Life's a Beach in Manly

Julie and I are truly settled in Manly. They say "once you're in Manly, you never leave"... that's not to say people don't ever move from Manly, that's to say people never go anywhere other than Manly for their leisure pursuits; no Sydney, no Bondi, no anywhere. But is that true? Mostly, yes!

We live in the brown brick building on the third floor

Julie and I were talking about the places we've lived and with one exception, our home in Lake Oswego, we have always lived on the water. Well, we don't actually live directly on the water here but we have the harbour to the left, 1 block, and the ocean to the right, 2 blocks. We take our coffee on a park bench most mornings, stroll the beach at night, we even enjoy our dinners (occasionally) in true Aussie fashion, picnicking in the park. We love it.

Our apartment is far better than the apartment we had in Balmain East. The only thing I miss about that place is the balcony with the glorious views of Manly harbour and the Harbour Bridge. Other than that...not much to miss about that place. Here, we have a much larger (even open) lounge (living room) and a better kitchen; still small, but more modern and a bit larger. We even have a microwave now! The bedrooms are also larger with much more storage. Even though we only have one bathroom, it's plenty for the two of us. My favourite part of the bathroom is the toilet seat. You know how kitchen drawers and cupboards are sometimes self-closing? Well, drop the toilet seat and it slowly goes down for you... no clanging noises... just slow and easy. It's such a good idea and remarkably, I like it sufficiently to blog about it? The kitchen has no sit-in dining so we take our meals in the lounge or the dining room. The dining room seats six with a nice service, though, we mostly use it as a place to work.

I'm thinking about starting a food blog about restaurants in Manly. We eat out often enough to try many of the places, and, there seems to be a bit of a shortage of good information on Manly restaurants. Julie works with someone that does a food blog in Sydney and she receives free meals from restaurants anxious for a review -- might be a good way to get some free grub while (hopefully) meeting/connecting with people in the area. Right now, I'm just considering this.

This past weekend we ate at a great restaurant called "Out of Africa". Truly extraordinary food. I'd say it's #2 in our Aussie experience behind only "Sake". Really good though, 2 minutes from our home.

I'll log off for now. I need to get out with my camera and take some photos to share with simple captions. You, my blog stalker, will get a much better sense of our life in Manly. Cheers.

Manly Men (and Women)

A lot of water under the bridge since my last blog post. No point in trying to bring all events current — let’s just jump in starting this week!

Julie and I have moved from Balmain East to Manly Beach. Both are suburbs of Sydney though Manly is much father out escaping the urban feel altogether. We’re not going to miss Balmain East. It’s a great community for people to raise their kids and meet up with their circle of friends; neither of which exist in our Aussie world. Keeping it positive, Manly is great! GREAT. GREAT!!!

First, our apartment is twice as large. We now have a clothes dryer, a stove with four full-size burners, a fireplace, hardwood floors, 10 foot ceilings, a microwave, lots of storage... all things we did not have before. The location really could’t be much better. Out the front door to the right, 1 block, and you’re on the harbour beach next to the ferry wharf. Go left, two blocks, and you’re standing on Manly Beach. (Morning coffee is awesome there and we’ve done it every day rain or shine.) Around the corner is a fully stocked grocery store and the famous Manly “Corso”. Conservatively, there are 30 restaurants within a 5 minute walk of our apartment. 60 within 10. Coffee shops, pubs, cafes, chemists, clothing stores, micro-breweries... you name it. To top it off, it’s all level so walking is easy for anyone with bad knees. It’s really great! This is the Australia we wanted to move to...

Julie continues to rehab since her tumble down a flight of stairs. She’s slowly getting better, her bruises are starting to disappear and the torn ligaments in her foot are healing with the help of good physio. Her commute is about 15 minutes longer than it was before but the ferry has wifi so she can work for the 30 minute ferry ride without interruption. The occasional dolphin or whale is a nice bonus on the ride.

