Landed in Sydney

After 24 hours and 5 meals on the plane, I finally landed safely at Sydney Airport 2 days later because of the time difference. I flew with China Eastern and had a 4-hour layover in Pudong, Shanghai. The flight was decent, and the flight attendants were nice. From Vancouver to Pudong I got to sit beside an Asian grandma who looked to be at least 80 years old flying on her own back home. One of the flight attendant was looking after her, but she had some trouble operating the in-flight entertainment so I helped her there a little bit, she was very nice and gave me candy. From Pudong to Sydney I had window seat, next to me was an elder Asian couple. We didn't talk much because I just slept the whole way, only waking up for meals, but I did notice that my tray was cleared when I woke up.

As soon as we landed I ran straight to the toilet, and managed to leave my mobile there, not realizing it till I've stepped out of the airport! I can't believe I've done it again so soon in Australia! I went straight to the Lost Property Office hoping that one of the janitors might have picked it up, and when nothing turned up I basically lost hope because there were quite a few people when I was in the toilet. I filed a report anyway, and the lady gave me an email to reach back. There wasn't much I could do at the moment and I already felt lost without my mobile since I keep everything on there! I went to wait for the shuttle bus, there were a few people, as well as a guy who looked to be a backpacker as well with his travel pack. He and I were the only ones to get off at Wake Up!. We had a quick chat while waiting for check in. His name is Cam for Cameron, also a fellow Canadian, from a small town called Lloydminster in Alberta that I've never heard of, but then again my geography is horrible. He said it's close to Calgary, border of Alberta and Saskatchewan. It turned out that he's booked his travels through UltimateOZ as well, SWAP's affiliate in OZ. Looks like we'll be seeing each other quite often over the next few days.

I went up to my room first and Cam happened to be in the same room as I am. My first hostel, we were in a 10 dorm with mostly girls and it was hella messy!! People got shit everywhere. We both ended up in the top bunk. Once I've settled in I went and got internet at the reception right away to see if I could track down my phone with the Find My Phone app, but my phone seemed to be shut off... Damn whoever took it was smart, My phone was locked too so if they've figured that out they could've easily swap out the sim and my phone would definitely be a goner! But not all hope is lost, I wrote an email to the Lost Property reminding them of my lost phone, then I went on Gumtree, equivalent of Craigslist, and found a couple contacts just in case I really don't get my phone back. Now I also gotta find myself a cheap watch or alarm clock, that sounds like stone age to me! But first I went across the street to UltimateOZ office to receive my arrival package. Cam was already there using their free WiFi. Since I arrived mid-week the orientation and the activities won't be till the weekend. I've received my bank info and a mailing address, I also asked the guy there about looking for work and he drew on a map of areas further out the city where there might be more opportunities as backpackers don't tend to venture there. Then I went to my bank, Commonwealth, to open my account. The branch was supposed to be just on the other side of the Central train station that I could've just cut through the tunnel, but I managed to get lost going down the wrong way and had to ask for directions. Ran into Cam again who had just been to the bank.

I was able to open my account and deposit the 500AUD cash that I brought with me, but I couldn't set up online banking without a mobile number, dammit! Back at Wake Up I quickly msged my sister asking her to wire money over for me since I won't be able to do it myself till I have a phone. There was also another Canadian staying in our room, he's from Toronto, but I didn't speak to him much as I barely saw him all day. It was around dinner time, I took a walk around the hostel just to see where everything is and man the kitchen seemed like a war zone with everyone cooking like a master chef and it smelled so good! I've already used up my internet for the day so I decided to head over to Macca (McD's) for some free WiFi, but for some reason I couldn't log on which was annoying because I bought a coke for that! Then half way through the night I got woken up by 2 guys from the reception asking everyone for their ID's because apparently somebody wasn't supposed to be in the room. In the end they got Toronto to leave with them, but he ended up staying the night anyway so I'm not sure what happened there.

Next morning I woke up at 7.30AM, went for breaky at Gloria Jean's across the street with Cam and enjoyed some highly recommended Tim Tam Frappe. Tasty, but bit pricy, and I'd say it was better than Starbucks! We split ways afterwards as I needed to find myself something cheap to keep track of time, and at this age of time it's harder than you think! I wanted a digital watch but they were all at least $30, and small alarm clocks were just nowhere to be found. I walked all over town and finally found a small alarm clock for $2 at a dollar store. Back at the hostel I still haven't heard anything from the airport, but I got a reply from one of the sellers on Gumtree and we've set to meet up in the afternoon. Then just a couple hours before the meet the airport emailed me asking me to call them back to confirm for my phone. I was super excited!!! Ran down to the reception and called them on the pay phone. The lady on the phone asked me what's on my phone screen and I said it was a TARDIS. She sounded lost, so I explained a blue public police phone box, and she said yes it is. I said I'd go and pick it up right away, hopped onto the train, spent $30 there and back, fucking expensive for a 10min train ride ain't it?! At least I got my baby back.

I went straight to Ultimate to get my sim, and I tried to email the seller but she didn't get my message till much later, how weird.... Then on my way to the bank to set up my online banking I managed to get lost, again, going through the train station tunnel. After all that I was tired and starving, so I decided to stop for some ramen in Haymarket. First food I eat in OZ is Asian, funny. In the evening Cam and I decided to check out SideBar, apparently they've got good parties there as we've heard from all the commotion the night before. We might have gotten there a bit too early? Because it was dead when we got in! Oh well, we grabbed a couple beers and had a nice chat, at least it was happy hour. Apparently Cam didn't plan anything beyond what Ultimate has set up for us. I told him about the hostel I'm going to which's right across the street. He said he wouldn't have known there was even a hostel because it was kinda hidden behind some buildings, but he decided that he'd go ask them tomorrow for any available rooms. We were also talking about our flights, and I mentioned that I'd seen him at the shuttle bus station. He said that he was actually pretty drunk then because he'd been drinking with this couple he met on his flight. He also told me about his volunteer trip in Africa building wells and tracking wild elephants, and his work in the oil fields back home in -50 degrees. Awesome guy. We didn't stay too late and it was getting hard to hear each other when they turned up the music later on at night. Back in our room I started to pack for my move to YHA Railway Square early next morning because the orientation is at 9.30AM, so I gotta drop off my bags before then.