Alaska Part 4 - Juneau

Haiiiiiiiiiii

Welcome to part 4 of my journey to Alaska. The state where the government gives it's citizens money just for living there... yep, its almost paradise.

Juneau (Pop 30,000 or so)

That is until you reach the state capital of Juneau and you realise that although they have plenty of money to give their residents, they don't have enough money to build a bus stop within 2 miles of the Ferry Terminal.

In saying that, Juneau was very scenic and had some really great hikes as well as a "drive-in" glacier.
I arrived there in early in the morning and my swiss buddy Christian and I did the 2 mile hike to the bus stop in pretty dominant rain.

Side rant: can NRL commentators and Daily Telegraph reporters come up with a new word to describe Andrew Johns. I am so sick of hearing how he "dominated" a game. Pick up a thesaurus or something for gods sake. There must be at least 10 billion other words you can use instead of dominant. Here are a few I just thought of - Over-rated, Fat, Injury-Prone

Anyways, after getting rained on a bit and repeated failed attempts by Christian to hitch-hike, we finally arrived at the bus stop and engaged in conversation with a Juneau art student who was very mature for a 17 year old, (at least he seemed to think so). He had nothing of importance to say really (a bit like this blog), but seemed to revel in using up every bit of free air time with some sort of tidbit about his life and what not. (also like this blog) Thankfully the bus came along and took us up to the town (via every other road in Juneau) and we were able to drop our bags off at the hostel ($10 per night, 9-5 lockout??, daily chore). Rather than waste the day, Christian and I grabbed something to eat at the local Cruise Ship favourite pub (very gimmicky, full of Moose heads and bear heads and saw-dust and all sorts of other stuff) called .. umm, i forget, maybe it will come to me later. Anyway, we ate there and then decided to catch the bus to the Mendenhall Glacier. The famous "Drive-In Glacier". First though here is a photo of Juneau



A street of Juneau. I hear its like Europe. Sorta.

The Mendenhall Glacier (Population .. its a glacier dumbass)

Once again, the bus dropped us off about 2 miles away from the Mendenhall glacier (I guess the government doesn't like to encourage the city buses to drive "into" the glacier in case the taxi drivers or tour bus drivers kick up a stink, getting free money each year obviously isn't enough for them. Gerrreaaady )

The Glacier itself was well worth the walk and was much better than the Athabasca Glacier that I saw in the Rockies. I've got comparison pictures just below.




The two above pictures are both of the Mendenhall Glacier. The second one is blue because im a tortured artist of some description.


The Athabasca Glacier. It's that brown colour because they let people walk on it. The shovel was left there by Farmer Joe.

We ended up doing a hike called the "East Glacier Loop Trail". If anyone ever goes to Juneau and has a few hours to kill I recommend doing this. It had a great view of the Glacier, a really cool waterfall (pictured below) and some side tracks that you can take if you are feeling adventurous (which I was) that take you down to this river that is so bear country its not funny. Not that I saw any bears mind you, although the ranger made special mention of the amount of bear activity that had been occuring in the area. The more I hear that the more I think it is just a bunch of crap designed to make visitors lives slightly more interesting or more paranoid about seeing a bear. This is about as close as I got to a bear while I was doing the hike


Bear Sighting

Yeah, thats right.. Bear poo. I don't want to think of the alternative if it ain't bear poo so we will just assume it was and move on ehhhhhhh.


Here is me looking like a complete dork in front of AJ Falls, accessible by doing the East Glacier Trail or via skydiving out of a harrier jump jet from 20,000 feet.

After this hike we walked back to the bus stop and took it back to the hostel. After completing my chore for the night (I had to vaccuum the floor of the room I was in) Christian and I went out and played some pool, had a few beers, then crashed into bed. (Lots of walking was done)

Juneau Day 2 Soon.

BOOBS!

I lie. No boobs here.. looks like that is what you need to put on your blog to get it read these days.

Society is a cruel mistress. Last entry for tonight, finally got everything sorted AGAIN. Lost a whole bunch of things again so I had to repost everything, AGAIN What a pain in the ass, I wish blog easy would get their finger out and fix that.. that is quite a bug. Ramble, belly-ache. Complain.. blah blah.

Ok, so all stuff is under relevant sections now. Emails under emails, alaska under alaska etc. Just have a look im sure you can work the bloody thing out.

