yani on tour - day three

The theme for Yani on Tour - Day Three is the Chinese Garden of Friendship... and seriously, I could have spent ALL day in there!

Day Three started off with something of a bang (pun completely intended) after I arranged a very early morning bootay call... 6am early in fact... The whole concept of an early morning hookup is weird (but certainly not the WEIRDEST thing I've ever done) and it doesn't help when he says 6am (and you wake up some time after 5 and can't get really get back to sleep because you're afraid you'll oversleep so you just get up) and then doesn't turn up until nearly 6:45 am. But all in all it was VERY, VERY worth it.

Raja (as we'll refer to him from here on in) is half English and half Indian and although really seriously sexy in real life, he takes a surprisingly crap photo. And on top of that he also visits Adelaide occasionally for work. So maybe I need to tie him down and take some decent photos for him (hmmm Raja tied down, that's an interesting thought)...

So needless to say I was VERY happy when I opened the door. Which was good because I hate being kept waiting, but he more than made up for it. And he also seemed to have a thing about me having a hot ass (which I'm pretty sure I don't), but it was obviously floating his boat (very, very obviously in fact), so I didn't argue.

The only mild hiccup came when Ma called my room just to check how ready I was (not ready at all in fact... but luckily I'm pretty good at multitasking) and to let me know that she was awake... but even that wasn't enough to kill the mood thankfully.

Eventually I had to send him on his well hung, pieced nippled, tattooed, Calvin Klein clad way and got myself organised while scarfing half of the mango bread and banana bread we bought yesterday... which was still beautifully moist... and yummy. All in all it was a very, very, very good way to start the day.

Today was a much more laid back kind of day... less walking and more relying on various forms of transportation. I was kicking myself all day though because I forgot to charge the battery on my camera the night before (or even during the morning, since I had so much time on my hands), and it was only after we left the hotel that I realised I only had about a third of the battery left... so I was a little more frugal with the camera overall... but it did last for most of the day which was good.

Anyway, just before 9am we hopped on the big red Sydney Explorer bus and let it wend it's somewhat illogical way through the crazed early morning traffic in the general direction of the Sydney Aquarium (again, with a half price coupon firmly in hand courtesy of Tom... you really are a lifesaver *grin*).

I still wish that we'd gone to the Melbourne Aquarium when we were there... if only so that I would have some frame of reference about how good the Sydney Aquarium actually was. I mean it was okay... even if the long, long, long slope down to the underwater walkways did get a little bit much after a while... and we were sharing the experience with about three different school groups (and speaking of which... were there NO children actually in school over the time we were in Sydney... we saw SO many school groups out on excursions it wasn't even funny). The shark tank was groovy though... lots and lots and lots and lots of sharks and stingrays and whatnot... the only downside was my lack of camera (although I did take some shots on my mobile that I really need to rescue) because I didn't want to waste the battery before we got to the Chinese Gardens. Ma got some pretty good shots though.

After we'd seen as much Aquarium as there was to see we wandered down Cockle Bay Wharf towards the Chinese Gardens, stopping off at Starbucks on the way (mmmm Starbucks... although they have crappy banana bread, especially compared with the stuff I had earlier). We kept following the various signposts (thank god for tourist friendly signage) until we finally got to the Chinese Gardens of Friendship.

For the record, I LOVE the Chinese Gardens of Friendship... like I said before I could easily have spent ALL day in there... what with all the pagodas and the carp and just the general restfulness of the whole place... love, love, love, love (okay, the little dress-up booth where you could rent an "authentic" Chinese outfit was a bit of a worry... but other than that... love!). And that's probably were I went the craziest with my camera... if I'd run out of battery right after we walked out of there I would have been a happy camper, and it would have been worth it. We stopped off at the Tea House and had a little bit of stuff to eat (actually that was kind of the theme for the day, we didn't really have any big meals anywhere, we just kept having little bits and pieces, at least until dinner time)... some steamed Dim Sims and a green iced tea for me, which all seemed appropriate.

Our next stop was the Powerhouse Museum (thanks again to Tom for the coupon)... and sadly, that was actually the low point of the day. It was all just a bit blah... I'm sure if you'd come along for a specific reason it might have been interesting, but between the couple of school groups (see, again with the school groups) and the interactive displays that either didn't work or else I couldn't work out HOW they worked, it was all a bit of a yawn. Or maybe we were just reaching saturation point by that stage, I don't know...

After we left the Powerhouse we got back on the big red bus again (and repeated a few stops), but ended up back in Circular Quay were we decided to take advantage of another of the coupons Tom gave me, for an "inner harbour ferry ride"... the only problem being that we didn't actually know where that meant we could go... so after some humorous interaction with a rather cute and Irish ticket seller we ended up taking the ferry out to Mossman.

Which then meant that we'd officially seen the Opera House from every possibly angle... fortunately we got one of the green and yellow ferries, although it was one of the big ones, not one of the little insane ones (and neither of us remembered to look what it was called)... but it was a pleasant trip, we got to take a look at few of the bays along the coastline (and see how very packed with buildings they all are on the Sydney side of the water), and just enjoy the ride.

When we got back to the Quay we had planned to just jump on the blue Explorer bus (the one that goes to Bondi)... not to go to Bondi (although we had thought about it) but because its third stop was near our hotel, rather than it being the ninth stop for the red bus. But alas fate wasn't on our side and we'd missed the blue bus by a matter of minutes, so we ended up finally completing the loop on the red bus (we'd covered stops 9 to 24 first thing, then 17 to 27 and back to 1 after the Powerhouse, and finally 1 to 9 on the way back to the hotel)... which also meant that we got to drive across the Harbour Bridge, which was an experience in itself.

