Massive Catchup

First of all: no, I am not dead. I realise that I have gone more than a month and a half without an update, and I deeply regret that. The truth is I have just been pretty lazy, and the longer I waited, the harder it got. So I figured the best way was to just skip most of what I missed and move on to more recent occurrences.

I will briefly go over my spring break trip because it definitely deserves mention. My spring break trip was, in a word, amazing. I spent a week on the south island of New Zealand with a tour group of around 30 college students, mostly from America. We traveled all around the island on a big bus called Roxanne (we listened to the Police song every morning to get going). We went to a sheep station in the mountains, hiked on a glacier, spent the night on a boat in Milford Sound (the rainiest place on Earth at sea level), and spent two nights in Queenstown where we went horseback riding, jetboating on a river and bungy jumped! New Zealand has, without a doubt, some of the most spectacular scenery I've ever seen. After New Zealand my two American mates Cory and Mike headed with me to Queensland, the northeast state of Australia. We actually had a bit of a hiccup in our transition because we didn't leave enough time between the flight from New Zealand into Sydney and Sydney going up to Queensland. We missed the flight and had to spend an extra night in Sydney, which ended up being quite relaxing. We met up with our other friend Patrick in Airlie Beach where we went on a two day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef. The water was the clearest blue and we went snorkeling with some beautiful fish and coral. After the Whitsundays we took an overnight 12-hour busride down to Hervey Bay where we went to Fraser Island, which is the largest sand island in the world. The only way to get around the island is in 4-wheel-drive vehicles so we went through a company that rents them out. The four of us (Cory, Mike, Patrick and myself) were paired with four English girls just about our age. We all got along really well and had fun driving around and camping on the island. I've uploaded a bunch of pictures from the trip to make up for the lack of detail. They can be found here.

Upon returning from spring break, we had to jump right back into school, which was rather difficult after a 17 day holiday. My first week back was relaxed as I didn't have any schoolwork due. October was relatively calm. We had our formal farewell dinner on October 31 (unfortunately Halloween isn't really celebrated here), which was quite fun.

My roommates and me all dressed up for our formal dinner. This was probably the hottest day so far at about 95 degrees and we were all very hot.

The next weekend, a group of friends and I traveled down to the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. We left pretty early because the whole trip takes about five hours by train. This area is generally known for its amazing views of valleys, its many bushwalks and the Jenolan Caves nearby. The town we stayed in, called Katoomba, was rife with antique shops and old bookstores, which we perused for a few hours. We then visited Echo Point from which the famous Three Sisters can be seen, pictured below.


We went on a bit of a hike to see some waterfalls before heading back to our hostel. That night we went out to eat at a small cafe with some live music. The helpings were heaping and the music was melodic, so it was a pleasant evening. The next day we decided to visit Jenolan Caves, which is one of the largest limestone cave systems in the world. We had to take a bus that was about an hour and a half to get there. Our guided tour didn't start until afternoon, but they gave us a little headset to do a self-guided tour of a different part of the cave system. After that we had a bit of lunch before meeting up with the tour group. On the guided tour we actually got to go pretty deep into the cave system, which is quite developed inside. There are concrete pathways with handrails and lights all throughout. The sights are spectacular and there is truly nothing else like it. Taking pictures inside the cave was hard because of the low light, and using a flash washed out the shadows so the features didn't look as impressive. I did manage to get a few good shots that weren't blurry.


The tour wasn't too long, but it was definitely interesting. We emerged from the cave to be greeted by the glaring sun. We got back on the bus and headed back to Katoomba. The next day we walked around Katoomba a bit more before boarding the train for the long journey home.

I had finished most of my major assessments right before the Blue Mountains trip, so I have basically been done for most of November and have been trying to use some of my free time. I just got back from another trip to Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast. My roommate Nat invited me to come and stay with her and her friend in her aunt's holiday house. Her aunt actually won the house in some kind of lottery. I was looking forward to staying in an actual house and not having to pay for a hostel. When I arrived, I was shocked to discover that the "holiday house" was more of a multimillion dollar villa blocks from downtown. It was a two story house with three bedrooms and two luxury bathrooms with a pool out back, and I even had my own queen size bed, which was fantastic.


