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Here’s a few videos I took today in Yoyogi-Koen, which is where young Tokyo people go to be crazy.

The past 48 hours have been some of the most confusing, stressful ones of my life. Let me tell you all about them!

Thursday morning I woke up early, said goodbye to Tom (my last remaining roommate) and headed off to the airport about 3 hours early. I like to be safe. Lucky, this time.

When I went to check in to my flight the woman says “Do you live in Tokyo?” No. “Are you stationed there or something?” and I’m like, “No, just going for holiday.” and then she said the words that would ruin my life for the next two hours.

“Do you have an onward ticket from Tokyo?”

I told her no, that I had planned to take the ferry from Japan to South Korea in a month or so, that I was backpacking round the world and did not have a set itinerary and that I had checked Japan’s immigration and customs website very carefully and that one was not required.

Unfortunately, she had a computer and a little book of laws that said one was required, so she took me out of line and directed me to the Qantas ticket booth to take it up with them.

I spent the next 2 hours explaining that same thing over and over to various people, then showing them the websites I checked. Finally they called Qantas in Narita (where the big airport is for Tokyo) and talked to someone they could barely understand there. That person called Japanese Immigration and got the scoop which was that I was correct. He called back, we wrote down names and numbers and such and I was eventually off.

The alternative would have been to buy a refundable ticket from Japan to elsewhere and then just get a refund for it once I arrived in Japan. Not a big deal, but it was nice to not have to do it.

So, the day started off rough. Once I made it up to the gate I had some lunch, and then spent all my remaining Aussie dollars on a Lonely Planet Japanese phrasebook and some supplies. I managed to spend basically every dollar and cent in my wallet so I didn’t have to use the exchange service and pay their fees! Hooray! Really bad move!

The flight was fine, and pleasant. Flying doesn’t bother me one bit at all any more. Even when we hit some pretty rough turbulence. I think I’ve finally gotten over that fear. We landed in Narita at around 6:45pm, on schedule and then the real fun started!

I picked up my backpack and headed for customs. The guy there stopped me, asked me how long I was going to be in Japan and then if I had any checked luggage. At this point I had my main backpack on my back and my small backpack (with all the electronics) on my front. I pointed at the one on my back and said “Just this. One.” and he asked me again. So we did that a few times and then he asked me how long I was going to be in Japan, looking at the bag on my back in disbelief. The impression was that if I was going to be staying for 1 month I was going to need a lot more luggage and what happened to it all? Just as I started to worry he handed back my passport and waved me through. I was a little surprised by the third degree. I figured customs people see filthy backpackers like myself by the hundred every day. Maybe it’s just standard procedure to grill us a bit.

So I finally made it to the arrivals lounge where I needed to figure out how to cross the 80km from Narita to my hotel in Tokyo, but first I needed to get some cash.
So far, everywhere I have gone (in Europe last year, and so far this year) I have always just got off the plane, hit the ATM and pulled out some local currency. It’s fast, and easy, and it saves on the exchange counter’s fees. You are at the whim of the current exchange rate, but that doesn’t bother me too much.

Well, I strolled over to the nearest ATM and tried to find a way to make it speak English, but no go. So I found another one and that one was willing. So I put in my card, did the whole deal, asking for ¥50,000 (about $400 US) and it said “Card provider not available”. That was a little scary but I remembered something similar happening in Amsterdam because it didn’t like my PIN, so I tried again using a credit card advance. My ATM card is also a Visa. No go there either. I tried a few more times with no luck and started to worry a bit.

So I wandered down to the other 2 ATMs in the area and got the same thing at all of them. Starting to seriously panic, I went to the currency exchange and asked them if they could do a cash advance on my Visa and they said they only deal with cash and traveler’s cheques and pointed to the ATM. I explained that it wasn’t working for me, but that stuff wasn’t in their English repertoire and they just smiled and waved me off. Very nice, if slightly useless.

So at this point I figured I was 80kms away from my reserved place to stay, with no cash to check in even if I could get there (no credit cards accepted) and that I was basically screwed. I remembered I had a £5 note in my wallet from my trip to Europe last year, so I traded that in for a measly ¥1000 and sat down to think. Checking to see if there was any Internet access I found there was, and that it was ¥500 per day and payable by credit card! Hooray! I tried my regular card (that wouldn’t work anywhere else) and it worked fine. So now I knew my account hadn’t been cleaned out or anything like that.

