Jetstar had a special sale of $19AUD flights between Sydney and Gold Coast. 300 seats only…I managed to nab some tickets! Love a good cheap flight, and I have to say that I have a bit of knack for finding them!

Travelling As A Couple

This was always going to be a big thing about this holiday. It’s the first time (realistically speaking) that I’ve been on a proper, long, holiday with a boyfriend. This holiday was a test of the relationship. There are unique challenges that come from spending 24 hours a day together for two and a half weeks that you simply don’t get elsewhere. Even when you live together, you’re not together with that level of intensity – there’s work, education, family, and other social commitments that mean you spend at least some time away from your partner.

When you travel together in a country where one of you are unable to communicate with the locals and the other has to do all the translating, there’s not much opportunity for being alone. All up, I think we only spent probably four hours apart for the whole two and a half weeks – largely when he had a sleep in and I went out early for an hour’s walk in the morning.

I think we passed the test. We’re still together, we didn’t have any blazing rows, and we both learned to travel and to gracefully give way to each other’s wishes. I’m a “must do everything” traveller – I get up early and stay up late, from an early breakfast at a street vendor, a day of sightseeing, and a full night at the night markets. Kieran is more of a “travel is about the holiday, not about the travel” traveller – he would prefer to stay up late reading and relaxing in bed, have a sleep in, and then leisurely pick one destination to explore each day. It’s not the best combination, but we made it work, with concessions on both sides.

Language

This was a concern of mine before we left. I hadn’t used Mandarin Chinese or Shanghainese regularly since the start of 2007, and I knew that I was rusty. (I do this thing where if I want to practice a language, I make myself think in that language and practice conversations in my head. It’s really hard, but effective at determining your level of fluency.) My imaginary conversations proved to me that I wasn’t ready to throw myself right back into China, where the average Chinese person knows only three phrases of English – “Hello”, “cheap, cheap, you buy”, and “you need taxi? I drive”.

However, concerns aside, I did better translating for the both of us than I thought I would. There were never any issues getting from A to B, using both taxis, high-speed trains and subways. One incident aside where I ordered three dishes instead of two, we never had any issues with ordering delicious meals, three times a day. I even had lengthy nearly hour-long conversations with taxi drivers, masseuses, etc. and managed to hold my own.

Impressively, I was still able to speak to my family in our local dialect which is essentially a dirty bastardisation of both the Shanghai and Ningbo dialects. Any student of Mandarin Chinese could tell you how dissimilar the Shanghai dialect is to putonghua, or standardised Mandarin. Yet I still managed to understand and converse in the dialect. I’m impressed with myself, but still admit that while my verbal command of Chinese was more than adequate for two weeks of travel, I should have brushed up on my recognition of Chinese characters before I left.

Places

Our original plan for the trip was: Beijing-Xian-Shanghai-hometown-Nanjing-Beijing in the space of two weeks. Travel in-between cities would have been primarily high-speed train over long distances, and passenger coach to my hometown. What we didn’t account for was the three-day May Labour Day holiday in China, which is second only to the Chinese New Year week-long holiday in sheer numbers of travellers using up all transport options. We were unable to buy train tickets to Xian on arrival in China (we couldn’t buy in advance overseas as you need to provide your ID/passport), and thus had to rearrange our plans, and omit Xian from our travels (somewhere I still haven’t been!). This allowed us to add a day to Beijing and a day to Shanghai.

Beijing: We were sick for the first few days/week of our holiday, a bug that we caught while in Sydney, incubated during our few days in Melbourne, then aggravated during the flight, with full effects for the first few days of our holiday. This severely impacted our ability to sightsee, and we ended up only going to the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the night markets, and the Xiamen and Wangfujing commercial areas.

Shanghai: I’m a Shanghai girl through and through, based on my previous stays in the city as a student. We walked the Bund and took in the views from the Huangpu river on a night cruise. We visited Yuyuan, the Old Town, the French Concession, and explored my old stomping grounds in the Hongkou district. We watched a movie at XinTianDi (Titanic 3D, yeah!) and went to Nanjing Lu.

