Australia day 3

I woke up at 7:30am and raced to the courtyard to get my free breakfast. Once I powered through the bowl, I went back to sleep.

I woke up at 9:00am and raced to the courtyard to get my free breakfast. Once I powered through the bowl and 2 slices of toast I met up with John again and decided to walk around town with him.

John is my American double. He's a 25 y/o engineer from California and literally has the exact same world view I have. The only major difference we have is that he has a job working at Tesla Motors and I don't :(. We walked around the Brisbane botanical gardens and around the city a bit before heading back to the hostel.

My first impression of Brisbane was very positive. There are a lot of aweosme pubs, its really clean and the river walk is amazing. However once you've done South Bank, the river walk and botanical gardens, there is hardly anything left to explore! I'm amazed at how dead Brisbane seems to be during summer!

When I got back I heated up a shit tonne of pasta that I had made for myself yesterday and went for another walk around town. I went outside for a total of 5 minutes and ran into a German guy who looked desperately lost and asked me where the nearest supermarket was. While i was walking him there i discovered he was a 35 y/o who decided to spontaneously quit his job and book a flight to Australia once his girlfriend dumped him. I advised him against spending new years in Brisbane and to travel to a beach instead. There's a good chance we'll both end up hitchhiking our way to surfers Paradise tomorrow :)

Australia day 2

I woke up at 8:00 sharp to get my free breakfast. The hostel was offering free cerial and Vegemite on toast.

Shortly after that I decided to walk around town so I packed my bag and walked along the river for a few hours. I ended up at south bank beach; a small artificial beach in the middle of the city. I suspect the beach would have been better to see at night because it was a public holiday and there were kids screaming and shouting all over the place.

While walking back it struck me just how many fat people there are in Brisbane. Especially coming from Korea, the high obesity rate here is remarkably transparent. There are plenty of druggos here too. Spotting a crystal meth addict is super easy; just look out for the super skinny bogans trying to stay balanced on flat ground.

Later on that night I made friends with an American guy called John and a few Germans. We all went drinking in the pub by the hostel and met a group of bogan Aussies. The Aussies were extreemly friendly but clearly racist. Also, they bought their drug addicted 50 year old mother along to go partying with them. It was a strange sight to say the least.

Australia day 1

I decided not to book a hostel and simply rock up at fortitude valley instead.

The first hostel I landed at was pretty epic. It was called "bunk hostel" and it was $20 / night. A big change from the $4 / night I was used to in Vietnam; but it would do. Once I realized how packed the hostel in Brisbane was on a Sunday night, I decided to book my hostel for Byron bay immediately for New Years. No luck; apparently every hostel (not an exaggeration) had been booked out months in advance. In my desperation to find a place to stay, I found a vacancy at a hostel in Surfers Paradise. Not as good as Byron, I know, but at least it has a good beach. Plus I heard Surfers Paradise is famous for skateboarding!

The hostel gave new residents a free beer on entry and a free sausage sizzle on Sundays. Guess who was first in line? I met 2 Brazilians and a Sweedish girl while devouring my free meal. Even though their English wasn't the best, I still spent the entire night chatting with them at a pub which served $11 burgers and $10 beers.

Christmas break

I celebrated Christmas with my family in Brisbane this year. Aunty Christine and Uncle Ron were kind enough to let us use their boat, Tonic, for the occasion. After filling the floating house with heaps of beer, food and $1000 worth of diesel we were on the open blue road.

Overall the trip was good. I got the opportunity to show off my music, go swimming, play my new favorite game 'slapcock', and eat enough food for a lifetime.

For two nights everyone on the boat had to deal with a severe mosquito infestation, but distracting myself with game of thrones and breaking bad on the boat television was a perfect distraction.

My Dad offered to buy me a ticket to go back to Sydney, but I declined and decided to travel more down the east coast. I can't spend another new years in Sydney. First stop; Brisbane.

South korea day 14

Today was my last day so I wanted to make it count. Sadly I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I asked one of the receptionists, Jeonbuho, for advice. Even though I didn't know Jeonbuho very well personally, he insisted on being my own personal guide for the day. How kind is that!?

I waited for him to finish work at 12, and then we headed out in search for some traditional Korean markets. We walked past all the touristy places and then had lunch at a place I would have certainly missed if it weren't for him. Jeonbuho insisted on buying my lunch as a farewell gift. It was called Zzajangmyeon and it was a Chinese dish with Korean sides. It was delicious, filling and only 3500 won ($4). During this time, I kept asking him about Korean culture so I could confirm or debunk some of my working generizations. Here's what I've found out:

1) Koreans are all incredibly hard working. A business man working for a company like Samsung can easily expect a 6am - 8pm work day. Even kids will typically go to school and then go to first after school care then second after school care leaving them to finish at 11pm. Jeonbuho reckons this is the main cause for Korea's high depression and suicide rate because the inflexible working hours leave no time to develop socially. He also thinks its especially bad because the large working hours don't equate to more productivity; workers will typically sit patiently at their desk for several hours doing nothing if they finish their work early.

2) about 50% of Korean women and about 20% of Korean men have plastic surgery. It's quite typical for a middle class family to reward their daughter with a nose job or eye job as a graduation present. Unlike western cultures where there are several different ways to look attractive, Korea has just one and everyone tries to live up to this standard by trying to have the same chin, eyes, nose and personality. Hair colour is the only acceptable form of individuality.

3) Korea is advancing technologically faster than its culture can keep up. Smart phones are everywhere and computer gaming is not only acceptable, its encouraged in men. Atheism is growing too which means young men, which would have otherwise involved themselves in the commilunity through religion, are becoming increasingly socially distant. Women are still somewhat subservient to men and less likely to work full time even though their are equal employment opportunities. The major family decisions are still made by the father. Marriage is still very traditional; the divorce rate is low and many couples will only get married when they have enough money for a house and family. This is a problem for the younger and poorer generation, who are likely to simply remain unmarried till their mid 30's.

4) all Asian hair is the same. It's beautiful and long in the 20's and 30's then starts to thin out in the 40's. By the 50's and onward all women will have hair which looks kinda like a weird afro.

OK OK OK that's enough about culture. What did I do then? Oh yeah, Jeonbuho showed me the apartment he was staying at with his sister. The only furniture was a tiny traditional dinner table with no chairs. No desk, no computer, no beds. Jeonbuho was studying neuroscience and was running his own English teaching company in between working part time at the hostel so there were books and clothes all around the apartment. Upon leaving he tried to offer me a jumper as a gift. I honestly couldn't accept it after seeing how little he had. I think he was a bit offended by that. After that we walked to the world cup stadium where he told me his ambitions in life; he wants to find a western girlfriend, leave Korea and find a cure to Alzheimer's.

We split off when he had to go teach English. I went back to the hostel and met a group of Australians from Sydney. We all got drunk, ate Indian curry for dinner and went to a busy bar. They were all aged 21 except for one bloke who was only 18.

It was a good end to an amazing trip.

Oh yeah, the young Aussie managed to lose his passport by morning! It turns out that on other nights out he'd managed to lose his credit cards and his phone too... He reminded me of me when I was young.

South Korea day 13

I woke up with one thing on my mind. The Google Center in Seoul! I think Google has 7 centers around the world, all of them famous for their innovative design, free entrepreneur workshops, kick ass café and water slides. I rocked up to the Google center called "Seoul campus" in Samseong only to find that no entrepreneur workshops were running, the cafe was closed, the office was tiny and there were NO water slides. I was very disappointed :( in hindsight I really should have guessed this was the case though because no one on Korea actually uses Google products here; they all use 'Naver'.

After a disappointing start to the day, I got in contact with Matt via Facebook and arranged to meet him, Josh and Woo in Sinjeong. We were all starving by the time I arrived so we decided to get Korean pizza (yes, that's a thing). It was good, but not as good as the Cambodian pizza I got in SE Asia.

Because we were insanely unorganzied we had to sprint with our pizza boxes through a whole bunch of public transport to arrive in Hongik University to complete our 'escape the room' adventure we had booked earlier that day. The Koreans on the subway must have thought we were the most passionate pizza delivery men in existence.

Escape the room was great!! I loved it. Solving puzzles, finding clues and arguing with your friends are 3 of my favorite things to do in life. I really enjoyed it. Plus we were only 10 minutes behind the record for escaping the room!

After escape the room, we all decided to go to a PC bang and play some computer games. That was also pretty epic! Josh, the Australain civil engineer, crushed us in StarCraft :( its my  fault. I should have practiced more.

We played computer games till about 12:30am. Sadly the public transport shuts down at midnight for some reason so I had to walk for 2.5 hours home. Walking through Seoul at night is actually a lot of fun. I got back at 3am and passed out.

South Korea day 12

Matt Gates had arrived in the late evening last night and had booked a hostel in Hongik University. Somehow I managed to multi task having a shower and being hungover at the same time so that I could go meet him and his Korean friends.

Matt and Josh arrived at Iteawan and we enjoyed a Korean BBQ together. It was nice catching up and exchanging stories about our adventure through Asia.

Josh is an Australian civil engineer that Matt made friends with on his last visit to Korea over a year ago. Josh graduated from engineering, tried working as an engineer for a year, decided he didn't like the working hours and work environment, then decided to quit everything and come to Korea to teach English for a year. Is that inspiring?! You decide! Either way, he's a really interesting and intelligent guy.

After eating food, we all decided unanimously to watch the latest star wars movie! We couldn't understand the website for the GVC cinema (since they said their start times were at 28:00 or at 36:00) so we decided to just train it to Gangnam and see if we could find seats.

Just as we arrived, a Korean lady came up to us and said in broken English "hey guys, do you want 3 free tickets to see starwars in 3D?" She had purchased 3 tickets for her son and a few of his friends, but apparently they coudlnt make it so she was giving the tickets away for free. We tried desperately to pay her for the tickets but she wouldn't accept it, so we thanked her heaps and waddled our way towards the cinema. Star Wars Free-D !! Wohoo!

