uluru part one

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

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...

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)

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

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.