wafblog v3.0

So, after thinking that I’d lost my camera’s USB cable to the mega end-of-2009-cleanup, I found it in my work backpack yesterday. This was after I ordered a new one last week -_- I guess it doesn’t hurt to have an extra one. It does however, mean that I can upload photos.

Fiji sunset

This is probably my favourite photo from the trip. I took this on our second night in Fiji, whilst we were having dinner.

Overall, I had a great time in Fiji. It was a really different sort of holiday for me as I’m used to being on the go, having places to be and sights to see. This was like, you get to the resort and there’s nothing to do. Well, not nothing – there’s obviously activities and such, but no one’s forcing you and it’s not like you have to do anything. This would have been fine, except I’m the sort of person that can’t sit still for 5 mins and when there’s no TV or internet it can prove to be really trying. I spent most nights reading (I finished “Neuromancer” by William Gibson and “Gene of Isis” by Traci Harding) and we also borrowed Scrabble one night although my brain was too mushed to be any good. I’m glad I brought my eee pc as “Man vs. Wild” provided some much needed entertainment. It’s currently my favourite show and I keep raving about it.

Anyways, the days were usually spent swimming, snorkelling or kayakking. I’d never been snorkelling before so that was a great experience for me. I love not having to come up for air and we saw lots of fish, sea cucumbers and even a blue starfish! I would love to go snorkelling again as I have my own gear now and it’s pretty easy. I also enjoyed kayakking although it nearly killed my arms. My friend accidentally let my kayak drift out to the middle of the cove (!!!) while I was grabbing an oar so we paddled her kayak out to mine, and then I had to paddle against the current to get back to shore. That’s right… against the current, and the current was damn strong! My arms ached so much the next day, but I went kayakking again anyways. Might as well make the most of it right?

I am glad I only went for five days though. I think any longer and I would’ve just gone stir crazy. I’m not sure if I’d go back for another holiday. I can see the appeal of just lazing about in your bure or going to the beach for days, but I like seeing sights and learning about cultures and stuff. All I learnt in Fiji is “Fiji time!” and “Bula!” LOL. Nah, I think it’s that, after five days, no matter how great the beach is I do want to do something else.

So, Friday was my last day working for the trains. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. Perhaps it will hit home more once I’ve started my new job. Everyone at work was really nice though, and they gave me a special ‘custom-made’ card with photos of everyone from work. That was pretty cool :D Unfortunately the cake they got me had peanuts on it so I couldn’t eat that, but it looked very nice anyways. We went for drinks after, down at Paddy’s and a few people that I’d worked with throughout the year dropped by as well. Hopefully will be able to keep in contact with a few of them, and I’ll only be down the road from now on so I can probably still meet up with them for lunch.

Anyways, this was only meant to be a quick post to say that I’m going houseboating today :D Well, actually… I’m going to the cricket first (my Christmas present to Mike) and then we’ll be going houseboating. But Manda, Travis, Mr Pal and Kirsten will be getting there about mid-day. We’ll only be there for 4 days, but with Big Day Out on Thursday and everything I won’t be home till Friday afternoon. Hopefully with lots of photos.

I arrived back to Sydney in one piece on Friday morning. I think when you go overseas you’re all bright-eyed and excited, and everything’s awesome (which it is) but then you find that you miss the little things about home. It was a really eye-opening experience to see all these different cities that have been around for so long. The history is just there, part of the atmosphere and the locals will walk past it everyday like it’s normal. Coming from a country where something 100 years old is considered historic, it’s hard to imagine walking on cobblestones that have been around for 1800+ years.

Then there’s things like, the number of people. It makes sense that going to a touristy area that you’d see heaps of people, but to be honest, you never get those sorts of numbers in Sydney. The only time I ever experience such crowds is at the Easter Show. A lot of services are much more easily available as well, and they’re very accomodating of tourists. So speaking English is fine and you never feel too out of depth. The only real time it’s a hinderance not to speak the local language is when you’re in the hotel room flicking through the TV channels to find something to watch and the only channels you can understand are CNN and Eurosport. It is kind of funny to watch things you already know in another language though. I managed to catch The O.C., Con Air, Cold Case and something else I’ve now forgotten in foreign languages and was thoroughly amused.

Of course, my first day back to work was met with delays on my train line due to some overhead wiring problem or something. And I was standing at the platform thinking ‘Now I know I really am home’. Then, last night I was woken up at 3:20am because a moth was flying erratically around my room. Idiot. I couldn’t catch it so I opened my door and turned on the light outside. I hope it’s flown out and died.

W00t! Last blog post for a while I think. Currently in the gate lounge waiting to board my flight to HK. Taking forever to type this because the keyboard is AWFUL and you have to press really hard to get it to register.

Anyways, just wanted to say, hope everyone takes care and I’m missing you all already. For those I promised to e-mail, be sure to check your inboxes… I’ll mail whenever I get the chance… or my urge to go on the ‘net becomes too much. Send me lots of mail :P Want to hear all about you guys as well.

