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20 - 27/1/09 Our first couple of days were spent looking all over the place for hostels that would let us work for free accommodation. First of all we went to Bondi, but had no luck, so we went on to Kings Cross. Nothing there either, so we tried some in the CBD/Chinatown. Still no luck, and to add insult to injury, free parking was extremely hard to find, and when we finally found somewhere, we came back to find that we'd got a $135 parking ticket for parking in the opposite direction to the cars around us! We didn't see how this made any difference to anyone else (bar aesthetic), because we weren't blocking anyone and had left lots of space for people to manouvre.
We spent the first night at a campsite, but the next day, after trying and failing to find places to work for free accommodation, we ended up at City Central Backpackers on George Street, on the edge of Chinatown, paying $18 a night on a week's deal. Although I liked the murals on the stairways and TV room walls, overall it was a bit of a dump. We managed to find some free parking in a back street, but decided that we'd sell the car back to Traveller's Autobarn as soon as we could anyway, because the longer we held onto it the more chance there was of getting more tickets or having it broken into, and if that happened we'd be in trouble! So we rang up Traveller's Autobarn and arranged to give it back in a week's time.
Over the week I spent a lot of time jobhunting, first of all by walking the streets with a bunch of CVs in my hands. There was a surprising shortage of vacancies advertised in the shops, however, so I switched to looking online. I had better success here, and filled in quite a few online application forms. Before I started jobhunting, I successfully set up my Australian bank account.
28/1/09 I had been told via email that I had post waiting to be picked up at Traveller's Contact Point (my official address - I couldn't set up an account without one), so in the morning down I went to collect it! It was lovely to get the parcels from home, and I was relieved that they'd arrived okay and in time!
It was a blazingly hot day, so in the afternoon we decided to walk across the Harbour Bridge. The views of the Opera House and the rest of the harbour were fabulous, as we expected - so iconic. When we returned, we decided to save the Opera House for another day, so that we could do the Botanical Gardens and Mrs Macquarie's Chair with it on the same day.
29/1/09 We sold back the car to Traveller's Autobarn in the morning. Although they took money off for our not having had the car serviced every 5000km like we were supposed to, and for it being a one way trip, we still ended up with an OK amount. It turned out that the guy we spoke to there was from Warrington - a sort of 'small world' experience for Dave.
Our week at City Central had run out yesterday, so we extended it for a day. After Travellers Autobarn, we trawled through places in Kings Cross and the CBD that we hadn't been into before, looking for 'working for free accommodation' vacancies, but none of them had any. As a result, we decided to stay on for another week at City Central.
30/1/09 We didn't do much today, apart from go into Kings Cross to a particular butchers' which sells lots of different game meats. I'd chosen the menu for dinner tomorrow - my birthday - so here we were to get the ingredients! We decided on getting one each of emu, buffalo and camel steaks, and then potatoes, onions and mushrooms for the mashed potato and sauteed mushrooms & onions we'd have with them.
31/1/09 My birthday! We had a lie in, and then I moved down into Dave's bed (the bottom bunk) while he got out the presents! :) :) :) Then we were going to have breakfast, but we had to rush to get the bus to Bondi so we didn't have time. It was a really hot, sunny day with only a couple of very high, wispy clouds. When we arrived the first thing I did was take some photos of the beach; just as I finished, Dave pointed at the sky and I saw a tiny aeroplane doing some skywriting. It spelt out 'Lipton Ice' - we waited to see it finish, as we assumed it was going to say 'Lipton Iced Tea', but that was all it did. I can't remember the last time I saw skywriting, and I've probably only seen it about once or twice in my life, so it was quite a novelty. We decided to have an early lunch and then go into the sea, so we bought some fish & chips and ate them on the seafront.
As soon as we'd finished, we put our towels down and I went straight into the sea; Dave followed, after taking a couple of pictures. The water was the coldest we've come across since leaving Britain - it actually took a bit of getting used to before it became warm! That's something I'll have to get used to once I return, though saying that I think the sea will probably be colder in New Zealand than it has been in Australia and was in Koh Tao. The sea was without the powerful sweeping current it had at Byron Bay, but the waves were still pretty big. It was really fun to swim over them etc., and to 'bodysurf'.
