Hanne and Julie upside down

Old times

2009-12-18T09:58:00.002+10:00

Just going through the old blog, and everything seems like ages ago. Dinosaur-distant as it may seem, I would just like to try if some old magic of mine still works..

Nick?

Nick Earls?

Are you still alive old chap? How are you doing? :)

Haha!

2008-12-15T06:45:00.002+10:00

Not that I'm laughing or anything (cause I'm failing my exam), but Julie and I have now started holidaying! Schools over (until another exam 12-14 Jan.) and its starting to dawn on us. We don't have to stay at school all day (12 hours at least), we don't have to skip every meal because we're at school, we don't have to get up early or get to bed early.

We're in Malaysia, we heard it's minus degrees back home, and tickets at the cinema are 20kr each. And it's 5 and I haven't gone to bed yet... just cause I can.. :P

New Zealand picture blog part 2

2008-12-06T19:05:00.009+10:00

Hihi!

The view from Queenstown

Queenstown seen from the Botanical Gardens

Yes, I know. But the kitty was cute! I'd do anything as long as it is not my major assignment.

Makarora

In Haast Pass (near the Gates of Haast)

View from the airplane

Not complicated at all.

What on earth could this be?

Studying in a campervan!

The tiny little bump to the right is Mt Potts (Edoras!)

Lazy dogs... have to get driven around to herd the sheep....

Edoras!

We figured that we should try to get a picture with us and a sheep. We finally found one that had escaped outside a fence, but he refused to comply with our plan. Selfish bastard.

We thought we should try with a cow instead. The cows did not agree. Three ran away while watching us suspiciously, while one stayed somewhat close to prove how cool he was.

Lake Tekapo! (hint: say it out loud)

Fudge!

the Pelennor Fields! (where we slept!!!)

Notice the symbols....

New Zealand picture blog part 1

2008-12-06T18:50:00.007+10:00

Cute car outside the cathedral in Christchurch

Finally, pictures from New Zealand! They are all a bit mixed together and I don't have time to sort them, so you'll just have to manage. Atleast there's pictures! :) Many are taking from the car window at a speed of around 110-120 km/h, so they're not quite perfect :P

Christchurch Cathedral

The tram in Christchurch

A real mummy at the museum in Christchurch

Frank & Myrtle's Paua House at the museum, which is a house covered in Paua shells. The house used to be in a town called Bluff, and Frank & Myrtle llet tourists in for almost 40 years until they died and it was moved to the museum.

Sheep!

Ents!

@ 100 km/h atleast ;)

Franz Josef Glacier

We made a "varde"!

Posin'

...

That's a one lane bridge with traffic in both directions and a RAILWAYLINE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LANE.

Pwned.

Living on the edge!

Doing as we're told...

Kiwiland

2008-11-30T13:00:00.003+10:00

Island similar to Norway? Check. Freezing Cold (Norwegian summer)? Check. Eaten kiwi? Check. Smuggled items into New Zealand and being fined a small fortune? Check. Crashed a car? Check.

We flew in to Christchurch a couple of days ago and believe me, it was the bumpiest flying-in I've ever been on: Scary pilot-lady! I think Julie was watching the Simpsons on our in-flight screens at this point, so it could be an earthquake for all she notices :P All good when we had landed, we had our luggage superfast and we filled out our immigration forms and our customs forms... and Julie got caught. And fined the budget of a small country.

"You, Julie Stave, have been found guilty in smuggling in food items, fruit, namely one banana."

And how much did she pay? A pretty 200 dollars. (Our rental car for five days was 274...)

Anyways, we had to get a taxi and pick up our van! We arrived at Wicked Campers and met our designated car: Davie Bowie. He is a truly amazing car, but more about that later. We payed, had the usual tour of the facilities, oil, water, petrol, and grabbed freebies (leftovers) to go. Everything was fine, Hanne is getting into her head that she has to drive on the wrong (read: left) side of the road, we get in, I get out.

"It has an AUTOMATIC???"

I've never driven an automatic in my life. But once you get used to it, it's not so bad (don't tell anyone..). We started, got out on the road, Julie had her maps and told me to turn right at the next intersection. I turned into a one way (not my way) street. And it was very little empty. So I drove over the road and out of the road, continued on the sidewalk for a while and found somewhere to get back on the right (yes, left) side of the road.

We got safely out of Christchurch and headed for the mountains. I drove for some hours, we took some photos, had food in Darfield, passed Springfield, Sheffield, and a number of creeks with funny names (list is to be posted at a later time).

We spent the night at Jacksons, completely out of fuel in the middle of nowhere, but the nice man running the site said he would help us the next day.

We woke up (not completely mosquito-eaten), and Julie made burgers on toast for brekkie. It was good, but we had to throw the rest away because we have no way to cool things down. Well, we checked out, and the nice guy came over to the car to save the ladies in need. He seemed so confident that we had loads of petrol and could get really far, but he was just checking in case..

"It's not even running on fumes!"

No.. It was running on sheer will-power.. I was not about to go empty downhill the mountains..

He filled us up quarter of a tank for 15 dollars (cheaper than hoes in Amsterdam), and told us we had 30 k's left for a petrol station in Moana. Not the road we were planning on, but we got to Moana, filled up and headed for Greymouth. Just before Greymouth we saw the sea.. We had driven across the island and were safely on the other side. Or so we thought. I crashed during the first five minutes in Greymouth. Ladadi ladada, I took the door (the whole door) of a youngsters Corolla. And he was an angry little kid he was.

So, we stayed in Greymouth for a while longer than expected, before we headed down south for the longest journey to date. We saw the coast and glaciers, and were in desperate need of music and ended up buying crappy stuff. We drove until late last night and slept at Makarora. Freezing.

Woke up this morning and had toast and jam, drove to Queenstown, found food and Internet (the basic needs are covered), and here we are. The plan for tonight is to drive as far North as possible before I near fall asleep at the wheels, and the find somehwere to park our van.

The time difference is 12 hours exact, if anyone wanna txt :P

(We've each had our day of misery, Julie with the expensive banana, and Hanne crashing another car, Julie's turn today.. )

Back to being Brisbanians (22-28.11.08)

2008-11-27T19:23:00.003+10:00

Back in Brisbane, supposed to be studying. No further comment on that subject.

We're back at Bowen Terrace, enjoying life in separate rooms this time (yay!) and we have our own fridge! Luxury! Indulgence!

Our breakfast is Coco Pops + milk (first time I've had milk since Norway) on the porch. My dinners have consisted of steak as I discovered that in Australia, steak is 8 AUD per kilo (roughly 36 NOK). I love steak.

We are around 25 people staying at Bowen Terrace, so it is very social. A few Australians, a British guy, some French people, many Italian people and loads of Germans.

We've finally ordered a Wicked Camper for 5 days in New Zealand, and hotel in Cristchurch for the rest. We're leaving tomorrow.

Today, we spent the day at the Immigration Department, standing in line. Luckily, it turns out we will not be illegal immigrants in Australia afterall. We were originally told that we had a 3 month visa, and we entered the country the 8th of september, and logically, our visa would expire the 8th of december. We're leaving the 12th. Today, they checked our passport and since Norway has a special agreement with Australia, our visa's give us a new 3 month stay everytime we re-enter the country. We will be back in Australia the 5th of december, meaning our visa will expire the 5th of March unless we re-enter the country again. So, we're all clear. Phew :)

Hideaway Island and Pele Island

2008-11-27T18:52:00.000+10:00

Again, snow at home did you say? Or, the worst storm in decades continues in Brisbane? Fantastic..

Thursday we went to Hideaway by bus. All the buses in Port Vila look like normal cars, but they have a B in front of the number on their number plates. T is for Taxi, H for Hire and PT for public transport. Apparently, bus is not reckoned public transport in Vanuatu. PT is for those going to the market carrying all their goods.

Anyways, we got on a bus, got on another bus, then a ferry (room for ten at the most, including the ferry man), and then we finally arrived at Hideaway. We paid the entrance fee, found very comfy sun chairs and headed out to sea. If you ever think you've seen a beach made out of dead corals before, think again, you haven't been to Hideaway.. It held good promises of what were to be found in the waters before us. We spent the day snorkeling and tanning (sometimes under the umbrella, sometimes not), experienced the occasional rain shower, but it was just nice having the salt washed away for us.

We both started getting sick this day (swallowing too much salt water I guess..), but we had a nice day and looked forward to Pele Island the next day.

Pele Island? Didn't that get canceled? Well, on Wednesday it did, on Friday it didn't. But, they forgot about us. We had that fixed as well and after chasing the bus in a scary small car without seat belts, we catched up and headed for the boat.

Rain clouds came and passed over all the island, including ours, but it didn't start raining yet. We embarked on a small beach, left our stuff and headed out to sea again. Our guide took us out to the reefs and provided us with bread in case we wanted the sharks (I mean, fish..) to eat something other than ourselves. I played around with my underwater camera and met many cute (and some huge) fishies out there on the reef. It started raining on the way out and while we were snorkeling, but it cleared by the time we headed back. Everyone was hungry and we had food (glorious food!) accompanied by.... yes, a string band.. Not that they drive me nuts or anything (they do.) but however cute the guys were, it did not make up for them being guys wearing skirts and with white flowers in their hair.. :S

After lunch we had a guided tour of the village (800 people lived there). The day that we were there they were preparing a wedding, the groom was just over at another island buying the bride. We saw the food being prepared (a cow's head here, a pig's leg there) and we are not thoroughly convinced that it was all too hygienic. Our guide climbed a coconut tree and fetched coconuts for later. On the way back we walked past the local church: A shed.

