#UDAbroad 1stday

[josaphire]

The Journey Has Begun. Welcome to Australia!

Welcome to Australia!

To start 2019, I flew to Sydney, Australia. Set aside all hassle before the trip (Visas, tickets, booking room, etc.), this is a great and special trip for me. I, finally, take the courage and all my guts to actually doing the study abroad program, and this definitely will be a good experience. The program is not starting until tomorrow, Jan 13th, and I arrived 2 days early. Thus, I have so much time to walk around and see things.

Arrived to Sydney at about 7ish, it didn't take me so long to go through the customs; actually, it took roughly 5 minutes (or less) to get through the gate. Pheww! The public transportation here, especially the train is great; it really easy to figure out where to go and how to use it. I am very lucky that I did not get lost or getting any trouble using it since I have lived in Delaware since I came to America, and as you know, we rarely use the train (or not using at all). And one thing needs to be noted, I am very very bad at direction; I get lost easily even the most simple road. Finding the train route was terrific, finding the way to the hostel is not so good. For some reason, my activated sim did not allow me to use the internet ( which I found out later that it needed some more manual set up). I had to only rely on my skill, which is not so good, to find the way to the hostel. Walking around the King Cross neighborhood for roughly 30 mins, I still couldn’t find my hostel, and it's raining! ( or actually sprinkling). A kind man and a lovely girl helped me to find it. They were eagerly asked everyone around to help me. Funny enough, that place was right around the corner, its entrance just is in a different street. I was like, I found the hostel's wifi but I couldn't find the physical place. Weird, right? Long story short, I found the place; the party people over there help me to bring my luggage upstairs, which was very nice of them. The place I stayed is a backpacker's place; it's full of young, adventurous people. Staying in a mixed gender, dorm-like hostel is so new to me, but somehow, it's still a great experience.

Getting up early in the morning ( due to the jet lag, I guess) I have the chance to get out of the house and explore a couple of places around. Being a cheap thrill, I tried to find a free destination to visit, but first, I need to check in to the most popular destination in Sydney, the Sydney Opera House.

The weather in Sydney today is perfect to walk around, so I take this chance, going around the harbor, visiting the Royal Botanical Garden, Eating Vietnamese food in Koreatown ( which is definitely weird), and found World Square Center !!!!. I'm still a little bit jet lag, but bubble tea saves the day! For now, I'm having a lot of fun by myself, but I can't wait for my people to come here and hanging out together. What's next? I don't know, but one thing I know for sure, my journey has just begun!

With love,

Anh.