After we got off the bus we stopped off at some French patisserie at the Cross end of Macleay Street (and ended up being mostly disappointed with our choices... also, for future reference, marzipan... I'm not a fan) before heading back to the hotel to change, unwind a bit and then make some sort of decision about dinner.

Partially because we'd walked past it any number of times and partially because Andrew recommended it last night we ended up going to a Thai place, The Opium Den, just up the road from the hotel. In theory I'm not a fan of Thai... but to be honest it was all really, really nice. The service was great, all really quick (but again it was pretty early and they weren't super busy when we sat down), and the food was really tasty. We had some Goong Spring Rolls (which were something of a surprise because they were essentially big prawns and a piece of chicken in crispy pastry rather than the type of spring roll I'm used to), then Green Chicken Curry (which was really good, although a little bit sloppy maybe), some steamed vegetables with oyster sauce (always good) and coconut rice (which, to be honest, against everything else we were having, was a little bit too rich, and I wish we'd gone with just steamed rice instead).

After dinner we had a bit of a wander again, then swung back to the hotel so I could grab my big black camera bag and my mini travel tripod, then we headed out to the same "lookout" near the McElhone stairs to take a few night shots of the city skyline... and so I could use up the film in my SLR camera.

Then we staggered back up the hill, made a few random suggestions about what we were going to do with the little bit of the final morning we had, and then I wandered back to my room to watch some random teevee and do most of my packing.

Only half a day left now *sob*...

Current Mood:

yani on tour - day two

Today's montage theme is "the many faces of the Sydney Opera House"... Over the four days (okay, only really the middle two) I think we saw it from every possible angle (excluding from the air)... it really is an amazing structure...

Day Two of Yani on Tour dawned with me not having had the best night's sleep ever (a combination of thin hotel pillows, my inability to sleep well in strange beds and being very set in my ways when it comes to how I sleep), and discovering that the hotel had shitty water pressure and the shower had a hair trigger between too hot and too cold... *sigh*... such is life really...

After we were all organised we left the hotel around 7:30 with the ultimate destination of the Sydney Opera House... we were booked in for the 9 am guided tour and decided we might as well just walk there since it did seem like it was as far away as we thought it might be after all our wanderings the day before. And I decided that since we were going to the Opera House, I should take my big black backpack with my SLR in it... technically I shouldn't really have bothered bringing the SLR to Sydney at all... I could have managed quite easily with my digital camera... I only ended up taking one roll of film with the SLR, 90% of which are of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, and I have no idea until next Monday how the shots will have come out... that and the fact that by the end of the day the straps on the bag had actually rubbed the front of my shoulders a little bit raw... pink anyway...

We headed down the dreaded McElhone stairs... and then up the stairs by the back of the Art Gallery (in fact the exact opposite way that we'd gone the day before), then after a quick stop at the kiosk thing near the gallery to grab some "breakfast", we headed through the Botanical Gardens and just followed the signs in the general direction of the Opera House.

I do wish we'd taken more time in the Botanical Gardens... the bits we did see were beautiful, and you could probably waste a whole hell of a lot of time in there, but we were on something of a mission, and we still weren't sure how far we had to walk, so mostly we just followed the signs for the Opera House. We did come across the colony of (I think) Grey Headed Flying Foxes that live in the trees there and who were stretching their wings and just hanging around like interesting and weird looking fruit. Actually that was pretty damn cool... I'm used to seeing birds all over the joint, but I don't think I've ever seen a bat out in the wild before. Very, very cool!

Before we knew it though we were rounding the corner and catching our first real sight of both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge... everything I'd seen yesterday had just been a big tease... this was seriously impressive!

And the whole walk only really took a little over half an hour, which we were both pretty impressed about.

We wandered around the Opera House taking photos all over everywhere (and I tried to pick out which of the apartment buildings on the opposite shore might belong to Tom), before we circled back around and finally found the meeting spot for the tour. It was an interesting tour actually (even with the 200 stairs that the guide said we would end up climbing... see, again... Sydney = stairs)... some of the stuff I knew (like the architect being replaced), but just seeing the theatres and being in the place was impressive enough.

After the tour was over and we'd bought appropriate meemaws, doohickeys and widgets from the gift shop (and I'd ogled the very cute and extremely gay guy serving in the shop downstairs), we wandered off in the direction of Circular Quay, then ended up headed off to The Rocks, stopping off at the Visitors Centre (and buying more meemaws and widgets), then we wandered through The Rocks and ended up at the base of the Harbour Bridge.

I've seen bridges... I know bridges... I'm not exactly all about bridges, but I'm not a stranger... but seriously, there are actually not enough words to describe how MASSIVE and imposing and just really THERE the thing is. Interestingly enough, once you're actually underneath it, it just becomes "any other bridge" (albeit an ENORMOUS one), it's only from the sides you get that sense of the iconic "coathanger" image. We made it to the Walsh Bay side of the bridge, then came back along the Campbells Cove foreshore before we made it back to Circular Quay.

Then Ma came up with the brainwave that instead of hopping on the big red Sydney Explorer bus like we'd originally planned, we should just leg it up into the CBD and wander around. Of course by this time it was more or less midday so all the Urban Suitage (hot boys in suits) and just general business community were out and about on their lunchbreak, so we had to do some dodging and weaving to stay out of their way. We legged it up Pitt Street (theoretically in search of the cupcake store which we never actually saw, and I totally forgot about to be honest).

