Sydney disappoints in Earth Hour

On saturday it was Earth Hour around the world. Incase you don't know what Earth Hour is, you should be ashamed, but here is a brief description I stole from another website:

"Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF ( World Wide Fund for Nature, also known as World Wildlife Fund) and is held on the last Saturday of March annually, asking households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness towards the need to take action on climate change.  Earth Hour was conceived by WWF and The Sydney Morning Herald in 2007, when 2.2 million residents of Sydney participated by turning off all non-essential lights.  Following Sydney's lead, many other cities around the world adopted the event in 2008. Earth Hour 2011 took place on March 26, 2011 from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., at participants' local time."

I am majorly disappointed with Sydney's effort here, especially considering this is the city that started it all.  We decided to head to the roof top of the Youth Hostel next door, which gives us the perfect view of the city and the harbour bridge.  We thought seeing the city and bridge plunge into darkness would be a great sight.  However, we were to be incredibly disappointed!

8:30pm came and went and nothing happened, then, the harbour bridge lights went off, and that was it.  Apparently the opera house lights also went out, but for a city that started this world wide campaign, it was a major disappointment.  Sydney, you should be ashamed of yourself!  Switching off a couple of lights ain't going to save the world.

So in response to this, I decided that I would rebel against Earth Hour and switch on every appliance and light in our flat to use up as much energy as possible.  However, my flatmates didn't allow this to happen. 

This was taken during Earth Hour.  They don't even switch all the lights off at these two places, it's pathetic.  I am sure they can do better.  2012 must be an improvement.

On a side note, we have decided to go Great White Shark Cage Diving. Probably won't happen for a while yet as we have to travel to Port Lincoln and it's a bit to pricey when you are not earning anything. But it will happen.

Australian to do list!

Now, being in Australia, there is a lot to do. And a lot I want to do before I come home.  So I thought it best to make a list of things.  It is full of random stuff and some more obvious things, some things I have done already so that’s why they are not on the list.  However, I am sure there are many more things that can be added to it. So please add your comments with suggestions, however, please keep bungee jumping and sky diving off the list, neither of these will be happening!

So far on the list we have: 

1. Blue Mountains weekend trip
2. Hunter Valley weekend trip
3. Going to Melbourne
4. Go on the Neighbours tour
5. Seeing a show at the Opera House
6. Going to a Sporting Event
7. Learn to Surf
8. Go to the Gold Coast/Brisbane
9. Go to New Zealand
10. Do a comedy course

Now I realise number 10 might seem strange.  We were in bar about 2 weeks ago and they were advertising for for this comedy course that they run. So as soon as I get my first paycheck I have agreed to look into it and sign up for it.  It's only for 2 hours a week for 5 weeks.  At the end of it, you have to do 3 live shows to a paying audience and it also gets filmed and put on a dvd for you. So I plan to at least give the course a try and see what happens.

Good News and Bad News

Firstly, I have a job!!!  With an Advertising agency called Momentum.

I got a call on Friday morning from the recruitment agent, asking if I could go into see Momentum at 2pm in the afternoon.  So I jumped in the shower put my shirt through the washer/dryer and managed to make it on time.  Initially I didn’t think I had done too well in the interview as it didn’t last too long and the chat wasn’t great.  However, at 7:30pm I got a call saying I had the job.  So I start on the 30^th of March on a 6 week freelance contract initially, with the view to staying there permanently if they like me.  The role is exactly what I did at Leith but to a much smaller studio department. 

Also this week, our flatmates have decided to go back home to England.  They leave tomorrow.  I think both grieg and I will be disappointed to see them leave but it just hasn’t worked out for them.  So it’s a fond fair well to Danni and Sarah. We’ll miss you.

However, all being well, it’s a big hello to our new flatmates, Keri and Pam from New York.  We just need the paper work signed and sealed and they will become our new flatmates. Sorted!

The Island!

So on Saturday I headed out to ‘The Island’, with Chris and Lisa. It was an all day thing and Greig had made plans for later on in the day so decided not come along.

‘The Island’, is essentially a floating bar that is suspended to the sea bed on south side of the harbour.  But essentially this bar can be relocated to anywhere you want it to be in Sydney harbour.  On ‘The Island’, these is a huge bar, DJ set, BBQ, day beds, Cabana’s and beach chairs. What more could you want?

We were there for a birthday party for a couple of other Scottish people who Lisa knows, and it was a great day.  The 3 of us may have stolen a hot dog, but it was purely by accident as we thought they were free but have since realised that you may have had to pay for them. However, karma struck as I burnt my mouth on it.

It is really hard to describe this place so I will let the photo’s and video do it for me.  The sunset was almost as good as that of Irvine Harbour.


This is a wee video I made, the quality is not great as it was just on my small digital camera, but you get the idea.

