Happy New Year from Sydney! Well, it WAS in Sydney :-)

Hi all!

We're sorry we haven't updated in over a week, but we haven't really had Internet access. We will write about everything we did after the Great Ocean Road, but first we'd like to update you about now.

We were in Sydney for New Year's Eve, and we had a marvelous spot on The Rocks in Sydney, which is the perfect place to see the fireworks both on the Sydney Bridge and the Opera House.

As we previously mentioned, we were able to change our flight back to Sydney to the day before, so we had to find a hotel, which was no small feat considering we booked our New Year's Eve hotel back in JUNE and only found one an hour out of the city.

We ended up finding a really nice hotel (4 stars) also about an hour outside of Sydney for a pretty good price (what we were paying in Melbourne for a hostel) and arrived pretty easily by train, after a Tiger Airways flight that - OMIGOSH - arrived on time and - OMIGOSH - was uneventful. Our hotel for the next day was actually pretty close to this one, but first we had to go into town to pick up our car and buy some food for the next few days.

We took a nap when we got to our next hotel (also really nice and a 4 star hotel that was fairly cheap cause it was far) so that we'd have enough energy for the evening. We took the train into the city, which is about an hour, around 6 to make sure we have enough time to find a good place for the fireworks.

One tip if you take the train to the city on New Year Eve: Buy a one way ticket to the city, cause the trains are free after midnight till the end of service. Well, they aren't technically free, but there were so many thousands of people that they just open all the gates to have the traffic go through. The truth is, it was the same when we arrived, so we could have actually gone without a ticket, but whatever.

The Sydney train system was working all night long with extra trains just to make sure that people didn't drive drunk and to minimize traffic, so we were lucky that even though we were technically far, we had a very easy time getting into town.

We got off at the Circular Quay (pronounced key) station and just walked with the crowd to The Rocks. At one point we stopped to ask a cop what the best place to watch from would be, and he told us to run into the place next to him - which proved to be the best spot. Even though there were a zillion people there (the news said 1.5 million people all around the harbor), we found a great spot that gave us a great view of both the Sydney Bridge and the Opera.

We arrived at 20:15 (the area was locked around 20:30), found a good place, plopped ourselves down, and read for the next 3.5 hours. There were some crazy drunk Italians who were making tons of noise for a while, but then they moved closer to the water after the first fireworks which started at 21:00, and then it was pretty nice.

We heard a lot of languages during those 4 hours in the Rocks (not just Italian) and we even had the chance to ask a Chinese family there how to say long, warm coat in Chinese so Talia can buy one there :) And at midnight we even shook hands with a Pakistani family. It was cool to see everybody happy there and celebrating.

The walk back from The Rocks to the train station was much longer than what we expected: Millions of people on the streets of Sydney, all going to the same direction. The streets were closed for cars and there were a few policemen watching over us.

Once we got to the station, Town Hall, we saw so many people trying to get in the station that we decided to wait at a coffee shop around the corner and until it got a bit better. So we ended up going back to the hotel at 3:00.

The next day we were ready for our drive to the north coast. Us and a few millions of Ozzies with us.
But that's another story.

All we've been hearing on the radio lately has been countdowns of 2010 - and the decade - so in their honor, here's our list of awards in honor of the 2010 portion of our trip:

Most annoying song: Bruno Mars - Grenade. Why? Cause the lyrics are stupid - check it out for yourself.
First runner up: Black Eyed Peas - Time of my Life. Why? Cause the remake is sacreligious.
Coolest animal: Tasmanian Devil. Why? Hello - it's the DEVIL
Nicest people: Melbourne. Why? We have no idea.
Most beautiful country: New Caledonia. Why? Have you seen the pics? Looks like Photoshop.
Funniest print ad: "Happy Husband Sale: Prices you won't have to lie about!"
Funniest TV ad:



















Best individual experience:Volunteering at the WFFT.org
Dumbest TV concept: Writing "rerun" on I Love Lucy and other old shows
Most annoying TV ad: We can't remember cause we kept muting it
Best beer: Chang in Thailand. Why? Cause it's cheap and yummy :-)
Dumbest landmark: Great Ocean Road Memorial Bridge. Why? Cause there's nothing there!

We are currently spending our last few days on the Gold Coast and Byron Bay area (which is where all the surfing happens) and on Thursday we head off to Hong Kong, so we aren't sure how much we'll be able to update after that, but we promise to update about the missing days when we can.

So far the people we met on the Gold Cost are awesome. Our hosts as well as the other couchsurfers we met.

Pics from Adelaide and New Year's Eve in Sydney:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=595490&id=906005363&l=daa4911657

Blue Mountains, Australia - The Australian "Grand Canyon"

For our second full day in Sydney, we booked a trip to Blue Mountains, which is about an hour outside of Sydney. We were picked up at (yawn) 7 am, so we had to get up (yawn yawn) at 6:30 am. As a bonus, that was the day we were checking out, too, cause that night we flew to New Caledonia, so we got to pack as well.

Even though we decided not to go out at night (after Rony's DJ course), we ended up going to sleep very late. Like 2 am late. As in, 4.5 hours before we had to get up - late. We were pretty exhausted when we got up, but we kinda napped a bit on the way.

We had the best group on this tour, we all got along real well, all made each other laugh. But the best part of the tour was our tour guide, Rod. He was hilarious. The guy is kinda like an Australian hippy type guy who didin't look much more excited than us to be up that late, but he is a really great guide. He grew up in the Blue Mountains so he knew the area real well. He called us "Gangsters" the entire time, which caused funny looks from other random tourists, and played Australian rap and hip hop the whole way.

This is Rod the tour guide

After driving around Sydney to pick up the others (of course we were the second), we started out towards the Blue Mountains. It's up in the hills, past the Olympic Stadium, which is much farther out of Sydney than you'd think, especially considering it was called the Sydney Olympics.

But I digress.

We made a stop for some coffee and a potty break, which Rod was very fond us and gave us many of. Let's stop for a moment of appreciation.

Before we got off the minibus he told us which places had bad coffee and which were good, and where to get more water, etc. The guy was really looking out for us.

But he was right. After a fairly short hike (down), we got to an incredible view point. Words and pictures cannot describe how gorgeous it is. If you're ever in the area, it's totally worth going out there. And shop around for the tour, cause some companies take $100, ours took $55, and honestly, we could have probably done it on our own for cheaper, but it was a lot of fun with the group and our guide.

First view of the Blue Mountains - pictures don't do it justice

The Blue Mountains are actually not mountains. As it turns out, the valleys were created in the same manner that the Grand Canyon was created, with water washing away parts of the stone, though it's filled with trees. We climbed up and down all kinds of parts, and I thought I was going to die twice. But before I was a loser twice, I was a winner once. :-)

The guide would kinda tell us to go and when to turn, as in "Go straight, when you hit a fork, go right, then just go straight till you get to the waterfall." In this particular instant, Rony and I were in the front of the line, and somehow I became the leader. I have no idea how it happened, it is sooo not part of my personality.

But I was a great leader, no one fell, no one died, and we reached our destination successfully. I call that a win.

This is my "everyone is following me" picture :-)

There isn't really all that much to tell because we just went from one gorgeous view to another gorgeous view, often through rainforest-type areas. Instead of eating lunch at the restaurant they usually eat at, Rod had our lunches packed and we had what he called an "adventure lunch" where we sorta climbed down a bit and sat on a beautiful spot and had lunch there.

This is where we had lunch. Gorgeous, ay?

Well, everyone else ate while a bee fell in love with me. I can't help being who I am. Don't hate me because I'm sweet.

Towards the end of the tour, we stopped at a liquor shop and everyone bought a beer/alcohol. Here again, Rod appeared to know a lot. He said, "Come on, try an Australian beer. They're all good except VB." So we took his advice and each of us bought his preferred beer. I don't remember seeing any Australian beer going out of the shop beside Big Helga (which is made in German style.) Then we went to have a "party" on this gorgeous cliff. The following exchange killed me, if only because of the level of dense you must be to ask this:

Tour member girl: Rod, why aren't you drinking? You don't like beer?
Tour guide Rod: Driving drunk is kinda frowned upon in Australia.

Group shot at the last point (where we had our party)

We got back to the hostel with about an hour to spare before we were picked up to go to the airport. Rony showered and I went on the relocation websites to see if any cars were available for relocation, and we found and booked our first one!

An explanation about car relocation: People, especially in big countries like Australia, will rent a car in one place and drop it off in another. For example, they will pick up a car in Melbourne and drop it off in Sydney. The rental companies need someone to bring them back to the original location, so instead of hiring drivers or putting the cars on trucks or trains, they offer them at really low prices for people to bring them back.

We are hoping to get all of our cars this way, but since the relocation agencies only publish the list of cars 3 weeks in advance, there weren't any cars available for our dates yet. But yesterday there was!

So we will be relocating a 2 berth camper van (with a double bed, fridge, and stove) from Sydney to Melbourne over the 4 days that we chose, for a grand total of - are you ready? - $5 a day. Plus the company gives us the camper van with a full tank of gas and - get this - reimburses us for up to $150 in gas!!! How crazy is that??

There are several relocation sites, and I visit each of them every day, and yesterday as Rony was showering, suddenly one became available, so I called and we got it! It's very exciting (the cheapest car you can rent is like $45, so that's saving us $40 a day plus most of the gas, if not all of it), but we weren't really able to enjoy the excitement because we had to catch a flight and our ride was a bit late.

It got us to the airport on time, though, and we had the grossest flight ever. The staff was really nice and the plane itself was very comfortable, but there was tons of turbulence, and even my stomach was turning, and I have no problems with airplanes.

Today we walked a bit around the main city here in New Caledonia and bought clothes for the fairy-themed wedding party we will be attending on Saturday (our host got married), and bought a bunch of groceries. Rony and I prepared dinner, and we've just been chilling with everyone here. Tomorrow we start to plan our real trip here and we will update you with what we're up to and photos when we can.

Pics from Blue Mountains:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=573098&id=906005363&l=978e2dc451

 

P.S. In the last post, we were unable to upload pics because the hostel's Flash was from the stone age, so here are those links:

Last day in Bangkok:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=573068&id=906005363&l=564ad07944

Sydney, Australia

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=573076&id=906005363&l=ce56c3e0a1