Once again my overall impression of everything was HUGE! In Adelaide you don't get that concentration of buildings that just go up and up and up... and in some cases up and up and up and up and up... and especially not seemingly all one on top of another.

When we got to Martin Place we took a segue up the hill and took a look at the Channel 7 store (a bit lame really... although they did have a couple of interesting bits of Lost merchandise), poked our noses in the Lindt store (mmmmm Lindt), and found a cute little place in the underground concourse to have some lunch (and I discovered what a tuna nicoise salad actually is... not bad either), picked up some awesome banana bread and mango & coconut bread from them and then wandered back down to Pitt Street.

We pretty much just wandered around the Pitt Street Mall for a bit... I mean a shop is a shop is a shop... and we were in Sydney to do touristy things and have experiences rather than go shopping, so I think about the only place we really went into was Borders... and that was only to see the difference in stores between here and Adelaide... but then it's a chain store, so it wasn't really that different.

After some massive amounts of indecision (and a look in the Myer store in Pitt Street, which was, once again, MASSIVE compared with what I'm used to) we ended up going downstairs into the foodcourt under Myer (and woohoo Mrs Field's cookies, oh how I love thee) and trying to come up with some kind of plan... it was still pretty early (around 3 or so I think) so we didn't want to just give up and go back to the hotel, so after much discussion and "I don't know, what do you think's" we decided that since we were so close we should jump on the monorail (thanks go to Tom for the half price coupon) and take a little turn around the place.

Sadly, that whole general area was about the closest we ever got to the QVB which we really should have gone across the road and looked in, but originally the plan was going to be to come back there the following day... but you know what they say about the best laid plans...

I kept wanting to sing the monorail song from The Simpsons... and to be honest, it was kind of interesting (the trip, not the singing), but not really that great. I was a little surprised for some reason that it was all little individual cars rather than being one big train (but that was good because we ended up with a car all to ourselves for most of the journey)... but looking out on the first floor of buildings isn't really that interesting. I think it's possibly one of those things that looks more interesting from the outside...

After the monorail trip ("I hear those things are awfully loud"... "It glides as softly as a cloud"... sorry) we wandered back up Martin Place, some guy carrying a chair and a cello gave me crap when I stopped to take a photo of the sign outside the Prada store (I think his exact words were "Oooooh Prada" in a slightly girly voice... to which I replied, without thinking or turning around "Oh, piss off", which according to Ma made him turn and smile... little bitch) and then after stopping off to make a donation at the brass boar outside Sydney Hospital we wandered across to Hyde Park, checked out the very lovely Archibald Fountain (mmmm naked classical and mythological men), was slightly disturbed by the guy wading around IN the fountain with his shirt open (what's up with that?), then went past St Marys Cathedral, down the hill, through the backstreets, back up the hill, up MORE stairs (although different ones this time) and ended up right near the hotel. We left the hotel around 7:30 in the morning and when we finally got back it was 4:30 in the afternoon... and over 80% of the time we'd been walking around. Exhausted much?

I didn't fare too badly overall from the day of almost constant walking... a little bit of sunburn where I missed a spot or two on my forehead, the aforementioned marks on my shoulders and a couple of blisters from my poxy New Balance sneakers (I'm never buying New Balance EVER again).

After we'd crashed out for a little while we headed out and grabbed a pizza down the road (really good pizza... Macleay's Pizza I think), I settled Ma in for the night, went back to my room, showered, changed and generally prettied myself up, and then went off to meet The Blogging Boys (aka Tom, Andrew and Monty). And of course, I walked...

I'd decided to kill two birds with one stone (since everything seemed far closer than I thought it would be), and go past the pub that was our meeting place, down to the famed gay mecca of Oxford Street and more specifically The Bookshop Darlinghurst.

And although I only did basically one block of Oxford Street, and not an overly big block at that, it wasn't exactly how I imagined it... for one thing it's a lot wider, but it was also kinda skanky. I'm sure with the street jammed with people and floats and everything at Mardi Gras it's somewhat more impressive... but just as a street... not much of anything really.

I did like The Bookshop (although for some reason it was very different from the image I had of it in my head and the way I was seeing it on the website... I was expecting something huge and sleek and modern)... even if it hadn't been crammed full of things I wanted to buy and had just been a regular bookstore... it had that wooden pine floors and shelves and "gets smaller and narrower the deeper you go" thing going for it... which I love at the best of times. But there were SO many things in there I wanted to buy... so many... so, so, so many.

Luckily I was hamstrung not only by the amount of spending money I was willing to part with on stuff, but also by the compact nature of my little orange backpack. That and the fact that the two or three things that I asked the guy behind the counter about were either our of stock or out of print or whatever. Annoying, but it did save me a ton of cash.

It was also really, really warm in there... I thought initially it might just have been me, having rushed down the road after a warmish shower, but I think it was a very humid night and a distinct lack of proper air conditioning in the store. I was sweating like a pig after a while though! Overshare I know... but true.

In the end I bought Summer Storm (under half price!), Another Gay Movie (which I enjoyed when we watched it on J's laptop while he was here... and was also slightly marked down, but not by much), the third book by favoured author Joe Keenan, My Lucky Star, and the first book by photographer and fellow blogger (and former Random Hotness entry) Jay Diers, Raw Youth. I probably spent too much money, but it was worth it...

