“Flight attendants please prepare for landing” was the sweetest phrase in the English language at 9:30 in the morning Tuesday when we finally landed in Sydney. Jet lagged and wondering how Monday was for the rest of the world I stepped in to Sydney’s international terminal and zombie shuffled my way through immigration, which was a breeze with the exception of the woman giving me a hard time for not declaring my snack food because it had peanuts in it. The peanuts were perfectly fine to have and they did not take them from me, I guess they just wanted to know I had them? I am currently staying in a Hostel in the Downtown section of Sydney, and stay in the hostel is all I did Tuesday, except to wander around the block and find some food. The weather the first two days was crappy but didn’t stop me from getting out and exploring the city a bit. Thursday I awoke to blue skies and went out picture taking and found the harbor area and the beautiful Botany Bay. I also found my way to the stunning and shining Sydney Opera House of which I and the constant throng of tourist photographed from ever possible angle.
For a city in a foreign land Sydney has a very familiar feel to it. While walking around the city I kept coming across features that made me think “wow this looks like…”. I could easily compare parts of Sydney to New York City, Seattle, Boston, Singapore, Chicago, Portland, Bangkok and the list could on as I keep exploring. However although Sydney does resemble these other cities it has an identity all it’s own. The people hustle around and around but everything opens kind of lazily late around 8-9am, If NYC is the City that never sleeps then Sydney seems to be the city that sleeps in. In the botanical gardens which line a part of the harbor loads of people can be seen running at all times of the day, I saw more people running through the park than I have seen running in Central Park. It’s also a very easy city to get around in, tons of train stops, bus stops and ferries to take you wherever you want to go, awesomely convenient!
There are some things about Sydney and Australia in general that I knew about before coming over that still I find funny and some I find dumbfounding. There are a T-O-N of Asian people running around here, this I knew before hand but didn’t expect to see this many. I find it hilarious when I hear an Asian Australian speak with an Australian accent (mate) probably always will. Not that all Asian people should sound American or just simply Asian. Things over here are really and truly expensive and some ridiculously so, A bottle of Gator-aid is $4.50, Mc-esk cheeseburger 2.50. Burger Kings are call Hungry Jacks, I find that odd. However the burger was good. It’s winter over here and they dress it, problem is during the day it is a very pleasant 65-70 degrees. I understand that the summers pretty much stay in the 100’s so I understand where they are coming from but still think it’s funny. Also instead of saying thanks they say Cheers.
Tomorrow (Saturday) I leave on a 3 day train journey across the continent from Sydney to Perth, this has the potential to be the coolest thing I have ever done or the worst decision I have ever made. Tune in in about 5 days to see how that went. Thanks for reading everyone and I would really appreciate it if you told everyone you know about this blog and got them reading as well. Also don’t forget to check out the Flickr site for the photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/28522437@N05/ - Bryan
Friday, July 30, 2010
Sunday, July 25, 2010
My name is Brough
Where to begin? From the beginning…. Nah that would take to long…. Perhaps cut to the chase? No that’s no fun. How about I start in the middle and maybe back track when needed? Sounds good lets start. My name is Bryan Brough I am a 26 year old professional photographer who has decided to leave his comfortable American life style and move to Australia for a year with nothing more than a 65 Liter backpack and a smaller backpack full of camera equipment. Ok time for some back tracking. In 2008 after graduating from Barry University in Miami with a B.F.A in photography I decided I needed to see a bit of the world and so I decided to backpack through Southeast Asia for 3.5 months. I had the time of my life, took amazing photographs, had mind blowing adventures, and met wonderful people. Tragically/ fortunately it was also on that trip that I became afflicted with the “Travel Bug” it has chronically ruled my life ever since. When I am not traveling, travel is all I can think of and even when I am traveling I am thinking of the other places I could be traveling at that very moment. But here I am currently stuck in LAX airport ready to get going to a new and exciting destination that is bound only to fuel more travel needs.
