Fine Food Australia in Melbourne

Oktoberfest in Brisbane was here!! Danica invited me to join her and some of her Kiwi friends. Great pics:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3185172&id=2034929&l=62e6467d28

It had been a while since working for Carmi at the trade shows in Seoul and Shanghai. Fine Food Australia in Melbourne was overdue! I flew to Melbourne from OOL and met Eliot (president) at the airport. We stayed at the Marriott on the executive floor, man do I love exec lounges! Food and drink almost 24/7. Exploring Melbourne was fun but limited. The show itself was quite successful, many big companies were there and the samples were endless :o)

The last night I ventured out in the rain, hoping to see either penguins or artwork. Just as soon as I turned towards artwork, a CSer called me regarding my group post and wanted to know if I was still up for seeing penguins (it was now close to midnight). Of course I wanted to, so we met up. Manuel from Austria showing me the St Kilda penguins in Melbourne, Australia, ha! So we took public transportation (this cool mini bus thing) out to St Kilda pier and walked for quite a ways out to the pier in the freezing rain. I was very skeptic that we were going to see any...after all, I checked Manly pier almost every night looking for the little penguins and never saw one. Then all of a sudden this foot high lump waddled across the pathway in front of us right under a street light, "is that a penguin?!" Manuel agreed that's probably what it was. After that we saw heaps more! They were coming in from their sunset feeding in the ocean, and going to bed, but of course not before they had sexy time. They live in the rocks there and are just the cutest! And IN THE WILD!! Not even in a zoo or park or aquarium or Seaworld! I took so many photos (without flash, not allowed to have flash on).
Manuel was great fun and didn't care that I spent forever taking the same photos over and over again, and the penguins were so cute. I loved them so much I forgot it was raining and that my feet were frozen.

If you're ever in Melbourne, go to St Kilda pier late at night, walk all the way out to the end of the pier, and enjoy the wild penguins!!

The next morning I got to the airport with so much food from the show, and even more wine. How was I going to get this wine on the plane? No idea! Then I remembered, I'm in AUSTRALIA, not America! One of the few times I was pleased with this. Liquids are allowed on domestic flights in Australia :o) So my four wine bottles and beer came on the plane with me. What a great work adventure!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3139894&id=2034929&l=6a28cc276d

September - Time to Start Hosting CSers!

So now that Jesse and I were moved in and comfortable again, we decided to start hosting Couchsurfers in September.

Our first CSers were Austrian couple Birgit and Felix. They were great fun, we had a BBQ in their honor. Then Stephanie and Dorien from Belgium.
Then I went to Melbourne, see next post. Then Seongjin from South Korea. (It was at this time I quit Plan B/got fired). Snir from Jerusalem.

Matthias and Stefan from Germany. Sean from America. Kate and Sophie from the UK. Yeah...we ended up triple booking the couch that week. I said yes to Sean for a few days, he asked for a few more days, Jesse forgot he said yes to Matthias and Stefan for that time but we decided we could fit everyone. Then Stefan left but Matthias still needed one night but Sean was still there and we had the two UK girls coming...so we asked the girls if they cared if we had a slumber party and they were totally down so it was all good! Everyone liked my animals.



Leah and Steff from Germany were great. Lorna from UK, fail. Yogesh was fun from India. After that we took a break from hosting for a couple weeks, needed some time alone and to get the house back in working order.

Then I went to Hong Kong and while away Jesse hosted Bibi and Tee Han from Malaysia, I met them for a few hours when I got home, such a nice bubbly couple!

Shaun and Nadi from Canada, super fun! And they got us a gift of TimeZone, we just went and it was amazing.

Chris and Mark from the UK (it was their first time CSing), took them surfing, really fun.

Then Louise and Julia from Sweden - these girls can party! They were so great. They ended up foregoing Byron Bay in order to stay most the week in Surfers, go up to Tamborine for wine tasting and Springbrook, and joined us to Toowoomba for Jesse's DJ gig. Great photos here:


Alexandra from Germany. Then we got a last minute couchrequest from a Canadian couple in a bind and happily hosted them though we were looking forward to some time alone. I'm so glad we hosted Janelle and Quinn, they were so nice and really, really needed some nice people in return for the things they were going through. Something I never want to have happen but is inevitable.

Felix from Germany, another sort of last minute request.

