After months of discussing, planning and waiting for Australia and our big adventure we finally arrived in Cairns, Queensland on October 4th 2011. It's hot and humid. After being picked up by our chirpy van driver and upgraded at the hostel (having a private bathroom is considered luxury in the backpacking community) we were ready to go… and run errands. Once all our admin was complete (bank, phone, etc), we headed for the mountains to an isolated Aborigi...

After many sad goodbyes to dear friends and family, we left San Francisco on September 28 for the first stop on our trip: Hong Kong. Fourteen hours later we landed in Chek Lap Kok, an island built by land reclamation. After an easy train ride we arrived in central Hong Kong Island where we met our host Sy to gain access to her apartment. Sy and her dad greeted us at the train station and walked us to her apartment explaining that the typhoon signal 8 was ...