Hunter Valley - A Lesson in Belligerence

Surveying his new surroundings empire...

Before I begin the story of my latest alcohol related escapades, I’d like to point out that I’m going to try something different with the blog. I’m going to try and integrate pictures and text, just so my “faithful” readers won’t just get hit by a wall of text followed by a really random photo dump. Despite Blogspot not being particularly user-friendly with regard to integrating photos into text (the photos just get dumped onto the top backwards… an absolute nightmare to sort through), for you guys, anything! Tell me if you prefer this, otherwise I’ll just do it like I usually do it, just to save myself the pain of sitting on the library’s computers for a whole day and using up all of the university’s bandwidth.

An interlude.

Tomorrow I'm waking up at some ungodly to sample a lot of wines and eat a lot cheese and generally act as pretentious as I can be without getting punched in the face. Also, on Sunday is going to be the awesome George St. Pierre vs Dan Hardy fight. I realize it's actually happening on Saturday, but since I'm in the future, I have to watch things the next day so the rest of the world can catch up with my antics. This weekend may be the least productive of my life in Sydney so far.

Hopefully, lots of pictures to follow.

Also, you probably noticed that there are now ads sprinkled all over my website. Just because I'm a sellout and want to make money off this blog. So tell all your friends to come visit me. Currently I've made $0.01. So help contribute to my "don't starve" fund!

Otherwise, hoping everyone reading this is having a blast. Take care!

International Relations 101.

I think one universal constant amongst all enlightened cultures is a love for:

a) meat roasted on a stick and subsequently wrapped in some sort of bread; and

b) a love of intoxicating beverages to dull the horror of one’s circumstance.

In Australia, I presume the entire image of drunken Australians results from the lack of decent internet – not being able to watch Youtube means they’ll hit the goon* pretty hard. It appears to be perfectly acceptable to pass out on a bench in the city, pee yourself and wake up in your own vomit and no one will judge you. In respectable countries that’s known as alcoholism, but here that’s just life. Most intriguing! In one of my classes, I learned that this has roots in both the traditions of the convicts of old, Larrikins, and Swaggies. What these are exactly is anyone’s guess, although they are much beloved by Australians as an integral part of their culture. Despite the perceived backwardness of the Australian bush, even they enjoy some of the same pleasures of the normal world. As you can probably imagine, many jokes are had at the expense of Australians.

In light of these revelations regarding Australian tradition, the best way to both honour Australia as well as forging international relations is to hold an alcohol fuelled party. However as university students, we like to class it up with cheap beer, cheaper wine and Japanese food. Being a positive cultural ambassador, I volunteered to help Koki, my Japanese roommate, cook the food. I think I’ll have to bring some of these recipes back to Canada with me. We ended up make a smorgasbord of food, including Okonomoyaki (A Japanese pancake filled with pork, shrimp, cabbage, mochi, and cheese), Sushi (We used lightly grilled salmon and kingfish), Sushi rolls, and some other Japanese specialities. I asked Koki about Sake Bombs, but he didn’t know what they were. I guess we’ll have to explain the bastardization of Japanese culture by drunken gaijins.

One pretty consistent theme amongst our parties is the amount of international students that end up turning up, which is actually really cool, because it’s really conducive to mingling with lots of different cultures. Not only do you get a lot of questions answered about far away cultures (and subsequently dispel some longstanding myths regarding Canadian culture – i.e. Canadia.), but you also gain a real sense of self and national pride when you travel. It’s pretty cool that I can proudly identify myself as distinctly Canadian, and even though I don’t consider myself the average guy… apparently I do represent a lot of Canadian stereotypes! Occasionally I do slip in some nonfacts into the mix, just to keep the mystery of Canada in everyone’s mind. Uniquely, amongst all international students is the shared experience of living in Sydney, which is a new environment for everyone but maintains some constants. For example; of getting screwed over by landlords, the ridiculously expensive and crappy internet, and even finding cheap eats in Newtown! Without getting too sentimental, the shared experience helps connect people who, up until a month and a half ago never knew each other, and makes everyone instantly relatable. Except those bastards in the Unilodge or Sydney University Village. You know who you are!

The party quickly got underway and after gorging ourselves on delicious Japanese food… I guess the pictures explained the story better.

Japanese Party and shameless plug.

I love Hedden Hall. Here is the offspring of the union of Hedden and some anonymous woman. He was created by the aforementioned incident of Hedden walking into a room. He grew into this man.


Blog to follow, but here are some pictures to wet your appetite!

And here is my belligerent Japanese roommate Hero... Koki.

Koki: Fuck Andy! (My British Roommate on the right)

The inevitable morning after shot...

Breakfast of Champions.
Shrimp Okonomoyaki with Grilled Salmon and Fried Egg.

Manly Beach

So last weekend my friends signed up for surfing lessons at Manly Beach via Unimates, a great club at the University of Sydney that organizes events for international students. Even though surfing sounded awesome, my lack of foresight during the planning process resulted in forgetting to pack contact lenses. The prospect of surfing with my glasses and consequently losing them in the ocean prevented my participation. Since the rest of my friends were surfing, I was designated as the “picture bitch” to take all the awesome pictures of the beach. This actually suited me pretty well since I had a bit of reading to catch up on – a night at Manning Bar and the next day spent recovering shut down most of my efforts at completing school work. This was a relatively cheap event, for about two hours of surfing lead by an instructor for under $50 - not bad at all.