After the movie, we met up with another one if Matt's friends, Woosung, who is half Korean, half Aussie. We enjoyed another Korean BBQ together and then went walking around hongik university.

So much was happening around hongik! Food, lights, performances, protests etc. It was great.

South Korea day 11

The Korean staff at pencil 5 hostel were as hospitable as ever. They prepared an epic lunch for all residents which consisted of sliced chicken breast wrapped around orange slices. It was marinated in a sweet sauce, wrapped in tin foil and baked. It was wonderful! Sadly, I also found out it wasn't technically Korean - the owner was just a creative cook.

As much as I loved the hostel, it was a little bit out if town and quite expensive so I decided to pack my shit and go back to stay in the Iteawan hostel. Once there I decided to walk to the Korean war museum.

In all honesty, this was by far the best museum I'd been to on my whole trip. They didn't just focus on insignificant details and emotional stimulus, instead they had whole sections of the museum dedicated to the bigger picture behind the Korean war. I still consider myself remarkably  ignorant about the conflict, but at least I know a whole lot more. I didn't even know China was militarily involved before I went to the museum.

It was bloody cold leaving the museum (-7°C) so I decided to invest in a hot chocolate to keep my organs from frosting over. I've only just realized how ive traded my addiction of cornetos from Cambodia with hot chocolate from south Korea.

To top off the day, I went touring a few markets and temples in the north of Seoul. So much delicious street food.

When I arrived back at the hostel I made friends with a massive group of British exchange students and one Swiss guy. Of course we ended up drinking

South Korea day 10

I woke up from the marble floor I had collapsed on and immediately got naked to bathe with old naked Korean men.

Shortly after I packed my bags and headed outward to explore the city. I went to the fortress and walked along the river.

I kinda felt at this point that Jinju was midway between a big city and a rural escape, and since I was really looking for one or the other, I decided to go to the bus stop and head back to Seoul.

Once I was back in Seoul, I immediately made my way back to Pencil 5, the hostel I started at.

South Korea day 9

You win, Korea. I can't handle soju anymore. It goes down as easily as water but hits as hard as vodka. From this moment on I need to stop: 1) drinking or 2) challenging Americans to drinking competitions.

The hangover was awful. Even the supposed magical hangover cure; 'triangle kimbap', was not enough to save me. James and the American guy, Frank, had both left to go to work teaching English in schools on the other side of the island which meant I had the entire flat to myself. I left to go exploring at 1pm when my hangover was at least manageable.

Walking around town was pretty great. It was nice to get out of the city and see 'real' Korea. It was a little dirty, there were rice patties next to beaten down shops, there was nothing written in English anywhere and most people stared vacently at me like they'd never seen a white person before. I went into a shop to get food and the lady there tried to have a conversation with me in Korean; clearly the only white people she had seen were teachers who spoke Korean. It was really fun and awkward because I could tell she was trying hard to simplify what she was saying in pigeon Korean in the hope that I would know enough to communicate back. But sadly the only words I know are "hello" and "thank you". I managed to get by using hand gestures thoigh! After that It was too late for me to do any proper touristy shit, so I decided to do a nice easy 1 hour hike past a temple. It was wonderful, the trees were pretty and it started snowing half way through too!

When I got back to the flat I chatted with Frank and James a tad, drank some much needed water and played xbox360 for about an hour before I caught my next bus to Jinju!

As soon as I arrived in Jinju I made my way to the jimjibang (찜질방). The Americans strongly recommend the place to me because it was only 8000 won to stay there for 1 night and it's essentially one giant spa complete with saunas, hot tubs and weights rooms. What they didn't tell me, however, was just how many naked old Asian men would be there. So... Many... Naked... Old... Asian... Men...

After relaxing in the steam room and sauna for 2 hours I decided to put on the orange shirt and pants they gave me and set up my bed on the marble floor with a couple of blankets and mats.

South Korea day 8

The first thing I did today was visit Busan tower. It cost 5000 won ($6) to go to the top. I wanted to take the stairs up all 46 levels but they forced me to share an awkward elevator ride up with one of the staff members who couldn't speak English. The view was outstanding. It also made me realize that although Busan was the second largest city, it looked more like a giant village.

Afterwards I walked to the Busan modern history museum. The entry was free and I learned about all the times Japan invaded Korea and tried installing their own culture in Busan. I thought that fucked up shit only came from European countries trying to colonize. Guess not..

Lastly I made a massive hike to Beomeosa temple right at the top of the mountain. It was a Buddhist temple so there were plenty of statues and people praying. I'm curious how many Koreans are Buddhist and how many are Christian. I guess that's another thing I'll have to research when I'm back home.

For a late lunch I ate gimbap tempura. It's basically sushi deep fried and it was awesome. This made me think that if American companies renamed deep fried mars bars as honey chocolate tempura, a lot more people would buy them coz it sounds slightly healthier.

Afrer that I took a painfully long public transport trip back to the hostel to collect my stuff. The trip was made bearable by an elderly man who came up to me on the crowded subway and shouted "its superman, look! It's superman". I wanted to say " look, its Jacky Chan! " back at him, but I decided agaisnt it.

At 5:40pm I raced to catch an express bus to meet a friend, James, who i had met earlier in Seoul. He lives in Namhae.

When I arrived in Namhae (an island in the south) I met James and 3 other Americans who were doing the same English teaching program as him. We all got drunk on soju and chatted about Korean culture.

South Korea day 7

I woke up this morning and immediately went on a hike to Jangsang peak which was an easy, well travelled, 4.5 hour climb there and back. The views weren't as spectacular as they were in Seoul, but at least I got to walk past a few churches, mushroom plantations and isolated villages on the way up.

When I got back my foot was killing me. I had already gone throguh my emergency supply of anti inflammatories supplied to me by my doctor back in Aus. My foot genuinely feels just as bad as it did 2 months ago... I think I'll have to see a specialist when I'm back.

Once I hobbled my way back to the hostel and rested up a bit I decided to head out to Gwangan beach. This beach was supposedly the place to find the most happening pub scene and excitement in the city. Sadly, it was completely dead. I know it was a weekday in December but still! Come on Busan, where is your.. Umm.. Where is your.. Spirit!?

South Korea day 6

I took a 4 hour bus to Busan (a big city in the south of South Korea) in the afternoon. Once I arrived it was quite late and I was starving so I ate a hefty abount of "gimbap", which is a Korean food which looks exactly like sushi but tastes very different. I definitely prefer sushi, but then again, I prefer sushi to anything.

It was roughly 7pm and I hadn't booked a hostel, so I decided to catch local public transport to Haeundae which was a place my backpacker sense made me expect to find lots of hostels. (By the way, the trains here are really cool; they play classical music at every stop).  As soon as I walked out of the station I found a place called 'one stop hostel'.

Even though the public transport ride was only 40 minutes long I was still starving by the end of it. Fortunately my roommate was a Korean engineer who hadn't eaten yet. I went out to have some traditional Korean food with him. He told me about his experiences doing 2 years compulsory military service and expressed his anxieties about starting his Engineering job tomorrow. He talked a lot so I only got to mention that I was an engineer as I was climbing into my bottom bunk bed. I was fiddling with my phone adaptor and the power socket as I was telling him that I did some electrical engineering courses at my university. Unfortunately, it was at this moment that i short circuited the whole room by forcing in the adaptor plug... Whoops! I can guess what he thinks about western quality education now :p

South Korea day 2

I woke up at 6:20am to go hiking with the American guy, Nick. The hostel was already quite far north west of Seoul, so it was only a half hour public transport ride to Bukhansan National park. We decided to do the Baegundae peak which was the shortest of the hikes so we could be back at the hostel by 1:00pm. I was quite amazed to see how many elderly people were climbing the mounting with us. Sure, they were slow, and hilariously over equiped; seriously they all had walking poles, and professional hiking clothes, but I got pretty inspired by it none the less, mainly because most Australian elderly people I meet typically waste away watching TV and drinking beer all day. Go Korea! 

The hike itself was easy and short, although some icy bits made it a bit tough at times. The peak itself was amazing though. I got an epic panorama shot which I'll share on Facebook soon.

For the hike I had repurposed a plastic beer bottle from last night by filling it with water. Funnily enough, the beer flavored water tasted identical to the actual Cass beer I drank last night. Drinking from the bottle with powerful, desperate gulps in the early morning on the public bus on the way back might have given the other Koreans a very concrete stereotype of white westerners.

When we got back, the Koreans had made a huge lunch and invited us to eat with them. It was a broth filled with vegetables, clams and a few spices. Delicious.

After I had rested up I decided to go to IPark mall to see the world famous esports stadium. It's an arena littered with seats, plasma screens and 10 computers. Sadly the famous Dota 2 international tournament had ended 2 days before I arrived, so the stadium was empty. The cleaner there still allowed me to look around after I begged him for 5 minutes. The next big computer game being played there was "heartstone" on Friday. Even I was not nerdy enough to see that.

From there I decided to walk to Iteawan, a 30 min walk. On the way I visited the Korean National Museum and passed an American Army base. Once I hit Iteawan ibwas blown away at how western it was. There were Americans everywhere and every street was littered with pubs, food outlets, and clubs.

It was getting quite late at this point so I decided to buy some more rice cake with spicy sauce and head back to the hostel.

South Korea day 5

The collective hangover of 2 consecutive days of heavy drinking was bad. What made it worse was honoring our plans to visit the DMZ at 7:00am.

Because my liver at this point could best be personified as a baby being force fed brussle sprouts, I ended up sleeping for small parts of the tour. Fortunately I was still awake for the important parts; including the tunnels and the lookout.

