Paddy's Markets & Prawn Noodles!

Last Sunday, my coursemate Yin very kindly invited Nav and myself to her home for har mee (prawn noodles). So we met outside Broadway at noon and dropped into Harris, which is something like a fresh foods supermarket at the basement of the building. Then we needed to get more ingredients, so we walked all the way (not that far lar, only about 15 to 20 minutes of leisurely walking) to Paddy's Markets. The walk was very pleasant cos the weather was starting to get cooler again (it was pretty warm during the latter half of last week, now it's pretty cool, averaging between 13 to 24 degrees Celsius) and I managed to snap some pictures of some of the more interesting sights along the way:

Paddy's Markets reminds me of one of those stereotypical Asian markets, you know the kind - a colourful sea of veg and fruit splayed out on waves upon waves of wooden tables, and hawkers literally screaming for your attention, and the typical crowd of impatient Asians, all doing their weekly shopping for cheap groceries (it's true, things here are so much cheaper than anywhere else!). It was surreal to walk amongst the various stalls; I felt as if I was back in Malaysia, the sounds, sights and smells were all so familiar! I walked away with a plastic bag filled with eight limes (only AUD$2!). The biggest irony? Another stall was offering ten limes for the same price!

There was also a meat and seafood section, and they've got all their fish and clams and oysters and such laid out in plastic trays and buckets.

And if you walk a little further, you have the usual stalls displaying clothes and shoes and stuff like that.

Outside the market I saw a very interesting albeit familiar sight. There were 2 men in Native American costume playing their wind instruments! They must have followed me all the way from KL (cos that's where I last saw something like that!). I stood there for a while, making use of the gathering crowd to disguise my oh-so-busy camera snap snap snap!

We then took a bus to Yin's neighbourhood (very pretty place!) and spent the entire afternoon, evening and night just lounging around watching movies (Made of Honour and Twilight) and chatting and eating and laughing. Yin made us some roasted chicken + avocado + egg + ham sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner we had har mee, which Yin made from scratch!!!! I find this very impressive cos the only har mee I know is the one you find at Alor Street (oooooh, I miss KL food!) and the instant noodle type!

Here's a snapshot of Yin and Nav after our satisfying dinner. Note the wide grins of contentment:

Yin further demonstrated her culinary expertise by serving up sago pearls with pandan coconut milk and gula Melaka for dessert! Yummy! At last, authentic Asian flavours! Slurp slurp!

So that was a good day, and I finally managed to satisfy my craving for good food! And that's it for this blogpost! The next I blog will prolly be on the Harbour Cruise, which will be this coming Saturday night. So till then (or earlier!), cheers!

Blue Mountains!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately, but really it's because I've had nothing much to report (if you consider the routine everyday stuff like waking up, lunch, classes, dinner, and sleep really special and want me to blog about those, drop me a line). But I've got something to blog about now, cos I went to the Blue Mountains on Saturday!!!!

Apparently going to the Blue Mountains with other tour groups usually cost anywhere from AUD$80 to AUD$100, but this specific trip only cost AUD$25 per person as it was a 'special' thingy organised by the IDP people here (yeah, the same agency that we have back home, y'know, the one that handles all the Australian education fairs and all). So a few of us jumped at the opportunity to visit one of the most scenic tourist spots here (or so they say), and with only one hour of sleep the previous night, we met up at the IDP office at 7 am. I was so exhausted I had to drop into Maccas (that's what the Aussies call McDonalds, I'm not quite sure if that's how it's spelled though, will have to ask the next Aussie I meet) to grab an iced coffee (approximately AUD$1.90 I think, can't quite remember now that I think about it). That was one of the best iced coffees I've ever had. Yum. We were each given a big red bag with a bottle of water, a packet of sandwiches (I chose the chicken, mayonnaise and lettuce one), and plenty of educational brochures (which I have yet to read). There was quite a crowd of international students already gathered there (this event was only for international students), and they had 2 big coaches to carry us around. The bus we were on finally started moving at about 7.30 am, and it was a beautiful drive through the more suburban areas of Sydney. I even spied a few cows and horses along the way (I was so excited at seeing real-life horses I think I actually squealed).

Our first stop was this place called Kurrajong Heights. This was also the place I twisted my ankle. Highly ironic, I know. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had twisted my ankle at the last stop on our itinerary, but the first? Sigh. I spent the rest of the trip just trying to keep up with everyone else, while trying courageously to ignore the pain and not let it get in the way of my touristy sight-seeing.

After about 15 minutes we went on to the next stop (I've only found out now that that place is called York's Hill and apparently we also stopped at Mount Victoria Lookout - I'm sure the bus driver cum tour guide mentioned the name of the place, I just wasn't really listening - I only remember that place as Mount Blaxland because that's what it said on the wooden signpost). I made use of the toilets there (no water, no flush!).