After a while of this we got out, and I took a walk down the seafront to find a toilet. I found one at the Bondi Pavilion, and also found a little art gallery there, with work by two local artists in it (I liked the work of one of them, but not the others'.) Then I returned and read in the sun. Eventually, when we thought it time to go soon, we walked back to the fish & chip shop we'd bought lunch from and bought a battered deep fried Mars Bar! Neither of us have sampled one before, so we thought we'd give it a go... and it was lovely, though obviously very fattening.
When we arrived home we rested for a while and then it was time for our camel, emu and buffalo steaks, mashed potato, and fried mushrooms and onions. While Dave cooked it I rang home, and then I went back up and helped. The emu was the tenderest, probably because it was a fillet steak whilst the others were a bit more like chops. The camel and buffalo were still very tasty, though - the buffalo was a lot like normal beef, unsurprisingly, and I'm not really sure how to describe how the camel tasted, apart from that it was very nice!
After we'd finished dinner, we changed to go out, and finished off the Jim Beam we'd bought for New Year. It was quite late when we left, so we only had one drink before coming back at about midnight. (We did try to go somewhere else, but they wouldn't let me in without ID so we just went back home, as we were pretty tired by now anyway.)
1/2/09 I waited for responses to all the job applications I've sent off, but didn't get any. We didn't do much during the day, but in the evening there was the main Chinese New Year celebration! It was a twilight parade, starting at 7.45pm (it doesn't start getting dark until about 8.) It went down a lot of George Street, and then turned off into Chinatown. The photos we took of it don't really do it justice - we were too far away for the flash to work, and without it the photos tended to come out blurry, especially while the people in it were moving. At first we couldn't find anywhere where could get much of a view, because the streets were so packed, but eventually I found some large plastic dumpsters which I climbed up onto, which gave me a better view. The parade was pretty impressive and colourful, and included a large contingent from the Hunan Province in China (which itself included a large group of Kung Fu martial artists.) At the end, everyone walked to Cockle Bay, Darling Harbour, for some fireworks.
2/2/09 I looked for some more jobs online, and finally got a reply! They asked if I had an Australian phone number, and I realised that it was probably the fact that I didn't have one that had been putting people off replying to my applications, so as they seemed quite interested in me and I didn't want the only chance I'd had so far to slip by me anyway, I emailed straight back saying that I was getting one today and would email them it as soon as I got it. So I walked over to the TCP to buy an Australian simcard, activated it, and emailed them back the number when I managed to get back on the computer at the hostel. It was past 5 o'clock by the time I emailed back, but I expected a call the next day.
3/2/09 I got a call back about the job, but unfortunately they said I wasn't suitable because I was only going to be here for another three weeks. I sent off some more applications, with my new phone number on it, and had some success - an invitation to an interview the next day at 9 am. The job description was vague, so I didn't know exactly what I was applying for apart from that it was a sales/marketing job that involved trying to sell things to the public, but I thought I might as well go for it anyway.
We had seen a notice up about sales/marketing jobs for cash in hand earlier, so Dave gave them a ring, and he got an interview tomorrow morning as well!
4/2/09 Both our interviews were successful! It turns out that my company works with various national and international charities, so I was now one of those people who stands in the street trying to get members of the public to give monthly donations to a certain charity! I didn't think I'd get the job, because I firstly I don't have any smart businessy clothes to wear so I had to go to the interview in my long sleeved blue stripey top and my combatty-type trousers, and secondly, I didn't really have much idea beforehand what they might ask me about. After the interview, I had to go out onto the street for a couple of hours and observe some of the others doing the job, and they set me a task to do, to see how I interacted with the public I assume. I had to draw a quick portrait of someone, after asking their permission first, and I had to ask five people what their star sign was and what their favourite sport was. Then after a quick break the chap in charge asked me a few questions, like whether I thought I was a team player or not and if I was enthusiastic enough to do the job, and then he rang his boss (my interviewer) to say that he thought I was suitable for the job. He passed the phone over to me then, and my interviewer asked me how my morning had been etc. and told me to come in tomorrow morning at 8 to start work!
