Wine and Korean Food

OK, so I am sorry. I totally spaced on bringing my camera on the wine tour with me (and roaming gnome), but hey, here are the spoils of the tour:

 Marie and I really enjoyed the tour and the tasting. The coupon included a full 45 minute tour of the grounds and the story of the history and family of the winery. The family originally came from Germany and planned to grow tobacco on the land, but after some difficulty and observing neighbors' success with growing grapes, they joined the wine trade. Many of the buildings still on site were the originals build in the late 1800's. It was really cool to see how they used a lot of the original facilities to process the grapes and make the wine.

After the tour, we were treated to a tasting of as many wines as we could stand, then enjoyed an antipasto platter lunch of crusty bread, ham, salami, cheese spread, olives, pickles, and eggplant- very yummy! We both bought bottles of our favorite wines before we left and began our journey back through the hills to Adelaide.

Today I tried the Korean restaurant suggested to me by Sang, my grandmother's preacher. The owner of this restaurant, called Seoul Express, is Sang's sister in law. I am happy to report I really enjoyed my lunch! I ordered something called Bul Gi Go or something like that. It was shredded beef with vegetables and rice, delivered to you still sizzling on a cast iron platter- so good!

I asked to speak with the owner, but the girl I spoke to said she was not there- she was at their other restaurant that will be opening soon- a Korean restaurant specializing in Korean BBQ called KoBa. I will try to see if I can meet her again sometime; I will definitely be going back!

Life in Adelaide

Sorry for the long time without any updates (devotees have been complaining via email, KIM, cough, cough), but the internet has been spotty where I am staying, and not a whole lot of photo worthy events have occured.

Last week, I went to Hahndorf with Marie. It was just like I remembered last time, nice little shops, lots of stuff you would buy if you had money. I had a proper German lunch of a trio of brats atop the largest mound of sauerkraut you've ever seen and German potatoes. I also had some German beer (did I mention Hahndorf is the first German settlement in Australia?) I got some souveniers, including genuine Kangaroo Island honey, some brautwurst for dinner later this week, massively overpriced chocolate, and a six pack of microbrewed beer. Marie and I went to a tasting of Gulf Brewery beer. It was good, which is surprising to me considering Aussie beer standards. I really enjoyed the IPA and the chocolate stout.

I have been going to volleyball twice weekly with Sam and Marie. I play on the "C grade" team that Marie is on, which is the least competitive, which is fine with me because I just want to mess around. I have really been enjoying it. The first week, I had major bruises on my arms from the volleyball, but I think I have gotten used to it now. I spend a lot of my time with them because Sarah has such a busy schedule at the church. They are planning to move out soon, and I hope I have a job by then, or I will be so lonely here at the house! Its a weird thing to say when 3 other people will still be living here, but everyone has different schedules, I really never see everyone everyday. It is really like a hostel here, everyone going in and out at all hours of the day, haha. I am still sending off several applications for jobs each day. It's frustrating, but I've been through it before, and it usually takes a while to find something.

Friday I am going on a winery tour with Marie (my new hangout buddy, haha). I will take some pictures so you will have something to look at, I promise!

Updates from Adelaide

So, I have requested an Australian tax file number (which basically means I am "on the grid," it's like an Aussie social security number so I can get taxes back from what they take out of my check) and have officially opened an Australian bank account (it currently has $20 in it, to cover the costs of keeping it open until I find a job). I now have to, actually, find a job. I've been pointed in a thousand different directions, but I think the one that makes most sense to me in going to a temping agency. Going in, I know I can only work for a company for 6 months, so it just makes sense to go to a temping agency, as they will be also looking for someone short term. Also, one of Sarah's friends, who loves America, Americans, our cheap prices, and our hamburgers, said she could help me and maybe suggest some agencies to go to. And that is the next step.

To update you on what I have been doing the past couple of days:

-I can indeed still play volleyball. I practiced with Marie and her team on Monday. But, since I haven't played in forever, I am still getting soreness. Not just of leg muscles and shoulders, but my forearms- need to get used to bumping a ball again. I busted many a blood vessel the other night. And I am supposed to play with them again tonight...

-I don't like Australian canned refried beans. They add all kinds of spices to them. I don't think I will be getting them again.

-I would recommend the movie "Machine Gun Preacher." I watched it the other night with some of Sarah's friends. It was really good, very sad at some parts.

-On the same day that I played volleyball, I walked to a town called Newton to go shopping. I could have taken buses, but I wanted to get my bearings and I felt like walking. It was probably too much on top of volleyball, and may be while I was sore 2 days later.

