I just arrived at the Apple store in downtown Sydney joining the masses to buy the iPhone 4 when it comes out in a few hours. It’s just after 3:30AM. The apple store opens at 8. The carriers are all doing midnight launches, and apparently the Optus store is pushing 1000 people atm. The apple store line is around 200 and growing. I’ll keep you guys updated and try and snap some pics too. PS, I didn’t end up sleeping, went out and celebrated a friends birthday instead!
*UPDATE 1*: Apple employees just came by about 20 minutes ago (4AM) and brought us warm muffins and bottled water.. sweet deal!
*UPDATE 2*: Hot chocolate and pastries too! They also set up barricades and moved us to the other side of the sidewalk, away from the shops… glad I’m not too claustrophobic!
I woke up this morning at around 9AM to the sound of rain pelting my window. Its been raining a lot the last couple of days, but today the rain was coming down particularly hard. First on my agenda for the day was my Philosophy of Happiness class. I looked up the building it was in, donned my ski jacket, and headed out into the rain.
Class was in a big old lecture hall on the other side of campus. I took a seat at the front of the class because I forgot my glasses and got out my notebook to jot down a few choice notes. It actually an incredibly interesting lecture. We tore through the history of “happiness,” looking at people throughout history have tried to define what happiness is, exactly, and determine what it is that makes us happy. We actually have to keep a journal for the class on things that make us happy everyday. I’m really looking forward to it, especially since it provides a much needed opportunity for self reflection. More on happiness later, but it was an incredibly engaging and thought provoking two hours.
I left lecture a few minutes early to try and be on time for my Photography class, which I ended up being about 5 minutes late for anyways. When I got there I made sure to sign in, since the class was full and there were about 20 kids there waiting and hoping some people wouldn’t show up (everyone did). We talked about the class and expectations and requirements for the first half of class, and then went into the dark room and learned the basics. (Enlargers, the different chemical baths for developing film/prints, etc). We then got a bunch of objects and made some photograms (Prints without using negatives/cameras) to practice our developing chops. It was a ton of fun, and I’m going to have a blast.
After photography I went over to the ceramics studio for my ceramics class. Unlike photography, which I have a feeling I’m going to be pretty good at ‘naturally’, ceramics is going to take some serious practice. I’m absolutely envious of Luke’s skills; throwing stuff on a wheel is HARD. I managed to eek out a couple of cup-ish shaped objects that weren’t too bad by the end of class, but I went through a ton of clay trying and failing miserably. I’m just starting to get the hang of it I think, so hopefully next week wont be too bad.
Unfortunately, for both photography and ceramics we can only be in the darkroom/studio at specific times (in class for photography, and at a couple of times I’m otherwise pretty busy for ceramics), so I’ll need to spend my time in both classes very efficiently to do well. I’m very excited about my first three classes; hopefully Digital Arts tomorrow morning proves just as fun!
Yesterday marked the first day I actually got out and got to see a bit of the city. I left my room at about noon to join everyone at a “Unimates” BBQ. (The Unimates is a student run campus club of sorts for everyone to get together and do stuff.. like BBQs and coffee and cakes). A few of us had decided to head down to the Roads and Traffic Authority (The RTA) and get Australia ID cards so we didn’t have to carry our passports around to get into bars and so we’d have a souvenir to bring home. The photo cards cost $45 and require proof of residency. I forgot my passport, so I went back to get it.
After a 25 minute or so walk to the RTA, we got numbers and waited to be called.
Unfortunately, they informed us that they couldn’t accept our residential agreements as proof of residency because they were photocopied (a fact that the staff here at SUV seemed unaware of), and we were turned away. Ah well. I may or may not go back and try again with the original; I don’t really get ID’d to buy alcohol at stores, and at clubs and bars they have been pretty accepting of my US driver’s license so far.
RTA office in Downtown Sydney
On the return trip, we headed into a busy marketplace down my Central Station. Vendors lined the building selling just about everything you could imagine. Cheap flashlights and lighters, samurai swords and knives, boomerangs, clothing, underwear, wigs, electronics, fish, produce, massages… it was a sight to behold for sure! I bought a couple of small items, haggling on price because it seemed fitting for the venue and got some pretty good deals. After we left the market, I decided to do a bit of exploring. Nobody else really wanted to do any extra walking, so I set off solo to check out the city. I got an email from my Digital Arts professor indicating that we should all go check out the Biennial of Sydney (A biannual art exhibit with venues all around the city) before it shuts down next week, and that our first assignment would be an Art Review. It was already 3PM or so and the venues closed at 5, so I didn’t think I’d have too much hope of seeing much, but I figured I would at least go and see where the venues were and do a waling tour of the city.
I started past the Sydney Expo Center towards Darling Harbor, and made my way up the waterfront. On the way I passed by the largest IMAX Theater in the world (which I plan on seeing Inception at at some point, the little screen I saw it on near school didn’t do it justice).
Largest IMAX screen in the world!