Kids sang to us (we're goin tu mis ju, we wis we cud kis ju, we hate that ju'r goin aaaaaweeeeeeeeee). You can hear it can't you? After this fantastic musical experience, we had some free time to swim around and enjoy ourselves and it was thoroughly enjoyed:)

Vanuatu pictureblog #2

2008-11-27T18:51:00.009+10:00

Hanne enjoying her coconut on the Melanesian Night BBQ, and...

... the stringband

Number two!

Waiting for the ferry to Hideaway Island

On the ferry

Enjoying life on Hideaway Island

Fishies!

The world's only underwater post office

Hanne posting our postcards

Underwater

Lunch!

Curry in coconut

Coral!

Waiting for the bus back home

While waiting for the boat to Pele Island

People fishing

Snorkelling

The local stringband

Where our lunch was prepared

Some of the local kids

"No killing or picking of turtles"

Bislama rules.

The local kitchen

Crossing our fingers and hoping that this is not where our lunch came from

Picking coconuts

The local kids sang to us (or shouted).

Best Waltzing Matilda ever.

Bislama rules.

Hi-tech flight information boards

Haha!

Vanuatu pictureblog #1

2008-11-27T18:37:00.005+10:00

Arriving at Port Vila International Airport (smaller than Vigra)

Our plane! (well, technically, its Pacific Blue's plane)

We were met by a string band at the airport

Our wonderful room at Poppy's On The Lagoon

To the left, the building our room was in

The room from our room, overlooking the lagoon

Pretty flowers

And yes, RAIN.

Wet.

Hanne in the reception

Proof of studying

View from the garden

Hanne on 'our' beach

Hanne far-far-away

View from the breakfast-hut

Testing the snorkelling gear in the....

POOL!

Some views from Port Vila, walking home one evening

Bislama

2008-11-27T18:29:00.000+10:00

When Wednesday came we were sick of studying , or in Julie's case: Not being able to start to study, so we decided to take a tour to Pele Island. Actually, we decided this Tuesday evening. Come 7.30 Wednesday morning, the phone rang and someone had canceled, leaving us unable to go. Personally I blame to much spiked coconut juice the day before..

Julie spent most of the day sleeping and I went to explore town. I bought a practical little sumfin sumfin for my guy for Christmas and replied to a couple of e-mails at a random Internet cafe. (If you ever need someone to e-mail, my brother would be your man..) I went to a store called Nambatu, instead of catching the outdoor movie at Nambawan Cafe. Starting to recognize a pattern? Number Two and Number One? In Vanuatu they speak both French, English and the very funny language Bislama (they put Blong everywhere..). Let me give you a crash course:

1. Alo
2. Plis
3. Skiusmi
4. Hamas?
5. Yu gat..?
6. Ples
7. Totel

Don't tell me that you don't understand it... :P (Hello, Please, Excuse me, How much?, You got..?, Place, Turtle). Now let me give you a few sentences now that you've fully comprehended Bislama.

Call a doctor/police! - Singalot doctor/polis!
Piano - black fala box we igat black teeth, hemi gat white teeth you faetem hard I singout
A bra - basket blong titi
Violin - wan smol box blong white man, oli scratchem beli I singout gudfala
A saw - Pulem I kam, pushem I go, wood I fall down

or the bit scary..

A helicopter - mixmaster blong Jesus Christ

Melanesian Night (17.11.2008)

2008-11-27T18:21:00.000+10:00

Tuesday night was a musical experience. Every Tuesday Poppy's on the Lagoon cater a BBQ and serve loads of local food. The chicken was good, I've been addicted to jams and the banana cake was delighful, but the deep-fried cocoa nut was truly horrid. Then 6 o'clock the music started (it is still music at this point), a string band is going to entertain us for 3 hours. At first the songs sound differently, then they sound all the same and then they start sounding differently again.. The listeners don't know whether to clap between each song or at the end, and end up clapping embarrassingly hesitant every time.

Stalking Hanne

2008-11-27T18:13:00.006+10:00

It is very difficult to get a picture of Hanne on the blog. First of all, it's difficult to manage to take one of her, because she constantly turns away. Secondly, if I try to upload a nice picture, she'll probably hate it and since she can edit my blogs, she'll remove it.

I apologize to all Hanne fans if you have noticed the lack of Hannepictures. This will finally be set right. She must have taken a happypill or something in Vanuatu, because I was allowed to take pictures. Many pictures. These will now be posted.

I am crossing my fingers and hoping this blog will not magically disappear.

Enjoy!

Glad we're far away (random days in Vanuatu)

2008-11-27T18:12:00.001+10:00

Day 2 was wholly spent at the hotel. When you see the pictures you realize there is no reason to leave it. We had good food, good weather (some rain but who cares in 30 degrees?), and not to say the least, free movies in our room. I will not tell you how many movies we saw during our week.

But, we did other stuff as well. School-stuff. Many days in a row went by with tables filled with paper, paper, paper, the occasional freshly-squeezed lime juice, paper, paper and more paper. Yes, we got sympathetic looks from other guests. (Although, I guess there will be none of those from you back home... I hear it's snowing?)

And speaking of extreme weather: Brisbane experienced the worst storm in ages while we were gone. People died, 3000 homes got wrecked and prime minister Kevin Rudd has ordered 25 million dollars to go getting Brisbane back on track. The beautiful City Cats that run in the Brisbane river were stopped for a week due to the amount of debris floating in the water. A rail station in Ipswich (just outside Brisbane) is missing its rail way tracks, and while you mention it, the station is not there anymore either.

Hanne singing Electric Guitar in her head (15.11.2008)

2008-11-27T18:02:00.000+10:00

Do you know how much ten kilos is? Not a freaking lot you say.. Until you have to carry it all over the island :P Well, it wasn't that bad, but my bag really killed me up the long stairs and winding roads to our quarters. The view that met us on the top wasn't all that bad though ;)

I guess I didn't tell you anything about the evening, other than that we experienced the local life. Julie and I went to the happening of the year: Vanuatu Music Festival in capital Port Vila. (It's not every capital in the world that you can walk to in 10 minutes.. Either you're in it or you're far away :P )

We listened to some music ("Electric Guitar" is still stuck in my head), did not sample the local food (and because of that we're still alive), and finally put the local boys back in their place (Hanne got violent).

We don't actually have any pictures from the evening, but that might be just as good :P

Arriving in Vanuatu (15.11.2008)

2008-11-27T17:46:00.000+10:00

And I will repeat myself: Yes, it is a country. It is located in the South Pacific and the island nation receives about 80.000 tourists every year. (Neighboring country Fiji receives about 1 million).

Our first day was all about experiencing the local life. Landing at the Airport was funny in itself.. hadn't it been for all the funky colors the airport was painted in, I would have believed we were back in Norway (the airport was smaller than Vigra..) We were greeted by a string band at the airport, saw a bush base for the first time and were troublelessly (I know its not a word) admitted into the country. We found our transport, met our driver (he gave us necklaces with pretty shells on them)and then we sat down to wait for the others going to the same hotel.

You know how stupid Americans can be sometimes? And you think that only Americans can be so stupid? The family that traveled with us to our hotel asked the driver twice (sic!) whether they could use Australian dollars in Vanuatu or not. (The local currency is the Vatu) Julie wanted to tap the driver on the shoulder as well and ask if we could use Norwegian Kroner in Vanuatu... Just to set the example for the stupid tourist lady :P

Fours short days in Brisbane (11-15.11.2008)

2008-11-27T17:31:00.002+10:00

We moved in at Bowen Terrace International Accommodation, where we will be staying for another two stays during our travels. Looking at the price and looking at the place Julie agrees she should trust me more often, it was great:) We spend our four days fuzzing over the assignment, there were times when we did a lot and times when we didn't, but as we left for Vanuatu. we left with literally hundreds of copied pages of our self-made syllabus...

Cairns pictueblog day 2 (10.11.08)

2008-11-27T17:20:00.006+10:00

Great weather for our Great Barrier Reef day

Picture of ridiculously-looking classmates in wetsuits: CHECK

Getting ready to go in (I'm clinging to the rail in the background, after having just discovered how #$%# deep it was)

A very, very big fish

Cruising in our half-submerged boat (We saw a shark!)

The platform at Agincourt Reef

Cairns pictureblog day 1 (09.11.08)

2008-11-27T17:02:00.005+10:00

Hard to see, but all the black parts of the tree, are.....BATS.

"Waterfall". Not much water in Australia because of the drought...

Green ants (whose butt our guide licked) eating a mean mosquitothingy

A wall in Kuranda

Our Foaming Fury bus, who took us around all day

Lookout point somewhere near Davies Creek

Termite apartmentbuilding

Dirtroads, very bumpy

Hege, Trine, Janne & Stine watching people swim

Nicole & Christine, attempting to look down

Nicole looking down

Nice place

More nice place (yes, I don't remember the names....)

