Manly Beach

Per Brianne's recommendation, I made a day trip out to Manly - a half hour ferry ride from Sydney.  It's a really quaint little spot with lots of oceanside restaurants and cafes and very clear casual, beachy vibe.  Inevitable given that it's surrounded by water.  Not much to do in Manly besides enjoy the beaches, so that's exactly what I did.

Behind me is Shelley Beach where I spent most of my afternoon.

I also checked out Oceanworld in Manly (part of a 4 attraction pass that I bought).  This was by far my favourite creature there:

Cuttlefish!  Sort of like a squid, but not.  Such a strange little creature...

It was a very fishy day as I went to the Sydney Aquarium as well that night when I got back from Manly.  I can't remember exactly what this is called, but it's something like a leafy seahorse - very apt I'd say.

Hello Sydney!

Sydney made a good first impression on me mostly because the weather was much warmer than in Melbourne (if still not very sunny).  My first day was pretty low-key since I was completely exhausted from not getting enough sleep on the overnight bus.  A lot of reading, napping and just getting settled (laundry and groceries) happened as well as the requisite wander the streets and figure out where the heck I am and spotting the iconic figures of Sydney - Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.

While I've gotten pretty good at remembering which way the traffic goes, at intersections without a light these signs can come in quite handy at times.  Haven't been hit by a car yet!

I'm staying a hostel called Base which is alright.  It's clean and the location is great, but it's huge and lacks a good common area so it's hard to meet anyone outside of your roommates.  Mine are, again, alright, but I haven't really made any friends out of them so I've been flying solo for the past few days.

My second day in Sydney a bit more interesting.  I went to Wildlife World and saw some crazy creatures, including:

The most venomous snake in the world - the inland taipan.  Not so scary when caged.

The cassowary bird.

 I walked through the city, Hyde Park, the botanic gardens and out to Mrs. Macquarie's Point for a great view of the city.  While the city has been great about putting up signs about the foliage and maps around the park and everything under the sun, I didn't come across anything about Mrs. Macquarie so all I know about her (from Wikipedia) is that she was a former Governor's wife.  At any rate, she found a great view of the city:

Something else that I happened to stumble upon was a neat project being put on by the city at the moment.  Several local textile designers have been allowed to clothe statues around the city, like so:

Kinda fun, right?

That's it for this post!  TTFN

Goodbye Melbourne - I love you!

I recently realized that all I've posted is what I've gotten up to and very little about the city of Melbourne itself.  I quite liked it - it actually reminded me a bit of Vancouver.  The city seems to be relatively relaxed and casual particularly St. Kilda, which is where I stayed, and you can get any type of food your tummy craves (though this seems to be common throughout Australia).  A few things I really liked about Melbourne:

• Excellent public transit - it was incredibly easy to get around.
• The way they've embraced street art.  You see very little actual graffiti in the city because they've provided sanctioned areas for this and some stunning artwork comes out of it.
• How historic and modern architecture are both fully embraced and juxtaposed with each other, like so:

Oh, I also love how I hear old music (90s and early 00s) all the time.  This doesn't seem to be specific to Melbourne.  It's a total throwback and a nice break from the constant repetition of top 40 music back home.

Great Ocean Road and Grampians Tour

Hi again!  Thursday and Friday this week were spent on a 2-day bus tour of the Great Ocean Road and Grampians National Park.

Day 1 was primarily the Great Ocean Road.  I was picked up from the hostel at 7:30am - not my best time of day.  And the night before was the one and only night that some of the girls in my room decided to be really obnoxious coming home from the bar and woke us all up.  Luckily, we had time for a quick nap on the bus before we got to anything interesting.

The views were stunning the whole way.  The winds were strong (at times I couldn't hold my camera straight) and icy cold.  Still a great day though.

And we saw wild koalas!  This felt like my first really Australian experience!

Day 2 was another early start after another poor sleep, but the icy cold gusts woke me up quickly once we got up the "mountain".  The Grampians are a mountain range, but they don't quite compare to the mountains back home.  There were still some beatiful views to be had though.

Kangaroos outside our hostel in the morning!

After the Grampians we checked out the Agoriginal Cultural Centre and went on a quick wine tour on the way back to Melbourne.  Oh, and somewhere in there I learned how to throw a boomerang!  It's actually surprisingly easy.

All-in-all, a fantastic tour.  Now, time to go check out Sydney!

More Melbourne

I'm ba-aaaaack!  Okay, so I didn't so well with the posting more regularly plan.  Good thing I've been making notes in a little book so I can actually remember what I've been up to!

