Friday Yoon Sun, a girl from Korea I met on the bus to Newcastle, and myself went exploring around Newcastle. This meant that I got to experience public transportation on my own for the first time. Woo? As it turns out, it's quite expensive if you do not have a student id card, which I will be getting as soon as possible! Newcastle was originally founded as a steel mill town, but has outgrown that considerably. There is a huge coal shipping industry here, as many as 75 coal ships can be seen on the horizon waiting to get into the loading area. My host family told me that most of the coal goes to China. The "Newcastle" area is about 350,000 people, but spread out quite nicely. It has a busy nightlife, but can be a bit dangerous in the early morning hours. We wandered around for the most part, taking in the sites and sounds of a different place, and ended up at Nobby's beach. Nobby's beach became famous recently when a large flood washed a giant coal ship on shore. I think it was about 2 years ago, but it made world news.
Saturday we went to Blackbutt reserve, which is just a few blocks from my house. I left my memory card for my camera at home, because I'm smart like that, but I think I can borrow some pictures from Yoon Sun eventually. There we saw koalas and kangaroos. Koalas are very cute when you see them in person. We then walked to a shopping center and ate sushi, which had to be the best I've tasted thus far. It was so fresh! Later that night, a local guy that my host mom knows was kind enough to take us to see the nightlife. We went to a park right by a bay where there was a band, it was very beautiful. I'm not sure if it is legal here, but at public functions everyone drinks wine and beer outside. I wish we could do that in the states.
That's about it, I haven't been doing anything to terribly exciting as of late, but I plan to change that soon once I get my school schedule sorted out. Orientation starts tomorrow, so I will be busy with that all this week. I'm looking forward to getting back into a schedule, meeting new people, and learning more about Australia's business practices and government.
On a side note, I enabled anonymous comments, so anyone may comment. Please feel free to let me know you're reading this, and if there is something I can do to improve it.
I'm reading! Solid post, I'm jealous you're getting to hang out at beaches while I'm stuck in Texas...
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