Wooo it's been a long day (couple of days? The time difference confuses me...) It's currently 3:04 PM in Sydney, but it's 11:04 PM the previous day back home. Anyways, I took a flight on 27 Dec from Dulles to San Fran, which was delayed by an hour (grr) but during which I got to sit in one of those economy seats with lots of leg room next to a friendly elderly british chatterbox who snored heavily when he slept :) I also got a lot of work done and the flight was only about 6 hours. THEN came the 14 hour flight, which was a lot more cumbersome considering I had hungrily scarfed down an airport cheeseburger immediately before boarding and considering I was smushed against the window next to some guy that played with his feet, EW. Luckily we were able to touch down without any problems, make it safely to our apartments, and explore a bit.
We are staying at the Harmony Oaks Apt on Quay Street which is smack dab in the middle of China/Thai town and just a block away from Central Station. After settling in (i.e. hastily dropping our stuff off in the apts), the five of us (two other students and the two instructors) made a ten minute walk to the mall where we ate at the food court and made a quick run to the grocery store. Some culture shock things:
This place, as my dad would call it, is like "Bizarro World". Everything is backwards! It's 75 degrees at the end of December, people drive and walk on the left side of the street, the "do not walk" sign sounds like you're being shot at by a tie-fighter in Star Wars, and the four story mall doesn't have any escalators, just really long elevated moving walkways. Plus the stores and brands are all different, like, instead of "forever 21" they have "forever new", and they have liquor stores IN the mall, and beer is super expensive (like $50 for a six pack) and there are a surprising number of Asians EVERYWHERE. And they spell things like the british, like yogurt is "yoghurt". silly aussies.
Anyways our apartment is really cool, it has 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (each with a separate tub and shower), a living room, a dining room, and a fully equipped kitchen (now stocked with vegemite, heh heh). There are several balconies with pretty decent views since I'm on floor 16! I'll have to take pictures of everything and post about more discoveries later; for now, I'm running late for our meeting in the lobby!
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