I continued on past the Aquarium and up to a shipping yard along the coast, into an area called “Barangaroo.” Apparently the city of Sydney is reclaiming this old industrial land along the waterfront and plans to do a bit of Urban renewal, adding valuable waterfront real estate to the the mix. As it stands now, the land consists of a bunch of empty parking lots and concrete docks. They’ve at least put up some signage and painted bike and pedestrian paths, as well as added a few benches and shaded pavilions. Not a bad start!
Barangaroo Sign
I walked along the coast into the area called Walsh Bay. Walking through Walsh Bay, I came across a couple of rather nice public art pieces, including a nice subtle blue steel sculpture, and a more interesting modern piece with a car crushed by a rock in the center of a roundabout, complete with “Artwork Ahead” and “End Artwork” signs. Cute.
A few blocks brought me to a pier with what looked like an old warehouse on it. As I passed by, I noticed a dock for a ferry, complete with the familiar Biennial of Sydney artwork. Walking around, i saw signs for an entrance and realized I had stumbled across one of the many venues for the biennial exhibits. It was 4:50, and the venue closed at 5, so I figured I’d check it out. Indeed, the signs that led me to the entrance led me into what looked like an old warehouse or factory that had been gutted and outfitted with some artwork. The Walsh Bay venue was a bit thin, but did include some interesting pieces, including Neon piece titled “Reverse Missionary” by Newell Harry, some quilts, a video exhibit, and a large boat by US Artist Paul McCarthy titled “Ships of Fools, Ship Adrift 2″ made out of what looked like recycled construction materials (pipe, wood, steel, spray foam, caulk, carpet, etc). In case you’re wondering, the Neon reads “Nerveless Rats Hesitate/As Venereal Theists Rest”. Newell also did the quilts, but the Neon was quite a bit more interesting to me.
Reverse Missionary by Newell Harry
Ship of Fools, Ship Adrift 2 by Paul McCarthy
I chatted with the woman working there and asked about the bus system and how to get around. She pulled out her iPhone and loaded up a nifty app that pulled up public transportation times, routes, and maps. On my way, now at least a bit more informed on the Sydney public transportation system, I kept walking toward Circular Quay. As the street rounded the corner, the infamous Sydney Opera House filled my view, across a very busy boat channel.
Sydney Opera House
I continued on, until I found the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art in Circular Quay, another venue for the Biennial, and the other ferry location. I wandered around the quay, enjoying the sights and entertainment from street performers, and then headed off to figure out the bus system.
Since it was before 8PM you couldn’t pay cash fare on the bus and needed to have a pre-paid “mybus” pass to ride the bus. I found the closest vendor and bought a few passes (at $3.30 each) for the bus, and asked for the best route home. He pointed me in the right direction and I was off back to campus.
After a shower, I joined everyone to celebrate Ben’s birthday. We grabbed some food at small pizza place near by and hopped on the bus back toward circular quay, to the area known as “The Rocks”. We went to a club called Argyle and had a great time. After we all went to get pancakes at a restaurant fittingly called “Pancakes on the Rocks”. Its open 24 hours, and seems to do pretty good business. The smaller group I ended up with caught a cab home (Which cost… $30), as they couldn’t be bothered to figure out the bus system. Not a bad Friday! I’m not sure where I’m going tonight, but I have a feeling Karaoke is going to be involved… and Kings Cross. Should be fun!
The University of Sydney has an interesting timetabling solution; classes are generally offered at multiple times and don’t have enrollment caps (with some exceptions, for studio classes, and other hands on/materials based classes). You do not get to pick which specific class periods you get assigned to; the timetabling algorithm does that for you and returns a personalized timetable for every student. You *do* get to block off either an entire day, or two specific periods of time up to 5 hours long. At first, I blocked out friday and let it make a schedule for me. When I did this, It gave me a schedule with no class on monday, and no class on friday (4 day weekend!). This was great, but I wondered if there was any way I could do better. So I set out to go to each faculty’s website and look at the timetables to see all the times my classes could possibly meet. I put these all into an iCal calendar and deleted any times that conflicted. This was the result:
Somebody must love me. As you can see, none of my classes meet on monday, so that leaves monday effectively blocked out. Blocking out the time when photography meets on friday blocks out all of friday, and blocking out the time ceramics meets on tuesday blocks out all of tuesday. Viola! 5 day weekend! This is the resulting (official) timetable for my classes:
So Wednesday, my schedule looks like this:
Philosophy of Happiness (Lecture) 12:00PM – 2:00PM
Photography (Studio) 2:00PM – 5:00PM
Ceramics (Studio) 5:30PM – 8:30PM
And on Thusrday, like this:
Digital Arts (Lecture) 10:00AM – 12:00PM
Digital Arts (Tutorial) 12:00PM – 1:00PM
Philosophy of Happiness (Tutorial) 3:00PM -4:00PM
And I get the rest of the week off! I could possibly be the luckiest guy in the world. I’m in Australia taking four great classes (Photography, Ceramics, Digital Art, and The Philosophy of Happiness) for my last semester of school possibly ever, and I get a 5 day weekend! The possibilities for travel are now wide open; here’s to hoping I can get a flexible job that gets me some travel/spending money and lets me take off time to travel 
More and more planes these days are being equipped with modern amenities like WiFi and in seat AC power. The latter has become incredibly common, and yet almost nobody even knows it is there. A few years back I spent some quality time peering under airplane seats on my hands and knees to try and identify exactly where these elusive outlets were. Now that I know where they are and what they feel like, its easy to plug things in just by reaching down. My flight to australia was equipped with such outlets, and after plugging my laptop in, the woman across the aisle from my inquired as to how she too could plug in a device to charge. After telling her where it was and watching her nearly tear apart the seat trying to find it, I showed her. I figured I’d throw a post up here so you guys can all see exactly what these outlets look like and will know ahead of time what can be plugged into them.
