Burp!

The title and the photo pretty much sum up January in Sydney for me. I've been on my own mini-mission to eat and drink my way around Sydney and I've done pretty well, in my opinion. Whilst everyone else I know is detoxing (apart from my bad-influence friends over here) I have been slurping and munching and having a thoroughly nice time, thank you. Shame that I only went back to Sydney's amazing North Shore Olympic Pool yesterday after an absence that stretches back to before Christmas (I was ill directly after New Year - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

Here are my highlights from a fun-packed January (too many to mention them all - I love this city!):

1) Finally getting to Manly on the ferry: what a taxi ride! The scenery is amazing and all for $12 return. Even more fun when you are journeying home whilst half-cut after spending the evening getting squiffy with your mate Jane from college... definitely my best way of getting home after a night out - although the captain refuses to stop off at Gi-Gi's for a parmo. Damn.

2) Getting home-sick whilst listening to British Indie and drinking cocktails from teapots at the World Bar: oh, it made me miss Radio 1. Zane Lowe, we love you!

3) Brunch with our housemates Matt and El: a regular occurence now, even better since Pete has quit Bill's and is able to join us in our quest to vanquish the hangover on a Saturday. And a Sunday. And any public holidays.

4) Big Day Out: Sydney's answer to V-festival suggests that Sydney didn't understand the question. Bizarrely hosted in the Olympic Stadium complex, it felt like "organised fun" (to quote Jane) and organised fun that the organisers tried the damndest to control. Fancy a drink? Well, first queue for a wrist-band to prove you're over 18, second queue to get to the bar. Once there, you can only buy 2 drinks. yes, only 2. No treating your friends. No sharing the dead time missing bands to go queue to get a round in. Nope. 2 drinks only. And tiddly little ones at that from a crap selection of pre-mixed drinks, bad beer and wee-looking white wine. Needless to say if it was an effort to curb drunkenness, it failed. Then there's the setting... concrete anyone? The main stages (yes, stages, will come back to that) were in the stadium itself. Where are the trees? Where can you pee on the grass surrounded by your rug? The fact that they had a cunning 2-stage set up (one stage has a band on whilst the other one sets up) is quite a good idea in theory. In practise no-one moves from the area so you never have a chance to get a good spot (unless you peg yourself in at 9am). You could get closer to the stage, but only if you QUEUE AGAIN to enter the cordoned off area - but as you're not allowed to take in alcohol (eh? that's not very rock 'n' roll) we decided to pass on the mosh pit. Then there's the fact that Australians don't dance at festivals. Jet sang that song off the ipod advert - we got stared at for dancing our flip-flops off. Weird. Muse, Jet and Killers were good but all in all, the Big Day Out was a let down. Luckily we managed to get there for $50 each as we made a profit on our spare tickets. Hurrah! My beloved UK definitely does it better. God bless Mr Evis and Mr Branson.

5) Muse concert: highlight of Big Day Out and on the same form at their own concert earlier on in the week. Need I say any more about the mighty Muse?

6) Food. yum. I bought the Sydney Eats guide when we arrived and I've only just touched the surface of getting through it. If you ever come to Sydney and need a place to eat, here's my list of favourites:

• Bill's (Surry Hills) - where Pete worked. Owned by TV chef Bill Granger. Famous for its scrambled eggs and rightly so. Yum
• Foodgame (Darlinghurst) - our favourite brunch spot with Matt and El. Cracking breakfasts. Soothes hangovers a treat.
• Nepalese Kitchen (Surry Hills) - we went here last night after meaning to go there for months. Amazing Nepalese curries - dals, perfect parathas, lovely fragrant curries - 2 courses for under $30 each. Class.
• Pilu at Freshwater - the home of roast suckling pig, Sardinian styleeee. The food was amazing. The view was exquisite. The crackling was like nothing else. You may be surprised to hear me say that I would have preferred a smaller portion though. It took us until the next day to recover.
  
  
• Vesbar (Surry Hills) - funky local lovely place with the best comfort-food spaghetti and meatballs this side of the planet (Jane's is the best over the other side of the planet). Lovely atmosphere and so small the chef brings you your dinner. Love it.
• Yoshinoya - rice and beef, Japanese style. Cheap and lovely. Looking forward to seeing it in China and Japan.
• Hannibals (Redfern) - sit down in a cushioned room (no, they haven't finally sectioned me) to scoff amazing lebanese food finished off with a puff or two on an apple-tobacco hookah. A happy Hayley on her 29th birthday can't be wrong.

