Day 1
Well, this is my first time of using my own money to travel.
The feeling was a bit different from saving pocket money from
parents. 
Anyway,
I started my trip on August 25 afternoon when I did the check-in
in the airport. I succeeded in asking Derek and Bong (my high
school friends) to go to airport with me. But their dirty mouths
made me really embarassed in front of the check-in staff. When I
was in the counter, they talked lots of jokes related to sex. For
me, undoubtedly, pretty funny. However, it was not in the right
situation! The check-in staff looked a bit annoyed after the
check-in!
I left them around 3:15pm when I was walking to the boarding gate. When I was reaching there, I saw the passengers from the previous flight were leaving from the plane. What?! It was 3:20 and my flight will leave at 4:00. Can they do all the clean up that fast? It is a Boeing 747-400?! I was worrying because I would have only 45 minutes for transit in Singapore. If this flight delayed, I might need to take another flight to Sydney. Luckily, the flight departed Hong Kong and arrived Singapore on time. I made it to catch the connecting flight.
I arrived Sydney at 530am next morning. There were 2 hours time differences between Hong Kong and Sydney. So, my biological clock was 3:30am at that moment. But, I would have to start my day that early! I first went to the immigration. Suddenly, the officer asked if I were British citizen. I said yes. He said some problems existed and asked me to wait in front of another counter. I was afraid if the problem stemed from the visa. The worst they could do was to send me back to Hong Kong immediately! Later, a nice lady discovered my travel agent made a mistake when applying the visa. The agent thought I was a Hong Kong resident and put "China" as the nationality. The officer fixed the problem in seconds and I headed to the train station.
A good friend of mine (Manho) was going to host me in his place. We agreed I would call him after arrival and meet in a train station (Kingscross) nearest to his place. Everything was fine until I arrived at the transfer station. A notice said the railway shutted down the route to Kingscross! However, they did have connecting buses. I got to a bus and went to Kingscross immediately as I was already late! Although Australia was pretty cool that time (8c comparing 30c in Hong Kong), I did not feel too cold. The quiet of saturday morning was really like Vancouver. I dropped off in Kingscross, and was a bit scared. Kingscross is a RED LIGHT DISTRICT! Manho lived in this area because he started apartment hunting late. That's the only place he could go.
Eventually, we met. Then, we had breakfast and went to downtown Sydney. We took a ferry in Circular Quay to a zoo. Why we went to a zoo? Because I wanted to see koala. We left the quay around 9:45am. The ferry was definitely a good choice because I saw the Opera House and Sydney Bridge at the same time in the 15 minutes journey.
This zoo (I forgot its name) was built along a hill. The best
way of visiting was start from the top (by taking cable cars) and
walk to the bottom. 
Actually,
we did not walk to the bottom of the hill as it would take us too
long. We walked back to the terminal and took cable car down
hill. One thing I really appreciate about this zoo was that it
contained both sceneries of city and nature. Sometimes, we could
see the Opera House. But, we were only meters aways from
elephants, monkeys...etc.
We left for Chinatown around 11am. Manho suggested to take bus. I was very impressed by his decision because the bus went through the Sydney Bridge on its way to the city. Then, we had dim sum lunch. After lunch, I met another high school friend: Chun Bong. As Manho would have exam soon, Bong took me around Sydney. We walked to the Opera House from Chinatown. Of course, we went by many nice buildings like Queen Victoria Building and Strand Acrade. I took some pictures in front of the Opera House. Then, we walked to Rocks. Rocks is like a flea market that opens every saturday and sunday. Then, we ate pancakes as afternoon tea. Honestly, I was extremely tired when we were in the pancake shop. If I close my eyes, I could fall asleep in a minute. After the tea, we called Manho out for dinner. We went to Chinatown again. After supper, we went to Darling Harbor and Star City Casino. But, none of us gambled. We found that the casino was mainly filled with Chinese. We wondered why.
We ended the day by taking bus home. We arrived home at 11pm. From 5:30am, I had been walking non-stop! haha... Shall I put is as my new personal record?