The Great Book o' Ninjing

To get myself into some kind of Christmas spirit, I decided it would be a good idea to make some Christmas cookies. While the idea was sound, there were a few obstacles...

First of all, I didn't have any cookie cutters. Because – surprise! - I didn't take any with me. A few weeks before Katti had written in her fantastic blog Tea, Cake and Sandwiches (http://teacakeandsandwiches.blogspot.com, if anyone wants to check it out) about the Ninjabread Men she had made with these incredible cookie cutters shaped like ninjas. And I have to admit I was quite jealous, because as some of you know I myself am no stranger to cookie cutters with, let's just call them less traditional shapes. So anyway, I decided I wanted Christmas cookies, and I went looking for cutters. At the first shop that seemed likely to have some, I asked one of the saleswomen and she looked at me, a little embarrassed, and said “yes, we do, but only these...”, pointing at – the Ninjas! And guess what - I bought them. Again: surprise!

So that was the easy part over. The actual making of the ninjas involved a lot of work and quite a bit of improvisation, but then again, creating a ninja out of nothing is never an easy task and will almost always require hard work... 

 

My first problem was the simple task of measuring stuff. It sounds easy, until you have to hunt around for something to measure stuff with for half an hour, and then convert everything into ounces, because the energy drinks my flatmate drinks are measured in ounces, which is fine, until you get to the butter... There was a lot of guessing going on.

Another thing you might need when making cookies is a rolling pin or something shaped approximately like a rolling pin. Now if we had had someone living in the flat who occasionally drinks wine at that time, it really wouldn't have been hard to find a bottle that's reasonably large and completely round, but we didn't, so it was. I ended up wrapping my deodorant bottle in greaseproof paper and using that, which was a pain in the behind because it's quite small and therefore takes ages to get the dough rolled thin enough. But it is possible to do it, believe me!

my version of a rolling pin

 

Then there is the oven. It looks like a normal oven, very unthreatening and in fact just like what you would expect an oven to look like. But it's not. It's weird and unusual, and sometimes it tries to kill you and eat you. The first thing you should know about that beast of a kitchen appliance is that it really likes its oven trays... 

You can not get them out or in without a good deal of yanking and shoving, usually moving the whole oven a few meters while you are fighting the thing. Then there is the thing with the heat. I am used to ovens heating whatever you are trying to make from the top AND the bottom. This one doesn't. You can either have heat from the top OR the bottom, but not both at the same time. It took me a while to figure that out, which is why the first batch of ninjas were wearing night time camouflage on their backsides... But we ate them anyway, and they were quite nice.

Traditional ninjas. Notice the spare parts...

These are slightly less traditional in their clothing style...

 

Bondi! Mwahahahaha....

Alright, so it's been a while; what's new...

I moved! Again... Staying in a Hostel in Sydney over Christmas and New Year's is not something a backpacker without a job (but I'll get one soon! I hope...) can afford for long. I paid $19 - $25 for a dorm room per night – between Christmas and New Year's it'll be $70! Although I'm not sure if that's for a dorm room, but still... Come on! So now I've moved to a flat in Bondi.

Yes, Bondi, the one with the fancy beach and everything! I'm about 30 minutes walk away from the beach, though, so it's not quite as fancy, but hey, I can walk to the beach in half an hour! It could be worse...

I'm sharing the flat with two other people, Sarah, a Brazilian girl I met at Chili Blue (the hostel where Lisa, Jessi and me stayed for a while), and Mario, who is also from Brazil. I might even learn some Portuguese... Mario is going back to Brazil soon, and then another Brazilian girl will move in, and I have been told she is a fantastic cook – which is good, because the only thing Sarah and me have cooked so far has been rice with corn and ketchup. That was more for reasons of not having anything else in the kitchen, and it was raining outside, so we decided not to go food shopping and have rice instead. It wasn't actually as bad as it sounds...

The other night, though, must have been Monday night, when I was still staying at Sydney Central Backpackers, another hostel, I had a really nice dinner. Gavin (from England), Tani (who I was sharing a room with and who is from Aberdeen – coincidence? Yeah, probably...) and I made sausages, mashed potatoes with garlic, gravy with onions, asparagus and mushrooms – or bangers and mash, as the guys called it. And I have to say, even though I was a bit suspicious of Aussie sausages at first (this being an ex British penal colony, after all), they were actually quite nice, and with the potatoes and all the rest it made quite a meal. Quite a lot of a meal. We did have beer, though, so it went down well... German beer, actually – good, old Oettinger!