Hometown: We had two days here, and aside from the eating, the main highlights was the deserted amusement park we went to, and the fact that I got my hair chemically straightened. Otherwise, it’s really not all that exciting, though the industrial designer in Kieran was excited by our visit to the cigarette lighter factory that my aunt works in. He likes factories. What a boy.

Nanjing: We had one and a half days here, and managed to take in the sights of Hunan Lu, visited Xuan Wu park (and took an electric boat out on its many lakes), and went to the Confucius temple region and visited the Taiping Rebellion museum as well.

Singapore: We had a twelve hour stopover in Singapore on the way back from Beijing, and fortunately, it was at a reasonable time (9am – 9pm, as opposed to 9pm – 9am!). We took a shower at Changi airport (heavenly), then joined the free two-hour Colonial Tour that Changi airport offers. After the tour, we made our own way into the city to Orchard Rd where we wandered the massive malls for a while and had a very Malaysian/Singaporean meal (chicken rice, mmm), but then retreated to the cool air-conditioned space of a cinema and watched The Avengers.

Food

With few exceptions, we ate primarily in hole-in-the-wall mum-and-dad restaurants – lots of noodle soups, bowls of dumplings, etc. As a student in China a few years ago, that was always my go-to option as I could quite easily get a hearty home-cooked meal for around $1AUD. The only difference this time around is that with the rate of inflation and rising cost of living in China, my hearty home-cooked meal is now costing me around $1.50AUD.

We never once had a bad meal. The smaller street-side eateries never failed us the way they do so many other visitors from first-world countries – we never had upset stomachs, or anything that disagreed with us. When we went to larger restaurants (a famous Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing for example), that never failed us either, though it did reaffirm our preference for more authentic local eateries. We ate some strange food when we visited my family for two days – local specialities that included raw salted miniature crabs, tiny lobsters with purple meat, fruit that looked like mutated loganberries, tiny pipies, home made rice wine, and more. We saw stranger food at night markets that we weren’t game enough to try (skewered deep fried scorpions, silkworms, barbecued sheep penises, and more).

Probably most impressively, we only caved once and had a single ‘western-style’ meal while we were away (an Italian meal) – and that one time was in the Shanghai French Concession which almost specialises in non-Chinese cuisine. It’s very easy for travellers to China to get sick of Chinese food, three times a day, and to retreat to the ever-ubiquitous McDonald’s or KFC for a comfort meal. We never did that, though we did get dessert twice from MacDonald’s in the form of soft serves with strange flavours – taro soft serve and melon soft serve!

Shopping

Shopping is never really a main concern of mine when I go to China. Fact is, my feet are too big to buy their shoes (women’s shoes generally only reach about a 39, whereas I need more of a 41) and my body is too large for their clothes (I’m never going to have a 26 inch waist, and don’t even get me started on the size of my chest compared to the average Chinese woman). Anything else that I could purchase (handbags, accessories, etc.) generally don’t appeal to me because of the overall general national female preference for glitz, sparkles, sequins and diamantes that don’t fit my personal aesthetic for simple and classic.

Tourist souvenirs don’t appeal to me as I grew up in a Chinese household with all the teapots, scrolls, and inkstones that one could wish for. Gadget purchases don’t appeal either because of the fact that warranties purchased in China aren’t valid in Australia. Most mid-to-high-end cosmetics and toiletries are generally on par for pricing, which doesn’t offer an incentive to purchase in China and send back to Australia. In the end, the only purchases I made were for mid-range toiletry products – I bought some Biore pore packs and cleanser, and some Garnier products designed for acne prone skin. I only spent about $50AUD all up, but got around $90AUD value. Not a huge saving (I probably could have gotten similar savings had I waited for a supermarket sale), but enough to warrant the spending.

