Konbanwa!

Watashi no hobākurafuto wa unagi de ippai desu!

But I'm not on my hovercraft anymore, so it doesn't matter. Julie and I landed here in Japan 16.30 local time and after two hours of bussing around, we arrived at our accomodation for the night, the Yaesu Fujiya Hotel. Then Yen has shot terribly in the air lately and with a weak currency of our own.. Japan is not the best place. But we are so bad at maths we just pay for things and smile :P (I think I just bought terribly expensive chocolate.. but it was gooood)

Julie and I went out for dinner this evening (we seriously don't know that much Japanese), but we ended up with food. Food that was not raw fish (which isn't really food)! Nah, it really was good :)

Tomorrow we are heading off to Hiroshima, but we really do not know a lot about our stay here. We'll just tag along I guess.

I would upload pictures, but Julie says it could get very expensive. Since the terms and conditions were in Japanese, I just accepted and I will know tomorrow morning how much they have robbed me off :P

(My phone doesn't work in Japan, Julie's does, but none of you picked up, so you suck :P )

Stupid Abbey Apartments

Yes, that is where we are staying. And their Internet is acting out like a three-year-old on a sugar rush. We got a few pictures up, but not even a tenth of what we were supposed to. As Internet is leaving in 10 minutes, we won't have the time to write about this weekend (Key words: River cruise, Moree and the travel back to Brisbane).. This Sunday has been spent blogging, washing clothes, packing, ordering in Indian food and getting ready for bed again. We will have to get up at around five in the morning to be on time for our flight to Japan. Keep in mind that we miss you and that we will try to blog again as soon as we get a hold of Internet somewhere :)

We're off to 10-days stressing around in Japan!

Hanne: sightseeing, Julie: bed (23.10.08)

I don't know whether Julie wrote about the racket we had on Wednesday, but just saying that I'm a girl who doesn't like to be “taken care of”, I spent Wednesday evening getting a car and driver instead of joining the bus for the set tour of Gundabooka National Park. It was a blast. Kristie at the Gidgee Guesthouse volunteered, and with me I had the two photography students that joined us for a week in the Outback: Hanna Maunuksela from Finland and Philipp Haas from Germany. For the first time on the trip we had the possibility of stopping wherever we wanted, for as long as we wanted, and we truly did. The landscape can only to a certain extent be portrayed by pictures, but that being said, I think we ended up with some beautiful pictures.

Julie's version of thursday:
Julie spent the entire day in the comfy bed, sleeping, eating antibiotics (and nothing else) and watching three movies. She had a very nice day.

In the evening, we all (Carole, Frank, Hanne, Julie) went to the Port O'Bourke Hotel where a farewell dinner was being held in the Volda students honour. More on this later (running out of internet here).

Skipping school (22.10.08)

Yeah, we skipped school today. We had discussed yesterday that it wouldn’t be useful to spend another way at the school, and we’d rather see more of Bourke. Stine had arranged with the organizing people that we would be hanging with the rest of the group for the day, so we went with them to the local newspaper. We were shown around their three rooms, rather crowding them, while a newspaper guy was telling us about the newspaper. Me, Iselin and Frøy were picked to pose on a picture with Stu, which would end up in the newspaper (it actually made the front cover! I’m a celebrity in Bourke!). We went on to and invaded the 2WEB radio station in Bourke, which covers an area the size of Denmark or something. We sang ‘Hurra for deg’ (Norwegian happy birthday song) to one of the women who was working there since it was her birthday. She later interviewed Marieke and Martin, and it was broadcasted that day. We also met Monte Dwyer, some weirdo from the national good morning Australia show called Sunrise, who interviewed a few of us. So, basically, we invaded Australia today.

