black swan incident, Sydney through Oct 29

Huh, been a while.

Oct 22: went to Darling Harbour, and Hyde Park. Meh.

Oct 24: dim sum (carts) at Marigold. Good, but pricier than I'm used to in Boston, $AUD 42 for 5 plates. I guess not that much more expensive after the exchane rate. I also went to the Chinese Garden of Friendship, which was pretty neat. Cheap ($6), a good size, with multiple places and views, and forking paths, so it can keep you busy figuring it out. There was a lone Australian raven perching on a pot, making weird sounds, which apparently is their thing.

Oct 25: Found a dim sum shop (point and go) near where I live, six pieces for $11. I've been going repeatedly since.

Oct 27: Took the light rail west of Central. It was okay, no great views. Found a Glebe Art Show near one station, which was pretty neat. Also took the train out to Liverpool, to make use of the Sunday fare cap.

Oct 28: This was a good day! I finally went to the beach again, for Sculpture By the Sea, an even where like a hundred sculptures are put up along the walk from Bondi Beach to Tamarama Beach. The sculptures themselves aren't life changing but the walk itself is really nice. There were rock weather effects I'd never seen before.

Oct 29: walked down to the Centennial Parklands, which I'd seen described as a good place for birding, also they're huge. This was mostly a bust; the parks are largely grass, plus some not very interesting trees, and the occasional pond. There were some highlight, like seeing various black swans, and later finding giant bat colony in a eucalyptus grove. Giant colony or giant bats? Yes, both. And surprisingly active at 2:20 solar time. A flying large fruit bat looks a bit like baby Drogon as it soars overhead with slow flapping.

But otherwise the park was largely "there's a lot of grass and I'm lost." Things were actually nice outside the park, on Wallis and Ocean streets, lot nicer tree cover there. Some attractive neighborhoods as I walked north up Hargrave, reminding me of Georgetown in DC, ornate narrow homes. (Really narrow, like 3 meters.) And then I found Trumper Park, which had all the interest Centennial didn't, like topography and plants that weren't grass or eucalyptus. At one point it was a lot like being in a little jungle with a pond at the foot of a cliff. Way cooler.

Other observations:

Buses and trains don't have ads, but some of the train stations have not just billboard ads but electronic displays with *sound*. Oh Sydney No. Boston's MBTA has been growing in display ads but at least they were silent when I left.

Brisbane seemed better at CBD parks, though there's still one here I haven't been to.

Sydney has much better transit, somewhat shorter traffic lights, and more neighborhoods that look fun and pedestrian.

I was blowing my nose a lot, which made me worry about allergies -- it's spring, after all! I couldn't find pollen details. Then I wasn't blowing my nose. *shrug*

Staying another week, moving to the west.

Had lunch for $7, so like $5 US. $5 for a box of Thai food, then $2 for a tempura shrimp roll.

parking space microapartments

I guess I have a new temporary hobby, designing tiny spaces to live in.

I myself find it hard to believe that someone could live in the area of a parking space. I think part of that is that I visualize "parking" as a (compact) car in a curbside parking space, not a fully demarcated space that can take a full sized van or pickup truck. But anyway, let's do the math.

Small parking spaces are around 12 m2. A shower stall and toilet area each take around 1 m2 or less. A kitchenette area needs 2 m2 or less. That leaves 8 m2 to live in; Caltech freshman singles were 6 m2. A twin mattress is around 2 m2, and with the right furniture you get storage or even a desk under that. (Caltech had a neat bunk bed variant, where the top bunk was a bed and the bottom bunk was a solid piece of wood for a matress-sized desk. And you still get space to put drawers beneath, of course.)

This is hard mode. Standard US parking lot spaces are 15 m2 (8.5x19 ft). Sharing bathrooms helps a bit: 2 2x6 parking spaces could share 2x2 m2 of bathroom, leaving 2x5 m2 of housing on each side. Going to a second story obviously helps immensely.

[Data: US compact parking spaces are 8x16 feet, 11.89 m2. I've been pacing out curbside parking; 2x6 is a common result. Parallel parking spaces are *supposed* to be 2.1-2.4m wide, and 6.1-7.9 m long, for 13-19 m2, though if you don't have paint and parking meters then compact cars jam themselves in more tightly.

I bought measuring tape and deployed it at my current stay. There's actually a bathtub but one could shower in 2.5*2.5 ft2, 0.58 m2. Toilet area needs 2.5 ft width for comfort, 3 feet or so depth so you're not knees against the wall. 4 stovetop burners fit in 2x2 feet, a sink needs less, a large fridge needs a bit more. That's 1.1 m2 total, but counter space is nice.]