we are, after all, locomotives

two thousand nine, you were mighty fine

2009-12-31T15:50:00.005-05:00

Though I haven't made an end-of-the-year post in years, I thought 2009 deserved one. It was a really special year full of highs and lows.

2009 High #1: Medical School
Well, I finally made it. I was so ready for medical school by the end of my 3 years of undergrad and now that I'm here it's fantastic (though there are some things about undergrad that I do miss terribly, namely reading and discussing literature). So far it's been incredibly inspiring and refreshing. I really enjoy the people in my class, and the second-years that I've befriended have been such sweethearts. Everyone around me is bright and teeming with this desire to learn and become good doctors that I'm constantly taken aback by their energy. Moreover, my classmates are professional, smart, and most surprisingly of all, very funny! They crack me up all the time. My classes have been going well, and something I've been exceptionally impressed with is the faculty. FINALLY, no more of this never-talk-to-your-science-professor shit from undergrad (c'mon, you mean to tell me you actually had a relationship with your cell bio professor?). The faculty here are really kind and approachable, even being scientists :)

2009 Low #1: Medical School
No kidding when they say that med school is tough. I'm currently recovering from the first half of our neuroscience block, and you wouldn't believe how many times throughout the semester that I've asked myself, "What did I get myself into?" (Hint, it was before every anatomy exam and while studying for HBM.) It's also true that med school isn't for everyone. After going through the first semester, I realize now that it takes just the right combination of smarts, masochism, and untempered and pure fall-over-yourself earnestness, with a dash of obsessive compulsive behavior. I thought I was OCD until I got to medical school and met some of my classmates. My classmates are always ahead, always striving, and always on top of things. It really opened my eyes to just how hard-working people can be, and the truth that I'll probably never be "the best" because there's always going to be someone more anal or someone who just wants it more than me. It's extremely humbling and a good lesson to be learned, I think.

2009 High #2: Australia and New Zealand
Incredible. I had so many once in a lifetime experiences: skydiving, scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef, white water rafting, rappelling down a 100-foot waterfall in the Blue Mountains, seeing my first Broadway musical, and living in one of the most beautiful, breathtaking cities in the world…Sydney. I interned at a food and travel magazine (so perfectly blissfully random), went to magazine photoshoots, escaped to the beach whenever I pleased, hauled myself to Sydney's most frenetic clubs, and once found myself vomiting pathetically into an Australian McDonald's bathroom toilet (ok, so that was a low).

2009 Low #2: Being away from friends and family
I missed my friends and family immensely when I was away for 5 months. Were it not for the miracles of videochat and cheap international calling cards, I don't know where I would have been! Of course, it didn't help my homesickness that I had The Roommate From Hell for the first four weeks, but luckily that was resolved and my second living situation was so much better with a roommate who was both adorable and funny. (The first roommate was put into a room with someone who was not so welcoming, and I can't say that I felt sorry for her.)

2009 High #3: Reunion with Andrei in the fall
Being apart from Andrei was hard while I was in Australia, New Zealand, and then China. Sometimes I would feel a physical ache being away from him, and every minute we've been together since has been even sweeter. As someone who once firmly rejected long distance relationships, I suddenly find myself thinking it could work with the right person. Which leads me to another low…

2009 Low #3: The looming future
The prospect of not being in the same city as Andrei and all my friends next year is daunting. It's frustrating that I'm firmly set in one place, but I'm not sure where Andrei or my undergrad friends will end up. Or my high school friends, for that matter. It's an unknown, and I hate the unknown.

2009 High #4: Scrubbing into my first surgery
Over the summer I scrubbed into my first surgery, a kidney transplant from a father to son. To see a white lifeless kidney that was detached from a healthy body turn rosy, healthy pink once put into a sick body… wow. Medicine is awesome---literally full of awe.

2009 High #5 (Okay, so there are more highs in this list than lows, and this is another one involving Andrei): our two-year anniversary in NYC
It was an incredibly romantic weekend, and perfect in almost all respects. Having once hated NYC, I have to say that this trip changed my mind and made me almost love NYC. Of course, still would never live there though. Boston is definitely more my type of city.

And to wrap up:

favorite video of the year
not a music video, but my favorite youtube video of the year: http://bit.ly/498Cbe

favorite song of the year
My Will is Good, Port O'Brien

favorite artist of the year
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down

favorite movie of the year
Up, no question about it. Pixar movies will always have a place in my heart.

favorite book of the year
A toss up between Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything (finally, a book that makes science fun!) and Stieg Larsson's first two books of the Millennium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire (can't help loving adventure/thriller/mystery fiction with good writing for once!!)

Well that's it for 2009. I'm both excited and scared for what the new decade will bring… and where I'll be in another ten years.

andrei's funnier moments

2009-06-07T00:20:00.004-04:00

Today I had two humorous conversations with Andrei, one via text and the other via gchat.

#1
Background: I went with my mom to my friend Chris's Mary Kay party (like a Tupperware party but for cosmetics) and we all got makeovers. I texted Andrei about the dramatic eye makeup that Chris's friend practiced on me. He texts back:

"Oh neat.
I bet you looked super sexy.
What was that technique. Smoky eyes?"

#2
Background: I changed my fb picture to a picture of me and Andrei together, which immediately got an "Aww, cute" response of one of my BU friends. I told her that I think it's cheesy, and that I (quote) "die a little every time" (end quote) that I see it on someone else's fb. Of course I tell Andrei about this little exchange.

me: look at my profile piccccc

Andrei: on fb?

me: yeah

i think the pic is dopey

i never have pics with you

Andrei: yes

whatever

you keep that profile pic

i am gonna make mine the same one

itll be the BEST

I think Andrei is dopey. And potentially a closet gay.

In other news, I'm leaving for China at the bright hour of 6AM tomorrow. Will write when I get there, and after jetlag totally kicks my butt YET AGAIN.

pure comedic gold

2009-06-03T01:13:00.005-04:00

Until I can get my act together with New Zealand photos and such, check out this site which is AM.AZING. My new favourite site:

http://mymomisafob.com

Leaving for China in a few days (the traveling just doesn't stop this year), and I'm feeling pumped for it. I am trying to convince my parents to take me and my brother on a side trip to Tibet, but I'm not sure they're biting. For one thing, I hear the altitude sickness absolutely KILLS. Any thoughts, China readers?

Some other ramblings--hardly anyone is at home this summer. Some friends are abroad and others are working or staying at school. It doesn't matter much since I'm not home either this summer, but sometimes I pine for those days when everyone would show up at my house and we could spend the night laughing and playing card games or Mario Party on my old Nintendo Gamecube.

Andrei is spending six weeks at UC Berkeley this summer for LSA (the Linguistic Society of America ). I not-so-secretly hope that he falls in love with California so that we can move there after college. Then I'll finally buy up a sweet yellow vespa (a lá FLCL!) and ride it to work everyday. I admire Andrei so much for loving linguistics enough to spend an entire summer on it, plus the work he's already done for UROP. He also presented one of his papers at another linguistics conference earlier this spring at Cornell. He makes me way proud :)

Other thoughts in my head include how to get my 13-year-old brother to think I'm cool again (I think in order to accomplish this I may have to hone my violent video game skills), and whether I should use this blog for my China travels too.

I guess I should wrap up Australia and New Zealand before then, though. :/

a quick note from the Auckland Airport

2009-05-19T20:38:00.005-04:00

Where am I right now?

Signed onto a free internet kiosk computer in the middle of Auckland International Airport and bringing this post to you over outrageously slow internet. One of the things that really bugs me about Australia and New Zealand is the sloth-slow internet. Can you really call yourself a first world country when I can fetch a cup of tea in the time it takes the Facebook homepage to load? I think not!

But all internet grievances aside, I'm wrapping up my five-month-long journey abroad and feeling pretty sad about it. I spent the last eight days in the South Island of New Zealand and completed a few heart-attack inducing activities and had my fill of gorgeous Lord-of-the-Rings-does-it-no-justice scenery.

Most notably, I FINALLY skydived from a plane at 12,000 feet and bungy jumped a modest 43 meters (about 141 feet) off the world's first bungy jump bridge. Not to mention taking a morning to go sea kayaking in New Zealand's famously beautiful Milford Sound.

EDIT: When I get back home I'll upload some of the skydiving and bungy pics.

new zealand epic fail

2009-05-11T04:28:00.003-04:00

Two things I failed to do in the last 10 days:

Update this blog, and skydive! Well, the second wasn't entirely my fault. Weather was bad in Taupo (a deliciously infuriating combination of clouds, wind, and quickly fading daylight). But no worries, as they say in these parts!! I'll try to skydive over the glaciers in Frans Josef or maybe outside Queenstown some time this week when I'm in the South Island. And I'll definitely bungy-jump!!!

As for the wrap-up of the North Island, I'm still working out the photos and will grace you with them when I get back to the US! This is code for: I am exhausted from traveling non-stop for a week and I'm ready to catch up on the episodes of LOST I've missed :)

I've leave you with this youtube video of one of the crazy-ass things I've done so far, which was invented in New Zealand. It's called Zorbing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isRlb9dIJRA

(For more info also visit the trusty Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorbing.)

The Land of the Kiwis

2009-05-01T16:40:00.003-04:00

New Zealand suits me, I think.

It's quiet and unassuming and intensely beautiful... at least from what I saw from the ride home from the airport!

I've been staying the last two days with my cousin Kai, who lives in Hamilton, New Zealand and has just opened his own Chinese diner. He also has an 8-month-old baby girl with his wife Rainy. My aunt is also living with them to watch the baby, so it's a full household! But taking a break from traveling has been a nice change of pace. Yesterday I went into town and got a bunch of errands done, such as getting a New Zealand SIM card for my phone (now I can be reached anytime and from anywhere in the world... aka my parents can now rest easy) and buying a rainjacket because NZ is famous for its rain (how else could the grass have become so lush?)

In a few hours I am catching a bus and heading out to Rotorua, which is a geothermal village. Then it's on to Taupo, and finally Wellington for two or three days. Then back to Hamilton before flying to Christchurch to tour the South Island. Can't wait!

Internet access will definitely be shoddy, but I'll write again at least when I get back to Hamilton next week.

Cairns: Adventure Capital of Australia! And The Great Barrier Reef Itself!

2009-04-29T01:41:00.015-04:00

I am literally less than 24 hours from leaving Australia and boarding a plane to New Zealand, so here's a wrap-up of my last big Australian trip!! (As mostly told in photos... more words to be added once I get my feet back on American soil!)

Day One: White Water Rafting on the Tully River (Grade 4+ Rapids...yikes!)

Let me preface this by saying that I had never before gone white water rafting before this trip. So I was in for a treat...

We look like a cross between retard children and UN Peacekeepers. Sah-weet!

Some parts of the river were calm and beautiful.... others were not!

Taking a break from rafting... to jump right into the rapids! Very "King of the Rock" a la Mulan.

We hit the rapids!

My friend Anna loves this picture of me because she says I look like a "warrior."

The rapids at some parts got so intense that two of the girls in our raft were thrown out and flushed all the way down two series of intensely flowing and VERY sharp and rocky rapids. They were scared SHITLESS and so traumatized that they refused to get back in the raft after lunch. They described the experience as "feeling like we were drowning and certain to die." That's how intense the rapids were! Anna and I were holding on for DEAR LIFE. At one point, I turned to look at her as we were being sucked into a rapid and I could see my fear reflected in Anna's eyes!!! It was horrifyingly and deliciously fun.

Day Two: Exploration of The Great Barrier Reef aboard Passions (the name of our boat!)

The deck of our tiny-ass and VERY rocky boat, Passions. Perhaps they named it Passions because the boat ride is so rough and rocky? Eh?

Sunbathing for a few last minutes before we get to the reef. The bottoms of our sting suits are on already. We were given sting suits for snorkeling and diving so that jellyfish wouldn't be able to sting our skin! Australia is full of crazy deadly animals...

And once we got to the reef, the snorkeling began. I've only been snorkeling once in Cozumel? and it was beautiful but NOTHING compares to the Great Barrier Reef itself!!

Check out the zebrafish towards the back! If you can't see because the photo is too small, click on it and it'll enlarge. There are some beautiful colors on display here.

Me and my snorkeling gear!

Schools of fish. What kind? Who knows! The coral beneath them is especially beautiful though... (Ok I swear when I get home I am doing some research on the coral and fish that I saw! Promise!)

After snorkeling, we suited up for scuba diving. I can't express how anxious I was to scuba dive for the first time-- I'm mildly claustrophobic and the thought of depending solely upon oxygen in a tank was scary to me. But I sucked it up and suited up.

We are sassy and ready to have the time of our lives! (Sidenote: What surprised me was how heavy the tank and equipment were! The weight was almost reassuring though... with this much equipment, I knew I wouldn't run out of air or drown! Or at least I hoped...)

Scuba diving brought us a lot closer to the reef and we saw more diversity in coral. Uttler breathtaking in real life. This picture does it NO JUSTICE!

At the very bottom of the reef we found a sea cucumber. The instructor snatched the camera off my wrist and took a picture of me with it. And I'm so glad he did because this photo is beyond words. (FYI for those who are curious: The sea cucumber felt really slimy and squishy and I was afraid I would squeeze too hard!)

A brightly colored parrot fish. We saw tons of these just nipping at the coral and destroying it!

After scuba diving, we went to another reef around Michaelmas Cay, a tiny but famous bird sanctuary island. The island was literally only a few hundred feet wide and had a tiny beach that we snorkeled off of.

The reef at Michaelmas Cay was much closer to the surface than the previous Paradise Reef. Swimming on top of the water, I was always worried I would kick a piece of coral and kill it! Especially with those huge gangly flippers of mine. You can tell in the picture how close the reef is to my body, and this was just floating on top of the water!

The reef was overall so amazing and stunning. At Michaelmas Cay the coral and fish were only a few inches away at all times--we got over an hour to hang around the waving, cascading, and sensuous coral.

Final photo of the scuba diving equipment before we left the boat:

A quick photo of the lagoon in Cairns. Because the water immediately surrounding Cairns is FILLED with treacherous jellyfish (known as "stingers" in Oz), there is a manmade but incredibly lush and picturesque "lagoon" near the harbour. Of course, its artificial beauty was no match to the wild reef.

Day Three: Biking in the rainforests of Cairns.

We didn't think anything could top the experiences of white water rafting or seeing the Great Barrier Reef in person, but day three was equally as fun...although in a different way.