After I was done exploring and ogling the house, we had some dinner and lounged for a bit. We decided to go out on the town so we headed out to Jupiter's Casino which was quite busy. After losing a few dollars at the slots we decided we'd had enough and headed out to find a bar. It happened to be Schoolies Week, which is when all the high school graduates go on their celebratory holiday to the Gold Coast, so there were 18-year-olds running around everywhere. Most of the bars were loud and packed but we managed to find a nice quiet bar and relax there for a few drinks before going home. The next day Nat's other aunt and uncle came to visit with their kids. We mainly lounged around all day and talked to them about all sorts of things. That evening the thunderstorms started rolling in. The Gold Coast got hit by one of the worst storms in a long time. Near Brisbane some houses were completely destroyed and one man died after getting caught in a storm drain. However, since the region has been in drought for so long, the rain is actually a good thing. Although personally, I was a little disappointed because it didn't stop raining the entire time I was there. The next day the three of us went to a water park called Wet 'n Wild. It was raining and pretty cold, but the lines were short so it was worth it. The next day we rented a little car and drove up into the mountains. We visited a manmade cave which was a sanctuary for glow worms. They had about 15,000 in the small cave and we got to learn all about their life cycle and how they glow. We had wanted to do a hike, but most of the trails were closed because of the storms causing trees to fall over. We did manage to find one short hike to a waterfall and got completely drenched in the process. The next day, right as I got to the bus stop to head back to the airport, the sun came out. Awesome. Overall though, it was a great trip.

I now have 10 days left before I have to move out of the residential college. I'm going up to a city called Ballina to stay with my roommate Telly for a little over a week. Then I'll be flying down to Canberra to stay with a family friend. After a few days there I'll stop by Sydney for one last time before heading back to Newcastle for a couple nights. On December 15 I'll head over to Auckland and then back to Seattle on the 20th.

It's crazy that this long adventure is starting to come to an end. I have exactly one month left until I get back to Seattle, and I plan to make the most of it. People are slowly starting to leave. One of my best mates Mike just left yesterday to go back to Chicago. I've gotten to know a lot of people from the midwest and a few from the east coast, and I hope to visit them in the hopefully not-too-distant future.

Spring Break Is Here!

Well folks, this will be my last post before I go incommunicado for two weeks. As some of you may know, we are now on mid-semester break. I just finished up a hard week with two big essays, one for history on the Great Depression and one for pop culture examining the “representation of the relationship between place and cultural identity in teen literature and film”. Boy am I glad to be done with those! Up until last night, I hadn’t really had the chance to be excited for the amazing adventures ahead; I was too busy worrying about my essays. Last night around 5pm I was in the student services building finalising my paper and turning it in right on the deadline (always a procrastinator). On the walk back to my room, a feeling somewhere between relief, relaxation and excitement came over me. I just felt like sitting around, and that’s pretty much what I did. After dinner I just went out to our pool and kicked a ball around with my buddy Cory. Then I just sat around with the roommates and watched a movie. Eventually I started laying out all my stuff (I had made a big packing list a couple days before so packing didn’t take long) and getting my documents in order.

I’ll outline our trip so you get an idea of the itinerary. I don’t want to go into too much depth because I’ll do one massive update when I get back with all the details you could ever want. Anyway, the first week I’m going to the south island of New Zealand with my friends Cory and Mike, both Americans. This was the trip we booked right after we got here, back in July. We basically go all around the south island on a bus to different hot spots like Fox Glacier, Queenstown, spend a night on a boat in Milford Sound, and even stay at a sheep station in the Fjordlands! After that week is up, we fly back to Sydney and then up to Airlie Beach, which is pretty far up the east cost of Australia, where we are meeting up with our other friend Patrick. From Airlie Beach we leave on a two night sailing adventure around the Great Barrier Reef. After that, we all head down the coast to Hervey Bay. From there we jump on a ferry over to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. There we will go on a 4x4 safari tour where we get to drive these jeeps all around the island. Apparently you can’t swim in the ocean because it’s a breeding ground for tiger sharks, but there are over 50 freshwater lakes on the island. After that, we must return home to the drudgery of school. I’ll actually have to go to one of my classes about an hour or two after I get back from the airport!

I’m sure there will be internet access along the way, and I may be willing to do a small update or two, but most likely I won’t write again for a few weeks. Hope everyone has a great two weeks and check back in around October 15 for an update!

Sydney: The Sequel

Another huge update today with lots of pretty pictures! Before I go into my second trip to Sydney, I’ll just talk about another quick trip I had a few weeks ago.

Six of my friends had decided to go to Port Stephens one weekend and invited me along. Port Stephens is basically just a string of coastal towns along the coast, about an hour busride north of Newcastle. They left early on Friday but I have a class then so I decided to just come up early Saturday with my friend Addison. We caught the bus right in town and got dropped off right outside our hostel! Addison and I had to stay at a different hostel than the rest of the group because theirs was booked up. I really liked both of the hostels and the people who ran them were extremely helpful. I actually left my sweatshirt on the bus so I was a little distraught by that. I talked to the woman at the desk, who called the bus company, found out which bus it was on and went out to get it the next time the bus came around while we were gone! One thing my friends and I have talked about is how accommodating people are here. People are willing to go out of their way to help you out. After we got settled in, Addison and I walked along the road to the other hostel. Along the way, we stopped at One Mile Beach, which was just amazing. The sand comes back from the water a good ways and there are miles and miles of sand dunes farther south. It reminded me a lot of Manzanita down in Oregon. The rest of the group had actually gone sandboarding on the dunes the day before. We had missed that so I was a little bummed, but hopefully I can go in the future with some other people.

One Mile Beach.

We got to the other hostel and met up with our friends to decide what to do. Mike, Sean and I wanted to try to go surfing at one mile beach, and the girls wanted to just walk around. The owners of the hostel gave us a ride into town in this old propane-powered army truck. It was the kind where the back has seats on either side facing each other and a canvas top that could be rolled up. They drove us to a surf shop to hire some stuff. The guy there gave us an awesome deal: for $30 we each got a surfboard and a wetsuit to use until about noon the next day! We got back in the army truck and headed back to the hostel.

Kangaroo that lived at the hostel and just sat around all day.

We walked down to the beach from there and surfed for a few hours. We were using smaller boards this time so it was a lot harder, but still fun. After that, we hopped on some bikes that the hostel lets you borrow for free and rode down to the sand dunes to meet up with the girls. We went on a camel ride along the beach for a bit.


It was a pretty short ride but it was cool just to say we had ridden a camel. Fun fact: there are over 1 million wild camels in Australia! Around this time, my camera stopped working. I turned it off and it never turned back on. I never dropped it or anything so I just can’t figure out what went wrong and it’s still broken.

That night we caught a big eight-person taxi into Nelson Bay (kind of like the capital city of Port Stephens) for dinner at a pizza place. The pizza down here is a little different and most Americans don’t seem to like it. I like all pizza, but this place was definitely the best we’d had. After that, we walked around a bit before catching another taxi home. That night and most of the next day it rained really hard, which was a bit of a drag. Mike went surfing again in the rain before we returned the boards and hopped on the bus back to Newcastle.

Now on to the second trip to Sydney, which was just last weekend. On our last trip to Sydney, there were about 15 of us total. This time there were only six of us so it was a little more relaxing. I had just finished an essay so I was looking forward to a weekend away. We left early Friday morning so we could spend most of the day in Sydney. The ticket machine at the Uni train station was broken so we didn’t have to pay for the ticket to the main train station. Then when we bought our tickets to Sydney, the guy gave us the concession price (which we technically aren’t supposed to get) so the trip was only $9! On our first trip to Sydney, we were more interesting in the major landmarks and areas. This time we wanted to see some more of the smaller areas, museums and shopping areas.

