I’ve been here in Australia for a while and I am fortunate to live in an area that has good ambience. I’ve got a garden for a neighbor and a bus away is the coast. That said, I don’t really get to go out a lot. PhD life is quite busy. Very busy, in fact. So I’m really fortunate when friends invite me to go out. This time, I head way up north to Leura for a weekend.

My darling Singaporean friend dragged me away from my books and invited me to join her and her friend to Leura. I… confess… I really don’t know anything about Australia other than Junior Master Chef, the Sydney Opera house, and the Great Barrier Reef. I’m a waste of a resident so when the opportunity arises, I try to get to know more about Australia. 

Leura’s a town en route to the Blue Mountains. You can take a train from Sydney’s Central station and an hour and a half later, you’re in Leura station. It’s a quaint town but it was quite lively because when I arrived, they had a street market with all of these awesome knick knacks.

They have a thing for weekend markets here in Australia. You’ll see quite a lot of them pop up around the city. In this case, it’s a cute market with home made crafts and goods. From jewelries to furniture, these weekend markets have it. I mean they even have awesome steel sculptures on sale. I… wow.

Other than that, it had tons of cute shops selling more home made stuff. Shops like Moontree make their own candles from stuff they grow organically in the Blue mountains! There are furnitures, crafts shops, and even a shop selling alpaca woven clothes. Oh yiss! Alpaca clothes!

Leura’s such a pretty town and now I’m more curious to see more towns like around Australia. Well at least in New South Wales. After we went around, my friends and I got some grub. Now, when you’re at the heart of one of the more fertile areas in Australia, you’d expect some good grub.