We went for a bike tour around the rainforests of Cairns, and it was the most relaxing and wholesome fun I've had in Australia. There was an Australian family of four on the trip with us, and their kids were so cute. It was definitely the perfect way to end our Cairns vacation. And it made me miss The General so much! (My super-chic robin's egg blue road bike that's currently lonesome in Boston without me.)

Cairn's infamous sugar cane fields with a background Cairn's distinctive mountains, the "Misty Mountains."

The bike rack attached to the back of our van. I was the only one of my friends who had to wear a safety vest. It was sooo dorky that it was COOL.

The four of us with the two kids from the trip! Notice how they too are also wearing safety vests.... hah.

The place is really called "Devil Pool Lookout" but some wise guy scratched off the letters so now it's "evil Poo Lookout." I got a HUGE kick out of this, as you can probably tell.

Okay so probably no one but Andrei and my parents and Thao have read this entire post, so I'll sneak in one story here that I hope most people won't bother to read:

We were scubadiving for over thirty minutes at the first reef and I had no problem with breathing or swimming... until we neared the surface. Earlier I had had a problem with weighing myself down, i.e. sinking, so my instructor placed some extra weight stones in my belt when we got halfway down. Then when we got down, I was sinking TOO much, so he pressed a button to inflate my vest a bit so that I would float.

Well, then I started floating TOO much, and I reached the surface before my friends and the instructor did. I just started floating away from them (they didn't notice!) and rose towards the surface, and surprisingly I didn't panick a bit. However, when I got to the surface the water was incredibly choppy and rough. The waves battered me around and soon enough I felt the saliva build up in my mouth. Within minutes, I was vomiting my breakfast out into the wide open ocean (I had reached the surface at this point and taken out the mouth tube... so no I didn't not vomit into the equipment!)

As is the case when I vomit, I felt immediately better and was ready to calm myself and get back under the water, when suddenly my instructor emerges and asks me if I'm okay and starts inspecting me all over. I signal to him that I'm okay, just feeling a little bit nauseous and TOTALLY embarassed at this point (my instructor was seriously HOTT and here I was with bits of vom all over me...). Luckily, he just laughed and told me that it was no big deal... and that THE FISH LOVE IT WHEN THIS HAPPENS! I started laughing at the thought of fish congregating around me to eat my vomit. It was both really gross and really funny.

And... on that note, that's the end of this post!
I am seriously behind in packing and ready to head out to New Zealand! My internet access will probably be even more dismal in New Zealand than it's been in Australia, but keep on the lookout for a short post or two. (I am staying for a few days with my cousin in Hamilton, and I will definitely be posting pictures of his baby, my 8-month-old second cousin! She is the first baby in our family since my brother was a baby, and that was 13 years ago!)

Much Love from Down Under (for the next few hours at least),
Xu

uluru part four

2009-04-27T16:00:00.000-04:00

Day Four and Five -- Uluru

Uluru. No more words needed. (If you click on the photo you can get the zoomed version, where you can see the rivulets of water from the rain.)

Day Four finally brought us to Uluru, also known to Westerners as Ayer's Rock. You could see Uluru from miles and miles away since it completely dominated the skyline. Literally, there was nothing but shrubs and a few sad-looking trees surrounding the area. The task of the day was to walk entirely around the imposing Uluru. Needless to say, it was a LONG walk, taking about three and a half hours. The total distance we walked was 9.8 km, which translates to 6.1 miles. But it was beautiful. And luckily it was still a little cloudy and drizzling with rain--I know I would have passed out if we had walked for almost four hours in the blazing sun.

A map of the base walk, which also shows you the shape of Uluru from above.

When recalling his trip to Uluru, travel writer Bill Bryson (who I also have a crush on) describes an eerie feeling upon seeing the rock that he says felt like a genetic pull towards the rock. He says that somehow, even if you've never seen the rock before in your life, "You know this rock."

I had that same feeling as I walked around Uluru and saw all its intricate details, including caves, small pits in the rock, Aboriginal cave paintings, and other unique formations that you can't see from mere photos. Walking the trail around Uluru, I felt some primal instinct telling me I belonged here. As if all mankind was somehow connected to this rock in the middle of nowhere. It was almost a religious feeling. I can't necessarily describe it.

One of my favorite formations was the "Wave Cave" that we're standing under in the picture above. Caused by wind being swept up and tunneled across this same cave over and over, the rock has been worn away to look like the crest of a wave.

Other famous landmarks include what looks like a giant's footprint. Aboriginal legend has passed down stories of two giant brothers who created Uluru from dirt like normal-sized kids would create a huge mud pie. When one of the brothers climbed down from his mud pie creation, he supposedly left this footprint mark.

As we walked around Uluru, there were certain sections of the trail that we were not allowed to photograph, known as "Sacred Sites." These are places where Aboriginal men and women used to conduct their rituals, and today some of these sites are still used. Fines of thousands of dollars are imposed on tourists that try to snap a photo of these sites. The thing is, the sites are no more amazing-looking than the piece of the rock before or after it. There are generally no markings on the actual rock to denote sacredness, just signs put up along the trail telling tourists not to photograph. Still, it was confusing walking around the rock and asking every five minutes, "Are we still on that sacred site or what?"

Since it'd be incredibly boring to describe every detail of the Uluru base walk to you, I'll just include a few pictures:

The texture of Uluru. Don't the pits in the rock behind me resemble human faces? VERY creepy, if you ask me!

A close-up of Uluru's texture

The walking path, surrounded by golden grasses (somewhat reminding me of Kansas!)

Waterfalls over the rock.

A (secret?) cave nestled high up in the rock.

A cave with cave paintings.

The walk around Uluru was inspiring beyond words. It was entirely different from anything I've ever done before, and the idea of a HUGE monolith stuck in the center of the desert is still hard to wrap my mind around. This was by far one of the coolest thing I've ever done in my life!

And that wasn't the end of the day.

On the ride back home from Uluru, we stopped an hour outside Alice Springs to do a camel ride at a camel farm. For a measly $5 Australian dollars, we hopped onto a camel that RAN around a paddock guided by a dude on the ground. It was such a bumpy ride, and I didn't realize how tall camels actually were until I found myself on the hump of one! I took a video of it which would be too slow to upload here, but here's a picture of me after I've disembarked from my camel, Bert?

And finally, the bus ride home:

The people on the bus (the couple in the front is the badass European couple I've mentioned a few times)

Day Five -- flying out of Alice Springs

Even though the heat was unbearable, the number of flies inconceivable, and the rain frankly unbelievable, I was sad to be leaving the Outback. It was truly the most random trip I would have in Australia (termites? torrential downpour? camels?) but probably also the most fun.

Only when I got back home to Sydney did I realize how incredibly thirsty I was on the entire Outback trip. I drank probably half a dozen Powerades and liters upon liters more water during the length of the trip, and I felt thirsty ALL THE TIME. All I can say is that the night we got back from Alice Springs I was so grateful to be in civilization again! (And then I had to pick up Andrei from the airport ten hours later.)

uluru part three

2009-04-26T22:20:00.007-04:00

Day Three--Kata Tjuta

(For more info on Kata Tjuta, click here.)

If I had to choose one word to describe day three in the Outback, it would have to be "PREPOSTEROUS!" If I could choose another word, it would be "wet." And if I had a third, it would be "breathtaking." A strange combination of adjectives, day three brought us to Kata Tjuta, also known to Westerners as The Olgas.

That morning we woke up, rolled up our swags, and ate breakfast before jumping into the van for another day in the Outback. Looking out the window, we watched the sun rise over the desert. We spotted a couple of feral (wild) camels a hundred meters from the road. Apparently the Australian Outback is the only place left in the world where wild camels live. Some of the best Australian racing camels are sold to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, for participation in camel races that often have cash prizes of millions of dollars. Our guide, Dan, was training for a camel race in Saudi Arabia in August. (If you couldn't tell by now, I had a huge crush on Dan the entire trip because he was your quintessential rough and tough highly masculine Aussie outback guy.)

We arrived at the start of the Kata Tjuta trail early in the morning, and the sky was already darkening with the oncoming rain clouds. I donned my awesome hat, stuck all of my valuables in my über-cool fanny pack, and stuffed some bottles of water and crackers into a reusable bag that I had claimed from Paddy's market. Jumping out of the van, I thought to myself, "Hmm, maybe bringing all this stuff with me is a mistake... it looks like it's about to rain." Nevertheless, I didn't want to leave all my valuables in the van while we were gone, so I arrived at start of the trail with my ipod, cell phone, wallet, and camera on me.

The walk through Kata Tjuta is known as the "Valley of the Winds." (I found this inspiring immediately since my favorite anime film is Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.) As we were being briefed by Dan, however, it suddenly started pouring rain. We gathered under a round roofed hut to finish our briefing, and Dan and this hardcore European hiking couple headed off towards the trail in the pouring rain before me or any of my friends could ask Dan to unlock the van so we could put our stuff back inside. I distinctly remember looking at one my friends at that moment, and all we could do was shrug at each other helplessly before heading off in the pouring rain towards the majestic Kata Tjuta.

Take a moment to realize that this is the middle of the Outback, characterized by no rain and absolutely no moisture in the air. Just in the last post I was telling you how I was suffering from heat exhaustion and how the flies were seeking cool solace DOWN OUR THROATS. The walk through Kata Tjuta, however, was wet and chilly. And we were told that it only rains in the Outback once every few years. Preposterous! Totally turned my concept of the Outback on its head.

It's hard to describe exactly how hard it was raining as we were walking. You know when you're in Boston and it suddenly comes raining down in a TORRENT, out of the middle of NOWHERE, and it continues for about five or six minutes before it stops and clears up into beautiful sunshine? That's how it was at Kata Tjuta, except instead of a flooding rain lasting six minutes, it lasted about twenty six. Imagine twenty minutes of pounding, *relentless* rain falling from the heavens!

The fact that the trail was just a cleared path of gritty red rocks and gravel didn't help the trek. Everything was flooded with water, including the trails. In fact, at some points the water came up past my ankles, and my sneakers were soaked through in a matter of seconds. Walking on the trail was also treacherous, since rocks were slippery under our feet and stones shifted with the flowing water so that no patch of land was 100% safe to walk across. At one point in the trail, it was a steep, rocky downward descent that was so unsafe that my friends and I slowly inched our way down.

Meanwhile, the rest of my body was also having a hard time keeping dry. I was only wearing a WHITE thin cotton t-shirt, a Calvin Klein wireless black bra, soffe shorts and underwear, and I was soaked through to the bone immediately. My shirt became nearly transparent and was plastered all over me in a potentially sexy way, except under my shirt I had tucked in my camera (inside its case) and my fanny pack (containing my cell phone, ipod, and wallet) so that it looked like I had a fanny-pack-shaped tumor growing under my shirt. I also clutched my reusable Paddy's Market bag against my chest OVER my shirt so that the rain wouldn't get in.

The rain on Kata Tjuta was so incredibly beautiful and the the water cascaded over the rocks in stunning waterfalls, but the entire time I was thinking "@#$% ^&*@# %^$* My stuff is going to get ruined!"

A photo from a friend who actually was brave enough to take her camera out during the rain! Look at all the waterfalls!!!!

It was wet, wet, wet!

The rain eventually calmed down and the fog lifted over the mountains. Here are some "after" pictures. The entire place was breathtaking.

Having survived the rainstorm. Happily, my head was kept dry during the entire storm because of my uber-sweet hat. But check out how my shirt is drenched and nearly transparent. My shirt was SO heavy with rain that my bra was compromised in this picture! (The green bag is the reusable bag I was referring to--it's made of a material that's a cross between cloth and plastic.) Also check out the badass fog.

It rained so heavily that creeks suddenly emerged where there used to be no water. This is a picture of our group crossing one of those newly formed creeks. These new creeks would be the site of frog spawning. Dan told us that there is a certain species of frog that digs underground and secrets tons of quick-drying mucus that envelops them entirely in a hard mucus shell. When water from rainstorms seeps down into the ground, the mucus casing around the frogs soften and they awake to come up to mate. All around us were the sounds of frogs calling to each other. It was deafening but so cool to hear.

Within minutes after the rain stopped, the sun came back out and blazed brightly. My clothes dried within minutes! The waterfalls dried up quickly, too, but I was able to snag one good photo:

Waterfall on Kata Tjuta

Back to blue skies, red earth, and the need to wear sunglasses!

Happily enough, none of my electronics got ruined. In fact, hardly anything of mine got wet. Somehow the combination of cradling my stuff under my shirt and holding a bag over it kept the rain from getting in. However, I had another friend who had her ipod and cell phone inside her backpack and even used an UMBRELLA, but both her cell phone and ipod were wet beyond repair. The Outback is utterly INSANE. As my friend said, "Who the hell would expect rain in the middle of the desert?"

It's a strange and preposterous world.

A "before" picture of Kata Tjuta.

An "after" photo.

That afternoon we went to an Aboriginal cultural center to have lunch and learn more about the Aboriginal stories of Kata Tjuta and Uluru. Halfway through the cultural center, more shit went down! Reports of a hail storm had reached the center, and our guide Dan yelled at us to get back into the van so that we could reach our campsite and prepare for the hail.

HAIL, in the middle of the desert? What the hell?! But nothing was quite beyond our comprehension after the rainstorm that morning. We were still confused and nervous, but we crowded back into the van and drove to our campsite. This time, the campsite was a real place, complete with roofed pavilions, picnic tables, and even a bathroom with a bunch of shower stalls. And.... a laundry room. Dan told us that most groups passing through lay their swags down on the ground outside, but because of the hailstorm this wouldn't be safe enough. So... we were told to covertly take over the laundry room and lay our swags down there before the other tour groups got the same idea. Taking over the laundry room wasn't TECHNICALLY allowed, but it would keep us dry and warm for the crazy weather ahead.

So imagine a group of 20 people rushing out of the van and grabbing their swags and running to put them down into a cramped and dusty laundry room. It was an insane and hilarious frenzy!!! Meanwhile, Dan was busy throwing up a bunch of tarps over the bus and attaching them to one side of the picnic table pavilions in the hopes of creating more shelter for us--because he thought surely not ALL of us could fit in the laundry room. (He was wrong.) Well, even after the tarps were all up (attached in some places with duct tape and bungee cords), there was absolutely NO hail.... there was some rain as we were eating our dinner of Asian stirfry, but there was NO HAIL!! As a group we had worked so hard to create a shelter for ourselves, but the weather was fine throughout the night. It was really pretty funny, looking back on it.

