City of Angels

Again I’m writing at an airport waiting for my flight, this time at LAX. The four and a half days in L.A. were pretty amazing. Of course it was really sweet to see Anna at the airport, and for most of Thursday we didn’t do much else than enjoyed the feeling of being together again. Somehow it felt as if we hadn’t been apart for five months after all, just felt natural.

On Friday we walked around downtown and saw most of the major sight in there and then took the metro to Hollywood. Hollywood turned out to be a little disappointment, at least for me. Of course it was cool to see the start on the sidewalk and the hand and footprints, but somehow the whole entertainment business isn’t such a big deal for either of us. After Hollywood we walked down to Beverly Hills, which turned out to be the only slightly bad choice during the whole stay in L.A. The way was longer than we had thought and it was almost dark when we got there. But still the neighbourhood on the way there were worth seeing.

On Saturday we walked to Chinatown and had sushi for lunch in Little Tokyo. After that we went to Universal City’s Citywalk, which is basically a shopping/entertainment street next to the Universal Studios theme park. We walked around for a while and the saw a movie at the cinemas. Unfortunately it wasn’t an IMAX theatre, but maybe someday I’ll get there… After the movie we had dinner at a place called Jilligan’s, which turned out to be a good choice as it was sort of a sports bar and the local NFL team were playing for play-offs. Hence, the place was somewhat full of loud sports fans :)

Sunday was our physically active day. We took a bus down to Santa Monica, hired bikes and rode along the beach for the afternoon. Quite impressive actually, one could have ridden right next to the ocean for about 2 hours straight. We only made to Venice and a little beyond it. And yes, Venice was just what I expected it to be. Loads of eclectic people, excellent street performers, skaters and graffiti. We ended the afternoon by sitting at life guard tower during sunset. Nice…

As we were so close to it, we felt that not going to Disneyland would be a missed opportunity. So even though the weather looked a bit bad on Monday morning, we took a bus to Disneyland and it was well worth it. The place was corny, of course, but still well managed to awake the child within. All the areas and rides were brilliant to the smallest details and even the most cynical heart can only smile when Mickey Mouse wishes one a merry Christmas in the Disney parade.

All in all, L.A. was even better than I had expected. Of course it’s big, there a quite a lot of homeless people around and it takes time to get to places. But it was still really easy to get around with busses and the metro and the people seemed to be genuinely friendly.

In a half an hour I’m flying to New York, and then we are going to go up to Albany for Christmas. Really nice to get ‘home’ after travelling for over three weeks.

The photos from L.A. are at http://picasaweb.google.com/jyjuvi/CityOfAngels#
WARNING! Due to some uncensored cuteness, parental discussion is advised.

First out of three

Sydney was the first of three major metropolises I'm going to visit during my trip. I arrived here on Sunday afternoon and spend Monday and Tuesday checking out the city centre and all the sights. Definite highlights were naturally the opera house and the Harbour Bridge, but the whole harbour area was really beautiful. So I ended up taking way too many photos there... And yes, the opera house is beautiful; it actually kept on amazing me every time I saw it from a different angle. One of the best views were from up the Harbour Bridge.

Other cool spots in Sydney were Royal Botanic Gardens and the Queen Victoria building or QVB. The QVB is a ridiculously posh shopping centre in a renovated building built in 1820. I also visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which included a really neat collection of Australian, Asian, European and Aboriginal art.

On Wednesday I celebrated my last day Down Under by heading for Australia's best-known beach, the Bondi beach. I can easily understand why it is so popular, as the area is just beautiful, the waves seemed to be good for surfing and the boulevard next to the beach had some cool cafés and shops. Embarrassingly, I managed to burn myself worse than ever on the final day. You'd think one learns how to deal with sun in five months, but apparently I got sloppy. Shame on me! On Wednesday night I went out for a few drinks with Stu, and we ended up walking to the harbour again, this time by night. And again, I had to take more photos as it just looked so beautiful and even romantic there. Kind of a loss that I was there with Stu... :)

I'm writing this at Sydney airport waiting for my flight to Los Angeles. Feels utterly weird, I feel sad leaving Australia, as it has kind of become my second home. But I can't wait to get to see Anna and eventually also all the people back home. The 20 weeks me and Anna have spent separately has come down to 20 hours, unbelievable how fast it has gone after all.