-I finally rode the bus yesterday, and encountered my first crazy, on my very first day. I was ok the whole trip to Adelaide, nothing went wrong, until the last leg of the trip from the Paradise Interchange to where I was going to be dropped off on Lyons Road to go home. I spotted the guy before the bus even came; he was disheveled looking, and I silently hoped he was not taking my bus. Of course, when my bus rolled up, he got on last and started asking the driver where the bus went. I take it that he felt the driver was not courteous enough in his response, so he started cussing as he walked back to scan his ticket. The driver pulled off before the man was seated, causing him to fly into more screaming and cussing, "f*cking w*nker," and stuff like that. What bothered me about this most were the 15 or so school kids riding the bus with me. School had let out recently, and if this was freaking me out, they probably were too. At his stop, he walked up to the front of the bus to get off so he could cuss some more at the driver. He got right in his face. Finally he climbed off the bus, but he thought he heard the driver say something back to him, and climbed back on, cussing the threatening him more. Ugh, close the doors! I thought. I wished I had been a huge, muscular man. I wanted to kick that guy's butt. I had adrenaline pumping for about a half hour after that.

In Adelaide!

I am here in Adelaide, in my new room, my clothes all put away (in drawers or hung on hangers! not stuffed in a huge backpack like they were for 3 months last time) with my own bed, heater, nightlamp, an Australian calendar on the wall, and a small 8 x 11 collage of pictures of family and friends. It is my home for the indeterminate future. It is gloriously better than hostel living. It comes with a warm and cheery Australian family included. It's pretty great.

My next move is to begin looking for work. I have been asked by no less than 10 people what kind of work I am going to look for. "Anything really," has been my answer, which has satisfied some people, who understand money is money, but others don't get it. The ticket taker at the Blue Mountains the other day told me the government mandated minimum wage in Australia is over $16. Sixteen dollars an hour! That is more than twice minimum wage in America, and also what I have been making the past year, in a job I have held since 2009, with my college degree backing me. So I really do not mind to have the most remedial position, any job, anywhere, just as long as I am making Aussie money. It makes a difference. I checked my bank balance on an Australian ATM the other day, so of course it converted my American dollars to Australian dollars. Imagine looking at your account and finding it instantly hundreds of dollars less than it was, not from you spending it on anything, but just from converting it into a different currency. It's gut-wrenching. But, if I am making Australian dollars, to spend in Australia, I don't have to deal with the messy business of currency conversion. I have $100 Aussie dollars, it is $100 Aussie dollars, not $95 or $92 or $89.

I've spent quite a lot of time with Marie so far, which is Sarah's brother's wife. She is French Canadian, and they live here also, in the back house in the back yard. She was around last time, and we've developed a friendship because she has a lot more free time than Sarah and has been nice enough to pick me up at airports and drag me around with her to various social engagements. She got me yesterday and we saw a double rainbow while leaving the parking lot, a good omen for Adelaide I hope. Marie has developed the most crazy accent, I call it French Australian. She was still learning English when she came to Australia in 2010, so she has picked up a lot of the Aussie inflections. It is the most unique and interesting thing to hear. Tonight, she took me to see a bunch of her friends from a volleyball league she and Sam play in. There was lots of pizza and Sangria made from mixing blush wine with orange juice and lime soda and lemon and lime slices, and throwing a splash of Cointreau in, and lots of questions for the American. It was a lot of fun, and I am now somehow committed to playing volleyball with their league next Thursday (yikes, need to practice.)

I was again asked to list off the cities I traveled to last time. I am still amazed when I rattle off the list, and Australians always remark that it is much more of Australia than they have seen. It is much more than I have seen of my own country as well, but I still always find it shocking to say out loud the places I have been.

Blue Mountains, Some Aussie Wildlife, and A Chill Day at The Rocks

Yesterday I went on a Blue Mountains tour. The group was scheduled to pick me up at 7:25, so I set my alarm for 6 am. I crept to the shower, with all my clothes I had laid out the night before (I am such a considerate hostel roommate, seriously), got ready, and went out to the common area to eat breakfast. I remembered they unlock the roof top terrace at 7 am, so I thought it would be a good time to get sunrise pictures of the harbour. I went up to the third floor to find out they had not unlocked it yet. A guy noticed me checking the doors and started talking to me. I distinctly detected no accent, so I asked where he was from. "Texas" he said. He had been here 3 weeks and was leaving this morning and had also come up to try and catch a last glimpse of the harbour. He was flying home, then immediately flying to Nigeria. I told him I felt sorry for him. We went back downstairs and outside and caught our rides. I had met quite a few Americans, at least in comparison to last time. I am in Sydney though, not the outback, so I am not that surprised. I also wonder if Oprah raised American awareness of Australia (kidding. I was so disappointed in her "trip to Aus." I had wanted her to try to make an impression and a difference, but it was just lame. She gave a already well-to-do Melbourne couple (who already had a kid, and therefore, had kid supplies) a new nursery. Big Whoop. I had written her and suggested she take the nice Aboriginal man who works at the telegraph station in Alice Springs to Graceland. He is a hug Elvis fan and had always wanted to take his granddaughter. And Oprah is BFF with Pricilla and Lisa Marie, it would have been sooooo easy! And meant a lot more.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yea, on my bus. It took like 45 minutes to get everyone. I will never understand why it is so hard for people to be on time for pickup. You literally just have to walk downstairs and the van gets you, but at almost every stop, our driver had to run inside and search for people. We arrived at a terminal and were split into various vans. I tried not to giggle at Asian tourists recording every second of the journey- literally recording boarding the bus and walking down the aisle to a seat. I would be annoyed to have hours of footage of the backs of peoples heads on a bus, but to each their own. Finally, everyone got their stuff together and we were off.