• And the winner is.... Billy Kwong. Another restaurant owned by a TV chef (Chinese-Australian Kylie Kwong) you can't reserve at this place but I'd recommend you queue. For me, one of the most amazing meals I've had. We started with steamed scallop wontons - which contained whole scallops and came with the most amazing sichuan chilli dipping sauce. We followed that with fried chicken livers with sweet onions which were divine. Then came a stir fry of mussels in XO sauce with black beans, chillis and spring onions. Swoon. Next was the signature dish of crispy duck in home-made plum sauce. With not a pancake in sight, this was a treasure - the sauce had half, fresh plums in it and whole cinnamon sticks and star anise. It was a little too sweet for Pete, but I loved it. Which shows how good it was as I don't normally like savoury/sweet combinations. Topped off with a platter of fresh exotic fruits and dark chocolate this meal would have been amazing even without the fact that Kylie only serves organic fair-trade produce in the restaurant. So we not only felt full with yummy food but slightly worthy too!

7.Being out with a big gang of chums on Autralia Day - there was a whole lot of love as Hayley and Meg arrived from New Zealand and we went out for "a quick drink" (one that ended up going on until after 3am). Followed by Hayley's birthday celebrations at the infamous Hanibal's (don't worry parents - I haven't taken up smoking) mixed with the lovely singstar (finally with H's arrival I get someone who shares my passion for bad singing) I ended up feeling very destroyed by the end of it all...

8. Drinking cocktails on the terrace at Cafe Sydney knowing that your mates from home paid for it - cheers guys. We had the best table in the house in my opinion- check out the view! I miss you all!

So those are January's highlights so far - tonight I write this sat on Abby and Jon's verandah in their beautiful new home, supping red wine to celebrate that today I finished working at KC again. The job was good, the people were lovely, I earned me some nice cash to help me along my way.... thanks again to the puppy.

So what next? Well, this weekend we have to fit in shopping, shipping stuff home, eating out again, going to the open air cinema to see Bond, revisiting the teapot-cocktail indie night and going to Hurricane's (didn't mention that - Pete's favourite - ribs as huge as your head!) Then we head to Uluru next week to sleep in swags under the stars (looking forward to seeing the Southern Cross again - we' ve missed her) and then on the 10th we fly to Hong Kong to start our Asian adventure. Hurrah! Loads more food to try!

To all of you who want to send me all your news, remember I'm back on my hotmail. Love you all. Wish you were here (don't you!)

Typical day in Tinks

I wrote this whilst on the road so that I could remember exactly what it was like. I wrote it in Eucla which is one of the stops on the Nullarbour drive from Western Australia towards Adelaide. I'm a bit late adding it to the blog, but I want it here anyway...

