Surprise!

I heard through the grapevine that im a terrible blogger. Ya.

So here I am, 2 continents later writing to all of my anxious readers. Ill quickly recap japan and australia, or pretty much wont say anything about them. japan was ok. got over the whole thing pretty quickly and was happy to get out of there. im not much of a sushi and rice type. japan is super clean even though they have no garbage bins. the cost of everything is about the same as home, but transportation in their labrynth of trains and subways costs add up. i spent a day and a half out in the forrest near mount fuji. lots of natural hotsprings and they are crazy hot to bathe in. it was up in the middle of the cloud range, so even though i was near fuji, the clouds around me prevented any sightings. i did see i glimpse of it from tokyo atop the municipal government building, but nothing like the post cards... so that was slightly disappointing. i was surprised at how easy it was to do everything in japan, despite the massive language barrier. the only tricky part was the train system... which i wont explain here. oh, i should say that the flight from moscow to tokyo was cool because it flew over the urals and siberia, passing vladivostok before hitting japan.

the night flight from tokyo to australia got me in to Cairns in north oz about 7am or so. it was probably 19 out and awesome. it was nice to finally see white people again and hear english... no offense to all my asian fans-readers out there. the accent wasnt as harsh as i expected it to be, but i still couldnt understand some people. cairns didnt last long and before i knew it i was in sydney... home to the worlds most venomous and deadliest spider... which i saw, along with the top 5 deadliest snakes... all behind glass fortunately. sydney is nice... not too big in the center, but the surrounding areas have a lot to offer. i did go for a day trip out into the mountains...which arent really mountains... which are the size of mountains but they technically arent because of the way the were formed... not that you care about geology. anyways, i did see the southern cross as soon as i looked to the night sky.... so easy to pick out. its the constellation found on the aussie and kiwi flag. i went swimming in the cold winter ocean, not at bondi, but rather manly beach. oh, and i ate kangaroo burger and even cooked kangaroo on a beach bbq. sydney has a ton of free bbqs provided by the city, located all over the place. all gas operated, checked and filled up again by city workers throughout the day... anyone can use them any time. overall, australia was a short but really great stay. with the lifestyle that they live, its so easy to see why so many people move to sydney, and the rest of eastern australia. i forgot to mention that i pet a koala and emu, as well as played and pet kangaroos. one also attacked me... i think i have video of it, despite it being an unprovoked surprise attack.