Aussie

New Discovery...

So... I've discovered a lil something called Face Book. Much easier to use, although a little addictive. Come find me there. :)

TAIWAN GO!!

Our trip to the motherland at the end of January.
Things I didn't realize about Taiwan: HUGE mountains everywhere, more food/sidestands of food than one can imagine, gorgeous national parks, stray dogs are everywhere (esp beside the foodstands), most user friendly metro ever exists in Taipei.

Taiwan High Speed Rail which had just opened for a couple of weeks. SO fast (300km/hr?) and smooth as...

Digging for golden clams. Then we ate em.

mmmm sugar cane.

mmmm snake blood, meat, & gall

random sign

SCOOTERS!! there are millions of em all over the road, weaving between cars, through oncoming traffic...never saw a single accident the entire time although there was lots of screaming from us at near misses.

Rob Vs. Turtle: Rob trying to catch the turtle for a long long time (here they're having a staredown).... turtle wins

mmm pig brain

lotsa night markets...good deals...good times

You can't really tell but there is fire coming out of the water here. There's apparently some natural gas bubbling out of this little water hole thing and it's been on fire for hundreds of years.

A lot of my family on my Dad's side.

Crowded bus. I was pinned against the front door. Me, Rob, my uncle & cousin and a couple of others were squished into the front steps.

Always lots of people. This was a trendy shopping area where the young folk chill.

Eating a cookie that translates as "cow tongue".

Check out his hat!

The Land where Trees are Purple

Now, some of you will have to confirm this for me. But there aren't purple trees back home are there?? After being here for a while... you forget what's normal & what's not. But i think these trees are 1 of my favorite confusers....I love these Jacarandas, because as cheesy & lame as it sounds...it really feels like you're in a most wonderful dream when you see them.

Pappee in Australia

I'm backtracking a bit... But, we've finished our 1st year!! WOOHOO! So, now it's time to post all those things i've been meaning to.
These are pics from Rob's dad's visit in Oct before Rob flew back for his cousin's wedding. And though it seems like we're always playing... these were taken during our 1 week break. Before this we were studying up a storm.

These 1st couple photos are from a ferry ride to a cutesy lil village on the shore. And if you look carefully behind the close up of us is the gorgeous Sydney skyline (although it looks more like a dirty smudge here).
Then we took a nice long road trip down to Canberra. Which (now you've been warned) is officially the crappiest city I have probably ever been to. And definitely the worst capital city HANDS DOWN! It's hard to explain but let's just say the highlight of our trip down there was laughing about how terrible the city was for about 30 minutes straight. But that being said, at the end of the night after driving around for about an hour...we found an awesome little restaurant/bar that was showing the rugby grand finals. And though none of us watch rugby (or footy as they call it) it was good times! I thought i'd seen rugby before, & i knew it was rough....but MAN it is ROUGH! Literally after 4 huge guys have stepped all over every part of the guy's body, he bounces up again & then they do it again. And it's constant action.

We also went to a haunted walk in these caves up in the Blue mountains which i've mentioned before. And it was amazing!!! (refer to the unposed shocked faces below) It was GINORMOUS!! We walked for about 2 hours straight & didn't even see half of the caves.

Don't Worry

I know that was slow... my apologies... i was actually trying to do some schoolwork (imagine that...) But there's more to come...really...

Home away from Home

This is our clinical hospital Westmead.....It's the largest hospital in the southern hemisphere. (We've quickly learned that everything is the largest "fill in the blank" of the Southern Hemisphere in Australia. Sounds impressive, but not much competition)

Rob & I stayed here at the hospital for 4 weeks straight last month. It's about a 1 hour train ride to get out here from our apt & our last semester involved us being out here everyday of the week. So we stayed in the student accomodation. Not exactly the lap of luxury but we were grateful to roll out of bed & walk down the hall to the lecture theatre. It was pretty trippy at first to be living IN the hospital. It was very twilight zone walking through the deserted dark hallways at night.

Oh ya, & I realize that Westmead looks pretty darn ugly in that 1st picture. Which is true.. it's an ugly ugly hospital. But.. in it's defense, it is undergoing major construction which just aggravates it. And, Rob & i realized on the 1st night, that the construction storage room is directly on the other side of our room. (the window in the room actually faces another room, the storage room, & not outiside) Which meant we got woken up at around 630am by the loudest voiced construction workers on the planet, various steel objects (very large ones) being thrown around, & ladders being dragged in & out constantly. So much for our brilliant plan of getting more sleep by moving out there....alas...

Now we are home.

Allllllmost

i'm almost up to date now....stay tuned....there's more...

Our Hood

It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood....won't you be mine...won't you be mine... won't you be my neighbour.

A little rain actually makes Sydney feel more like home. We live in a suburb called Newtown just 5 minutes from uni. Several people have thought it was pretty amusing.. "New-town" for a new couple in a new land...

The cluttered living room shown below displays the lovely Meera who acted as my bosom buddy and we helped each other stay sane in the 1st few weeks (especially when we were both literally brought to tears because of the atrocious service whether it be banks, telephone companies, etc). This room pretty much captures everything related to my life in February when I 1st arrived.

And then there's Rob & I doing some shopping at Salvation Army (or Salvos as the aussies call it). And to top off the classyness we decided to push our new dressers all the way home in a shopping cart we found on the side of the road.

And here is the finished product. Let me take you on a tour. (i've noticed pictures make small spaces look enormous!...yet it still isn't able to capture how uselessly long our entrance hallway is)

Blue Mountains

The blue mountains has become 1 of my favorite places. It's only a 2 hr train ride from Sydney & it's got the most amazing trails & views. The landscape always changes so quickly here, it blows my mind. Most of these pictures were from a weekend exploring last month.

My favorite lookout spot. It doesn't quite capture it, but it's just this breathtakingly open area, & you're standing right on the edge of the cliff. Gives you an incredible desire to fly!

The 3 lumps are called the "3 sisters". The pic of the 1 big rock lump is 1 of the 3 sisters. And the pic of the 2 of us is at the bottom of it. (notice the little bridge)