The tunnels were awesome. Apparently the North had tried building dozens of tunnels that were obviously directed towards Seoul. Once the South discovered them accidbetly through an excavation, the North reportedly painted the walls black and claimed they were searching for coal. We got to walk down the 3rd tunnel up until the 1st blockade. It was such a steel incline / decline that I'm sure that even if the North had constructed the tunnel, their troops would have been too exhausted to fight anyway.

The lookout was awesome. I researched the North had constructed such a large flag that it couldn't even wave in the wind. This is a lie, I saw it blowing around like crazy.

Tim and I made friends with a french girl, Julie, while doing the tour by offering her some of our hangover food; jollypong - a sweet Korean snackfood.

Tim went to bed as soon as we got back at 5pm. I forced myself to have drinks with Julie. It wasn't easy, but I didn't vomit from the 3rd night of drinking Soju.

South Korea day 3

It was time to say goodbye to my old hostel and head to Iteawan. I took a train there, placed down my bags and immediately made my way to Gangnam. No matter how long I walked around, or how many times I listened to Gangnam Style, I still couldn't find Psy...

I was a little disappointed walking around Gangnam to be honest. There were just apartment buildings and giant booming offices. I was expecting a Tokyo feel, but instead it was quite seouless.

I left close to 5pm and made my way back to my hostel. Rush hour is crazy here! I've seen stacked trains in Sydney before, but this was something else. I think it's because Koreans are so much thinner on average compared to Australians that they were able to get way more people per square meter on the train. Also because I was genuinely about a foot taller than everyone else on the train, I had to actively fight my desire to crowed surf from carrage to carrage.

While having my organs compacted by other Koreans, I had the chance to watch the korean television in the train. For the most part it was exactly what I expected it to be like; quirky cartoon characters selling toothpaste was a big part. What I wasn't expecting so much was just how many female actors were selling beauty products. The models were very artificial and used an array of feminine hand flicks, cute laughs and pouting to sell a tub of moisturizer. Sure, this form of marketing happens everywhere in the world, but its overwhelmingly abundant in Korea. The inner feminist in me was furious; there must be thousands of woman out there battling their insecurities becasie they don't confirm to an arbitrary notion of beauty.

When i got back I met a bloke called Tim from Utah at the hostel and decided to go out drinking with him. Tim was nothing short of a redneck. He was a 21 year old, Donald Trump supporting, gun wielding cowboy. He even supported Trumps ban all Muslims policy because "its like a tap that's leaking dirty water. You gotta stop the flow and figure out the problem so ya dont risk contamination".

Even though I strongly disagreed with Tims conservative outlook, if didn't stop me from enjoying the night out. We went to a whole bunch of different bars and got drunk. We met a few Korean guys and went drinking with them. They were super hospitable and friendly and bought us a few rounds of beer and vodka shots. Despite their broken English, one of them managed to communicate that he had visited Australia and been subject to crippling racism in Brisbane. I tried to console him by telling him that he was simply unlucky in his experience and that most Australians are kind welcoming people. None the less, I'd never felt so embarrassed and ashamed to be Australian. We bought rounds of alcohol back to the Korean guys and went our separate ways.

Almost immediately afterwards we somehow managed to run into 2 Korean girls we had met earlier in the night. They were heading to a club and invited us along. Even though I was drunk, its still very unusual of me to agree to go to a club; I must have misheard them say 'pub'.  I didn't need to worry though because the entire club was so packed that it was physically impossible to dance!

I noticed more than any other club I'd ever been to, how much of a divide there was between male and female behavior. It was disturbing to see just how much everyone tried to live up to 1950's gender stereotypes. There were small pockets of Asian girls everywhere trying to dance and laugh just like in the TV commercials, and giant hordes of western men around them pumping their chest out like roosters. This type of thing exists in Australia too, but once again its overwhelmingy prevalent in Seoul. Despite this, I still had a good night.

South Korea day 4

The hangover in the morning was awful. It was made worse once I realized young Tim barely had one at all.

Today was a day dedicated to recovery. I walked a lot around Iteawan and enjoyed a few good cultural dishes including Ox rice soup from a bistro and a chicken sandwich from 7/11.

At some point I managed to fit in the Korea war museum. I got there only 15 minutes before it closed so I'll have to go back there again to get a proper look.

Tim may have been a gun crazy hillbilly, but supposedly he also played StarCraft. We went to the nearest PC bang (internet cafe) and played a game. I crushed him. My life goal of winning a game of StarCraft in Korea was finally accomplished.

We got back to the hostel and ran into a British guy and a Canadian girl who actually lived in the south teaching English, but had travelled up to Seoul for the weekend. We decided to go out drinking with them. We forgot where all the pubs were that we visited last night, but once we got a few bottles of soju down from 7/11 as predrinking it became a lot easier to remember. It was another sloppy drunk night.

South Korea day 1

FUCK ITS COLD! It's called south Korea, why is it so far up North?!

South Korea is such an organized, clean and beautiful country. I took the KTX express to Seoul center and then took a bus to my hostel called "pencil 5". The streets are wonderfully kept, and all the buildings are pimped with technology. Even the pedestrian crossings have speakers attached to them when you press the button which blast put some 10 second Korean message - I thought I'd activated a silent alarm when I first pushed it. Perhaps I'm just in shock after spending a month in South East Asia, but either way its a refreshing change. It was definitely relaxing not needing to be constantly vigalent about avoiding motorbikes.

I met a few international people at my hostel including; an American, a Canadian and 3 Malaysians. They're all really friendly, but nothing compared to how friendly the other Korean guests are. I kid you not, Koreans are literally the nicest and welcoming people I have ever met. The Koreans found out it was my first day and insisted on making a late Korean lunch with soju for the whole hostel to enjoy. I tried paying them for my share but they wouldn't take it.

For dinner I tried some street food. I am now addicted to Tteokbokki; a rice cake with spicy sauce. I wish I could be as positive about kimchee though, that stuff is downright awful. I don't know why everyone likes it so much.

Oh yeah, other than the 1 American I met, I literally think that I am the only white person here. :)

Vietnam day 7

Today I reunited with two Swiss girls I met earlier in Cambodia. They were new to Hanoi so the swirling deathball of traffic was quite intimidating for them. Reinacting a scene from Aladin I asked Monika to trust me by closing her eyes and walking confidently into the traffic. At first it worked brilliantly, but towards the end I had to yank her back to stop a lone motorbike from splattering her. She wasn't too happy after that.

Regardless, we all had an epic Vietnamese BBQ lunch where we; enjoyed good food, drank a few beers and met an American called Dan.

Sadly the Swiss girls had to leave to Sa Pa by 9pm so that left Dan and I alone in a pub. We got plastered drunk, joined a pub crawl and somehow ended up at the Mafia owned nightclub; the lighthouse.

At roughly 4 I stumbled my way home through the deserted and eerily quiet streets of Hanoi. I slipped and fell over more times than I can remember. Amazingly there was one woman who was still selling sugary pastry near my hostel. I decided to award my bad athleticism with a donut and crawl my way to my bed.

The hangover the next day was very real. I spent half the next day sleeping and the other half hating myself for drinking so much. You might say I was quite "hanoid"!!!

Vietnam day 10

Saigon... shit; I'm still only in Saigon... Every time I think I'm gonna wake up back in the jungle.

My body really was not ready for the warmth and humidity of Ho Chi Minh after being in Hanoi for so long. Going to Korea a day later would really keep my body confused.

Sadly I didn't have all the time I wanted to do the touristy shit. I had to skip out on the tunnels :( instead I went to the war museum and purchased a bunch of cheap Xmas presents.

My flight was in the late evening again so I had enough time to make some friends at the hostel. I met this one bloke, Thomas, from Denmark, and went roaming around town with him. We found a park where locals were playing a game which involved kicking a shuttlecock with a spring on one end. It was bloody impressive how talented they were. It looked like an awesome version of tennis.

I decided to buy one of the shuttlecocks and play the same game. After realizing I had no foot-eye coordination i decided to revamp the game and slap the object instead. I called the game "slap-cock" and im definitely bringing it back to Australia.

Before I left forbmy flight I had an epic convo with one of the Vietnamese receptionists. She made me try quale eggs and some type of bean & garlic paste - it was delicious. She was only 21 and told me her dream was to live in England where its always cold. I didn't have the heart to tell her that dreaming to live in England for the weather was perhaps the dumbest life plan ever.

Vietbam day 9

My original plan was to slowly make my way down Vietnam overtime, but sadly because I had spent way too much time in Hanoi at this point I decided that I would simply book a flight to Ho Chi Minh in order to catch my other flight to Seoul on the 7th.

If only it were so easy...

I took a taxi at 6:00am to the airport only to find out my flight had been cancelled due to a technical glitch in the aircraft! They reimbursed me 400,000 dong and told me to come back in the evening for a replacement flight. This really sucked because I was hoping to get at least 2 days in Ho Chi Minh and now I would only have 1.

On the bright side though, Max (the Sweedish bloke I had met before) was flying into Hanoi in the early evening. I managed to have a beer with him and show him around briefly before I had to leave to catch my new flight.

Once I got to the airport for the second time I found that my plane had been delayed by 2 hours due to another technical glitch!! Grrr! All these delays and cancellations had me worried about the safety of the plane I was flying on. I had no reason to be scared though, we didn't even crash once.

Somehow I managed to make friends with 2 Canadians on the flight despite an orchestra of crying babies disrupting our conversation.  The 3 of us split an uber to our destination once we arrived. I got to bed at 2am.

Vietnam day 8

This day was rough. I really didn't do that much.

At one point I went for a short walk with Sean (the Irish bloke who completed his PhD) and had a pretty epic chat about European PhDs, fluid dynamics and advice in general about how to do shit. Apparently he had completed his PhD, won an award from SETI, plays several musical instruments and is thinking about starting up his own consultancy business in turbines that are used in vortex's.

