Bula Fiji!!

There’s no better way to postpone the “I’m leaving Sydney and I want to cry” feeling than by spending 5 days in paradise. The Fijian Islands are only a short 4 hours from Sydney, Australia and are the most beautiful place you can imagine. After a tearful goodbye to our friends and Sydney (and an awesome goodbye breakfast at everyone’s favourite cafe with Mom and Dad before they headed back home) and plenty of rearranging our luggage, Liza, Shannon, Bryan, Sean and I boarded the plane and landed in a place where the air was dense with humidity and hot rain was falling. After gathering luggage, storing bags, exchanging money, making a few friends and spending an hour with a very nice Fijian travel agent to book our first night’s hostel and boat transfers for the week, we finally made it to our air conditioned bunks, had a bite to eat and got some rest.

There are only two words that we know in Fijian: Bula, which means hello, hi, how are you, good morning, good evening, nice to see you, welcome, greetings… and Vinaka, which means thank you.

We woke up to a blue sky and an early boat transfer to Beachcomber Island, about half an hour away from the main island port of Denaru. Beachcomber is the stereotypical deserted island – the only structures on the island belong to the ‘resort’ and all of the inhabitants are tourists or staff. We were there for one night only and immediately dropped our bags in the locked cupboards under our bunks and hit the beach. It may have been morning, but resting on beach chairs and taking occasional dips in the crystal clear water to cool off were just screaming for a pina colada to complete our fantasy. We indulged with the cool slushy drinks and reapplied sunscreen as we soaked up the sun, the water and the breathtaking view. Walking around the island took about eight minutes to complete and we quickly discovered a shallow, salt water, tiled swimming pool on the other side of the island. With the shade of a tree and the tile benches in the water, we spent time there meeting a few fellow travelling students. We also took a little boat trip on the glass bottom boats owned by the resort to feed the fish and check out some of the reef life around the island. Later on, we fed the turtles (not wild, they’re kept in pools near the back side of the island) and we even got to hold them!

Beachcomber is known throughout Fiji as the “party island” and that night proved to be a fairly tame, but satisfying night. We danced and played games and listened to music with our new friends and then made our way to the main hut, where we saw a traditional, but lacklustre Fijian dance performed by some of the staff and local people, followed by a tasting of Kava, a popular Fijian drink. Kava is disgusting – it is made in a large wooden bowl and served in coconut bowls and both resembles and tasted like muddy water. Large quantities of Kava are supposed to give the drinker a very relaxed feeling, but all I felt was my gag reflex telling me that dirt water is not to be consumed. I kept the nasty liquid down, but that was enough to tell me that I was not interested in drinking more. The people at Beachcomber were very friendly, we had a great time with the other travellers, and that night one guy we met was yelling through the screen at Shannon to wake the girl with the purple pants, who he said he was madly in love with from afar and needed to talk with immediately. The conversation went on for about half an hour, until ‘purple pants’ decided to get out of bed and have a chat with the boy. Altogether, it was a pretty funny evening.

The next morning we boarded another boat to Manta Ray Island, about two hours further north in the Yasawa Island chain. The island itself is much larger than Beachcomber, the resort took up only a small part of the land – the rest was full of rocky beaches and hills. We splurged for our own rooms for the three nights (well, two rooms for the 5 of us) and got ready for a few more perfect days. The sand was rocky, as it was at the other island, but the staff was super friendly, the food was incredible (islanders serve a lot of fish, I was in protein-deficient heaven). The days were super hot and the random clouds and breeze were definitely welcomed.

At Manta Ray, we spent our days kayaking, making coconut bracelets (a huge process which involved gathering coconuts, tearing off the outside, sawing the bracelet, sanding the bracelet and digging out the meat), drinking coconut milk, laying on the beach, reading in the hammocks, chatting with the locals, hiking around the nearby beaches and just enjoying our last few days of summer.

On our last day, we took quick showers after lunch and boarded a boat towards the main island. After riding for a few hours, we arrived at Port Denaru, with about 6 hours to kill before our flight to Los Angeles. We decided that our best plan would be to find dinner at the open air mall near the port and then head back to the non-airconditioned airport. We saw signs for a Hard Rock Café, and, though we knew it was incredibly stereotypical of us, we ventured up the stairs to the restaurant. 7 smiling waiters greeted us at the door with a big “BULA” and asked if we had a reservation… obviously, we did not. They seated us anyway (there were plenty of tables) and then handed us a paper menu, one page long, with a short list of entrées and deserts and a note that soft drinks were complimentary. The night was their test party, a pre-opening of sorts where staff from North America was there training the Fijians to be the best Hard Rock staff in the world. For us, it meant endless Coca-Cola Light, and free dinner and dessert! Wired on caffeine, and after a lot of laughs with the folks at Hard Rock, we went back to the airport to rearrange our suitcase, get bitten by a million bugs, and finally cross the Pacific back to America.

