Lovin' life Down Under

I'm now back from my trip but have some time to catch up on the rest of what I got to experience. Heading out to Australia, Eric and I flew 10.5-11 hours to the other side of the world. We left on the 21st of July and got to Australia on the 22nd crossing over the International Dateline. We caught a connection flight from Sydney to Brisbane and got there pretty late. still had a bit of a drive out to Surfers Paradise before we could finally settle in to our apartment. I'm glad that Gayle, Sara and Carly (daughters of the president of the company (from New Zealand)) and Ryan came out to pick us up from the airport. They made us a sign that said Hooch & Gaylord (the nicknames they gave us - I'm Hooch) and held it up so I ran to break through it and was unsuccessful at my attempt.
We were very fortunate to stay in the Tallest Residential Building in the World on the Gold Coast! It's called Q1 and the 20th tallest building in the world with 87 stories! (You can see it in the picture above, it's the tall one in the distance). They took us up to the sky room that is only on the 79th floor but a great floor with glass windows all around to see the skyline and the rest of Surfers. It was dark so we didn't get very many pictures of the ocean from up there, but still was cool.

It was a really nice building (5 Star) with really fast elevators, I heard they can go up to 25 mph. They built it with the design to match the tourch for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

So while in Surfers Eric, Ryan and I were able to go on an tour that included boating out to 2 different islands. We walked through an island to the other side where we played around on the beach. The sand had a lot of silicone (or something) in it, that made it squeek, it was cool. There were sand dunes that we jumped off and I also collected some shells from that beach. They said that there was a chance we could see some wallabies (small kangaroo-type animals) or other animals but we only heard birds. We saw some tracks in the sand of a wallaby but didn't see one.

We also stopped at another beach and played cricket. It was fun to learn a new sport. We went swimming along the shore to some rocks and there were a lot of fish all hanging out in this area, they brought out chips and threw them in to feed them. We were also fortunate that they had some goggles that we could use to go down and see them. Very cool.

The Australia part of my summer ended up being quite a great experience and we were able to do a lot. Besides this Island Tour we also went a Wildlife Sanction place called Currumbin. They had a lot of Koala bears, Kangaroos that you could pet and feed, and crocodiles. They also had Tasmanian Devils, Wombats (furry rodent-type), a Dingo and birds. It was fenced off, kind of like a zoo but very cool to see all these native animals all in a small area. It was cool to see the kangaroos, they seemed to me like a mix between a dog and a deer. I was a little nervous feeding them but I have my way with animals and can make friends easily (especially when I have food).

They also had an Aboriginal dance/show in the park. First a guy came out and played the Didgeridoo and then 3 guys came out and performed for us (not real Aborigines). It was cool though, I have a video of them dancing and also recorded the time when they pulled up people from the audience to come dance (Eric got called up and had to dance. He did a pretty good job, it was funny).

More highlights in Hawaii

It's been quite the trip, we have quite some free time and are able to see and do a bunch of things. Some of the other things we've done include:
We took a drive down the coast of Oahu. Here is a picture of a beach that we drove by, very awesome view of the island, mountain and nice beach. On one of the earlier stops, we saw a model posing for a photo shoot inside a little cove. We also drove past Hanauma Bay and ran into a beach called Sandy Beach. It had huge waves and looked awesome to go swim in, too bad we didn't bring our swim suits thinking that we wouldn't be swimming. We got along the coast and drove by this Hawaiian mini-Sea World place called Sea Life Park. They have dolphins, seals, turtles and a tank that you can swim with the Dolphins. It was closed when we got there but cool to see that they even have something like that (it's just a bit out of the way to get there).

Driving the coast was amazing, we saw some islands off of Oahu and had a good time experiencing the beauty of Hawai'i.

I also went with the group to Pearl Harbor and was able to experience that, it was very cool. They showed us a video of it and then we went out by ferry to the memorial.

We had another day off between the groups and went up a mild hike to a peak off Waikiki beach, called Diamond Head. It's an extinct volcano that is just a big crater now. Anyway, they used it as an ancient light house place where they would build fires to help those coming on canoe to see where the shore was. Now there is a modern light house down lower. They also may have used it as a gun station (probably for WWII). Those have all been taken out but the crater is still being used as a warning for hurricanes.
It was great to be up there and have an aerial view of Waikiki beach and the surrounding area.

There is a zoo down the street from our hotel that actually has quite a bit of animals in it (giraffes, zebras, aligators, a bear, monkeys, etc.), it was cool to see and get pictures.

So I have been keeping myself busy with work but have been very fortunate to have a lot of free time to do a lot of other stuff. It probably won't be as chill in Australia, but I've heard that they will probably take care of a bunch of the work so we can experience the things there. Such a great job to have for the summer!

