Japan needs you!

The title of this article sums everything up in itself! Indeed, this is the kind of phrase you could see everywhere after the terrible earthquake which hit the “Land of the rising sun” couple months ago.

In Australia, there has been a very huge reaction to this catastrophe. Indeed, even if the origin of this very big reaction is somehow hard to determine, the thing you cannot ignore is that every single individual got really involved in actions aiming to help Japan. 

The proximity between Australia and Japan is very important in this story. This is probably the main reason for the Australian reaction. Indeed, Australia is really close to Asia and there are a lot of Asians living here, but also the Asian culture is very present in this country. Thus, people were really concerned about the near future of Japan and Japanese people.

This proximity brought two big concerns to this country. The first one was that a lot of Asian people living in Australia have relatives in Japan, so a lot of people here were really sad because they lost some close friends or family or they were kind of worried about what will happen next to the people they know up there. The second concern was basically the “homeland security”. Indeed, all Australian people were very worried about all the radiation clouds that were supposed to come down directly above Australia and that meant a lot of health problems for the people in here.

This reaction was, like I said, huge! There were a lot of actions taking place in all Australia, especially fundraising actions. Indeed, there were a lot of individuals or associations that organized events such as Japanese food sales in the streets. Also, there were always updates of the situation in everyday news on television. You could really feel the concern that Australian people had for the situation. Every newspaper had at least one double page article about Japan for like three weeks; it was really like you were there! Finally, all these special events came to some kind of an end after approximately one month, but even now you can still be asked for support for the Japanese people in the streets of a big Australian city.

Cheers.

The Aboriginal culture in Australia

Australia’s history is kind of recent; however Europeans were not the first humans to settle on this big island. In fact, some people known as “Aborigines” are present in Australia for more than forty thousand years.

First, what you need to know is that: Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. Indigenous Australians are distinguished as either Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, who currently together make up more than 2.5% of Australia's population.

Nowadays, Aborigines only live in special reserves where their spirituality and practices are just like rules. There are a lot of different tribes of Aborigines each with its own unique mixture of cultures, customs and languages. In present day Australia these groups are further divided into local communities, who live in different areas. Even today, you can still find approximately two hundred different Aboriginal dialects in Australia.

Most of these Aborigines live in special reserves that are mostly located in the “Red Centre”, near Alice Springs, where some places are considered as highly spiritual for Aborigines. Uluru (which is the aboriginal name of “the Ayers Rock”), is for example one place filled out by memories and spirits for these people, which is why they ask tourists for silence and respect in those areas.

There have been a lot of laws concerning Aborigines in Australia. At one time, some of them were banishing them from some cities and other  “public areas”. Now those laws do not exist anymore.  Nowadays, the Aborigines are still living in those reserves and the only ones you can see outside of them, would be the ones who have been chased from their tribe. That is probably the reason why, all the Aborigines you will see in big cities, will be doing some paintings or Aboriginal music in order to earn some money to live.

Here is a video of an aborigine playing Didgeridoo (aboriginal instrument) in the middle of Sydney.

(For some reasons, including the very poor quality of the Australian internet connexion, it would have taken approximately 12 hours to upload this video directly, which is why I did it through Youtube).

  Australia is very rich culturally speaking, and Aborigines definitely represent a great part of this culture.

Cheers.

Creamfields!

Sydney, 30th April, the time for ear spoiling has finally come!

It has been a long time since we bought our tickets and the big day is coming at last! For those who are not familiar with electronic music, Creamfields is a festival taking place every year in different places such as Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Spain, and other cities in Australia.

This electronic music festival yearly brings together some of the world's most famous dj's. For example, this year we have had the luck to listen to Deadmou5, Martin Solveig, Surkin, Dada Life, Chuckie, Skrillex and lots of other very talented artists!It was a really great day! 

We had so much fun! Listening to these artists with so many people around was extraordinary! One of the best day of my life!

Here are some little videos of that day taken either by me or someone else,... I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did!

"Cinema", Skrillex Live @ Creamfields Sydney

"Hello", Martin Solveig Live @ Creamfields Sydney

"Ghosts N Stuff", Deadmou5 Live @ Creamfields Sydney

I <3 music, I <3 Australia!

Cheers

Sydney !!

Wednesday 27th April,

Easter break has now arrived and after having spent a few days showing Brisbane to the Goonies we all took the plane to go discover Australia's most famous city: Sydney!

This country is one and a half time bigger than Europe but the flight from Brisbane to Sydney takes only 1hour, which surprised us. We are not used to these little flights anymore!

This city is impressive! It really is bigger than Brisbane and Melbourne and there are a lot of things to do! We spent 6 days there and despite this lack of time we have seen almost all the interesting things to see! The main reason for that may be that our guide was a really good one! (haha! The Bra-Bra crew will understand!)

In this city we have seen lots of impressive landscapes, beaches and monuments such as Manly beach, Palm beach, the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and a lot more...

Sydney is definitely one of the cities that you have to see in your life! And if you did not have the chance to be there yet, here are some pictures that will, for sure, make you want to!

Cheers!