*i had a stalker day*

the forecast for saturday was beautiful. or so BOM said.
but as usual, they got it wrong.

- enter sadface here -

after having a very lazy morning (by which i mean waking up at 1pm), i decided to further feed my desire to procrastinate studying by going out for a shopping walk with rach.

first stop: get our FAME tickets!! it was funny because we actually pre-bought our tickets online, but had to bring a print out to the box office so we could pick the actual show and seats. we left the house, and it wasn't until we were halfway down campbell st that we realized that we forgot to bring the print out with us! being technologically optimistic, albeit feeling very very lazy, i convinced rach to not walk home saying, "nah - don't worry!! just use your iphone!! they've gotta accept that!" but no.

we got to the box office a few minutes later and the chick was kind enough to tell us that we had to bring actual hard-copies of the vouchers. so after a good two minutes of discussion to see if the walk back was worth it, off we went, walking back up the 'hill' to grab the papers.

half way back, a terribly asian internet cafe caught my eye. at that moment, i decided it'd be worth paying however much it cost to print it out, so long as i didn't have to walk all the way back home again! so we did this. and you know what? that internet cafe rocks! they give you five free minutes and their net is super super fast! the added bonus was that if you managed to finish what you needed to do in the first five minutes, you could print anything for 15c per sheet. so. it paid off. 60c later and miles and miles saved of walking (=p), we were back at the box office choosing our seats.

mission accomplished.

the afternoon got more interesting as it went by.

after doing our shopping (i picked up a new pair of havaianas! yay!), we walked outside and it was absolutely pouring down with rain. again, me being lazy and having been incredibly impractical about my outfit for the day (i chose to wear a dress... of all things), i managed to convince rach that taking the 555 was a much smarter choice than walking all the way home in the rain.

30 minutes (i still shake my fist at sydney buses), one phone call and two eavesdropped conversations later, we got on the crowded bus to get home. but this is when the annoying moment hit. okay, so i'm not always huge on etiquette. but the one thing i have learned that i am very serious about: bus etiquette and elderly people. this is one rule that people just should NOT break!

given the rain, there were heaps of people waiting and it was a big rush to get on. shortly after us, an ah-mah got on, carrying a number of heavy looking enviro bags overflowing with groceries and produce. she had to have been at least 70 or 75. so you know how on every bus, there are two front seats and then six of those priority seats going along the side of the bus? well, on the left priority seats, there was one young girl (17-18ish) carrying st. john ambulance stuff, with a middle-aged couple seated next to her. on the right priority seat, there were 3 middle aged men. granted there were a few people standing in the way, but this granny was forced to stand, managing her bags, wedged between people, with no able-bodied person offering to give her a seat! but the real cheese-off were these two who had squished themselves onto the front seat.



obviously, this photo was taken after the granny had gotten off the bus. but when she was still on (and STANDING... WITH her heavy bags), she was right next to these two - and they fully ignored her! i could swear that when the granny accidentally bumped into the dude, he just turned, gave her a look, then with a shake of his head, went back to flirting with his girl.

man that was annoying.

i was going on and on about it on the bus to rach, with us coming to the conclusion that these two were most likely not from here. a few minutes later we get to central and these two get off. rach and i get off shortly after and start walking home. as we do, we passed a couple of shops along elizabeth street. and guess who we see! the smoochy couple, stopping at a laundromat (who offer a bag storage facility for $3 per luggage bag/day), to collect their bags!



i have one word plus a shake of my head.

tourists. =.=

*travels*

one thing to add to the list of why i love living in sydney is being able to drive elsewhere. i realize that this is quite contradictory in the sense that people usually move to sydney to experience city-life itself. but for me, with a love for scenic drives and day-trips to outer country towns and all, being able to get out of the city to a small town within two hours is a big big bonus.

i suppose you could do this from perth too, but having grown up there takes the fun out of it!

anyhow! rach and i now have a thing about using our saturdays as road-trip days. it's been great! i keep telling myself that i need to put together a list of surrounding areas/towns that i want to travel to before the year's end.

wollongong: 3rd july

---

this roadtrip was entirely spontaneous. woke up in the morning and decided to jump in the car and drive. half way there, we saw a sign saying 'grand pacific drive' and thought... "why not?"

