And another week flies by

I hope everyone has had a chance to read though my New Zealand posts.. if not, just look at pictures. They're beautiful.

This week went by so quickly. Tuesday I took some time to relax at the beach during the day. Tuesday night my marketing group met and that was about it. Wednesday Kah Mun and I went to Bondi Beach to do a coastal walk. I've been meaning to make it out there and haven't yet. I'm so glad I did. You think after seeing this much of the ocean it'd get old, but each beach is so incredible. See below!

Bondi Beach

Tamarama Beach... I could look at this forever

Thursday started off with marketing group work.. then dinner... then marketing again. Thursday night was "Auction" at school. Students were auctioned off to raise money for Bear Cottage, our school's partner charity. I was expecting people to go for $50... maybe $100 tops. Needless to say I was shocked when the bidding for the first girl started at $50. She ended up going for $180 and it went up from there. $300, $500, $600, $700... it was ridiculous. I don't know where students came up with this money. The General Manager came to support the event and brought the Mayor of Manly with him. While they were thanking everyone for supporting Bear Cottage someone yelled out "500 dollars!" The DJ started playing a song and all of the sudden the GM and mayor were dancing on stage and the bidding went up to $1000! I don't even know how to describe how shocking everything was this night. It was a lot of fun, but definitely not what I was expecting. Acts ranged from hip hop dancing to drag to stripping santas to Brady Bunch dancing to pole dancing. It was an experience, thats for sure. Lots of fun and it was nice to have everyone at the school together out of uniform. There were buses taking students to town for an afterparty but we still needed to put the finishing touches on our marketing project so it was marketing again for me. We finished at midnight and I was feeling pretty good about what we had done.

Drag routine at Auction

Friday morning we had our presentation at 10:40. After a few mishaps getting our report binded, and someone eating some of our project (fiber chocolate bars... chocolate with metamucil in it, whoever thought they were clever by stealing our chocolate probably paid for it later) we had everything ready and rehearsed our presentation. Our semester long efforts paid off, it all went really well. It was the best group I have ever been a part of. Group projects can really be a drag and cause lots of frustration, but that didn't happen this time around. I took a nap in the afternoon and then went to dinner. PC was asking for volunteers to be in the end of term video. I'm already in it a few times and was ready to go on a walk, but went anyway. We got dressed up as the ICMS choir, I sang Pink, and rocked out with a boombox on my shoulder in my walking clothes. Should be entertaining to see the final result. I'll have a copy so if you want to see it when I get home, that's possible. We also did a scene behind the bar and PC insisted on making us cocktails for props. Its still weird that a school accepts and even encourages drinking at times. After actually taking a walk with Deb, we went out to celebrate being done with school... except for finals. It was a good night.

"Fine Line Marketing" outside the "Trump Boardroom"

Cocktails in hand, ready for more filming

This morning I got up at 8:30 and headed into the city with Dana and Jolly. They wanted to take me to Chinatown before I leave for the term. Since I'll be in Melbourne next weekend, this was our last chance. We took the ferry over and rode the CBD shuttle to Chinatown. I don't remember if I've explained my frustration with Sydney's bus system... I got the ferries and trains figured out, but the bus system is kinda messed up. However, on Wednesday they started a new shuttle system that provides free transportation in a loop from Circular Quay to Central Station from 9:30a-3:30p so they're not losing money from rush hours, but reduce congestion in the city during the day and make the city more convenient for visitors. Melbourne and Auckland both have services like this as well... different than the States, but I guess things are different when the economy runs on tourism.

We found the Korean restaurant Jolly's friend recommended, Seoul-Ria, and went inside. It was my first time eating Korean food and honestly, it went better than I expected. We ordered a bunch of dishes to share... Korean sausage and ox intestine (yes I tried it), noodles in black sauce (no idea what the sauce was but it was good), kimchee pancakes, and my choice, teriyaki chicken with rice. I had to have a safety food. Turns out they also give you a variety of appetizers while you wait. There was soup, vegetables, pasta, kimchee, potatoes, and a few other dishes. Oh yeah, and I ate this all with chopsticks. Those of you who have seen me eat with chopsticks before know it can be pretty entertaining, but I really got the hang out it. The girls helped me out a bit.

Me and Jolly at Seoul-Ria

It was so much fun hanging out with them for the day. Dana is pretty homesick and was really excited to be in Chinatown and eating familiar food. When we finished, Jolly went to her friend's house in the city and Dana and I walked through Hyde Park and went inside St. Mary's Cathedral before catching the shuttle back to the wharf. It was a beautiful day, a little warm (94 degrees) but a great day for the park and looking at Christmas decorations. Side note: the banners here say "Happy Christmas" and have cockatoos on them. Weird, but there are normal Christmas trees throughout the city. We went to St. Mary's just as the service was ending, and looked around. It was enormous and so pretty. I really like old churches.

We eventually made it back to college and drank a ton of water. I was so dehydrated. I took a nap and then went to dinner. My finals don't start til Thursday so I decided I could afford a night off and watched the latest Office episode with Deb. We then watched Princess Diaries 2 (which I was plesantly surprised with) and Mary Poppins. Quality Saturday night if you ask me. So there you are, another week gone. I have 13 days left here and am looking forward to each one of them. As the Christmas holiday draws closer I am really glad I'll be home for the holiday, and hopefully a white Christmas. Traveling around here would be nice, but seeing family and friends will be great.. and I might need some time to snap back to reality. Hope everyone has a great weekend:)