An awesome birthday

12:14 pm 30/09/2008

I'm 17! We all slept in this morning and didn't end up getting down to breakfast til about 9:30. I got a card from my parents and Green Day's live CD/DVD Bullet in a Bible from Andrew. My parents weren't quite sure what to get me though so we're going shopping later today.

At breakfast we had someone from the holiday company Wyndham that we use to go on holidays with try and sell us a better package that allowed us to do more. He was a really nice guy and we ended up getting a one-off opportunity thingy simply because of the good timing of when we first signed up.

We're back at the unit now and we're just about to head out, so I guess I'll write more later.


6:45pm 30/09/2008

After about an hour of messing around, including making me shave, we finally got out and walked quickly to the nearby monorail station. It turns out there's a medium-sized monorail network that runs around the city and goes past Chinatown and Darling Harbour. We caught the monorail round to the Queen Victoria Building. There we spent about two hours, looking for somewhere to eat lunch and then juts hunting around looking for shops. I don't think I've ever seen a more confusing building. There are so many places and so many ways to get everywhere! :S :S Oh, and as we were walking around, Tim K from Venturers called to wish me a Happy Birthday :).

While we were there I saw this guy who had five empty paint tubs and a pair of drumsticks and was playing a whole load of drum routines on them. He was really awesome, I wouldn't of minded to see him play them on a real drum kit. We then found a JB Hi-Fi (for those who don't know, it's a shop full of CDs, DVDs, video games, computers and all sorts of other consumer technology products) so I could try and convince Dad to get me a laptop (the Asus Eee PC) as a joint birthday & Christmas present. It's only $680 and I offered to chip in $200 myself, and my Dad said he'd consider it, so I am a bit hopeful that he'll agree. I think he's definitely convinced that it's not just a toy now at the very least.

After we were done there we got back onto the Monorail and went down to Darling Harbour. There were some absolutely beautiful views and some great sights to see. We walked past a massive lighthouse and we saw the Australian Maritime Museum (although we didn't go inside). I must of taken about 250 photos of all the things in the harbour from all different angles.

We got an ice cream shortly after we got there, and then went to watch this guy performing in the street. He had some really cool acts like juggling an axe that weighed three kilos along with two machetes, but the majority of the act was his jokes, which were non-stop throughout the act. He had some lame ones, but that's expected. Most of his act was really good and really funny. He also borrowed someone's packet of cigarettes and then made a very big point to the young kids watching that you should never smoke and that it doesn't make you cool. I doubt that woman would of lent him her cigarettes if she'd know what he was about to do with them :P.

His act went for about an hour, and after we were done we kept walking around to the other side of the bay so we could see the rest of it. The sun was setting by then, so there were some really beautiful views. Then we walked back to the monorail and caught it back round to our original stop, and then walked back to the unit in some pretty high winds.

That's been my birthday so far. We're going out for dinner soon hopefully. Just one thing before I go: the person who named their wireless network “Britney Spears” should be ashamed of themselves.


11:39pm 30/09/2008

It was an enjoyable evening tonight. We caught the monorail back to Darling Harbour, then took our time walking around to the other side of the harbour so we could see all the surrounds in the night time with their lights on. I still don't know why office blocks are allowed to leave all their lights on at night.

Dinner was alright. The fish and chips were nice, but the venue was far too dark and impractical for my liking. We finished dinner after 10pm, which meant the monorail had stopped running for the night, so we had to walk the couple of kilometres back to the building we were staying at. I hadn't listened to music all day yet so I took that opportunity as we were walking back.

Overall it was a very nice birthday. But I know it's not really over yet: I know I've already got a couple of surprises waiting for me when I get home, and when I finally get some more Internet I'm probably gonna have half a dozen messages waiting for me as well :P. Anyways, it's late and we have another busy day planned tomorrow, so I'll see you all later.