I awoke suddenly to a member of the flight staff announcing abruptly that we would be landing in Sydney in just 1 and a half hours. I was surprised, just before I fell asleep I was sure it would be a long anxious and restless night, but as it turns out I was shocked with how the time passed so quickly. I rolled in and out of sleep for the remaining time. The last reminder of China was served to me in the way of a hot plate of meat and noodles for breakfast, I kindly passed and went for the omelette. That was a mistake. As the Sydney opera house glimmered by briefly out the window; we were soon on the ground. My trip had officially begun.
I was feeling pretty good, I made it easily through customs and my backpack with camping equipment, towel and jacket attached did as well. The only goal now was to find the hostel. I had booked it and saved the reservation to a file which I had brought, but I couldn’t read as my new computer did not have the necessary software. Oops, hurdle #1. The lonely planet had an address for a hostel I believed to be the same one, so I went on that.
I asked a few people around the cheapest way to the city center and headed off. I took public buses and my first stop was a random junction which appeared to be the furthest point out where the real city buses would reach. I met a few people there, talked to a mousy Canadian guy who had some interesting advice, but then he tried to send me in the wrong direction towards the city and lost all credibility. I did eventually find the right direction and stop, I did this by speaking Chinese to some random guy whom I overheard speaking Cantonese on his cell phone.
That is a good segway into my strongest impression yet. Sydney is a true melting pot and in a totally different way than America. America is a conglomeration of many backgrounds coming together to make one multi color, multi ethnic beautiful mess, people by and large consider themselves American and speak to their friends and family in English. Of course many languages can be heard on the streets of the US, but it has nothing on Australia. I had heard Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Spanish and Hindi within 30 minutes of arrival.
I continued my journey to the hotel which culminated in a hour long stroll downtown to find where I was going. I made it to the hostel around 2 PM and in the process already had the downtown bearings in my head.
Another thing I noticed as I walked was the women here in Australia are beautiful. I think it goes hand in hand with the cultural melting pot. Beautiful Asians, blondes and brunettes were all going about their business on the metropolitan streets.
After due process in getting my room settled I headed out to explore the city. I started out in Darling harbor and made my way along the waters edge to the Harbor Bridge and the famous Sydney Opera House. I only had rough directions and left the map at home so the ensuing 3 hour stroll/walk/hike was enjoyably unplanned and an excellent workout.
Sydney is a beautiful city; clean and apparently quite safe. The bars and cafés along the waters edge reminded me so much of Cape Town, SA. The architecture is a mix of old and modern, but none too overpowering. It kind of had the feel of the mid-Atlantic/northeast coast of the US. The closest thing I could come up with was a combination of Cape Town and Baltimore(minus the gangs, drugs and violence).
Upon my return I attempted to settle in on the next critical goal…make some friends. The results were mixed, but by the end of the night I was having beers with several groups of what seem to be good people.
I get the distinct feeling that this is/was different than my previous experiences because it is a western country. This has an effect in 2 main ways. First, people are more comfortable and less reliant on each other. My experiences traveling in China showed me that in uncomfortable and unknown places backpackers stick together and are looking for ways to help each other acclimate and have fun. It was also a little easier for me to make friends because people were drawn to me because of my language skills and experience. Here, I am just some guy, an American of which people are generally wary. Secondly, this place draws a different kind of traveler. This is far less out of most peoples comfort zones, people who may not be wheels up for trekking across Uzbekistan are ok with hanging out in Australia for a month. There is also a large proportion of people here looking for work, thus this is a very different travel agenda.
I had a bunch of beers with people from England, Germany and Holland in the bar attached to the hostel and then went to sleep with a smile feeling good about my first day.
I slept in intentionally as to try to get over the lack of sleep over the past few nights, but the beer in blood my prevented it from being all that restful. I had a coffee with a new Dutch friend and then handled some travel arrangements for diving and New Zealand. I also met another nice German guy and had lunch with him. It was quickly late afternoon and I wanted to accomplish some sight seeing, but hadn’t found any groups to hang with that had a similar agenda so I headed off alone to the nearby aquarium and wildlife park; both were cool and had only fauna native to Australia which was cool. I want a pet wombat.
It’s about beer o’clock, good day mate.
No comments:
Post a Comment