By the way, if you think of Yen (¥) as pennies it makes the conversion easiest. ¥500 is about $5.

So, I got online, checked out my bank account and saw that it was doing just fine. Then I checked out the accounts of my three credit cards. I have three credit cards I’ve gotten over the years but they all have tiny, tiny limits and I don’t really use them. Mostly cause I used them all when I got them and they’ve all been basically maxed out since then. I saw that my months of paying a little more than the minimum had paid off and I had some money on all of them! About $650 altogether.
So I ran back to the ATM that seemed the nicest and tried a cash advance and it worked! I quickly pulled out all the ¥ I could on that card and moved to the next. After it was all said and done, I had about ¥75,000 in my pocket and I was feeling pretty good!

Around now a guy from Detroit wandered up to me and said “Do you speak English?”. I said “Sure do” and he said “Thank God!”. He had been in Australia and was flying home to Detroit. He had asked for the cheapest flight available and it turned out to be one that laid over for the night in Tokyo. They had given him a hotel and told him to call the hotel when he arrived but he couldn’t figure out the phones or anything and was freaking out. I managed to help him get ahold of his hotel (blind leading the blind) and so I was feeling pretty smug at this point. I was winning!

Over to the desk with the letters “JR” on it, which I knew was the train I wanted and ¥2000 later I had an express ticket to Nippori Station with a change ticket for Minami-Senju station which was the closest to my hotel and from which it was supposed to be a 10 minute walk. I had no idea where in Tokyo either of those things are (and still don’t, for the record).

The train ride was nice, and very fast. We blew through some of the stations at scary speed. I’m sure the two high speed trains I took in Europe were faster, but it’s been a year and my memory sucks. It was cooooooooooool. When that one unloaded I found my way to my changeover pretty easily and hopped aboard. It was only two stops up the line so it didn’t take very long. Unfortunately, when I was changing trains I had noticed it was completely pouring outside. Not good.

That train landed and I headed down to the exit and yep, it was pouring. I had a 10 minute walk with bad directions in a place I’ve never been where I couldn’t ask anyone for directions and with everything I owned on my back… and it was pouring.

I had noticed that everyone seemed to have the same two umbrellas and as I was exiting the station I started considering offering someone ¥1000 for one. Happily, when I got to the bottom I noticed a little tiny store that everyone was gathered around buying umbrellas! I picked one up, couldn’t find a price tag and headed to the front for my first Japanese shopping experience!

It went the same way as most of them have since then. I put my stuff on the counter, the clerk speaks in fast Japanese during the entire transaction while I stand there drooling and eventually a price appears on the cash register. I happily hand over grillions of Yen and clerk says a bunch more stuff in Japanese and I take my stuff and leave, mumbling “arigato” fearing that I might actually be heard and I run out of the store. I always hope they aren’t saying something like “The first time you open the umbrella it may explode.” or “Before you eat that sandwich, make sure you remove the protective weasel from inside the bread.”
In any case, it was a small victory. I pulled my backpack’s rain cover out, wrapped up the important one (where the laptop and iPods were), donned my standard issue umbrella and walked and walked and walked.

Finding the hotel wasn’t hard, and I barely got soaked at all. The guy the desk spoke pretty good English and he was really, really nice. I walked in past a bunch of people hanging out in the lobby and finally, finally had a place to put my shit down. I had reserved a single, private, 3 tatami mat room with a low table and futon on the floor for ¥3200/night and it was really nice. I had a bed, a table, a TV, a lamp, a fridge and my own air conditioner. Backpacker heaven!
There was just one more little problem before this day from hell could end. I hadn’t eaten anything since dinner on the plane which was about 6 hours ago and I was starving. I had seen a 7-11 about 3 blocks away while I was walking to the hotel but the idea of going back out into the rain wasn’t very appealing and plus, the hotel locked it’s door at midnight and it was already after 11. I appeased my complaining belly with a giant beer and a coke from the vending machine upstairs. Beer in vending machines. Genius!

This is becoming pretty long winded, isn’t it? I still have an entire day to cover!

