Wandering Around Sydney with my Bestie Testie ;)

Tanya FINALLY arrived, and the first thing on the agenda was to crack open a bottle of wine and catch up. The next morning I woke up to a tiny headache, but nothing too serious, and we had some lost time to make up for, so we got started on our day pretty early.

I knew that Tanya would obviously want to see the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, so we made our way though the Royal Botanical Gardens and down to the water. The weather was fantastic, so we just decided to explore the whole day. After spending some time at the harbor, we decided to take a ferry to Manly by Tanya's Aussie co-worker's recommendation. The ferry trip was very nice, and when we got to Manly, we took a walk to the main beach and along the water to another smaller cove called Shelly Beach where we spent a good hour or so relaxing. As indicated by the name, it was a nice spot to find some shells =)

Still wanting to take a walk across the Harbour Bridge, we walked back to the wharf and took the ferry back to Circular Quay (pronounced key apparently - glad I didn't say that one out loud before learning better). Not really sure how to get to the bridge, we just decided to walk along the water toward The Rocks until we happened upon a pedestrian access to the bridge. We kept seeing signs pointing to The Rocks, but for some reason, it felt like we weren't quite there. Finally we realized that The Rocks must be the whole area that we were in, and proceeded to find the bridge access.

The walk across the bridge had a nice view of the harbor, but felt a bit caged in. It's been a few years since I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, but I don't remember it being so caged in like this one was. I guess the Aussies want to take extra precautions to prevent jumpers. They even had a security guard, who I was tempted to take a photo with in honor of my volunteer bridge marshall work, haha.

When we got to the other end of the bridge we took the train back to the city to get some dinner at Darling Harbour. When we got off the train, we didn't really know where we were going, so we just started walking toward the water and ended up in Chinatown. Using the maps app on my phone, we followed the general direction toward the water, but ended up getting a little bit lost in the industrial area and eventually ended up at Darling Harbour. By this time, we were pretty hungry, and there were lots of restaurants along the harbor to choose from. We ended up eating at a place called Olivio's, which was really yummy, and a pretty good deal as well $35 for an appetizer, main, and a glass of wine.

When dinner was over, we walked across a little bridge at Darling and discovered that it was pretty much a straight shot to our hotel, which funny enough was only a couple of blocks away from the place where we got off the train before getting lost.

Here's a map of the route we took, a total of about 8.75 miles walked. Good way to make up for lost time =)

View Wandering Around Sydney in a larger map

Solo in Sydney

So, this trip did not start out as smoothly as we would hope... first, the woman attending the check in at Auckland Airport couldn't find my flight reservation, then I ended up having to pay an extra $75 to check in my luggage =/ That's one less thing I get to do in Sydney.

I arrive in Sydney and was a little bit worried about how or where I was going to meet up with Tanya, since I wasn't expecting to be completely off the grid with my wifi, we hadn't set any solid plans. The only thing we discussed was that she would most likely be meeting me at my gate, but when I got off the plane I didn't see her. I figured I should just proceed through to customs to see if she was waiting at baggage claim. Still no sign of Tanya, so my next step was to get out of the terminal and find the nearest wifi hotspot, which was at a coffee shop right outside. I finally checked my e-mail and facebook after only three days, and it was like I had gone missing for three weeks.

Most of the messages were from Tanya, her flight got delayed and then cancelled because of fog in San Francisco and she would be missing the connecting flight to Sydney, so she wouldn't be able to make it until the next morning =( I could tell that she had been in a bit of a panic, not hearing from me or being able to contact me, but she just so happened to be online when I finally connected, and was about to leave for the airport in Seattle for her second attempt to catch a flight to Sydney. She sent me all the information to the hotel that she booked, so I took the train into the city and checked in. I wasn't really feeling too in the mood to explore and figured that she was getting in the next morning and that we would want to see the major sights together anyway, so I took the delay as a sign that I should probably try to get in some studying that day.