The past week has been fantastic.  Here is a rather dull summary in point form:

Monday

• The ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image).  It has a free permanent exhibit about the history of television, video games, mobile devices, etc.
• More picture taking around the city
• Free wine and cheese night at the hostel

One of my roommates - Jenni - and I enjoying wine and cheese night

Tuesday

• Took the day off from being a tourist and just enjoyed the area I was staying in (St. Kilda).  Went for lunch, checked out the shops and had a treat at one of the many cake shops.
• Went back to see the penguins and this time saw loads of them - so cute!  No great pictures though as you can't use flash photography.  Hoping that I can lighten some of them when I have time to edit my photos.
• Open Mic night at the hostel followed by going out to a dive bar with a huge crowd of backpackers

Penguin!

Wednesday

• Day of rest required after said dive bar outing

Thursday and Friday

• Great Ocean Road and Grampians tour - will post separately about this.
• Went to another footy game Friday night as well.  Much better match than the last time although one team still got hugely crushed.  ~90,000 people at the arena that night which made for a great atmosphere.  Those Melbournians get really into their AFL!

Saturday

• Got myself packed up and checked out of the hostel
• Went to the Immigration Museum which was very interesting
• Overnight bus (8pm-8am) up to Sydney

My Melbourne crew - Harrison, David and Ryan.  Coming into this trip, I didn't expect to get to know anyone well enough in a week to really care about saying goodbye, but it was a bit sad to part ways with this lot.  Enjoy your adventures boys!

Next up...Great Ocean Road and Grampians post!

First Days of Melbourne

My first days in Melbourne have been a bit of a rollercoaster in more ways than one.  The weather can change drastically at a moment's notice.  And I've definitely been up and down figuring out whether I made the right choice doing this trip alone.  I'm figuring things out as I go though and feeling much more comfortable now that I have some friends.  Yay!

I'm staying at a hostel in a suburb of Melbourne (St. Kilda - described to me as the Kitsilano of Melbourne).  It's clean and fun and cheap, all very important qualities.

So, what have I been up to?  Being assaulted by my shoes for one thing.  It's been on the cold side since I've been here and I've been quite happy that I bought a pair of $9 cords while I was in Arizona.  I've also been quite keen on keeping my feet warm, which means shoes and socks.  Unfortunately, the shoes I brought with me I purchased just before the trip and still need breaking in.  This is the result:

 

Problem: Shoes full of blood.

Solution: Taping up my feet whenever I want to wear shoes.  Not so awesome.

In terms of actual activities, I've spent a lot of time walking around the streets of Melbourne.  I got into the city quite early on Thursday (5:15am and checked into my hostel by 7:30).  The day was spent checking out St. Kilda and napping and then checking out more of St. Kilda and then going to bed at 9.

On Friday the hostel put on a free tour of downtown which was quite good for getting my bearings and meeting a few people outside of my roommates.  A few shots of downtown Melbourne:

Centre Way is a small alley filled with little boutique shops and yummy restaurants.

Melbourne prides itself on its street art.  What would be considered graffiti back home is, in some cases, actually protected by the city.  There are loads of little alleys devoted to street art where the artwork changes on regular basis.

That night I went to a footy game (a brilliant sport - much more entertaining than American football) with my new found friends (Harrison - I think the only other Canadian in the hostel, Ryan - Irish, David - Irish, Frankie - completely crazy German) and then out to a bar that our tour guide had pointed out to us.  It was quite the challenge trying to find it as many of the bars in Melbourne are hidden down winding back alleys.  Despite asking four different people for directions - all of whom claimed to know where the bar was - we still ended up walking in a few circles.  Needless to say, we were quite pleased with ourselves when we finally found it.

Our view of the footy game - we were in nosebleeds in case you couldn't tell.

Our route into Croft Institute:

Alley entrance; turn left.

Walk to end of alley.

Turn right.

Walk to end of alley.

On Saturday David, Ryan and I headed into town to check out the art gallery and some other highlights of the city.  The gallery was good, but nothing special.  And I unfortunately managed to lose my crew while I was busy taking photos (they popped into the art centre quickly and I didn't notice), but wound up having a pretty good day wandering the city, taking loads more photos and eating dinner at a place recommended to me by Joe from his recent visit (I found it and it was delicious!).  That night was spent reading, dozing and sleeping.  Apparently I hadn't recovered from my jet lag as much as I had thought - I seem to be in good shape now though.  Finally!

