Home Again!

Yes, I did actually come home. And the first thing on order? Another plane trip! After arriving in Chicago on the coldest day of the year (after leaving 80 degree Sydney) I headed off to Arizona for a few days of sun and visiting the family. Then once I was back in Chicago for good, the real work began - unpacking, unpacking, organizing, unpacking, laundry and more unpacking. Whew. I'm ALMOST done after 4 straight days of nothing else.

It's quite the luxury to be able to write this from my couch instead of an internet cafe where I was always aware of the time and money ticking away.

I'll be looking back over my pictures in the next few days and may write another blog entry with other thoughts on the trip, but after that I'll be wrapping up the increasingly ill-named 2007 blog. Thanks for reading!

Wine Tasting?...

...Try wine guzzling! In the last few days of my trip I finally got around to the day trip to Hunter Valley and had an amazing time. We started off the trip with a brief visit to a wildlife park for more closeups with koalas and kangaroos. Unfortunately, it was also pouring down rain, so I spent most of the time in the snake and spider exhibits, purely for the fact that they were indoors. I didn't feel too slighted, however, since I had already experienced the koala cuddling and kangaroo feeding this October.

After the wildlife park, it was another hour-long drive to Hunter Valley during which time I got to know my fellow passengers - a fun mix of people. There were two older English couples, a Swedish mother/daughter pair, a French Canadian girl, a Canadian guy who has been living in Hong Kong for 10 years and was accompanied by his Chinese girlfriend, and 3 girls from San Francisco. Those three girls and I got along like a house on fire! They all worked in advertising and were just a few years younger than me.

The first winery pulled out a list of 10 wines and our host told us we would be tasting all of them. Then he poured the first tasting - approximately 1/4 of a wine glass! Needless to say, by the end of that winery our group was fast friends!

Then off to the next winery, which was very unusual as it was capped off with a chili-infused schnapps shot. There was no sparing in chili, as you can see in the photo up top! Then a quick lunch (thank goodness - we needed to sop up the wine and schnapps) and off to winery #3. It was odd to be there, as this winery (Drayton's) was just in the news a few weeks ago. A shipment of ethanol or amonium (I'm not sure which as I've heard conflicting stories) had been delivered and apparently had a leak which was sparked by a welder working in the building. The entire building exploded, killing the welder and the winemaker, who was also the owners' son. A third man is still in the hospital. The twisted remains of wine vats, etc. were stacked outside which sobered us all up for a bit. It was hard to enjoy our trip there too much, but we knew it was important to continue to feed their income.

One last winery and another 6 tastings before we stopped at the Smelly Cheese Shop for tastings of a different sort and a 2 hour trip back to Sydney!

I spent the following weekend with the San Francisco girls (Team America, as we were dubbed on the Hunter Valley trip) and had a fanstastic time. Saturday was spent at Maurubra Beach, then at a harborside restaurant in Watson's Bay for a birthday party before ending the night with a water taxi to Circular Quay and a few hours at the Opera Bar, one level below the Opera House and overlooking the water. So I got my fill of water views that day. I was glad the girls were heading off to travel the East Coast a few days later as it would have been much harder for me to leave Sydney otherwise! San Francisco is one place I should have been but never have, so I'll have to save that until after they return!

At this moment I am in the Sydney airport, awaiting my flight to Tokyo and then on to Chicago. It will be another 36 hours before I arrive however... two 12 hour flights and a 12 hour layover. I'm glad to have the break in between and that it's long enough to get into the city, especially now that I'm somewhat familiar with the subway system.

I can't believe this trip has finally drawn to a close. It finally hit me today and I'm still in shock. So I'll have to wait until I get home to let you know how I feel about it all!

The Blue Mountains, finally!

Yes, I FINALLY made it to the Blue Mountains and lucked out with an amazingly gorgeous day. Speaking of that, did you know that "lucked out" means the opposite in Australia? It means you ran out of luck. Which I suppose makes more sense.