Hanne and me went with Peter's bus to Toorale, a sheep shearing station in the middle of nowhere. We saw sheep being sheared, shuffled and shushed away. We went with Cecilie, a Norwegian fashion photographer who was going to take pictures of Janne, Frøy and Martine who were also with us. Iselin and Anna were also there, as well as Hanna from Finland, a photographer. We were in the bush, taking pictures of various things such as old rusty cars, bush, trees, water, old buildings, sheep being sheared and girls in silver dresses. Some of us actually saw a King Brown Snake, _the_ most poisonous snake in Australia. I didn't :(

We went back home after a loong day in the bush, and I felt really ill. We got back home, and Hanne went to the Gidgee Guest House to plan the next day's outing with Philipp (the German student) and Hanna. Carole took me to the hospital in Bourke, where they did some tests and decided I had a chest infection. The doctor was Russian and his English was worse than mine, so he did not understand much. He started to question me about Medicare, while I tried explaining that I didn't have any since I was not from Australia. He gave up, muttered something in Russian, waved his arms and said 'free of charge'. Yay! I got some antibiotics and went back home, spending the rest of the evening dozing in bed.

Back to School! (21.10.2008)

For the first time in Hanne and Julie Blog History, Julie and I are blogging simultaneously. Because we have so much to write about Bourke and so little time before we leave for new adventures, we are blogging about every other day. That means Julie is writing about Monday as we speak, and I have no clue what she writes. As Monday and Tuesday was two very different days, it really doesn't matter, I'm just curious :P

Tuesday started early enough, still sick, but as we got up early one would think we had a lot of time to shower, get dressed and eat breakfast. Julie managed to do them all, I got two out of three and ended up getting honey everywhere..

We were off to Bourke High School for our work experience, carrying a lunch box larger than life, but it was all good fun. We went on a tour of the premises and had a couple of classes. Our first class was an Aboriginal language class (To dance is pirrka pirrka in Wangjakumurri). I ended up sitting next to Phillip Wright, a thirteen-year-old with an emu-totem. He had made an Aboriginal version of Monopoly with Brewarrina Mission in place of the usual Jail.

We had other classes as well: Art, Civics, English and P.E. The worst part was Civics with 12-14 year-olds desperately trying to locate Europe on the map. Actually, the tried to locate any continent on a map and managed to write down Africa twice.

The evening was spent playing Mastermind and WordUp, we both won a fair amount of times until Julie had an insane round of Mastermind and got lucky as anything..

Exploring Bourke (20.10.2008)

Hanne and me had stayed in some sort of a caravan hut, with Martine and Frøy. There were several of these scattered around the camp, and a sanitary building across the road.

We woke up relaxed and rested... Well, not really. We had both woken up numerous times during the night, and quite far from being relaxed and rested. We were both sick. I ran from the mosquitos and bugs into the bathroom building. Which didn’t really help, as they were quite present in there as well. There was amongst many other things, a cockroach who had taken up residence on the soap-dispenser and a spider was keeping a close watch on the flush button in one of the cubicles. We got some food in the food room, where a giant ‘pinnedyr’ (can’t remember the English name) had claimed the microwave. I just had toast with jam and orange juice for breakfast, before we shuffled our bags to the bus. The flies were very friendly, and were constantly approaching us. We took off in the crowded bus to Bourke, as we had been staying a little out of the town, in ‘Northy’ (Nourth Bourke). We had driven all the way to Bourke from Brisbane in a full bus, with luggage everywhere, so we had gotten quite used to climbing to the front of the bus to get out, but when we arrived at the Council Chambers, it was decided to leave our bags in their boardroom for the day. We shuffled bags, and got back into the bus. The little bus, with driver Peter and his load of students were left behind to do a Cultural Awareness course, and we headed off with our driver Earle and our guide for the day, Stuart. We went for a drive around town while Stu was talking about the city and pointing out places of interest, and we stopped at the tourist office for a complimentary beverage. We headed out of town and visited a few recently abandoned farms. They were abandoned because the government removed about 2/3 of the (already small) amount of water the farms were receiving. They could therefore not water the food they were growing, and went bankrupt. One farm had invested 30 million dollars (about 140 million NOK) and were growing large amounts of food in a very water-efficient way. Australia needs this food, since they currently have to import most of their food, and the government took the water away, so now the farmer is bankrupt, the state owns the farm, and all the fruits are falling down and rotting, and everything dies. It was just very sad.

