Saffy's Trip To Australia Part 2

Day 3.
Rant about the hotel.

We stayed at the Corus Hotel Sydney, on Margaret Street and York Street, and my experience here was the only black spot to mar the entire trip. The hotel staff probably mistook us for China tourists, and while I myself have sometimes stared with disbelief at the things that some Chinese tourists do, it’s still no excuse to treat customers like this, especially if you’re working in the service industry.

I don’t like being judged before I’m given a chance, and I dislike it even more to see staff treating white guests better than they’re treating us. Take a page from Malaysia’s hotel staff. We paid about 200 dollars per room, and for that same price in Malaysia our hotel staff are much, much better behaved, regardless of nationality.

/rant.

Okay, woke up with a nose swollen to almost twice the normal size, (ice water does wonders) and after breakfast, we drove to an animal park in a place with a name that I forgot. We looked at some koalas first, and I saw a pretty funny one sleeping on top of a tree with a branch jammed up his/her ass. Must’ve been painful, ouchie.

Then we went into a shed and watched a guy called Calvin shear the wool of a hybrid sheep. He also gave us a brief history of the types of sheep in Australia and how long the industry’s existed, but being that it’s mostly a history lesson, I’ve already forgotten most of it. :p The sheep was feisty though, and I was kinda afraid it would headbutt Mr Calvin in the groin when he had the head between his legs. Fortunately for him, that never happened.

Walking past a cage with some parrots in it, I did what everyone else sane would do. I spent about 5 minutes standing there teaching the parrot how to swear in cantonese. The first time I tried to pull this off, the parrot turned around and walked away from me. Guess that one was too smart for me. So, feeling like an idiot standing outside the cage, I gamely went to another parrot and tried my best, and after about 4 minutes and 42 seconds, it finally rewarded me with a very distinct enunciation of "Tiu nia sing!". GG parrots, yeah!

Then we walked around and reached the sleeping wombat area. Apparently, even though it’s purely a herbivore, it’ll still bite my hand if I wave it in front of it’s face, and even if it’s half asleep. Hmm…feisty animals. It doesn’t smell as bad as the koalas do though.

Finally, the kangaroos. On the way to the kangaroo pen, we noticed that they had some animals standing freely in the open space, and that was cute. What we didn’t know was that the kangaroos liked to hide amidst the foliage too, cos as we walked on the path towards the pen, a (probably very much startled) kangaroo appeared out of nowhere, lunged at our general direction, slapped my mom on the leg with its tail, and finished off the whole Kangaroo Maneuver by headbutting my bro in the shoulder before disappearing into some bushes.

Kangaroo meat for lunch, mmm. :D

We then got back into the bus, and rumbled off towards the direction of the Blue Mountains. Water is very expensive, by the way. It’s 3 dollars for a bottle, and I think I got gypped. Mainly I remember being thirsty. Sidenote to anyone who lives in the tropics: If planning to visit Australia, train yourself to consume less water about a week before departure.

Oh well. On the way, Ben the bus driver told us the legend behind the Three Sisters, which are three famous rocks jutting out from the landscape of Blue Mountain. I realised there was a more coherent version in the brochure I was clutching, so I read that, understood it, and watched the pretty houses and trees as the bus-van trundled along the winding road.

Btw, Ben is possibly the slowest driver in the entire Southern Hemisphere. You know it’s bad when a trailer laden with crude petroleum can huff it up the hill faster than the thing we’re on. On the bright side it gave me a chance to really look at the passing scenery instead of just seeing blurry images.

We had lunch in a town called Katoomba, and surprise surprise, there really was kangaroo meat on the menu. It tastes a bit like the way fish tastes when you don’t put enough ginger when it’s being steamed. Which translates into Not That Good.

So we finally reached Blue Mountain, and it was seriously windy. Lucky for me, I learned my lesson yesterday and kidnapped my brother’s cap to keep my hair looking reasonably human. The scenery is so beautiful, and the way the clouds casts shadows over entire swathes of the (Eucalyptus, I’m told) forest was just remarkably amazing. Our pictures didn’t turn out so good though. I’m gonna have to go and look at my uncle’s pictures and hope he got a better angle than us.

After that, we took the steepest train ride in the world down to a gorge-like place, and walked a little while, looking at what used to be a coal mine, until we got to the cable car station and rode back up to where the bus was. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to sit at the front of the train, and I’m willing to wager it would’ve been something to stare down a 52-degree incline. On the way back. I was jittery the entire time of the cable car ride, cos I’m afraid of heights, and it didn’t help that there were a LOT of people in the car. If it were Malaysia I wouldn’t even have gotten into the car in the first place. :p

2 hour drive back to Sydney, and we stopped by the Sydney Olympic Stadium before going for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel. It’s a bit weird to see shops closing at 5pm, cos in Malaysia shops stay open until at least 10pm. After showering and changing, I managed to persuade my parents to go out and walk a while, since it was still early. After a few phonecalls my mom made, it transpired that my granpa and my uncle were coming along as well, so the 6 of us made our way to the Wynyard train station near our hotel and took three trains to get to Kingcross, which is the red light district of Sydney.

Walking up and down the street, we saw shops advertising strippers and sex toys, and this was something new to me cos the Malaysian government is mostly Islamic in nature, meaning that it fully expects its citizens to make love fully-clothed, and kisses and hugs in public areas are not done. No pictures were taken, though, cos they had big burly guys standing outside the shops trying to entice men to go into the shop, and I was afraid they’d beat up my camera if a flash went off. I did get propositioned though, heh.

Took 2 trains, ran up and down 3 different platforms cos we couldn’t find the train to take us back to the hotel, granpa panicked, and finally, safely back at the Corus. Went to bed and slept like a log. (again!)