We took the short walk to Central Station and hopped on the free bus that circled around the city centre and rode it to Circular Quay*, where we met up with the rest of the Unimates at the wharf. We sat on the ferry and took a rather picturesque ride through Sydney Harbour, passing by all the major landmarks. The ferry was pretty packed, so I only managed to sneak in a few bad pictures of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. After a short ride, we reached Manly wharf and walked to the beach. After my friends signed their lives away via the consent form (Welcome Week Reps/Frosh – you know all about the infamous consent form). They got suited up in their giant condoms – err… I mean wetsuits – and then did the whole pre-athletic warm-up/stretches, leading to a few rather hilarious pictures of my friends performing some awesome Downward Dogs and Beached Whales**.

After about an hour of some hard lecturing by a rather beardy Australian, they eventually hit the water. At first I thought it was going to be a long day, as most people struggled to get past the first wave, fighting both their surfboards and strong waves. However, I was genuinely impressed by my friends who mostly all managed to get up and start riding their boards back to shore pretty quickly. However, early successes gave way to spectacular wipeouts. It looked pretty difficult, but I think most people got the hang of it and were riding waves back to the shore. After watching and taking pictures from the shore, one of the Unimates Danny gave me his board and asked me if I wanted to try. At first I was pretty skeptical of my odds of survival, with the whole business of just jumping on a surfboard and heading into the pretty strong waves, but since I had pretty much watched the entire process from a distance, I assumed I had competent knowledge not to kill myself. I also figured that even without my glasses I’d be able to discern the shore from and the giant-life-ending rocks. I walked the surfboard out a few metres, caught a wave and then rode it back. Of course I managed to get up for a whole 5 seconds before falling in spectacular fashion. But nonetheless, I can claim I surfed while in Australia.

We grabbed a bite to eat before heading over to 4pines, a bar/microbrewery Luigi, Christian and Jake recommended. After some excellent beers, our group managed to chat up some locals who informed us of their love for Canadians and all the excellent spots in Sydney. One dude named Monty (a proper Australian name) informed me he loved Corner Gas, which was both really surprising and pretty cool since Canadian television usually doesn’t leave Manitoba. We also talked about some American/Canadian stereotypes, which was pretty funny and lead to some interesting revelations! Australians as a whole are pretty friendly and outgoing, although once they’ve hit the boxed wine it’s a totally different story… perhaps there will be a story about the Australians to avoid in Sydney. Anyways, overall an excellent weekend that removes surfing in Australia from my bucketlist.

Now look at this tool pretending he can surf... although he swears he did it!

Best,
Ricksen

P.S: Apologies for the weird sizing on the photos, picassa is a piece of crap. Suck it google!
* Pronounced "Key"... silly Australians!
**This is my attempt at a yoga joke… is that socially acceptable yet? Who knows anymore.

$30 a week: How to eat on a supertight budget.

I think one universal reality for students is the fact that life is just expensive. Most students find balancing both a decently paying job and full-time studies at university a pretty intense venture, students usually end up cutting a lot of corners – the first being the quality and variety of food that we put in our bodies. Another reality is that most students can’t cook. No, hot pockets or frozen pizzas don’t count (who knew a stovetop was so daunting?). Takeout dinners or fast food become the norm, and is usually the priciest option!

Have faith my troubled and financially starved reader, there is an answer i.e. cooking at home. While the prospect of turning on the stove and chopping some vegetables seems daunting, the idea of coming home after a long day of work or study and then preparing a meal is positively ludicrous. And on top of that, you have to go to a grocery store and get absolutely robbed by expensive produce/meat. The cereal aisle or McDonalds looks pretty good right about now.
But! There are both cheap and tasty options that don’t require too much time or preparation, if one is willing to look.

In Sydney, you’ll probably find straight away that prices in this country border upon extortion (although people do make more money). I bought a pack of gum at the airport so I could get some change and was charged $2.90. Ouch. Same business at the grocery stores – basic amenities costing double what they would go for back in Canada. So what does one do? Well, as we (my housemates and I) found out, you get a 10% discount if you show your student card at the grocery store near the university*. Also, another pretty cool place near the school and in the center of the city is called Paddy’s Market. This little place, located inside Chinatown, is where a student on a tight budget can get really good local produce for substantially cheaper than outside. There are probably cheaper locations in Sydney, but for our purposes it’s great. Plus, the benefit of it being a market is that you can often haggle for goods and be reasonable guaranteed of its quality since it’s all locally sourced.
We managed to pickup a decent amount of fresh fruits that we’ve been blending into nice fruit smoothies with and drinking everyday. Which brings up another pretty useful way of cutting down costs for the average student(s) – splitting the bill. If a house shares the load with regard to groceries, you will find that a $200 grocery bill split 6 ways amounts to $35 a head, which can usually last you a very long time, if you buy the right stuff. Although this could turn into a pretty ridiculous rant about how food culture in North America is ruining the lives of people who develop bad habits and end up ruining their health, I’ll avoid preaching and just end off by saying that even in a ridiculous expensive city, if you know how to cook and know what to get, you can eat a pretty decent/tight budget, and eat well.
Here are some pictures of Paddy’s Market which is a 30 minute walk from my apartment.
My apartment:

To Paddy's Market!

And here was our "splurge" and we bought some delicious Tasmanian Salmon, with recipe courtesy of Curtis Stone.
*This was later discovered to be a myth that the evil grocery chain Coles used to lure us into their den of evil.