Later that night, I went downstairs to a cafe to check on Tanya's status and what not. Bad news, another delay with her flight to Sydney, but now she was in LA, so she was on her way at least, but then another message that her flight was cancelled yet again! The earliest she would be getting to Sydney was 9pm on Monday night. UGH!

I had already made plans to meet up with a friend from AMDA that I hadn't seen since we graduated in 2008, so that was nice. Caitlin and I met up for coffee/tea at the cafe downstairs and it was really nice to catch up with an old friend and talk about our careers and what not before she had to go to work. I couldn't spend another day sitting in the hotel room, so I decided to take a walk down to the harbor the next day and do the solo tourist thing.

I ended up walking around the Royal Botanical Gardens and along the water till I reached the Sydney Opera House.

Despite the crazy wind, and the bad choice to wear a flowy dress, I decided to sit at the harbor for a while and take it all in. I love sitting and watching the water, thinking about life and the next adventure, whatever that may be. I guess I've always been one to wonder how far the sea could take me.

When it started getting too cold to hang out for much longer, I made my way back to the hotel. I went to the McDonalds on the corner to steal their internet to get an update on Tanya's status, and saw another bunch of messages and updates of more delays, luckily she was finally on a plane, but then the next message was that there were more delays on the plane, and that they were just sitting there waiting for another couple of hours and that she probably wouldn't arrive until about 10pm.

So I went back to the room, unsure of what time Tanya would actually be getting in and hoping that she would make it that night. On the way back, I decided to pick up a couple bottles of wine, some chocolate, strawberries, and some breakfast, thinking she (and I) would need at least one of those when she finally arrived. At about 11pm, I started getting pretty sleepy, and still unsure of whether she would be getting in that night or in the morning, I just told myself I would stay up until at least midnight. About 15min later, I heard a knock on the door, and Tanya was finally here =) Thus our adventure began.

Off the Grid in the Coromandel

On Friday morning, I attended my final lecture at Waikato, and possibly the last lecture of my undergraduate degree (fingers crossed, lets hope I pass biology and that all of my credit modifications transfer when I get home). After my lecture was over, I headed back to Orchard Park to finish packing for my trip to Australia. My friend Shelby took a trip down from Auckland to come and pick me up, and we spent the next two nights off the grid in the Coromandel.

I had been hearing about New Zealand’s famous hot water beach and was hoping that I would get the chance to check it out before I leave the country. Luckily, Shelby and her friend Sam (from the UK, WOOFing in NZ) were down for anything, so we hopped in her van and were off. Road trip, woohoo! I can’t tell you how many times that statement was shouted, but you’re about to find out. Also, Shelby had been hearing about this beach since she moved here as well, and we were all very keen to find it.

The trip was off to a great start, the weather was nice, despite the chill from the wind it was a sunny day, so all good. We pull out of the carpark and Sam tells me this is Shelby’s first time driving manual transmission. OH! Okay cool… I kinda wish you didn’t tell me that. But it was a bit of an exaggeration, she had been driving the van for a week now and she didn’t seem nervous at all, so no problem, road trip, woohoo! The next question was whether or not I knew the way to the Coromandel from Hamilton, nope, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out, road trip, woohoo! Get to the bottom of Silverdale, take a right instead of a left, better check the map, turned the wrong way, good thing for roundabouts, road trip, woohoo! Oh and by the way, the gas meter is broken, so we don’t actually know how much gas (petrol for the non-US natives) we have left in the tank, but we’re gonna see how far we can get before it runs out so we know the milage of a full tank. Don’t worry, we’ve got a can of gas in the back, road trip, woohoo!

After the first hiccup, we were getting along pretty well and made it all the way up to the bottom of the peninsula before the tank finally emptied. OK cool, no problem, lets just fill it up and be on our way… oh wait, now the engine won’t start… greaaaat. So we sat there in the van in the middle of nowhere, which is pretty much everywhere in New Zealand and hoped that the engine just needed some time to rest and for the gas to set in or something. If worse comes to worse, we’ll just call roadside assistance, road trip, woohoo! We lucked out again and the engine started after about 20 minutes on the side of the road. Not wanting to take any more chances, we stopped at the next gas station and filled up the tank completely and got some engine oil, just for good measure.