Despite the lack of bad weather, we slept in the laundry room that night in our sleeping bags (which had a bunch of dead termites in them from the previous night, I might add). All 20 of us managed to fit into that cramped room, and Dan slept in the aisle of the van. Come to think of it, the crazy badass European couple might have chosen to sleep outside just to show us how crazy badass they were.

And that's how we ended day three of the Outback: smooshed inside a laundry room and so exhausted that we fell asleep at 9PM.

Preposterous, wet, breathtaking... does that about cover it?

uluru part two

2009-04-21T03:50:00.006-04:00

Day Two --- KINGS CANYON

We were picked up ridiculously early by our tour guide, Dan, who drove the five of us and about ten others to the middle of the Outback. The first day we visited Kings Canyon, which was created thousands of years ago from a tiny crack in the rock that eventually became the canyon it is today. The visit to Kings Canyon was blisteringly hot and bright. You won't understand until you've experienced it, but the Outback sun is terrifying. I wouldn't want to be exposed to the Outback sun for more than a few hours, and I can understand now why all the animals in the Outback only come out at night.

Today's Predicted Temperature Range... It was HOTT with two T's.

After a few hours at Kings Canyon and a near-heat-exhaustion experience for me, we hopped back on to the van and kept driving through the Outback desert. For miles upon miles there was absolutely nothing out the window except red desert and short, scraggly shrubs growing by the edge of the road. It was an altogether deserted and alien place--like stepping foot onto a Mars that just happened to have a bit of vegetation. Surreal.

A few hours away from Kings Canyon we FINALLY saw Uluru:

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...
...

Just kidding! That's not Uluru---it's FOOL-uru! Commonly mistaken for Uluru, FOOL-uru (aka Mt Connor) is actually a mountain, not a monolith like Uluru (don't ask me the difference--I still don't quite understand. As far as I can understand, Uluru is one giant chunk of pure rock, whereas mountains are made up of dirt, rock, and other organic matter.)
ANYWAY, so FOOL-uru. Not Uluru. FOOL-uru. (This pun made laugh for perhaps five minutes straight, and then chuckle until we arrived at our campsite. HEY--when you're in the middle of nowhere with nothing to entertain you but lots of red dirt and your dying ipod, you would get a kick out of FOOL-uru, too.)

After another few hours of driving we arrived at our campsite.

Proudly holding up one of my firewood contributions.

The campsite was literally in the middle of nowhere--no electricity or running water or sign of civilization nearby. We had twenty minutes to gather as much firewood as we could before the sun set and we lost our light, hence the picture above.

But you're probably also wondering about the net that I'm wearing over my face. Wait--did I fail to mention this to you earlier?? Oh yes, right. So there are MILLIONS of flies in the Outback. Buzzing, whizzing, germy, great big black flies that stick to your body and land on your shirt to suck the sweat off of your profusely sweating body because there are no other sources of moisture available. There are no lakes, streams, creeks--NO water, ANYWHERE. (There was water when we were there, but more on that later.) So the flies take to human visitors, attempting every two seconds to dart into our open mouths. As Dan, our tour guide, explained, there is so little shade in the Outback that the flies get excited by the prospects of spending a few seconds in someone's mouth--JUST TO GET OUT OF THE SUN. THIS PLACE IS INSANE, I TELL YA!

Our insanely beautiful campfire.

The Outback at Night (currently my desktop background!)

That night we all ate delicious stew out of a big communal pot and slept under the stars in "swags," which are big heavy-duty canvas sleeping bags that you can fit a thin mattress and sleeping bag into. We looked like a couple of sacks of potatoes lying on the ground. Lying in our swags, we looked up at the millions of stars in the sky and debated whether there were more stars in the universe or more grains of sand on Earth. The stars were all crystal clear and perfectly luminous. It made me miss the days of the old (i.e. hundreds of years ago) when man could still camp out and see the stars from anywhere on Earth. As we fell asleep we watched shooting stars dart across the sky. One piece of advice our tour guide Dan gave us: If you do see a shooting star, don't call out because by the time you do, the shooting star will have disappeared and your friends will be pissed! And so under the stars we slept.

....And here's when the story gets really really GOOD...
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...
...

A few hours later (how long, I'm not sure since I had no light available)...

I suddenly wake up feeling like there are thousands of tiny pricks of fire and ice on my skin. I literally feel like my entire body is being licked by tiny, individual flames, and it HURTS like a mother!!! Lying in my swag I am thinking I have gone CRAZY--what else could explain why I was feeling like millions of bugs were crawling on me when everyone else around me was sleeping soundly in their swags?

I jump up out of my sleeping bag and swag and run over to the van, where there are some flashlights. I am wearing only soffe shorts and a thin cami. I grab a flashlight, turn it on, and shine it on my body (probably waking up two or three people in the process). And what do I see? I see a bunch of tiny little ant-like bugs crawling all over me. They're small and black and rapidly scrambling all over my body. Now, unlike some, I am NOT a girl to be freaked out by bugs, so my first reaction was to think that I was just being INSANE or half-asleep for thinking that these little harmless-looking ant-like bugs could be causing me so much pain. It literally felt like my skin was being assaulted by tiny darts. It couldn't POSSIBLY be the bugs. So what do I do? I brush off the bugs I can see and I go back to my swag to try to get back to sleep.

Literally THIRTY SECONDS later I am back to standing up over my swag and freaking out. The crawling/itching/pinching feeling hasn't stopped and it's more tortuous than ever. I dash over to where our guide Dan is sleeping and I wake him up gestapo-style with a flashlight in his face.

"Dan... I think there are some, like, bugs or something that are crawling all over me..."
He turns over, and without even looking at the bugs on me, he goes, "Oh yeah, that'd be the termites."

.... the TERMITES? There is no fucking wood out here in the Outback!!!

"Uh Dan, termites?"
"Yeah, they probably think you're wood and they'll just take a bite out of you to check." He chuckles. ...HE CHUCKLES.

"Uh... okay HOW DO I MAKE IT STOP?"
"Move your swag a few meters away and spray some of this bug spray around your swag."

I do move my swag and within ten minutes I feel the crawling painful pricks on my skin subside. I have obviously moved out of the prime termite territory. I toss and turn and try to go back to sleep. It's hard because the feeling of all those termites biting at me is a sensation I can't forget easily--even writing this today, nearly 6 weeks later, I still feel the sharpness of that CRAZY pain. It's an unimaginable sensation that I would wish only upon my worst enemies.

I try going back to sleep, but at this point it is hardly worthwhile. We have to up in two hours anyway. I am just drifting off into sleep when suddenly I see my friend Lisa a few meters away standing up over her swag, performing the exact same stunned dance that I was doing earlier. She is brushing her arms and legs, stamping around her swag, and looking around in disbelief. She has got termites.

As a wizened expert in termite matters, I matter-of-factly tell her that they are termites and nothing to be worried about. She looks at me like I am out of my fucking MIND. Like me, she can't comprehend how tiny termites can be causing her so much pain. I tell her to move her swag, and she moves closer to me and away from prime termite territory. We both try to sleep some more.

Less than two hours later at around 4AM we are woken up by Dan. We need to get packed and have breakfast and start the day before the Outback's lethal sun rises and makes the heat unbearable.

I move back over to my pile of stuff that I left in the middle of the night and see two of my other friends still huddled in their sleeping bags. Turns out that they ALSO felt the termites, but not knowing what to do, they just scrunched up tighter in their sleeping bags, hoping that the termites wouldn't get in. Of course, the termites DID get in, and the two girls spent the entire night sweltering within their sleeping bags and trapped in a confined space with a bunch of termites.

Turns out the rest of our camp also experienced the termites, and most people didn't understand what was going on. The didn't understand that they were being devoured by these tiny menacing bugs. Everyone else but me and Lisa just tried to sleep through it (meaning that most of our camp got no sleep that night).

Also turns out that the termites were out in so many numbers that night because they felt a huge storm coming on that day. Termites can somehow sense when a big rainstorm is going to occur, so they were out to reinforce their nests or whatever it is that termites live in.

And turns out the termites were right. That morning we had a monstrous amount of rainfall that drenched us to the very bone while we were climbing across Kata Tjuta.

But that's a story for next time.

END DAY TWO.

uluru part one

2009-04-14T06:25:00.005-04:00

Take a deep breath, and prepare yourself for this epic Outback tale.

Day One

Eerie view from the plane

We flew into Alice Springs, and from the plane I could already see that we were in the middle of nowhere. I could see nothing but miles and miles of red desert, with a few roads breaking up the monotony. It did NOT look like a hospitable land, even from a few thousand feet above. And upon landing on the ground and exiting the aircraft, the relentless heat hit me like a punch in the face--it was stifling and caused sweat to begin pouring forth from my every pore--this, I realized, would be my home for the next five days whether I liked it or not. (I did end up liking it, but it was really touch-and-go for that first excruciatingly hot day.)

After checking into Toddy's Backpackers hostel, we wandered the 15 minutes it took to get to town, and there we saw very little. Trust me when I say that there is nothing of merit in Alice Springs save a few small museums and one main street. There was nothing in the centre of town except for a few tourist shops, two cafés, and lots and LOTS of Aborigines lounging around in the middle of the day and in the middle of all that late afternoon heat. (Later we would find out these Aborigines were disowned by their respective tribes for alcohol abuse--which did explain why some of them yelled unintelligibly at us as we walked by. It's pretty sad to think about, really. Remind me sometime to write up my thoughts on the treatment of Aboriginals in white Australia--it's pretty horrific.)

a doctor-in-training makes her way to a museum on medicine all the way across the world...

fully equipped RFDS plane

First stop of day one was the Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum (guess whose idea that was). Only after visiting RFDS did I have a notion of how incredibly isolated and deserted most of Australia is. Let me explain. The premise of RFDS is to send doctors in planes all over the remotest regions of Australia, because in most of the Outback there isn't a hospital even within hours and hours of driving. Essentially, it's a flying ambulance service that responds to calls of distress from cattle ranches and tiny towns. ("Oy! Send someone out here--a bloke's just fallen off his horse and broken his leg in three places!" or "Oy! Send a doctor, quick--my wife's about to pop a baby!) The planes are equipped from top to bottom with all necessary medical instruments and a small gurney; I was most impressed by how much they could fit on that tiny plane. (FYI, visiting RFDS also helped to re-inspire my interest in medicine. Which might make a good story one day when I am a ballin' doctor.)

The next stop was the National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame (again, guess whose idea that was). It was a very well designed museum housed in an former jailhouse that showcased Australian women who were pioneers in their respective fields, i.e. medicine, public service, film, aviation, etc. But the other half of the museum consisted of rather jumbled exhibits on fashion, irons and ironing boards, kitchen tools, lace doilies--you know, all the material objects traditionally associated with women. Don't get me wrong, it was a lovely museum. Kind of like visiting my non-existent Australian grandmother's house.

The story continues soon... no worries, the actual Outback gets much more exciting than this. Alice Springs just sucks.

Stay tuned for Day Two and a good story about how I woke up in the middle of the night scared out of my mind...

we interrupt your reading pleasure with some modern-day romance

2009-04-14T06:00:00.016-04:00

Immediately following this post I am posting Day One of my Outback adventures, so please feel free to skip this reallllly long post on Andrei's visit and my parent's visit if you're so inclined. 'Cuz no one but us probably cares about the following :)

***

It was Thursday night, or rather the wee hours of Friday morning, only hours before Andrei's flight was scheduled to touch ground at the Sydney airport, and I was sitting on my couch with no desire to move an inch. Sitting there, I felt immensely thankful my roommate was still on her spring break trip, lest she were to try to rouse me from my nearly comatose state. Like the decent girlfriend I am, I promised Andrei I would be at the airport waiting for him when he arrived at 8AM, but at 3AM I was beginning to weigh just how much I liked the kid (quite a lot) against whether he would still like me if I stood him up in a foreign country (probably not). I hadn't showered since returning from a five-day epic journey through the Australian Outback, my clothes were all covered in a dusty layer of bright red Outback clay (the kind that is impossible to wash out), and all I wanted was a bowl of Cheerios, but unfortunately I had cleaned out the contents of my fridge the week before in preparation for my trip to Alice Springs.

But at that same moment, no doubt Andrei was being woken up every twenty minutes by some peppy flight attendant or being slept on by a morbidly obese man-woman on the 14-hour trans-Pacific flight. I figured there was at least *some* justice in the world.

Somehow I managed to get to bed by 4AM, having finished all the important tasks I had set out to do: washing and hanging up three week's worth of laundry, and plucking my eyebrows in preparation for Andrei's arrival. Looking back on it, none of those activities were really crucial since like most boys, Andrei doesn't care what his girlfriend wears or what condition her eyebrows are in. And people ask me why I don't wear makeup anymore.

At 8AM I was dutifully present at the airport and I was pondering whether it would be cheesy to buy some overpriced flowers/balloons/greeting cards (the greeting cards confused me a bit) when Andrei loped through the international arrivals gate, looking like some morbidly obese man-woman had indeed been using him as a pillow since San Francisco. Just kidding, he was as fresh as a spring daisy. Ok, just kidding, he smelled like he had been on a plane all day, and the second thing he said to me was, "Xu, I don't think I should've eaten all that airplane food."

Despite my sleep deprivation and Andrei's jetlag, we managed to get in a cab and make it back to UniLodge without falling asleep on each other. I was in a great mood to have him here with me in Australia, and Andrei was probably feeling pretty good thinking about all the suckers who were still in class at BU (he left Boston the Wednesday before the start of BU's spring break, effectively skipping all his classes Wed, Thurs, and Fri so that he could arrive in Australia on our Friday).

Upon arriving at UniLodge we showered and left the room around two in the afternoon once our bellies began aching for some Thai food. So we got some on Glebe Point Rd and returned to UniLodge, finally managing to drag ourselves out of bed hours later. That first afternoon I took Andrei around the necessary sights of Sydney (Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour) and instead of cramming in more touristy crap we stopped for beers at a harbour-side bar and watched the sun settle behind the docked sailboats (an A++ decision, and totally in character with the lazy bums that we are).

Posing with the Roo in Darling Harbour

We ate dumplings that night in Chinatown, and checked into the Holiday Inn Darling Harbour, which was about a five minute's walk from Darling Harbour and a 30 second walk to Chinatown (best location EVER for a hotel, I must say). We were bumped up to a bigger room with two queen-sized beds in it, and the clerk at the front desk winked at me and told me that if Andrei were to misbehave, I could always go sleep in the other bed. I gave Andrei a menacing look, and we all had a good laugh over this.