Work Downunder

Firstly, well done to Greig.  He has managed to get himself some work.  He is on an 8 week contract at the Victoria Arcade shopping centre as an Assistant Brand Manager.  Unfortunately it is only temporary, but it is better than nothing.  So a big well done to him!

As for me, well I had an interview with an ad agency called Clemenger about two weeks ago, they do advertising for people like Virgin, Hungry Jacks (What the aussies call Burger King) and Foxtell (the equivalent to Sky Sports).  I was going to be work on Virgin initially and then Hungry Jacks.  The day after the interview, I was told the woman who interviewed me said she wanted to hire me, but couldn’t get it signed off and I would hear on Monday.  Well, Monday came and went, and I heard nothing then on the Tuesday I was told that they were having internal issues and would not be able to get it signed off for a couple of weeks, if at all.  So I am still waiting to hear if I will get that job or not. 

In the meantime, there are other agencies on the go, but nothing yet has been confirmed. So I am now looking at bars and restaurants to tie me over until I hear from one of them.  Although to work in a bar here you have to have what they call an RSA Licence. Basically you pay about $80 to get a piece of paper that says you will not serve anyone too much alcohol.  Anyway, this is booked for Monday, so I will have the licence then.

So that’s that on the job front for now.

I more just want something now as I am just getting itchy feet and a bit restless. So hopefully something will come along soon.

All for a Burger.

So for the last couple of weeks it has been Mardi Gras here.  However, until Saturday, you would not have known it was on at all.  As on Saturday evening it was the Mardi Gras Gay & Lesbian Parade.  Now for those of you who do not know much about Sydney’s Mardi Gras it has always been about gay and lesbian equal rights. This year it was about having the right to Marry in Australia, I think. Something like that anyway.

So, Greig and I, arranged to meet up with Chris and go away from the city to get away from it all.  So we headed to Watson Bay. The place people choose to commit suicide here in Sydney according to Chris. Mainly, it would seem, due to its high cliffs.  So that was comforting.  Anyway, we headed to a bar there and had a couple of drinks overlooking the harbour.  Then decided to head to the fish and chip shop for some food, although they wanted £20, about £14 for a chippy. We decided against it.  And for some reason decided to head into the city centre.

When we arrived the parade was still going on.  However, we had decided to we wanted to go to a gourmet burger place that was on the other side of the road from where we were.  So we had two choices: 1) Run through the parade and get tackled by the police or worse, considering the people in the parade. 2) Walk about 3k around the city centre to get to the other side. We decided on the latter. However, once we had finally crossed to the other side, we were met by another challenge. That of a police barrier.  By this point we were starving and had not had a drink in about an hour and a half.  Then we noticed a couple of girls run through the police barrier in the corner when the police weren’t looking, unfortunately one of them was caught, which took a policeman out of action, this allowed some people on the otherside to make a run for it. This then provided us with an opportunity. So, we ran. And although a wee policewomen shouted at us, she was never going to stop us, and we were away and around the corner. Woohoo, now we thought there is nothing stopping us getting a burger.  Oh how wrong we were.

As we got one street away, there was another police barrier on the pavement.  They would not budge, and were much bigger than us this time. So we decided to walk round.  To be met by another barrier, and another, and another.  We could actually see the burger joint by this time.  And there was no chance of us getting through these policemen.  So Greig decided that charming them would be the best way forward.  So he walks over to the biggest policeman he can find and explains how desperate we are to get to the gourmet burger place, “just over there”.   Explaining, “we have walked around these streets for 2 hours, please let us go, we just want a burger.” The policeman then saying, “How likely are you to cause trouble?” Greigs reply, “depends how much we drink!” At this point I thought there was no chance, however, this seemed to be funny to the policeman and he let us go through.  So we finally had our burger, which was indeed very good.  I would recommend it, Mad Max on Crown Street.

After the parade, Oxford street descends into one big street party.  Which was highly entertaining, I think I may now be in a Japanese family photo album. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so I have no photos of my own.  Which is a shame, as you have never seen so many strange sights in your life. However, if you click on this link, you get the idea:

Sydney Mardi Gras Pictures 

Trip to see the wildlife of Australia!

So last thursday we took a trip to see some wildlife at Sydney's Wildlife World and Sydney's Aquatic Centre, both found next to each other in Darling harbour.


Now, this was a good day out, but we clearly arrived on a day when the animals were a bit frisky.  These crickets were not the only ones crickets getting it on when we were there.

These lizards were also at it too, they even had a friend to rest on, slightly awkward.

The highlight we were told would be the 5 meter croc, he is huge but he was a bit boring. 

The highlight was without a doubt the Kangaroos. Who looked like the had had a night on the tiles the night before:

They were the highlight, and very cool although most Aussies don't seem to like roos very much.

Here are some of the other highlights from the day, don't worry, no spiders: