Sydney: Don't Knock it Until You've Tried It

Sydney.

Mostly known for it's architecturally famous Oprah House and neighbouring bridge; it's city beaches and, therefore, undoubtedly, gorgeous blonde surfer "dudes".

Without spending any lengthy period of time in the unofficial capital of Australia, this is exactly what you'd find. You'd stroll up George Street and down Pitt Street in a mass of people, from backpackers to well suited office workers, and perfectly timed traffic lights. You might dine at a seafood restaurant in Darling Harbour or poke at wonton dumplings in China Town. But don't be fooled, because nearly all of Sydney is China Town, and the namesake street is just the start of it.

You'd gawk at the Life Guards on Bondi Beach (yes, they are the same as those featured on TV show, Bondi Rescue) and, hopefully, swim between the red and yellow flags. If you're a walker, you'd do the walk to Coogee Beach; celebrating the achievement with some 'Chish and Fips'. If that's not enough, the Blue Mountains are only two hours and $2.50 away on a Sunday with your new best friend, the Opal card. Don't call it an Oyster card. They don't like it when you call it an Oyster card.

Keen on culture? Melbourne may be known for it's arty pretention but Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art puts up a fair fight. They even have parakeets flying around the roof top garden-cum-café! It's also super close to other site-seeing musts such as the Cathedral and Hyde Park, home of the Anzac Memorial.

[Note: ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. They also make a lush biscuit]

However, any avid Lonely Planet/Trip Advisor follower would know about all of these must-see Sydney stop-offs. But we're not looking for the most touristy spots anymore are we? We want to post pictures on Instagram of us in places none of their friends found. Somewhere new and exciting and (hopefully) tasty, fun and totally unique.

After living in Sydney for just under a year; living, working and generally having a blast. These are my must-do's and must-see's in one of the greatest city's on Earth.

FOOD

Well, this obviously isn't going to be as easy as I originally thought...

Breakfast
I don't think I've ever been anywhere so obsessed with putting things on toast, for breakfast, as Sydney. It's insane! Eggs, avocado, bacon, salad, cheese, Nutella; eggs benedict, mushrooms, sardines, salmon and, of course, Vegemite, and so much more. After initially revelling in the sourdough carb; I needed a break:

THE FRONT ROOM is located just past the Post Office on Enmore Road between the suburbs of Newtown and Stanmore and the only coffee shop in the area to sell Gabriel coffee (a personal fave). For about a month, I came to this café weekly with a good book on my day off to sip on YF's (that's a soy flat white), gorgeous green juices and their should-be-famous Acai Bowl; better than most I've had on Balinese beaches. They also do some of the best stuff-on-toast combo's in Newtown.

Snack
Just across the road from Central Bus Station, is my favourite sushi chain, SUSHI HUB. Is it the best sushi you'll ever have? It's pretty damn close for a few bucks a roll. Complete with free sides of wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce, there's nothing better when you're feeling a bit peckish. Try the seaweed roll, if you're keen for a veggie option.

Alternatively, I'm obsessed with NAKED FOODS in Bondi Junction (and other locations around Sydney). Packed full of delicious snack options, from nuts, granola, chocolate covered raisins, dried fruit and tea. All organic. All Naked. All scrumptious.

Oriental
YASAKA RAMEN, Liverpool Street. You can genuinely smell it before you see it! Anyone who knows me, knows that any noodle soup is my favourite thing. This authentic Japanese restaurant is hot, spicy and slippery. Get those chop sticks out for the Tonkotsu Shio Egg Ramen. They also make an incredible Teriyaki Tofu Don which completely changed the way I looked, used and ate tofu.

Speaking about tofu, TIME FOR THAI on George Street and King Street does my favourite Gado Gado Salad outside Asia. Fried tofu, peanut sauce and egg. Being a stickler for traditions, the Thai curries are perfectly warming and packed with vegetables. But my personal favourite is the Hokkien Noodles. Super simple and healthy stir fry for all occasions.

Indulge

This one's easy. Just down the road from Wynyard Station is somewhere that still makes me grinning with overwhelming satisfaction: FRANKIE'S PIZZA. Underground, walls covered in polaroid's from the 80's and red and white tiled floors. The most important and thrilling part of this particular pizzeria is Wednesday! For just $15, it's all you can eat pizza (choice of six different meat and vegetarian toppings) from 7-9:30pm. In case you're wondering how much pizza that is, I hold the record in my Billabong family for smashing 9 gigantic slices of pizza, beating my all time favourite pizza-eating buddy, Alan, by one slice. Wimp.