Lunch at Lake Placid

Mikal taking a dive into Lake Placid

A visitor outside our hotelroom

Back in Brissie!

2008-11-24T15:15:00.002+10:00

We've had a wonderful time in Vanuatu! Now we're back in Brisbane, apparently having just missed the storm of the century.

There will be a picture-blog from Cairns, and blogs from Vanuatu, but they are unfortunately not on top on our priority list right now. We have just 6 days before going to New Zealand to write most of our major assignment, so we have a lot of work to do (tho little of it is actually being done).

Just thought I should let you know we're still alive :)

Have a nice day, and wish us luck!

Great Barrier Reef

2008-11-14T19:58:00.002+10:00

How long have I not wanted to post a blog with that title? After cold Japan, Cairns was a great spot to come to and having the opportunity to scuba dive on the reef wasn't all too bad either. The bus ride to the boat was quite amusing as well: The driver could not stop shuffling out jokes to the the lot of us, some bad, but some fun as well. We passed the cemetery where the inventor of the crossword was buried (three down and four across), and we had a stop by Jurassic Park to pick up some other hotel guests. I think Julie enjoyed the ride, I slept for most of it, but we both arrived at Port Douglas save and sound.

The boat ride was fun as well, loads of people getting nauseous and some serious waves at a point. The highlight was when the heavens opened and poured down all the water that seems to be missing from the Brisbane reservoirs. It rained. Heavily. Or heavenly.. :P

When we arrived at Agincourt reef at a stationary platforms set up for the Quicksilver boats to use. We ate our lunch there (I think everyone was pretty hungry at this stage), and we got out scuba gear on: wetsuits (with hoods), snorkels, masks and feet. I don't know what Julie did, but I slightly recall seeing here in the water in the vicinity of a large fish.. I had fun testing out my underwater camera and took some shots of silly-looking Norwegians in the water.

We did not get eaten by jellyfish or sharks, but got on the boat back and freshened up for a sec before heading out. Julie went for Mexican again, and I apparently mixed up the days.. Because this was the day I had Indian and yesterday was the day I had dinner at 7/11 :P

Rafting in Cairns! Whoohoo! (09.11.08)

2008-11-14T19:15:00.005+10:00

Yess!!! Today, we were picked up by Cindy from Foaming Fury. She was a funny lady, driving us around, first to the rainforest where we had a walk, and we saw the Barron Gorge. We drove to Kuranda, where we got some time to buy breakfast (we were starving as there was no breakfast included at the hotel (hanneedit: Julie was starving apparently, Hanne had been smart and gotten up early to buy breakfast somewhere else)). I also bought some Christmas presents :) We drove on, on a bumpy ride up a hill, where we were told not to walk off the path as the world's most dangerous snake frequented the area. Thanks for telling us. Being very aware of the possibility of dangerous snakes, we walked down the path to a lookoutpoint, where we had a splendid view. We walked further down to a pondish pond, where som of us ahd a swim (I did not, but I did splash my toes in the water). We walked along the river, and back up to the bus. It was terribly hot, and we were happy to get a small pack of frozen orange juice to cool us down. All the possible ways of melting orange juice were tried out, some more successful than others. Finally, the bus bumped us along and down to Lake Placid, where we could have a swim before lunch. Lake Placid was a very nice place, it's a pretty (warm) lake, with people bathing and diving and so on, and a reastaurant where there is live music. We were served hamburgers and fries, and it was quite good. We met back up at the bus, and we drove further up from Lake Placid. We stopped a lot higher up, and left all our stuff int he bus, which they drove back down again. We watched as they unloaded all the rafting equipment, and we rented rafting shoes, and got our life vests and helmets. We didn't need wetsuits. We were 6 boats with 7 people in each + one instructor. We from Volda had 3 of the boats, and the other 3 with other people. We carried the boats and the paddleoars down to the river, got in, and had a basic instruction. We started off, and it was really fun. We apparently got the instructor who was in charge, as he radioed orders to other people and so on. He was quite a good instructor. My group (Hanne, Christine, Siri, Nicole, Tiril and Hilde) were quite enthusiastic, and the instructor kept slowing us down. We managed to get down some of the waterfalls more gracefully than some of the other non-Volda-students-boats did. It was very funny when our boat totally outshined a boat full of young, strong men, and you could see how ashamed they were to be beaten by a bunch of girls. There also had to be a lot of rescuing, as many of the non-Volda-students tended to fall inn, or get stuck. We also got to have a swim at one of the calmer parts of the river, where we just jumped out of the boat and got carried down some slower falls by the current. It was very fun.When we got one the bigger falls, there was one where they used to 'surf'. It basically meant 'trying to get back up the waterfall', resulting in the boat tipping under the waterfall at the nearest end. We were asked if we wanted to do it the normal way, or the way where we might get turned upside down. We definiately chose the latter. Me and Christine (who were usually at the back of the boat) were moved to the front, to make the boat go under more easily. It did, and Christine fell inn. She was rescued and everything was okay. We wanted to do it again. We got down to the lake, where all jumped out of the boat and had a swim in our lifevests. The water was incredibly warm, and it was really nice. We got back in the boat, paddled to the shore where our instructor told us that we were one of the more fun boats he had been in for a while. Yay! We walked to the bus, where a group shot was taken, and we were bus'ed back to the hotel. We changed clothes and went immediatly out for mexican food, which was lovely. We were 10 people eating out, and we celebrated Trine's birthday. We went back to the hotel, and got straight into the pool, which was really warm even if it was pitch dark outside. We played some fun games, including singing & listening under water, and guessing which song is being sung. After having skin like a raisin, I went to bed. The day had been great, and we were looking forward to the next one here in
Cairns.

Hanneinput: I did not go out for Mexican (cause I hate Mexican), I went out for Indian instead, And let me say, although the sauce was too mild, the meat was the best meat I've ever tasted in an Indian dish. After dinner, I walked the streets and got lost. No surprise there. I had bought a beautyful (pink!) dress and was probably still a bit woozy after shopping. I asked a shopkeeper for the way, she told me, I walked, I walked further, and I realized it was clearly not the right way. So I asked another shopkeeper, and told him about the first blunder of a shopkeeper I met. He looks at me and says: "Aussie?" and I say: "No..." And she was female as well.. One should never ask females for help. He got me sorted, I found the hotel og alle hjerter gjelder seg :)

Cairns! (08.11.08)

2008-11-14T19:07:00.002+10:00

We managed to get back into the country, and we were picked up by a friendly chap from Down Under Tours. He drove us to the hotel, the 4,5 star Novotel Oasis Resort, which was great. The air was really humid, and it was very nice and warm compared to cold Japan. We had the day off, so Hanne and me decided to sleep until room service opened at 11am (it was now about 6am), as we were really hungry, and really sleepy. We slept until 11, and we ordered food. I had a steak sandwich, and Hanne potato wedges, and it was great. It was fooood.

We were very rested, so we put on our swimwear and headed for the lovely pool we had seen at the hotel. That pool was brilliant. It was really large, and very warm. I spent most of the day in the pool, before I met up with Hanne in the hotel room again, and we ordered more food from room service. This time we went for pizza, which turned out to be enourmous. We spent some time watching tv, I in my spacious comfy double bed, and Hanne in her spacious comfy double bed. I wrote some more blogposts since we were 'slightly' behind on that area, and we ordered more food when it had become evening. This time we shared a lasagne, fruit platter and I had some garlic bread. Yummy. We went to bed, knowing the next day would involve some fun!

Going home (to the land down under!) (07.11.08)

2008-11-14T19:01:00.002+10:00

Our stay in Japan was nearing the end, as we were leaving for Narita Airport at 5pm. We had to check out from the hotel by 10am, so we left all our luggage in the reception. We had arranged that Tengyo would take us to the local post office and help us so we could send things home. We invaded the local post office; around 20 non-Japanese-speaking students sending home 1 or 2 large boxes of things. You could see the terror in the post peoples faces. We spent around 1,5-2h there, and we did get our stuff sent home. Yes mom, one box will be coming home, and no, you can’t open it. Hanne and me went to the Victorian pub and had lunch, before going on the McDonalds and having more lunch since we were still hungry. We went to the hotel, and met up with a few others also intending to occupy the reception area until 5pm. We spent a lot of time there, up until 5pm when we were picked up by the bus. We said goodbye to Tengyo and Kjell, which was not that nice, and we took off. Arriving at the airport, checking in, clearing immigration and whatnot, we had some time to spend our last yens before the plane left. I ended up all the way back in the plane, where it was nice and dark, but quite cold and I couldn’t put my seat back. I still managed to sleep most of the time, until we arrived in Cairns at 5.30 in the morning. But more on that in tomorrow’s blogpost since it technically is tomorrow now. Or today, really. Hmm…

Future Island (06.11.08)

2008-11-14T18:52:00.006+10:00

We met up at 9am and took some trains to Future Island, which is an area in the city which is the technology hub. We went to Miraikan first, which is the National Museum of Emerging Science.