Then I traipsed back up the street and as I was standing at the traffic lights I looked up and saw what I first thought was a flock of birds flying overhead. They turned out to be bats... the same type that we saw in the Botanic Gardens I assume... and there they were... against a darkening sky with a sliver of crescent moon behind them, looking like they were flying out of the church style building across the street. I can't really do the image justice in words (and my camera would have had a fit trying to capture anything in the low light), but it made the little gothic boy who lives in my brain wave his arms around and go "yaaaaaaay".

Anyway, I made it to the pub half an hour or so early, got myself a drink and a glass of water (I was feeling a little "sun strokey"... and choose to blame any errant or odd behaviour on that) and settled in to await the arrivals of all and sundry.

I did some people watching, checking anybody who either came into the pub or who was anywhere in sight on the street outside against my mental pictures (or mental checklist) of said people. Which made for an interesting mental dialog after a while... "Not Tom enough... not Andrew enough... not Monty enough..."

Eventually I saw Andrew coming down the street and when he came in gave him a wave and a big hug... And I don't care who's doing the list... The Other Andrew just is the shortest blogger *grin*. He's Hobbitliscious!

We chatted for a bit... cast some aspersions on the likelihood of Tom turning up... and then suddenly this pink shirted whirlwind descended on the table from somewhere in the back of the pub and whisked us off down the back...

Seriously though... who sits at the BACK of a pub, out of the line of sight from the door, when you're supposed to be meeting somebody... who does that? *mutters*

Anyway, the pink whirlwind resolved itself into Monty and then suddenly there was Tom... turns out that they'd been in the pub for about an hour already. And for the record, Tom is slightly akin to a lamp post (sorry dear, but you just are)... I mean he has more personality and doesn't shed quite as much light, but he's very tall... very, very, very tall... and quiet... and didn't fit the mental picture I had in my head of him in the slightest.

But then I always suck at that game, so I shouldn't really be surprised.

It was both interesting and weird catching up with people I've never actually met before, but who I know all this random minutia about and who know equally large amounts of randomness about you. Andrew mentioned a couple of things during the night and I thought "Oh yes, I remember THAT!". But then I do have a mind that might not remember why it came into the kitchen, but will remember really random items with blistering clarity (anything that's created some kind of vivid mental image... for example, Monty in a leather bar... that's an image that's going to linger a while *grin*).

What was also interesting was that I wasn't nervous about it at all... and that's weird because usually I'd be freaking out about the whole meeting new people thing... but really it was all as laid back as could be. Maybe that was the beer... I dunno...

They're all really lovely guys though. Monty is just adorable (and my choice of him as somebody to go and have coffee with in the blogroll meme was a perfect one), Tom is lovely and has this very quiet and very tall English schoolboy (it's the accent I think) thing going on, and Andrew is just a sweety (even if he did call me garrulous on his blog *grin*).

And me, well as the boys will all happily attest I'm sure, I'm a very cheap drunk. Not that I really got DRUNK drunk... but I was well on the road to merry... and I'd only had less than two beers (again, I'm blaming some sort of sun stroke). This is no real surprise, and I've mentioned it on more than one occasion... I'm the very definition of a "Cadbury"... a glass and a half and I'm away in The Land of the Happy Yani.

See, I'm a good date... I get drunk really easily, and I put out regardless of said drunkness... now, where was I...

So my inability to hold my liquor was thought most amusing... but I know when I'm licked and happily switched to water... then Monty had to rush off to deal with some distress call so Tom, Andrew and myself ended up going off to get some gelati (mmmm lemon and malted chocolate) and had a bit of a natter (in between me being somewhat distracted by cute and/or gay and/or underwear waistband displaying boys).

Then Tom left us to head back to his auto, and Andrew, ever the gentleman, ended up walking me back to my hotel. Bless!

And the less said about a certain person who didn't show up and didn't even send an email saying they couldn't show up the better... you know who you are... *pokes out tongue*

When I got back upstairs I stopped off briefly at Ma's room to let her know I got back okay, then headed back to my room to do much journal scribbling and early morning bootay call arrangement SMSing... thus endeth a Very Busy Day...

Current Mood:

yani on tour - day one

I decided to do something different with the hundreds and hundreds of photos (657 to be exact) I took... well, not different exactly, because I've done many a montage... but instead of saving them up to dole out on Mondays over the next month, I figured I might as well use them at the beginning of each post... get a whole theme thing going each day.

Today's theme is "Yani on Tour"... the shots are in order as I shot them over the four days and kind of chronicle what we did and where we went.

Whenever I got a spare moment during the four days I would scribble something down about what we'd been doing... sometimes it was just a list of places we'd been, sometimes it was my thoughts on stuff, sometimes it was certain phrases just so I wouldn't forget a feeling or an event... and I managed to fill about twenty pages with my big rounded handwriting... some of it will end up being condensed or edited or whatever, but there will be some stuff that I repeat verbatim...

So... "My Sydney Holiday by yani"...

Even though I'd planned and made lists and checked and double checked and triple checked everything, I still managed to forget to print out the details about our return flight, so I had to crank up the computer briefly first thing in the morning and make sure I had it.

On the flight over everything pretty much went to plan... the taxi was perfectly on time and not being driven by anybody who lives in my building (which was a bonus), and we got there with plenty of time and check-in was a breeze.

