This would be a very random entry comprised a bit of everything for the past 4 days since I’ve gotten back to Sydney after a 4 months absence.
*I have watched a lot of tv each time I am in Sydney mostly because I am in the burbs and there’s not much to do after the bus service stops at 8pm. The programs on tv are interesting as heck though! I love the wide range of international movies and documentaries here. Can’t blame me for being a couch tatter.
1) Watched this program: Fight Quest on Discovery Channel - 2 American guys (trained fighters) went to China’s famous Songshan (Song Mountains) to learn Kung Fu from the Shaolin monks. They trained with the monks for a few days before facing off with 2 of their finest. Nearly the end when they were about to face off in the ring, the other monks cheered them on and a Chinese guy in his “Chingrish” said, “Let the fight begin.” It was soo corny that even I disapprove. On a side note, these 2 yankees have gotta be the weakest fighters. The monks make them look like tofus. One of the American fighters kept pushing the monk fighter outside of the ring in order to get a draw. He’s at least 20 lbs heavier than his Chinese counterpart, what a wanker. *This reminds me of my friend once told me about this white dude whom won muay thai or the Japanese ultimate fighting title and he didn’t’ even know how to fight. All he did was push the other contestants out of the ring one after another to get them disqualified.
2) Saw this satire-documentary on a fake boy band from Hong Kong. The movie - Heavenly Kings pokes fun at the band called “Alive.” Pretty funny and also interesting to see the group dynamics. It’s like MTV’s Making Da Band with an Cantonese twist.
3) Had my first day at a seafood shop here. It’s hard for me to get there though. I started at 7am today and I had to walk about 40 minutes to get there since no bus goes there that early in the morning. I am used to walking that much and long from all the travellings, but it’s hard to walk that in the cold. It’s currently about 17 degrees during the day, but drops to 8 to 11 degrees overnight. No heat or fireplace at my aunt’s house either. Oz houses generally have no heating and it’s damp here so it feels like extra cold here than in Vancity. Plus most houses are built with bricks here, so they are only good for the summer. Not like the wood houses we have back home with fiberglass foams in b/t as insulations. I bought a touque (aka “beanie” here) so I can use it to go to bed at night. I am also wearing my long johns in bed. Sounds ridiculous? That’s because it is. Imagine waking up at 6am and changing into cold clothes while stumbling for 40 minutes to work in the dark. Listen up, peeps, Oz can be cold. Rug up! *In fact, it’s soo cold here now I have taken up a friend’s suggestion to congratulate random people on the streets with “Merry Xmas or Happy Holidays (to be politically correct).” It’s hard to imagine that I’d have to celebrate Canada Day in the winter. I am going to this get together organized by a facebook group called “Canadians living in Sydney” this Saturday. Things should be interesting, as I’d meet up with some other Cdn’s I’ve met in Melbourne in April. Some guy from BC added me on facebook because he and I both arrived in Oz on the same date last November. haha
On a different note, I worked with 4 other young Aussies at the seafood store. They all ranged between 18 to 21. My boss is in his late 30’s and his lifelong dream is to have his own seafood store/market in NYC similar to that of the famous fish market in Seattle. All 4 of my coworkers thought I was their age and put me no more than 21 years old. They were cool with the fact that I am from Canada even though one of them just assumed I was American based on the accent. This 18 year old even asked me, “so who are you gonna vote for?” I was pretty confused and replied, “you mean between Obama and McCain?” She nodded and then I told her that I won’t be able to vote for anybody. “Why not?”, she asked. I said, “well, I am not American.” She was soo sorry to mistaken me for an American. I wasn’t offended but I was more surprised with her awareness of the US presidential election coming up. I can’t say that I’ve met many Aussie teenagers who even pay attention to this stuff. I certainly didn’t when I was a teenager. With the can of worms opened, the other early 20 year olds joined in the conversation and proudly voiced their support for either Obama or Hillary. 2 girls cheered for Hillary because they wanted a woman president. Another girl and a guy sided with me on Obama. *After hours of “proper English” lessons with the POM girls at Byron Bay, I still can’t speak “proper” English. I only sound cdn here because I speak like an American but throw in the random “eh’s” and “aboot’s”.
4) I am buying my flight home tomorrow from an agent for $1500 one way to Vancouver with a stop over to Taiwan for a month in mid October. So I won’t be home until mid November after my bday. I actually can’t wait to get back to Taiwan because of the cold here.
5) I’ve run into ppl I have previously seen or met along the way on the east coast of Oz because Australia is such a destination for all types of travelers. One’s bound to run into somebody sometime. Sometimes, the old flames rekindle, too……..and unfortunately it hasn’t been the case for me. Sydney is a bit boring for me and it’d nice to meet somebody to hang out on a regular basis.
6) More on the town of Nimbin: The popo’s turn a blind eye on weed since the town does its biznass around mary-j. Our tour guide told us about some American dude who bought 50 dollars worth of weed and proudly flaunt it on the street in Nimbin and got caught by the popo there…….they destroyed his weed and he got a fine for it (not sure how much). I love the Americans, they make me feel so much better about myself. You know what they say, “It may be that some of our lives’ purpose is to serve as a warning to the others.”
7) This is really random and I am not trying to be melodramatic either. Watching all this world news on Asia and Africa has made me re-think about my place in this world. It’s not whether if the colour of our skins matter, but more so how much does it matter? I’m beginning to think about what my place is in Canada as a young Taiwanese Canadian. While in daily life, I am aware of my cultural background and ethnicity, but this hardly comes across my mind in a work setting. Basically to me, my background is a non-issue at work and rightfully so, as it shouldn’t be. I have never even thought about the glass-ceiling when it comes to promotion at work; could it be that because I am a man? Am I a bit of idealistic on the merit-based promotion? Because I think we all know that saying: “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Byron Bay & Port Macquarie
pic above: Giant prawn statue at a gas station in Ballina, NSW near Byron BayThe 2 English girls in my room convinced me to check out the Gold Coast by making a quick 2 hour stop in Surfers Paradise. So we hopped back on the greyhound in Brisbane and made our way to “The Miami” in the southern hemisphere. Surfers P was truly like a smaller and more chilled out version of Miami. The skyscrapers along the long stretches of beaches described it all.
So for the 2 hours there, I walked around the main drag along the esplanade. The Gold Coast is known for its sizable Japanese travellers and of course within the 2 hours; I saw plenty of them. It felt like Cairns all over again with all the advertisement in English and Japanese. Other than that, Sufers P is also known for its man-made attractions: theme parks after theme parks after theme parks (aside for surfing of course.) *Only in Australia would there be towns named “1770, Surfers Paradise, and Faraway Bay.”
So a few hours later and I was in rainy Byron Bay. I checked into a small hostel where 3 Cdns worked at. An Albertan who’s been in Oz for 10 years (receptionist), a guy from Port Coquitlam (driver), and a girl from Vernon (travel desk). There were a few more Cdns staying at the hostel, some from Belgium, a few American girls, some Spanish/German guys, and of course lots of English people.
I was in a room with a guy from Barcelona, 1 girl from Indiana, and 2 English girls from Essex. The Spanish guy was quite funny. Outgoing guy with a frizzy head of hair who just happens to love surfing. He’s been working at the hostel for over a month to stay for free. I didn’t talk much to the girl from Indiana, but she mos def had an American accent. I got on great with the English girls and surprisingly they were both 19. I would’ve thought they were older (about 22 or 23?).
Over the next 2 days, the English girls and I talked a lot and walked up to Australia’s most easterly point at Cape Byron and its lighthouse. The girls tried, for the longest time, to teach me a “proper” English accent starting with the phrase – “Pass the butter, innit?”
Over the next day or so, I constantly tried to speak like an Englishman, but failed miserably and often been mistaken with Borat’s accent. Very nice………not! (I had the hardest time with saying the word – everybody in an English accent.)
The day before, I went on a day tour to an adjacent town called “Nimbin” – home to Oz’s most number of hippies per capita. The “township” itself has a whopping number of 20 shops which only takes about 1 minute to walk from on end to the other. There were about 12 of us that went on the tour (1 Brazilian girl, 4 Germans, me, 1 Irish girl, and the rest were all English.) and all of us were there for one reason – score some magic cookies.
Yes, you heard it right; I was not going through a drug phase, but rather just wanted to try some delish and magical goodness. While some of the English peeps, sat up at some herb bar smoking the old faithful, I was out with the rest of the group at some hippie museum. While at the hippie museum, nothing made sense to us. The whole place was just decorated with different pro-cannabis and political messages. It was basically system-overload for all of us (and it must’ve been organized by some pot-heads, since it wasn’t organized at all.) Good thing that it only cost $2 to get in.
