In December 2005, I decided that it was a good as time as any to make the trip over the big pond and see my friend Kristen in Australia. So after I convinced my sister into using 3 weeks of vacation we bought tickets for May 2006. We bought the tickets as a Christmas present to ourselves. We booked so early that we were able to pick any seats we wanted. Since there were just two of us, the airline reservation person suggest the first row of two in the rear of the plane. Typically the seats in a Boeing 747 are 3-4-3 but where the fuselage starts to taper in the back there is not enough room for 3-4-3 so they change it to 2-4-2. This gives extra room where the third seat would have been except there’s not enough room because of the taper.
Fast Forward to the Actual trip:
The plane from CMH arrived in LAX 40 minutes early. So it turned our 4 hour layover into a 4:40 hour layover. We didn't need that; the LAX international terminal is very dark. Weird that I'm flying to Sydney yet I'm sitting in domestic terminal. While other Quantas customers are sitting in the international terminal.
I like flying internationally; on all flights, that I’ve been on the outside of the United States, they give you a meal and not just the long ones. When I was flying on China, they gave me a meal (on 1 hour flights even). Anyway, dinner was served at like 5:30 pm Sydney time. International flights also give you alcohol(beer and wine), if you wish, for free. I got a beer not sure which kind. I know it was light beer because when I said it the stewardess was looked like: Hey this guy wants a light beer, HA! Dinner was chicken with rice flavored with a tomato/corn salsa.Every seat on the 747-400 had a personal seat monitor. Of course, just my luck my monitor menu didn't work. Half the time the thing was in Japanese and I couldn't change the selection plus the one movie I did want to see wasn't available on my broken monitor. My selection were limited to channels 1-12. On working monitors you could also play games which I hope to check out on the flight back to the USA.There was a GPS channel which I watched most of my awake time.
With 2.5 hours to go, the captain spoke over the PA and said that all the toilets on the plane were broken except 4 in Economy class. This included first and business class. Now that’s a bit ironic?Anyway the pilot said they were pressing on to Sydney rather than have a 4 hour delay in some other airport. What's funny is they suggested that you didn't eat the breakfast they were serving. Not sure what that said about their food but you can draw your own conclusions. The hot breakfast was a quiche type of meal not very good. When we got off the plane they also provided each of us a $15 meal voucher for use in the Sydney Airport. Which we used for a second breakfast while we were waiting for the free shuttle.
Australia is very strict on the customs. If you have ANY food you are suppose to declare it. Well I had a lot of food and I was glad I did. It turns out that they actually confiscated some. They took the remaining beef jerky and trail mix I had left from my snacking on the plane. I guess they don’t allow any jerky but namely beef because of mad cow disease and they didn’t allow the trail mix because it had dried bananas which could have a certain parasite. Anyway I’m glad I declared because for one they take it very seriously, so much so that they have a reality TV show about people trying to sneak stuff in. And secondly, the line was shorter and quicker.
So we arrived in Sydney on Saturday (5/20) morning around 7 AM.
The shuttle took 1 hour to get there even though the hostel said would only take 15-20 minutes. While waiting for the shuttle I converted some of the traveler checks into Australian Dollars. And found out that when you exchange traveler cheques that the exchange rate is not as good as cash money. When we walked to the shuttle there were like 4 other shuttles in the parking lot so not exactly sure why I had to wait. When we were dropped off I gave the guy a $5 tip. He kind of looked at it funny and I instantly knew I didn't have to.
So we checked in and got the second to last twin. So we ventured out to see if we could get the borrowed work phone to work. The Virgin Store and VodaPhone store both said that it was locked. And that the repair shop could unlock it for $20 and $40 respectively. We went to the $20 shop but the office building was locked up. We decided to just buy a phone card instead. Cell phone service is expensive in Australia, they still charge a connection fee for every call and then a per minute charge. As it turns out the phone card was a lot cheaper. When you use a phone card the long distance rate is usually cheaper than a cell phone rate. In addition, you can make multiple calls if you don’t hang up the receiver just press the next number into the phone after you’re done talking and you can make the next call.
We saw a street performer dressed as a donkey and I had to take a picture. We continued to walk to the harbor and bought our 1 week bus/train/ferry ticket. However this is not good for the monorail or light rail, these are run by a private company. Weird? I’m a big believer in mass transit. Especially when on vacation. I like to travel with minimal needs and not be tied down into finding a place to park or paying for a taxi.We then strolled by the area called the Rocks and looked at the local arts and crafts market. I bought this cool looking wood sculpture.We headed down to Chinatown and ate at a conveyor belt sushi place. $2.5 a plate, we ate 7 plates and two $1 green teas. and gave the person a $.50 tip...Maybe too little but it was the smallest change we had.We walked to Paddy market which is like an indoor flea market. This place was great if you needed any kind of souvenir stuff this was the place to buy it. Before we left Sydney we can back here to buy a few T-shirts. We made sure to buy 1-2 sizes bigger than needed because one we’re fat Americans and the sizes do not translate sometime and two, because I assumed correctly they were not made from pre-shrunk materials.
That night we ate at a place called BBW king though we didn't even eat the BBQ. But it was recommended all over the place. Somehow we got special treatment and sat in the small room with the table cloths. When we left it was packed so a good sign that it was good.
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