People

I don’t know if I like the average Chinese person. There, I said it. I don’t like the hacking, coughing, and spitting of phlegm on the footpath (yes this still happens despite the government’s attempts to reeducate about hygiene). I don’t like the fact that most people feel the need to talk at 100 decibels, no matter where they are. I don’t like the fact that pushing and shoving in a crowd is de rigeur. I don’t like the fact that people don’t know how to line up in queues and will shove their way left right and centre. I don’t like the culture of smoking (by kids as young as seven!) that means you smell like an ashtray because of second-hand smoke after a matter of hours. I don’t like the blatant gawking I get from Chinese men because of the size of my chest and the very audible remarks they make to their companions when I walk past.

Having said that, I love China. I love the great pride that everyone holds in being Chinese and in both embracing and celebrating the millenia of culture and history, while working hard to create a brighter and more prosperous future. I love the 热闹 (hot and noisy) atmosphere of anywhere you go, and the hustle and bustle of a country of 1.3 billion people. I love the entrepreneurial nature of the Chinese people and the way they spot a business opportunity anywhere. I love the fact that when we were at the Forbidden City and having some issues with tickets, a Chinese couple came up to us and tried to give us some advice.

The difficult thing is, I love the liveliness of a country with 1.3 billion people, but dislike some of the natural behaviours that fall out of that – e.g. the pushiness in a crowd and inability to line up. Take the good with the bad?

Family

We spent two days with my mother’s family in a place that I used to call “Bumfuck Nowhere” in old LiveJournal entries. It’s about halfway between Shanghai and Ningbo in the mid south east of China on the coast. This is the type of place it used to be. These days, it’s a bustling semi-urban area with an influx of migrant workers that’s becoming industrialised and even has a KFC within a ten minute drive. My grandparents have moved from farmers to becoming landlords – building one room rentals on what used to be their farming land, and renting them out for a princely total of $2300RMB a month. It’s not the rural China of my mother’s childhood.

The visit was characterised by my being shown off to everyone in the village (I’m related in some way to pretty much all of the original locals, whether by blood or marriage), and consistently receiving the comments that I’m tall and pretty, but I would be a lot prettier if I lost some weight because I’m fatter than the last time I visited. Again. And again. And again. And just in case I didn’t get it the first time – I’m tall and pretty, but need to lose some weight, x100000. And if this isn’t a contradiction in itself – even though every second sentence was about my weight, every third sentence was then encouraging me to eat and drink more, because food is the only way my family know how to show their love.

Oh, and they approved of Kieran, even though they couldn’t communicate at all. He showed himself willing to try a bit of every dish they served him, and that was enough to satisfy them! My grandma tried to give me $6000RMB when we left as a “wedding gift” because we might not get a chance to return for a visit before we get married. She was very disappointed when I refused the money and explained to her that we do things differently overseas – that we don’t date one person and get married within a year like many Chinese couples, and that chances are, she can give me the wedding money in three years when marriage actually becomes a reality after we’ve trialled living together and a whole range of other life experiences together.

Overall

I had a great holiday, being sick not withstanding. Two weeks gave me: affirmation of the strength of this relationship, a few extra kilos due to delicious food, criticism about the few extra kilos (plus a few more), confirmation of the appeal of my regular features, confidence in my language skills, and most importantly, just a good break from work. I did come back to 3000 emails in my work inbox, and three resignation emails from colleagues which brought me back to down to Earth pretty quickly…it’s really about time to start planning for another holiday I think. South America? I got an email promotion about some cheap flights in early December which are looking mighty tempting…

More on the trip later…if I don’t forget to update this blog, like I have been doing for the past few months.

It probably looks like a lot of clothes, but it’s essentially enough for a week’s worth of clothing without having to do a load of laundry. It actually also squashes into two small vaccuum bags/space storage bags, which are, by the way, the best invention for travellers. Use a roll up vaccuum storage bag, and you can almost double the storage space in your luggage, leaving that much more room for shopping overseas.

Am I forgetting something really obvious? Please let me know!

