Last Sunday was Hollie's wedding. It was held at Castle Rumble, a venue in Waterford, Queensland. This guy bought a large tract of land and built a castle on it, but had to stop before it was fully built. Now, 40-some years later, the exterior of the castle is finished but the middle is still open-air. Hollie had made the wedding Venice Carnival/Renaissance themed and so everyone dressed in their most theatrical costumes. I was told to wear bright colors, so i picked up some monks robes and rainbow yak wool slippers in Nepal. While I was the only Buddhist monk in attendance, I was certainly not out of place. Hollie arrived dressed in a blue princess gown and introduced me to her husband Dana. Dana, who is 6'6", was wearing all black and had his hair done up in a way that reminded me of 1600's Europe, a la the movie Amadeus, black nail polish and red eye liner. The ceremony was conducted outside in this garden with beautiful flowers. Not being a traditional wedding, there was no priest or anything. Instead, a husband and wife couple, who were friends of Hollie and Dana, led a ceremony worshipping the god and goddess and blessing Hollie and Dana.
After the ceremony, we went into the castle. Big picnic tables had been set up around the edge of the room and were covered with ivy, peacock feathers, candles and renaissance masks. There was no shortage of alcohol, and after pumpkin soup and chicken, some of Hollies performing friends sang and danced for the crowd. All the while, there was a huge storm off in the distance with some of the coolest lightning I've ever seen lighting up the whole sky. Around 9pm, it started pouring. At this time, strobes and club lights were turned on and the castle became a giant dance floor in the pouring rain. Instead of walking to the train in the pouring rain, I got a ride back to Brisbane with one of Hollies friends. I hear things got pretty crazy later in the night, and I would have liked to stay, but dry transportation was too tempting to pass up.
By 11 I was back in Brisbane and went to my room to change clothes. My 3 Chinese roommates were sitting in a circle cooking rice on the floor and I quickly fled the room. Going down to the lobby, I met a group of Germans, some Italians and these two Canadian girls and after some coaxing, agreed to go out to karaoke with them. The bar was quite interesting, they only had one beer on tap, but they had bottles of beer from 84 countries. I started with a Czech beer - Pilsner Urquell, then had a Boddingtons (British) and a Tiger (Singapore.) Most of the music was good and the singers crap, but everyone in the bar was singing along. With the Canadians and an Aussie I sang Journey. With the Germans it was the Fugees. By 3am the rain had stopped, I had no voice left and the bar was closing so we went back to the hostel.
All of them had come to Australia planning on staying for a few months and had then discovered how expensive it was to live there. Since they only had tourist visas, they had to take illegal jobs in order to work. As all of the Aussies took the cushy gas station and McDonalds jobs, illegal jobs consisted of farm work. In America, we have Mexican illegals pick our fruit. In Australia they use backpackers. The Chinese backpackers were going to Melbourne to pick raspberries. The Germans were going to pick mangos while the Italians were going to pick bananas. Given that they get paid by the kilo (and nothing for the first week,) mangos seemed like the best option. It would take forever to pick a kilo or raspberries, and bananas have lots of spiders.
The next morning, Hollie, her 4mo. old son Vaelan, her mom and step-dad came up to Brisbane for the day to see the town. I met up with them and we had lunch. The biggest highlight of lunch was real iced tea. We then drove up a hill to see these gardens which overlook Brisbane. The gardens were closed, but the view of the town was amazing. We then drive to the waterfront and walked around. We walked through the "rainforest walk" a wooden path through trees and over a stream. It was dark, so I was rather concerned about spiders. We then came to the Nepal Pagoda. Donated to Brisbane in the 1980s, this pagoda looked like it had been taken right out of Bhaktapur. It then started to rain, so we hurried into a Greek restaurant and had dinner. By the time we were done eating, the rain had stopped and I went back to the hostel.
The next day I flew to Sydney. I had been planning on staying at a hostel, but via facebook found out that one of Sami's friends from high school, Lara, had gone back to Australia for university, and invited me to stay at her home. Lara's mom and sister were going on vacation to New Zealand the next morning and so we would have the whole house to ourselves. My first stop upon arrival was Coles, the local supermarket. I had almost forgotten how amazing supermarkets are. I bought two types of cheese, some kangaroo steaks, fresh bread, some bacon and a $3.50 mango. I marinated and grilled the kangaroo for dinner and we (Lara, her boyfriend Surosh, and I) also had corn, garlic bread and fries. I wanted some dessert, so i went back to Coles and bought mini apple pies and mint chocolate chip ice cream.
The next day, I took the train into Sydney to meet Lara at her university. We walked to Chinatown and got dim sum. It was delicious, but expensive even by Australian standards. As is the case in Chinatowns everywhere, when I speak to the waitresses in Chinese, they give me free food. It was still $50. Lara went back to class and I wandered around Sydney Harbour for a while before taking the train 50minutes back to Asquith.