After the visit to the museum, we were approached (constantly may I suggest) by the locals to purchase some weed or magic cookies. One man yelled out some phrases in Japanese to me which I presumed to be something related to ganja. So anyway, we got some magic cookies from this lady and went on indulge in some extra-happiness. We had to been warned by the peeps in Byron Bay and also by the tour guide that these cookies are very potent and that we should pace ourselves when munching down. I, out of everyone on the tour, got the green light to ingest at a quicker pace by the tour guide because I was Canadian. The guide went on to profess his love for “BC Bud.” Hahah.
(*Another quick British Columbia reference: While surfing in 1770, the instructor told me that he had heard lots of good things about surfing at Tofino, Vancouver Island, BC.)
While shopping for cookies, it was quite funny since the vendors were acted all like as if we were conducting illegal activities. (well, yes, I recognize that we were, in fact, soliciting illegal substances.) But it was just the way they were behaving was quite funny. I actually felt ashamed to be purchasing the cookies. Come on, everybody knows what the tourists are here for and everybody knows what the locals do for living. It’s comfortable and out in the open, but the popo’s (all 2 of them in the town) had to go install cctv’s on the main drag to appear like they are doing something.
Anyway, I bought 3 cookies and ingested them with 30 minutes apart like the instructions they came with. I didn’t really feel much until about 2 hours later when it hit me like an Aussie road-train (ie. A semi truck trailing with 3 containers behind). It was totally like, “Whoa, dude! That was extreme!” While eating the cookies, all I could think about was the process of THC’s benzene ring breaking off for the effect aka “getting highs.” I found myself to be talking out of my ass (or what seemed to me that I was talking out o my bubblebum) when “trying” to have a serious conversation with the rest of the group. I can’t remember what I said in regards to some topic while all of us were having lunch, but I think one of the English guys turned to his mates and implied that I was “high.” (Perhaps I was paranoid which could be another effect from the mary-j.) With that stupid grin on my face, I tried to seclude myself for the rest of the afternoon and the bus ride back to Byron Bay because being high and trying to have a serious conversation with peeps is just a pure waste of the magic cookies. Once we got back to Byron, the tour guide waked all of us up since we all went off to lala land on the purple hills chilling with Jimmi Hendrix.
I walked into my room at the hostel only to be met by the English girls. They asked how my day was and I politely iterated to them that I couldn’t hold a serious conversation for the next little while. They couldn’t really understand what I was trying to get at until I told them that I had them magic cookies. In fact, I slurred the words still with a huge grin on my face, “Sorry, I can’t laugh without talking.” Then I realized what I said didn’t make sense, so I went on to correct myself. The girls laughed hysterically and left me alone on my journey to the “blue and yellow purple hills.” (Thanks D12 and Eminem, what would I do without your lyrics.)
Random:
1) Watched this HBO show on tv called “Flight of the Conchords”. Pretty funny. About two song-writing Kiwi’s living in the NYC. The episode was called “Drive By” – the 2 main characters braced themselves for a racewar with a fruit stall vendor. *While I am not really into Scrubs or The Family Guy, but the show is so random that it reminds me of Scrubs, but better. At the end of the show, the Indian-heritaged fruit vendor apologized to the Kiwi’s for mistaken them with Aussies. Hahha…while the credits were running, an image of the Kiwi’s accompanied by the fruit vendor flipping the bird at the security guard in front of the Australian Embassy in NYC.
2) After I left Byron Bay, I got back on the dog further south towards Port Macquarie to my eventually destination – Sydney. Stayed at this backpackers hostel for a night and there were 2 weird Italian dudes. They kept talking in the kitchen to each other, but it sounded like as if they were arguing, which was even more enhanced with their hand gestures. I walked around town the next day to a Koala hospital (nope, nothing like ER or Scrubs, but just an fenced in area that shelters injured or diseased koalas. It was 6pm and my bus was 1 hour late coming from Brisbane and Byron Bay. Ran into an American girl whom was staying at the same hostel as me back in Byron. We chatted for pretty much the entire 6 hour ride to Sydney…..about everything. We got on pretty good; she, too, was an Obama supporter. She actually brought on the question herself surprisingly. The girl is from DC, but spoke with an North Carolina accent (where she was brought up). I could really tell that she was American from her pronunciation of the words: South and Manly Beach. Cool girl travelling on her own for 5 weeks in Oz. It should be noted that I have yet to come across an American guy travelling on his own here in Oz. I have only met American girls here.
As we got closer to Sydney, the landscape outside of the bus started to change along the highway. There were more rocky cliffs along the median and the view of at night seemed really pretty especially the stars and their reflections off the rivers we crossed. *On the way from Byron Bay Port Mac, we went through numerous small towns and a few caught my attention for various reasons. Maclean for its old-fashion business district and the river next to it. I love towns with rivers through them. Ballina with the giant prawn restaurant at the gas station. *there are other giant things along the Aussie hwys in the other parts: Other giant man-made statues are the giant sheep, giant banana and giant crab along the highway on the east coast towards the north.
3) Ran into some English Indian girl who I saw in Cairns, then again in Noosa and in Brisbane. Ran into the English girls in my room in Brisbane (whom I went to Surfers P & Byron Bay with) and then again in Port Mac when I was getting there; they were just leaving for Sydney.
So for the 2 hours there, I walked around the main drag along the esplanade. The Gold Coast is known for its sizable Japanese travellers and of course within the 2 hours; I saw plenty of them. It felt like Cairns all over again with all the advertisement in English and Japanese. Other than that, Sufers P is also known for its man-made attractions: theme parks after theme parks after theme parks (aside for surfing of course.) *Only in Australia would there be towns named “1770, Surfers Paradise, and Faraway Bay.”
So a few hours later and I was in rainy Byron Bay. I checked into a small hostel where 3 Cdns worked at. An Albertan who’s been in Oz for 10 years (receptionist), a guy from Port Coquitlam (driver), and a girl from Vernon (travel desk). There were a few more Cdns staying at the hostel, some from Belgium, a few American girls, some Spanish/German guys, and of course lots of English people.
I was in a room with a guy from Barcelona, 1 girl from Indiana, and 2 English girls from Essex. The Spanish guy was quite funny. Outgoing guy with a frizzy head of hair who just happens to love surfing. He’s been working at the hostel for over a month to stay for free. I didn’t talk much to the girl from Indiana, but she mos def had an American accent. I got on great with the English girls and surprisingly they were both 19. I would’ve thought they were older (about 22 or 23?).
Over the next 2 days, the English girls and I talked a lot and walked up to Australia’s most easterly point at Cape Byron and its lighthouse. The girls tried, for the longest time, to teach me a “proper” English accent starting with the phrase – “Pass the butter, innit?”
Over the next day or so, I constantly tried to speak like an Englishman, but failed miserably and often been mistaken with Borat’s accent. Very nice………not! (I had the hardest time with saying the word – everybody in an English accent.)
The day before, I went on a day tour to an adjacent town called “Nimbin” – home to Oz’s most number of hippies per capita. The “township” itself has a whopping number of 20 shops which only takes about 1 minute to walk from on end to the other. There were about 12 of us that went on the tour (1 Brazilian girl, 4 Germans, me, 1 Irish girl, and the rest were all English.) and all of us were there for one reason – score some magic cookies.
Yes, you heard it right; I was not going through a drug phase, but rather just wanted to try some delish and magical goodness. While some of the English peeps, sat up at some herb bar smoking the old faithful, I was out with the rest of the group at some hippie museum. While at the hippie museum, nothing made sense to us. The whole place was just decorated with different pro-cannabis and political messages. It was basically system-overload for all of us (and it must’ve been organized by some pot-heads, since it wasn’t organized at all.) Good thing that it only cost $2 to get in.
After the visit to the museum, we were approached (constantly may I suggest) by the locals to purchase some weed or magic cookies. One man yelled out some phrases in Japanese to me which I presumed to be something related to ganja. So anyway, we got some magic cookies from this lady and went on indulge in some extra-happiness. We had to been warned by the peeps in Byron Bay and also by the tour guide that these cookies are very potent and that we should pace ourselves when munching down. I, out of everyone on the tour, got the green light to ingest at a quicker pace by the tour guide because I was Canadian. The guide went on to profess his love for “BC Bud.” Hahah.
(*Another quick British Columbia reference: While surfing in 1770, the instructor told me that he had heard lots of good things about surfing at Tofino, Vancouver Island, BC.)
While shopping for cookies, it was quite funny since the vendors were acted all like as if we were conducting illegal activities. (well, yes, I recognize that we were, in fact, soliciting illegal substances.) But it was just the way they were behaving was quite funny. I actually felt ashamed to be purchasing the cookies. Come on, everybody knows what the tourists are here for and everybody knows what the locals do for living. It’s comfortable and out in the open, but the popo’s (all 2 of them in the town) had to go install cctv’s on the main drag to appear like they are doing something.