While admittedly the chat with Sean was awesome and inspiring, my hangover had worsened at the sound of computational fluid dynamics so I had to go back and nap for a few more hours.

I surfaced close to 5pm and met Dan at a pub. Dan (who is about the same age as me) decided to handle his hangover by getting drunk again. He had found a Welsh bloke and had been heavily drinking since 1pm. Despite having my manhood mocked by Dan and the Welsh guy for not drinking beer with them, I decided to order a coca-cola with a swirly straw.

Later that night I went to the night markets. In all honestly I was more interested in the kabab stores on the adjacent street. One resourceful shop had managed to drill a hole directly into the ground into a gas pipeline underneath to cook my kebab. When it was done he simply clogged the sturdy hose with a plastic stopper...

Vietnam day 1

The sleeper bus from Vientiane departed at 5pm on the 27th and arrived at 7pm on the 28th. 26 hours of a bus ride is not fun. In hindsight I should have payed the additional $50 for a flight.

What made the trip so long was the Vietnam boarder. We arrived at the boarder at 2am even though the boarder security only showed up at 6am - why we simply didn't depart 4 hours later is beyond me. The boarder security was dreadfully inefficient, there were no English signs and a simple stamp in a passport would take up to 40 minutes. To make matters worse the infrastructure of the boarder was dreadfully incomplete. At one point we had to walk 1km through rain and mud to get from the departing gate of Laos to the Arrival gate of Vietnam.

Despite everything, I'm still kinda glad I made the trip because I got to meet a few cool Canadians and British people.

Once I arrived I made friends with an Irish bloke called Sean and a bunch of Germans and English people. We all decided to go out drinking at a place called 'le pub' (yeah, that's actually what it was called). There I ran into Michele and Marie! It was really great catching up! At 12:00 the bar tender pulled down the aluminum gate to the pub, closed the door, turned off the lights and told us to be quiet. I found out later that the city had a midnight curfew and the bartender wanted to avoid the attention of the police. At 3ish the bartender kicked us out though and advised us to go to another pub around town. Word on the street was this other pub was actually run by the Vietnamese Mafia who simply bribed the police to keep their doors open and music blaring all night long.

Vietnam day 6

I took a bus back to Hanoi with Michele and Marie. We left early enough in the morning to arrive by midday.

The first thing I did when I got back was drop my bags off at some hostel and walk around the lake. I passed several groups of elderly Vietnamese women doing a coordinated workout dance to old country western music. It was an extreemly bizzare sight. It was kinda like zumba but much much less sexy.

Layer on Marie and I had epic street food for dinner. It was a yellow sticky rice with herbs and beef. Nom nom nom.

I got back to my hostel only to discover two deaf guys were my only roommates. I asked them all types of questions about what it's like being deaf. They definitely seemed more complimented at my interest than insulted by me asking about their condition. I guess it's good that they didn't hear me snore that night :)

Vietnam day 5

We did it. We climbed Mt Fansipan today! We found a deal for $44 per person (still a rip off) and decided to book with that hostel.

There were 3 Israeli's, the 3 of us and 2 elderly Russians. The Israeli's were friendly and a lot of fun to talk to, but the Russians were slow, jaded and looked like they had at one point been an active member of the Mafia... Seriously, the dude had scars across is face, tatoos across his arms, and talked with the deepest threatening accent I could imagine.

The walk was beautiful. It was green and luscious. We often found ourselves suspended in clouds for 15 minutes at a time, but once they cleared the beautiful surroundings opened up for us. When we got to the top, we found that the Vietnamese were building a hotel at the very top. There was loud construction work, incompleted stairs, and a perfectly functioning gondola. I personally hated that they were building a hostel up this high for 2 reasons: 1) it was destroying the natural beauty of the summit and 2) I don't think it'll even be that popular since no fancy rich westerner could cope with minor altidude sickness at 3100m. That being said, the total climb took 13 hours to comolete, so I changed my mind about the working gondola pretty quick.

Later on that night I went out drinking with the Israeli's. They had managed to find a place selling home brew beer in recycled plastic bottles. They were only 15000 dong ($0.8) per litre!! Trust the Jews to find a good economic bargain, eh? I really enjoyed that night, they told me heaps about Israeli culture as far as their military and religion was concerned.  I think Israel will be the next place I visit on my next trip.

Vietnam day 4

Holy fuck I'm falling behind on my blog. I'm a week behind, let's see how well my memory copes.

We rented motorbikes today with the hope that we'd be able to climb Mt Fansipan. The travel agency said the cost would be $65 USD per person to climb which we thought was ridiculous considering several travel blogs said we could climb it without a guide.

The ride up was amazing. The road up there involved sharp turns on high elevations around mountains. Michele was riding his scooter with Marie on the back and was zooming ahead - he'd definitely seen 'the Italian job'.

Once we arrived we found an unoccupied building which we assumed was a security checkpoint. We simply walked straight past and were just about to start the hike until a half asleep security guard shouted from the top of the building beckoning is to come back. Shit. He told is that we couldn't hike without a guide and that no guides were available that day. We found out later that it was complete rubbish and that he must have been looking for a bribe. None the less we left with our heads down low and our bike engine revs high.

We decided to make the most of our rented motorbikes by driving down to a few waterfalls and checking out a few more villages. A good day all up, but still kind of disappointing.

Michele and I decided to verse each other in a game of chess later using a chess app. (We had an epic rivalry which ended in a tie back in Australia). Sadly we played 2 games and won 1 each. Another draw :( we should really play 3 games..

For dinner we went to a great place in the heart of Sa Pa right by the church. I honestly can't remember what we had, but it was aweosme. Oh yeah there was red wine too (I think).

Vietnam day 3

Michele, Marie and I woke up super early to catch a bus to Sa Pa; a large village 6 hours north of Hanoi.

The second we hopped out of the bus we were bombarded by locals trying to offer us a place to stay. I'm used to locals being very persistent and annoying, but this was something else. They shouted prices at me pulled me from side to side and at one point forced me into a corner. Rather than panic and make a desperate decision to purchase a room, I made the most of the situation and turned the mob of locals into an auction room. I started off at $10 per person then went down dollar by dollar until only 1 person was left offering us a room for $4 per person. I think I just have a gift for haggling.

Once settled we walked around 'cat cat village'. It was a large village suspended by rice patties. There was livestock everywhere, strangely no cats though. The locals had also invented really interesting mechanical contraptions to grind up grain for them using rainwater. It was really cool. The views were epic too!

The change from Hanoi is pretty big. For starters its much colder. There are also way fewer motorbikes zooming past you honking - its kind of strange getting my hearing back.

Vietnam day 2

I woke up and immediately felt the urge for street food. Without brushing my teeth, showering, and almost forgetting to put on pants, I burst outside of the hostel on the hunt for a good meal.

The menu said the meal was called "Noodles with Beef". I hope I got the pronunciation alright.

I met up with Michele and Marie and decided to go to the Ho Chi Minh museum. It was a long walk through a lot of traffic to get there but it was worth it. Once again the museum here shed very little light on the bigger picture of the Vietnam war and instead focused on smaller things like specific quotes, clothing and background of Ho Chi Minh.

Amazingly I wasn't museumed out at this point, so we all decided to go to the woman's museum afterwards. Along the way we ran into Sean (the Irish bloke I met before). The museum was focused on showing the contributions and expected roles women played in society from generation to generation. The museum was very positive mentioning that women have been treated as equals to men in Vietnam culture. My own experience of Vietnam so far makes me doubt this though; so far I have always seen men and women play very different roles - women are often in the kitchen cooking, and men are at the counter serving or doing manual labour. Maybe they earn equal pay, but there is still a large cultural gender divide. Marie (who has Vietnamese ancestry) confirmed my doubts.

Afterwards we had an epic street food meal followed by chocolate croissants and crepes. I'm so glad it was France that colonized Vietnam and not Ethiopia. While eating, Sean tried to show me the basics behind playing the harmonica. Put it this way, I'm a slow learner.

I'm really starting to enjoy using catch phrases here. A sign you'll find written in every bathroom is "have some fun, use the bum gun".  I've also learned that 'hello' in Vietnamese is "sing chao" and 'thank you" is 'cam on'. This is really great because now I can rock up at any bar and just say "sing-tao, come on!" and still be polite.

Laos day 6

We arrived in Vientiane at about 8am. We arrived at our hostel shortly afterwards. Matt and Maitay decided to stay a night so that they could explore Laos longer. I decided to split up and go to Hanoi so that I could meet my Italian friend, Michelle, on the 28th. My sleeper bus was at 5pm so that gave me the whole day to explore Vientiane.

After having breakfast we went to the COPE museum. This was a museum dedicated to documenting the horrors of clustor bombs. There was a shockingly small amount of information about the politics behind why the Americans bombed Laos during the Vietnam war, instead the museum focused on individuals who had their limbs blown off by undetonated 'bombies' decades after the war. The place was very emotionally stimulating due to their use of video, posters and plastic limb decorations, however I was really hoping to uncover more about the bigger picture. My guess is that the Viet Cong were mobilizing their armies through Laos and that's why president Johnson decided to bomb them, but I'm not sure - I'll have to Wikipedia it later. A few random facts I managed to remember from the museum were: (1) on average Laos was bombed every 8 minutes and (2) Laos was theost heavily bombed country per capita.

When we got back I had enough time to grab food, see a few temples and shower up before my bus arrived to take me to Vietnam.

Laos day 5

We booked an activity today called "Bopaven adventure". It was nice leaving the ghost town and entering the jungle. The trecking was easy and short but there were lookout points, coffee shops and local villages along the way which padded out the trip. Overall the 'adventure' was great. I got a lot of awesome photos; several of a waterfall and a few of a few kids playing in the village. The local villagers has constructed a bong out of bamboo and were encouraging their 5 year old kids to smoke it... crazy.

