Welcoming the New Year in McLaren Vale Dec. 28, 2012 - Jan. 1, 2013

Ryan and I tried to book a trip to Fiji over our Christmas break, but that didn't work out so we decided to go back to our favourite spot in South Australia: McLaren Vale.  We rented a small cabin in a vineyard and had a perfect vacation.

We started by spending Friday night with our friends Janah and Luke playing board games, since they live near McLaren Vale (and we had been talking about doing a board game night forever!)  After a wonderful evening, and an amazing homemade breakfast, we headed off to the Willunga Markets to pick up some fresh produce for our weekend.  Then we checked in to our beautiful cabin at McLaren Ridge.  It was so peaceful we actually had breakfast on the porch every morning and spent a lot of time reading out there too. 

Since I've written about McLaren Vale so many times I'm just going to skip the repeat stuff and write about the new things that we did.  The idea behind the trip was that if we spent a few days in the region, we could both do some wine tasting.  Usually I end up driving, but this time we took turns.  We even took it a step further and rented bikes on one of the days.  I have to confess, I really don't like bike riding.  I have no idea why since I used to do it all of the time as a kid, but I just don't.  Ryan wanted to rent a tandem bike, but that was out of the question. 

We decided to go to the furthest winery first, just in case I wussed out, so we biked the 3.1km from the bike shop to d'Arenburg, which was pretty much all uphill.  Without all of the details, suffice it to say that we made it but we were very sweaty by the end of it.  The view was beautiful but the place was completely packed so we did our wine tasting and went on our way.

Since there were lots of wineries on the 3km road back to the cycle shop, we decided to just ride back down the hill and stop along the way.  That brought us to an awesome new place for us called Tapestry.  Their wine was delicious and their lunch platter was amazing!  We also did a bike photo shoot after lunch - I just had to have proof that I was riding a bike!

After that we decided we had had enough wine, so we stopped at an art gallery, the grocery store, and a little shop and restaurant in a train car called "The Almond Train".  Every time we go to McLaren Vale I want to go there, and finally Ryan agreed to check it out.  Free flavoured almond samples!  What more could you want?!

That evening, and pretty much every evening, we just played board games and drank wine.  It was exactly how we wanted to spend our vacation.

The next day we decided to check out the beach, and we randomly ran into our friend (and Ryan's old boss) Andy.  He lives in the area and he invited us to his family's New Year's Party.  We don't really know that many people, so it just goes to show you how small Adelaide is if even WE run into people we know!  Anyway, the beach was beautiful, as they always are in South Australia.

For our last full day in McLaren Vale we decided to have lunch at our favourite place (Leconfield) and then go on a hike.  We had a map from the visitor centre, but for the life of us we could not find the hike.  Even when we got to the right parking lot we still managed to walk down the wrong trail.  The funniest thing was, though, that we were just blaming it on poor signage, and Ryan insisted we were on the right track.  He kept pointing to where we were on our map and showing me all of these elevation patterns to prove it.  Turns out, though, we weren't even close to the right area.  Eventually we did find a really nice lookout and the correct trail, but it was the middle of the day in Australian summer and we were out of water, so we didn't ever actually do the hike we had planned.

That night we went to Andy's house to celebrate New Year's Eve.  His house is on a hill and he just build a new balcony that overlooks all of the suburbs and the ocean, so at midnight we could see all of the fireworks along the beach and all through the suburbs.  It was an awesome evening with great friends to end off our wonderful mini-vacation.

Spectacular Sydney Harbour - Oct. 28-29, 2012

After a great sleep (wearing earplugs), we had another nibbley breakfast in our rooms and decided to walk to the Botanic Gardens.  We weren't sure how far away everything was, but it was a beautiful walk through quiet neighbourhoods to get there.  We didn't spend too much time in the gardens, but we did get a stunning view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge from the top of a hill.

We kept walking through the city to Darling Harbour where we had overpriced burgers for lunch, and then made our way over to the aquarium.  I think we were all pretty excited for the aquarium, but I'm not sure it lived up to our expectations.  There were some really cool small tanks (I especially liked the jelly fish), but the big tanks with the sharks and stuff weren't as mysterious or well "decorated" maybe as we were expecting.  They were still really cool though, just not as cool as aquariums always look in movies.  One thing I wasn't expecting was to get seasick from just LOOKING at the ocean!  Seriously, the fish tanks made me nauseous.  Or maybe it was the swarms of kids everywhere…

Darling Harbour seemed to be the hub of all of the excitement, so we stopped at another pub for a drink and watched the boat racing. 