Felix just left and now we are only expecting one more guest, Nanang from Indonesia.

It's been a great time being able to finally host people, I look forward to doing some surfing in the next few months then get back to hosting again when I return to Florida.

Embracing the Party Scene in August

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3110551&id=2034929

I tried to embrace it and get along with it. I tried to be fun and young again. I tried. I really did. I’ll skip the rest of the details, but all in all, Plan B Party Tours ruined months June-September.

My 2nd 23rd Birthday

So my birthday was great, got to be with my parents and Jesse and go to a park with kangaroos and koalas and such! However, it was rainy and we were unable to go diving. And just the stress of it all, changing plans and such…anyway. Jesse wanted to give me a second birthday.

Jesse woke me by telling me to wear a bathing suit and comfortable clothes that look good in photos. Then he told me we had to catch the 8:50 bus. As we walked outside toward the bus stop, he whipped me around and said, “We’re not taking the bus silly.” And there was only one car parked in the driveway, a blue mini coop!
Then we went and had a scrumptious birthday breakfast at Pancakes in Paradise of chocolate pancakes with hot fudge, chocolate ice cream, and cream sprinkled in dark chocolate chunks.

We drove north and all the signs pointed to a theme park, I didn’t know which one until we were outside of it about to park, Dreamworld and Whitewater World – passes until December!

Then he gave me a hint to my next surprise, the main one, all I could see was “Baby.” I started guessing wombat (because that’s what I most wanted to hold in Australia), cougar, tiger, lion, etc. Then we headed towards Tiger Island in Dreamworld and came upon a sign that said “Baby Wombat Experience” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GAH!!!!!! So exciting! We had 20 minutes (though they allowed us to go over for 30 minutes) in the wombat exhibit, feeding baby 14 month old Annie grass and patting her. AND HOLDING HER!! They let me pick her up and play with her just like a puppy!! IT WAS CRAZY!! I HELD A WOMBAT AND PLAYED WITH HER!!!


Then we rode rides and looked at other animals and all sorts of good stuff.

Then we left the park near closing and went to Tamborine Mountain for beer tasting and an Indian dinner. Then it was my turn to drive the mini coop! I took it back to Gold Coast and up to the Spit and yeah! I’d still be driving it but I forgot Jesse had to work tonight.

That’s the story!

Thank you so very much Jesse for an amazing day planned out so perfectly! Love you.

Did I mention I GOT TO PLAY WITH A WOMBAT?!?!!?!?!

Jesse's 2nd Birthday

Though Jesse's first birthday was pretty good, I felt due to the dinner we still needed a really great carefree birthday. My present to him was a double dive on the SS Yongala - one of the top 10 wreck dive sites in the world. So we picked up a CSer in Cairns and took her to Townsville, then continued on to Ayr. Slept in the rental car at the beach because no hotels/hostels were open or around.

Jesse was excited to be at a top 10 dive site, and excited that he got to go deeper than open water is allowed to (special one day cert even though not advanced...just another way for dive companies to make a few extra dollars). The dive company wasn't the best but...there's really only 2-3 that go to the Yongala...either a 30min dinghy ride from Ayr on rough seas or a 3 hour boat ride on rough seas from Townsville. Due to sea sicks, I chose the 30min ride instead. Though there was still some getting sea sick during the SIT, when in the water it was all good.

We saw huge groupers and huge schools of fish, clownfish, eagle rays, sea snakes (ARE AWESOME!), and best of all we could hear WHALES singing in the distance! The wreck was so cool, especially the toilets (it was on of the only things I recognized on the wreck). Jesse got to pet the sea snake and semi-hold it, so he was stoked.

It was one of my top 5 favorite dives, and Jesse's #1 favorite.

Then we kept on driving all the way to 1770. We never ended up stopping to sleep, but just took turns driving/sleeping the whole way. 1770 and Agnes Water were pretty cool but the bugs on the beach were annoying.



Then we kept on driving, never stopping to take a break, and soon the 24 hour drive was finished and we were back HOME in the Goldie at our wonderful flat and bed.

We still had the car another day, so we went down to Byron Bay. We saw whales from the lighthouse and watched the hippies play bongos and dance around. It was too cold and choppy for surfing.

And that was the end of our two week journey to Cairns.


