Kookaburra sitting

Touristy day again today - went off on a day trip to see dolphins at Jarvis Bay (pronounced 'jer-vis' by official declaration of an act of parliament). This trip involved getting up at 6.15am having been out dancing until 1am the night before at an Underworld gig - consequently my typing, like me, might be a bit wobbly. Anyways, the highlight of this trip was not the dolphins or kangaroos, but the birds that tried to steal our food whilst picnicing at the beach! This including a whole swarm of kookaburra birds who look like punk/grunge parrots - very cool. One literally tried ot grab some food out of my hand while I was looking the other way!

Otherwise it's been a lot of beach/sun-bathing trips for me, especially over at Manly bay. Although I have learnt a few useful things - such as Brits stand out a mile by dipping biscuits in their tea (thanks to Nick, our tour guide for that), and also that if you look down over the bow of the ferry from Manly as it returns to Sydney you can see a really weird effect where the spray almost seems to freeze in slow motion. Wonderful stuff.

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Ain't life a beach

More beaches, and yet more beaches. From the, very touristy, Bondi Beach I progressed to Coogee - a slightly less visibly touristy beach which is in fact almost entirely populated with Brits. Had a good day down there with Sharon and Greg, managing not to get burnt thanks to my new sun hat, then stayed down for a few too many pints down the Coogee Hotel. Actually I saw 'pints' but I mean 'schooners' which are about two thirds of a pint each. This adds to the confusion of working out whether beer is cheaper than Britland but I think the answer to that is 'yes' in general!

The best beach however has to be Manley. This beach is best reached by a ferry ride from Sydney harbour which affords wonderful views back across the harbour including, of course, the opera house and the bridge. Manley is a long sandy expanse whose only flaw is that the currents can be quite strong so swimming is often restricted to a 10m safe zone patrolled by lifeguards. Luckily there is a wonderful little sheltered cove just along from the beach with minimal waves to get in the way of swimming.

Other than beaches I spent a few happy rolls of film on the opera house trying to find non-standard angles. This is fairly hard and I guess I'll find out in a few days whether I managed anything interesting. I've actually uploaded some pictures from Hong Kong and Sydney to my photo site, and from that I've been finding that slide is working so much better than print film - although this is probably due to the variable quality of the labs being used. Ah well, I've still yet to find anywhere that beats Spectra in New York anyways so no surprise there.

The Botanical Gardens and parks have been my other major haunt for my time so far in Sydney. Yesterday it was an un-breezy 34 degrees so sitting in the shade of trees watching ibises (the plural of an ibis) dig in the ground with their strange curved beaks was pretty much the only thing that could be done. The botanical gardens are home to an amazing variety of flora and fauna - including a clipping from a pre-historic tree that only exists in Australia, and the amasing group of bats who live in the trees. Every night the bats, which have a wing span of about a metre in most cases, fly between the park and centennial square to feed. This mass exodus formed an amazing backdrop to the classical concert that was held in the gardens yesterday, especially as the bats were fighting a strong cross wind - definately an experience to remember. Almost as much an experience as ending up down the Arq club with Sharon and her friends and being wedged in amongst 200 topless be-muscled guys - good music, but not exactly my ideal choice of dancing companions. One guy did like my dancing though so that was nice...hmm.

Right - I'm off back down the beach to continue my slow (and preferably un-burnt) transition away from paleness.

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I (don't) want my MTV

Just realised that I seem to have so much time in each day to fill with fun stuff at the moment. Why? Because I never turn a frikkin' television on. Just goes to show how much time you waste with that I guess.

Today's non-televisual distraction was mostly a visit to the famous Bondi Beach. Have to say, that although I did have a wonderful time sitting watching people job along (mostly the girls obviously) and the lifeguards do their training I was, overall, a bit disappointed. I kind of expected something more than what seemed like a sunnier, sandier version of Plymouth! I guess I've been lucky enough to go to some wonderful beaches around the world, especially in Culebra off Puerto Rico, so now other beaches can seem a bit of a let down. Ah well.

That aside - finally saw the famous opera house which was pretty cool. Also went to a great exhibition of Australian artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Plus wandered around way too much in my flip flops somy feet are killing me!

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Way down under

So I've been in Australia for twelve hours now and still have yet to fall off the bottom of the planet. Amazing thing that gravity.

Staying at the Bakpack/CB hotel in Sydney for my first night ever south of the equator. Didn't get much sleep on the way down from Hong Kong so feeling a bit wobbly. Sydney is so far reminding me of a mellow cross between middle America and England, with lots of sun. Bought myself a cheap, chipped mobile and caught up with Pablo for a few pints of local brew.

A lovely dinner in Pablo and Judith's back garden included free entertainment with a small troupe of ring tailed possums playing in the trees. The spider situation was brought to a front burner however when one decided to pounce upon Judith's back making her more than slightly distraught. Luckily it turned out not to be one of the more deadly ones. What is it about Australia and worrisome creatures?

Right... now I'm off to see which way the toilets swirl when flushed.

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It's evil, but I love it!

Just sitting watching Harry Potter II on dodgy DVD o'vision... For the measly sum of HK$150 (about 13 quid) in the Temple Street market I bought the first three star wars, harry potter II, die another day, lord of the rings 2 and a chinese movie. Out of these, only Did Another Day doesn't work at all and Harry Potter is in fact a screening copy so it is perfect quality. Lovely.

Today I moved rooms again - this time staying with Sarah who's out here on secondment for a bit. This is out in Kennedy Town which is an ex-pat haven on the far east of Hong Kong island. Lovely apartment with great views over the water - spent a happy few hours this morning just watching the boats go in and out. We also had to help Pascal, a friend of Sarah's, get himself onto a plane to Tanzania as his ticket had been stolen on the way down from Shanghai!! After a lot of fuss and bother with the ticket office and a quick run to the airport express he made the plane OK to go see his wife and kid - phew!

Having dropped Pascal off I grabbed the number 6 bus across the island to Stanley market. This bus route has amazing views across both the city and the coast on the other side. We passed Repulse Bay and came to Stanley where on leaving the bus entered the market. Stanley Market is nothing special - hugely touristy and nowhere near as much fun as Temple Street market. Quickly wandered through and found a lovely quiet little beach where I sat and sunbathed for a bit watching people windsurf in the bay. This wonderful little beach is in stark comparison to the seafront on the north side of the market - a crassly commerical zone populated with chains and pseudo English/Australian/Italian pubs. A lot of people seemed to be enjoying it though, including a lot of young lads carefully posing their girlfriends in suitably scenic manners. Pretty sunset helped make up for the rest though.

The bus back was uneventful, with a brief stop off at Repulse Bay - a gorgeous expanse of sand and the end of the sunset. Back in town met up with Sarah and friends next to D'Aguilar street. D'Aguilar is Hong Kong's touristy drinking spot - much like Bourbon Street in New Orleans, or any other touristy drinking spot worldwide - apart from the lack of beer smell that is. Hong Kong is very, very clean and almost entirely without extreme smells - except for occaisional fishyness.

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What time is it?

Well the jet lag finally caught up with me today. I came back to my hotel to pick up my ATM card as I was running out of cash and was heading over to the market at Stanley. When I got into my room I just lay down on the bed for two seconds and then it was four hours later. Oops. Guess I needed to sleep. The strange thing about the time difference is that I get to sleep OK around 1am (5pm UK time) and then come wide awake at 8am (midnight) - you'd think I'd feel like getting back to sleep then!

Had a great day yesterday wandering through Kowloon taking everything in. The streets are pretty busy but people don't walk as fast as in New York. The most interesting thing is how the flurorescent signs hanging above the road, and there are a lot of them, look during the daylight - slightly grubby yet colourful. I went into Hong Kong across the Star Ferry watching the little boats zip around between huge trawlers with a backdrop of skyscrapers.

Yesterday's major tourist excursion was to Victoria Peak. This is by way of a fenicular tram that goes up at what seems like almost 45 degrees for parts. You feel yourself being pressed into the back of the seat as you look around at the skyscrapers next to you. The Peak is an amazing aspect of Hong Kong - imagine New York or London's city with a huge green slope behind it about half again as high as the tallest building. The peak station is wonderfully well designed as an anvil type shape with wonderful curves - it's visible throughout the city and totally complements the slopes of the mountains. The viewing platform looks down onto the city and, through the smog visiting from industrial China, you get the most wonderful views including the work being done on the new highest tower. Away from the centre you can walk around part of the peak and see the intense greenery that exists on all sides - it's so calm and serene, an amazing oasis away from the bustle of the city. Reminds me how much I liked seeing mountains from the city when I lived in Vancouver.

Went back into the Temple Street night market to try and get the nerve up to take some pictures. Didn't quite manage it as saw noone else with cameras around and my one attempt to take a picture of an amusing gas recharge card (a play on the word 'cash' and 'gas') lead to an upset shop assistant. Did however buy a pile of rip off DVDs, including LOTR II for a tenner, some fake watches (one of which already doesn't work) and some cute cartoon character related merchandise. Hamtoro is so cute!

Today's big excursion prior to falling asleep was to the Hong Kong Museum of Art including my first trip on the wonderfully clean and cheap (HK$40, around 30p) subway. One thing I loved about the subway is that all the carriages are joined together - it's as if there's only one very, very long carriage that twists and turns through the tunnels. At times you can see for hundreds of metres down the rows of people - now why don't other cities do that?

At the museum I focussed on the calligraphy section, including a display of the most famous plum tree and bambo paintings. At some point I will definately have a go at calligraphy of chinese characters - only have to learn an entire language on the way, how hard can it be? The main exhibition was of a guy called Lu Shokun (pronounced Loy Show-kwan) who started from tradition Chinese painting styles and then invented a movement of Zen abstracts in the early 70s. Wonderfully simple yet stunning painting on long scrolls of paper using only very few colours - mostly black with splashes of red or blue. Beautiful. What's perhaps more amazing is that he died at 56, but until the age of 35 he worked as a port inspector, so this immense body of work was done in a very short time. He reminded me of many ways of Picasso, as they both started out from a classical background.

Hong Kong is an amazing place. So much of it seems familiar from New York and other Chinatowns but it is very much its own thing. Who knows what I'll see tomorrow...

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Hong Kong Phooey

Well I may have been flipping out over my packing* just 20 short hours ago - but now I'm in Hong Kong and just back at my hotel from a wander from the night market in Kowloon. It was interesting how as soon as I checked in all my worries just disappeared and I felt so calm. This calmness was helped by being allowed into the Virgin Clubhouse prior to my flight - that place is so serene, well as serene as anywhere can be that's showing footie.

First initial (night time) impressions of Hong Kong - it glows. There is so much artificial light here you can pretty much shoot with 200 ASA film without a flash! Everything seems really clean at street level which is amazing when you consider the market throng that's going on. The airport express knocks the Heathrow Express off the board, you literally walk straight out of arrivals onto it and it is so fast. The night market is wonderful - with so much cute crap to buy for practically no money. I tried to hold back tonight since I'm so jet-lagged but still walked out with some new phone covers... even though I've no phone here. Had a filling dinner on the corner of Ning Po Street watching the world go by and the poor shrimp waggle their little legs to no avail before getting thrown in the pot. Bless.

So now to bed - the furthest east I've ever been and in a country where I've no clue how to speak the first language. Luckily, as always, everyone speaks English - which is a shame really.

*And still forget to bring my travel clock and leave behind my 35-80mm SLR lens. Ah well.

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Around the world in a day

Only a few days till I begin my first ever trip south of the equator, followed in a few months by my first ever complete circumnavigation of the world. Wowsers. Any minute now I might actually start getting my arse organised...

My current itinerary is as follows - let me know if you're going to be somewhere around where I'm going and maybe we can grab a pint of some foreign muck:

• 7th Jan: Fly to Hong Kong
• 13th Jan: Fly to Sydney (Australia as opposed to that place in Canada I hope)
• 7th Mar: Fly from Cairns to Auckland
• 19th Mar: Fly from New Zealand to San Francisco
• 24th Mar: Fly from SF to LHR just in time for my step-brother's wedding and to visit my newly arrived niece or nephew.

Should be a wonderful trip and I promise not to go on too much about my suntan on my return (honest Pam).

In the meantime though - happy new year one and all - hope you have more joy in your lives than you can imagine and then some

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