~ Rachel

More Photos, of course

Mom and Dad in Sydney!!!!

Of course Mom and Dad's trip to Oz wouldn't have been complete without a visit to the city where I have spent the past 5 months. I had three and a half days to show them around, here's how it went:

Sydney Harbour and the Opera House - The very first night we went to the opera house for a show! It was called Gilgamesh, and it was performed by three actors in a sandbox. That's all I can say. In addition to the unusual theatrics, we saw the set for Australian Idol's Grand Final and walked around the Botanical Gardens for a while - there were a bunch of bats hanging from a tree!

The Rocks Market, a Harbour Cruise, Pancakes on the Rocks, and the Rocks Discovery Museum: A full day of Circular Quay with a little bit of arts and crafts, a few phenomenal views, a touch of history, and several delicious pancakes.

Paddys, Chinatown, Darling Harbour, the Queen Victoria Building, the Earth from Above artwork: On the other side of the Harbour, we checked out the best shopping in Sydney, from cheesy souvenir markets to coutour, live music, artwork, and the Christmas Parade ~ there was a little bit of everything.



Hunter Valley Wineries: A day of wine tasting, beer tasting, and crazy liquor tasting around the Hunter Valley in a van full of other friendly American tourists.

Bondi Beach: The market, the sand, the surf lifesaver trainees.

Coogee: My apartment, my beach, my ocean, my cliffs... and a goodbye breakfast at the Globe before I fly to Fiji and they go back to America.

(the pics are in the same album as the Melbourne photos)

Cheers!
Rach

Melbournes cool.. just not as cool as Sydney

Spoken like a true Sydneysider - Melbourne is a great city, but I'll never say it's better than Syd.

We arrived early in the morning, too early to get into our hotel for a nap. I was sick and grumpy...

For starters, we walked over to the Queen Victoria Market, but the intense amount of stalls, smells, sounds, and general overwhelmingness had me ready to leave immediately. We hopped on the city tram to check out another part of Melbourne.

Our first stop off of the tram was the square in the middle of the city. It boasted really interesting architecture, museums, a riverfront view, and was right across the street from an antique-looking train station. In the square we stopped for breakfast (again, I need to apologize profusely for my grumpiness, I was really unpleasant that day) and took some time to check out the Centre of the Moving Image where there was an exhibit showing the work of Marclay. Marclay viewed the world differently than most of us. Dad and I are convinced he’s probably autistic, but brilliant, nonetheless. He heard every noise as a part of music and the exhibition was full of videos and films and noises compiled together from fragmented movies or self made that somehow made music from the crash of pans falling or the ringing of a telephone or the flipping of pages in a book or the smashing of a guitar. It was incredible.

After a visit to the information centre and setting up a tour of the Great Ocean Road for later in the week, we took off towards the Old Melbourne Gaol (translation: Jail, Prison). Though Victoria is the only Australian state not founded by convicts, the Gaol is famous for its large number of hangings and brutal conditions. Most famously, it is the site where Ned Kelly was hanged. While we were there, they had a Ned Kelly performance and we got to see the tragic story of the man himself (play-acted by two lively Aussies).

We went back to our hotel to wash up a bit, I took a very long nap to kill off the sickness that was making me so grumpy, and Mom and Dad did some more exploring around the city. Melbourne is known for its great shopping, red coat wearing tour guides, interesting architecture, and general big-city bustle. They took a walk towards the harbour and ran into Greek town (where we went later for dinner), China town, and some sculptures.

Day 2 – I was feeling much better and ready to handle the crazy Queen Victoria Market in the morning, if you’ve been to Sydney, it’s like paddy’s on crack. Soooo many stalls, types of food, raw meat, cheeses, olives, fruit, toys, souvenirs, clothes, shoes, jewellery, it was a lot of fun!

Then we met our guide for a Penguin Adventure! We spent the afternoon on a long drive towards Phillip Island. On the way we took a tour of a koala park, stopped at an old farm (they had baby animals and old ladies dressed up like 1823) really beautiful grounds, stopped at a gross winery with a great view, stopped to check out a great surfing beach.. and then to the penguins at sunset. Katie, our tour guide, is Mom’s new best friend, she was really talkative and gave a great tour of the area. The Fairy Penguins, as they used to be called, are about 1 foot tall and blue! They have been coming up on shore at this beach and many others along southern Australia and New Zealand for hundreds of years, visitors have been watching them for so long that it’s not a problem for them (though photography is prohibited) and groups of penguins come on shore each night at sunset to trade places and sit on their eggs. The chicks will one day return to the same beach. People have been watching them from this spot since the 1920’s so the lights and stands are now part of their existence, they don’t seem to mind the tourists that are there every night when they come on the beach. They are counted daily for the first 50 minutes… 650 the night before we were there. No photos allowed outside, but we took some in the visitor centre. We sat on the sand in front of the bleachers built on the beach to watch them come in. The surf in groups of 10-50 and when they decide its safe, waddle on shore and up to a mile towards their dens. We sat watching them for nearly 45 minutes, they’re so goofy looking, but we couldn’t take our eyes off of them! We got back to Melbourne around midnight and crashed in bed, the next morning we were up early for our drive down the Great Ocean Road.

Great Ocean Road: Full day trip with Mr. Grumpy tourguide. Travelled along the Great Ocean Road (created btwn 1919 and 1936 mainly as a tourist attraction with limited tools – lots of early regulations on who and what can establish towns there, it remains a very quaint area). Stopped at some beautiful lookouts, the whole road is really magnificent. As a special bonus, we stopped at a location where koalas live - in the wild! Finally we got to the 12 Apostles – limestone cliffs in the water that were once part of the mainland, but the area between has broken away and they now stand alone in the water. The formations were beautiful, it’s a huge tourist attraction. There are only 11 standing now, one fell into the ocean about 18 months ago. Others are starting to deteriorate, but more are forming from the mainland as well. We also saw the “London bridge” rock formation and the Loch Ard Gorge, where two people who were lost at sea on shipwreck coast washed ashore. The entire coast is known for its great surf beaches and huge number of shipwrecks in the area between mainland and Tasmania, the Bass Strait.

They’re off to Cairns, I’m off to Sydney.

Aaaaand here's the album :)

More Sheep Than People

Mom and Dad visited me!! We started our adventure in New Zealand on November 10, then went to Melbourne on the 18, they went to Cairns on Nov 20 (I returned to Sydney to pack up my apartment) and then they joined me for my last few days in Sydney on November 24. Here's what happened::

Mom and Dad landed in Queenstown about an hour before I did, they were ready with open arms and a rental car to begin our journey through New Zealand’s south island. The big “Keep Left” sign on the dashboard of the car helped Dad get used to NZ driving and we haltingly made our way out of the car park and into Queenstown.

Queenstown is adorable, the town is a tiny tourist area perfectly situated on a lake surrounded by incredible mountains. Just a few hours from the Milford Sound and a few hours from the Franz Josef Glacier, it is almost quant, small enough to walk from end to end and full to the brim with tourists and restaurants. The sun was out and we were ready for some fresh air, so we started walking along the path by the lake, after only a few minutes a familiar face started running towards us, a friend of mine from DG who had moved to New Zealand! We stopped and chatted for a bit, she’s busy travelling and working in NZ, avoiding corporate America for as long as possible since graduation.

We had some time to enjoy the town, have dinner, enjoy a nice New Zealand beer and get some rest before heading off to Milford Sound in the morning. Milford Sound is one of NZ’s most famous scenic routes, and while it’s a fiord, not a sound (the discoverers likely thought it was a legitimate sound when then arrived). The 6 hour bus ride was crowded with Japanese tourists and their tourguide on short-wave radio translating the commentary, and the day was a bit rainy, but the drive was beautiful and the stops were scenic, and while our boat ride around the sound was very wet, we had our share of laughs. At one stop, we drank pure water straight out of a stream not far from the road – all the companies brag that they’re bottled at the source, and I’ll admit, the water was pretty tasty. While we were on the boat, the boat driver was able to find a penguin! It didn’t move in the 20 minutes we stood watching it, and he happened to know exactly where we would find it, but that shouldn’t make us doubt its authenticity.. right? The best part, though, was that the moment the Japanese tourguide mentioned the penguin, at least 40 Japanese tourists literally ran to the front of the boat to check it out. Seriously. A long bus ride back to Queenstown and we were ready to rest up with some cocoa in our little villa before adventuring more the next day.