I think now would be a good time to mention that the road signage in New Zealand is not the greatest, in fact signage in general, not the greatest. Throughout this trip we ended up passing turns and having to backtrack to get to the turnoffs we needed. But we had no strict schedule to adhere to apart from getting me to the airport on time Sunday morning, so it was all good. And after each missed turn, you know exactly what we had to say about it, road trip, woohoo!

Needing a break for lunch, we decided to pick a town to stop in, and based on the large font size on our map of a town called Pauanui, we thought it might be a good place to stop. Our rationale, the larger font size must correspond with the size of the town, look at Auckland, that font is huge. Flash forward to Pauanui after a brief stop at a piss shop (Kiwi lingo for liquor store), and we were entering Pauanui, while adopting a new statement to shout, simply, PauaNUI! We passed by the main entrance of Pauanui, which apparently is much like a gated community, think Kapoho, where the rich old people of New Zealand buy beach front properties and the passers by realize quickly that they don’t belong. At the entrance, we get stopped by a woman dressed like Annie Oakley waving around a pistol with a bucket in hand and a smile on her face. I’m not kidding here, she was actually stopping our van with a pistol in hand, of course it was just a prop pistol, but a pistol nonetheless - Kiwis. They were collecting money for the elementary school and giving out terrible lollies (Kiwi lingo for candy) in return. Really, it just felt like more of a toll booth than anything else, and I doubt this rich community needed my poor student donation, but I ended up giving about $5 unintentionally. It’s easy to forget that coins can sometimes be worth dollars when you’re not used to it. After we paid the toll to Annie Oakley, we drove through the city centre, which was so tiny, we didn’t even bother stopping somewhere to eat, and opted to picnic on the beach with some crackers and olives that Shelby had packed earlier. The beach was quite nice, but with all the wind, it was a bit cold, so after our picnic, we headed off toward the hot water beach. PauaNUI!

On our way out, Sam had to take a wee, so we pulled over in front of some cows, then we were back on the road. Once we finally got out of Pauanui and drove about a kilometer or two (or maybe it was five, I’m still not used to kilometers), Sam realized that he didn’t have his phone. The only conclusion, it must have fell out of the van when he got out to pee, so we turned around and were headed back to - PauaNUI! But not before some jerk who didn’t have the right of way on a one-lane bridge came speeding at us forcing us to reverse. We returned to Pauanui, found not only a car, but also a tractor right where we pulled over earlier, waited awkwardly till they left hoping that neither of them ran over his phone and found the bugger unscathed. Thus, our return to Pauanui had come to an end… so we thought. Back on the road, Shelby realized that she was missing one of her favorite earrings from her mom, so we laughed at the thought that we might never leave Pauanui after all, but Shelby decided against going back, suggesting that if she was meant to find it, it would come to her. So we finally left Pauanui and kept driving up the Coromandel.

We were getting close! I could almost smell the sulfur in the air, not really, but we were getting there, and when we came up to the signs reading hot water beach and springs, etc. with arrows pointing in both directions, you can guess that we totally passed the turn, but it was a happy accident that took us about 100 meters to the hilltop and this nice little view =) 

Road trip, woohoo! We stopped to take a couple of pictures and then turned around and finally made it. It was windy as (hehe) and cold, but we were determined to experience the hot water beach, even though we didn’t bring a spade. This didn’t stop us though, we brought along a chopping board (the only thing we could find that could serve as a digging tool) and thought that we could use it if we needed to, but hoped that someone would be nice enough to share their spade.

So here’s the deal with the hot water beach. There are hot springs that are right on the beach and you can dig a pool in the sand, close to where the tide comes in so that the hot water mixes with the cold water and you get a tolerable temperature to soak in. You need to bring a spade or a shovel to dig a hole. You may think you could dig a hole with your hands, but the water is literally boiling, and digging bare handed would not be the best idea. When we got to the area where the springs meet the sea, we were lucky enough that there were already some unoccupied pools that we could go in, score!

