Port Stephens, NSW

Port Stephens, 200 km north of Sydney. About 2.5 hours drive. Not that far. If you want to have a relaxing weekend, not a bad place to do some R&R. We went there after we ran out of places to check out in Newcastle. Good thing it wasn't that far away...only about 45-50min from Newcastle.


We went to Nelson's bay (see picture), had breakfast, and tried to figure out what to do. Well, Port Stephens is known for its dolphin watching...99% success rate of seeing some dolphins...if not, they give you free passes for next time. So what do you think we did? Before the boat left, we had one hour to kill so we went hiking around the area and got some great views.

How about this for a rental car?
Yea, right! You kiddin' me?

Anyway, after the dolphin watch, we drove to Anna Bay where they have the sand dunes by the beach. We went sand boarding...at first it was scary coz you have to board down a very steep dune. But by the second try, it wasn't that bad. After my second try, I went to an even higher sand dune. The hardest part of this was actually climbing back up on sand. Next part of the tour package was pipi catch by the beach. Then it was time to go home!

Sorry, no pictures...otherwise, my camera would have been full of sand!!!

Newcastle, NSW

To continue with my sightseeing of Australia, I went to Newcastle and Port Stephens this past weekend with a couple of friends, JC and Ingrid.

Originally, I thought the weekend was enough for just Newcastle. Well, it took only one day to see Newcastle. Port Stephens was not even part of the plan. Not to mention Hunter Valley. Here goes the story:

We left Friday night for a two hour drive from Sydney to Newcastle. Newcastle is an industrial place, as it shows on restaurant names (ie. 'Engine Room' where we had breakfast on Saturday and 'Fuel' where we had lunch). As Ingrid said, Newcastle is a gateway to some of the neighbouring towns (ie. Port Stephens, Hunter Valley). And my coworker said there's really nothing to see there. But I just had to see!


There were some stuff to see in Newcastle...but really, its still in redevelopment stage. Honeysuckle Harbour, for example, is pretty new with wharves (and more wharves to come), cafes, bars, and restaurants. They have the Crowne Plaza hotel by the boardwalk. New apartment condos being build at the moment. Give it 2-3 more years and this place will be happening! The wharves though, have a view of the shipping docks just across the water. But I can see the wharves possibly looking like the wharves at Darling Harbour in a few years. They also need a theatre nearby to draw the crowds. The town is old and the shopping area is so-so. And may I say, we were trying to figure out why food is so expensive over here...its not like its Sydney!!! You want to draw the crowds? Don't overprice!!!

Anywho...

We had dinner on Friday night at Darby St where you'll find all of Newcastle's population hanging out on Friday night (not really but that was just our running joke for the night). Either you go here or at Honeysuckle Harbour on Friday or Saturday nights.

The next day, we had breakfast at the 'Engine Room' on a very very nice day. At one point during the day, someone said that you just had to go to the 'Engine Room'. Hmm, I guess we went to the right spot. We walked down the boardwalk, through downtown, and through the "shopping" area. Nothing much really. We went to pick up the car and drove to Nobby's beach. Some people fishing, surfing (they do have some good waves around here). We drove through the beach on what they call 'Bather's Way'...a nice drive along the coast. At one point, we saw a spot where they hang glide from. Not today, I said. It wasn't part of the plan. So I didn't...don't worry. After the drive, we went to the 'Junction' (see how industrial it is?) and had lunch at the 'Fuel'. More walking around the area then we headed to Beaumont St where you'll find the "better" shopping area (hey, they had an Apple store over there!). By 5pm, we went back to the hotel and asked for other things to see in Newcastle. We told them where we've been all day and they said, "Hunter Valley is not too far away!"

We drove to Hunter Valley (1hr away) to have dinner. Hunter Valley is the wine region similar to Napa Valley. It was dark and late when we got there so obviously, most of the wineries were closed already. But there were some restaurants open. Warning: if you want to have dinner in Hunter Valley on a Saturday night, make sure you book ahead. It probably took us about five to six different places before we went back to the third restaurant (which was available) because the restaurants/wineries were either booked for a wedding, some other private function, fully booked to the public, and was just too crowded (maybe this is where the people from Newcastle go to on Saturday nights????). We were embarassed to go back to the third restaurant (the first restaurant that was actually available for seating) coz they were probably thinking, "ah, you came back. You couldn't get in to the other restaurants, eh?" Hehehhehe. One of the wineries we went to had a nice and homey restaurant...called the "Pepper Tree". Try it next time. Just beware of the prices...well actually, there were no prices on the menu. That only means it'll cost you an arm and a leg for dinner.

