Holiday Down Under - Part 3: GOLD COAST

This is the third and final part of my posts about my holiday in Australia.
Fair warning: this one may not be as interesting or as long because I didn't go out and do so much in this last part of my holiday.

I arrived at Burleigh Heads (which I found out is not actually a part of the main city but more of a suburb/small town outside of the main area -- fine with me though!) on the morning of Christmas Eve.  I had taken a bus from Brisbane and it was quite a quick trip -- only about 2 hours.  When the driver was dropping me off at the place I was staying, he was asking me if I was meeting up with my family or friends.  When I said no, he was like, "well that's not a very pleasant Christmas then is it?" Umm....suuuure....thank you so much for saying that.  Anyway...I arrived around lunch time, and even though check-in wasn't until later, I was able to get into my room right away to drop off my things. Yay! And although I say room...it was actually a small apartment.  And when I say small, it was at least twice the size of my apartment here in Japan, so actually not so small.  After that, I took a bit of a walk to go pick up some food so that I actually had something to eat for the next day since a lot of places would be closed for Christmas day.  Then I went and spent some time on the beach (which was about a 1.5 minute walk away!

First glimpse of the beach!

Early in the evening, I took a walk down the path that went next to the beach, and did some exploring.  It was quite loud because at that time there were flocks and flocks of lorikeets flying around and hanging out in the trees along the way.  Eventually I came to a small hill, where you had two options...to either go up the hill or go around it for the coastal walk. I chose the coastal one.  It was quite pretty.

This is the hill I was talking about, looking from the beach

View the other way...all those tall buildings are in "Surfers Paradise"

Going in through the coastal path

There were so many stretches of beach! 

Christmas Day, I spent most of my time on the beach until it started to cloud over, and it poured and there was some really bright and big lightning strikes for at least a couple hours.  It was nice to watch!

Watching the lightning from my balcony! It was easier to see the bolts in real life though...

If the link doesn't work, click here.

Looking the other way, from the bedroom windows...a couple clearer lightning bolts...

If the link doesn't work, click here.

The next day, it was quite cloudy again, so I took a walk to the main city area, going along the coast as much as I could.  A couple hours later, I ended up in Surfers Paradise, which is a main part of the city, with some sky scrapers, and is supposedly quite famous.  I'm not really sure why... While I was there, I also wandered through the shops for a bit before heading back.  That evening I spent some time floating around in the pool at my accommodation and relaxing in the hot tub.  Until the lightning started up again.

The view from my balcony off my room

The next two days I just spent most of my time at the beach, enjoying the nice weather.  One day I had to head back earlier than expected though. This was because the ocean decided to swallow my towel.  That day, I had been sitting quite a ways back from the water as usual (at a point where the water didn't go. Or so I thought.  But a couple that was walking by said to me, "You're going to get wet right away!",  and so I jumped up and was able to pick up my bags and things, but I couldn't save my towel in time.  A big wave had pushed its way really far into the beach and, as I said, swallowed up my towel.  That was the ONLY time that I was there that the water went that far up the beach.  Bad luck.  I took it back to dry out, but I didn't have any other towels, so I was kind of sad because I wanted to spend more time on the beach. Eventually I went back, and just sat on the sand.

Link is here

Waves!

On my last day, I wasn't getting picked up to go the airport until the evening (my flight didn't leave until almost 1am). In the morning, I went to a place in the city that looked quite interesting and I wanted to try out.  It was called Holoverse.  At this place they have interactive hologram experiences.  It's kind of hard for me to describe, but basically, imagine the holodeck from Star Trek.  It's kind of like that, except not as smart.  It was really interesting though!  There were different options that you could choose, and I did the one where you go through a few different scenes and have to do different things.  One of them was playing with snow, another was climbing over walls, then there were things like picking up apple with a spear, avoiding stampeding jungle animals, jumping through holes, going underwater to watch fish and turtles, and you even got to "fly" at the end.

I think this shows it better. If it doesn't work, click here.

At the end you could also take pictures with some scenes on the wall, and so things like this happened...

When I got back, I spent some time on the beach.  I could have also spent more time around the pool at my accommodations because they offered to let me stay there if I wanted, and even said they would lend me a towel...but why go in a pool when you have the beach?!  Actually they were quite nice to me...since I wasn't leaving until the evening they said, I could come and go as I wanted (not in my room, but in the pool area), use the pool, and the bathroom as I liked, I just had to buzz at the door and they'd let me in.  So kind!

My return flights to Japan weren't so much fun...there were lots of delays, and so the trip became much longer than I thought it would be, but eventually I did make it back home.