Real Estate Stalking: Sydney, Australia

During our travels there were many cities we felt we could easily live in and Sydney, Australia is definitely one of those cities. We really liked the laid back beach vibe smack dab in the middle of a major urban city surrounded by water and tropical plants. Sydney is the type of city where you toss away the map and just walk through the neighborhoods.

We knew the cute boxy gingerbread townhouses that lined the streets of Paddington weren't as small as they appeared on the outside, but like the shop houses we loved in Malaysia and Singapore we wondered what these narrow homes looked like on the inside. What rooms were just off the iron balcony upstairs?

Won't someone let us in so we can see for ourselves?

Well, we're pretty resourceful and if you won't let us in, we'll find someone who will.

We warned you we were serious Real Estate Stalker right? If only to see what's inside these ornately narrow homes in posh Paddington.

We did manage to catch a few glimpses of what lays behind these seamless homes.

Up close these urban courtyards were even more than we imagined and got us thinking....

So, what if the Paddington Area is way over-priced. Sydney has many other great neighborhoods. Many that come with spectacular views.

Solstice Smile

Ok, so summer solstice this year is a bit of a bust. No sun, colder than usual temperatures and mostly cloudy skies. Yes, everyone in the Pacific Northwest is wondering if summer will ever come!

Until summer does decide to show up, we thought we would share a story with you that we found in the Washington Post written by Kristen Gelineau of the Associated Press. It's a wonderful article about Australia's Citizens of the Year Don and Moya Richie.

For almost 50 years they would cross the street to the park and talk people from committing suicide by jumping off the edge into the Tasman Sea. That park is The Gap Park on the edge of Sydney Harbor and it was one of the highlights of our trip to Sydney, you can read the blog post here, ironically titled Minding the Gap.

It's a wonderful article about how the Richies would look out the window of their house across the street from the park and see someone staring out into the ocean, then climb the 3-foot fence. That's when the Richies would approach the person with a smile and offer up a nice cup of tea. They talk about how they have saved an estimated 160 people and have talked more people down than seen jump into the ocean.

When we visited The Gap Park over a year ago, it was a beautiful day and we recall thinking how lucky those living across from the park are to have this amazing park and view.

It's true that there was very little as far as fencing to keep us from peering over the edge. Which we didn't think much of, we were happy to have such incredible access to the views.

We can honestly say we never once imagined this particular park would have such a sad history, with an estimated 1 person a week committing suicide by jumping from the park into the sea.

We could however imagine how peaceful it could be. The wide open Tasmen Sea just on the other side. It was pretty incredible.

The article included memories the Richies have of holding back people until the police arrived, offering rescuers a comforting drink after having to pull someone from the cliffs below, and strange articles they recall people leave behind like their wallets, watches, and one person's crutches.

And interestingly enough the Richies talk about how they don't feel the burdon of having their house where it is and how they never feel haunted by those they couldn't save. Their attitude that they did the best they could is touching and refreshing in a world people seem to feel it's best to just not get involved.

The Gap Park is a beautiful park and we would highly recommend everyone catch the ferry and make your way to the edge of Sydney, but now the pictures we have of the ocean crashing below will forever have a new meaning, but a wonderful story as well.

The people of Australia feel the same and in 2006 the Australian government recognized Don Richie with a Medal of the Order of Australia, among the nation's highest civilian honors - "An angel that walks among us".

Photos of Guardian Angel Don Richie by AP Photographer Jeremy Piper

Sydney Seafood School

Our cooking class in Singapore centered around Malaysian cooking and when we arrived in Sydney we signed up for the Sydney Seafood School's Singapore Chili Crab Class. To be honest it was the most interesting class offered during our time in Sydney and after eating the chili crabs in Singapore we were excited to find out how we could make it for ourselves. We arrived at the Sydney Fish Market too late in the day to enjoy the little shops selling fresh seafood and the much talked about fish & chips. We weren't too disappointed because we know in our hearts we will be return to Sydney soon, we simply fell in love with this city and can seriously see ourselves spending a lot of time here. Out of all our cooking courses the Sydney Seafood School was by far the most professionally organized and structured. At the end of the course we were all given a seafood grocery bag that is insulated so you can carry home from the store beer, seafood, meat and cold items. The course started with an introduction to the many varieties of craps.We learned about the difference tastes and textures between the varieties, how to humanely kill crabs, and how to clean and handle crabs and numerous different kinds of seafood.The class taught us two kinds of crab recipes and introduced us to the virtues of an electric wok.With all good seafood recipes simplicity is key. And our instructor quickly whipped through the crab recipes and soon it was our turn. We moved into another room where cooking stations were set up and we were given our own recipe books and off we were! We were using mud crabs and shared the station with two girls from Sydney. After preparing our crab dishes we moved to a dining area where we ate with our cooking partners. One of the girls had just returned from a trip to LA and we had a very interesting conversation about American coffee. Coming from the NW we quickly had to correct her on the Australian concept of "coffee" which is all espresso in Sydney. If you want a cup of coffee as we know it in the USA it's called a long pull, as in a long pulled espresso. What you do get is a proper 4.5 ounces of coffee, not this bogus 16-ounce Venti/Grande crap, but a properly pulled coffee. They complained American drip coffee was crap, but the concept of drip coffee is simply not available in Sydney, so to each is own. We enjoyed the conversation and the delicious crab meal, served traditionally with rice, something we hadn't had in a while and gobbled up quickly.We still get emails from the Sydney Seafood School making us yearn to go back and take more classes.

Beach Bumming It

There are so many reason to like Sydney. Now let's add a 30-minute bus ride from downtown and you're at one of world's most famous beaches. Pretty great huh? To top that Bondi Beach felt like a million miles from the city center area, but still maintained the casual-easy-going-feel of Sydney. We were utterly charmed by the beautiful little beach area and even more impressed by how unpretensious the locals were. I guess when you live somewhere this beautiful you haven't got much to complain about.During our travels we spent quite a bit of time on beaches. What can we say we love sun, sand and wearing as little as possible. Bondi Beach seem to sum up everything we loved on our travels - friendly locals, accessibility through public transportation, beautiful scenery, the ocean, the city and an environment and prevailing attitude to just let it all go and relax. On top of all that Bondi Beach lacked the things we found annoying about our travels - crowds, obnoxious tourists, hawkers who wouldn't leave you alone even if you faked sleeping and beach rules. Yes, many beaches have rules! No umbrellas here, it costs if you want to lay here, beach resort guest only and the list goes on. Not on Bondi Beach. We were free to enjoy our day at the beach.Alot of people asked if we tried surfing in Bali and no we didn't. Getting spun around like you're on the inside of washing machine just didn't sound fun. But as we sat watching the surfers at Bondi Beach we had second thoughts, the surfers were amazing, much better than anywhere else we encountered on our travels. And yes, the ladies held it down also, surfing in bikinis, none of this wetsuit business.Here's an interesting side note. Summer in Australia are December, January and February; Fall is March, April, May and so on. For some reason we thought that the seasons would be called the same as in the northern hemisphere, but Summer would be cold and so on. Nope, summer is hot and sunny even if it's in the dead of winter where we come from. With that being said I guess Christmas is always in the summertime. Being the end of summer and beginning of fall the water was colder than we found in SE Asia, but Mike braved it regardless - isn't he gorgeous?After spending the day at Bondi Beach we could immediately see the appeal of being a beach bum. Going from business suit to a bathing suit in one city made the appeal even more.