We drove to another farm who had the same problem. This farm had dropped all its food production and were just growing jojoba, as it was the biggest moneymaker. We stopped at the orange trees on the farm and picked as much oranges as we wanted. It was quite nice. We also drove up to a dam and looked around. Dams in the middle of Australia seem to be just a few meters high, and otherwise quite large. We drove to the wharf in Bourke, which is like a quay quite high above the Darling River. It is high because once every blue moon, the river floods and the water rises to just under the quay. We were served lunch here, sitting outside in the sun.

After lunch, we went to the Council Chambers for our Cultural Awareness session. It was held by Bruce and Melissa, who come from two different Aboriginal tribes in the area. They talked about Aboriginal things in general, and we saw some films. One of the films was kind of interesting, documenting a historic view of one of the last tribes to be ‘discovered’ in the 1930s.

We shuffled bags once again, into the bus and off to the wharf, where our new ‘parents’ would be picking us up. Hanne and I met Carole Simmonds, which we were staying with. We drove to her house, not too far from the city centre. Here we met her husband Frank, who has the local hardware store. Carole has the store next to it, the local antiques shop. They were both very nice. We also met two of their friends who lived 120km from Bourke which is not really that far in Bourke-distance. Hanne fell asleep in a chair in our bedroom, while I was conversing with people. Unusual.

We had a lovely dinner, which even Hanne liked. We were served Corned Beef and Shepherd’s Pie, with bread, salad and Bechamel sauce. We went to bed in our fancy bedroom, which was a ‘newer’ edition to the house, it being outside the kitchen and one of the lounges, so there were windows from these rooms into our room, with no curtains. The lounge had windows covering the entire wall into our room, so it was kind of spooky. We were still not feeling any better, rather the opposite. I fell asleep right away because I was so tired. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

Hanne DIDN'T kill a kangaroo

You didn't see that one coming did ya?

As you can read (I do hope you can read), Julie and I are back in civilization (well.. back to a place with Internet anyway..). We arrived in Brisbane this afternoon and are leaving again in a day, and a couple for hours, for a two week adventure in Japan. I know I have to blog about Bourke now or I'll never have the time to do it, but I just don't know where to start.

How about starting with the beginning? We left early Sunday morning to meet our bus at South Bank. Ahead of us was a 12 hour bus ride, and what a ride. Anni Cooper (our contact in Brisbane and current mum) told us to drink a lot because of the dry heat we would experience, and it seemed the Norwegian gang listened for once. What goes in comes out and so forth... Let's just say we stopped a lot.

Julie slept (at least part of the time) and I listened to music, looked out the window and was used as a foot rest for some German guy (His name is Philipp and he turned out quite nice).

After visiting all the petrol stations from here to Bourke (and after a nice lunch at Subway in Moree), we arrived about 6 in the evening at Kidman's Camp. I befriended a spider the size of my palm, we had supper and went to bed at a quarter past nine.

And with that note on our first evening in Bourke, my time is up and Julie is eager to get food. I will try to drag her back here later (not that she will mind) and maybe I can do some more updating.

We love you!

(That's just in case we do hit a kangaroo, and it's humongous and it kills us)

Leaving now, have been up since four, Julie before four.. Taxi is due any minute and I'm sitting outside enjoying the last.. Oh gotta go

Back o' Bourke

That's right, we're going to Bourke. Back of Bourke has become an idiom in Australia for the Vikings would call the end of the world. 12 hour on a bus, going inland. To the Bush. (At least it's the place and not the guy..)

Going to Bourke ends our five weeks staying at Robbie and Lisa's, and we are very sad to go. As we have been staying with a member of the infamous GangGajang, we had to get Robbie's autograph and we bought his new CD as well. Robbie is the sweetest musician ever, there is no doubt.