Enthusiasm!

We didn’t have much time, but we got to see a demonstration of Asimo, the robot. Kjell & Tengyo

Whaaat? It can't be!
It is.

We went to a mall where they also have the largest indoor amusement park, as well as restaurants and shops. We had some free time to look around, which Hanne and me used to eat lunch at an Italian restaurant, and do some shopping. We went back to the train station, where we split up. Those of us who were too tired to do anything went back to the hotel (me included), those of us who wanted to do more shopping went to Harajuku, and those who wanted to go skinnydipping at the hot springs went there (Hanne included). Those who wanted to go skinnydipping

I spent the rest of the day packing my things and preparing stuff to post tomorrow, and writing blogposts, and Hanne still hasn’t come back, so I don’t know how the hot springs went.

Random things to see at Future Island:

Hanne: Well Julie, the hot springs where amazing, you should thoroughly regret not coming with us. We ended up being four girls and four guys going to the Japanese baths, which includes bathing naked (no unisex), but listen, it includes bathing in a ton of different baths, hot and cold, steam baths, massage baths, you name it. I introduced Anna, Iselin and Marieke to Doctor Fish, which was as hilarious now as it was the first time I tried (in Malaysia with Julie). And for those of who who do not remember, Doctor Fish is just a huge amount of little fish eating your feet. It tickles!

Fishmarket!

2008-11-14T18:38:00.002+10:00

This event took place early one morning in Tokyo (the same day, but before Disneyland). Julie is/was still sick, but no worries! As we share all our pictures with each other, she could just send out Hanne, and she did :P

I got up around fiveish and met the others in the lobby. Save one couple, we were all one person from each of the rooms (I do think more people thought the same way Julie and I did). Not much to say really about the market, it was like markets most.. Except for the live fish/squid/crab/ that was all around us, constantly squirming and moving around and being chopped up. It's always fun seeing tuna, because everyone thinks they are so small, when in reality, they are huge bastards.

After the fish-market, some stayed to eat the world's freshest (and best?) sushi. I didn't. I had managed to get orange juice all over my bag and it's contents (read: my mobile, camera and passport). It was now becoming 7 o'clock in the morning, but as I was sure I couldn't go back to bed now (too awake), I decided to do some more touring around. The rest went home and I got off at Roppongi Hills. I spent about half an hour at the ladies room to clean and dry all my stuff and figured out why there's no soap in Japanese bathrooms. They simply don't wash their hands.

I walked some more around, visited the offices of Coca Cola, got trapped in the subway and eventually let lose, before I made my way back to Julie. Not completely arimasu then :P

Disneyland pictureblog

2008-11-14T18:23:00.007+10:00

The first thing that met us when we left the train station

All are excited on the way to Disneyland, Sandra even danced

Apparently Christmas comes early to Disneyland

Posin' with the castle

Posin'

The shopping street in Disneyland

Happiness

Where to go first?

Pretty castle

Peter Pan in the parade

Splash Mountain, about to get splashed (picture stolen from Monica)

Eeeek! (also stolen from Monica)

Coolness personified

3D glasses rule!

Eating pizza in 'space'

Watching the fireworks :)

And yeah, I bought the hat.

Disneyland! (05.11.08)

2008-11-14T18:18:00.003+10:00

Today started really crappy. You would never have guessed by reading the title, would you? We had to meet in the lobby at 5.30am to go to the fish market. I woke up with a migraine, so I didn’t go (maybe not so crappy afterall?). Hanne went, and I slept. I got up and went up to the 25^th floor to have breakfast. Late last night, after having gone to bed, I had realized that I had heard that there was a Disneyland in Tokyo. I asked some of the other people in my class if they were interested in going, and some of the were. Yay! 45 minutes later, we met up in Christine’s room, and headed towards Disneyland. Mikal had been to the information desk and acquired a how-to-get-to-Disneyland-using-the-railway-map, so we followed him to Shinjuku station. Hanne had made it back from the fishies just in time to tag along, and we ended up being ten people going: me, Hanne, Christine, Mikal, Stine, Siri, Monica, Tiril, Sandra and Ann-Helen. We managed to buy the right tickets, switch lines and make our way through Tokyo to Maihama station, where Disneyland is right next to. We were all quite excited, bought our tickets and we were in Disneyland! It has pretty much the same layout as the one in Paris, but with some different names, and a whole lot more souvenirshops than attractions. The attractions were really quite lame compared to pretty much any other attraction I have ever taken, so my conclusion is that Japanese people must be sissies. We took all the big ones, like Pirates of the Caribbean, Splash Mountain(where we appropriately enough got totally splashed), Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain (without launch and loops - lame), Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters and the Microadventure. The latter one was the most surprising one, as it was really cool. You get 3D glasses and get shrunk to tiny size. Also, they splashed you with water (Malle: like in Cinemagique) and apparently there were ‘mice’ accidentally released in the audience, and suddenly things were scratching against your feet etc. Creepy! But we had a lot of fun!

Uni, view of Tokyo, Akihabara and H&M (04.11.08)

2008-11-14T18:01:00.008+10:00

The white building is our hotel, the Shinjuku Washington Hotel (seen from the back)

Today we just went behind the hotel to the Bunka Women’s University, where they had some sort of open day. We were supposed to see a fashion show, but because of the queues, we skipped it. We did see some exhibitions of fashion, product design, photography and so on. Afterwards, we went to the other side of the hotel, where the government buildings are located. We went to the top floor (45) in one of the towers and had a look at the view. Tokyo is quite enormous, you could see the city forever in each direction. We took the elevator down, switched elevator, and took the elevator to the 32^nd floor where we had lunch. Japan is quite fascinating, because most restaurants have wax-copies on display for all their dishes, making it easy to see what the dish is like (especially when you don’t understand Japanese). This restaurant was quite special, as you picked a dish from the display, went to a ticket machine and punched in the number of dish you wanted, stuffed in enough coins to pay for the meal, and then you got a receipt, which you took to one of many counters where they in return for your ticket gave you your meal. Efficient.

After lunch, we went to Akihabara, the district to go for anime, manga, computer games etc. It was rather bizarre browsing the stores. Japanese people are weird. I won’t go further into detail. I refuse.
We split up in Akihabara, where parts of the group when to a giant toy store (including Hanne (and she later went to Harajuku)) and some went to the Ginza-district (including me). Some of the girls had managed to track down a H&M store (the only one in Japan), hoping to track down normalsize clothes and underwear and so on. I tagged along, and it was quite an interesting experience. First of all, H&M is located next to Prada, Calvin Klein and Armani in one of the more expensive shopping districts. Secondly, there were two bouncers letting people in and out of the store. Thirdly, there was a queue of people wanting to enter. Fourthly, the store was so full you could not turn around, and you just had to walk in a queue while looking at the clothes while walking past. Fifthly, they only had elegant clothes, and no ’everyday’ clothes. It was impossible to shop there, and it wasn’t like there was some special occasion, it was just normal. Very interesting. I, Anna and Iselin went back to the hotel whereas the other girls went back to Harajuku to do more shopping. We found a Victorian pub just next to the hotel, where we had dinner before going back to the hotel. My feet were dying, as seemed everyone else’s to be as well. I just relaxed and tried to prepare some more stuff for the blog while watching weird Japanese game shows. Hanne arrived later, and I went to bed real early, since we had to leave the hotel at 5.30am next morning to go to the fish markets :(

Tokyo! (03.11.08)

2008-11-14T17:53:00.005+10:00

We didn’t have to meet up until 10am today, which was great. We had breakfast at the hotel before shuffling our bags into the bus which took off for the train station in Kyoto. We had a few minutes before our train left, so we got to buy some sandwiches for lunch later (learned that lesson the first day with trains in Japan - they only have raw fish). After a few hours on the train, we arrived in Tokyo. We were met by one of the many ladies with flags, who led the way out a long long way to the Ginza district (where we stayed the first night in Tokyo), and we boarded the bus after having shuffled bags again. After about 40 minutes drive through Tokyo, we arrived at the Shinjuku Washington Hotel. It is a really big hotel, with 25 floors. Me and Hanne ended up on the 16^th floor, in quite a nice room. We had about 15 minutes to leave our bags and have a much-needed toilet break before meeting up in the lobby. We grouped up and got taxis, and we drove for quite some time to a big arena. Apparently, the Beatles had played here the first time they were in Japan. This was not the reason for our visit though, we were going to watch a national martial arts championship, Kendo. We were missing 4 students whose taxi had gotten lost, but after a lot of waiting, they were found. We entered the arena and found our seats. We arrived just as the quarter finals were beginning, and it was really cool. Two people were fighting each other, wearing really cool robelike apparel, hitting each other with sticks (supposedly swords, but they just look like sticks).After having watched the finals, we went to the metro station and took the metro to Shibuya. Shibuya is kind of like Times Square in New York, a lot of people and a lot of neon lights. It was really cool. We went to Shibuya 109, the trendiest mall in entire Tokyo, and it was interesting to see. We also walked in the streets for a while, before splitting up. Tengyo took some of us to find a 7eleven, as it is the only place where they have an ATM where we Norwegians can withdraw cash. After we had acquired some money, 9 of us went for dinner at an Italian restaurant, where we could have pizza. Pizza! No raw fish for me! But the pizza took about 50 minutes from order until it was in front of me, so…. Meanies. We did some shopping nearby before we found our way back to the hotel. Using the metro in Tokyo is not that hard really, although most maps and placenames are in Japanese. I didn’t go arimas today either :)

Where Hanne's day differed from Julie's: I didn't have to wait 50 minutes for pizza! (Just had to say that). I went out for Japanese fast food instead. It's not what you would think actually, and it was probably the best food I've had in Japan... (this is with the exception of the chocolate fountain)

Free time in Kyoto (02.11.08)

2008-11-14T17:40:00.004+10:00

This sign was outside the hotel. Can you see anything that stands out?

