Sydney and New Years Eve

 Hello from Sydney!

 

 With the mandatory shot of the Opera and Harbour Bridge

So yeah, what has happened since last update, well, arrived at my hostel,
which by the looks and the reviews I read online seems to be the shittiest one in
whole of Sydney, but at the same time the only one where you didn't need to
book for a total of two weeks because of NYE, had to book for five nights
which was okay. The reviews said that the hostel got bedbugs, clogged toilets,
no toilet paper, shitty kitchen etc. I can confirm all except the shitty kitchen
since I never made food there. But it had one great thing, a cafe/bar in the same
building where you could buy dirt cheap breakfast, beer, food etc. Great stuff!

 A "little" bedbug fella out for a walk.

So what else? I've basically just been walking around Sydney looking at stuff I remembered from last time and also looking at new stuff of course. Libraries, cathedrals, war memorials, parks, food courts etc.

 From the State library of New South Wales, quite nice.

 They also had a small library called the Shakespeare library, which was closed the day I was there but I managed to charm my way in. Quite a nice small library with some interesting stuff, one of them is the facsimile of the first complete collection of Shakespeare's work. They got the original in storage, and apparently it was worth quite a lot!

In the library laid in the floor they have the map Captain Cook make of Australia, as can be seen the east coast here is barely charted.

After sightseeing and spending all day outside it is good to chill out and have a few drinks/beers with friends, and for this we have the splendid local "brand" I'm going to introduce you to now. This is wine, well, rather, what is to bad to be wine mixed together and cheap. 4 liters for 10 dollars? Oh and the best part, it's just called Goon. I think it says on the cartoon it can contain traces of milk and egg, and if you buy two cartoons of these they might end up tasting differently, so we are talking quality wine here!

 The famous goon, if you ever encounter someone from Australia or that have spent sometime there, they are sure to have encountered this fabulous golden liquid!

 

So this is my best photography from new years eve, and it's taken after the fireworks, still quite nice though. So why no fireworks pictures? Well, we have to go back like 11 hours in time. Me and some friends I met at the hostel went to the Botanical Gardens in Sydney and wanted to watch the fireworks from there because you can see both the bridge and the opera house. The problem is though the garden closes at 1500 so you have to be there before that, we got there 1450, and with people camping out in the gardens from the day before and people arriving all day before us we got quite bad places in the park. So, we waited nine hours to basically see the trunks and foliage of exotic trees! So yeah, if you saw the fireworks on tv, you had a much better view. I'll upload a video a bit later with the little footage I got though!

Also had Kangaroo again, here on skewers, still good!

 War memorial in Hyde Park to commemorate the fallen soldiers from the first world war and other engagements.

 The main room contained this statue, and it was quite beautiful. From the website of the Anzac Memorial the following is said:

"The sculpture ‘Sacrifice’ is the central motif of the Memorial’s design. Symbolising the spirit of courage, endurance and sacrifice, it depicts a body of a young Anzac soldier lying over a shield and sword. He is supported by three female figures and an infant, representing ‘his best beloved’ – mother, sister, wife and child. The infant also represents future generations."

The dome is decorated with  120000 stars, representing each man and woman serving overseas in the first world war.

 

The memorial at night.

 Also encountered a posom, they are quite domesticated.

 

Found a cool Knights Templar fountain pen and letter opener set. The price however was not as cool, 4500$, ouch.

 Found this dude as well, apparently under the tutelage of St.Mary, but he needed some help with is Ipad, I stepped in and helped of course. At first look, it actually looked like a tablet of some sort, but alas, it was a chalk board.

Out eating at a Malaysian restaurant with the specialty Roti which is a sweet bread, kinda tasted a bit like pancakes, here with sweet red onions in them and hot curry sauce, fish sauce and some other unknown sauce for dip.

Some of the local birds, don't know their names, we just called them "Bendy beaks" xD

So Woolloomooloo is where we stayed in Sydney, and the reason I got it here is because the name cracks me up, because it makes me think of this:

Ps. you have to be a bit of a nerd to get this.

Anyhow, that is it for now, next update will be about my stay in Melbourne with some friends and I met while interrailing in 2010! Oh yeah, I'll try and get the video from NYE up and running, but the internet down here is sketchy at best.

Baby I'm back!