Julie and I haven't gone to bed yet, because we have been packing, but we are now ready for sleep. We are getting up at 4. a.m, and hopefully our taxi arrives to get us to the bus in South Brisbane. We have to start driving that early because we want to get to Bourke before it gets dark. Why? We don't want to hit any kangaroos. For real.


(Picture of blown-up kangaroo borrowed without permission from blog.hakmao.com, and the beautiful poem is taken from my sleepy head.)

"Graduation"

Yup, today we graduated. Having had 12 lectures in a month and written a 2000 word assignment that has just been handed in and not even graded yet, apparently sufficed for us to graduate. We had dragged our slightly heavy suitcases all the way to South Bank and to the top floor of the S02 building (praising elevators). We were meeting at the boardroom with a view of the city and the river to get diplomas, information on Bourke, tickets to Japan and food. We also got to put our big suitcases in an office, and Hanne and me tried to get in contact with the Norwegian embassy in Canberra, since our visa expires 4 days before we are leaving. They were not open, so we have to wait until monday.

We went to the giant ferris wheel, and I was very brave and went up there when Hanne forced me. I am very afraid of heights. I survived. It was nice.

We then went to Queen Street and did some christmas present shopping. We bought a really cool present, but we can't really say who it was for, what it was, and how much it cost. But I assure you, it is cool.

We took the bus back home, and spent some time in front of the TV. This is our second last night here, so we just wanted to stay and relax tonight. We're having a nice night :)

Stress, relaxation and luxury (16.10.08)

We came back home around 4.30 am after having spent 18 hours at school doing our assignment, where the last 10 hours was spent without food. We were quite tired, as you might have seen by the previous blogpost. We went to sleep, and woke up again 11 am. I went to the post office at Mt Gravatt Plaza and sent home a 7 kilo package with stuff. It was quite fascinating as it had around 60 stamps on it, and it cost a small fortune. Hanne was a good girl and did laundry.

While we were busy doing our minor assignment (rather stressed out), we got the notice that we would have to deliver our suitcases (the big ones) to Earle Bridger's office at QCA on friday. We are not bringing those with us to Bourke or Japan (luckily), so QCA will store them for us while we are gone. We suddenly realized, after the joy of being done with our assignment had been slightly removed, that we had just half a day to pack all our stuff into the suitcase. This may sound like an abundance of time, but our room looks like someone's put a bomb in there. Also, since we will be without our suitcases for like 3 weeks, we had to plan out what we would need for the next days here in Brisbane, then the trip to Bourke, the trip to Japan and the trip to Cairns. We also had to do some laundry. As we had originally planned to go to Garden City and get some food and then see a movie, we stressed about packing. After we felt we were done with the packing (our room still looked like a mess though), we went to Garden City. We like Garden City. You can get anything there, including sliced beef & creamy baked potatoes from Bucking Beef. We like beef.

We did a liiiiittle bit of shopping, before going all happy again. We had bought tickets for Burn After Reading on GOLD CLASS to celebrate being done with our assignment. We paid a small fortune here as well, but I thought it was certainly worth it. We had to show up thirty minutes before the film started, and we went into the Gold Class Lounge. We sat in a sofa, looking through the menu of what we could order. On Gold Class, you sit in extremely comfy reclining chairs, only 4 chairs in a row, and around 6 rows in total. There's a bar outside, where you can order food and drinks to be served you during the movie at any time you wish. I was quite hungry, so I ordered nachos and diet coke to be served during the movie. It was a great experience, and very luxurious and extremely comfy. I thought the movie was quite alright, it was even funny at the end. I'm not so sure if Hanne agrees though.

We managed to safely avoid possums, bats, birds, lizards etc on our way home by taking a maxitaxi. Our egoes apparently needed a lot of space after the luxurious evening.

Okey, major problem

Not really, but after sitting 15 hours at school, your mind gets a bit fuzzy..