Anyway, I bought 3 cookies and ingested them with 30 minutes apart like the instructions they came with. I didn’t really feel much until about 2 hours later when it hit me like an Aussie road-train (ie. A semi truck trailing with 3 containers behind). It was totally like, “Whoa, dude! That was extreme!” While eating the cookies, all I could think about was the process of THC’s benzene ring breaking off for the effect aka “getting highs.” I found myself to be talking out of my ass (or what seemed to me that I was talking out o my bubblebum) when “trying” to have a serious conversation with the rest of the group. I can’t remember what I said in regards to some topic while all of us were having lunch, but I think one of the English guys turned to his mates and implied that I was “high.” (Perhaps I was paranoid which could be another effect from the mary-j.) With that stupid grin on my face, I tried to seclude myself for the rest of the afternoon and the bus ride back to Byron Bay because being high and trying to have a serious conversation with peeps is just a pure waste of the magic cookies. Once we got back to Byron, the tour guide waked all of us up since we all went off to lala land on the purple hills chilling with Jimmi Hendrix.
I walked into my room at the hostel only to be met by the English girls. They asked how my day was and I politely iterated to them that I couldn’t hold a serious conversation for the next little while. They couldn’t really understand what I was trying to get at until I told them that I had them magic cookies. In fact, I slurred the words still with a huge grin on my face, “Sorry, I can’t laugh without talking.” Then I realized what I said didn’t make sense, so I went on to correct myself. The girls laughed hysterically and left me alone on my journey to the “blue and yellow purple hills.” (Thanks D12 and Eminem, what would I do without your lyrics.)
Random:
1) Watched this HBO show on tv called “Flight of the Conchords”. Pretty funny. About two song-writing Kiwi’s living in the NYC. The episode was called “Drive By” – the 2 main characters braced themselves for a racewar with a fruit stall vendor. *While I am not really into Scrubs or The Family Guy, but the show is so random that it reminds me of Scrubs, but better. At the end of the show, the Indian-heritaged fruit vendor apologized to the Kiwi’s for mistaken them with Aussies. Hahha…while the credits were running, an image of the Kiwi’s accompanied by the fruit vendor flipping the bird at the security guard in front of the Australian Embassy in NYC.
2) After I left Byron Bay, I got back on the dog further south towards Port Macquarie to my eventually destination – Sydney. Stayed at this backpackers hostel for a night and there were 2 weird Italian dudes. They kept talking in the kitchen to each other, but it sounded like as if they were arguing, which was even more enhanced with their hand gestures. I walked around town the next day to a Koala hospital (nope, nothing like ER or Scrubs, but just an fenced in area that shelters injured or diseased koalas. It was 6pm and my bus was 1 hour late coming from Brisbane and Byron Bay. Ran into an American girl whom was staying at the same hostel as me back in Byron. We chatted for pretty much the entire 6 hour ride to Sydney…..about everything. We got on pretty good; she, too, was an Obama supporter. She actually brought on the question herself surprisingly. The girl is from DC, but spoke with an North Carolina accent (where she was brought up). I could really tell that she was American from her pronunciation of the words: South and Manly Beach. Cool girl travelling on her own for 5 weeks in Oz. It should be noted that I have yet to come across an American guy travelling on his own here in Oz. I have only met American girls here.
As we got closer to Sydney, the landscape outside of the bus started to change along the highway. There were more rocky cliffs along the median and the view of at night seemed really pretty especially the stars and their reflections off the rivers we crossed. *On the way from Byron Bay Port Mac, we went through numerous small towns and a few caught my attention for various reasons. Maclean for its old-fashion business district and the river next to it. I love towns with rivers through them. Ballina with the giant prawn restaurant at the gas station. *there are other giant things along the Aussie hwys in the other parts: Other giant man-made statues are the giant sheep, giant banana and giant crab along the highway on the east coast towards the north.
3) Ran into some English Indian girl who I saw in Cairns, then again in Noosa and in Brisbane. Ran into the English girls in my room in Brisbane (whom I went to Surfers P & Byron Bay with) and then again in Port Mac when I was getting there; they were just leaving for Sydney.
Noosa Heads
Pic above: self-explanatory. (Byron Bay)
After the Fraser Island trip, I parted way from Rainbow Beach and hopped on the bus to Noosa. My main goal in visiting Noosa was to head to Australia Zoo in Beerwah which is about 40 minutes away. I got into Noosa in the early afternoon, so after I settled my stuff at the hostel, I went on a 3 hour walk around the national park next to Sunshine Beach. To be honest, I was pretty sick of the ocean and beach thing since I had just spent the previous 8 days in or around the saltwater goodness (Whitsundays, 1770, and Fraser Island). Noosa is known for its nice beaches and waves for surfing….so you know what they say, “when in Rome………”
About half way into the walk, I found myself at another beach where the locals had told me about it – a nude beach. However, there were only 2 other people on the beach and they were both clothed. I was getting hungry at this point since I haven’t had any lunch yet, so I started making my way back to the hostel cutting through some residential area in the process. While walking through the suburbia, I noticed that all the houses in that area with ocean views were extremely modern looking. Though each of them was distinctively different, but the all shared commonalities.
1) the houses often had flatroofs
2) exposed metals of some kind (steel alloys?) along with treated wood panels and large windows were often used on the exteriors
3) grey, brown, and clear colours were generously used
4) many of the properties had gated fences
I have come to conclusion that Noosa was more of a cottage/resort town and even its local residents are more well-off in comparison to other beach communities along the east coast of Queensland. (*in contrast, the town of 1770 further north was def more of a working class/sleepy town.)
After I got back into town, I had a small dinner and just chilled out with the 7 other travellers in the room. Amongst them, there were some Germans, Dutch, English, French Cdn, Isreali’s, and Swiss. We watched the movie “Chocolat” and just chatted for a while. From the Israeli (of Russian heritage) and Dutch girls, I found out that there are a lot of Thai and Philipino workers in Isreal and the Netherlands (both legally and illegally). That was something new for me. I knew that the Phillipinos go all over the world to work, but I didn’t know the Thai’s were there, too. I am really interested to check out Israel now. Since everyone had to get up early to go to the Aus Zoo or further up north towards Cairns, we all went to bed early.
On the next morning, I hopped on the Aus Zoo courtesy bus to Beerwah – home of the crocodile hunter aka Steve Irwin. The Irwin family started this zoo in 1970 after they moved from Melbourne to Beerwah. Steve and his American wife from Oregon, Terri, met at the zoo when Terri was visiting Oz searching for a good wild life sanctuary for some panthers. They took over the management of the zoo in 1992.
So After 7 months on Aus soil, I finally made it here. I visited a variety of animal show an tells for the whole day (Asian Small-clawed otters, elephants, tortoises, Feral camels, foxes, koalas, fresh/saltwater crocs and Sumatran tigers.) Other than the shows, there were other well-known Aussie animals such as Taipan snakes, wombats, dingoes, possums, echidnas, cassowaries, red kangaroos, wallabies, Tasmanian Devils and emus. Heck there were even American alligators and Indonesian Komodo Dragons (though they weren’t there since their habitat was being renovated). In addition to all this, there were also pythons (one of which was over 7 meters long and weighted over 140 kilos), goats, sheep, pigs, cows, and a variety of rainforest birds. *There was also the world’s most venomous snake – Fierce Snake. Sounds fierce? Lol…….that’s because it was. One bite can release enough venom to kill over 100 fully grown adults. That’s what I call Unnecessary Aggressiveness.
I must say that it was quite a strange feeling knowing that Steveo had passed away for a few years now, but his presence can be felt everywhere in the zoo. The entire zoo was almost like a shrine for Steve Irwin. Not only was his face all over the place, but his wife and kids’ pictures were too. It almost seemed like as if the zoo isn’t ready to move on. There were also a lot of Steve Irwin merchandises available at the shops (croc hunter candies, shirts, and talking dolls – kinda creepy). Even Steve’s daughter, Bindi, has her own line of clothings and stuff.
Other than that, I learned a couple of things while at the zoo. For example, the Tassy Devils’ jaws have 3 times more pressure than the pit bulls. Koalas aren’t “high or drugged up” when ingesting the gum tree leaves. There’s not a lot of nutrition in the gum tree leaves, so it takes them a lot of time to digest them, therefore the koalas have to eat a lot just to fill their tummy.
It was also interesting to see the tigers from Sumatra, Indonesia playing with the caretakers. The tigers have been brought up by the zookeepers, so even though they are wild animals, they pose less of a risk to the zookeepers than a tiger grown up in the wild. The wild instinct of the tigers can be seen every the zookeeper turns his back on them; they often sneaked up behind him to play with him.