Yoghurt Weaver
After a sunrise yoga session out on a rented paddle board behind the breakers in the glistening blue ocean stretching out from Manly (arguably a Sydney beach better than Bondi), what am I craving? No, not a burger, but one of the deliciously healthy, mostly raw dishes from NATIVE FEEL REAL. The raw pizza is my ultimate favourite; I could eat one every day. If you're after something lighter, try the Acai smoothie or the scrambled tofu. There is no vegan breakfast better than scrambled tofu (or banana pancakes, and they do them here too)! Native also does a selection of all vegan, some gluten free, cakes, nibbles and sandwiches in their deli counter.

ACTIVITIES

Time to work off all those tasty calories, and there's no better place than Australia to dive in, get your heart pumping and adrenaline juices flowing.

SUP
Manly is a 45 minute ferry across Sydney Harbour from Circular Quay (and also a great way to get some unique views and angles of the Oprah House and Harbour Bridge). I spent so many days, either with friends or on my own, sunbathing and swimming down at Manly; I even tried to compete with some of the local surfers there. I got a lot of laughs. Then I found my calling. For just $35 an hour (or $99 for 24hours) you can rent a stand up paddleboard (or "SUP") from Manly  and attack the sport like a pro. If you're feeling really confident, try laminating a few basic yoga positions, get out back with your friends and have a massive laugh falling in! Don't forget your GoPro's, sun cream and silly sun hats.

Salsa!
No, not the dip! Get your cocktail dresses out for a midweek dance-off at one of the sexiest clubs in the city: The Establishment. Every Tuesday night, a live salsa band booms out the grand front doors and has even the novices shaking their behinds to the music. Yup, that's right, I have Salsa-ed. Their cocktails also help to loosen people up as well! All ages welcome!

Beach Hunting
Everyone loves a good beach day, but it's also great when you find your own secret little beach. How do you do that? Walking! Get those Nikes on do some adventuring! It doesn't even have to be a beach. I once went slightly off the beaten track while trekking round the Blue Mountains and found the most beautiful opening with a waterfall and stream and me and my friends were the only ones there all day! Alternatively, doing the Spit to Manly walk also tracks past so many beautiful beaches like Shelley Beach. Fancy going further afield? The Royal National Park is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world; such as Cronulla and Wattamolla, but also hundreds of little coves and bays which I don't even know the name of because we were so lost at the time! It's also home to the figure of eight pools and other geographical wonders.

Rainy Days
Sydney Indoor Climbing Gym! Don't knock it until you've tried it! It's great for a fun day out with your mates, or even an activity-based date. It's $30 to join and you get a free introduction and safety tutorial before they set you free, all harnessed up, to take on walls of different grades of difficulty. I call it, funny fitness! Because never will you laugh so hard at lowering your friends bottom gently to safety!

CULTURE

Don't be fooled by it's lack of history, Australia is filled with some amazing museums and art galleries, hosting some of the best exhibitions I've ever heard of seeing, let alone seen.

There's only one place I can vouch for being so culturally hipster that people from Melbourne aren't cool enough to know about it. Carriageworks, Redfern. Unexpectedly striking, hidden just off Wilson Street, "Carriageworks is the largest and most significant contemporary multi-arts centre of its kind in Australia" as stated on their website. It lies right next to the train tracks that run into Central Station and the industrial architecture is a cold, concrete and beautifully intimidating. The space hosts a variety of exhibitions over the course of the year and also regular evening functions and events (with free wine). I went to see an exclusive exhibition done by Icelandic singer, actress and producer (etc.), Bjork. What more do you want from a creative and cultural experience that watching one of the most incredible performance artists turn into a giant glowing figure with an Oculus Rift on? Nothing. That's what. The café is pretty good too!


So there it is folks. My favourite things to eat, see and do in the city I called home for a year. Rain or shine, this city was the most incredible place to live. But I couldn't have done any of it, with friends!

Peace Out ♥

To Trust or Not to Trust? The Question That's Divided Us All

Would you rather fall, be pushed or jump off this cliff?

Or would you rather find a ladder and climb down safely?

[Pistanthrophobia: Fear of trusting people due to past experiences]

Once apon a time, dating consisted of being waltzed around the dancefloor, swept off our feet, wooed, courted, proposed to and loved.

Sounds like fiction doesn't it? That's because it probably is.

