Monday, 29 April 2013

What you need to know about grocery shopping in Sydney

I have now been on quite a few official grocery shops here in Sydney. My supermarket of choice? Coles, the main draw being that they have Curtis Stone on their website, only slightly more enticing than the fact that it is the closest.


Here are some things I found worthy of mention;

1. Milk does NOT come in bags. Upon asking around I also found out it doesn't really happen in Europe either, I guess it's a North American phenomena. And for those of you you are into this sorta thing, there are a TON of long life milk options on the room temp shelves. Also 2% is referred to as Full Cream....psssshhht what do they know about full cream!

2. There are no such thing as mini carrots, I am therefore forced to look like Bugs Bunny as I march around chomping down on full sized versions!

3. The theme of keeping things on the regular shelves continues as we come to the most shocking thing I discovered, THE EGGS ARE NOT REFRIGERATED!!! I guess it makes sense, you can get eggs at the farmers market room temp all the time but I was startled when I made this discovery in a supermarket. I still have not been able to find a clear explanation about why we refrigerate them in Canada and they don't need to here, all I learned was that if they have been in the fridge, you cannot take them out and store them on the counter... it may also have something to do with washing the eggs... if you can shed some light on this, please do



4. There are plenty of instant coffee and espresso options, there are not plenty of regular ground, Bodem-ready versions.



5. Makeup is horrifyingly expensive....


6. You can buy Canadian maple syrup!



7. Here 'tomato sauce' = ketchup even though they are pretty different, I have discovered that you CAN purchase normal Heinz ketchup, we are converting them!

8. You can buy kangaroo meat as easily, and in as many forms, as beef.


 8. Sultana = Raisin



9. You thought Ben and Jerry's was expensive in Canada...


10. Getting to the cash is awesome because you know exactly how much money you are spending as they do not add on tax (and the added mental math associated with it). It is not awesome when it comes to bag filling space...



Stay tuned for some action from Paddy's Market, the only reasonable place to buy produce!

Sunday, 28 April 2013

Lamington

A dessert of Australian origin, the lamington is a sponge cake covered in 
chocolate icing and then rolled in coconut, yum right?! 


My verdict is 'good-not-great'. It was a lot of sponge cake and not a ton of icing, things improved when I heated it up a bit in the microwave. Apparently they are sometimes enjoyed with jam or cream in the middle. I will give them another try from a different bakery and with some condiments, the coconut part was appealing!
 

Wednesday, 24 April 2013

Anzac Day

Yes, ANOTHER holiday!

This week is a short week for me as Anzac Day is being celebrated today, Thursday April 25th.

Anzac day can be compared to our Remembrance Day in Canada, a day to celebrate and remember those that have served their country in war, conflicts and peacekeeping missions. ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corp, it isn't a man's name as was my originally hypothesis. Celebration of this day is done primarily through dawn services held throughout Australia and New Zealand , parades throughout major cities, such as Sydney, and Anzac biscuits.....



OK OK I don't think that these are actually part of the big day, but they share the name so I thought it fitting to merge them in my mind. These delectable treats are available all year round in supermarkets such as Coles but I hadn't gotten my hands on any until today! They are the perfect soft combination of oats and coconut, a great way to celebrate. These babies will be on my 'to-make' list when I return home and am asked to produce some Aussie grub.

It also may interest you to know that Anzac Day is one of only two days of the year when it is legal to play two-up (the other is November 11th). This is an Australian betting game involving a paddle and two coins. Eager gamblers bet on whether the coins will land on both heads, both tails, or one of each, as you can guess, things get a little bit rowdy!

Lest We Forget

Monday, 22 April 2013

TIM TAM SLAM!

This weekend while on a trip to the Blue Mountains with my Learning in Outdoor Education class, (3000 word assignment blog post to come on this topic, be excited) I spent some time with our leaders' children. Besides being great trekkers, they also had a lot of insight into some amazing Aussie delicacies. This is where the tim tam slam comes into play. I didn't even need to hear the description of this treat to know that I had to try it...you know, for cultural purposes...

So I set off to Coles and was pleased to find that the value pack of tim tams was on sale, so I can now attempt this 20 times with various liquids to perfect my technique!

A tim tam slam materializes when you bite opposite corners of your tim tam off, forming a straw, and suck warm liquid through it until it becomes saturated, then you just pop the whole thing into your anxious mouth to enjoy the melt-in-your-mouth goodness!

Allow me to demonstrate;



GLORIOUS!!

I will probably proceed to include a slam in my breakfast routine every morning, at least for the rest of the week. 