Yes, the plane did end up running about 20 minutes late, but given that the last time I got on a plane (albeit a different airline) it ran about six hours late, I'm not going to complain about 20 minutes.

I will state right here and now that while I don't get all freaked out over air travel, my body just doesn't like the up and the down and the turn left and turn right stuff... for whatever reason it just makes me feel a little sick. That and the whole sitting in a confined space and possibly being cooped up with no fresh air makes me a little overheated which doesn't help either. But I forbear... for this trip I would probably have forbeared quite a bit...

Even after we'd touched down in Sydney, it didn't feel quite real until we'd gotten off the plane and were in a whole different airport... and then it didn't really feel like we were really, really, really in Sydney until I spotted the Harbour Bridge between a couple of buildings while we were on the shuttle bus to the hotel.

Speaking of the shuttle bus... sometimes it just doesn't pay to go with whatever the cut price option is... it was all a little bit skanky around the edges, and after we got on we had to suffer through a conversation between the Fijian/Maori driver and these three Malaysian (I'm guessing) girls about where their hotel was... which was like something out of a really painful Marx Brothers movie... or possibly Abbot and Costello ("Who's on first?" had nothing on this).

He also drove like a maniac... but then I guess if you do pretty much the same loop all day every day in the same bus you are going to know where you can go screaming around a corner and how fast you can go everywhere.

As is always the way with these things, we (and a rather cute boy who, it turned out, was also staying in the same hotel) were the very last ones dropped off... but at least we got a kind of maniacal, confusing and backstreet tour of the city...

For the whole drive, right from the airport through to the city I kept thinking how HUGE everything seemed, crammed together, tall, squashed, not as spread out as Adelaide.

The place we stayed, the DeVere Hotel on Macleay Street, wasn't bad... although there were stairs down into the foyer and then back up to the elevator (stairs, the ongoing bane of my life in Sydney)... and the room wasn't exactly world class, or the cutting edge in modern design... but I didn't end up spending THAT much time in it when I wasn't sleeping... and compared with every other hotel room I've ever stayed in (ie both of them), it was, like everything in Sydney, freakin HUGE. I mean I had a double bed, a couch, a little table and two chairs and I still could have held a party in all the space left over. I think possibly it was just because I had a room that was kind of wedged into a weird corner space... Ma's room wasn't bad, but wasn't anywhere near as big (and of course, my room was at the bottom of a set of three little steps... steps again, I tell ya!). Oh, and I had possibly the loudest door on the entire floor... every time I went to close it it stuck a little and the squeal of tortured wood reverberated up and down the hallway (which never makes for subtle entry and exits).

I also had a shitty view... actually we both did... Ma didn't even get any natural light... but that was because they'd run out of the cheap rooms with views when we booked. So I had a view of an internal "courtyard" space where all the pigeons from the neighbourhood slept.

A quick note while I'm discussing the view from my window... if you're a fellow hotel patron and your windows looks out into an internal courtyard where you can see other windows, please either draw your curtains or put on some underwear when you get out of bed and wander around naked for a good hour and a half first thing in the morning... especially if you're an aging, overly tattooed gentleman... thanks.

After Ma and I had unpacked and generally sorted ourselves out we headed out to get something for lunch, and after a wander up and down Macleay Street found a cute little cafe that did a nice tuna salad roll... then we went off exploring and after a couple of false starts managed to get good and lost (and somehow within the first ten minutes or so I managed to lose the map the girl at the hotel had given us... I swear I went to put it in my back pocket, but I must have missed... I still don't know how I managed that), then found a view of the Harbour Bridge and a sliver of the Opera House near the McElhone Stairs before we went back the other way, through the Cross and circled around via William Street before headed in the general direction of the Art Gallery... which was pretty much a fluke, since although we had a backup map, we had no idea how far away from anything we were, so we just kinda walked and walked and walked.

The Art Gallery is, in a word, big... impressively so in fact. That was pretty much my watchword for the trip... BIG... and also HUGE... MASSIVE also gets a look-in from time to time.

We didn't do much of the Gallery, in fact we only really intended to go and see the Archibald Prize paintings... and there are some reasonably good entries... although the winner still leaves me cold even now that I've seen it in person. The painting of Heath Ledger however... wow! Partly I think it's because he's staring straight out of the painting... partly because he did die... and partly because it's not the usual wide-grinning Heath we're used to... he's very haunted looking... and tired... and just looks worn out.

I came back to the painting a couple of times actually... it's really, really striking.

Then we sat in the Domain for a little bit and had an icecream before we wandered back across to Wolloomooloo Bay and came back up the somewhat evil McElhone Stairs.

The photo on the right is an example of the native Sydney wildlife we saw sunning itself in it's native habitat alongside Wolloomooloo Bay... yummy!

And while I'm on the subject of the people of Sydney... a couple of observations...

Either my gaydar was completely out of wack or every other guy on the street was a fellow Friend of Dorothy (actually that kind of depended on where we were and a what time of day... but it was VERY true that first afternoon)... from the private school boy in the Art Gallery to the construction guy in King Gees and a hardhat near the Navy Base... my gaydar was just going bananas... of course there's that whole "metrosexual" thing you have to factor in... but still...

Also, I think Sydney pedestrians are all NUTS (but then I've behaved like one my whole life, so it's not like that's a bad thing)... I mean there's actually directions written on the ground so they know which way to look so they don't get run over for fucksake... and you just walk whenever you like... and the drivers seem to just take that into account.

