Saturday, June 14, 2003

 
So, we made it. We are in Sydney now and when you read this, this means I have also found a place from where to update my blog. I have seen many many internet cafes, but I have yet to find one where I can either hook up my TiBook or I can use a CDR and actually upload stuff.

The trip was quite pleasant. At 7 AM on Friday Ramesh, our favorite taxi-driver picked us up and drove us to Nausori airport. We were early so no line for check in. But then the major first screw up. I have lived under the impression that the "Australian Business Access Card" I have, which is valid till 2006 and says "This Person has permission to travel to AU on multiple occasions ... " is my ETA (electronic visa to enter the AU) ... and some part of me still believes so .. but I need to figure out what that card is and HOW I ever got that ... well .. anyways ... this ETA is a funny thing .. On prior trips to AU, my travel agent would take care of that, no extra charge. On my second trip I even totally forgot about it and that confirmed my thought that this magic business access card must be working. Well, nowadays you can do the ETA for 20AU$ online (13US$), or for 50FJ$ (25US$) at AirPacific's travel centre. Since I had to do now a "rush" application, they felt free to charge me 100FJ$ (50US$) for that ... thank you AirPathetic !!! If I ever find out that this was unnecessary, I will go and kick some butt. And get my 100FJ$ back.

We had nice seats very much at the end of the plane, but that was ok ... initial fears that this means we are fed last were eased when we they started feeding us right out of the kitchen ... and hello what a nice surprise: Not only did they come buy several times for drink refills, the food we got was actually very good. I think that was the first time we both finished it: grilled fish with veggies and potatoes and a tomato sauce with olive slices. The flavor was great and compared to the crap they tried to serve us on our flight from Nadi to LA, that was gourmet food ... the tray also had way more little things to play with .. a salad, crackers and cheese, breadroll ... it is not about being hungry ... it is all about killing time and what funny things you can create with those items.

Movie time: The movie they screened was "Catch me if you can" which I had already seen. So I got out the computer and selected "The Transporter" ... a nice mindless action movie which I do not feel like reviewing in detail (only that I think it was missing a scene that was very prominent in the trailer, the one where the guy deflects a missile with a tray or something, and that it ended way to abruptly, I would really have loved to know why that Asian chick was in that bag to begin with) ... it helped me pass time in a nice way while Ritsu was sleeping.

Since we were sitting very close to the only lavatories, pretty much everybody on the plane passed by and looked at the computer screen... then looked up to compare how small the plane's TV screens are ...

We landed in Sydney on time, and after duty free shopping and immigration, we had another surprise when I exchanged money ... gosh the US$ has gone down in value ... earlier I was able to get close to 400AU$ for 200AU$ ... now I only received 270AU$ or so ... wow ... that makes us rethink certain aspects of our shopping behavior here.

We then took the train to the city and found our hotel just fine (only to find out that the next train station would have been way closer!)

The "new york style studio apartment" is exactly that: small ... but very very nice .. clean, actually a bit bigger than my first apartment in Manhattan. It seems it can get a bit loud as it faces a busy intersection, so they supply you with earplugs! Nice touch. We did not stay long and took our first stroll towards the city center, looking for food. Surprisingly we passed 3 kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi places and picked the last one to have some food ... probably not the best, but it was nice and at 28.50 AU$ (20US$) fairly cheap. We kept walking and then did some shopping at the downstairs woolworth supermarket (since our room has a neat kitchenette) and then returned to the hotel.

We took a little break and got very sleepy, so we kicked ourselves to get up and explore some more. We went to "Market City" a big mall-like complex, but since they were about to close, we just skimmed through the shops to see what there is. Then we crossed the street to Chinatown, where on Friday nights they have a "night market", lots of stands selling crap (like "Scarfs from Korea") .. well .. the usual street market stuff, sunglasses, 'real' gucci bags, brick-a-brack, one place had actually anime VCDs. And of course many food stalls, mainly things on skewers, chicken, baby octopus and fishballs: easy to eat and even easier to poke someone's eye out when eating while walking. The restaurants had tables outside (though after sunset the temperature went down quite some, we had already started freezing a bit in our room and got pity-smiles when we asked for "can we turn the heating on") and offered 15AU$ per head dinners.

We did not feel like chinese and kept looking around and came by a great japanese Izakaya place called "Fujiya" ... quite big, but very nice and we got a great table for 2 (other couples we saw coming in ended up at one edge of those looong group tables .. then again, maybe they wanted to hide me .. I noticed later that caucasians were a 3% or so minority there:) We had all nice delicacies, like Takoyaki (Fried octopus balls, poor octopus!) and dumplings, and a tasty fish called "Hokke" and some chicken gristle .. don't even want to know what exactly that was .. but rule of thumb: "if you fry it long enough, it will all taste good" ... like heads and tails of shrimps for example.) With that we enjoyed some "Choheis" ... those are made of some fruit juice and then Shotsu is added .. this is like japanese whiskey. I tried green apple and peach flavor (the first I drank just like lemonade) and Ritsu had one in Umeshu (plum wine) flavor, which was a bit stronger than mine.



Happily fed and tired we walked back home and went to bed pretty much right away. (The hotel people had actually figured out how to reverse the AC from cold to heat, so by now it was nice and toasty in our room)
posted by Peter 8:50 AM