G'day and cheers from the land down undah! That's right, I'm now writing this piece from Sydney, Australia. I'm still a bit nauseous from that last part of the flight going down here (take my advice, never, ever eat sticky rice that tastes like mushrooms before landing. Not only does it lead to vertigo, the taste also stays in your mouth throughout the day resulting in... Mushroom trauma! *insert Psycho soundtrack here: "ching-ching-ching-ching-ching!" *). We flew in earlier this morning after a brief stopover in Singapore. Right before we boarding the service bus that would take us to the hotel, me and my brother rented SIM cards that would enable us to send text messages and make phonecalls back home. This didn't bade well for our mom who was already at her wit's end in fear that the bus would leave us. We properly apologized to her and told her that this would never happen again.

After checking in our bags at the hotel, we waited a bit for my sister's friend who was going with us as a sort of a tour guide. Her name is Cheryl and she's working here in this country as a nurse, she's lived here for some years now. During the wait I sent some text messages back home and a lot of my friends were surprised that I took a trip without informing them. In hindsight maybe I shouldn't have informed them but the excitement got the better of me. We're billeted in a very good hotel along Darlinghurst Road in King's Cross. Quite reputed to be the most happening place in all of Sydney. I sent a couple of text messages to my friend in Melbourne but he hasn't answered back yet. After my sister's friend arrived we took the subway to go downtown. We walked for a bit to Chinatown and had our money changed to the local currency. After which we ate a big lunch (the food came in really big sizes and almost all of us had to surrender in futility of trying to finish it all in one sitting). Soon, another friend of my sister joined us in our table. We talked a bit and moved downstairs where they were selling anime DVDs. I got the complete DVD collection of Studio Ghibli for $120.00 and "The Eye" for $38.00. Not bad, not bad at all.

We continued our long walk towards Darling Harbour. The walk to that place from China town was really long but the sights on the way to the place were totally priceless. I didn't take any pictures but my sister and brother did. I'll try to post them here or at least post a link to a online cache where they would be stored. I like this place a lot, the people are laid back and quite friendly and the open spaces here are really fantastic. On our last shopping spree for the day I bought two CDs for only $10.00 each. They're also celebrating Holy Week here and I don't think there's going to be that many stores open tomorrow. They told us that Chinatown's sure to be open tomorrow since they don't celebrate Good Friday. As for the rest? They're in for a long weekend and perhaps on Saturday regular store hours would resume for some business establishments.