Jan 6

Ahhh!  So where do I start with this one.

I went to a music festival called Field Day with Gus and some of his friends.  It was awesome.  It was a smaller venue than most of the ones in the US though.  On the outside they had drug sniffing dogs which I thought was dumb.  One of the dogs sniffed out a spliff that one of my friends had.  I thought it was pretty ridiculous.  They only gave him a warning since he doesn't have any criminal records or anything.  There was no fine or anything- just a written citation warning.  No more weed though :(  It was all right for me though because I didn't really need to smoke that day.

We saw Duck Sauce right when we got there.  Now that Barbara Streisand song is always stuck in my head.  Then we saw Tame Impala.  They were really good.  I've never heard of them, but it was really good music.  I'm going to have to get their CD or something. Then we watched Peaches.  Surprisingly, they were really good too and being a lil messy helped my thoughts on the idea of them being really good.  A bunch of dancing and meeting people was done.

I was really upset with Justice.  I like them but the sound system sucked for the main stage.  I felt like I could barely hear em.  Public Enemy was playing at the same time, and I could hear them better than Justice.  Public Enemy put on a good show.  I spent most of my time watching them.  Flavvvvvvvooooooor Flaaaave was ridiculous as always.  He's still pretty legit and puts on a good show.

The next day I set up this trip at a backpackers travel agency.  I start in Sydney and go all the way up to the Gold Coast and end in Cairns.  There are a bunch of stops where I can get off and stay however long I want to and then hop on another tour bus.

So the other day I stopped in Spot-X.  It's a little small town near a nice beach.  They do a lot of surf lessons there and stuff.  They offered me a free one, so I took it.  By the way, getting really drunk and staying up until 2 AM with a wake-up call at 7 AM is not a great idea.  The teachers really didn't teach you anything that any other surfer can teach you.  The waves were pretty nice and the water was amazing.  There was no need for a wet suit.  The biggest wave was probably two feet.  It was pretty easy to get up since I had a long board.  I caught quite a few waves but had one amazing run which I haven't done in soooo long because I've only been surfing a handful of times.

After that, I hopped on the bus and headed up to Byron Bay.  I did all of my sleeping on this bus.  It took about four in a half hours to get up to Byron Bay.  I saw this graffiti art work done on an electric box of a red VW van.  I'm pretty sure it's the same one that Timarie and Danielle took a picture of when they went.  Byron Bay is so awesome but it is raining like crazy right now, so I can't really do much except pubs.  I tried walking around today, but I got drenched in rain and called it quits when all of my clothes were soggy.

Last night I went to Cheeky Monkey which is a big club for tourists.  I have met so many English people here.  It's still cool and I can finally tell the difference in accents now.  I love meeting all of these people from different countries- Dutch, French, Swiss, English, Aussie of course, and not many Americans.  I have only met one American and he's from Canada, eh.  Anyway, we got a good deal from being on the tour bus thing, and I got a ten dollar steak with fries and a salad.

All the English people think it's cool that I'm from California, so I don't have to try too hard to make a conversation.  All the Aussie's always ask me why I left California to come here.  The answer is simple; because I want to.  So I was hitting on this English girl, but the place got so packed that I lost her when she went out for a smoke and I got another beer, so I met another English girl who was actually on my tour bus.  We started talking and I yanked out the card that I can drink more and better because she's a little girl, so we had a tiny drinking competition which losers had to buy more drinks.  I got about 5 free drinks out of her and a good make out sesh until she bit my lip and it started to bleed.  I called it quits after that because she was beginning to become psycho and sloppy.  It's easy to give the slip when the club is so crowded that you can barely walk in there.

I got back to the hostel around 3 am and met more people and talked to them for about an hour until I could barely open my eye lids.  I woke up about 10 AM and still rain!

I'm leaving tomorrow to Brisbane and hopefully the weather will clear up.  It's supposed to be shit weather for another week, and the highway from Surfer's Paradise to Cairns is closed because it is flooded.  It won't be open for another 6-8 days.  I would stay longer in Byron Bay, but it is hard to get a place.  I was going to do couch surfing, but I don't want to risk not having a place to stay tomorrow night and sleeping in the rain.  Byron Bay is so packed right now because so many travelers can't go much further up north.  I tried changing reservations up north but I'm keep on getting rejected, so I have to stay on my itinerary for another week.  It's OK though because I reckon that I'll be back up here again when it's winter (summer for the states) time.  All the locals in Sydney told me that it's really beautiful in the winter because it's still warm.

All good so far.  I just wish it would stop raining :(   It's still awesome though and even though it's raining like crazy, it still can't ruin my trip.

Dec. 27th Monday

The past couple of days I have been spending time in Angus’ hometown called Bowral.  It was pretty cool to get out of the city for a bit.  Angus explained to his dad that Bowral is somewhat like Thousand Oaks.  I beg to differ because Bowral has way more of a country scene to it and is way more beautiful than Thousand Oaks.  A lot of the houses there had a huge amount of property.  They all had huge backyards with a lot of trees.  I think it’s close to Thousand Oaks in a sense that it is not that big of a city but right by a huge city.

Anyway, right when we got in to his hometown, I met his family.  He has triplet sisters and some pretty cool parents.  I brought them a couple bottle of wines that I bought from a bottle shop.  Right when we walked into his house his father offered us some beers and to go outside to have some talks.  His mom and dad are pretty rad. 

After that, I went to a local bar in Bowral to grab a few beers with Angus and his friends.  The rules are that if anyone is caught drunk driving, speeding, or get any citation during the Holidays then the fine doubles.  So a lot of people are safe about driving around the Holidays.  The pub was pretty cool.  I met a lot of his friends and Angus did a lot of catching up with old friends.  Christmas Eve is really big out in Bowral because everyone comes home and catches up at the pubs.  By the 11 pm I had to scream to talk to anyone because the crowd there was huge.  There wasn’t even any music playing and I was outside most of the time talking to people or pretty much yelling at everyone when I was speaking.

I remember buying a round of beers for some friends, and when I came out this guy pointed at me into my chest smiling and said, “You!  What?  Ha.  Why?”  I just laughed and pointed back at him.  I told Angus and his friends what just happened and they said that the guy probably isn’t used to seeing Asians in this pub.  Then we drank some more and had a spliff.  We passed out kind of early so we wouldn’t be so tired for Christmas Day.

I woke up around 8 am for Christmas and Angus parents made a huge breakfast for all of us.  They made eggs with veggies, fruit, croissants, bacon, and cereal.  It was too much but so good.  Then they opened presents or the present opening happened before we ate.  I already forgot.  Anyway, they all opened presents and they had a gift waiting for me which was pretty cool.  They got me a hat (which is awesome because I left my LA hat in my mom’s car), a coozie (that thing you put your beer cans or bottle in so it doesn’t get water everywhere), and Christmas nougat pudding.  I’ve never had nougat pudding before but it’s pretty good.  I was really surprised because I really didn’t expect or want anything from them except a place to stay at night.  I thanked them over and over again.

When we had some downtime before we had to go out again, I asked Angus if I could test drive his car.  He agreed and took me down some streets.  It’s weird enough to drive on the other side of the road, but he also has a stick shift.  It wasn’t really hard to convert the stick shift over from the other side.  The clicker for the signals are on the opposite side as well, so I turned on his windshield wipers on a few times.  He gave me a good pointer on how to remember to stay on the left side when I’m making turns that helped him when he was driving in the states.  That is to make sure that your body is always towards the middle of the lane no matter what.  Those words of wisdom helped me so I didn’t have to think as much when I drove the rest of the way.

After getting some driving lessons in, we all went to his grandparent’s house to have lunch.  We had prawns, fruit, and wraps.  When I saw the prawns, I was kind of stunned on how to eat them because they weren’t shelled at all.  I took a look at Angus and then caught on pretty quick.  You have to rip their heads off and then peel back the rest of their shell.  I’ve never had to do that before, but it was fine and quite fun to be honest.  These prawns were so amazing.  It was too fresh if that word could be used to describe how good they were.  I don’t know what the difference is between prawns and shrimp, or if they just call shrimp differently here, but it was really good. 