We had the day off in Kyoto. Hanne got up really early and took some trains for about 5h to get to Izumo to visit a friend. I slept until I woke up (and therefore missed breakfast), and went with Hege, Kristine, Sandra, Tiril, Martine and Vilde to Shijo Street, the central shopping street in Kyoto. We did some browsing, but not too much shopping, since the fashions in Japan are quite special, and they were often just have one size or small size clothes. We lost Martine, Vilde and Kristine on the way, and we went to a coffee shop to get some food. I have never been so happy to see toast in my life. I hardly had food at all the day before and had also missed breakfast, so the toast was heavenly, as was the hot chocolate I had with it. We discovered a new shopping street with lots of smaller shops, where I decided to go on my own, because I wanted to see all the little Japanese shops. I wandered around while my wallet got lighter and my bags heavier. I couldn’t see the others anywhere, so I headed to the Hankyu department store, which looks a lot like Harrods. I went into a Puma store, and wanted to try on some shoes in size 40, which apparently is giant size in Japan. She explained in Japanese that the largest lady shoe size in that store was 37. It’s always nice when I talk in English, and the shop lady talks in Japanese, and neither of us understand each other. But apparently I did understand something, so maybe my Japanese is improving. The shop lady was very nice, as most Japanese people seem to be. She was so sorry that I couldn’t find shoes in her store, so she ran away and came back with a map, where she marked all the Puma stores in the vicinity (which turned out to be a lot). She also too all my little bags I was carrying and put them into a bigger, cooler Puma plastic bag, and taped it shut so nothing would fall out. Yabai! I wandered into the street again, which the rest of Japan seemed to be doing at the same time at the same place. This was the first day I actually experienced what we were all expecting of Japan but we had never seen: a whole lot of people everywhere you turned. I still couldn’t see any of my peeps, so I took a taxi home. Yes, all by myself. And I didn’t even have to explain to the driver where I was going, I just showed him the Hotel Tozankaku business card which Martin had acquired for all of us when we went out last night. Clever. I got back to the hotel and had some time to write down some things for the blog, before me and some other girls decided to go out and eat Mexican food. We were longing for ‘real’ food, and by real food I mean food we could eat, like, and not be hungry afterwards. We got it. We managed to track down a Mexican restaurant, so we acquired three taxis and went straight for it. We had great food, and very interesting conversations. We took a few taxis back to the hotel and as usual, Norwegian students were occupying the 2 100-yen-for-10-minutes-of-internet-computers. We talked a bit, and then I went upstairs to pack my stuff, hoping Hanne would not go arimas (lost) on me, because then I would probably have to pack all of her stuff, which was shattered around everywhere. Luckily, she did not go arimas, and arrived just after me, Kristine and Hege had gone to bed. Unluckily, both for me and the people in my room and the next room, I couldn’t stop coughing until about 1.30am. Very annoying. Being sick while travelling is not really fun, and I’ve been sick now for over 3 weeks, and it is really starting to get old.

This large store in Kyoto looks a lot like Harrods

The two computers in the lobby were often visited by Norwegian students

Pringles with baked-potato-taste.... They also had Pringles with lasagne-taste and miso-soup-taste.

Hanne's day: As Julie has already mentioned, I went to Izumo. Why, oh, why would anyone spend their first free day in ages on a train? For ten hours? Who knows? I actually do. I have a friend in Japan (former teacher of English at Vestborg, and thus former teacher of my boyfriend, although who was trying to teach who I'm not sure of..)

Coming back to the point, it is not always that one has the opportunity to actually visit someone you know in a new country. Inger picked me up at the train station and we rushed off for an English Bible Study Class at the local church. I met four lovely Japanese people, and I really enjoyed spending time with them and discussing with them. After Bible Class, one of the Japanese ladies joined Inger and I in search for cultural impulses. There was a soba (noodle) festival in Izumo at the time, not to mention the gathering of all of Japan's gods, 8 million of them. Whether they were there for the noodles I don't know, but the month has always been called the month with gods in that region (in all other regions the month is called the month without gods.) Because of this festivals, there were queues everywhere, except from the museum where we decided to go: The Shimane Museum of Ancient Izumo.

After cultural impules, food was definitely due, and we all went for Indian. I had my first try at a fork and spoon... no knife.. they are all babies in Asia.. except from when they use chopsticks, which is supercool:P

Kyoto (01.11.08)

2008-11-08T22:17:00.011+10:00

We got up real early (06.10) and were served breakfast by ‘our family’. We each got about 8 small plates with food, containing rice, salmon, fried egg on salad, Japanese potato salad, salad, Miso soup, pears, and pieces of carrots with seeds on them. We had troubles finishing it all, and we couldn’t manage it all. We were also given gifts; a pair of chopsticks and two small forks apparently for use on chicken. We left for the train station in Fukuoka, where our train left at 07.23. We waved a lot inside the train, and there was a whole lot of Japanese home stay families waving their hands off on the station. We had been given a newspaper each, where there were pictures from our visit to the school. As the article is in Japanese, we have no idea what it says, but there is a picture of Frøy which we can look at. We shared some home stay experiences while waiting for Kanazawa station, where we got off to change trains at 08.00. We managed to get off all our stuff and people and get to the next train which left at 08.05. It was a Thunderbird train, heading for Kyoto, where we arrived around 10. We were met by our guide at the station, a Japanese lady with a stick with a blue flower on, which she held up over her head and we followed. As the toilets had been closed on the train, we invaded the nearest shopping mall and created a heap of luggage and enormous toilet queues. We got out and stuffed our stuff in the bus, and took off.

No rest for the wicked; we went straight to the sightseeing. We went first to the Nijo Castle, which was built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the Tokugawa shoguns and is now on the UNESCO list. The shogun was kind of like a prime minister, he had a lot of power, and he had command over the army. We went inside the Ninomaru Palace, which is 3300 square meters and has over 800 tatami mats on the floor. The floorboards in the hallways were intentionally creaking musically to alert the shogun of intruders, which is why ninjas had to be sneaky. If you killed a shogun, you could become a shogun yourself. We also went outside and saw the Ninomaru Garden, which is a pretty garden with a pond with three islands: Crane Island, Turtle Island, and the Island of Eternal Happiness.

We got back into the bus, and went to Rokuon-ji Temple (the Golden Pavilion) which is also on the UNESCO list. It is basically an old fancy Japanese building coated with gold.a 600 year-old (enormous) bonsai-tree

We then went to the Kiyomizu Temple, where we got 1h free time first in order to get some food. It was 2pm, and we hadn’t eaten since 6am, so we were quite hungry. We crowded the local restaurants in the nearby souvenir street, and got some food. I had dinner with Anna and Iselin, and I ordered some fried rice with fried egg on top. It was quite eatable. We went up to the temple where we met up with the lady with the flowerstick, and she showed us the temple. I was so tired and I ended up in the back of the group, so I have no idea what she said. Therefore I have no idea of what I really saw, but I did take some nice pictures of it. It’s a temple, so probably religion has something to do with it. There were also two lovestones, and if you touched them while thinking of the one you loved, you would get married. Also, if you walked with your eyes closed from one stone to the other, you would certainly get married. A few of the single girls in our class had a go, which was quite funny as there was some distance and quite a lot of Japanese people in between the stones. It resulted in some funny videos on my camera. One of the stones were quite suitably placed right at the top of a staircase, and Tengyo and Mikal had apparently just managed to stop a few of the ‘blindfolded’ girls on their way past the stone and about to fall down the stairs. We went back down to the bus, which took us to the Tozankaku Hotel, where we would be staying. We arrived around 4pm, and go our keys. Hanne and me were sharing with Hege and Kristine, and we were very happy to discover that the elevator was out of order and that we would be staying on the 6th floor. Luckily, it turned out that the entrance to the hotel was on the 3rd floor. Logical. We were staying Ryokan style, which is the traditional Japanese style. It is actually kind of half and half, as half our hotel room has two normal beds and normal floor, and half is elevated with tatami mats, low table and pillows to sit on. Hege and Kristine had the normal beds, and Hanne and I had the futons (mattress on the tatami floor). We actually got to rest for almost two hours, before we were to have a traditional Japanese dinner. We had to dress up in our bathrobes (we suspect it is because Kjell thinks they look cool) and sit on the floor. We were serves all sorts of weird stuff, like raw fish, raw squid, raw prawns, more squid, fried squid, weird fish soup, fish fish fish and more fish. I didn’t eat much, but I gave away most of it, so that it actually looked like I had eaten things. Some of us decided to go out afterwards. Hanne were staying at the hotel since she would be going to see a friend the next day and had to get up early. We were 14 students and the two ‘companions’ (Kjell and Tengyo), and we took 4 taxis to Super Jankara, a karaoke bar. We rented our own room for 3 hours, we each paid 3500 yen (235 NOK) and it was all we could drink for those 3 hours. I did not really profit from it, since I only had two diet cokes, but the others certainly got their money’s worth.It was a lot of fun, and we got back around 1am, trying not to wake up the others.

