Ride around the park and a lovely breakfast....

Last night I tried to reproduce some of the dishes I had learned to cook in Vietnam whilst on my 3 month volunteering stint.  The green mango salad was nice but the Lau needed a proper gas hotplate to really work.  Running back and forth to the stove just didn't cut it, no matter how funny it may have looked!  However it was a test and my guinea pig was my best mate Jo.  When I get it right I will post recipes and photos.  Jo is the quite the best dinner guest/guinea pig...she had elected to bring the beers and went out of her way to find  beer that would compliment the food.  She was advised to get Lucky Beer from China.  Sold in a bespoke bottle shaped - and I quote the box - '...like a seated laughing Buddha holding a large gold ingot above his head.   Many believe this figure of Buddha to be a symbol of wealth, happiness and life fulfilment.' 

Wow, who knew that beer could be such a spiritual thing!  I'd drunk this beer in Hanoi with members of the Koto staff.  Isn't the bottle great.  I'd actually felt a twinge of concern that it may be somehow blasphemous to be drinking beer out of a fascimile of a god but was put at my ease by my Vietnamese friends who maintained that Buddha wanted us to be happy!   In addition to promising (quoting again) 'luck, good fortune, longevity and happiness' it tastes pretty good too...and the bottles really are too nice to recycle...I'm thinking 6 of them - each with a different coloured Gerbera daisy lined up along a window to catch the sun in the deep emerald green glass......more junk to cart around!  When will I ever learn?

just rub his tummy for luck and you will channel his infectious good fortune...truly the package told me so....

After dinner we got to chatting about cycling - both here (which she does commuting to here job as a Cookery Tutor at UTS) and in Hanoi (which I did for the last 6 weeks of my stay).  Despite the random, seemingly chaotic traffic over there I felt safer on the Hanoi roads than I do here.  Jo suggested that we have a go riding round Centennial Park....what a good idea.  I sussed out hire costs and we met up the next morning to get rolling.
Thursday had dawned bright and sunny - but not too hot; the best kind of Sydney day.  I had only hired the bike for 1 hour so we timed our ride carefully.  Three times round the 4-5km park track saw me a bit puffed but feeling great and with 15 minutes to spare.  Jo headed off to work and I tootled home for a restorative shower and some late breakfast/early lunch.

There are many cafes in Paddington, some great, some not so great....most of them expensive.  Toni had suggested that I try a new one that has opened just on the corner of Queen Street and Oxford Street just near one of the entrances to Centennial Park. 

'Daisy and Poppy' is a tiny outdoor cafe sheltered by ancient trees and protected from the wind by it's position nestled beside an old redbrick wall. It's named after the two daughters of the friendly proprietor Josephine.  The menu of breakfast and lunch items is varied enough to be interesting and the huge mouthwatering muffins are home made - a major drawcard for me.  The drinks menu includes some interesting fruit frappes and smoothies too.   I placed my order and found a table in the shade dappled courtyard.

After my exercise I treated myself to scrambled eggs on turkish toast, a large skinny latte and a decadent mixed berry muffin...the total cost was $13.20 - a massive amount by Hanoi standards but very good value for Sydney.   I've always maintained that one of the hardest meals to cook properly is breakfast, there is a fine line between eggs that are sloppy or rock hard.  Likewise; if not stirred enough scrambled eggs become an omelette but over stir and they become powdery and unpleasant.  I'm happy to report that my eggs were creamy, perfectly baveuse and with just enough seasoning.  I'd already begun piling them onto the toast in preparation to chow down when I remembered that I had to take a photo...so appologies if it's not as nice looking as it was when they were first presented to me.

my eggs - cooked perfectly and just enough to satisfy...

My coffee was good too, I don't like scalding coffee and Jo had made it just the right temperature for me.  I'm afraid I didn't take a photo of my muffin - it just looked too decadent; split, toasted and with just enough butter to remind me that I'm trying to lose weight....there was a guilty pang - but man...was it good!  Laden with mixed berries the sweet dough encased the tart freshness of the softened fruit in just the right proportion.

there are sweet slices and pastries as well as the muffins...

A lot of new hospitality ventures close in the first year...here's hoping that 'Daisy and Poppy' is one of the survivors - it deserves to be.

Christchurch earthquake...