We arrived back in Pacsi for dinner where we enjoyed some Italian pizza and pasta. Once again, absolutely phenomenal, well done Asia.

That same night we caught a sleeper bus to Vientiane. The bus ride was needlessly complicated. We were forced to change bus 45 minutes after getting on. The bus driver didn't say a word, he just started transferring our bags from one bus to another and let the passengers figure it out. One poor German guy was asleep during the transfer and had to jump out if the old bus while it was moving so he could get to the new bus where his bags were.

Laos day 2

I woke up at a bright and early 2pm and wandered around the tiny island. It's beautiful here. No tuk tuks, no carbon dioxide, and surpsingly no pollution despite plastic being used everywhere.

Sadly almost all the people we met at the hostel were massive stoners who just wanted to eat 'happy pancakes' and smoke all day. I wasn't interested in that scene too much so Isaac (a British bloke from the hostel) and I walked to the top of the island to see if we could rent kayaks for the day. The bloke running the shop was a fat, middle aged, jaded Russian who I think would have totally suited an eye patch. He refused to rent us kayaks after the 8am guided tour because "there are sharp rocks below most rivers and you will die. There are also strong rapids leading down other rivers and you will die. If you get lost, you will die."

Undeterred by the fear of death, Isaac and I decided to go for a hike to the neighboring island called Don Khon. The entry was 35000 kip = $5 and it was totally worth it. We got to see a beautiful waterfall and go hiking through heaps of rice patties.

When we got back the stoners were stoned and talking about stoning. I ordered the unhappy pancakes and enjoyed the view of the stars and peaceful river.

Laos day 3

Isaac and I woke up absurdly early to go kayaking. We confidently marched passed the crazy Russian guy who was warding off other tourists with his 'you will die' speech.

The experience was amazing! There were about 20 of us floating on one of the most peaceful, tranquil lakes I'd ever been on. Shortly afterwards we all started funneling through a narrow river. The turns were easy enough that an uncoordinated dim wit could navigate through them effortlessly. Needless to say, I capsized. As I plunged my way into the warm water, sharp rocks lying below me cut my right foot and bruised my ass. It was at this moment that I heard a faint Russian voice echo its way through the water - "you will die...". With all my strength I grabbed onto my kayak above me and walked to the shore which was only 5 meters away. The rest of the kayaking adventure continued problem free; we saw dolphins, ate lunch at a local lunchin, and went on a few short hikes. I was even lucky enough to get invited by a few locals to try eating cow skin with them - it tastes just like crackling but much, much worse.

When we got back we all got drunk at the hostel. At the time I was very interested in learning the Laos language, but all my alcohol stained brain can remember is:

1) hello = sabadi
2) thank you = kob shiye la liye

The way I managed to remember (1) is from the song Blue by Eiffel65; " I'm blue sabadi sabudi"

The way I managed to remember (2) is from the song the boxer by Simon and Garfunkel.

I collapsed drunk with a few French people on the balcony of the hostel staring at the stars, listening to pink Floyd and Billy Joel. It was fun :)

Laos day 4

Matt and I woke up early enough to catch a boat heading off the islands to go to Pacsi. The trip was long with unnecessary stopovers between busses buy at least we made friends with a girl called "maitay" (I think that's how it's pronounced) from elsalvador (I think that's how the country is spelled).

Pacsi really wasn't the dream location I had been told about. It was completely deserted. There were hardly any locals, restaurants, bars or activities - just a bunch of other tourists walking around aimlessly with a confused and slightly disappointed expression on their face. Honestly, it seemed like a ghost town.

For dinner the 3 of us went to a fancy restaurant which was actually a ship by the side of the river. Of course we were the only people there. It was a strange experience but the food and company was good.

Cambodia day 8

Max woke up with a pretty serious fever. Fortunately though my stomach was much better so I got to enjoy all the benefits of the $2 all you can eat buffet downstairs. I felt bad for max missing out on the buffet so I went to his room and described to him how amazing the food was so he could at least imagine eating.

Matt and I penciled in volunteering to teach English at a school in the afternoon and going to a circus in the evening. Sadly the school was all filled with volunteers (probably a good thing coz I don't English good) and the cicus was all booked out. Instead Matt and I rented bicycles (motor bikes minus the motor) and made our way to the floating village.

Bike riding is amazing! At first I was pretty pessimistic because the humidity was overbearing and I thought that there would be too much traffic and obstacles in our way, but once we made it past the river and out of town the countryside poked its head out to meet us. The luscious green open planes made the feeling of complete exhaustion totally worth it. After 1 hour and 4L of water later we arrived at the floating village. It wasn't a peaceful self sustaining paradise with water slides everywhere like we imagined. Instead it was beaten down strip of land in the middle of a giant lake littered with broken down 'houses'. I couldn't help but constantly feel painfully aware of how much more I had than these locals; even wearing aviators and a hat made me feel uncomfortable. Oh and the whole place smelled like rotten fish and sewerage. I got great photos though!

On the way back we passed a mysterious staircase in the of nowhere. We decided to hike up the staircase and carry our bikes with us. At the very top a friendly ploliceman asked us for a $5 bribe to grant us entry to the temple above. We accepted. I personally was still suffering from temple fatigue after touring Ankor Watt for 8 hours the other day, but Matt loved it.

On the way down from the temple Matt's bycycle breaks broke and he had to come to dangerous halt! That earned him the title Mad Matx for the rest of the day.

Once back at the hostel we met up with an American girl from Ohio. She was really cool so we decided to go motorbiking with her the next day. She said she was from the Midwest though. How the hell is Ohio part of the Midwest? Come on America, get your shit together.

Laos day 1

We woke up at 6am to catch a bus to the 4000 islands in Laos. Max didn't join us for this part of the trip though because he wanted to cut into Vietnam sooner than we did.

On the bus Matt and I sat next to two awesome Swiss girls and a bunch of French people. I learned how to say 'im a fat cow' in french: "je suis une grosse vache". Finally I can be open and honest with myself when I get a chocolate croissant.

Crossing the boarder into Laos was easier than expected. We were told there would be hour long delays and people trying to scam us, but we didn't experience any of that.

Once inside Laos we got another bus to the 4000 islands and a small boat to the island Don Det. It was too dark to do anything once we got there so we just parked ourselves at the EasyGo hostel, had dinner with a few strangers, and went to bed.

Cambodia day 10

By now I had a pretty good morning routine going:

1) wake up earlier than the others
2) catch the last 15 minutes of an all you can eat buffet
3) wake up the others and simultaneously brag that I had an awesome breakfast and complain that I felt my stomach was about to explode from overeating.
4) waddle my way around town to buy shit.

Today's ruitune resulted in buying parachute pants! Now I can walk around like a homeless clown like 90% of the other tourists.

When I got back Max and I decided to chill at the hostel pool. The pool was great because it had a swim up bar and permanitely build beer pong table inside. We made good use of both features. Max earned my utmost respect by tieng with me in beer pong - the apprentice was now the alcoholic.

After that we played football with a bunch of other British tourists. I very tispy at this stage so I was definitely more of a liability. It was fun regardless.

Later on Matt, Max and I joined Thuomas and Annette (the Finnish couple) for pizza along pub St.

Cambodia day 9

This day was CRAZY.

I woke up, had an all you can eat buffet for $2 and then went walking around to get a haircut.

Now this is where it gets really CRAZY!

Max, Matt, the American Chick and I all decided by midday to rent motorbikes and ride to Beng Mealea. The ride was awesome! The path there involved going off road for a bit which at first was awesome because of the lack of traffic and awesome views.

And this is where the CRAZY event happened

I was in front and saw a snake cross the dirt road in front of me. The inner 8 year old girl inside of me forced me to slam on the breaks. Max who was behind me slammed on his breaks too. Sadly, this all happened just over a crest so Matt and the American girl on Matt's bike didn't have enough time to stop. Travelling at a spectacular speed of 5 km/hr they both fell off their bike.

And the CRAZY injuries were:

Both Matt and the American girl got ripped up knees. Both of which needed stitching. We used all of the first aid equipment and water we had but it wasn't enough. To make matters worse we were stranded in the middle of nowhere well away from the closest road or medical centre and it was going to get dark soon. In our indifference we spent close to 40 minutes just tossing up between 1) letting Matt and Madeline rest in the closest local shack while max and I went in search for a road to find a car to drive us home or 2) abandoning a motorbike and fitting Matt on my bike and Madeline on Max's bike.

In the end a local came by and we took option (2) except the local lead the way. The only English word he spoke was "hospital" and that was good enough for us.

The "hospital" was nothing more than a small side shop selling Band-Aids. Fortunately though it was right next to Beng Mealea. It was dark at this point and all the tourists had left, however I managed to negotiate with a local to use his small truck to drive us 4 and our 3 motorbikes back to Siem Reap for $70 - it was a ripoff but we were desperate. Oh yeah, we payed the local guy $20 and he was extreemly happy - that money could feed his family for weeks.

But the CRAZIEST thing was

When we got back we went to the closest hospital. It was a local hospital and it was filthy. There were locals holding up their own IV drips and people sitting in the corridor. We immediately tuk a tuk tuk to the international hospital 20 minutes up the road. The total cost of stitches, compulsory consultation, and anesthetic was $440! Ouch! Fortunately they had a free hot chocolate dispenser so Max and I made it our mission to drink $440 worth of hot chocolate before we left to make the visit worth while.

Cambodia day 7

I did the impossible today. I woke up at 4:15am with Matt and Max to go see Ankor Watt before sun rise. We didnt know Ankor How to get there so we decided to tuk tuk it. It was pleasantly cold outside; a feeling my body really enjoyed and my dry clothes benefited from.

Just before we arrived we decided to stock up on some food from a 7/11. I was still feeling pretty sick so I decided to get some sugar bread and water.