During lunch, they had these things called bon-bons or bond-bonds that we played with.  It kind of looks like the middle of a paper towel roll wrapped up with fringes hanging off each end.  Well, what you do is one person grabs one end and the other person grabs the other end.  Both people pull and it makes a popping noise.  One person will come away with the middle part and it has a little toy, a cheap crown hat, and a joke inside of it.  I’ve never seen such a thing.  I don’t know if people do that in the States at all.  They were all amazed when I told them that I never ate prawns when they weren’t shelled, never had nougat pudding, and never heard of bon-bons.  His grandfather, in the middle of a discussion I was having with one of Angus’ sisters, interrupted me and said that I had a great smile.  Everyone stopped and said that Grandpa loves good smiles.  I guess that made me feel more at ease with Angus’ family.  I never felt unease since his grandfather offered me a beer right when I got into their house.  I saw some pretty cool peacock’s in their front yard and on their roof, which reminded me of my grandparent’s house since they have peacock’s roaming around their yards and roofs as well.  Then I went to the beaches with Angus and his sisters.  The beaches in Australia beat the States by a ton.  The sand and water are beyond gorgeous.

Then we went to Angus’ Aunt and Uncle’s house for dinner.  They must have had about 30 people there.  I met a lot of great people and had a lot of good conversations.  They were all there with open arms and a lot to talk about.  They had so much to eat and his grandfather made a great speech before we ate.  It really made me think how thankful we really are for what we have.  He mentioned my name and embarrassed me saying that I should be thankful that the States and Australia have similar rights and freedom.  Everyone was amazing and the food was great as usual. 

One of Angus’ sisters found a huge bug outside and brought it inside.  Angus started to play with it and throw it on people.  This little bugger started to bite people and everyone was laughing.  Then he threw it on me, and I kept it cool until it started to go up my shirt towards my neck.  Then I freaked out and shook it off.  This old man started to laugh at me and said, “Oh, what?  Is the American afraid of a little old bug!?”  Then I engaged into a conversation with him.  He’s a funny guy.  They all are.  He told me how he loves to offend Americans, Germans, Britains, French- I then cut him off and said that the French don’t count because they are too easy to offend.  He laughed and agreed. 

We started to talk about traveling, and he told me his last trip to England.  He started to go on and say that he loves meeting real locals because it’s so easy to find out what to do from them and where to go because everyone has a pride thing.  He told me that after befriending everyone in this pub, he starts to tell everyone that there’s nothing to see here and that he’s seen enough.  Then the locals came to him and started to tell him where to go.  He motions with his hands that he got out his pen and pad and started to write things down.  Then he proceeds to tell me that I really don’t need a guide book to tell me where to go.  The locals will give you enough information. 

After the mingling and cleaning up, we went back to sleep off the booze and food.  On the way home one of Angus’ sister’s said that it was the best Christmas she had.  I replied to her saying that it was the best Aussie Christmas that I have ever had.  And then she said, “No, it was the best you’ve ever had!”

 I guess it was since I have only celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, and I spent every Christmas just at home watching marathons with my dad and eating Chinese food which I really did miss this year.  I feel like I haven’t done the “Twilight Zone”/”Three Stooges” marathon plus Chinese food in a long time.

The next morning, one of Angus’ sisters, dad, and I went to a lake nearby for water skiing and wakeboarding.  Angus is pretty good out there.  I have never been, and I gave it almost 2 dozen tries that day.  His dad told me before I went out that this stuff doesn’t happen overnight.  Damn straight it doesn’t!  I got up a few times towards the end but fell right down.  I think I kept my legs too straight to get up.  Anyway, I didn’t realize how tired my muscles were until I tried to climb back into the boat.  It was one of the hardest things to do.  Then Angus’ sister was up.  She took out a solo ski thing and tore it up.  Then we cruised around the lake for a while and went back home.  I had my first meat pie on the way back home.  It was so delicious.  I got the mushroom and steak one.  It’s basically like a chicken pot pie but with different types of meat that you can choose from.

There’s heaps more I want to talk about but am tired of writing.  Everything is going so great, and I feel grateful for what I have.  This trip really makes me feel like I’m doing something right and can’t complain one bit.  I’ve got a trip up to the Gold Coast coming up soon and then a festival that I’m hitting up as well on New Year’s Day called, Field Day.  Justice is headlining, and it should be pretty sick.

Tuesday December 21

So I have been sick pretty much the day after I landed.  I know my mom would say that it’s just allergies but yesterday, I felt like death.  Drinking may be a reason of why I’m not overcoming this illness yet, but I took Keenan’s advice to say, “Yes, man,” to almost everything.  I’ll tell you why I might not take that advice later.

