Sydney, Hong Kong and the trip in retrospective

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For the second time modern technology with all its advancements and internet gadgets has destroyed a great piece of creative writing; one of my Blog entries. However, seeing as this will inevitably be my last one for this journey, I shall try to retrieve it in full glory in order to finish strong.
The initial writing of this last Blog was incredibly hard for me, because in a way it put(s) a line under my travels, and with that also under complete freedom of responsibility and commitments, as well as my ending Gap Year. On the other hand this is also the starting point for a new chapter in my life. Of course lazing around and not having to do very much at all is extremely relaxing and good for becoming aware of what it is you really want to do in your life, but once you’ve found the way you wish to follow, you get restless and just want to put your boots on and go.

But now to Sydney:
Sydney is essentially just another big city that doesn’t differentiate from most cities with Skyscrapers, a harbour front and bright neon signs all over the place all too much. However! Coming from New Zealand (4.3 Million people at 268.680 km² land) to Sydney (4.2 Million people at 1664 km² land), after having encountered only traces of real civilisation for the majority of the stay, faces the laid back traveller (such as myself) with unexpected challenges such as crowds, queues and traffic lights that really do require you to stop for your own safety. Needless to say I fell into a state of shock. After rocking back and forth on my bed for a while I realised that I’d have to master myself in order to gather food resources from the closest supermarket. 2 nearly fatal road crossings and great confusion about the 3 storey system used in this particular store, accompanied by constant collisions in the bustling crowd, later I was back safely in my room. Due to pre-booking I was back in a BASE-bunker but had however, once again, managed to rip them off (big chains exploiting their customers can handle it) due to an accounting error on their part which resulted in them not noting down the size of my dorm upon booking. When asked which size I believed I booked I innocently said: ”No smaller than 4 and no bigger than 5 I’d assume”, having previously glanced at the price list and discovering the smallest was in deed 4, priced horrendously high. This notion gave me some solace about staying in a room with uncovered dusty vent pipes, a black ceiling and walls distinctly similar to those you may find in a prison.
After having made dinner in an extremely underequipped kitchen I returned to my cell in hope to delight myself by playing some tunes. Upon return I found one of my dorm-mates sitting on his bed, writing in his journal. When asking him whether he’s mind my playing he responded that he was I fact a musician himself and had been wondering whose guitar that might be, standing around in the corner, and whether he may play it, seeing as he had left his at home. He was, as an approximated 50% of all travellers in Oceania are, German and after a good 2 hours of taking turns at playing, singing and making noises we saw appropriate we were fairly fraternized. So, in order for me to get over my initial shock of being reintroduced to civilisation, with bright neon signs yelling “Commerce!” and all, and him wishing to celebrate his last night in Australia we went to the pub next door. As fate would have it, there happened to be a karaoke night and so we decided to settle in for a casual drink or two. I believe it does not need mentioning that two casual drinks turned into something more like eight or nine casual drinks, resulting in our decision to put an end to all the half hearted performances upon stage and give the people some real entertainment. So my new friend and me got up on stage performing “Paint it Black” and “Alabama song” Respectively, throwing in “All along the watchtower” performed as a duet for good measure. This resulted in violent applause and free drinks from the bar to round off a wonderful evening of discussing the unfairness of the music industry and the rest of it (he was a signed musician by the way).
That delightful evening fairly rid me off all anxiety and so I was free to do my “Lucas explores a city” thing, consisting of walking to a certain point and snaking back to my starting origin by foot over the course of the day. I have found that this technique allows one to find cool local spots you might miss otherwise, as well as giving you a better orientation within the city as a whole. Seeing as Sydney is big city this took me something like 2 days.
I’d say that Sydney and New Zealand are probably the two countries best adapted to tourism in the world. Despite having no information about the city whatsoever I managed to get myself a map and listing of all the major attractions within the city, allowing me to productively tour the city during and after my initial exploits.
One thing that I feel needs special mentioning, should you ever happen to be in Sydney and are interested in Technology even the slightest, is the “Power House”. It’s a museum about current and historic technological advancements made by Australians. For example, did you know that the Tripod is an Australian invention? I didn’t think so. However there was one thing that really stunned me. Within the museum there was an entire section devoted to resources and how we consume them. One of the exhibits was a Counter, counting the world population. Hypnotised by the counter I couldn’t help but sit down and write down my thoughts on it. So here a quote from my notepad:

“Every second our population increases by three people (as indicated on counter above)” says the plaque in the Power House in Sydney. And sure enough the counter is counting away. Always counting, never stopping, 1,2,3,1,2,3…. I can’t help but stare at it. Every one of those numbers is a child being born somewhere into the world and that’s even neglecting those who replace the dyeing. I remember I seeing the Live 8 (Aid?) concerts that included a clip with celebrities snapping their fingers once every 3 seconds. Each snap stood for someone in a 3rd world country dyeing of starvation. As shocking as I felt that clip was, it’s nothing compared to this counter. Aren’t we already struggling to use our resources responsibly? If poverty was fought successfully and all those deaths eradicated, what would there be to stop the continuous expansion of people? Whilst my sitting here the count has increased by over 2000… Disregarding any of that, it has made me realise that we need to get our s**t together and stop this excessive consumerism culture we’ve established in our society and learn to be more responsible with our resources.”

Apart from that, the fact that the opera house is much smaller than it seems on pictures and my trip to the Blue Mountains may be worth mentioning.
My trip consisted of a bus journey to the mountains, interrupted only briefly by a photo session with some random kangaroos, and a walk around the mountains. I am sure that this is absolutely beautiful… if only you aren’t walking amongst the clouds and can see bugger all of anything around you, not to speak of the apparently stunning scenery (which we did get to see briefly at the very end of our trip when the clouds had cleared).

Private Journal; Hong Kong:

“Concrete and Smock, the leftovers of one of civilisation’s drunk excesses. Swallows all it can get its hands on just to puke it out in a senseless slurp of absurdity after.”

So much for my first impression of Hong Kong (HK) upon my arrival. When taking a look around, you are unable to find a single piece of land that has not been defaced with electricity masts, piers stacked with cranes, or skyscrapers huddled together in groups of ten to a hundred.
If you compared HK to a type of girl I would have to call her a “Stealth-moose”; beautiful in the glow of the nights bright neon lights and disco colours but beware of the next day.

Now this may all sound extremely negative, but I assure you it’s not intended to be. Most people who have been to there (including locals) would probably agree with me. We have as a matter of fact made it a hideous place. But then you don’t go to Hong Kong to go hiking or else now do you? I went there in order to see my friends and just by chance managed to get my hands on some cheap electronics.
Nikko’s parents were absolutely wonderful and once again invited me to stay in their house. Now I’m afraid that I have no exciting stories about Hong Kong for you and the only thing I can really tell you is that I got stuffed with incredibly tasty Chinese food by my hosts and was attended to in the highest fashion. However, when trying to show my appreciation for all of it by offering to buy Nikko and his dad a drink I was surprised to find out something about Chinese middle class culture. The notion of going out together to a bar or something similar is not very common, rare even, and generally not comprehended because it is for one much cheaper and apparently more comfortable to drink at home. Coming from Europe, where drinking outside of your own house is an essential part of social interaction between friends, I at first didn’t really know how to deal with it. After some thinking about why this bothered me so much I realised what it was. When staying at someone else’s house you are always a guest and always enjoying your hosts hospitality. The only ways to repay this hospitality is to either host your hosts at your house eventually (which in this case was fairly unlikely) or invite them to dinner or a drink. However, after eventually having done both I felt much more relaxed about it and could enjoy being pampered by someone for the first time after 7 weeks.


If someone was to ask me: “Now Lucas, what is it that you’ve learnt on this trip?” , I’m afraid I’d probably have to tell them that it isn’t all too much that would be of interest to anyone other than me. I have learnt a lot about myself and have gotten an independent opinion on a couple of things. Also I have learnt to let go and that you sometimes just have to start doing and stop worrying because most the time things work out pretty nicely anyway and you tend to make great experiences along the way.

The Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu wrote:
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”.

Having gone away from home and anything I knew into a consistently changing environment has allowed me to see myself the way I am because there was no role for me to fill into other than be myself. After years of uncertainty and self doubt about who I was and what I stood for it is nice to be acquainted with myself.
This was a journey I will be able to withdraw to within my mind in the future when I seek peace and serenity and I am extremely grateful that everyone involved allowed me to do it.
Thank you all very much for your support and thank you also for patiently keeping up on me over this Blog. I hope I managed to entertain

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Photos

What i saw of the blue mountains on my walk
Clouds...

Height restrictions on the subway
Luckily I wasn't wearing heels that day