Thursday, 18 April 2013

Awesome Aussie Packaging Find

I think I will let the video do the talking on this one...


After the first time struggle with the mechanics of this novel packet I have been converted! Someone ship these babies overseas!

Shout out to my Mom and the Packaging People at Humber College!

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Walk like an Aussie

Now I know that the University of Guelph is home to a couple of individuals who can be seen walking around campus shoe-less, everyday. However, that is not the norm in Guelph, or in Canada, and these people often draw wide-eyed stares and whispers among passers by.

In Australia I have definitely noticed an increase in the number, and acceptance, of people who don't like anything impairing their foot-ground interaction. Now don't misinterpret this as me telling you that no one wears shoes in this crazy country, most people do, but the number of abstainers is definitely greater than I am used to. It is also something that I notice a lot more whenever I leave the big inner city.

I figured that it would be a fun social experiment to go a day without shoes. "Walk like an Aussie" is what I coined this adventure as. Now, I didn't quite last all day, I honestly only lasted the walk to school. I underestimated the strength of my soles, it turns out that they are quite soft pedicured princess feet!



Some benefits I could pull out of my short time with my soles to the ground included the awesome ability to feel the grass and the fact that it makes you walk slower (stop and smell the roses reference). Perhaps more seasoned shoe-less joes wouldn't find this as much as I but my steps came a lot more gingerly and I tacked 5 minutes onto my walk to school.

Ultimately I cannot really understand why someone would want to take this on full time but I guess it comes down to individual differences. Maybe we would see more bare soles in Canada if our grounds weren't covered in snow for half of the year?

Sunday, 14 April 2013

Bring on the Bunnies!

My Australian experience wouldn't be complete without a trip to a footy game!


Now let me clarify some things for anyone who, like me, has their head spinning with the names they give to their different sports down here.

Footy (or Footie) may refer to Australian Rules Football, Rugby League, Rugby Union (sometimes) and even, on occasion, soccer. 

What I went to see was an NRL game, or National Rugby League, which is quite popular in New South Wales. This is a bit different from what I have experienced the game of rugby to be, which would be referred to as rugby UNION here. The main differences include the fact that rugby LEAGUE consists of a series of tackles and rugby UNION maintains the consistent use of scrums (those wild full team pile-ups, broad shoulders clashing!) as well as the fact that they don't use those crazy throw-ins where they hike the dudes up by their short-shorts in rugby LEAGUE. Surely there are other differences, but for the layman, those are the biggest disparities. 

Although I have alluded to Aussie Rules in this post, I will save an in depth description for when I get out to a game and can really give you the low down. As of now I know that they are leaner guys running around in a oval touching the ball with all sorts of body parts, and I will leave you to ponder that image....

So in fulfillment of Tracy's resolution to get to a game of her new-found favourite NRL team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, we set out on Saturday night to take in the action at Sydney Olympic Park. Now don't be alarmed and think that we took in multiple games, this team, partly owned by Russell Crowe, is also referred to as the souths, the bunnies and the rabbits, the sea of green and red jerseys kept us on track! Think the Maple Leafs but in the NRL, a huge and avid fan base but very few big wins to their name, perhaps this is why Tracy (and now I) are so drawn to the bunnies! 

Fact: The Bunnies are not cute and soft and white as their logo and your thought schemas would suggest, they are huge, hard hitting, testosterone filled men with very large quads and well sculpted glutes. 

The experience was typical to most sports games I have seen, there were loud and obnoxious fans, expensive snacks and plenty of swag to spend your moula on. The one thing that was exaggerated was the betting, the fans bet on everything at every game!!


We ended up losing the game but it was a blast to watch and our opponents, the Melbourne Storm, are really a top class team. 

The real hilight came after the game had finished, in Oz they do this thing called Fans on the Field. The name is very telling, the fans literally run onto the field after the game finishes and the players have walked off. The swarm was amazing! Kids sprinting around, tackling each other while throwing rugby balls, couples getting their pictures taken and people lying on the grass. It really was a great feeling to stand down there and look up with a player's perspective. 




I will definitely be putting some more effort into my Aussie sports education after this experience!

SHOUT OUT TO THE BLUE JAYS
step it up dudes

Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Beyond Eat, Pray, Love; Bali Vacation



4 weeks into my semester at Sydney Uni I found myself faced with a whole week off of school. 'Mid-Semester Break' is what they refer to it as here. The American 'Spring Break' wouldn't exactly fit seeing as we are now into autumn and we all know the Canadian 'Reading Week' is a bunch of malarkey because no one actually studies on their week off.

