Aussie rule football and North Head

Saturday, Fiona and I went to see the Sydney Swans play St. Kilda in Aussie Rules football. It is surprisingly good. I was pretty amazed at how much fun it was with a good crowd and fit athletes running everywhere. The best were the referees throwing the ball backwards when the ball was out. Overall much better than American football and rugby!
Sunday was another day for a nice long hike. This time it is the Manly to North Head which is part of Sydney Harbour National Park, a 11km hike. This is more an uphill climb so I got a great view of Manly beach looking back.
Despite the fact that it has officially been autumn for 4 weeks now, it is still HOT! So by the time I made it up the hill to the visitor center, I was sweating. What amused me the most was as when I went through the Gunnery part of the trail, I walked past this sign! For those who don't watch much TV the Biggest Loser is a show on making obese people work out and lose amazing amount of weight. So it seems like the Australian version was based at this National Park and the contestants were interviewed with me watching them!
The rest of the walk had spectacular scenery overlooking the harbour. You can see the Sydney Tower in the background. The land directly across is Watson Bay, which is where I was a couple weeks ago.
On the Manly side, there are these awesome cliffs that are almost a 90 degree drop. Pretty impressive.
At the end of the trail, I came across this sign. I am not too sure the sign really explained anything. If you didn't get it the first time around, then this sign is not helping.

The perfect weekend in Melbourne

This past weekend was spent down in Melbourne with the Wotherspoons. It was fantastic to see some familiar faces and also to meet one new one, little baby Georgia! She is adorable and a perfect baby. She is a carbon copy of Scott, down to the love of the wineglass :) I am sure she will be a budding wine connoisseur when she grows up, just like her dad! She is already reaching for her wineglass at this young age!
The Wotherspoons live in St. Kilda's, which is a gorgeous neighbourhood right by the beach. Not only is it minutes from the ocean, it has Acland street, famous for its cake stores and cute shops. There is also a few interesting rooftop decorations
Saturday we went to Queen Victoria Market which is this massive market with just about anything you can think of, from Uggs to seafood, cheese, chocolate, fruit to live chickens and ducks.
We also went to Brighton beach with gorgeous bathing boxes and 4 different wedding parties! Look closely on the side of the box. According to Scott, these are the most expensive real estate per square feet in Melbourne. Dinner was spent relaxing outside in their backyard with a lovely home cooked meal with another Canadian fellow Kris!

Sunday we went to Yarra Valley for some wine tasting and relaxing. Baby G was fantastic and survived the whole road trip without much fussing. Finally Sunday night Meg and I went down to the St. Kilda's pier to watch the fairy penguins come onto the rocks. The penguins were cute but the best feature was watching the sunset! Scott and Megan, for an awesome weekend, I give you a 10!

Bulldogs and cupcakes

On Saturday, my cousins took me to see a National Rugby League game. It was at the ANZ stadium with the Sydney Bulldogs against the Newcastle Knights. The fans were definitely into the game. The best fan was the little 2 year old girl with her little stuffed bulldog screaming her head off. The Bulldogs were definitely the underdogs for most of the game until the second quarter where they manage to go from 0:20 to 16:20. If anything it was a much faster moving game than American football with much less padding and much fitter, better looking boys
Sunday was a day of self indulgence with a pedicure, shopping and a cupcake. I am not a cupcake person, but Ghermez cupcakes was highly recommended on the eatability website so I thought I'd give it a try. I tried the Pistashio and Rose cupcake and it was not bad. The thing I dislike about cupcakes is the icing on top and this icing was not too thick. The cupcake itself was nice and light.
Part of what's nice about Sydney is the large number of festivals and events that is on at any one weekend. I just stumbled upon this wine tasting event with Sydney Morning Hearld at Hyde Park. Too bad I can't drink becuase they have the whole park covered with vendors from all different wineries in the region. There must be over 100 of them with a lot of people tasting them. What a nice way to pass a Sunday afternoon!

Officially end of summer

It is quite amazing that it's March 13th and it's officially autumn in Australia. It's 20-25 oC outside and I spotted people wearing toques and furry jackets in the middle of the day! And I thought I was a wimp contemplating putting on a pair of jeans at night!

Today I set off to walk across Harbor Bridge but have to first try the lamb and almond sausage roll from Central Baking Depot. This was much better compared to Bourke Street Bakery both in the sense of taste and also comfort. There was significantly more seats and less people in this bakery. I might have found my new Saturday hangout.

Walking across Harbour bridge is the much cheaper option than climbing the harbour bridge. However once I get paid (hopefully soon), I will be doing the famous BridgeClimb. In the meantime I have to settle for the poor man version but just as great scenery as climbing up the bridge.
20+ years ago, I was in Sydney with my family and I distinctly remember Luna Park, the Sydney amusement park with rides. It seemed big when I was little but it is not so big anymore. However I still remember the one ride that made me sick. The one below where it spins people backwards, I don't ever remember being sick from rollercoasters apart from this one ride. Afterwards I walked along the coast on the North Side of the city, along Lavender Bay, Blues Point Reserve, Sawmillers reserve and then to Waverton Park. Not as long as a walk as last week but tonight I get to go to watch football with my cousins :)

View from Blues Point reserves

Watson Bay, pies and all

This weekend was actually a nice weekend (despite th weather forecast) and I continued my quest to walk Sydney's coastal walks. Starting from Royal Botanical Gardens, I walked to Watson Bay. the first stop was Harry's Cafe on Wheels on Wolloomooloo, famous for its meat pie.
I had the curry "Tiger" which is curry beef pie with mashed potato, mushed peas and gravy. It was filling and great for the rest of the trip.

To be honest, after one or two of the bays they started looking the same. i passed Rushcutter Bay, Double Bay, Rose Bay, Vaucluse with Vaucluse House, finally arriving at Watson Bay 5 hours later.

Watson Bay

The perfect ending to a super long walk is fish and chips with calamari from Doyle's fisherman's restaurant. The half hour ferry boat ride back to the city was a perfect ending to a good day's exercise!

Organic burger and spicy noodles!

With everyone away in New Orleans, this gave me an opportunity to try the restaurants only open for lunches. Plan B by Becasse is listed as a "must-try" in Lonely Planet. This is a little hole in the wall next to the parent restaurant Becasse. However it was insanely busy and everyone ordered the famous Wagyu burger. The burger is 600g of organic Wagyu beef with beetroot, caramelized onions and cheese. It is everything that people raved about and more..
Went to the Custom House Library and they have a exhibition of tigers on, seeing that it's the year of the tiger!
Seeing that it was pouring rain, I thought I'd go to the Fox studios and the Entertainment quarters to be entertained. Not so much! The Fox studios was fenced off and there's not much to do in the entertainment quarters. Not a place to be visited.
Dinner is at the Twisted Noodle Bar in Haymarket. It was chilly when I was walking there but definitely after the meal, I was HOT! The Yunnanese noodles were fresh and slippery and the soup (despite ordering small chili and small sour) was spicy! I had the Kunming bowl with bits of tofu, 1/2 a egg and pork in the soup, deep fried chicken wing and sausage (on the side). It was satisfying for a cheap price of $10.80!

GOLD!

Well done Canada and all our athletes for an outstanding Olympic game! It has been a fantastic 17 days and everyone did extremely well! Proud to call Canada home!