Since this apparent utopian time of idealistic love and devotion, it's fair to say a few things have changed.

Feminism and the steady rise of equality has created a more independent woman, more focussed on making a life for ourselves than dreaming of the one who's going to sweep us off our feet and take care of us until our dying days. This has caused us to start thinking about settling down and finding The One much later in life, and therefore leaving so much free space for a culture of more casual dating, an increase in sexual partners and a transition away from monogamy (in some cases). The rest is history.

Friends with benefits, dating sites, one night stands, porn, literature; all leading to a massive increase of being "unlucky in love". No wonder we're finding it harder to know where our trust can lie, we can barely figure out in what situation our emotions can and can't lie.

Wrongly invested emotions and trust is, to put it simply, shit, in any situation, especially relationships. These bad experiences condition us to believe that even seemingly happy relationships will inevitably end and cause us pain.

Rihanna (not that one) has been happily in love for the last two years, despite a year of their relationship being long distance. But she wasn't always "lucky in love" and I asked her if that has effected her trust in her boyfriend: "When we started dating and I felt myself falling for him, I realised that, yet again, I was fucked and I was about to get my heart broken again." stating that, because of past experiences, she still has issues believing that someone isn't going to "jump out and inform me it's all a big prank."

For some out there, it doesn't matter how devoting and trustworthy the person you're with is, it can't stop our nervous minds from wondering, in disbelief, whether or not you're being played. Is it possible that there's truth behind "too good to be true"? Or is faithfulness and affection actually what we should expect and accept from relationships and not simply a fictional fairy tale? Or maybe the key to our lack of trust is that we refer to true love as "fictional".

Q: "Which one applies to you?"

A: "All of them."

Sassy, independent woman who don't need no man, Lavender, swears by her method for love and relationships: "Being worried that you can't trust a boy is like walking around with an umbrella 24/7 in case it rains." Her outstanding and positively admirable outlook on the topic makes me want to just conclude here and now that this is how it should be. It's obvious! If it looks trustworthy, acts trustworthy and quacks trustworthy then it's probably trustworthy... Right?

Lavender isn't alone. English and creative writing lecturer, Mandy Len Catron, spoke for Ted Talks about our bizarre views of love and she's holding literature and English metaphors accountable for our lack of trust that things will run smoothly.

"We swoon, we burn with passion; love makes us crazy, it makes us sick. Our hearts ache and then they break. So, the metaphors we equate the experience of loving someone to extreme pain or violence."

We're just full of revelations today! Is anyone else having the mind blowing, literal nerd out moment of enlightenment that I had when I heard this? She argues that the vicious circle of correlation between experience and language (more specifically, the language we use to describe our experience of love) can have a drastic effect on how we believe we should feel. What does this mean? It means the ever oxymoronic, Shakespeare, has fucked us over.

English graduate, Crystal, is happily single, and laughs at the suggestion that she'd ever expect a man to cheat on her, but that she still wouldn't trust a potential love interest with her feelings. While discussing a past relationship she says "I thought I was in love and then I just mimicked all the emotions that I've seen people who are in love do. I feel like I wasted a year and a half of my life being very unhappy, thinking "well, this is love, because we are taught that love is pain" and also, I read a lot of books." She went on to say "I don't trust anyone to be honest. When I begin to date, I assume (normally accurately) that they are just saying what they think you want to hear." Which means that she agrees that life experiences (including that of our parents) and literature damage our ability to trust a perfect love, or man, but would still rather consciously hold back.

Crystal and I both grew up learning that you must investigate any statement or idea, dissect it, and then analyse it to find it's true core meaning. So, I know where she's coming from when she's presented with a statement of love, affection or even a compliment and thinks "And how did you come to this conclusion?", "Do you have any evidence to support that statement?"

My singular representation of the male species in this post, Simba (others were approached but declined to comment) suggests that actually, the world of casual dating, contradicted by people's desire for a happily ever after, is to blame for these sob stories and first/second/third love heart-breaks that are ruining our ability to trust people, and the idea of love in the future. "Some people get into relationships for the sake of it, hence the generality of many relationships and similar downward trajectories. Probably because they actually want different things." ... Well they say love is blind.

Does our desperation to find the one, but maintain our independent lifestyles, while ignoring all the reasons not to be with a person that could actually spell out the end and therefore wrongly invest our trust, cause us to inevitably end up beside ourselves in agony, wondering how this possibly could of happened, just so we can fulfil the dramatic Shakespearean drama and move on to the next one?

