Overnight at the hospital

Oosu, as true medical geeks, we did an overnight stay at the hospital night.. And following the universal laws of annoyance, there were no emergencies :( i mean sure.. Its not like we were hoping some kid became really ill.. But you know.. Break a leg or something at least :P)

Luckily we got to practice suturing at least at a tutorial for cardiac surgeons :P note, dropping needle holder with needle in it in front of head of cardio surgeons is never a good idea :P.. Oh well.. After stealing plenty of suture material we left.. Quietest place to sleep was some couches in the surg waiting room, but only catch was bright lights and a chair that squealed like crazy everytime you move in the slightest.

Anyway, finally got my foot into the ophthal department and will be bugging them.

Anyways, train ride gettin bumpy, cyas

Back from Hokkaido Minitrip

back from trip on tue night and was lotsa fun, drove around heaps ate lots of good food. Candie didnt bother us too much which was always nice :P Check out the photos on facebook... theres lots :)

oh and speaking of good food, last night we went to an all you can eat crab place. $36 and basically you have 90 minutes exactly (they literally tell you to leave) to eat as much crab as you want. the $36 package got you crab legs and a bit of body attached, for $60 you get body too (but that was a bit too expensive). But either way between 3 people we finished 12 half crabs, so i think we got our $36 worth of crab. and they give you scissors/nutcrackers so its quite efficient.
We went for the king crab/snow crab leg combo. The snow crabs were a bit sweeter i thought, but the king crabs were much more `meaty`.

Roads here are really really nice, but the speed limit system here is ridiculously stupid. A normal 80~100kmh road in Australia is sign posted here at about 40kmh. Which of course leads to everybody speeding, but the tricky thing is nobody really knows how much to
speed so everybody goes at different speeds which makes it kinda frustrating is you have to keep overtaking every second car. Havent actually seen any police on the road, but they do have occasional big overhead obvious speed cameras which again were not sure if they work,
as on a road signed at 40kmh everyone slows down from 100 to about 70 to drive through the speed camera.　　So ive decided my ultimate goal here is to Hire a GTR/some other nice sports car, get a radar detector (apparently legal here) and just go nuts :D only problem is that the
best car ive found so far is a s2000 which has a 100km limit... poo... oh well... on with the search :P

Back from minitrip around hokkaido

Got back from trip on tue night and was lotsa fun, drove around heaps
ate lots of good food. Candie didnt bother us too much which was
always nice :P Check out the photos on facebook... theres lots :)

oh and speaking of good food, last night we went to an all you can eat
crab place. $36 and basically you have 90 minutes exactly (they
literally tell you to leave) to eat as much crab as you want. the $36
package got you crab legs and a bit of body attached, for $60 you get
body too (but that was a bit too expensive). But either way between
3 people we finished 12 half crabs, so i think we got our $36 worth of
crab. and they give you scissors/nutcrackers so its quite efficient.
We went for the king crab/snow crab leg combo. The snow crabs were a
bit sweeter i thought, but the king crabs were much more `meaty`.

Roads here are really really nice, but the speed limit system here is
ridiculously stupid. A normal 80~100kmh road in Australia is sign
posted here at about 40kmh. Which of course leads to everybody
speeding, but the tricky thing is nobody really knows how much to
speed so everybody goes at different speeds which makes it kinda
frustrating is you have to keep overtaking every second car. Havent
actually seen any police on the road, but they do have occasional big
overhead obvious speed cameras which again were not sure if they work,
as on a road signed at 40kmh everyone slows down from 100 to about 70
to drive through the speed camera.　　So ive decided my ultimate goal
here is to Hire a GTR/some other nice sports car, get a radar detector
(apparently legal here) and just go nuts :D only problem is that the
best car ive found so far is a s2000 which has a 100km limit... poo...
oh well... on with the search :P

Back from minitrip around hokkaido

Got back from trip on tue night and was lotsa fun, drove around heaps
ate lots of good food. Candie didnt bother us too much which was
always nice :P Check out the photos on facebook... theres lots :)

oh and speaking of good food, last night we went to an all you can eat
crab place. $36 and basically you have 90 minutes exactly (they
literally tell you to leave) to eat as much crab as you want. the $36
package got you crab legs and a bit of body attached, for $60 you get
body too (but that was a bit too expensive). But either way between
3 people we finished 12 half crabs, so i think we got our $36 worth of
crab. and they give you scissors/nutcrackers so its quite efficient.
We went for the king crab/snow crab leg combo. The snow crabs were a
bit sweeter i thought, but the king crabs were much more `meaty`.