Anyway, the town of Katoomba is easily accesible from Sydney and is one of the largest in the area. The train takes just under two hours from the city and the small station is right on the main street. Katoomba itself is about 15,000-20,000 residents and is a real "cafe culture". Lots of shops, pubs, etc. and a real, proper main street. It does lean a bit to the new agey stuff, but not nearly to the extent that Byron Bay does.

I arrived in the evening and got up early for a day of abseiling and canyoning. Abseiling is basically rappelling; rock climbing without the climbing part! This photo is from our last abseil, about 30 meters. The view of the mountains was fantastic. The area is called the Blue Mountains as the oils in the eucalyptus trees create a mist that in the sun appears blue. After abseiling we stopped for a quick lunch before canyoning, which is a radically different experience from anything I've done before. We hiked down into the canyon (called the Grand Canyon here, but really no match for ours) and changed into the wetsuits in our backpack. Then we put our tennies, waist harnesses and helmets back on. A great look! We climbed over the rocks in the river at the bottom of the canyon, leaping into the cold water when it was too deep to walk. At one point we had to do the "dead Russian" - jump backwards off a rock into the water below, just like the bad guys in James Bond movies do when shot on the edge of a boat. Our backpacks were waterproof and held an air pocket, so we landed on that but were amazed how much we still went underwater. After that there was just one more jump, where we had to leap over shallow rocks in a narrow gorge into a pool a few feet beyond. But the highlight was at the end - we hooked our harnesses into the line and abseiled down the 30 meter waterfall! The water was beating down on our heads the entire time and of course, being unskilled, we were all slipping all over, trying to keep our footing on a wet wall of rock. Landing in the pool of water below was an exhilirating feeling, looking back at what we had just done. Then a 30 minute hike back up to the van and into town. Minutes after we arrived at the hostel it started to rain. Perfect timing!

That night the hostel had a $7 barbecue so I sat and chatted with a Sydneysider (as they're called) discussing the US political race. For the second time I was asked if I thought voting should be mandatory. The first time I was asked, I said "of course not, it's a right not a requirement," mostly as a gut reaction, since that's the way it's always been for me, but I've now reconsidered. In Australia it is mandatory to vote, although if you wish you can just write on the ballot "you're all idiots," and not actually make any selections. The more arguments I hear about it, the more I think that makes sense, especially since you still have the option to not choose one or the other. The main argument is that politicians here have to cater to the entire population, not just the voters - which I had never thought of. Makes a lot of sense. Our politicians have no motivation to do anything for the people who don't vote. Now I know the argument would be that it's the non-voters own fault, but as someone who votes, I'd be interested to see if our politicians would change if they knew EVERYONE was voting. Of course, this is one of the best parts of traveling - learning new ways to do things and debating them.

The next morning I explored some of the Jenolan Caves on a tour, a few hours from Katoomba. There are hundreds of caves in this area, but only 5 or so are open to the public. I went through 2 of them and they're pretty incredible. I'd seen a lot of caves before, so I expected to be underwhelmed - and was completely wrong. The Indian Canopy formation in one of them is amazing - it looks like a frozen waterfall that is multiple stories high. If any of my pictures turn out, I'll post one here.

I took the evening train back to Sydney for the weekend (I miss trains! I've only been on a few on this trip), as a friend I met while traveling was going to be in town. We met on the Melbourne-Alice Springs flight and although he lives in Sydney, he's been spending the past few months leading tours in New Zealand so we hadn't been able to connect here. I was looking forward to seeing the city from a local's aspect (and with someone my age!!!!)

Still in Sydney!

Yes, I know... my blog posts have faded off into nothingness... I've taken some time off to just enjoy this city. It also has something to do with the fact that there were 10 days straight of gorgeous sunshine and I couldn't bear to be inside for any of it. My days are generally spent taking in one or two tourist sites, errands such as the grocery store and nights out with people I've met. Sometimes I'm lazy and just sit in Hyde Park with a book and people watch.

