Life on the Gold Coast pt. II / by Kevin Huang

PROLOGUE:  

Landing in Oz

I touched down in Sydney after a 12 hr flight from Honolulu and that afternoon hitched a 5 hour bus ride to Canberra (with two suitcases, and a board bag no less) where my boy AcB was living. 

 

 

 

That night we ended up partying till 2am (I took a cab home since AcB was still raging but it's all good) and I woke up on the couch the next morning to the sound of some girl getting railed.  

 

So began my first day in Australia.  

 

 

While I was there, so many things were happening, and I had so many things on my mind at the time, that it became difficult to really soak it all in in that moment.  It wasn't until many months later (which is partly why I'm writing this blog post), that everything sort of started making sense.  

I went into the country not knowing what was going to happen - I had only bought a one way ticket to Sydney.  I had been granted a tourist visa which lasted for an entire year, and I could come and go as many times within the year as I pleased, but the longest I could remain in the country was three months - I had to leave and come back if I wanted to stay longer than three months.

The girl who I was chasing, I hadn't seen in about 6 months, and although I obviously cared for her, there was no telling what was going through her head now.  When I made the decision to come, I figured aside from a basic overview of the country, there was only so much I could learn from the Internet, so I came with the mindset that I would just wing it (it's always more fun that way anyway).  It was essentially a "show up, and see how things go" type of situation.    

The first two weeks in Oz were sick.  My friend AcB welcomed me in, we road tripped along the coast, and he pretty much gave me a sink or swim crash course on how to survive all manner of Australian life or death situations (VB is always the answer).  I still remember freaking out with pure stoke the first time I saw a Kangaroo.  

We started out going east and pretty much made our way up the New South Whales coast.  It was one of those trips where the sacrifices were done properly and the wave gods came through.  We would show up to perfect wave after perfect wave, sometimes with a crowd, sometimes with only one dude out, but always with enough waves for us all. Sometimes more than enough.   We surfed point breaks, beachies, and reefs.  To me, it all seemed normal, but my boy, who had made the pilgrimage up the coast many times, assured me that this was something special.  The wave gods were indeed looking down upon us.  And it was good. 

But, sadly, before I knew it, I was running around the airport again, getting owned by the lady behind the ticket counter, smashed by board bag fees, and trying to catch a solo flight up to the Gold Coast.  And with my heart in my throat, it was back again to reality ...