The next morning we took a train to the Blue Mountains and got off at the Blacktown station to visit Featherdale Wildlife Park along the way. This expansive wildlife park is located in the middle of Blacktown's residential area and is only accessible by one bus, which made me wonder what exactly the locals did for fun around there (Aw mom, not the Wildlife Park again!!). Incidentally, George Foreman and Nicholas Cage? have also visited the wildlife park, among other celebrities who got their pictures taken while petting koalas or carefully avoiding the emus. (Seriously, emus are crazy animals. Watch Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs episode on emu farms if you don't believe me.)

Two Koalas Kissing -- way keute!

Me and Koala, who looks more excited?

Andrei as a Kangaroo (a pretty good imitation I must say)

Words can hardly describe how much fun Andrei and I had at Featherdale. We discovered our new favourite animal...the wombat! It looks like the love-child of a bear and a guinea pig, and best of all, it sleeps all day and only gets up to waddle around every few hours. Among other highlights of the wildlife park were the koalas we got to pet and the kangaroos and wallabies we could feed as they hopped lethargically around us. They were so fat and tame, which was probably expected since they munch all day on the ice cream cones and grains that tourists like us were shoving in front of their faces. And they didn't mind us petting them or little kids poking and prodding at them. At one point, to test the pacificity of one kangaroo (and just to be an idiot), Andrei attempted to place his aviator sunglasses on the kangaroo's face, and it definitely LOOKED unamused but didn't make much motion in protest. It was pretty funny, but I don't think I'll be sending the video to PETA any time soon.

Andrei's Kangaroo Experiment

After our animal adventure we rode another train up to Katoomba, the gateway into the Blue Mountains. We were picked up at the train station by the owner of Lurline House, the bed and breakfast where we stayed two nights. It was the most darling B&B, complete with cookies and tea upon arrival, an indescribably fantastic spa tub in the room, and made-to-order breakfasts in the cozy little dining room in the morning. By the time we arrived it was nearly 4 o'clock in the afternoon. In the last few hours of daylight Andrei and I managed to walk down Lurline Street to the Three Sisters and squeeze in a hike along the cliff walks nearby. It was really quite beautiful to watch the sunset and walk back into town.

The two of us at the Three Sisters

Since Katoomba is pretty much a ghost town at night, we ran over to the convenient neighborhood Liquorland and bought some beer and champagne. Then we made a pit stop for bubble bath at the Coles supermarket next door. When we got back to our room we were pretty giddy and thought we were being so romantic with the bubble bath and bubbly. Little did we know that it was industrial-strength bubble bath (or maybe I shouldn't have poured in half the bottle and then turned on the wildly powerful spa-jets). Five minutes later we were submerged under a mountain-sized amount of bubbles, and we spent the next ten minutes heatedly debating on just how to get rid of the bubbles. (Eventually I scooped up the excess bubbles and threw them into the separate shower room, where they remained without diminishing in bubbliness or volume long after we had both gotten out of the tub.)

The next morning Peter drove us to High 'N' Wild, an abseiling and canyoning tour company. Abseiling is synonymous with rappelling, i.e. using a rope and walking/hopping down cliffs. Canyoning is the practice of swimming, jumping, and grappling through narrow, claustrophobia-inducing canyons. Our day-long journey started with abseiling, a short canyoning experience, followed by an abseil down a 100-foot full-force waterfall. It was... quite intense.

At the office, they suited us up in straight-jacket-tight wetsuits and gave us abseiling equipment and helmets and sent us along to rappel down 50-foot cliff faces. Ok, it didn't really happen exactly like... We tried on wetsuits at the office and then stuffed that and all our gear into a waterproof bag. We were given helmets and harnesses for the rappelling. The harnesses wrapped around our butts and cinched at our hips. And of course, my harness was a little big on me so it looked like I had a big black diaper on me the entire time (it's a shame the pictures don't really capture how silly it looked). We were first driven to a five-meter cliff (v. small, about 15 feet tall) and taught how to rappel/abseil down it with ropes strung through our harness. Then we moved onto a taller 15-meter (50 foot) cliff and ordered to get down the cliff with just our ropes and our wits. Needless to say, it was quite the nauseating experience. For one thing, the Blue Mountains is half-covered in mist most of the day, and so looking down at the forest floor, all I could see was a canopy of trees that looked miles away and an eerie fog settling across the leaves. It was something out of a storybook, truly.

Me abseiling down 10-metre cliff

Andrei about to descend a 15-metre cliff

A view from above (notice how far down the trees are... gulp!)

After the amazing morning of abseiling, we broke for lunch. Our tour group consisted of a family of eight Australians, who were all at least 30, and who probably found Andrei and my lovestruck stupor for each other very aggravating. Nevertheless, they were super nice and very informative about Australian culture. Andrei and I picked up all sorts of Australian lingo from them, the most random of all being "bogan." (Go look it up if you're so inclined.) After lunch we climbed down a million flights of stairs to the forest floor and donned our incredibly, achingly tight wetsuits (which were actually rather flattering on second thought). Then we dove right into the bone-chillingly cold canyon water. With our bright yellow helmets on our heads and our waterproof, floating backpacks on our backs, we drifted along the currents of the canyon, stopping ever so often to jump off from rocks into adjoining pools or slide down some natural rock slides covered in thick slimy green moss. It was the adventure of the lifetime, and all the while surrounding us on each side were massively tall canyon rock walls that seemed to envelope us sinisterly. If it weren't for our frequent whooping and screams of delight you would never have known we were there. It was something out of a ghost story, mixed with a dash of National Geographic.

Finally, at the end of the canyoning portion we reached the top of a giant waterfall over 100 feet tall. Our guides calmly set up the ropes and Andrei and I were among the first to rappel down the waterfall. It sounds pretty scary--"Oh hey guess what I rappelled down a waterfall"--and it WAS pretty scary. At one point my rope got too much slack and suddenly I found myself hanging upside-down on one rope in the middle of the rapid-flowing waterfall, with the water rushing down and smashing me in the face continuously. The guides had hinted that it was possible we would end up upside-down if the rope got too loose, but they never mentioned how to correct it--so for a crazy twenty seconds I couldn't think of what to do. I could hear nothing but the water cascading down the rocks and feel nothing but the water hitting my face and getting up my nose. Meanwhile, all I could think was, "Jesus, of all the ways to die, I am going to die from drowning upside down, hanging on a rope in the middle of a waterfall. What a way to go."

Somehow I managed to pull myself up and get right-side-up. From there I got down to the bottom of the waterfall with no more major mishaps. The rocks behind the waterfall were slippery, and every so often my feet would slip out from under me and I would hit the rock, BAM, before I spun around a few times on the rope and renegotiated my feet back into proper position. It was awesome and one of the scariest things I've ever done.... and I probably looked like a total idiot. Once at the bottom of the waterfall I let lots of slack through my rope, and dropped not-so-gracefully into the pool below with a big splash before unbuckling my ropes and swimming to shore. From there I could only see the last half of Andrei's descent, and although he swears that he was just as ungraceful and ungainly as I was coming down, I think he probably abseiled circles around me, so to speak.

We stripped off our wetsuits after getting out of the water and dried off before trudging up literally a thousand stairs to get back up to the van. By the time we got back to the office we were all exhausted and I could barely even swallow the free after-tour beer (both because I was tired and because I am a lightweight. Andrei finished mine, a pattern that will likely continue and lead to his inevitable future alcoholism if he continues to date me).

For dinner, we went to a nearby cafe called Common Ground that is run by a group of modern-day hippies/cult-members (it's hard to draw the line). A group of about thirty adults and their young children live in a commune housed above the cafe, and all the members of the commune work in the cafe, pooling together the money and splitting the labor and profits. I had an amazing barramundi burger washed down with a drink that the teenage girl behind the counter had just created and asked us to try. It tasted exactly like a peanut butter and banana sandwich with a hint of honey--in a milkshake form. It was supremely satisfying and I didn't want to ask what was really in it.

Our walk back to the B&B was really surreal. It was only 9PM as we started heading back, but the entire town of Katoomba was covered in a dense, greyish white fog that muted all the street lights and created a sense of foreboding. The clouds above began releasing fine droplets of water that coated the streets and made the asphalt look slick and shiny like a dark river. My heart was pounding every time I could see a figure in the distance. I would turn to Andrei and ask, "Can we cross the street? That person over there looks like an axe murderer." To which Andrei would always patiently reply, "That's not an axe, that's the guy's umbrella." It was a much longer and cautious journey back to Lurline House, since walking every block felt like being in a horror movie. It was so other-wordly, but by the time we arrived to our room and turned on all the lights, we laughed it off like little kids and forgot all about it.

The next morning we headed back to Sydney so that I could go to class, and then Tuesday morning I started my internship at VE+T and delicious. It was pretty shit timing that Andrei was visiting during my first week at work, but it ended up working out all right in the end. We would hang out at nights and go to restaurants or bars and usually end up back at the hotel room at an embarrassingly early hour like 10 o'clock.

Andrei in front of the QVB, holding his precious bubble tea

Us at the Opera House

Yesterday I asked Andrei what exactly he did those days while I was at work, but all he could really come up with was eating pastries at the Chinese bakery down the street and walking to Newtown a few times just to look around. And reading the newspaper. I can't say this with absolute authority, but based on empirical evidence I think Andrei is going to make a very good old dude one day. In fact, I can already see him turning out to be like my Chinese grandfather, walking down the street--hands clasped behind his back--and slowly waddling to the next cafe or park bench or other old dude hangout.

Epic Shot of Andrei, Sydney Skyline, and the beautiful blue Australian sky from the Manly Ferry

That Saturday I took Andrei to one of the mandatory sights of Sydney: a Sydney beach. We took the ferry over to Manly Beach and it was an exquisitely beautiful ferry ride. By the time we got the beach we were only able to lay out for about 30 minutes before it began to rain and so ducked under awnings and walked around the town of Manly a bit before attempting the coastal walk to Spit Bridge. We only got about twenty minutes away from the town before we sat down on a park bench and enjoyed watching all the dogs and their owners passing by. We decided that the 4 hour walk to Spit Bridge was highly overrated (code for we were too lazy to do it) and so we trudged back to find dinner.

Sunday was Andrei's last day in Sydney, and the day my parents and Kevin arrived. I picked them up at the airport and we all met up in Chinatown for one rousing meal of dim sum. It was utterly delicious, and A+ to Andrei being so chill with my parents. (Sidenote: Since meeting my parents in KC over Thanksgiving, Andrei has began his process of fitting into the Xu family, and it is all-together very cute and disturbing, considering I am only 20 and my parents are already talking about when I'll be popping out babies.)

Having Andrei in Sydney was great, but it was even better to have my family arrive the same day he left. Being away from my family never ceases to make me appreciate them more, and even more so since I've been away across the world for the last three months. I got to stay at their hotels and show them around Sydney when they weren't traveling to Cairns, New Zealand, or the Blue Mountains. Most notably, we had a TON of Chinese food (literally no meal they had in Sydney was NOT in Chinatown), and we walked through the city parks to visit the Art Gallery of NSW, which I had never been to on my own.

I think what surprised me the most about my family's visit was how TALL my brother has grown. Kevin is now officially taller than me, and not just by a hair, but by a noticeable amount. It's seriously depressing, especially since I remember the days when I used to be able to use his head as an arm rest....

Kevin the giant.

Final picture: mom and dad got me and Kevin a cake for our birthday!

this post also isn't on Uluru...

2009-04-06T04:08:00.005-04:00

In typical Xu fashion I'm not serving up what I promised, which was an epic story on my journey into the heart of Australia.

Instead, this post will chart the journey into the heart of Vogue... Entertaining + Travel. (Brought to you by popular demand from Christie, Lauren, Chris, and any number of other people wondering what a pre-med is doing at Vogue Entertaining + Travel.)

Let me preface this by saying that everytime someone asks me where I am doing my internship, their eyes inevitably glitter with excitement when I reply "Vogue..." and then fill with opaque confusion as I finish, "...Entertaining + Travel." Yep, that's right folks, Vogue Entertaining + Travel, affectionately abbreviated to VE+T in the office (because let's face it, Vogue Entertaining + Travel is a mouthful, and to just say Vogue would be misleading...)

A magazine published exclusively in Australia, VE+T celebrated its 30th “birthday” in October 2008. VE+T was originally published as a supplement to Australian Vogue Living in 1978, but by 1979 it was published as a separate magazine called Vogue Entertaining Guide. The vision for the magazine was for it to become an authority on the best Australian cuisine and a showcase of a new wave of creative Australian chefs. Although it's published under the "Vogue" brand, it really doesn't have much connection with the typical image of Vogue that we've got in our heads from watching Anne Hathaway suffer in Devil Wears Prada.

Nevertheless, even people who I explain VE+T to still get mislead into thinking that I am working amongst fashionistas and a new wave of creative geniuses that will set the lifestyle examples for the rest of the middle class population. Well, I'll give you part of the former and most of the latter. The people I work with aren't fashionistas, although some of the women in my office would like to think they are!, but instead they are ordinary people who are a bit artsy and sophisticated in an off-the-beaten-track, I've travelled-around-the-world sort of way. They are, side note, inordinately skinny for the most part. And the writers and creative team are not exactly lifestyle trend setters, but they do have an eye for "the luxe life," a phrase that VE+T likes to throw around to explain its vision.

Essentially VE+T is a bi-monthly magazine dedicated to providing fresh travel stories and the scoop on the best restaurants, regions, hotels, etc. around the world. They have oodles of recipes included with each feature. There is also a fashion page and a... CAR page... to sort of round out the magazine as more of a lifestyle magazine than just a food and travel mag. (The regular car feature really confused me, since our target audience is "smart, affluent females, aged 30-59, looking to be inspired by the latest food, travel, entertaining and lifestyle trends." Essentially, a population who I don't think really care about cars... but I guess there's something for everyone.) I'm also working for VE+T's sister magazine, delicious, which is more geared towards recipes and foodies and less on travel.

What surprises me about the magazine? That the staff is SO tiny. Unlike the huge magazine teams you see in American movies and TV, VE+T and delicious rely on a small editorial team of about six each, who are responsible for all of the content in the mag. (Occasionally the odd freelance story gets included, too.) For example, my senior editor wrote this month's feature on Wellington, New Zealand, and she is currently in Perth, Western Australia to do research on the next issue. We also have stories on Sri Lanka and the Piedmont region of Italy in this month.