Regardless of what it should be called, I had a week of freedom staring me in the face, what to do with this week, I asked myself. Why not take a trip to Bali, Indonesia!?

Now this may seem somewhat random and a little bit like I'm straying off my Down Under travel course, but fear not, I was in fact practicing my new Aussie way of being 'laid back' and 'going with the flow' when I decided to embark on this journey! A friend mentioned it and Jacy and I took the idea and ran with it, budget flights were fairly inexpensive out of Sydney and once we arrived we knew we could find some cheap hotel and deliscious food for the fraction of the price of some other popular destinations and in Australia itself!

Day one involved a 6 and a half hour flight, one that I found rather short and not really a big deal in comparison to my recent double digit hours in the air. The real transportation adventure came when we hit the streets of Bali!

Some notes on driving:
- street lines are more of a guide than something that people actually follow, they are often straddled!
- there are motorbikes and scooters everywhere! With varying number of passengers (1-5) and different degrees of helmet wearing.
- traffic lights, when they exist, are also optional
- your horn is your best friend, now this does not mean the blaring hard press and hold on the horn that we are used to, it is more of a constant flow of quick toots usually to let everyone else know where on the road you are and are going, this is to compensate for the lack of line usage I believe! Also people don't often look before moving, honking also helps with preventing accidents in that sense. Basically, your horn is your signal!






And this is driving outside the city!


We were able to pack in a whole lot over our 8 night stay but would recommend a longer visit as there is so much to do on this little island! I will include mostly pictures with short descriptions of my various adventures, and I'll look forward to talking about my trip more in depth with all of you when I get the chance.



There were offerings everywhere, everyday.
They line the sidewalks in front of store
so watch your step!
















DR. FISH! For $3.50 you can spend 15 minutes getting the dead skin
eaten off of your feet by these tiny Garra Rufa fish. It is a ticklie/vibrating sensation.
I loved it and would invest in a school of these fish for my home!

Off to the city of Ubud with the famous Monkey Forest. Hold on
to your sunglasses and zip up your bags because these little guys love
to steal from you, especially when they think you have food!
Beautiful scenery and a few temples were encapsulated in this $2 attraction.


                                    
                                  Legong Dance, a good taste of culture on our first 
night in Ubud.

Off to the Elephant Safari Park in Taro. Meet Fajar 
(meaning dawn in Indonesian)
She was born on March 22nd of this year. She was a healthy
mix of awkward and adorable!



We got to touch, feed, ride and play with some of the 31 Asian elephants located at this sanctuary. Such a great experience! And check out the show they put on for us, such smart animals;




The next morning we decided to go on the crazy tour that involved being picked up at
2:30 am so that we could climb the 5,633 ft. active volcano, Mt. Batur 

and watch the sunrise.This picture says it all, the trek was long and difficult 
but making it to the summit as the sun
peaked out from behind the clouds was more than satisfying!

The view was amazing and we were lucky to have picked a good weather day.
Tranquility and Bliss.
We arrived at the bottom at 8am, satisfied with the mornings work.

An afternoon at the spa was the only way to recover from the mornings
adventure! We went for a Balinese massage (1 Hour $15) at beautiful
Botanica Spa in Ubud. All throughout Bali you can get
amazing spa treatments from pedicures for $8 to
full body scrubs for $12, and we couldn't say no to a flower bath!

A view of one of the many rice paddies that spot the
landscape in Bali, gloriously green!



A trip to the local Ubud market was included in the cooking class that I took at Bumi Bali restaurant with Katut (meaning fourth born). Lots of new sights and sounds and smells! 
The menu included a basic spice paste, a vegetable dish, a chicken curry, some pork satay, fried banana and brem (rice wine) punch! All very delicious and I am equipped with a recipe book so that I can recreate!

The next stop was the Gili Islands, located about an hours boat ride away from Bali.
We saw wild dolphins on our trip to the biggest of the island that make up 

the 3 Gillies, Trawangan. Beautiful blue skies and blue-green clear water! 
There are no motorized vehicles on these islands, all transportation comes in 
the form of bikes, horse carriages or your own two feet! 

Coral lined the beaches and when you went into the warm warm
water you had to float around as the ground was sharp with it!
We went on a snorkelling trip around the 3 Gilis and got to see
some beautiful fish (big and small and in every colour) as well as some
other interesting sea creatures. The hilight had to be the two turtle spottings!
Unfortunately the reefs in this part of the world are pretty damaged
but steps are being taken to SAVE THE CORAL!


Overall the trip the Bali was an amazing one and I have to say it definitely fed my travel bug! I foresee a backpacking trip around South-East Asia in my future! Thanks for viewing