The next place we were brought to was Govett's Leap, and they had some interesting looking stone structures there. And I was looking out at the landscape, wondering what there was to see amongst the trees and rocks (which is really a very common sight in Sarawak, I didn't realize I had travelled all the way to Sydney to see the same), until someone pointed out a waterfall in the far distance. Again, I couldn't help thinking about the waterfalls we have back home and you might not trust me on this, but trust me, I think we've got prettier waterfalls back home. And our forests are more lush and green.

The fourth stop was Evans Lookout, and this one was pretty impressive because you walked all the way to the edge of this cliff (don't worry, it was fenced up) and it broke away to this great view of trees and rocks (again). It was real windy though, and several times I had to clutch my precious camera to myself just in case it flew away.

We stopped for lunch at Katoomba, which is this quaint little town, really small and it's like one of those small villages you read about in Stephen King novels where everyone knows everyone else and one by one everyone gets eaten up by zombies. We excitedly rushed to some pretty tables set out in the open amongst a beautiful garden and arranged all the food we'd brought with us (I'd cooked up some San Remo's instant macaroni cheese to share). We were sitting there, munching happily and enjoying the view, when suddenly a man in a chef's uniform walked up to the whole bunch of us and said the tables we were using were actually for his patrons' use only, i.e. you had to buy some food from his restaurant if you wanted to sit there. So faces ablaze with shame and embarrassment, we all gathered up our stuff and searched for a new place to invade. We finally decided on the grass, and I coincidentally had some newspaper to place our containers of food on, and thus it became a 'proper' picnic. After lunch we walked around a bit, and I stepped into this shop called Rivers and managed to pick up a pair of bright pink (it's really bright pink!!!!) for AUD$1.80. Cheap, right? Then we rushed back to the bus cos it was time to leave.

The Three Sisters was the real highlight of the trip, and apparently it's one of those places you're told you must visit if you're in Sydney. There were lots of people gathered at all the strategic lookout spots (the itinerary says it's called Echo Point), snapping pictures and all. We literally had to fight off people who wanted to invade our photo-territory. Okay, maybe not fight off, but we had to say "excuse me" quite a few times. So if you ever get the chance to view pictures of people who've visited the Three Sisters, don't be surprised if you see strangers in the background. Being a tourist attraction, you also find the stereotypical souvenir shops and restaurants. There was even a giant koala character to muck around with. No, not a real koala, but you know one of those toy plasticky ones people take pictures with?

Everglade Gardens was my favourite. It's simply gorgeous, especially as it's autumn and some trees have turned red and were beginning to shed their leaves and all. I was so happy. If you know me you know autumn's my favourite season, and here I was, finally experiencing true autumn (i.e. red trees shedding their leaves and all). There might even have been some maple trees (cos the leaves looked like maple leaves), I dunno, do maples grow in Sydney? The place is just one giant garden of colours, it was all so idyllic and beautiful. It started to drizzle, and we were ushered into a little building that's like a giant house (I want a house like that!!!!), and we were supposed to listen to some talk or other, but a few of us 'stumbled' into a little tea room (no, not the picture below of the lovely tables and all, but a much smaller room, which only had like 4 small tables) and it was just so cosy and oh-so-English that we decided to skip the talk and have a nice proper little tea instead. I wasn't hungry (stuffed from lunch!), so I just ordered a pot of chamomile tea (AUD$3 only!). Aaaaahh... Bliss! Next time when I grow up I want to have a little tea room like that, where the floor to ceiling window looks out into a pretty little garden and when my friends come to visit, we'll have our English tea and chit-chat over little pretty scones and muffins and giggle into our pretty little handkerchiefs.

Our final stop was at the little town (is it even a town?) of Leura. The bus driver said it's known as the garden town or something, because every spring (or was it summer?) the people open their gardens up to the public and anyone can just stroll into their gardens for a little lookaround. Hmmm. Reminded me of our Malaysian open house tradition, only Malaysians are more obsessed with food than gardens. As the bus rolled past the houses I tried my best to look at each house, and really, their gardens are all beautiful! When I grow up I want gardens like those!!!! Oh wait. I'm grown up already, you say? Oh well, nevermind. I visited the public toilets and browsed through some shops there, and before long it was time to get back on the bus for our ride back to the city. We reached the Sydney city centre at approximately 7.15 pm, and sigh, it was such a rude awakening back to the reality that is city life.

So that was my Blue Mountains trip. The pictures here don't do any justice to the real beauty of the red autumn leaves and the cold mists swirling around the mountaintops, but I hope they at least give you a visual image (no matter how bad!) of what I've described here. It only just hit me that I could and should have taken a video of the highlights of my trip, but hey, nothing beats the real thing, no?

Cheers you all. Will blog again real soon!