Me and Mom holding up one of the buildings at Puzzling World

I feel like our activities for this next day deserve a little bit of an explaination on my part: we had a free day and a rental car in Queenstown, NZ. The weather was threatening rain (so long hikes are out) and Mom wasn’t thrilled about the idea of taking a little gondola up to the top of a mountain to see the area, and river rafting was going to be ice cold…. So I decided that we should go to Puzzling World in Wanaka. The town was about an hour an a half drive away, with a stop at the apple orchards in Cromwell (where you are not allowed to pick you own apples) are located. Puzzling World was hilarious – they had themed toilets (Roman), a labyrinth maze that we chased through for a few hours, and rooms full of huge illusions, including walls with concave faces of Einstein and Mandela and friends that seemed to follow you as you walked, a sideways room with water flowing uphill, holograms, and dozens of other puzzles and games. I was thoroughly entertained. We then went into the town of Wanaka, walked around the lake a bit, and saw more of the beautiful scenery around the area. The next morning we were to wake up early to drive up to Franz Joseph Glacier.

Me, Mom and Dad in front of the Glacier

The town of Franz Josef doesn’t have a stoplight. Its just three blocks long and has a few restaurants, a few eateries and a few crazy people who will take you hiking or flying over the Franz Josef Glacier. We hiked up the glacier on a beautifully sunny afternoon (and no, I’m not pantless in the photos, it was just a long jacket over my shorts) and the views were breathtaking. After donning waterproof coats, heavy duty socks and boots, gloves, and ice talons to the boots we hiked up stairs carve into the ice by our friendly guides. The glacier is one of only three in the world that meet up with a cool temperate rainforest (the others being Fox – about half an hour away, and a glacier in the Patagonia region in Chile). The massiveness of the ice makes it look much closer to you than it really is, and it took about 45 minutes just walking on a dry riverbed just to make it to the ice. For the first bit, the ice is dirty, not that blue, and not that exciting, but all of a sudden we were walking through a crevasse in the ice, surrounded by smooth, chillingly blue walls and walking on clean ice. We continued through an ice cave and stopped to take tons of pictures in the light blue world. It was a pretty phenomenal experience that you MUST do if you’re ever in New Zealand’s south island.

Mom got to work out her mommy skills and made us dinner in our mini hotel kitchen, and the next morning we were up bright and early to drive to the transalpine train station, where we would make our way to Christchurch. The Transalpine Railroad is a scenic railroad through the Southern Alps, past lots of grassland and plenty of sheep - even though the clouds and rain, the ride was breathtaking.

The fountain at the botanical gardens

The next day was spent exploring Christchurch New Zealand. The town is the largest in the South Island, but we spent most of our time in the central tourist areas. There is a local tram that drives around the city every few minutes, and we hopped on to see what there is to see. After stopping at the art gallery, a very modern looking building covered in thousands of panes of curved glass, we made our way to the botanical gardens and then to the “art centre” and saw some arts and crafts, woodwork, jewellery, and their famous fudge shop. We used our extra time to shop around for souvenirs and trinkets from the land of sheep and the next morning, we woke up for an early flight to Melbourne, Australia.

Don't let me forget the most important part!! Photos, for your enjoyment :)
New Zealand Part 1
New Zealand Part 2

With love,
Rach

The Australia Museum

We wanted to go skydiving.

But it was too windy and rainy, so we weren't allowed to fly. Instead, we went to the Australia Museum, just a few minutes walk from the skydive centre in the CBD.

The museum is a natural history museum, focused on the natural history of Australia, of course. There were lots of gemstones and stuffed dead animals and a really interesting exhibit on the history of Indigenous Australians as well.


(a skeleton reading a book)

I went with my friend Sid and we gave ourselves time to pose with the all of the dead animals, and talk to the few live ones in glass cages. The museum isn't huge, but it was a great way to make something fun out of a very windy day.


(me as a turtle)

~ Rach

NO MORE CLASSES!!!

The best thing about starting school in July... finishing school in November!

Here's the quick list of exciting plans for the rest of my time in Oceania:
Nov 11: Queenstown New Zealand. WITH MOM AND DAD!

• Milford Sound, Franz Joseph Glacier, Christchurch... exploring the south island.

Nov 18: Melbourne with Mom and Dad!

• Penguins, Great Ocean Road, Museums.

Nov 20: Back to Syd to pack up my apartment

Nov 23: Showing Mom and Dad around Sydney

• Harbour, Markets, Wineries...

Nov 27: Mom and Dad head back to America.. I take a detour to the Fijian Islands

• Beachcomber Island, Manta Ray Island, here we come!