I'm really happy that I took the step of leaving Finland. I can't think how my time here could have been much better. But now it's time to change continent, hemisphere and season. Thankfully at least the language stays somewhat the same! Goodbye Australia, good on you mate!

Good ol' Brissie

From Thursday till Sunday morning I stayed in Brisbane. It felt really good to arrive to a city after all the small places I've visited since I left Adelaide. On Thursday I just walked around the city centre for a while and in the evening we had dinner with Ryan, as it was supposed to be his last night in Australia. (After all his flight on Friday was cancelled so he stayed for a day longer.)

On Friday I spent the whole day being an effective tourist. Walked around most of the city, took a ferry to the city's South Bank and even visited Brisbane's Gallery of Modern Art. The gallery has an exhibition called 'Optimism' so I felt almost obliged to check it out :) I also half-accidentally took a guided tour of Brisbane parliament house, which turned out to be one of the best things I did the whole day. The building is a magnificent house built in 1860 and the tour included some interesting facts about the history of the building and Queensland in general.

I really liked Brisbane, everything was built in a compact way and easy to reach by foot. Also the city manages to mix new shiny architecture with old classical buildings without feeling pompous or artificial. Especially the South Bank with it's walkways, artificial beach and cultural centre was impressive. It seems that Queenslanders are really keen on having a beach in their city, as every city here seems to have some kind of an artificial solution if there is no real beach available. Actually it's quite understandable with the subtropical climate here...

On Friday afternoon Kathy and Fraenzi arrived and we went out for a few drinks. We found a really lively Irish pub with an excellent live band, but as we were feeling more like just sitting around and talking, we spent the rest of the evening in a cool balcony bar. Again with live music.

On Saturday we took a train to a suburb called Fortitude Valley, which is a bit like Melbourne's Fitzroy with a bohemian and slightly rough look. After walking around and chilling at a café we went to the city and walked around a bit before heading for the hostel. Stu arrived later in the afternoon, and all of us went out at night. Was nice spending one more night with all my best mates here.

On Sunday morning my friends had gotten up before me and cooked breakfast for me. This just goes to tell how well they've gotten to know me, as everyone knows how much I detest waking up without getting something to eat. After that it was time to say goodbye to Fraenzi and Kathy. I will probably see Stu again in Sydney. I haven't realized yet that today's goodbyes mark the end of my exchange here, as even though I will probably will meet the people again, it will never be the same with all the people in the same place, both physically and mentally.

I'm reaching my final destination in Australia today: Sydney. Gonna spend three days in the buzzling capital of Australia, should be good...

P.S. I apologize to Anna for plagiarism with the last photo, but the shot with the reflections of a glass building just describes Brisbane so well: old details surrounded by modern prosperity, but with harmony :)

Sunshine Coast

Since leaving Airlie Beach I've been travelling along a part of the East Coast called the Sunshine Coast. Sunday and Monday I spent in a little beach town called Rainbow Beach (small in the proportion that my Vodafone didn't have any reception there...). The two days went by mainly being lazy, but on Monday I went see kayaking and tried bodyboarding for a while. We were supposed to see dolphins during the kayaking, but unfortunately it was raining and we saw no sea animals whatsoever. And we had tandem kayaks and the others of course weren't experienced in kayaking so it wasn't much about kayaking either. Anyway it was nice to try sea kayaks and felt good to be on water, just like it always feels good in Askainen back home! Bodyboarding was fun as well. It is basically surfing on one's stomach with a small board. It's easier than surfing, and I think I got the hang of catching waves this time.

On Tuesday I took a bus to Noosa, which is a small haven three hours from Brisbane. It has a small national park with amazing beaches and coastal views and a ridiculously expensive shopping street with brand boutiques and fancy restaurants. And yes, I cooked tuna pasta at the hostel :) The hostel I stayed at was really cool though, a 100-year-old building with rather good facilities, a really nice lounge and a warm atmosphere.

