Sydney Day 4

Going further down, you get a wonderful bakery, a snazzy Northern Indian restaurant etc... its all fun stuff walking and and down the street on the beach.

Staying near the beach is very cool, you get to enjoy the life as beach bums. Wake up late or early, stumble down to the beach area for breakfast and read the papers, watch the pretty people go past. Whether its Coogee, Bronte, Bondi or Manly beaches, its the same drift. The shops are all a lot of fun and presents great variety.

Its only about 100 meters but its exciting kind of shops. Here you have a bottler (liquor retail store), a surf shop and SushiGOI, a popular sushi place much like Sakae Sushi.



Next to it you have a cafe, and another cafe and then the very fresh Coogee Fish shop, great fish and chips. I kinda counted that there were no less than 16 cafes in that 100 meters.

My morning comfort food in Sydney, bacon and crispy bacon roll.

Well, its not ever going to be a touristy type of travel blog since I have been here for a long time and lived and studied here for over 10 years. Hence you are not getting the Opera House, Taronga Zoo stuff. But the Harbour Bridge is very cool, this is a video of me driving over it. Visitors without any fear of heights should do the Harbour Bridge climb.




I do a lot of country side driving when I am in Sydney. You can fit the entire Europe map into Australia, its a huge place. The country side is a lot more soothing. Drove to Gosford, another hour's drive from Sydney. Relaxing and wonderful weather to boot. Yes, they happened to be having races there yesterday, up close and personal with the horsies as well.



The very relaxing drive down to Gosford ...

Sydney Day 3

Its the third day, taking things slow now. Woke up late, decided to drive to Hawkesbury Turf Club which was having its race day today. Its about 65km away and a nice leisurely drive through the suburbs. 











In Malaysia there are just 3 turf clubs. Two in HK. In the state of NSW alone, there are 4 city tracks (bigger races, Canterbury, Rosehill, Randwick and Warwick Farm) and 4 provincial tracks (Illawara, Hawkesbury, Newcastle, Gosford). They really love their racing in Australia. Now multiply that with the other states, thats why you have horse racing everyday, plus greyhounds and harness (trotting).

Its very nice to drive to a provincial track, the people are very laid back, everyone comes dressed casual, drink lots of beer and wine and families wander around the track having picnics. Plus you get to see real horses racing and you can have a bet as well. You get to see more country folks at provincial tracks and its kinda nice.

Prior to that, headed to Marrickville (about 25 minutes from the city, an enclave of Aussies from Vietnam) to get my fill of pho. They do this very nicely thanks to great tasting OZ beef. Side note, OZ chicken dishes are tasteless, take anything with chicken its tasteless due to the "healthy feed" for the chicken.

If you visit Sydney, you will inevitably visit Star City, the casino. There are plenty of good places to eat there. The hard to book a seat, Momofuku is here. Failing that, you should at least try the Messina gelato, unbelievably good.

The famed patisserie Adriano Zumbo is here as well. His shop is quirky, he has revolving small desserts much like the sushi revolving thing that you can pick and eat.

Possibly catching Legally Blonde the musical sometime later in the week.

Sydney Day 2

Gee, this travel blogging is not exactly a lot of fun. Had to send photos from my I-phone (which does not take sufficiently good photos like the new Samsung phone) to my email before I could post about it. The first photo is the beautiful QVB, wonderfully restored by Ipoh Gardens, a fact not known by many people.

The 3 levels huge Apple store on George Street, eternally packed. No, I did not buy the new mini I-pad. Tempted though.

Anyway, tried to do all my shopping needs in one afternoon. 

Another mega store, Louis Vuitton, thankfully, no need to buy anything there for anybody (gulp).

The ravishingly beautiful and large Zara store.

So what did I buy? Stuff I couldn't get back home. Bought tons of stuff from Dymocks Bookstore.

 This one even our wonderful piracy industry did not put it in their list. Its probably the funniest series made in recent times. So glad to snare these two DVDs.



Yes, I have a strong penchant for horse racing and horse racing personalities and stories. More wonderful books to add to my reading list.

Went to my usual pizza parlour, as long as they made a decent pizza, I always have my own alacarte order: tomato paste, cheese, pineapples, garlic, chilli oil and anchovies ... mamma mia!!!

Took my pizza to Watson's Bay or better known as The Gap. There had been too many suicide attempts in the past that they had to put up fences and signs like this around the place.

Anyone who was an overseas  student in Sydney for the past 30 years would have eaten at this place in Chinatown. Its called Minh Hai and they serve this huge crispy grilled maryland chicken with rice, sauce and soup. Nostalgia food.
  

Towards the evening, ended at the only casino game I willingly play, Texas Holdem. At least we do not lost to the casino (they just take a cut of the pool) but to one another. Thats my table. Did OK, left after 3 hours, tired already. Yes, the table had 7 Asians and one gwailo.

Sydney Day 1 (Morning/Noon)

Great smooth flight, nary a hitch, the winds were behind us all the way we made the trip in 6 hr 50 min instead of 8 hr, amazing. Taxi cab flag fall was at A$3.80 (RM12.50) and the 12km trip to Kings Cross cost A$52 (RM165). Nice...




















