Everything from arrivals, through a few forgotten thoughts and up until the end of first week. It was fun :))

Soooo, hi everyone.

I've been doing OK, just I've got a little busy and for most of the time I only had a mobile internet connection through my prepaid simcard, so I only had a few megabites to throw around, and I wanted to save at least a peace of that up until I've got something that is more permanent.

The flights

So as I wrote, the flight was quite OK. I was not impatient, angry, or anything, I had a good sleep on each plane except the first one because it was only a 2 hour flight, so I wasn't even tired. Most of the airports were nice, and I managed to get internet everywhere, even at the Frankfurt airport, where the airport wifi was a piece of sh** and it did not work properly.

On the Bejing airport I did give up though at least about writing a new entry, since blogger was unavailable and I could not write in the name of the Chines free press rules :)) One other interesting thing that happened in Bejing: I was really-really thirsty, and I've decided to buy some bottled water. Right up until I saw the prices. One half liter bottle costed around 3-400 Forints, or 10-15 yens. The one liter bottle costed 30-40 yens, which makes it 1100-1600 for one liter of water... If I'm correct you get 22-32 liters of bottled water for that much money in Hungary. And that would be something with a good brand not the shitty ones. And after that I saw the Coca Cola products which costed 4yens a bottle, so they were basically cheaper than they are in Hungary, and much cheaper than the bottled water - which by the way my dear Chinese friends does not make any sense, because Coca Cola products are like 98% water, so if you would just try to import the same water that is used to make the CC products I'm sure that even with a good margin you could sell it for 3 yens... But never mind.

The flight after was not so good. It was quite boring and since I had a two hour nap at the beginning, I could not see anything through the flight, because it got dark by the time I woke up, and the sun was barely even coming up when we landed, so I could only see the lights of Sydney and nothing much else. And the airplane food on this flight was one of the nastiest I have ever seen, even though I was not been on so-so many flights.

Sydney - the begging

When we landed I had to go visa control and customs which was not bad, but a bit long... They were really nice because opened Australian lines to all foreigners as well, because there weren't many Australians anyway. So that has helped a lot. I did not have any problems with my medicine that I have taken through, even though they asked what it was, and I showed my papers about it as well. But since they are trying to protect all Australian nature, they check for every kind of interesting thing. For example if you have any outdoors sport equipment you should report it. So I did, as I had two hiking boots, which were highlighted as examples. The quaranteen officer took them away and thoroughly inspected the bottom of them for any soil residue or anything like that so that when I will use it in the Australian wilderness, I would not transfer it there. It was fun... He did wash clean one pair of hiking boots for me, so thanks for that, mate :)

I managed to get accommodation and company  through Couch Surfing - thanks for the Idea Andy, by the way, read his blog, it's great: http://fel-ut.blogspot.hu/ I met a great guy called Charlie, and he said I can crash with him for two days. As I got through customs and everything, I got a prepaid cell, which has ridiculously good rates, compared to most of the Hungarian options, even though it's only a prepaid. My number is - if you would like to reach me by phone for any reason - 0451003201 So I called Charlie and we set up a meet at one of the train stations.

Sydney's public transportation is great. There are the twenty something train lines which are all really great, and also a little bit expensive, especially if you do not have a student ID, and you happen to only need a one ride, one way adult ticket... But other than that it is great, and I've got from the airport to the middle of the city in just 30 minutes.

There is although a really great mystery for me. I could not use any POS terminals since I arrived. I'm starting to think that this is some kind of an Australian network, and it shouldn't even work with anything else... When you plug your card in, you have to choose whether you have a savings, a credit or a debit account, and I tried it with all possibilities, but yet it always rejects the card... Well, does not matter anymore, because I will go to the banks tomorrow, and open an Australian account, and I will also have the chance to reveal this great mystery with someone's help from the finance sector :)

After my train ride I did manage to meet Charlie just fine but that is a story for another post so bye for now and take care.