Hot Tubs, Rodeos and Comedy Clubs!
Trip Start
Dec 21, 2009
1
19
22
Trip End
Aug 07, 2010
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Hello everyone.
I write this on Sunday, 11th April, 2010. The alert of you will notice that today is my sister's birthday, so don't forget to wish her a happy birthday for me when you see her!
I arrived a week ago now, early on Sunday morning after a very enjoyable Qantas flight from Hong Kong to Sydney.
The first thing I did was pick up about 1000 leaflets to do with Sydney, places to visit and how to get discounts. Next I bought a local simcard with enough credit to last me a few weeks (I hope). With JUST about enough battery life left in my phone I got hold of Dan, who then said he'd come to pick me up from his local train station if I could get there ok. It took me a while to figure everything out, but it all came together ok and I managed to find Dan... how exciting!
For those of you who don't know, Dan is my ex-teacher Mr. Milne's nephew. We'd met at Mr. Milne's house back in England about a year ago when Dan was doing some traveling and acting work of his own and he'd offered me a place to stay if I ever came to Sydney.
Anyway, Dan picked me up and took me back to his house. His family are extremely welcoming and have made me feel right at home... I've even had the chance to wash some clothes! Hurray! I had a little nap in the afternoon before going with Dan to his friend's barbeque/evening of chill. We ended up eating a serious amount of food and I had my first taste of Australian beer. The five of us there all hung out and we spent some time in the hot tub, which was a perfect way to spend my first night in Australia!
Monday was a pretty interesting day. Dan's family took me with them to something called 'The Easter Show.' I don't really know how to describe it but it's pretty much a cross between an agricultural fair, a theme park and a music festival. 100, 000 people passed the gates that day and there were theme rides, food stalls, markets, shops and everything agricultural. I saw a 'woodchop' competition and witnessed rodeo live in action which was awesome as I'd never seen anything like them in my life! The evening concluded with more bullriding and rodeo, followed by both car and motorbike stunts. The cars were incredible and did everything from driving around a track on two wheels to driving backwards in tight formation and pulling off high-speed manoevres. The motorcross guys did backflips and jumps that involved letting go entirely of the bike, while upside down. No words can ever do it justice, it was incredible! Finally we witnessed 'robotosaurus rex', a huge giant robot machine, walk around the arena picking up and crushing cars with its jaw. Awesome stuff.
I went into Sydney itself for the first time on Tuesday and met up with Cords :-). She and her mummy have been in Sydney for a while and the 3 of us went for lunch, where I had a delicious kangaroo steak and salad. Probably the single best meal I've had in 2010, if not ever. Cords and I then walked around and saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House etc etc. Evening drinks followed and we finished the day off with an Indian takeaway and a multiple-disc marathon of watching Glee, a show I'd never had the chance to watch before.
Dan and I went out Wednesday to see his friend Tim (whose house we'd been to on my first night) perform comedy in a competition. The hosts were great and the compeitors had some great routines themselves. Tim actually won and I think he was a deserved winner - it was a great performance and he thoroughly deserved to win.
On Thursday I went to the Imax here in Sydney with Jess, Dan's sister, who's on holiday. We went to see 'How to tame your dragon' which I actually thoroughly enjoyed. The screen itself is the biggest in the world and is 8 floors high. It's absolutely huge and you can't see anything but it, not even in your peripherals. Mindblowing stuff, especially with the film being in 3D.
Friday we went to a local park called Featherdale Wildlife Park, which again was pretty cool. We saw koalas (not bears, remember), kangaroos, wallabies, wallaroos(!), dingos, penguins and the works. That was fun and I managed to get some great photos...probably the wierdest animal was the albino wallaroo - a crossbreed between kangaroos and wallabees.
In the evening Dan and I went out to a local club called Hillside, where we met up with Jules, who I'd met teaching back in Thailand. It was really cool to think that she lives so close (about 15 mins) from Dan and I hoped that by introducing them to each other they can stay friends once I've left. The night itself was fairly cheap and uneventful, but fun nonetheless.
Yesterday didn't much in store for me but I was planning going to Melbourne and seeing Ella on Monday, so that should be fun. Incidentally, I've finally finished the quest of re-reading all the Harry Potter books and, having finished the 7th book again, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be able to do with all my free time!
Photos to come up, which I hope you'll enjoy. My blog also tells me (after adding up all the distances between blog post towns) that I've so far traveled 21, 826 km on my gap yah so far. Incredible, huh!? For those of you that didn't get the 'gap yah' reference, you really need to see the following (and now infamous) video:
www.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DeKFjWR7X5dU&h=9dd473d2899c3973410b8018d19c1785
Sadly my camera seems to be playing up (when loading photos) but I'll put them up ASAP. In the meantime, happy birthday sis! xxxxxxxxxxxx
Comments
Happy Birthday Franck's sister.
Your family seem to know everyone person on the planet as a collective.
I'm glad you managed to read every Harry Potter book again, it was by a mean feat but you got there in the end.
You need to see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ3vQ3e_chM
He's why me & you should never breed.
Enjoy the last leg of your travels. Try not to lose anything else...