Once we had our fill of the hot water beach, we hit the road further up the peninsula to find a place to camp for the night. We drove through Hahei and Cooks Bay looking for a place that wasn't right in front of someones rich beach house, which is a pretty difficult task to achieve in the Coromandel. Finally we found a really nice spot at a park and called it a night. This was our view in the morning, not too shabby =)

After making some porridge for breakfast, we were off to drive the rest of the loop around the Coromandel and took a few stops along the way to take advantage of the views and snap some photos.

Here's Shelby and Sam checking out the view over Coromandel City.
















And this was our little home for the weekend =) Her name is Tui.

We stopped in the Coromandel city centre for lunch and picked up some awesome bread and cheese at the local market for dinner, then continued on to Kaiaua. Wanting something better for a camping spot for the night, we kept on driving until we got to Orere, and found the most beautiful spot right next to a creek and just had to jump in even though it was freeeeeeezing. The only down side, sooooo many sand flies!!!!! I hate them soooooo much, now I'm all chomped up =/

This morning we woke up at 2:30am to finish the drive up to Auckland and drop me off at the airport. It was a really great trip off the grid with good company =) Thanks again for picking me up Shelby <3

NO BUSES AT NIGHT ON WEEKDAYS!!!

Okay, my mom would KILL me for this, but I have to share my mistake so no one else makes it... Disclaimer, this is a story for dumb people, and this night, I was a dumb people :/

So on Monday night, I was feeling a bit down and just needed to get out of Orchard Park, I've been feeling a lot of that lately, so I guess it's a good thing I'm getting out for good soon. Anyway, I just wanted to do something, so I asked Ashley if she wanted to catch a movie at 8:30 that night. We ended up going to see Pitch Perfect, which was completely ridiculous (at times annoyingly so), but in a way was kind of my life and I so would have been one of those kids had I gone to a mainland university that had a glee and or a capella club. Even though I probably would not watch it again unless it were free or maybe at the $1 theatre, the movie put me in a good mood, which was just what I needed that night.

Now, just so we're clear, I DID check google maps for the bus schedule thinking that there was a potential for no buses to be leaving the Chartwell cinema after 10pm and it SAID that there would be an Orbiter leaving Chartwell after 11 going clockwise. I saw it, it was there, I swear. Obviously, I misread this. And again, I admit, I was a DUMB PEOPLE this night.

As we were leaving the theatre, I jokingly made a comment to Ashley that "wouldn't it be stupid if I didn't check the bus schedule and there were no buses going back to town?" HAHAHAHAHA, so funny right? I think you can all see where this story is going.

We went to the bus stop and I checked the electronic sign to see the status of the bus services. The sign read something like

54 ORBITER CW - SERVI

Okay... at first I thought the number had something to do with the bus number, but then I thought, but the Orbiter is just the Orbiter right? So I convinced myself that it must mean the next bus is going to be here in 54minutes. It was a long wait, but the night was nice and I though I wouldn't mind the fresh air, so we just decided to wait. After about 25 minutes of talking shit and doing nothing we realized that we hadn't seen any buses pass by the whole time we were waiting, so I went across the street to the other bus stop just to double check. I hit the button on the electronic bus schedule and F^CK me! The "SERVI" part of the sign that I read earlier was to indicate "SERVICE ENDED" so we had been sitting there for almost a half an hour for no good reason. It was at this moment that we also realized that we had no phone to call a cab since Ashley left her phone at home thinking she wouldn't need it and I stopped topping up my phone service a few months ago and had no internet connection to top it up then and there. There was a pay phone at the bus stop, but being the geniuses that we were that night, we though, well maybe the Nightrider just doesn't stop in the mall stop, but only on the main road. So, we walked to the main road and found a Nightrider stop to wait at. After another few minutes of waiting we wondered out loud whether or not the Nightrider runs on weekdays or just weekends. Seeing no buses pass for a total of about 45minutes we then decided to walk. It couldn't be that far to town could it? Then we could catch a cab from town and it wouldn't be as expensive as a cab from Chartwell.