I (Jeff) have volunteered as a warden here in Manly. My mission will be to keep tabs on the endangered Fairy Penguin population protecting them from people and pets while tracking their mating and feeding habits. It’s a good way to meet new people while helping the community and the penguins. Looking forward to that...

Penguin Warden Program Link

This weekend is a pro surfing competition on Manly Beach. I’ll take my camera along and get some photos of the community and the surfers… should be fun.

Long Overdue... Oy Oy Oy

I know, I know, been a slacker when it comes to blogging…

It’s been a while since I posted a blog and it’s not that we haven’t been busy doing notable things, it’s just that we’ve been busy doing notable things…hmmmm. Rather than trying to recap everything that’s happened since my last entry I’ll let the photos tell the stories with comments (and no doubt a good amount of verbosity!)

Grocery stores continue to torment me

Gigantic produce and creepy vege...

The closest grocery store to our house has been under renovation for over a month now. It’s not like it’s all that convenient to begin with, but losing it means even longer bus rides with multiple stops. When we move, the highest priority with the new place will be proximity to a good grocer. I try to order online with home delivery which is a real crap shoot. Generally they ship under-ripened fruit and vegetables which is good from a spoilage point of view — pain in the butt from a utilisation point of view. I cook a lot and my preference is to buy my ingredients the same day I use them — freshness, flavour, quality… Buying in bulk and then guessing on how long it takes for a peach to ripen is not in my wheelhouse. Plus, you never really know what they are delivering. My celery bunches and green onions were ENORMOUS and would’t even fit in my ice box without first trimming them down — not even sideways! Final challenge, they really don’t deliver proteins so I have to go get them anyway. I finally settled on taking a ferry grocery shopping (yes, a boat) to a place not far from the ferry wharf. It probably sounds cools and romantic but come on…as the days get warmer, so do the groceries.

Date night lives!

Julie and I at the cheese fondue restaurant

One of the smartest things we did when we moved here (to counteract Julie’s tendency to be the most efficient worker in the world) is to install a Wednesday date night policy. We’ve fallen into a nice habit of going out to a new restaurant each week — exploring neighbourhoods and finding new gems for dining. It’s been great fun! Our most recent stop was fondue in the old post office building near Circular Quay. Julie’s workmates have been really helpful with suggestions and this place delivered in spades. We had a nice board of fondue items which including potatoes, breads, cured meats, and other goodies…and a nice pot of brie with truffles for dipping. Um, yum! Even better for Julie was the value as the place was listed in our Entertainment Book that she ordered when moving here. God, she loves those damn things! Sauce for the goose you ask? Thank you Jack Hasebe for your generous restaurant gift card that we used to pay the bill.

Football, I mean Oregon Ducks College Football

Watching the game on the computer from home

If you read this blog chances are good you also read our Facebook pages. It’s no secret that we are huge Duck fans. So much so that the possibility of missing Duck football in Oz actually factored into our decision when considering the move…sad, right? Anyway, we did move and thanks to modern technology (a sling box on Jack Hasebe’s Dish Network account) we are able to stream the games into our living room! How great is that? How the technology works is unimportant (except to Dave Fujii I am guessing), but how it affects our week is very telling.

First (and as a nice dovetail to date night) we pick the Top 25 games of the week and the best prognosticator is allowed to pick the date night event or restaurant. So far I’ve won 2 nights and Julie has won once. Second, it means that we are always home (and awake) from 11pm - 2am on Saturday night for College Game Day on ESPN. Finally, it means we spend time every Sunday morning watching the games.. odd times too. The Duck / Michigan State game was at 8am, the Wyoming game was at 4am — we were up, dressed in our Duck gear, yelling, screaming and high-fiving (I know, lame) in our living room. Our neighbours, who all think the American obsession with University Sport is odd, have to be wondering what the hell is going on? Are they fighting? Are they partying? Are they crazy? All of those? Who knows… who cares. We’ve got our Ducks!

