Category Archives: Australia

My life in Australia

Lost and found

Sometimes it is easy to ignore what you have and to appreciate how good you have it. That is the case for me when I sometimes forget that I live in one of the best countries in the world in terms of economy and safety. We also have many nice people around us. From time to time things happen that reminds me the very thing.

Last week AS forgot his bag on a bus coming back from work. He didn’t realise that it was missing until he was almost home. He was reading on his tablet when this happened so it took a while to realise.

Anyway he came home and told me. We went through what he had in his bag: work pass (important), lunch boxes, sunniness and some odds and ends. Basically everything in the bag was easily replaceable but still because it was his bag, he felt a bit bad. We googled and found the lost and found number for the bus company but unfortunately it was closed for the day.

The next day, AS called the number and reported that he had forgotten the bag in the bus. The woman on the other side took his details and promised to call back if anything turned up. Lucky for us, she called him a few hours later and told him that they have the bag in the depot.

How great is that? We had almost given up hope because it is a normal bag with ordinary items which anyone could have picked up and taken with them. So AS went to pick up the back this morning and everything was there. This definitely made us appreciated that people are pretty honest and do not to take others’ belongings.

In a a similar incident a few years ago my brother left his phone on the train while on the way to work. He didn’t realise that it was missing for a while. In the mean time, I got a call at home from his number. The person told me that they had found the phone on the train and dialled the number called home to see if they could return it.

I told her it was my brother’s phone and he will come and pick it up as soon as possible. She left her mobile number in case my brother’s phone died. The next day, my brother picked the phone up and thanked the kind woman. Incidents like this make you believe in good Samaritans and good deeds.

Do share if you have similar incidents?

Take care everyone ,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Sydney winter festival 2014

Like every year, Sydney Winter Festival was held to celebrate the winter but for the first time ever, the Sydney Winter Festival was held at Darling Harbour. The main attractions of the festival were the ice-skating at an outdoor ice skating rink tasting gourmet winter cuisines from food vendors at the Winter Festival Village, relaxation at the Lounge & Beer Garden with traditional winter refreshments including hot chocolate, Glühwein & a selection of premium European beers.Sydney winter festival 2014 (2)

Last weekend, we decided to experience the chills and thrills of snow and ice skating, ice slides and winter activities normally reserved for our northern hemisphere counterparts, and it was all as easy as making the trip to Darling Harbour.

Here are some of the pics from the day.

Sydney winter festival 2014 (1) Sydney winter festival 2014 (3)

Till next time, take care

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Australia won the World Cup and the weekend update

I know FIFA World Cups is still underway (I am not crazy :P) and I know that Australia lost its first match against Chile but that is not what I am talking about here.

Australia is the world champions once again, defending their Hockey World Cup title with a 6-1 demolition of the Netherlands. 😀 😀 😀

Australian hockey team also known as the Kookaburras played the most dominant performance of the tournament and gave Australians a reason to celebrate :).

Now back to the soccer world cup, I enjoyed heaps of soccer last weekend. It was great to be home and watch the games. Saturday started early for us as there were a few games on but the very important one at 8am was Chile vs Australia.

It was so disappointing to watch 2 goals from Chile in the first 15 minutes. Seriously, every goal was so painful but Australia did still really push them hard. Then the magic happened, Tim Cahill’s goal with a brilliant header gave some hope back to the Aussies.

There were a few opportunities for Australia in the second half like Cahill (twice) and Mathew Leckie, both headed over during the second half, while Mark Bresciano struck a sweet far-post half-volley that was saved by Claudio Bravo.

Australia went down to Chile 3-1 and I am sad because Australia played really well. We will take on the Netherlands next on Thursday morning. I know Netherlands are good after watching their game with Spain but there is still some hope.

After the game on Saturday, I made a big breakfast with bacon, hash browns, beans, mushroom, eggs, bread and tea. It was more like a brunch than a breakfast and it kept us full for a long time.

big breakfast

The plan for the rest of the afternoon was to clean the house but our friends called to check if we were interested to go to eat Newari food for lunch. We couldn’t resist so we went to Bhancha to enjoy lunch with them. We ordered Fokso fry, Nhyapu (brain fry), jhol momo, choila and chatamari. The food was yummy and I had fun with their daughter.

cholia Fokso fry jhol momo

After a very satisfying lunch, we went to the beach again. We wanted to give our failed walk from last weekend another try and this time there was no rain.

me

It took us over 90 minutes (over 10,000 steps) to do that walk but it was one of the best things we did for the weekend. The sunset was just beautiful and AS and I talked the whole time.

sunset

As the lunch was so filling, AS had salad for dinner and I had some fruits and that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday was planned as a lazy Sunday so we had late breakfast and caught up on some TV shows. I have to admit I wasted many hours watching mindless things on YouTube instead of cleaning the house. So it was already 2pm when I went to the kitchen to make lunch for the day and for the following day. I made an easy chicken couscous, which turned out nice.

couscous (8)

After that we Skyped with our parents; it is always nice to catch up with them. By the time we were done with both the family, it was almost the end of the weekend.

Of course, we watched more soccer this morning. Go Argentina 🙂

How was your weekend? Hope you had heaps of fun too.

Take care,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Queen’s Birthday long weekend

Last weekend was a long weekend in Sydney as we celebrated birthday of Queen Elizabeth II. Normally we plan out-of-Sydney trips during long weekends but this time we didn’t. One of the reasons was because it was predicated to rain every day. How frustrating,I know.

When I came home after work on Friday, I was a bit annoyed that we had 3 days off and it seemed like we might be home most of the time. I was just venting my frustration when AS got me the socks. Now I know when he gets me the socks, he wants us to salsa. I really didn’t want to as it was a rainy day and I had been busy at work and was tired. All I wanted to do was rest and relax in front of the TV. I gave in when he asked me very sweetly a few times.

So, we danced the salsa for almost an hour and it definitely lifted my mood. I was happy when we had a light dinner and were off to bed. Sometimes I do need a bit of a push to do something and most of the time AS is there for that for which I am always glad.

Anyway, we woke up to a beautiful sunny morning on Saturday.

Beach

There was no way we were staying in so after breakfast we jumped into a car with some friends to go for a long drive toward Wollongong, aseaside city located in the Illawarra region of New South Wales, 82 kilometres south of Sydney. It was a nice drive but there was heaps of traffic on the road. It looked like everyone had the same idea when they woke up to an unexpected but beautiful and sunny morning.

Our destination was the Lagoon Seafood Restaurant located by the sea, which features an excellent à la carte menu. We had seen it featured in a program on TV and many good food guides so we wanted to try the amazing food.

We reached the restaurant just before 2 pm and all of us were already starving. We had made the booking beforehand so we got a table next to the window which had a great view. We ordered Salt & Pepper calamari, BBQ Seafood Platter and Hot & Cold Seafood Platter.

The lagoon (5)

So we had Lobster mornay, Moreton Bay bugs, BBQ king prawns, Kilpatrick & mornay oysters, scallops in the shell, BBQ octopus, salt & pepper calamari, barramundi pieces, tempura prawns, blue swimmer crab, natural oysters, fresh prawns & smoked salmon which were just delicious.

The lagoon (1) the lagoon

The portions were huge and we all were full but we still wanted some dessert. We decided to share and ordered a Cheesecake and a passionfruit coconut cake. They were delicious as well and we were glad we did order them.

The lagoon (4) The lagoon (2)

After lunch, we walked for a while near lagoon and it was just beautiful evening with sun setting on the horizon.

wollongong sunset

For a winter day, it was quite warm and beautiful.

shadow

On a whim, we decided to go for a movie so we jump into the car again and made an almost 2 hour journey back to Sydney. We picked Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt as everyone seemed keen on that movie. It was a good movie and all of us loved it. We had a perfect day with perfect company.

On Sunday, we woke up again expecting a gloomy day but again we were blessed with a sunny day. It was such a great feeling to have a beautiful weekend. We had a lazy breakfast at home and caught up on our TV series. I felt like having pani puri so made one for lunch. It was delicious as always.

pani puri

It was a relaxing afternoon and by evening we were ready to go out. We decided to go for a massage and dinner. Luckily, our regular Thai massage was not booked out so went for an aroma therapy massage.