Randoms:
1) The zoo had a very strong wild life conservation message throughout its properties. And on the bus ride to and from the zoo, the driver played a couple of Steve Irwin’s biography DVD’s. Some parts of the video were so moving, I def got a bit teary eyed. RIP Stevie. After all, how can anybody not like the croc hunter? A man with a passion has gotta be the most admirable quality.
2) There were often video clips of Steve Irwin’s son – Robert on jumbotrons. Robo would try to say the word “Echidna”, but often fails and sounded as if he was saying “Canada.”
3) Places I had been along the East Coast but didn’t mention (in order from North to the South): Kuranda near Cairns, Fitzroy Island in Cairns, Palm Beach just north of Cairns. After Noosa, I went towards Maroochydore and Buderim to meet a friend of a friend. Stayed with him for a couple of days before making my way towards Brisbane. After Brisbane, I made my way towards Surfers Paradise (part of Gold Coast), Byron Bay, Port Macquarie, and eventually Sydney again.
4) The Taiwanese dude whom I met in Melbourne in early April called me on my last night in Brisbane. It’s been nearly 2.5 months since we met and since then he had travelled to Thailand, Vietnam, and was currently in Cambodia. He called me on Skype in Phenom Penh. We talked for about 40 minutes while he raved how much he likes Cambodia (and the Khmer people) in comparison to the other SE Asian countries and that it was good to hear my voice again. He shared his stories with me and spoke only English to me the whole time. I thought that was pretty funny that he opted not to speak Mandarin to me considered that it’s both of our mother tongue. I replied in Mandarin while he spoke English to me. Funniest thing was that whenever he saw a difference about something in his traveling he’d rationalize that it’s because I am Canadian. Not gonna lie, but it was good to get a call from him couple months later. He’s off to India in a few weeks.
5) On the way back to Noosa from Beerwah, our courtesy double decker bus from Aus Zoo was clipped by a semi-truck without a container (only the tray) while the trucker cut in front of us without realizing it. The result: the right hand side mirror was lost. Both our driver and the truck driver pulled over and exchanged info. Our bus driver later commented that, “how do you miss a double Decker bus?”
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Easy Brissy
Pic above: The best thing next to the real Oreo’s. I copped some from a dollar store. I am soo North American.Got a ride with my friend, J, to Brisbane since he had to go there for some business anyway. I didn’t do too much with the half day I got on my first day so I just walked around town for 6 hours. I randomly ran into the French girls whom I met in Melbourne and bumped into 2 weeks ago in Cairns. They are working at a restaurant here and plan to stay here for a bit.
I got a hair cut (my first haircut at a barbershop in Oz) in Chinatown since that’s usually the cheapest place for everything. *I like to walk around every city I have been just to get an idea and the feel of the city. I like to know what kinda people live at each city. Who they are, where they are from, what are they doing and how they see their own city. In other words, the demographics is important to me when feeling out the city. I also generally get a feel of the city based on its minority groups. A good gauge for me is to check out its Chinatown. And thus far, the Chinatown in Brisbane is pretty dismal. It’s more like a China street than a town. From what I have seen (of Chinatowns) in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, none of them have impressed me.
They lady whom cut my hair was a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant. She’s been in Oz for 11 years now and loves Brisbane cause of the warm weather. She speaks Cantonese, Vietnamese and English. Since my Cantonese isn’t that sharp and neither is her Mandarin, we communicated in a mix of English and Mandarin. It was quite funny. *The English guy next to me was confused while listening to me speaking in Chinese and then switching to English with an “American” accent. 10 minutes later my hair was cut and as I was about to leave, the English guy couldn’t held it anymore and popped the million dollar question, “Where you from, mate? I’ve been listening to you and the hairdresser talking for the last 10 minutes and still couldn’t figure it out.” I put him out of his misery, he was satisfied and I went on to explore the rest of Brisbane.
On my way to the city center, I ran into somebody else I know from Melbourne; an English guy from Leeds whom I got a job for while I was working in Melbourne. We worked together for a month, but I didn’t really like him because he was pretty much an idiot. We chatted for a few minutes and he told me that he was sick of the job, so he took off without giving them any notice. Classy!
We parted ways and I made my way through the shopping district of Brisbane – Queen St Mall towards the Southbank area. I then crossed the Victoria Bridge where I spent hours taking pictures of the sunset after a brief visit to the State Library of Queensland. I pleasantly found out that the state library had the same free internet service as the one in Melbourne. Another bonus for Brisbane over Sydney. I didn’t even need to have a library card to use the internet. The best part was the free wifi service. I am officially putting Brisbane as my second favourite city after Melbourne and before Sydney. (In addition, the public transportation is a bit cheaper than in Sydney. Another reason to like it here.)
Though there’s not much to do in Brisbane and the city itself isn’t very picturesque, but the Brisbane River through the city is still pretty. I have a thing for cities by the river. One notable thing is that the B River is a lot cleaner than the Yarra River in Melbourne. It was also cool to see more of the Grey and Yellow mangroves along the riverbanks of Brisbane. This is something I haven’t seen in either Melbourne or Sydney.
I met up with my friend, J, for dinner in Chinatown before heading up to a local mountain known as Mt Coot-tha for a view of the greater Brisbane area after nightfall.
On day 2, I walked around the city some more and checked out a few weekend markets along the riverbanks before hitting up the artificial beach known as City Beach in Southbank next to the library. I must say that it was pretty weird to see a white sand beach next to an enclosed lagoon filled with chlorinated water on the river bank. What’s even more strange was to see birds floating around in the chlorinated water.
It was early afternoon already so I started to head back to the hostel to write up this blog entry. I made my way back through this narrow tip of land called Kangaroo Point where there were some people doing some rock-climbing along its cliffs. That was an interesting sight as well since I had never seen people rock climbing on natural cliffs right in the city.
My second night in Brisbane, I met up with the Brazilians whom were on the Fraser Island tour as well last week. They had a party at their place for some Brazilian dude named Douglas because he was leaving Oz the next day to go home. There must have been about 35 people at the party and there were all Brazilians, except for me, a Kiwi, and a Polish guy. Pretty much all of the Brazilians are here to learn English. I am guessing that most of them come from relatively well off families in Brazil. A couple of them gave me a few shots of the Brazilian “rum” made from sugarcanes. It tasted like a cross between vodka and tequila. I tried to learn the name of the drink and apparently the generic name for such drink is called a “pinga” which literally means “drip” in Portuguese.
Randoms:
1) Bull Sharks have been sighted in the Brisbane River. They are the only specie of sharks that can live in both fresh and salt water.
2) Caught my first ever NBA games on TV in Oz today at some bar in the dead center of the city. It was game 5 of the nba finals. Can’t believe the Celtics blew it. There were quite a bit of bball fans around me. I am guessing most of them with the North American accents were all Cdns. The atmosphere was great since I haven’t really met any bball lovers down under. Nba games are rarely on in public places, nevermind the NHL games.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Fraser Island and Rainbow Beach
A quirky Fact about Fraser Island – another world heritage site and also the world’s largest sand island. *Oz is full of “world’s largest’s” – largest rock, largest sand island and of course, Oz itself is the world’s largest island. Only the eastern beaches are accessible to tourists. The driveable beaches stretches straight for over 100 kms.
Got to Rainbow Beach on Friday afternoon and were briefed immediately by the Fraser Island tour company. We saw an intro video on FI and the importance of keeping a minimum human footprint on it. (Which is quite ironic considering that the island was once used by the Oz navy as a target practice ground. The 2 shipwrecks on the shorelines are proofs.) The video also further emphasized the importance of keeping distance from the dingoes. I’ll always remember 2 things about dingoes: Do Not Run Away from them and Always Fight Aggressively if attacked by them.
So I was put into a group with 10 other travellers. The group profile: 6 Canadians: 2 from Victoria, 2 from Vancouver/Delta including me, 1 from Montreal and 1 from Edmonton. The other 5 people in our group: 1 Japanese girl (gf of the French cdn), 1 French guy, 1 Israeli guy, 1 German guy and 1 English guy. We were group c and also known as the Canadian group. There were 4 other groups and the other people were all from Scotland, Ireland, England (a few from the Isle of Man), Wales, Argentina, Brazil (6), Italy, Netherlands, and even more Canadians (1 guy went to Guelph with me during the same time, though he studied marine biology.)