We arrived there at 5am, payed our $20 entry fee and walked through the darkness shoulder to shoulder with other tourists towards the famous landmark. Sadly my phones camera wansnt up to scratch to capture the temple with low light so I asked Matt to take pictures for me instead.

Sadly I did 0 research behind Ankor Watt before I showed up. But I managed to tactically walk slowly past a few English guided tours and learn that 1) it was constructed in the 1100's and 2) looting and excavations took place all the way up to 1993 which is why some parts looked mkre degraded than others. I'll update this post later with researched stuff so I don't sound like a completely ignorant tourist. At one point we thought that they were undergoing a construction project on the roof of the temple, but we later found out that a few monkies had climbed to the top of the temple and were smashing metal plates agaisnt the ancient tiles - it reminded me a lot of the old King Kong movie actually.

By lunch tine I had managed to finish off my supply of sweet sweet bread so we all decided to go somewhere for food. I got banana pancakes which was nothing more than a regular pancake with a full banana on top. Matt and Max got the mango salad which was a plate filled with mango with 1 lettuce leaf on top.

By the end of the tour I felt pretty exhausted due to the heat, sleep deprivation and food poisoning so i decided to have a quick power nap when I got back to the hostel. Later that night I went out to the night markets to buy some singlets

Cambodia day 6

Food poisoning sucks. I spent all of last night making hourly sprints to the bathroom. I was honestly afraid I'd have to bail on catching a bus to Siem Reap this morning, but Matt Gates had a shit tonne of drugs to fix me right up.

The first leg of the journey was a direct ride to Pnom Penh. Max, the Sweedish bloke from yesterday, joined us and we had an hour stop over to show him around briefly. We taught him the basics;

1) zebra crossings are just painted bits of road. They have no meaning.
2) to cross a busy street just close your eyes, start walking and pray you don't get hit.

We finally arrived at 7pm. Amazingly even after 6 hours of sitting in a WiFi capable bus, we still hadn't been organized enough to book our hostel so we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us to the nearest place to sleep. About 20 minutes later we were dropped off at the 'one stop hostel' and ironically booked the place for 2 nights.

Sitting down for 10 hours can really zap the energy out of you, so as soon as we were showed where our beds were, we collapsed on them and fell asleep.

Cambodia day 5

Today was aweosme. The Finnish guys, matt and i woke up heaps early and decided to rent motobikes for the day for $4.

While awkwardly trying to sit on the motorbike (it was actually a scooter, I just wanted to sound cool in the previous paragraph) I was given about 5 minutes of verbal instruction. Once I figured out how to start the two wheeled death machine, I asked the receptionist whether I should drive on the right or left side of the road. She shrugged her shoulders and said in broken English 'right side mostly'.  My speedometer was broken but Matt confirmed from his bike that our top speed was 100km/hr; a pretty amazing speed considering we just had casual clothing and helmets made out of Styrofoam.

We rode our way to Bokor national park. The views were spectacular and the entry fee was only 50 cents.

We met a Sweedish guy called Max along the road and invited him to join us on our journey. Once we got to the top Thumas, Max and I jumped into the lake. The water looked clean, but all the trees boardering the lake had died, while the rest were perfectly green and luscious. Whatever, a but if nuclear waste poising was probably with the experience.

On the way back we filled up the bikes with petrol from a local outlet. They brought out repurposed coke bottles and filled up the bikes manually. The local accidentally spilled gas all over Matt's scooter but a quick wipe with a damp cloth fixed that right up.

To finish off the day we had dinner at a restaurant called 'Om' everyone ordered a western meal except for me.

Cambodia day 4

Fuck, i should probably stop starting all of my blog posts with the word 'fuck'.

In the early morning I toured the area a whole lot more and endulged in cheesy gooey pizza again. No regrets.

In the early afternoon Matt and I caught a bus to Krong Kampot with a Portuguese madmam and an awesome Finnish couple. All 5 of us decided to stay at the nearest hostel called Captain Chims. Captain Chim himself was advertising a sunset cruise that very evening so we all decided to partake. The boat was a rickety looking pirate ship (without sails and a pirate flag) filled with, you guessed it, British backpackers. We headed straight down the river and got to see a beautiful sunset, stars, comments and a tree crammed with fireflies. Just before it got dark, a few Dutch backpackers decided to jump off the boat and go swimming in the poluted brown river. Coincidentally enough, we didn't see them the next day :o

After the awesome cruise we decided to head to a Chinese dumpling place. It's actually extreemly hard to find local food around here. The food was amazing, of course, and the company was awesome. Thumas (the Finnish bloke) is a very gregarious, intelligent entrepreneur and his girlfriend is a very reserved, intelligent doctor.

Later that night we ran into another Finnish girl called Satu. She seemed really cool and we might meet her in Laos.

Cambodia day 3

Fuck im losing track of my blog, I've just had no time to write the last 3 posts! OK OK OK, where was I?

We woke up and immediately hopped on a mini bus directly to sihanoukville. The bus was filled with 6 British backpackers (a 2:6 ratio is actually pretty representative of the nationality split in Cambodian hostels) who lived up to every stereotype I believed. We played a game called "heads up" which is kinda like a more awesome version of charades.

When we arrived we found out that the hostel was almost completely booked out. Rather than rent a private room containing 4 beds for ourselves we asked two other British girls of they'd like to stay with us (to bring to cost of $4.50 / person to $2.25 / person). One of the girls was called Ellen and was an accident prone, dispraxic, alcoholic chain smoker. And the other girl was called Carla and she was just 28.

I sacrificed my ideals for one afternoon and headed to the nearest resteraunt to get pizza. I'm impressed Cambodia, you've mastered the art of creating unhealthy western food! Good on ya, mate.

Afterwards I headed to the beach to view some of the fireworks and pyromaniacs. It was pretty cool except the girls we were with were definitely the party type which didn't bode well with my reserved nature and hangover. I went to be bed at 9pm! Crazy!!

Cambodia day 2

Fuck I don't think I got the job. When it comes down to it, I just don't think they wanted someone as inexperienced as I was. Half way through the interview I just wanted to crawl through the iPad I was using, break open the barrier of formal communication, and just tell them "hey, I don't have much practical experience, but I really want to learn this stuff so just give me a chance to show you". Ah well, you win none ya lose some.

When matt woke up we went to the Russian markets. It was a very interesting experience side stepping gutted fish to find clothing and jewlery stores. After about an hour and a half the smell forced us out. Sadly my mission to find a beer opening thumb ring (which by the way takes about 5 minutes to describe to the locals) remains unaccomplished.

After the markerts we decided we were feeling too happy so we went to the genocide museum to somber up. In hindsight we should have knocked off the killing fields and the genocide museum in one day. The brutal description of torture and baby killing for 2 days in a row seemed to suck the life out of Matt. Tuk tuk drivers pestering us with an emotionless 'you go killing fields now?' Seemed to cripple Matt's mindset further because of how they seems to be selling their culture for a $4 ride.

UPDATE:
Just heard about the news in Paris. Such a tragedy. I reckon it's tempting for journalists and historians to write about Pol Pot and members of ISIS and say that they were just radicalized, fucked up individuals. And whilst I'm sure that's true, I really want to have a deeper understanding behind the mindset of these people. Maybe when I get back I might do an online course in Modern History.

Later on that evening we met up with the Dutch girls again and an Italian bloke. We decided to walk to the night markets via the grand palace together. The markets were nice. There was a limited selection of clothing but an almost unlimited amount of deep fried insects to eat. I triumphed over my fear of cockroaches and snakes by eating them.

We finally tuk a tuk tuk back to the hostel to play some drinking games. I met a lot of British and Canadian backpackers there. I got drunk and went clubbing with them later that night. Never again. I got home so plastered that my Sweedish roommates told me I was staring at the ladder up to my top bunkbed for close to 20 minutes trying to figure out how to climb up without falling over.

Cambodia day 1

Fuck I'm so tired. Waking up at 4am for a flight is no easy task. When we arrived in Phnom Penh we immediately tried haggling with the locals to drive us to our hostel for a discount price - no luck.

I think 'tuk tuk' means hello here because so many locals were shouting that phrase at us. I didn't want to be rude so I shouted 'tuk tuk' back to them and kept walking. Learning a new language is awesome.

We arrived too early to check into our hostel, but too late to get drunk with the drunk British backpackers. Instead we ran into a girl called Lottie and the 3 of us travelled to the killing fields together (not the best social activity, I know).

The killing fields were really eye opening. I wish I did more research behind Pol Pot before I showed up; that way I could get a glimpse into the 'rational' behind his genocidal purge. It's crazy to think that he only resigned from prime minister in 1979 (11 years before I was born!)

Our tuk tuk driver sneakily drove us back to our hostel via a shooting range; no doubt he would get commission in some way or another. We considered shooting ak47's into the air after seeing the killing fields a little culturally insensitive so we decided to just head home instead. We were very conscious that disappointing locals with a huge stockpile of guns and rocket launchers could turn into a huge mistake so we apologized profusely and then sped off into the distance.

When we got back we devoured a beer and some street food. Yum! I really like the beer here, but no local tells me what it's called, they just say its 'Cambodian beer'.

For dinner we met up with a bunch of British and Dutch people from the hostel. The food was great, the company was nice and the beer was Cambodian.

Sadly I decided not to partake in the party that was happening in the hostel that night. I had to wake up at 6:30 am to have a Skype interview for a job I applied for several weeks back. I better get this job!!

Malaysia day 3

Fuck today is my last day in Malaysia! As soon as I woke up I waddled on down to Matt's hostel so we could go to Batu Caves together. The caves were much better than we expected. Monkeys littered the giant staircase to the cave, and inside there were hundreds of bads flying aimlessly around in circles. The view was amazing too! If it wasn't for the sound of drilling in the nearby vacinity, the experience would have been very tranquil. We also did a paid tour which was brilliantly done. We learned about the history of the cave, the formation of the cave and the numerous species of  insects too. On the way back, I stopped by a small shop to buy water. My immediate suspicion about the missing plastic wrapper around the lid of the bottle was worsened when I tasted dust, coconuts and cigarette tar in the water.

