Sunday, September 21, 2008

The Wonderful Penguins of Oz
































"Oh we're off to see the penguins, the wonderful penguins of Oz...."

Who saw wild penguins? I did!

At dusk, thousands of little midnight-blue penguins came popping up out of the water in little groups. Waddle, waddle, waddle...plop.

Phillip Island, about 2 hours from Melbourne, is the home of the smallest species of the 28 species of penguins. Every night, after swimming around and eating all day, they come waddling into shore at dusk and burrow into holes in the ground to sleep.

In September, like a high school prom, they waddle out of the water awkwardly, wondering if they're going to find that special someone, groom themselves carefully, fight each other by slapping each other with their little flippers, and then pair up and make cooing sounds in the tall grass before they retire for the evening into their holes.

I learned all of these things firsthand when I went to Phillip Island last weekend while I was in Melbourne. I also went to a koala preserve where they have boardwalks through the eucalyptus trees so that you can get right up close to them in their natural habitat - and boy do you get close! I love that in Australia you can just drive a few miles from the city and go see koalas and penguins in the wild!


I spent my Friday night watching Footie with a bloke from the office and his mates while eating pizza and drinking Cooper's :) I was told by one bloke that I speak with a 'twang.'

I am now an expert in Aussie Football. Here are the most important things to note about Aussie Rules Football:

Aussie rules are a combination of rules from every sport. You can drop kick the ball like soccer, hit the ball like serving a volleyball, you have to dribble the ball every so often like basketball because traveling is against the rules, and you have to get it between the posts like soccer, and the guys beat each other up like rugby. I'm still trying to find the rule from cricket, but I'm sure that there is one. Also, the field is shaped like a football - how awesome is that? Oh, and the players wear really short shorts. The game is really fast-paced like soccer and basketball, a definite step up from boring American football.

I then retired to my hotel from the Shining (see picture below for proof) where I was awakened in the middle of the night to a child screaming in the hallway (or a ghost child, didn't feel like finding out..).

On Saturday I went to Phillip Island with a friend who came down from Sydney, and we had very dramatic weather - excellent for picture-taking and penguins. On Sunday, we went to the Great Ocean Road and found a town that had an entire shopping center devoted to surfing- Every single store in the mall was a surf shop! And yet, once again, I love Australia because even in the surfing town, there were cafes everywhere serving yummy food and fancy coffee drinks, to enjoy while you watch people in wetsuits pass.

Now I'm back in Sydney and I only have one more week! I can't believe it! How has the time passed this quickly? I demand a recount!

I went on a harbour cruise with my office-mates last night around Sydney Harbour. The boat showed up half an hour late - just enough time for everyone to have moved to the bar by the wharf to get the party started.

We hired some salsa dancers to do a demonstration and it turned out that our boat had absolutely zero space for dancing and they ended up dancing around the seating area in las vagas-style feather hat-things and frilly teeny-weeny bikinis. But, this really just made the whole thing more interesting (this plus the free-flowing alcohol available at all Australian parties).

I managed to sneak away before a group headed out for a late-night pub crawl after the boat returned to the King Street wharf by the office. Alas, I could have had some even better stories, but then I'd be too tired and hungover to write them down ;)


Me & Jenn in Melbourne


Sunset from the office on the 27th floor - Melbourne


Phillip Island

Jumping at the beach - Phillip Island

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy....The "Shining" Hotel in Melbourne


Koala conservation center - Phillip Island



Me & my mates - Jenn & Victoria on the Harbour Cruise

Friday, September 19, 2008

Melbourne Madness

Reporting in from the office in Melbourne. It’s Friday night and we had a lovely thunder storm, which created amazing views of the harbour from our office on the 27th floor. I’m currently watching the sunset over the river.

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had the chance to talk about half the crazy things I’ve done in the last week. I have, however, discovered an excellent term to describe myself that I hope to perpetuate- I’m a stuff-ologist. I like thinking about stuff. Ideas, languages, history, philosophy, urban legends, superstitions, swear words, bad jokes- all float around me and get absorbed into my stuffology collection.

I arrived at 6am almost two weeks ago. I got to the apartment in downtown Sydney and, since it was afternoon California time, and I had managed to sleep for 9 hours of the 14 hour flight (thank god!), I immediately began unpacking. Rupa, one of my favourite friends in the whole world (see HyderabadAdventures), who was visiting Sydney from India, met me at 8am in the morning and we just lay around the apartment and caught up on a years worth of stuff.

