The last few days in a shareroom of Sydney

Because I lost my camera, I asked a friend met in Sydney to send me photos. However I lost contact with her until now.

Thanks, Vale, thanks for the photos. What a beautiful French name.


Right is the owner of the shareroom, has two children.


That's them.


A couple, left from Germany, right from Malta. I already posted a blog about them.


Teach non-asians mah-jong!


Other roommates, left was learning cooking in Sydney, right just arrived for studying.


And there was a student abroad. But he didn't live in the shareroom anymore.


Well, right is me. Nothing interesting.


Thank you Vale, or I can't have the photos. So, here is Vale again.


One more...


One more...






By the way, on the airplane home, sitting by me was a Taiwanese pretty girl studing abroad. So lucky. Pitty no camera, damn it!!!

From Malta

At my last few days in Sydney before came back home, I met a guy from Malta.

What? Malta? Oh, my god. It's near to the Sicilia which is near to Italy.


Left one is Robert.


Robert from Malta, Marie from Germany.


We had lived together in an shareroom in Sydney for a week. I was surprised that he knew this shareroom because usually only Taiwan know it. He got the information from his Taiwanese friends he met in Western Australia. Wow, strangely, he met many Taiwanese there instead Japanese or Koreans. I also met some Taiwanese in that shareroom, but the girl I asked for sending me photos didn't do me the favor. So no pictures, sigh.

As you can tell, they are a couple.


He give me a name card of him and her. Hey, there are his XBOX 360 and Wii account on the card. And he bought XBOX 360 and played it in the shareroom. Haha. I met several backpackers who carried PS2 or Wii or XBOX around traveling. Pretty good. Playing it with roommates immediately shortens the distance between strangers.

They are still in Sydney and they saw New Year fireworks.




Nice to meet you, Robert and Marie.

All video uploaded

Finally, I can upload video taken in Australia because I get high-speed internet now.

I modified some blog posts to put the video in. And put all video in this one.

Brian Kissed Pat. The Australian couple I met in tomato packing shed.

Related post: Friends I met in tomato packing shed


Chris and Jeremey were singing.

Related post: The first karaoke night

Jeremey and Chris were singing.

Related post: The first karaoke night

All of us in the first karaoke night.

Related post: The first karaoke night


Hannah Sei Martha Nina Jennie

Related post: The second karaoke night

Jeremey solo. He rocks.

Related post: The second karaoke night

Cute Hannah.

Related post: The second karaoke night

Chris and Hannah were singing.

Related post: The second karaoke night


Jennie, Martha, Jeremey and me were in a dancing pub in Melbourne.

Related post: A crazy drinking night in Melbourne

Jennie, Martha, and me were shouting singing in the street.

From 20080322 Echuca Melbourne Jennie Jeremy Martha Hannah Chris Rachel me

Related post: A crazy drinking night in Melbourne


Jennie and Sandra were singing.

Related post: Jennie was back with Sandra

Memory in wwoofing

I did two weeks of wwoof in Bundaberg with Kathryn and Grace. I met Kathryn in the tomato packing shed while in Echuca. Grace is Kathryn's friend in Taiwan's church.

Rolf and Robyn. The wwoof host.

(From left: me, Robyn, Kathryn, Rolf, Grace)

Can you believe? Rolf built this house with solar energy and water tanks.


It's about 20 minutes driving to city center.


Each has his own room, wow, lovely!


The work we did included: unload potatoes for feeding horses.


The horses are very shy. They'll run away as you approach.


Mostly, the work was weeding.


Cut off dead leaves of banana tree.


Eggs picking.


Strawberry picking.


And gather useless bushes, burn them.

A goat and a sheep. They have names, but I forget.


Two tame dogs.


And a cat.


Strangely. The dogs don't chase the cat. They play together.


After work, we may take a walk along the riverside to see a lake.


Or watch movies.


On Sunday, we went to church.


They sang before the sermon.


Grace, clergyman, and Beth(missionary in China)


And other Taiwanese.


Samantha, pretty beautiful.


Usually Rolf cooked for us.


Pancakes by Robyn.


Desert, rice pudding?


It's a good place.


But still we had to work to earn money. ByeBye.


Other photos here:

20080822 Bundaberg wwoof

Memory in Cairns

There are lots of Japanese in Cairns, and here comes so many Japanese tourists. Some shops and souvenir stores even only hire Japanese backpackers as shop assistants. Because they can speak Japanese language! On quite a few notice boards I found in the city, the notices are written in Japanese(or Korean). Lift wanted, share room, bicycle for sale, etc.. There are some tours whose members are all Japanese. I heard this fact before, now I witnessed it.

In Cairns, I lived in NJOY Travelers Resort, basically it's a backpackers hostel but with a pool and benches. Because I hadn't known exactly how many days I needed to stay, I usually booked for another three-night accommodations at the day that I should check out. This hostel was pretty busy at this period, however, sometimes I had to change to other room. Well, it's annoying but it made me easy to talk to other backpackers.

Two Italian girls, pretty good-looking and thin. They merely have been in Australia for one month. Got a house-keeping job in Port Douglas where has many hotels.
(I saw them again in Brisbane, but I didn't go to talk to them. What was I thinking then?)

One Canadian guy, who traveled from Sydney through east coast to Cairns. Then maybe fly to Darwin. Wait a minute, don't you need to work for money?

