Day Trips to Sydney & Nan Tien Temple

               Well, since our last blog we have managed to go on a couple of outings! We decided to finally venture back to Sydney and check out the sites since we had only spent one night in Sydney when we first flew in. After a fairly quick hour and thirty-five minute train ride from Wollongong into Sydney, we hopped off and marched right into Chinatown. This particular weekend was when the Chinese New Year celebrations were going on and so we had anticipated lots of hussle and bussle but to our surprise, we found neither hussle nor bussle! :P It was fairly quiet and the only real proof we saw that it was in fact the Chinese NY was the flags waving on the street lamps. Regardless, we decided to take a little tour through Chinatown and ended up finding a Chinese flee market (very reminiscent of the 400 Flee market). As a little girl, I can remember countless trips to the 400 Flee Market with my Oma and Opa, heading there to buy German salami…my favourite! After looking around at all the little trinkets, and trying to draw Jordan away from checking out all the didgeridoos (an Australian wind instrument), we kept on trekking.

After picking up a map of central Sydney at the train station, we decided to make our way to the harbour to check out the bridge and the opera house. It was actually a blistering hot day and so after walking for a few hours and checking out the waterfront, we decided to have a pint and ended up scoring fantastic seats on the patio right on the water!

 Our view was a massive cruise ship and the Sydney bridge…if I stuck my head out a little bit over the side I could see the famous Sydney opera house too! On our way to the bridge and opera house we walked on the waterfront boardwalk which had all sorts of restaurants and little souvenir shops. There was one section of the boardwalk that had beautiful apartments and right in front of these apartments were slips for the owner’s million dollar yachts. Despite the fact that neither of us have been to Italy we both thought that the old part of Sydney (where the bridge and opera house are- called The Rocks) had a large Italian feel to it. The city itself was nothing like I expected…very European-like. The part of Sydney that we saw was absolutely beautiful and of course seeing the famous bridge and opera house up close was an experience in itself! We ate the lunch we brought with us sitting across the harbour looking at the opera house and just took in the magnificent views around us! 

A little smooch for my love

At the end of the day- you can tell by our glazed-over look!

 After checking out the opera house, it started to rain and so we made our way to Castlereigh Street which is the Fifth Ave of New York. Since we weren’t dressed overly fancy and had a backpack equipped with two soaking umbrellas, we (I) didn’t think it would be appropriate to go into the stores (Chanel, Tiffany’s, Miu Miu, etc). However, we found a “Bay-like” store called David Jones that had 6 floors and wasted some time in there.

Jordan’s Insert:

 Allow me to set the scene haha. It’s a beautiful sunny day (one of our few as it has been super rainy here) so of course Kirsten and I waste no time getting to the beach. As we round the corner and get our first glimpse of the surf our jaws drop. To our astonishment we see some of the biggest waves we have seen yet. No joke pushing 10-12 feet and people are getting crushed! So we set up our beach tent and lay around for all of 5 minutes when we say let’s try our luck in these waves. As we walk into the water I instantly feel the power of the rip that day as it is pulling my out to deep water. I look at Kirsten and say “there is no way you are going to get me past my waist in this rip” she agrees. As we start to catch a few of the smaller waves and bodysurf around we both begin to get a little more confident and go out into the deeper water. I catch a real beauty and end up almost on shore, as I turn around I see Kirsten eyeing up a massive wave which I later nicknamed “The Widow maker”...an example is seen below haha.