So after the groups were made, we proceeded to mingle and got to know each other through the night. I spent a fair amount of time away from my group and talked a lot with the Brazilians. They were a cool and funny bunch. In addition, they were impressed with my knowledge about Brazil, which isn’t much at all. We talked everything from the Jesus statue, carnival, City of God and Sao Paulo to the ghettos in Rio. In addition, they confirmed that nobody in Brazil drinks Macca Bavaria because it’s shit. Of all the Brazilians I have met, they were most of Italian descent. A few of them thought I could be Brazilian since Brazil has the world’s largest Japanese population outside of Japan (and followed by Hawaii). In short, they thought I might have been a Japanese-Brazilian.
Now, onto the 3 day camping trip itself, though the scenery was fantastic, but it was the group dynamics/interactions that were even more interesting. Starting with only talking about the sceneries, we swam in a white sand fresh water lake called Lake McKenzie in the rain. Then we started driving northbound along the never-ending beach. I swear this beach is the longest beach ever. Imagine sand dunes on one side, driving on the beach in the middle, and the ocean meets the sky on the other side with never-ending waves.
*on a side note, having tried surfing for the first time a few days prior, I was so excited seeing the constant waves along the beach. However, according to rangers, the water is full of sharks and rips are super strong. If one was caught by the rips, he/she could be on a one-way express to Bundaberg in shark infested water (1.5 hour north) – faster than riding the greyhound.
We couldn’t find a particular campsite so when we finally got there; it was already dark and wet. We had to set up the tents and all the cookery in the dark. If you thought that the situation was bad enough, guess again. Out of the 4 tents, 2 of them didn’t really work (shot zippers and missing pegs) We had dinner and I strayed off to hang out with other groups of people. Got on quite well with some Irish blokes and just chatted with some Russian-American girl from Brooklyn. She didn’t sound very American even though that she moved to the US when she was 6. Even though the night was still young, but we had a long day so 2 other Cdns and me got back into the 4x4 and called it home for the night.
*Interesting side note, the caretaker of the campground told us that there are 2 major rules we had to abide by. First, no spitting into the fire and second, no whistling at night. (Quite strange isn’t it? We thought it might be a law of the land thing since the campground was on aboriginal land.) However, the funniest thing was that right at around midnight; the caretaker took out a chainsaw and started hacking away at one of the trees. (I got picture to prove it) None of us were worried that the guy might be psycho and come after us, but it was quite strange to see that. It was like a horror movie waiting to happen - crazy caretaker chasing after tourists with a chainsaw in the middle of the night while the dingoes chew off our remains.
On day 2 we drove to the most northern tip possible by car to another attraction called Indian Head. It was basically a big cliff where we could climb up and check out the ocean below and even more interesting – the killers in the water (sharks). We saw a few shadows in the water and surprisingly all within the shallow areas closer to the beach. According to a tour guide from a guided group, those were sharks. We also saw some dolphins swimming in the sea. Other than that, it was very windy up on the cliff, so we began our way back down towards a pretty crappy attraction called “Eli Creek”. It was basically a small fresh water creek flowing from the inlands to the sea. The only cool thing I could say about the creek was that the water in the creek was being blown the opposite way (backwards facing upstream) at the ocean because of the wind/waves. Aside from the 2 sites, we made sure that we’d make it to the campsite with daylight this time.
It was dinner time and stir-fry was on the menu. (All of us pooled in money at the start of the trip, as the tour company had a 3day menu and food items set up for us.) I volunteered cooking chopping away all the different veggies. I cooked the veggies first and put the cooked veggies onto a plate prior to cooking the chicken chunks. I only cooked them separately and veggies first so that the vegetarians in the group could have untainted veggies before I put the chicken into the same frying pan. Plus this way is the only way to ensure that the chicken gets cooked thoroughly while the veggies don’t get over-cooked. (nothing disappoints me more than overcooked zucchini’s) what comes next just didn’t make sense to me. Of all the people in the group, a few of the Canadians wanted me to mix the stir-fry with the cooked plain rice in a pot into a porridge. I thought that was just disgusting and couldn’t understand why they would want to mix the stir-fry with rice into something which looks more like a porridge mix than a stir-fry. I insisted that it wasn’t the proper way to prepare/eat stir-frys. One of the Canadian girls just said, “well, we don’t have to do everything the right way.” I thought that was just retarded. Stir-frys shouldn’t be eaten like porridge. The Japanese girl sided with me and once the 2 of us got our stir-fry over a bed of rice on our plates, we just let them do whatever they wanted…….a porridge. In addition, I was pretty upset when the French Canadian thought that the Chinese characters and Japanese’s are the exact same. (Give your head a shake, son!)
So the camp’s set up, dinner’s been eaten, and another night of drinking on the beach took place over a bonfire. I, again, hung out with mostly the other groups since the conversation was more stimulating. My own group started their a drinking game called “the ring of fire”. I made brief appearances every now and then while talking to the other groups in between. Dingoes were visible as the night darkens. However, they were not as vicious or scary as we thought.
On day 3, we had to be by the barge by noon for our 10 minute ferry ride home so we just visited the last of the top 5 attractions – Lake Wabby. It was another fresh water lake in the middle of the island surrounded by, strange enough, desert. I guess it’s not that strange consider that the island itself is made up of sand. But after walking 2 kms of sand path in a desert environment, a lake was the last thing I’d expect. Anyway, the lake was pretty cool, especially the sand dunes surrounding it. The dunes were all very steep and it was a lot of fun running down the dunes into the lake at full speed.
Anyway, I am tired and I can literally write a book about the trip, but that’d bore you to death so that’s that!
Random stuff:
1) I have met a lot of Irish lately, especially on the Fraser Island tour. Irish are soo much more fun to talk to and hang out with than the English. They are always so happy and very outgoing. Unlike the English, the Irish don’t whinge about everything. An Irish couple showed me their pictures in NZ and my interest in NZ has peaked again especially for Tongarori (aka Mt Doom/Mordor in L of the R)
2) When doing donuts in a car, the Irish call it “loop the loop.” (But it can also be used to describe rollercoasters.)
3) While getting to Fraser Island, I saw some dolphins while ferrying over to Fraser Island from Rainbow Beach. Also saw the saddest looking dingo on day 2. It was gimpy and had a lot of scars on its face. The Israeli guy
4) Met some people in a guided group and their experience was much different from ours. The guided tour was about $310 with proper shelter, better food (no self-cooking involve), went to the west side of the island where they weren’t supposed to go. They even body boarded at Lake Wabby from the sand dunes where it’s now a banned activity. In comparison, we had crappy camping gears, crappier food, and crappiest weather to be sleeping in. While I am glad that I have met a lot of interesting people, but I coulda done the tour myself in a 4x4 rental and see a lot more stuff or simply join a guided tour.
5) The Canadian (from Toronto whom also went to guelph) from the other group told me that while he was taking the diving lessons at Cairns, he learned a pretty interesting thing. His instructor brought an uncooked egg 20 meters into the ocean and cracked it open. The result: the liquid egg stayed intact as if it was still inside the shell. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
6) I have had this same discussions with a lot of Canadians/English travellers and Aussies. No English or Aussies seem to have heard of “perogys”. I tried to explain to the English and the Aussies that they are like dumplings, but with mashed potatoes (sometimes with mashed p’s, cheese and bacon bits) inside and are usually boiled first then pan-fried. Always served with sauerkraut, sour cream, with a sausage or 2. The English and Aussies always looked at me and asked, “is that like a Canadian food?” I kindly explained to them that they are Ukrainian and the Polish eat them, too. Oh my god, writing this just makes me crave for some right now. I also miss Mexican and Indian food.
*I wanted to mention this in previous entries, but kept forgetting to, but here it is -
While in Melbourne:
I randomly ran into the French cdns with whom I was picking apples with in Tasmania. They were only in Melbourne for a couple of nights before departing for Western Australia. I was just walking in the city around 9:30pm on my way home and I spotted them. They were really surprised to see me as well. We got a drink together and parted ways.
While in Cairns:
- I randomly ran into this Japanese guy whom I met at the hostel in Tasmania picking apples 2 months ago. He was riding on his bike and I was on my way looking for some work around town.
- I randomly ran into the French girls whom I met at a hostel in Melbourne 2 months earlier. Saw them on the streets of Cairns on my way back to my hostel. They had been in Tasmania since then.
While in Airlie Beach:
- I randomly ran into the English couple whom I shared the same room with in Cairns when I got off the Greyhound bus. They came to Airlie Beach for the Whitsundays only a few days earlier and were on their way down to Fraser Island.
- I met a girl from White Rock along with her Dutch Fiancée at the hostel just hours before our greyhound bus departing for 1770 and Hervey Bay. She said she hasn’t met anybody from Vancouver since she’s been in Oz for the past 2.5 weeks, although her and her fiancée are only here for 5 weeks on vacation. Both of them studied in Philly and currently working in Texas.