If you want to just get away and have a relaxing weekend, Newcastle is a quiet place to just hang. Hunter Valley and Port Stephens is not too far away if you want to do more things.

Eating-fest, we're getting FAT!!!

I'm so behind with my blog...

Peta, our new roommate, moved in to 13 Macauley on Aug 1st. It didn't take that long for her to hold a party (a welcoming party)...4 days later. Another eating-fest! When is it gonna end??? At least mama got to meet some of our friends here.

Earlier during the day, we met up with the Ortegas and the newly married couple back from their honeymoon. It was also Andrew's bday on Aug 3rd and two more days before everyone goes back home to either the US or the Philippines. So more reasons to celebrate and eat!!!

The following week, I tried this pilates class near the office. First timer! Wow, that was a good workout. It really works out your abs, your shoulders, and your thighs. And I knew it...next day, my body was sore! I haven't really done any exercising for a while. Haven't been back to my dancing class. Aghhh!!! Too many things to sort out first. I gotta do my taxes again (our year end here is June 30th), catch up with my movies, then I gotta get back to my sightseeing of Australia.

Thank goodness, not much eating the following weekend. But I can tell you now, the next next weekend, we're having a crepes party at my friend's house. I think I'll just not eat this week and save it for next, next weekend.

July 2006 - continuation part cinco

Sigh! We're still in July. Almost there!

July 28: So far, the car rental hasn't been scratched yet. That means, mama and I have been good with the driving. Today is the day we're returning the car. In the morning, we went to Leichhardt Marketplace to do some grocery shopping. When we went back to the car, there was a scratch at the back bumper!!! Aggh!!! How unlucky can you get. We tried to fix it up, sandpapered it, and sprayed it with paint hoping that they won't notice it. Well, when we got there, we were just getting off the car and someone had already called one of the agents. How much was the damage? Freakin $100 AUD!!! Oh well. At least nobody got hurt.

So now we're back to taking public transportation. We took the bus to go to the Botanical Gardens. It was a nice day (as you see in the picture). And bats!!! See the next picture. Those things hanging there...they're not fruits of a tree. They're all bats. Everywhere!!!

Walking around the gardens until we reached the Opera House - good exercise but tiring!!! We then took the ferry at Circular Quay towards Darling Harbour to rest and get something to eat!!! Did more walking til we reached the Queen Victoria Building. And finally, home sweet home. I think that maybe tito Franc lost weight from all the walking we did. Moving on...

July 29: Back at Paddy's for more shopping!!! Last minute shopping. That's pretty much all we did this day.

July 30: Almost end of the month. We decided to have a nice and relaxing Sunday, also the day before tito Franc goes home, and so we had a potluck with the Ortegas at 13 Macauley. Filled ourselves up, watched some TV, ate some strawberry cheesecake (mmmm!!!), went to church, then drove around Edgecliff, Double Bay, and Rose Bay to see the expensive houses with a view of the bay at night.

July 31: Back to reality. Back to work for me and time for tito Franc to go home. I think mama got bored the week I went back to work. At least she got to go out and take public transportation by herself. She went around the city, watched a movie, went to Chinatown, took the ferry to Watson's Bay with tita Emily (hmmm, I heard you had too much fun when you went there!). Next time, I'll treat you to Doyle's.

The End (of July, at least).

Wagamama

In Japanese, it means 'selfish'.

Wagamama is sort of a fast food japanese noodle restaurant. Little bit westernized.

I went there a couple of months ago for lunch and filled out this competition for fun as to what your "most inventive way with noodles". If I remember correctly, I wrote something like: when I was a kid, we used to play with paste/glue. When we run out, we would use the leftover noodles to stick paper together...just like rice. It works!