So the other night Angus’ roommate invited some friends over- some Aussie’s and French people.  Someone decided that monopoly was a good idea after we had a few to drink.  But first, I went with one of Gus’ friends to pick up some bud.  We spent a while out and hit up a pub before we returned to play Monopoly.  At the pub, this “Military psychologist” a.k.a. a magician came over to do this trick.  He kept on saying that he was a military psychologist, but he was just some buff Irish dude.  Anyway, he wrote down something on a piece of paper, crumpled it up and gave it to my friend.  Then he asked him a question.  He proceeded to do this two more times.  What was supposed to happen was that the magician wrote down the answer on the crumpled piece of paper before he asked my friend the question.  It was crazy that he got all of them right, but we were kind of too stoned to realize what had just happened, so I told him to do me, and he said that I would be harder.  He asked me different questions, and I stumped him.  The moral of the story is that Irish people aren’t good at magic.

We returned back to Angus’ pad an hour later after getting the bud, a beer, and have a failing magician try his magic on us.  We tried to play Monopoly for about an hour and it kind of failed because we were too drunk and got off subject a lot.  By the way, the Aussie’s have wack rules.  They play with one die and if you roll a 6 you get to go again.  Also, all the names of the property were different.  I thought that was kind of neat though. 

After the game, everyone went to sleep and one of the guys wanted to go out for another drink at a pub.  This guy was pretty funny.  I think he was half French and half Australian.  He had a goofy accent, but I guess I think everyone has a goofy accent outside of the States.  We went to this pub and ended up talking to this older lady.  Dougie, is what I called the French/Australian guy, was making funny gestures behind her back and I don’t even know what we were really talking about.  It sounded like she used to be a groupie or something.  She was a bit on the heavy side, and that was what Dougie was gesturing behind her back at times.  So she gave me her business card and said I could stay with her anytime I am near her.  She lives in Coogee, which is near Bondi beach.  I don’t know if I’ll ever take that up because I’m so close to the beach and she was kind of haggard; fun and interesting!  But I don’t know.  She said she has single friends for me, but I think they probably used to be ex-groupies like herself.

I told one of these American guys who is renting out a room for a month at Angus’ house that I would go to the beach with him the next day.  That was the day I felt like complete death.  We went to Coogee Beach for 2 or 3 hours.  It started to rain again and wasn’t going away this time, so we ended up going back to the pad. 

This guy is why I’m against Yes, Man.  Whenever we would walk somewhere, he would be all commando and walk fast to get to a place.  I would point out some stuff to him and he would reply, “Oh, I never noticed that and I’ve been here for a week in a half already.”

I wanted to say, “Well, dumb-dumb, if you weren’t in such a hurry then you would recognize shit.”  I’ve been coughing all day.  My nose had been congested as well.  I was blowing snot out every chance I found a napkin, so I kind of wanted to do things by myself all day after the beach.

When we got back, a couple of the roomies and I were just chillin’ out front on this couch they have set up on their porch.  When the roomies left, I was still stuck with the American-Commando guy.  We asked each other what we were going to do all day, and I told him that I just wanted to relax all day because I didn’t feel well.  Then he wouldn’t leave!  And he has a lot of friends out here, so I didn’t get it.  I think they were all busy that day.  Finally, I told him that I was going to go to this museum, and it so happened that he wanted to go to that as well.  And then there he goes, walking fast and complaining that he hates people who just stand in the middle of the sidewalk.  He continues to say that they are stupid and wish they would learn the right way.

What is the right way, anyway?  That really pissed me off, but I took the easy route and said, “Well, we just have to learn how to cope with em, huh?”  Then he sighed and said, “I guess so.” 

When we got to the museum, we pretty much split up until the end to meet up.  I liked being alone in a quiet area, especially when I felt like crap.  They had this cool exhibit on a photographer whose name was Annie Leibovitz.  I really enjoyed her work.

After that, I went back and just crashed out all day because my coughing wouldn’t stopped.  I took a Benadryl or two and passed the eff out watching Seinfeld on my computer- Thanks, Ashley!

Now, I feel like I’m writing too much.  So to sum up what I did today; I went to Bondi Beach and it was beautiful.  I did this walk from Bondi to Coogee.  It was about a 4 mile walk.  There was a cool cemetery there, and I spent a while there roaming around.  Mom, you would have loved it.  I have a lot of pictures of them.  I want to show them all to you, but the only way I know is on Facebook or Photobucket.  I’ll e-mail you my password to see those photo’s on photobucket or find a way to e-mail pictures.

