A Busy Couple of Weeks

With our Northern Hemisphere visitor, we were busy. A couple of things...

Uluru is a BIG red rock. We spent a couple of days in the Red Center, around Uluru (Ayers Rock). The country out there was less barren than I'd expected - lots of hardy plants growing out of that red red soil. Uluru is quite a thing to see, this big bare rock rising out of the ground, and apparently extending for miles UNDER the earth, like a big dry hot iceberg. We were lucky with our timing, it was "only" around 95F/34C - mild for February.

Sydney has lots of interesting things going for it - Opera Houses, parks, big bridges, shops, etc. But one night there in the central business district we found something that completely surprised me. A MONGOLIAN restaurant.

Not just a Mongolian restaurant - that would be business suicide. But on Pitt Street in the heart of downtown Sydney is a placed that I'd walked past a hundred times called A La Turko. I thought it was just another Turkish restaurant. But when we went in and looked at the menu, I saw a Mongolian section - khuurshuur (essentially meat pies), byyts (dumplings filled with beef), banshai tsai (tea with dumplings) on the menu, along with the Turkish and European (spaghetti, schnitzel, salads, etc) items. Naturally, the owner is a Mongol. And he has a cool map of the Mongol conquests on his wall, a sign in Mongolian on the back door to a work area telling outsiders not to enter, some Mongolian instruments and decorations around the place. So I had the khuurshuur - five big tasty beef pies for $10. Amtai baisan (tasty)! I bet usually the only people who order the Mongolian dishes are expat Mongols...