My parents kindly invited Matt and I to an awesome Japanese farewell dinner. Thanks mum and dad for meeting with me for the first part of my journey, and for buying heaps of stuff for me :) I'll cya in Brisbane !

Well, I've got a 4am start tomorrow! Time to fly to Cambodia! Lego!

Malaysia day 2

Fuck Malaysia is humid. Even with an industry scale airconditioner, plently of water and light clothes I still felt like I was melting to the bed.

I woke up extremely early (damn jetlag!!) And helped myself to my parents collection of fruit, croissants (still not sure if I'm spelling that right), and cerial.

I walked over to Matt's hostel at 10am and immediately caught the monorail to Sentral to see the Diwali Indian Festival. It was good but extremely small. There were only 3 tents and a handful of tourists walking around. The best part was getting street food and a large tiger beer. A good morning start!

Matt and I raced to the cinema to meet my parents and a few family friends to watch the new James Bond film. The film was predictably crap, but the seats were amazing.

Afterwards we all went out to an Indian place to enjoy some curry. Delicious!

After watching the movie, catching Taxis and eating food in fine restaurants I felt like I needed to immerse myself in Malaysian culture so I decided to walk back home through the broken streets and overcrowded bars. Strangely, Malaysia is reminding me a lot of Dubai; not because of the fancy cars or first class atmosphere, but because of the large overpowering malls. Sadly, it gives this amazing city a strong artificial aura.

Malaysia day 1

So this is it. I'm writing my first blog post out of many that will summarize my Asia trip. Because I haven't written anything for a long time I've probably lost any talent for reporting things that happen in my life with any sense of proportion. Thats right, my writing skills that once could have been personified as a sleek and calm hunter clutching a rifle, now more closely resemble a hyperactive toddler running wildly wielding an oversized butterfly net. But despite my obvious illiteracy disability, I'll still try my best to write this thing. here goes.

Fuck. I've got glass in my foot. I must have stepped on a small shard of glass last night when I emptied the rubbish. I didn't notice it at the time, but now its really starting to bug me. I have asked the air hostesses if they have a first aid kit; and amazingly they said they didn't. Air Asia, oh how I missed you.  Ironically though, I reckon if I exaggerated the size of glass in my foot every hostess would have felt compelled to 'disarm' me. On a separate note, I went to the same hostess to ask her for water. She said she didn't have any and pressed me to buy a $7 bottle instead with a patronizng endnote "we also accept American dollars if you've ran out of Australian currency". At that moment the inner Sherlock Holmes in me discovered a kettle of boiling water, a small bucket of ice and a pile of disposable plastic cups. I asked her to do the hokey pokey with them and she reluctantly compiled. USA! USA! USA!

Sadly due to a series of delays I arrived too late in the evening to go looking around KL. None the less, I met up with my parents and Matt Gates and had a good ol' fashioned catch up. Tomorrow is when the adventure starts. Can't wait.

Last day at work

Yesterday was my last day at work. I wasn't naive enough to expect a farewell party, but I was hoping for more than; a pen, a 5 minute talk about my future and a weak handshake. After I cleared my desk of all my belongings (seriously, he did I accumulate that many pen lids?), I felt a sudden urge to go to Knox Grammar School. I'm not really sure why I decided to go to my old school; maybe I was just in a reflective mood, or maybe I wanted to see for myself how far I've come since I graduated since '08.

It was a bizarre time for me to come visit because I noticed that there were students, parents and teachers everywhere. I suspected they were having a parent teacher night or something like that which must have made me appear like a single young parent who had lost their kid. Despite everyone staring at me strangely, I managed to tour all my old classrooms and hallways. A lot has changed. The biggest change though, is that I noticed girls wearing Knox uniforms! WHAT!? To be fair, it was a Friday and I only saw girls wearing Knox Cadet clothing, but it's still a really big step! I guess the 100+ year old conservative supporters of the school must have all dropped dead, allowing a wave of liberal thinking to wash over the school. Another strange thing I noticed is that there wasn't (much) screaming, shouting or hurling abuse at other students. Is it true that my negative perception of my old school is a fabricated memory I invented to suit my own preconceptions? Nah, it was just a Friday and parents were around to control their kids.

After I came back from Knox I immediately headed straight to the Opera house to meet Matt Gates. He had somehow managed to get free tickets to see the comedian Russell Brand! It was really cool, I loved it.

Alright, enough small talk, now for the deep introspective bit.

I'M UNEMPLOYED! YAY!?

I originally wanted to use this time to go on the Great North Walk (a solid 2 week hike from Sydney to Newcastle). Sadly though, I found out a few days ago that I have "tibialis posterior tenosynovitis" , which is a fancy way of saying i have "tendonitis" which is a fancy way of saying that my tendon has fluid in it which is a fancy way of saying my foot is fucked. Woah, that means I ran the 42km marathon with a fucked foot! Can I get my international badass of the year award now?

But when God closes a door, he opens another one. Even though I can't walk or run, I can still do weights. I've still got 30 something gym passes on the Luna Park gym - what a joke, I know. My aim is to get absolutely ripped by the time I travel to Malaysia. I can also make more videos without distraction now which should keep me occupied too!

Strangely, this is the first time where I haven't constructed a well written list detailing all the things I want to do. I reckon I'm gonna wing it. I'm a little terrified that I might just resort to playing computer games for 5 hours a day to fill up my spare time though!

But wait! Are playing hours and hours of computer games really too different from working a 9-5 job? In one environment you're sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen for hours swearing underneath your breath at someone who isn't utilizing your skill set, and in another environment you're sitting at a desk staring at a computer screen for hours getting sworn at by someone for not using your magic skills!

Unemployment!

I'm almost jobless! Poor nutrition, dirty clothes, and brown paper bags to conceal my alcohol - here I come!

At first I thought I would be really empowered by the idea of being unemployed because of all the opportunity lying in front of me:
1) I have money now!
2) I have got my website up and running (barely)
3) I have nothing chaining me to Australia. For the most part, I can literally spin a globe and randomly point to a place I want to live
4) I'm going traveling around Asia in November & December

But recently I've been starting to feel quite anxious. My main concern is that once my travel induced optimism wares down, I'll be stranded in a random country without a job! I'm also especially worried that I might decide to spontaneously get a tattoo saying "Thug Life" across my chest in Vietnam, which will make employment quite a bit harder! Fortunately, no matter how drunk I am, I can trust my nerd instincts to kick in, and demand the tattoo artist to write "Thug Life" in klingon or elvish.

In all honesty though, I'm actually kind of glad I feel a little anxious. I think I'll be able to funnel that emotion into excitement and motivation when the time comes. I mean, there is so much I can do right now in this period of my life. I can brew my own beer and create personal labels for different types - I'm going to label them "Good Shit", "Cheap Crap" and "Decent Stuff".  I can live in Canada for a year and get drunk playing ice hockey! And so many more beer related activities!

At least for the next two months, I'm going to live entirely in the 'now' and let the future paranoid Matt go AWOL for a little while.

Water on Mars!

Ok so this post is going to be the first of it's kind! For once I'm not going to talk about me!

We (NASA, not me) found liquid water on Mars! Wohoo! How awesome is that? How cool would it be if life existed on Mars?

(ok this is where it gets boring so feel free to skip)

This isn't just interesting scientifically, it's interesting philosophically too. So far every religion asserts, either though metaphor or literal interpretation, that humans were created by God on a world that's just right for us. I reckon Discovering life on Mars should silence these confident religions. Why would the Bible or the Quran leave that shit out?  I'm honestly curious about how many religious scholars will try and reinterpret passages in their holy books and claim, through creative use of metaphor, that it was always written that life was on another planet. I mean, lets face it, if science could silence creationism, it would have already done so - if discovering the true age of the earth and facts about evolution can't stop people believing that humans were placed on a 6,000 year old earth, then nothing will. Overall I'm both happy that science is pushing the limits further and further every day, and frustrated that superfluous religions are being dragged kicking and screaming right behind.

Smartphones

And today's rant will be oooooooooon...

Smartphones!

ding! ding! ding!

Everyone wastes so much time on their Smartphones these days! Nobody talks to each other anymore, they just fixate on a glowing screen in their hands for hours and hours. Sure, they provide instant entertainment, but at the cost of our humanity! We're all connected, but nobody is connecting blah blah blah blah blah...

What a bunch of bullshit. Smartphones are awesome. Sure they're expensive and their screens break easily, but it's totally worth it. My phone has been under repair for the last week, and it made me realize how much I need constant access to Facebook, BBC, Google Maps and Angry Birds. For the first time in ages, I was forced to read a book on the train to work! How primitive! The swiping mechanisms on a book just doesn't compare to the iPhone 6. Although to be honest, the battery life on the book was pretty outstanding. Oh and who cares if Facebook, YouTube and Smartphones are making us more antisocial? That's a good thing! It means more people will enter fields like Engineering and Mathematics at Uni! I reckon global social ineptness is a small price to pay for a personal jet-pack or extra bionic limb. Bring on the next generation of super socially stunted scientists! 

Now as y'all know, I'm pretty bloody awesome at predicting the future. (if you don't know, trust me, you will). I reckon the next Apple product to completely revolutionize society as we know it will be called: "the iHat". It'll be just a regular ordinary top hat, except it'll have the Apple logo on it and you'll have to squeeze it over your face to obstruct all your senses. Then you can buy basic accessories for $50 each like; a vaporizer that releases a puff of nicotine every 10 seconds into your nose, a tube that feeds the grease from a cheeseburger directly into your mouth, and headphones that automatically alert you when someone on Tinder is within 5 meters away! I personally can't wait! Brave new world, here I come!