Friday, I took the train to Sydney and climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Climbing the bridge had been on my "to-do" list for a number of years, ever since I saw a program about it on TV. The company who runs Bridge Climb had promised the city that nothing would drop from the bridge on the climbs, and took enforcement of that policy very seriously. First, we had to sign waivers and were all breathalyzed to make sure we were below .05. We were then handed jumpsuits and led into a room to change. Nothing was allowed on the bridge: camera, wallet, tissues, etc. We put all of our stuff in a locker, and then walked through a metal detector. At this point, we were given our belt which clipped into metal cables on the bridge, and were given raincoats, handkerchiefs, hats, radios and headphones, all of which were steadfastly clipped to our jumpsuit so nothing could fall. After running through the climb simulator (two ladders) we embarked on our journey. Given that there were 14 people in our group, the ace was not as strenuous as they had made it out to be. We walked across a series of catwalks until we reached these ladders. One at a time, we climbed the first 20' ladder and stepped onto the platform to begin climbing the next ladder. The first three ladders weren't very scary as you couldn't see down, but the last two you could look down and see not only the water, but cars zipping by you on the bridge. Later that evening, I explored Sydney with Lara. We first went to some bars for happy hour! And then went to the Star Casino.
Australians spend a higher percentage of their income on gambling than any other people on Earth. I expected the casino to be a lot fancier than it was. I played some blackjack for a while, and while I didn't win, I didn't lose much. The most bizarre thing was that the dealer couldn't count. Once I had a 10 and a 4, the dealer said "thirteen." I'm pretty sure he paid me when I had an 18 to his 19. The pit boss was drunk, and every now and then would come over to the table and make wildly inappropriate comments to the dealer in English, then they would go back to bantering in Vietnamese.
On Halloween, I went out clubbing with Lara. We went to Kmart and I bought a "nice" pair of $8 shoes, since places wouldn't let me in with my sneakers. We didn't wear costumes, but everyone else did. There were a lot of playboy bunnies and Lady Gaga's, but the best costumes I saw were a giant taco and a guy in full Ghostbusters uniform.
After a few more days relaxing and exploring Sydney, I flew to Melbourne to visit some friends who I know from my time living in China. I stayed with my friend Josh and saw my friend Chay. Most of my time in Melbourne was spent relaxing, drinking and watching movies, but as I look back, there are three highlights for me: food, politics and lawn bowling.
1) Food: We attempted to find some dim sum, or yum cha as they call it here, but that effort failed. However, I did go to a Vietnamese place with Chay and we had some crocodile soup. I cooked up some kangaroo for dinner one night at Josh's and thoroughly enjoyed it. Mangos are probably my favorite fruit and Australian mangos are giant. There were some that weighed 2 lbs each. When I went to Chays house, he had a kumquat tree in the back. Australians call them locuts, and while I had heard9; kumquats I had never actually eaten one. It was quite tasty. However, the absolute best thing I had in Melbourne (a couple of times, actually) was the fish and chips. Most fish and chips here is actually shark, and it was better than anything I've had in the states called by the same name. I guess I can check shark off the list as well.
2) Politics: the day after I arrived in Melbourne was the US elections. I woke up in the middle of the night to follow the returns, and needless to say was not so thrilled, even mores by trying to explain to Aussies what had happened. However, my interest in politics goes beyond the US, and with the Victorian elections in a few weeks, Aussie TV was bombarded with hilarious campaign attack ads. Also while I was in Melbourne, I met with former Prime Minister John Howard's Minister of Health, Dr. Wooldridge. While I was at GW, I took an International Campaigning class in which Dr. wooldridge talked to us over skype for 3 hours. I knew that I wanted to meet him in oerson and he was happy to oblige. We talked about Aussie and American politics as well as the Aussie healthcare system, and he provided me some great insight into how to raise the life expectancy of people in the Congressional District in which I am running this campaign. It was both fascinating to learn about and nice to get to discuss politics in depth.
3) Lawn bowling: I went with Josh and his friend Lee to go lawn bowling. It's like a combination of bocce and shuffleboard played on astroturf. The balls are weighted so they curve when you bowl them. It was quite fun to play while getting drunk. It didn't hurt either that Lee worked there and it was free.
I then flew to Cairns, up in the north of Australia. Arriving at 1 am I checked into my hostel only to find the same rowdy group of Canadians I had left in Brisbane. Fortunately, they departed the next morning and my room became that much quieter. The next day I went to see some Aussie wildlife. Chay had pointed out some wild kangaroos by the airport, but that's all I had seen, so I went to the Cairns Wildlife Dome. Situated on top of the casino, the dome is a giant enclosure housing lots of animals. I went for feeding time and got to see them dangle a chicken on a string to feed the 12' crocodile. After that I got to hold a koala. They're quite soft, but seemed pretty unintelligent. Maybe it's because they're stoned on eucalyptus all day.
The next morning, I went Scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. When I was in Australia 15 years ago, I got to snorkel on the reef and knew I had to go back now that I can dive. I took a day boat, the ReefQuest for two dives in the morning, and then transferred to the liveaboard, OceanQuest in the afternoon. All told I got 7 dives in, including a night dive. It was pretty amazing. i got to see clownfish (finding nemo,) a number of sharks, cuttlefish, octopodes (yes, that's the plural of octopus) and a turtle.
When I returned to Cairns I went souvenir shopping. I bought a assortment of bizarre things that make me feel bad for the customs agent who has to go through the box: opals, crocodile jerky, cane toad keychains and a "lucky" kangaroo scrotum. At home we have lucky rabbits feet. Aussies are a bit odd. For dinner, at the request of Janis Traven, I had Morton Bay Bugs. They are also known as flathead lobsters and look like lobsters without any legs. They tasted like sweet shrimp.
Now im in Bali, Indonesia. Tomorrow I go to Komodo to dive some more and see Komodo Dragons. I have decided that posting once per country is a bit unwieldy now that I'm staying in places for longer. For those who follow this, sorry for making you wait a month. They will become more frequent.