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Walkscore.com recently ranked America's most walkable neighborhoods and cities. Where does your hometown land in the rankings? And how much do you actually find yourself walking instead of driving?
I don't think this was very accurate for my neighbourhood as it doesn't include proximity to public transport. It came up with a score of 38 or "car dependent" just by measuring distances to various facilities such as a 7-11 (who needs one of these when the corner stores are so good?). We have tenants in the flat behind our house who get by quite well without a car. We probably could too except for the need to (or should I say added ease of?) ferry the kids around in one. Even then we could probably manage if we sent them to the school closest to our house rather than to the one across the highway from where we live. Our only extra curricular activity at the moment Kung Fu which is a five minute walk away or a train ride into the city (the kids attend classes at two locations). Will be more difficult when the kids start swimming again as there is no public pool within our neighbourhood (a travesty in my view).
Who needs a 7-11 when you can get everything you need (including fresh and cheap fruit and vegetables) here? Photo from Sydney Daily Photo blog.
After spending the week keeping out of the way of the WYD Pilgrims, the kids and I ventured into the city on Saturday for Kung Fu and then went down to Darling Harbour to see what was going on down there. Saturday was the day of the Pilgrim Walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, through the city and onto Royal Randwick Race Course. The route passed through Darling Harbour not far from the playground we visited. Here are some photos I took:
The kids quite liked these statues of Jesus. You can't see from the photo but this statue actually wearing a Superman cape.
This is the one we called Rainbow Jesus.
Really though, the kids much more interested in the play equipment, the icy poles and, in my son's case, GETTING WET in one of the water features!
After we got home, my husband supervised my son doing some painting and my daughter got on the computer to write emails to one of her Kung Fu friends (who she had seen only hours earlier).
The painting is actually of me! Can you see the resemblance?
I was supposed to be doing some painting myself (some kitchen chairs I am restoring - didn't realise what a big job it would be when I started) but couldn't be bothered.
On Saturday night, we had been invited out to see a choir from South Africa but decided to stay home and have a quiet night watching:
My brother was a total Star Wars fanatic when we were kids so I had actually seen the movie a few times before. This was the first time I was able to make sense of all that was going on though. My kids had never seen it and my son in particular was fascinated.
Yesterday was a pretty quiet day. I did some cooking and baking and my son and I took Mollie the dog for a walk.
This is around the corner from our house (Mollie not able to walk much further than just around the block these days):
We started watching Dr Who last night but the kids got too scared of the red-eyed Ood so we had to switch it off.
I am back at work today feeling very relaxed and refreshed after my week. I am sure that won't take too long to change!
Yes, that was the mystery location of the Chinese temple in my other photos. I took the kids on a little overnight trip down there. We had planned to holiday a bit further afield but my husband was unable to take leave from work because he works in an area affected by the World (Catholic) Youth Day (week!) mayhem in Sydney. Wollongong was just the right distance (51km from Sydney) for a trip on my own with the kids. It is also one of those places that I had always meant to go to but never got around to probably because it is so close to home. The idea of staying at the temple was really serendipitous. I had always been intrigued by the sight of the temple which we often pass on our way further south. It kind of just appears out of nowhere beside the freeway in the middle of an industrial area. I didn't even know you could stay there until I looked at the website on Sunday to see about visiting during the day. I thought it would be an interesting cultural experience for the kids who are already quite interested in Chinese culture through their Kung Fu associations.
On the way down on Monday, we stopped off for a few hours to visit an old friend of mine who lives in a little seaside village called Scarborough. This entailed driving over the incredibly scenic but hair-raising Sea Cliff Bridge. We had a lovely lunch at my friends place and then took all the kids to the beach. We deliberately didn't let them change into swimsuits as we didn't want them going in swimming in mid-Winter. This didn't stop them though! Two got soaked in their clothes and my son just stripped off all his clothes and went in naked!
The sun goes down pretty early in Scarborough because of the escarpment so we headed off for Wollongong and the Nan Tien Temple shortly after 5pm, arriving just in time for dinner. This was held in the Dining Hall in the middle of the temple complex and was a vegetarian Chinese steamboat meal eaten with the Buddhist 'reverends' (I would have called them nuns). The food was delicious although the kids mainly filled up on rice and fruit. The reverends were very impressed at the kids attempts to use chop sticks (even though their technique was terrible). A couple of friends also joined us for dinner and to spend the night at the Pilgrim Lodge.
Here are some pictures of the Lodge.
Entrance to Pilgrim Lodge:
I hadn't known what to expect when I booked it but it was really very comfortable, ie, the rooms just like motel rooms and quite reasonably priced. The dinner was also great value at $10 for adults and $5 for kids.
