Sydney - 12/11/2007

On Tuesday morning, we got up pretty early and walked over to Darling Harbour, which was less than 10 minutes away. It was pretty quiet, considering it was a weekday morning, but really nice. It was a little chillier than the day before, with overcast skies threatening to shower more wet, but not yet.

We went to Blackbird Café in Cockle Bay Wharf for brekkie, a recommendation by a co-worker of mine who had gone to Australia and NZ for her sabbatical as well. My little Lonely Planet guide also recommended Blackbird as a reasonable and good place to eat.

I quickly discovered that ordering coffee is different in Australia, I wanted a regular drip coffee and found out that it’s not that easy. You can order a short black (espresso), long black (Americano), flat white (cappuccino) or latte. I settled for a long black.

The breakfast special was $10 for eggs, sausage, bacon, roasted tomato, mushrooms, hashbrown and toast. I couldn’t get it all down, but it was yummy.

From Blackbird café, we walked around Darling Harbour, checking out the Real World Sydney house that was recently vacated, Tumbalong Park, passed by the Chinese Gardens, and over to the Harbourside.







After a quick pitstop at the hotel, we headed out on foot again to explore the Royal Botanical Gardens on the way to the Sydney Opera House. One thing I’ve really noticed about Sydney is how clean and well-kept the tourist areas are, there is no litter or homeless people. The green grassy areas are beautiful and beckon you to frolic. We walked by the Conservatory of Music, through the grounds of the Government House, and then over to the Sydney Opera House. We had originally planned to try to do the 1 hour tour, but had lost our tour steam by that point, so we wandered around the Opera House and I bought some postcards.




From the Sydney Opera House, we took the path around Farm Cove (along with hundreds of runners and running groups doing their lunchtime run…I felt like I was at Kezar with all the Team-In-Training groups!) towards Mrs. Macquaries Point and Chair. From here, there’s a gorgeous view of both the Sydney Opera House with Sydney Harbour Bridge in the background. Picture-tastic!






We walked along the west side of Wooloomooloo Bay, and met up with Stephen and Jo, who picked us up for lunch. We ended up at a Mediterranean restaurant called Trovata on Stanley Street in Darlinghurst. We all had pasta dishes, and they were delicious and quite hearty proportions.

After lunch, we dropped off Jo at work and Stephen, Will and I went to the Art Gallery New South Wales to check out the exhibits. AGNSW is located in the Domain of the Royal Botanical Gardens on a hill with a view of Wooloomooloo Bay, and is a beautiful old building. Admission is free to view the permanent exhibits, and we were interested in seeing the main exhibit on display, a Sydney Nolan Retrospective ($12 admission). Sidney Nolan is a famous artist originally from Australia, who is best known for his Ned Kelly paintings, and is the first retrospective since his death in 1992 and includes over 120 works of art. I really enjoyed this and was excited to be exposed to the seminal pieces of Nolan’s art.


After the museum, we went over to Newtown to seek out the best cup of coffee in Sydney at a coffee bar called Campos, which was incidentally opened by a friend of John’s from McGill. However, we were too late, as Campos closes at 4 pm and we didn’t get there until 5 pm. Boo.

Stephen dropped us off in Haymarket and we walked back to our hotel to decompress after another full day of fresh air and walking (it’s exhausting!).

As we were on our own for dinner, we succumbed to our laziness and ate dinner at the sushi bar in the basement of the Government Post Office building, which also houses the Westin. It was pricy and the food was fine, the price for laziness, I guess.

Sydney - 12/10/2007

Will and I left SFO around 10:30 pm on Saturday night and flew into Sydney around 7 am on Monday morning, losing a day in travel due to the time change. After some time getting through customs and quarantine (they had to check out the food we brought for John & Emily and our shoes), we hopped in a cab and headed to our hotel in downtown Sydney.

Will spoiled us both by getting a room at the Westin Sydney using his Starwood Hotels points and lucky for us, they let us check into the hotel early and gave us a room immediately. After a nice hot shower, we headed out to explore The Rocks area of Sydney before our scheduled climb of Sydney Harbour Bridge. We had originally planned to do the Bridge Climb the next day, but ominous weather reports of rain showers prompted us to change the climb to Monday.






The infamous Bridge Climb takes you on a 3.5 hour tour and climb of over 200 stairs to the summit of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It’s very well planned, with a lot of pre-climb prep (they even give you a breath-a-lyzer to make sure that you’re not too intoxicated for the climb). They don’t allow you to take any personal items (including cameras), and outfit you in some wacky jumpsuits with all the gear tethered to your suit. The climbs are separated in groups of 12 or so people, with the group connected to a safety wire for the entire duration of the climb across skywalks, up ladders, and then finally up the stairs to the summit and back down again. The climb leader was really nice and enthusiastic, and it was a pretty neat experience. I thought it was a little long, but every minute is orchestrated to ensure the most bang for your buck. We also lucked out on no rain during the climb, it started sprinkling a little after we finished the climb…phew!

After some downtime, we met up with Will’s buddy from McGill, John, who recently relocated to Sydney. From our hotel, we walked over to a neighborhood named Surrey Hills, through beautiful Hyde Park and past the Pool of Reflection and the Anzac War Memorial. John took us to a great hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant on Crown Street called Prasits, with a quick stop at a bottle shop (e.g. wine store) to grab two bottles of wine. Like most restaurants in Sydney, Prasits was BYO (bring your own). John’s girlfriend, Melinda, joined us from work and we had a fantastic meal for a reasonable price (much harder to find closer to where we were staying).



