Let's talk food. Any chance I had at losing weight has completely gone out the window. It seems that the main sport here besides surfing is eating. Everywhere you go there are cafes, bars, food stands, upscale restaurants, and some fast food joints. I'd say there are 10 restaurants for every clothing shop. Who wants to go shopping once they've devoured delicious thai food all night? (I do).
Most of the Asian food here is what I expected- great Thai, Japanese, and Chinese. Of course proximity is what makes it so authentic and even the grungy places have better food than some fancy places in New York. I had lunch at a little Thai place in Surry Hill (very Brooklyn-like) the other day that was out of this world. I got the green curry with beef and it was perfectly sweet just the way I like it. There were just a few tables in the place so I was skeptical, but it was delicious.
Today, I wandered over to Chinatown with some friends to explore. It's located in downtown Sydney, about a 25 minute bus ride away from my apartment, and definitely worth it. It just so happened that there was a night market going on so it was fun to wander through the different Hello Kitty paraphernalia stands and street food stands. There was SO MUCH FOOD. Everywhere. Outside of every restaurant on the street there was another food vendor set up. It was packed.
I was smart enough to ask a sales girl in a Japanese clothing shop where the best food was around there for a decent price. She told me the name of a restaurant but once my friends and i got there, read the menu, started to salivate, we found out that without a reservation there were no spots that night. WOW. We made a plan to come back sometime within our time here. Then, not even a block away we ran into a huge line of people waiting to get into a Thai restaurant so we also made a note to come back there on a Tuesday - for lunch.
It seems that a huge part of the culture here revolves around food and drinks. Every cafe then turns into a bar around 3pm and you'll see people having drinks during the week in the middle of the day. Sometimes cocktails are harder to find during the week and shots aren't served after a certain hour. This seems like a pretty good idea to control the drinking/party scene, and I wonder what the rates of alcoholism are here compared to other places since the legal drinking age is also 18…
After observing and gathering everything I can from my surroundings, I have come to this conclusion: Australia is a hyper-country. It's a perfect combination of the best European qualities and the best Western qualities. It's environmentally friendly and tech savvy. There is food everywhere, yet the people are not obese. There is a huge exercise community, constantly encouraging people to be healthy. And lastly - the reason people are so friendly: they are so happy that other people have discovered their country, their little piece of paradise, that they welcome new people and are completely above the idea that they should act territorial and rude to foreigners. So in a nutshell, this place is great.
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