Randomly the power went out in the strip of buildings we were in, so the music stopped and we headed on our way.  I went to play in an interesting fountain, my dad checked out some classic cars, and we sort of watched a guy juggling fire (but he was boring). 

To get back to Circular Quay we walked the Esplanade, but that was a bit long and tiring so we stopped for another quick drink before dinner.

Dinner was during sunset, overlooking the Opera House, at ARIA.  It's co-owned by Matt Moran who is a famous Australian chef and guest judge on the show MasterChef, and Peter Sullivan who also makes guest appearances on the show.  As most of you know I absolutely love that show, so one of the things I really wanted to do in Sydney was to go to a famous restaurant.  There are dozens to choose from, but this one was in the right location, has 2 Chef's Hats, and was open on Sundays.  I was looking forward to this the most of everything, but I know everyone had an unforgettable night.  The restaurant was beautiful, but not pretentious which was great.  The menu was short, but we all wanted to eat everything on it.  For each course we all ordered something different, so we got a really good sampling of everything they had.  And holy cow was it amazing!  We were all blown away, which is great considering we're all very good cooks.  We really wanted excellent wine with the meal, and the sommelier was really attentive and helpful with that.  We picked one bottle of bubbly, and then he surprised us with the rest.  He found a red wine that my mom loved, and a beer that pleasantly surprised my dad - both high praise!   After dessert they even brought us an extra tasting plate of various desserts, which we managed to eat even though we were beyond full. 

Since my parents had paid for the dinner cruise, it was our turn to pay for this meal.  I loved that we could take them somewhere that they would never go themselves, and honestly it was nice to take care of the bill for once.  Until my card got declined.  Imagine you're in a fancy restaurant full of people, and the bank machine makes a horrible declined noise.  Not once, but 3 times in a row.  Most embarrassing thing ever!  In Australia we get really high interest rates on our savings accounts, so it's stupid to leave too much money in your day-to-day account.  I guess we just didn't have enough in there for the trip!  We ended up using our Canadian credit card, but turns out we actually would have had enough cash to pay for the meal if we had been thinking straight.  Oh well, you've just gotta laugh at stuff like that!

We were all on such a high from dinner that we weren't quite ready to go back to the hotel.  My dad has kind of a hippy-sounding philosophy to "follow the music", but really it's the perfect thing to do on a night like that.  Find a live band, have a few drinks, and everything is right in the world.  We did just that, and it quite possibly overshadowed the rest of our trip.  We went to the Opera Bar which was outside on the Esplanade, and there was a band called Uncle Jed playing awesome jazz covers of popular artists like Gnarls Barkley and Jack Johnson.  I could not have written a more perfect end to the evening.  The harbour was lit by the Opera House, the Bridge, and a ginormous cruise ship, which sounds bad but it was quite ambient. 

Unfortunately the band only played for another half an hour, but I bought a few of their CDs to bring back the memory whenever I listen to them.  Near the end of the evening the cruise ship started to leave, which was quite a production in and of itself.  I cannot overstate how huge it was, and it had to do a multi-point turn to get out of the harbor, narrowly missing the bridge and the shoreline.  Everyone at the bar was watching intently, and they all clapped when it left successfully.  I'm sure they do it all of the time, but it was quite the accomplishment if you ask me.

And thus ended our amazing trip to Sydney.  It was great to get to share the adventure with my parents, and the perfect way to visit Sydney for the first time.  I know there are lots of things we didn't do, but Sydney is massive so you have to pick and choose.  I wouldn't change anything!

The next morning we slowly got ready to leave, then flew back to Adelaide around 11am.  My parents continued on to Hawaii, and Ryan flew back to work the next day.  It was a wonderful whirlwind.

As a bonus, since I took so long to blog about our trip to Sydney, here is the postcard we created from the trip and a brief insight into Wasylyk humour.  Enjoy!

Spectacular Sydney Harbour - Oct. 27, 2012

After my parents left Adelaide, Ryan came home 3 days later and the next morning we flew to Sydney for a last visit with my family.  It was a 4am wakeup, which was early even for Ryan but worth it because we got to Sydney really early.  After our flight we took the train (only once in the wrong direction) to our hotel, which was the Holiday Inn at Pott's Point.  Supposedly it's in a rough neighbourhood, but we didn't find that out until after we got home so it wasn't a problem.  We had a nice nibbley breakfast with my parents in the hotel room and then ventured out on the town!

Most of our trip was spent in the harbour area, so the first morning we wandered around Circular Quay and The Rocks Market.  I think we were all just in shock that we could actually see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, so no matter what we did we would have had a good time.  It also helped that it was a spectacular weekend weather-wise.  The food from the street vendors at the market all looked delicious, so we settled on skewers and kept wandering around and shopping. 

