Sydney and the Blue Mountains

So I get into Sydney and it's cold and rainy. What the hell... It sorta pissed me off. Why come to Australia if it's just like Vancouver. Whatever I just dealt with it and checked out my hostel. As soon as I get there some guy comes up to me and asks if I'm coming out for free drinks tonight. Free drinks?!?! cool! I told him I would but I had to have a shower because i smelt like crap from being on a plane for 20 hours.

Now I was already stinkin tired from the flight over and the jet lag so I only got a couple drinks, and they weren't even free. Apparently the free drink time was over by the time I got there. Whatever I wanted to sleep anyway. I walked around for a bit and checked out what I didn't know was the red district of Sydney. Prostitutes and Strip Clubs everywhere. I didn't expect that at all. There was even some transvestite that was trying to get me to buy..... stuff. I shutter just thinking about it.

The next day was cloudy and cold again. I still wanted to see Sydney though. I walked around for about 6 hours. Checked out the Opera House and Harbour Bridge which were pretty cool. I basically just recognized myself with the city. Still suffering from jet lag I slept for like 13 hours that night.

The people at the hostel, Mates Place Sydney are extremely friendly. I was asked if I wanted to go to a park and play some football(soccer). I haven't played soccer since I was like 16 so I really sucked and got my ass handed to me. Oh ya it was a nice day finally and pretty relaxing.

Some of the differences between Australia and Canada are strange. Like Burger King is called Hungry Jacks. It's the exact same symbol but with a different name. There toilets have a button for a small flush and a big flush. And they don't really swirl counter clockwise like everyone says. The water just goes straight down. It's hard to explain... Beer and Wine stores are called Bottle Shops and Liquor stores and called Liquor shops. Everything is a shop, not a store. The big weird one is that theres no 1 cent coins, just 5, 10, 20, 50, 1 dollar, and 2 dollar. And their 2 dollar coin is smaller then their 1 dollar. I don't get that one. All tax is included so I guess that makes it easier not to have a 1 cent coin.

I decided to check out the bridge again and get some better pictures, I wanted to do the bridge climb but it turned out to be 189 dollars. Ya I'd rather spend my money doing something else. So I checked out something else on the bridge. The Pylon. It only cost 10 dollars to walk up and I got a great view of the city. Worth it in my opinion. I noticed a really big park on my map that I bought and decided to check it out. I didn't think it would be that great since I'm not really into the whole plant life thing but this was amazing and totally unexpected. Thousands of bat like creatures all in the trees. Thousands!!! All screeching. I got a recording of the screeching on my cell phone I'll post later. Turns out they were actually flying foxes and they feed on the fig trees at night a couple blocks down the road. There were also cockatoos all over the place. Something that you don't see back home but is normal in Sydney. And if I feed them they would have come right up to me.

That night was another free drink night at a place called the gaff. From 9 to 10pm thousands of people have a race to see how much free beer they can drink. It was awesome. Then some karaoke and more free beer! I think I spent 10 dollars that night and i don't even remember getting home.

A few people at my hostel told me about a place called the Blue Mountains and a tour that was really cheap. It was suppose to be beautiful so I wanted to see it. The tour was crap but the Blue Mountains were great. A great view and a lot of cool looking rocks. The tour went from 7am(Ya it was hard getting up that morning) til about 6pm and half that time was spent in a van driving around. I wish I did another tour but I would have regretted not going at all. One thing I did like was seeing the wild kangaroos about 5 feet away from me. As I was taking pictures of the 5 kangaroos in front of me I heard a women scream a few feet away and decided to check it out. It was this huge dark green snake so I got a few pictures and asked our tour guide if there were any poisonous snake around the area. He looked at my picture and told me it was a Red Bellied Black Snake. Suppose to be one of the top poisonous snakes in the world and if you were bitten by it and didn't get any help you would probably die. Pretty cool eh!?!

As soon as I got back to my hostel I had to leave and catch my bus to Byron bay, which is where I am now. It was a 13hour bus ride after being on a tour bus all day. I was pretty uncomfortable. Well I'm here now, gonna have a few beers tonight and maybe try some surfing lessons tomorrow.

Til then

later

Corey