Spice Temple

I heard about Neill Perry and his restaurant, Spice Temple, on an Australian cooking show. All of the Chinese and Asian recipes he made on the show sounded really good and I was excited to learn that Spice Temple would be close to where we were staying in Sydney. Spice Temple advertises itself as a modern Chinese restaurant. I was able to get us a reservation for Saturday night at 9:15 pm. Admittedly we were both nervous about staying up late enough to eat past 9:00 pm.

The ambiance of the restaurant was very nice and fitting with the Asian theme. The only odd thing about the décor was all the photos of really attractive Asian women on the wall. I guess instead of landscape or other art, they decided to go for a cross between arty photos and glamour shots of beautiful women.

The drink menu had cocktails named after the animals from the Chinese zodiac. All of the cocktails had a mix of really unusual ingredients. For example, the cocktail for my sign, the sheep, was: almond and leatherwood honey with don Julio blanco and orange blossom. We decided to share a carafe of the spice house punch, made with fresh squeezed pineapple, flor de cana, lillet blanc jasmine soda and sparkling wine. It was delicious and very refreshing.

It was very difficult to decide what dishes to order. We ultimately decided on:

Pickled cucumbers with smashed garlic and ginger
Fried salt and pepper silken tofu with spicy coriander salad
Broccolini with housemade oyster sauce
Fish drowned in heaven facing chillies and Sichuan peppercorns, Leatherjacket Sichuan style

The pickles were excellent and they really helped cut the fire from the spicer dishes. Sean really wants to learn how to make them at home. The tofu dish was also excellent. The coriander salad was a really nice compliment to the tofu, which was surprisingly flavorful in and of itself. When the fish dish came out it looked like a bowl full of chillies in broth. A waitress scoped out most of the chilles floating on top and we picked out pieces of fish from the broth. The fish was wonderful; it was spicy and flavorful, but not overly spicy considering that the chilies vastly outnumbered the fish. All in all, it was one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time (thanks Lynn and Nick!).

Sydney

Sydney glorious Sydney! Sean and I headed down last Friday to see the famous Sydney. As promised in the many books I’ve read about Australia it was fantastic and completely different from Brisbane. We stayed at the Lord Nelson Brewery and Hotel in The Rocks. The Rocks is a lovely historical neighborhood by the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House.

I was most excited to go to Sydney for the food and it did not disappoint. On our way to the hotel from Circular Quay we found a very adorable and very authentic German restaurant - the waitresses were dressed like the St. Pauli girl, but with less emphasis on the cleavage, and the waiters had real lederhosen on. The beer selection was fantastic. I really enjoyed the Mango weizen. It was a take on the light beer and lemonade, but hefeweizen with mango juice. I highly recommend it.

On Saturday we walked around Circular Quay, the Opera House, the Botanical Gardens, Paddington and Darlington. After walking around town and exploring for most of the day we had a drink at our hotel/brewery. It was a perfect afternoon to sit outside in the sun with a tasty beer.



Saturday night we went out for a special dinner at Spice Temple. I’ll have to dedicate a separate post to our dinner; it was one of the best dinners I’ve had in a long time (thank you, Lynn!).

I learned a little factoid from watching Muriel’s Wedding - Sydney is known as the city of brides. Holy cow, it is completely true. We saw at least 10 wedding parties on Saturday. I think we saw four white stretch Hummer limos in the space of 45 minutes. One really strange thing we saw was a male street performer in a purple zoot suit salsa dancing with a female dummy. I kept thinking to myself, you couldn’t find one woman to dance with you? It was really bizarre.

Sunday we took the ferry to Manly along with everyone else in Sydney, or at least that’s how it felt. The ferry ride was beautiful and we got to see a lot of Sydney Harbor. Manly was surprisingly nice - touristy for sure, but a lovely beach. We split fish and chips for lunch; another really good meal.

I hope we can spend some more time in Sydney in the future, but we are out of time on this trip. I was glad to have a weekend here in Brisbane before heading off to the Whitsunday Islands and Bali and then home to Seattle.

Byron Bay

I have been meaning to post about our long weekend in Byron Bay, but for whatever reason I have done everything but write about our weekend so here goes...