Dave was now doing a similar thing to me, only he was an external contractor and thus paid directly by the charity - no marketing companies (like mine) involved. Also, he just had to go round from business to business, not stand in the street.
It was mine and Dave's 3rd anniversary today. Yesterday we bought all the ingredients for a classic full English breakfast (minus the baked beans) to have today, so as I was out all morning, we had it for lunch. I know that seems a bit odd, but we haven't had a breakfast like that since we left home so we thought we'd give it a go today! In the evening we had planned to go to a certain Japanese restaurant, but then we found out it was in Kings Cross and we didn't fancy walking all the way there or getting a bus, so we went into a food court in Chinatown instead. I had mushroom and mixed vegetable noodle soup, and Dave had spicy beef with rice. I couldn't finish it though, and although we'd had thought of maybe going to the cinema and having a couple of drinks afterwards, I started feeling quite ill, so we just went home instead.
5/2/09 My day started at the office at 8, when I was taken through the first part of the training manual and there were a couple of team meetings. I also had my ID card made and was given my t-shirt.Then at about 9.15 my group made our way to where we'd be for the day. To begin with I just went round with the leader (Dave - from now on referred to as Charity Dave), firstly just standing with him, listening to how he tried to make a sale. Then after a while, I had to do the explaining about the charity etc. to the potential donor, after Charity Dave had already stopped them and made a bit of small talk. We had a break at 11, going down to a nearby foodcourt to have a snack and a drink (I had a Morroccan prawn skewer and an expresso coffee.) We carried on afterwards, and I started approaching customers myself, with Charity Dave staying nearby in case I needed any help. I found it quite hard for a while - I didn't have a problem with the explaining about the charity part, but I did find it difficult to carry on talking to people to stop them carrying on walking past you, like you're supposed to! In the afternoon, after lunch at 2 (half a chicken caesar wrap and a chocolate milkshake), I relaxed a bit, but the only sale I made was one earlier that day while Charity Dave had been with me at the beginning. However, he'd also only made one sale, and Felipe, the other guy in the group, hadn't made any, so I suppose it wasn't too bad for my first day. Apparently it had been much quieter than usual after lunch, and the others hadn't made as many sales as they should have.
Dave had a good first day, better than mine - he's selling tickets for a raffle, and pens and calculators, for his charity. I half wished I was doing that instead of signing people up for monthly payments, because people don't really want to give out their bank details on the street, whilst if I were just selling objects for the charity instead, they'd be more inclined to stop.
6/2/09 Today didn't go very well, because out of the four in my group, three of us didn't get any sales, myself included. I had a few interesting conversations with people, but nobody who actually signed up! They all either didn't qualify (weren't 21 or over or weren't going to be in the country for two years or more), or said they didn't have enough money to spare. One chap who was really nice turned out to have played rugby 7s before at the Old Albanians Rugby Club, and another chap said he was from a town near Cardiff - he was waiting for his friend to turn up, who knew Swansea quite well, and when he arrived they said that they were going for a drink and if I hadn't been busy working they'd have invited me to come with them! There was another, older guy from Mexico who was out of work at the moment - I recommended gumtree.com to him, and since he hadn't heard of it before he got me to write it down for him. Despite this, I was beginning to get demoralised after a couple of hours, because of not getting any sales. The others in my group apart from Charity Dave were also a bit demoralised, because they hadn't made any sales yet either, so I wasn't alone.
After lunch I felt better, more relaxed, but I still didn't get any sales. We met up with the other groups in the pub afterwards, and they were lovely - I had a few drinks with them before going home.
Dave had an OK day though not quite as good as yesterday.
7/2/09 Saturday today, no work for either of us. First of all we paid for another week at City Centre, and then we went to the Opera House - it was an absolutely scorching day, so we made sure to bring a drink with us. We walked round most of it, and took lots of photos. I couldn't believe we were finally so close to it! The Botanical Gardens - which out of interest are nearly 200 years old - are right next to it, and lead round a cove to the peninsula called Mrs Macquaries Point. We wandered through the Gardens, and as we went round, the view was fantastic - the Harbour Bridge rose up directly behind the Opera House, so you could see both of them together, and the blueness of the sea combined really well with the green-ness of the Gardens, the whiteness of the Opera House roof and the darkness of the Harbour Bridge. As we walked up the Opera House at the start, we looked into the harbour and saw lots of small white jellyfish in the water; I think this was the first time I'd seen jellyfish swimming around in the sea, rather than dead and washed up. The Opera House was stunning, and the Gardens were lovely - they encourage you to walk on the grass and climb the trees etc., so we did both! There was one tree that was enclosed off because of its age and infirmity, but it looked very surreal - a massive almost spherical blob of a trunk, with huge branches coming out of it at angles - it reminded me of a set of bagpipes! It didn't have anything that explained what sort of tree it was though unfortunately.
