Sydney!

Oh dear, it has been eons since I posted last, and there has been quite a lot to post about! Now that I am done with law school exams, I shall endeavor to recap the past 6 months as much as possible. First on the list - Sydney!

In mid January I went to Sydney for a few days to check out the sights and catch up with some friends.  I had an amazing time and did so much!  Four days definitely wasn't enough time to spend in Australia's most populous city.

During my visit, I stayed with a friend that I made at the HPAIR conference in Seoul.  A little networking goes a long way.  He and his family live in a suburb in West Sydney, and were so accommodating and hospitable.  They were really fantastic, and I couldn't have stayed with better people!

I took a bus into Sydney from Melbourne, which took about 14 hours during the day.  We left at around 7 in the morning and arrived to Sydney at about 9.  From there, I was supposed to take a train to Penrith, where my friend lives, but as soon as the train arrived it was terminated because of a fatality on the tracks!  So instead, I took a cab and met my friend halfway between where he lives and where I was coming from.  Taxis in Sydney are expensive!  They made me miss D.C. cab fares, which I never thought could be possible.

The next morning, I met my friend Jonathan in the city for some sight seeing.  Jonathan went to FSU with me, but he decided to transfer in the middle of his degree and is now attending Macquarie University in Sydney.  We had such an amazing day.  Jonathan was a most excellent tour guide and we were able to visit all of the big Sydney attractions.

We started at Darling Harbour, which has tons of shops and restaurants and also plays host to many events throughout the year.  

Water! Hey look, there's the opera house in the distance!

Le pose with le view from le harbour

Jonathan then took me on a stroll through the city as we made our way to Sydney Harbour

Buildings!

This is where they filmed The Matrix! Recognize it?

The bridge! And a cruise ship!

Ibises! These guys were EVERYWHERE eating things! Look at them go!

The opera house! 

A less shady picture of the opera house. Magnificent!

Me and my lovely tour guide! Jonathan is such a gem! He put up with me all day, so you know he's good people :)

Really wanted to climb the bridge, but it was like $200 to do it. So I just looked at it instead.

And then we walked around Sydney Harbour some more and ended at the Botanical Gardens!

Aboriginal man playing a didgeridoo! 

Of course, I had to get a picture throwing up the Lundquist sign.

The Sydney Opera House up close! It is made out of reflective tiles which is why when it  is shady the opera house looks gray and when it is sunny looks like it is glowing!

Ibis!!!!

Unfortunately, I've forgotten the name of this tree! But it's filled with water, which is why it's so fat! Apparently this is one of the ways the Aboriginals would get their water!

View of the bridge and opera house from the Botanical Gardens. Look how it glows!

Seriously in love with this view. Look at the yacht!

One day, I too shall have a yacht docked in Sydney Harbour! Crossed fingers, ok?

All around Australia they have disposal units for needles. A while ago there were old heroin needles littering parks and beaches and kids stepping on them and getting infected, so they have put these up to encourage safe disposal

The next day, I went to the Taronga Zoo with Sarah, my friend's beautiful sister! We took a ferry ride to get there! It was warm and sunny; perfect zoo weather. We had so much fun looking at all the cute animals!! I took way too many pictures of them, so I'll just share my favorites (mostly the Australian animals).

Last picture of the opera house, I swear! This was on the ferry ride to Taronga

LOLZ just kidding, this is the last one

Zoo pals!

Koala! Did you know they're not really bears?

"What do you mean I'm not a bear? I have all the koala-fications!"

Komodo dragon! Always a favorite

He posed for us!

I couldn't resist - this view from the zoo is amazing!

Smiley crocodile!

Penguins!

The snow leopard doing real Matrix-type stunts

Look at him go!

Echidna! He was my favorite!

He came right up to us to say hello :)

Tasmanian devil. They are nocturnal, so it was his bedtime when we saw him

Pretty sure the kangaroo is pregnant or has a baby in her pouch. Seeeee?