Well, I'm resuming this blog now, the name however I could not quite find out how to change, but I guess that doesn't matter. So, why are we here again, well, I'm going to travel down under again, and then some more. I leave tomorrow the 28th of December headed for Sydney and New Years Eve there. I'll probably spend about a month or so in Australia before I head on to Fiji, Bali, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan. Then for the next leg of the tour I'll go to south America to see the Inca/Mayan/Aztec ruins, so Brazil, Peru, Mexico maybe Bolivia?
Next in line might be some island is the Caribbean. Finally I'll go to the US to see Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Fransico, and maybe other places in California. After this there is a wedding in Chicago I'm going to, and the last stop before returning home is probably New York.

I'll be gone from the 28th December, until the end of July. So a good seven months. A month or so in Australia, three months or so in southeast Asia, two months or so in south America and a month in the US. No pictures this time unless you really want to see me pack? Oh and for the lack on an itinerary, this is all very ad hoc. I've barely planned anything, kinda just figured out which countries I want to visit, and even that might change. Well for now, regards John.

A small update on what's going on so far on day #1. Started out by taking the train at 0710 from Lillehammer, and leaving for Heathrow at 1130. Damn, Gardemoen got nothing on Heathrow, and not on Hong Kong either where I am right now. Waiting for my connecting flight to Sydney. Both of these flights are like 12-14 hours something? Haven't really paid attention.

So anything interesting happened yet? Well not really, met an American in the security line at Gardemoen (Oslo airport) that had to chuck a bottle of fish oil (Tran) go get below the 100ml liquid limit xD Oh also, when goign through the passport control I discovered I was issued the wrong boarding pass, so suddenly my name was Mr. Gran and only headed for London. Anyhow, no problem getting that sorted at the gate. Oh yeah, hello from Hong Kong!

Quite the nice view actually greeting you!

Also Christmas tree and songs over the speakers.

Tried a special beer called, Kirin Ichiban Frozen, where parts of the foam was frozen, quite funky!

The adventure is coming to an end

Well yeah again, it's been a while since the last update, but, a lot of stuff to do. And I guess it might be the last update, since I leave in five days *sob*. This time there's some pictures from the Nan Tien Buddhist Temple in Wollongong. And it's one of the largest Buddhist temples in the southern hemisphere (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Tien_Temple)

Fishies in the pond!

And cool statues on the lawn

So, this is the entrance to a small shrine.

Quite beautiful in the gardens

This is the entrance to the main shrine

A shrine for incense

A huge bell you could ring and make thanks for what you are grateful for.

Can't quite remember what I gave thanks for, but I guess it was for meeting all these cool people down here :)

Going to miss campus down here, this is what you might see right outside your bedroom door.

There is also a planetarium real close to the campus, so we went there one day

and played around with different stuff. Also saw a Liquid Nitrogen show, quite cool!

Poured nitrogen a plant, easy to shatter afterwards!

The coolest thing there however was the planetarium, looks like a doomsday device!

Surfin USA... I mean Fairy Meadow Beach!

 So, finally some proof that I've actually been surfing!

 Pretty determined to get this done.

I can't for the life of me get past the fist waves. I suck.

However another day I managed to get up on my knees, 

for about 0.5 seconds! Great success!

Since it was getting close to the end of the semester. The campus hosted a formal dinner night. However this was expensive so we hosted our own formal dinner with the famous chef Antonio!

And assistant chef Allison, looks a bit afraid of what we're gonna eat!

Herroh!

It was the one of the most delicious meals I've ever had! And I'm not that fond of squid!

Yummy!


 More food!

 Since there is a surplus of Americans here they hosted a thanksgiving dinner for us. It was fucking amazing!

 Yeah, we gathered all of the people in our group for this, was an evening of great enjoyment.

One idea that came up was that each person got an envelope with their name on.

Other people could then write something about that person an d put it in the corresponding envelope.

It was great, when I read my notes I cried :'(

Some of the highlights from this:

"I'm going to miss you more than the desert miss the rain"

"You're like a ray of sunshine in a dark evil world"

Oh yeah and "You stud muffin you" That cracked me up xD

And so many more, but they're a bit long to recite here in whole. But, damn it, I cried.

After this great night, I've been occupied with studying for my exams, and at the time of writing I'm all done!  Of course, I should have read more, but we'll see how it goes. I went and got my PADI Open Water Certification instead of reading one weekend. It was great, so I'm now a Certified Scuba Diver, so much fun! Have to return to the Great Barrier Reef sometime, damn it! Oh yeah, we also finally had a bbq where we had Kangaroo steak, it was awesome!

