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After endless budget airlines providing us with some frightful aeroplane experiences, we were more than excited for our first journey with Singapore Airlines since the last one a whole four months back. They did not dissapoint, with comfy seats, endless entertainment on offer and free alcohol! A quick stop over in singapore allowed us to say goodbye to Asia (our home for what feels like so long) and hello to western life.
We arrive in Sydney airport at 7am their time and feel like its the middle of the night, especially after using up all our sleep time on the aeroplane by watching the new blockbuster releases. After calling countless Backpacker hostels with no room, we finally find one with 3 beds available which included free airport pick up. We became a little wary when our driver had a chainsaw in his van and suspected him to stop the car midway and cut us to peices... but he turned out to be a lovely fellow and we sleepily arrived at our destination shortly after. When we got to our hostel there were actualy only two beds available, but due to sheer exaustion we took them anyway and shared. The hostel provided us with two sheets... one to lie on and one to cover us with. This proves to be no where near enough, where do they think we are, Nha Trang?? We shiver in our non heated dorm-room, and are woken up by people leaving (4 extremely loud, big black women)...and then again by people arriving (two young english couples). After a broken sleep we wake up and get ready for some sightseeing. We all decide to have a shower in the big cold bathroom downstairs and almost die of hypothermia in the process! The water fluctuated from being ice cold to luke warm and came out in the most pathetic drizzle you ever did see! Anyway close to tears we run back upstairs to our chilly room and wrap up so warm we could barely breath.
As we step outside it is cold but the sun is shining and we realise we may be wearing slightly too many clothes! After asking some very strange characters how best to get around, we decide on hopping on the nearest bus to see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
When we get there we are in desperate need for food and head for the nearest stall. We choose the sandwich we want and are about to order, when out of the corner of our eyes pops the price and we turn swiftly away. It turns out that nothing around that area costs less than about 8pounds. We are so used to eating in Vietnam for about 50p that this just seems rediculous and we are adamant to find something cheeper. In the end we find a slightly cheeper place and settle on a crappy sandwich for about 4pounds. We gazed at the Opera House which looks a hell of a lot smaller in real life and took some pictures. We also saw a man dressed up like a donkey which amused us greatly.
We then thought it would be a good idea to collect some things from another hostel, which had been delivered for us from England and Japan. We decided not to stay there in the end as it was too expensive for us and quite far from the main city. After about half an hour bus journey and a lot of wondering around trying to find the place, we thankfully spot its sign in the distance. The lovely man behind the desk (hugely resembling Will Young) knew absolutly nothing about our packages and we thought they had been lost for good. He let us rummage and ransack the whole entire office and storage spaces though and at the last second, just as we were about to leave we found them... huge relief! That night we bought Pasta and pesto sauce and cooked it in the hostel kitchen. We then played our new favourite, extremely addictive card game which we have named "DOMARRR" for a couple of hours in the social room.
The next day we went into the city to look around and browse the shops. Buying anything was certainly off the cards! The town had an amazing atmosphere and there were impressive street performances everywhere surrounded by huge cheering crowds. We stuck to our promise and left empty handed. We went back to Kings Cross, the area that we were staying and went to a laundrette to do our washing. While we waited we caught up on all the recent celebrity gossip from their magazines... "Paris Hilton behind bars", "Nicole Richie up the duff" and "Spice Girls back on tour"... we're missing out on so much important, lifechanging news! On our way home we smell the delicious aroma of freshly cooked pizza and just cannot resist the temptation! Armed with a box of pepperomi pizza we went to the local store next to our hostel to go on the internet. Everything in there is out of this world expensive, (chocolate bar 1 pound, bottle of water 2 pounds, and a flat fizzy lace 1 pound) The man could see we were in desperate need for sweet things so he gave us a small chocolate bar a fizzy lace and two small chewy sweets for absolutly free.
That night we wanted to experience the nightlife of Sydney and had been told that Monday night in Kings Cross was the place to see it. We were told it was a crazier version of Soho in London and Monday was ladies night so we were very excited. The town however apart from one or two bars was dead as a dodo. After much deliberation and discussion with a local bouncer we decide to head for Scubar in the inner city. It turned out to be packed to the brim and it looked huge, but this was actually due to a very clever illusion involving plenty of mirrors. Our first round was a very expensive 20 pounds but after we discovered the delights of Snakebite jugs (3 glasses worth for a mere 3.50) The music was shoddy with the likes of the Spice girls gracing the speakers, but the atmosphere was great and it was the first time we had been out in a western style place for soooo long, so it turned out to be a fabulous night with plenty of free drinks.
The next day we had an early awakening, got out of our room by 10am (waking up our lovely room mates in the process) watched some TV in the social room for a short while and then headed off for New Zealand.
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