My Life In Sydney - Part IV

The Hunter Valley is one of Australia's most famous wine growing regions, known for both its red and white wine varieties.

Like the Blue Mountain trip, my colleague and I joined a day tour. The day tour costs about AUD85 including lunch. Actually if you want to save money, it is much cheaper to rent a car and drive there, wine tasting is free anyway. However, you may not be able to enjoy the wine if you drove there.

We expected the tour to be in a group of 14 people. When the coach came then only we found out that we only had 6 people that day. We first stopped by the river side to have some biscuit and coffee together. The weather looked nice but it was really chilly there.






























A duck couple

The journey from Sydney to Hunter Valley took about 2 hours. Before we headed to the wineries, we first went for some cheese tasting at a shop called Smelly Cheese.

















Inside Smelly Cheese

The first winery we visited was De Bortoli Wines. Established in 1928, De Bortoli Wines is still family owned and proudly Australian. We tasted some white and red wine, including semillon, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, shiraz, merlot etc. I acted like a wine connoisseur although I didn’t really know how to tell between a good and bad wine.















There is no grape because of winter

We then went to the next winery – Peterson House. Peterson House is a maker of Premium Sparkling Wines, by the traditional methode champenoise process. There, again we tasted some white, red, sparkling and dessert wine. I started to feel drunk.





























Lunch at Peterson House

We had lunch at Peterson House and had a chat with each other before going to another winery.

Tempus Two is a winery famous for its attention to detail, including exclusive imported bottles, pewter labels, hand plunging of reds etc. But I was more impressed with the contemporary design of the winery itself. This time I did not enjoy the wine tasting much but paying more attention to the building and its interior.















Can you believe that this is actually a winery?











































Our last stop was at the Iron Gate estate. This winery has a much traditional building. Again, we tasted some wines and were given a quick behind the scene tour.
















Iron Gate Estate




















Grapes going through fermentation process in these stainless steel tanks

After 4 rounds of wine tasting, we had almost 30 glasses (1/3 of a glass) of wine. It was quite surprising that I was still standing. Normally I only drink 1 or 2 types of wine at one time and had no chance to compare one to another. This tour didn’t make me a wine connoisseur but at least I know what is a Semillon, a Chardonnay and a Shiraz. It’s really a good experience.

















I prefer white wine to red wine. What about you?

My Life In Sydney - Part III

The Blue Mountains is a popular tourist attraction in New South Wales, situated approximately 100 kilometres west of Sydney.

To go there, my collegue and I joined a day tour. It costs about AUD80 including lunch and a ticket to a wildlife zoo. The coach picked us up in the city at about 8am and then we headed to our first destination, Sydney 2000 Olympics Park.
















The Telstra Stadium















the Games Memories Poles - a forest of interactive poles inscribed with the name of every volunteer of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.


There was nothing much to see and we only stopped for 20 minutes.

We then travelled for more than an hour before we reached Katoomba, the most visited town in the Blue Mountains. At the Katoomba Scenic World, we took Scenic Railway, the steepest railway incline in the world into the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area rainforest.
















Photo taken from the Scenic Railway, of course this bald guy is not me.

From there, you can see the Aussie Grand Canyon.
















Aussie Grand Canyon

We had a short boardwalk through the rainforest before going back to the Scenic World by Scenic Skyway.

After lunch at Katoomba, we continued the tour to Echo Point and on the way we stopped by to take a closer look at the cliffs. Echo Point offers a spectacular view of the Three Sisters.















The Three Sisters

From the nearby Echo Point, we took the bushwalking trail which leads to the Three Sisters and down to the valley floor via a set of well-maintained steel steps.















At one of the 3 sisters

After visiting the Blue Mountains we then went to our last destination of the day - the Feather Dale Wildlife Park. At the park, you can find almost all the Australian wildlifes, including kangaroo, koala and wombat etc. Btw, Wombat is a marsupial, so it has a pouch just like kangaroo and koala.















A sleepy koala

The tour ended with a ferry trip back to Sydney. During the tour we got to know two friendly french girls Daphine and Nedege who were travelling around the world. They had left France 10 months ago and visited India, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore before they came to Australia. They were going to continue their journey to New Zealand and South America. According to their blog, they should be in Panama now.

Nedege, Partha and me

My Life in Sydney - Part II

During my stay in Sydney, I visited quite a number of places.

No tourist should miss the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.














Opera House















Sydney Harbour Bridge















Sydney City View

Had a stroll under the sails at Sydney's premier weekend market at the Rocks for homewares, jewellery, arts & crafts. The 'Pancakes on the Rocks' restaurant, apparently famous for its pancakes, is very popular, you can always see people queuing up to be seated.





















The Rocks Market















Darling Harbour

















Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour. Actually I have not been to Aquaria in KLCC, so can't compare which one is better.















Dumb shark, bite me if you can...
















A better view of Opera House taken from the ferry on my way to Manly.
















Manly Beach, big wave and misty...

Bondi Beach - this is one of the most famous beach in Sydney. There is a 'papaya farm' near the swimming pool but normally only available in Spring or Summer.















Nice beach, can't imagine during summer...

Nice pool

Paddington Market - Sydney's oldest community market for people to sell their arts and handcrafts.

This is China Town. It was surprising to know that the Golden Boronia nougat that a lot of us like to buy as a souvenir is only available in China Town, or at the airport. According to the locals, aussie don't eat this type of nougat.

Hyde Park - A large park in the heart of Sydney.

St Mary's Cathedral

Locals playing chess at Hyde Park

Sydney Tower - a direction pointer when you are lost in the city...

More pictures from Blue Mountain and Hunter Valley coming up. Stay tuned...

Quiz: If you dropped your wallet, kick it all the way out of this place before you pick it up. Guess a street in Sydney...