We headed south to Byron Bay (located in New South Wales and not Queensland - my first out of state adventure!) on Good Friday. Pretty much everything was closed for the holiday, but luckily a good coffee shop in our neighborhood was open. Yes, this is the same one I bitterly complained about in an earlier post. I am getting over the whole different customer service approach and trying to roll with things as best I can. While on the beach in Byron Bay I did hear an Aussie woman complaining about a restaurant and poor customer service and was relieved that it is not just my American sensibilities that can get irked here. Hot cross buns are also huge here for the Easter holidays. Every commercial break since I got here has had at least one commercial about hot cross buns. In one of them a group of guys (construction workers, mason workers?) sit outside the supermarket waiting for it to open and get their hot cross buns and butter. Once they get said buns they use a trowel to spread the butter on. Does this remind you of any family members...Kranes, Furderers? You know who you are.

I digress, the drive down to Byron Bay was nice. All in all with traffic it took us a little over 2 hours. We stayed in a motel with Tamas, Kate and Tamas in a small town south of Byron called Ballina. The Tamas' are Sean's coworkers and Kate is Tamas's wife. All of them are from Hungary and working for one of the two large engineering firms overseeing the tunnel project.

We spent Friday afternoon on a beach near the Ballina lighthouse and swam and did a little surfing. The next day we all drove to Nimbin, a small hippie town about 45 minutes west from the coast. The town was adorable and the countryside was beautiful. That afternoon Sean and I headed to the Byron Bay Bluesfest and saw Old Crow Medicine Show and Bela Fleck perform with a group of Malian musicians. There were tons of bands at the festival but those two were the highlights.

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out on the beach at Byron Bay, which was glorious - white sand, turquoise water and lovely green hillside. On Sunday I rented a stand-up paddle board while the boys rented surf boards. I thought it would be fun to paddle a bit in the waves. The board as it turned out was exceptionally heavy, not very stable (which is key to the standing up bit), and conditions were rather windy. I spent most of my time in the water fighting to stay up on my knees and got worked by several large waves. When I got tossed off the board and it hit me in the head, chipping my front tooth (I discovered that later) I decided I was done for the day. My legs are now covered with bruises from the board hitting me, but at least I don't make a whistling sound when I talk because of the chip (really, it's a very small chip and I've been watching a lot of Arrested Development).

The other excitement that occurred on the trip other than the loveliness of Byron, was that on Saturday night we and our rental car were victims of a smash and grab. Someone broke the passenger window on the car and stole Sean's iPod. The Ballina police were very nice, though they seemed a little disappointed that they weren't going to be able to use the fingerprint kit and also didn't really know what an iPod was. The last bit was little surprising to me especially since lots of people here have iPhones. In the end we were out the cost of replacing the window and I will have to turn over my iTouch to Sean. I wonder what I will do with all my music though....? :)

This weekend we are flying down to Sydney to check out the big city. I am really excited and plan to try some fun restaurants that I've read about. Any good food tips from folks that have been? We are staying at the Lord Nelson Brewery Hotel in The Rocks near Circular Quay. Brewery+Hotel=Brilliant (sleeping and drinking needs met in one building).

On the exercise front, I am still hitting the gym everyday and slowing working some running back into my routine. Today was especially hot, so I swam instead, which was really enjoyable except I managed to tear a chunk out of my foot on the bottom of the pool somehow. It didn't hurt at the time, but now it's pretty painful. Hopefully I can sort it all out with some bandaids.

Waterslides and Paddle Boarding

On Saturday we spent the morning at the farmer's market in the park next to our apartment building. We had coffee at the Gypsy Coffee Stand and shared a Hungarian doughnut with jam. The market is always such a fun place to wander around and I love that it's become our Saturday morning ritual.

After we finished our shopping we headed to the Wet'n'Wild waterslide park near the Gold Coast for an early celebration of Sean's birthday. I haven't been to a waterslide park since I was 8 or 10. It was actually a lot of fun, though it did smell a little like wet feet. Surprisingly, it was even a bit of a work out. Many of the slides have inflatable tubes that you have to carry up many, many flights of stairs. Wet'n'Wild even had a beer garden, which was awesome.

On Sunday we got up early to go stand-up paddle boarding with Sean's coworker Tamas. It was really fun to paddle around and the boards were really nice, much nicer than the other boards we have used. Afterwards we headed up to Mt. Coot-tha to check out the view of Brisbane.

We decided to stay an extra week and made reservations for a trip to Bali. Even though Australia is close to Indonesia the flight from Brisbane to Bali is 6 hours. That really hammers it home that Australia is far from everything. Any Bali recommendations from folks that have been?