Roads here are really really nice, but the speed limit system here is
ridiculously stupid. A normal 80~100kmh road in Australia is sign
posted here at about 40kmh. Which of course leads to everybody
speeding, but the tricky thing is nobody really knows how much to
speed so everybody goes at different speeds which makes it kinda
frustrating is you have to keep overtaking every second car. Havent
actually seen any police on the road, but they do have occasional big
overhead obvious speed cameras which again were not sure if they work,
as on a road signed at 40kmh everyone slows down from 100 to about 70
to drive through the speed camera.　　So ive decided my ultimate goal
here is to Hire a GTR/some other nice sports car, get a radar detector
(apparently legal here) and just go nuts :D only problem is that the
best car ive found so far is a s2000 which has a 100km limit... poo...
oh well... on with the search :P

Well, its been a crummy rainy weekend... Sapporo's way of saying HAHA to our weekend plans of going to Furano (some sort of nice summery place). Originally the plan was to rent a car (known as... 'rentacar' shops... original hey) which costs about 40-50 for a teensy sized little cardbox looking 'car' (i mean its not like we're gonna cough up that extra 10 for a normal looking corolla which has a crumple zone you don't need a microscope to find.. we're cheap students ^^). But due to the crappy weather we instead stayed in, slept, shopped, slept, watched tv and cooked.

In order to be economical, and lazy we decided to cook the first week of lunches and box it, and as per usual, we planned on making pasta, 10 boxes of it... Everything was going great and the food tasted num nums... the problem only began when we realised that after filling our 10 boxes, we probably had enough pasta to fill another 7 boxes :S ... oops :P so uh.. we had a mega pasta lunch.. still have a huge bowl in the fridge of pasta, and 10 frozen pasta meals, ready to be defrosted and eaten at hospital tommorow.

Speaking of the hospital, we are still deciding what the best (i.e. cheapest) way of getting there is. On friday we decided to try biking it, and we made it there and back... only problem is that its about a 30km round trip... The train trip costs $5 each way... but in order to continue doing that cycle route, we definately need to invest in some bike shorts.. Testicular squishing becomes a serious issue after about 10kms, and its a problem that needs attention. So for the mean time, the plan is to cycle to the main station, saving us $4 a day, then training the other 10km.

Well anyways, i've gotta go do some stupid research work :( cya all soon...

Sapporo, Japan

Hey all, I'm currently in Sapporo Japan, waiting for Carlos to join ome on thursday. We're going to be here for a couple of months doing elective and travelling, so we found these cool apartments which is really cheap (13 each a night) for the 'deluxe' (i.e. can stand up inside) room. The place actually is pretty cool, but uh... its basically a lgihtly furnished apartment, so I've been spending most of the week buying bits and pieces (well mostly procrastinating about what to buy, but i've bought toilet paper so far, so i think i got the essentials down pat :P).

Also bought a second hand bike yesterday, and exploring the city on bike is so cool.. Bikes are actually pretty common here, so you don't get shood off the footpaths, and it lets me explore the city whilst sitting on my ass like a lazy bum :) I'm currently at Odori park, which is a strip of park in the middle of the city. they got gardens, fountains and beer gardens... I think its because of some summer festival, but theres more beer gardens than actual park... so either its a festival or they really really like their beer :P Weather is also really nice... like mid 20's and sunny...

Turns out my plan of watching lots and lots of anime to practice my japanese kinda paid off... I am able to converse... kinda, well enough so i don't have to look up my dictionary every second word which is always nice...