We tried to get a picture with everyone, sadly all couldn't come. So you are with us in spirit (or on paper) at least :)

  

We've had so much fun down here, I can't believe it's almost over. The last few days have been spent saying goodbye to people down here. It's sad, some of these people I might never see again :(

So what remains to be done down here then? Well, Sydney again for some last minute sightseeing and souvenirs. And still a few more goodbyes over the coming five days until I leave on Sunday while trying to soak up as much sun as possible. It's about 30degrees here these days! Damn you all that are staying here longer, so so jealous! Hope you all get the mother of all sunburns :)

I'm gonna miss you all dearly, and I hope to see you all again! Now, off to more BBQ and Sun!

Recess, Surfing, New Zealand

 So yeah, sorry for the long wait, but it hasn't really happened that much. But now, we've had a recess and some days with good weather etc, so stuff get done. Specifically, what I did was going to New Zealand, but we'll get to that later on. First out is the picture below of me in the all so sexy wetsuit. Ladies.. control yourselves! (I suck at surfing btw.)

Ahhh yeah!

 Land a hoy!

Anyhow, we also went to a fair one weekend and I found this awesome gadget aka a sixtant, but
it was like ehr.. 350$, or 450$ a bit too expensive. but none the less really cool!

During the first day of the recess me and some friends rented a car and went to New Castle a three hour drive something from Wollongong. We just stayed there for one night, but it was worth it, beautiful nature, and a cool town! Below is some of the stuff we saw.

 Of course, since we are hardcore tourists we risk life and limbs to see cool stuff, so here goes!

 The causeway out to some sort of contraption.

 The lighthouse in New Castle seen from the causeway

 The lighthouse seen from the beach

The beach, or at least a part of it.

The beach was quite nice, to bad it was too cold to go for a swim.

The waves hit pretty hard out at the end of the causeway!

 

Again, the lighthouse seen from far far away.

 We found some secluded really beautiful and dangerous places, but, worth it!

 

 Me and my partners in crime! Oh and thanks to Reto for taking the picture!

 Be careful!

 The view was quite nice!

What is that?

Chilling out at the beach, eating lunch, that is, cookies!

What's a trip without the mandatory pose picture?

Oh yeah, we also stumbled upon a old radars tation/gun emplacement. Looks inviting?

Enter for pain, think I'll pass. Quite creepy, and it was pretty much pitch black in there.

Hah, found this book in the bookshelf at the hostel. Quite random to find a Norwegian book on the other side of the world!

I also got to drive on the left side of the road for some minutes. Everything went better than expected until I was gonna park. Too close to the curb, scratched the rims :p It was an automatic so didn't really need to worry about shifting gear. But, the wipers and blinkers is opposite to what they are back home,so at a junction I'm trying to signal I want to go left, well, what happens? I turn on the windshield wipers, feel like a proper smart ass xD

So this brings us to New Zealand, this was the first that met me when I landed. Some art from the native people of NZ the Mäori people.

 

Below is some random photos from NZ, it's quite beautiful there!

 A lot of the beaches along the east coast are all black because of some mineral in the earth. Quite cool, and quite hot during a nice summers day! Scolding hot in fact.

 

 Screw Area 51 or Roswell, the aliens are in NZ!

I wish I could go out for a walk on the skies :)

 Sydney from the air.

 New Zealand was beautiful and I would encourage everyone to go there. But stay for more than 4-5 days. There is so much to see, I only stayed in one town, but traveled around a bit in the nearby area. The nature is like the Scottish highland some places, or like back home in Norway. Or quite Lord of the Ringsish! I was supposed to go and see The Shire, but since they are starting the filming of The Hobbit there this week or something along those lines, everything was booked, so no luck :\

 I finally caved in and bought a new Ipod, that is, I managed to destroy my old one. So I had to get a new one. So I got a Ipod Touch and installed running apps and whatnot. As you can see, that worked out very well. According to this, we spent 46 minutes running in "circles" on the lawn outside campus East. Instead of actually running the 6-7km to another beach and back again. Guess I have to give it another go and see if the GPS will behave properly.

 

So yeah, that is it for now. Further on, basically, it's just exams and stuff. But I will try to get my scuba license still. Hope it turns out alright. I guess that's it for now, can't really say I got anything else to write about. It's only like 6-7 weeks left of my stay here, It's going to be good to get home, but I would so much have like to stay here over new year, new years eve at Sydney is supposed to be fucking awesome! But, return ticket already booked, starting to run low on cash, might get a job, etc.
Anyhow, have to go to uni early tomorrow, night!