Aloha from Hawaii!

So this summer has been an interesting one. I've been able to go back to Oregon to see my old roommate get married in the Portland Temple.

We stayed at a girl's house (Kasey), who's parents are pretty well to do and have a pretty big house. They were very generous and I was very fortunate to stay there while in Oregon. It was way fun and we had some interesting experiences there.

Before heading out to Hawaii, I was working about full time at my internship and I picked up some shifts at Firehouse for some extra money (it's hard to get away from a great side job that I can make a bunch of extra cash). I have a lot of fun with the people that I work with at Down Under Sports. It's also great to have earned a chance to go with them to Hawaii and later Australia and New Zealand.

I arrived in Hawaii on the 24th of June and will be working here until the 21st of July. I'll head out to Australia and finish up the tours and working on the 29th. Then the company is generous to let us travel to New Zealand and tour a little there before coming home. The good thing about working for this company is that since they take over 1000 athletes around the world and to these different places, they bring a lot of business to companies and those companies in turn comp a lot for our staff. So these flights and a lot that we enjoy are from comps that we have been able to get.

Some of the responsibilities we have is that we make runs to the airport to pick up the teams who are mostly coming from Australia. They compete in Australia and then come to Hawaii for a nice stay and it adds cream on top of their trip. While they are here they take team photos on the beach, go to a Polynesian Show/Luau and then have free time to book tours and do some other fun stuff. For the most part, some of our biggest hits are trips to Hanauma Bay and Pearl Harbor. Since most of the people that come on the trip usually go there, we push to sell those tours the most (I guess to keep the numbers high) and it's been pretty successful so far. It's cool to see all our preparation work be carried out. For example, we have planned out the bus and luggage truck schedules that are to and from the airport; the hotel breakfasts, the numbers for the Luau, and so forth.

We had our first couple groups come and go and it just happen to work out that we had 4 days off between them and the next group arriving. So we had 4 days to vacation and still get paid for it. In that time we were able to do a bunch of awesome stuff.

First of all, we went to Hanauma Bay where we went snorkeling and saw a sea turtle swimming around along with a lot of exotic fish. I wish I had an underwater camera, but didn't get one so I don't have pictures from in the water, but got a lot of cool pictures of the beautiful bay.

Then Eric (the other intern) and I were able to get into the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC) and the night show for employee prices, a huge discount and hook-up from Eric's doing. It was such a cool place and very well done. The church started this center and it's run by BYU Hawaii students to help them pay tuition for school. They have a bunch of villages in the center that represent the different Polynesian islands, it's cool to see the many things they do to give you a glimpse into their culture. My favorite was in Samoa, (this is the guy that hooked us up with the tickets, he's supposed to be an amazing fire-knife performer) they climbed a tree and they had this hilarious guy crack a coconut and start a fire by hand.

At the PCC they floated down the river and had dancers from the different islands out dancing on their boats. This group of Samoans ended up rocking the boat so much that the guy pushing the boat fell out and into the water. I think it was planned, but hilarious since I don't think the guy pushing it suspected a thing. Very cool to see the different dances from all the different islands.

We have also been able to go to the Luau with the teams. They have a part where they pull a pig out of the ground and then they have an all you can eat buffet, so great. I love Hawaii and would love to live here one day.

I was recently able to go with the Golf team to the Ko'olau Golf Course, here in Honolulu. It's been ranked in the top 100 Golf Courses to play in the world. The guy in charge over here was talking to me about playing with him in a round of 9 holes. Turns out he ended up heading back to the office after coming to the golf course. Instead of going out and playing by myself, I decided to just get some balls to hit off the driving range. That was cool and the fact that they let me borrow clubs with a gigantic (King Cobra) club. I hit some balls and then took the cart around the course to make sure the kids were doing ok. I got some free tips from a golf coach on how to hit the ball. It was an amazing golf course. They literally cut it out of the rain forest and it's next to some awesome mountains. In the picture there was bamboo growing on the course. There were also little miniature-flamingo looking birds on the course that I tried to take pictures of.

This has been a crazy summer also, with Michael Jackson's death all over the news. Ferra Fausett, Billy Mays and another guy died also; it seemed like it all happened real quick. There was also a threat that North Korea was going to bomb Hawaii on the 4^th of July. I heard that the US sent a lot of defense missiles here for extra protection. The 4^th of July was really cool also, we got the night off so we went to swim in the ocean. They were playing a movie on the beach (Quantom of Solace – James Bond movie) with a huge screen set up and then they paused the movie and we watched the fireworks that went along with music. It was a great experience and I'm happy to say that we are here safe in Honolulu (no bombs) and livin' it up. Overall this is probably the best summer I've had in a long time. I hope it will only get better in Australia and New Zealand.