So far I've checked out the Police and Justice Museum, the zoo and the Maritime Museum, spent a weekend wandering Sydney checking out all the activities for Australia Day, stayed up all night talking with friends and watching the sunrise over Bondi Beach and seen the opera La Boheme performed (for free!) in the Domain (part of the Botanical Gardens). The opera was fantastic and they'd obviously bribed the weather gods. It rained Friday night and Saturday morning but was gorgeous and sunny by early afternoon. The opera was at 8pm, by which time the ground had dried and the weather was back in the upper 70s. The next morning it was pouring again.

One day I just spent working out at a gym that I got a short-term pass to and having my hair cut, which I hadn't done since I left! A girl had told me about a hairdressing school, which is great for people with a lot of time and not a lot of money (that's me!) so I had my hair cut there. I actually got a fantastic cut that only cost me AUD$20 but it did take 3 hours! And the shampooing process was a little painful, as the guy who cut and washed my hair kept leaning on the bowl which then pressed the front of the bowl downwards onto my shoulders. By the time he finished I was almost prone, trying to squirm out from under the pressure. You get what you pay for! Also at least 45 minutes of the time I spent at the school was drying my hair straight and it started raining a few minutes after I left (without my umbrella). Which naturally meant I had to duck into the mall next door and stay for a few hours...

That night I went to see the movie, Juno, which I found hysterical. I had heard a lot about it but hadn't realized it was supposed to be set in Minneapolis. Hearing references to Mankato and Stillwater and St. Cloud - and especially Ridgedale Mall - while sitting in a movie theater in Sydney was a bizarre feeling. I kept wanting to turn to the person next to me and say "that's where I grew up!" but I have a feeling they wouldn't have cared...

I just moved into a new hostel, only because I forgot to extend my stay at the other one and they were sold out. So a few days ago I dragged my stuff a few doors down to the new place, which is more expensive but has a lot more amenities and is significantly nicer. Unfortunately, one of those amenities is a pool and I moved here just as the rain started! Oh well. At least I don't have to deal with my weird German roommates anymore. There were two girls staying in my room for about the same amount of time as I was but they spent almost all of their time sleeping. I met other two girls in my room (one English, one Irish) and had a great time hanging out with them before they headed north, and we all wondered what the German girls did all day. Their routine seemed to be go to bed before 10pm, get up at 8 or 9am to have the free breakfast that stopped at 9:30 and go back to bed. I don't know what time they actually got up because they were both always still asleep after I had showered, gotten dressed and left the room. Once I heard them say they went to the beach, but other than that I think they just hung around the hostel all day. They weren't hostile, but also weren't especially friendly when they were awake. I never had a real conversation with them and they had no idea I spoke German. Which was especially funny when one of them complained bitterly to the other about how loud the other girls and I had been when we came home the previous day. (The morning that we came in after the sunrise, about 8am.) We had been SOOO quiet and in fact had to be quiet all the time, since they were always sleeping, and were getting pretty sick of it. Part of it wasn't even our fault since the beds were so squeaky. At least in my new place we don't have those crazy squeaky beds.

I keep planning to take a day trip to Hunter Valley and get out to the Blue Mountains, but things keep cropping up to keep me here! Weather, friends, concerts, holidays.... Not that I'm complaining. Also I've been told time and again that there's no point in seeing the Blue Mountains on a rainy day, as you won't be able to see anything or do any of the activities. And the days when I've planned to go have always rained. Oh well - I'm not too devastated about it!

Off to dinner with some new friends!

(The photo is of a skydiver landing in the bay in front of the Opera House on Australia Day. He had a huge Australian flag trailing behind him.)

Travel and Technology

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend online and we were both marveling at being able to communicate so quickly from such a distance. Technology has really changed traveling, so I thought I'd focus this blog on how I've used it over the past few months.

Obviously, there are a lot of different ways to stay in contact while on the road. The original method - mail - has been relegated to postcards that I send. The "post restante" stations are pretty obsolete by now. (So much so that many of you probably have no idea what I'm talking about.)

