Michelle and Brent

Monday April 21, 2008 5:30pm

We arrived in Sydney Australia last Wednesday evening. Hopped into a cab and found our Sydney home, or really Brent's cousins Sydney home. Jess and her boyfriend Doug are both lawyers in Sydney who were up north when we arrived celebrating their admission as solicitors. Which meant that we were lucky enough to have an appartment in Sydney to ourselves for 2 days.
Because it has been raining since our arrival our explorations have been minimal. In other words we have watched a whole season of 24 in 4 days. Which was quite relaxing and wonderful. We did explore Sydney on Saturday. We went down to the harbour to see the harbour bridge and the opera house (in the rain). We also went on the ferry over to the Zoo (in the rain). When Jess and Doug did arrive home, Brents aunt and uncle arrived with them and we made their small appartement into a sungle little hostel, sleeping six.
On Sunday we went to the Blue mountains for an overnigth trip. We were hoping for some hiking and amazing sights, but instead contented ourselves with staying at a cute old guesthouse with a lot of character. We played some pingpong, watched some movies by a wood stove fire and did a bit of walking in the rain. Didnt see any views though.
Today we have returned to Sydney on the train, and are catching a plane to the Gold Coast this evening at 8:00. We are hoping to find some sunhine and maybe even a beach up north.
The end of the trip is drawing near.
Well check in again soon.
Michelle

Tuesday February 19, 2008 3pm
We are still here in Bangkok, but not for much longer.
We leave tonight on the night train to Chang Mai, which is exciting for us as we are getting a little tired of this city, specifically our filthy street. It is always full of travellers, hawkers, food stalls, and garbage (quite smelly).
We have made some progress on the planning of the rest of our trip. Today we paid the deposit for the Gibbons Experience, which was nothing compared to the money we just spent on our plane tickets to India! We are leaving on March 5th from Bangkok at 2:40am, and arriving in New Delhi sometime around 7am. Great news. No need for a guest house/hostel that night, as the airport will serve just fine! The cost of this plane ride does not really break the bank, however it just seems like a lot compared to what we have been spending in this very inexpensive part of the world.
We sent home a package yesterday after spending the weekend shopping our brains out at the market. From the approximately 15,000 stalls, while weaving through hoards of people, I managed to buy 6 t-shirts (for about $25-30 total) and Michelle got a bag, a dress, a pair of shorts and a couple shirts. Along with some of the purchases, we also sent home some things we were not using very much, but did not want to throw out (or give away/leave behind).

Our train leaves tonight at 10, so we are just trying to kill some time.

We will keep you all posted.

Brent