Got to Rainbow Beach on Friday afternoon and were briefed immediately by the Fraser Island tour company. We saw an intro video on FI and the importance of keeping a minimum human footprint on it. (Which is quite ironic considering that the island was once used by the Oz navy as a target practice ground. The 2 shipwrecks on the shorelines are proofs.) The video also further emphasized the importance of keeping distance from the dingoes. I’ll always remember 2 things about dingoes: Do Not Run Away from them and Always Fight Aggressively if attacked by them.
So I was put into a group with 10 other travellers. The group profile: 6 Canadians: 2 from Victoria, 2 from Vancouver/Delta including me, 1 from Montreal and 1 from Edmonton. The other 5 people in our group: 1 Japanese girl (gf of the French cdn), 1 French guy, 1 Israeli guy, 1 German guy and 1 English guy. We were group c and also known as the Canadian group. There were 4 other groups and the other people were all from Scotland, Ireland, England (a few from the Isle of Man), Wales, Argentina, Brazil (6), Italy, Netherlands, and even more Canadians (1 guy went to Guelph with me during the same time, though he studied marine biology.)
So after the groups were made, we proceeded to mingle and got to know each other through the night. I spent a fair amount of time away from my group and talked a lot with the Brazilians. They were a cool and funny bunch. In addition, they were impressed with my knowledge about Brazil, which isn’t much at all. We talked everything from the Jesus statue, carnival, City of God and Sao Paulo to the ghettos in Rio. In addition, they confirmed that nobody in Brazil drinks Macca Bavaria because it’s shit. Of all the Brazilians I have met, they were most of Italian descent. A few of them thought I could be Brazilian since Brazil has the world’s largest Japanese population outside of Japan (and followed by Hawaii). In short, they thought I might have been a Japanese-Brazilian.
Now, onto the 3 day camping trip itself, though the scenery was fantastic, but it was the group dynamics/interactions that were even more interesting. Starting with only talking about the sceneries, we swam in a white sand fresh water lake called Lake McKenzie in the rain. Then we started driving northbound along the never-ending beach. I swear this beach is the longest beach ever. Imagine sand dunes on one side, driving on the beach in the middle, and the ocean meets the sky on the other side with never-ending waves.
*on a side note, having tried surfing for the first time a few days prior, I was so excited seeing the constant waves along the beach. However, according to rangers, the water is full of sharks and rips are super strong. If one was caught by the rips, he/she could be on a one-way express to Bundaberg in shark infested water (1.5 hour north) – faster than riding the greyhound.
We couldn’t find a particular campsite so when we finally got there; it was already dark and wet. We had to set up the tents and all the cookery in the dark. If you thought that the situation was bad enough, guess again. Out of the 4 tents, 2 of them didn’t really work (shot zippers and missing pegs) We had dinner and I strayed off to hang out with other groups of people. Got on quite well with some Irish blokes and just chatted with some Russian-American girl from Brooklyn. She didn’t sound very American even though that she moved to the US when she was 6. Even though the night was still young, but we had a long day so 2 other Cdns and me got back into the 4x4 and called it home for the night.
*Interesting side note, the caretaker of the campground told us that there are 2 major rules we had to abide by. First, no spitting into the fire and second, no whistling at night. (Quite strange isn’t it? We thought it might be a law of the land thing since the campground was on aboriginal land.) However, the funniest thing was that right at around midnight; the caretaker took out a chainsaw and started hacking away at one of the trees. (I got picture to prove it) None of us were worried that the guy might be psycho and come after us, but it was quite strange to see that. It was like a horror movie waiting to happen - crazy caretaker chasing after tourists with a chainsaw in the middle of the night while the dingoes chew off our remains.
On day 2 we drove to the most northern tip possible by car to another attraction called Indian Head. It was basically a big cliff where we could climb up and check out the ocean below and even more interesting – the killers in the water (sharks). We saw a few shadows in the water and surprisingly all within the shallow areas closer to the beach. According to a tour guide from a guided group, those were sharks. We also saw some dolphins swimming in the sea. Other than that, it was very windy up on the cliff, so we began our way back down towards a pretty crappy attraction called “Eli Creek”. It was basically a small fresh water creek flowing from the inlands to the sea. The only cool thing I could say about the creek was that the water in the creek was being blown the opposite way (backwards facing upstream) at the ocean because of the wind/waves. Aside from the 2 sites, we made sure that we’d make it to the campsite with daylight this time.
It was dinner time and stir-fry was on the menu. (All of us pooled in money at the start of the trip, as the tour company had a 3day menu and food items set up for us.) I volunteered cooking chopping away all the different veggies. I cooked the veggies first and put the cooked veggies onto a plate prior to cooking the chicken chunks. I only cooked them separately and veggies first so that the vegetarians in the group could have untainted veggies before I put the chicken into the same frying pan. Plus this way is the only way to ensure that the chicken gets cooked thoroughly while the veggies don’t get over-cooked. (nothing disappoints me more than overcooked zucchini’s) what comes next just didn’t make sense to me. Of all the people in the group, a few of the Canadians wanted me to mix the stir-fry with the cooked plain rice in a pot into a porridge. I thought that was just disgusting and couldn’t understand why they would want to mix the stir-fry with rice into something which looks more like a porridge mix than a stir-fry. I insisted that it wasn’t the proper way to prepare/eat stir-frys. One of the Canadian girls just said, “well, we don’t have to do everything the right way.” I thought that was just retarded. Stir-frys shouldn’t be eaten like porridge. The Japanese girl sided with me and once the 2 of us got our stir-fry over a bed of rice on our plates, we just let them do whatever they wanted…….a porridge. In addition, I was pretty upset when the French Canadian thought that the Chinese characters and Japanese’s are the exact same. (Give your head a shake, son!)
So the camp’s set up, dinner’s been eaten, and another night of drinking on the beach took place over a bonfire. I, again, hung out with mostly the other groups since the conversation was more stimulating. My own group started their a drinking game called “the ring of fire”. I made brief appearances every now and then while talking to the other groups in between. Dingoes were visible as the night darkens. However, they were not as vicious or scary as we thought.
On day 3, we had to be by the barge by noon for our 10 minute ferry ride home so we just visited the last of the top 5 attractions – Lake Wabby. It was another fresh water lake in the middle of the island surrounded by, strange enough, desert. I guess it’s not that strange consider that the island itself is made up of sand. But after walking 2 kms of sand path in a desert environment, a lake was the last thing I’d expect. Anyway, the lake was pretty cool, especially the sand dunes surrounding it. The dunes were all very steep and it was a lot of fun running down the dunes into the lake at full speed.
Anyway, I am tired and I can literally write a book about the trip, but that’d bore you to death so that’s that!
Random stuff:
1) I have met a lot of Irish lately, especially on the Fraser Island tour. Irish are soo much more fun to talk to and hang out with than the English. They are always so happy and very outgoing. Unlike the English, the Irish don’t whinge about everything. An Irish couple showed me their pictures in NZ and my interest in NZ has peaked again especially for Tongarori (aka Mt Doom/Mordor in L of the R)
2) When doing donuts in a car, the Irish call it “loop the loop.” (But it can also be used to describe rollercoasters.)
3) While getting to Fraser Island, I saw some dolphins while ferrying over to Fraser Island from Rainbow Beach. Also saw the saddest looking dingo on day 2. It was gimpy and had a lot of scars on its face. The Israeli guy
4) Met some people in a guided group and their experience was much different from ours. The guided tour was about $310 with proper shelter, better food (no self-cooking involve), went to the west side of the island where they weren’t supposed to go. They even body boarded at Lake Wabby from the sand dunes where it’s now a banned activity. In comparison, we had crappy camping gears, crappier food, and crappiest weather to be sleeping in. While I am glad that I have met a lot of interesting people, but I coulda done the tour myself in a 4x4 rental and see a lot more stuff or simply join a guided tour.
5) The Canadian (from Toronto whom also went to guelph) from the other group told me that while he was taking the diving lessons at Cairns, he learned a pretty interesting thing. His instructor brought an uncooked egg 20 meters into the ocean and cracked it open. The result: the liquid egg stayed intact as if it was still inside the shell. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
6) I have had this same discussions with a lot of Canadians/English travellers and Aussies. No English or Aussies seem to have heard of “perogys”. I tried to explain to the English and the Aussies that they are like dumplings, but with mashed potatoes (sometimes with mashed p’s, cheese and bacon bits) inside and are usually boiled first then pan-fried. Always served with sauerkraut, sour cream, with a sausage or 2. The English and Aussies always looked at me and asked, “is that like a Canadian food?” I kindly explained to them that they are Ukrainian and the Polish eat them, too. Oh my god, writing this just makes me crave for some right now. I also miss Mexican and Indian food.