Our 13th wedding anniversary

Opera House at night from our dinner cruise

It’s been 13 years since we officially tied the knot. Itching aside, it’s been a simply glorious time full of love and life. Without running on forever (and I could) about how magical it’s been let’s simply say that neither of us has taken a single day for granted during all of our thirteen years. We’ve cherished every day and fallen more completely in love with each and every day — it’s true — we’re blessed.

This was our best anniversary ever. On Saturday we took a three hour dinner cruise on the harbour in Sydney. The big paddle wheel boat was warm and comfortable; the views amazing; the food excellent. It was a lot of fun. They had showgirls, a magician, and a singer to entertain us as we cruised slowly around the harbour. Good fun! Julie was beautiful. We were home in time for Game Day!

On Sunday, our actual anniversary, we were up at 4am to watch the Ducks defeat Wyoming. We were sleepy and the Ducks first quarter was uninspired… By halftime the game was well in hand and we were still sleepy. We watched the game, napped for a bit afterward and struck out for the day around noon. We decided that it would be nice to find a rooftop bar/cafe to enjoy the warm sunny weather and just chill for the day. On the way there, we stopped at a cafe/wine bar that Julie had visited before and had some lovely food in a very neighbourhood (“swish”) setting. It was awesome. I had old bay prawns (100 of the the little guys that I ate shell and all), some bread with olive oil for dipping, and 4 wonderful raw oysters (sorry, Jack). Julie had a crab salad and everything I didn't eat… that girl can eat! Next stop was a rooftop down the street from lunch where we were delighted to discover live entertainment. It wasn’t “Beatles on the Rooftop” good but it was definitely very good. A young (nervous) girl singer and an accompanying guitarist. They played one emo song after another which really hits our sweet spot… yes, our iPod will make everyone cry…. From there we goofed and laughed, had some thai food for dinner and headed home. What a magical day befitting of our magical lives.

Australia meet France, France meet Australia. Mosman Village

Yesterday, Julie and I continued our never-ending quest to find the most suitable village/neighborhood/suburb for us to dwell. On hand was Mosman, specifically Mosman Village. Mosman is a large area, pretty much directly across the harbour from the Opera House. It’s next to Kirribilli (we visited that previously) and not that far (by car) from Manly Beach (also visited that area before). So what to say about Mosman….

We took a ferry to Circular Quay and thought we’d catch a ferry to Mosman. My knee was bugging me so we decided to cab into Mosman. It’s a pretty short trip across the harbour bridge though traffic made it a less than great experience. Still, we headed directly to the downtown area of Mosman known as Mosman Village.

Mosman is an affluent area within greater Sydney. The rub for many Sydney-siders is they consider it kind of “snobby” though we didn’t personally experience much of that. Of course, coming from Lake Oswego, Oregon, (where I quickly learned that yelling loudly at the refs during junior high school basketball is frowned upon :-| ) snobbery is something that is invisible to me. Does that mean we are snobs? Hmmmm…. makes me wonder. (not really)

Anyway, back to Mosman Village. First, it’s expansive. The main road (Military Road) seems to go on forever. It’s features a lot of cars on wide streets that are crowded with local boutiques and high-end designer clothing shops. Unlike Balmain (where we live now) there are very few pubs. It’s relatively flat for walking which I liked and has plenty to offer. The biggest problem is where it’s located… While Mosman is across the harbour from downtown Sydney’s CBD, Mosman Village is on the other side of the peninsula. Since we are living here sans-car that means a bus or a trolly to get to that area. The trade-off thus becomes, sacrifice water views in favour of shopping or sacrifice shopping for views. If you do the later it adds 30 minutes to any commute. Because of that we are going to rule Mosman out as a place to live.

Our experiences while in Mosman were great. I had the best crepe I have ever enjoyed (and I’ve bent to France) at a French-owned restaurant called Four Pigs. It was simply amazing. Buckwheat crepe with Smoked Duck, Cheese, Green Onions and some sort of savoury sauce. Oh god, it was good. Crepes Suzette for dessert (shared) wasn’t a bad way to end the meal either. We sat outside in a heated area and just loved it.