She looks at me with a huge grin on her face like “watch this”, I am shaking my head and yelling No go under! Knowing Kirsten she goes for it. As the wave begins to break Kirsten is riding it perfectly, then she disappears. I see her legs come flying out of the top of the wave and then she disappears a second time. I get smashed by the white wash of the wave and end up about 15 feet away. As I gather myself I instantly begin to run back towards her thinking she must be seriously hurt. Thankfully she finally surfaces and catches her breath and instantly bursts into a fit of laughter saying “did you see how big that wave was!” I laugh and call her crazy. A little later on we are in closer to shore and are both seriously fighting the rip to stay standing. We turn around and see a small girl being swept away and without skipping a beat Kirsten runs over and grabs the girl. The little girl tells Kirsten that she needs to find her friend. We look over and here is a small girl also being pulled out by the rip. Kirsten runs over and grabs her too. Kirsten is seriously struggling at this point to stand with both of these little girls under her arms. She digs her feet into the sand and holds her ground. They get smashed by multiple massive waves. I look at her and ask if she needs a hand which seemed obvious. I grab one of the little girls and help her to shore and like kids they thank us and run back into the waves. I look at Kirsten and say “that’s enough; we are getting out of the water it is getting way to unsafe”. Not 30 minutes goes by and I look out into the waves and spot a guy way outside of the safe swimming area. I point him out to Kirsten and we both agree he is in serious trouble. Seconds later the lifeguards go running into the water to save him and they are struggling against the waves. Eventually both lifeguards get out to him with the surfboard and begin to bring him in. Twenty minutes goes by and they are still battling the waves to get to shore. Eventually they safely get in and minutes later the flags are taken down and the beach is shut down and no longer safe to swim. For the next two days the beach was closed due to unsafe rips and MASSIVE waves.

 When the beach finally did open up, although it was raining we decided to go for a body board. When we get to the beach we are literally the only people there other than two lifeguards and a few surfers down the coast at the reef. As eerie as it was it the waves were awesome and we were able to ride a ton without the interruption of other swimmers.  

Our second outing was suggested to us by Sarah (Kirsten’s sister) to visit the Buddhist temple in Unanderra. We really had no idea what to expect but it was a beautiful day and we were in the mood for a little adventure. So we hoped on the train and were on our way to Unanderra. When we arrived we started walking to the temple which is oddly located on the outskirts of the industrial sector, about 20 minutes by foot from the train station. As we rounded the hill the temple and pagoda were finally in sight.

 We were both expecting the temple to be a very quiet peaceful place. It was indeed peaceful but nowhere near quiet. It was packed. There were hundreds of worshipers going in and out of the temple paying their respects. We were both shocked and intrigued to say the least. Not speaking the language of the majority of the people at the temple we really didn’t know what the procedure was upon entering the temple. We climbed the never ending stairs into the pagoda and removed our shoes to enter the first room of worship. It is strictly forbidden to talk in this room, and as neither of us are Buddhist we sat back and observed respectfully as many people came and went.

We then hiked up a massive hill to a gazebo like structure where there was a huge bell. When you ring the bell you are said to be sending good wishes to your family. We both rang the bell and made a wish as instructed. The view from the top of the hill was beautiful, looking over the entire grounds of the temple.

 We then hiked down the hill and wandered through the forest of blue trees and checked out all of the Buddha shrines scattered throughout the grounds. Majority of these shrines where not your typical fat guy sitting cross legged that comes to mind when you think of the Buddha, they were everything but. From an old man with ankle length eyebrows to a guy riding a lion.

 We finally make our way into the temple which houses the two main shrines and a beautiful courtyard. We go into the first shrine and remove our shoes as usual and have a look around and observe the worshipers. When we enter the second shrine we decide to break the rules a little and snap a few photos secretly of the shrines. Not being able to look through the view finder we had no clue if the pictures worked out or not but when we left we had managed to get one good picture.

At this point we had been exploring the temple for about 3 hours now and we are both super tired. We decide to call it a day and hike back to the train and head home.

Another blog should be up shortly about our trip to Manly Beach to see the Australian Open Surfing and Skating Competition in Sydney.

Lot's of love,
Jordan & Kirsten

All Settled In!

Well, on January 29^th we will have been gone from home for a month! Time has flown by and so far we have been loving every minute of it. We have settled really nicely into our cozy “little flat” and I have completed my first week of school.