This weekend we are off to Byron Bay to check out the beaches and go to the Byron Bay Bluesfest. I will post more photos soon. Sean's computer has been on the fritz lately. And I did end up getting new running shoes, but not the really expensive ones. I found some that were a bit easier on the wallet.

Shopping Adventures

Yesterday I was super excited to find a running store that offered shoe fitting services relatively close to our neighborhood. Since I was up early to take a call, I thought I'd end my day a little early and finally check out all the shops on Queen Street. Queen Street is a pedestrian mall in downtown Brisbane with tons of stores. It is kind of like the Westlake of Seattle or maybe the Bay Street of Emeryville. It was nice to walk around and I discovered another farmer's market. The stores were interesting, but not totally to my liking. Many of the women's stores had really similar clothes (not all that different from home), but they all seemed kind of Wet Seal crossed with H&M. Maybe I just haven't found stores that are more to my liking or maybe it's just representative of current fashion trends. Super short denim cutoffs...? I just don't get the appeal.

The running store was exactly what I was looking for and after trying on several pairs of shoes, I found one that fit really well. Then I asked how much they were. They were $220 (!). Apparently running shoes are really expensive here. I was thinking I would have to shell out $80 or so, which would be worth it if they provide my knees some much needed support. Oh well, at least they will facilitate exercising which will hopefully make the purchase worthwhile.

This weekend we are planning on going to Wild Waves for S's birthday and we may do some more paddle boarding on Sunday at a nearby beach.

I have been reading a bunch of travel books courtesy of K. It's been a great way to understand Australia writ large. I learned so much about kangaroos and marsupials. Did you know that there was a wombat that was about the size of a hippo or a short-faced kangaroo that was 10 feet tall? Fascinating! So far my favorite has been Bill Bryson's "In a Sunburned Country".

Noosa Heads and the Meat Pie Incident

S and I ended up going to a beer and wine tasting on Friday evening featuring New Zealand wines and beers. We each got a cup and 10 tickets to try different wines or beers. We opted for the beer tasting. All in all the beers were pretty good and a bit more complex and flavorful than XXXX Gold, which is my go-to beer when I am out. Towards the middle of the evening I wasn't even paying attention to what I was drinking but I did learn that two tickets would get me a full cup rather than the 1/4 cup you usually get with one ticket. It also helps to be a girl when guys are pouring you beers that are ostensibly free, funny how that works out :) They were also serving snacks with the beer/wine tasting. I thought I would be bold and try a meat pie. The first bite was pretty good, but I quickly realized while the outside of the pie was warm to the touch the inside was like napalm. I proceeded to burn my hand (the filling dripped all over my hand and there were no napkins), S's hand and had to drop it in my beer cup to avoid further burns. I learned later I wasn't the only one this happened to, many other people suffered the same fate. And then bat fell on a woman's head. That was pretty exciting, as the bats here are pretty big; think half the size of Junebug with wings. I kind of felt bad for the bat. It realized its error immediately and was able to to fly to the nearby tree. I blame the bar because there was high pitched feedback coming out of the speakers over the music they were playing and I think that is what confused the bat.

On Saturday drove up to the Sunshine Coast to Noosa Heads. Noosa is supposed to be like the Hamptons of Queensland. People also say that Queensland is the Alabama of Australia, so I don't know how those comparisons mesh. Noosa didn't remind me of the Hamptons that much; it reminded me of Miami a little bit even though I've never been, but so beautiful, lush and tropical. We were able to get a private room at one of the hostels in town. The Halse Lodge is one of the nicest hostels I have ever stayed in. We booked a paddle boarding lesson and had so much fun. Noosa is both on a river and the coast, so it is full of canals with houses on them. We got to paddle all around and learned some of the finer points of paddle boarding techniques. It is such a nice, peaceful way to be out on the water and a good workout.

After our lesson we went to dinner at the Noosa Lifesaver's Club for dinner. Australia is full of clubs centered around activities or sports and they always have a restaurant, bar, and gambling. Gambling is huge here, more on that later. The club was right on the main beach and had a great view of the waves. The best way to describe clubs is like a family-friendly bar. And there was a seafood raffle. This seemed more intriguing than the meat raffle S encountered on the Gold Coast. We almost bought tickets, but had no place to put the seafood other than the car, which didn't seem like a good idea. The next day we went for a hike along the coast and encountered lots of surfers heading to the more difficult to reach surf spots. We didn't notice any Cyclone-related weather, though the waves might have been bigger; it was hard to tell.

