It's been exactly a week since exams ended, but I've been keeping busy sightseeing:)
Tuesday 22nd June
Been wanting to go on a walking tour of Sydney's CBD, so Esther, Neil, Michelle and yours truly decided to brave some truly horrible weather and venture into the heart of the hustle and bustle of Sydney.
A shot of Notre Dame Uni, which is a mere 10 minutes walk away from us
The underground tunnel leading to Town Hall train station along George Street
A shot of the inside of QVB building
Town Hall's iconic clocktower
We also paid a visit to the huge Woolie's on George Street where the other three bought sheep and emu oil creams (?). Neil and Michelle elected to go back to IH for dinner but the two of us were on our last ounce of patience with IH Food, so I decided to introduce Esther to one of the best places to satisfy 'Laksa cravings' in Sydney, Golden Tower in Kingsford. No more Malacca Straits, thank you very much! At the same price, Golden Tower's deliciously milky, santan laksa brims with flavour and deliciously juicy chicken, char siu, prawn, sotong and tou fu pok, topped off with fried onions which adds a different dimension to the flavour. Scintillating.
Malacca Straights who? :P
Also watched the farce known as France's WC campaign come to a whimpering halt as they crashed to a 2-1 defeat to hosts South Africa. Les Bleu's (and mine and Esther's) misery was complete as Bordeaux's gorgeous playmaker, Yoann Gourcuff was sent off early on in the first half; leaving us devoid of any man-candy for the rest of the game.
Wednesday 23rd June
Went to Paddy's Market and Broadway to buy garlic for our 'Camp Cook-Out/WC Marathon' at Esther's place that night. Bought half a kilo of sweet cherries at Paddy's, got discount just by speaking Canto hahaha~
Before that however, we attended Soo-Jae's 22nd birthday party/End-of-sem party at the coffee room which ended up in erm...quite a few red faces. It was really fun though to cut loose and binge on free pizza and booze after the stress of exams. Props to Soo-Jae for taking the trouble (and expense!) to organize such a great party. Although it was quite a shame that not that many people turned up.
All the girls of IH who attended the party. Clockwise from far left: Jin Ee, Laura, Meredith, (don't know her, not from IH), Emila, Lisa, birthday boy Soo Jae, me, Yu Ning, Marian, Esther, Nav, Hira, Leah, and Sarah.
After we had sobered up, it was WC time at Esther's place! Life doesn't get better than England v Algeria live on the telly; munching fabulously delish garlic pasta, chocs and chips (thanks Esther :3) surrounded by a whole bunch of fantastic people (Sarah, Yu Ning, Neil, Emila, Marian and the owner of the room). Admittedly, it was only Neil and I watching the game; the others got sidetracked (non-football fans LOL). After WC, we watched Wimbledon!!!! Federer against some guy called Bolo. Again, only me and Neil actually understood anything. However, we only managed to watch the opening set as it was really, really late and my eyes were in danger of permanently closing. Said goodbye to Jason and Sherry, who dropped by to deposit some of their stuff at 3.30 am.
Thursday 24th June
Since Meredith was leaving for Texas the next day, Nav arranged for a girls' day out at Watson's Bay. There were six of us; Meredith, Nav, Esther, Lisa and Yu Ning. We took the 11.10 am ferry from CQ to Watson's Bay. It was a pleasant half an hour journey; with the sea spray splashing our faces and a cool wind whipping our hair about. Watson's Bay is somewhat similar to Manly; awesome scenery and a 'walking trail' up a cliff that culminates in the Hornsby Lighthouse (which was built in 1858) near the end of the trail. Along the way, we passed by a nudist beach (!) hehehe. Luckily, there was only one nude man who was camping along the rocks so thankfully, our minds weren't permanently scarred by any near-pornographic images.
A view of the Watson's Bay marina
The walking trail that we took that day turned out to be the South Head Heritage Trail. I had already climbed it's twin; North Head Heritage Trail at Manly earlier on in the year. Nothing too challenging; no steep uphills or perilous trails *shame*.
