Gooday Mate

Despite the awful plane journey to Australia, with a still very sick Emily, nothing was going to bring our spirits down for our Australian adventure. We got our stamps off a gorgeous Australian guy at passport control (we knew we'd love this country) and officially arrived down under.
After telling our friends that we booked to come to Aus for 2 weeks staying with a guy that we met for 4 nights in Thailand, we started to realise how crazy this idea might have seemed to other people when hearing their reactions. But thankfully Jarryd (which apparently is a common name in Aus) did show up at the airport at 1am and gave us a lift back to his place in St Kilda, which happened to be the main spot for travellers in Melbourne.

As Em still wasn't very well we decided to spend the first day chilling in the apartment watching films. It was good to be back in a developed country again enjoying so many things that we had missed. Even sitting on a sofa in an apartment watching the TV, being able to drink tap water and flushing toilet paper down the toilet were things it felt like forever since we'd done. When Emily said she felt 100% better it was just in time for the weekend so of course we had to explore Melbourne nightlife.

Having no other shoes than our flip flops we thought it best to buy some more suitable shoes so we headed to Chadstone shopping centre to check out the shops. This place was like a maze but it was almost like Australia knew when we said "I wonder if they have nandos in Australia" and then as luck would have it one appeared! (Though slightly different and not as good as England but definitely beats rice and noodles).

Jarryd told us that it was his friend's birthday that night so we would be going out to celebrate that. On the way to pre drinks we took a pit spot at a drive through liquor store. We found it quite strange to have fridges outside as most alcohol bought at night in England is protected behind shatterproff glass. We did feel like we had gate crashed on a lads night out but we still had a lot of fun meeting all of Jarryd friends and seeing some of the guys again that we had met in Thailand. Emily was very happy to hear that they liked her accent which is the first time in her life anyone has ever said this to her .. as she's from Birmingham. The party kept going until 7am and we got to meet a lot of interesting characters, especially one guy in a frog hat that we nicknamed Mr Wiki for his annoying need to roll of pointless facts every other second. I don't know why we found if hilarious to lie to all of his friends about really trivial stuff but it would seem like Thailand had turned us into compulsive liars. It was conveniently both of our birthdays whilst we were in Australia, Niki managed to convince the lads she was turning 16 whilst Emily convinced some of the lads that she was a diehard fan of the Australian rapper Pez. It doesn't sound funny now..that's because it wasn't even funny at the time but after a few vodkas we thought it was hilarious.

We spent the next day sleeping, waking up just in time to get ready for the next night out (it was like being back at Uni). We pre drank at Jarryds before heading to Warehouse to meet some of our new Aussie friends. We then went to a place called Revolver, a club that is open 24 hours during the weekend, even the bouncer asked us if our parents knew we were here .. so that didn't fill us with confidence and funnily enough it was like walking into hell. We've never been to a club like it before and it is really difficult to try and explain the atmosphere but it is literally pitch black and you can't help but bump into things because you can't see where you're going. It was definitely an experience.

After the weekend we thought we had better see what Australia looked like in the daytime. The public transport is so much better, cleaner and more chilled in Aus compared with England and it helps that you don't have to wait in the freezing cold for a bus. Equipped with our 'Myki' cards that you use to get around on public transport in Melbourne, a system where you 'Top up, Touch on, Touch off' we got the bus to the main area of St Kilda. You would think that touching your Myki card onto a machine when you get on and off a bus would be simple but for the 2 weeks we were there we still didn't master it. Walking along the beachfront we couldn't believe how lucky Jarryd had it, he lives on the doorstep of a beautiful place, where so much goes on and people all over the world would love to come to and it wasn't long before we were at a beach front bar enjoying a nice cold bottle of Rose wine. It was so nice to sit in a beer garden, it felt like being back at home on that one day of the year when the sun is actually out, except the atmosphere is so much more relaxed with a dude on a little stage playing summer anthems on his acoustic guitar. After finishing our bottle we didn't want to go home; our day of exploring was turning into a mini bar crawl. On our way home, a little bit tipsy we planned to settle down on the sofa watching the notebook (niks favourite film) but instead came home to a house full of lads in K holes (a new term we've learnt which has been the source of many inside jokes between us). If we've learned anything about Australia it's that it has a very big drug culture .. we would love to meet a group of Aussies that don't take drugs just to know that not everyone in Australia is on drugs.

When you think of Australia you always think of surfing and Kangeroos and putting shrimp on the barbie (which apparently no one does) so in an attempt to tick one of these off the list we headed to Melbourne Zoo. The weather was perfect and we saw loads of cool animals, elephants lions, tigers, koala bears, meerkats, giraffes. I think next time we come it would be cool to pay a little bit more money to hold some of the animals or feed them. But our last stop of the day was to look for the Kangaroos… and we found them (or so we thought). We had numerous pictures and even fed what we thought was the infamous Australian animal only to be told when we got home and showed our pictures to Jarryd that it was infact a Wallaby. It was quite funny as seeing a kangaroo was the main reason we went to the zoo in the first place, but a wallaby will have to do for now. We still posted the pictures online without a title of what the animal was and I think most people thought it was a kangaroo anyway.