Oh, and in other news: I broke down and bought a Netbook... Yeah, I know, that was pretty quick, but as I was sitting in the Internet cafe, having just paid $2 for one hour, and typing on an icky, sticky keyboard, I decided that spending a few bucks now would probably save me some money (and a lot of grief) in the future... So now I have my own wee baby computer, and it's such a relief! The only problem now is: we don't have internet at the flat. But there's a lot of nice, comfy cafes around where you get a free connection – which
is not going to be good for my caffeine intake, but there's always a catch, right?

The thing about not having internet is that I started to write the post offline... and that was 2 days ago. So this is what happened next...

Well, nothing really. At first. Most of Friday was spent trying to find a nice place for the internet thing, and I did, eventually, find the perfect one: Curious Cafe on Bronte Road. The cafe has a living room kind of feeling, the coffee is good and not too expensive, and best of all: the wifi connection is really stable, you can access it without any problems, and it doesn't keep kicking you out like some other places (I mean the connection, not the people). This is going to be a heavy blow for McDonald's, which was the previous place to go for free wifi... So I spent some time bringing my computer up to the level where I want it to be, meaning Firefox instead of IE and Open Office instead of a toned down version of MSOffice...

The plan was to then go home, get everything packed away, and go down to the beach, which I haven't done once since I moved here, shame on me... But when I got home I got talking with Sara and by the time we thought about the beach again it was starting to get dark. So, I still haven't been down there!

Yesterday Tani, Gavin and I finally got around to doing something we've been postponing for a while: walking the Scenic Walk from Spit Bridge to Manly. We had originally planned to do it on Wednesday, but then the whole rainy thing happened and literally drowned our outing, so we've been waiting for a good day for a walk. Well, I say a walk, it's more like a hike in some places... It's 10 km from Spit to Manly, and if you keep up a good pace, you can probably do it in 3 hours. However, all three of us discovered our fascination for lizards - Gavin most of all, I think he took pictures of every single lizard we saw. And some of them are brilliant, because he has an awesome camera. He also has The Zoom... Very handy when you're trying to find out what the people on the yacht in the bay are up to. And yes, we might have turned into perverts, but spying on people with The Zoom is fun!

Anyway, lizards everywhere, and there are some huge buggers running around that place! Some of them were easily 80 cm head to tail. Of course, as always, you can't really tell from the pictures.

But the walk was lovely, there were some great views, and it's always fun to have an English guy and a Scot constantly having a go at each other. Unless, of course, they gang up on ze German... Since I am “the Beer Wench”, as Tani so kindly called me the first time we killed some beers together, the two guys have been wondering where they can get a dirndl and dress me up properly. We'll see how that goes...

By the time we got to Manly, we were all pretty footsore, and the mean part of the walk is that once you get to Manly, you're still nowhere near the ferry terminal. So, more walking, but through a really nice neighbourhood. If I had a lot of money, I would definitely live in Manly.

We took the ferry back to Circular Quay, the ferry terminal in the city centre, and from there walked through the Botanic Garden (at a very fast pace, because they were about to close for the night), and since it was just about to get dark, we saw the flying foxes again – another thing that Gavin became completely obsessed with. The Zoom had its next big appearance...

Somehow we managed to limp all the way to Central Backpackers, where we cooked another dinner: bangers and mash, again! Oh, and this time I took pictures! In all fairness, we still had half of the sausages left over, and the previous cooking experience was such a success, so we just went for it again, and it was GOOD. Also quite a lot, again, but then we had just walked 10 km... Anyway, we ate the food, I did the beer wenching, and a good time was had by all.

Blogspot sucks!!!

I had a really nice, long post written (offline), and the only thing left to do was to add all the wondeful pictures I've been taking... and it won't let me! Bastard! Apparently I can no longer upload pictures from my computer. If this problem persists, I'm gonna have to move this somewhere else...

Anyway, I'm just going to post the thing without the pictures, and maybe I can squeeze them in at a later date...

Rain, rain, go away, and STAY AWAY!

As you probably noticed, it's raining. Has been all day. The plan was to go to the beach and have a nice sunny day, but that obviously didn't work too well. Our backup, the Museum of Contemporary Art, is too far away to walk in the rain, so no luck there either... At least this way I have some time to bring you guys up to speed. But mainly this is going to be pictures:

This is the Central Business District, which is right on the waterside. Lots of Banks, all the expensive hotels like the Four Seasons, and of course the Opera House. It's very nice to just sit there and enjoy the view, but if you get hungry, I'd recommend going somewhere else.





The view from the Harbour Bridge is beautiful, except for a very, very strange building on the side facing the Opera House. People in that building seem to be turning to religion, but so would I if I lived there. Imagine lots and lots of these appartments all stacked on top of and beside each other, and you get a pretty good idea of the overall effect.