So what does our expert suggest? Well, Simba actually suggests it's time to get real, drop the drama and take a leaf out of Mandy's book and stop falling and start stepping! "Imagine if we were all less passive in love; more assertive, more open minded, more generous. Instead of falling in love [which she earlier described as totally involuntary and often painful] we stepped into love." She continues, "This version of love is not about winning or losing someone's affection. It requires that you trust your partner, and talk about things when trusting sounds difficult."

Now, to some people, this might seem like a very mundane and not very passionate way to be in love. But, thanks to those all important, over-mentioned terrible past experiences of what love is and a serious learnt lesson in who not to trust, I think this sounds like a wonderful, fairy tale way to find, maintain, and thrive in love. I'm not saying it's safe, we're still stepping into the unknown and I have it on medical authority that not all men/women grow up, stop playing games and move on past the "fuck boy" phenomenon, but surely it's better than repeating past habits and ending up in just as much pain as last time?

Imagine it...

Two people, one shared goal, and, most importantly, a whole lot of fun.

Peace Out ♥

Don't Laugh, I'm Joining a Gym

I know what you're thinking, "not another empty promise of fitness resolutions"

If you know me personally, you're probably thinking "HAHAHAHAHAA"

My names Hope, and I have never worked out a day in my life. I'm in that breed of person that still has nightmares of my lesbian P.E. teacher screaming at me to run faster, grimaces at people running past me in the street and only owns a pair of Nikes because my friend from London told me they were fashionable.

I'm not overweight or unhealthy, but my Instagram is packed full of delicious eat-outs and my lifestyle includes a high content of wine, gin, cigarettes (shh!) and lounging round in coffee shops for excessive amounts of time skulling soy flat whites.

When recently asked if I could run 10k, my answer was "without stopping?" Because the truth is, I couldn't run 1k without falling over.

I've stubbornly stuck with this way of life for 21 years, ignoring the drastic increase of my friends joining gyms, taking up running and rolling their eyes at my laissez faire approach to exercise.

"I stand up all day at work!"
"It's raining"
"I can't even run for that long"
"I don't own work out gear"
"Gym memberships are a rip off and I already have my phone bill and Vogue subscription!"

I could go on and on for an eternity but I wont because I'll end up talking myself out of it.

Working out and exercising isn't just about getting fit though. As I mentioned before, I'm not overweight or unhealthy and I'm not a couch surfer, so what's the point in this sudden motivation?

Dr.Axe, a very attractive doctor on the internet, says that exercise can also boost happiness and your immune system, help you sleep better and improve memory and focus.

We're in an age where wellness is a form of elitism, with detox tea's, multivitamin supplements and the 'free-from' section in supermarkets seeing a boom into the mainstream. An Instagram post of a vegan super food salad is likely to get just as many likes as a big juicy burger and I love it.

On top of all these fabulous reasons to ditch the sofa's and the excuses and get into some kind of exercise regime, I'm really bloody bored.

After my epic year of travelling and the indulgence of Christmas and New Years, it's fair to say I'm feeling a bit worse for wear. My poor immune system has taken a bit of a beating and my short work hours, lack of a social life and cold winter weather has left me a bit unmotivated to say the least. And don't we all feel like that around this time of year? Dreaming of far away utopia's while staring out the window from your place of work while its pouring down with rain and you have a 10 minute walk to the car/bus/train/tube and you forgot your umbrella...

Obviously, I'm not going to wake up tomorrow and head down to my local gym and jump on a treadmill. I also haven't joined a yoga class or a Zumba class and I certainly haven't bought some running gear. If there's anything I do know about getting fit, it's be realistic!

With that in mind I've decided to start going for a morning swim at my local leisure centre.

I'm aware of how it sounds, kind of a cop out and not the most pleasant experience, swimming around in other peoples piss while old ladies do their aqua aerobics. In an ideal world I'd like to commit to going for a morning swim in the sea everyday; but as I previously stated, it's winter and it's fucking freezing and that is not a realistic goal. An hour or so every morning doing lanes while my mind pretends it's still in bed followed by a takeaway coffee from the on-site café. Achievable!

It's the perfect way to get me out of bed earlier, fill my day with something other than work and hopefully also make me happier and all those other things our lovable Dr. Axe said.

I'll be keeping everyone posted on my Instagram page Hope.5683

Wish me luck.