The obvious substitution is email. But accessing that email has varied drastically over the course of this trip. The majority of the time I just stop into the local Internet cafe - sometimes they're even in the lobby of the hostels. They've ranged from $1 to $5 an hour, the latter can really add up fast. Sometimes you get ancient, slow computers with keys that don't work and sometimes they're the latest thing with flat screen monitors and every accessory you could need. In Japan the computers were obviously state of the art, but I wasn't able to use them as much as I would have thought. Japanese keyboards have a space bar half the size of ours, designed to be used only by the left thumb. I realized quickly that I use my right thumb 90% of the time to hit the space bar. So in Japan I hit a different button, the one that changes the keyboard from our alphabet to Japanese characters, which needless to say caused much confusion and difficulty in writing emails or my blog. I also realized I could not change my habit in just a few days - no matter how hard I tried I could not exclusively use my left thumb. To get around this in Japan and in a few other places I typed my blogs and emails on my Palm, using a small folding keyboard that I brought with me. It's not ideal, as it is smaller than a regular keyboard, but it works pretty well and certainly beats Japanese characters. It also allows me to blog from anywhere, such as a comfy chair in the Tokyo hostel or my big fluffy bed at the Bangkok Sheraton. It can also save me a lot of money in countries where Internet is expensive as I can write everything offline and just spend a minute or two posting it. A lot of places also have free wireless, such as in the Sydney hostel where I'm currently writing this, or I can "highjack" various wireless signals in cities. This also allows me to quickly download my emails onto my Palm, although it's not very user friendly for sending emails. Downloading the emails is handy for reading them later offline, such as on a bus, instead of being tied to the Internet cafe but it also means I can keep details of flight bookings, hostel reservations, directions, etc. at hand without having to print everything out.

Of course the other old standby in communication is the telephone. On this trip, I brought an unlocked cell phone with me that uses a SIM card. (Most cell phones in the US now use SIM cards; most other countries have been using them since cell phones were introduced.) Each time I arrive in a country where I will be staying for more than a few days I buy a new SIM card which gives me a local phone number. This is usually really cheap - the only place they were more than $5 was in New Zealand, where it was $20, but came with $15 of call credit. Friends and family can then reach me anytime on that phone number, rather than having to make appointments to talk at certain times/places. This is especially handy since hostel rooms don't have individual phones the way hotel rooms do. It also means I have a local phone number for keeping in touch with people I meet along the way and calling hostels, getting directions to museums, getting trains schedules, making reservations, finding out opening times, etc. I've found this to be especially handy when traveling on my own. If I were traveling with someone else, one of us could watch the bags while the other stops into a few hostels down the street to see if rooms are available. I find it easier to stop with my bags and make a few phone calls, and the convenience is certainly worth the few cents it costs me. When I need to make overseas phone calls, I use a calling card from a pay phone - that's one thing that hasn't changed much since I started traveling 20 years ago.

Getting pictures posted online is a trickier thing, as is obvious by the fits and starts you see in my photo posting schedule. In the really nice Internet cafes, such as the Global Gossip chains in Australia and New Zealand, all computers have memory card readers and I just have to put my SD card in the appropriate slot for full, super fast access to all my photos. When my SD cards are full, I have the Internet cafe burn the photos to a CD and then erase the SD cards to start over again. This is also handy for those Internet cafes that don't have memory card readers but do have CD drives, which is the majority of them. There are a handful of Internet cafes that just give you access to the monitor and the keyboard, with the actual computer behind a locked door, and in those cases I can't post photos at all. Those are incredibly annoying! In Japan I had full access to memory card readers but found the majority of my pictures were taken portrait, which means the photos on the computer were sideways. Normally it's no problem to rotate them, but the text on the computers was all in Japanese, so I couldn't figure out how to turn them. After a few guesses (which made my pictures bigger and in black and white but still sideways) I had to give up an wait until my arrival in Australia to post them.

Hopefully all of this explains the typos in this blog as well as why I sometimes post frequently for days and then not again for ages. The Internet cafe where I'm posting this blog doesn't have access to memory card readers, so the pictures will have to wait. There haven't been many lately, anyway, since I'm in a city where I previously took pictures, but I'll hopefully have more after Saturday's Australia Day celebration! Must go soak up the sun now!!!

The wrap-up of the trip that hasn't wrapped up...