The majority of the AC outlets I have come across on planes are EmPower brand single receptacles that accept a variety of plugs and output 110V AC power at 60Hz. They accept North American grounded and ungrounded plugs, Australia and New Zealand grounded and ungrounded plugs, and European ungrounded plugs (CEE 7/16). You can see all those plug types in the specifications sheet here if you’re interested. Power is only available once the plug has been inserted all the way, and is generally not available during taxi/takeoff.
Seatguru.com has been my goto site for determining what planes have what features before I fly (as well as for identifying any seats that are less than ideal). You should check it out to see the location and availability of power on your plane before you fly. Most commonly the outlets are underneath the seat, right in between two seats. To find them, reach down under the armrest and feel for a small square box. It’s pretty easy to identify by feel. It is right next to the life jacket pouch, as you can see in the photo above, so be careful where you’re tugging! Enjoy, and happy flying!
In case you haven’t already heard, in addition to getting me into Sydney two days after intended, Delta did me the favor of loosing my bags (Well, more accurately, of leaving them in Los Angeles). This after they *promised* they were all set and checked through to Sydney when I double checked at the gate prior to boarding. They finally showed up here, two days later. Hopefully I’ll be able to bill Delta/My Credit Card company for some of the expenses incurred while I didn’t have my bags…
Anyways, I just got around to unpacking, and figured everyone would want to see where I’m living. Pardon the mess; I still need to sort through some clothes and do a bit of organizing. Not a bad room though!
Did anyone else know that commercial jets had windows that actually worked? I had no idea, and was a bit taken aback when I saw this at LAX:
P.S.: Anyone else think the way I cropped this photo makes it look very cartoonish/fake? Interesting…
So I finally made it to Australia 
I spent Saturday afternoon yesterday up in Narabeen for orientation after a $120 cab ride to get there, and came down to Sydney with the group today. I’m living in a single in the Sydney University Village, and am just now getting moved in. I did some shopping at KMart (which is like Wal-mart in the US, not like the now non-existant KMart was), and got a a Telstra iPad sim for internet (It was the best deal.. $30 got me 3GB and a sim card). I’m currently using that sim in an old Samsung phone and tethering via bluetooth Dial Up Networking. It works…. but there is no way to add money for voice/text messages with this sim. So feel free to call/text me if you guys want, but I can’t call you back (right away anyways!). The number for that sim is: +61 (4) 5760 8156. I’ll put up a more detailed post later!
Without a car I had to resort to public transportation for getting around Los Angeles. I had a pretty mellow couple of days in town; I slept a lot and watched some TV, took a few showers and wandered around the hotel and the airport. Fascinating stuff, I know. Delta, in addition to putting me up at the Hilton LAX for two nights, also gave me some meal vouchers. I said before they were mostly useless. Turns out that’s only true at the hotel, where they have a special menu (and prices) for things you can buy with vouchers. At the airport, on the other hand, I’ve yet to find a vendor that wouldn’t accept them for food and drink. So I’ve been taking the airport shuttle to and from the airport to eat. Thanks Delta!
Wednesday night I was feeling ambitious though, and decided to head downtown and check out the scene. I took the 439 bus into town, which set me back an entirely reasonable $1.50. Traffic in Los Angeles is just as bad as its ever been, and our short jaunt on the I-10 took almost a half an hour. The whole bus ride ‘only’ took about an hour though, so it wasn’t too bad.
As it turned out, ESPN was holding its annual ESPY awards show at the Nokia Theater (which is right next to the Staples Center, both are which are a part of the “L.A. Live” complex). Naturally, all sorts of athletes and famous people were in attendance and security was pretty tight. They blocked the road and cordoned off the entire complex.
Being the mischievous troublemaking type I am, I decided to try and get in anyways (ticketless of course). Jump past to break to find out what happened and see a lot more great pictures! read more…
While I have some down time here in Los Angeles I figured I’d start things off right with some photos from the journey so far:
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- An Ominous Start…
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- Utah Mountains
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- Salt Lake City Sunset
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- Vegas at Night from 30,000ft
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- Finally at the front of the line!
