japan trip - day zero
Written by Vincent on 22 March 2009 – 7:24 pm -It has now been four months since I left on my trip to Japan. It was an amazing experience, full of all sorts of surprises that we would have never expected. This post details the prelude to the big trip. Some decided to stay at home and play the new WoW expansion, or at the very least recover from the big 21st party the previous night but a small group of intrepid adventurers decided to forget about sleep and instead head straight to Sydney the morning after.
I was one of those senseless individuals who decided to travel north into the only Australian city that foreigners could name. It was a very early start. Here’s a photo of me trying hard to not look tired.
For anyone who hasn’t had to use it, Avalon Airport is quite a dump. It’s far from everything (I don’t count the western suburbs) and there are no facilities there. But Jetstar flights are very cheap and so are train tickets from the nearby train station. However it does take longer to travel from Avalon to Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs than it does to get from Avalon to Sydney.
Eventually we arrived in Sin City where we waited to check in at the Swissotel. Given that it was about 11am, our room wasn’t ready yet. Waited in the fancy foyer for a while until the room became available. Why are hotel corridors always so tacky?
Our view mainly consisted of the base of the Sydney Tower.
After a short bit of recovery, we explored Sydney a bit. Everyone was still tired from the previous night so not much was achieved. It also explains the noticeable shortage of photographs as you have probably noticed by now.
Monorails are an epic fail when it comes to actually transporting people, but I guess they sounded like a cool idea back in the 1980s. We ended up walking around the immediate vicinity of the hotel such as the Queen Victoria Building which is quite like the Melbourne Central shopping centre.
Nothing of note really happened in these few hours. I really need to go back up to Sydney for a bit longer next time and with a local to show me around. We did find a pretty nice steakhouse though, which was to be the last big tasty steak for quite some time.
On the way, we got to make a token crossing of the coathanger on the way there and passed through Circular Quay which has one of the most picturesque railway stations in an urban environment in Australia.
Oh yeah, later that night, we visited a convenience store where a fight was about to break out because some drunk muzza was complaining about a mobile phone recharge card that didn’t work.
I am now simul-blogging on Pics or it didn’t happen! (formerly LimitedIntelligence) and Cameland!
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