Ok, so what revelations have I had over the past four months or so? Surely there's more to this trip than just "I did this and then this, oh and then this funny thing happened." So here in a nutshell are some of my observations:

1. Sometimes I'm not as outgoing as I think I am. Many a time I've entered a packed common room in the hostel and taken the easy way out and just read a book or watched TV. To be fair, this is only due to the overwhelming scariness of just starting up a conversation with a random stranger half the time. The other half it's because on occasion it just doesn't seem worth is to stick your neck out there and spend time getting to know someone when the next day they'll be off in a new city and you'll likely never see them again. That doesn't mean I haven't met a ton of people on this trip - I have - but I would have guessed beforehand that I'd jump on any opportunity to chat with someone. I definitely go through all different moods when it comes to this. Then there are times like when I walked into the hostel in Dunedin, New Zealand at 5:30pm and was out with a group of people by 8pm, one of which I still email with today.
   
2. A lot of casual friends is very different from just one good friend. There are times when I love having all these different, unusual people from all over the world around me. And there are times when I'd chuck them all in for one friend who actually knows me! But it can also be liberating to share your innermost feelings with someone who doesn't know the background, who can listen intently without judging, who hasn't heard the story a million times and isn't going to be around to bring it up again. During this trip I have had thousands of short conversations with different people which doesn't nearly add up to the worth of one good friend. However, meeting these people, becoming their acquaintances and sometimes friends, having these conversations does change you in a way that's hard to explain. I've learned so much about other ways to be happy and fulfilled.
3. On that note, I feel like I've tried for a long time to be "normal" towards the goal of a good office job, settling down, getting married, having kids. (Going on this trip has certainly been in opposition to all that, however!) After meeting people with so many different ways of viewing and living life, I know that whether or not I do any or all of these things, I can still be "normal" and happy. It's very liberating.
4. I'm smarter than I thought, and not as smart. I'm braver and not nearly as brave as I believed. Your perceptions of yourself really change on this kind of trip. Sometimes I feel so incredibly smart (usually when surrounded by half-drunk 19 year olds) and sometimes I feel stupidly boring and uninteresting (usually in the same scenario). I know the decision to do this trip, especially on my own, is somewhat brave, but at the same time it's nothing to the kinds of things the people around me are doing. There are 19 year olds traveling through South America and Asia for a year or more. I went overseas at that age, but on a very planned, well-supported study abroad program in a country where I spoke the language. I could never have done what these kids are doing at 19 - it would be hard to do it now. I've met entire families who have left jobs and homes to travel the world together. I've talked to couples who met while traveling, where one or both has moved across the world to be together. In one case, it was 20+ years ago and they're still together. There are people who can talk to and befriend anyone. It's all very humbling.
   
5. In the same vein, there are so many fascinating people in this world. Which I already knew, but here it's so in your face. Half the time it's wonderful to be surrounded by this. The other half it's tough because it makes you wonder, am I as fascinating to them as they are to me? You tend to do a lot of comparing to others and since you only know a small portion of them - usually just the really interesting part - it's easy to find yourself lacking.
   
