Aloha

So after Australia, I returned back to America, land that I love.

Well, technically, I was in America.



Woohoo! I am back in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Yeah, I was in the 50th state which is like how many thousands of miles off our coast. (How we justify that Hawaii is part of our "eminent domain" is beyond me, but it's a great vacation spot!) But yeah, I was back in America, using dollars and my California driver's license and got to stop spelling everything with "-our" and "-ise".

I planned to meet my cousin Michelle in Hawaii, but what we both didn't realize is that I was crossing the International Dateline so I left Australia on the 12th evening and arrived on the 12th morning. We thought I was arriving on the 13th so Michelle bought her ticket for the 13th. So I considered, hey, I'll go chill on another part of the island for a day before she comes, but luckily I didn't follow through on that because I thought Honolulu was on the Big Island (because it's the capital), but turns out it's on a little island called Oahu. SO, if I had booked myself a hotel on another part of the Big Island like I was thinking, I would have ended up with no way of getting there. Yeah, I admit it, I'm American and I don't even know U.S. geography, but Hawaii's confusing!


Anyhow, so when I was in Sydney, I ended up meeting a fellow American in a pub named Scott and it turned out that Scott is in the Air Force and stationed in Oahu! What a small world?! So Scott drew the map of Hawaii out on a napkin and explained to me why I'm an idiot. Anyhow, so since I was there a day earlier than planned, Scott showed me around the Pearl Harbor military base area. (There's a few bases all connected to one another.)


A really old tower from WW2 days.


U.S.S. Missouri where WW2 ended.


The Freedom Tower


U.S.S. Arizona Memorial - The U.S.S. Arizona is underneath this structure. It's so crazy, but the ship sank during the attack on Pearl Harbor and they never could get it back up or something so over 1,000 men were trapped inside and drowned. They're still down there. It's crazy, but this is their grave. The irony is, there are SOO many Japanese tourists in Hawaii and they come here to see Pearl Harbor.


U.S.S. Utah, the lesser known ship that also went down on December 7, 1941 (The Day That Will Live in Infamy). There were fewer casualties (I think it was around 60). See the American flag in the background? I'm in America!


Just a pretty site on the base.


Commercial airliners flying into Honolulu airport. The airport is adjacent to the airport so the commercial planes fly right over head. Reminded me of planespotting with Magda's brother Maciek in Warsaw.

Scott was a great history teacher, and since I was with him, I was able to see parts of the base not open to tourism and see different memorials (like the Utah and there's a little war exhibit on base). I didn't take pictures since we're on a base and I don't want to be blamed for giving Al Qaeda images of U.S. bases, but it was really interesting. We saw a lot of the places that the movie Pearl Harbor was shot and stuff, too.

BUT the infuriating thing was that we were driving around base and I saw like 2 golf courses just for the troops as well as a gymnastics arena and a huge mall, just for the base. And it's like...hmmm...who's paying for this stuff? UHM...US! Honestly, I'm all for our troops and what not, but I think golf courses and a mall is a bit extreme, no? Especially when our country is $4 trillion in debt and we can use that land for public schools. I really don't want to pay taxes anymore.

Seeing all this defense spending going to waste really made me feel like I'm back in America.

So I only have half the pictures we took in Hawaii since the rest are on my cousin's camera and she's technological challenged. So here are some of the ones I have. We had a lot of fun. We went swimming in the ocean in the middle of the night, did some shopping, went to a luau, took a surfing lesson (we were good! although I wiped out and exposed myself to the entire beach.), and what vacation with Michelle would it be without grubbin!


Michelle and me at the beach across the street from the mall.


On the tram on the way back from the mall.


The beach. This was actually the one cloudy day we were there so this picture sucks. Michelle has the previous days which were sunny and stuff.


Waikiki is so crowded. Yeah, it's a nice beach and there's a lot to do and it is more beautiful that Thailand, but Phuket was so much quieter and less crowded. And you don't have those huge buildings.


Air Force show.


Me and my cous on the beach.


In matching sarongs...we went to dinner and drinks like this and then went for a late night dip in the ocean.


Teppanyaki.




Me and Scott.

Mahalo, Scott and the nice ohana of Hawaii. The Aloha Spirit is alive and well.

Sydney

So third stop in Australia was Sydney. I got here and I saw on the map that they have their own Hyde Park. In my trip around the world, I've seen how British colonialism has made street names and etc. so redundant. But I love London Hyde Park, so I took a walk through Hyde Park toward the Circular Quay and Sydney Opera House area.

Sydney Hyde Park:









There's probably about three major landmarks in Sydney and they're all in the same area:


The Harbour Bridge


Sydney Opera House (it's from Finding Nemo!)


The Circular Quay

So after walking around town, I took a ferry boat to Manly Beach where I did some shopping.


On the ferry.