Our first stop was a tiny town on the edge of the mountain that they stop us at for the specific purposes of funding business in that town. I know because this is what has happened on other tours. There aren't any specific sights in that town (though that won't keep from certain people taking endless shots of every door in town), but they stop there and they tell us to buy our lunch in this shop. After that, we went to an area called Echo Point. They had an Aboriginal show that we had to pay extra for, so I just went and looked at the three sisters rock formation.

The Aboriginal Dreamtime story about these rocks is that there were three very beautiful sisters, and to keep a neighboring tribe from kidnapping them, their father had them turned into stone. Seems to me that is cutting your nose off to spite your face, but who am I to argue with someone about their parenting?

Next, we went to the Blue Mountains park called Scenic World, which I do not care for. The name conjures up a cheesy theme park from an 80's Chevy Chase vacation movie. But it's not like that. It is pretty cool. They have the world's steepest railroad, a 52 degree angle that is an old mining rail adapted to become a tourist attraction, a cableway that carries you in a cart from the valley back up the mountain, and a skyway that carries you from one side of the mountain to the other. It was worth it to buy a ticket to ride each once, so I did. Now, I am kind of afraid of heights, and spent the evening picturing falls from the skyway car, but I somehow made it unharmed. The first ride was the insane 52 degree angle train. I ended up the end of the line, so I was the very first person for the next train. "You get the front row, the best seat," said Eric, the Aussie ticket taker. "I guess that depends on who you ask," I said. He highly recommended sitting on the front, even if it scared me a little. We talked for the next 10 minutes until the train came back, then I took Eric's advise and took a seat in the front car. Even before the train started, I was regretting it a little. We could just barely see over the edge of the cliff of the railway, and it was like a vertical drop on a roller coaster. I couldn't decide if a slow decent down this steep terrain would be better or worse than a quick drop. They played the music to Indian Jones as you started your decent into a dark tunnel. As it happened, the ride wasn't too bad. That did not stop me from clinging to the back of my seat with both arms, disturbing the honeymooning Italian couple sitting behind me.

At the bottom, you followed a walkway to the cableway to carry you back up the mountain. The walkway took less than 10 minutes, and had little plaques along the way explaining vegetation and old mining wreckage you saw along the way. There was a big line at the cableway. I was the last person they loaded on, and wanted to stay back, because it was brimming full, and I wondered if the cable would hold the weight. I looped my arm around a bar and there was a family beside me with a baby and a stroller. They kept making me move to shift past me, but I never lost my death grip on that bar. The cableway shook a little as it took us over different wheels in the cable. This was my least favorite part. I did get some good areal shots when I wasn't being a complete chicken.

With wobbly knees, I unloaded from the cableway and decided to go ahead and get the skyway over with while I had adrenaline coursing. I walked up to the next level and found myself in the middle of about 30 streaming school kids. I stood about a foot taller than all of them, but I couldn't move at all. I was absolutely not riding the skyway with these kids. They would be rocking it and screaming the whole time, and there might be several dead kids before we got off. Luckily for me, an adult overseeing the group corralled them and they went downstairs. I boarded the skyway and took and cemented position looking out a glass-less window and clinging to bars. The ride was smoother than the cableway, and I got some really good shots of a beautiful waterfall on the side of the mountain.

After Scenic World, we traveled down the mountain to Featherdale Wildlife Park. They had all the basic Aussie wildlife except for a platypus. The kangaroos that I fed were either all babies or were some type of pygmy of the species, but I couldn't find signage anywhere to say anything about it. But they definitely were not regular full grown roos.

I also saw this PASSED OUT wombat. He cracked me up. I thought he was dead until he started shaking his ear, haha.

We next drove through the Olympic village from 2000. Sydney is the only city in the history of the Olympics that made money from the games before the events ever even started. They did some major smart planning for this even. all the venues for the events are still used today, for sporting events and concerts and even car racing. The Olympic village where all the athletes were housed were sold as apartments before they were even built. They housed the athletes for 3 weeks, then were refurbished and the buyers moved into their bought apartments. It was genius.