On Wednesday I went to the Australia Zoo, which is the home of the Crocodile hunter alias Steve Irwin. The zoo was completely different from the one in Adelaide, it seemed to be a lot more about entertaining the audience than providing knowledge about different animals. The greatest aspect was easily the hands-on shows, in which the keepers interacted with the animals either on a big arena or in the enclosures. I saw for example an elephant being washed and a keeper playing in a pool with pup tigers. Heart warming!

On Thursday morning I will finish my bus travelling by taking a bus to Brisbane. Feels really good to get to a place that doesn't involve around backpackers or beaches. Perhaps I can also gradually start transforming from a backpacker to a suitcase tourist, as from now on I'll be flying from one city to another. I've gotten so used to staying at beach resorts that I accidentally almost left for the zoo wearing flip-flops... I will also meet Fraenzi, Kathy and Stu in Brisbane for the final time, as the girls get there on Friday and Stu on Saturday. Might be that we have to have a beer or two for all the good times we've had here!

Sailing the Whitsundays

On Thursday afternoon we got on the 83-feet-long British Defender which was built for a around-the-world race in 1989 to spend 2 days and nights sailing the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsunday Island are a group of 74 islands east of Airlie Beach, and are one of the biggest tourist attractions in whole Australia.

Immediately after we took of I felt extremely relaxed. Even though I haven’t spent much time on boats let alone on sailing boats, I have always enjoyed the feeling of being on sea. Especially when we raised sails a couple of hours I was exhilarated. Unfortunately we couldn’t do as much sailing as we and the crew would have wanted to because the wind wasn’t strong enough.

The two and a half days we spent on the boat included good food, snorkelling, walking to Whitehaven or Betty’s Beach (rated one of the world’s most beautiful beaches) and lots of long needed chillaxing. I enjoyed especially snorkelling. I had never done it before and honestly wasn’t expecting the Reef to be that beautiful just 30 km off shore, but swimming there was just like swimming in a really good aquarium with loads of fish swimming around you in a beautifully colourful underwater world! And on one snorkelling session we even got to swim together with a turtle :)

Other that that I’ll let the photos do the talking.






When we came back from the sailing trip on Saturday we took a night bus for 16 hours to a small coastal town called Rainbow Beach. On the way we had to say goodbye to Stuart, feels weird not to see him around anymore, because he was one of the people I’ve been hanging around with most while Down Under. On Monday me and Ryan will go kayaking, should see some dolphins on the way. The rest of our group will continue to Frasier Island, but probably I will meet them one more time in Brisbane in the weekend.

The first days of the journey

hursday and Friday last week went by quickly, I hade to pack all my stuff, get half of them shipped to Sydney and clean my room. I managed to take care of it all, and finally it felt really strange to leave my Australian home. On the other hand felt excited about travelling and seeing Anna quite soon, but it was still sad to leave Adelaide. It was my home for over 4 months after all and I’m not sure if I’m ever returning there.

On Saturday night we took a plane to Cairns then, and immediately at the airport the warmth and humidity of the tropics felt mind-blowing. We spent Saturday just walking around the city, which isn’t too big or impressive – basically lots of surf shops, travel agencies, souvenir shops, restaurants and bars. The whole city seems to revolve around (German) backpacker tourists… On Sunday we went to the botanic gardens and relaxed at a kind of artificial salt water lagoon the city has at seaside (because the natural beach isn’t any good).

On Monday we took a day-trip to the Tablelands, where the Daintree rainforest is located. We saw quite a lot during the day and heard heaps of interesting details about the rainforest it self. And we got to swim under a magnificent waterfall and in a volcanic lake!
On Monday night we took a night bus to Townsville and after some hassle at the hostel we headed for Magnetic Island 8 km off-shore. It is a kind of a resort with multiple small beaches and a few small bars and restaurant. For some reason the place reminded me of the island of Lost. We spent the day just laying on the beach and walking around.

On Wednesday morning we continue early in the morning by bus to Airlie Beach. Feels good to be underway, and I’m really excited to see all the East Coast has to offer me.