There was all sorts of cool stuff for sale (it wasn't a produce market) so that's where I bought some of my Christmas cards.  To finish it all off we stopped for a few beers at a pub just outside of the Opera House while we waited for our show to start.

The show we booked to see at the Opera House was "Blue Planet in Concert", which we thought was something everyone would like.  If you don't know already, Blue Planet was a documentary done by the BBC about the oceans a few years back.  The show started at 2pm, so we took our time looking around before the show.  I can't explain to you how massive the building is, and how interesting it is architecturally on the inside.  I had to be careful to watch where I was walking, because I had a tendency to look up and walk. 

On top of that the show was incredible.  It was short clips from the original show with introductions to each clip by a narrator who I believe actually works on the documentaries with the BBC.  During each clip the orchestra would play, and it was incredibly easy to forget they were even there at all, since it felt so natural for them to be there.  Overall, an unforgettable experience for me.

After the show we went to another pub for some more beer and snacks, then wandered around the area some more.  Mom bought a pair of Aussie Uggs, and we came across this random event called the "White Picnic".  We had noticed them setting up for it earlier, and it turns out it was something people could sign up for to attend.  They weren't told where it would be held until the last minute, but they had to wear white and bring their own table, chairs, food, drinks, etc.  It looked really cool from our perspective, but the people who attended were upset that they had to pay for an event where they had to provide everything.

At 7pm that night we boarded a small ship for a dinner cruise around Sydney Harbour.  That was something my dad has always wanted to do, and I think it was a huge success.  There was a fantastic live jazz singer, delicious food, and of course great scenery and company.  The staff was also wonderful, and we felt well taken care of even though there were hundreds of people.  It was the perfect way to end an amazing first day in Sydney, and I was hardly seasick at all!

It was tough to get a cab that night because of the White Picnic, but the wait was good for people watching.  First of all, it was the Saturday before Halloween so tons of people were dressed up.  There was definitely a party somewhere with a specific theme, because there were all sorts of normal costumes but then they were covered in blood.  Also there were all of the drunk and angry people from the White Picnic, with many of them covered in red wine spills.  We had to laugh a little at that!  We went straight to bed that night, but not before the partying for Halloween started outside of our hotel.  We were definitely in the fun neighbourhood!

Visitors from Abroad

Only a few days after we got back to Australia my parents arrived in Adelaide.  That didn't give us long to settle into the new house, but at least it was for a good cause.  They had already been to Los Angeles, Fiji, New Zealand, and the North-East coast of Australia, so their jetlag was gone and they were ready for me to show them what I've been up to for the past year and a half.

I picked them up at the airport on Thursday October 18th, and their first surprise was that I met them at their gate.  In Australia you can get through security without a ticket (and you can get a ticket without ID sometimes) .  We had to rush home because I was late for work, but not unexpectedly they did yard work while I was gone!  When I got home I took them for a walk around the neighbourhood and to the grocery store where we picked up some local Yabbies (it's actually a type of crayfish, not whatever you were thinking!)  That afternoon my Mom helped me plant my herb garden and we feasted on yabbies and an Australian lamb roast while trying to find a wine in my extensive collection that my parents liked.

I had to work Friday afternoon, so we just stuck around town in the morning.  First  we went to one of my favourite places in Adelaide: the Botanic Gardens.  From the first time I went there I wanted my Mom to see the gardens, so it was amazing that it actually happened.  We joined the free guided tour at 10am, and the guide took us all over showing us the native Australian plants.  Then I took them to the Adelaide Central Markets which is always fun.  We only had a few things on our list, but as with any market I always leave with much more than I had anticipated.  When we got home we made up a platter of snacks for lunch, and then while I was at work my parents cooked and did more yard work.  Lucky me!

On Saturday we went to McLaren Vale, which is always the best part of any visit to Adelaide.  I wasn't sure what to expect since my parents have very specific wine preferences, but throughout the day they were both surprised to find multiple wines that they liked.  We did our usual tour, starting with Leconfield because they have the best platter lunches.  I think we would all agree that was the best part of the day!

Then we stopped at all of the usual places: Fox Creek, Dog Ridge, Vale Ale, Lloyd Brothers, and we tried to find the lookout and failed again.  The only new place we went to was Ekhidna Wines, and they specialize in beer and cider.  Their wine was terrible, but the cider was alright.  We didn't buy any though.

That night we had kangaroo steaks for dinner, but I think it was a little bit weird for my parents.  Roo has a really strong flavour and has to be cooked just right, and I probably haven't mastered that yet!  Overall we had an excellent day, and it was probably the highlight of the visit in my opinion.