Okay, so that was day one. It was a little rough but I felt good about it. I had accomplished most of the basics (I still didn’t know where to eat), and I hadn’t gravely insulted anyone yet.

Friday morning I was up at 7:30am and I started studying. The first thing I needed to do was find out how to use the transit system. My Lonely Planet had pretty good guides and maps so I spent about 3 hours studying and taking notes and eventually felt like I knew what I was doing. The LP said you could take the city loop train for just the minimum ¥130 fee and see most of the major areas of Tokyo, so I had decided to try that. I didn’t really understand the low cost thing, but I figured it would work itself out.

I wandered downstairs and met a family from Ontario and chatted with them for a while. They told me I could get an English subway map at the station down the street and it also had a list of sights to see with the corresponding subway station. So that was my first goal. That went over pretty well, and I also secured a day pass on the subway from the machine and I was off!

I took the subway to Ueno station which was a more central station and headed for the JR Yamanote line, which circles the city and passed through the major districts. I found a ticket machine and started looking at ticket prices. I found out that you could pay ¥130 for a “platform ticket” just like LP said, and that was good enough to get you on the train. Once you got to your destination you would have to pay the balance for the distance you traveled. I didn’t realize until 30 minutes into the trip that if I went all the way back to the station I started in the gate keeper would just have to assume I had gone in and come back out without using the train. Around the city for ¥130! Hooray Lonely Planet!

So I looped the city and it was pretty cool, but hard to actually see anything. The crowds in Tokyo trains are legendary, and it’s partially true, but not completely. I have not experienced the pushing and shoving throng like I’ve heard about. It’s busy, but not any more than say Paris.

Back to the hotel for a little while to chill out and then I decided to go try to see my first “sight”. I picked Shinjuku, which Lonely Planet describes as the place to go if you’ve only got 1 day in Tokyo. It is the quintessential Tokyo experience you see in all the movies. Huge crowds, giant buildings covered with neon, people on the sidewalks with megaphones and everything else you can imagine. At one point I saw an arch over a street that was covered in flashing lights and stuff and decided to walk down there. I realized pretty quickly I had managed to find the red light district. I had a pretty good idea that’s where I was when I saw all the porn shops and massage parlors, but it was cemented when a guy chased me down, asked me if English was okay and then asked me if I wanted a “sex massage”. I passed.

I also ate in my first restaurant in Japan. I am careful not to say Japanese restaurant, because it definitely wasn’t. I wasn’t quite ready to delve into the Japanese food, mostly because it looks scary, so I wanted to start with something I knew. Like spaghetti. I did want to try ordering though and figure out how to take a seat and all that so it was a good experience. The spaghetti was awesome too 🙂

Most places to eat have this plastic food out front that looks just like what you’ll find on your plate. Obviously fancy places don’t do this, but I see it in front of more restaurants than not. A lot of times there will also be numbers or when you get inside you’ll find it all on a sheet and you can just point to order. There is no chance you’ll be able to order by speaking because all of the names of the food are in Kanji, and the person taking the order doesn’t speak English.

Altogether, there is a lot less English speaking than I was led to believe. I had the feeling coming in that most people would know some English, although they might be shy to use it. I have not found this to be true. Or at least, if it is, they are REALLY shy. I would say better than 90% of the people I have dealt with so far didn’t speak any English. I am trying to learn useful phrases in Japanese but it’s not easy at all. I have a hard time remembering a lot of the words that I read because I can’t associate it very well, or I use them so seldom that I forget it by the next time I need to use it.

Anyway, after I wandered around Shinjuku for a while I decided to hit the Tokyo Tower, which I had been told is great at night from the Ontario family I met downstairs. It’s basically a clone of the Eiffel Tower except it’s taller and stronger and lighter. The paperwork made it sound like they were very proud of it.

The Tower was pretty great, and I got to see just how huge this place is. It’s hard not to quote Douglas Adams here in his description of the size of the Universe. Suffice to say that seeing Tokyo from 250 meters gave me a sense of scale that I have nothing else to compare with. It is dense city as far as the eye can see and it doesn’t peter out like the downtowns of most cities. There are skyscrapers out there as far as you can see. It’s amazing.