Home-stay in Fukuoka (31.10.08)

2008-11-08T21:50:00.009+10:00

We got a bus to the train station today, where we took like 5 different trains to get to the small town of Fukuoka, Tengyo’s hometown. We arrived and were picked up by his parents and a minibus, taking us to the local elementary school. We were waved at by a whole lot of tiny Japanese children on our way into the building, and up to the meeting room. We got to sit on the floor around low tables, and were served fish and fishy stuff. I had some rice. We went on a guided tour around the school, and we saw school children everywhere, and they saw us. They waved, we waved, we moved on. We got to a big gymnastic room, filled with schoolchildren. We had to line up outside the door, the schoolchildren rose, and we walked in procession in the middle of them to the front, while they clapped and cheered. Did someone say surreal? There were chairs lined up at the front, and we sat down. A lady talked in Japanese, the children sat down on the floor with a thud, the lady talked some more in Japanese, and we had to stand up one by one with a microphone and introduce ourselves. With the level of English-speakers in Japan, most likely no one understood anything. We were approached by groups of schoolchildren who had written our names on paper. I was grouped with Tiril and 5 Japanese kids. According to the nametag they gave me, I was Ulie. In our group, we played some games which were actually fun. We each got a big stick, stood in a circle, put the stick vertically on the floor, dropped the stick and ran to the stick right of us, the point being to catch the stick next to you before it falls on the ground. We stood a bit apart, so it wasn’t easy, but it was fun. We also made airplanes out of newspaper, and had flying competitions (the one who hit Kjell on the head won). We also played the stick-a-pen-into-a-bottle-covered-in-newspaper-game. Afterwards, all the groups taught us a traditional dance from the area we were in, and we danced in two giant circles. The song is still in my head. We left for the local koi fish farm, where they had giant goldfishies (or so-called koi fish). I was feeling quite ill still, so I took some pictures and went back to the bus and dozed while the others looked at the fishies. Afterwards, we walked to someone’s house, where we were served tea and ’sweets’, while listening to a live performance of Japanese musical instruments. We were supposed to rest here until the party later this evening, so this poor Japanese family ended up with 25 Norwegian students sleeping on their livingroomfloor, covered in all the blankets, pillows and doonas the house contained. It was quite a weird experience. After having rested for a few hours, we went to the place where our party was being held. There were a lot of welcoming speeches in Japanese, with Tengyo translating, while we watched longingly the food in the middle of the room. Most of us hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was now around 7pm. We were introduced to our host family for the night, or in my and Hanne’s case, our host lady. We don’t even know her name. We finally got to the food, and threw ourselves at it, before we were stopped less than 10 minutes later because the ‘show’ was about to start in the theatre room. Still-hungry-students were not happy when food were taken away, but we went into the theatre room, where we were to see a traditional musical performance + dance. It was a lot of monklike people, playing fancy Japanese instuments, and later, a traditional war dance. It was cool, and when it was over, we got to go back to the food!!!! Food after the hungry Norwegians had been there

We ate and ate, until we had to go to our host families. Our lady’s husband had arrived, and we greeted, and none of them spoke English. Using sign language, we went to their car, drove to their house, and were seated in their lounge. They had a traditional house with tatami mats, and empty rooms (quite practical). We met quite a few people in their house. We were served tea and cake, and fruit. We were given pictures that the husband had painted, and we understood that he was a judo master in the 8th dan. It was quite an interesting evening, where at one point Hanne and me were sitting on one side of the table, and on the other side were 10 Japanese people watching us eat cake, and talking in Japanese. We spent 2 hours ‘communicating’, before we went to bed. We got one of the empty rooms, where they made up futons for us (mattresses on the floor). This house also had a fancy toilet (like most in Japan) with many buttons and seat warmer. We went to bed, and at least I fell asleep immediately. It had been a very interesting, but also exhausting day.

Thursday Part 2: Visiting a Japanese family in Hiroshima

2008-11-08T21:01:00.006+10:00

Julie and I visited the Mitzoue family: Neurosurgeon Tatsuya and his homestay wife Maki, and they children, Tubash (12 yrs), Nozomi (9 yrs) and Ai (6 yrs). They all spoke very little English, but it was not awkward at all because they were so nice and welcoming, and the children liked playing around :P I tried origami for the first time, and didn't do too horribly... Okey, I probably did. But it was fun trying :P

They served us sliced tomatoes with cheese (first time I've eaten tomatoes since Kanaan), salads, creamy baked potatoes and food in a very fancy boiler-thingy. (Okey, that needs explanation. In Japan, they have a tendency to boil food-stuff while you eat, so that you never boil more than you need. I can't think of the name of the thing, but Julie said it boils stuff, so it must be a boiler.. Right?)

Being there was lovely in every way, it was kind of like going home :)

Thursday Part 1: Miyajima (30.10.2008)

2008-11-08T20:29:00.008+10:00

More traveling at hand: We woke up, got breakfast somewhere or other and walked to the streetcar stop. We got on at Funairi, off at Yokogawa, took the train from Yokogawa to Miyajima-guchi, and ferry from there to Miyajima. The island of Miyajima is home to many "wild" deer, which will eat anything if no one stops them. The island is said to have been the home of shinto monks for more than a millenium and it is still an important religious site, with Itsukushima Shrine as its center, which along with the O-Toori Gate is on UNESCO'S List of World Heritage.

Day 2 in Hiroshima, Part 3: Lappy Club Welcome Party

2008-11-08T20:13:00.004+10:00

Yes, we do have long days, and end up posting a lot of pictures, <-- but that's just because of said long days! We experienced so much in Japan and Julie has gone picturecrazy (wanting to post 60 pictures from 1 day!).

The last part of our second day in Hiroshima was spent attending a welcome party hosted by the Lappy Club (apparently, Lappy stands for Love and Peace..). We had a lot of good Japanese food, snacks and eventually: alcohol for those interested.

Julie bought this fascinating White Pepsi with yoghurt flavour. She said I could taste it if I promised to drink all of it.. I didn't taste :P

Kjell Holby is cheating terribly and keeps his feet under the table

And finally, the day came to an end. This picture is really taken a lot early than bed-time, because it gets dark very early, but who cares. It was beautiful :)

Day 2 in Hiroshima, Part 2: Japanese Culture Workshop

2008-11-08T19:56:00.005+10:00

Before this workshop starts, we had lunch at the Four Seasons with survivor Ms. Matsubara and Museum Director Maeda, food was good, but the three-story chocolate fountain was great)

Around three o'clock, we met at a Japanese style room, complete with rice paper walls and tatami floors. We had four different things to try: kimonos, tea-ceremony (I made my own green tea and ate anko), calligraphy (apparently the first part of my name is a smileyface) and origami (I didn't try until the day after, but that is another story).

Day 2 in Hiroshima, Part 1: Peace Memorial Park

2008-11-08T19:33:00.005+10:00

Waking up well and rested at eight, I walked for an hour in the neighborhood. We were supposed to find breakfast ourselves this morning, but I couldn't find any cafe's. Japan only has vending machines on every corner instead. So I meet a nice lady at a vending machine and bought a Fanta Grape (just to try, it wasn't too bad, but then again, not too good either..)

Five to nine I ran over to the 7/11 and bought breakfast, we all met at nine, and walked to the Peace Memorial Museum. We had a lecture by the director of the museum, Mr. Koichiro Maede, where he stressed the importance of peace and the end of all research, testing and usage of atomic bombs. After our lecture and discussions, we grouped into fours and fives and met our designated guides for the Peace Memorial Park. Julie and I ended up in different groups, so we got to see different things. Julie toured around with Trine, Bård and Martin, and I walked around with Steffen, Vilde and Janne.

The two pictures above show the hypocenter of the Hiroshima A-bomb

Waking up in Tokyo (28.10.2008)

2008-11-08T18:46:00.004+10:00

Things are pretty surreal, and I can't for the life of me believe that we're in Japan. The best now would be getting out and around and see all the typical Japanese stuff that ones has heard and read about, buuuuut, we are scheduled to take a train for five hours instead. Japan surprises me by having a lot of hills, and we got to see the country from the inside quite a few times (tunnels.. ).

Julie's Lunch

Cola Zero is not Cola Zero in Japan, but Cola Nex

Everyone were enthusiastic and looking forward to our Japan adventure

Mt. Fujiyama

Few minutes later....

