Posted in Food and Drink, Logistics, Sydney on Jan 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
As I write this, it’s 11:10AM in Sydney. In an hour, the shuttle service will arrive to take me to the airport, where I’ll hang around for a couple of hours before getting on the flight to Sydney. It’s been a great trip (except for the getting sick part), but it’s time to start getting [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sightseeing, Sydney, Walks on Jan 23rd, 2008 No Comments »
And finally, we arrived at the last night. Not sadly, it’s time to go home. But I wanted the last night to be a time of reflection before getting back to the chaos. When I toured Europe alone for a similar length of time in 1993, I spent most of the final [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sydney on Jan 23rd, 2008 2 Comments »
A couple of weeks ago, when I was leaving the emergency room, I walked out to the street to hail a cab. I looked around, and thought “hey, that looks like a nice neighborhood.” At the time, I didn’t quite realize that I was in the Darlinghurst neighborhood, and I certainly didn’t realize that last [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sightseeing, Tasmania on Jan 14th, 2008 2 Comments »
After a week and a half on foot and using public transportation, it’s very different with a car. My flight landed at 8am, and by 9am I had figured out the car and driven to the city to my hotel. The Grand Chancellor is your typical small city primary businessman’s hotel. [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Melbourne, Sightseeing on Jan 13th, 2008 1 Comment »
I cannot believe that I’m already at the halfway point of the vacation. Tomorrow morning, I leave for Hobart. Today, I took a guided tour of the Great Ocean Road stretching west from Melbourne. The tour covered about 500 kilometers of driving. The bus (seats 21 in 1-2 seating, [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sightseeing, Sydney on Jan 8th, 2008 3 Comments »
Yesterday was a great day. Except for a couple of passing drizzles, the day was perfect weather-wise: high 70s, good humidity to feel that you’re sea-side, partly cloudy. The first thing I had to do is get a new charger for my cellphone. Even though the old was was dual rated, and I’ve used it [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sydney on Jan 7th, 2008 2 Comments »
I moved to the Hilton Sydney yesterday afternoon. It’s a far different experience than the Four Points. The hotel is very sleek, with Scandinavian influences in in-room design. The rooms are much smaller than my two-room suite at the Four Points, but about the same size as a regular room there. I’ve traded a view [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sightseeing, Sydney, Walks on Jan 4th, 2008 No Comments »
I woke up on Friday at 0630 with a nasty throat full of post-nasal drip, so I spent the entire day sounding like I had TB: one of those periodic non-productive coughs. I think the issue is a mix of allergies and lack of humidity. I was very dejected, as this is exactly [...]
Posted in Food and Drink on Jan 4th, 2008 No Comments »
The Economist calls the Big Mac Index “arguably the world’s most accurate financial indicator to be based on a fast-food item.” The idea is that a Big Mac is a Big Mac regardless of the country, and so the cost of one [...]
Posted in Food and Drink, Sightseeing, Sydney on Jan 4th, 2008 No Comments »
It’s 6pm on Day 2 (the 4th), so before I head out for dinner, I need to get caught up to at least just 12 hours behind. My plane landed at Sydney Airport at 8:15am, and by 10 I was at the hotel. I took a side trip before leaving the airport [...]
