G'Day Mates! (Day 1 Australia!!)

Hello hello!

Well I'm as far from home as I've ever been in my life and I can already tell that I'm going to love travelling around here!

I just finished about 36 hours of travel (thanks for the ride to the airport Adam), and surprisingly feeling good. Here's whats happened so far:

I flew from Toronto to Los Angeles (LAX baby) and was surprised to see that I'd have an 11 hour stopover... this is something I guess I should have checked earlier but it did give me a chance to get into LA to check some stuff out. So I went to Hollywood Blvd. and saw all the main stuff like the walk of fame, the chinese theatre, and all of the touristy things (from the outside) like the wax museum, ripley's believe it or not and McDonald's. There were also a bunch of dudes dressed up like creatures from the movies like Darth Vader, the Hellraiser guy, Big Bird and some wierd devil creature thing that I thought was a woman but soon realized that he was too ripped to be a girl, but had the makeup on anyways... scary stuff. Then I rode over to Chinatown and grabbed a 4 course meal for about $7 and flavored it with hot sauce (aka the BEAST) so that it was more torture than enjoyment. The subway stop in Chinatown looks like a traditional chinese building, its kinda cool, check the pics when I've uploaded them. Then on the way to the airport I was talking to this cop who was all concerned about July 4th Independence day celebration cause all of the bangers (gang bangers... um people in gangs just in case your mind is in the gutter) shoot their guns up in the air to celebrate... so last year the falling bullets killed 50 people or so... thats ignorance at its finest. Also it seems that they give fines for 'cruising', meaning that if you're a young punk, you can't walk by the cops in the same area more than twice, otherwise they think you're looking to rob people and fine you, I avoided that cause I don't look to menacing when I'm running away from the devil sheman creature.

Me in LA chinatown: http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/560488/1/27150299

Then it was back to the airport to board the longest flight I've ever been on to the further place I've ever been to on the biggest plane I've ever been on. In other words, a 10.5 hour flight on a 747 (I think, well its a double decker plane with 450 some odd passengers) to Fiji. I was pretty delerious from packing the night before I left until 3 in the morning (forgot to mention that :), not really sleeping much to LA, then running around for the whole day so I did a great job of crashing on that flight. It was also an all-you-can-drink event, you just had to buzz the flight attendant and they'd serve up whatever you like. I got a rum and coke, which was pretty much a triple, and got a little drunk and sleepy off that. Enough to help knock me out for most of the ride and feel refreshed upon arrival in fiji. Then it was a 4 hour wait in the terminal before flying out to Sydney, where I am now. I've just hopped off the ferry from Circular Quay (right beside the opera house) to Manly (a nice beach suburb) where I'm about to go on a little hike, maybe see some other sites, then meet up with Geoff (ex-Altera) and his girlfriend Sarah, my hosts for the next couple of days!

Me vs. the Opera House: http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/560488/1/27150303

Til next time! Also, send me your mail addresses if you want a postcard, as I've left them at home, whoops!

- Mike