After we got back to the hotel we both went back to our rooms and just kinda chilled out for a while, cooled down, I scribbled in my journal for a bit... then I wandered around the corner and up the weird little staircase to Ma's room so that we could have a strategy session about the plan of action for the following day... the session involved too many maps, a barefoot trip for me down to the lobby to see if they had a specific brochure (which they didn't), and a very, very, very rough plan (which we didn't really end up sticking to except for the first couple of items).

Then we headed out for dinner and since the hotel building actually also housed a nice looking Indian restaurant (India Down Under) and when we were in Melbourne we ended up in an Indian place our first night too, it seemed like the right place for our first dinner in Sydney.

And it was, even though we were the only people in there the whole time (it was still early though... not quite 6 I think), and one of the waiters seemed to be really bored and kept wandering around the room. But the food was really tasty... we had Lamb Bhoona (a last minute decision on my part, instead of the Lamb Rogan Josh I was going to pick) and Vegetable Jhalfrezi with some nice Keema Naan and rice.

Sitting in the window of the Indian restaurant my gaydar got even more broken... I think there was a gym somewhere nearby... and the amount of really pretty and half naked possible homos going up and down the street was giving me whiplash (and I also think I saw J's ex's twin gay brother out there too). Actually there was a lot of just generally pretty guys out there, a few DILFs too... enough to get my head spinning so much I was afraid it was going to do a 360...

After dinner we had a bit of a wander just to let dinner settle and picked up some cake from some cute little fru fru place nearby (sadly mine turned out to look better than it tasted) before we headed back to the hotel.

I left Ma in her room, came back to mine and sent a few text messages in the hopeless but vain attempt to arrange a booty call for the evening... and while I was waiting for some kind of reply I decided to take a bath... since the room actually had a bathtub and I think the last time I had a bath was many, many years ago when I was sharing a house with Ludo (and I don't even know how many times I used that one).

Anyway, I drew a nice warm bath, put some bubbles in it and lay back to chill out while halfheartedly attempting to arrange for somebody to come over and ravage me.

Let's just say that the bath was more successful than the texting.

I did end up texting Bear though (while having other conversations at the same time... and actually confusing a couple of the messages... which wasn't good... you never want to send the wrong SMS to the wrong person... or the right SMS to the wrong person either) I ended up playing text tag with him for ages and then spoke to him on the phone for a while.

I probably should have let him know that I was coming to Sydney, but we hadn't really spoken in a good long while and it just felt weird.

Then it felt doubly weird because we were in the same state at the same time but the chances of us actually hooking up during the trip were pretty nonexistent because he lives out in suburbia somewhere and my schedule was very, very up in the air for the most part.

By the end of the evening I wasn't sure I could be bothered arranging anything with anybody while I was there... I mean technically I could have arranged something for early the following morning, but I didn't know that I wanted to. Fortunately I didn't burn any particular bridges, so when I finally DO feel like arranging something I still can.

So endeth Day One!

Current Mood:

emerald city here we come

Okay, let's just run down the pre-flight checklist...

• Online check in... check
• Print outs of flight details, airport transfer, hotel booking, luggage insurance, Opera House Tour booking and Boost Juice birthday coupon... check (although I had to clean the nozzles before I could print properly... damn seldomly used printer)
• List of addresses for places to visit and their opening times... check (anal retentive I know, but I like to be prepared)
• List of things to pack... check (did that a couple of weeks ago, see above about anal retentiveness)
• Coupons for half price entry fees to various attractions... check (thanks Tom!)
• Journal for chronicling Sydney adventures... check
• Appropriate clothes hung on outside of wardrobe all day before being packed this evening... check
• Toiletries gathered and stuffed into little giraffe print bag... check
• Sheep luggage tag filled out with name and details... check
• Inappropriate combination programed into suitcase padlock... check
• Strong Iced Coffee in fridge to give me a final shot of Farmers Unioness before I leave the state... check
• VCR set for teevee shows... check
• Overexcited happy dance performed in shower this morning... check
• Beer money... check
• Possibility of nookie arranged... check (times two... now all I have to do is have enough time, energy and interest to actually do it... them... whatever)
• Sydney weather forecast... check (27°C and fine all four days!)
• Taxi booked to take us to the airport in the morning... check
• Sense of girlish glee and ability to break into stupid smile for no good reason... check

Lord... when I first came up with the concept for this trip to Sydney and then booked the tickets some 138 days ago it really seemed like a vague and far away concept... then it was 100 days to go... then 50... then suddenly it was three weeks and hotel rooms got booked, then there was appropriate haircuttage and one week left... and now it's less than ten hours before we'll be getting on that plane...

I'm freaking out just a little tiny bit.

I mean I'm excited... I'm as excited as all hell... I was so excited in fact that I suddenly had to do a little foot stomping, hand flailing, minor seizure style dance in the shower this morning... too much excited, nervous energy taking up space in my body... so it had to be expelled...

My suitcase is 99.9% packed (just my conditioner, shower gel and toothpaste to add tomorrow morning), as is my big black backpack (that just needs rolls of film and my book), and everything is set.

There was some random news item on the SBS news last night that was about Sydney Harbour... and I thought to myself... "I could be standing there in less than 48 hours"... and again tonight there was something about the godawful Zeta-Jones creature, but she was standing by the Opera House... and that's where I'm going to be come Wednesday morning...