But who says you have to leave your house the way you found it? When you walk from Victoria Street (that's where we're staying) down to the water, you pass some kind of community building, which has been decorated by some very talented people.



 As I mentioned before, we all fell completely in love with the Royal Botanic Garden. It's right next to the Opera House and the Ferry Wharf, where we were headed when we got stranded. And of course you can see all the banks from there. By the way, the building with the weird construction on its roof on the left is the Deutsche Bank building.

At first look the Botanic Garden seems like any other park, although I have to admit the plants are a bit more exotic than anything you'd find in a German park. There are palm trees everywhere, and of course the ever-present eucalypts (minus the Koalas, so far, haven't seen any yet).



But then you turn a corner, and there's at least 10 cockatoos. We had been wondering what those huge white shapes in the trees were...







 There is one kind of tree in particular that I've fallen in love with here, and it's not even a native Australian tree (at least I think it isn't). It's the Jacaranda tree, and there's one of them in almost every front yard and in every park.



This picture was taken when we went on a ferry trip to Rose Bay. Sydney ferries are a very non-expensive alternative to a harbour cruise, because a ferry ticket costs as much as a bus ticket, and we happened to have a 7-day-ticket... So we took the ferry to Rose Bay (that was at around 7 pm), and since it was the last one for the day, we just stayed on and went right back. Of course we didn't get to see Rose Bay, but the views of the Harbour were the only thing we were after anyway, so...

I know it's cheesy and very touristy, but every time I see the Opera House I have to take a picture...

So that's Sydney, or at least some of it. Last Sunday we went on a trip to the Blue Mountains, the part of the Great Dividing Range that lies just past Sydney. They don't look very impressive from a distance, they're neither very high nor very steep, but once you enter them they're absolutely beautiful.

Once you get a way into the mountains, there is a little town called Katoomba, and it sits right on the edge of a truly spectacular valley of red cliffs and silvery green forest. Of course, as always happens, the pictures don't do it justice...





Right on the edge of town you can share a viewing platform with busloads of Japanese tourists, but it's absolutely worth getting yelled at in Japanese to get out of the f@$%#ing picture (of course they're very polite, I guess, but then I don't understand Japanese, and I'm sure that's what they would like to say) to see the Three Sisters.

Well, the rest really is just going to be pictures, because I have already taken so much time working on this post (I still have to figure out the finer points of tuning this, hopefully it will get better with time). Oh by the way, it's stopped raining. That's how long this is taking me...

Eucalypt tree

lots of Eucalypt trees

and one more...

the left side of the first Sister...

...and the right side

And even more trees - I really like those trees, if you haven't already noticed...

This is from another place called Wentworth Falls, and there are waterfalls to the left of this, but we didn't get to see them either (it would have been an hours walk to get to the bottom, so we didn't go), so why should you... And I know the cliffs look pretty much the same, but they are different ones, honestly!





Once more with the trees, but again, different trees, different place, and there really are a lot of them, if you hadn't already guessed. But they're really nice, and when you're walking through the forest in the sun it smells really good.

I guess I'll just get this baby on the way, this has already taken far too long. I started this post on Monday and it's Wednesday now...

See ya!

We've moved...

So we're at Sydney Central Backpackers now, and the internet connection is crap. I'm sitting in a shopping centre right now, where one hour costs 2$ (same as at the hostel), but it's quick, and it works all the time.  Gone are the times when we had unlimited internet access at all hours of the day.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is: Updates are going to be a little less often...

We've been looking for cars, and it's frustrating as hell. The guys found a really cheap car the first day they were looking - they paid 650$ for a rust bucket and they had to take a four hour train ride to get it, but everything seems to be working, so... For us it's a little difficult, because we need a car that fits three. But we're going to get there eventually.

The hostel is pretty cool, it's more or less clean, but we did meet our first cockroach on our first night. Sadly, he died the next day... We'll miss him.
Unfortunately no pictures of the hostel OR the car yet, but I'll do my best to keep up.

The cockatoos at the Botanic Garden are at war with the pigeons.
No wonder, I mean who in their right mind likes pigeons...

One of the amazing things we discovered here was the Royal Botanic Garden. We were actually on our way to the Ferry Wharf and decided to take a shortcut through the Botanic Garden. But then we got stuck.



I've no idea what those are called, but they're beautiful, right?



There are incredible plants everywhere, cockatoos, parrots, other birds that I've never seen before... It's absolutely stunning, and you've got a view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.



Harbour Bridge in the back, with the Opera House in the front.
This was taken from the Botanic Garden.

 I guess if I was living in Sydney, I'd probably spend most of my time here.