Now time to pick up my car rental. If you plan to drive, you should anyway, its brilliant and you cannot get a better deal than Bayswater Car Rental, the one with the "No Birds" tagline. Don't ask why they have that tagline. All in it only cost A$33 odd per day inclusive of insurance.

The guy at the front desk was from Thailand, we chatted about Thai politics, and then gave me a really good deal. The car I have had JUST 12km on it, ...  it came in yesterday. Now I know what its like to be a high ranking UMNO-putra seeking out corporate deals from Ministry of Finance and EPU.

Landed a bit too early to check in the hotel, so grabbed a hot ham and cheese croissant from Infinity Bakery @ Darlinghurst, plus a flat white and headed for Centennial Park, should be sparse this early in the morning. What better way to enjoy breakie than with the animals and fauna.

Some friends commented why go to Sydney during summer ... well cause the weather's perfect, December/Jan are the worst months. Nov is still good, landed in the morning with 18C, sun shining bright, no sweating 24C in afternoon .... dipping to 18C by 6pm and probably 14C come midnight.

Finally checked in, many wondered why I did not stay in the city. Its silly to stay in the city, parking is horrendous, probably cost you A$80 a day. I am staying at Coogee, Crowne Plaza, have a look at the view from my room, the  you'd understand why. Anyway, its just 20 minutes from the city.

Sydney Confidential

I will be making a quick trip to Sydney, flying off tonight. It was kinda last minute as I had not planned to do so. However, my closest auntie just had a minor operation so I thought it was best to make the trip with the stretch of holidays this coming week. 

I used to go to Sydney every year but haven't been doing so as my last trip was some 3 years ago. The majority of my relatives are in Sydney and most do come back to visit anyway. 

Another reason to get away was that I can sense too many things happening around me all at once, most of them good stuff. Its good to get away and stand back and refresh, to look at things anew. Things couldn't be better at Murasaki ts, while its hectic, and while waiting for the office to be fully renovated, its my last chance to get away for sometime as I will be pouring myself back into the mix later on.

I thought I will try to do a travel blog for the next 7 days for this trip, see whether I can cut it as a travel blogger for a change. I kinda know Sydney very well as I was driving a taxi during my university days, all in I studied and worked there for almost 10 years. 

Yes, the first question everyone ask when I say that is why did I come back. I was too young and while I love Sydney, its not my backyard. I like the transparent and incisive newspapers, but most of the news articles were not about the people I really cared about. Maybe in my naive ways, I wanted to see what I can do for my country. 

Realistically, the bulk of the businesses in developed countries like Australia belonged to the big corporations. It is not entrepreneurial enough. In Malaysia, you can come up with a good idea and find funding relatively easily. Heck, you may even get to have an appointment with the CEO of most top 100 companies in Malaysia after just one or two layers of contact and networking, something you cannot possibly dream of doing in Australia.

So, in my rush, I packed packs of heong paeng (from Ipoh) and two packs of freshly ground almond powder. Its my second time bringing over the powder, I always like the look on the faces of the Customs and Immigration officers when I show them the packets of powder, so blatant, looking so much like cocaine...lol.

Why Obama Matters

Spent nearly the whole day following the US elections, why you might ask. If we were to have a global elections between Obama and Romney, I bet you it would be a landslide favouring Obama. The USA represents democracy for the rest of the world. Most citizens of other countries would watch and hope that the election and political processes in their own country may one day somehow live up to the US standard.

Obama is more than just the leader of the free world. He represents more than that. He made the world less racial. He represents the blurring of how people are treated badly because of the colour of their skin or where they are from. Although far from supporting GLT rights outright, the Democrats is the better of the two. It is a more enveloping and compassionate platform.It embraces.

On the fiscal and economic issues, Obama has done decently after taking over the legacy of issues from the Bush administration. Many things have been done but the real recovery will be slow. You cannot possibly do that overnight, no one can. Hence the re-election is all the more significant in that the economy isn't that well yet.

How will the markets take the Obama win? Markets would have preferred a Romney victory but an Obama victory is also not that bad. The first issue they have to address will be the fiscal cliff coming due in January 2013. It is likely something will be worked out, which will propel markets higher then. There is still tons of liquidity on the sidelines.

To Mitt Romney, who put up a good fight but his platform wasn't that different enough, plus he wasn't clear enough in supporting immigration, illegal aliens, GLT issues and the financial proposals lacked thoroughness and details. Still Mitt, look on the bright side, you could have also been an Astro employee with tons of IPO shares on margin.

Street Vendors / Local Farmers

This may be a small thing but we should really make it a concious effort on our part. Always try to buy from street vendors and local farmers plying their trade in a stand alone kerb stall. Their margins are low, they are trying to cut out the middleman, they are trying to cut out the wholesalers and distributors. They are trying to mitigate the effects of big bulk discount supermarkets. Of course I am not talking about those Petaling Street stalls that sell fake goods with 500% mark ups and they expect to be bargained down more than 50% anyways.

When you see genuine street vendors "making their own stuff", cooking their own food for sale, or local farmers plying their produce, .... try and buy from them, and try not to bargain. The same ringgit usually means more to someone than to us. Be thankful that we may have a job, a network or an education and work experience that allow us to make money much easier than a lot of other people. Being thankful is one thing, trying to be a good custodian of our good fortune and good things that come to us is another.

Have a good day....