This is only my third ever trip outside my home state... I honestly don't remember how I was feeling before my first trip to Melbourne... it's too many million years ago now (although I do remember who took me to the airport and what the flight was like)... and while I remember the more recent trip a little better I couldn't say how I was feeling the night before...

I have all this nervous, excited, apprehensive, scared, uncertain, thrilled, impatient, anxious energy rolling around in my head... and actually sitting in my chest too... I would actually say that more of it is in my chest than my head to be honest. Weird, but true.

And this will also be the first time since 5 November 2005 that the blog is going to go "dark"... there won't be any updates until I get back... but I am probably going to "backfill" the days with posts about my adventures when I get back... we'll have to see I guess. I'm taking a journal and I'm planning to either make some notes or else write something out in full each night... I guess, like a lot of things on this trip, I'm just going to have to "suck it and see".

There are only, at this point, four absolutes that we have to worry about... the flight there, the flight back, the tour of the Opera House and my beers with The Boys... everything else is one big, slightly formless, elastic band... which is possibly what's freaking me out a little bit. I think that possibly we just have too many things we want to do in the time we have available. My first trip to Melbourne was different, I was running solo... so I could suit myself, go where I wanted, and if I didn't fit something in, oh well... the second trip to Melbourne was equally easy, I'd already done a large number of things and knew what was worth repeating (Hard Rock Cafe, St Kilda Markets, Crown Casino foyer)... but Sydney is The Undiscovered Country (yeah, yeah, it's a Star Trek reference, I've been watching all the movies, and the special features and the commentaries, for the last couple of weeks).

And to be honest, I'm never very good with The Undiscovered Country of any description... once it's all Discovered, I'm fine... and once I get there it will start to be "Discovered"... but it's the "Un" bit that freaks me out.

The annoying thing is that I know I'll be fine once we get there... we'll see what we were supposed to see... if we don't end up seeing something, then it wasn't supposed to get seen... that's also part of the reason behind the long, rambly and somewhat fractal post that I've been writing on and off (okay more off than on) since mid afternoon... to get all the random rambly thoughts out of my head so I can leave them here and go off to Sydney without them.

My packing took all of about twelve and a half seconds... granted I'd done a chunk of the fiddly stuff this afternoon, toiletries and stuff, but the actual folding (or should I say "rolling") and organising of clothes took me no time at all. I'm sure I always overpack... I've pretty much got a top for each day and night, just in case (what, it's good to be prepared isn't it?), a couple of extra pairs of socks and underwear, not to mention a jacket I'm probably not going to need in the slightest... although this time around I'm only taking one pair of shoes.

And now it's very much bed-time o'clock... and I need to sort myself out, get into bed and hope that sleep comes fairly quickly and easily... since I just want to get to tomorrow morning as soon as possible...

Current Mood: (somewhat changeable)

unconscious mutterings 266

It was so hot yesterday afternoon that after I moved my bottle of sunscreen from the kitchen counter into the bedroom I heard this BANG like a cap gun going off and eventually worked out that the lid of the bottle had popped open from the air heating up inside... scary...

Also, ONE SLEEP LEFT!!!

And now... Unconscious Mutterings...

1. Homicide :: Detective


2. Divisive :: Say what now?


3. Flash :: "Aaaaahaaaaa... he's the saviour of the Universe"


4. Steaming :: Video


5. Crunch :: Berry


6. Look out! :: Behind you!


7. Anticipating :: Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney, Sydney...


8. Slim :: Not


9. Navel :: Gazing


10. Help :: I need somebody's

Current Mood:

that would be corriander

You Are Cilantro

The bad news is that there are some people who can't stand you. The good news is that most people love you more than anything else in the world. You are distinct, unusual, fresh, and very controversial. And you wouldn't have it any other way.

What Spice Are You?

Current Mood:

disconnection blues

You know what's REALLY stupid and annoying... and just generally fucks me off...

Having to speak to somebody in INDIA to find out if my ISP, which is based just on the other side of the CBD, is having connection issues because of problems with the power or the heat here in Adelaide... I mean, technically I could have driven over to the fricken building (hell, with my voice, I could have opened the window and yelled), knocked on the door and gotten an answer instead of having to wait for some random useless bint in a call centre to tell me there "may" be some outage issues...

Bitch, I've been trying to connect to the internet for THREE FUCKIN HOURS without any success... I'd say you had a fucking outage!

Grrrrrr.....

Current Mood:

hot weather shopping

Thank god for shopping centres and car airconditioning... without it I would be a formless puddle of goo on the floor about now...

Today was something of a weird kind of shopping day... Ma had her Haircut Day, so we got off to a slower start... although it did let me cool the house down a little bit this morning... but since we're going to be away neither of us really needed very much shopping, and with the hot weather all I really was in the mood for was salad and chocolate. Sad, but true... which isn't so great, because I've been avoiding the chocolate a little bit of late.

But I got enough stuff to last me until Tuesday and hopefully it won't all go to the icky place while I'm away. I did clean out the fridge when I got back, pulled out anything that seemed to be on the edge of turning, and threw it out.

Then we headed down to Marion to pick up a couple of bits and pieces before the trip... one of the things I like about Marion in the hot weather is that a high proportion of the boys in the mall are slightly skanky underdressed hotties with tattoos in interesting and inappropriate places... highly distracting really...

