Toucan and the Jungle Giants

In wine class Tuesday we did a tour of the local places that sell wine.  We had to look at where they are located, who we thing their target market is, how it's organized, how they market, and where they get their wine from.  You probably don't care about all that info for all of them so I'll give a summary.  The first place was Sydney Cellars.  It's on a busy street without parking so you have to walk there and you only notice it if you know where you're going.  They have good deals but they're also pretty nice and easy to browse.  Liquorland is in the mall, has super cheap deals ($5 wines) and is easily accessible and you can stop on your way from grocery shopping. Perfect for students! The Wine Society was super fancy and classy.  It's cheaper for members, but we were told if we say we're from Boston University we count as members! Yay! I'll probably be sticking with Liquorland for the most part, because the $5 wines actually taste good so it's kind of worth it, but at some point we'll splurge and split a nicer bottle. (probably as we get further into the course)  Every week we have to do a wine journal (hence buying all the wine) about tasting a wine and the characteristics of it (look, smell, taste, savour (aftertaste)).  We also have to say if we had it with food and if they went well together.  In addition, every week we need to write about an article we read that has to do with the wine industry.  Yes, school has officially begun.

Tuesday evening we had our first Australian Culture class.  We learned bits and pieces about the beginnings of Australia (as in when it broke away from Pangaea and all that fun stuff.  Aboriginal people have dreaming stories, which are their origin stories, about how they were always a part of the land and never came there.  So basically we'll be covering a lot about Australia, and we'll have small modules in which we focus in on one thing.  Ideally I'd love to be in the one about aboriginals, but I'm sure all of them will be really interesting so I'll be fine with any of them.  We have lots of field trips for class so that'll be a lot of fun.

Wednesdays during the day are free, so yesterday I went with Hanna, Brianna, and Rachel to get free milkshakes.  This week is healthy bone week, so a few places have free milkshakes or smoothies.  Turns out one of the places is where we went the first night for dinner, around the corner.  Thankfully it was free and close, because that was quite a funny milkshake.  It tasted like cold milk with sugar mixed in and maybe some vanilla syrup (they only offered vanilla).  Anyway I'm very glad I did not pay for it but it wasn't the worst thing.  I was going to get one every day for the rest of the week but now that I know what it is I think I'll skip out.

Brianna, Rachel, and I went on to the Chinese Gardens.  We tried to go to the Powerhouse Museum but it had an entry fee and we weren't positive what the museum was so we thought it would be silly to pay to see something we might not be interested in.  The Chinese Gardens also had a small entrance fee but I think I could splurge on $6, and we knew what we were getting so it seemed worth it.  It was absolutely beautiful.  There were all these windows of different shapes, and flowers, and trees, and coy of course.  The openings and gateways and open buildings were amazing.  It really reminded me of some of my eastern religion classes and the movie Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring.

Chinese Gardens with the city backdrop

A cool opening

L-R Rachel and Brianna

It didn't take as long as we expected to walk around, so we continued on to the Observatory, climbing lots of steps to get there.  I'm pretty sure we took the most difficult path we could have.  By staying down by the water, we then had to climb I believe three flights of stairs (of varying heights) to get to the highest point which holds the observatory.  Thankfully, it was free!  So we walked around a bit and observed.

The Observatory

The Time Ball- used to tell time.  At 1 pm it is raised and dropped.

Rachel observing.

The view seen upside down through the telescope.

Needless to say after all that walking we took the free bus back (thankfully making one of the last ones).

Then, last night (Wednesday) we went to a free concert! There were about thirteen of us who went.  It was in North Bondi (pronounced bond-eye).  I finally took a real bus! They don't have transfer passes so that's a bit of a ripoff but I'll live.  Anyway the concert was a band called The Jungle Giants.  The first band wasn't so good, but the second, Toucan, was really good, and then The Jungle Giants were also.  Fortunately, part of our group was exhausted and left soon after the Jungle Giants started playing, because they discovered that the last bus before 3:30 am was at 11:27 pm.  So UNfortunately, we all ended up having to leave early in order to make it back.  Then, when we got to the junction to switch buses, we learned that we'd missed the last bus back to us, so we had to take the train.  It seems that you may not have to pay for the train past a certain time, because all of the gates were open and there was no one checking, so we all just went through and got out on the other end just as easily.  That's something we'll have to find out about for sure.


Oh just fyi I have a website where I'm putting up more pictures: http://ldlangerphotos.wordpress.com/
This way I don't overwhelm you with pictures here.

Also, some of my friends are making videos so if you'd like to check that out here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvsDN0kSzL0&noredirect=1
I'm not in it yet (although I do have filming credit), but I'm sure at some point I will be so check it out!