The next morning we had breakfast in the dining room. The kids were thrilled at this as they again got to serve themselves and they had quite an interesting selection of food including cereal, fruit, mini croissants, milo etc. We then spent the entire morning wandering around the temple complex. There was so much to see and the kids had a great time playing and also had an opportunity to participate in temple activities such as placing candles on the altar of one temple, learning to pray to the Buddha, ringing bells and joining in a calligraphy class. The reverends recognised us from dinner the previous night so gave the kids special attention. Most were Chinese (from various countries including one we spoke to who was from Malaysia) but there were also quite a few Westerners working at the complex and even one Western reverend.
Here are some more photos we took.
Waiting for temple to open:
In the gardens near the Lodge:
One thing I loved about the temple was how open it was to the surrounding community. Apart from the accommodation in the lodge and the meals which are open to everyone, they also run things like meditation and cooking classes, HSC study camps, baby blessings etc etc. They also have plans to build a university which will host students from all over the world. It is great that something like this exists in Wollongong which is really a very traditional, working class Aussie kind of place.
More on the 'Gong itself to follow.
The answer and more photos to follow.
What was the best thing about your weekend?
Actually, it's Tuesday as I type this, but no matter.
The best thing about my weekend was Saturday. At some point in the morning we decided, on a whim, to pack ourselves up in the car and take a drive to the mountains. Picked up some lunch items on the way and then headed for Blackheath, which is about 15 minutes past Katoomba (the main centre of the Blue Mountains), and from there turned right and went up to Govett's Leap. There's a number of bushwalks you can do from here and we chose a quick and easy one to Horseshoe Falls. It was actually so easy that we ended up walking about halfway to Pulpit Rock before heading back, because everyone was enjoying it so much.
The track was awfully muddy, and I wished I'd worn my walking boots (which I haven't done in quite some time!) and we all got extremely grubby, and yes, there were falls in the mud and slippings into creeks, but the scenery was lovely and the air was fresh.
And to make a good day even better, afterwards we decided to head back to Blackheath and get some afternoon tea (we are always searching for the perfect afternoon tea) and stopped in at a place called the Wattle Cafe, right on the highway near the main intersection in Blackheath. The staff (particularly the owner) were friendly, the service was quick and no fuss, we ordered a couple of cakes to share and hot drinks, all of which arrived at our table speedily, and the servings were absolutely HUGE and the cakes were tasty! Highly recommend it to anyone heading to Blackheath.
On the way home, the kids who needed to sleep, slept.
That evening, we had agreed to a "movie night", and ate hot dogs as we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD, since the 8-year-old has just finished reading it. Despite it's "M" classification, it wasn't too scary for the 5-year-old (the last one was much scarier) even though I had warned him that it might get scary and if he found it scary we would just go and read in his room together.
And here are the pictures:
Almost every school holidays it seems, we have a small family circus set up camp in a particular suburb not far from where we live. The location is somewhere we drive past often so the kids are frequently heard to ask "Can't we go and see the circus, PLEASE!". Yesterday we had cause to walk past the circus and got to see some of the animals in their enclosures and had a peep inside the big top. I was telling my husband about it last night and he said "Why don't you take them?". We are actually quite skint at the moment but really, the tickets for all of us were probably only about $15 more than if we were going to the movies. I was also a little concerned about the whole circus and cruelty to animals thing but the animals we saw yesterday looked quite well cared for.
We went to an early matinee today and the kids were entranced from the very first clown. It was quite a traditional circus with a combination of corny clown antics, animal acts and acrobatics. I did find the lions a bit sad, ie, they looked quite old and unenthusiastic about the whole thing. Preferred the dogs much more, ie, they seemed to be loving doing the tricks and getting all the attention. They were the highlight for my kids as well. The human performers were fantastic too. They were from various parts of the world including Australia, NZ, Canada, Chile, the UK and Morrocco. The youngest performer was only 3yo!
The show went for quite a long time (more than 2 hours) and it was interesting to see the way everyone mucked in and helped with the set up of the sets and equipment, selling tickets and other novelty items, organising the pony rides etc etc Now we are home, my son is going to make his own circus with some toys and my daughter has been asking what she needs to do to become a circus performer. I think she has probably left her run a bit late though (ie, judging by the skill of the 3yo acrobat).
Share a song that makes you laugh.
I was on the way back to the office after getting my hair cut. I usually try and avoid that part of the city at lunchtime as it is too crowded.
"In Bruges" to be screened at the Hayden Orpheum in Cremorne starting September 4.
How much does a ticket cost at your usual movie theater? Does the price affect the number of movies you see at the theater?
Submitted by Kristie.
I have a usual movie theatre? LOL
I have not actually been to the movies since ... I don't know how long it's been. We took the boys to see Ice Age 2 when that was out, and I think we went to the drive-in to see Shrek 2 before that. That's how long since I actually saw a movie at a cinema. I was supposed to go see Sex and the City with a bunch of girlfriends a few weeks back but the scheduled night didn't work out for me. So yeah - I'm very much your "wait till it comes out on dvd" kind of gal these days.
That said, I think tickets are around $15 to $16 for an adult these days. I would gladly pay that amount if I could ever get the chance to actually go to the movies.
