Fiesta!

One cool thing about living right in the middle of downtown is that there's always something going on, and it's only 5 min away. This weekend, Darling Harbour (the same harbour that is prominent in our office views :) )had a big Latin Fiesta. It also happens to be a long weekend in Australia, so the party was really quite impressive. Now, I have no idea why the have a Latin Fiesta in Australia, but, why not?

Aside from the stage where the Brazilians were partying last time, they also had a stage set on a barge that was moored near a sort of a natural amphitheater built into the harbour shore. How does this work, you ask? Look:

While not all the acts were up the standards (in particular, the DJs that tried hard to represent themselves as the cool gangstas of the Latin Rap community, while sucking at DJing...*sigh*), overall this was amazing for a (free) street show.

I have some photos, but really this was all about the action, so...I got videos! :) (please forgive the quality, it was dark, crowded, and all I got to shoot videos with is my old Canon SD200)

This first the first time for me seeing Capoeira performed live. For those who have seen Ocean's Twelve, this is the Brazilian martial arts/dance the Toulour was performing to get through the lasers. So, without further ado, Grupo Capoeira Brasil:

Really not much to say here, they were spectacular. The first and third videos were really more about showing off rather than showing legitimate 2-person Capoeira game, but the end result is not less spectacular.

On Sunday night, the treat was some very well-choreographed tango, performed by the winners and the runners-up of the Australian Dancing with the Stars.



The winners.



The name is Bond. James Bond.

Check out the photos from these and other acts (flamenco, fireworks, etc) at http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/DarlingHarbourLatinFiesta

This is postcard Sydney

I realized I haven't shown much of the city so far. So I took a walk with my camera yesterday to rectify that :) Well, that, or maybe I was just bored. But this way sounds better.

I walked from Darling Harbour to Circular Quay, and took the ferry back. (Which cost $5.20, and probably took longer than it would've taken to me to walk back, but hey, that's not what ferries are about)

Map of the area here: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-33.865177,151.207151&spn=0.016891,0.028925&z=15&om=1

So, the postcard views of Sydney:

Probably the most recognizable performance hall in the world, Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbour Bridge. Even though most people take the tunnel these days if they need to cross the harbour by car, the bridge is pretty cool. Anyone who saw Olympic and/or New Year's fireworks launched from the top arch (even on TV) knows what I am talking about.

CBD (Central Business District, aka downtown), from the ferry on the Darling Harbour side.

More photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/CircularQuayToDarlingHarbourFerry

Shipley Upper Climbing

Another weekend, another climbing trip. There will be plenty more of these, non-climbers are invited to stop reading now if they're not interested :)

Went to Blue Mountains, about 2 hours out of Sydney. They're not real "mountains" in the traditional definitition of the word, but rather a range of hills and plateaus interesected by many cliff-sided valleys. All together, this makes for beautiful climbing on orange sandstone, and with great views too. As for climbing, every climb seemed to have a hard move right off the ground, with much more reasonable climbing later. I'll need to get the hang of those :)

The place is called Shipley Upper. Very social crag, with very closely spaced routes. But, everyone was friendly and was enjoying the climbing.

3 climbers on about 30 ft width of wall

Matt cleaning the top anchor on Aus grade 21 (11b). Awesome, if a messy, lead, I had more than enough trouble toproping this one.

Full set of photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/ShipleyUpperClimbing

Blogger "Features"

Ok, a bit of ranting is in order :)

Blogger alone:

- every time I insert an image, it get placed at the top of the post, not at cursor position (????) Because the WYSIWYG interface doesn't allow images to be moved relative to each other easily, the only solution is to go to HTML edit mode and move it from there.

- the line breaks and spacing around images differ wildly between the edit view and the published view

Integration:

- If I blog images from Picasa, then the post editing view I get is missing most of the text control features, only really suitable for posting an image with brief comments

- If I link to images on Picasaweb (instead of reuploading them), it resizes huge images down to blog size, and on click, offers to save them (see my previous post)

- YouTube: no integration at all, as far as I can tell?