We shopped at bit without buying anything and finally ended up at a sports bar where Sydney was playing New Zealand in Rugby. The pub scene in Oz is quite different than the US. Notable differences include no bar stools. No tipping is another big difference though prices more than make up for the difference. People tend to go to pubs in groups and then sit with each other at a table. Everyone takes turns buying a round of drinks for the table so if you are a tea drinker, your coffee could end up costing you $50 if your with 5 other people. :-( People can get quite loud in the pubs and it’s almost appreciated. There are no waitresses/waiter so you go to the bar for everything you want. The American style of “hot” bartenders or food servers is clearly not in the plan. It’s not better or worse, just different.

It was a rainy day so we hung out there for a while before catching a bus back to Sydney CBD. We landed at The Rocks (reviewed that before too) and hung out there for a few hours as well. We love The Rocks…so much going on… so much to do. If you really need a “hot” quotient to make you happy have a seat at a sidewalk cafe and watch the parade of club goers all dressed for a night of decadence. Gheesh.

Today we are heading to an Aquarium to look at sharks and things just 5 minutes from where we live by ferry. Loving Sydney. Loving having Julie home everyday. Life is good.

About 7 more days of rain and 60’s and then it all turns for the beginning of spring and summer. Looking forward to that! Later blog stalkers.

Secretaries that STOP traffic

Meat raffle, Secretaries that stop traffic, Double Bay/Double Bay, and a Pneu Health update…. oh boy!

Double Bay Double Bay

Last weekend Julie and I struck out to explore the village of Double Bay. Mark (bro) had mentioned it as a place he had a coffee with one of his reps on a previous trip — he thought it was nice and relatively level. He had me at relatively level! So we caught the ferry to Circular Quay and then took the 10 minute ferry ride to Double Bay. Double Bay is (obviously) on the water — it might even be a bay? It’s an area of Sydney where money seems to begin settling in greater abundance — in fact, Double Bay is known as the village with the most exclusive/upscale shops in Sydney. There are only about 5,000 residents though the shopping area is quite large - obviously a destination for Sydney folks, especially those in the Eastern villages.

To give you a feel…. you get off the ferry on the wharf and are immediately greeted by a pub over water called the 18-footer club. It’s where folks drink and snack while waiting for their ferry - folks with 18-foot or greater boats are also allowed but only as members. ;-) It’s a hopping place full of happy people and some pretty exclusive shopping bags. You venture off the wharf, walk past a park, and within 4 minutes you are in the shopping and restaurant district. Lovely pubs and cafes, great shops full of famous designers as well as well regarded Sydney designers. The place had much wider streets than Balmain East (where we live now) and a much more ”current/upscale” vibe. There are plenty of beautiful homes and a fair number of apartments overlooking the harbour. All-in-all we loved it and moved it into the category of places we would move. The only drawbacks are ferry schedule (every 60 minutes) and a seeming lack of grocery near the apartment areas. On the upside, it close to CBD by ferry or bus, close to the beach (10 minutes) or Bondi Junction (western mega shopping area). Definitely a great place to spend our time here if it works out.

Meat raffle

As if to prove Balmain East is a bit less refined than Double Bay, on Sunday, we attended a meat raffle at the local lawn bowling club. $1.00 gets you 5 tickets in the raffle — we bought $5.00 worth and won 2 drawings. Conservatively, the meat was worth $60 - $80. The local group of lawn bowlers were away at a tournament so we had a great chance of winning one of the 12 drawings. Ummm, meat!

Health Update

I went to the Doctor on Monday for a follow-up. I’ve got about 3 more weeks of suffering ahead of me but the progress is definitely in my favour. She put me on some new/stronger medication, discussed allowable activities, and ordered me to two days of bed rest. Upon leaving I asked her, “what about sex” to which she replied, “I have patients until 3 o’clock but I’m free after that.”