Yesterday, I got a package. I opened it and it was a wagamama cookbook. I won a prize! See for yourself (http://www.wagamama.com.au/features_competition_terms.php) - search for my name.

July 2006 - continuation part IV

July 23: Off to the Blue Mountains with mama, tito Franc, and the Ortegas...for my very very third time. I'm sure I'll be visiting the three sisters a lot more when people will visit me down here. Do I need to add pictures for this (you can just take a look at my past posts on this blog)? They all look the same anyway. If you can't find them, you'll just have to come here and see it for yourself. After Katoomba, we drove almost an hour on a very winding and narrow road (not to mention on a rainy day) in the mountains to get to the Jenolan Caves. This is a must see when you visit...but not a must stay at their hotel nearby. Don't stay at the hotel there...service is not good. But its your only choice of stay coz you'll have to drive out of the narrow, winding road for about an hour (hopefully not in the dark) and the nearest motel/hotel is probably another 30min down the road. Because its a monopoly, the food is ridiculously overpriced and again, the service is horrible. Remember the name Ken Dunn...the rudest manager (in the cafe at the hotel) and the worst customer service I've seen, ever!!!

July 24: From Jenolan Caves, we drove back to the city and had lunch at the Sydney Fish Market. The trip was already tiring but the young guns (including Basti) went to Darling Harbour and met up with Raquel and Mg Boy.

I'm tired of talking about the month of July so I'm keeping all of this short...I hope, unless I really get into writing some more.


July 25: Off to Canberra, the capital of Australia. Just like Sacramento, the capital of California, there's really not much to see in Canberra. Even John Howard, the prime minister of the country, is supposed to be living in Canberra...just like Bush would be to Washington, DC. But No! John Howard lives in Sydney!

Besides seeing the Parliament and the War Memorial, we went to the Philippine Embassy and had lunch with Teod's friend who was working in Canberra. My first impression of the capital - it looks like a military base. Buildings that look like boxes. No architecture. Not too many people around. No action. It was dull. That's about it. I probably will go back to Canberra in the future and find out what else is there to see...at least the neighboring towns.

When we got back from Canberra, we went to King's Cross (red light district). That was probably the most exciting we've had for the day...including almost getting tricked into paying parking for a free parking zone!!!

July 26: Market City/Chinatown. A little bit of shopping. We thought Paddy's was open on Wednesday (FYI: they are only open from Thurs through Sunday). So we went to Bondi beach next...yup, going to the beach on a rainy day. It's been bloody raining all week! From Sydney to the Blue Mountains to Canberra. Oh well. Pictures with umbrellas. Pretty common with some of our pictures. In a couple of the pictures, we counted to three and dropped our umbrellas so you would think it wasn't really raining. After Bondi, we tried to go to Centrepoint, the Sydney AMP tower. When we got there, the city was really foggy and still rainy. They told us visibility up in the tower was really bad you can't even see the opera house. So what's the point? Forget about it and so we went to Star City Casino. Mama, tito Franc, and I played a little bit of slots. I won a few bucks and it paid for our coffee and dessert that night.


July 27: Taronga Zoo day. Mama and tito Franc finally got to ride the ferry. The sun came out...thank goodness! From kangaroos, snakes, crocodiles, koalas, tasmanian devils, emus, rhinos, giraffes (they've got prime real estate...with a great view of Sydney skyline), camels, pink flamingos (did you know that eating shrimp gives them their color?), mountain goats, hippos, chimpanzees, zebras, etc, they've got it here! A must see when you visit Australia.

Back to Paddy's after lots of walking at the Zoo. Now's the time for souvenir shopping!!!

After a long day, we had dinner at Addie's Thai restaurant near the house.

I love the 80's

Did you know that the first ever video to be aired on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star"?

The 80's were the best...music-wise...not video-wise! They were so cheesy then! See for yourself. Here's some of your favorite 80's music in video:

http://www.thebestlegaladvice.com/

Enjoy!!!

July 22, 2006 - Michelle & Andrew's Wedding Day

The day we've been waiting for. This will be short coz the pictures (I'm sure by now, you've seen them) will say it all and how wonderful the whole day event was.