DUMB PEOPLE! Chartwell is "hella" far from town and from Uni. Why the hell would we think it was a good idea to walk?!?

So we're walking, it's 11:30pm at least, we have no idea where we are going, no phone, just dumb. At this point I can't even access google maps because I have no internet connection, so we are just walking in the direction we think is going toward town with no idea how far it will be. This was all fine and dandy until we got to a roundabout and had no idea which direction to take. Needless to say, we picked one and kept walking. I don't even want to admit how long we were walking before we even saw any signs that were pointing us in the direction of the city center.

Things going through my mind:
Why the f^ck do all of the bus services stop before midnight (especially in a college town at a movie theatre that's still playing movies after 10)?
Why aren't there any emergency phones in an area that is clearly made for pedestrian use?
Would it be safer to keep walking in the dark not knowing where I am, or would it be safer to hitchhike?
It's a good thing New Zealand is a pretty safe country, because if this were happening in LA, we'd be f^cked.
WHY AM I SO DUMB?
We totally should have just called a cab from the phone booth? Even though neither of us had the number anyway, I'm sure there was a phone book or something we could have figured out.
DUMB

When we finally passed a roundabout that suggested a direction to the city center, we began walking through a residential area, so I was checking my phone hoping to catch someone's wifi network so I could at least load the google map and see where the hell we were. When I finally did get a connection, we were still 4.9 miles away from Uni. As we discussed whether I should top up while I had the internet connection or just keep walking, a cab just so happened to be driving by off duty and on his way home. He was driving in the opposite direction and we waved him down and lucky for us he turned around and picked us up.

When we told him where we were going he said we were at least another hours walk from our destination. He also told us that he and one other cab were the only two taxis on duty in Hamilton, and that he was just going off duty, so really there was only one. He said that he usually would not have stopped for two people walking in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night since most of them are trouble makers and dont actually have money to pay for the fair. We were really lucky to have spotted the cab and that he stopped for us.

This night was surely one of my dumbest, but for some reason, I was in a pretty good mood the whole time. Maybe I just needed the fresh air and a little nighttime stroll, maybe I was just trying to balance the mood since two upset people would not do us any good. I really have no idea what was up with my mood, but I think it was just one of those situations that was just so stupid that I had nothing to do but laugh.

Here's the route we should have taken:

View Larger Map
We got picked up by the cab on Fairfield and River Road, clearly going in the direction away from our final destination, but we though we should head to Victoria Street since it was the nearest place we knew of this city.

Lesson learned. Never go to the movies in Hamilton past 8pm with no car.

Wellington Take Two

It's been a while since I got out of Hamilton, and the guys I've been hanging out with this semester have been feeling stuck in Orchard Park just like me, so we decided to take a weekend trip to Wellington. At first I was hesitant, not looking forward to the 8+ hour bus ride, but I just HAD to get out and do something. I enjoyed Wellington the first time I went. on my way down to the south island, but we only had one day there and since it was Easter Sunday, everything was pretty much closed, so I figured I should really go again and actually experience some the capital of New Zealand.

Surprisingly, the bus ride there wasn't so bad, despite the 3 hour layover we had in Hamilton City (why we didn't just catch the bus from there instead of Uni, don't ask), I actually slept for most of the overnight ride. I think it was the combination of me being sick and taking a nasty Theraflu type medicine, plus the fact that I hadn't been sleeping much all week.

We got to Wellington early Friday morning and sadly the weather wasn't looking too nice, but we dropped off our luggage at the hostel and went around the corner to have breakfast. We decided to eat at a place called Sweet Mother's Kitchen, which was a Southern American / Cajun themed restaurant. It was really nice, and the best part about it for me was the bottomless regular brewed coffee. FINALLY! A restaurant that served your basic standard drip coffee with refills! Fun fact about New Zealand - drip coffee is actually quite hard to find. Instead of brewing coffee, you have to order either a "long black" or a "flat white" which are both made with espresso vs. your typical brew. Basically a long black is an Americano and a flat white is an Americano with milk.

