gung hey fat choi

Happy Chinese New Year ! ! !

I saw in the New Year in Melbournes China Town where 8 teams of Lion dancers were going door to door spreading good luck by performing traditional lion dances and setting off the loudest firecrackers you have ever heard in your life.

Welcome to the year of the dog.

Bullshit

There are a lot of bull shitters in hostels. They seem to think that making up stories to comepensate for ther lack of perosnality will make them popular. They often like to pretend they are 'hard men' and talk about fights they've been in, gangs the're involved with and the huge amounts of money they make as night club bouncer/bodyguard/stuntman.

There is a Kiwi bullshitter called Fluffy who loiters about our hostel every evening getting pissed up with the party people in the court yard. Depending on when in the night you are unfortunate enough to get talking to Fluffy he will tell you one of the following things.

1. When someone has a guitar out, Fluffy will declare to one and all that he came second in the world karaoke championships. Bullshit.

2. He's a qualified bouncer and part of the global union and can work anywhere in the world except Australia that's whey here he's a laborer on a building site. *bullshit !*

3. (After he's had a few more beers) He's a bodyguard and part of the International Bodyguard Association and can work and where in the world and earn $3,000 a day
**bullshit ! ! **

4. (After a shit load of beer) He'll tell you he is a member of New Zealands biggest Maori gang - and he got into it by stabbing a triad while working as a bouncer in a bar. According to his story his story a lone triad entered the pub and for some reason needed to be chucked out a while later. When Fluffy tried to chuck the triad out of the bar the triad pulled a knife which fluffy duly wrestled of him using some lightening fast ninja skills and then used the knife to repeatedly stab the triad in the gut. The gang leader who just happened to be there to witness the incident was so impressed that he asked fluffy and his huge beerbelly to come and be his bodyguard. ***bullshit ! ! !***

There are a lot of really fucked up Kiwis in Australia. Kiwi Dave - who is probably the only vaguely normal Kiwi I have met so far summed it up like this. "People like fluffy are so full of shit that they fuck up their lives back home so badly that they can't stay there, they have to leave and come to Australia, they have no choice. No one wants anything to do with them back home, and pissed up backpackers are the only ones who will have anything to do with them here."

How much for a blow job ?

One of the scummy blokes in my room decided to tell us about his side trip on the way back from the pub. It took him down a street full of prostitutes.

He was a bit disappointed at not having pulled. All his friends had managed to and had promptly ditched him to go shake a bunkbed with the first drunken backpacker they found. So he decided that he shouldn't miss out on all the fun and would get a blow job from a prozzie instead.

Unfortunately for him the going rate for a blow job was $50 and he only had $20. But a kindly hooker was nice enough to point him in the direction of the 'new starts' a bit further up the road who might be willing to suck him off at a cheaper rate.

Naked cowboys don't like talking

Steve pulled last night and went back to her place for a shag. He came back to the room at about 4am because he didn't want to have to talk to her in the morning.
Charming.

Happy Australia Day

Today is Australia Day. A time to celbrate all things Australain particularly those great Australian passtimes of going to the beech, drinking shit loads of beer, having a barbie and watching fireworks.

All of which I will be doing today with great enthusiasm.

Naked except for a cowboy hat

The half naked Swedish girls have departed and some mostly naked British boys have taken their place. I am now on my own in a room with 5 men who sleep in just their boxers, except for Steve who when drunk likes to strip off put his hat on a loudly declare "I'm naked except for a Cowboy hat!"

Oh the joys of communal living.

Experience

Apparently I need experience to be a sandwich maker. I have to have been trained in the correct method of buttering bread and putting a slice of ham in a bun. What the Fuck.

I'm never going to find a mother fucking job. Everyone wants someone with experience, but no one will give me a job so I can get some. So what the fuck am I supposed to do?

I suppose if I were slim and blond it would be easier. They would probably happily over look my lack of sandwich making/barrista/cocktail making experience and give me a job on the spot in the hopes of luring in more male punters with their bimbette staff.