We were pretty pooped from our big first day in Sydney, so it was no surprise when I couldn’t keep my eyes open when we got back to the hotel after dinner…

One Last Session With The Kids

December 8, 2007

I delivered Christmas presents to my sister's house today, one last big thing to take care of before we take off on our travels.

I also helped Angie and Jack try to take family holiday pictures, but as expected, it's very difficult to get three kids (especially two 17 month twins) to stay still and smile pretty for the camera. No shock there...















Happy Holidays!
-Bea

Nuance Holiday Party

December 8, 2007

In the midst of all the hecticness of getting ready to go traveling, Will and I got gussied up and headed to the W Hotel in SOMA for his company's (Nuance) holiday party.

It was a nice break to catch up with Will's co-workers, have some drinkies and some foodie. There were good tunes, and a couple raffle draws, in which Will won a gift certificate to Santana Row in San Jose...sweet!





I'm missing Genentech's holiday party because we'll be at the airport getting on our red-eye to Sydney (aww...). It should be a doozy, it's being held at AT&T park this year because we're so damn big. The invitation said you can either choose to wear cocktail attire for a night of music and dancing, or casual wear for outdoor activities including ice skating and batting cages. Hope everyone has a good time!

Happy Holidays!

Canteen

December 5, 2007

On Wednesday night, Wendy treated me to dinner in advance of my birthday, which will occur when I'm off traveling down under.

We went over to the trendy-loin district to a little place called Canteen. Canteen is not quite two years old and has made waves on the SF culinary scene with chef Dennis Leary's California-French food. Canteen made the Top100 list in its first year.

It's a small space that fancies itself to be a new school diner. Really cute, but no room for big parties, the booths are small and it would be interesting fitting a party of 4 in.

The menu changes weekly (we had Week 127's menu) and there are only 4 choices per course (starter, entree, dessert), and you are requested to order all three courses at one time.

We were treated to a little amuse bouche of smoked salmon with fennel salad and horseradish, which was great, the horseradish spread was a little overwhelming but fantastic all the same.
The Mussels Soup with hot chili and ginger. Dennis Leary is known for his soups, so we had to try it. Surprisingly, no actual whole mussels in the soup, but the soup was delicious.
Squid with white beans, peppers and breadcrumbs. Fantastic, a winner, go try this, Wendy and I loved it.
Porcini Mushrooms Flan with curry sauce and carmlized cauliflower. Wow. Wendy is a huge fan of mushrooms, so we had to try this. It was really tasty, the curry not too overwhelming, the cauliflower delicious. Wendy said she need to eat cauliflower more.
Venison pepper crusted with mashed squash, sauerkraut, and coriander syrup. Also fantastic, the venison prepared perfectly, not tasting gamey at all. The squash was amazing and the sauerkraut a perfect balance. Very interesting colors as well.
Pears in Brik with goat cheese, caramel and walnuts. This was also wonderful, and it's quite the melody to combine caramel and goat cheese. Really nice dessert.

We had a wonderful meal at Canteen, I would highly recommend this restaurant. It would be a great date place.

Brrr....

December 5, 2007

On my first day on sabbatical, I hopped on a plane and headed home to Calgary/Vulcan for a few days to hang out with old friends and my folks before Will and I took off traveling over the month of December.

Donna picked me up and we began the weekend of ladies of leisure. Though I had packed for subzero celsius weather, it was still a slap in the face to leave the airport and face the winter of Calgary. Seriously, California has made me soft and I'm not prepared for that kind of weather anymore.

It was awesome spending the weekend with Donna, Dy, Oso (Donna's little pooch), Kalah, Ryan, Lorna, and the rest of the crew.
We got a chance to catch up with Sonia and her adorable little 2 year old boy, Sascha, who is the most eloquent speaking 2 year old I've ever met. So sweet...










On Sunday after dim sum with my dad, I bid adieu to Donna. My dad and I spent the afternoon doing errands and wasting time waiting for my mom to get in from San Jose after endless delays to her flight. She finally made it, we had a great dinner and then headed home to Vulcan.

In Vulcan, I enjoyed getting spoiled by my parents and also spent most of Monday playing legal secretary to my mom who took advantage of my typing skills.

On Tuesday, I got to catch up with my university friend, David, and high school buddy, Victor, who came over for dinner. It was awesome reminiscing with those guys and talking forever.



I headed back to SF on Wednesday and am gearing up for the trip to Sydney/New Zealand, which I am woefully not prepared yet (too much stuff to do!). And getting all the Christmas stuff done before I go. Oh dear...

I'm on Sabbatical!

December 3, 2007

Every 6 years of service at Genentech earns you an additional 6 weeks of paid time off (added onto the holidays and accrued vacation we already receive). I qualified for my sabbatical in February 2007 and had planned to take it at the end of 2007.

Finally, the day came, where my last day of work was on November 29 (Thursday) and I'm off work until February 5, 2008. That's right, it's about 2 months. I am a brat.

I'm currently in Vulcan/Calgary hanging out with my folks and I will be doing a bunch of traveling in the next two months. (Sydney, New Zealand, Cancun). Stay tuned for subsequent blogspots!

I heart Genentech!