Dec 2: Home Sweet Home

Trick or Treat?!

Halloween isn't a big deal in Australia - one of my Aussie friends was telling me that this was the first year that any kids have ever knocked on his door. However, we're American uni students and we love to dress up!

After a not-so-nice email from study abroad threatening to evict us if we even though of a having a party at any of our houses, a few boys I know rented out the tennis club in Coogee to throw a Halloween party of their own. It was a bit ridiculous, but we (as always) had a fun time, made our way from the party to our local bar in costume and showed the Aussies a little about Halloween in America.

Surf's Up!

This past weekend I spent a few days in Crescent Head, one of the premier surfing spots on the Central Coast. The area is about a 5 hour drive north of Sydney, between here and Byron Bay (another well known surfing town).

Back in July on our orientation program, we all signed up to go surfing with a group called "MojoSurf" - one of our orientation leaders works for the company and we got first dibs on the spaces for the weekend. We were so excited to sign up for our end of the semester reunion.. when it hit us that it's now the end of the semester, it was a little scary.



Crescent Head is a small town, and our accommodation wasn't in town - we were in the country at a bungalow owned by MojoSurf. There were dozens of bunk beds, a kitchen area, surf hut and place where the instructors slept, a party hut and lots of trees. It was about a 5 minute walk to the beach and from there all you can see is white sand. The way the waves were coming in, we walked along the entire beach for about 20 minutes to get to the best learning spot. All along the way, there wasn't another soul. The beach was perfect, barely touched, and simply beautiful.

Crescent Head was on of Australia's most popular surf spots in the 1960s and now is just a quiet country town with a few dedicated surfers on miles and miles of clean beaches. We invaded the empty beach with our huge foam surfboards (for learners... they hurt less), and wetsuits. We laid down on our board on the beach and the instructors taught us how to "have fun and look cool" and paddle out properly and pop onto our feet and balance on the waves. They're good teachers, I'm just not a fast learner.

The hardest part of surfing is just getting yourself and your 8 foot board past the breaking waves without drowning. Then the hardest part is picking a wave that's actually going to work for you. Then the hardest part is standing up. Then the hardest part is staying on your feet. After about an hour, we were exhausted.

We surfed all morning, went back for lunch and a siesta, surfed and sunned in the afternoon, had dinner, had a little party, slept, woke up, ate breakfast, surfed more, had lunch and then went back to Sydney. With all that practice, even I was able to catch a few waves!!! I may not be going pro, and I don't really have the desire to continue surfing at all (too much waiting and tough work to get out there to enjoy the few seconds you get trying not to fall off the wave...), I can finally say I've surfed Australia.

:) Rach

A Little Delta Gam Reunion

My pledge sister and future roommate, Kai, is studying in New Zealand this semester and came to visit during her reading week!! She was able to change her flights around and spend a whole week laying on the beach in Sydney - and we even went to a few places in Sydney that I'd never seen before.


Manly Beach



A 30 minute ferry ride from Circular Quay in Sydney harbour is a suburb called Manly, one of Sydney's most popular beaches. There were tons of little shops and a looong sandy beach for us to lay on. We spent the day taking pictures on the ferry and admiring the harbour while enjoying our time on the beach. It's a bit far from Coogee, but the white sand and beautiful ride over was well worth it. We went to Manly with Liza, and of course, we took plenty of DG-esque pictures in front of the opera house!

Featherdale Wildlife Park

In Blacktown (which I have since learned is one of the most 'dangerous' neighbourhoods in Sydney.. its a little run down, poor area just a little bit out of town) there is a perfect place to play with Kangaroos! Featherdale Wildlife Park is situated in a residential neighbourhood, but is several acres of enclosures with dingos, birds of all shapes and sizes, crocodiles, echidnas, bats, owls, wallabies, kangaroos and koalas! We played with the kangaroos and koalas for the afternoon and then hopped back on the train to Coogee.

Oktoberfest

The UNSW Unibar has several infamous parties each year, Kai was lucky enough to join us for Oktoberfest! Thousands of people, all afternoon and evening, hanging out at our university and having a crazy night. We may not have studied abroad in Europe, but everyone enjoys Oktoberfest!

We also spent plenty of time house hunting, hanging out on Coogee beach, watching movies, going to markets and hanging out with my friends..... all in a week's work



:) R

Thailand Pics, quick and easy

Here are the links to the 3 Thailand photo albums:

Bangkok and Beyond

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle

The Sun and the Sand

Enjoy!

xo