More odd Swedish behavior

The air conditioning in our room is beyond useless. It churns out warm air and makes so much noise it drowns out the trams passing directly outside the hostel.

The Swedish girls have decided that the perfect antidote to the heat is to sleep in their knickers and only their knickers. Yes, that's right they lie there in plane sight ontop of the sheets clad in nothing but a pair of boy shorts seemingly oblivious of the 6 blokes also in the room.

Perversely, I'm starting to feel downright prudish in my shorts and T-shirt.

late night shopping

Last night 2 Swedish boys pushed a shopping trolley from Safeways through my dormroom. It was 3 am. The trolley was empty. The room is on the 1st floor (that's the 2nd floor for those in the US). I have no idea how they managed to get it up the steep and narrow staircase.

When they pushed the trolley back out of the room this morning (to take it back to the supermarket and get back their dollar), I asked them what they'd been thinking bringing a big metal shopping trolley into the room at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Their reply "Well we were out late and doing some shopping and you know....."

she's here

Queen of the Nerds is here !!!

WTF!

I really did not need to get off the most uncomfortable coach journey of my life to me greeted by that twit in the hostel kitchen.

It seems there is no escape.

Hi Ho Hi Ho

It's off the Melbourne I go.

A coach journey lasting a mere 12 hours lays ahead of me before I can enter the backpacker shangrila where (apparently) backpacker type jobs are plentiful and easy to come by.

I really really really need a job.

The streets of Sydney

The streets of Sydney are lethal. Not because of gang, criminals, thugs or bad drivers but because they are paved with ridiculously slippery paving slabs.

As soon as it starts to rain people start flying. Flip flops simply don't have enough grip for the slick surface and as feet fly forward heads fly backwards and slap down onto the unforgiving surface with a thud and a loud shriek.

25 ways to pass time on boring journeys

1. File nails
2. Read guide books
3. Read novel
4. Listen to music
5. Read newspaper/magazine
6. Play the car game
7. Play the pub sign game
8. Count the seconds to the next rest stop
9. Eat
10. Drink
11. Annoy the other passengers by having a really loud conversation on your mobile
12. Write blog posts in note book
13. Write travel journal
14. Write post cards
15. Start a conversation with a complete stranger
16. Sleep
17. Fight your travel sickness
18. Stare at the person across form you until they get uncomfortable and freak out or hit you
19. Count species of road kill
20. Make up a back story for the other passengers
21. Make faces at kid in cars
22. Make faces at lorry drivers
23. Try and figure out how you spent $12.75 on snacks at the last service station
24. Try and figure out how $12.75 worth of snacks only lasted 20 minutes
25. Stare out the window lost in thought about things you shouldn't be thinking about- get depressed and wish you'd remeberd to recharge your MP3 player last night.

Fancy seeing you here !

It's not just Queen of the nerds that I've run into in Sydney. I have bumped into many random people from my travels round Australia.

There was fairweather friend, Dutch girl, girl who walked around the (mixed sex) dorm room in bra and G-String showing off her tan lines, the southern gent, my BFFN from Surfers Paradise & the Dutch guy with the wonky eye (he managed to blind one eye by sticking a screwdriver into it).

My favorite friend to run into was Tomato girl. We have just spent the last 2 weeks hanging out together. It was great. Spending the day doing absolutely nothing stops being boring when you have someone to do it with.

Queen of the nerds

No, I am not describing myself - but a really annoying girl I shared a room with in Cairns, and then again on Magnetic Island.

I really mean it when I say I can't stand the insipid little witch.

I ran into her just now in an internet cafe round the corner from my hostel. A look of recognition flashed across her face as I turned my head and walked past completely ignoring her.

Childish? Yes. But infinitely better than having to have one of those "Fancy seeing you here!" exchanges with a fake smile plastered across your face.

Tick tock goes the clock

Every woman of child bearing age in Sydney seems to be either pregnant or pushing a pram.