I sat transfixed as scenes of absolute devastation streamed from the television.  Tears flowed unchecked.  I still can't comprehend the sheer size of the catastrophe.  One friend and his family have posted on Facebook that they are safe; without home, power, or water and stunned but safe.  Thank goodness. 
Still waiting to hear about other friends and family.  My heart goes out to everyone affected by this awful thing...it's just not fair. 
It's heartening though to see the swift response that Australia has made in sending assistance.  Like siblings in some huge global family Kiwis and Aussies may jostle and prod each other during good times but as soon as the day darkens we are there for each other. 
It truly was a dark day for New Zealand yesterday.

Back home in Sydney and a bit culture shocked to tell the truth.....

 For the past year I've been keeping a blog called Cook2koto about my journey to raise enough fund to go and spend some time volunteering at the fantastic school in Hanoi where underprivileged kids get the chance of a new life through a hospitality qualification.  It was a sometimes rocky road which made for an amazing time but it has finally come to it's natural end....however I've got the blog bug now and it's been suggested to me to continue...so here I am.

After three months in Hanoi I am finally back home in the stunningly beautiful and really quite hot city of Sydney and feeling a bit of culture shock.  It's strange to look around and see a plethora of white faces, well fed, smooth and healthy white faces.  With a few notable exceptions walking round Newtown, most people look so well fed and well cared for.  Expensive clothing, cultivated tans, designer sunglasses....I should mention that I'm house-sitting in Paddington at present so it's probably not that representative of greater Sydney.  The price of everything is giving me coniptions...after paying 25,000vd for a kilo for dragonfruit I saw it today for $14.99 a kilo...and no matter how much I expect it I'm still a bit shocked.  For all it's pitfalls living in Vietnam certainly had many, many advantages.  Something that is striking me though is the relative quiet here....no horns blaring, no nocturnal cockrels competing for status at 3am....just the prosaic banging of the neighbours building something and their ghastly taste in music!

I got off the plane on Wednesday and went back to my fantastic casual job on the Thursday night.  I'm a discovery host at Taronga Zoo.  It's the most perfect job...I get paid to meet really nice people, and talk to them!  The fact that I'm talking about animals is an added bonus.  Thursday was a great night, the team I worked with were professional, efficient and just plain nice folk!  We worked together like a well oiled machine.  It didn't rain and the heat had abated just enough to make the night walk a pleasant experience also.  In the morning the two behind the scenes experiences were two of my favourites too.  Firstly we fed the giraffes...I was privileged enough to be a keeper at Taronga way back in the 80s and looked after the ungulate section for a spell so am already in love with these remarkable animals.

 

Good morning world....

Todd giving us a bit of inside info about the giraffes...

Showing how to feed safely...always of primary importance when bringing visitors into behind the scenes areas....

me being silly....

Wow...we could be in darkest Africa.....

On the previously evening our small but unusual pride of lions had been giving voice at dusk...the throaty groans travel for many kilometres and are usually a warning to other prides to avoid the area.  Our guys must think they are hot stuff since they've never been challenged back...:-)   Unfortunately because of the heat we only caught a glimpse of our dominant male Jambo in the evening...the rest were lolling about on the cool grass at the rear of the enclosure out of sight.  So the next morning when we came past and Kuchani; the adult female, was sitting front and centre waiting for her breakfast like this it made for some very happy snappers.

The demon eyes are my fault, I've got to learn how to take a low light photo without blurring it...I used a flash here with disastrous results....she's still beautiful though....

The happy group being sussed out by Satu; our male Sumatran Tiger...

Magnificent isn't he?

It was a great shift but at the end of it I was totally knackered...and I had to go home, unpack from Vietnam and repack to move into my home for the next two weeks.

I'm a full time student at UNSW and find it impossible to afford the rents that one needs to pay in Sydney if you don't want to live miles and miles away from uni so I house sit.  I've been doing it for three years now and thankfully now I'm pretty much booked out with return sits.  The first two years I paid a subscription to a website but this year I didn't need to.  By offering a service whereby the house gets looked after, the pet gets pampered and the returning homeowner gets fed (I leave a meal in the chiller - it helps that I'm also a chef) I'm only needing to book November and part of December this year....brilliant!  At the moment I'm in a nice wee place in Paddington,

a little bit of Bali in the middle of Paddo....

 after that it's Newtown, Clovelly, Newtown again then Rozelle.  If you can stand to live out of a suitcase it's a great way to get by when you can't earn a full time wage.

Each week I will feature a facet of my life in this glorious city to share with you....I hope you enjoy my life as much as I do....