3 weeks in already! This most recent week was a bit slower than the rest, but it was a great chance to take advantage of many of the amenities Sydney offers.
Wednesday was Lunar New Year and UTS being right next to Sydney’s Chinatown was a great excuse to grab something to eat in the area. After class, Alexa Sienna, and I met up with Ariana and Lauren for Chinese food. I got pork dumplings and realized how long it has been since I last had Chinese food back home. These were incredibly good and I wish I had ordered a larger portion.
Our spread of Chinese food to celebrate Lunar New Year (Photo cred to Alexa)
This experience tied in very well with my Aussie Life and Culture class where we spent the week focusing on multiculturalism in Australia. I found this topic very interesting, especially due to the many parallels that can be drawn to similar events in the U.S. On Friday, Alexa and I presented on Australian surf culture and the Cronulla Riot. The riot targeted people of middle-eastern appearance in 2005, showing an underlying hatred of “foreigners” that is not apparent to me as I walk around Sydney. What I found most interesting was the hypocrisy of the surfers being xenophobic. In my research I found that surfing was introduced to Australia by a Hawaiian man, highlighting the hypocrisy of the rioters who had embraced another culture’s traditions with open arms. If you would like to learn more about the riot, feel free to flip through our slides here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ZCdXlqloeENtJzkqCADUO_zoLE8baZ7VZVd7Np1ZApY/edit?usp=sharing .
This weekend, I was on the beach nonstop. On Saturday, I went with the apartment upstairs to Tamarama Beach, my favorite beach so far. This beach was much smaller than the others we had visited and was somewhat tucked away in the town, but this led to a far more peaceful and less crowded day in the sun. This also gave me a great chance to get into my book (All the Light We Cannot See) which I read about 80 pages of and started to really enjoy. We also walked along the rocks of the beach, carefully avoiding bluebottle jellyfish that had washed ashore. Once the sun began to set, we walked along the coastal walk to Bondi where we had made a reservation to go back to Pompei’s. I ordered a calzone which was good and gelato which was even better. Once we were back at our accommodation, I hung out with some of the guys in my apartment before we all headed upstairs to play games with the girls at their apartment.
A look at how quiet Tamarama was
Walking out to the edge of the rocks at Tamarama beach
Sunday was yet another beach day, this time journeying to Manly Beach. It was a pretty busy journey due to being both a weekend and all of the tourists that had disembarked the cruise ship docked in the harbor. Nonetheless, I enjoyed being back out on a beach, reading another 60 pages from my book, and having good company. After walking around the boardwalk for a little while, we went out for dinner again and grabbed dessert afterward. Unfortunately, the cookie and ice cream place we had been looking at all day had run out of most of their cookie flavors by the time we were done with dinner, but I feel this is enough incentive to want to go back to Manly again before the trip is over. We then had a very nice dusk view of the Sydney skyline on our way back and called it a night.
While I really enjoyed the quieter weekend, I am extremely excited to explore Melbourne next weekend. Also, I cannot believe that I am at the end of this block of classes, and look forward to the content covered in this final week. Until next week (where I will definitely be sure to take more photos)
Sydney skyline from the ferry back from Manly Beach