Peace Out♥

Returning Home: The Reality and the Consequences

As the plane gained momentum along the Tarmac, I squashed my face against the window and took in every last inch of my Australian surroundings. The other planes landing with confident precision at their final destination, the little yellow and orange people running round with paddles, guiding the carefully constructed conveyer belt with nothing more than a couple ping pong bats. The main road beyond the watch tower was teaming with traffic; commuting both from and to the airport, or just on their way to work.

As the captain informed the crew to prepare for take off as it was our turn to defy the laws of physics and fly through the air, leaving the city I'd called home for the last year behind, my eyes dampened slightly, hot blood rose to my face and a lump formed in the back of my throat. I closed my eyes tight, remembering all the goodbyes of the last 24 hours, knowing that if I ever went back, it would never be the same again. This was the end... And I wasn't ready.

So that's it guys, my gap year is over. I worked in Sydney, travelled around Asia, met new people, ate new foods and discovered new cultures. I ticked everything off the 'Finding Yourself' gap year check list and did it all while maintaining my mild coffee addiction. The plane landed at Heathrow Airport and following some emotional Welcome Back's, I resumed my place at my old job and my parents house, I drank wine with friends I hadn't seen in over a year and scanned my Australia friends group chat religiously for signs they were having more fun than me.

"What's the plan, then?"

I've been asked a million and one times. They mean in life, of course. A question that I set off to answer 12 months ago and the one answer I never discovered.

"I don't know."

The look I receive back is becoming comical. You'll know the look of you've ever informed someone that you once wore the same pair of underwear for a week or letting your loved ones know that you've decided to become a vegan, sell everything you own and give your mind, body and soul to a cult/secluded "community" and never return.

[Note: there is no emoji for this face]

It's not the not knowing that people don't understand, there's thousands of us out there who are roaming cluelessly through different forms of education and work experiences hoping to land somewhere with a decent pay that doesn't make you want to cry everyday. In modern day society, this is totally acceptable. In modern day society (and Instagram) it's also totally acceptable to exchange education for world knowledge, and work experiences for, well, more world knowledge and get all that irritability out your system before you carry on with your life: "press the play button", "come back to reality", "get a proper job".

And there's always that friend of a family friend or brothers girlfriends best friend/mythical person who went off travelling and never returned. They found a life somewhere else, married a local to whatever country they now call home and converted to the cultural way of life and have possibly made it home for one Christmas when he/she was more fascinating than watching the Call the Midwives/ Top Gear Christmas special on T.V.

And the millions of pounds made every December from calendar companies selling pictures of hot tropical islands and beautiful mountainous landscapes that people will pin up in their kitchens and offices and dream of that holiday once every couple of years.

And then there's the rest of them. The "I went travelling once" people. Mums, Dads, Aunties and Uncles telling kids of their one big adventure, before they came back, settled down and had a normal life.

Which one are we?

"We" being the collective of people that didn't want to come home. That dream of being that friend of a friend that people talk about when they bring up certain destinations. "Oh yeah! Jenny's cousin used to live their for a while... You know the one who's now living in [insert exciting foreign country]"

I've been home for 3 weeks now and it's exactly how everyone warned me it would be like. A friend in Sydney drunkenly said her goodbyes before I left, telling me "You won't be home for long! You'll get home and everyone will be really excited because you're back but two weeks later no one will know anything more about your trip and they won't care. They don't get it. You have your life and they have theirs, and you need to be with us... Because we get it." She quite possibly ruined the last ounce of excitement I had left for returning home. And she was right.

Maybe we are the ones who will leave and never return. We've all struggled to fit in or feel grounded in one place or situation and all of a sudden, we found the art of travelling. And we found people like us. Who represent the same person as us in their friendship group, in their home town. The one that was always a little bit lost. Did we #findourselves, afterall?

Why spend life drowning where I don't belong, never quite the best at what I do because I don't really see the point of it all?

I'm constantly harping on about how we're a new breed of people, not quite comfortable with all the traditions society has to offer, but it's true! I can't be the only one to come home and be disappointed to find out that I still don't really fit. I'm certainly not the only one to come home and find their old lives simply don't quite cut it anymore.

So last night, as I saw in 2017 in a grimy ex-bingo-hall-cum-night-club surrounded by people who made their mind up about me years ago, I decided on my New Years Resolution: Accepting and loving that I just don't fit in. Not in society, not in my home town, not in people's ideas of living life correctly.

The follow up resolution: to find somewhere I do, without even trying or thinking about it.
Besides, you're loved more when you're missed.

Peace Out ♥