The blog post to end all blog posts

Hopefully this isn’t actually the blog post to end all blog posts, as I do plan on writing more after this. I just mean this should be the best blog post ever.

So this is what you missed:

Friday, June 29

Visited Freemantle, which was a pretty cool place. We toured a prison that was quarried and built by the prisoners, which seems pretty efficient. It held some of the first convicts to be sent to Western Australia, although most of them were sent to the other side (at least that’s what I thought they said, I could be wrong). We also visited an open market, which was neat. There are not a lot of places like it in the States. We also went on a Ferris wheel and planned to go to a place with really good fish and chips, however it closed, and so did everywhere else and we ended up eating fast food in the city (I hate the city… and fast food. So obviously I did not enjoy that part of the night very much).

That's Ferris wheel

Monday, July 2

This morning we got up and kayaked about 4 or so miles. We went out on the ocean to a little rock and saw a bunch of seals. The seals seemed territorial at first, but they actually were quite playful and followed us all the way back to shore. What makes us even more awesome for doing it was that there was a shark attack just 3 days prior at the same beach. The shark attacked a kayaker, so we knew he was out to get us. Sadly, I did not get any pictures of the seals (my camera is not waterproof), but here's the aftermath:

A kayak and I

Look at all that beautiful sand on me. I failed to mention our failed boat launch. Sam jumped in the kayak (we had a shared one, pictured above) before we had made it past the waves breaking, so then when a wave crashed on the kayak, he jumped out while I got nailed by the kayak and dragged my face along the sand.

Afterwards, we went to a park and fed some birds:

Those white ones everywhere were the ones we tried to avoid feeding. Because look at how overpopulated they are. Plus they're really mean. And not as pretty as the green or pink ones.

Wednesday, July 4

Did not celebrate Independence Day. Went tracting and found an awesome family. They were from Brazil and were so nice, but spoke very little English.

Friday, July 6

Went offroading to a beach and had a huge bonfire there.

Friday, July 13

Went tracting again and found another potential investigator, afterwards finally saw kangaroos. And like 20 of them, no less.

Saturday, July 14

After running around the mall finding some awesome birthday presents, and then going to great lengths to retrieve my long-lost pants from a friend’s house, we finally hit the road to drive to Bunbury, about 2 hours south of Perth. It took a little longer as we had to pick up Darcy (my homie) from the hospital, where one of his friends is (hopefully) recovering. When we got there we were just in time for the birthday bonfire. Some of the highlights of the night include meeting someone else from Orange County (my birthplace), borrowing (stealing) a car and returning it without being noticed, and not sleeping for hours until 5 am when I finally crashed on a trampoline.

Well that brings us up to now and I’ll try to keep you more updated.

The beach

This post was initially intended to be posted like 5 days ago, so yeah.

The past few days haven’t been too exciting, mostly we’ve just been job searching and hanging out with some people. However, I did get to go to the beach.

We stopped by a harbor at first which was really cool. I know they have this sort of stuff back home, but I never really did anything like it. So it was pretty fun, except for I had a constant fear of dropping my phone and it falling through the floor and into the ocean.

After that, we drove up the coast over to a real beach, which was pretty nice. It was very cold, so we didn’t bother getting into the ocean, but we got to walk around in the sand. There were actually a bunch of people surfing, which was pretty neat.

I just wish it was a little bit warmer (it was probably like 56-58 degrees that day). Ideally, there will be a warm day next week so we can go to the beach again. I still have some fear of sharks and deadly jellyfish though…

Since it has been 5 days, a few more things have happened:

On Thursday, additionally, I did get to go to Sam’s house and borrow his very old and very cheap guitar. I had to restring it, but now it sounds amazing. Just kidding, but it’ll do. It’s kept me somewhat busy during down time.

On Friday night, Sam and I intended to go to his friend’s house for a movie night. Sam thought it would be a cool idea to walk, since she only lived like a half hour walk away. Unfortunately, Sam also doesn’t know how to use a map, and we ended up walking around for almost 2 hours, ending up a few miles from where we were trying to get before his friends had to come pick us up. We probably would’ve never found our way to their house, too.

On Saturday night, we went back to the harbor and went out for pizza at Little Caesar’s, which is nothing like Little Caesar’s in America. Here they sold really fancy pizzas. We got a chicken fettuccini pizza and it was, surprisingly, really good. After that we ate churros and hot chocolate at San Churros. I got a “Classic Spanish” hot chocolate, which I assumed just meant it would be regular hot chocolate with some Spanish twist, but actually it was just pretty much a thick chocolaty paste that was pretty much the texture of pudding. It was actually really good, just way too thick and way too sweet. Sorry for the lack of pictures here.

