HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!!!!!! In sydney at the moment staying with chris's uncle and it just so happens that loads of people from around are trip just happen to be in sydney at the moment as well....so tonight should be a good night.

The trip is now nearing an end and im running out of stupid and dangerous things to do, but 2 days before leaving fiji i manged to do something that i told myself other people were stupid to do only 5 months ago................i swam with sharks.......no cage. Basically this involved getting a local bus to a port 3 hours away from where we'd been staying, chris stayed behind at mama's hostel still with 2 friends off the kiwi bus, after arriving at the hostel at the harbour i found my bed and after a hearty dinna of instant noodles i collapsed to sleep. The next morning i was due to be picked up at 8, i woke up at 8.05 and hurridly rushed downstairs and once again was grateful of fiji time....the bus came at 8.15. I was taken to their base still half asleep and only roughly knowing how much it cost and what the plan was, still not knowing i was put in a wet suit and put on the boat where all was explained. It turned out i would be doing two dives for both we would just sit on like a coral ridge and watch as a man about 5 mtrs infront and 3 metres deeper than us would pull fish heads out of a concrete cage and just wait for the sharks. The first dive was to 30 mtrs (im only qualified to go 18m down) and there was only 2 bull sharks but mostly just other big fish coming along to take the food. Back at the surface we found out that this was just to create noise to attract the sharks. So for the next dive at 15 mtrs we were expecting big things.....about 4mtrs big......so we went down and for the next 30 minutes we watched about 25 4 mtr long bull sharks and loads of other fish feasting. The sharks would take the food out of the mans hand and then swim straight at me turning at the last second, the way they eat was crazy they just inhailed the food and then you saw all their gills moving, normally it was a orderly thing with one shark coming in at a time (every 30secs to 1 minute) and the hundreds of other fish would just be milling around, but sometimes the feeder would swim upwards slightly and drop several fish heads and we'd just watch a mad shark scramble. It was definitly freaky being in the water with things that were bigger than i am but i never really felt scared because when the feeder thought the sharks were coming at him from the wrong angle etc he would poke it with a metal pole (once he even punched one) and the shark would just swim off, so they werent aggressive.

After this was finished i climbed back on the bus and went back to mamas, the next day was our last in fiji where we all just chilled out and relaxed before having to get to the airport at 5am the next morning, so we were planning on just pulling an all nighter as we didnt want to have to pay for accomadation but mama sorted us out and let us sleep for free (i slept on her sofa).

I really enjoyed Fiji it has definitly been one of my favourite parts of the trip its an interesting society where i met some great people and learnt some interesting things, it blends together the island paradise vibe (which is all most people see) where honeymooners can be paying several hundered pounds a night but then my time talking to Bola and people on the local bus made me realise just how poor the average person is..........in asia the wages are very low but so is the cost of living but in fiji the wages are pitiful but even the basic needs are expensive. There has been 6 coups in the last 20 years, and where most people are still happy they clearly struggle especially in the cities and i wouldnt be suprised if there was another coup soon.

Next we arrived in brisbane and made our way to our friends student house (a german girl who we travelled with 3 months ago in laos), we settled in quickly and soon adapted to our make shift beds in the sitting room. Over the next 5 days we did very little as Brisbane is not exactly a tourist city, most people just catch a train to the nearby gold coast but our first two days there werent exactly bright and sunny and after that we just didnt get organized even when it was sunny. So our days consisted of playing a bit of football watching dvds and wondering into the city to walk round randomly (one day we saw indiana jones....nothing special). Our evenings were pretty much the same....one night i found out that our german friend had never heard of yorkshire puddings so i decided to make toad in the hole for her but as she's vegeterian i had to use vege sausages but even if a say so myself it turned out pretty well and everyone was happy.

Next up we flew down to sydney, chris' uncle meeting us at the airport whos a really nice bloke but im not sure if i made the best first impression cause when going to pick up our luggage, i get mine off of the carousel and it completly reeks of duty free fijian rum!!!.............a litre bottle had smashed in my bag during the flight. We all accepted there was nothing we could do about it at that moment and continued back to his house where we all just chatted and chris caught up with his 18 and 20 year old cousins, then eventually i got round to putting everything in the wash..........no permenant damage done.

We arrived in sydney on the friday and it was chris' cousins 20th bday yesterday (sunday) but we all got treated to a nice meal out on the saturday (which im considering my bday dinner as well) and then me, chris, chris' cousins and their friends all went out afterwards and we managed to find some of our friends from around the trip to come out as well....was a good night.

Our time in australlia so far has definitly been getting us ready for home, with just chilling out watching tv in brisbane and a fridge to raid here in sydney. Australia itself seems pretty nice except we havent got out of the cities and that is obviously why most people come on holiday to aus, but its rather expensive with the aus dollar being really strong........a mcflurry (standard international price measurer) costs about 1 pound 40 (comparred to 99p at home). I've been suprissed to see that those steve irwin style hats are actually pretty comonnly worn (without the corks) and all the place names around the country seem to either just be named after places in england or after stereotypes.....for example in sydney theres a kings cross, hyde park, oxford street but i've also come across places called kangeroo point and boomerang road.

We fly to tokyo on thursday, which is the place i've been most looking forward to for the whole trip and then back home on the 20th. Will write again from japan