Secretaries everywhere

I’m in the middle of my second day of bed rest and I hear helicopters and boat traffic and just a lot of commotion outside. I get up to see what is disrupting my slumber. As you can see from the photograph, Secretary John Kerry, Secretary Chuck Hagel and Prime Minister Tony Abbott are motoring past my sick bed with an armada of police in tow. Kerry and I shared a wave (seriously) and I went back to bed. Bizarre.

That’s all for now blog stalkers… things are good… weather not so much. WE CRAVE SUMMER!

Bros before.... well, everything!

Just said goodbye to my little brother. He’s off to his hotel and then tomorrow he’s on a plane back to his family in Wisconsin. It was such a welcome experience for Julie and I to spend time in Australia with Mark. Here’s a brief run down of the two days I saw him this week…enjoy!

Tuesday I saw him twice. I met him, and his Australian sales representative (Andy Knox) for lunch at Jamie’s Italian. Andy is a true Scot complete with a heavy Scot accent with quirky Australian words tossed in for good measure. He’s somewhere in his early 60’s and just a nice guy. Good sense of humour, hearty laugh, love of life. A real pleasure to join for lunch. How nice is it that we got to break bread together at Jamie’s Italian! I’ve long been a fan of Jamie Oliver though I’ve never eaten at one of his restaurants — I’ll be back.

Any restaurant where you get to sit next to hanging meat is a good place to eat!

For the starter course, we shared a bread starter, some baked mushrooms, and some crab and avocado bruschetta. All was truly wonderful — hearty, earthy and delicious. For our mains we each ordered something different though we sampled off each other’s plates. I had a truffle risotto (I know, right!?), Mark had a wild boar lasagne, and Andy had a pasta dish with venison and wild boar. We added a couple of sides for the table; posh fries which is basically french fries with parmesan and truffle oil (again, I know right!?) and some polenta with rosemary and parmesan. The sides and the mains were also wonderful. Finally, we also ordered dessert even though we were all pretty stuffed. I had tiramisu, Mark had lemon meringue pie and Andy had a brownie dessert. Truthfully, dessert was pretty marginal although Andy did manage to eat his entire brownie dessert. My tiramisu was one bite and done - really pretty bad.

I left Mark with Andy (they have to work after all) and headed home to await my grocery delivery. Mark wrapped his day and headed over to our place around 5:30 to spend the evening with us. I had the rather unenviable task of cooking dinner that followed Jamie Oliver. Suffice to say that no matter what I cooked I was not going to compete with Mr. Oliver. Still, my salmon with rhubarb sauce was pretty decent and the evening was simply great. Having my brother for 5 hours is something I don’t often get to enjoy and I relished every moment. Julie made a wonderful dessert to end the evening (Amaretti Peach parfait) and Mark headed out on the 9:43 ferry.

Today, Thursday, Mark returned to Sydney from Brisbane and made it over to the house for dinner around 6:00 pm. I made a shrimp, feta, pasta dish with peas and we had baclava for dessert. Julie made it home around 8:30 to join us for an hour and a half before Mark headed out again on the 9:43 ferry to his hotel. Again, it was wonderful to hang with my bro!

That’s about it. One of the things I love about Mark is the lengths he will go to, and the distance he will travel, to stay connected with family. That might be us in Sydney, Jenna in LA, frequent trips to the parents, you name it… he puts in the time and effort to be the best of our family. I’m blessed to have him in my life.

Bed time for me… have a good day blog stalkers.

Little Brother / Big Times

What a treat!

A wonderful weekend for this old blogger and his pretty little wife — my brother, Mark, in Sydney for the weekend leading up to a week full of work in Australia. It was simply wonderful as is the norm for Mark and I whenever we get together! The really neat thing for me about Mark — if he wasn’t my brother he’d be one of my best friends. He’s just great.

On with the details….