Yesterday was Australia day (the 26^th of January) and so I had the day off from school along with my usual Monday’s off- seems easy right? I’m taking every advantage of having a light schedule right now and heading to the beach almost every day after school. This first four weeks of classes is an ‘intensive focus on literacy and numeracy’. I have 2 classes 4 days a week for four weeks and then they add in 7 more classes, all in 4 days a week. I have a 2500 word essay on the Australian Curriculum and Literacy due in 4 weeks and in 2.5 weeks I have a math exam…yippee! Teacher’s college, or DipEd as they call it here, is much different than I expected. I suppose my expectations were based on what I’ve heard from the Ontario Teacher’s Colleges but I almost feel as though I am back in my undergrad. I never anticipated having to write an essay (only one for now) in my graduate program hence me celebrating like an idiot when I finished my degree almost a year ago thinking I would never have to write an essay ever again! Well, was I ever wrong- not only am I writing an essay but I am writing an essay on the Australian curriculum…something which I know nothing about. It should be interesting to say the least- I suppose I’ll have to fit it in between beach visits! Other than the few projects I have going on, school is good. My numeracy teacher actually reminds me a lot of a teacher at home that I had in grade four, Deb Halbot. Mrs. Halbot was the reason I decided to become a teacher because she had a way of ensuring that lessons were interesting, applicable and…fun! Who would’ve thought school could be fun! Anyways, having Katie Waters (my numeracy teacher) teaching this class has been a wonderful experience so far and I am thoroughly enjoying math (shocker!)…for the moment!

The University of Wollongong itself is actually beautiful. It is located right at the bottom of a huge mountain and is located essentially right in the middle of a jungle. The campus is surrounded by beautiful trees and has numerous streams running through it. The above pictures were all taken at the university- I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was in the middle of a jungle right? All of the wildlife pictures were taken on campus as well- the Owl was spotted by Jordan-sharp eyes on his part, this little guy was very camouflaged!
I think that if I did my undergrad here, I would have spent a lot more time actually on the campus than at home. There is a free “Gong” bus that stops just across the street and takes me up to the campus in 20 minutes. The one thing I noticed though is that the campus is very spread out. The joke about Brock University is that you can go from one end of campus to the other without ever having to step outside- this is not the case at UOW. This morning it was POURING rain out and despite the fact that I had my umbrella with me, I got soaked as it took me a good 5 minutes to get from the bus to my classroom. 

For the past few days it has been rainy quite a bit which has caused a lot of floods in the northern part of New South Wales and in Queensland. We have just normal rain (so nothing to worry about) but it really has limited us to what we can do when I'm not in school. Speaking of rain, apparently anything other than sun means that you have little to no internet. Internet here is unbearably slow and extremely pricy. You pay per gigabyte you use which ends up being quite pricy- especially watching shows or using Skype. In between waiting for shows to download (I can’t miss out on Grey’s Anatomy or the Bachelor!) Jordan and I have been playing hours and hours of cards. More specifically, we have been playing Crazy 8 Countdown and Shanghai (a favourite card came that we learned from Sarah and Roberto)!

Last night, after flicking through the 4 channels on TV that we have, attempting to use the internet (fail) and playing hours of card games, I decided that it was time to go for a walk in the rain. Jordan wasn't all to pleased with this but after sitting around for hours and hours, we needed a change of scenery! We put on the closest thing we had to rain coats (my fall/winter coat and Jordan's red "Salvos" jacket), grabbed two flimsy umbrella's and headed to the beach to check out the waves. Although we were completely soaked by the time we got back, it was a fun little adventure and I'm sure we'll end up doing it again!

In other news, I have taken out my Monroe piercing! I have had it in for 2.5 years and I really loved it but I have grown out of it. I am entering a new (more mature) stage of my life and having a facial piercing is probably not the best way to start that stage- I’m sure my family (Grampy, Dad, Mom…etc) will be thrilled! I have had it out for 4 days and already it has closed up greatly and really just looks like a small freckle. I am sure with time, it will be gone (however if it stays as is, I would be fine with that).

Jordan and I have always been thrifty shoppers. However, this has become even more evident throughout that past couple of weeks. As I said before, prices in Australia are really expensive and since Jordan and I want to travel as much as we can while we are here, we want to try and save every penny we can. We have really scouted out the bargain spots including getting our veggies and meat at the local market and going to Aldi’s (the Food Basics equivalent) to buy dairy and miscellaneous products. It takes longer to go to two (sometimes 3 different spots) but it helps us to pinch our pennies! Speaking of pinching our pennies, I left my straightener at home because I was told it wouldn’t work here with the power differences. So, I have been checking out prices at local hair places and have held off until now. The other day I got the brilliant idea to see if the local Salvation Army (Salvos, as they call it here) had any hairdryers and hair straighteners. Luckily, I got both from Salvos for the bargin price of $6!! Oh, did I mention that this price also includes a 21-day warranty on both electronic products? BONUS! Never thought I would buy a hair straightener from Salvation Army but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do! Even more of a surprise is that they both actually work really well- a $6 well spent I would say. Mommabear and Ger are probably grinning ear to ear knowing that their ‘thriftiness’ has rubbed off on me!

