No Fixed Plans

We arrived at around 9:45am, and after travelling it was so nice to finally be somewhere we could just relax a little. The first thing on the agenda was brunch at a little café, which was exactly what we needed after the journey.

After that, we spent some time wandering around town and getting our bearings. A few people decided to head down to the beach instead, but I stayed in town and just enjoyed walking around, looking at the shops and soaking up the atmosphere. It was one of those easy, laid-back afternoons where there wasn’t really any rush to do anything.

We headed back to the hotel and chilled until about 5:30pm before everyone got ready for dinner. Unfortunately, dinner was definitely the lowlight of the day. The service was honestly shocking. One girl in our group waited almost three hours for her meal, by which point everyone else had already finished eating. To make it even worse, the staff tried convincing a few people that the plate of ribs sitting in front of them was actually the steak they’d ordered. It would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so frustrating.

After dinner, we had to say goodbye to a few people from our tour group who were leaving, which was a little sad because we’d all gotten pretty close. Once the goodbyes were over though, eight of us decided to make the most of our last night together and headed out to a club. It ended up being such a fun way to finish the day and made for some really good memories.

The next morning started early with breakfast at 7:30am so we could say goodbye to two more people who were leaving the tour.

After saying our goodbyes, we went to another café for breakfast before catching an Uber into the city square. We spent a while wandering around, souvenir shopping, and just exploring. While we were there, we watched the changing of the guards, which was really interesting, but we also ended up stumbling across another ceremony happening nearby.

There were these men wearing white masks with painted faces, and they had what looked like llamas on their backs. I still have no idea if they were real or fake. They were dancing around in circles while whipping each other as part of the performance, and before I knew it, one of them had pulled me and another girl over to take photos with them. It was completely unexpected, slightly intimidating, but also hilarious.

After that, we headed to a shopping centre to browse the clothing stores before grabbing lunch at an Asian restaurant. Once we’d eaten, we walked over to see the Paddington Bear statue, which was such a cute little stop and definitely worth seeing.

Later in the afternoon, we went back to the hotel for a bit to relax before having to say goodbye to another two people from our group. It definitely felt like our numbers were getting smaller, which was a strange feeling after spending so much time together.

In the evening, we had a group meeting together where we also got to meet the new people joining before heading out for dinner together. After dinner, I went back to the hotel, packed everything up, and got organised for the next day’s adventure.