We slowly made our way back to Brisbane by taking the scenic routes. We passed Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo, but didn't have time to stop before it closed. All in all it was a great weekend.

On the exercise front, I have still be working out every week day, but now my knees are killing me when I run. I think some new shoes may be in order. I am really bummed because running was starting to be fun. I think I may have to rest my knees for a few days before I can run even with new shoes because they ache all the time. Any suggestions from more experienced runners out there?

P.S. I'll post pictures later when I get them from S's computer.

TGIF

Yay, it's Friday! I had another early call today, but I am hoping I can squeeze in a nap this afternoon and possibly a walk to my new favorite smoothie place, Fat Carrot. Fat Carrot has the best banana smoothie of those I've had since I arrived. Their version is called Bananaman. It has banana, yogurt, milk, honey and cinnamon. I think it's the cinnamon that give it the little extra flavor that makes it so good.

This weekend we are off to Noosa Heads on the Sunshine Coast. And, it turns out, so is Cyclone Ululi. We made a reservation for paddle boarding lessons on Saturday. Luckily our lesson is taking place on the river and not at the beach. They even canceled the Australian Surf Life Saving Championship activities yesterday because the conditions were so rough at the Gold Coast (see photo below). Should be an interesting weekend.

Judgey Wudgey

I had this post perfectly composed in my head yesterday evening when I was riding the bus to meet S at a bar to celebrate his coworker's birthday. As I sit here and write this now, I am admittedly less angry, but still a little judgey. If you don't want to hear me rant about relatively mundane things, this post may not be for you.

So, here's what got me into this state... Yesterday morning I had to rise at 4:30 am to participate in a conference call. Brisbane and greater Queensland, I learned does not do daylight savings, so I am even more ahead or behind West Coast time. On a side note, one of my clients likened my situation of being 19 hours ahead (or 7 hours behind, which is an easier way to look at it) to the Umberto Eco book, The Island of the Day Before. He said it's about a ship moored just beyond a dateline. I think I should read this book, as I have a lot of experience with this situation now. I digress; so, I was up early to be on this call and our internet decides to play games with me. When I sign on it only takes me the Vodafone website. I cannot access Skype and I cannot access my email. It pretends that I am all out of credit (internet here is pay as you go). I know I am not all out of internet credit, but the customer service phone center does not open until 8:00 am. In the end it probably ended up being a good thing that they were closed, as I was livid and probably would have said some things I would have regretted. I finally managed to sort out the problem by restarting the internet device. In the calm after the storm, I think to myself, that was really frustrating and had I not solved my own problem there wouldn't have been anyone to assist me for four more hours. I guess 24/7 access isn't the norm for businesses here.

Second angry/judgey moment. On my way to pick up a bottle of wine for S's coworker, I stop at a local coffee shop to get a much needed latte. I really like the vibe of the coffee shop because it reminds me of coffee shops in Seattle. I order and I wait. Then I watch the barista dink around, tell his coworker what he should be tidying up, and make another drink for what I can only assume is a regular customer. About 10 minutes later he makes my latte and says sorry about the wait. I was pissed and I feel, deservedly so. There was no in line behind me and I was the only one waiting for a drink. Normally I would accept said apology, but it didn't seem like there was any need for me to wait 10 minutes for him to get around to making my drink. Insert judgy comment about Australian customer service, perfectly articulated by S: "They always start off with a smile, but there is really nothing behind it." Note, that he said this while we were drinking beers that tasted like soap at the bar I was on my way to. They probably put too much soap in their dishwasher or don't rinse the glasses enough. We have tried returning the occasional soapy beers before and they won't give us another, not ever. And beers and coffee are not cheap here.

I know I should take all of these experiences in stride because I am in another country and they do things differently down here, but today I am going to be judgmental, so there. More interesting and less ranting posts to come.

Barbie but No Shrimps

This weekend we decided to have some of S's coworkers over for a BBQ at our place. We thought it would be fun to have people over to see our place since everyone thinks we live in the sticks and we have a large reserve of beer - a perfect combination. On a side note about the beer, it turns out that the Costco rules of buying in bulk applies to beer here. It's about $15-18 for a six-pack in the package stores, but if you buy a case (or three cases) it ends up being about $11 per six-pack. It's all about the economizing :) . And most of S's coworkers live on the other side of town close to the office, so I can see how it seems like we are in the sticks, but being farther away does have its benefits like the farmer's market in the park next to our building and a really nice apartment.