What exactly do I do for my internship? Well I work Tues-Fri from 9-5PM and somehow I manage to fill the time. My internship fits into almost all areas of the magazine's structure. I'm given lots of odd jobs and tasks, nothing glamorous, and most of the jobs I am trained for on-the-spot. Basically, I help where I am needed and I learn as I go along. I contribute mostly to the editorial side of the magazine since my interests are in writing, but sometimes I'll help out the art director. I do tons of mind-numbing fact checking (i.e. are the phone numbers for all these restaurants correct? Maybe? Why don't you call all of them to see?) but I also get to do some fun stuff too. I went with a designer of delicious one day to the in-house photo studio to watch some products being shot for a page that I helped to write. So far I've written really tiny bits of editorial content for VE+T and delicious. First was an “advertorial” (advertising/editorial) in which I wrote snippets on several products that VE+T recommends to its readers...($40,000 Rolex watch, anyone??). I also wrote the “Club VE+T” page, detailing the prizes that subscribers can win this month. And I also wrote three short introductions for our featured contributors in the June/July issue. None of these were too big, but it's going to be exciting to see my name printed in the magazine!

Essentially since the teams at VE+T and delicious are so small and interrelated, I work with all aspects of the mag and have fun doing it. Plus--big plus--people will come in with free cocktail samples (I got INCREDIBLY flushed at work one afternoon as the result of this) and tons of free pastries, teas, anything-under-the-sun to try to bribe the editorial staff into writing about their product. Yay for freebies!

Okay, so hopefully this post will satisfy anyone with even the tiniest bit of curiosity on what I do at VE+T and delicious. And truly, it's been quite an eye-opener for me--who knew that so much work went into creating the "look" of the magazine... or that a job as a "food stylist" exists???

Peace and Rolex watches,
Xu

PS I linked the websites of both VE+T and delicious if you want to check it out for yourselves. :)

PPS Thao, you would love my job because pretty much all it is is massive amounts of food porn, and we all know how much you love food porn! (Okay, well I know, and now my parents who are reading this blog also know, hah.)

jk, this post is not on Uluru (aw shucks)

2009-04-02T04:36:00.006-04:00

Sigh. I started writing up the post for my Outback experience... and then realized that it's not just a 30 min. endeavor but more like a 2 hr odyssey to go back and recapture each detail. It's going to take me more than just this bit of time sitting in my Australian lit class and not paying attention (sidenote: when I decided to take a "vacation" to Australia for the semester, my work ethic went on permanent vacation, too).

Instead, despite this being a WEE bit out of order, I'll share with you my 20th birthday celebration. Andrei was here the week of my birthday, and I had all my friends around me and it was really all a girl could ask for:

The night of my birthday I had class 6-8PM, but afterwards we headed off to Newtown (which I think I've written about previously) to go to a restaurant that Andrei had checked out earlier that week, called UrbanBites. I think it's important to note here that Andrei and my friends were entirely responsible for making this a memorable night for me. Andrei truly went above and beyond by planning out the entire evening perfectly: dinner, gifts, cake, and figuring everything out to make it all work! My friends went all out, too (as you'll see in the following pictures).

Also, this is the first time I've attempted to upload a video on blogger, so cross your fingers it works. The part when things go sideways is when Rachel oh-so-gracefully almost drops the camera.

A normal picture of us at dinner....

...followed by a SWEET asian-ified picture of us (also because they tease me for doing this way too often... perhaps they don't understand that it's facetious???)

This is the cake that my friends baked for me in UniLodge's ghetto ovens. I don't think the people at home can understand how touching this is until you've moved to UniLodge and gone to one of their kitchens (it is NOT conducive to cooking). They added Oreos along the side because they all noticed (and very observantly so) that I like carrying around Oreos with me as a snack on long trips. :D I feel like these girls from me backwards and forwards! Special thanks to Becky and Jane! (Also note the v. cute Happy Birthday Beanie Baby knockoff in the back, courtesy of them as well.)

The after-dinner party in the lounge. They had BALLOONS and everything; it was glorious. A short side note to explain the ballooons. It was about 11PM when we had finished eating at UrbanBites and it had been raining all night. I'm in a dress and heels and so me, Andrei, Kelly, Marie and I take a cab back to UniLodge. The other 5 walk back, insisting that they'll be fine. Turns out they chose to walk back because they needed time to blow up the balloons. So imagine that you're just minding your business in Newtown at 11PM at night, and suddenly these 5 girls come running at you... brandishing.... BALLOONS. Which they are blowing up mid-run. And it's pouring outside. I'm told it was a very funny scene.

And finally, all 8 of us together (Andrei is taking the photo) :) It brings a tear to my eye.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the video, as low res as it is--and as usual I look like a total idiot as everyone around me is acting supremely nice. (PS the video took a humongously long time to upload and I probably blew off all of BUSC's internet capabilities just to upload this one measly 32 second video...)

A Most Belated Post, Pt. I

2009-04-01T19:58:00.008-04:00

All right, it's down to business. Andrei returned to the US and my parents left yesterday, so no more excuses for not writing.

Nearly six weeks ago I traveled to Melbourne, Australia's second-largest city and my favourite city to date. Known for its badass graffiti, cozy laneway cafés, and extremely laidback attitude, Melbourne appears a sleepy city on the surface but emerges as a serious contender for coolest city in the world upon closer inspection. The graffiti really lends a sense of youth and rebellion to the city, and there are some crazy clubs and bars around town. One bar we went to called The Croft Institute was mad scientist themed--drinks with edgy names like "Dope as Fuck" and "Labsinthe" served in test tubes, beakers, and even "syringe shots" of you-name-it. The bathroom had a "sterile" hospital bed in it, and outside the bathroom there was an empty vintage wheelchair hanging from the ceiling and facing a broken television in the CREEPIEST fashion. My favourite part? The tables that we sat at were all lab benches with laboratory sinks!!! I loved the whole package, despite its inherent creepiness. Science major, go figure.

The Croft institute: would go back again, and bring premed friends with me instead :D

Artists at Work

Another highlight of the trip: traveling down the Great Ocean Road to visit the Twelve Apostles (now only eight? of the rocks remain). The Twelve Apostles are a national icon (but perhaps not well known to the international crowd), and apparently it's the most photographed place in Australia (of this I am skeptical, despite its beauty). The drive along the Great Ocean Road was very pretty, but generally uneventful, so we spiced it up by... taking a helicopter ride above the Twelve Apostles! This was my first time in a helicopter, and I was really thrilled with the experience. Something about wearing those silly-looking headsets really pleases me! (Remember how in my previous post I guffawed at people who would pay the money to do scenic flights? Yeah well I am swallowing my words.)

Beautiful view of the 12 Apostles from the Helicopter

Rockin' out in the heli

The last unexpected but delightful experience in Melbourne was a surprise attendance at WICKED, a musical that people have been gushing about forever but I have never had any interest in seeing. Well, the whole thing went down like this: Two of my friends entered a same-day lottery for discount tickets to see WICKED the second night we arrived in Melbourne, and in spite of the small chance of winning, they won! I had resigned myself to not seeing the show since they had no extra tickets, but on the very last day in Melbourne a Taiwanese friend of mine suggested that we enter for the afternoon show... and lo and behold tickets descended from the heavens at the very affordable price of $30AUD for FRONT ROW SEATS (regularly priced seats were $100+ and who knows how much front row seats cost). And that's how I came to serendipitiously see WICKED, which I liked but did not love. (Not being a huge Broadway musical fan might be part of it; but mostly I thought there was SO MUCH! they could have done with the idea of the story of Oz from the Wicked Witch's perspective. Alas, not all that I was hoping for.) But after the show we snuck around to the back of the theatre like the creepers we are and got autographs from the actors, who were surprisingly chill.

In Melbourne we also visited the Melbourne Cricket Ground with my Australian Sports class (ironically the class taught me nothing about Australian sports, as in don't ask me anything about rugby or cricket because I don't know the rules, or the point...). One night we ate dinner and watched the sunset at St. Kilda's where there is a beautiful beach and pier. The next day we ate dumplings in Melbourne's Chinatown (A+). Sidenote: Melbourne's Chinatown is the oldest surviving Chinatown in the world (San Francisco's was destroyed by earthquake and fire in 1906 and had to be rebuilt).

Some other random stuff that happened between Melbourne and my Spring Break trip to Uluru: TropFest (biggest short film festival in the world) and a field trip to Wine Odyssey (an extremely cool wine tasting place in the Rocks that even has an "aroma room" where you can smell all the different aromas you might find in wine, i.e. black pepper, peach, butter, lemon, leather, etc, etc.)

OK, next post on Uluru/the Outback.
Update on my ETA: 4 more weeks in Oz and 3 weeks in NZ.

back to reality

2009-03-16T01:45:00.003-04:00

Wow, an incredible amount has happened since I last updated, incluuuuding my 20th birthday (many pictures forthcoming, I hope).

Just before Andrei left my parents flew in, meaning that I was at Sydney Airport on TWO separate occasions yesterday, phew!, but all is well and my parents are now safely bumming around Sydney while Andrei is no doubt passed out in Boston by now.

And meanwhile I return to work at Vogue Entertaining & Travel tomorrow morning--I'll update on that as well--now that I have more free time (hopefully).

The last few weeks have been mindblowingly but exhaustingly INCREDIBLE! and I wouldn't have it any other way...but tonight I think I am going to stay in and totally pig out on the cake that my friends baked me for my birthday!!!

return from the center of the earth (or the center of Oz, at least)

2009-03-05T08:35:00.004-05:00

I survived the Outback! After five days and four nights of being in the middle of Australia's most unlivable area, I've finally returned to civilization (most missed: running water and a real bed). It's hard to describe how much I loved the Outback, especially Uluru and Kata Tjuta. It was unlike any place I've ever been to before and I felt so drawn to it. Well, as much as a person can feel drawn to big giant rocks, anyway. Mostly, I felt so much in awe the entire time, knowing that everything I was seeing was hundreds of MILLIONS of years old. And now my shoes are caked in bright red Outback clay that will probably never come out, my body is dead tired, and my mouth is still dry from tramping around in the desert, but I'm here and I'm tired and two minutes from now I am definitely crashing into bed.

But not before I check when Andrei's plane comes in tomorrow morning!!

I can hardly believe that six weeks has already passed and that my friends at BU are having their Spring Break already. Well, technically Spring Break's not here just yet, but somehow I convinced Andrei to skip class Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to flight out to Sydney early. Who needs class when you can have perpetual sunshine and beaches? And what better place to have Spring Break than Down Under?

Long story short, the next week will probably be void of any lengthy posts as I'll be playing the role of the perfect hostess for Andrei. By next week I'll hope to have posted something--anything--on Melbourne, and soon thereafter I want to write about Uluru and the Outback before I forget all the details.

There'll be some awesome pics that I'll upload, so stay tuned!

xoxo,

(Final sidenote: I have been watching Gossip Girl Season 1 with friends here and I'm a smidge addicted and rather ashamed of the fact.)

hey it's 45 minutes before my final, maybe i should start studying?

2009-02-26T19:50:00.002-05:00

Hey all,
I've been paper-writing and studying for the past few days.
I'll get around to Melbourne soon!

Xu

wine, cheese, roses, CLASSY

2009-02-19T20:06:00.008-05:00

Okay guys, time for another lengthy post.
Let's divvy it up for your reading ease (and so I don't forget anything):

Australia Day and Dragon Boat Racing
Born Ruffians concert
Wine Tour
Australian Museum
Valentine's Day

Australia Day and Dragon Boat Races
Note that Australia Day was January 26th, and note that today is February 20th. So.... yeah. Australia Day is celebrated Jan 26th because that was the day that the first convict ships arrived on the shores of Botany Bay/Sydney Harbour to set up colonies. The Aborigines have aptly named the day "Invasion Day." Yikes, the tension in the air was almost palpable!!
On Australia Day thousands upon thousands of people turned up to The Rocks, an area of Sydney near the bridge and the Opera House. There were tons of outdoor concerts and other events going on--it was a massive celebration of all things Australian.

Australian pride!

Random Chair Sculpture by The Rocks--how cool!

We were tuckered out fast, but look how patriotic!

Later that week as a joint celebration of Chinese New Year's and Australia Day, they held dragon boat racing in Darling Harbour. It was an incredible sight and all the boats were marvelously decorated with flaming reds, greens, and golds.

Dragon boats at the finish line

Born Ruffians concert
I sort of forget whether I went to the Born Ruffians concert or the Wine Tour first, so let's just cover Born Ruffians.

Well, Kelly and I had a little bit of trouble getting over there since we took the wrong bus down George St. instead of Oxford St. BUT! when we finally did get to the Oxford Art Factory, Born Ruffians was just getting on stage. Overall the performance was a little above average; they were energetic but not particularly captivating. The music was decent, with my favorite song being "I Need a Life" because of the catchy (ugh) chorus. The band is from Canada, and it was delicious to hear people talking without an Australian accent for once! I wanted to jump up yelling, "Hey we're from North America too! Whoo Canada!!!"

Also let's talk about how incredibly SCENESTER the kids at the show were. Australian scenester kids are pretty similar to American scenester kids in terms of looks: they're adorned with the exact same plaid, skinny pants, and boots. They wear the same amount of bangles, excessive cat-eye eyeliner, and revel in their piercings. Things are pretty much the same except that Australian scenester kids drink a lot more than kids our age (duh, because it is legal here) and they are less stupid and seem to actually be there to enjoy the music. It was a nice crowd to enjoy Born Ruffians with.

For more pics and stuff of the concert and more, visit Kelly's blog: Make War and Peace Down Under.

Hunter Valley Wine Tour
Okay, the Wine Tour. I realize I haven't really explained why (or HOW) I am taking a wine-tasting class and getting credit for it---pretty much I am awesome, that's all you need to know. It's the first year that the course has been offered in the Sydney program, even though back home in Boston there is a School of Hospitality course about wine-tasting as well. Anyway, this class is a little different because it is about the Australian Wine Industry, with emphasis on the industry. So as part of our class we spent two days in the Hunter Valley, a wine region just two hours north of Sydney. There we went around to several wineries and did tastings and walked around their vineyards.

At each vineyard we walked in to each individual cellar door (whose designs ranged from rustic to ultra-modern) and got about 7 or 8 different samples of wine to try. Trust me, I learned very, very quickly that I had to spit out the tastings rather than swallowing them--after all, my friends weren't in the best state to carry me back onto the bus either. The tastings didn't get me shit-faced (because I would not allow myself to get shit-faced on wine), but they did leave me with a tingling joviality and a terrifically embarrassing Asian glow.

Here are the places we visited (I have kindly hyperlinked you to them):
Tyrrell's
Drayton's
Tempus Two
Peterson's Champagne House
Tamburlaine
Nightingale Wines
Margan

My favorite parts of the weekend:

Amazing Hunter Semillon from Tyrrell's

1. The Semillon wines at Tyrrell's. Semillon has officially become my favorite white wine, and it's what the Hunter Valley region is best known for.