6. One thing people tell you about this kind of trip is that you will realize people are the same at heart, once you strip away language, culture, age and experience. What they don't tell you is that just as you start to see this (and I have on many occasions), something else happens to make you realize people are NOT all the same. There are some people who think and act so differently in this world. That's perfectly fine and probably as it should be (and maybe completely obvious), but a revelation none the less.
7. Material things have become much less important to me. I can't think of any thing that I miss at home, besides the general notion of the comfiness and coziness of my condo. I don't wish I had a particular shirt or skirt that I left behind (although I do often wish I had different clothes with me, just for variety's sake). I don't miss that poster I just had to have or the desk I agonized over selecting. This is something I've learned over and over, such as when I went overseas with just a few suitcases, but this time it's really powerful. I'm already looking forward to de-cluttering my life when I get home. What I do miss are dinners and games with my friends and family. It's the experiences I treasure. Just like on this trip - I've bought a few souvenirs, but not many, as it's the nights out, the skydiving, the scuba diving, the funny things that have happened that I'll treasure. I just need to make sure I continue to remember that when I'm home. Not worrying so much about material things will definitely be a stress relief - and will probably allow me to save more money for those experiences!
8. New has lost its fascination for me. This is probably the strangest one. Like anyone, I've loved buying a new CD, a new electronic gadget, new clothes. When I bought my condo, the vintage ones, albeit beautiful, held no interest for me. At some point halfway through Cambodia, while looking out at the ugly array of patched together electronics, houses and cars on the street I realized there it something to be said for not tossing something away just because it's not the newest thing anymore. In India, I was told "anything can be fixed" and nothing gets thrown away. Instead of buying the newest phone, I can just have my perfectly good phone repaired for a few dollars. Yes, having a blue door on a red car may not look great, but it still runs great so why would anyone buy a new one? That would be a waste of money and resources. Certainly a different way of thinking. It's along the same lines as the material things observation, but slightly different. Things no longer need to be useful AND beautiful for me. It's ok if they're just one or the other.
   

Wow, all this is really heavy after my silly posts over the past few months. You do tend to get wrapped up in the "how to I get to that museum" and "how much money can I spend on dinner tonight" and don't realize the things that are going on inside your own head. I do sometimes wonder how life will be at home. Will I just go back to my old life, with good memories? Will I radically change my life because of them? Or will I find a way to make small changes, incorporating what I've learned into what I had previously achieved? If so, what will that look like? I guess I'll have to wait another month to find out...

Touring Tokyo

My second day in Tokyo wasn't nearly as warm, so I bundled up for a day of wandering the city. I checked out the shrine near Harajuku and then the Takashita (hard to look at that without laughing) street in the area that's known for all the funky clothes Japanese fashionistas wear. Great people watching! At the shrine I got a poem but can't read a word of it!

After that I met up with an old friend, Mike, who I hadn't seen for at least 7 years. We were on the same exchange program in high school and our paths tend to cross occasionally every few years. It was great timing to see him, as he was about to start a new job and wasn't working. He also had a vacation planned and if I'd been there a week later he would have been in Hawaii! He's been in Japan for about 5 years and is fluent in the language, so he's a good guy to know! We went to dinner at the equivalent of a Japanese tapas place, where Mike did all the ordering and I got to try dozens of different dishes. We spent a few hours catching up and then Russell joined us after work. It was great to introduce them to each other as well and they're planning to meet up again soon.

I spent the following day researching digital cameras in different parts of Tokyo and finally picked one out for myself. Then I met up for a quick drink with Mike and a lovely dinner with Russell. Again, so great to know people in town! My last day was spent in the Asakusa neighborhood, where my hostel is. I checked out the nearby temple and picked up a few souvenirs. Unfortunately, it took me a long time to find postcards - first time that's ever happened! I had already bought stamps, so after I found postcards I spent my last hour or so at the hostel writing them out. Unfortunately, I then couldn't find a mailbox. I figured I could mail them at the airport, but no luck - even the Qantas business lounge couldn't help me. So I apologize for all those I was going to send cards to. I'll try to find a mailbox when I pass through again next month...

That evening I was supposed to get on my 7pm flight to Chicago, but chose instead to get on the 9pm flight to Sydney! I had decided a week or so prior to go back to Australia. I loved Sydney and hadn't seen as much of it as I would have liked. And since I flew on to Melbourne, I didn't see any of the surroundings, such as the Blue Mountains or Hunter Valley. Plus, why was I going back to Chicago in the middle of January? The weather is crummy and everyone is down after the highs of the holidays. Much better to stay in the Southern Hemisphere. I figure another 4 weeks of not working isn't going to make much difference in the end. Hope that's right!

As I write this, I am now in Sydney and FINALLY pretty much up to date on this blog. Whew. Since I have all this down now and haven't done anything of earth shattering importance in Sydney, I'll make my next post or two my trip wrap up comments that I had planned to do at this time. Then I'll add a P.S. when it finally really IS over. So look for that in the next few days! Off to the supermarket to make some dinner!