One Taiwanese male master-degree student rooted in Sydney, we talked a lot.
He went to American since senior high school, university. Studied ergonomics and worked there. Then human-machine interface, Adobe pdf e-book, master degree in Sydney, University of NSW. Told me his life in American.

One Chinese student rooted in Brisbane, journey for graduation.

One Swedish girl, just started her journey in Australia.

Two Taiwanese working holiday holders, Melbourne language school, pruning in Adelaide, Ululu, Darwin, Cairns, Brisbane, wwoof, totally about six months
one New Zealand, two weeks holiday in Australia from Sydney to Cairns. Pretty good.

8/10 on magazine OK! Issue 115, Aug 11 2008
Aquarius Jan 21~Feb19
Still in the depth of deep soul searching, Aquarius? Well, you can dwell in the depths forever or make a decision to move on. Dilemmas seem to be clouding up so many parts of your life. Do you realise how frustrating this is for others? When you remain in this procrastinating state, it leaves many in limbo. For everyone's sake please make up your mind and take action!
Your mantra: I stop thinking and start making decisions.

Wow, so precise exact to match my mood.

Well, couldn't get a job in Northern Queensland. So I traveled to Bundaberg by coach. Passed Townsville and Rockhampton.

Memory in the pig abattoir

(Because the camera was lost, no photos! sigh...)

I had worked in a pig abattoir for one month, from 6/11 to 7/11. From Perth, go east by train, you can get to a terminal Midland which is a big town; then further by bus to Mundaring; then by car 15 minutes to get to the pig abattoir. From the factory, you can walk 25 minutes to a petrol station. If you would say that's a long time, it's nothing to walking one hour to a small town Wooroloo. So basically the factory and the share houses provided by the company are isolated.

Detour: Since came to Aussie, I'd started to lose my equpements. Belt, glasses box, memory card reader(broken), bread knife and fork(forfeited in an airport), chopsticks(stolen), a pants and a white jacket and a t-shirt, and now I lost my digital camera(2G SD memory card, four rechargeable batteries, 256MB microSD and adapter).


About the content of the job:
there are two departments of the abattoir: slaughter floor and boning room. I worked in the slaughter floor.
Slaughter floor: (Einstein said: imagination is more important than knowledge.)
First, hang the pigs up on the rail by crossing the hind legs with hooks. At this time, the pigs are still alive, but have been put into sleep by using some gas.
Second, cut off the throat. Now they're dead and bleeding.
As the rail goes on, the pigs(although dead already) will go through a series of stages. Well, like a hell.
Use bursts of flaming fire to burn off the hair. Cut and open the belly and take out the heart, liver, lung, and etc..

This is a pretty big abattoir. Most of the workers are full-time. Few backpackers. Some full-time workers are from China, Philippine, Vietnam, etc.. The factory supports them to get the permanent residence. So they don't train backpackers to hold a knife and do some complicated work. A backpacker can do: 1 cleaning, 2 head cutting, 3 fat removal, 4 tagging, 5 push processed pigs into chiller.

Boning room: most work here are easy, just put the pork into boxes or bags.

There are about 200~300 workers. But only several backpackers. As I know, two English, two Japanese, two Koreans, two Taiwanese.

I went to work at bad timing. It's winter so the pigs eat more but don't grow up. Faint. Consequently, the factory can kill lesser and lesser everyday. And cold weather, hmm, I just couldn't like it.


About friends:
I met a English guy here, my roommate, Harry. (On the left)




And a Philippine guy, Joe, who told a joke:
What will you think when a prostitute snivels?

And others, but we don't talk much.

I did about two or three weeks of pig pushing. There were three other Aussie guy who also did the work. Trevor, Scott, Nathan. Pretty young, about 20 years old.


About accommodation:
The sharehouse is only for 30AUD. A room, a bed, and a blanket provided. Originally there is no hot water, what the fuck. The Philippine buy the gas and heating equipment to generate hot water for shower. I don't like it. Harry told me that once a time somebody used all the hot water, the Philippine would be very angry. And the kitchen, all equipments(microwave, pots, bowls, dish-washing liquid, etc..) were bought by Philippine. Faint. So I bought a pot but it's burned after. Faint.

PS at night, you could see many mice in the rubbish bin in the kitchen.

The supermarket is pretty far away. I had to "beg" the Philippine to take me to buy the food once a week. That's not good. The factory should give this service.


About sickness:
This was my first time to get sick in Australia. Very bad. In a morning, I felt very uncomfortable. But I felt better after lunch. When home at night, I was sure that I got sick. Cough, snivel, sore throat, headache, hardly can move my body. I went to bed very early. Next day, I didn't even have strength to cook but I had to. Even worse, my meat vegetable were rotten. What the heck! I was sick and I didn't have good food and nutrition to consume. What the fuck! I was scared that if it's possible I got sick because the dirty bloody pig abattoir. Shivering...

I thought I was fully recovered. But it's not. After leaving the pig abattoir, I was back to Perth. And I got sick again. More serious. Maybe it's a flu. In the one week in Perth, I almost spent my time staying in the bed. Extremely uncomfortable. And it's raining, cold, windy Perth, shit.

After calculating the money and the time I had, I had to abandon west coast. I flies to Cairns. It's warm there so I got healthy.

Update 2009.02.13, I copied two photos from Peace's facebook, thank you.





Answer to Joe's joke: She's full!