Saturday morning we met around 10:00 near his hotel at Circular Quay. Mark had just gotten off a long LONG flight a few hours earlier ( a flight without onboard entertainment — OUCH ), checked in at the Marriott, showered and met Julie and I for a day of making merry. We boarded a bus and headed down the coast to the town of Coogee. Coogee (Cud-gee) is south of Bondi and a favourite place of Sydney-siders to live along the beach. It’s just far enough south to miss the tourist crowds that jam Bondi beach and a lovely little place to be sure. The beach is full of large breaking waves and a nice boardwalk with plenty of shops and restaurants. We stopped for lunch at the Coogee Bay Hotel which claims to have the largest beer garden in the Sydney area. Lunch was pretty darned good even though I dropped a big piece of fried fish on my pant leg — how lucky for me there aren’t a lot of cats in Australia.

We ate a leisurely lunch and decided to tempt fate (fate meaning my bad knees and pneumonia riddled body) by walking north from Coogee toward Bondi beach, The walk (Bondi-Coogee beach walk) is a pretty famous 5 km trek famed for it’s beauty. It runs all along the ocean with some pretty amazing views and scenery. We stopped once for a coffee (Jeff) / beer (Julie and Mark) and had just a great time chatting, sight-seeing and exploring. Mark, “The Whale Whisperer” spotted a water spout from a whale and we had a lot of fun (pithy conversation included) exploring Waverly Cemetery. After about 3 1/2 km my knees were fried so we jumped a bus and headed to the train station in Bondi junction. We trained into the city and caught a cab to one of Mark’s favourite places “The Hero of Waterloo”. THOW is a really old pub with huge wooden beams and ancient stone walls and a trio of musicians that perform in the corner. The average age in the Trio has got to be 80 so it’s kind of quaint to be sure — we had a blast.

From there we walked a few shorts blocks back to The Rocks and enjoyed a few more beverages at The Argyle — a collection of restaurants and night clubs that are all super fun, really cool, and wonderfully swish. We laughed and chatted and just had fun kicking back enjoying the scene. Next door to The Argyle area was “Sake” — a Japanese fusion restaurant where we were lucky enough to snag a table. The food was so good — we just marvelled at every course — all 6 of them. One of the best meals I’ve ever had to be sure. Such fun.

We bid goodnight to Mark around 8:00pm and we headed home to recharge while he went back to the Marriott for some sorely needed sleep. He was a real trooper after that long flight. Harsdly even showed at all.

Sunday (today) we met again around 10:00 and headed off on a ferry to Manly Beach. Both Manly and Coogee are on our short list of places to live when our lease expires end of January. Manly is super lovely — probably the most like a southern California beach town of all the beach communities (except for maybe Bondi). Anyway, we went for a nice coastal walk sharing some sights that we’d seen before with Mark. It was awesome fun — sunny and brisk but not too cold). We settled in for a nice lunch beachfront and enjoyed some great conversation and a bit of work talk, etc. Fun, comfortable, just great.

After lunch we wandered about Manly looking at apartment buildings trying to get a feel for living there. Hard to say what will be available come summer (Feb 1) but it appears there are good options oceanfront that could really make for a nice lifestyle. It’s a relatively flat area which my knees would appreciate and there are plenty of grocery/shop/restaurant options too. Might be our leading contender thus far? We left Manly around 3:00 with every intention of hitting the fish market and making a nice dinner back at our place. My knees had other thoughts so we ended up simply ferrying back to Circular Quay, then a second ferry to where we live. We chilled there for about an hour and finally caught a bus into Balmain for an early dinner at the Monkey Bar. The Monkey Bar is a Parisian themed place near where we live and we had a really nice meal with some laughter and good conversation. A cab back home with a stop at the ferry for Mark and that’s it!

We might see Mark again for dinner on Tuesday, or Thursday, or both which will be wonderful too. I always say goodbye to my brother wishing we lived close to each other. I just love the little guy!