- 330am early morning start
- Thanks to Aileen and Teresa (Michelle's mom-in-law and sister-in-law) for doing our hairs, not to mention, getting up early to do our hairs. They were all great!

- around 830am, the two Rolls Royce arrive to pick us up. Nice, my first time!
- a little sprinkle/shower in the morning but considering its been raining the past week, we were lucky the sun came out this day and dry the rest of the day. It started raining again on Sunday.
- 9am ceremony. TWO hour Latin Mass. It was beautiful!!! Too long though...and freezing inside the church. The ceremony went smoothly. The bride was on time!












- in the Rolls Royce to Sydney Uni for wedding pictures. I wasn't able to take pictures of the bride and groom. Only us, the bridal party (Natasha, LJ, Esther, Celestine, Stephen)

- Reception at L'Aqua, Cockle Bay in Darling Harbour. We missed out on hors d' oeuvres and wine as the guests were waiting for us by the veranda. Nice view of Darling Harbour.






- I had shrimp/smoked salmon for entree and kingfish for main






- some guests


















- speeches from the two dads, the best man, and the groom. Thank goodness I didn't have to make any speeches. Not the tradition.
- cutting of the cake: carrot cake (yum yum!!!)






- first dance: Sting's "My one and only Love"

- throwing of the bouquet. As I always do, I stand all the way at the back coz it never reaches me. Bouquet was caught by Mai (Chris Byrne's gf). Pressure on you now, Chris, to get married next! Haha! (No garter tossing).
- the bride and groom has left the building. Checked in at the Hyatt by Circular Quay and flying off to Hawaii the next day. Happy honeymoon!!!

July 2006 - continuation part 3

I'm so behind with my blog these days I'll try to keep this short and simple. Up to the end of July, it was soooo hectic for me. To continue:

July 20: I picked up mama and Tito Franc at the airport around 6:30am. We didn't get out until almost 8am. I was worried maybe they got stalled at the customs coz I knew they were bringing food (shhh!). What happened was they had oversized luggages (typical balikbayan boxes...if you don't know what they are, ask any filipino and they'll explain it to you). The boxes came out of a different carousel at the airport and so they were just waiting and waiting at their assigned carousel for the boxes to come out. So that made me think... when I arrived here, it happened to me, too! I waited for a while for my balikbayan box to come out. So FYI: if you come to the Sydney airport, any oversized luggage or oddly shaped luggages come out of a different carousel. Don't wait for it to come out of your plane's assigned carousel.

Today is also Basti's 2nd bday, my godson. Wow, Basti celebrating his bday in Sydney!!! Coming all the way from the Philippines!!! I had organized a bday lunch party for him today. Pastas and pizzas at Gioia restaurant on Norton St. Not too far away from our house. By this time, all the Alviar family has arrived and it was sort of a mini reunion for the de Leon and Ortega families. Also present was Ollie Ortega-Dacanay (the bride's cousin on the father side), Mg Boy (Michelle's former boss in the Philippines), and the Lynch family (the groom's sister, husband, and three kids). So it wasn't just an adult 2yr old party, we had 4 kids and 14 adults. Hehehhee.

After we were all stuffed, we managed to go to Sydney Uni (where we're having the wedding photos) and Sydney Opera House in the rain. By the time we got to the opera house, it was pouring hard. And we didn't have enough umbrellas!!! So we were forced to buy $12 umbrellas that broke within 30min. Cheapos!!! Mama and tita Emily went back to the store to complain (I don't know the whole story of what happened in the store but knowing mama and tita emily, I could imagine them yelling at the store owner for selling us expensive cheap umbrellas). Good for them, we got a new umbrella. Hahahahhaa. And if that didn't work, Teod (Katrina's husband) is a good lawyer!!! Hehehe. Silly but they had fun doing that!













July 21: The eve of the wedding. It was still raining and we were all praying that the sun will come out on Saturday. Today was rest/easy day. Finalizing any errands. Michelle gave her last confession before she gets married. Tito Franc, mama, and I had dinner at Tita Terry's house at the Rocks. We couldn't stay any longer coz we had to get up at 330am to do make-ups and hair. We needed our beauty rest!