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Declan’s Den – The Big Trip

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Today’s goal was simple: wear myself out so I can sleep on the plane and arrive in Singapore bright-eyed and fresh at 3am. The means to this end was unsurprisingly to walk around all day and complete minor, borderline unnecessary tasks in preparation of the upcoming trip.

  • Watched The Boy and The Heron in the George St Event Cinemas. Not in gold class this time and my lumbar was letting me know. The movie started off a bit slow, but turned into something that felt very close to Spirited Away, albeit with more a focus on trauma as the driving mechanism behind the main character. The parakeets were silly and I think they will be the legacy of the film that I remember.
  • There is nowhere in Australia where I believe you can feel like you are getting a reasonable deal when you exchange currencies in cash. The brusque informality with which numbers are punched into a calculator and aggressively shown to you in 7-segments, before the cash is counted out in front of you always make me feel like they are trying to convince you they’re not scamming you. It doesn’t work.
  • The international airport is way bigger than domestic. I wonder if it has more planes, they hang around longer or they are just spaced further apart. I also wonder if I’ll ever buy a luxury good before going on a trip. I have definitely bought games under an equivalent situation (or more likely persuaded others to for me), so I guess it’s not so different.
The Entertainment Quarter was the busiest I had ever seen. Up to 50% of the businesses were open! Side note: when did Fox Studios relabel their tower to Disney Studios and will the state government ever update the sign on Anzac Parade to refer to it by its new honorific. I hope not.
The city was busy. As expected. This photo does not capture this, but was the only one I took.
Important to be the first one in the cinema so everyone knows you are a true fan and can enjoy the collection of royalty free music playing continuously at volumes above the limit for hearing damage.
My collection of exotic sweets for my exotic film. I have to build up my tolerances for when I get to Singapore so Caitlin doesn’t drink me under the table with Kopis. Unfortunately I felt a bit sick after even this, so I am worried.
The lesser known second Sydney aquarium. Located a few blocks up from the other one on the 2nd floor of a random combined commercial/residential building. I wonder if a single tourist has ever gotten sufficiently confused to mistake this for the real one. It seems really difficult, but I assume that is their business model.
I want to meet the person with the cajones that caused the institution of this policy of chaining the guide dog donation stands in the international airport.
I believe this is where my plane should be. Tune in to tomorrow’s blog to find out if it arrived.

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Dek

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2 Responses

  1. Safe travels Declan! Hope you sleep well on the plane and that you cope with the upcoming sugar load. Give Cait a big hug from us and we hope you both have a fabulous couple of weeks. Expecting double the blog posts now. App is working well! Maria

  2. Another fantastic blog post, it’s almost like I was there in the cinema with you. Glad you did some prep work for Kopi. Does this mean we are gold class people from now on?