The Thailand Fantastic's First Ever Sweepstakes Extraordinaire!

Hello readers!  It's a beautiful Sunday Morning here in Sydney, and its time to present you with The Thailand Fantastic's first ever sweepstakes extraordinaire! 

(No purchase necessary.  Many will enter, few will win.) 

As of this posting, there are 286 page views for this timeless literary masterpiece we call the Thailand Fantastic.  Not bad for 2 mediocre posts, so it is time to reward one lucky reader.  I have purchased a very expensive Sydney shot glass, made from Australia's finest glass blowers, and I am prepared to give it to our 350th page viewer.  That's right, take a screen shot of you being the 350th page view on the Thailand Fantastic, post it on my Facebook wall, and this classy drinking instrument is yours for keeps.  

If there's no screen shot, then there's no shot glass!  And  you know what they say... if there's no shot glass, there's no shots.

I bid you adieu, yours truly,

Noah

Mind The Gap

Saw this guy writing something in the sky with an airplane, and I'm thinking, "What the hell is RUOK?"

Oooh, yea, I'm OK, thanks for asking.

...Anyways, its my second day in the land down under, and day numero dos of travelling alone.   Every time I see something really cool I turn around to go, "Woah, check this out," but there's no one there.  I may or may not have caught myself talking to myself today...

Started the day bright n early with a ferry ride to Watson's Bay.  Sydney has got to be one of the only cities where ferry rides are part of every day public transportation, and I'll take a ferry over a cab any day. "Ferries are here!" Watson's bay was just a fun filled place.  There were great views, great looking people, and of course, fish n chips.  

Everywhere you go you see couples taking turns taking individual pictures of each other in front of some really great view because they don't have a tripod or a professional photographer. So far I've offered four different couples to take their picture together.  Each has accepted, but none have offered to take my picture in front of that great view.  So for now all I have is empty landscape pics like the one above, and creepy MySpace pics that I've had to take of myself.  Hence... 

I'll spare you any more. (Notice the yellow sweatshirt, remember the trendy Australia I mentioned)

After the ferry ride I took a bus to Bondi Beach. I guess it would be cool if you surfed, or had friends to hang out with, or if it was sunny, but because I had not a single one of those things, I decided to trek on.  Took a hike through the Royal Botanical Gardens, basically a really big park, meh.  (Besides the fact that I saw a tree full of roughly 500 bats, but again, no one to share it with, and my camera couldn't really capture their true bat  essence.)  

It's amazing how much time can pass when you're listening to music, but how much you can get done in the day when you're flying solo.  Pretty much have been listening to a whole lot of this, mixed with a whole lot of this.  Hate on death cab if you will, this song is more grooving than you'd think, and when you're walking randomly for miles and miles, it's got a certain hop to your step vibe.  (Can I turn this blog into a Travel Narrative/Music Blog fusion?)  Eli, Carson and Trevor are sitting at home going "not on my watch greenberg."  And these are the conversations that play in your head when you're going on 48 hours without a real conversation.

Ended the day with a subway ride back the hostel.

Live Large, yours truly, Noah

and so it begins

Well, after 20 hours of travel and a minor visa hiccup (who knew you needed a visa to get into Australia?), I have finally arrived in Sydney, and am writing from my temporary home, the FunkHouse.  Megan, don't get too excited, this place is a $#!*hole.  Someone forgot to tell me its the middle of winter here, so I've showed up without anything but t shirts and Dipped Tanks.  Luckily I've snagged a classy AUSTRALIA sweatshirt, and if not for my stunning accent, everyone would certainly know that I'm a tourist.

Kellock, I've been spoiled by having a professional photographer follow me around everywhere I go, and consequentially I forgot my camera today.  Fortunately, iPhones have adequate cameras (Dad, there's ONE MORE GREAT USE for the iphone.)  This thing is about 8 times more amazing than it looked in Finding Nemo, and if I can find a nice Aussie date (a true test of my accent), an Opera show may or may not be in my near future.  

Since I just watched the end of a Thursday night football game at 11 in the morning, I'm not completely sure what time it's supposed to be, but since I got here at 6:30 am, its been a pretty full day.  I don't want to spoil all the fun before the true Thailand Fantastic begins (3 amigos hurry up), but the blog had 100 views and not a single post, so it seemed like it was time to get this thing started.  The people have spoken. A short synopsis of the day, and then you can go back to enjoying paradise.

7/9 Itinerary

6:30 am- arrive at Sydney airport, eli, thank you for the pm's, trevor thanks for the advice on the bus ride ;) make sure to heed that yourself

8 am - walk into my hostel room, both roommates are sleeping, one sounds like a dying boar

10 am - took the train (there is no feeling like that of mastering another countries public transportation) to see the city 

2 pm - went back to the room, met one roommate, very french, I believe his name is Nu.  It's amazing how basically everyone in the world knows at least a few words of English.  The same cannot be said for Americans and other peoples languages.

3 pm - came to this internet cafe. There are 30 people here, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one not playing World of Warcraft.  Either that or the guy across from me actually has a friend named OrcSleigher69, and they are not on very good terms.

Travelling alone is a funny thing.  I get to do whatever I want, unless of course that's hang out with friends.  Living large, missing everyone, hope you're doing the same.

-Noah