well, as it turns out, one reason for us to hesitate should've been the lack of petrol in our car. YET. we were quite ignorant and didn't realize just how low we were until we were so far in the national park that it didn't make sense to turn around. and with our mobiles out of reception for a lot of the time, we had our fingers crossed SO hard that we would pass a petrol station. after passing 2 ancient and closed stations, we finally got to one, just in time. =p let's just say that that experience taught us two things: (1) running out of petrol can potentially be a really exciting way to liven up a road-trip; but more importantly and perhaps more wisely, (2) you should always check petrol levels in your car PRIOR to entering a deserted national park.

despite gunning for a petrol station and missing half of the scenic stops along the way, we still managed to pull over a few times to take in the scenery. i gotta admit, i'm in love with bald hill and sea cliff bridge.

beautiful. just beautiful.




canberra: 13th august

---

from the extremely weird toll booth to the tent embassy in front of old parliament house, canberra really was all that i thought it was going to be. i'm glad we got a chance to do a tour of the parliament museum - but my only wish would've been to have gotten the chance to do it when i was a lot younger. after learning that most nsw kids get to tour there during primary school at some point, i feel like wa kids really missed out! =p

the trip to canberra also gave us the chance to catch up with our cousin, sherman! this was pretty awesome, seeing that we haven't actually seen each other in around 5 years? go figure. everyone's moving to australia now!

the big yay from the trip, was that we got to see the high court! the sadness factor kicked in when we realized that they were both closed and under construction. those two things don't make for a very picturesque opportunity.

*weekend adrift*

i finally set aside some hours for 'social' time over this weekend. i'd say i was pretty *well rewarded*.

saturday was the cLaw bake off. cinnamon scrolls, half a pecan-pie (because the crust felt more like being on the floor than staying in the pie pan), butter cookies, apple and cinnamon wholemeal muffins and truly authentic biscotti. yum yum.

the afternoon started off on an *eventful* note, with me walking up three flights of concrete stairs carrying two bags of mixing bowls, cookie cutters, butter and flour - to the wrong apartment, then walking back down, only to realise that wearing thongs on a rainy day was a really really bad idea. just after the stepping off the top step, the water got the better of me and i slipped, tripped and fell, and went flying down the stairs, only to land squarely on my ass and elbow about 6 stairs down. the only thing that enforced the hilarity of the moment was the fact that there was a young boy (probably 7-8 yrs old), who was helping his mom carry in the groceries, who said, with his mouth gaping open, "are you okayyyyy????" he then proceeded to tell me a story about how he did the exact same thing last week when he was coming home from school and how he had "slid down the stairs like a water slide". he also stopped to emphasise that he had his backpack on, and that was the only thing that shielded his butt from the excruciating pain that apparently, i was experiencing. and yes, there was a reference to my butt. =.= so after a good minute of half-lying on the stairs, i gathered my things and my pride and got up to go and find the right stairwell leading to jess' apartment.

and as things would have it, i now have a massive bruise on my back to attest to my clumsiness.

lesson 1: don't wear thongs on a rainy day.

i feel an onus to point out now that here i sit, on a rainy day, in the postgrad lab at uni, with thongs on. *sigh*. at least you can be sure that i'm gonna be avoiding concrete stairwells for the rest of today!!

the *eventfulness* of the afternoon continued. as i alluded to before, annabelle was taking the pie crust out of the oven, and in just a split second when i was walking by, i saw the pan falling... so naturally i put out my hand to try and catch it. between the two of us, we were completely helpless and now, as a result of my insensitivity to heat, i've got a boil on my arm to prove my failure of catching the stupid pan.

lesson 2: heed friends' advice when they warn that just because you can't feel that something's hot, doesn't mean that you're not gonna get burnt.

then came sunday.

went out to a 21st party for a guy in my bible study group. i gotta say. the entire afternoon reminded me of home: from the masses of food to the distinct different groups of friends, the video-speech in lieu of the person not being able to make it for the party to the "speech" his mom gave... just everything.

and it ended up making me feel pretty "introvertedly" reflective. maybe that's just a synonym for lonely. that much is unclear.

i just kept thinking about friendship and the timeline across how friendship occurs, develops and grows. as i asked trish last night, how long do you think it takes for acquaintances to become friends? and how long does it take friends to become good friends? and then good friends, best?

it was probably a softer (and significantly less painful) note to end my weekend on, but at the end of the day, sunday made me think a lot and now, i still get amazed at how the ideas of "friends" and "family" are universal.

anyhow, a bruise, a burn and a couple of new friends later... my weekend was pretty complete.