I have now been in Sydney for just over 30 hours and it has been some experience. On Sunday, I left the hostel in Hiroshima early, and made my way down to the train station with some people I had met in the common room the night before. Here I caught the Nozomi bullet train back north to Tokyo. This journey flew past, partly due to the speed; we covered the whole distance from Hiroshima to Tokyo in just five hours. The main reason that the journey past in a flash however was because I slept through most of it!

Things progressed smoothly at the airport in Tokyo, the only problem being that the plane was delayed by about 40 minutes. Not so bad when you consider that the earlier flight to Sydney was cancelled! Anyway, the flight was really nice and again I was impressed with the food. I grabbed a few hours sleep on the plane, and watched some Family Guy and My Family. Before I knew it I had arrived in a very rainy Sydney. It was 7am in the morning, and I struggled to find some transport to Coogee Beach, the location of my hostel. In the end I settled for a taxi, which at $50 was a tad on the expensive side. On arrival in Coogee, I was utterly amazed by the view. Coogee beach is smaller and less famous than its northan coumter part, Bondi Beach. It does, however, boast a swirling panaramic view of the sea, with golden sand and a rocky headland thrown in for good measure. The sea is warm and has gentle waves washing into the shore. A good place to learn to surf then, I thought.

At the hostel, I had a slight problem as STA had made my booking for 13th March not 13th April. A quick few emails later though and all was sorted. The hostel is called surfside and is really nice. It is clean and has a great atmosphere, and seems filled with interesting people, especially the lads I am sharing a dorm with. I spent the rest of the day exploring the area and settling in, culminating in a quiet beer with one of my dorm mates at the local before hitting the hay for night.

So today I have been very busy. I woke up early and headed into the central business district, the center of Sydney. I was doing this as I had a room viewing in a private property in the Petersham District. It turned out to be a very sizable room, and the rest of the house seemed absolutely perfect for my stay. Luckily, the other people who had visited had not made a good impression and I was offered the room, helped by the fact that both I and the person moving out are keen guitarists. The house even has wireless interent and a massive garden, and so should do me very nicely. I am to move in over the weekend.

After this pleasant experience, I moved back into the very center of the city. This was beacuase I had arranged a job interview. It was for a team of people working on a government scheme aimed at promoting green energy, with opportunity for travel around Australia. It went well and they have asked me to go in tomorrow for some training, which is really good news! I now intend to spend the rest of the day chilling on the beach and increasing my small amount of clothes so that I actually have something formal to wear to the office from now on! I will update again soon and let you all know how the training goes!