Australia Day 3: Souvenirs

I woke up with a slight hangover (I never said the technique was guaranteed to work). I popped some Tylenol and that stopped the pounding in my head but unfortunately did not stop the pounding of children's feet running in the hallway. As far as I can recall, this substituted as this morning's alarm clock (I actually can't remember too much about the morning).

and yet there was so much more than vegetables

Anyways, the four of us jumped on the bus and headed off for some souvenir shopping in Chinatown. I did mention in my last post that Eileena was joining us, right? One second while I check.... okay, and I did. Let's carry on then. It turns out Market City was a huge swap meet, except indoors. And with multiple levels. And no... I didn't get any pictures of the inside. Mostly because it was super crowded and I was far too busy looking at all the things for sale. We spent most of our time on the first floor, but there were so many stalls, I'm trying to think where to begin. First off, there were your typical, everyday vendors. Mostly T-shirts, trinkets (bottle openers, lighters, magnets, key chains, etc), and jewelry. So many jewelry vendors (luckily I'm able to space out at will or I might've been bored out of my mind everytime we stopped at one). Oh, and a couple stalls offering massages. We managed to wander around for hours just looking at all the different stuff on sale. And I think it was at one of the stuffed animal vendors that I once again got to participate in the "guess my ethnicity" game. Here's the play-by-play. She started by launching right into Chinese and when she noticed my look of confusion, she guessed the old standby of Filipino (understandable since I get that a lot). Her second guess, Indonesian (making that the first time I've ever gotten Indonesian). Finally, she just gave up and asked. When I mentioned I was half-Chinese, she offered me the stuffed kangaroo, "$15. But for you, $12" which I took. I needed a souvenir for my sister after all. At least I think she still likes stuffed animals. Whatever, she'll always just be a little kid to me.

But this is Australia. Where's the Australia stuff? you ask. Well, there were also the Australian trinket vendors. Boomerangs, didgeridoos, paintings, pelts, and kangaroo scrotums. Yes, kangaroo scrotums. Kangaroo scrotum keychains, lighter holders, and even bottle openers

if they weren't almost $20 each, I would've bought one for everyone

Upstairs was a food court area as well as more of the upscale vendors in actual shops. No, none of you got anything from these stores. I went classic cheap on all of your souvenirs.

As you probably noticed, we hadn't eaten anything all day. We went to a Malaysian restaurant across the street and scarfed down dishes. I'm still not sure how to describe Malaysian food, mostly because taste is my worst sense. A lot of the dishes had a spice to them and I'm sure they could have been hotter, which I'm glad they weren't (sadly, I have a super low spice tolerance). Well, here's pictures Taryn took and hopefully your eyes can describe it to your stomach. Also, if you're wondering why I'm always using pictures someone else (usually Taryn) took, it's because I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures... as well as remembering that I even own a camera. Besides, this is the Era of Social Media. Why would any party need more than one camera when we're all going to share the same pictures anyways? But we're going off topic again. Here's your food

After lunch, and a very much one-sided debate, we were now off to the absinthe bar. According to Aurora's plan, we were supposed to have headed there after the beach walk on our first day, but we were so exhausted we abandoned it. Since we had a couple hours to kill before pizza with my former Plume-ers, Aurora suggested now was the time to go.

Sorry, what I'm remembering now was a really long walk. From the Malaysian restaurant, we followed Google maps as it lead us across a park, under a bridge, and through a shady-looking neighborhood. I'm gonna rank it as the 3rd longest walk for this trip (#1 being the Bondi trek and #2 still to come). The neighborhood had that old, brick-and-mortar, I-think-someone-is-watchng-me-from-the-window feel. The bar itself looked like any old specialty shop (I'm thinking seamstress), you know, if you removed everything related to absinthe. However, AbsintheSalon was an absinthe bar, from the glassware in the window to the green light above the door, and you could tell just from the outside that this was going to be an experience.

We needed to be buzzed in. Yeah, buzzed in. I can't remember the last time I needed to buzz in to get anywhere. The hostess brought us inside through the front room and into the back. There were several tables, some of them with people already sitting at them but all of them with the same glass water-contraption in the center.

You know, this thing

We each chose a different brand of absinthe from the selection as the host recommended. And this is where I "possibly" made another error in judgment (aka "Alan being a dumbass") by choosing another absinthe on the menu rather than what the host recommended. My choice, it turns out, had the strongest, and somewhat harshest taste of the four. This was only "possibly" a mistake since I'm not sure if I would've liked his recommendation either. I'm not sure, but I think the best one was either Taryn or Eileena's choice. Whichever it was, the important thing was that I managed, after just one cup, to walk away with a decent buzz, which is really all that matters.

thanks AbsintheSalon for the picture

Oh, and as much as I would like to leave out me being yelled at again while on vacation, I shouldn't (if I didn't tell you, it happened previously on the Seattle trip a couple years ago, but that's a story for another time). Especially when it was slightly deserved. I'm not sure how it came up, but I remember bringing up the green fairy you're supposed to see whey you drink absinthe (after all, everything I know about absinthe comes from Eurotrip). Picking up on this, our host teleported next to us (seriously, where did he come from?) and immediately began schooling me on everything Absinthe and how it differs from "that filth, absinth" (his words, not mine). He carried on this rant for about five minutes and as much as I would like to share his knowledge, as I said before, we were going to have dinner with other former Plume-ers, so let's carry on.

Sometimes, I still can't believe it's been 4 years (I have no idea who took this picture)

 So, once again, we hopped on the bus back to The Rocks where our hostel was located. Because, luckily, the place we were going was right next door. But that wasn't the only surprise - we got a new roommate. As I said, the Indian guy left that morning... oh, I forgot to mention that. Well, the Indian guy left that morning and we happened upon our new roommate from Colorado. He was in Australia backpacking as well as to study... um, I think it was geology... rocks, maybe?

Anyways, Taryn invited him to join us to pizza... topped with authentic Australian animals! Did you really think it was going to be just regular pizza? The strange part was that a couple of the Australians (I don't remember who) said they've never eaten kangaroo or crocodile before. Though I guess that's not so strange considering there are things in Hawaii I haven't eaten though I've lived here all my life. Meh, I guess that's just one of those things

And back to the story (sorry, almost went off track there again). We met up with all my former Plume-ers: Vanessa, Jane, Ben, and Mel as well as Glen, Leon and Ai (it was a huge table). Oh, and the pizza? It was good. Honestly, the kangaroo pizza kinda tasted like a steak pizza would (though that might be just how it was cooked) but the crocodile... it was bad. The meat tasted... I'm trying to think of the word.... different? strange? Something like that. I can see now why they are so hard to kill. I mean, I wouldn't be that motivated to challenge a crocodile especially if I knew it would taste like that. Pizza pics once again courtesy of Taryn's camera

Kangaroo pizza

Crocodile pizza

Colorado John (that's his name) left after a slice or two citing jet lag and Mel, Leon, Ben, and Ai (everyone who rode with Mel) left next, but not before Ben got the people sitting next to us to take a group picture for us

The rest of us grabbed dessert at a famous chocolate shop nearby and hung out on the Opera House steps. It was nice hanging out and catching up with people I hadn't seen for 4 years (though technically we saw Ben 2 years ago and Vanessa just last year). Hopefully it won't be another 4 years before we all meet again, though it probably will be. Before we split, we exchanged some gifts and souvenirs (some of which I still have yet to give out to the other Plume-ers back in Hawaii). Also, we took this picture (with Taryn's camera)

 

This seems like a good way to end this post