Expose: Market City, Chinatown

I’ve been to Chinatown several times now, and each time I like to stop at Market City and get some fresh fruit. Marco and Nils are usually with me. It’s basically a large fruit, vegetable, meat and fish market located just south of Darling Harbour in Haymarket. It’s indoor but open on all sides, and it’s very large. Any fruit, veg or other item you might want can be bought here, and at low price. There are even sections selling clothes, accessories, toys, electronics, you name it, all across a 3000 square foot floor. It really is a cool place to visit and do some shopping. Take a look!

I’ll have more photos showcasing the merchants in the other sections once I go back. I'll also see about adding videos I took, but it will have to wait until April 7th when my Internet usage meter gets reset.

Entrance to Chinatown

Golden Tree of Luck

Storefront in Chinatown

Market City at the back of Chinatown

A Chinese vegetable stand, one of dozens!

Fruit stand, one of dozens again!

Kiosks in Paddy's Market

Expose: Darling Harbour

Darling Harbour is one of the most famous and popular areas of Sydney. It is a major tourist attraction, offering many restaurents and entertainment venues such as the Sydney Aquarium, the Chinese Gardens, an IMAX, several clubs and pubs including the famous Watershed, Autralian National Maritime Museum, Paddy's Market and much more. It is situated just west of the CBD and offers a stunning view of the city core and the bay from almost any spot around the harbour. Nearby locations which will be "exposed" on my blog in the near future include Chinatown, Sydney Harbour, Cockle Bay, the city center, and Paddy's Market and the Sydney Aquarium will also have their own posts soon. In the meantime, here are some pictures taken all around the harbour, which is a sort of horseshoe shape as most harbours are. Enjoy!

City side looking across from Harbourside

City side again viewed from Darling Harbour bridge

Dragon boat race

Spectators watching the race

The famous Ice Cube restaurant's take-away

HMAS Vampire

Admiralty Pattern anchors from training ship NSS Vernon

Harbourside looking across from City side

A unique waterfountain...

One of several marinas

Lighthouse restaurant

Another marina

Harbour view at night

Happy 75th to the Coathanger!

Today is the Sydney Harbour Bridge's 75th anniversary. It was officially opened on March 19th, 1932. It's the largest steel arch bridge in the world, standing 134 metres above the harbour, as well as the widest long-span bridge in the world at 1149 metres in lenght and 49 metres wide! In one week over 1 million vehicles will cross this bridge, making it one of the busiest in the world. To cross from the North Shore to the CBD (Central Business Disctrict) costs $3.00, and to cross in the other direction there is no charge. Here are a few pics of the bridge, at night and during the day. Pics of the 75th anniversary celebration are forthcoming, as I am not attending it myself and must wait until they are released publicly.

Saints Be Praised, it's St. Paddy's Day!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone! As you read this your Paddy's Day is probably just starting. Mine is already done, and done in style it was! Surprisingly there are only a handfull of Irish pubs in Sydney (5 I believe). I spent the day exploring the Queen Victoria Building and Darling Harbour, and come 4 o'clock I headed to Scruffy Murphy's with Nils and Marco to get in a few pints. It was packed to the tits in there! No elbow room whatsoever! Which was fine, because the more the merrier. Especially on Paddy's Day! There was a U2 cover band playing, appropriately. All in all it was quite an Irish day. Just look at the pictures and see for yourself.

Nils and St. Patrick himself!

What you lookin' at? In front of St. Andrew's Cathedral

U2 cover band Elevation

Random people dancing...

Once again, Happy St. Patrick's Day, and don't drink too much green beer...

Technical Difficulties Part 2: The Post That Should Not Be...

