Art and About

It's been a busy yet fun past couple of weeks:

Taronga Zoo
Maya, Genghis, Kat, Simon and I went to check out the zoo a couple of weekends ago. Yay zoo!!

Koala

Giraffes. Not in the wild in Australia but they have a pretty nice view.

View of Sydney Harbour Bridge while waiting for the Free Flying Bird Show to begin.

Free Flying Bird Show. Highly recommended! The performers are some very well trained birds.

The biggest penguin is the Emperor Penguin, *only* 4 feet tall. Not in Australia, but just a statue for fun (and comparison).

Little Penguin! It's actually called Little Penguin too. I read that they're supposed to be 33 cm tall but this one looked really small through the glass. (Wheeee!)

Emu. Native to Australia. Pretty big, but still smaller than the ostriches we'd see at Dee Dutchman's Dairy during band trips.



Hmm....I don't remember if this is a kangaroo or a wallaby. I think it's actually a wallaby.

Crocodile. I think this one was over 4 feet long.



Art and About Sydney
There's an art festival on right now in Sydney. On Saturday we checked out two exhibits:

Field: This exhibit consists of probably about...50 upright mirrors spread out in Hyde park. The idea of this exhibit is to get us to think about space and reflect on what is real.

Taking a picture of Curtis taking a picture.

Me and my bicycle.

Snailovation: This exhibit consists of probably about 24 giant snails made of recycled materials. The snails are mostly in the CBD. I think I've seen 14 by now.

 

  

2013 Blackmores Sydney Running Festival
I ran another half marathon on Sunday. It started pretty early so I was out walking to the CBD before the sun was up.

En route to the race. I was the only pedestrian on this stretch of road when I took this snap.

Looking strong right before the finish line. This is my best photo, the rest of them are painful looking haha.

Team Snap! Ling, me, Emma, Nic and Zi. My running friend Paddy was there too, but he finished super fast and had already left.

Girls Team

Unstructured Time
My last day of work was last week, so I've had this week free. Well, not really free, as I have things to do, but not having to be at work gives me more free time for other stuff :)

It was sad leaving. My colleagues got me a big card. My client company also got me a card. Double the love :)

It's been a pretty nice week. Its approaching summer here now and it's getting hot. Went for a morning paddle a few days ago. Was intense but pretty.

Not working means I have time for helping others too. My friend's friend who I hadn't met before was moving house the other day so I said I'd help, cuz moving's a beast. It was a fun day, despite the labour. We took a ferry to get there and I enjoy the ferries.

It was interesting moving. This friend's friend doesn't have a lot of money and she has kids, which also means you can't help but accumulate stuff, as you're then a family-unit. It reminded how lucky I am to have a bit of money and well, at the moment no kids to worry about, psychologically as well as financially :p. And also reminded me of how much I want to make sure I earn well, a lot, especially in the future. It felt good to help her out though and really, it got me out of the house and on a mini-adventure AND a work-out session at the same time. Plus, my friend paid for my ferry ride and meals for the day, so it was win-win :) Plus she's super cool and I could tell she's a great mom and works hard to provide while making sure her kids feel loved. Just happens to be that she's not currently in a vocation that earns very much. But she seems to like what she does and that's important too. And she's going to have us over for dinner to thank us. Yay for new friends!

Verse

 

⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. -- Philippians 4:6-7 (NIV)

Not to say that everything's better, but I read this verse the other day and I've been trying to meditate on it. It's been a popular and common one in group since university days but I never really thought about it as much as I have this past week. Before it was always the command at the beginning that I would try to follow, because it's not the only verse that tells us we should not worry, but this past week I've noticed the weight of the second part: particularly how it doesn't say that anything will be solved, or even that things will improve, but rather that your hearts and minds will be guarded.



 

The First Ten Days Back

The past week and a bit have had ups and downs. At some times I've been totally and so very homesick, worried or scared, other times I've been totally and so very high on the moment and happy.

Downs: My grown-up bully; Worries about the unknown; Homesickness
Ups: Good Friends; Cycling; Sporting Events

I'll elaborate on the ups :)

Dobroyd Regatta
Sept 2 was the first regatta of the dragonboating season, commencing a weekend before on-season began. It was pretty much mostly a trial run I think, for the coaches to experiment without sacrificing an actual race. But it's still a race and also a social run for us as a team, because well, what's more fun that spending a warm day on the water with your friends?

In a mixed-10s race, 200m. This race is quite short, lasting only about one minute in duration, but it's a hard minute and by the end everything burns. It's the sprint race of dragonboat racing.

True Grit 2013
Sep 8 I participated in True Grit, a 10 km military-inspired obstacle course. While I handled the cardio portion of the course no problem, some of the obstacles were indeed a challenge. Particularly, the obstacle where you have to run at a 3m high wall and hoist yourself up to the top. My teammates helped me up on that one. It was great to be part of a team and to witness the camaraderie  that too place i.e. there was one girl who had difficulty getting across the monkey bars. I'll admit that even I found it difficult. Not only are monkey bar skills something that most of us haven't used since grade school, but when it's part of a course where you're already fatigued and covered in mud, there's added difficulty. I had to wipe my muddy hands on the grass, which was also muddy, and find dry-ish parts inside of my shirt to somewhat make my hands less slippery. I think it helped a bit, but the bars are already covered in mud from other people. And, if you let go of the bars, you drop into a mud swamp. This other girl fell in already and was getting frustrated, so two of the guys went into the swamp and helped hold up her legs while she did the monkey bars. Teamwork!

The Team! (R to L): Skyn, Emma, Genghis, Indy, Butch and me.

This was harder than I expected. Hehe and apparently that guy beside me fell into the mud.

Finishers!!

Other
Also, no pics but:

-My Canadian-friend Carmen and I went to Rockpool for burgers. Hamburgers are not really a big deal in Sydney, which only makes me crave them. In some other blog/website somebody went on a burger hunt and found what they decided were the top three. So far we've hit up #1 and #3, so now we just gotta make it to #2: Jamie Oliver's.

-My friend Steph invited me to her Israeli friend's picnic at Rushcutter's Bay, a swankier area of Sydney. It was great to meet some new people while hanging out on the grass and eating some delicious homemade food.

So yeah, lots of fun stuff :)