You know what really grinds my gears? Bed Bugs.. more on that later. mother 's

Alaska, Painting Houses - I hate stucko

Do you know how to get rock hard abbadabbas?

Well now you can! With big Jake's abdominal workout thingy!!

The time has come (and gone) for an email update, so here tis.

This is going to be really short because I am in the process of packing up some things for a trip I am going on tomorrow.. and by "in the process of" what I really mean is that I have thought about being in the process of packing. I haven't packed a thing yet and it is about 7pm Sunday night so id best get cracking.

Anyway, to fill in those of you who aren't aware, my last few weeks have consisted of painting the exterior of houses. Although my technique has improved greatly over the time I was doing it, I realised that painting house exteriors is not exactly what I would call my "calling" in life. The hours are way too long, the ladders you have to climb up are way too long and the pay is terrible. I'm pretty bad at it too which doesn't help. (On the plus side its a good workout (wax on, wax off anyone?) and the time in the sun has given me an incredible shirt tan)

Anyway, my last day was on Thursday last week which was nice, because it was stressing me out and there is absolutely no reason for me to stress while I am on holidays, especially over no stinking, crappy, good for nuthin job! (Extra especially because I didn't really stress in any real job ive had before.. except when it involved Project Management materials.. but let's not go into that (/me laughs in Val's general direction))

Here is a photo of one of the houses I painted.. notice how awesome it looks, thats all because of me.



This dog's name is Coco. He was annoying because he barked continuously.. but he was cute and looked like the thing out of Never Ending Story.. whatever that thing was supposed to be.. Coco's owner would constantly say, "No Coco! No!" Coco's owner/house owner was slightly annoying. Thanks for the memories Kelly.



Outside of this amazing pursuit of cash, life has been quiet the last week, most of my time has been devoted to looking up Ski Resorts in Canada that I can apply for Winter work with and continuously procrastinating over the assembly of my extensive resume. To fill in this time I decided I would book a trip up to Alaska, which I did and that is where I am going tomorrow. I had similarly been putting this off for well over a month or so thanks to a wonderful distraction or two, so it is good to be finally going.

Here is a run down of my planned trip

10 hour bus ride to Bum-f&%* Idaho
14 hour ferry ride to Bum-f&%* Idaho II
24 hour ferry ride to Juneau (Alaska)
2 hour plane ride to Anchorage (Alaska)
Plane ride back to Vancouver. Dunno how long that will take. Not so interested.

The real run down goes something like this.

Bus trip to a place called Port Hardy. My bus leaves early tomorrow morning, at 5:30, and it will go over the water (its a magical bus..) and then up to the top of Victoria Island to a place called Port Hardy.

The next morning I hop on a ferry that does the "inside passage" (hehehe..) for 14 hours (It will be tired). Then I arrive in a place called Prince Rupert, a small place.. I think, but I will be spending 4 or so days there...I didn't really want to but that is the way it worked out.. so meh, what can you do.

My next ferry leaves on the 17th up to Juneau (the Capital of Alaska). Ill be there for a few days, then im getting a plane up to Anchorage (the largest city in Alaska). After that, ill be flying back to Vancouver via Seattle.

Here is a map of the journey



I just realised you can't actually read the places on the map. Tough titties.

Over-all the trip will be around 12 days, so it should be expensive.

Cha-Ching $$

Just a couple of short messages,

Congrats to Kylie & Nathan on their big day.
Happy Birthday to Mum and Niki (Ill try to call you Mum)
Rigby, photos are on their way... sometime tonight.

Quote(s) of the day - "Covered, covered, not covered.." House owner upon inspection of the wall.
"This doesn't look beautiful.." House owner upon inspection of the door frame/door/stairs/gutters.
"Cameray..not finished yet.." House owner upon inspection of

Universal Update

Hi Everyone,

Just a (relatively) short update to let you all know that I am alive
and kicking (I know at least one of you cares - thanks for always
being there for me Mum.. ill never forget the way you hit me in the
butt with that wooden spoon when i was a kid - look at me now!!).

Two months or so have passed since I have arrived in lil old Vancouver
and I still haven't managed to score a job. It would probably help if
I actually applied for one but I can't understand why the movie execs
haven't offered me a starring role in one of the films that are shot
here. I think it might have something to do with the stars.
Conglomerates like Bennifer just don't want the competition. I'm
pretty sure it's a major conspiracy against me. If it isn't then im
wrong, but im not..

Moving on.

