What a day

Today felt good.

I had a good run in the park. We had breakfast out on the patio; it was a gorgeous, sunny day. I spoke to some of my family back in Canada. We got some important bank stuff done. We also got all set up on Medicare – very important.

After a quick bit of shopping we met up with V. We went back to Seven Metre Bar, had a drink and a great rooftop view from the Glenmore Hotel, walked across the Harbour Bridge, picked up some tasty (and cheap!) fish and chips and a bottle of wine, and eat and drank it all in the park under the bridge in Kirribilli. We watched the darkness fall over the Opera House and the flying foxes come out for the night.

Nice.

Newtown Festival

I visited the Sydney inner-west neighbourhood of Newtown when I was here back in March. It’s a mixture of bohemian and subculture funkiness. And each spring they have the Newtown Festival. It’s a fundraiser for the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre; it was held today, and I went.

The biggest part of the festival is music. I’ve written a blog entry about the bands I saw over on my other blog.There were several stages to choose from, and acts playing all day, so it was a great place to sample new music.

But there was lots more: a dog show (which I missed), booths about the Neighbourhood Centre and what it does, info about how to make environmentally low-impact household cleaners, stuff for sale, and tons of stuff for kids.

There was also plenty of food. I had some delicious spicy BBQ ribs with rice and salad, hot churros for dessert, sampled a couple of glasses of Margaret River wine, and had a few chocolate-dipped strawberries as I left.

A great way to spend a Sunday.

Seven Metre Bar

Now this is the sort of funky stuff I came to Sydney for: part environmentally-conscious art installation, part back-alley pop-up drinking hole, Seven Metre Bar is a jumble of milk crates, piled-up junk, and drinks in plastic jars. The music is awesomely retro, you get random wall projections, the odd car squeezes past, there are no toilets, and you can keep your jar. Drinkwise, I recommend the Rusty Chain.

It’s only there for a few months (until the end of January). Stop in and take a look. It makes a very cool place for a drink after work (or, in my case, after looking for work). Open Tuesday to Friday, 4pm to midnight, unless it’s raining.

Check out the pictures on flickr, including the one below.

Photo from thefourthcraw on flickr, via Creative Commons license

Sydney harbour

Sydney Harbour is famous, and has iconic, commonly-photographed elements like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

I like the picture below, though, because it’s a view I’ve not seen before: from the altitude of a cruising airplane. You can see how large it is, how convoluted the harbour is, how many coves and bays it has. It’s a massive, pivotal, anchoring piece of this city.

Image from zoom eric via Flickr

Sydney Bloggers Meetup

I’m planning on attending the next Sydney Bloggers Meetup, the weekend after next. There are only a couple of people currently signed up to attend, though. Here’s hoping we can bump those numbers up! I’m sure there are plenty of bloggers in this city who need another excuse for a cold beer.

Shopping and the weather

We did a bit of shopping yesterday. When it’s above 36 degrees Celsius an air-conditioned mall seems a lot more palatable. Plus there were no crowds, as everyone else was watching the Melbourne Cup.

The heat actually didn’t seem that bad, since the humidity was very low (around 20%). And I got some nice shirts.

It is still spring, though. Today it’s back down to 22 C, and cloudy. Time for a run. I’m also meeting a friend of a friend for lunch today.

Melbourne Cup day

The apartment-hunting and job-hunting is going pretty well. We’ve seen a few places and are happy we can find something suitable in the next few weeks. And there are irons in the professional fire.

Everything’s going to come to a halt today for the Melbourne Cup, though. The country seems to go wild for it.

Gorgeous weekend in Sydney

Maybe this is a bit redundant now that I’m living in Sydney, but this was a glorious weekend weather-wise: warm and sunny and clear with a nice breeze. The whole city looks magnificent. The harbour sparkles.

Okay, I promise to shut up about this soon.

Sydney

I had an excellent couple of days in Kuala Lumpur, visiting the KL Bird Park (the largest free-flight covered bird park in the world), the Islamic Arts Museum, and the Kenko Spa to have the skin exfoliated from my feet and legs by dipping them in a pool of hundreds of nibbling fish.

Now we’re in Australia, in temporary digs in Sydney. The weather’s gorgeous, we’re getting our bearings, and the search for places to live and things to do for work are well underway.

It’s a very good start. Everything’s going to plan. Fingers crossed.

Stopover in Malaysia

We’ve stopped in Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days on our way through to Sydney. Didn’t get up to much yesterday except nap and eat. Today I’m off exploring on my own.