*I wanted to mention this in previous entries, but kept forgetting to, but here it is -
While in Melbourne:
I randomly ran into the French cdns with whom I was picking apples with in Tasmania. They were only in Melbourne for a couple of nights before departing for Western Australia. I was just walking in the city around 9:30pm on my way home and I spotted them. They were really surprised to see me as well. We got a drink together and parted ways.
While in Cairns:
- I randomly ran into this Japanese guy whom I met at the hostel in Tasmania picking apples 2 months ago. He was riding on his bike and I was on my way looking for some work around town.
- I randomly ran into the French girls whom I met at a hostel in Melbourne 2 months earlier. Saw them on the streets of Cairns on my way back to my hostel. They had been in Tasmania since then.
While in Airlie Beach:
- I randomly ran into the English couple whom I shared the same room with in Cairns when I got off the Greyhound bus. They came to Airlie Beach for the Whitsundays only a few days earlier and were on their way down to Fraser Island.
- I met a girl from White Rock along with her Dutch Fiancée at the hostel just hours before our greyhound bus departing for 1770 and Hervey Bay. She said she hasn’t met anybody from Vancouver since she’s been in Oz for the past 2.5 weeks, although her and her fiancée are only here for 5 weeks on vacation. Both of them studied in Philly and currently working in Texas.
Whitsunday Sailing & 1770
Pic above: Me at Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays. This is what 100% silica sand and my superb grin look like (oh yeh, and my extra small eyes).Date: June 2nd to 5th, 2008.
First of all, I just wanted to say that I’ve been blessed with great weather in the Whitsundays. Though it wasn’t windy enough for sailing, but I still had a good time with the help from the gas engine.
I left Cairns at 8am for my 12 hour Greyhound bus ride to Airlie Beach (gateway to the Whitsundays) on Monday. Before I got to ride the dog, other travellers have warned me about the Aussie Greyhound drivers’ unusual way of talking. Apparently they are not known for their public speaking abilities, as they often……talk………with……………long………pauses………like…………..this.
Sure enough I had the pleasure to be driven by your typical Aussie Greyhound bus driver on my first ride. It was tiring just to hear the guy talk. Anywho, after many stops and pauses (literally) at the roadhouses every 3 hours or so, I finally got to Airlie Beach later that night. Got picked up by the hostel’s free shuttle service by another Canadian from Thunder Bay. He had a very funny way of speaking, as he really pronounced his R’s. I didn’t do much that night except for buying some beers and packing for the next 3 days on the boat.
Met up with the group of people I will be spending the next 3 days with on the boat at the marina at 9am. An American girl heard me speak and went right up to me and asked if I were from the states since I also had my Sacramento Kings jersey on. We got our stinger suit and talked for a bit before getting on the boat with the rest of the group.
On day 1, I was on a cruising/relaxing boat called – Enid. There were 17 travellers on board along with 3 crews. The group profile: 4 Germans (couples), 2 Swiss (couple), 3 French’s (couple and a single guy), me, 1 Dutch girl, 1 Chilean woman, and 4 American girls (Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, and Minnesota). The crew: 2 Aussies and 1 Kiwi. (if you are not shocked by this point, you should be!! Noticed that there weren’t any English backpackers mentioned here?! That’s almost unheard of since the English are everywhere.)
On day 1, I was on a cruising/relaxing boat called – Enid. There were 17 travellers on board along with 3 crews. The group profile: 4 Germans (couples), 2 Swiss (couple), 3 French’s (couple and a single guy), me, 1 Dutch girl, 1 Chilean woman, and 4 American girls (Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, and Minnesota). The crew: 2 Aussies and 1 Kiwi. (if you are not shocked by this point, you should be!! Noticed that there weren’t any English backpackers mentioned here?! That’s almost unheard of since the English are everywhere.)
We started the day with our first snorkel (of 6 in total) at a sand bar during the low tide at one of Whitsundays’ 74 islands. According to the crew, it was a perfect day for the sand bar visit – low tide, sunny with a light breeze. Like any good travellers in the Oz sea, we put on our stinger suit to minimize the chance of being stung by various types of jelly fish.
*I wish I had a pic of me in a stinger suit to show you guys. I looked like Bruce Lee in The Return of The Dragon with that infamous yellow and black jumpsuit (less the 6-pack muscles and a full head of hair of course).
*I wish I had a pic of me in a stinger suit to show you guys. I looked like Bruce Lee in The Return of The Dragon with that infamous yellow and black jumpsuit (less the 6-pack muscles and a full head of hair of course).
While snorkelling there, the visibility underwater was pretty shit (we weren’t far enough from the coast to the Great Barrier Reef). In addition, full moon was about 1 week ago and the reef spawns about 4 times a year during full moons. When the reef spawns, their “bodily fluids” just float around on top of the water or suspends in the water further contributing to the poor visibility. Of the whole time snorkelling, all I could think about was “Oh my god, the reef is having sex with my face.” I was not concerned with stinging jelly fish or sharks in the ocean. I am much more afraid of crocodiles than sharks. Anyway, the reef thing only reminds me of my hayfever every spring back home. Reef spawning is basically the same thing as pollens in the air.
I decided to ditch snorkelling for some exploration on the sand bar and the result was fulfilling. One of the American girls, Lisa, from Michigan joined me checking out the creatures living in the sand during the low tide. 40 minutes later, we found star fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, baby crabs, little fish, and various types of herm crabs. After that, we got to a bommie for some more snorkelling and the visibility was slightly better. However, none of the fish were was big as the ones I saw at the GBR around Cairns. (I pretty much gave up snorkelling for the rest of the trip, but just swam and kayaked around for the rest of the time. *We did see quite a few turtles around during our 3 days out on the sea.
I decided to ditch snorkelling for some exploration on the sand bar and the result was fulfilling. One of the American girls, Lisa, from Michigan joined me checking out the creatures living in the sand during the low tide. 40 minutes later, we found star fish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, baby crabs, little fish, and various types of herm crabs. After that, we got to a bommie for some more snorkelling and the visibility was slightly better. However, none of the fish were was big as the ones I saw at the GBR around Cairns. (I pretty much gave up snorkelling for the rest of the trip, but just swam and kayaked around for the rest of the time. *We did see quite a few turtles around during our 3 days out on the sea.
We sun-tanned for the most of the afternoon on the boat in between snorkelling trips. (I finally got rid of my aggressive farmer tan from the last 26 years. However, my thighs are still pretty pale in contrast) And everybody got to talk to everyone else onboard for a bit, except for the 3 American girls. The 2 German couples are in the fashion industry and graduating from medical schools (from the Bavaria region). The French couple work at the intercontinental hotel in Paris. The Swiss couple are cabinet maker and kindergarten teacher (Lucerne). The Dutch girl is doing her bachelors exchange in International Relations in Melbourne. She’s writing her undergrad paper on the genocide in Cambodia. The Chilean lady is a doctor as well. Lisa of Michigan is studying fashion design in Melbourne and the other 3 American girls are on a exchange semester at the Univ of Wollongong a couple of hours south of Sydney. Pretty much only me and the other French guy are the only ones without a profession nor are we students. Only the French guy and I are on a working holiday visa here in Oz; all the others are either on vacation or studying in Oz.
I got to know pretty much everybody very well thanks to my 3 week trip in England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. It was easy to talk to the Frenchs, Germans, and the Swiss since I have been to their countries and either had been to or know a bit about the relative location of their hometowns. It was also easy to talk to the Dutch girl and the Chilean lady since they are just good people. The American girl, Lisa, was also easy to talk to since she’s into her hometown bball team – The Pistons. She hasn’t been to too many places outside of the US, but she proudly proclaims her trip all over the US in her Oldsmobile Cutless. She’s going to Japan next before returning to Melbourne for her studies so I automatically give her kudos over the other 3 American girls.
I got to know pretty much everybody very well thanks to my 3 week trip in England, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. It was easy to talk to the Frenchs, Germans, and the Swiss since I have been to their countries and either had been to or know a bit about the relative location of their hometowns. It was also easy to talk to the Dutch girl and the Chilean lady since they are just good people. The American girl, Lisa, was also easy to talk to since she’s into her hometown bball team – The Pistons. She hasn’t been to too many places outside of the US, but she proudly proclaims her trip all over the US in her Oldsmobile Cutless. She’s going to Japan next before returning to Melbourne for her studies so I automatically give her kudos over the other 3 American girls.
Speaking of which, the 3 American girls (must have been no more than 21) stayed together at the front of the boat the whole trip. They never bothered to talk to anybody else, including the crew, for the whole 3 days. I found that to be pretty weird. I think anybody else would, too. I tried making some conversation with them the first day only to give up after an hour since they were only giving me 1 or 2 word answers. As you can imagine, it’s been hard to keep a conversation going when you are only getting answer such as, “Yes, No, I guess.”