The North American Summer has finally roped me in and I have stared to
actually feel "hot" in the mild heat that it provides. I never
actually thought that I could find a place where it felt hotter or
more humid than what it does in Mackay where I was born (Hello!) but
golly, New York City certainly gave it a run for it's money.

Oh yeah, I went to New York. There is something to tell the kids.

"Kids, I went to New York when I was in my early to late mid twenties."

"So what Dad, you are stupid!"

True story.

Right, anyway, the Big Apple was everything it is cracked up to be.
It's really big, it sells apples in medium to large quantities and
some of them are larger than average in size. The apples themselves
are not what I would call edible but my god they sure honks their
horns alot!

I saw Coney Island, Broadway, Time Square (where you can't really see
any clocks.. I don't get it.. its not even a square), the big
buildings minus the two biggest (which I visited, very sombre area,
strange to see such a big open space in amongst all the massive
buildings), Central Park and etc etc. Yawn.

The highlight of my little jaunt to NY was undoubtably "Lennon", a
broadway show. Totally rocking and worth it, i recommend it
wholeheartedly to anyone who is a mad Beatles/Lennon fan (You know who
you are) or even if you are a casual fan like me. Yoko Ono (of "I was
personally responsible for the breakup of the beatles" fame (sik)) was
even in the audience, dancing and clapping along to a couple of the
tunes. It was pretty surreal.

I also hate Greyhound bus trips and have developed a distinct dislike
of waiting in queues for empty clubs.

Vancouver had it's annual festival of light competition last weekish.
It goes over several nights. What is it you might ask? (Has anyone got
down here? No? Maybe? I'll just amuse myself and pretend someone is
actually reading this email..) It's a fireworks competition between
several different countries with too much spare cash. This year the
combatents were (in order of no particular order) Canada, China and
Sweden. Sweden won, mostly because China's fireworks kept crashing
into the ground just after they launched them and the Canadian's were
just throwing ice hockey pucks into the air in celebration of the end
of the NHL lockout.

In all seriousness, it was a great display for the general public. A
free show is always a good show.

Other than this there really isn't much else to say. Other things
currently happening in Vancouver are sunset and dawn. Thats about it.

Hope everyone is well, look forward to receiving an email from somebody.

Dear Cameron,

Today i went to work and I had lunch with the Queen.

Love
Somebody.

Thanks somebody, you really know how to cheer a guy up.

What are you talking aboo Joooey?

Bonjour,


Props to a lifetime of American/Canadian television for the title..

I'm not so sure what exactly ive done over the last couple of weeks but it sure has been expensive!

The major news I have is that my original housing plans fell through.
Dale the Australian and I bummed around in a hostel for a week until
one day while watching the NBA finals on TV we got a call from Mike
The Canadian (the guy that was supposed to give us the place) saying
that he had had a family emergency and that we couldn't move into the
place anymore.

It was pretty irritating but at least we got our money back.

(Funny side story - we were staying with a German guy who "almost"
moved into the dorm. He moved ALL of his stuff into the draws, hung
his clothes up everywhere and washed his undies in the sink.. as James
the Pom we were sharing the dorm with said "That is f@$ing out of
order man". After he washed his dacks in the sink he hung them up in
front of a fan in the room!! Wheeeeeeeee0

After we got that bad bit of news we went back to the magic pole with
all the housing ads on it and decided it would be a gizilion times
easier if we just moved into seperate places (there were heaps more
ads for roommates than 2 person apartments). I took a look at a few
ads and found one that was furnished, had month to month rent (so no
long lease), free cable TV, free internet, a good location and cheap
rent (and a gym, so look out fat, here comes fun). I gave the number a
call and met the guy that owns the place - Fred the Canadian and
walla, I had found a place to live.

I am living with Fred the Canadian, Monica the Mexican (Fred the
Canadian's girlfriend), Matt the Australian (From Melbourne - he plays
basketball and is roughly my age so that has been pretty cool) and
Alex the German. They are all great people, Alex is German though, but
from Beveria, so he has a healthy respect for chocolate cake.

Since I have been here I have seen a bit more of the city. I went on a
shopping expedition to a place called "Metrotown". It is consumerism
at its best. It is a giant mall. At first I was totally underwealmed
by it (it didn't look THAT big), but then I was totally overwealmed.
It was huge. I bought nothing. Take that.