I am hereby stating that I have finished my minor assignment, which will count for 25 % of my overall grade and that I have, for the first time in my life, written an assignment that is too long.

That's right, I've written past my 10% over limit and will now have to cut out parts.

That's a luxury problem!



(but yet a problem... )

Assignments, thunderstorms, lasagna, nachos, and dreams of Malaysia

Hey, that pretty much summed it all up. Guess I'm finished then!

No.. I couldn't possibly spend my time writing my assignments when there are blogs to be written and time to be wasted :)

Julie and I have done quite well with our assignments today, and that's a very good thing, seeing as they are due tomorrow. We have decided not to leave school before they are finished, and I'm afraid that will be a bit past the time I normally leave school.. Life at school isn't bad though. lasagna and nachos (Hanne and Julie) was great and stocking up on chocolate bars from the cafeteria wasn't all that bad either ;)

There has been a wonderful thunderstorm this evening, rain is pouring down and Julie keeps thinking people are photographing her.. She also found another thing to keep her away from writing: the thought of Malaysia. I'm happy about going and she's happy about actually having a vacation. Malaysia will be the only time when we have nothing to do and can solely focus on relaxing and see interesting stuff :)

This has again leading to Julie writing a poem on the occasion...(don't kill the messenger)

Our Asian-Malaysian Vacation
A lovely equation
An indulging sensation
On our Asian-Malaysian Vacation

To her defense, she's bored out of her wits (what wits?) and has been high on sugar for the last couple of hours....

The Lolly Nazi

Bet you're curious now, eh? But I won't tell you.. yet.. :P

Yesterday was alright, we had a writing workshop at school, didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the horrid essay they gave us to mark (we did both), and then school was finished for the year. 13. October, and you've had your last day at school.. Wow!

It's not completely correct though, we will still attend school for a goodbye lunch on Friday and then travel to Bourke along with one of our teachers. No lectures in Bourke, but I guess there will be lectures in Japan when we arrive there shortly after Bourke. I don't mind having classes though, and I very much look forward to everything about both Bourke and Japan. (Julie is a bit scared though. We're doing home stay some of the days in Bourke and Japan, and Julie is not too happy about moving in with a new family.. (In Japan they might not even speak English), in addition, she will have to face them alone.. That's right, we get one family each to bugger, so we will sleep separately for the first time in weeks... or, we might be sent to bed in between an old weird married Japanese couple, because they have no more beds... That's what I'm scared about..) :P

As for as school stuff is concerned, yesterday was yet another day of not getting work done. Working in the house we live in is impossible... But! Happynews! There is always a new day :) And today, we have both started and written half of our assignments (hey, it's better than nothing!) and we are both happy about being able to focus again:) Although Julie is surfing the net as we speak, and I'm, as you might see, updating the blog :) All good fun, we're having a good time, and we do miss people at home :)


(Here I am again, thinking about publishing and not even mentioning anything about the Nazi Lolly Lady who graciously lent her name to title this blog.. Shame on me. I'll introduce you to her. The Nazi Lolly Lady works at the bookshop, were I love to go, and in the bookshop they sell candy (they call it lollies), which I love to eat. All good so far. So I walk over to the candy shelf, read the price, take a cup (they have candy in cups) and start filling it with my current favorite: Sour candyworms.. Mmmmmm.... Then Nazi Lolly Lady comes over and says I'm not allowed to do that. (You're really brave if you try to stand between me and my candy, but she was obviously completely ignorant of the grave danger she was in..). Apparently, you have to choose a lot of different things, because some of the candy is more expensive than the rest of the candy, and I would ruin them (3 dollars..) if I only choose to take one type of candy.. So even if I actually chose the cheapest type of candy, I would still have to fill it up with other types, as to not ruin them...

I was in the mood for candyworms... Stupid Nazi Lolly Lady..)

Videos!