Under normal circumstances, one of my colleagues who still lives at home with her parents would have stayed at my place for the two and a half weeks that I’m going to be out of Australia, and looked after Darcy for me. Unfortunately, my landlord who knows nothing about my cat has planned to completely renovate my kitchen (new cabinets and everything) and repaint my whole apartment while I am away, so I have had to organise alternative arrangements for Darcy.

As no one else I knew in Sydney could take him, I’ve booked him into a penthouse suite at Aragon Cattery which works out to $28AUD a day. I toured a number of them last weekend to find one that was right for my cat, and while there were many that were quite a bit cheaper (around $10-$15 a day), it was really a case getting what you pay for. Tiny individual cages, cold hard concrete, no stimulation, metal cages, 130 cats in the one long room, staff who couldn’t care less…it was like a cat concentration camp. On the other hand, Prue (owner of Aragon Cattery) made a really good impression on me – she obviously knew all the cats (around two dozen at the time) individually, looked after them like they were her own, spent time playing with all of them, they had toys, visual stimulation, top quality food, everything like that. Darcy’s going to end up having an amazing holiday.

So while cat accommodation sorted, my crisis is around logistics – I have to clear out the kitchen entirely so that they can remodel, move things around in my apartment so they can paint, cleaning my apartment, and also somehow arrange to get Darcy to the cattery on Saturday morning while still making a 1pm flight. Oh, and I guess I need to pack at some point too…gah, why does this always happen?

I know I’ll have a great time as soon as I step onto the plane…I just have to make it to that point!

Anyway, my parents came up to Sydney over the long weekend to visit me, for the first time since I moved up here seven months ago. They possibly would have left the visit till much later in the year (if ever) if I hadn’t bought them the plane tickets last month as a birthday present for my mother. My parents are not the adventurous travel-the-world types – they are creatures of habit. This was the first time they’d been to Sydney, and all the trips they’ve taken in the past twenty years is back to China and Hong Kong to visit family.

In any case, I think they had a reasonable time. We explored the usual Sydney tourist traps (Sydney Harbour, Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Darling Harbour, Chinatown, Ferry to Manly), ate out quite often (I got my parents to try Japanese and Malaysian cuisine – a first for them!), and also visited a Chinese Buddhist landmark at the Nan Tien Temple.

It’s the strangest temple I’ve ever visited (and I’ve visited my fair share in my travels). While they still cater to tourists and ask for donations wherever they can, the actual location is just confusing. It’s located randomly in an industrial area outside of the regional city of Wollongong. It’s totally incongruous with its surrounding landscape, but beautiful all the same.

Importantly when it comes to their visit though, is that they met Kieran for the first time as a boyfriend, rather than just a friend. My mother also left my fridge well stocked with home cooking before she left. I don’t actually know which is more important.

There are also some other smaller projects that I’d like to work on in the next few weeks:

1. Book all accommodation for our trip to China in April/May. I’ve already worked out a rough itinerary, so would like to start locking in some accommodation!
2. Start brushing up on my Mandarin language skills. They’re very rusty as I haven’t used Mandarin regularly for the past four years. I’ve already borrowed some audio language guides from my local library that I want to transfer to my iPhone so I can practice on my commute.
3. Start reading up on research methods for my last unit of study for my Masters. I should receive this year’s materials towards the end of this month, but because I have last year’s materials already, I can start doing some pre-reading.
4. Learn how to use Kieran’s new Nikon D3100 DSLR that he won the day before he left for Japan. He left it with me, so I might as well teach myself the basics so that I can appropriate the camera whenever I feel like being “artistic”. Inverted commas are actually necessary, because I’m not artistic in the traditional sense.

I also have a monthly pass to a gym in the city that I purchased for $19 off a Daily Deal site. It expires at the end of February, so I guess I should start going. I need to go at least four times to make the $19 investment worthwhile. Wish me luck?

Graduate successfully from my Masters with a High/Distinction average: I didn’t graduate from my Masters. Instead, I did the complete opposite of successfully graduate, and instead I deferred my last semester of study. I did get a Distinction for the first semester of study though. I start study again first semester of this year – starting late February through to mid June. I’m a bit worried about it actually – I will have been away from study for the past six months and I hope that my motivation hasn’t suffered as a result.