 It is always so great when you go in with a sore body and come out fully relaxed. All the girls there are really friendly and do a great job. After the massage, both of us were fully charged so went for a walk hunting for a restaurant for dinner.

Finally, we decided on a Vietnamese restaurant. AS ordered three-way pork dish, which was really yummy and I ordered my favourite papaya salad with prawn and pork. The portion size was just perfect for us.

papaya salad three way pork

We ended our meal with Jasmine tea which was nicer that I expected. That ended our lazy Sunday.

jasmine tea

As we had a lazy Sunday, I told AS that we must have busy Monday as it is the bonus day and we should make the most of it. He agreed and we were excited to wake up to yet another beautiful sunny morning. Quickly, we got ready and went out for brunch.

We tried a new café where they served an amazing breakfast. AS ordered the big breakfast and I had Spanish omelette. The food was amazing but my omelette was so big that I could not finished it.

breakfast (2) breakfast (4)

I like my hot chocolate too.

breakfast (1)-tile

The day was looking good so after the breakfast, we decided to go for a walk on the nearby beach.

It was a perfect blue sky and no black clouds but slightly windy at the beach. We sat on the beach for a while and talked. I love all the session we have where we just talk about everything in our life. I really think these times we spend together are so precious and glad we do it so often. I believe that in every relationship good communication is very important.

 beach

After a while, we decided to walk the few kilometres of the coast line. It was nice to see so many people on the beach just relaxing or playing volleyball.

As we were walking the sky suddenly turned grey and sun went hiding behind them and it started drizzling and we had nowhere to hide.

We hadn’t brought the umbrella with us so we just ran for our car which was parked a few blocks away. We kept running and giggling as the wind tried to take my scarf away but we had a blast in the rain. As the rain was not heavy, we were not that wet but it was fun running, made me feel young and happy again

After the unsuccessful walk ,we decided to go to the mall where we looked around for a while, decided we were tired so did our grocery and came back home.

The timing was perfect as we Skyped with our parents in Kathmandu, watched the latest episode of Games of Thrones and enjoyed my Jamie’s Oliver’s Chicken tikka masala with brown rice for dinner.

It was the perfect unplanned long weekend.

How was your weekend everyone, hope all of you in the north are enjoying your summer, (I am so jealous).

Take care,

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO

Vivid Sydney 2014

Sydney has once again been transformed into a spectacular canvas of light and music when Vivid Sydney took over the city. This year the festival is so big that we had to go twice to make sure we saw all the great displays.

IMG_7816 IMG_7861

The first time we went to the Darling Harbour where Cockle Bay was centre stage as the stunning Aquatique Water Theatre again brings a little of the magic of Versailles to Sydney. Even though it was a cold evening, we had heaps of fun enjoying the show. The video projections, colour laser was really worth the trip. Here are some amazing photos from the night.

Then over the weekend, we went to Circular Quay for another amazing display.

1 IMG_7720 IMG_7721 IMG_7742 IMG_7744Vivid Sydney 2014 (1)

We reached there before 6pm and there were lots of people already. We had fun watching Opera house transformed into a colourful canvas, Customs House turned into a series of massive ‘musical sculptures’ with Play Me!, in an explosion of light, colour and sound. We also enjoyed giant snakes sliding across the Art Deco façade and Cellular Tessellation is a geometric architectural installation made from recycled plastic milk bottles.

42 (2)

There was food market in the Rocks and we enjoyed the street food for dinner. I also enjoyed the photos with the big Robot called Chip, yellow transformer looking guy and two very tall ladies in pink walking around on stilts.

IMG_7838 Vivid Sydney 2014 (2)

After resting or a while we walked to Martin Place to enjoy more displays. Martin Place is part of Vivid for the first time. I loved Urban Tree Project and geometric head that uses live video to put your face on the work.

 I have to admit, Vivid Sydney this year is bigger and better than last year.Vivid Sydney 2014 (4)

Here are some of the amazing photos I found on the internet courtesy of  James Morgan from Destination NSW.

If you are in Sydney don’t forget to go and enjoy the amazing displays.

Take care.

M from nepaliaustralian

XOXO