I feel a lot better today, and I only have a cough left and the snot is mostly gone.  I still sound shitty though.  Saw some boobies on the beach- that was neat.  I forgot all about that until I was walking on the beach and saw this girl take off her top.  Angus called me earlier tonight, and I told him how cool I thought that was.  He’s been gone pretty much all this time but gets the next 3 weeks off starting tomorrow or the next day.  He told me that I could borrow his car for the rest of my vacation when he gets back, which is only until mid January because I want to start to look for a job soon.  I told him that that was too much but he insisted, so we’ll see what happens.  I’ll probably reject his offer because that’s too much liability on my behalf.  We’ll see though, maybe when I get to his hometown I’ll test drive his whip to see if I can handle being on the left side.

I’m loving it here even though I am ill.  Everyone is nice that I have met so far.  I can’t wait to see what happens next!

Peace.

First two days in Aussie

Today, I woke up to a dream of me sleeping on Angus’ couch, which I really was anyway, and the dream was my mom waking me up saying, “Rise and Shine.  It’s time to get up.”  At that moment, I woke up and looked at the clock in the living room and it said 13:01.  I started to freak out that I wasted the whole day sleeping.  Then I looked at my watch and found out that it was only 9:00 AM.  I’m still thankful that my mom wakes me up for important reasons.

Before I even get started on my adventure that I had today, I have to tell you something else; when I got off the train to go to Angus’ house, I bought a water and leaned my bags against a wall outside the train station and stood there taking in the scenery of the town where I am potentially going to live.  Out of nowhere, someone sprayed water on me with their water bottle and ran.  A guy around my age who looked like a tour guide told me that he went around the corner if I want to go after him.  I said to him, “Fuck it.  I haven’t even been in this country for an hour.  I don’t want to go to jail yet.”  Then I proceeded to ask him how to get to the place I’m staying at, and he pointed the way on the map and off I went.

I kept it easy that night with only a few beers and a sausage roll that Angus was telling me so much about when he was in the States.  It was pretty good.  It kind of tastes like a tamale.

Today, I walked to the Harbor Bridge and Opera House and it was beautiful.  It was only a 30 minute walk, so it wasn’t that bad.  Angus’ friends gave me directions from the map I have in the Lonely Planet traveler’s book.  When I got to the Harbor Bridge bay area, I took a gander and saw some Aboriginals playing with those weird instruments.  I’ve seen enough of them on the Discovery channel, but it was still cool to see them up close. 

Walking across the Sydney Harbor Bridge, I had a gorgeous view of the Sydney Opera House.  It took me about 10-15 minutes to walk across that.  On the other side, there wasn’t too much except little shops.  The best way I could describe what it looks like is any swap meet you go to.  I ran into a food section with little stands and grabbed some somosa’s.   I got one with lamb and another one with just vegetables in it.  The vegetable one was really good.  Dad, you would have loved it because it was pretty spicy.  And Timarie, Joe, and whoever I talked to about the Mexican food stand I wanted to open; I have bad news for ya-  It’s already been done L.  That ish was like two stands away from the Indian food.  But no worries, I still think my (our) idea will still work.

Then I walked back over the bridge and went to the Sydney Opera House.  It kind of gave me the chills because I have heard so much about it and now I am standing right in front of it.  I admired the water and everything that was around it.  The inside of it seemed very formal with a tiny little bar and a lot of people were drinking champagne.  I don’t know why tourists feel like they have to drink champagne once they get inside.  I just drank out of their water fountain and used their bathroom which was incredibly clean and well fashioned.

After I stared out into the water and beyond on top of the Sydney Opera House for about twenty minutes, I headed down to hit up the Botanical Gardens.  I only spent a short amount of time there because it started to rain, so I started to walk very fast back to Angus’ pad.  About a third of the way to Angus’ house, the rain had stopped- only the radiant of the sun appeared upon my face.  Figures, huh? 

Well, so far so good.  And can’t wait to get up North to travel.  And Beaches probably tomorrow!

This will probably be a little outdated because I haven’t sorted out where to go for internet.  Everyone charges, so I might just have to suck it up and pay or wait until I can find a free wifi place.