Day 75: Poptarts: $17, blue fin tuna: $29000, The joys of food: Priceless

Yesterday I woke up at 6:30 for no reason and tried to go back to sleep. I hadn’t been sleeping very well anyway, so after 5 minutes, I found myself feeling rather ambitious. I decided to go for a run and headed off towards the cricket oval that’s about 10 minutes away from my apartment. I ran around it for a bit, did some stadiums in the bleachers, and then discovered this nice patch of level ground just outside of it that was perfect for doing some sprint work. I’ve been dying to do some sprints, but have been using the treadmill at the gym. That would just be unsafe and I would look downright funny trying to spring on a treadmill. So that was a great start to a very productive day.

I’ve done really well on my detox diet experiment. I’ve stuck to the diet really well and have almost totally cut out late night eating. My one major fudge was after dinner one night, without thinking, or maybe I was in a state of denial about what I was doing, I ate a small bowl of Cocoa Krispies. At least I used soy milk on them, right? Crap, I would kill for some sweets.

Matthew, a friend I know through Amber, invited me to come to the opening of this swanky new restaurant/bar down on the harbor with he and his friends. That means all free food and all free drinks. I asked him if he didn’t want to invite someone else since I can’t drink, but he said it would be worth it anyway. And I was definitely down for an excuse to dress up and go down to the rocks.

So last night, in the pouring rain, the four of us caught a cab and went down to the party. It was a Japanese themed place with gorgeous decorations, right on the water across from the opera house. Once again, it felt so surreal to be hanging out at a party right across from the opera house, which looks quite stunning at night. They were pouring glasses expensive wine, champagne, and imported Japanese beer by the second. After no more than 5 minutes, I caved and got a glass of red. I figure its just grapes right? And its packed with antioxidants. I don’t know what it was, but it was a delicious wine. Then the geisha looking girls started walking around with trays of Japanese goodies, which mostly consisted of seafood. I’m totally allowed to have small servings of fish every other day on detox. The boys and I go park it over by the kitchen so every time a tray of goodies comes out, we’re the first to grab them. It was so delicious, I had oysters, king fish, some fried fish or other, “hot tomato balls” (as I like to call them), some veggie thing, and on and on. I was good when they brought beef, and ice creams around, refusing both of them. The boys made it really hard as they kept messing with me about the detox and grabbing me more goodies, which I guiltily accepted and happily consumed.

The star of the food show though was this GIANT bluefin tuna. Supposedly, it cost somewhere around 500 per kilo, and the fish weighed 58 kilos (128 lbs). That means this was a $29,000 fish. As in it costs way more than my car. They brought it out to the patio and grilled it up while we all drooled on ourselves watching. We all got to eat some of it, and it was soo spectacular! In short, I had a fantastic night being fancy and being a total bust-up in the detox department. Also, I only have about 9 weeks left in Sydney (noooooo!), and Matthew is going to help me complete my to-do list big time, which is exciting.

I woke up this morning around 6 and noticed this funny orange glow around the outsides of my curtain. I figured the sunlight was reflecting off something orange outside and didn’t think much of it. When I pulled the curtains back though and looked outside, much to my shock, EVERYTHING WAS ORANGE. The sky was freakin’ orange! Like red-orange too. It was hazy and weird. I had no idea what was going on and just kind of stared at it for 5 minutes. One of my friends sent me a text pointing out that the sky was orange, so I knew it wasn’t problem with my vision.

I went back to bed until 8 when I had to get up for work. When I got up, I got on the Sydney Morning Harold website which solved the mystery. Apparently we’re in the middle of a huge dust storm. Temperatures have been unseasonably warm and a cold back came in from the west bringing with it really high winds that picked up heaps of dust from the outback. The sky isn’t as intensely red orange as it was around dawn this morning, everything is still a weird pale orange color. Visibility is low and everything is covered a layer of quality outback dust. It got all in my eyes this morning whilst I was walking to work. Its annoying, but also quite fun. A guy I work with, Tony, said he’s been here seven years and only seen this one other time. Pretty cool. (I got the pics from the Herald, too lazy to upload mine. That park is the one I went jogging in across from where I work and below is the bridge.)

Also, yesterday I went to this store on Glebe Pt Rd that sells American and British candy, including poptarts. I went to stock up on them for the road trip. A normal 6 pack of poptarts is $17! Yea, crazy. But I’ll pay for them, I miss poptarts quite a lot and I think they’ll be just the thing to break my diet with. Don't take your poptarts for granted!