Spent most of today trying to get myself a mobile phone... first they said the SIM cards won't work in my phone, but there were these dudes in the street with ads giving away free candy for one of the mobile phone company... after getting my free candy, i asked if i could borrow a SIM card to try in my phone and low and behold, it worked >< ... so back to another store (their like maccas... can't go 3 blocks without a mobile phone store). Now their like oh yea, it does work.. but you need to buy a phone from us anyway >< ... oh well, maybe will pursue it more later...

Well, anyway i gotta get dinner somewhere (supermarkets are great here... $5 prepared meals :D) and go do some shopping... more exploring later, and more posts coming up... Photos are on facebook, so feel free to check em out :)

Chans

The Red (well more brown) Centre of Australia

After a brief stop in Melbourne, where i blissfully managed to procrastinate my time away accomplishing none of the growing todo list items calling me, I'm now in Alice Springs. Stopping over on the way to Ayers rock, As any good geek would do, had a coffee and got the old bluetooth keyboard out to relax whilst writing random crap on a blog :)

Its actually quite nice here, and i'm still at the airport, just sitting outside the cafe. The weather is PERFECT, its sunny as wityhout a trace of a cloud, and freezing cold too :) best weather ever... sunny and cold... see people, this is the silverlining to the drought, i get nice weather :)

Current plan is to do one sunrise trip to the big ol rock, and generally sit around doing very little for the rest of the time. Brought the whole camera setup, but have a feeling its not gonna get too much heavy duty use... getting good photos out here will require a lot of effort, unsure if a lot of effort is likely to happen these days :P If anyone knows any particularly spectacular photogenic locations out here, pls sms me, or msg me...i might be lazy, but uh... i'm not beyond putting in effort for a dam good photo... but it better be dam good :P

The cult of Nokia is growing... 2 friends with N82's now... muahhaha... if you don't have one now, just give up and get one... you know you want it ;)

Oh, and alice springs here really is the center of boganville... its not funny how many thongs and wifebeaterrs are being sported... seems to be standard issue uniform, and I haven't even left the airport :S GLA frequency surprisingly not too bad out here... WTF... a bird just flew onto my table and started eating leftovers on the chair next to me LOL... talk about friendly birds... of course i took a picture of it ^^ hang on... its gone now... oh well...

Anyways, my alarm just went off to board the plane, so i should get movin... Cyaz all soon..

Back on the road

Whatup all.. I'm back on the travelling path, and this blog will get some heavy duty updating over the next few months.

But first, i have to say. I'm quite excited to report i'm in the geekiest situation imaginable. I'm using my mobile phone with a bluetooth keyboard at starbucks, sipping coffee, connected to the free wifi, and blogging... I don't really think theres anything geekier one could do (and if you say use a mac i'll shoot you, seriously).

Geekiness aside, i've decided that i've officially finished final year medicine. Job applications are done, interviews, check, all important hospital rotations at the Alf, done, all i've got left is a holiday rotation, elective (another holiday really) and Bendigo ICU stuff... which will be a nice refresher on how not to kill people before travelling some more then getting back into some serious hardcore work that you stupid interns have been bitching about all year :P

I'm currently in singapore airport (who incidentally don't open shop till 5am the lazy bastards) on my way to lanka. then will be back in aus for a bit, go to uluru, then head to japan, and most likely europe from there :) so much for 'I'm not interested in travelling, thats for losers'... oh wellz

The 2 days i've spent in singapore have been quite fun, thanks for taking me around kev, appreciate it. singapore was the perfect my style holiday... got up around 11 each day, sat around having lunch for ages, then just wondering around various parts of singapore with a lot of sitting down at moderately photogenic places, but more importantly with cool breezes :P very relaxing, just whats needed after a hardcore 6 months. The food here is freakin awesome... like seriously awesome. Much variety, asian to curry to western, everything, and all done quite well. The fish head curry in particular was num nums :) The one thing that will stick with me about singapore is the freakin housing developments... so many of the friggen things, and they all look clean and... nice.. weird huh? public housing thats spick and span... and in some areas you literally see horizon to horizon of high rise flats... its kinda weird lol. But the most important thing in singapore is clearly the brewery Brewerkz. DAM that was good beer... first time I didn't have to drink the stuff put on a smile and say 'tasty'.. it really was dam tasty this time lol... VB can get f'd that stuff owned. Went through quite a bit of it too ^^ considering the most cost effective was to buy half a liter each... and uh... well you wanna try a few beers at least ;) and sample the whiskey of course :D