My favourite thing to do on a Sunday morning is go to the Adelaide Showgrounds Farmers Market, so that's exactly what we did.  Unlike the Central Market, the Farmer's Market is actually all local produce.  There's no holding me back when we go there!  As usual, I bought so much it wouldn't fit in my fridge (which isn't saying much because our fridge is really small).  After the market I took my parents to Henley Beach (where we used to live) to show them our neighbourhood, but more importantly, the beautiful beach!  Much to my disappointment, though, it was super windy and really cold.  Not at all how I remember it from living there!  Sadly our beach walk didn't last very long, so I took them up my favourite local river walk instead.  It's usually where we spot some neat birds, so they enjoyed that as well.

That afternoon we feasted on oysters, mussels, and a Thai salad.  Mom and Dad were sceptical about the oysters, but I think they both figured if I liked them then they must be alright.  I've found some amazing recipes, so they were delicious!  We ate really early because that evening we had plans in the hills.

First we went to the lookout at the top of Mt. Lofty for a beautiful view just as the sun was setting.

Then we made our way to the Warrawong Sanctuary in the hills for a nocturnal tour.  I had never been there before, so it was new for all of us this time.  We started the tour by feeding the kangaroos, and protecting them from the ravenous ducks that tried to steal all of the food.  When we eventually did leave, the ducks took over and the roos all gave up trying to get any more food.

As it got dark we made our way to two ponds where the platypus live.  They say there is only a 30% chance of seeing one  on any given day, since they're very shy animals, and it was not our lucky day.  My parents had already seen one in Queensland, though, so at least they didn't really miss out.  The park was beautiful, but it rapidly became dark and we started to look out for more nocturnal animals.  There were a few wallabies out, but mostly we saw smaller marsupials like bettongs and possums.

Bettong

Brush-tail Possum

The tour was really fun, and it gave me a new perspective on Australia since I rarely go out at night (mostly because I don't like night, but also because of the spiders…)

Monday morning I went with my dad to pick up their rental car, and then my parents left for their road trip of the Great Ocean Road, ending in Melbourne.  It was so awesome to show my parents around Adelaide, and it's only a shame that Ryan wasn't here to join us.  But luckily he came with us to Sydney the next weekend, so stay tuned!

Blissful Thailand - (Oct. 9-12, 2012)

After flying through Zurich and Bangkok, we arrived in Phuket, Thailand at 8pm.  The airport was chaotic, but it wasn't very hard to find our driver who was taking us to our resort - the JW Marriott Khao Lak Resort & Spa.  The ride to and from the resort in the dark was our only exposure to real life in Thailand, but it looked very similar to the areas of the Caribbean that I've been.  Lots of small vehicles like bikes and scooters, lots of shops open late selling random things, and lots of people in the streets.  And like the Caribbean, even at night it's ridiculously hot and humid!  It's terrible that we didn't experience more of the culture outside of the resort, but our goal for this vacation was to do absolutely nothing.  As you know, we had been quite busy for the past 5 weeks!

So about an hour and a half later, driving north of Phuket through towns and jungle, coastline and hills, we arrived at our resort.

We had booked this resort on Travel Zoo, and paid only about $80 Australian per night for a standard room.  This included daily breakfast, a one-hour Thai massage each, half price airport transfers, and a 2 for 1 drinks coupon.  Since that was a pretty good deal, we requested a room upgrade.  Turns out, for only $15 extra a night you can get an amazing room!  The resort has the longest swimming pool in Southeast Asia, which means in addition to their large square pools they also had rivers going by each room.  Our room had a deck with stairs that went right into the water, so it was like we had our own private pool.

After a very spicy Thai dinner (Peanut Satays, Fish Cakes, Red Curry, Beef Stir Fry) we headed back to our room and went for a midnight swim.  We were wide awake because of the time change and it was still super hot outside, so the swim was a really neat way to explore the resort.  The rivers run all through the resort, so we just went in a big circle until we got back to our room.

The next morning we slept in pretty late and just got to breakfast in time before it closed.  I have never seen such an amazing breakfast buffet!  You could get absolutely anything you wanted like sushi, smoothies (the pineapple, mango, ginger, mint ,and dragon fruit one was the best), dumplings, all sorts of Thai soups and stir fries, crêpes, and more.  Turns out they charge $45 a person, so that itself paid for our room charge since it was included. 

