Thursday, September 22, 2005

Competitions in Cairns

Overall, I had a fantastic time in Cairns, although I wasn't super impressed with the city itself. It is clearly a tourist mecca, and at times I felt like I was crashing a frat party (especially on Friday and Saturday night at the hostel). However, I did meet several cool people and had a few adventures.

One really nice girl that I met is An from Belgium. We decided to go out and watch the Cane Toad races they were having at a bar one night. We each put a wager down on a toad, and then the fun began.

The host called everyone up who bet on a toad, and we had to hold them as they squirmed and peed.

I'm preparing to hold my Cane Toad competitor.

The Cane Toad race

Despite our cheering, neither of our toads won.

Following the race, the host said we were going to have another competition, and pulled 5 girls out of the audience. These five included me and An. He sent us backstage where there was a box of wigs and other costumes and said that we were having an international fashion show (we had representatives from US, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland).

The International Cane Toad Fashion Show

We had to do a little cat walk thing and were judged by our applause. Sorry to those of you in the United States, but I didn't win. However, my friend An did!

An, as the Cane Toad Fashion Queen, holding her bag of Australian treats.


Her prize was a bag of Australian candies and cookies, as well as a fantastic tiara.

A few days later, the hostel was having a barbecue to celebrate International Peace Day. As part of the celebration they had an Australian Trivia contest. We started out in teams (my team was named Crocodile Dundee - not my choice), and our team tied with another. We had a sudden death question, and got it right. At that point, we had to split up and play against our teammates. Much to my surprise, I won! The prize was a reef tour worth $140. I was leaving in the morning, meaning it wasn't much use to me so I gave it to one of my teammates who hadn't been out on the reef yet.

An and I are planning to meet up again in Sydney, and we hope to find more contests to win there. We seem to be a good team.

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