We managed to catch all the state of origin games, have seen the
insides of more bars, licensed resturants and nightclubs than I care
to remember but it has been a total blast. The people I have met have
all been great.. well not all, but most.

It was Canada day last Friday. It is basically like Australia day
except that people don't go to the pub, they go Canada Flag nuts.
Honestly, the Canadian's rival the Americans for nationalistic pride.
They love a good maple leaf, they even have one on the dirty golden
arch of Macdonalds. Matt the Australian-Roommate-Basketballer and I
walked down to Canada Square and saw some First-Nation (Native
American) dancing and singing, some Bike shows and a few other bits
and pieces. It was OK. We then went and collected Dale and the 3 of us
went to Hons. Wow, thats so exciting Cameron. Move on..

Anyways.. we celebrated Canada Day by going to a place called the Roxy
and drinking copius amounts of Canadian beer.

The next day Dale the Australian and I hopped onto a bus and went down
across the border to Seattle. We had a great time and met a great
bunch of people at the hostel. It was also a great cultural
experience, seeing the African American people (which you don't see
much of in Vancouver). I have alot of funny photos.

I saw a baseball game up close - live (almost). The most exciting part
of the game is when the baseball is hit up into the stands... for that
brief instance you fear for your life.. well maybe your nose at least,
and its ability to stand up to a direct hit from a baseball. It was a
unique experience (Unique to a nieve Aussie like me..) but not one
that I care to repeat anytime soon. I am still pretty keen to go and
see a few of the other American sports like Ice Hockey, NFL and an NBA
game though. While in Seattle we also went to the Rock Museum, the
space needle (seattles version of Centrepoint) and a pub called
Cowgirls Inc. (think Coyote Ugly and gorgeous women dancing on the
bar..) ...woah.

On the 4th of July (US Independence Day) we were also around to
experience the fireworks. If there is one thing I love it is when a
good fireworks show finishes. Yep.

We got back into Vancouver and I am currently in a 3 day detox stretch
(im pretty sure my hands ARENT supposed to shake). Our next plan is
possibly hire a car (Our = Matt the Aussie, Dale the other Aussie,
Alex the Chocolate Cake loving German and Keiran a pom friend of
Matts) and drive across to the Calgary stampede (Rodeos and Cowboy
hats) stay with Barrett the Canadian (that we met in Seattle) and Marc
the Crazy Dutchman (travelling with Barrett.. also met in Seattle) for
a few days, then go to a place called Merritt for a country music
festival and stop off in the Okanagan Valley (which is famous for wine
and looking nice) and then come back to Vancouver. The trip will start
on Friday if it goes ahead and I will come back on Wednesday. After
that Im planning on catching a couple of ferry's up to Anchorage in
Alaska and be at one with Nature and Bears for a couple of days. I am
looking forward to that.

Canada Week One

Hail.

Well, It's been an eventful start to my overseas adventure. I am not
sure whether I would categorise it as an overwhelming sucess just yet
but at least things haven't been dull.

Hmm... where to start... I might start this off with bad stuff and
work my way to the good stuff, that way I won't have a bitter taste in
my mouth when I finish.

Ok - so I have told y'all about my chutney (Some sort of Oil
Chutney... yum yum), I had to throw out a few of my really good shirts
and some shorts and a jumper.. but I have almost let that go now, the
bag is still a bit smelly but I have it hanging outside in a garage
with access to the enormous amounts of sunlight that are pouring down
over us right now, so hopefully that will do the trick, I have tried
just about every remedy suggested to me and now that bag smells a bit
like air freshener rather than Chutney, so that is better than nothing
I guess. I was almost passed all that when I managed to tip over a
beer on my camera. Now my camera is broken. Sigh.

Anyway. That is all just material stuff but it sure is annoying. At
least I am still alive and kicking... For now... If my rate of beer
consumption doesn't slow down (and it has..) then I will probably hit
the deck pretty soon.

The Canadians around here are pretty interesting people for the most
part, I tend to think they are almost like a cross between
Australian's and American's... some lean more towards being U.S
citizens, stupidity intact... that isn't very nice but until I
actually visit the States my cultural bias will hold firm!

Case in point, the other night just after destroying my camera a girl
decides to sit next to me and starts asking a whole bunch of
questions.. the conversation was something like..
Do you like Jessica Simpson?
Umm.. no.
Do you like Britney Spears?
Umm... no.
What swear words do Australian's have?

