We took a cable car ride up to Ngong Ping 360 Village to take the 'Journey of Enlightenment' and see the worlds largest outdoor Buddha and Po Lin monastery. We also caught a Monkey Tales and Walk with Buddha show as well as a traditional tea ceremony.

Hong Kong is an insanely busy place that really never sleeps. We stayed at the Kimberly Hotel in the Kawloon district for three nights and ate tons of Asian cuisine for cheap cheap cheap. The first night we arrived we went and watched the Symphony of Lights show over the harbour and strolled along the Avenue of Stars which has a statue of Bruce Lee.

We spent our last few days in Australia back in Melbourne with Justin and Emma and all went out for Indian food on Saturday night. The next day was Emma's going away party for work so we all went for drinks at a pub and got ready for our flight to Hong Kong the next day. We thought we should take a picture of Millsie's Yute and of Hungry Jack's (The Aussie version of Burger King).

From Byron Bay we took a very sketchy train ride to Sydney that has turned both of us off from train travel. People were sleeping everywhere in the aisles and some drunk abo fell into our seat in the middle of the night. I managed to get up right before she proceeded to pee on the cushion where I had just been sitting. Horrifying or what?! Sydney is a beautiful city and we got to see all the major sights; The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Royal Botanic Gardens, Opera House. We took a ferry over to Manly Beach and Mike went to Oceanworld to catch a look at sharks, snakes and other creatures. We also went to The Cat and Fiddle Pub, which happens to be one of Mike's favorite bars in Vancouver. Our hostel, The Funk House, was situated right in King's Cross - the ghetto of Sydney. Prostitutes, drugs, bars, strip joints and cheap eateries scatter the streets in King's Cross, making for a pretty entertaining place just to walk around.

Into Byron we go. As thrilling as hitch-hiking was in the blistering heat (literally my shoulders have blisters!), we thought we would make things a little easier on ourselves and find accommodation in Byron Bay for two nights. The pumpin' beach town with heaps of tourists, beach bums and hippies was a nice change of pace from Lennox. Our hostel was one block up from the beach too! On Saturday we took surfing lessons which were really fun. A group of ten of us and two instructors went out for a few hours and everyone managed to stand up at least once on their board. That night we chowed down at a barbie the hostel put on before going to the Beach Hotel for drinks and live music. The next morning we went kayaking with dolphins and much to our disappointment only saw a few fins in the far off distance. We decided it was far too much exercise for eight o'clock in the morning and had probably been ripped off. Oh well.

Cairns was much hotter and humid then Melbourne. I spent the night after we went to the Great Barrier Reef in bed, exhausted from the heat. Mike went on a pub crawl from our hostel and had a blast, even got a t-shirt! We flew down to Brisbane and took a bus along the Gold Coast to a tiny beach town called Lennox Head. We ended up hitching rides between Lennox and Byron Bay for a couple days to celebrate Australia Day (Jan.26th) and to spend time in a place with a few more people and things to do. We did however, get to see a hippie band in Lennox, who were pretty good.

After arriving in Cairns last night we checked into a dodgy hostel called Asylum. It didn't take us long to figure out that it's definitely not known for its cleanliness as it is for its social reputation. We hit the hay right away and got up at 6 a.m to get ready for a tour to the Great Barrier Reef. We booked our day with Passions of Paradise tours and made our way out into the blue waters of the much anticipated reef. Stopping at the first site, Upolu Cay, Mike and I were supposed to scuba dive and got the introductory lesson but once we were in the water both panicked and decided to snorkel only. After lunch we were convinced to give diving another try after one of the peppy crew members remarked, "Those Canadians are gonna dive even if I have to take them myself." Away we went, all three of us hand in hand down to the mysterious underwater world of sea creatures. We felt around the coral polyps and had our fingers tickeled by the tenticles of tiny species. It was the most outstanding experience ever and are so excited that we got to dive for the first time in one of the natural wonders of the world also known as the only living visible thing from space.