Shrimps and Barbies.

A trifecta of sandy beaches in Sydney and bush walks in the Blue Mountains. Surfing in Byron Bay and Wagga Wagga Zoo break ins. Alley way roof-top beers and Fitzroy hipster-watching in Melbourne. What was supposed to be a simple 2 week holiday in Australia turned into a whirlwind tour of the East coast, my itchy feet showing blatant disregard for the holiday I planned to keep low-key by literally planning nothing at all. But my open schedule was too easy to fill up - too tempting to pack with Jetstar flights, train rides and road trips. My "low-key" trip didn't stand a chance. Here are but a few highlights from my 2 weeks in Australia.


1. Parking myself on Coogee beach with a pear cider in hand within an hour of landing at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport.

2. Bush walks in the Blue Mountains with Johnny, catching up on the important things in life (ie: Hidaka, and the cricket) since we last saw each other in Japan.

3. Spotting a roo and her joey in the Blue Mountains.

4. Home-cooked meals and summer fruit salad from Johnny's southern mama.

5. Meat pies and cricket at the Sydney Cricket Ground for the Australia vs. India test match. Not knowing what was going on only added to the experience.

6. Byron Bay. Coconut sunblock, surfers and sun-kissed, Ray-Ban wearing beach bums selling strawberries on the beach. This place was paradise, and if my dying wish comes true and there's a 2012 remake of Point Break, it will be entirely cast by the people of Byron Bay.

7. Byron Bay's Backpacker Holiday Village. Like Koh Phangan's Coral Bungalows, with less vodka Red Bull buckets, but comparable numbers of Australians. This place reminded me of the joys of traveling alone, where all I had to do was sit next to a group of strangers, tell them I was all by my lonesome, and I was instantly in on a bucks weekend, sharing a bucket of goon cocktail over discussions of why the husband-to-be was wearing 8 pairs of underwear.

8. Bay Leaf Cafe, Byron Bay. If Winnipeg's Fresh Café and the Falafel Place had a baby, this would be it. Everyone here had piercings, tattoos, and unruly hair, and nothing could be heard of the chaotic yelling. I felt right at home.

9. Byron Bay's surfers. If I didn't have a job to go back home for, I could have stayed in Byron for the rest of my life — if only for the smoking hot surfers. At the risk of being too specific, my surf instructor, for example. Straight from the coast of California, with his sea-salt, sun-bleached hair and a vocabulary learned entirely from Surf Ninjas. We shared a high five and it was beautiful.

10. Melbourne. It's hard not to love a city where you spend your first night in Chinatown, at a BYO dumpling restaurant and drinking beers on a back-alley roof that I suspect doubles as someone's laundromat. Melbourne has everything I need in a city. Terraces at Federation Square, hipsters in Fitzroy. Street art, train stations, cafés, babes. It's no wonder I always like the locals so much. It's official. I'm going to have to rewrite my 5 year plan and move to Melbourne.