Take the next step in my career to a 10% increase in salary and a step up in position title: I didn’t get a discernible increase in salary nor a step up in position title. What I did do was find a new job in Sydney that is probably more focused and relevant to what I want to do in the long-term, as opposed to the work I had been doing previously. I’m doing work that involves a degree of higher level thinking – of strategy, analytics and planning. It’s a step up from the purely administrative, logistic and “doing” work that I have previously done, and offers more opportunity to broaden my skills for appeal to future employers.

At this point I don’t know how long I will stay with the role. It’s becoming clear that it’s not enough money to live comfortably on for the type of lifestyle that I am accustomed to. It is also clear that while there may potentially be long-term scope for growth in the role, it’s not something that would happen in the next two years, nor something that could allow for any short-term substantive growth in income. Yet there are clear pros to the role – I enjoy the work, my colleagues and the organisation. And if things go according to plan, staying at this organisation would make sense as they are very family-friendly and offer great maternity leave and “back to work” options. But I can make more money elsewhere for similar work within a similar not for profit environment. At this stage…I don’t know what I’ll do. I imagine I’ll see through a twelve month cycle however, and make a decision towards September of this year.

Pay $5000AUD off my mortgage, additional to the regular fortnightly payments: I actually paid an extra $18K onto my mortgage in 2011. However, I’m currently chewing up any benefits I earned by not paying my ongoing mortgage amounts (in agreement with the bank) as I work through my current money problems. My additional payments allow me to stop paying my mortgage until September. I hope to get back on track by March though (by which time, I would have chewed up $10K of my additional payments), and to start paying my mortgage again at that point. I’m still stressed about money, but I’m hopeful that things will turn around soon.

Finally fully furnish and decorate my apartment, with photographic evidence: Well, technically yes, I did this. I did fully furnished my apartment in Melbourne and showed off some of the key features of: my bedroom, living room and kitchen. But then I moved out of my apartment in August and in with my parents who pretty much claimed all my furniture to replace their old furniture. Moving up to Sydney in September, I had nothing but my personal clothing and kitchenware. I took no furniture or whitegoods with me.

When I finally moved into my own apartment, I’ve had to essentially start this resolution again and furnish an apartment from scratch. I think I may have just made it – I picked up some pieces on Friday. However while I’ve got most of the furniture, I still lack the personal touches that make it a home…and I’m struggling with ideas of how to make it feel like home when it’s a rental property where I can’t hang pictures on the wall, repaint, or do anything else that alters the physical state of the property.

As for resolutions for 2012?

I recently spent some time setting objectives for the next six months at work. Each objective had one guiding principle, they had to be SMART objectives: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Using the same concept, I wanted to look at my personal goals for the next twelve months.

1. Graduate successfully from my Masters with a High/Distinction average (repeat!).
2. Get down to Melbourne at least twice this year to visit friends and family.
3. Get back on track financially with a strong $5K in savings by the end of the year.
4. Go overseas twice.

The first three are pretty self explanatory. I need to finally finish this Masters…no more delays! I’m also feeling a bit homesick. Having my brother here for a week helped, but really, I just miss home and my mum’s cooking. Even though I’ve been eating my way around Sydney trying out new places, I’m yet to find anywhere with food as amazing as my mum’s cooking. I’m also not used to being in this kind of a financial situation – I’ve always been the responsible one, and I want to be again.

As for going overseas twice, I already have that super cheap trip to China planned, which Kieran has now also booked tickets for. I look forward to showing him around a country I consider my second (and original) home. I’d also like to look at going overseas again towards the end of the year. I’ll have about three weeks of leave accumulated by Christmas, which would be just enough for a whistle fast tour of Argentina, Chile and Peru…or India and Sri Lanka…or Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia…or anywhere really! I know now what experiences make me happy and I want to do it all especially now that I’m with someone who is similarly inclined.