We had a short stop in Kobe to change trains and arrived in Hiroshima around 1 p.m. After stowing our luggage at the hotel, we walked to the Peace Memorial Museum where we had two hours to walk around the exhibitions. The museum incorporates every thing around the A-bomb attack, and intents to give the viewers and most sincere and detail description of what happened, without being scornful. Even though they remember the past, I am puzzled, but glad, that they try to keep their eyes to the future, and that they focus uttermost on peace, not revenge.

Black rain on the walls

After the museum, I went for fresh air, clear thoughts and a walk in the park that surrounds the museum. I met old men playing games in the grass, saw people sleeping in the sunny weather on park benches, kids running around with long strings of origami figures and also, wavy trees with green beards. I visited the Tourist Office, which conveniently is called Rest house, and I think to myself: so that is where you go when a rest room is not enough..

We met what seemed like hundreds of kids outside the Peace Memorial Museum and in and around the park. They asked us to write our Peace Message to the world

We all met again back at the museum to have a lecture by Ms. Miyoko Matsubara, a 74-year old Atomic bomb survivor. She was in hear early teens when the bomb dropped and still remembers a lot of what happened on that horrid day and the days after. She suffered burns on her hands and face, and as a result of being exposed to a massive amount of radiation she has deformed fingers, trouble walking and cancer. Because of lack of information about radiation at the time, many believed that the survivors were hazardous to come in contact with, and this has lead to a second sufferings for those surviving the first. Ms. Matsubara, like most of the other survivors, never married, never had kids and had problems through her whole life obtaining a job and a place to live.
She was truly a beautiful lady, in that her personality was so humble, honest and happy, and you just had to smile when looking at her, although her story left us with very little to smile for.

We left the museum to walk to a small restaurant for dinner. I still think it's a bit weird to walk around in a city that is so very old culturally and historically, but with most of the buildings hardly passing 60 years of age. The Hiroshimians have kept their culture nonetheless, and we were served traditional Hiroshimian Okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is some sorts of pancake/noodle/cabbage/meat/egg/Okonomiyaki sauce-thingy, which tasted good :)

Walking back to the hotel, we got our luggage, Internet cable and room key, and had our first night in separate rooms. No hard feelings, but I don't think we missed each other. Julie watched some telly and got to bed early and I stayed up late as usual.

"A dragonfly flitted in front of me
and stopped on a fence.
I stood up, took my cap in my hands,
and was about to catch the dragonfly
when......."

*Remember 08.15 a.m. August 6th 1945*

And the Saga begins...

2008-11-03T23:47:00.003+10:00

Julie has a fascination with bottles, cans and Coke.

The picture above is of Moreton Island, where we, for those of you not paying attention, sandboarded some weeks ago.

With the travel of course. Japan wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for the journey taking us there. We started out early and got picked up by the bus at 6 a.m. We arrived safely at the airport, went through all the hassle, exchanged some money, and our plane left at 8.55. Julie and I both had a great time on the plane, she had a three-seater and I had a four-seater (people don't dare to sit near me..). Julie slept a lot, played Sudoku, took a lot of pictures and ate mashed potatoes with chopsticks, and I listened to a lot of music and just simply enjoyed myself, and yeah, I slept as well :P

We landed at 4.30 p.m. local time (1 hour time difference) and I'm sad to say we had some trouble at the airport. We were stopped at the immigration, passport control and customs, because we didn't have an address in Japan or a Japanese phone number. As we were meeting our (whatever you call your Japanese-living-in-Norway working-at-your-school-but-not-your-teacher travel companion) Tengyo Kura outside the airport, and since we still didn't even know what hotel we where staying at, and since our phones doesn't work in Japan..... let's just say, the Japanese were not to keen on letting us into their country.

But the Norwegian gang had already invaded Malaysia and Australia and weren't about to be stopped by the Japanese. After all, they hardly reach us to our knees anyways.

So we got out and met Tengyo (the only normal-sized Japanese in existence) and after taking all of our passports (obviously to sell them on the streets) he went with us to our hotel for the night. We checked in, and as Julie has written in her notes (which I follow to the dot) states: We checked in, weird toilets, weird 7 Eleven, went out for dinner in Ginza district, had food in a tiny place, went home, showered, went to bed.

End of day 1!

Updating recommences

2008-11-03T22:40:00.002+10:00

I do not want to blog. I don't want to blog. I don't wanna blog. I don't I don't I don't!

Then again, I really do wanna blog, because if I don't, I'll forget a lot of the cool stuff that happened in Japan. And Bourke.. And Morree.. But because Bourke and Morree and Australia seems so far away (and I guess it is) right now, I'll just have to post this picture blog and chip in a few comments here and there.

(Julie is out and she has all the pictures, I don't want to go through her stuff, so these pictures will have to come later, and I'll start writing about Japan instead..)

We are alive!

2008-11-01T20:47:00.002+10:00

Internett is scarce, so no real blog updates yet... this is just to tell you all worried people back home and elsewhere that we are alive, sick and probably weighing a little less... nah, we are having fun and enjoying Japan and I am really looking forward to have the time to share all our experiences with my family and friends (Julie is probably agreeing with this, but anyway..)

We are in Kyoto and will be here for the next couple of days ;)

Konbanwa!

2008-10-27T22:58:00.002+10:00

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

2008-10-26T20:50:00.003+10:00

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)

2008-10-26T20:03:00.002+10:00

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)

2008-10-26T19:42:00.003+10:00

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)

2008-10-26T19:25:00.001+10:00

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)

2008-10-26T19:20:00.005+10:00

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

2008-10-25T20:20:00.003+10:00

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!

2008-10-19T04:43:00.001+10:00

(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

2008-10-18T21:34:00.004+10:00

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"

2008-10-17T22:11:00.002+10:00

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)

2008-10-17T20:59:00.002+10:00

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

2008-10-16T01:17:00.002+10:00

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

2008-10-15T19:43:00.004+10:00

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

2008-10-14T15:32:00.002+10:00

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!

2008-10-13T21:06:00.003+10:00

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

2008-10-12T22:42:00.003+10:00

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

2008-10-12T21:56:00.010+10:00

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

2008-10-12T21:21:00.012+10:00

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!

Errm.. The rest of Thursday

2008-10-12T20:00:00.026+10:00

For the first time in Hanne and Julie Blog History, we had to separate a day into two posts..

After lunch at Sydney Tower, we took the Monorail another stop and got of at Darling Harbor, heading towards Sydney Wildlife World. They let us in without a fuzz, which is not always the case with me and Julie.. or me.. whatever... :P

First out was the platypus, but he clearly wasn't aware, so he wasn't there when we wanted to see him. We went for crocodiles instead (we are in Australia after all), and further in we got to see spiders, snakes, bilby's, wallabies, kangaroo's, wombats, butterflies, random insects, random reptiles, a casowary, koalas, you get the picture ;) And you will see for yourself in the pictures :P

This little thing was hiding inside the platypus's cage, and btw, I did get to see one when I came back later :)
Maybe I'll post the vid of it.

Playing with the live animals wasn't permitted, and I must admit, we took quite a liking to the plastic ones :)

Especially the cosawary, the world's most dangerous bird ;)

Thirsty Thursday

2008-10-12T18:39:00.013+10:00

We woke up early on our first day in Sydney. Our room had been below freezing temperatures all night (I'm sure of it) and I woke up with no voice. Who cares, we were thirsty for culture, exploring and enjoying big city Sydney!Sydney Tower
Breakfast was alright, so after heading back in to get more clothes, we went out. We initially planned on just walking around and see whatever, and we did, for a while, until we found the Monorail. (We are lazy.. Or, I mean, we would like to see more and spend less time walking ;p )We bought day passes and happily discovered vouchers for stuff to do in Sydney :) We decided to take the monorail one stop at a time and check everything out. First out was an opal lesson with Australian Opal Cutters. Walked in to this building, took the small elevator up a couple of floors and walked out in a maximum security jail. Or at least that's what it looked like. Our opal lesson was sweet (there's something about women and precious stones I think) and the guy showing us samples (Byron) was humorous and entertaining. We decided to go for a pearl lesson as well, this time with Australian Pearl Divers. Another dude were showing us pearls and trying them on and stuff... Quite a feminine type. And would you believe, his name was Byron as well! (Although he didn't resemble the other guy at all...)After saying goodbye to precious stones and pearls, and leaving with a set of pearl earrings each (courtesy of Byron), we headed for our next stop: Sydney Tower. We went for the Discov3ry package, which is Sydney Tower (+ OzTrek), Sydney Wildlife World and the Sydney Aquarium. (I told you we were thirsty for culture (or tourism..))

OzTrek came first. WE had no clue what it was, but stood nicely in line and waited. We got ushered into an enclosed area with chairs and a small screen at the front and watched safety procedures (dumb American style) for our show and simulator. Before entering the real simulator, we walked into another room and saw four films, each explaining some part of Australian culture. I don't have any pictures from the simulator (no lose objects on person, sit still, don't move..) but I had a good time, and Julie a boring time :P

Took another elevator right to the top of the tower, and had an amazing view of the Sydney. We got out first sneak peak at the Opera House, and saw planes flying below us.. Sweet :PView from Sydney Tower
Julie in front of view from Sydney Tower
Hmm.. Could it be Sydney Tower?

Julie and I decided to eat at the restaurant at the top, prices weren't too bad.. and the food looked gorgeous, n'est pas?

