Easton (The Quince Man Quincy) Royce

Chrnocat and I traveled to Sydney on the 28th of September for the annual Animania Festival! Needless to say we had quite the adventure. Throughout the entire visit, I was convinced The Chaser would be out somewhere causing trouble. Unfortunately for me, they were causing troubles in places that I wasn’t in.

Since I am tired and just about ready for bed, I am going to type this as fast as possible and hopefully avoid making any mistakes. I have been meaning to cover this topic and take care of this post for some time, and at this point in time, as depressed and irritated as I feel, I believe now is a good time to write.

Day One 28th of September

I had never been on a plane before, and on an air plan was our designated travel style for this trip. We boarded a “Dash 8” at the Narrabri Air Port for out what seemed to be a short 2.5 hour flight. We first had a stop over at Moree, before finally making the leg to Sydney. The flight to Moree takes roughly 30 minutes. The plane simply flies up, and then down again, without leveling off or reaching normal flight altitude. Needless to say, I was very excited about being on the plane, and when we landed in Moree for a refueling before continuing on, all I wanted was for the plane to be back in the air again. It was a very surreal experience, and reminded of all the hours I used to spend playing Sim City.

Upon arrival, we collected our luggage, and left the Sydney Airport terminal by train. After finally arriving in the city, we set out to find the hotel we had booked our accommodation at. A week before our trip, the hotel manager had contacted us and informed as that they were undergoing maintenance and were moving us to a different hotel. Not only was the different hotel completely tacky (and the coffee was nasty as), it was even further away then our original location, which was still too far away from the location the Festival was being held (Town Hall). I don’t know what Chrnocats mother was thinking when she said “Oh the hotel is in Kirribilly, it’s near everything”. Fark that! It was near nothing, and we needed to travel by ferry to get there and back again. After canceling our accommodation at both hotels and getting a refund, we ferried back to the city, found an internet cafe and book some real accommodation at they Sydney Central Travel Lodge.

Finally after checking in at the hotel, we headed to Town Hall for the evening opening ceremony and other random events that began the Animania Festival. We were hoping to get some shopping in today, but unfortunately we were unable to.

Finally late in the night, we made it back to our hotel for showers, costume preparations for the big day on Saturday, and sleep. Chrnocat realised she had lost one of her hair clips. I reassured her she would find it at the air port when we got back. I hadn’t seen it fall off, but I had a good feeling I was right.

Summary of Firsts:

• First time on a plane
• First time taking the air port train to the city
• First time on a Ferry

Day Two 29th September

It was cool and windy as we walked from the Sydney Travel Lodge to Town Hall, but we were too excited about the festival and all it had to offer today, to be too concerned about being cold. After all, a large portion of the day would be spent inside anyway. Chroncat and I were dressed as Characters from the popular anime, The Melancholy of Harui Suzimiya. I was dressed as a character who is known only by his nick name, Kyon, and Chrnocat was of course dressed as Harui. Needless to say, she looked hot (as in sexy). I’ve always had a secret thing for the whole “short skirted japanese school girl outfit” (how could I not after watching so much anime!) and finally I was looking at my girl friend wearing one. In my eyes, she was by far the best Harui at the festival. Too bad our costumes that we bought on eBay (tailored specifically for our sizes), couldn’t be entered into the Cosplay competition.

The Animania Festival was pretty damn awesome! We bought lots of stuff (DVDs, Plush Toys, etc) and had lots of fun! There were to main floors to Town Hall. The lower floor (or the basement) is where all sponsors and distributors of anime and all things related, had their stalls set up. In the same location was game stations where people could play games on any console ranging from the ancient Super Nintendo to the X-Box 360 (and game cube and Wii). I bought Chrnocat a Wii for her birthday a few weeks ago, so we had no trouble showing off our Nintendo Wii skills to the other excited players! I could go on about everything that was at the Animania Festival, however it would fill several pages, so visit the website or read Chrnocats Post instead.

While showing off my awesome ability to play tennis on the Wii, one of my long lost friends and former students of mine suddenly popped up like Mario. Al Walker, as I shall creatively name him, was as excited to see me as I was to see him. We had a chat for a while and continued to catch up with each other throughout the day as we chased and searched for our run away and over excited girl friends. Thank goodness Chrnocat had a mobile phone and it was turned on for once!

All in all, it was an awesome day. We spent lots of money, and traded photos of ourselves for photos of everyone else! We played lots of games, spoke to lots of people and participated in lots of activities!

After our day at Town Hall, we caught up with Ming Ming, and had dinner at “Pancakes on the Rocks“, an awesome restaurant in Darling Harbour. Following our dinner, we took a walk down what seemed to be a small version of china town and settled for desert at the Lindt Cafe. Ming Ming had lots to talk to us about, and we had lots to talk to her about. We hadn’t seen her since our last visit to Sydney, roughly around the same time last year.

Summary of Firsts:

• First time at Pancakes on the Rocks
• First time I’d been in Town Hall
• First time at the Lindt Cafe
• First time in some crazy chinese shop with a huge teddy bear

Day Three 30th September

Today was a little lower key then yesterday. We spent most of our day visiting various places around Sydney. In the morning we took a walk around town, to visit some stores. Unfortunately, being Sunday after all, nothing opens until 11am (as apposed to everything closing at 12pm on Saturday in Narrabri!). I mentioned that I had never been to Centre Point Tower before, so that became our first stop for the day. The visit to Sydney (Center Point) Tower began with an interesting holographic introduction to Australia and all the things it has to offer. Thinking that was pretty cool, we moved on (with our tour group of foreigners) to the next part of the adventure. Here we all jumped into seats made for roller coasters, buckled up and stared our eyes at screens on the walls. What happened next was quite amazing. The seats we were sitting on began to move, as the video on the screens played. If you allowed your mind to forget that you were actually sitting down, the whole experience felt like you were really moving (and flying) through this entire video sequence being played out on the screen. Needless to say, it was quite amazing! Finally after completing that leg of the adventure, we moved on to the real reason for this visit, the trip to the top of the tower. After a crazy photo shoot of myself and Chrnocat together on a blue screen, we took the extremely fast lift to the top. While at the top, we spied down on the cosplayers at Town Hall, and the many other spectacles that we could see from the top of the tower.