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3102560&id=2034929&l=8aed4ff64d

Whitsundays and Cairns with Mom and Dad

So after much trouble finding a car in Surfers Paradise to drive to Cairns in, we found one, booked a 3 day/3 night on Emperors Wings in Whitsundays, and left Gold Coast.

Naturally we left Gold Coast at 1pm instead of 8am...happens. We drove 14 hours to Mackay in hopes of finding some platypus in the wild, but got there too late and found out we'd have to drive into the mountains. Maybe later. We did however find the beach that turtles often frequent and it was very nice and the sky was incredible with many stars. We stopped at the only hotel that was still open and found a good rate for Australia ($80/night).

The next morning we drove the rest of the two hours to Airlie Beach, parked the car at a CSers house, and were ready to go on our journey. The first day we went to one of the many islands of the Whitsundays, snorkeling was subpar, I'm glad we didn't pay for a dive there. The next morning we were on the lower GBR. Diving was really great but not as good as the upper GBR. Lots of foods, delicious desserts, freezing in the hot tub on the bow of the boat (hot tub was hot but the air outside was freezing), and Jesse had his first night dive. We watched groupers eat little fishes and also watched GT jacks do the same. Whitehaven beach was the last day and it lived up to its expectations. And we moored in a harbor full of sea turtles.

When we arrived at the docks after a magnificient 3 days, we retrieved our car and headed to Cairns (via a 8 hour drive) to meet dad at our hotel. We quickly left Cairns for Port Douglas and stayed at Sheraton (normally $600-800 a night) for only $120 a night thanks to orbitz.com.au. WIN!

It was my birthday now and we went to see animals at the Port Douglas wildlife park. It was great having mom and dad feed kangaroos and emus and seeing some real Australian things. My birthday dinner was awkward and the restaurant actually was not that good, I can't remember the name of it.

As with typical family affairs, there was heaps of arguing and yelling and stress and I really wish it didn't always have to be that way. It was a great trip but it could have been so much better. Poor Jesse didn't grow up in a family like this, so I'm not sure he enjoyed this trip much. He was terrified.

Anyway, that was my 23rd birthday.

Then we drove up to Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. It was rainy the whole time but still beautiful and we found cassowarys in the wild, and I got to feed a bat. AWESOME! We also found a crocodile in the wild, thanks to Dads good eyes.

Then three days after my birthday it was time for Jesse's. I wanted to make sure we did something really great. Though finding him a cassowary (4) in the wild was pretty awesome! Soooo after more yelling and stress we picked the Poisedon one day boat trip to Agincourt Reefs, with 3 dives included for us and 3 snorkels for mom and dad. IT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF FINDING NEMO!! Gorgeous reefs, great dives, great snorkeling. Mom and Dad were happy snorkeling together, Dad kept diving down to bring up stuff for Mom to get good photos of, and they saw a shark! (We didn't while diving) and no one was yelling. Much. Such great dives. Then we went back to Cairns for another night and to eat at a Thai or Indian restaurant for Jesse's bday dinner. Of course there was lots of yelling and refusals because we had just been snorkeling all day and people were tired and hurting. I felt bad it wasn't a very good birthday dinner. The Thai food was delicious but the atmosphere certainly took away from it. I think next time birthdays will have to be spent with the Summers.

The next day we walked around Cairns, mom went on a cool helicopter ride, and we found a mantis shrimp. And had good gelato.

This blog is very honest. I love my family very much but I cannot overlook some things while writing a blog with both the good and bad.

Then it was time to drop the parents off at the airport. It was a bittersweet goodbye, it was already over. I had just spent 2 weeks with mom and 1 week with dad and I felt like all we did was stress and yell and fight. I was really sad because I wish it didn't have to be that way and we could all just be happy. Like I said before, it was a great trip but it could have been so much more enjoyable. After leaving them at the airport I realized I wouldn't see them again for almost a whole year. I really hope everything at home stays calm and everyone is okay and we can make up for all the bad times and just have a few really really nice family vacations.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3099562&id=2034929&l=8d0b925fe0