Le pose!

Emu!

Kangaroos really like to make little holes and sit in the dirt to stay cool during the hot summer months!

Scratch!

Peacock!

So that's pretty much what I did in Sydney. It was a wonderful trip, and I'd definitely go back! Maybe next time I will hit up Bondi Beach!

Heart and Seoul

I am finally back in DC after my Korea trip.  I had such a wonderful experience at this conference and was able to meet some amazing people! 
Here is the link for the conference in case anyone is interested in applying for future events: http://www.hpair.org/
Anywhey, I was couch surfing while I was there with this wonderful guy who was kind and generous enough to let me sleep in his home for a week.  I had a mattress on the floor and there was a screen door I could slide close for privacy.  He lived like10-15 minutes away from the conference venue in Seoul, so it was very convenient.  I had a bit of a rocky start coming, but fortunately the rest of my experiences were all amazing.  When I arrived, I took a bus from the airport into Seoul and got off somewhere near my host's apartment.  I still had to take a cab to his place so I flagged one down and shoved my luggage inside.  Meanwhile, the traffic is pretty bad and cars were honking at us.  As soon as I sat down, I tried telling my driver where I needed to go, but he couldn't understand me at all.  Suddenly, he got out of the car and started yelling at another driver.  They were screaming their lungs out at each other for a couple of minutes, and then my driver followed this other car around the corner, still screaming his head off.  Then he came back and told me to get out.  I was so confused and had no idea what was going on.  To make matters worse, nobody understood me when I told them where I needed to go, and it was difficult to find someone on the street who spoke English.  Finally, I came across two young professional types and they helped me out.  They were the sweetest girls and got a cab for me and gave the driver directions to my host's apartment.  So yeah, bit of a rough start, but everything went really smoothly after that.
That evening, my host took me out to look around the area.  We took the nicest, most high tech subway I think I've ever been on in my life and then walked around Gangnam.  Then we saw a guy in a cartoon cat suit and I HAD to take a picture with him.  He was out promoting some restaurant or cafe, and my host thought it was a cat cafe, so we checked it out, and it was AWESOME.  We payed like $8 for entry, which included a drink, and there were cats EVERYWHERE, just chillin.  And we got to pet them and play with them.  Super fun, right?
The next day was the pre-conference tour, and I went to the DMZ with a bunch of the other delegates.  This was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.  On the bus ride there, we watched this really cool documentary about the Korean war.  Okay, so I thought it was really cool, but everyone else fell asleep.  Anywhey, our first stop was at this cultural museum where we saw a bunch of North Korean goods on display as well as old army stuff like tanks and planes.  After that we had a Korean BBQ lunch and made our way to this crazy old tunnel that the North Koreans had dug and walked through it.  Good thing we had helmets on, otherwise I would have been unconscious within an hour from banging my head against the ceiling so much.  After we got back out of the tunnel we got to take pictures with a bunch of the ROK soldiers and after that we went to the border where all the barbed wire fences were.  We had a military briefing and looked around some more and also wrote our well wishes on ribbons and tied them to the fences. 
The conference itself was great.  I was in the Asian Security panel so we had a lot of speakers talk about nuclear issues, terrorism, etc. I met some really great and interesting people and I hope I'll be able to keep in touch with many of them from now on :)

Korea!!!

I am so excited.  Tomorrow morning at 6.45, I will depart from the Baltimore airport and be on my way to Seoul, South Korea!  I am going for a week long academic project, HPAIR, that I also went to my junior year of college in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  They have two conferences per year, one at Harvard, which is the host school, and one in an Asian country.  The conference focuses on Asian and international relations, and the last time I went it was pretty awesome, so I'm sure that this time around it won't be any different.  Unless it's even more awesome since it's in freaking Seoul. 
I've never actually had a huge interest in going to East Asia until fairly recently.  It'll definitely be a new experience and I'm really excited to see what happens!
Pictures coming soon :)