moving on...

Time: 0700
Location: Sydney International Airport, Gate 33
Status: Really tired and sore

hello loyal fans of the nathan wong club! Me and Sarah spent the last 10 days or so on the east coast of Australia. Its been really cool, and 10 days has gone by blisteringly fast! Here's a quick run down :)

First we flew from Perth to Sydney, where we met up with my mom's friend's sister who lives in Sydney, who kindly took us in. Talk about connections eh? Anyways, We spent a day in Sydney doing the usual tourist stuff, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House, Botanical Gardens, Darling Harbor, and Bondi Beach...basically we walked all over the place. We took the train 2hrs the next morning and spent the next two days out in Blue mountains, which aren't really blue, but still very nice. Walked DOWN the grand staircase (900 steps from the top of the mountain), then walked back UP because the train that takes you back up was closed. Its great how the sign that says its closed is at the BOTTOM of the stairs. Magnificent. It was really relaxing just to hang out in the hostel lounge and read and reflect, Me and sarah really needed it after the hustle and bustle of flying from cairo to perth to sydney. Anyways, I'll post up some pics later in HK.

We rode the train back, hung out a bit with our wonderful hosts, then met Aimee Wong for dinner! Early next morning we flew 2hrs to Melbourne on Virgin Blue Airlines, which DOES NOT even give you water. Boo.

Melbourne was great! Such a nice city, We stayed with my cousin Sharon whom I haven't seen since...i was like 5. Yay for family! Anyways, went to the zoo, and the aquarium, head over to sarah's blogs and check out our pics! We caught the end of the Commonwealth Games so the whole city was like a party. Really Cool! ...and then we took a 12hr train back to Sydney... not so cool. Landscape is pretty much like the drive from edmonton to calgary...but drier. I guess for some stupid reason, you expect to see kangaroo's bouncing all over the place, koala bears hanging from trees, and crocidiles swimming in ponds. I was severly disapointed.

Anyways, we came back to sydney found our hostel, and passed out. Woke up the next morning and caught our ride out to surf camp! We stayed there and did 2 days of surfing on 7 mile beach! There was a huge cyclone off the coast the day before we arrived, so the waves were pretty awesome, 8-9 feet or so (not that we were riding them, more like getting bowled over). The instructors were great and got us standing on the boards like in the first 20 minutes. The second day the waves tapered off to about 2-3 feet, and we learned to turn and got out back behind the waves and caught unbroken waves. So fun, but pretty freaking exhausting when you're out of shape.

Anyways now we're off to Hong Kong, should be cool, I've never been there before. I'm a lil' nervous bout using my very unpracticed cantonese, but living in cairo for two months has honed my foreign language barganing skills ;)

Take care everyone, wherever you are! Cairo, Austrailia, and Canada!

Nate