I made it back to my hotel just a bit before the doors were to lock for the night and settled in for a little Battlestar Galactica. The wireless access at the hotel is awesome so I’ve taken advantage of it to download new episodes of some shows.

And that was Friday!

Now it’s Saturday. I’m being super lazy today. It’s already 3:25pm and all I’ve done so far is a little grocery shopping and lots of Internetting. I’m in no hurry, and it’s nice to lounge around and not be bothered after 2 weeks in the dorms in Cairns. Grocery shopping was hard. I am unable to read any of the packaging so I have to go by what is obvious. I bought 5 different kinds of noodle bowls and took a picture of them all so I can keep track of what I like and what is horrible 🙂 I also got some Pocky, which I remember Andrea talking about, and it’s really good. I got the strawberry kind.
So that’s it for now. I know it was a long one. I’m gonna chill out for a few more hours and then head down to Ginza for a few hours.

Oh, I’m almost positive I have thus far experienced two earthquakes. One yesterday around 8:30am and one today around 3:00pm.

I’m in Tokyo! I have been for about 24 hours and I’ve already done a bunch of great stuff but I am too tired to tell you about it! So, for now, look at a few pictures I snapped today around the city and come back tomorrow for the full scoop!

For the past several days I’ve been trying to get up at 7am so I could catch the Kuranda Scenic Railway to Kuranda and spend the day there. Due to various things I’ve not made it till today. Two hangovers, impossible roommates and laziness conspired against me till now.

The night before last I went out for a beer with my new roommates, who were all very cool, and it turned into 10 beers and I didn’t stumble home till about 2am.

So today I finally got on the train and took the nice ride up to Kuranda. To be honest, if you look at all the pictures in the brochure you’ve basically got it covered, but I won’t say it was a waste of money. It was better than sitting around the hostel 🙂

I bought a return ticket, although I kind of wanted to ride the cable car too, but it was too expensive. Well, once I got up and saw the cable car (Skyrail) all over the place I decided it would be worth it so I traded in my return ticket and got a ticket down via the Skyrail and bus instead.

The Skyrail definitely made it all worth it. It’s a 7.5km long cable car / sky ride thing over the rainforest and down the mountain. It’s absolutely awesome and a little scary. I saw some really cool birds in the forest, and lots of awesome rainforest scenery. There were also two stops where you could get off for a while and look around and they were great. One overlooked the Barron Falls and had signs explaining the hydro electric plant and the other was a little boardwalk through the rainforest.

So that was really sweet. Short day, and kinda expensive but it was great and a fitting end to my Australian adventure. Tomorrow I finally check out of Global Palace, Cairns, get on a plane and land in Tokyo! I am really, really excited about that, and kinda nervous. It’s going to be a big change to go from a place where people (sort of) speak English to a place where I can’t even read the signs. I’m excited for the challenge, and of course, to finally see Japan.

I’ve also decided that I will climb Mt. Fuji, even if it takes me a week instead of of the 4-5 hours it takes most people. Apparently most people start the last part of the climb at midnight so they can be at the summit for sunrise. Crazy.

So that’s all for now! I’ve had a great time in Australia, and met some very fun people but I’m looking forward to moving on. Australia has been just a little too much like America for me to really feel like I am traveling. I’ve seen a lot, but I really didn’t even scratch the surface. It would take months or years to really explore this place, and I would need to be much more mobile. Maybe some day I’ll devote an entire trip just to Australia (and make it to New Zealand!) by car or van and really feel like I got the Aussie experience.
Tomorrow I’ll be staying at the Juyoh Hotel ($24 tiny, private rooms!) in Tokyo where they are supposed to have free Wifi. I’m pretty excited about both of those things. I’m getting used to dorm life, but there is nothing like having your own place to chill out now and then and free Wifi means I can download some more Battlestar Galactica episodes while I sleep 🙂 So, till then, check out the lovely pictures from Kuranda and wish me luck in finding my bed in Tokyo!

Well, after listening to one of my roommates have sex 4 feet away from me for most of last night and then her, her friend and the other guy staying up till 6am talking about their dreams of being James Bond I decided it was time to move. I got a new room in the same hostel and it’s much better. Two guys and a girl and they are all really friendly. Should make my last few days here be much better.