Classy tasting at Tempus Two

2. The lush, beautiful tasting arranged for us at Tempus Two, a new and up-and-coming winery that is all about the marketing and the sales of wine. Their wine labels, unlike the paper labels of most wines, are actually made of pewter. And, their cellar door plays host to AMAZING bands each year. In previous years they have hosted Elton John, The Beach Boys, Santana, and Rod Stewart.

3. Peterson's Champagne house was also lovely, and the cellar door at Margan was probably my favorite of all time because it was like being in a really nice home of a friend's, complete with little modern design pillows and sweet lighting. Tamburlaine Wines was the first and only organic and biodynamic winery we visited, and the whole place was very rustic and you could tell (and smell) the natural fertilizers being used. Finally, the tour through Nightingale Wines really showed us the behind-the-scenes making of wine:

Behind-the-scenes action at Nightingale winery

Overall the trip was a huge hit with me. I increased my knowledge of wine about ten-fold, and now I know which kinds of wines I like to drink and which I don't. Plus, I got some sweet pictures of the vineyards:

Me among the vines

Fountain in the Gardens of the Grand Mercure Hunter Valley Gardens (our SWANK overnight accommodation). Also notice how Matt is a total gay pimp in the picture.

Australian Museum
Okay, I'll keep the last few words on the Australian Museum and Valentine's Day short:

The Australian Museum had great exhibits on Aboriginal art, Australian wildlife, and Australian geology. It was VERY similar to Harvard's Museum of Natural History if you've ever been (except the Australian Museum is much more modernized--I swear some of the stuffed animals in the Harvard museum are older than my grandparents, and they definitely look in desperate need of updating).

The BEST part, hands down, of the Australian Museum was the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 Exhibition. The exhibition showcases the best wildlife shots from professionals (Nat. Geo. photographers, mostly) and amateurs (kids from as young as seven). It was a breathtaking exhibit, and made me seriously lament my point-and-shoot camera skills.

Australian Museum top floor

Valentine's Day
Finally, Valentine's Day. I have the greatest friends here who really went all out for VDay and exchanged flowers, candy, cards, and kisses, etc. etc. everything that makes Valentine's Day special. That night we went to dinner, where I had a chicken schnitzel and Sav Blanc Semillon for dinner, and then we went planning to see He's Just Not That Into You, but that was sold out so instead we saw Rachel Getting Married. I'm still not entirely sure if I liked the movie--it was great acting but not the best VDay movie. Dark stuff. In Melbourne we did eventually see He's Just Not That Into You, but I'll review that in the next post.

Some final pictures from Valentine's Day:

Gerbera Daisy from Becky, the fellow Kansan. I put the daisy in a beautiful bottle of Botrytis Semillon desert wine from Tempus Two.

And of course, roses from the boy, who was ingenious enough to arrange a local florist to deliver them:

Roses 1

Roses 2

And... that's it folks. Next time I'll cover my trip to Melbourne this past weekend, including my helicopter ride over the Great Ocean Road and how I got to see WICKED performed in Melbourne (a total random but extremely enjoyable experience)!

VOGUE, anyone?

2009-02-19T02:10:00.005-05:00

Ah, okay, so I'm still behind on my posts. And it doesn't help that I just returned from a 4-day trip to Melbourne, Australia's second largest city. (There I took a helicopter ride over the Great Ocean Road and saw a performance of WICKED, among other things. That's another post, of course.)

But can I interrupt your reading pleasure with the following exciting news??

I am officially interning at Vogue Entertaining & Travel starting March 10th!!!!

Can we talk about this for a second?! Me--at Vogue? I went for my interview today and the editors there are super nice--they assured me that it would be nothing like Devil Wears Prada (at which point I think I did breathe a huge sigh of relief because let's face it--I am not Anne Hathaway or anywhere near as awesome). Let's also preface this by saying that this is not VOGUE as in fashion Vogue, but just Entertaining + Travel. I'll also be saddling responsibilities at another next-door magazine called delicious., which is a HUGELY successful foodie magazine. MMMMM I have a feeling between my wine-tasting class and this internship, my palate will be much improved by the time I return to Boston!!

So more or less, this internship will be AWESOME and I can officially say that I worked for Vogue (Entertaining + Travel).

Is life cool or what?

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-13T19:16:00.002-05:00

It's Feb 14th. in Australia, so HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!!!!

Posts are still on their way... urgh. We had a paper due today for our Australian Culture and Society class. (A good excuse, I think.) I wrote on anorexia in Australian female athletes --- why do I choose the most depressing topics on earth for papers? Who knows.

Have a great day everyone, and of course,
With lots of love from Down Under,
Xu

the post you've all been waiting for (or not)

2009-02-09T03:26:00.011-05:00

I just got back from my wine-tasting field trip, but am I writing about that? A resounding NO!

Oy, this blog writing has become a strong love/hate relationship for me--I love that it saves me the trouble of mass emailing everyone, but I hate that it takes me nearly an hour to recollect the adventures that have slipped through the sieve of my memory like sand between fingers at the beach. Honestly, I think the perpetual sunshine is getting to me; most days I'm lazy as all hell.

So before I launch into describing Fraser Island from last weekend, I'll recall the Hyde Park Barracks field trip. I realize that I've written zilch on my current classes, Australian Culture & Society and The Australian Wine Industry. Eh, who really goes away for academia, anyway? But a bit of educational interruption here: For those who don't know, Australia became a British colony after the American Revolution and was colonized as a place to dump British convicts (since our American founding fathers were having no more of that). The first fleet that arrived in Botany Bay and then Sydney Cove consisted of over one hundred convicts, who settled in this unforgiving land with a sense of well-warranted foreboding. And so my culture and society class took a field trip to the Hyde Park Barracks, the first and biggest convict prison in Sydney. (Ironically, it was later turned into a women's shelter/depot? in the 1900s. Let the feminists, including me, chew on that.) Long story short the condition of the barracks was abysmal, and the barracks stand today as a memory of Sydney's convict history.

The roof of the barracks. Still original, possibly.

Sleeping hammocks in the barracks. Stories tell of convicts who would often piss and shit in buckets, but those buckets would spill, seep through the top floor, and muck up all the hammocks on the floor below. Charming thought.

The "Edge of the Trees" exhibit outside the Museum of Sydney, another stop we made on the field trip. The wooden poles are to symbolize the trees that the Aborigines stood among as they watched the first British ships pull up in the cove. When listening carefully, one can hear Aboriginal voices whispering from speakers implanted within the structures. Pretty cool.

And now a recount of Fraser Island.

We flew to Hervey Bay Airport, possibly the smallest airport I have ever encountered. It had one single gate, and we de-boarded the plane presidential-style: walking down the plane's stairs and waving graciously at our awaiting crowd (the impatient travelers waiting boarding our plane back to Sydney).

We then took a ferry from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island.

A picture of the pier on Fraser Island. This looks eerily like a scene out of LOST, am I right?

We sauntered into the resort around 9AM and spent the rest of that day poolside. It was glorious. The entire west side of island has only one real place of civilization, and that was the Kingfisher Bay resort. Here's a picture of the architecture of the Kingfisher Bay Resort from the inside; it's awesome.

Kingfisher Bay Resort

The place was quite posh, and 3 of my friends stayed in the actual resort for the first night while my friend Lisa and I stayed at a hostel/dorm accommodation up the road. The 3 friends were on a 1-day tour while Lisa and I were on a 2-day/1-night tour with a company called "Cool Dingo." It turned out to be very cool, and we did indeed see a dingo, among other wildlife.

The first day of the tour we visited Basin Lake and then walked through the rainforest. OH IMPORTANT DETAIL. Fraser Island is the largest SAND ISLAND in the world, meaning that the entire island up to hundreds of meters deep is sand, and the rainforest on the island grows right out of dry sand. Our guide explained how it worked: once upon a time one very hardy plant took root on the island, died, and decomposed, providing a thin topsoil for more vegetation to grow on. Thousands upon thousands of years later, and after an adaptation in which plants symbiotically grow with mushrooms (strange), an entire rainforest now occupies the island. COOL, yeah? Now the island is listed as a World Heritage site. For purposes of comparison, Stonehenge is also a World Heritage site.

So that first day we visited Basin Lake, walked through the rainforest and watched lizards scamper up trees and eels glide through freshwater creeks.

Basin Lake

Australia's famous eucalyptus trees. Beautifully white and straight, just how I like 'em.

Rainforest

Then we went to Lake Mackenzie, which is the most beautiful freshwater lake I have ever stepped foot in. You know how American lakes are usually algae-covered, dirty brown or green, and crawling with who-knows-what? Well apparently the water in Lake Mackenzie is so PURE and too acidic for anything but the hardiest algae to live in. Result? A beautiful, perfectly clean lake with water the bluest blue color of the Carribean. And best yet, the entire lake is surrounded by sand so white it's blinding. The freshest water I've ever known--I felt like I could drink straight from the lake with no repercussions. Really, no pictures can do Lake Mackenzie justice, but here's an attempt:

Lake Mackenzie

The second day we drove along 75-Mile Beach. What, you ask, driving... on a beach??? Since the entire island is sand, it makes driving incredibly hard if roads aren't paved. And frankly, to pave all the roads on the island would take more money and more manpower than I could imagine (the entire fucking island is SAND!). So the only way to navigate the island is on 4-Wheel-Drive (4WD) vehicles, but even small 4WD vehicles can often get stuck in sand that is soft. As in the following picture:

I felt so bad for these people pushing their car since Lisa and I were on a giant 4WD with an experienced driver/guide. Keep in mind that it was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit too.

So the entire island is sand and a nightmare to drive, but the easiest way around is to... DRIVE ON THE BEACH! Since the water compacts and flattens the sand, it's much easier to drive along the wet sand of the beach than on the soft sand of the inland. Or, at least, less bumpy. Driving on the beach too fast or recklessly can actually cause cars to barrel roll into the ocean, NO JOKE! But the beach is infested with sharks, so it's not much good for anything but driving on (or barrel rolling on), anyway.

We drove all along the beach to visit a shipwreck (the Maheno) and then took a detour to Champagne Pools and Indian Head.

The Maheno shipwreck on the beach. The history is too long and complicated for me to explain. Something about Japan, scrap metal, storm?

Champagne pools.

The rock formations around the pool block and filter the powerful, crashing waves from the ocean, making the resulting water in the pool bubbly and fizzy like champagne. So strange and enjoyable!

Oh, and here's a dingo!!! Which is a very unsafe animal, despite its resemblance to a typical dog. NOT DOMESTICATED! WILL TAKE YOUR BABY!

Indian head is another amazing rock formation on the island that juts out into the ocean and ends with a dizzying cliff drop. From the top, one can spy rays, turtles, and sharks in the clear blue waters of the ocean.

Me at Indian Head

The cliff at Indian Head.

Driving back from Indian Head we watched several small planes take off from the beach to do fly-over tours of the island. For a 15 minute plane ride over the island, it would cost you $70 Australian bucks. (Approx. $50 US dollars, which works out to be about $3.25 USD/minute). Guess which poor college student didn't do it. Still, how cool!

Plane taking off, FROM THE BEACH!

We then made a photo stop at Red Canyon, a large fiery red-orange sand mountain (from iron oxides in the sand). It was incredibly beautiful, as you can see for yourself.

Red Canyon

Our penultimate stop was a tiny very cold creek called Eli Creek. I lay on my back in the shallow creek, and the current was strong enough to pull me almost out to the ocean! As lame and shallow as this creek was, it was probably my favorite part of the day. Eh, I'm all for the cheap thrills!

The last stop:

Fraser Island is notable for its juxtaposition of 4 very distinct ecosystems, 3 of which I have already discussed: lake, ocean, and rainforest. Can you guess the fourth? DESERT! Of course, where would an island of sand be without a desert? Way back when, winds started violently blowing sand from the beach into the rainforest, killing the topsoil and any vegetation and eventually turning patches of rainforest back into dry deserts. The eeriest thing to see is the forest of dead trees that still jut out from dunes. It truly looks like something out of a Van Gogh painting.

Overall I had an amazing trip. I was worried that the tour would be lame, but we really lucked out and got an extremely entertaining guide who has lived on the island for 13 years. He's also a well known photographer of the area, and his website is *HERE*. We sang cheesy (mostly American) songs on while driving, and I met people from all over (London, Tokyo, Toronto, Finland, Holland, Austria, etc.). Of course, now I have drinking buddies all over the world who insist I call them up when I'm in their neck of the woods so they can get me really really trashed.

Three words: What a blast.

PS: Um, okay I realize that I still haven't gotten around to posting about Australia Day (Jan. 26th), which is the Australian analog to the 4th of July. I'll do that later this week along with a description of my wine-tasting field trip from this past weekend.

Next time I'll also write more about the Born Ruffians concert I went to last week, including my interactions with scenester Australian kids. Three words: Egregious plaid observed! (Much like here, I'm afraid.)

That's it, the end.

it's thursday and i've got nothin'

2009-02-05T00:23:00.003-05:00

So it's Thursday and I've got nothin'.
No pics uploaded from Oz Day, no stories about Fraser Island... yet.

Sorry peeps, I'll try tomorrow/Saturday.

Sidenote: Tonight I'm going to a concert in Sydney (Paddington to be exact). Check it out: Born Ruffians.
I have medium-high expectations.

Correction: the concert was in Darlinghurst at the Oxford Art Factory. Paddington and Darlinghurst are adjacent to one another, whoops!

return from a traveling coma

2009-02-02T01:11:00.005-05:00

Hey all, I just got back this morning from a four-day trip to Fraser Island and there are pictures and stories to look over, cull, and then write up. My goal is... Thursday? Who knows.

Just wanting to pop in and announce that I haven't died.

PS: I am in the computer lab and eating a bowl of Uncle Ben's Instant Rice (2 min. in the microwave and it's cooked!) and it is DELICIOUS. Or, I may be biased because I haven't had a grain of rice touch my lips in over two weeks. Probably the longest rice withdrawal OF MY LIFE. I've gotta do something about this.

PPS: I have also been introduced to the writings of Tucker Max this weekend, and I have entirely mixed feelings that one blog post probably won't be able to cover. Any one else heard of him??? If so, DISCUSS.

week-long overloadddd, pt. 2

2009-01-27T00:23:00.005-05:00

Continued from previous post...!

