Australia etc.

Hey everyone!! I wrote this a while ago and was going to add pictures and make it all look pretty and stuff but if I think if I wait for me to do all that, it will never happen, so here's my australia adventures in text. For the pictures, go to:

Jenn's ozzie trip

I have a lot more to tell post-australia, but first things first:


So. I went to Australia! haha, that was a while ago but I just haven't had the inspiration to write a blog about it, but here it goes (even though I picked a moment when I really don't have the time because I'm going out in a bit - going out as in going out of the house). Timing has never been my strong point anyway...

Right so first things first. I decided to go to Australia after I met my uncle some weeks back when he was in Tokyo on a business trip. I had to leave Japan once anyway because my visa would otherwise run out, and the original plan was to go to Korea but that just 'didn't work out'. So, Australia! My aunt and uncle live on the Gold Coast, not too far away from Brisbane. There's a direct flight from Osaka to the Gold Coast which I hopped on on wednesday the 29th. I took the shinkansen down to Kansai Airport and quite happily stared out the window the whole way, passing Mt. Fuji and some rare cloud formations.

The flight was at night and as there was no food etc. included with my budget flight I had a quick bite to eat before heading to the gate. In the plane it turned out I had the 4 middle chairs all to myself so I tried to get some sleep laying down (I couldn't be bothered to pay for the earphones so I could watch the movie - it was Indiana Jones, had seen it already anyway) but due to a bit of turbulation it wasn't exactly comfortable. A little groggy I arrived at the Gold Coast Airport where I was greeted by a lovely bout of sunshine, cheering me right up! I had forgotten to put my aunt and uncle's address in my handluggage so when I had to fill in the address of the place I was staying, I couldn't - so I explained this to immigration, who then wrote down: "aunt's house". Gotta love them immigration people.

My aunt was waiting for me and took me to their beautiful house in Mermaid Waters where I had some breakfast (brown bread with hagelslag, haha), a shower, and by that time my cousin Jordy was up and the three of us headed to Currumbin Wildlife park. This is where I had my picture taken with Blinky the Koala Bear, isn't he cute!?? What I didn't tell all you people who saw this picture before is that I also smelt like Koala the rest of the day, and it's not the most pleasant smell XD Anyway, saw lots of ozzie animals, some cute, some scary. My aunt I especially had a good time spotting extremely cute baby koala's!! :D

My cousin by this time had decided he was going to skip the class he was supposed to be going to and we went to have lunch at one of the life guard clubs (these are restaurants all along the coast that raise money for the life guards) where I was AMAZED at the portions. I don't know if they were really big, or if I'm not used to it anymore having been in Japan for a while now haha, either way, they seemed huge. Including the ice coffee I'd ordered. Expecting the Japanese style COLD COFFEE I got some kind of mega dessert with whipped cream and actual vanilla ice cream. I seriously doubted whether there was any coffee in that glass, but it was seriously yummy either way! We had an amazing view of the beach, made me really feel like I was on holiday :D

After going home and me taking a nap my aunt and I went to rend some dvds (they have an AWESOME home cinema set, as in, they've dedicated an entire room to being the tv room (it's big!) with recliner chairs and a projector that makes it really feel like a cinema) where we got Sex and the City, which my aunt loves, and I hadn't seen yet. I was sceptic about the movie, not begin the biggest S&TC fan, but it was actually quite entertaining!

And that was just one day - moving on! Day 2 was spent sight-seeing and doing a bit of shopping here and there. My aunt took me to the Versace Palace hotel (everything in there designed by versace - very chique) just to look of course, to Marina Mirage where we picked out the boats we will get when we win the lottery, had another amazing ice coffee dessert thing, went to ' the Spit', a strip of beach where they do a lot of surfing etc. Moving on from there we went to Surfer's Paradise, the most well-known beach on the Gold Coast where I also had a paddle in the sea.

For dinner we all went to a Japanese restaurant called 'Cheers'. Now there are several 'huh!?' factors in that sentence: 1. Japanese!? yes, well, my aunt and uncle really love that restaurant and really wanted to take me there, so why not?; 2. Cheers. Cheers!? Japanese? Yes do NOT ask me. It looked like a mexican restaurant if you ask me, but the food tasted quite authentic, and the owners and chefs are genuinely Japanese. So I don't know! We went in 2 cars, I went with my cousin in his car so we sped off with music pumpin' through the speakers only to arrive round about the same time as my aunt and uncle, haha. Fun though.

Saturday came all too soon which meant heading towards Brisbane to visit my older Cousin, Dennis, who studies there. He lives in ' the valley' which is totally the ghetto of brisbane, with very dubious shops and bars around, but it looks like fun! We took Dennis and his housemate Mitch out for lunch before dropping them off again and going for a stroll through Brisbane. Didn't see much of the city, but saw where my uncle works and a beautiful little park smack in the middle of the city. They even created a little artificial beach in the middle of the city so that the Brisbane people don't have to leave their beloved city in order to enjoy the beach. They even had real life guards! Crazy people. haha.

Sunday we went to Mt. Tambourine, a mountain with a bit of jungle around there, to show that the Gold Coast is not only beaches, within no time you are in the mountains! We stopped half way for a spectacular view of the Gold Coast - we could just about make out Q1, the tallest residential building and landmark of Queensland. Unfortunately the weather wasn't at its best so it was a little foggy. After lunch at a quaint little cafe that made me think of the English sea-side mixed in with some Greece (olive trees) we went to see real glow-worms in an artificial glow worm cave. That was quite cool actually! They do look like little LED-lights, but the guide held this infra-red light close to some of the larvae (they're not really worms) and they were really there, haha.

At night we ignored the fact that the sun wasn't shining and had a real ozzie BBQ anyway, which was brilliant!! Can't go to australia in the spring/summer time and NOT bbq. YUM!

This brought my little trip to Australia to an end, and it kind of ended with a 'bang'. Monday morning my aunt took me to the airport again (tiny little thing) where I quickly bought a bottle of water and some nibbles to keep me going in the airplane only to find out I'd been upgraded to business class when I found my seat. AWESOME! You might remember I told you the budget flight didn't include food etc (it was available, but you had to pay separately) but in business class it was all included!! So I stuffed my face with gorgeous food, watch lots of movies (ok ok I had actually seen them all already but no less fun) and was quite happy with my fleece blanket which I also quite happily took with me hahaha. It's been of great use now that Tokyo has gotten suddenly cold, so thank you Jetstar!! :D

Ok, this story is way too long, so I will tell you about the week after I came back next time, I think you need a break.

o-tsukare~