I should probably make a resolution about losing weight and/or doing more exercise, but we all know that kind of resolution never works. ;)

And just for your enjoyment – the fireworks that I got to watch last night.

In all seriousness, I actually did go to some amazing restaurants when I was travelling, after the first week of heavier food. My best dining experiences in each major stop on my trip include (and, warning, this will be long and wordy):

LA: Koi

Koi was the first nice restaurant I went to in America, a few days into our trip. I met up with the lovely Noemi and Neftali here for dinner – and basically in choosing the restaurant, I asked them to pick somewhere that was famous for celebrity sightings. Did you know that Sharon Osborne got into a fight with her agent at Koi, and that Lindsay Lohan threw a hissy fit when they refused to serve her alcohol here? Unfortunately we didn’t managed to spot any celebrities when we went, but the experience was really amazing.

If I was to sum up the restaurant in one word, it would be Zen. They really try to play into Japanese minimalist decor with lots of bamboo, and are huge fans of ‘mood’ lighting. It was really quite a classy and understated restaurant, and I was expecting to pay around $80 as that’s what the Australian equivalent would cost…if not more. Imagine my surprise when I opened the menu to find how reasonable the prices were – only about $25-$30 per main. I ordered the pan seared basa sole (delicious!), my friend Beth ordered the pan roasted duck breast, and I can’t remember the sushi that Noemi and Neftali ordered, but if you order the one with mango, it’s a real hit! We all had vegetable tempura, edamame and grilled Japenese eggplant to share, as well as a bottle of wine. For dessert, we had the hot fudge and caramel sundae, as well as the New York cheesecake – pure heaven.

I’d recommend Koi if you’re looking for somewhere sophisticated with excellent service and deliciously light food that still satisfies. Just make sure to book a table in advance rather than show up on the spur of the moment – it is very popular, and does attract a well dressed crowd.

San Diego: Georges on Fifth

You would be a fool if you paid full price to eat at Georges on Fifth. We weren’t sure of what we wanted to eat that night, so we wandered around the trendy Gaslamp Quarter. Walking past Georges, it answered our unasked questions about what we wanted – a good wine list, award winning Angus steaks for Beth, a good range of seafood for me, and a Grammy award winning pianist playing live music. We were actually a bit hesitant because the prices were marginally higher than some other nice restaurants we had seen – but then when the maitre d saw us hesitating over the menu, she actually gave us a voucher for 20% off our final bill. Sold – make sure you never pay full price at Georges on Fifth!

We chose to sit at an outside table so we could people watch. It was a Friday or Saturday night (I can’t remember), and the types of people walking past getting ready for a big night out made for good dinner entertainment. Beth ordered an Angus steak, but because I’m personally not keen on red meat, I ordered the salmon sauteed with a coriander crust, with sun dried cherry fennel relish and a basil oil and montrachet risotto. It was absolutely superb.

I’d recommend Georges as it’s centrally located in the Gaslamp Quarter. It’s fantastic as the place to start before a big night out!

Las Vegas: RA Sushi Bar Restaurant

RA Sushi is located outside the Fashion Show Mall towards the end of the new Las Vegas Strip – where the Wynn casino is. It’s fantastic for a late lunch/early dinner because of its Happy Hour specials (3pm – 7pm) – we were there around 4pm, and they have some half price specials on really unique sushi hand rolls and cocktails too. I recommend both the Dragon Bite and Blushing Geisha cocktails…not that I started drinking at 4pm!

I had the Nabeyaki Udon, because I had a craving for some good noodle soup. The seafood was lovely and fresh, and the tempura wasn’t too heavy. Beth had the potsticker soup which was good…but I have to say, I thought my own potstickers were better.

Overall, it was alright, but really nothing too spectacular. In terms of Japanese-style restaurants, Koi in LA was much better, and I’ve had much more authentic Japanese in both Melbourne and Sydney. Las Vegas as a whole was very disappointing though – restaurants in casinos were unremarkable (we ate in Treasure Island, Mandalay Bay, and Palace Station where we were staying) and there weren’t that many restaurants available on the strip outside of the casino complexes.

