Orange Sky

As finishing my mid-term exam yesterday, I went to bed, being excited about the mid-break until the long weekend. I opened my eyes this morning, noticing something was weird outside and a bit scared. The sky looked orange like the sun-set. I wasn't sure what made the sky look like that as it was not the sun-rise time when I woke up. The news was saying it was the dust storm, and flights and ferries cancelled. How lucky I am - I didn't have to catch the ferry. My holiday! But such inconvenience for ferry commuters in Manly.

Other than the colour of the sky, I'm actually familiar with dust storm, which comes every Spring from China to Korea. It was really awful - you'd see the yellow sky all the day and it tends to last over a month.

And I recall when I was talking with a classmate from China when I was doing the English course in UTS, Insearch. I told him that we'd have dust storm coming from China every Spring and it was not good at all. Then, that Chinese boy frowned, saying it was not from China, but from Mongolia. To me, there was no difference whether it comes from China or Mongolia as long as Mongolia is located in the inland of China anyway and dust storm is dust storm. Then we started to argue; he kept insisting Mongolia as the origin of dust storm and I was never to yield my argument, supporting with all I've read or learned from what meteorologists said about or news articles about dust storm in Korea... in the end, the boy admitted that the desert in China caused dust storm and spread to Korea and Japan.

Then, where did this dust storm in Sydney come from? It seems too far to fly about 8000km from Chinese desert?

...sunset around the manly wharf...

Coincidentally, after the post about my favourite breakfast menu yesterday, I had a chance to go out for brunch at Rocks the next day. I had to go back to Manly with the 12:00 ferry for lunch appointment after I arrived at the Quay at 10:30am and we were ravenous so we did not have enough time to contemplate where to go - we just walked in a certain Italian place offering only one menu of breakfast.

Bacon, egg, sausages, grilled tomato and bread with butter; perhaps this must be most common breakfast as we would normally have ingredients at home. The dish was tasty with a cup of coffee and my stomach was still full till I was around at Choi's house for lunch.

On the way back to Manly, I saw heaps of yachts sailing on the harbour and some of them were so close to the ferry so they were likely to bump into each other. When I was on my way to the Quay, the sky was still dark and shower was unlikely to stop, but when coming back to Manly it was already sunny and breeze was so fresh. Just by seeing gorgeous yachts sailing from the ferry, my mood is always lifted. This could be one of privileges of living in Manly; enjoying every different scenery every day on the ferry.

Then, I headed off to Choi's house in Balgowlah for lunch. As advised by my friend, I used the 'hop skip jump' bus which is providing free ride service between Balgowlah and Manly. It was the first time to use the bus as I always thought the bus might be only for a certain people. The bus service was actually for everyone!

With my full stomach, I was indulged in another tasty food Choi made - chicken drumsticks marinated with mustard sauce and honey soy sauce (of course, there were marinated separately). I think I might want to try the recipe myself. I had a glass of white wine too, then realised even a small amount of alcohol always made me so sleepy - this has happened a week ago when I was catching up with a friend from Melbourne. I fell asleep as soon as I got home and now ended up waking up in the middle of the night, writing a post! After this, I think I would study til the dawn...

living in Manly

Except that I lived in Neutral Bay for six months, I have lived in Manly nearly over one and a half years so far. There were some memorable (?) but ridiculous happenings occurred in terms of my living arrangements (thanks to this, I moved four times over two years), but finally I think I currently settled in Manly.

Actually, during those six months in Neutral Bay, I enjoyed the life there a lot - metropolitan atmosphere, short distance to the city and the view of the Sydney harbour including CBD from my apartment... I think that flat I lived in was the most gorgeous and convenient place that I've ever lived in Sydney.

I apparently, however, began to feel missing something there - especially, water and green. Then I started contemplating to move again and decided to go back to Manly in which I was still familiar and most of my friends were living. Amongst all, I seemed to miss the ferry most - I didn't realise until I could only spend 10 minutes on the bus for commuting that half an hour on the ferry would become most enjoyable and refreshing moment of the day. At the moment of that I get off the ferry, my worries or stress of the day are already washed away with the ocean and breeze, and I don't have to be bothered to find peace like the way I do in the city.

Yes, actually there are at least three reasons that made me to chose to live in Manly; beach, ferry and friendly neighbourhood. And if I could add one more - cool surfers even though I cannot surf. :-)

I've heard that a hometown is not a place where I was physically born, but a place where I feel like the hometown. In this sense, I think Manly should be my hometown as far as I recall I have felt myself being a part of this area one day when I was looking over the beach...