We went to the farmer's market on Saturday to buy food for our Mexican themed BBQ. We always stop at the Gypsy coffee cart first to get a latte or a flat white. The coffee cart looks exactly like a gypsy cart, or at least what you might image and the owner even dresses a bit like a gypsy. After getting some much needed caffeine, we got a Hungarian doughnut to fortify us and we started shopping. The variety of fruits and vegetables is amazing and everything is relatively cheap. There was a man selling honey that also had baby ducks and chicks in a little enclosure on his table. That was a brilliant business move; kids and parents couldn't stay away. We even considered getting a baby duck and keeping it in our bath tub, but decided that probably wasn't a good idea.

After finishing our shopping we headed over to Bicycle Revolution. They take used bikes, sandblast them, repaint them, and add really nice components to them. D, you would love this place. Not only are the bikes well built, but they are beautifully put together. I ended up getting a bike. It was like rewarding myself for a biking prowess I have yet to develop, but it is so pretty! The wheels are really nice and the tires are super thin. It corners like it's on rails. S is pretty jealous. He keeps thinking up situations in which my bike becomes his, like if I don't ride it everyday then it becomes his bike. The mechanics at the bike shop offered to build him one that's similar to mine. We'll see how long he can hold out.



After the farmers market and bike adventures we went to A and H's for lunch and ended up hanging out all afternoon. On a whim we decided to see The Green Zone. I thought it was pretty good though you could tell it was the same director as all the Bourne movies. It was a real "America sucks and we're jerks" type of movie, which in the case of Iraq may be closer to the truth than we'd like to admit. Other than the depressing political themes , it was a good action movie.

The BBQ ended up being a success. Lots of people came and we made tons of food. We even netted more beer. The menu for the BBQ included:

• Marinated rump steak tacos (no flank or skirt steak here that I could find)
• Yam tacos
• Guacamole
• Pico de gallo
• Frijoles negros and rice

I always seem to make too much food and I certainly did this time. Lots and lots of leftovers. Next weekend it looks like we'll rent a car and go up to the Sunshine Coast. We went to the Gold Coast a few weekends ago and it was really nice. We happened to catch the only sun that weekend and I got quite sunburned. The Gold Coast is only an hour away from us by car and I am looking forward to going again soon. I can't wait to see how the Sunshine Coast compares.

I've attached a photo of our hang session with A and H as well as a really strange billboard I happened across. I can't saw exactly why it caught my eye, but there is something about the cat's hand that is so strange and kind of hilarious.

Lay of the Land

It's official, I've joined the blogosphere. This was something I wanted to do since I got here, but I got stuck on selecting a title. I'll admit, "Dispatches from Brizzy" isn't awesome but bear with me. I've been in Brisbane for about a week and a half and I am getting more and more settled with the Aussie way of life. You may wonder why I chose "Brizzy" instead of "Brisbane", it's all part in parcel of the Australian habit of diminutizing words. Chocolates and lollipops = choc and lollies, airconditioning = aircon, and so on.

So far, Brisbane has been wonderful. Only the downtown area is considered Brisbane proper and we live in a neighborhood called the West End. S described the West End as kind of Ballardy, and I would say he's not far off, but there are so many hippies here too which makes it seem less like Ballard.

A few observations about life in Australia since I got here:

• Sharp cheddar cheese is called "tasty and bitey". If you want mild cheddar it's just "tasty". I don't know why but I love this.
• People will often walk around barefoot - not my idea of a good time.
• The things flying around at dusk and the rest of the night are not hawks as S originally thought, they are large fruit bats. At first I was a little scared, but now I kind of like them. With the exception of walking under a tree at night where they are feasting. They are loud and will drop things on you.
• There are some very large spiders here. I now avoid walking on certain neighborhood streets that tend to have a lot of them.
  
• I have not figured out the appropriate usage of "cheers". People seem to say that all the time as a proxy for thanks or as a conversation ender.
• Everyone hangs out on Sundays and drinks beer. This is so my kind of place; it's all about the priorities. We need to import this to the States.
  

I have been using my time down here to try to focus on instilling some of the positive habits I can't seem be successful at at home. Everyday, except the weekend, I've been going to the gym for an hour. There is a gym and swimming pool in our apartment complex and being able to see it from our apartment has been really good motivation. So, go me! I have also been flossing, but somehow the exercise thing seems more important.

I am off to meet S and his coworkers for drinks. More to come...