Eventually we mobilized and took the underground to Circular Quay and had an exceedingly expensive coffee and muffin overlooking the opera house and Harbour Bridge. Then we hopped a ferry to Manly beach, where I got to experience the joy of a ferry going across “abnormally large swells” ie like those pirate ships rides at amusement parks that swing back and forth, except actually on water. Luckily, I wasn’t sitting near people who get motion sickness, or else it could have gotten ugly- “Welcome to Sydney, blaaaaaahhhhh…”

Rupa and I walked around the beach, which had such rough surf that it was closed to swimmers, and watched the best of the best surfers catching 20 ft waves. The water was still too cold to enjoy, but the bright sun and turquoise colour made it so enticing that we spent the afternoon tiptoeing up, getting our feet wet, squealing, and running away.

I began my Australian health food diet with a meal of fish and chips and beer, followed up by a double chocolate gelato at the ferry terminal. This is a diet that, against all efforts, I have managed to maintain over the last two weeks, and have only been saved from the fate of ultimate blob-dom by the fact that Sydney is an easily walkable city and I don’t have a car to tempt me into driving anywhere.


I spent my first week hanging out with Rupa as much as possible and met all the other ex-pats currently in Sydney (ex-pats doesn’t really sound right when they’re not in a 3rd world country) – a few peeps from Hyderabad, Shaheen and Sandeep, Emma (my British counterpart at work who is also moving to Singapore) and her Canadian husband, Ryan, and another American, Eric. The group was smaller than the hoards of foreigners in India, but still had the fun dynamic of camp or a freshman dorm, where everyone is foreign and sharing the same experience, even though they are coming from such different places.

I remembered how much fun it was in Oxford and India to be in a group of people like this who can have the “tehehe, you call those thongs? Thongs means something else at home….” conversations.

I’m now off to watch Australian football and eat pizza with some people from the office. I’m sure that this is will be a prime opportunity for me to absorb more stuff into my stuffology portfolio.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Back in the Land of Oz

“Thank you for flying Virgin Blue. We’re sorry that we’ve mucked up your day and we hope that the rest of your week will be better than the experience you’ve had flying with us tonight.

We thank you for being so kind and forgiving to our cabin crew and once again, we're sorry for ruining your week. Oh, and a reminder - it's bloody cold outside so you should put on a jumper if you have one.”

I love Australia.

I am sitting in a hotel room in Melbourne that’s so big that I can’t fit it into pictures – it is bigger than my aparment. I was welcomed to my room by Maria Callas singing a selection of Italian arias (including "Chichino Rossini's Senerentoler," according to the local radio commentator ;) which is playing on the local classical radio station. It was so loud that I actually went downstairs and ask them to call the room because I was afraid there was someone else in the room – what hotel plays Maria Callas as their welcome music? The hotel, a historical landmark that is almost 100 years old, is so big that it was at least a quarter mile walk between the “lift” and my room. I love being in the only country in the world where 100 years old seems even older than it does in the US.

I am hoping that the hotel does not turn out to be as haunted as it looks, because right now it is making the Vultura Negra in Transylvania seem like a bright and cheery place. And yet each room has a personal espresso maker and a view of downtown - I love Australia.


I've done another whirlwind month on three continents - From India, back to California, to Australia. With two suitcases in tow, I have headed over to Asia Pacific for the long haul, and I've been so busy that I haven't had time to write!

I've been in Sydney for a week and a half, taking in the early spring weather of 75 degrees and sunny, and have already managed to put my feet in the still-freezing water at both of Sydney's main beaches (Bondi and Manly), to pay a visit to the good ol' cat-sized bats in the botanical gardens, to make and eat a pavlova, and to eat and/or drink some form of rich chocolate every night.

Did I mention I love Australia?

I first remembered how much I love Australia the second I got on the Qantas flight from San Francisco and a cheery flight steward handed me a menu in my economy class seat with a 'Ta' (a word with multiple meanind including 'thanks,' 'you're welcome' and 'good-bye'). Even though a part of me was pawing at the stairway to business class upstairs (mostly the part that wouldn't be able to stretch out flat for the next 24 hours), another part of me enjoyed the flight more than Singapore's business class because of the difference in attitude among the passengers. Singapore's business class from Singapore through Hong Kong to San Francisco was full of serious, stressed-out middle-aged men in dark suits drinking and then passing out to avoid the stress of their stressful business lives. Qantas economy class was full of Americans on vacation to Australia and Australians returning home to their lovely, beach and chocolate-shop filled country after a holiday in the US.

Every time I come to Australia (this is my third time), I am stuck by how bright the sun is, how yummy the pastries are, and how cheery the people are. All excellent traits in my book.

However, as it is 11:30pm and I have work tomorrow, I must turn off Maria and retreat to bed to let the ghosts of the haunted hotel come find me so that I can have something to write about tomorrow.