Sydney with Mom (mum) July 13-16

On the upside, MY PARENTS WERE ON THE WAY!!
I flew (thanks to tigerairways.com $100 roundtrip OOL to SYD) to Sydney to meet my mother at the airport. I arrived at domestic and quickly found the train ($5, gawd Australia is expensive) to get to the international terminal. Waited outside of customs and there she was! Pushing her cart of luggage (mainly with treats for yours truly) towards me. Although we aren’t much of a passionate hugging kissing family, it really was great to see her again after five months separation. We quickly got to the shuttle only to find out that the airport shuttles in Sydney are dreadful compared to the efficient ones of Brisbane and Gold Coast. The shuttle took two hours to arrive and an hour to get to the hotel. No matter, we explored the city and I kept mother up long enough to break through the jet lag. I showed her where to get kangaroo, emu, and crocodile pizza if she ever wanted it (I don’t think she does haha), and we explored the wonders of the opera house and bridge (and decided against paying too much money for the bridge climb). I took mom to Burwood the next morning, were I first went when I arrived, and introduced her to the glory that is Asian bakeries.


We met up with Sue, my original CSing host, who took mom and me to see the Blue Mountains. She took us to an aboriginal community where we were taught how to throw a boomerang. I successfully through one and it came back to me (after many tries). Mom did great too, though I’m not sure any of them ever came back haha. Sue even pointed out rare black cockatoos! It was crazy, I would have never seen them nor known how rare they are. Then we went up the mountains and went on a few incredibly gorgeous hikes, rode in the cable car, and down a crazy rollercoaster-like steep train! After dark we headed back to Burwood and thanked Sue graciously for taking us all those amazing places by treating her to some real American food – Outback Steakhouse! Man it was so good, I’ve missed it (though I ate there in Korea a few months prior).Then headed back to the comfy Sheraton in Darling Harbor. The next day we lucked out again on the weather – another gorgeously sunny day. We started early by taking public transportation to Bronte. If you’re ever in Sydney on a beautiful blue sky day, head to the coast to do the Bondi-Bronte walk. Bronte and all the beaches in between on the way to Bondi were incredible. I even got to show mom the native cockatoo. After the brisk morning walk on the Bondi trail cliffs, we took the bus to the ferry over to Manly. I still feel terrible for accidentally deleting the best photo of mom in front of the Opera House, I hope I can repay her someday by bringing her back. That was the first sign of mother/daughter stress, it was all my fault. Nevertheless, Manly looked wonderful and although we were prepared with our snorkel gear, the water and air were much too cold to warrant diving in. Instead, I showed her some local hang outs I used to go to while living there for two months. We took a few ferries from there and wandered around Darling Harbor and had a great dinner at an Italian restaurant on the harbor. The next morning we were off to the airport again on our way to my new home with Jesse. Mom flew to Brisbane where my amazingly generous and helpful friend Darren picked her up and brought her to Surfers. I flew straight to Goldie and met her there. Here are some photos from this leg of the journey:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3085569&id=2034929&l=a820aa299a

The next few days were spent exploring Gold Coast, even taking mom on a party tour (where the flimflammers were suddenly gracious and kind). Aside from making mom some home cooked meals, we mainly wandered around town trying to find a decent rental car; again, it was definitely my fault for not having better arranged our plans for the limited time mom had in the country. Long story short, we booked the starter hotel in Cairns for dads arrival, booked our trip on Emperors Wings Whitsundays, and booked our rental car thanks to AAA.com. We took mom to the hinterland (mountains) to show her the various levels of vegetation and forest on the 4km Twin Falls Circuit. Naturally, we got very lost on the way there but mom did a great job driving on the opposite side of the road/car. We also went to the Natural Bridge to show her the glow worm caves, which she thought was a remarkable natural wonder (and so do I) that reminded her of Disney. I interjected that Disney actually got its ideas from nature itself haha. The next morning we were up and out, on the long 14 hour drive to Mackay where we would find the sea turtle nesting beach, stop at the cheapest hotel, sleep, and get up to continue to Airlie Beach (two more hours) for our 3 day/3 night sailing adventure on the Whitsundays.