Looks like the sun might peak out a bit today, so I am off to do some swimming and tanning. I’ve been practicing my Japanese for my big move to Tokyo and I’m getting really good. If you need me to identify a: boy, girl, man, woman, plane, dog, table, ball, horse, cat or car I’m your man. I can also clarify if any of those things are on, or under any other one. I should have no problem ordering in restaurants now!

Title says it all, so I’ll talk about something else.

Ford is huge in Australia. Every car is a Ford Falcon. You may be thinking to yourself, “I’ve never even heard of a Ford Falcon! Jason must be enjoying too much Victoria Bitter!”, and one one point you’d be right. I’ve had too much Victoria Bitter. On another point you are stupid. The Ford Falcon is the most popular car in the world. Or at least Australia. Which was my entire point to begin with.

Every once in a while you might glance over at a car and say “Ha! That’s not a Ford Falcon!” but you’d be wrong. Dead wrong. It’s a Ford Falcon that has been pimped out with wheels and possibly a new back end. It’s still a Ford Falcon though.

Get this, I went to see __28 Weeks Later__ yesterday and there was an advertisement before the movie. It was for a Ford Falcon. I’m kidding, it was actually for a Ford Falcon.

Anyway, they closed with “European styling, something or other something else and made in Australia.”

European Styling.

I had to think about it for a while, but I finally got it. They are talking about communist Germany. In 1921. When cars were made of cardboard. They would have to be, cause I’ve been to present day Europe, or at least last year’s Europe and there were no damn Ford Falcons to be seen. Lots of BMWs and Mercedeseses but not a single half El Camino half wood panel station wagon half shopping carts to be seen.

I checked.

So that’s about all for today. Tomorrow morning I am getting up early and going down to the train station to take the Kuranda Scenic Railway up to Kuranda and maybe do some rainforesty stuff up there. Even if it’s raining. I’ve got to do something, cause I am running out of books.

Well, it’s now been raining for three days straight in Cairns. And I mean raining. For an hour here and there it will just spit but generally it pours. I’ve blown the last three days just playing on the net, wandering around in the rain and reading books. I also mastered cooking steamed rice on the stove. So that was cool.

Today I didn’t feel like just laying around listening to my roommates babble about who tried to kiss them last night (again), “Ohhhh myyyyyy gahhhhhhd. Did Ryan try to kiiiiiiss you? You were sooooooooooo drunk!”, so I decided to wander down to the movie theater and blow some time there. I just finished watching __28 Weeks Later__ which was about as good as you might expect it to be. Not very. Worth the money though and it looks like I managed to miss 2 hours of the sky pissing down, so that was cool.

Since there’s been nothing good to take pictures of since the dive trip (because of the rain) I took two pictures of the room I am staying in. The two go together. I call it “Theirs, and mine”. I hope they convey my message. The room is a complete wreck. There is food, underwear, used up deodorant, wrappers for everything and anything else you can imagine scattered everywhere. And then there’s my little corner where I try to maintain a little bit of decency. I’m not sure it’s worth it 🙂

I probably shouldn’t complain. It’s still cheap!

Anyway, that’s it for now. I am going to try to get a tour into Daintree tomorrow, or Karunda (might have spelled that wrong) and see some stuff but it’s all outdoors stuff so it will need to rain a little less for that to happen. For tonight, I think I am going to wander down to the harbor and see if the storm is at least producing cool waves. Then it’s off to read a little more and maybe watch some Scrubs. Ahh, the life of an international wanderer! 🙂

Well, today marks one month of being away from home! Unfortunately it is marked by two days straight of rain in Cairns. Yesterday I didn’t really do crap. Read my books and spent some time catching up on the Internets. I also spent some time trying to figure out the next leg of my trip. My time in Australia is coming to a close. While there is still a ton of stuff I could do, I am ready to move on to less comfortable places. It’s too easy here. Everyone speaks my language 🙂

My plan all along was to go from Australia to New Zealand, buy a crappy car and spend a month exploring those lovely islands. After that I intended to go to Japan. Unfortunately, to get into NZ I have to have a ticket out. They won’t let me in otherwise. So I would need to buy my ticket to Tokyo now, and fly from New Zealand, or fly back to Australia and then on to Japan. Either way it will cost me $500US+ just in airfare. Add on to that that it’s winter in New Zealand which will really restrict my outdoor activities and it starts to look like I should go right to Japan.