Traveling is a fickle mistress she knows she has you in her grips and you long for her, however she requires mucho denero and tons of patience, some times you are rewarded for exhibiting these qualities and others times damned to endure hardship upon annoying hardship. For instance take this morning when I left my home in Virginia Beach, Virginia; I was ecstatic to begin traveling again, I haven’t been with her Internationally in almost 2 years, you would think she would be happy to see me, but no. What does traveling do? She sticks me on an airport tarmac in a crowded plane for a 2 hour thunder storm delay. However this is ok because I know I am racking up major traveling karma points.
Although I am excited to be traveling again I am at the same time sad to leave my home, my country and most importantly my friends and family. I have the greatest friends and family in the entire world, they are understanding and supportive of my addiction and to my knowledge have not formed any plans for an intervention for me when I return. I will also miss the food of my beloved homeland, the fatty, the fast, the tasty American foods and the home cooked Momma meals. For my last American meal I left the confines LAX and walked to the In & Out Burger that is only 10 minutes from the airport and had the most amazing Double Double with fries and Chocolate Milkshake that has ever graced my palate. I realized on my trip through Asia that food like the American versions of a hamburger, Mexican food and pizza can not be duplicated out side the U.S or at least not in Asia. So you had better believed I clogged my arteries with as much of it as I possibly could in the week leading up to this trip.
In the next week I will land in Sydney and after spending 4 days there getting in as many sites as my little eyes can see I will board a train for a 3 day passage across Australia. I will see the Blue Mountains, the southern interior desserts and whatever other beautiful scenery lies in wait. Trust that I will write and photograph as much as possible. I thank you in advance for reading and hopefully following this blog. Now for the shameless plugs, if you would like to view my website filled with amazing photos from all over the globe I urge to visit www.Eyecaptures.net and or my flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/28522437@N05/ and if you can’t get enough of my beautiful prose please check out the blog I kept in Southeast Asia http://whereisbrough.blogspot.com and finally I would like to thank all my friends and family and a special thanks to Mr. Paul Chin Jr. for contributing the title of this blog.
Traveling is a fickle mistress she knows she has you in her grips and you long for her, however she requires mucho denero and tons of patience, some times you are rewarded for exhibiting these qualities and others times damned to endure hardship upon annoying hardship. For instance take this morning when I left my home in Virginia Beach, Virginia; I was ecstatic to begin traveling again, I haven’t been with her Internationally in almost 2 years, you would think she would be happy to see me, but no. What does traveling do? She sticks me on an airport tarmac in a crowded plane for a 2 hour thunder storm delay. However this is ok because I know I am racking up major traveling karma points.
Although I am excited to be traveling again I am at the same time sad to leave my home, my country and most importantly my friends and family. I have the greatest friends and family in the entire world, they are understanding and supportive of my addiction and to my knowledge have not formed any plans for an intervention for me when I return. I will also miss the food of my beloved homeland, the fatty, the fast, the tasty American foods and the home cooked Momma meals. For my last American meal I left the confines LAX and walked to the In & Out Burger that is only 10 minutes from the airport and had the most amazing Double Double with fries and Chocolate Milkshake that has ever graced my palate. I realized on my trip through Asia that food like the American versions of a hamburger, Mexican food and pizza can not be duplicated out side the U.S or at least not in Asia. So you had better believed I clogged my arteries with as much of it as I possibly could in the week leading up to this trip.
In the next week I will land in Sydney and after spending 4 days there getting in as many sites as my little eyes can see I will board a train for a 3 day passage across Australia. I will see the Blue Mountains, the southern interior desserts and whatever other beautiful scenery lies in wait. Trust that I will write and photograph as much as possible. I thank you in advance for reading and hopefully following this blog. Now for the shameless plugs, if you would like to view my website filled with amazing photos from all over the globe I urge to visit www.Eyecaptures.net and or my flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/28522437@N05/ and if you can’t get enough of my beautiful prose please check out the blog I kept in Southeast Asia http://whereisbrough.blogspot.com and finally I would like to thank all my friends and family and a special thanks to Mr. Paul Chin Jr. for contributing the title of this blog.
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