That night it was another of Jarryds friends birthday so we went to another gorgeous house for pre drinks. This time we weren't the only girls and one of the girls was definitely over excited when she found out we were British. She was in love with London and Made in Chelsea and despite our best London accents it was quite funny half way through the conversation when she asked where abouts in England we were from? I don't think she was as excited to hear we were from Birmingham and Manchester. We then headed to a club called seven which was more our kind of club before calling it a night. We were sooo drunk and had severe memory blanks from the night, it was funny trying to piece the night together the next day having random flashbacks such as Niki shouting at the taxi driver to stop the taxi so she could take a wee (on the side of the road) and the taxi man asking Jarryd to feel the seat to make sure she hadn't pissed on it before she got out.

The 10th February was Chinese New Year, and although we were a little disappointed not to be spending it with our Chinese friends like we had planned we were in Australia which is far better than being in China. We ventured into the city centre on this day to find that there were many different things going on such as a Latin festival as well as a Chinese festival. To mark the Chinese New Year there was a firework celebration going on so we thought we would go to the Eureka sky deck to watch them. The Eureka sky deck is the highest viewing tower in the southern hemisphere and one of the touristy things to do whilst in Melbourne; it seemed that the locals who have lived in Melbourne have never been to the top of this tower so Jarryd's mate Alex took the opportunity to be a tourist and come along with us whilst Jarryd also reluctantly agreed to come as he was scared of heights. Once the fireworks were over we walked over to the infamous casino that we had heard so much about. The casino is based in the big 'Crown' building filled with fancy hotels, restaurants and shops. We aren't big gamblers and take the view that if we win money we would rather keep it than gamble more for a bigger return. We went over to the roulette table and exchanged our 20 dollars into tips and then just stared at the table in confusion not knowing what to do until it was explained to us. We soon got the gambling bug and was tempted to bet more and more money, although we were only betting on either the black or red we would occasionally go crazy and bet on a number. All in all it was a good experience with Emily coming out 10 dollars down and Niki 10 dollars up. It must have been around midnight and we went to the food court, a food court in England would be full of pissed up people having food fights but it was so weird seeing everyone being civilized and chilled out.

We had an early night as on the Sunday it was the St Kilda Festival!!
We got ready and about 2pm arrived at the festival. The weather was perfect and we had arranged to meet up with one of Niks friends from home at a beer garden inside the festival. It was good to hear a familiar leyther accent (even though apparently Nik sounds like shes from London now lol) We spent the day with him and his Cricket friends as well as meeting up with Jarryd's brother and his mates.

So the time came to say goodbye to Australia and our travels and head back to China! We thoroughly loved our short time here so much so that are going to come back and do the east coast properly in November with Liz.

Jarryd kindly gave up his lie in on his day off to drive us to the airport and we said our goodbyes. We're very thankful to him for letting us stay and making our Aussie holiday possible and we will take many memories away with us. So after a 2 and half hour flight to Kuala Lumpur then 5 hours waiting for our 9 hour flight back to China we arrived in Guanzhou at 1am.

The train back to Changsha wasn't until 11am so we slept all night in a freezing cold train station using our towels as covers. Its safe to say reality hit us hard and I don't think we've ever felt so depressed. The best highs definitely do come with the worst lows.
After an hour taxi ride from Changsha to our apartments we arrived at 9pm to our freezing cold apartments.
Nik even got the added bonus of finding out that her laptop has broken as it refused to even load to the login page. In England this wouldn't be that trivial but here your laptop is everything, where you watch TV chat to friends and genuinely we are on them everyday. So we got tucked up in bed with our chocolate we had brought back from Australia and put on a sad film and just cried (half for the film, half because we were back).

When we first came to China everything that happened was new and exciting and really funny but now the lack of communication is just irritating and the endless spitting is just disgusting. The honeymoon period is definitely over. We both agreed that we'd have preferred to be returning to England than to China.

We had a lot of problems with our apartments and we still had one more week until we were back in school, meaning the handymen that usually fix stuff weren't around. Niks heater in her bedroom doesn't work so she has been sleeping on the couch and Emilys toilet has been blocked so she has been weeing in a bucket.

There have definitely been a lot of tears as we've tried to adjust to being back. It was good to catch up and Skype with friends and family again which we hadn't done while we were away but that can also make you sadder as you realise how much you miss them. Saying that we also realise that things could be a lot worse and we are still very grateful to be so lucky and have this opportunity.

The past two months have literally been the best months of our lives and we've met some amazing people. Though when you meet a lot of people traveling your Facebook is always constantly updated with endless amounts of unreal travelling photos and these are not helping us right now!

We are slowly but surely settling back in and getting over our holiday blues (with the aid of copious amounts of chocolate which were demolished in about 5 days), we've met back up with some of Chinese friends which has helped. We still do appreciate that we have it good here and we've started back to our 12 and 15 hour week of teaching. We have also managed to bag ourselves another new job working 4 nights a week at a night club being paid to party.

We are now on operation Australia and everything we do leading up to September is with the aim of saving as much money as possible to travel the rest of Asia and Australia.

For now

Much love

Em & Nik

Xxxx