Paddington Market and Australia Museum

On Saturday Courtney and Tony went to the Paddington Market, a street market in the posh Oxford street district.


Courtney got a pair of ear rings and Tony got a belt. Additionally, we went to an interesting chocolate shop. (Pretty good hot chocolate. A bit snobby on the service, though.)




We also went to the Australian Museum. Lots of Indigenous Australia history as well as natural Australian exhibits.





We then walked through Hyde Park. The day actually cleared up!

Coffee down under...

OK, as promised, coffee in Australia.

It's not straightforward. Tony has tried repeatedly to order coffee. You get a blank stare. It's like coffee is a class of drink down here. You wouldn't go and order 'beer' in a bar. You have to specify what kind.

Short Black: espresso
Long Black: Americano (espresso + hot water)
Flat White: espresso with regular milk
+ all the usual cappuccino, latte, machiatto, etc etc etc.

Drip coffee = coffee you get at McDonalds. Starbuck's serves it, but only one variety as opposed to two or three like in the U.S., and it's called 'coffee of the month' rather than 'coffee of the day,' as in, so few people get it (i.e., yanks) that they only have to change it every month.

High Tea

We had high tea at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB), a nice shopping complex in a historic Victorian building down town.

What is high tea? Well, technically, tea is a meal. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_(meal)#High_tea) Ie, in Australia, breakfast is sometimes called morning tea. (Also 'brekkie')

I really don't know what definitions apply but what we had was basically sandwiches, desserts and scones with cream and jam. And tea. At 3pm. Nice. Lovely. Leisurely. Except the QVB tea room was trying to shoo us out because they were doing prep for some event, probably a wedding that evening.

We finished off the evening walking about and ending up in a hotel pub with Angie and Glendon for fish and chips, more chips, nachos and a pint or two.

Sydney Aquarium

It rained all day on Friday, so Courtney and Tony went to the Sydney Aquarium.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving isn't an Australian holiday, so today was pretty much like any other day down under. Except for the weather. This is what Sydney Opera House should look like on a summer day:





Below is what it looked like today. The weather did not cooperate. It felt like Thanksgiving in the States. It rained, it was cold. Just like November in the states.




Courtney and Tony took a bus tour with Pa around Sydney. We stopped by Harry's Pies, a Sydney institution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry). The special is "meat pie topped with mushy peas." Which is exactly what it is. Call it a 'tiger' and you add mashed potatoes under your mushy peas and gravy on top. They even have a veggie 'tiger' which is a veggie pie with the good stuff on top.

We even went to Bondi beach, the closest beach to Sydney and a favorite of European backpackers. (It wasn't beach weather). We finished with a ferry tour from Circular Quay (pronounced 'key') to Darling Harbor. Good call, Courtney!

While we were on tour, Mum and Angie scoured the city in search of Thanksgiving fare. Success! The American Club has a celebration. Turkey, stuffing and....it's Australia, so we had peel-and-eat shrimp and roast pork and lamb. Apparently whole turkey is expensive here. An American in front of me at the buffet advised me to load up on the turkey and skip the lamb.

Our wine of the day: Stony Peak 2006 Shiraz Cabernet. This wine was especially good consumed in large quantities with equally large quantities of food.

And to Leela! Happy first Thanksgiving! Thanks for dinner Angie and Glendon!

Sunrise in Katoomba

This is what jetlag gives you: You get up at 5am in the morning and happen to look out the window and you're lucid enough to grab the camera to take a piccie.

I had a little dig on the 'little mountains' in an earlier posting, but the fog layering the valleys and nooks are the only thing between the earth and the sky. Perhaps the expression, 'on a mountaintop' really mean just that. An eternity between you and your dreams, but nothing between.

Aussie Wine of the Day - Semillon

Our second wine of the day is the Frog Rock 2005 Semillon produced in Mudgee, NSW (New South Wales). Tony described it as light and refreshing with hints of apple, peach and SweeTarts (all flavors at once). The bottle says there are subtle scents of lemon zest, meadow hay, and grapefruit. We didn't quite get those - definitely not the hay anyway. Overall, we liked it and think it's a perfect summer wine especially with seafood or vegetarian meals.