Dodgy

My high school friend Maddy came up with the wonderful idea of having an Australian word of the day. Therefore, I shall start each post with a new Australian word and launch my entry off of it. Now you guys can learn to speak some Ozzie too!

Dodgy: sneaky, suspicious, cheap-looking.
"That shuttle driver of yours looked real dodgy."

I suppose I can start my adventures from the very beginning. The process to getting to the LAX went quite smoothly, despite the unexpected appearance of my aunt. She tends to complicate matters with her opinionated manner of handling things, so by the time my parents and I finally got into the car, my mom was quite frazzled. The goodbyes were short and sweet. Dad gruffily hugged me, while my mom fussed over my apparent inaptness.

My airline was Air Pacific, so I had a stopover flight in Nadi, Fiji. Unfortunately, that also meant the plane was filled with retired Caucasion couples, cackling about their grandchildren and what spa treatments they were going to recieve. Luckily, the couple I sat next to was very nice. I taught the husband how to use his brand new Ipod nano, and the wife struck up a conversation with me. Turns out she is a retired nurse in Indiana and her two grandchildren are in NYU. As for Nadi itself, I couldn't really see much of it since I was in the terminal for the three hours. I could only tell it was very green and humid. The flora reminded me of Hawaii.

My flight to Sydney was much shorter (only four hours) and I got a window seat. I had some trouble with the entertainment system, but a nice guy who sat a seat away helped me out. "Balls of Fury" is actually quite a funny movie. Anyway, my first view of Australia was wreathed in clouds. I tried to take some pictures of the coast, but I seriously doubt you'll be able to make it out through the haze. It was just a lot of trees and houses.

The humidity hit me as soon as I got off the plane, a warm, damp blanket that settled around my entire body and lungs. It reminded me strongly of Taiwan weather, and it didn't help that there were ASIANS EVERYWHERE. It was like I took the population of Irvine with me, except they had morphed attractive accents. My dodgy shuttle driver was Indian as well, and tried to cheat a few extra dollars off of me. I threatened to find someone else, and he hurridly conceded.

The hostel, Wake up! Sydney, is very clean and filled with young people from around the world. If you guys are ever looking for a hostel to stay in Sydney, this would be the place! It's very safe and the staff are really friendly (one of them gave me change for the shuttle driver and made that dodgy remark). My roommates are already very cliquey though, so it was hard to make friends who wanted to hang out. In a moment of panic, I facebook messaged a fellow EAPer who was also in Sydney at the moment. It was kind of nerve-wracking because I've never arrange a meeting with a complete stranger, but he turned out to be a good guy and we had lots of fun exploring the city.

My main goal was to see the Sydney opera house, but he suggested taking a detour through this huge garden/park. Australia has so much amazing wildlife! There's giant fruit bats, white cockatoos, some sort of ibis, and then we got hissed at by this sort of coot because she was trying to protect her duckling (who strongly resembles a black dust bunny). The opera house was meh. It was just as big as I imagined it to be, but like with most glorified things, once you get super close to it, you see all the cracks and chips and dirt. It was still pretty amazing to see and touch one of the biggest icons of Australia. The rest of the day was relatively uneventful, pretty much just getting lost and taking pictures along the way.

Okay, now I've got to go since my time is running low. Wow, it's pouring rain now. Damnit.