancakes on the Rocks. It is apparently one of those "must do" things here. It is a 24-hour restaurant and I really wish we knew about that earlier because we have always been looking for late night food. NOTHING here is open late, surprisingly. We went there a few nights ago I got the most amazing chocolate pancakes. So good. They had normal food too, somewhat iHop-esque. Honestly, I'm not really sure why people rave about it so much but it was fun.

[If you haven't noticed yet, this isn't going to be in any chronological order. It's more of a stream-of-consciousness thing.]

Another part of Crave Sydney was the Night Noodle Market. I suggested going to my roommates and they thought I was joking based on the name. Yes, it does sound pretty ridiculous. Gina and I decided to head over there one night. It was in Hyde Park in central Sydney. To start, Hyde Park is beautiful. It is one of my favorite places in Sydney. Kind of reminds me of parks in Manhattan. Anyway, When we were walking up to the market, there were huge pictures posted on both sides of the pathway. They were part of the "Art and About" section of Crave Sydney. There was a booth where you could vote for your favorite and Gina and I did that, mainly just because the entry could win you a free digital camera. Anyway, after voting we continued our journey to the noodles. There was some live Asian music playing and every kind of Asian food you could think of. Himalayan, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, etc. We got some Thai food but it honestly wasn't that great. We were planning on going back, but we just never got the chance. I think it is still going on so maybe we will make it back there before it ends.

In keeping with my environmental roots, I decided to go to the Live Green House exhibit, another part of Crave Sydney. Sydney is really environmentally conscious, so seeing this whole exhibit with new tips on how to use the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle!) was really cool. This other company was doing a presentation on vertical gardens that was pretty interesting, but I didn't get to see too much of it. It was pretty much about maximizing space and resources by growing plants on a wall, basically. It's kind of hard to explain. From there, I went to Paddington Reservior and listened to some jazz music and then I went to Paddington Market. The latter is not part of Crave Sydney. It happens every Saturday outside this school in Paddington, a suburb of Sydney were a lot of good shopping is. I roamed around, not really looking for anything in particular. A lot of the clothes are times-ly, in the words of Kerri Horgan. Aka, a lot of the clothes were pretty weird looking. There was a guy selling chocolate and I got into a conversation with him about a bunch of stuff. He gave me a ton a free samples and even offered to give me some to take home! People are so nice. I probably should have limited my chocolate intake though because I went to yoga right after...

Last Sunday was also the UVA va UMD football game! Well, it was Saturday back at home but here it was Sunday at 7am. Rough. So we got up early, I made some guac, put on my orange and blue dress and pearls and went to watch the game with my UMD friends. Just as we predicted, it was an INCREDIBLY embarassing game for both teams. However, Virginia won and I still rub it in their faces. I am very glad we won though because if we lost I would never hear the end of it from at least 5 very passionate Terps.

My roommates and I have also been planning our upcoming trip to New Zealand! We are leaving a week from today!! Crazy... Here is a little taste of what's on our agenda:
We are landing in Christchurch, renting a car, hiking through Franz Joseph Glacier, hanging out in Queenstown, going to Lake Tekapo... that's all I can remember right now... but my roommates are leaving on the 6th but I am staying until the 9th. So I believe I am heading up to Kaikoura (about 2.5 hours north of Christchurch) to do this eco-tour. Me = nerd. On the 9th, bright and early, I am flying to Melbourne. Then on the 10th I am flying to Alice Springs--no, not the chicken (bad joke). On the 11th I'm going on a 3-day tour through the Outback and then I'm flying back to Melbourne on the 14th. I'm hanging out in Melbourne for a few days then flying back to Sydney on the 16th.

Then, more adventures around Sydney and... I don't want to say it but... home on the 22nd.

Well that's all I can think of for now. I should get back to work. Yuck.

Cheers!