Crazy Car Ride

So, while I was in Canterbury I had a car that I could use.  It is kind of awkward because I've never driven on the left side of the road before with the wheel on the right.  Anyway, that ended up being the easiest part of the experience.  The car had manual transmission and me being adventurous felt like giving it a try, even though I've never driven manual before.  I figured I could figure out since I'd seen people do it before.  Plus, I was only going to go around the block.  It was a wild ride.  There was a lot more to it than I thought.  I had trouble keeping the car on; I must have restarted it at least 10 times.  At one point, I got stuck at a light.  People were honking and yelling at me.  It took me a few minutes to get the car to move again.  So I stopped in a gas station, sat for a few minutes to regroup and then headed back for the apartment.

After that experience, I was shaking, filled with adrenaline.  I haven't driven the car since.  It was just too much for me.

More Pics

So, it's been a while since I've updated this blog.  I've been house-sitting in a suburban town called Canterbury, near Sydney.  It's kind of a relaxing town with not much going on.  The only times I see other people are at the supermarket or at the train station, which is right across the street.  It does kind of seem like a diverse neighborhood.  For the past month, I've been hanging out around the house more, watching TV, playing the Wii, but still going to the city for some events.  It's been more of an introspective month.

Here's some more pics:

Glebe Annual Street Fair

Red Carpet for the movie Australia

Some of my peeps

The Set Up

So I wrote a few weeks ago about an election party I attended at the University of Sydney for the US presidential election.  At that same event, I met a few people who work at the school, including a professor of Japanese studies from the US.  I got his business card and he invited me to have lunch at his house and stay over for a night.  I accepted and took his offer and went over to Glenfield (45 minutes west of Sydney).  It was a nice lunch and great to meet his wife and 2 children (4 and just under 2 years old).  The guest there was one of his students with his wife and daughter.  It was nice to have a different experience hanging out with families instead of mostly backpackers around my age.

It also turned out that the student and his family (Dallas, Helen, and daughter Isabel) were going away for most of December on vacation.  It would be easier for them if someone stayed in their house while they were gone.  They live 20 minutes west of Sydney and their house is right across the street from the train station.  So I just moved into their house yesterday and will stay there for a month.  I was very surprised that this just came together that way (seemed like I was pretty lucky).  I'll also get to drive their car, which opens up many opportunities for traveling.  It's a great set up.

Anyway, I stayed the night with the Stavros family (professor & family) and learned a little basic Japanese as well.  We also went to Royal National Park and fed some birds.  It was fun.

Life in Sydney & Glebe

So it's been a few weeks since I've posted anything.  The past few weeks have been different in that I've slowed down the traveling, settled down in one hostel on the outskirts of Sydney, and tried to find a job.  I've been staying in Glebe, which is a neighborhood outside of central Sydney.  I really like it because it's more laid back, more like a village.  At the same time, it's a half an hour walk from central Sydney.

I've been going to a few random things so I'll post some pictures to show some of what I've been up to:

Australian Soccer Game

Glebe Market

(the girl and guy in blue in the first picture below were raising awareness and money for Darfur)

As part of settling down, I'm working on learning how to prepare my own food and eat cheaply as opposed to getting takeout.  I'm also playing pool almost daily at the hostel with other backpackers.  Anyway, here are some more pictures.

Sydney (from the top of Sydney Tower)

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Symphony Orchestra

Aboriginal Street Performance

Darling Harbour

Sydney Bridge (from ferry ride)

2008 US Election

So I had just gotten to a new hostel yesterday in a different area of Sydney and I wanted to see the area a little bit. I headed to the University of Sydney and find out there's an event where people can watch the US election coverage. It was much bigger than I could imagine, something like 1,500 people there. To add to that, it was almost like an election party or rally for Obama. I haven't met a single person since I got to Australia who said they were for McCain by the way. That includes Australians, Europeans, etc.

Anyway, it was amazing because there was so much excitement there you'd think it was their country's election. I was absolutely shocked when Obama won. Deep inside, I knew he would win, but when it actually became official it was a crazy feeling. There something different about witnessing history. Not only that but the election party was broadcasted for a brief period on CNN is one of the international election parties. So I may have been on TV, which is crazy!

I'm still getting used to the feeling that we now have elected a black president. It's just unbelievable...I wasn't sure I would live to see this day. But I guess that goes to show you. When it comes to overcoming the odds and doing something significant...Yes We Can!

Canberra, Bondi Beach

On the way back to Sydney, I stopped by Canberra (the nation's capital) for a few days to see. There's not much happening there but it looked like a decent place to work though. They have a huge, and I mean enormous, mall and a few art galleries but besides that, I didn't find much to do there. One thing that was a pleasant surprise was the bar next to the hostel had a pretty good DJ. It was nice to hear some good music that I recognize. That same bar hosted Hermitude on another day. Hermitude, which they call an "electro hip hop band", is basically 2 DJ that performed some electro instrumental music, scratching and making innovative sounds to sort of build a song live. It was really nice to see that those types of DJs still exist, apparently not in the states though. They were pretty good so I bought their CD.

After Canberra, I headed back to Sydney, this time staying near Bondi Beach. It was decent, although I'm not as into the beach as everybody else there was. They did have a long walk with a bunch of artwork that passes a couple other beaches. That was kind of cool and some of them were interesting, particularly a can of campbell's soup with a detailed sculpture of a man's head on top. The beach had some graffitti and murals on the wall as well that were pretty nice. It was relaxing to just chill on a nice day there.

