Time to move on

The time had finally come.

I was leaving Australia.

Living overseas was something I had wanted to do since I was young, yet it had taken a lot longer than I expected to arrive at this point in my life.  It had taken me a a long time come to the realisation that I need to leave Australia to be able to do the things I wanted in life.  This felt like I was getting myself back on the track of experiencing the different life I had wanted for so long.

I arrived back in Sydney from Newcastle and checked myself into a hotel.  It felt strange to be in a hotel in what was still ostensibly my "home".

Looking out across the city was a strange feeling.  How long would it be before this family sight started to become just a memory for me?  I had lived here for such a long time and had gotten to know all the ins and outs of the city.  Looking out at this view, I could name all the streets, find you all the best places to eat, to go out.  Sarah came to visit me in the hotel before I left and we sat there eating cheese and talking about all our different plans for the future.

The next day, I checked out and went to the airport.  The final drive to the airport felt surreal.  I was incredibly excited and happy to be leaving, but it didn't mean I wasn't going to miss this place.  The last few weeks in particular had been fantastic as I had been blessed with incredible weather which let me spend almost every day at the beach.  As I was checking in, I found out that my upgrade request had come through!

The plane ride to Hong Kong became a far more luxurious trip than I had originally anticipated.  I had only been in business class once before when I was a kid, so this was definitely a treat.  The wide and comfortable seats along with the good food made this one of the few times I wished that the trip would actually take longer!

I landed at Chek Lap Kok airport in the evening and there was a car which had been arranged to take me to my serviced apartment.  This would be my temporary home until I could find something more permanent.  Once I was inside, I dropped my bags on the middle of the floor and I look out of the window at all the lights of the city.

I was a world away from Sydney.  I was a little bit nervous, but I was also excited about this adventure.

I used to live by the beach

The day has finally come for me to leave Sydney.

I never thought I would stay as long as I did.  I only ever thought I would stay for a few years, but instead it's been over 7 years.

I never liked Sydney to begin with.  I was stuck in the city and it just didn't appeal to me.  It didn't have that much life to it and I still remember feeling exceptionally bored on the weekends when people would desert the city centre.  Things changed a lot once I moved to Coogee.

I have grown to love the place.  I didn't even realise that it had become my home.

Without even initially realising it, I have lived in the paradise that many aspire to and I am glad that I was able to come to that understanding with enough time to appreciate it.

There were so many random little things I would miss.  Just the feeling I got on the weekend of walking down to the beach and having a milkshake at a local cafe on Coogee Bay Road or up at the Spot.  That was always hard to beat.  I liked becoming the local.  With the local shops recognising me.  I would get a nicer greeting at the butchers or the bakery.  The waitresses would give familiar smile when I sat down.

Just looking at Coogee beach on a busy day also used to make me happy.  There was a lively atmosphere to the place which was warm and inviting.  Coogee has never been a surfing beach, so unlike some of the other beaches around Sydney there were always far less of the posers seeking to be seen.  It was more of a family beach where people would come with their kids to spend the day.

It wasn't just any beach for me anymore either.  It was home.  When I looked out at the sands and the water, I felt a level of belonging that I really hadn't felt since I had been in Melbourne as a kid.  I had never felt any affinity with Canberra and it was only after I had left Singapore that I had started to appreciate it properly.  This place was different though as I had become part of the surroundings.  I was most certainly one of the locals of Coogee now and there were more than enough of the cafes and bars which recognised me as such.  Like other locals, dressed in my scrappy clothes and thongs, I would wander in without challenge whilst the out of towners would be dressed up in their fancier clothes.  I remembered one day in particular at the fancy new Coogee Pavillion when I wandered in with Sarah.  The Pavillion is one of the new places to be and to be seen in Sydney.  Sarah looked mortified with how I was dressed as I walked in.  I must have looked close to homeless in my board shorts, old t-shirt and thongs, but the security happily waved me in.  Others around were a bit shocked as they had clearly put in a huge amount of effort to look good for a night out at the Pavillion.  This acknowledgement of the locals seemed to have been part of a wider desire to keep the "beachiness" in place.