After our tour of the Olympic village, the driver had somehow convinced many of us to take the Captain Cook Cruise back for 8 dollars instead of being dropped off for free. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but he talked me into several upgrades throughout the day, none of which I regret, I just wish it had been included in the price at the beginning.

Today I just decided I was going to tour a little more of The Rocks, the area I am staying in Sydney. I went to the Sydney observatory first. The best part of the Observatory was the view of the harbour. This isn't to say the observatory wasn't interested, but nothing photographically notable was seen inside. I did learn about some of the Aboriginal stories behind the constellations.

I then went to The Rocks Discovery Museum (also free, see a pattern?) and learned a lot about the region. One of the coolest things I learned was about the fact that they used to have wooden streets in Sydney. Another thing I found out about was the protests in the '60's and 70's to keep builders from demolishing all the old buildings in The Rocks. They reached a sort of compromise, as I do see skyscrapers like the Shangri-La Hotel towering over me right now as I type of the roof top, but there are also preserved relics like the Australian Hotel, a pub I had a beer at last night just down the street from my hostel.

Tonight I am having rooftop BBQ at the hostel. My roommates all said they were coming as well. I fly to Adelaide tomorrow! I am excited. There are still a couple of things I didn't do while in Sydney, but I will save them from when I am here with my mom in July!

30/4- 1/5 Arrive in CBD, Kings Cross Experience

Sorry I have been so lax in posting! I have been so busy the last couple of days (at least compared to the leisurely week in Coogee). I took the bus from Coogee to the Sydney Circular Quay. The only experience of note in all of this is that I encountered numerous babies, who wanted to play with me and counted on me to make them stop crying. My new hostel is terrific. Really breath-taking views of the harbour and the opera house from the roof top terrace.

My roommates are nice as well. Two girls from Holland/The Netherlands, and a guy from Switzerland. I spent my first day in the CBD walking around. I spent lunch at the opera house (how can you deny it?) and then walked around in the actual city. My hostel is unusually confusing to locate. It is in an area called The Rocks, which is where the very first settlement of convicts was located in the late 1700s. There are all kinds of archaeological finds in this location, but the thing that makes it difficult to maneuver is the various levels. My hostel is located on the highest level, so you will walk down a street that on a map seems like it should intercept the street my hostel is on, only to realize there is an unreal amount of stairs you need to climb to even reach that level. It's frustrating, but adds a certain degree of excitement to each evening I venture home.

On Tuesday, I started the day lazy. I skyped with my parents at 11 am, so I got a late start. I ended up sunning on the grass in Circular Quay until about 3:25 pm. I caught a bus to King's Cross- the red light district of Sydney- because I had a tour at 6pm and wanted to explore a little before then. I arrive in King's Cross around 3:45pm. I walked up the road to the famous Coca Cola sign to start my journey there.

I walked down the right side of the street, starting to get a little freaked out. I counted 6 strip clubs on just that side of the street, about 3 blocks in, not even counting the "massage parlors" trying their best to look legit. But this is the red light district, what did I expect?

I was a bit hesitant to be walking around for the next few hours, since my tour was a walking tour anyway, so I looked for somewhere I could duck in for a beer. I saw this place called The Sugar Mill. It looked nice, and I had a feeling about it, so I stopped in. I am so glad I did. The bar had 25 beers on tap, including this nice microbrew called Little Creatures that I had tried last time in Fremantle. I ordered one and sat down. The coolest thing about this bar was the liquor. They had an entire wall of liquor, categorized by how "top shelf" it was: "favorites," "a bit special," "serious," and "ridiculous." 4 of the 9 "original cocktails" were whiskey or bourbon based, and all 3 of the "American Classics" cocktails they offered were bourbon or whiskey based. I found my bar. They were even playing good music there! I had one more Little Creatures, then forced myself to leave before I made the decision to skip my tour all together. I grabbed a sandwich for dinner, then waited under the coke sign for the tour. A man named Valentino eventually introduced himself to me as the tour guide. He led the tour alllllllll around Kings Cross. We heard stories of the days of gangs during early bar closings in Sydney (in America, it was total prohibition, but in Sydney, they rebelled from them closing the bars at 6 pm). We saw were brothels are currently located in King's Cross (prostitution is legal, as long as it is in a brothel and not on the streets.) I would have also called the tour "Tour of streets I would never go down alone" because we seemed to venture in some pretty sketchy areas. I was abandoned in the middle of King's Cross, then caught a bus eventually back to the CBD. I went to bed almost immediately because I had to catch a bus at 7:30 for a blue mountains tour the next morning.