I think I can honestly say that I had done my part. If I tried any harder to talk to them, I’d just look like I am trying too hard. The other people on the boat had similar experiences with the 3 American girls. Actually my only recollection of the Americans even talking to anybody else was when the girl from Colorado tried to bum off a cigarette from one of the French guys. Classy! (She did mind her P’s and Q’s though, so I guess America is not at a total loss. Final Score: The World 99 – USA 1)
I think I can honestly say that I had done my part. If I tried any harder to talk to them, I’d just look like I am trying too hard. The other people on the boat had similar experiences with the 3 American girls. Actually my only recollection of the Americans even talking to anybody else was when the girl from Colorado tried to bum off a cigarette from one of the French guys. Classy! (She did mind her P’s and Q’s though, so I guess America is not at a total loss. Final Score: The World 99 – USA 1)
On Day 2, the other people snorkelled some more in the morning while I kayaked in the sea before we set off from the 2nd largest island in the Whitsundays – Hook Island – to the largest Island in the Whitsundays appropriately known as The Whitsunday Island. Once there, we got to the most famous beach of all of Whitsundays – Whitehaven Beach.
The beach is at its prettiest during the low tide while exposing the white sand and mini sand bars. Before getting to the Whitehaven beach, the crew warned us about the extra fine sand we are about to set our feet on, about how the sand is so fine that if it gets into your camera, it would ruin your camera just like that. (To illustrate how fine the sand was, it felt like clay when mixed with salt water.) Pretty much all of us ignored the warning and went on to take more pictures than necessary……..with precautions of course. Sadly we only had 1 hour there, but that hour was worth every minute. While we were making our way back to the boat, we saw a group of baby crabs known as Solider Crabs marching along the white sandy beach like in sync like an army. And by the way, guess what? The American girls again spent time together by themselves on a different part of the beach away from “The World” (pun intended).
*Interesting and random fact about the Whitsundays: Part of the island appeared in the film – Fool’s Gold. As for the Tully River at Mission Beach near Cairns where I white water rafted, one of the waterfalls there appeared in the first of the Jurassic Park trilogy.
By the end of day 2, we had dinner and the rest of the alcohol on the boat. We ran out of booze by 7pm and the night was still young. The situation was made worse for everybody except for me and the Chilean lady when they ran out of cigarettes. So now what do we do? We gathered around near the stern and just started telling jokes. The Kiwi girl (crew) kicked it off with her joke. “What shoes do you wear if you have 2 left foot?” “Flip-Flips!”
Since a Kiwi kicked it off, I told everybody one the joke my Kiwi rafting guide told me 2 weeks prior. “What’s the difference between Australia and yogurt?” “If you leave yogurt out in someplace warm for over 200 years, eventually it’ll develop culture.” (May I say that the 2 Aussies on the boat loved it……….not.) The French and German guys were all really funny, but I can’t remember half of their jokes. Except for Lisa, the other American girls again stayed away on their own on the other end of the boat. I guess they didn’t get the memo that there was a jokestival and everybody was invited. About 2.5 hours later, we finally ran out of jokes and each crept back our respective bunk beds for our last night on the Enid.
On day 3, we snorkelled and kayaked some more before releasing the sail to catch the little wind available sailing back to Abel Point marina. All in all, it was a good trip since we were blessed with a lot of sun, particularly if you consider that just a few days before I got there, it just poured for the whole time. We sailed around Whitsundays’ largest 2 islands. Everyone exchanged emails and contact info to be looked up on facebook…etc. We all decided to meet up again, including the crews, later that night for some drinks and food before everybody separate ways the next morning. Expectedly, all but the 3 American girls didn’t show up. “What A Surprise,” I said to the French couple in a sarcastic tone at the dinner table. The French girl laughed so hard that beer came out of her nose.
Haven’t had a shower in 3 days, I stunk like salt water and zinc from the sunscreen. I took a quick shower in Airlie Beach before I left later that night on a red eye bus to the town of 1770. While waiting for the shower, I met some Canadians from White Rock, BC…..possibility the ones closest to my house. The couple both went to university in Philly and now work in Texas.
After I got to 1770 (named after Captain Cook’s first landing time on May 24, 1770) at 10:30am, I immediately proceeded to the beach where I started my 2.5 hour surfing lesson. 1770 is known as the cheapest place in Australia for surfing lessons at $22. I tried surfing for the first time ever and it was fantastic. While I am not big on skiing or snowboarding, surfing has really grown on me and I am not even a good swimmer. During my 2.5 hours surfing, I stood up on the board 3 times. That’s a good outing for a first time surfer. The only thing I didn’t really enjoy about surfing was ripping the skin on my chest and stomach against the surf board. I have a pretty aggressive “board-burn” from surfing. I have learned that I’d need a rash-shirt when surfing. I met 2 more Canadians from Saskatchewan during my surfing lesson, one of them was a Japanese-Canadian. They both commented how sweet it is that I was wearing my Kings basketball replica jersey.
After I got to 1770 (named after Captain Cook’s first landing time on May 24, 1770) at 10:30am, I immediately proceeded to the beach where I started my 2.5 hour surfing lesson. 1770 is known as the cheapest place in Australia for surfing lessons at $22. I tried surfing for the first time ever and it was fantastic. While I am not big on skiing or snowboarding, surfing has really grown on me and I am not even a good swimmer. During my 2.5 hours surfing, I stood up on the board 3 times. That’s a good outing for a first time surfer. The only thing I didn’t really enjoy about surfing was ripping the skin on my chest and stomach against the surf board. I have a pretty aggressive “board-burn” from surfing. I have learned that I’d need a rash-shirt when surfing. I met 2 more Canadians from Saskatchewan during my surfing lesson, one of them was a Japanese-Canadian. They both commented how sweet it is that I was wearing my Kings basketball replica jersey.
Following the surfing lessons, I started my 3 hour guided scooteroo tour at 1770. For those of you whom haven’t’ heard of scooteroo, it’s basically a mini-version or scooter version of chopper bikes (aka Choppa in Oz). I got to ride on one for the 3 hours along the backcountry side as well as along the beach all for $40. As the Kiwi’s would say, “It was sweetas!” After the overnight bus on the dog and a full day of activities, I was done like turkey, so I just opted out for an early night at the hostel. The hostel I stayed at was completely dead; I had a room with 8 beds all to myself. Actually, there were only 3 people in total at the hostel and we all got our own rooms.
I left 1770 the next morning on the greyhound again at 6am for Rainbow Beach aka the gateway to Fraser Island. (I really enjoyed the town of 1770 even though not much is happening there. It was a chillaxing working class town with a nice surfing beach.) Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island and also one of the world heritage sites. I will be doing a 3 day 2 night 4x4 self-drive tour with 11 other people. Oh did I mention that there are crap loads of dingoes on Fraser Island? Things are about to get very interesting!
I left 1770 the next morning on the greyhound again at 6am for Rainbow Beach aka the gateway to Fraser Island. (I really enjoyed the town of 1770 even though not much is happening there. It was a chillaxing working class town with a nice surfing beach.) Fraser Island is the world’s largest sand island and also one of the world heritage sites. I will be doing a 3 day 2 night 4x4 self-drive tour with 11 other people. Oh did I mention that there are crap loads of dingoes on Fraser Island? Things are about to get very interesting!
*While riding the dog towards 1770, I noticed that there were some heavy logging actions going on both sides of the road. The strange thing was that not only were the gum trees were being logged, but there appeared to be some pine trees (or some kinda conifers) also being logged. For the next ten minutes, I thought I was back home because of the pine trees. As much as the loggings were taking place, there were also a lot of small pine trees being planted.
On a different note, since I was sailing in the Whitsundays, I haven’t been able to stay in touch with the US Primaries. However, I heard that Obama’s now representing the Democrats. Great success, go get them, Tiger! Speaking of which, I wonder what would happen if Tiger Woods ran for prez.
On a different note, since I was sailing in the Whitsundays, I haven’t been able to stay in touch with the US Primaries. However, I heard that Obama’s now representing the Democrats. Great success, go get them, Tiger! Speaking of which, I wonder what would happen if Tiger Woods ran for prez.
Random note:
1) The boat I was on definitely had some bed bugs. I had many bites after the trip, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with such a high-turnover rate on those boats.
2) Hours after I got back from sailing, I still felt I was on the boat. If I made any sudden movements that involved shaking my head or jerking my body to the side, I’d get this dizzy feeling as if I am still in the ocean. I have had similar experiences in Thailand and back in Cairns after the GBR.
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