Crikey!

Ahh, Australia, the land down under. Here are some fun facts: The toilets flush clockwise, just like the US. Nobody, and I mean nobody, drinks Foster's beer. And I haven't seen a single person throw a shrimp on a barbie. Or wrestle with a crocodile. Or get eaten by a shark.

Needless to say, I was quite disillusioned. I'm starting to think you can't believe everything you see on TV. We did, however, see the 2nd most poisonous spider in the world. I double-dared Alan to touch it but he wouldn't. We've seen lots of people playing didgerdoos. Got to see some kangaroos and koalas. We've seen tons of surfers and even more people who just dress like surfers. Eastern Australia is basically about beaches, surfers, parties, and trucker hats. It seems like when most backpackers get to Oz, they go straight to the Billabong store and buy a whole new wardrobe. It's weird. How do these girls fit Ugg boots in their backpacks anyway? But everyone is here to have fun. It's pretty much unavoidable.

We flew to Melbourne from New Zealand and I spent a week there with Alan while Bryan went off to meet up with some of his friends from home that were visiting. Melbourne is a nice city, almost too nice. As hard as we tried, we couldn't find the seedy areas with all the dive bars. That's when we started to notice how everyone is very fashion conscious here. I was expecting to hear someone challenged to a walk-off at any minute. We had a great time though. Met some other travellers, met some locals, went out, saw museums, good times. I also tried to find a job which just wasn't happening because I have no work visa. So I decided I needed to leave Australia a little earlier than planned. I gave myself a month to see what I could.

From Melbourne, Alan went to meet Bryan at Fraser Island and do some death-defying 4 wheel driving. I decided to skip it and go to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. So I spent a few days up there and finally got some warm weather. The reef was amazing. Not as colorful as Fiji but I was surrounded by a lot more fish, some were massive. I also totally randomly ran into my friend Sam who I met in Christchurch, so that was really cool. And my hostel was awesome, very social and cool people even though some of them were disasters. Nightlife in Cairns is more or less like spring break. It's kind of a tropical vacation vibe.

I flew to Brisbane after Cairns and met up with Alan again. We spent a day there, and the next day went down to Byron Bay for a couple nights. Brisbane is just another city, classic Aussie style, beautiful gardens and palm trees and of course, lots of surf shops. Byron Bay is a surfing mecca and the beach is amazing. We stayed at a great hostel called the Arts Factory which was really chilled out, had a pool and hot tub so that was sweet. After that we went down to Nimbin and camped for a couple days. Basically, Nimbin = hippies.

After heading back to Brisbane for another night, I ended up in Sydney about a week ago. It's big. You could never really see all of it, there is a lot to do here. And stuff is open late. Not just one bar and one convenience store, but lots of things. And there are beaches. Being here in Australia during winter definitely has made a difference though. Not that it's really that cold, but I can tell that it must be very different when summer is in full swing here.

So I've been on the move for awhile and it feels good to be back in travel mode. After spending almost 4 months in New Zealand, I'm happy to be covering some ground and tomorrow I head off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Alan is meeting me there the day after and Bryan will catch up with us probably within the next couple weeks. I really have no idea what to expect, I've never been to Asia before and I'm sure all kinds of weird shit will happen as soon as I set foot off the plane.

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