By the time we got back to UniLodge I was exhausted, but barely 30 minutes later we were out the door again to see the Chinese New Year Launch Celebration and Markets at Belmont Park, which is located up the street from Central Station. The entire park was transformed by tents and tents upon market stalls, and a giant stage with performers. Note: the following pictures were taken on Jane's camera, since mine was, uh, without battery since I forgot the battery in my room. Whoops.

The tents and lanterns.

Me, peacin' out my fob signs among other azns.

The crowd in front of the stage.

The little boy that I wanted to kidnap because he was so cute! My friends thought it was too weird (read: creeperific) that I took his picture.

And, of course, there were the lion dances:

Emblazoned with Sydney on the side.

And, a little camera-whoring:

While we're still on the topic of Chinese New Year, I'll recount my CNY feasts. Feast 1: Beijing duck with my friend Kelly on Sunday night (proper CNY). Then Feast 2: pure sumptuousness with the remainder of friends on Monday night (New Years Day).

I'll just share one particularly funny picture:

AHAHAHA. This is a picture of Becky after she ate the WHOLE edamame bean, instead of just the inside. Awww, poor thing.

The whole gang after a splendid dinner.

Anyway, here we regress in the timeline and jump back to Friday night to after the CNY Launch Celebration. So I go back to UniLodge, shower, take a one hour nap, and then it's whoo, out we go again!, this time to drink inconceivable amounts of alcohol on the roof of UniLodge. The glass of riesling + shot of vodka + half of a beer does NOT sit well with me, and the rest of the night was a shitshow of getting downtown, finding a dance club, finding out that the cover charge to the dance club was $20AUD, then finding another bar down the street and finally fulfilling our promise to drunkenly dance. Somewhere along the way I was hit on by an Indian guy (this is new, I am thinking), and eventually I cab it back to UniLodge and end up consoling a friend who made terrible choices and ended up making out with a random creeper while at a hiphop dance club. And phew, what a mess. (Epic fail.)

I am through with those types of Friday nights for a while.

Saturday morning/afternoon I went to Paddy's market in Chinatown to do some souvenir shopping, and later that night we caught an outdoors symphony concert at The Domain, a beautiful city park about 20 minutes away by bus. They played many Australian composers as well as Mozart and Tchaikovsky. As the daylight faded and the night ushered in, hundreds of birds greeted us around the park. Well, that's not entirely accurate. ACTUALLY THEY WERE BATS. Hundreds of bats just chilling out with us on the lawn, listening to Tchaikovsky. It was a great night.

Sunday was possibly even better; having woken up late and making myself a leisurely breakfast, I left the room at around 3PM to meet up with friends to ride the monorail around the city. The monorail, somewhat like the public transporation in Chicago, is above ground and I got some great shots while in the air. It was definitely worth the $4.80AUD. :)

Me in front of the Monorail Station.

After the monorail, we walked through Taronga Park to get back to Darling Harbour and catch the last few hours of the aquarium. Take all the best aspects of the Shedd Aquarium (Chicago), the Aquarium of the Bay (San Francisco), and the national Aquarium (Baltimore), combine them, and you've got the Sydney Aquarium. Really, it was such a delight. (Plus, I really dig aquariums--who knows why.)

Here are some highlights:

Huge sea turtle.

Coral from the Great Barrier Reef.

Dugongs! (Like the pokémon!!!) They are similar to manatees.

This picture is for Andrei, and he is the only one who will likely find the humor in it.

Okay, later this week I'll update about Australia Day-- it's the Australian analog for the 4th of July. Lots more pictures coming up!

Peace, love, and umbrellas,
Xu

week-long overloadddd

2009-01-26T23:25:00.008-05:00

Okay, so I thought this might happen. A week has gone by and I have made a dozen eventful excursions, and now I have to recount them as best I can.

Here goes.

Wednesday afternoon, which was the day of my last update, brought around the Obama-mania inauguration party at a local bar called Manning Bar, which is situated on the Sydney Uni campus. Watching the inauguration with so many non-Americans was a great feeling--truly, Obama is going to be the world's president!

Manning Bar

Obama on the Big Screen

Me and Obama, chilling out in Sydney.

Later that night after a grueling three hours of class, we went to trivia night at the Australian Youth Hotel Bar just down the street from UniLodge, and after two hours of drunken trivia answering (and my intense back-to-back duel/standoff with someone from another team), we managed to win 3rd place and $10.

Thursday night we ended up going to Newtown, which is this neighborhood near Sydney Uni to the east of Ultimo and Glebe where we live. Newtown is AMAZING; the entire street is dotted with cafés, restaurants (I think I counted over 10 Thai places in the span of 3 blocks), bars, shops, and cinemas. It is just the venue that BU needs, but unfortunately all we've got is a Noodle Street. LAME!

Friday was such a long and eventful day, and it didn't help that I had slept approx. 5 hours the night before. I should preface this by saying I don't have any class on Fridays, so the weekend begins early and lasts through Monday at 3PM. Friday during the daytime my friends and I traveled to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House to see the two icons up close and personal. We walked the whole span of the bridge and back, and climbed up all the stairs to the Opera House. The views of the harbour were SPECTACULAR. Here's my poor attempt to share them with you:

Me and friends across the harbour from the Opera House

Me and the Opera House

Peace, love, and umbrellas!

Walking across the bridge

Goofs on the Sydney Harbour Bridge

View of Opera House from the Bridge

Goofs in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge

The Opera House up close

Me, making a sweet embrace with the Sydney Opera House

in a sunburned country, indeed

2009-01-20T19:21:00.012-05:00

So this morning at 3:30AM Sydney celebrated the inauguration along with the US!! Later this afternoon I am going to a Sydney Uni bar to watch a replay of the inauguration and probably further my path towards being a "sot," as Thao calls it. No doubt there will be plenty of celebration at the bar--for the primaries over 1,000 people showed up at this bar (and here I am thinking, just how BIG is this bar anyway?!). And best of all, after the bar I have CLASS. My Australian Culture and Society class, to be exact. And my professor, knowing that we're going out before class, adamantly said yesterday, "Look, I don't care HOW inebriated you are tomorrow... I want you here in class!"

Side note: the alcohol policy in Australia, or New South Wales (NSW) specifically. Here in NSW they have a very tolerant view of alcohol, with the drinking age at 18. Instead of Americans that have strict taboos against teenage drinking, Australians practice a code of "responsibility." And, by extension, the BU Sydney program encourages us to be responsible for our actions, but wants us to have a good (and drunken) time. Pretty cool that they treat us like adults here.

As I alluded to in the previous post, this weekend I spent in neighborhood marketplaces and surrounding beaches. Saturday morning I awoke to join a bunch of friends to travel to Paddington Market located a short bus ride away from Central Station.

Paddington Market

Me Amongst the Market Stalls

The market was typical to any crafts/arts market you might find in the US, with lots of local artists showing off their wares. There were quite some neat items, particularly children's toys (which I was SO close to buying... for my future children?), beautiful dresses, and intricate jewelry. I bought some gifts for those back home, and then ate some Thai food while sitting outside just beyond the market. It was so lovely.

Afterwards, instead of taking the bus back to UniLodge, we walked all the way home through Paddington and passed the edge of Surry Hills and Kings Cross (both neighborhoods in Sydney). We walked all the way down Oxford St., where the locals say the best "CHIC GRUNGE" nightclubs are. Chic grunge, I love it!

We found this immensely amusing on the way back. Lick her. Liquor. Get it?!

We passed Hyde Park (London knock-off, hah), which was this beautiful green park that we leisurely rested in. Overall a peaceful day followed by a trip to Chinatown in the afternoon for some groceries and then a relaxing beer with dinner.

My friends in Sydney's Hyde Park.

Sydney's Chinatown was not exactly as I was expecting. If you're from Boston and reading this, I'm sure you know what the inside of Super 88 looks like. Well, there is NO Sydney equivalent of a Super 88, just incredibly small grocery stores a lá Midwest Suburbia. And although there are more food courts than you can count (like the type outside Super 88), there are few really nice restaurants. I am almost missing Boston Chinatown :( but at the same time I think I am missing the picture for Sydney's Chinatown... I mean... there MUST be some great stores around here somewhere, right?!

Emblematic of Chinatown.

Oh, sidenote again: Since I have no rice cooker I have no means to make or eat THE STAPLE FOOD OF MY DIET. Augh, does this mean I have to make it in a crappy pot like Americans do? This is really "roughin' it," guys. I sort of joke, but in all seriousness what am I going to eat?

Sunday morning after my disappointing attempt to not drink the previous night, we woke up to take the train to Bondi Beach, Sydney's most well-known and CELEBRITY-POPULATED beach. Apparently people from previous years have seen Hugh Jackman and Naomi Watts in some of the nicer beach cafés. NO SUCH LUCK GUYS. No hot Australian celebrities for me, sorry, my humblest apologies, will-try-harder-next-time.

Me, right before a dip in the Pacific.

As you can see, it was BEAUTIFUL. At first I got there and was like, "wtf Puerto Rico was so much better (read: less crowded)," but the crowds kind of grew on me and I had a great time in the waves. The waves down under are seriously HUGE compared to those I've encountered elsewhere. Just jumping up and down in the water with the waves exhausted me after 30 minutes, and I spent the rest of the time lying on the beach, reading, chatting and overall having an incredibly sun-filled time.

A better visual of how crowded it was on the beach.

After bumming around on Bondi Beach, we took an hour-long cliff walk along the beach to end up at another two beaches, the Tamarama Beach and Bronte Beach, both of which were beautiful but had strong undertows and not nearly as soft or fine sand as Bondi Beach. From the cliff walks we took some amazing pictures of the beaches from afar:

View of Bondi

View of the Cliffs to the east of Bondi.

View towards Tamarama Beach.

A very cute couple basking in the sun among the cliffs. This country is an entirely romantic place.

Tamarama Beach. Much smaller and more secluded, but still pretty crowded.

Bronte Beach.

We caught the bus from Bronte Beach back to UniLodge to nurse our sunburned bodies. None of my neck, face, or back really got sunburned, but my arms, legs, and breasts got a shade of pink resembling a radish. (No I was not topless sunbathing, my swimsuit just has less-than-desirable coverage.) Oh, and only AFTER I get back does anyone tell me that Australia lacks the natural protection of... the Ozone. Apparently the ozone is ridiculously thin here, and pretty much 80% of Australians get skin cancer at some point in their lives, with another percentage of that population getting MULTIPLE skin cancers. Ok, cool, I say. Gonna make my roommate check me using the ABCs (asymmetry, border, color).

Long story short, never again am I going to spend six consecutive hours outside in the Australian sun. Ok, who am I kidding? I'm going back this weekend.

I'll stop the post here since I've got to run, but next time I'll be sure to catch you all up on my two classes that just started on Monday: The Australian Wine Industry and Australian Culture and Society.

Love and Sunburns,
Xu

plane rides, orientation, the harbour, oh my!

2009-01-18T18:39:00.023-05:00

Hi all,

It's still early in the game but I already feel like I've neglected people back home! Where are Xu's facebook pictures, you rave. Where are Xu's personalized emails that cover her amazing adventures?! Well, all of that is complicated by the fact that installing internet in the room costs approx. $40AUD/month for the most basic service (and goes up to $150AUD/mo. for better service), and that the only other place for free internet is the BU Sydney Centre which is only three blocks away but not open during the weekends. So.
I realize that this is my first real post since I arrived here Wednesday, and I have about five day's worth of events to catch you up on----bear with me.

I left the house at 7:30AM on Monday (central time), but didn't arrive in Sydney until around 3PM on Tuesday (still central time). So more than THIRTY-SIX HOURS in transit from Kansas City to Denver, from Denver to San Fran, from San Fran to Auckland, and finally from Auckland to Sydney.

My Departure from Home

What's more, by the time we got to Sydney it was their Wednesday. Somehow, crossing the International Date Line, we lost an entire day--there it went, sucked into some oblivion regulated by mathematical calculations and cosmic logic beyond me.

The Air New Zealand flight was top-class and there were more than 100 movies to choose from (now that's what I call awesome.) It was around a 12.5 hour flight just to Auckland, and during that time I managed to watch "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" (did not like it, would not recommend unless you dig predictable emo wanderings around NYC) and "3:10 to Youma" (loved it, would recommend if you think Westerns kick butt, which they do). I only managed to catch a few hours of sleep on the flight since the flight attendants came around every few hours with rather decent airplane food, and best of all, free alcohol! I did not know that this was the case for many international flights, despite having taken them to China every other summer, but while flying over international waters, everyone can drink! And unlike the crappy American airline variety, there's no five buck charge for alcohol--it's all free and for the taking. There were cocktails, shots, wine (red and white), and New Zealand beers to be had. When I couldn't decide which beer I wanted with my meal, the male flight attendant laughed and pushed both on me, saying, "Try them both, and let me know what you think!!!" From that moment I knew I would like the people here. (Of course, in a display of light-weightedness, I only managed to drink about 1/3 of just one can, leaving the rest to my very eager seatmate.)

There was a short stopover in Auckland before another 3.5 hour flight to Sydney, and once we got there we were all so relieved (and jetlagged). We arrived around lunch time in Sydney, dropped off our stuff, grabbed some food, and headed off to an entire day's worth of orientation activities planned for us for the SOLE PURPOSE of keeping us awake and forcing us to get over our jetlag quicker. Boy, that afternoon there were probably many, many, many important things said about safety measures, school schedules, etc.... but I missed all of them in my DELIRIOUS HAZE of jetlag. Later that night we had a welcome barbecue dinner on the rooftop of our hotel/dorm, and I could barely appreciate the gorgeous views because I was so tired.

The gorgeous view atop the roof. Sorry! The sun was setting so it's dark!

The hotel/dorm we're staying in is called UniLodge, and it is swank. I share a room with one other girl, and we have a small living room, sink, bathroom, desk, sofa, dining table, and TV downstairs, while the two beds and dressers are upstairs. When I say "upstairs/downstairs" you are probably thinking that there are actually stairs. Well, there are stairs, but it's a very very scary, narrow spiral staircase from the bottom floor to the loft sleeping area. I'm not sure that those descriptions make sense, but needless to say it is DIFFICULT getting from upstairs to downstairs without the fear of falling. One of the girls in my program, Marie, insists on walking down the stairs backwards for fear that she's too top-heavy and will fall forward (Marie is v. busty, you know). The digs here are more like a hotel room than a dorm, evidenced by the people who check in downstairs for only a few days at a time. There are kitchens on each floor, and, sidnote: last night me and a group of friends tried to cook without much in the way of pots, pans, etc. Can you say, epic fail?