Well, this is it for now, running out of time, we still have to look for cars. But I'll see if we have free internet access at the next hostel, and maybe then there'll be a bit more.

So this is what happened next...

Ok, so yesterday we went to Sidney city centre. The plan was to take the train to Central Station, then walk to Chinatown and get an Australian SIM card for our phones, walk to the Australian Tax Office, get a Tax File Number, look for a bank, open a bank account, and then meet up with the guys at the Opera House. As plans go, it was pretty good...

The Chinatown part wasn't a problem. Well, the town part anyway. Try talking to a recently arrived Chinese woman who nevertheless manages to speak with an Australian accent. Between the three of us and the four of them we managed to get to the point where there was a SIM card in each phone. Minor glitches like the lack of a PIN when the phones were switched back on were soon overcome. E.T. phone home for 5 cents a minute from now on.

Getting to the ATO proved to be a tiny bit more difficult than we expected. First of all, walking there was not a good idea. It's a bloody big city, and even the tiny part between Central and the Opera House is quite big. So after what seemed like ages of walking, we decided to take a bus. The only question was which one to take...
When in doubt, ask a nice Australian. We found a lady who was not only willing to explain to us in detail which bus to take, where to get on, where to get off, and where to go next, but who also gave us a map and three cans of coke she happened to have in her handbag... This is a strange and wonderful country.

After that, finding the tax office was a piece of cake. We applied for our tax numbers and then decided to skip the bank, find something to eat and go to the Opera House. Now, trying to find a cheap place to eat in the harbour district isn't as easy as it sounds. We ended up at McDonald's, of all places. But for some reason the burgers taste like burgers here, not like cardboard, so it wasn't all bad.

By the way, the weather is, well, not what you would expect from Australia. Sure, it was warm when we left in Quakers Hill, but then at around 3 pm it started raining cats and dogs, and it cooled down quite a bit. Which we didn't expect, of course... Bad case of wrong clothes.

Anyway, we arrived at the Opera House early, so we decided to have a look inside. And let me tell you, the restrooms in that place are absolutely amazing! It's hard to describe, I'm going to have to go back sometime and take a picture, but it really was great. Marvin and Nico arrived soon after, and after what seemed like hours we finally decided to go look for a bar somewhere. We did eventually find one, where you could bet on sports and there was a video juke box, and we had our first Australian beer. And our second...

The reason we missed the last train back to Quakers Hill was not that we were drunk, because we weren't. We simply lost track of time and got a bit confused by the timetable... Well anyway, the last train was gone, and the first one in the morning was at 4am. Fortunately for us, the bar stayed open pretty late, so at least we had a place to stay. In the end, due to general undecidedness, we ended up missing the first train as well (by a few minutes), so we had to wait at Central for another hour. AND we missed our connecting train in Blacktown, because by that time we were so tired and exausted that we didn't find the right platform on time. But we got home all right, and that's all that matters, right?

Here we go...

Ok, so this is it. The Big Adventure. The Great Unknown. The... Oh, what the hell, we're in Australia, not at the end of the world. Although...

So anyway, getting here was... well, basically pretty boring. Long, long flights with an even longer stopover in Shanghai; crappy airplane food; chinese in-flight movies; and the wonderful staff at China Eastern, who apparently speak English, but in a way that drives non-Chinese speakers up the walls. The Chinese officials in Shanghai looked scary, so we mainly stayed in the terminal and tried to get some sleep on the extremely uncomfortable benches in the waiting area. We did however change some money (20 Euros, I think), and ended up with more Yuan than we could possibly spend in such a short amount of time. You can only eat so many packets of crisps in 7 hours...

Also quite scary: the architecture of Shanghai airport,
especially if...



...you are sitting in the departures hall.



Everything that's happened since the landing in Sydney has been pretty cool. The Australian customs officials were joking around - unlike the Chinese ones, who seemed constantly to be on the verge of arresting someone - and the whole overall atmosphere was just extremely relaxed.

We'll be staying at my aunt's brother's place for the first few days; him and his wife were kind enough to pick us up at the airport and give us food and shelter. Also loads of helpful advice.

So tomorrow we're going to start exploring. Apparently the train fare is cheaper if you start your trip after 9:00 am, so that's what we`re going to do. We're in a suburb, Quakers Hill, which is approximately 30 km outside of Sydney, but the train station is only about 3 minutes away. Getting into the city shouldn't be a problem.

I guess this is it for now, it`s a quarter to two in the morning and not that much has happened yet. Need Sleep. More updates when I have something to tell.
And by the way, this is my first ever post in a blog, so I hope it will get better with time.