We have some videos for you today, courtesy of our very nice digital cameras. Unfortunately, the quality of the videos get very poor when we upload them to Youtube, so sorry for that. The videos in this blog is from the Sydney Aquarium (mostly from the shark tank I think), which was quite an eerie experience. Youtube crashed while uploading the rest of the videos, so there will be a few more (including one of a crocodile!) and some from Sydney Wildlife World. Enjoy!

Sad Saturday

We were leaving Sydney, and thus ending our holiday, we were not happy about going back to Brisbane to continue our school work. Lectures have ended, and we only have a writing workshop left before the minor assignment is to be handed in Thursday. As we are leaving for Bourke on the Sunday, staying a week and then off to Japan for nearly two weeks, the major assignment.., well, I don't even want to think about it.

But I will, and I am, and I will not flunk, neither will Julie, so I haven't freaked out to the point where I contemplate ramming my rental car into a wall yet, but it might happen in the future. Beware on the road.

That being said, I haven't really told you what we did on Saturday. We woke up early (this seems to be reoccurring and I'm not too fond of it), then we checked out, locked in our bags at the hotel and took a bus. The destination? Bondi Junction. The purpose? Hillsong. Mission completed? Not a chance. Which is quite sad actually, because I don't think I will be back in Sydney anytime soon. But I didn't spend much time sulking, we had found a large shopping center :P I bought a new pair of sneakers (and threw away my old ones with the holes in them), Julie bought a handbag, I fell in LOVE with a pair of shoes at 270 dollars, they were black leather, strapped from ankle to knee and of course, high-heeled. It was the pair of shoes you buy once in a lifetime. So I decided I'd buy them later in life and walked away.

I did buy something though. As my mum has denied me purchasing more earrings, and my boyfriend has denied me purchasing more DVD's, I have found a new hobby! That ought to make them both glad, right? I'm collecting Christmas tree ornaments, all glass angels, and I want them all to be special in some way or other. I bought one in Sydney, I have one from Malta, and my first one was a Christmas gift from my boyfriend's only sister. (She's one year older than me, and is getting married this summer..)

Back to Sydney, I must show you a picture of some of the other ornaments that were available.. Suffice to say, I did not buy them.
After shopping, and eating (Indian for me, steak for Julie), we catched the bus back to Sydney, had an hour online, catched the Airtrain, and went though security faster than Marion Jones on speed. They actually have higher security at the small local airport of my hometown in Norway, than in Sydney.. 'nuff said.

We landed without trouble in Brisbane, it was raining, but it was nice to be back. We decided to expand our holiday just a little longer and went to the movies. We chose "Disaster Movie", and as it thoroughly states, it was a disaster. Julie thought the parody of the princess from "Enchanted" was the only thing that made the movie survivable, and I believe I didn't even smile for a total of one and a half hours. If someone ever wonders what my humor is like, I will show them this movie, and say: Anything but this.. anything but.

Funky Friday

Why funky? I don't know.. it's alliteration, it's what the Vikings used to do, and the forefather of Danish designer Jørn Utzon were probably Vikings, and Jørn Utzon designed what famous Sydney landmark? The Opera House, I knew you knew it.. :P

We woke up early again, too early for my taste and if the room was freezing, the shower was nipping Kelvin in the toes. Yikes, I hate the cold. And sore throats. At least I had a voice this morning.

We decided to get cultural again, and got our tickets for the Hop on Hop Off bus, touring both the city sights and Bondi beach. We got into our open-roof two-story bus, and were told by the driver to beware of branches. With leaves coming into our bus like Americans into Iraq and branches going lower than the current stock market, it was quite an exercise for our neck muscles. I must say we ended up being closely acquainted with the trees of New South Wales.

That being said, there were glimpses of the outside world from time to time, and we got to see both Fox Studios and ABC Headquarters. The contrast between the old Victorian buildings and the skyscrapers was eminent, and both Julie and I liked looking around for new things to discover.