I wake up early. You know how it is when you're camping , when the sun's up so are you. I never wake up as early as Pete though, he's always up before me. This morning we're in a paid camp (yesterday was a hard day so we treated ourselves. $8 between us! We normally camp for free). It's 6am and it's cold outside so I roll over, pull the sleeping bag and duvet over me and go back to sleep. If it had been hot we would have been up and out so as to get a few hours driving in whilst it's still cool as Tinks overheats slightly when it's hot and the van cab can get to 40 degrees. But today there are gales outside so, with the pop-top down to protect it and no back awning on as it would flap about all over, I snooze.
Pete comes back from his early morning wandering and we have brekky. Always tea. Him weetabix, me coco-pops ( treat, although they're useless as they never fill you up for more than an hour). Today we have the luxury of the toaster and the electric kettle. Normally tea is brewed up on the camp stove but we're low on gas right now and the last three roadhouses didn't have any so that's another reason why we went for a paid camp. That and the shower. Oh yes. It's not often that we have them when we're on the road. Normally it's a song and dance with a couple of inches of water in the washing up bowl, a flannel, a jug and the privacy of the back awning with all the water soaking into the red dirt beneath my flip-flops and also going all over the esky.* But the hassle is always worth it to feel human again.
With breakfast over it's time to pack up: make bed; clear away dishes (dirty ones into the bowl to wash later); stove away; torches, alarm clock and toothbrushes in the drawer; secure cupboards and drawers with bungy cords; pull back curtains and secure with press-studs; bring boogie boards from driver's seat and put on bed; bring petrol canisters in from the cab and put at the foot of the bed; dump everything else stored overnight in the front (fleeces, bags, magazines) on the bed; put pop-top down and secure; take down back awning, fold and put it on top of the boogie boards on the bed; put esky in the back followed by all three 10L water canisters (after filling up four 1.5L bottles to drink whilst driving); slide surfbord in so it sits tights; shut back door and lock; jump in front; take sun-shield down; fingers crossed - start the engine.
Every morning I cross my fingers. Most days I want Pete to drive first. Tinks has been an angel so far (touch wood) but I always worry that today will be the day.**
Once on the road we chat a bit with the driver always watching (a) LPG - it needs filling up every 300km and (b) temperature guage. After a bit the novelty of the morning wears off and the passenger will head back onto the bed to play on the PSP, snooze or read. The passenger will also check the map book at least 20 times per hour just to see if the distance between A and B has halved since the last time they looked or the rest stops have suddenly become more interesting for some reason. The passenger's other job is to hand water bottles to the driver at regular intervals. The driver tries not to get blown off the road by road trains or to die of boredom on long stretches (made easier by listening to the ipod). Boredom usually drives us to eat crisps too early and eat lots of jelly dinasours that we shouldn't. Lunch is an exciting diversion. We pick a rest stop, try not to puncture the tyres on the rough ground and come to a halt. Today's rest area was fly-infested so we popped the top and had our hoummus picnic inside. Food is good a la Tinks (Emil Esky serves us well). Once all is scoffed and packed up again it's on the road once more. Every 300km we stop for gas (or, if the roadhouse doesn't have gas we thank the lord that we can switch to petrol like today). We pick a rest stop for the evening and hope that we get there before dark. Arriving at rest areas in the dark means you're convinced that there are murderers there. Arriving in daylight renders the same place as quite a pleasant place to stop.
Once stopped it's packing in reverse although some nights we don't bother with the awning - to stop the wind and also to make us feel safer if the rest stop is empty of fellow travellers. Most nights I will find something mechanical on Tinks to stress about - the radiator being too hot; battery being dead - tonight it's the oil leak that she's always had but seems to have got decidedly worse. I love Tinks, but my stress levels will go down dramatically when we sell her. Although who am I kidding? I'll stress about something else then.***
Once set up at a camp we close all the doors (to keep the mozzies out) and turn on the lovely light that works for several hours off the battery (and makes me stress each and every morning that we've used it for too long the night before). Then the stove comes out and the kettle goes on. Ah, tea. Then I make dinner. The Pete washes up. Then we might have a couple of cold beers and chat. Read. Play PSP. Tonight we're watching the rest of Alien on the PSP (marvellous gadget - especially when it charges off the cigarette lighter).
Then around 9pm that's it for the day. Brush teeth outside with the aid of a water bottle (to stop the sink from smelling). Have a wee and try not to splash! Get in sleeping bag and duvet. Switch off light and ignition. Sleep the sleep of the dead until the sun comes up on another campervan day.
Tinks, I'll miss you. XXX ****

*Esky - brand name for cool boxes here in Oz (Esky is short for Eskimo). We had a 65L huge one.We named him Emil after the footballer.

**Such a day never came. The valiant and beatiful Tinks never let us down once - the only time she didn't start was when a battery wire came loose and when it happened we were safely esconsed on a camp site in the spawling megalopolis that is Perth.

***I was right. I still stress just as much, just about other things. I thought travellers were supposed to be chilled?

****I do miss her. Lots. She was fab and it was a pleasure to have owned her. Big kisses to Tinks.

Happy New Year!

Well hello 2007! Down here we got there a little earlier than you guys and at midnight there was a leeeetle problem with the phone networks and my alcohol consumption - as those of you who received a million repeats of the same text message will already know. Sorry! (Mark, you got your revenge yesterday with your repeats so I assume something similar happened?). We saw 2007 in in style here in Sydney.. from around 3pm we were camped out on rugs on West Circular Quay opposite the Opera House with a big gang from our house - Matt, Elena, their friends Rob and Tracey, Livvy and Katie, Trina and Vicky and their Irish chums + some random Brits we met along the way. Sydney was kind and allowed us to take our own booze so Pete and I started on the vodka redbulls as Pete had been working since 7am and needed it. Then we moved onto the beer and red wine (goon mixed with red bull makes an interesting take on calimocho, you hispanophiles may be interested to know). Drinking games helped our lubrication with the infamous Kings Bowl being resurrected from my birthday with bag-wearing gimps and all. 9am saw the children's firework display, which was a cracker followed by the magnificent finale at midnight... there were fireworks going off from all directions - from the bridge, from over the Opera House, from the buildings behind us. We oooh-ed and we aaa-ed and we snogged and we smiled. All in all a fantastic night. And not a raindrop in sight! Bring on 2007, it's going to be an Asian (fire)-cracker!

PS: Birthday greetings to Paige, Happy Birthday kid. And to Emily .. I hope 2007 is a good one for you ladies! X