San Francisco: Maverick

We walked past this restaurant every day from where we were staying to the BART station that got us into town – and every day, we would say to ourselves: “we must eat there before we leave”. It actually wasn’t until the night before we left that we actually went!

Maverick is a really small and intimate restaurant that prides itself on its extensive wine list. Michael, the owner of the restaurant, is on the floor every night explaining the properties of different wines to patrons, and he really knows his stuff. I recommend dining there on a Tuesday if you can – you get 50% off all bottled wines then, which really just meant that instead of going for the $30 bottle like we normally would, we went for the $60 bottle for $30. The menu changes regularly as well depending on what’s in season and available on any particular day at the markets – when we were there, they actually changed the menu halfway through the night because they sold out of a particular dish.

I ended up ordering Baltimore crab fluffs for an entree, the tagliatelle for a main, and I had the pecan pie for dessert. The desserts in particular are quite excellent, so if you’re on a budget, I would recommend eating elsewhere for dinner, and coming to Maverick for dessert and wine to finish off an evening. Pricing is quite reasonable though – I think we ended up paying around $60 to $70 per person for a three course dinner and a cocktail each and a bottle of wine to share.

Seattle: New Orleans Creole Restaurant

We arrived in Seattle rather late (we seemed to make a habit of arriving in new cities after hours), and went in search of some food in the historic Pioneer Square part of Seattle. Our first thought was to go to the oldest bar in Seattle which apparently dated back to before the turn of the (last) century – but it actually looked a bit scungy from the outside. Luckily, just across the road was the New Orleans Creole Restaurant with a live jazz band playing…we were sold! Beth actually ended up buying two of the band’s CDs.

I wanted to try a bit of everything as I’d read a lot about Creole food in various novels, travel books, etc. I started out with a cup of gumbo for starters, and the seafood etoufee for mains. Along with the clam chowder in a bread bowl that I had in San Francisco, gumbo is now probably one of my favourite soup/chowder/stews. There’s actually a Creole restaurant up the road from where I work – I must pop in at some point and try their gumbo (I’ve tried their sticky date pudding before, it was delicious!). And this is probably most illustrative of the difference in restaurant pricing between Australia and America – a chicken based gumbo in Australia will cost me $20, but a seafood based gumbo in America will cost me $13!

We also ate at a Moroccan restaurant (Marrakesh) when we were in Seattle, which was excellent and remarkably cheap for the quality and quantity of food – something like $25 for five courses. I also tucked $5 into a belly dancer’s outfit when I was there.

Forks: The only diner in town

Look, there’s not much to say about this. We’d already tried the one Asian restaurant for lunch (generic fake Asian food like sweet and sour chicken), so didn’t have much choice for dinner, especially as we’d already earmarked the one cafe for breakfast the next day. The highlight of diner was simply the fact that I had the Bella Burger and the Twilight Punch…and I got a pair of fake vampire teeth with my Twilight Punch! Yes, this excites me.

Vancouver: Cactus Club Cafe

Our meal at the Cactus Club Cafe was a last minute decision at 10pm. We were originally wanting to dine at Diva at the Met (I had my heart set on the tuna and crab entree, and lamb main), but got back too late from our Victoria daytrip to make the restaurant’s dining times. Cactus Club Cafe was the only option open late at night on a weekday that wasn’t MacDonald’s or something similarly unappetising.

We were really surprised by how amazing the food and atmosphere was at the restaurant. We were absolutely starving by that time so didn’t linger too long over the menu. We ordered: Korean style BBQ lettuce wraps, a rocket salad, and a bottle of wine to share, then I ordered the soy-dijon ocean-wise salmon, and Beth ordered the blackened Creole chicken. That was way too much food – but it was all so delicious that we ended up eating all of it anyway.

I would recommend the Cactus Club Cafe at cocktail hour – they seem to cater primarily to an after-work crowd, so get dressed up in your corporate gear, order some entrees to share, and sip cocktails in the bar area.