My Life in Sydney – Part I

I was in Sydney for a project from May-August but have not talked much about it since I came back. So, I just feel like writing something about it now.

I was staying in a place called Coogee, a suburb about 20 minutes drive from the city. It is a nice place with restaurants, mini market, hotels and pubs around. The best part is there is a nice beach just 300 meters from the apartment I stayed.

Too bad it was winter, so there weren’t many people sunbathing.



















pathway for jogging and dog walking
















Dogs are not allowed on the beach


This is the 1 bedroom service apartment I stayed, not bad huh?

















The living room
















Kitchen
















Dining room

The cost of living at Coogee is quite high, normal meal costs about AUD10-20 (MYR 27.50-55.00). Even a breakfast meal and a cup of coffee cost about AUD20 too. However, it is not bad to sit in front of the restaurant, enjoy the sunlight, see people walking by while having your breakfast in a Sunday morning.

I went to work by bus everyday. Taking bus in Sydney is not too bad compared with my experience in KL. Because the weather is not humid, you don’t feel sticky after taking bus. The buses are clean, well maintained and the most impressive part is, they are punctual!!! I haven’t taken bus for a long time in KL, I wonder how is it like traveling RapidKL nowadays? Is it rapid?

Team Dinner

I went out with my colleagues for our team dinner on Saturday evening.

We have team dinner every 3 months. As we provide IT support round the clock, some of us don't get to meet our own team members very often. So, the team dinner is for us to have a chance to sit down and have dinner together, and also for the management to appreciate our hard work. Although my team is not big (7 including the manager) sometimes it is not easy to find a time where everyone is free. This time was a last minute decision and only 5 out of 7 attended. It is a bit pity that all 5 are 'ma latt lou', the only girl in our team who always claims that she spices up our lives at work is still in South Africa (Well, she is almost a South African now).

We went to Chilli's at Mid Valley. Only after half way through the dinner, my colleague reminded me of taking some photos and put it at my blog. Too bad that the food was already in terrible shape and not good for photo shooting by that time. So I only managed to take a photo of the dessert with a phone camera. May be this is a mistake that new bloggers always make, not sensitive enough to things that can be put into their blog.













The bad thing about having dinner with colleagues is that you always can't stop talking about work, although we did talk about something else. F1 lah, we were hoping Sato will knock Alonso out in the last race, movies, England's lost to Croatia, the forthcoming treasure hunt, and were supporting Wigan against Manchester United. Too bad, ManU won 3-1.

After dinner we went for a comedy movie - 'Talladega Nights'. It was quite funny, not too bad to end the Saturday night with some laughters.

My Nephew

Children nowadays are much cleverer than our generation.

My 2 year-old plus nephew already can differentiate between a road car and a racing car. He even told his dad that 'the blue car is Alonso'.
















Here is his video while reading 弟子规





For more of his video please visit My Life At KL.

Liver Cleansing

I work in a Shared Service, Outsourcing (SSO) company which serves its end markets around the globe. My company operates 24 x 7 x 365 and I am required to work night shift from time to time.

Some said that our body organs rest at different time of the day and for liver, its resting time is between 1am-3am. So my mom said my liver must be full of toxic because of my shift hours and need to be cleansed. She gave me a liver cleansing formula she obtained from an organic detoxification camp she attended quite sometime ago and asked me to follow the diet.

Personally I believe that our body has its own biological clock. So I doubt that the time our body organ rests is fixed at certain hours, unless someone can convince me that the resting time is closely related to the sun or the moon. I guess the resting time mentioned in most articles are general guidelines for most people who live a normal lifestyle. For people who work on shift, our body should be able to adjust accordingly. However, if you keep changing your sleeping hours from nighttime to daytime too often then I am sure it will affect your health. Can someone please comment on this?

Although I don't agree with the fixed resting time theory, I still went on for the detoxification. An unhealthy liver will cause skin irritation, weak eyesight, a bowel problem, an irregular menstrual cycle, a recurring headache, weight gain, loss of energy, sudden aging, restricted blood vessels, bloated intestines, digestive problems, breathing difficulties, memory and concentration loss, pain in the joints, or any major illness such as heart disease, cancer, MS, diabetes or Alzheimer's etc. How nice it would be if liver cleansing can improve health problems mentioned above. Furthermore, there is no harm trying it.


So, you must be interested to know the formula huh?






















Here it goes:
1 tablespoon of Organice Blackstrap Molasses
1 teaspoon of Cold Pressed Organic Olive Oil
1 lemon - squeeze the juice
a little bit of cayenne pepper

Mix the ingredients and drink it every morning right after you wake up. Do this for 10 days consecutively. It tastes sour at first but a bit sweet towards the end, but certainly not like sweet and sour chicken.

You can try this as frequent as you want and it will be good if you can at least cleanse your liver once every 6 months.

Sorry that I can't tell you if the formula really cleansed my liver but my recent blood test report says that my liver is in good condition.

Btw, I am not going to be responsible for your health for trying out the formula, please try at your own risk... :p

A Scanner Darkly

I haven't seen the movie 'A Scanner Darkly' yet, but am very impressed with the animation. The entire movie was filmed digitally using the Panasonic AG-DVX100 and then animated with Rotoshop, using an animation technique called interpolated rotoscope.





















A lot of people have tried to create the same effect using a combination of different filters in Adobe Photoshop, including poster edges, noise, posterize but none have come close to it. I tried one myself, but failed too.

The best tutorial I have seen so far is given by Melissa Clifton. Using the vector technique, she has sucessfully created the 'A Scanner Darkly' effect. However, this doesn't come easy. It requires hours of work, it's certainly not something you can produce within an hour using the filters in Photoshop.


See the work of Melissa.















And compare with mine. : (