We arrived Bondi beach safely, and went to check out the water temperature. It was freezing. As a friend of mine says: "It's not that far from the Antarctic after all..." I begin to think he is right. But the windy place makes for a good surf, and we saw a lot of people checking out the waves. It looked fun, but nothing for me.

Julie went for a stroll on the shore and I sat down further up and wrote a couple of post cards. (Bought in Malaysia, written in Sydney, will be sent from Brisbane.. I hope.) Julie came back up for some sun, and I enjoyed myself just looking around and feeling sand between my toes. We walked separate ways to get some pictures, and hopped on the bus again at 3.30 p.m. We bowed to a couple of more branches before arriving in Sydney, and hopped on the city tour. More branches, more sights and more laughter later, we hopped off at the Opera House.

Julie liked the Opera House, but was more impressed by the Sydney Harbor Bridge (we have a ton of pictures of it now). I liked the bridge, but was more impressed by the Opera House. I liked the lines, the colors, the tiles, the geometry and the way the sun lighted the features of it. (Seems that I was in a happy mood that day). We took some pictures, walked a bit on our own just enjoying, and ended up shopping inside the Opera House itself. We both bought Christmas presents.

It was starting to get quite cold, so we hopped on the bus again, saw a beautiful old car, hopped off (not because of the car, but because we had arrived) We wanted to see a movie again, but needed more clothes, so we went back to the hotel, got clothes, had some food inbetweenheresomewhere, had an hour on the Internet, bought candy and saw Journey To the Centre of the Earth 3D :) We both thought it would be crappier than it was, and were both surprised (in a good way).

Julie went to the hotel after this and I stayed out among Sydneysiders and tourists alike to make some phone calls. I was then 9 hours ahead of Norway-time. Normally, in Brisbane, which is further east, I'm only 8 hours ahead, so that was quite funny, being a time zone closer to my country and yet another hour ahead. Why is this, you say? New South Wales have daylight saving, Queensland (as the only one in Australia) refuses. But it varies apparently, some years they have, some years they don't..

The third and very last part of Thursday

Phew, they said one picture describes more than a thousand words, right? Well, then I can not possibly describe more thoroughly this day of my life..

After Sydney Wildlife World was well toured and enjoyed, we headed the ten meters to Sydney Aquarium. We walked through a shark's mouth (a metal one..), and it was a great boost to Julies mood (not that it was anywhere low from before..) She loves sharks :) So yadadiyadada, we saw fishies, and seals and... ehmm.. . crocodiles and a platypus.. (apparently, I forgot where I saw the animals and wrote about them in Wildlife World instead.... yeah, cause crocodiles and platupuses don't live in the water at all.... *smacks head in wall*)

We saw eels, and anemones, and pineapple fish, cow fish, the spotted unicorn-fish and the convict surgeon-fish (these are actually real names of fishes...)

Then came the time to walk down into the shark's domain.. Julie was in ecstasy (not the drug, but the happy-because-she-sees-sharks-even-though-she's-terrified-of-them kind of ecstasy) and I wasn't that far from being thrilled myself. The music, the water, the giant animals, Julie and I sat there for what seemed like hours (and probably was). I can not with words describe the feelings that I had down there, it was amazing.







Oh, I nearly posted without finishing the day.. After the aquarium, we walked around for a bit, checking out if there were any good movies at IMAX, the times were a bit bad, so we dropped it. We took the Monorail for a few more stops, back to World Square and got out. We were hungry and ended up eating Indian. *Happy Hanne*. I tricked Julie into trying Butter Chicken, and I went for lamb, all with naan of course. And was the food good? I'm seriously considering moving to India.

After dinner, we went for a movie at the local cinema. Still in the mood for culture, we chose The Duchess, and loved it. Julie and I are bot suckers for historical drama. I believe we actually had time for an hour on the Internet as well, before walking back home and going to sleep.

Quite the uneventful day, don't you think?



EDIT:

Oh! Oh! I forgot!
We also got to do some shopping, I took this cute picture of Julie and I bought emu-jerky!