(glancing towards Dale, frowning slightly.. slight pause..)
We speak English in Australia.
Ohhhhhhhh really!!!
Yes.

Sheesh.

Here she is..I have a cheesy grin on my face



Anyway, apart from this girl most Canadian's seem nice.. it was just
really suprising to meet some people who are exactly like some of the
characters you would see in some of those bad American college jock
movies. For any of the American Pie fans out there I met the spitting
(or is that splitting??) image of Ostriker.



This guy had the intelligence of a pile of dirt, was built like a tank and had two
girls draped over him. I was pretty jealous.

Dale and I have been to a fair few pubs around the Vancouver downtown area. I am really impressed with the service you get. You don't even
have to leave your seat, they just bring you beer all night long. This
is not particularly great for the budget or for the stomach but it
sure is nice. The tipping system throws me off.. I am still not really
clued up on who I am supposed to be tipping and how much to give.. but
I am sure I will get it.. eventually.

We have found a place to stay, which was a pretty good thing - nice as
the hostels are, there is nothing like having the security of your own
apartment. The renting scene is totally different to Australia. There
really is no such thing as a real estate agents, you don't have domain
and you don't go inspect places on the weekends. The apartments around
here all have signs out the front with "Vacancy" or "No Vacancy"
depending on the availability and you just ring the number listed on
the sign. We tried doing this will about 20 different places and we
were getting a bit worried because there was nothing that would offer
a 6 month or month to month rental term, everything was a year
minimum.
Luckily, while walking past a pub one night during the week, Dale said
-

Lets go in there!!!!

Quote of the Post - "Are you guys looking for some sluts??" After Dale asked a girl whether there were any strip clubs in Vancouver.. totally innocently, the bartender jumps in with this classic..

Arrival in Vancouver

Back Dated..

I have arrived safely in Vancouver.

The same cannot be said for my poor clothes (and the bag to an extent)
that have been ruined by some idiot who decided to pack some sort of
chilli sauce that was thoughtfully smashed by the throwers in Fiji or
Hawaii then stuck on top of my bag. Now everything stinks and even
after washing are still crap. Arr Crap.

In other news, the plane flight from Sydney to Nadi was scary.
Turbulence was really nasty and people screamed. I thankfully wasn't
one of them but I think I left something behind for the cleaners to
take care of. Heh heh heh. (I'm talking about poo)

First impression of Vancouver is that Burger King still sucks no
matter what city you are in.

Oh yeah, for some reason canadians 5 cent coins are bigger than 25 cent coins.

This place is strange.

For no particular reason, heres a picture of Templar.. roar

Boring Site things

I had to shuffle a few things around, my alaska stories dissapeared for a while there and i nearly spontaniously combusted thinking that I had lost everything, but thankfully I got them all back apart from my one comment (sorry Kon.. I appreciate the gesture anyway)

Anyway, now ive moved everything and I think its all working ok. Ive put a different directory for Alaska things, and I might eventually do the same for my other side trips ive taken. Plus ive got my reviews section that ill update shortly (due to popular demand)

What this means is that if you dont want to read CRAP and just focus on holiday news, click on Alaska (up the top) or if you want to read CRAP click on Reviews. The first page that shows up will show both. So i guess it will basically act as a filter.

Isn't that nice.


Bread and butter

First EVER blog

Well hi. This is the first blog ive ever done. It stinks.

Review of Mark's Butt

A Candid Appraisal of Mark's Butt


Mark's Butt

When I first saw Mark's butt I was fairly unimpressed and to be honest, my opinion has never changed since. My mother has always said to me "Trust your gut instinct my son" In this case my gut instinct told me that Mark's Butt is subpar. Mum also used to say to me "If you keep stealing my beers I will confiscate your asthma spray."

At first, I was hopeful because as we all know, clothing usually clothing does a great job of hiding the inadequacies of a certain individual. However, once those pants came down, that was it.. bam, it was like we had suddenly left earth via a wormhole and appeared on Uranus. By this I mean because of the affect of gravity Mark's butt appeared droopy, not because the name of the planet sounds like "Your Anus". That's just childish.

The other thing about Mark's Butt that I dislike (apart from the monumental "droop" factor) is that fact that it is a strange brown colour. I don't like that at all.

All in all, Mark's butt was, and still is, uninspiring. I give it 4 thumbs down . (And yes I stole that straight from Chapelle)

Here is an example of a good butt, unlike Mark's butt (which is bad).