Today (Sunday), I went back downtown to check out the Sunday arts and crafts market, the botanical gardens (HUGE - spent an hour and only got about 1/3 of the way through) and Queen Victoria Market (also huge - took an hour to do about half).  For those who know the Richmond Night Market, the Queen Victoria Market is much like that, but covered and has more Aussie themed knock-off/stolen crap in place of the Asian themed knock-off/stolen crap.  Oh, and I went down to the St. Kilda pier to try to spot some penguins.  Only saw two hidden away in the rocks - will likely try again tomorrow.  Obviously, I took a zillion more photos today.  Here's a few:

Birds of Paradise

I couldn't actually see any of these, but they must be some bloody huge cones.

View from St. Kilda beach at dusk.

Entrance to Luna Amusement Park.

Sorry this was so long!  I'll try to update more frequently so you don't have trek through any more novellas.  I hope this finds everyone well - email me updates please!

xoxo
Shan

Shannon Does AZ

The slightly delayed Arizona post...

So I'm trapped here at LAX for HOURS before I actually leave for Melbourne and thought it would be a good time for an Arizona update.  For those that don't know, I stopped in AZ to visit a good friend of mine from first year at UBC - Joe.   It was a fantastic four days - thanks Jo Joe!  (And thanks to Kyle for letting me borrow your boyfriend for the weekend. :))  Highlights:

• Driving down to Tucson for Saturday night/Sunday morning with a bunch of Joe's friends for no reason more than a fun night out.
• Stopping at the OSTRICH FARM on the way back from Tucson to feed the deer, goats, ostriches, donekys and...loorakeets??  None of us remember quite what they were called.
• Driving to Sedona to check out Red Rock.
• Chillin' in the pool.

Evidence of said ostrich feeding:

It didn't exactly hurt, but it definitely felt weird!

Hello deer!

Mike, Me, Russ and Joe with our Loorakeets

Wall o' goats

Jo Joe feeding his donkey friend

At Red Rock in Sedona

Delicious slurpee - size small.  I only filled it up halfway and still only drank half.  Welcome to America!

Arrived Safely

I am writing this from Australia!  I finally got here!  Since I have yet to actually do anything here, this will be quick.  Just wanted to let you know that I made it here safely.  The flight was pretty uneventful.  Did my best to sleep a bit - though didn't get much in.  Watched a few movies: Sex and the City 2 (terrible - glad I left it for the plane), It's Complicated (good girly movie), Letters from Juliet (good girly movie until they ruined it with a grossly cheesy ending) and The Princess and the Frog (no idea, slept through most of it).  Despite being told that the Australian customs people are all major hardasses they didn't give me any trouble.  Other than that, nothing to report.

Oh, I know I've mentioned to a few people that I would be posting about my time in Arizona.  That's still coming - I hoping to be able to upload a couple more photos first and haven't found a place to do it.

Over and out for now!

Commenting

Whoops!  It was pointed out to me that commenting wasn't open to everyone - fixed!  You should be able to comment without any sort of account now.

The Trip Begins!

So I'm a day into my trip and, so far, no major disasters.  I did run into one minor hiccup yesterday though - my cell phone decided to kick the bucket.  If you've tried calling or texting me in the past 28ish hours, I didn't (and never will) get it.

Other than that, things have been great so far.  The bus ride down to Seattle was uneventful and despite the lack of phone I managed to track down Brianne and company for lunch in the afternoon, and Terrah and Kevin for room and board later on.  (Thanks so much everyone for taking care of me during my visit!  It was fantastic to see you all!)

Things to come...over 40 degree (Celcius) weather in Phoenix and potential lows of 3 degrees in Melbourne.  I imagine I'll be wearing both my sweater and sweatshirt together at times - not exactly the ensemble I envisioned for Australia, but I should only have to endure that for a week or so.  Or prepare myself to do a little disposable shopping.

And just to add a little colour, a couple of photos from my trip preperation:

My wardrobe

A more seasoned traveler would probably say I overpacked, but this is already the edited version and look where it left me: with only one pair of very thin pants for 3 degree weather.  Let the adventure begin!

Little Jerry all tucked away to hibernate for a few months (Don't be scared buddy!)

And remember folks, the lesson learned from this post today is that I HAVE NO CELL PHONE!  So please don't try to call me. :)  Ciao!

All My Bags Are Packed...

Okay, well, they're not really.  They were when I left Summerland and since being at Kevin's (in Vancouver) they have exploded all over the place.  Luckily, I have my own room so he doesn't have to look at it.

Anyway, welcome to my blog!  This is how I'm hoping to keep everyone updated on my travels while I'm gone since I'm terrible at keeping in touch.  Seriously.  If you don't get a single personal email from me for the next four months, it isn't because I don't love you (well, it could be if you are a stranger reading this), it's because I'm just that bad at keeping in touch.

I guess that's it for now as my internet minutes are quickly running out, but hopefully I'll have a more interesting post soon when I can mooch a computer from a friend.

xo
Shan