Ma decided that she wanted some kind of backpack to take with her on the trip (we're just going to look like overseas tourists again... when we were in Melbourne I came within a hair's breadth of attempting to convince one of those nice "volunteer guide" old folks that we were from America... but I knew if Ma had opened her mouth she would have given the game away), so we went any and everywhere looking for one... they were either too big or too butch or whatever... although eventually we did find a couple of nice ones in Rebel Sports, although the Nike one that was the better shape and size was in this really awful navy and bright orange combo that wasn't that appealing. I didn't really want to influence Ma's decision that much, because I knew if she got the Nike one I would probably end up with it after the trip, and I didn't want to make her get that one just so I could have it.

But fortunately the gods smiled on my by making one of the shop assistants this tall, cute, lanky redheaded guy... so Ma asked him if the bag came in any other colours and if they had any... and of course they didn't (like with all stores these days, what they have is what's out), but he did suggest the store in the city might have more, and when he called to check they did... so we finished up and drove into town.

It actually took us longer to walk from the car to the store than it did to walk into the store and choose a backpack... they had the same style bag in pink... so now Ma is the proud owner of a little pink Nike backpack...

And that was our day really... Ma brought my purple wheely suitcase (that we bought about three years ago right after our trip to Melbourne... and this will be the first time I've used it), we checked off what still needs to be done, and we're pretty much all set...

Three more sleeps!

Current Mood:

photo friday: green lines

Anothre shot from the Northern Lights excursion... they really did a good job outlining the windows and everything... very impressive...

The heat continues...

After a 38°C-39°C weekend, the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts Tuesday will be the coolest day next week with a maximum of 34°C - then it hots up to to 37°C by Thursday.

The heatwave will be the longest experienced in March since 1940 when seven days of 35°C temperatures were last experienced.

It will also be the third time in the history of Bureau of Meteorology records in Adelaide that such a long run of hot days is recorded.

Urgh...

I'm just thankful that we're going to be in Sydney for most of next week... but from the sounds of it the heat will continue until Friday and beyond... so I'm gunna come back to a stinkyhot house... *sigh*

You know, I remember back in the day when Autumn actually meant the weather got cooler.

Current Mood:

festival lights

I'd decided at the beginning of the week that I really wanted to head into town one night and snap some photos of both the Persian Gardens at the Festival Centre, as well as the Northern Lights installation by The Electric Canvas on North Terrace... plus I wanted to try out the mini portable tripod I got for Christmas... and I also figured that while I could do it all on my ownsome, it might be more fun to invite Stu along... so invite I did... and last night he picked me up around dusk and we headed cityward... and fun it was...

We stopped off by the Torrens first... get some city lights shots and pick up the last of the sunset, all the while listening to what I think was an English "comedian" (or possibly poet, I'm not sure) who was performing at the Persian Gardens on the other side of the river, and who we could hear quite clearly at times unfortunately (he wasn't really that good, but he did reminded me of the guy reading annoying poetry towards the end of Plunkett & Macleane for some weird reason... same kind of accent I think)...

Then we wandered over to the other side of the river and took some shots of the fountain all lit up with colours... snapped a few of the Gardens (which actually wasn't as interesting as I thought it might have been, from a photography standpoint anyway), stopped and had a drink and perved on the crowd a little bit, then wandered back down the river when the Chinese junk multimedia thing (Junk Theory) set sail up and down the river. The boat was pretty, the idea of projecting things onto the sails was great... but the whole "multimedia experience" thing was VERY naff... overly loud and annoying sounds (I wouldn't even call it music) and images with no real theme or idea behind them... disappointing...

So after Stu had taken a bunch of images of the boat (my camera wouldn't work fast enough in the low light, so I wasn't getting anything worthwhile), we went back to the car and headed up to North Terrace for Northern Lights.

OH! MY! GOD! So cool, so very, very cool...

Seriously, if you're in the state, or you'll be passing in the next week or so, go and see it... it's totally worth it.

Adelaide really does come alive at Festival time... there must have been a couple of hundred people wandering up and down the street... a bunch with cameras, and about every second person had their camera phones out and were snapping shots. What was amusing were the people using flash... *shakes head* I don't tink so!

The buildings looked AMAZING! Some were better than others, and I know that we didn't see all the possible rotations on each building, because there were about half a dozen or more sets per building, and while each one lasted a couple of minutes, there were (I think) seven buildings in all... so it would have taken a while to see the lot.

The two wings of the Museum were probably my favourites (bottom left and centre top in the photo), but they all looked pretty good... except maybe the Art Gallery for some reason... I don't know if it was because they had to work around the giant banners hanging on the front, or if I just didn't see the one or two good images, but it was a bit lackluster.

It's also obviously been a while since I was at the Camera Club (almost a year and a half actually)... Stu said he spotted at least five different people from the club while we were wandering back and forth, but I didn't see any of them... of course that could have been because I wasn't actually paying any attention to the people around us (which is very unlike me), but all my attention was fixed on the buildings.

As the evening wore on, I did discover that while my mini tripod is very portable and will be highly useful while I'm in Sydney, it's also about three feet tall, so I spend all my time either kneeling down in the street or bending over or whatever. Towards the end of the night I started putting it up on top of things... columns, wide railings, seating... anything I could find to just keep it that much higher off the ground. So that should be entertaining. It does weigh almost nothing though, which is good.

When I finally ran out of camera battery and we'd pretty much had enough, it was about 11pm, which wasn't too bad an effort I don't think... yes we probably should have spent less time at the Torrens and more on North Terrace... but whadyagunnado?

Can't wait to show the Northern Lights photos to Ma... she's going to be so jealous... hehe...

Current Mood: