Food Holiday

Wednesday the 18th. Fifteen hours ahead of time. Mary's last day of work in Sydney (or so we thought) and Jeff's second day of work in a string of five. 9AM.

Had honey nut corn flakes with peaches on top. Jeff got this when they went surfing over Easter Week and can't get enough of it. Very good. I will continue to have this at home. Also had a banana. Very healthy. It wouldn't last.

I walked to the Pakhi Cafe for the first time. It's a Pakistani internet cafe that has many different cuisines, but specializes in Italian. It's brothers or friends, but the two guys are ALWAYS there. Great people. The internet is free for customers. Technically you can just get a can of pop or bottle of water, but I wanted to get something that actually costs something to patronize them since this was my first visit. Show them that I'm not a freeloader. I got a fruit plate. It was fucking enormous. Full of rockmelon, honeydew, watermelon and tons and tons of (unripe) pineapple. Mary said that once when she ordered the fruit plate, all she got was a plateful of rockmelon. She then said she was allergic to it, did they have anything else (a total lie) and they looked panicked. They only give you what they have and that day, they were fresh out of everything but cantaloupe. Anyway, it was a good fruitplate, even with the pineapple.

After blogging I walked over to Chinatown. Got a couple good views on the way, of the skyline from a different angle. Why go the same way twice?

Had lunch at the BBQ King, a Chinese place I'd read was the best in Sydney's Chinatown. They had BBQ ducks hanging in the windows. When I walked in, they pounced and sat me at a communal table with two Asian guys eating separately. I perused the menu and decided on the chicken fillets in a honey sauce. I got tea, which was great, and hot. The waitress was this fat Chinese woman, and was a really funny person and could not have been nicer. There's no tipping here, so the service was a little surprising. Makes you further question Americans' motives for things. The food was awesome, and roughly three or four meals in one. It was $16.50, which was on the cheaper end of the spectrum, and was expensive for lunch, but when you eat it over three meals, its pretty affordable. It was a little sickly sweet after awhile, and was making me a little sick. I was proud of myself and how masterful I was with the chopsticks. All those years of Ron of Japan really honed my skills.

After lunch, I walked through Chinatown, and went into St. Honore's Cake Shop and got a couple of cocktail buns for $0.80 each, which were the shape of long john doughnuts but were like rolls and had a sweet coconut filling inside. They were fantastic. I also got some guava gelato at the Gelatissimo a few storefronts down. Only ok. The flavor was a little weak; not nearly as perfect as the mango gelato.

After dropping off my leftovers at the apartment and avoiding rain all morning, though it did come down in waves, I made my way to George St. and found a Bureau de Change at the Westpac branch. I changed a traveller's check and was pleased to find they charged no commission and I got a monster of a rate. I walked around George St. and went into a few shops. There are two Virgin Megastores a block or two apart. There are three Westpac banks in four blocks. Two Macca's (McDonald's) within three or four blocks.

CD's here are cheap if they're $20. Paperback books here go for $35. Highway robbery!

Went into Gowings and found a cool hooded sweatshirt and a jacket. Didn't buy them yet.

Did some food shopping at Woolworths (mainly for TimTams and red apples) and went back and we ate some dinner and watched a few episodes of Project Greenlight Season 2. Efram is a cock. It was late and none of us especially felt up to going out to a pub, so we just kinda hung out there. Plus with Jeff's work schedule sometimes requiring him to get up at 5:30 in the AM, I totally understood that he didn't want to be up all night only to work all day very early. We can't go out all night every night, we're old men and women now.