Every day since has just been regular days, except for that I spent all of Monday turning in resumes and online applications to no avail. I forgot how much I hated job searching. Monday morning I did get to Skype with the fam and I got this gem:

The first 3 days

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering what I’ve been up to since I got here. The honest answer is not a lot. I arrived at 6:30 or so (local time) and my friends weren’t at the airport. I immediately panicked and called my dad and got everyone of Sam’s (I’m staying with Sam) contact numbers and called of them repeatedly until finally he showed up (I never got a hold of him).

Sam, Chelsea, and I went out for pancakes and visited some of the city of Perth. It was pretty nice, even though I hate being in cities and Perth is a much bigger city than I’m used to. We got to visit a few shops and an outdoor mall. It was a very different experience. All the shops just leave their doors wide open, which I guess make a lot more sense normally when it’s not the middle of winter (it was about 60 or so degrees the first day). I left my camera in Chelsea’s car at this point, so this part of my adventures will not have any pictures, sadly.

After that, I got to meet some of Sam’s family at their home, applied for a few jobs, and then came to his grandparents’ house where we will be living. Then, I crashed on my bed at 5 pm and slept until 5 am. But at least I did better than anyone would’ve thought.

The next morning I woke up at 5, got a couple of things done, and ate some breakfast. Sam and I hung out with Sam’s friend Calvin. After that, we got to take the train back to his parent’s home where we watched Bride Wars (I mostly slept during that), and then played Settlers of Catan.

Today (Sunday), I got up right on time, well actually 9:30, which means we missed morning church. I got ready by 10:15, and then studied some Preach My Gospel with a bowl of Milo (which is some weird grainy chocolate-flake cereal). After doing that for about an hour, I woke up Sam and he got ready to go, so by 12:30 we were out the door.

Church wasn’t quite what I was used to. First of all, the ward was about 1/3 the size of my home ward, as was the chapel. It also took us about 15 minutes to get to the chapel, which would be unheard of in Tri-Cities. Also, this ward was apparently the largest in the stake. On top of that, almost everyone had an accent (there were quite a few Americans, actually). But at the same time, it was what I’ve always been used to. There was a really great spirit there as I observed the faithfulness of the Latter-day Saints here. And, it’s really nice to know that wherever I go, the church will always be full of welcoming people and will always teach the same doctrine, so there weren’t any surprises there.

After church, we had an opportunity to go to a Young Single Adult fireside. The speaker was Lorin Nicholson, who is a famous Australian motivational speaker. He is a blind guitarist, and listening to him play was absolutely amazing. Here’s a video of him:

He was an awesome speaker and his testimony was very strong. He has an “I’m a Mormon” video too:

The speaker after him was the mission president for the area. I expected him to have a hard time following Brother Nicholson, but he was also very entertaining and awesome to listen to. It was a really great fireside and afterwards I got to talk to a lot of cool people. Hopefully I run into them more because I can’t remember any of them.

Here we goooo! (My pilgrimage)

The past five days have been crazy. I’ve finished up the quarter and taken finals, earning my Associate’s Degree and then registered for classes this Fall, as well as made other preparations for transitioning to BYU. I’ve worked my final shift at the theater. I’ve said goodbye to a lot of people that I’ll probably never see again. I’ve packed up my whole life in boxes.

Basically, I’ve been running around trying to get things done, and had to run out the door. I didn’t even get to say “goodbye, house” when I left my home in West Richland this morning, with no plans of returning for the next 6 months. It seems I’m always a little bit behind and I have to scurry around like a shrew to get through life. I’m not complaining. I’m just saying I wish I had time to take a breath now and then.

An analogy for my life

 

At any rate, this morning (when I say this morning, I mean about 30 hours ago) I left my house and made the long trip to the Sea-Tac airport. It seemed like a way to short drive. I rushed into the airport and attempted to check in. It took forever to find someone to help me, and when they did it took like 2 minutes, and I just barely made the deadline for baggage check-in, and then just barely boarded on time. Like a shrew.

Home sweet home

I know the focus is the road in this picture, but if you look just above it, there's some lovely landscape

Washington slowly gets more treesome

My first flight took about ten hours. I kept myself entertained by watching John Carter and then Man on a Ledge, to movies I never bothered watching in theaters. And they were just about as terrible as I expected them to be, but you never really notice on a plane until the end of it, fortunately. I also got a little bit of sleep, about two hours, putting my total amount of sleep at 4 hours for the past 48. I haven’t flown in about 4 or 5 years, so it was also very exciting just to experience those feelings again.

