PROGRAMMING NOTE: Apparently it's been a month since I last made a post, and that's just embarrassing for all parties involved, but mostly just me. I don't have a good excuse, but here are some bad ones:
- I was busy with school
- My internet cut out for a few days at the end of September
- I was in Australia
- I lost my
fingers motivation to write for a while
So, deepest apologies, there will be more frequent posts in the next few weeks as I hit the stretch-drive of my New Zealand experience. Now, back to the show!
As I mentioned in the bad excuse section above, I recently spent some time in the great nation of Australia, in and around the delightful city of Melbourne (or as the locals call it, "Melbin." I could expend a few thousand words discussing the horrible butchery that the Aussies submit the English language to, but I'll just say that it is often cringe-worthy . Loyal readers - should that be pluralized? - of this blog will remember my July vacation, when my cousin made a visit to NZ and we spent a few days tearing up the slopes and bars of Queenstown. Well, this trip served as a reciprocation of that visit, as I crossed the Tasman to visit him on his territory. Read on for a recap of all the
eating cool stuff we did!
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This is a real sport, and apparently people
know the rules |
My trip began bright an early on a crisp Saturday morning, as I boarded a plane to spend a glorious day in the Auckland Airport waiting for my connecting flight to Melbourne. And by glorious, I mean horrendously boring. Airports in general are not particularly exciting, and the one in Auckland is particularly bland. The highlight, however, had to be attempting to figure out what the hell was happening in the Aussie Rules Football match that was playing in the airport bars. Dudes were running all over the place, kicking the ball in random directions, the referee was doing some over-dramatic pointing gestures and teams seemingly celebrated wildly for no reason. It was hilarious to watch, but if anything, I have less idea of how the game works having actually watched it. Anyway, off to Melbourne, arriving very late Saturday night.
In terms of what I actually did with my time in Australia, I joked about spending the whole time eating, but that made some major highlights of my time in the city - I got to try Kangaroo AND Wallaby, and both were delicious.
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| Flinders Street Station |
The city of Melbourne itself was also fantastic. So many old, classic building in the downtown, mixed with the standard 21st century skyscrapers, made for a really interesting city centre, and just wandering around looking at all the buildings was a really neat experience. One of the coolest building was the Convention Centre, and INSIDE was something even more awesome - a video game exhibition, which my cousin and I duly explored. There was a range of games on display (and able to be played!), all the way from original arcade classics like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong to some crazy 3-D shooting game that allowed you to shoot stuff while simultaneously making CLUB BEATZ. Pretty slick experience all around, certainly worth the price of admission (alas, cameras were not allowed inside, I presume because Stalin organized it).
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| Melbin skyline from Fed Square |
After getting tired of wandering the streets of downtown Melbourne (and playing my cousin's original NES, on which I led team Mexico and to a Little League World Series championship (big ups to MVP Benito) and helped beat Mario 3), we decided to rent a car and drive the Great Ocean Road. For the unaware, that is a road. That hugs the ocean on Australia's south coast. And it is great. Perhaps the highlight of the trip for me, the drive was absolutely beautiful. There was breathtaking vistas aplenty, the cerulean waters lapping gently on golden sand beaches for the majority of the trip. At the end point of the drive were the 12 Apostles, incredible rock towers towering over the ocean just off the coast. Fighting off the entire population of Beijing, I managed to get some wonderful photos, which you can glance at below.
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| Scenic guard rail |
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| 12 Apostles (not pictured: 7,000 Chinese tourists) |
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| Sunset on the way back |
My trip to Australia finished off with a rather unexpected surprise: a full Thanksgiving dinner with a random collection of Canadian expats, along with some token Aussies thrown in. Turkey, potatoes, veggies and some kick-ass pumpkin pie (did I help with the pumpkin pie? PERHAPS) made it feel almost like a home, and was a great way to cap off by trip Down Under.
That's all for now, look for the return of Beer Friday! this week as well!
P.S. - Another stop in Queenstown on the way back was great fun too - some old friends from Canuckistan have just settled down in that fair city, and great shenanigans were had.
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