After visiting Sydney Tower, we headed back to the Animania Festival to purchase more merchandise and catch the anime music video awards. After more shopping and participation in the days events, we headed back to the hotel to dump all our treasures (I bought a graphics tablet, it’s so cool!) and headed back out into the town. We did some shopping at some book stores, and then decided to see a movie. We ended up seeing the movie Stardust, which was absolutely brilliant! It would have been even better if it wasn’t preceded by 40 minutes of advertisements, before the trailers, eesh. By the time the movie started, I had the beginnings of a head ache. After the movie, we grabbed a bite to eat from Subway and headed back to the hotel.

Summary of Firsts:

• First time in Centre Point (Sydney) Tower and the OzTrek Experience
• First time I ever bought a graphics tablet

Day Four 1st October

I woke up this morning feeling that something wasn’t right. Feeling that something didn’t check out. While having a shower it suddenly hit me. For the entire trip, I had not checked the departure time of our flights for today. So While Chrnocat showered, I check the times. What a surprise! What Chrnocat had mistaken for 7pm, was in fact 7am. Too bad we were still asleep at 7am! So that was the first hiccup of the day. We had missed our flights and forfeited the costs. After contacting Countrylink and Qantas and weighing up the costs, we finally managed to book flights home the following day, effectively giving us another two days in Sydney. Today was a public holiday, but tomorrow wasn’t! Since we now had time to kill, we decided to go out into the city again to see what we could find to entertain ourselves. Sydney is so huge it’s indescribable, so finding something to do isn’t the hard part, choosing is! We spent the day visiting comic stores and book stores (Kings Comics, The Galaxy Book Store), as well as visiting Myers and other stores of interest. We made our way to Darling Harbour, where there is always something happening, and watched some crazy basker guy putting on a show. We then saw a 3D movie at the IMAX theatre. After more shopping around and expensive chilled drinks, we headed back towards the city to eat.

We had dinner at a place called Nandos, which I will be sure to visit again next time I am in Sydney, which was then followed by ice cream desert from Baskin Robins. Chrnocat is obsessed with Baskin Robins, and who was I to resist either?

Summary of Firsts:

• First time I ever missed a flight
• First time I had to book extra nights at a hotel
• First time in the Galaxy Book Store

Day Five 2nd October

We spent a large portion of today at the Sydney Aquarium. I had never been there before, so like an excited little kid, I ooh and aah over just about everything! It was so fascinating! I had never seen so many sea creatures (and fresh water creatures) in one place before! It was truly unbelievable! I had so much fun there, especially in the aqua tunnels, where you are under the water, while all the fish and sharks and rays are swimming above you! It was truly fantastic stuff! The coolest part of all, was the darkened amphitheater, with a floor to ceiling glass wall, in which you could see all sorts of tropical fish and creatures! With the cool air and surreal music, I could have easily spent the entire day in that room relaxing and watching the ever changing arrangement of fish and creatures!

After the aquarium, we had a quick lunch and headed back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head off to the air port. After dealing with the ticket master, Chrnocat took delight in showing me around the Sydney Airport. We had only stopped briefly in the air port when we arrived, so I had no idea about all the shops, and malls, and stores and everything that was all at the air port! It was quite amazing! After a rest at a Cafe, Chronocat and I decided to some more shopping, and spend what little money we had left. I managed to buy a copy of Grim Fandango for the PC (I know it’s old, but it’s a classic) and I also came across Need For Speed Carbon for the PSP, for only $54! Chrnocat discovered a Darell Lea store and spent her remaining dollars there instead. On the way to our boarding area, I decided I would rest my feet and take the travelator. I don’t understand why, but Chrnocat insisted on walking on the travelator instead. Beats me.

Finally, we boarded our plane and headed back home. Upon arrival, Chrnocat found her missing hair clip (actually I found it, exactly where I figured it would be, on the grass where we were waiting on Friday).

Summary of Firsts:

• First time in an air port shopping complex
• First time at the Sydney Aquarium
• First time I ever saw Grim Fandango for PC
• First time I ever walked through a metal detector
• First time an air port attendant asked me if I spoke english
• First time on a travelator

Over all, it was a great trip! (A Holiday of Firsts!) We had a great time, and I managed to help Chrnocat avoid a few moments of depression, which I knew would not have been able to handle, given the amount of fun I was having, and I didn’t want that to go away. I think that missing our flight was a bonus, although it did cause us to spend more money, despite the amount we lost by missing the flight. Had we not missed the flight, I would have missed out on all the cool stuff we did!

We were planning to go to Supernova in October, but that had to go by the way side since our long weekend in Sydney went way over budget! Perhaps we will come to Sydney again for Animania next year. I think we should start saving now though, especially if Chrnocat is planning on missing the flight home again! (just kidding!)

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: Adventure, air, animania, Anime, aquarium, Chrnocat, Comedy, computers, excitement, food, fun, Games, Movies, pc, port, Random, Rant, sydney