If anyone knows solutions or workarounds to these, please post in comments or let me know directly.

Backstreet Boys Kung Fu, Brazilians, and chalk art

Was hanging out around the city on Sunday, around Darling Harbour specifically. Touristy as Sydney may be (Matt's observation), it's pretty cool to live in the middle of a busy city for a change

Some highlights from the day:

Hi!

Koreans were having a party, ostensibly with the purpose of raising awareness of Korea and attracting visitors. To aid in this, they put on a show, that could best be described as a cross between Backstreet Boys an Kung Fu. A group of Korean martial artists were doing a weird mix of dance and kung fu moves, all set to some pop-style music, to much consternation of the audience. You just can't make this stuff up.

Backstreet Boys move

Immediately followed by a Kung Fu move

Even their managers looked confused

Some other highlights included "Korean Pottery Lessons", and rapidly appreciating price of Kimchi.

Brazilians, in the meantime, were having their own party nearby. I couldn't tell exactly what the reason for celebration was, but since when do Brazilians need a reason for partying anyways. Also, I have discovered that Brazil has clearly taken an unorthdox approach to international diplomacy:

Not to be outdone by foreigners, there was also a local sidewalk chart show going. The art ranged from creative:

to downright bizarre:

Fun time was had by all :)

More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/SydneySep23

Nowra (again) climbing

The climbing has commenced :) Went to Nowra, did some quality sandstone pulling. No pictures to really show for it, just some snaps that didn't turn out. Definitely brought back some memories though, as Nowra was also the location of my last climbing trip during the previous Australia stay.

For the climbing audience: did about 5 routes, an easy warmup, then 2 leads, 2 TRs. Leads at roughly 10a, and 10c, very fun routes all bolted nicely, TRs at 11c, which didn't work out well at all, route was covered in loose sand; and 10d/11a slight overhang, which I think we all ran out of strength for. Matt did a hero move by stick-clipping the 2nd bolt while hanging from the first one. It was a sight to behold, I wish I had pictures of this, but I was belaying :)

Grade conversion: http://www.alpinist.com/media/page/grades/gradingchart.jpg

For everyone, pics:

Nowra, NSW, Australia - May 26, 2006

Nowra, NSW, Australia - Sep 22, 2007

Pics of view from office

http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/SydneyOfficeView

Pics of Apartment

http://picasaweb.google.com/olegace/SydneyApartment

View from the office

Crappy pic taken using the webcam built into the MBP:

Arrived

All right, I'm at the Sydney office. 9:13 am here, 4:13 pm MV.

This was probably the best long-distance flight I've been on so far, disregarding some lack of organization on the part of Qantas crew. At check in (nearly 4 hrs before flight), I was told all exit row seats are taken, so I got 59K (58 is exit row), with the promise of an empty seat beside me. That was all well and good, but after the cabin crew guy said the boarding was complete, all of 58 right in front of me was empty.

Some quick negotiations later, I got 58K (window), which has the exit slide in the way, but still way better than a regular seat, contrary to what SeatGuru says; the aisle seat was spoken for by a 6'5" Kiwi guy, and we both used the middle seat as the dumping ground.

Food was excellent (salmon for dinner, vegetable fritata for breakfast), and the movie selection half-decent. Watched 300 (crap, but good visuals), and rewatched parts of Paris Je T'aime (very good movie), but most importantly, got some sleep.

Got keys and a tour of my apartment (5 min walking from office), and a grand tour of the office from Bryan. Apartment is great, but the office views are really what blew me away. Pics of everything coming up soon.

I am NOT sleepy..for now.

Ready Steady Go

Well, I'm all set, and as promised, now there's a blog, if kind of a basic one for now.

T - 6 hrs to flight. QF74, if someone wants to track it.

On a side note, I have clearly been corrupted by technology - my carryon bag contains 2 laptops, a dSLR with 3 lenses, an external HD, headphones, and a bunch of other smaller stuff. I just hope Qantas doesn't decide to weigh it :)

Next post from Sydney. Check back soon...