So that was my first day in Sydney. The next day, I went back to Quay to go on an Aboriginal tour/cruise. I was just really curious about the whole Aboriginal thing because I never really knew what the situation was. It's really interesting though. A lot like American history and the Native Americans. Colonialism was really fucked up. But I guess it's how we all got here.


The tour guide.


They took us to this tiny little island.


Where they had this rock that looks like Pride Rock from Lion King!


Roooarrrr!


And our tour guide did a show on a didgeridoo, which is this long pipe-like instrument they blow into. But you don't just blow into it. It's really complicated how they play it, but it's really hard.




There were other Aboriginal performers in Circular Quay.



So I tape a little bit of the performance so I could put it up here for you guys to hear.



After the Aboriginal tour, I went on a tour of the Sydney Opera House.


Inside the Concert Hall.




Me at the Opera House.

Then I stuck around for a performance of Tales of Hoffman. I'm not usually a big fan of opera, but it was actually quite good. I bought like the cheapest seats possible, but the usher moved me to one of the good seats that weren't occupied.


Me inside the Sydney Opera House.

Here are some of the millions of shots of the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House:














At night.

Steve Irwin's Zoo

So John and I went up to the Sunshine Coast area. (South of Brisbane is the Gold Coast, north of Brisbane is the Sunshine Coast.) Australia Zoo, also known as Steve Irwin's (The Crocodile Hunter) zoo, is there. I'm not a big animals person or anything, but now that Steve Irwin's dead, it kind of makes the whole experience a bit more interesting. (Am I wrong for saying that?) Anyhow, the zoo turned out to be great. Most of the time, I hate zoos because I feel really bad for the animals, being all caged up like that just so people can stare at them. But the animals at Australia Zoo have so much space and they're treated very well. It's really humane. I was never a big fan of Steve Irwin since I don't really care about crocodiles, but after seeing the zoo, I have a lot of respect for what he accomplished in his short life.


On the road. Notice that we're on the wrong side of the road. It was so annoying going around the world because in half the countries, the cars are on one side of the road and in the others, they're on the other. So it just kept switching back and forth and I was constantly in fear of looking the wrong way and getting hit by a car. ALWAYS LOOK ON BOTH SIDES OF THE ROAD BEFORE CROSSING.


Me and John.


Asian elephants in Australia.




Me feeding a kangaroo. John and I adopted this one as ours because she was sooo sweet and cute. The rest of her friends were really lazy.




She was hopping...that was cool. I didn't manage to capture it.


Wombat!




This is Michael. He's like the hardest working person at Australia Zoo. He did the koala demostration (as pictured here), then the big show at the Crocoseum, then he was organizing the kids in games at the playground, and then he was directing traffic. He likes animals and children! How sexy is that? I have a crush on him.


Awww...


I'm an Irwin too!


John loves wombats. (Vombats!)


But I prefer koalas.


John as one of Bindi's back up dancers, the Crocmen! Hahahaha....


"Icky moss" John.


Crikey!


R.I.P. Steve Irwin




Me with a real live koala! Most places won't let you hold them because koalas aren't as soft and cuddly as they seem. They have really sharp claws (this one punctured my arm) and they can become really scary when you bother them (they sleep 19 hours a day). Australia Zoo is the one of the only places you can actually hold one, but you have to pay $15 AUD which go to help koalas.


Dingo! (Dingo babies...hahaha! Inside joke with John.)


This is a tazmanian devil. They look nothing like cartoon one, but they do run around constantly like they're on crack so it's really hard to actually capture a picture.




After the zoo, we went to John's family's country house. Yeah, they have a country house. They had a beach house too, but no one used it so they recently sold it. (Of course, John is mad even though he hasn't been there in like five years.) The house is in the mountains. There's a little town nearby and it's just quaint. Australia's really pretty.


See how pretty! And at night, you see all the stars, and it's absolutely amazing because the sky was soooo clear. Also, they have different star patterns here since we're in the Southern Hemisphere.


Jen in the country!


John's a farmer.


He grows macadamia nuts.


Here's John trying to turn on the gas so we can have warm water. (It's winter Down Under.) It was a little adventure because I was afraid he'd end up blowing up the house. His neighbor came over and helped.


This was what I woke up to. Isn't that gorgeous?


Then we went down to the beach for lunch. That's the Pacific behind me. It smells the same as at home. The Pacific has that really salty, sewage-like smell. Hahaha.




Swim a few thousand miles in a northeast direction and that's home!

After the Sunshine Coast, we went back to Brizzy and had dinner with Mum, Dad and Gran. John's Gran is hands-down the coolest Gran in the world. She went hiking in the Himalayas when she was 70! She's really sweet. John really doesn't belong in this family.

So that was my time in Brisbane with my new surrogate family and my around-the-world friend John. Stay tuned for John's trip to Los Angeles in February. (Our fourth continent!)