It also made me think about how weird flying is. I mean basically we get in a metal tube with wings attached to it. And they’re just like “it’ll fly” and we assume someone has done the math. Which they have, it’s just crazy to think that we’re flying because this thing that weighs several tons has some wings that are the right shape attached to it. What’s even more crazy is thinking that the thing propelling it is an engine. Basically, something that uses the mechanism of exploding to create kinetic energy. I know that we’ve tested and calculated and people who are smarter than me have figured out exactly how to account for all the forces affecting these things, but I just think that if you explained the idea behind them to scientists a few hundred years ago, they’d call that idea insane. So next time you’re on a plane, remember that you’re in a several ton metal tube propelled by explosions. I hope that doesn’t freak you out too much.

Getting close to Tokyo

Getting closer to Tokyo

It was pretty interesting to fly westbound though. Although we lost a day by crossing the international date line, we pretty much only lost 2 hours (departed Seattle at 1 pm, arrived in Tokyo at 3 pm) because we were chasing the sun. The international date line itself is pretty confusing. On my return flight, for example, I’m going to arrive 6 hours before my departure (according to local times).

After those ten long hours, I got to the Tokyo Narita airport. Don’t ask me what Tokyo is like because I have no idea. I basically showed up, got to where I needed to transfer, and then left. Although I hoped I could see some part of the city, I was a little more scared of missing a flight. However, after this trip I’m really hoping more travel is in my future, so I doubt this will be my only visit to Tokyo.

The next flight was between Tokyo and Singapore. The All Nippon Airline flight was a lot nicer than the United flight that got me to Tokyo. Although I was a little stranged out by the inflight meal. I did try everything, even though I sort of wish I had skipped some of it.

Everything is about as unappetizing as it looks. The thing in the little box was some beef and rice which was actually pretty good.

The ANA flight was a lot shorter than my previous one. It was a lot less comfortable too, though. I had a window seat, so I didn’t bother standing up the entire time. Also, there was this awkward moment where I had taken my shoes off and was feeling around to see where they were left, and I felt something, turned out it was the foot of the guy sitting next to me. I spent the majorty of this flight sleeping though, which makes sense because although it was between 5-11pm local time, it was really between 1-7 am for my circadian rhythm.

I arrived in Singapore pretty close to midnight, local time. Again, I have no idea what Singapore is really like, I never left the airport. But I have to say, the airport is probably the coolest and nicest one I’ve ever been to. It was basically a mall. There were tons of shops, a butterfly room and koi pond, free computers to use (free wifi too, but not worth the hassle), and each gate had its own security checkpoint.

Does not capture how nice this airport was, but I was very scared of missing a flight, so I  only took one

Also, because of the timing, there were lots of people sleeping. I didn’t want to be too pervasive, but I  did get a picture:

Comfy

This wasn’t even the best one. People were sleeping in random places everywhere. Benches, right on the hard ground, and on top of vending machines. Okay, that last one was made up, but I’m sure it’s happened.

At the time of writing this, I’m on my final flight to Perth. We’ve been getting crazy turbulence. I wish I would’ve slept during this leg, as that would’ve best adjusted me for being in Perth time, but I guess I’ll just have to tough it out. After all, at the end of this I will have gone 72 hours on 10 hours of sleep.

I promise to post this as soon as I get in (probably tonight… which for anyone in America means tomorrow). And there is more to come, as my adventure has just begun! That even rhymed.

Oh! And I almost forgot: these are Rian’s best quotes from the ride to Seattle:

My mom was explaining what a lumiere is, and before she could finish, Rian interrupted to say “Blah blah blah, I already know.” She doesn’t..

Rian and Olivia were playing catchphrase, Olivia gives the hint that it’s an animal that “can be a pet or a snack.” Rian guessed a chicken. (It was a goldfish).

Later, Sara and Olivia were both trying to help Rian guess correctly. Sara said, “Dogs don’t have hands, they have…” “Whiskers!” was Rian’s reply.

It was hard to say goodbye to those 3 goofy girls. I’m really going to miss them.

The adventure begins

Hi. This is where I'm going to write about my adventures. Feel free to read about them!

That's me.

More recently, I've booked a trip to Australia for two months. I'm leaving in just 5 days. Which is crazy to me. There's a lot to do there and a lot to do before I go, but I plan on diligently keeping this blog up to date on how all of my adventures are going.