Sydney

“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