Hello Australia..........Hello Sydney

And now back to the originally planned programming........I've been in Sydney for around eleven days now so it's about time i got caught up with ye olde blogging again...
I left Bangkok on the twelfth and per the usual Thailand standards it wasn't without incident. Firstly i paid for a minibus to pick me up at the Merry V at around 2ish to take me to the airport, the guy turned up on time and helped me to the vehicle which wasn't a minibus at all but a simple taxi. Hmmm i thought well i do hope there's not many people getting picked up as you're not going to be able to squeeze many into here, that certainly won't deter them from trying though. Firstly we picked up a foreign girl from round the corner, I have no idea where she was from as when i said "Hello" she just looked at me with one of those faces that said "i don't understand anything so i'm not going to try and speak", there's no other way to put it than saying she was "a big girl" too. This and our backpacks meant the taxi was pretty much full already and anymore pick ups was clearly going to mean pretzel time for me again. Unfortunately we did make another stop on Khao San Road to pick up a latin girl(who i randomly bumped into today as well), to say she packed excessively would be an understatement along the lines of saying Mel Gibson wasn't really a big fan of the Jews. Her main suitcase was like a coffin which barely could get in the boot on it's own never mind with all our stuff too, she also had a massive wide screen laptop, 3 over sized shoulder bags and a satchel; you'd think she was checking into Beverly Hills not hostel central and tramping around Thailand, she was only there for three weeks too!  The taxi driver spent about fifteen minutes trying to fit the bags in the boot, using various combinations while i grew more agitated at the fact that "This is not a minibus". I eventually went outside and in about thirty seconds had everyone organized and all the bags in the car, studying decision maths for a   module or two with maths at college clearly provided some actual "life skills" then....... Or maybe just not everyone's retarded. 
The drive to the airport seemed overtly long but we managed to get there relatively hassle free, i got talking to the Latin girl and found she was on the same flight to me so i helped her to the right place in the airport and to check in. However thirty seconds later I  discovered that some point in the last eight days between Koh Phagnan and Bangkok, i'd been robbed of all my foreign currency. Now i must have been pretty visibly enraged as the latin girl made a rather quiet exit as i threw all my stuff out of my backpack in the middle of airport in the desperate hope it had just been misplaced but this was to no avail. The annoying thing was that i'd been so paranoid about getting robbed that i always carry my valuables at all times (cash, passport, iPhone, iPod etc) as in my own strange logic i'd much prefer to see someone rob me in front of my face and at least take a beating rather then slyly doing it. I'd not needed other currency in Thailand though so just left it in a small pouch inside my backpack at all times, there was a few hundreds pounds worth of aussie dollars, euros as well as Dubai money too. Curiously the Dubai cash was left in the bag and when i tried to exchange that so i could get some food i was informed you can't in exchange it in Thailand; this made me think it was a Thai that did it as only they'd know the cash was worthless there, unless somebody left the notes so i'd not realise it was gone. My money was on it being the horrible little woman from Koh phagnan doing it, she clearly had an unnatural vendetta against me so was a prime suspect. I spent the next hour storming about wishing i had something to smash up but soon calmed down and thought "shit happens" and i wasn't going to let it put a dampener on the trip.
After a few hours spent looking at lots of luxurious items I wanted but couldn't afford we soon were on the plane again. I can't articulate how delighted i was to find i was sitting on a fire exit which means not only i don't have to consider some other schmuck not being able to open the door but no seats in front and actual leg room! Any anger left from the cash going was soon quickly erased and the flight was once again rather comfortable. I didn't manage to get any sleep whatsoever but did manage to get through three films to pass the time, G.I. Joe was hilarious in its awfulness and not a patch on the cartoon Action Force the movie (that did have a character called Nemesis Enforcer too so it was always going to have a head start), Transformers 2 was also absolutely stupid and seemed to be directed by a desperate geeky 14 year old boy ( Testicles on a transformer? that's humour) and finally (500) Days of summer which thankfully was much more my thing and really enjoyed. He was the man in 3rd Rock and ten things....but Joseph Gordan Lewitt has really become the stamp of approval for quirky indie films....actually no, he was Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe, how did that casting come about?
The plane touched down around 9:30 am local time and i managed to pick my bag up and get through immigration rather rapidly, obviously someone here had read my airport security rant. I knew a taxi would be expensive but i unfortunately had no clue where i was going so a bus was out of the question so i had no choice really. All i'd heard for six weeks in Thailand was " Oz is really expensive" and i found this out straight away, I sat in horror watching the taxi meter go up as it ended up costing 48 dollars for a twenty minute ride. At one point we sat in traffic for a good five minutes and the meter still went up and up, complete and utterly sickening. I soon got dropped off at the hotel and was quite releaved to find i could check in straight away, since my room was ready. On my print out it stated i may have to wait four hours so this was a big relief as all I wanted was a bed at this point. However one of things Bill Bryson noted in "Down Under" ws that they don't really do customer service over here, i'm glad i had this knowledge as the guy at reception was a complete arsehole so at least it was expected. He was training a new member of staff too so was trying to impress him for some reason by being inattentive as well but i was too tired to moan so just went to my room and crashed out for about 20 hours. Not all of this time was spent during sleeping and i did have the chance to watch some Aussie tv. From what i could gather all that was happening was that "Superstar" Michael Buble was appearing on every single daytime, morning and primetime show during the next week, there was a immigration crisis involving some hunger striking sril lankans on a boat and that Australia is home to the most unfunny shows of all time, specifically their version of "Have I got news for you", "good news week". Nothing but "big" humor where unfunny people think if they shout or talk louder and louder then the joke will suddenly become funny (it never does), the female comediennes just act like blokes and bloody Ben Eltion was a guest shilling his book. I really despise that tit.
I managed to get up for a bit of an explore the next day and pretty much fell in love with Sydney straight away. I had no idea where i was or what direction to go in but it seemd i had two possible routes so picked one and headed on. I had a fifty fifty chance of going the right way so obviously picked the wrong one but i was more than glad to do so. The weather was lovely and i stumbled across a really nice part of town i would probably never had found, it was mostly suburbs and  i think the area was Paddington but everything about it was rather resplendent.  There was lots of victorian houses, boutiques, galleries, cafes and quirky little shops all over so spending two hours wandering around in the sunshine was rather enjoyable. I managed to come across a street i recognized from maps so promptly followed it down only to find it took me out 3o metres away from my hotel as well as a sign being there showing me the directions i should've went. Ah well it was worth it and i guess when they say you're never really lost when traveling proved to  be true.
The main things i was trying to find was Kings cross, O Malleys bar and Base backpackers that i was moving into the next day. Well i found the first two straight away but spent the next few hours going up, down, left and right round the streets of Sysney in the completely wrong direction but found out why everyone loves it here and once again "discovered" some cool places and parks. It sounds like a trivial thing to say but one of the best things about it here is you can literally walk anywhere from one side of the city to another. The streets are built so there's no motorways passing through and you can wander round parks, shopping malls, musuems, harbours, bars and everything else for as long as you wish. I managed to realise that i'd basically had the map the wrong way and once i got my bearings i found Base pretty quickly indeed. Time was getting on so i walked the few miles back to the hotel, watched some more crappy tv and then left to move onto Base the next day. And i'll write all about that next time.....