Hard Times to Start

It certainly wasn’t all fun and games at first. I know many people think how can there be any issues at all when you’re in such a great land? Or, you just complain too much. Try as I might, sometimes the bad is just inevitable. With my great dislike for the promo job I had acquired, and Jesse’s added pessimism towards the company, I started failing miserably at this commission only job. Jesse started working for them too, seeing how easy it was to enter the job, and did not start applying for other jobs in town. Both fortunate and unfortunate, Jesse is way too good of a person for the job and was unsuccessful at selling tickets. Eventually, he started applying for jobs and decided he was much happier in a nice suit and tie then standing in a booth selling party tours. He stopped selling and started DJing on the tours for free. The flimflammers who call themselves managers of course would not pay him for it, and little acknowledged how much better the tour was with him on it, though they continued to use, “we have our own personal DJ straight from South Beach” in their sales pitches. The other slaves apart from the corrupt flimflammers however, did acknowledge his presence and how great he made the tours. It was a struggle for him, but he broke through and ended up DJing in many clubs and even ended up landing himself a job as a Marketing Manager at one of them.

I, on the other hand, was having a much harder time. The day Jesse arrived was the first day I saw firsthand what the untrustworthy flimflammers were capable of. I had sold $250 worth of tickets for the company with 50% commission on one sale the night before. We were not allowed to sell to anymore guys for the weekend tour, because of the even ratio guys to girls. I understood this and asked the guys, though drunk, if they could manage to bring girls with them. They happily obliged and the transaction was made. The next morning I received a SMS from a flimflammer with changing stories from I cannot sell to guys to they were drunk to they couldn’t attend since they were going to Brisbane and needed a refund. Which all were complete bulls. At this time the slaves were allowed to start selling to guys again, all the slaves sell to drunks, and the guys were no longer leaving. Needless to say, the corrupt f’s took the money back even though I made the sale, and the smallest flimflammer actually pocketed my entire commission for himself. I had already made plans to jump ship to the other tour in town. However, Jesse arriving mellowed me out and I let go of it and continued to be their slave. Now that I had seen firsthand what they were capable of, my selling skills diminished. I did not want to be in the same league as those fraudulent, deceitful flimflammers. My personality, confidence, and happiness were crushed. Enjoying anything to do with anything was extremely difficult. In any case, as you’ll see in the next few posts, I continued slaving because I had no other choice of employment (believe me, I tried), I tried to ignore the corruptness and enjoy the fun. You can only get groped, grabbed, and snagged by drunkards so much though before you break. To be continued…

Jesse's Arrival, June 2010

I’ve regrettably stopped updating the blog, not thinking anyone really cared about it and not wanting to waste my time. But now…I have absolutely nothing to do so I’ll start updating it again in case anyone is interested in reading them, and also for me and my forgetful memory.

So let’s go back to June when I was awaiting Jesse’s arrival. I was unable to pick him up personally from the airport, more for the safety of us from my driving skills, but I was able to book him a shuttle to my (now our) front door.

Around 3am on June 19 I sat in the lobby of our building, waiting for Coachtrans to pull up. For weeks I had been thinking of what I would do when we met again. Do we run together and hug passionately and start the waterworks? Do we quietly walk up to each other and share a quick but romantic kiss? Would he take one look at me and run back to the plane? I decided it was but not to dwell and just do what came natural. My nerves were as high as the building (18 floors). When the shuttle pulled up to the door I didn’t know what he or I would do. As it turns out, I went outside while the door was opening on the bus. He saw me and we gave each other a very shaky hug and a very awkward quick kiss. Who was this person?? No way had we been dating before this moment. He was a completely different person then the one I cried goodbye to at the cruise terminal four months prior in Fort Lauderdale. We received his bag from the shuttle driver and entered our new home together. The walk to the elevator was full of “where did you go?” and “do you like the home I picked out for us?” Jesse had lost so much weight on the cruise ship he was barely recognizable. When I opened the door to our apartment I like to think he was impressed and loved our new home. Although it was nearing 4am, we were so shaky and had no idea what to do, so I took him on a walk down the beach and to show him the Australian bats and nightlife. It sounded like he was going to quite enjoy this small European/Miami beach town (as he put it). I don’t think I stopped shaking for a week after his arrival.

The next few weeks were spent getting Jesse settled in and getting to know each other again. On June 27 we celebrated our eleventh month anniversary (though later decided it was our tenth, not eleventh) at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. I introduced Jesse to some other Australian wildlife we had yet to see together. From an emu wanting to mate with Jesse to the high ropes course to my first Thai dinner, it was a great date. We made these two videos that fully describe it. If you visit Gold Coast, be sure to go to Currumbin, it’s definitely the best Australia wildlife park we’ve been to thus far!





More photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3072672&id=2034929&l=0a818ed029

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3036483&id=2034929&l=f5467e59b6