At Mrs Macquarie's Point there was a booth selling drinks and snacks, so I bought a chocolate icecream with bits of chocolate biscuit (Timtams) in, Dave had a beef pie, and we had a bottle of Coke to share. Then we sat in Mrs Macquarie's Chair, which was nearby. Mrs Macquarie was the wife of Governor Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales from 1810 - 1821, and he had the seat carved into the sandstone rock by convicts in 1816 for her to sit in and look out at the views of the harbour. After this we walked back through the Botanical Gardens to go home. We passed through the HSBC Oriental Gardens, and walked through pathways surrounded by trees usually found in the Australian rainforest. I came across a notice about flying foxes, a type of fruit bat apparently, and when I looked up I saw lots of them hanging from the top branches! I'd wanted to see one ever since we'd heard them at our campsites in Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs and Townsville, so I was glad I finally had.
8-10/2/09 We didn't do much on Sunday apart from relax. On Monday my group was in the area of Newtown - Sydney's equivalent of London's Camden, but without all the markets. It was really interesting to people-watch! I had a few really interesting conversations with people - I spoke to one really nice guy, from Peru, who told me that every June they have a massive 'winter solstice' street festival, held in the town of Cuzco in particular - and I will be in Cuzco in June, because that's the base you start the Inca Trail from! He did tell me the name of it, but it was Spanish so I don't remember it apart from that it began with an 'I' . I also met a man who told me about all his architectural work in places like Sri Lanka, developing tsunami-resistant buildings, how he had done a lot of work in Africa as well, and that he'd known the architect who put forward the winning plan of the Sydney Opera House. We didn't have a very good day though, as a group.
On Tuesday we were in Liverpool (!), which has large Lebanese and other foreign populations. For lunch I had an absolutely delicious wrap with grilled lamb fillet, lettuce, grilled onions and that white Greek sauce with bits of cucumber in. I had one sad conversation with a woman who said that she was originally from Cambodia, but after the war she has "never returned, because I would start crying when I got there." By the end of the day I decided not to carry on with this job - it's just not profitable enough to make it worth my while. I've had some very interesting conversations with people, and have been to a couple of areas of Sydney I may not have got round to seeing otherwise, so I'm glad I did it anyway.
11/2/09 I got to have a lie in today, unlike Dave. While he was at work I paid our parking ticket at the Post Office, just within the time limit, and spent a lot of time online and in bed reading. Dave had a good day at work today, but has also decided to leave, because it still isn't really enough to make it worth his while.
12/2/09 Nothing much happened today.
13/2/09 Time to look for another hostel to stay in after our week at City Central runs out. Our first choice was 'Boomerang Backpackers'- earlier this week I'd been given a flier saying that as a special February offer they were offering some dorm beds for only $14.50, so we'd really hoped that by the time we got there, they wouldn't be fully booked (you can't reserve spaces.) When we arrived, it turned out that only the three 12 bed dorms were $14.50 per night, and that there were only 3 spaces left! So as you can imagine, although we couldn't book in until tomorrow, we paid for our beds there and then, in order to prevent anyone else taking them.
Before we went in, we had another look round Kings Cross. It's the red light district, and but there's also a lot of interesting shops there, some nice cafes and restaurants, and some non-dodgy bars. in a secondhand bookshop I got a book by Eric Newby - an anthology of accounts of travellers throughout history. We also paid a visit to the British Lolly Shop, where I got some chewy toffee bonbons and Dave got some Vimto ones.
14/2/09 The morning was spent moving out of our old hostel and into the new one, but in the afternoon, we walked to the Art Gallery of NSW. It was really good - a nice mixture of very modern and the more traditional. Space was used well too.