Since yesterday night, my housemates and I, as well as our neighbours who share our Internet, have experienced severe slowdowns. Basically our download speed dropped from 1500 kb/s to an insulting 64 kb/s. Why is this so, you ask? I also asked the same question, and so decided to place a call to my reliable Internet "provider". It turns out we've exceeded the volume limit on our unlimited accound. You see, what they neglected to tell me when I first signed up over the phone (a service also provided by the same company) was that "unlimited" meant 12 GB, after which my broadband account gets slowed down to dial-up speed. So not really unlimited. The fine print in a contract is not visible over the phone, and it is therefore incumbent upon the representative serving me to inform me that there is in fact a limit to my unlimited account. He failed to do this and I am understandably upset.
Nonetheless, 12GB is a substantial amount and should serve our needs well. To put it in perspective for those who are not IT savy, 12 GB is equivalent to 15 illegally downloaded feature films. To think that 6 of us, who use the Internet to browse websites for research and leisure and to call home using voice over IP (voIP) technology, could use 12 GB in 9 days... We couldn't do this if we were running a piracy ring. OK, I'm exaggerating. But seriously, voIP uses around 30mb per hour, browsing the web perhaps 30 per hour as well. 30mb is 1/33th of 1GB, which in turn is 1/12th of our "unlimited" limit. Let's say that 6 people use 100mb an hour and browse 6 hours a day. This is 3.6 GB day. According to our provider we had such a day on the 10th of March. Hard to believe, but I suppose it's possible. Assuming we did indeed use more than 12 GB, that still isn't unlimited. It looks like we'll have to upgrade to 25 GB, which will cost each of us 3.33$ extra a month, and watch our usage. I wonder what they call the 25 GB plan. Super-unlimited? Sigh....
Please excuse the rant. I just feel like I was jipped. On top of all this, the representative who neglected to tell us about the 12 GB catch also failed to recommend a wireless modem even after I explained to him in detail that this account was intended to service 4, perhaps 6 laptops wirelessly. And so we've had to purchase a wireless router for 160$. It was not until my modem arrived in the mail, late, that I realised they had in their catalogue a wireless modem for 50$ above the price of our current modem. This was not even offered to me, and I relied on the information provided over the phone as I had no Internet access to browse their catalogue. Another mark against Telstra/Bigpond. These issues, along with the fact that I have never had so much schoolwork in my life, have impeded my ability to post more regularly. I realise everyone has been patient and that this is not the post you've all been waiting for. But know that I am doing everything I can to get things sorted out so that I can devote a solid block of time to the blog. If you can all wait until Saturday, you will all be greeted to a real post, with real pictures and things that you actually want to read about (posting pictures at this speed would be ridiculously slow). So thank you all for understanding. Bye for now.

Delay at Chicago's O'Hare

As I only just got the internet at home, I have some catching up to do. There are already plenty of stories to tell, but of course we must start at the beginning.
On my flight from Ottawa to Chicago I happened to be seated beside an Australian named Daryn Smart. He was booked on the same flights as me also from Chicago to L.A. and L.A. to Sydney. We talked about Australia, Canada, the similarities and differences between the two, where we were from orginally, and the usual stuff people talk about when they're stuck on a plane together for several hours. I learned a few things about Australia and Sydney in particular before I even got there. Namely that funnel-web spiders are bad and will kill you if you piss them off. Good to know.
When we got to Chicago, we were both surprised to find that our flight had been delayed by 5 hours, which meant that we would miss our connecting flight from L.A. to Sydney.
So we rebooked and ended up on different flights out of Chicago where would both make our connection in L.A. In the meantime, I suggested we go have a beer or two at a nearby bar. He had something else in mind, however. As he was flying business class, he had a membership to something called the Flagship Lounge, an upper class area restricted to first and business class passengers. He was allowed one guest though, and invited me to come. I had no idea what to expect. We we got in, I was amazed at the quality of the lounge. Big screen T.V., couches, end tables, carpet and marble floors, open bar and free food! And I'm not talking about Cheetoes or veggies and dip. I mean smoked salmon, crackers and cheese (brie, smilton, gouda, etc.), and Heineken, Australian wine, Crown Royal whiskey, and more. It was unbelievable. I even got my boarding pass exchanged at the desk. Suddenly I couldn't complain about having my flight delayed any more....


After living in decadence for an hour or so it was time to catch my flight. I said goodbye to Daryn and that I'd see him in L.A. 4 and a half hours later I land at LAX and proceed to my gate to catch Quantas flight 12 to Sydney. Sure enough I run into Daryn at the check-in line. As this plane was larger and our seats were assigned, I was not sitting with Daryn and so we said our final farewells before boarding. If I'm ever in the Melbourne area however, he told me to give him a call and he'd show me around abit. I might take him up on that offer.

We are experiencing technical difficulties...

Well, I just talked to Telstra/Bigpond (my phone and internet "provider") and it looks like I won't have internet access at home for another week and 3 days (not this Monday but the next)! So it will be difficult to make regular updates until then. However, I have promised pictures and even videos, and I will deliver once I am connected. They will most likely be released in a series of posts over one or two days, each post detailing a seperate day or event. Until then, I will try and make some of these dinky little posts just to let you guys and gals know I'm alive.
The real juicy stuff you all want is still forthcoming, but I can tell you that so far I've been to the Sydney Aquarium (pics and video), Darling Harbour twice (pics and video, day AND night), the Rocks (pics), Central Business District (CBD or just downtown, with cool pics of the Queen Victoria Building), Maquarie University Campus (of course, and I have pics), and will soon be heading to Manly Beach and perhaps later Bondi Beach. As you can see, plenty of stuff to tell you about. Bye for now!