Yu Ning and I :)
On top of the erm rock (not world hehe)
The famed Hornsby Lighthouse, the main attraction at Watson's Bay. It was built way back in 1858 when the British were still colonising Australia
For lunch, it was some pretty awesome fish and chips from the famed Doyle's Fisherman's Wharf which was right next to the pier. The portion of chips served was way too big, so yours truly decided it would be a *smart* idea to feed the excess to the gulls. BIG MISTAKE. I will never forget the horror of seeing so many birds lining up like an army, facing me; each wearing horribly grim expressions and the mad cloud of feathers that followed each handful of chips I threw out.
Our extremely fattening lunch, Doyle's specialty golden fried fish and chips in batter with fries and the accompanying special sweet chilli plum sauce
Seeing as we had ingested at least half a can of oil (calories!!!) for lunch, Yu Ning, Esther and I took a slow, steady walk back to IH from CQ, while Nav and Meredith went to Paddy's Market to buy souvenirs.
Also managed to catch the thriller that was Italy v Slovakia that night with Esther and Neil. IMHO, Italy weren't thattt poor, just guilty of some wasteful finishing from de Rossi and di Natale's wayward shooting letting the Azurri down in front of goal. Slovakia made them pay in the 25th minute as Robert Vittek stunned the defending world champions with a nice right footed finish into Marchetti's right corner to give the unfancied Eastern European WC debutants an unlikely lead. That was surely the signal for some Italian pressure, and create chances they did. But again, bad finishing was the cause of the score remaining 1-0 to Slovakia at the break.
The second half saw Italy grow more and more into the game but the Slovaks held firm and even managed to create a few openings which had they taken, would have instantly killed the game off. Italy pressed hard, pouring forward in search of that equaliser. But suddenly against the run of play, man of the moment Robert Vittek looped a beautiful lob over Marchetti's head from a Slovakia corner to make it 2-0 in the 73rd minute, and effectively kill of Italy's hopes of making the last 16.
Game over? Not so. On 81', Vincenzo Iaquinta's shot on goal was saved by the Slovak keeper but luckily for the Azurri, di Natale was there to side-foot the rebound home. 2-1 Italy with 9 minutes remaining, game on! A few minutes later, Quagliarella had the ball in the net but was stunningly, flagged for offside. Drama man. The three of us had yelled with excitement, thinking that Italy had equalised but we were dissapointed.
Slovakia finally extinguished any hopes of an unlikely Italy comeback when some sloppy defending saw Kopunek score with a stunning lob to make it 3-1 to Slovakia, and book their safe passage to the round of 16 against the Netherlands.
But the game wasn't finished yet. In the first minute of stoppage time, Fabio Quagliarella hit a brilliant strike from 25 yards out to make it 3-2, but it was simply a case of too little, too late as the defending champions bowed out of the tournament with a miserable 2 points; bottom of their group and below even tournament lightweights New Zealand. This marked then the first time in WC history that the two previous finalists were knocked out at the very first hurdle.
Friday 25th June
Spent a quiet day at IH doing laundry. Said goodbye to Neil, Marian and Elizabeth :( On a happier note, watched Roger Federer return to (near) his best with a straight sets demolition of Arnaud Clement in the 3rd round of Wimbledon after an alarming earlier two rounds.
Saturday 26th June
Afternoon walk to Glebe Markets, my second time there. Spent a most enjoyable 3 hours wandering around, taking in all the vibrant colours of Glebe and soaking up the atmosphere of the busy, little suburb. We walked the whole of Glebe Point Road and ended up playing swings at Foley's Park hehe.
Foley's Park where Yu Ning and I relieved our second childhood
WC Round of 16 Contenders:-
USA
Ghana
South Korea
Japan
Chile
Uruguay
England
Brazil
Argentina
Mexico
Spain
Netherlands
Portugal
Germany
Slovakia
Paraguay
Tonight:-
USA v Ghana
Uruguay v South Korea
Predictions: USA and Uruguay to make it to the quarters