After breakfast we went for another lap of the lagoon pool, tested out the in-water jet massage beds, and came across happy hour at the swim up bar.  The music was great, the drinks were amazing (and half price), and one of the bartenders wrote us a list of all sorts of Thai words for us to use.  We both got sunburned pretty badly, but we just slept it off with an afternoon nap.  That trip around was also the only time we went in the ocean the whole vacation.  I usually live in the ocean, but the pool was just so nice!

Even though we were still full from breakfast, we managed to have some Thai noodle soup for lunch.  Not sure why we did that because it was hot out, but oh well.  Then we played ping pong and drank iced tea while we waited to become hungry again for dinner.  We went back to the Thai restaurant where we had some Green Curry, Shrimp Spring Rolls, the chef special which was a kale, oyster sauce, and pork stir fry, and for dessert we shared the mango sticky rice.  Needless to say we were still full at breakfast the next day!  That time, though, we sat at the "traditional Thai tables" which looked like they were  on the floor, but they cheated and put holes in the floor for your legs to make it more comfortable.  Still fun though.

Our second day started much the same as the first: breakfast, swim in the river (this time with sunscreen), and happy hour.  We decided to skip lunch and just have some food at the pool bar (lemon fries and pomello shrimp salad, in case you were wondering).  This time, though, we discovered the Janga set at the bar, so we spent a good long while sipping drinks and playing Janga.  To mix things up a little, we had our Thai massages that afternoon.  I had never had one before, but you put on a linen outfit and they use their body weight instead of oil to do the massage so they have larger tables that you lie on and then the masseuse stands/kneels on the table as well.  It was different, but still really nice.  Ryan had never had even a regular massage before, so it was fun to share that experience with him.  After the massage they let us sit in this courtyard area to relax, drink tea, and eat delicious banana chips.  It was a really awesome experience.

After our massages we went and sat on the beach to watch the sunset, then went to the Japanese restaurant for dinner.  It was the kind of restaurant where the chef cooks in front of you and does all sorts of tricks while he's cooking.  He had this hilarious trick where he tossed an egg around for awhile and then would catch it in his hat or pocket before "accidentally" breaking it to be put into the dish.  He would also season his dishes with some fast hand movements and then yell "kamikaze!" at the end.  Ryan and I were lame, though, and we had sushi and sashimi which was prepared in the back and not by the awesome chef.  Ryan can't get over that I eat raw fish now, so he kept praising me throughout the entire dinner which is always nice!  That night there was a giant thunderstorm, so we sat out on our patio, playing cards, enjoying the smell of the rain, and watching the lightning.  It was a great way to end such a wonderful day.

Our last day in Thailand started the same as the first two days: breakfast, long swim (but this time we found a blow-up whale toy which was fun), reading on our patio, then happy hour and Janga!  We were getting pretty good at the routine by then.

After happy hour we did an AWESOME cooking class with the head chef of the resort's Thai restaurant.  It was by far the highlight of our stay in my opinion. 

We cook a lot of Thai food at home, and I grow a few ingredients in my garden (lemongrass, cilantro, Thai basil), so the chef was impressed when we knew what all of the ingredients were.

We took turns cooking and eating each dish, and in total we learned 4 dishes: green papaya salad, prawn soup, fried rice, and coconut bananas.  All of them were amazingly delicious, and gave us lots of ideas for more things that we can cook at home besides curry.  The funniest part was when we were making the prawn soup I only put 1/4 of a red chilli in mine.  The chef made fun of me because he said at home he uses 3 or 4 for his family!  Ryan and I vowed since then to try and eat spicier food, and I even planted some red chilli plants this season to help us along.

After the cooking class we went to happy hour at the classy bar, where we were aghast to find that they serve those delicious banana chips with the drinks!  If we had known that, we would have gone there every night!

We went back to our rooms to have one final nap during the rain storm, then packed up our stuff in preparation for our departure.  Ryan wasn't feeling well (it could have been any combination of travel anxiety, sun exposure, or the multiple pina coladas) so we ordered room service for dinner (cobb salad, steamed veggies with pesto, peppermint and vanilla tea - yum!) and he slept while I read.  We left around 10pm for our 12:30am flight, and watched the lightning storm from our taxi on the trip back to the airport.

While that was our first trip to Thailand, it definitely won't be our last.  We had such an awesome time, and I would recommend our resort to anyone who wants to go.  It's hard to say though if we'll go back and experience what Thailand is really like, or have another luxury trip where we spoil ourselves rotten!

After Thailand we only had one day in Adelaide before Ryan had to fly back to work.  I, on the other hand, was left in Adelaide to start a new job, in a new house, in a new neighbourhood.  I'm glad I had something fun to come back to, or I never would have wanted to leave!