While we are thrifty and are saving our money, we do splurge on the occasional $10 box of wine (equivalent of 6 bottles- lushes, I know) or $4 bottle of wine (cheaper than juice!). Surprisingly, it’s actually not bad! Apparently we need to only be shopping at Salvos and the Bottlemart and we will save all sorts of money!
As I mentioned earlier, yesterday was Australia Day! The Wollongong Harbour (a few km from our flat) was were the festivities were being held. Tonnes of vendors, rides, concession stands and bands filled the streets and parks. It was just a huge celebration and we had a great day. By the end of the day we were absolutely pooped having walked over 10km in the sticky, humid heat. We finished off the day watching the fireworks from 'our beach' right across the road from our flat. All in all, it was a great day!

               A wee free 'train' ride that Jordan & I took- hey, we need to pinch our pennies! :)

 We had to join in on the Australia festivities- that includes having a pint you know! :)

 On our walk around town we saw this- never actually seen it in person before- beyond hilarious!

That’s all for now folks (as Bugs Bunny would say). Hope everyone back at home is enjoying the snow (or rain as I am hearing)!

All our love,

Kirsten & Jordan

Our First Week in Wollongong, Australia!

                 

             Continued from our last post:

             After a 10.5 hour flight to Sydney, we were anxious to get off the plane and finally stretch our legs. However, to our surprise, we were told to stay seated while two flight attendants “debugged” our plane. The overhead baggage containers on the plane were sprayed with two small aerosol containers which were meant to kill any bugs that were coming from the US.  Despite the fact that this spray was used to KILL any bugs (we found this comical since Australia has THE deadliest bugs/animals/etc), the spray was not supposed to harm humans in anyway...hmmmm. After the “de-bugging” we were allowed off the plane and met with Jordan’s buddy Dave “Gravy” Johnson, who he met in Alberta 4 years ago while living on Sunshine Mountain. Gravy graciously offered to pick us up from the airport and let us crash at his apartment for the night. I had never met Gravy before, nor his girlfriend Chelsea or roommate Zander, but they were so nice and really made us feel welcome! They gave us pointers and helped us map out our route to Wollongong via train the next morning.  One thing that I have to make note of is how Australians drive on “the WRONG side of the road” J. Wow, even after almost week in Australia, I don’t think that I will get used to this any time soon! Simple things like crossing the street (while J-walking of course) are so much harder now since we always look the wrong way! It certainly is going to take us a while to get used to cars coming at us from the other side of the road.

                After spending the night in Sydney with Gravy, Chelsea and Zander, we paid $48 to cab it to Central Train station where we bought our 1.5 hour train tickets to Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. The train ride was beautiful since it essentially went through the Australian ‘jungle’ while every once and a while popping out at the coast and overlooking the cliffs and beaches. Instantly, Jordan and I were so excited and thoroughly reassured that we made the right decision in picking up our lives and moving to this beautiful country for a year! After getting off the train and making our way to Keiraview Accommodation (the University- run hostel) by foot, lugging hundreds of pounds of luggage up a steep hill, we finally checked in to our (hotel-like) room! Right away we walked 5 minutes down the road and checked out the town that we moved too! Although we were told that Wollongong has a population of 292,000 people and is a steel-town like Hamilton, Ontario (where we previously lived together for 8 months), we felt it was nothing like a large city. Wollongong, to us, feels more like a modern, hotter, more beautiful version of Orillia. It has a small-town feel where Australians are essentially nicer versions of Canadians (with an accent).We immediately felt at home! After making a trip up to the university to enroll in classes and discuss housing options with the accommodation department, I spent 3 hours starring apartments of interest and sending e-mails to make appointments to view the apartments.

 

Living in Australia is very, very expensive including everything from food to accommodation to internet. After checking out a cute, modern apartment one street from the beach, (and deliberating over the expensive price) we decided to sign the lease and go for it- our primary reason being that it is summer right now and besides being at school and work, our main priority is to spend some time at the beach! We signed a 6 month lease and moved in the next morning!