The only problem with that is that I was hoping to delay going to Japan until their autumn started so I wasn’t miserable the whole time, but I just checked the weather in Tokyo and it’s not too bad.

So, I am undecided. Do I spent quite a bit of money to visit New Zealand, or perhaps save it for next time? Do I go on to Japan even though I didn’t want to go there this early? Or do I do something completely different? Perhaps fly to Thailand, or Singapore or Hong Kong?

I ask you, dear reader, for your suggestions.

Update! The people (you!) have spoken and New Zealand is out. I’m going to head off to Japan next Thursday! That gives me just under a week to hopefully get a tan in Cairns, and maybe spend some time in the rainforest. I also need to find me a croc or two! Thanks for the suggestions!

Final Update! And I have a ticket to Tokyo! Holy crap I’m excited. I leave Thursday at noon and arrive at 6:45pm. Supposedly Tokyo is expensive, but so far everything I am finding seems really reasonable, if not better than usual. I can get a private room for around $25 US with free wifi and all kinds of other crap. Wooooo!

So! I have some catching up to do! I was going to finish this post yesterday but I never made it out of bed. Needless to say, the welcome back / goodbye party went off with a bang and my hangover was legendary.

So let’s see, back on Saturday I went back to the training center for my second day of dive school. Things went much better right from the start. I found a larger wet suit, larger BCD and larger weight belt. So I was much more comfortable getting into my gear and I didn’t have to keep messing with my weights every 10 seconds.

My comfort lasted into the first time we went to the bottom of the pool. While everyone was doing skills I started to get panicy again and finally surfaced because of it. The dive master came up with me while everyone else stayed down to practice and he talked me down. It was something about just sitting there waiting for my turn that just got to me and I felt like my lungs were closing up. He consoled me and said he had similar problems when he started and we just chatted for a few minutes. A bit later the instructor came up and asked me if I was ready to try again and from there out everything went just fine. I completed all my skill checks and then we had some free time to swim around and practice anything we liked.

I found that once I was on my own and able to just chill out and relax I did great. I went to the bottom and sat there for 10 minutes just working on slowing my breathing and it was all great.

And that was it for the pool training! We went and had lunch, stopped by the pharmacy to get seasick pills, which the instructor recommended everyone get, then went to the dive store to get the hard sell on dive gear. No one really bought into it but it was temping to at least get my own mask and snorkel. I figured that I had already spent enough money on diving though, and I also didn’t want to add something else to my already stuffed backpack.

Then it was back to the training center for our last book lessons and instructions for Sunday, the first day on the boat!

I got picked up for the boat at 6:15am to go to the dive store and get ready to leave. In theory. What actually happened was that I was told I would be picked up at 6:15am and the bus never came. At about 6:45 the instructor came walking over to the bus stop and said everyone was waiting for us at the dive store and what the hell were we doing? His impression was that he had told us we should walk over to the dive store at 6:15am but me and the other 4 people staying at my hostel remembered differently. Anyway, it all worked out. We walked over, dropped off some luggage and headed out to the boat!

The boat was really, really nice. We met the crew, learned the rules and settled in for the 3 hour ride to the reef. We were headed for the outer reef which was about 40km out to sea. It was really neat. First time I’ve ever been out of sight of land and I really enjoyed it.

Boat life was very nice, but anything but relaxed. The schedule each day was basically get up at the crack of dawn (or earlier), immediately dive (like within 15 minutes of waking up), breakfast, dive, morning tea, dive, lunch, dive, afternoon tea, dive, dinner, night dive. We newbies didn’t get to do each of those dives but the people on the trip who were already certified did. I did 2 dives on the first day, then 4 on the second day and 3 on the third day. My first 4 dives (day one and two) were my open water training dives needed to complete my certification. The fourth one was really cool. We didn’t have much left to do in the way of skills so we did them and then Jay (our instructor) wrote “Congratulations! CERTIFIED!” on his slate and showed it to us. We all cheered and congratulated each other, as much as you can under 16 meters of water and then he let us loose for the last 15 minutes of the dive to explore on our own.