Take care, and see you all in six weeks.
:D :D

The flu’s been going around lately, and it was finally my turn to get it. I ended up taking Thursday off work because of it. My mum was home the whole week last week, but I was a bit wary of taking too much time off. I had all these plans for the weekend too, but didn’t end up doing anything because of darn flu. So missed out on clubbing on Friday night and then didn’t make it to Animania on Saturday. Which really sucked. I’d hoped that by going to bed early on Friday night that I’d get enough rest to be ok for Saturday but I woke up in the morning and felt like throwing up and my head was pounding. Even all the drugs I was taking didn’t help much, except to make me sleepy. Although Mike was heaps nice and looked after me. Made me soup and everything (:

I did end up making it to Vinci’s 21st. But that’s something I wouldn’t have missed unless I was in hospital on my death bed or something. It was pretty good – saw quite a few people that I hadn’t seen in a while and got to see what they’ve been up to. It was quite fun, she had some games and stuff that everyone had to participate in. And the whole masquerade ball thing was good anyways. I left early, but still got to hear all the speeches. Speeches at 21st’s are usually quite amusing – considering there’s always different groups of people and you get an interesting glimpse into how someone you know is perceived by other people. Lots of fun in all.

I pretty much slept all of Sunday. Had to wake up at 11am because Ray came to pick up a book, but I went back to bed at 12 and then slept till like 6:30pm. I sort of woke up rather disorientated (disoriented?) because it was dark outside and you know when you’ve sort of put your body clock off-kilter… it was like that. I had something to eat, put away some stuff and then went back to bed LOL. I think the rest did help heaps though. I’m still a bit sick now but the sore throat seems to be gone and mainly the stuffy nose is persisting. It’s screwing with my asthma though and I really don’t like that.

Other than that, I haven’t been up to much at all. Work is work. New guy’s started, he seems alright. I bought a webcam for my computer last week. It seems to be working pretty well. The only people I know with webcams are Su and Pal, who are overseas, but it’s a very novel way of communicating. It’s also kind of weird because I sort of forget that it’s on and I’ll be doing things and suddenly think ‘Crap! They saw that!’. Still, it’s pretty fun.

Besides that, just packing a few things for Eurotrip ‘06. I am a bit worried what with all the talk of terrorist plots in the UK and all the extra security precautions required to get in and out of the country. Plus the whole not allowed to bring hand luggage thing. But I’ve bought my tickets and I’m intent on going so even being blown out of the sky shouldn’t hinder me. There’s no point really worrying about it unless it actually does happen anyways I guess. I am certainly aware that I need to be really alert and on the ball while I’m by myself but it should be ok. My torch arrived on Friday, so that’s one less thing to worry about. I wanted to bring a compass, but maybe I should trade that in for a GPS system LOL. Still deciding whether or not it’s worth bringing my PSP on the trip. I can load photos and stuff onto it though, and that’d certainly be awesome. It’d make it much easier to transport the photos, but then I need to bring a USB cable and that as well. Too much to consider.

What I hate about planning is that after doing lots of planning sometimes, you just have nothing to show for it. Like this Europe trip. I’ve been planning it for like a month or something now. It feels like anyways. And everytime I seem to be getting somewhere with it, something happens so I have to replan. Or refix or something. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating and I’m beginning to just give up. I should just take a month off, rock up to the airport and say, “mystery flight please”. Hah.

I get it, I really do. I’m lucky that all I need to think about for planning the trip is when I want to go. I can get time off work, or just quit my job if need be and I have saved the money so I could leave now if I wanted. And I get that that’s not the case for everyone. And it’s difficult to get parents to agree and it’s difficult to budget and it’s difficult to work it into your general life plan. That’s fine. But when you’re trying to plan, it’s a bloody headache.

So what does that mean? Well, I was going to travel alone. But mum said that going to Europe in late Oct/early Nov is not a good idea because it’s gets pretty cold. And I don’t like the cold. Plus it gets dark early so won’t have as much time to see stuff. That’s a valid argument really. Which means I should travel in September, before going to Hong Kong for my aunt’s thing. FINE. That’s fine. Except Animania is on the 30th Sept/1st Oct. o_O

Well, I pretty much got that choice taken away from me anyways. My parents were keen on going to Central Europe (Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc.) but they can only travel in September. So I can either, go in Oct, by myself for 24 days in freezing cold and darkness. Or I can go in Sept in ‘relative’ warmth and have some companions for at least half the trip. Cos they’re not interested in France, Germany or Italy. What kind of loser travels by themself? Me. That’s who. So it looks like I’ll be going on a 12 day tour of Western Europe by myself and then a 13 day tour of Central Europe with my parents before flying to HK for about 5 days. This is all fine and dandy except it means I miss Animania.

This was going to be my last Animania, as I’ll be working full-time next year and I really doubt I’ll have the time or the energy to do it again. Even more so, band is meant to be playing and I don’t really want to miss that opportunity. And this is why not doing what’s best for yourself gets you into trouble. If I was to go in Oct by myself I probably wouldn’t enjoy it so much. Fuck. I don’t know. Sometimes it’s better to have no choice. What’s really shitting me is that all this time spent planning and re-planning is really upsetting me and it’s distracting me from studying. Maybe I’ll just fail Comp Eng and not go anywhere at all.