Melbourne & The Great Ocean Road

So Melbourne actually got off to a slow start. It was kind of a gloomy day, it took me the longest so far to find the hostel, and it wasn't in the center of town. Once I figured out the city though, where the center is, what the attractions are, where to hang out, etc, I liked it. Melbourne is more cultural and laid back than Sydney. I'm not sure I like it better than Sydney, but it's a nice contrast and change of pace.

One of the attractions in Melbourne was the Eureka Tower, which is the largest residential building in the southern Hemisphere. Basically they take you to the top floor and you can view the city and beyond from there. The view was amazing from up there, similar feeling as the top of a mountain, but this is the top of a city. That was definitely a great experience and well worth it. Another thing about Melbourne and Australia in general is that it seems to be big on cafes. I've never really gotten into cafes that much but I'm starting to adjust.

Anyway, I also stayed with a friend of my brother's, Rob, in Sandringham, 20 minutes outside Melbourne and got to meet and hang out with his friends. There were really cool. It was refreshing to chill with actual Australians, instead of just having quick conversations or chilling with other travelers. They showed me around town a little which was cool also.

An attraction near Melbourne is the Great Ocean Road, which is similar to what you would think (road along the ocean/sea). I did a one day tour of it and it was pretty good. The coastal view was great and it had some nice beaches along there as well. Plus, the Twelve Apostles was a pretty good attraction along that way with some nice scenery.

Next up...Canberra, and back to Sydney

Tasmania, cont'd

A little more on Tasmania...

The tour, in general, was a different experience from before because it was one group of 8 or 9 people for the full time, which made it fun. Before, I went to different places by myself, basically just doing my own exploring. This was a more organized and more family-like trip.



One of the highlights was Cradle mountain. It's apparently called that because the top is actually shaped like a cradle with a baby in it. We hiked pretty much all the way to the top, a lot of effort but well worth it. At the top, the view was spectacular, reminiscent of the Blue Mountains. We lucked out too because the weather was great. Supposedly, there's good weather once every 4 days over there.



Another highlight was Wineglass Bay (again, the bay shaped like a wine glass). This one had a really long walk (5 hours, 11 km) around and up part of the mountains there. The beach along the bay was beautiful, especially around the colored rocks. I will say, there aren't many people in Tasmania but more people should definitely visit.

Blue Mountains, Tasmania

Australia is apparently a very natural place.  The population is smaller than that of California but the land mass is similar to that of the US.  Anyway, I went to the Blue Mountains, which are in Katoomba, 2 hours west of Sydney.  It had amazing scenery and some great hiking trails.  The most challenging of these was The Giant Staircase at the Three Sisters area.  It composed of a few hundred stairs going down a mountain on a narrow path that seemed endless.  The spectacular views made it well worth it but it did a number on my knee.

After Sydney and the Blue Mountains, I flew south to Tasmania for a 6-day tour.  I was surprised to find out that only 2% of travelers to Australia go to Tasmania.  It was at the top of my list.  The tour was different and fun because it was with one group of travelers and the guide for the duration.  Before, I was going around to different places by myself on a whim.  Tasmania was great.  It had lots more hiking.  I went to the top of a few mountains and saw vast lands from up there.  It made me feel bigger and on top of the world, while at the same time one with nature.

Besides hiking, I saw some wildlife as well.  There are a number of species endemic to Tasmania.  Some notable animals I saw were wombats, wallabies, kangaroos, and tasmanian devils.  It was cool to see real-life tasmanian devils because I still remember the cartoon version.  At the same time, it's sad because they are becoming endangered because of a recently-discovered mysterious disease that is wiping out their population.  There are efforts underway to find a cure to prevent them from becoming extinct.

After Tasmania, I headed to Melbourne.  More on Melbourne later...

Indigenous Australians

On my first day in Australia, I was walking around to see the area and went into the Sydney Museum.  They had a section on the Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal people).  At first it looked like an interesting thing to learn about.  It caught my attention right away because it had documented the struggles that these people had in their country.  They were the original inhabitants of the land and were there for tens of thousands of years.  The Europeans (specifically the British) came, didn't understand their lifestyle, forced them off the land, attacked them, stole their children for slave labor use, spread diseases to them through blankets, etc...

As I looked at these exhibits and read the stories, it sounded all too familiar to me.  It reminded me of the the Native Americans and African Americans.  The story is very similar, as well as the tactics.  There is something called The Stolen Generation, which basically comprises of Aborigines who were stolen from their family at a young age (less than a year, sometimes less than a month), put into European families to be taught the "white/right" way of life.  Many of them ended up becoming the troublesome part of society (no sense of their history, depressed, adopted criminal lifestyle, etc.).

The annoyed me because I grew tired of learning these types of stories a while ago.  As the same time, I felt and still feel a connection with these people because the story of their people is similar to mine.

Arrival - Sydney

So as I was on my way from New York, it didn't really kick in that I'm going to Australia until my connecting flight in San Francisco.  Once I went into the international part of the airport, a completely different section, and went to my terminal, saw how big it was, and saw the size of the plane, it started to kick in.  When I arrived in Sydney, it was weird because I didn't know where to go.  Once I figured it out and got to the hostel, I met other travelers (all from Europe).  The next day, I went to orientation and almost every other traveller in this program was from Canada.  In general, I haven't met many people from the US here.  Most travelers are from Europe or Asia.  Going to orientation was great though because it provided a support network and sort of home away from home.

On first look, Sydney is a nice city.  In the first couple days, I've seen maybe 3 black people but a lot of Asians which was a pleasant surprise.  The Sydney Central YHA hostel is actually near Chinatown in Sydney.  I went to the mall and all places in the food court except one were of an Asian cuisine.  A cool thing I saw at the mall was a few table tennis exhibition matches.

I have limited internet access and I'm having issues uploading pictures but hopefully there'll be some soon.