Now the most important part of this blog continuing from the Japan postings is the GLA standards here. (read back a few posts if you haven't been acquainted with this acronym... stands for Good Looking Alert ... various variations of it, but essentially hot chicks ahoy). I can quite dissapointedly say that singapore is a definate GLA FAIL... EPIC FAIL.. like seriously... prawn, paperbag, *insert own acronym here*

Anyways, flight is being called, so I'd better head off... that said, it is a flight to lanka so half the bloody plane is going to turn up late, gotta love curry time :)

We're back :)

Hey all, we arrived yesterday, but was too buggered to post anything :P currently staying with the cabalag's, and the food here is yummy too :)

Fuji trip was quite cool, and lots of photos were taken :) unfortunately tour buses refuse to stop when i see a good photo stop, so i had to make do with the stops they made :P because of the good weather we had an awesome view of the mountain, and got to drive up to the 5th station. Later we went on a boring ferry trip, but then took a cool trip on a cable car to these sulphur mines. They stunk like gayan after taking a dump in the mornings, but meh, we can say we've been there now. Later we headed to the hotel, and the tour guide pointed out a place with 2 hotels, one looked nice, the other looked dodge.. Luckily we got the nice one, and again we went onsen, but not as nice this time as it was kind of closed, and it wasn't snowing like last
time. Next day we were going to go to these themed hot springs, like beer flavour, wine flavour, tea flavour etc, but you had to bring own bather so we didn't end up going :( after heading back to tokyo we went to watch bleach the movie, but it was finished, so we watched national treasure instead.. But, considering we really wanted to watch it, we went back in the morning and watched it :) woot, we can officially say we've watched an anime movie in japan.. Could barely understand it considering it was in japanese, but that's not the point :P

After having our last random drink of the day, we boarded the plane back to aus. The flight back was fairly uneventful, though i do love my new headphones :) noise cancellation with awesome bass = happy camper :)

Well, that's pretty much it for our japan trip, and we all thoroughly had fun. Definately a country i'd love to revisit. Now the only problem is that the gla count has decreased significantly.. The only gla's at the airport were jap's getting off our flight :( oh well.. Back we go.. Some day, some day :P

Chans

Bus to fuji

It's a train post, no, it's a plane post? No, it's a bus post :P (say that with the superman music in your head, sounds way cooler). Haven't written for a bit now as we haven't had any long commutes lately.

Disneyland was awesome, towards the second half of the day we got to go on the roller coasters etc, their were 2 big ones which were awesome, but didn't last too long :( and the queue's are like 70 minutes, so we just used the fast pass system and went once (take a ticket, and get quick entry a few hours later). We did find this cool roller coaster though that lasted only about 15 seconds, but it was tucked in a corner, so there was no wait time, get off ride, run back to entrance, go again :P overall fun day, though we spent more on food than the ticket in i think >< oh and akki, i got you some cool stuff :)

The next couple of days weren't particularly exciting.. Mostly just shopping, buying presents for you fools :P yesterday night was cool though, we stopped off at this place for dinner which looked like a restaurant from naruto :P menu was in jap, so we just explained what
we can eat, and told them to serve us anything :) we got this yummy pumpkin thing, awesome sashimi, sweet fish and turnip, rice, miso, and this lemon sorbet which was the best. We then watched naruto with an asahi :) the beer was crap, and the one hour naruto special turned
into dbz style slow.. But oh well, we can officially say we watched naruto in japan :)

Now we're on a bus heading to mt fuji on a tour.. Not a gla on the bus :( bloody tourists.. Will let you know how it goes when back..
Chans

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