 

 Our Asian-themed apartment is very cozy and we absolutely love it (minus the loft-style bed with little head room…however, Jordan loves it since it is basically a bear’s den with little light which makes for deep, uninterrupted hibernation)!

                                                                               Our dryer!

I have to admit, the loft-style is pretty unique! As I am writing this blog at 10:30 at night, Jordan informs me that he is, in fact, going to hibernate into the bears den since this is the latest we have been up all week! Since we left Canada and have been in these beautiful places I have not wanted to waste a minute of our time and have been up between 5:30 and 7 am every morning. Jordan, to say the least, is not overly thrilled with this decision but goes along with it anyways like a good sport.

Since we have moved into our apartment on the 7^th of January, we have made endless trips into town to buy groceries, bedding (I’m allergic to the down comforter that was provided), cell phone purchases, internet, and our most exciting purchase…2 body boards! The beach, which is an approximate 3 minute walk from our apartment, is absolutely beautiful and we spend as much time as we can there! There are MASSIVE waves every day and after body surfing for the first couple of days, we decided on investing $80 (50% off the regular price) on two body boards which have gotten so much use already! We absolutely love using these boards trying to catch as many waves as we can -with more bails than successful runs! Our shower is filled with sand at the end of every day because we spend so much time in the ocean and on our boards! Both Jordan and I have made comments about how we feel like we are still in the ocean doing back and front flips (from getting hit by waves and tossing us every which way) when we hit the sack at the end of the night! I feel like I’m on a rollercoaster every night when I close my eyes! 

We both have experienced the Australian sunburn already (probably due to the fact that we were both pasty white ghosts when we first got here). I burnt my butt so bad the other day that I could barely sit all night!  Needless to say, the next day we stayed clear of the sun!

On a positive note, Jordan got a job today! Our landlords just opened up a new café (Bar Coco- a desert bar) just around the corner from our apartment and offered Jordan a job. While we were hoping for Jordan to become the newest ‘barista’ in town, since he has no experience in the restaurant business the owners offered him the esteemed position of a ‘dish bitch’ (as Jordan so eloquently describes it).  He is willing to do anything for the next 6 months and getting paid $15/hr cash does make it hard to turn down the job! 

                                 Jordan's off to his job interview!

Jordan’s Insert: Hmmm where to start, Wollongong so far has been a blast; from lying around on the beach to getting absolutely beat in the massive waves while learning to body board. The first large wave that I actually caught I was so stoked that I was screaming with excitement when the wave broke throwing my legs over my head (full blown scorpion) and ramming water down my throat. When I finally stood up I was choking on sea water and on the verge of throwing up. Needless to say I was loving it and began swimming out to Kirsten only to find her laughing hysterically at my bail. Not too long after the same thing happened to Kirsten and we enjoyed a good laugh. This has happened to us many times now but we are both starting to get the hang of it. When we are not acting like a bunch of beach bums we are out exploring the city. Wollongong has a beautiful harbour with two large lighthouses surrounded on either side by the two never ending public beaches. Oddly enough, as large as these beaches are, the public swimming zone (monitored by life guards) couldn’t be any smaller. Although the location of the safe zone changes daily due to the tides it ranges from 50-75m wide. It is rather funny to see these expansive beaches and then an extremely crowded section of the beach where people are allowed to swim. Outside of the flags is the designated surfing area which keeps the swimmers out of their way. When we arrived in Sydney Gravy mentioned that the summer here is their shark season and that due to the uncommon “cold” weather they were experiencing the sharks were moving in toward the beach to feed. Of course this freaked both Kirsten and I out. Reassuringly, Gravy who has lived in Australia his whole life has never seen a shark at the beach before. To monitor this unusual season they have hired two bi-planes to fly quite low over the beach daily monitoring the coast. Now that I have completely freaked out my mother about the ocean I will sign off and leave you to continue reading Kirsten’s portion of the blog.   

I start school on January 16^th (this coming Monday) and so I am looking forward to relaxing the next couple of days before my life gets super hectic.  We’d like to thank everyone for all the congratulations and well wishes about our engagement!  We couldn’t be happier about it and it means a lot to have so much love and support surrounding us! 

 That's all for now! Hope you enjoyed this blog!

  

Love,

K & J