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Published: September 24th 2007
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Koala
Koala with Baby sleeping Laides and gentlemen, the beaver has landed! Day 1 was yesterday, and I'm sorry to those who know me that I didn't update this yesterday, but jet lag is a pain. We got in off our 14 hour flight at about 6:30 in the morning here on Sunday, September 23, which to Charlotte and I was 2:30 in the afternoon Saturday. We did what we could to stay up really late, but we ended up passing out early and not getting to our blogs.
Anyway, we got in and made our way through customs/quarantine. I must say, the Australian customs officials... WAY nicer than the US ones. We called our hostel right away and they came and picked us up, which is good, because god knows we wouldn't have made it on our own. We couldn't check into the hostel till 1, so we decided to set our packs down and go exploring a bit. Made our way over to beautiful Darling Harbour and Cockle Bay. I could live here easily. The view was breathtaking and the smell was awesome. I've never actually been to the ocean before, but I now know why so many people fall in love with
it. We were there early, so no one was actually open except for a little cafe where we sat and had breakfast at. Made our way over to the Sydney Wilderness World and got ourselves some tickets. Our adventure pass cost us about 60 AUD each, but we also have tickets to the Sydney tower and to the Aquarium (more to come on those).
Wilderness World was much more than I expected. Pretty much all of Australia's indiginous life is under one roof. You start in the invertabrae area and see the cool bugs, then to the reptile house, and on to see kangaroo's and koala bears. There's even an area where you can get your photo taken with a koala bear (20 AUD). We didn't get that done; budget wouldn't let us. The place is very informative and we now know what snakes to avoid. For those of you who don't know, Australia has 5 of the 10 most venomous snakes in the world (not 7 or 8 like some were trying to tell me). In the butterfly room, Charlotte was apparently a flower. There were a few butterflies that wouldn't stop landing on her. Got a few
good photo's of that.
We made our way back to the hostel to check in and then left again. There were 3 different festivals going on in Darling Harbour, and we passed through each one. Chinese Fest, Brazil Fest, and China fest had some amazing sights and smells, with the Brazil festival having some of the best sounds. Reggae and rock was playing on the main stage while children ran around playing soccer. We saw a little shop that sold Aboriginal artwork such has boomerangs and didgeridoo's. We went inside and saw the high price for original aboriginal art. We sat in on a half hour presentation from an aboriginal man who played didgeridoo through contemporary music and gave us information on the background and his culture. I've hated didgeridoo because of the guy at the market who used to play it, but this moved me. There is so many sounds that have deeper meaning and aborigial words that are incorperated into the sound. I may actually pick one up one day and give it a try.
We walked around a bit more and had a cheap supper (drinks are pricey), and headed back to the hostel. Downtown
Cockle Bay
Cockle Bay Sydney is my kind of town at night. Shops are still open late, and the party is just beginning. Tons of people lined the streets and you could feel the electric buzz in the air. I can't wait to get a good feel for it when I can stay up late at night :p
Got back to the hostel, had showers and went to bed. Couldn't even finish writing in my journal. What a day. I still honestly can't believe that I'm here. I half expected to wake up this morning, back in Canada, and getting ready to head out to the Cherry Pit to work. So glad I'm still here. I also can't get over seeing tropical trees like palms here. The only time I ever saw those back at home was at the Calgary Zoo. It's all metric down here as well. No price per pound for veg and fruits like I'm used to.
Anyway, it's going to be 23 degrees celcius today, and Charlotte and I are going to explore some more. I've also started a photobucket for ALL my photo's at
http://s240.photobucket.com/albums/ff253/dj_fpb/Sept%!/(MISSING). I'll keep ya updated!
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stephen
non-member comment
chinese fest AND china fest?? sweet! lol glad you kids somehow managed to arrive safely and without getting lost. hope you continue to keep this updated, sounds like youre off to a good start =)