Job almost over!

So right now I'm 25 years old and I have a job working at the Uni. Soon, I will be 25 years old plunging my arms into the dark corner of my pantry to find that last can of baked beans. That's right! My job contract is almost over! Wohoo!

I can imagine that a lot of people find brief unemployment quite intimidating and scary. Understandably so because most humans like financial security, a sense of routine and a topic of conversation to bitch or brag about at bars. 

Not me though! I'm going to use this moment in my life as an opportunity to go traveling. I'm already planning a trip around SE Asia in November and December. Then, depending on how much I spend on beer and crappy Vietnamese merchandise, I might have enough money to live outside of Australia! I'll organize my finances and stuff and then evacuate to a different country! America? Canada? Germany? Who knows!? If Syrians can get in, so can I!

I don't really know the best way to make an informed judgement about moving to another country. I mean there's so little I know about other countries! Sure the basics can be found easily; average wage, healthcare, culture etc. But what about the small things? Is Greenland really green? Are black Brazilians better at dancing than other Brazilians? What would tinder be like in Saudi Arabia!? Everyone wears burqas over there..

Also, how would I find a job in another country? I'm struggling enough in Australia. To maximize my chances I'll have to broaden my application range. I shouldn't focus too narrowly down the Engineering path; Architecture, Cooking, Accounting etc! I should apply for jobs in these areas too! There's only 1 problem; I am completely unskilled. Fortunately, there's 1 solution; do 5 minutes of research to find jargon for each individual professional field, then casually mention that word as often as possible (in or out of context) to your prospective employer. Here's what I've got so far:
1) Architecture: "feng shui"

2) Chef: "creme fraiche"

3) Mathematics: "Logarithms"  

4) Accounting: "Tax evasion" 

5) Neuroscience: "Neuroplasticity"

6) Teacher: "cognitive load" 

Actually, fuck it, I'll stick with Engineering. After all, it's the only thing I'm kinda sorta OK at. I guess it's a pity Engineering has made me as creative as a... as a? as something which isn't very creative. 

Marathon

I just did the Blackmores 42km Marathon today! I was worried about it for 2 reasons.

1) My left foot got injured 3 days prior and
2) The longest I'd ever run was 14km. (that's inverting the numbers and adding 1. Yeah, it's a big number.

I promised myself that I wouldn't care about the time as long as I managed to run the whole thing. A pretty stupid expectation to set on myself considering how little I knew about marathons at the time.

Ironically I didn't run the whole thing but I got a good time. 4 hours 6 minutes.

I stopped twice to walk for about 5 minutes. I couldn't help it! I found that once I hit the 20k mark, I wasn't running anymore, I was undergoing a controlled fall. So once my body slowed down enough to grab some water, I lost my momentum and walked for a bit. When I reflect back on it though, I think stopping and walking for small bursts actually improved my time because it gave me a chance to regain my breath, stay hydrated and devour as many energy gels as I possibly could. In case you don't know, energy gel is a gooey form of cocaine; except you inhale it though your mouth.

Overall I'd say the biggest thing I learned is that a Marathon is more of a mental game than a physical one. I found your body can run at an agonizingly slow pace for hours and hours, but it's your brain that makes you stop prematurely. Somehow you've got to tame your mind (which I think is best personified as an unemployed British hobo sprawled out on a sofa telling you to lie down and have a drink), and force yourself to stagger your way relentlessly to the finish line.

Jobs

About a year ago my parents gave me some invaluable advice about my blog.

"Don't mention anything scathing about your current job", they began, "potential future employers put a lot of effort into thoroughly researching applicants", they continued, "and if they perceive ungrounded pessimism in your blog", they argued, "then", they signed, "you won't get the job you want".

I've had some time to think about this and I've come to the conclusion that my parents are absolutely right. This leaves me in an awkward position because I'm afraid that at some point in the last few years I may have voiced frustration at my various jobs. Fortunately, however, my future employer (I'm guessing his name will be Charles), will stumble upon this post when performing his exhaustive background research on me. Consequently, this is a fantastic opportunity to make amends for my previous uncalculated emotional outbursts on my blog. So without any further adieu, Charles, this song is for you:

(Que soft sounding piano)
Charles I've got something to confess,
At some point in the last few years I
may have fallen victim to work related stress,
and in an act of delusional thinking I... may have told a lie.

I guess what I'm really trying to say
Is that I'm sorry about the way
I criticized the 9-5 working routine.
For you see the truth really is:
That I love working in a cubical all day
and staring for hours at my monitor display
I see now what I should have always seen
that I'm the weird one, not the biz.

(Que drums and guitar)
I'm sorry that I didn't believe
I'm sorry for what I used to perceive
I'm sorry that I had to apply for leave
For the last few hours of New Years Eve

I was fucked up in the head before
but the old me has exited out the door
It's the 9-5 not the 9-4
And it shouldn't be any less or any more!

I need to ask you for your forgiveness
This sedentary lifestyle is good for fitness
And now all I want for Christmas
Is to spend more time in your business

The best time to spend indoors is during the day
I don't want to be anywhere else anyway
Even when I've done all my work I'll still stay
Otherwise how will I be payed?

Projects that don't matter are really fascinating
And I never spend my time contemplating
whether I should focus on something more captivating
I'm not having a go, I'm just stating
That the work I do is really motivating

(Que slow flute)
I applaud any bosses decision
To pursue what they envision
And treat my ideas with derision

The 9-5 is traditional
Which is why it's nonsensical
To work any other way
So I'll suck it up and just have a g'day

City2Surf

I ran the City2Surf on Sunday. As always, it was a lot of fun and totally worth being immobile the next day. My phone malfunctioned (grrr sony!) just before the race so I can't be 100% sure of my time, but I think I got 1 hour 4 minutes and 59 seconds. I really wanted to dress up as Brave Heart this year, walk to the front of the line and shout out "FREEEEDOM!" as the gun went off, but my fear of being trampled got the best of me.

In between the giant voids of spare time I've had over the last 4 months, I've managed to fit in a few small 25 minute training sessions. I've also been putting some effort into eating better too! My standards in appreciating a good meal aren't much higher than the average domesticated dog, but where I lack for in skill, I make up for with enthusiasm. I've also wanted to cut down eating meat too! Sadly though, the only vegetarian meal I eat is cereal - but in my defense, I do eat a lot of it.

I've recently gotten in contact with a family friend, Stuart, who has kindly agreed to be my mentor. Even with his advice and contacts, I still haven't gotten any closer to finding a job though. :( One job field he suggested I look at was banking. I personally love the idea of using mathematics in a professional way, however I strongly suspect that the job won't be the ideal academic position I'm looking for. If I became a banker though, I could make ordinary deposits by day and steal money from the innocent by day! Muahaha. Against the advice I've acquired from a few trusted friends, I kinda want to travel to another country to work! The more travel, the better. My dream is to learn how to say "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" in every language. One of my school friends, Paul, recently traveled to Japan to peruse his dream career. I really admire this move, although I wonder how strong the culture shock will be! Hmm, I wonder if Japanese people get culture shock traveling to Australia? They probably do. I wonder if Japan views Australia as the land of really cold toilet seats.

I've also been working a little more on my company too. Although, my constant battle for motivation is leaving the prospect of ever getting VirtuallyPassed off the ground pretty slim. In fact, I'm afraid my business will do as badly as the 'I love Sharia law' T-shirt selling business in America.

To battle this lack of motivation I've decided to get more involved with the community around me. I've recently started; looking at moving out again to areas like Bondi and Maroubra and re sending applications to join rowing clubs. I've also started making minor changes to my day as well. I've started drinking coffee and I've changed my alarm in the morning to the sound of a door creaking open to keep me on my toes! Once the paranoia wears off, I'm sure the motivation will kick in!

Getting a job

Gather ‘round children, let me tell you a tale filled with wonder, excitement, disappointment, judgement and mercy

Once upon a time a young boy found himself frolicking around his neighborhood, prancing from street to street without the slightest hint of suspicion. Don't let appearance fool you, though! The young boy had a grin on his face and jump in his step, but a worrying thought in his mind. For only hours earlier, the young boy had been at a nasty place called Knox Grammar! For it was at this place, filled with overgrown vines and perpetual thunder, that the boy was told a secret from his teacher. A secret, that once known, could not be unknown. Another student, a friend perhaps, had innocently asked this teacher

"my grades aren't good, will I ever get a job?".

The teacher crawled up to the boy and tickled his chin, then turned around and said on a whim 

"It's not about the grades you make, it's about the hands you shake."

Silence spread through the room instantly. The teacher paused, hesitated, then bellowed out

"It really doesn't matter whether your credentials vouch for you or not, all that matters is your reputation"

The children then started clapping and making a beat while the teacher continued:

"As long as you; look presentable, have a firm handshake and glint in your eye,

then the job shall be yours, I assure you, 

because that's how I got mine

For you see children, you don't need skills,

no, not at all,

but if you don't wear polished shoes, then prepare to fall!

Employers will skip past the credentials and go to the picture,

they'll see a while male and know not to hit 'ya

A suit is your best friend

It says more than a degree ever could

but remember, dear children

your real advantage is rich parenthood"

At this point the class burst into song with the teacher:

Class: "so you're saying we don't need credentials?"

Teacher: "That's right, just networking potential!"

Class: "but what if we're not fit for the job?"

Teacher: "That's what hiring minorities is for, you silly sod!"

The class soon ended and all the children confidently marched home. Our young hero, all the while, pondering the truth of the employment process. The young boy murmured under a whimper

"perhaps there is an employer somewhere out there

that will hire people regardless of what they wear

maybe, just maybe there's a company that

doesn't discriminate, and focus's on stat's"

And that is the tale of our young hero. Eight years later he works a nine till five, pondering to this day whether a moral employment system might still be alive.