After breakfast, the weather cleared up and it actually turned out to be a beautiful day. First on our agenda was to check out the famous Wellington cable car, one of the top attractions according to trip advisor and super affordable! Only $1 for students one way and $2 with return. I would recommend just getting the one way fair since there are some nice paths to walk back down to the city through Wellington's botanical garden. Since we had all bought a return ticket, we walked down a little ways then decided to go back up to the top and do a little sun bathing.

Here's the gang Silje, Hannah, Me, Ashley, Linn, and Hannes

It was nice to play around in Wellington and act like a bunch of little kids. Also at the top of the hill where the cable car dropped us was this tree that you could climb and sit on the top of. I didn't realize how much of a grandma I've become until I tried to climb to the top and realized that I don't really like climbing trees anymore. I used to love climbing trees when I was younger, and even a few years ago, I still used to climb the banyan trees at Lili'uōkalani park back home, but not anymore. I realized when I was only a few meters off the ground that I am actually afraid of climbing trees now. Also weird since I do alright up on the grid 40 feet above the stage when I'm working tech, but I think it was more about the getting back down part that I was uncomfortable with.

More of us being big kids =) This was the tallest slide!

After our day of exploring, we went back to the hostel to nap before we went out that night. Randomly, the bar in the basement of the hostel we were staying at was having a beerfest that just so happened to be on the night that we arrived, so we just planned to have a chill night and go there. Silje and Hannah on the other hand ended up staying out until the next morning, while the rest of us called it a night well before midnight. Grandma status again.

The next day we ended up having breakfast at Sweet Mother's Kitchen again, and when the girls finally met back up with us, we went to the museum Te Papa. I hadn't been to a single museum in New Zealand yet, so it was good that we went. Te Papa is very very nice and pretty damn big as well. There are 6 floors and some really nice exhibits. They even had a Hawaiian feather cape which was in way better condition than some of the capes we have at Bishop Museum back home - shame. I would have liked to see more Māori artifacts, but it was cool to see a lot of similar artifacts that you would find in a Hawaiian museum.

After the museum, we walked along the harbor and found the Saturday indoor market which we checked out briefly before splitting up and doing our own things for the rest of the day. Hannes went back to the cable car to read at the top of the hill, Linn and Ashley explored the city, Silje and Hannah slept off their hangovers, and I opted to sit at the harbor and think. As I sat there people watching I came to the conclusion that Wellington is like the San Francisco of New Zealand. It was good to have some time to myself to contemplate and just look out into the water like I often do back home. I think I was missing the ocean and the warm sea breeze because I ended up sitting there with my journal for 4 hours before I realized that it was getting late and I should probably find the others since I had no phone and no one really knew where I was.

By the time I got back to the hostel, I was surprised that I was the first to get back not counting the two sleeping beauties that were still passed out.

Later that night, we went to a Chinese food place across the street from the hostel and had dinner. We were all in a pretty weird mood that night, but after we all got some food in our tummies, it was all good and we got up the energy to get dressed up and go out on the town. We had been looking forward to checking out a bar called the Library which was really nice, but completely full, so we found another pretty nice place across the street which had a live trio of singers that were performing like the supremes with sparkly sequined dresses and matching bob wigs. It was super cute and reminded me of a show I did (shout out to the Marvelous Wonderettes) and made me miss performing. After a drink or two at that bar, we wanted to bar hop the city since we only had one night left. We ended up going to two more places that night, but I wasn't really in the mood and we ended up calling it a night early again. I dunno if I'm just not into going out too much in New Zealand or if I'm just getting old, ha. I've just been over the bar scene lately. I much prefer chilling with a smaller group of friends... on a deck perhaps =)

The next morning, we caught the early bus back to Hamilton which took way too long and had way too many transfers. We did get a really nice view of Mount Ruapehu and Tongariro covered in snow on the way back.

That concluded our Wellington trip. I calculated it, and we spent about 19 hours total on the bus that weekend... not too sure if it was worth it, but I did have a good time in Wellington when I thought about it later (after seeing how fun the pictures looked - haha).