I really did love hanging by the beach, and when I wasn't at the beach I would be at a cafe.  There would be the ones I loved on Coogee Bay Road or up at the Spot, but on occasion I would also go a bit further out to Surry Hills to get myself a ginger broulee tart at Bourke Street Bakery.

I stuck my head out of my apartment window one last time to look out at the view I used to have.  Well... the view I had if I stuck my head out the window!  I lived a few hundred metres from the beach!  I lived within a few minutes walk of the sand between my toes, the ocean breeze through my hair and the sun of my face.

I was leaving all of this now.  It was time to go.

The joyful life

I have tried to embrace living by the beach as much as possible, but even then I think I have taken it for granted at times.  It's such a privilege to have the great beaches of Sydney at my doorstep.  Over the last few weeks, I had tried to go to the beach as much as possible and my tan was turning darker and darker.  My routine was generally quite set.  I would start off by walking to Coogee beach and then having a quick swim.

I would then make my way across to Clovelly, where I would bake on the concrete of what must be Sydney's greatest natural swimming pool.  More often than not, I would have a milkshake as well.  It was a weekday, so it was relatively quiet, even though the weather was spectacularly good.  To my right there was a photo shoot going on, so a smallish crowd gathered to gawk at them.

The concrete would warm up in the sun, and so laying down on its hot surface with the sun above was akin to being baked on a pizza stone.  I moved between swimming and sunbaking for a few hours.  Back and forth I went between swimming and sleeping.  Eventually, I had my fill of this so decided to start heading back.

The walk back home past Gordon's Bay would always be slower and more relaxed than the initial walk out, but I was always half asleep so it didn't matter.

As I walked back up Coogee Bay Road, I stopped in at Tropicana for a coffee.  The waitresses had grown used to seeing me wander in and already knew my order.  It's nice having a "local" and it seemed to create an additional feeling of welcome.

I sat back with my coffee and read the paper.  There was nothing else to do and that was completely fine by me.

Wylie's

I've been living in Coogee for years and I rarely go down to Wylie's Baths.  I'm not sure why I don't go more often.  Maybe I'm just a bit too cheap to pay the fee (it's very cheap...) to go in given there's the free beach just to the side, but I think that's been a mistake by me.  There's something lovely about going to Wylie's Baths.  It is often much quieter than the surrounding beaches and its has an old world charm to it.

The water itself isn't very deep.  It definitely needs a bit of a clean up at the bottom, but it's nice to wade around in the sheltered waters and to lay down on the concrete surrounding the water.  There's a whole bunch of regulars who seem to do laps around Wylie's every day.  It's a nice habit to have and I wonder whether it's one I should have formed a bit earlier myself.

After sunning myself for a while, I went upstairs and got a milkshake.

The whole area is such an echo to the past. It's from a gentler time, when people didn't go to the beach to swim, they went to the beach to "bathe".  It's a lovely working reminder of how things used to be and I'm very lucky to have it just around the corner to my home.

Art in Australia

Having just been immersed in the New York art scene, I thought I would go and look at some of the galleries in Sydney.  Whilst nowhere near as big as New York, there were still some decent sized galleries and I hadn't been to them for a long time.  I went first to the Art Gallery of NSW.  It's a classical old building, but I've never liked how the outside of it is labelled with large brass letters listing out the names of famous artists through history.  There's something strangely tacky about it.  Inside, there are some very nice exhibits, and that should be the focus.  There's a great collection of Sidney Nolan for instance.

There are also some beautifully curated old rooms which have much of the same grandeur as their cousins in the Northern hemisphere.  It was a quiet day, so I was able to enjoy much of the gallery in peace and without any disturbance.

I walked across the Domain and back towards Darling Harbour.  I had a bit of time so I wanted to go and have a look at the MCA.  The MCA is much smaller than the Art Gallery of NSW, but it has one of the best spots in Sydney looking out across to both the Habour Bridge and the Opera House.  Inside, the collection is small but I find it well curated and there's always a series of exhibits to catch the eye and attention.

Once again, it was almost empty.  It was a shame that these galleries didn't have more people giving them the patronage they deserved.