We stopped at a cafe called 'Harry's de Wheels' on the way for lunch - it's famous in Australia for it's 'Tiger' pies (beef pie topped with mash and mushy peas), and it had photos on the walls of all the celebrities who have eaten here over the past few decades. Dave sampled a 'Tiger' pie whilst I stuck with a chicken & cheese one with garlic onions on top. It was really nice actually - better than those pies we used to get at home.
We went out for dinner, at a pub called The Gaff, where if you bought a drink, you got a meal free. Dave had fish & chips, and I got pasta & sauce.
15/2/09 It was still raining today, as it has been for about the past 5 days, so we went to Sydney Aquarium! As well as lots of smaller tanks containing practically every fish you can possibly think of, and other creatures such as Moon jellyfish, tree frogs, turtles, seahorses and penguins, they had three massive ones. You could walk under two of them in glass walkways; in one were a wide variety of sharks and stingrays, a couple of giant turtles and some fish, and in the other were some dugongs, a couple of giant rays and lots of colourful tropical fish. The dugongs were much whiter than I had expected, and very fat. The third one simulated the Great Barrier Reef, and it was nice to be able to walk round it thinking about how I've actually dived and snorkelled in the real one!
16/2/09 We got up early for our free breakfast at our new hostel, as it's only available between 8 - 9am. Seeing as we were up anyway, we decided to visit the famous Sydney Fish Market, because we thought it would at its best in the morning. It was smaller than we expected, but had a lot on offer - as well as fish, there were cuttlefish, squid, octopi, lobsters, gigantic crabs, oysters, scallops, mussels and prawns. It also has a sushi bar, a deli, seafood restaurants, fish & chips stalls, a fruit & veg market and a bakery, but we didn't get anything. Instead, we walked back to Cockle Bay/ Darling Harbour, and after grabbing some lunch, we went into the Australian National Maritime Museum. It had exhibitions about the history of watersports in Australia, the experiences of people travelling on the old passage liners, the links between the sea and waterways and Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander cultures, and the development of the Navy, but my favourite two were firstly one about the original navigators to discover and explore the coast of Australia, and secondly a special one about souvenir collecting dating back to the time of the medieval pilgrims.
17/2/09 We went down to the office of the charity Dave worked for so that he could pick up the money he'd earned. However, when we arrived it turned out that the only person who had the authority to sign the cheque it wasn't in, having forgotten that he'd told Dave to meet up with him here. We were told to come back at 3 tomorrow instead. After this we sent home a parcel and walked home, and didn't do much for the rest of the day.
18/2/09 We arrived at the charity's office at 11 as arranged, and they gave us the cheque, but when we tried to cash it at the bank, they told it was missing a signature at the top so they couldn't do it! On our way back to the office, we met the guy who'd given us it coming the other way, and he told us that the guy who has the authority to sign it was away so we'd have to come back at 3... I was annoyed because of the way we were being messed around, and because we'd planned on getting Dave's new rucksack today with some of the cash (unfortunately I lost his at the pub on the 6th - luckily, it didn't have anything in at the time apart from my charity ID and welcome pack, and a notepad and pen.) We walked back to our internet cafe, stopping on the way for some lunch - an absolutely delicious hot pasta salad with sundried tomatoes, courgette slices and a creamy sauce in. We spent ages downloading our Sydney photos, because of computer problems. I had planned to update this blog afterwards, but the photos took so long that I didn't have time to. Dave walked back to the office to get the other signature on the cheque, and came back having cashed it OK.
19/2/09 In the morning we went to Paddy's Markets and bought Dave his new rucksack. On the way back, we stopped at different shops and bought a new pack of cards (mine disintegrated after being rained on a few weeks ago), a new pair of flipflops for Dave, and a couple of DVDs. After some pasta salad from the deli at Coles for lunch for myself, and some olives for Dave, I've spent the entire afternoon updating this blog, while Dave burned all our photos so far onto the DVDs and posted them to our homes. He also rang the tour people in Fiji, to let them know that we're still coming and to check that we are still going to be met at the airport by them, like arranged. We booked this last July, so we thought it best to give them a ring.
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