So, Wednesday passed, and Thursday was met with more orientation sessions and a pizza party at night. After the pizza, a group of friends and I walked a short distance over to University of Sydney, which looks like a mix of Hogwarts and Princeton. It. Was. Gorgeous. So long, Boston University, here I come Sydney Uni! For one thing, they actually have a campus (so unimaginable to BU students). For another thing, it blows any American college campus out of the water. What's more, apparently college is practically FREE for everyone here. Well, there's a nominal charge for tuition, but compared to 40 thou a year I would say nominal is good.

Sydney Uni.

During the daytime on Friday there was more orientation and exploration of our immediate environment. UniLodge and the BU Sydney Centre (from here on out affectionately abbreviated "BUSC") are very close to Broadway Shopping Centre, which is this entirely huge mall/grocery store complex that houses fresh produce on the very bottom floor, and Calvin Klein and fcuk. on the very top floor. Also, there's a Target and a Kmart inside. A little sad that Australia just bent over and let American superstores like that come in. But, it happens.

On the way to downtown Sydney; Broadway Street.

Friday night we walked thirty minutes to Cockle Bay and boarded an afternoon harbour cruise from Darling Harbour as part of the orientation finale for the BU abroad program. On the cruise we saw many of the most famous sights of Sydney, including the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Rocks, and of course, the Sydney Opera House. I'm not sure how I can explain the magic of the harbour cruise with enough wordage to paint you an accurate picture of the wonder I felt, but I'll try. We watched the sunset against the Sydney Opera House, and it was divine.

Sydney Opera House

From all the pictures, I imagined the Opera House to be this HUMONGOUS piece of architecture, but from the water it looked quite modest. I have yet to see it from land, where I'm sure it will dwarf me, but from the water it appeared entirely humble and tranquil. Only at sunset was I blinded by how intensely magnificent the structure looked. Even though the sun was setting, there were still hundreds upon hundreds of tiny sailboats in the harbour area, and plenty of gulls flying above. Several couples were taking wedding pictures on the garden-laden peninsulas that jutted out into the harbour waters, and from the boat we could see people climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge (quite a feat I am told).

Sydney Harbour Bridge in the distance. This picture does it no justice: it is MASSIVE. My hair sucks in this picture.

After staying up on the top deck for nearly an hour and getting chilly from the ocean breezes, we shivered our way downstairs to gorge ourselves on free food, including these delicious sweet potatoes and very pleasing baguettes. The cruise consisted of entirely students in the BU Sydney Program, which numbers at 125, and I can only imagine how much money the program paid to take all of us on this 3-hour long cruise. Plus, we got FREE DRINKS on the cruise, absolutely making my day (and my next headache-filled morning). I downed around three glasses of champagne, which is more than I have drank in one sitting since probably freshman year of college. Needless to say, by the time I deboarded the ship I was a little woozy in the head. Augh, lightweight!

This is after my FIRST glass of wine. Hence the "one."

It didn't help that afterwards we went bar-hopping around the Darling Harbour area, or that we downed $8AUD shots like we were three times our size. We went to Bungalow 8, The Loft, and Cargo Bar, three of the biggest and rowdiest bars/clubs on the waterfront.

So: explanation for this photo. At The Loft there were these girls who were part of an organization petitioning against stricter bar rules, such as lockouts after 2AM and 10 minute timeouts every hour , etc. You can find out more about it here: DON'T PUNISH US. Anyhow, long story short I took a picture with one of their signs as part of the protest, and eventually I think I'll make it to the photo gallery.

Me and the girls at Bungalow 8.

Me, after second round of drinks. Hence the "two."

My favorite of the bars was Bungalow 8 because it was immensely relaxed and quiet enough for conversation, and my least favorite was Cargo Bar, where a bunch of Americans (myself included) danced awkwardly to INCREDIBLY LOUD pop hits of JT, Britney, and the Australian Kylie Minogue. Of course, all the Australians stood at the sidelines watching us make fools of ourselves, and pretty soon thereafter I joined the sidelines to watch my American buddies CONTINUE make fools of themselves. Somehow we managed to catch a cab home, and believe you me, a crappy twin bed never felt better to me than that night when I got back to my room.

I think I'll leave it at that for now. Saturday and Sunday we went to the markets and Bondi Beach, respectively, but there's too much to say on those trips and probably not enough space left in the post. I'll be sure to write back soon (say, tomorrow or the day after).

Til then, with much love from Down Under,
Xu

clock o'licious

2009-01-18T18:39:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I put a little clock on the bottom on this page that displays the current local time in Sydney.
Always with your convenience in mind,
Xu

First update from Oz

2009-01-14T19:43:00.003-05:00

Hey all,
I am running late to an internship meeting now, but just wanted to let everyone know that I'm alive (although incredibly jetlagged).

Love,
Xu

(More posts to come.)

pre-departure pep talk

2009-01-12T01:14:00.007-05:00

Leaving Kansas City in T-minus 9 hours.

For some reason I find all this flying around the world and leaving everything behind journey to be the most frightening thing I've ever done. Which makes me feel like such a baby because it's Australia--not even a non-English speaking country. A lot of poisonous creatures, though. Some random old guy struck up a conversation with me at Papa John's the other day as I was waiting in line to pick up my pizza because he saw that I had with me an Australian guidebook (by DK Publishing; beautiful pictures, see and buy here). Anyhow, without much in the way of introduction he suddenly launched into conversation about how Australia has the highest concentration of the most poisonous creatures on the planet, and how there's little or no evolutionary explanation for why these critters got such crazy-murderous venom lodged in their teeth/spines/spurs/you-name-it.

So my fear of being tragically stung/pierced/bitten and poisoned aside, I hope I make the most of this trip. Sidenote: I feel really proud that I was even able to fit this trip into my schedule. Seven semesters after the start of college and I have finished a major and two minors and this semester abroad is really only for the credit. I'm relieved not to be worrying about whether the classes I take will fulfill any requirements, etc. Pain in the butt, all that bureaucracy is. End sidenote. I do hope that I gain some clarity from my time abroad, especially regarding What I Want To Do With My Life (capitalized because whenever people talk about it they make it sound like a proper noun, yeesh, scary).

My main goal is to try out a non-science internship as part of the program and just break the monotony of science classes and tests and GPA-grubbing. The program is divided into two parts: the first half is spent on two classes, an Australian culture and society class and an elective of the student's choice. The second half consists of an internship in Sydney and another elective. I'm going in hoping to find an internship in magazine or book publishing/editing. Truth be told, I'm not sure what the difference is between magazine and book publishing, and/or editing of either one. Really, I'm wandering blindly into a field that I have little (read: no) experience in for the sake of stepping out of my comfort zone and seeing if I want to Do Something Else With My Life. My thought was that if I have a good experience in Australia I would take a year off next year and delay entrance into medical school. After all, what's the point of having a med school already accept me and hold a spot for me if I don't ever really ask them to hold that spot for me? Terribly convoluted sentence, I apologize. Long story short I am quite unsure about what the future holds, but my thought process is that med school can wait and life needs to be lived now. And so, that leads me to Oz.

Besides pursuing a non-science internship I also want to extensively travel and see the sites, you know, hopefully beyond the touristy garbage. After reading Bill Bryson's In A Sunburned Country (which you can buy here), I have become almost giddy with excitement to form my own opinions of the Outback. If there's anything at fault with Bryson, it's that he is too goddamn cheery about everything. Even when he's writing about being nearly stuck in the middle of the desert while contemplating what it would be like to drink his friend's pee, Bryson is utterly and uncannily radiating sunshine through every orifice. Almost enough to make me gag, but hey it was a good read overall. I recommend it (mainly since it made me laugh out loud at several parts).

It's getting to be about six hours before I have to wake up for my flight and my attention is lagging, but some final thoughts/goals/whatever:

I hope to swim a lot and catch a lot of sunshine (if only to return to Boston and become hopelessly pale again).

I expect I'll fail to feed myself and probably become frustrated with not being able to stay in contact with family, friends, and Andrei.

I want to visit Cairnes/Great Barrier Reef as well as Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and taste the Outback for myself even if that means drinking my own pee as a desperate measure.

I hope not to suck at meeting people, especially Aussies.

I don't want to die of a box jellyfish sting.

Finally,
I promise to write anyone a postcard if you leave me your address. Don't be shy now, dear reader!

Ok, more when I land on Australia ground. Thanks for keeping up with me, friends and loved ones and strangers! :)

OH, another final note: Slumdog Millionaire swept all four of its Golden Globe nominations tonight, including Best Drama, Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Screenplay. So this news plus my previous gushing review should certainly sway you into going to see it, mmk?

dirty south

2009-01-07T10:49:00.014-05:00

On the eve of my departure to Sydney I thought I would recap my trip last week to Memphis, Tennessee. I know what you're thinking. Memphis? What's in Memphis? Barbecue and... Elvis? I had the same reaction, but then again, when I think about it I'm not sure what I would associate with Kansas City. (Barbecue and....... and....... and...).

And so last Monday I bravely traversed the Mason-Dixon Line for the only good reason there is--the love of a boy. Andrei picked me up at the Memphis airport, which I somehow managed to get hopelessly lost in. The only way we eventually found each other was to agree to meet "at the Starbucks." Not bad. (Here, Andrei mumbles something about "directionally challenged" and women, especially Asian women.)

We had lunch at his house with his grandmother, Lelia (beautiful name, no?), and then decided to take a walk with Bassie, Andrei's very cute and slobbery basset hound dog.

Me and the Basset

Bassie liked me immensely, surprising everyone, but I always knew that us bitches would get along. Something that I didn't really understand about dogs until this trip was that they try to eat their own poop (or other dogs' poop) ALL THE TIME. And the dog walker, in this case me, can only pray and struggle to pull the dog AWAY from the poop before it makes contact. Or perhaps it's just Bassie, who has an acutely keen nose and no good taste whatsoever.

The rest of the week's highlights included: gorging ourselves on Memphis BBQ, touring the National Civil Rights Museum, visiting the Memphis Zoo, touring St. Jude Children's Hospital where Andrei's mom works, going to New Years party, and enjoying the perfect 68 degree weather that lasted the entire week I was there.

First, the BBQ: divine. I'm not really sure what this age-long battle between Kansas City BBQ and Memphis BBQ is all about, but it was pretty clear to me that Memphis BBQ is top-notch. We visited Neely's, which has been featured on Food Network and USA Today, and got pulled pork sandwiches with the most delicious coleslaw ever. Sidenote: despite not being technically American, coleslaw is my favorite American food of all time, hands down. Corky's was also excellent, especially those delicious little bread rolls. Finally, we went to Tops BBQ, which was my least favorite by far because the barbecue sauce was sour and a little too funky for my tastes.

We drove downtown the next day to visit the National Civil Rights Museum, which has been built inside the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The museum was SO absolutely detailed and outlined pretty much every single event and person who participated in the centuries-long fight for civil rights, from Nat Turner and Harriet Tubman to Malcom X and MLK Jr. The balcony that MLK Jr. was standing on when he was assassinated is still intact, and they have built a scintillating exhibit across the street in the boarding house where James Earl Ray purportedly shot from. This exhibit included all sorts of conspiracy theories regarding the assassination, and there's nothing I like better than a conspiracy theory.

The Zoo was also pleasant, especially the polar bear and sea lion shows that we attended. The biggest, FATTEST male sea lion in the show was named Andre and weighed in at over 600 lbs. A coincidence, no?

Andre the fatty.

The Memphis Zoo also had two Giant Pandas on exhibit, who were cute but not very giant at all (and to be honest, they did not look very well cared for).

For New Years Andrei and I went to his friend Phoebe's house for a lovely dinner party with other friends and Phoebe's parents. We drank ourselves silly and had yummy cheeses and grapes--an overall superbly classy New Years.

Finally, here are some pictures of me with the Anghelescus:

(Check out the bowtie.)

Also,

The Dialogue
Bassie: You guys are going out?! I want to come too!
Andrei: Olé!

here goes

2008-12-29T00:11:00.002-05:00

Soooo my intention is for this blog to become some impressive account of my adventures in Australia (fondly known to Aussies as "Oz"). But in greater likelihood this will only scrape up to be a dilapidated shack in which I'll house my Oz-related thoughts--posts that'll get updated by whim and certainly not by any devotion.

But don't let that put you off, reader!!

But seriously, after reading other people's travelblogs from previous semesters I get the feeling that I will have none of their flair for travel writing. For one thing, I'm not much of a showsperson and I don't usually write to entertain. And for another thing, I lack the wanton narcissism it takes to document one's life for all to read :)

Oh well, here's my best attempt at shameless tell-all tales for your entertainment and my posterity, dear reader. And also for Thao, who will just have to live life vicariously until she lands in Paris and tastes sin for herself.

Enjoy!

slumdog millionaire

2008-12-28T01:55:00.001-05:00

Not many movies inspire me to write, but I felt totally sucked into the narrative of Slumdog Millionaire and I can't get it out of my head. It might be that I just watched The Namesake again with my family on Christmas, but I feel such a particular kinship with Indian narratives as someone who has lived in China and then emigrated. Truly, when I see the ghettos of Mumbai in Slumdog or the uniquely immigrant struggles of the Gangulis in The Namesake, I feel like someone is knocking on the very door of my consciousness.

I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, Slumdog Millionaire is a story about a young man named Jamal who wins twenty million rupees, or the equivalent of one million US dollars, on India's "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" show. He is accused of cheating on the show, but the movie unravels how he was able to answer the questions not by book smarts but by experiences he had in the ghettos.
A much better and more coherent teaser for the movie is here.

I loved that the narrative began from the present (as Jamal is being tortured and accused of cheating on the show) and then proceeds in flashbacks. The editing for the movie is incredibly well-done, and Mumbai just JUMPS off the screen with the vividness of all five senses. (One reviewer I read said that he could smell Mumbai from watching, and that's true for better or worse.)
I also especially loved how Jamal and his brother made a living as kids by ripping off American tourists--so, so, SO in tune with the tense relationship between "third world" citizens and the Western tourists who treat entire cultures as quaint vacations. And at first I thought that the emphasis on the love story would turn me off, but it actually made the movie much more charming--I was floored by Jamal's utter devotion for Latika even though time and different life experiences repeatedly tore them from each other's company.
Epic, and v. romantic.

Plus, Slumdog featured a remix of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," so 'nuff said.

herro

2008-12-07T00:42:00.002-05:00

herro everyone this is xu here
i am messing around with the layout and quickly realizing my complete ineptitude for anything html-related
epic fail