Signs :)

2008-10-12T17:20:00.014+10:00

4 days and 986 of pics and vids later, the traveling team is back in Brissie. We have had an amazing time, and seen a lot of cool stuff. One of my personal favorites when traveling is all the weird signs that I see hanging around :)

A classic case of Who's Who

"The cars that ate Paris" -Oh

I'm glad they have a sign, cloaked items are tricky to find sometimes :)

What? You won't let me smoke Julie's hair? But it's soo shiny! *me likes to smoke shiny things*

I miss my brother ;)

Over 60? You know where to go, just down Hall St. is everything you have ever wanted.

Trojan Hospitality...
(Offering you horse meat are they?)

Someone needs to tell those kids to wait until they're older.

(The exception to this rule is the Norwegian Government, to be patriotic and nice I'll let them pet all they want!)

So if you get "bitten", no worries, the real problems start when they swallow you.

Female Toilet seeking Male Toilet for sudden flushes in the moonlight ;)

Bad news

2008-10-09T19:23:00.000+10:00

No, Julie has not come down with dengue fever (yet), and anyways, that would be good news wouldn't it? No? Well.. Bad news are: We will not be updating until Saturday evening (at the very earliest). "Why, why, whyyyyy?," you ask, and the answer is "We don't have the money, the time, or want to blog when Sydney is to be explored and enjoyed."

That beign said, we had the most amazing day today and we will certainly write about it in detail later. (You will just have to wait for your 15 seconds of Internet fame Byron... Sorry!)

Sydney!!!

2008-10-08T22:29:00.001+10:00

Yes, we are now in Sydney! I have a total of 6 minutes to write this post before my internet disappears, so I'll try to be brief. We had a lecture on Australian Youth by Wayne Muller at Mt Gravatt Campus today, which was very interesting; he was a great lecturer. We spent some time on campus before going to the Transit Centre in Roma Street where we also spent some time. We then caught the Airtrain to Brisbane Airport, and waited for a while. Hanne befriended a very cute guy about 5 years of age, whose name was Jack. He was basically using Hanne tho, so that he could play Tux on her computer. He was very charming :)

Ueeeeeh, running out of time!!!

Anyway, we flew to Sydney with Virgin Blue (which was very nice), and we are now in Sydney. It's great!

Whatevah whatevah.

2008-10-07T21:29:00.002+10:00

Yeah, I'm bored. Not only am I bored, but Hanne is making me do the blog today (probably because she knows we didn't do anything interesting today). We went to the school early (before 10), and spent some time in the canteena-commonroom-thingy being good girls and studying (not a minute too soon, as we're going to Sydney tomorrow, and our assignment of 2000 words which should be done by tomorrow is currently wordless). We had a lecture on Australian education by Margaret Fletcher at 1pm, then Anni came and gave us some info, and we were done by around 3pm. We went to study some more, I think Hanne with more success than me (as I was playing the South Park game on my new mobile (yeah Marielle, nananana-hahahaha (in the words of Cartman))). We came home, pretended to study, and had dinner. I've been figuring out what buses and trains we need to take to get to Brisbane airport, and from Sydney airport. We're excited :)

Hanne is currently a multi-currency loan shark. I owe her 984 NOK for the hotels in Sydney which we charged on her credit card, and 10 dollars for something I can't even remember anymore. We've also made a deal with the people at Bowen Terrace today, so we will definitely be staying there 11-15 nov, 22-28 nov, 5-12 dec. Now we just need to fix our accomodation in New Zealand and in Malaysia, and we're good to go.

And tomorrow, up up and away!

Mom!

2008-10-06T23:26:00.002+10:00

Can you guess what I did this morning? I was in the garden. Birds were holding a Presidential election in the trees by the sound of it, and the sun shone with an intensity that was quite unique.. (probably it was trying to roast the noisy birds). But it was a nice day, and I hung out the washing. Before school. I got up early to do chores, and not only didn't I mind, but I like it :)

Now that's a surprise for ya, eh?

(For the rest of you, who actually do manual labour on a daily basis, this is huge for me, I suck at this :P )

Piccieblog!

2008-10-06T22:07:00.005+10:00

Self-explanatory maybe?

But yeah, we see a lot of weird things when busing around in Brisbane:)

Julie noticed this sign as I was on the phone with our new landlords. She had to keep quiet, but wanted to burst out in laughter :)

This cute lady lives at our South Bank Campus :)

And this lady has a lot of fun with all the weird buttons on the computer :)

Don't let a suitcase full of cheese be your spoon and fork

2008-10-06T21:49:00.002+10:00

Lest you didn't know, the title today is from Everybody Loves Raymond. Does this explain what Julie watches on TV nowadays? (Yeah, I watch TV too, just not everything Julie watches.. :P ) We still have problems concentrating and we're both a bit behind schedule on the minor assignment (Julie due to TV, Hanne due to Internet and, as Julie pointed out, Tux.)

Aside from worrying about school we've had a great day. We have spent so many days planning and looking for accommodation in Brisbane as we're staying here for another three stretches (between and after Cairns, Vanuatu and New Zealand). Today we found the perfect place :) It lies in Bowen Terrace, not far from the city, close to a lot of really nice restaurants (Italian, Himalayan, Indonesian, everything fra kebabs to Pizza Hut, but most importantly: Indian!) Not only is it a great place location wise, but it's cheap. If everything turns out right, I will be sleeping in my own room the 22nd November... That will be a first on the whole trip :) (No, they didn't actually have twin rooms for those six days :P We're saving as much money as we can :P )

As we walked around the neighborhood (this is after we walked a long(!) way in the wrong direction), everything seemed better and better, and you can say what you will, but I really feel prayers have been answered today:)

The day ended with trying to do homework, failing again to do so, and Julie serving pavlova, whipped cream and fresh strawberries. Too bad no one was here to share it with us ;)

Past three days (03-05.10.2008)

2008-10-05T22:26:00.004+10:00

s dehydrated.... can't be bothered to blog....

OK, I'll try, even though it will probably kill me.

Friday we had a day off from school. Plan was to do school work. Julie has chosen Multiculturalism for her minor assignment, and I've chosen to compare and contrast two films about Australian culture.

Hanne: Julie! Did you do something on Friday?
Julie: Eh.. No. Not really.

Hanne: What did you do on Saturday then?
Julie: Hmm, what did we do on Saturday. We were meant to write the assignment.. Was that the day you went to Garden City?
Hanne: Yes. So, what did you do?
Julie: Watched TV?

*start of random rant*
Fair enough.. As for me I tried doing stuff on Friday.. I had already got a hold of one of the films and seen it, so I had to get the other one. Any of the other ones actually, as we could choose from a fair few. I knew I couldn't find them in the library, so I went to the local mall. Poor sales guy looked through half the store and couldn't find any of them, went to another store, same story. (She knew she had a copy of one of them last week.... Hmm..... I could just look through their stuff.... Or be back in 2-3 weeks.... *yeah right*)

So Saturday I went to Garden City to try and find one of the films. Went to the local library at the mall (that's a really neat idea, having a library in the mall), and would you believe it, they had the films! (Do you really think I get them? Naïve kid..) "To rent at this library, we need photo ID" check.. "And your home stay address" check... "On an official document" A whatnow? "Yeah... like, if you don't have one.. You could always mail an envelope to yourself.. " I guess I wouldn't be able to lend books today then..... "No."

So yeah, who needs libraries when there are DVD's to be bought, money to be spent and more places to visit? Went to Borders (fantastic book/DVD store with a coffee shop in the middle.... and a little guy handing out peach/mango drinks in between bookshelves.. I didn't know whether to love it or be dead scared for the sake of all the books.. ) But they didn't have any of the films there either.

I'm really just ranting, point is, I went to HMV, bought one of the films there (Why didn't I go there first?). Went home, saw it, wrote some stuff, went to bed insanely early.

Which in turn lead to Julie and I waking up insanely early. I woke up at six, got up at 7.50, and Julie got up around 8.20. We both had a shower, ate brekkie, got on a bus, then another bus, arrived in Balmoral 1.5 hours prior to our lunch engagement with Lesley Jolly. Spent some of the time walking (had gone off far away from where we should have), bought short-bread men, mud cake and curry pie (Julie got an apple turnover) ((I can't believe this is in any way interesting to anyone, but Julie and I have grown into an habit (although less frequent than before) of documenting various parts of our life... ))

*end of random rant*
(or one could hope..)
Meeting Lesley again was nice, I fell in love with her study and her Terry Pratchett's. We ate kangaroo (don't kill me Hanne E), and generally had a nice BBQ. We had a stroll in the neighbourhood, buying our first ice cream for the whole trip! Julie got banana flavoured, and I got Ferrero Rocher flavoured ice cream with marshmallows inside :P They mix ice cream and candy... Can it be better?

Took the CityCat for the first time (to South Bank). It was nice :) (a lot of rich people are living on the riverbank.... We saw some pretty neat boats and houses)

And yeah, we took the bus home, ate weird, but good, food, and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out where we're supposed to stay for 36 nights that we haven't planned yet....

Any random people out there have a bench to spare? ;D