The rest of the dives were our own. All you did was find your buddy (you always dive with a partner), get suited up and get in the water. You determined your path, time under and everything else, although Tanya (the dive supervisor) gave suggestions for seeing the coolest stuff.

And there was cool stuff aplenty! Throughout my 9 total dives I: saw sharks, turtles, stingrays, a puffer fish, every kind of tropical fish imaginable, I found Nemo (everyone wants to find Nemo), picked up a giant sea cucumber and a pineapple sea cucumber, touched a weird sea anenome that stuck to my hands and nearly drowned myself mugging for a camera shot with my regulator out. All the dives went really well with no problems at all. I sucked a little more air than Dave (my buddy) so I usually forced us to the surface earlier than he would have had to, but not by much. We averaged around 40 minutes per dive so all told I was under for a good 5 or 6 hours during the trip.

The entire experience was completely wonderful! I had the best time diving, met a ton of great people, really enjoyed the boat and just had a blast. The food on the boat was awesome, and there was tons of it. Diving is pretty strenuous, even though it doesn’t feel like it, and you have to keep your energy up. Eva, the ship’s cook, had something great to eat ready after every single dive and when she wasn’t cooking the next meal she was baking cakes to snack on. There was unlimited coffee, tea, water, bikkies (biscuits, or cookies to us) and as much of each meal you could stuff in.

And that was my diving trip on The Great Barrier Reef! I’ll never forget it, or the hangover I had yesterday after our welcome back / goodbye party.

At 7:30pm yesterday we were supposed to meet at Rattle and Hum to party it up with everyone from the boat. I strolled over, got myself a pitcher of Victoria Bitter and settled in for about the longest night of drinking of my life. One pitcher turned into three, shots were ordered, pints were drunk and everyone got along great. Eventually Rattle and Hum closed so the serious drinkers (myself included) headed to P.J. O’Briens to keep going. By that time everyone was buying everyone else drinks and we were all just drowning in it. There was Coyote Girls (I have no idea why they are called that, but they danced on the bar), and dancing and pictures and idiocy. Eventually that place closed so me and about 5 others continued on to The Woolshed. My memory gave out a little bit before that, so I am not sure on the details but I think we were denied entry for being too drunk and we all stood around in the square acting like idiots until we wandered off.

Yesterday I had the worst hangover of my life. I only have a few memories from the morning. One is waking up to see the cleaning girls cleaning my room around me. I was wearing nothing but boxers and laying on top of the covers, so that was awesome. The next was at 1:30pm when I woke up and tried to get moving. I had to meet Dave downstairs at 2:00pm to get the results of our film pictures that he had got developed and then we went and tried to get some lunch down. We were both seriously hurting. Then it was back to bed till 9:30pm when I went out to find some dinner and upload pictures and then back to bed until 7am this morning.

I’m feeling mostly better, but my left ear hurts. I think I have some water stuck in there or something. So now I am catching up on the Internets and I need to do a bit of shopping. It was raining when I came in the Internet cafe, but knowing the weather here it’s probably gorgeous and sunny now. Or possibly there’s a cyclone.

So that’s it! I almost done with my time in Australia. I’ve had a heap of fun here and I’m about ready to move on. I am planning on stay on in Cairns for at least another week to just chill out and work on my tan and then I’ll be moving on to Christchurch, New Zealand! Dave is headed that way himself today so we may try to meet up in a few weeks and maybe even do some diving.

So, goodbye for now. I am off to find some Advil and a lock for my backpack and then maybe go chill at the lagoon for a few hours. Make sure you check out the new pictures from the dive. I just added more. There’s a lot, but man they are cool 🙂

I just got back from my three day diving trip to the Great Barrier Reef! It was the most incredible thing ever, but I am far too tired to talk about it right now. Highlights included getting certified (obviously!), diving with sharks, diving at night (creeeeeeeeeeepy) and life at sea. The company I went with was Pro Dive, and I can’t recommend them highly enough. They, and the trip was everything I could have hoped for. I have a goodbye party with everyone tonight at 7:30pm (one hour from now), then I am going to get a really good night’s sleep and then I’ll have more to say. Till then you can check out the first few batches of photos from the trip. There is more to come!