We stayed at the same $13 hostel in the 28-person room which is always fun. After checking in, we walked over to the Queen Victoria Building which is a shopping centre, and I have to say, it is the ritziest shopping centre I’ve ever seen.


There are about four levels and most of the stores are pretty high class and expensive. We saw some nice jewelery which was on sale; only $10,000 marked down from $15k! After exploring the vast expanse of wealth that we would never be able to obtain, we headed over to the FREE Museum of Contemporary Art. There were two exhibits open at the time. One was a bunch of video art pieces which were all pretty weird and slightly abstract. There was a cool room with a bunch of projectors flashing different colours on blank canvases and we got some good shadow pictures in there.


The other exhibit was called “Heads Up” and consisted of giant photo portraits of a team of football players. All of the pictures were taken after the team had lost games so it was interesting to see the subtleties of their expressions and some even had cuts, bruises and grass still on their faces from the games. It was very reminiscent of Chuck Close—though these were real photos—because of the scale of the portraits and the detail in the faces.

Entrance to the MCA.

The next morning was our zoo day. We caught a ferry from Circular Quay across the Harbour to Taronga Zoo. We had a lot in store for us because the Taronga Zoo is simply huge. After the ferry drops you off, you have to make your way to the top of the park where the entrance is, and then work your way back down to the bottom.


After about 45 minutes I looked at the map and noticed we had only really covered the reptile area; time to pick up the pace. We got to see pretty much everything we wanted, sans the spiders. I regret not making it to that exhibit, because even though they scare the hell out of me, they are fascinating. Plus I would be protected by the glass. Not only were there more animals than most of the other zoos I have been to, but they had better exhibits and looked healthier. There were so many animals and I took heaps of pictures, but here are some of my favourites:

• Komodo dragon – we have a small one at the Woodland Park Zoo, but this guy was huge. Hard to tell from the picture but he was probably about seven feet long. The world’s largest lizard (crocs and gators are not lizards).

• Chimpanzees – they had a good exhibit for the chimps and there were quite a few of them, including a few babies and juveniles. We got there right when they started a talk on them. I’ve always liked primates a lot so it was fun to see the chimps and gorillas but now that I think about it, I didn’t see many others.

• Meerkats – I don’t think I had ever seen any meerkats before and it was pretty cool to see this colony of them digging around and to see a few of them do the classic “keeping watch” pose.

• Red pandas – they don’t resemble giant pandas at all, and none of us had ever seen one before. Very sleek and wise looking, with a long bushy tail.

• Monotremes! – hard to spot these guys in the wild, so it was cool to see the echidna and platypus.

We had a great time and were finally ready to leave—at least, our aching feet were. We got back to the bottom of the zoo by taking the Sky Safari, which is a gondola that travels over the exhibits, giving an amazing view of the Sydney skyline.

The next day we checked out of our hostel and walked down to Darling Harbour to check out that area again. It was a cloudy and started drizzling a little when we stopped at some toilets. When we came out a few minutes later it was just like stepping out into a shower. We sought shelter at a McDonalds nearby to wait. It eventually let up and we headed over to the National Maritime Museum and went on a brief tour, which was also free (I like these free museums!). It started by looking at nautical histories of other countries’ interactions with Australia in the 18th century. Then there was more modern stuff about immigration and the surf movement. The tour was pretty quick so we didn’t get to examine the exhibits and plaques too closely. Then we headed back to the hostel to get our stuff and headed back to Newcastle. Definitely another successful trip to Sydney. Not sure if I’ll make it back there again. I still want to explore some other cities like Melbourne and Brisbane.

Things are starting to get heavy for school. Had a couple big essays due in the last week, and two more due next week. But after next week is our huge spring break trip. I’ll outline that next week before we take off. Here are some random pictures and videos from the Sydney trip.

Me in the reflection of my buddy Mike's sunnies.

The whole group: Mike, Ashley, Sean, Erin, Annie and me.

Trying on an awesome hat.

View from the Sky Safari.

Sean in front of St. Mary's Cathedral at night.

The group out dancing!

Mountain Goats (?) with the Coat Hanger in the background.



"The Seizure Room"