Sydney, Australia (Part 3)

The last full day of our great adventure.

The only remaining thing we had left to do was buy a didgeridoo and return our car. Returning the car didn't take long, especially since Hertz didn't notice all the scratches we got from offroading it in Dorrigo National Park. After this last errand we got back to exploring the great city of Sydney. We realized that in the three weeks in Australia we hadn't visited a religious building. In every other country, much less city, we visited over the past three months we stopped and toured a church (Europe), mosque (Turkey), synagogue (Prague), temple (India, China, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore) or monastery (Hong Kong). We only thought it was fitting that we stopped by a church in Sydney. The church was kind of cool and as you can see from the picture I still haven't equalized my ears.

After completing the religious requirement we checked out the Royal Botanic Gardens of Sydney. The gardens were cool, but the most impressive sight there were the 22,000 flying foxes. Flying foxes are huge bats with 5 foot wingspans and are really loud. All throughout the gardens were trees filled with these bats. It's an awesome sight. It's also an interesting dilemma for the city of Sydney. The 22,000 grey-headed flying foxes that have taken over the botanical gardens are endangered, but so are the trees in the botanical gardens, which the bats are killing. We're not sure how a species that has a colony of 22,000 in the most populous city on the continent can be endangered, but whatever. Apparently, this is the biggest ecological disaster since Bart Simpson left his pet bullfrog in Australia.

We kept walking around the area and found Mrs. MacQuarie's chair. This chair was used by Governor MacQuarie's wife to sit and watch the harbor back in the late 19th century. Lara felt that she should do Mrs. MacQuarie proud by being proper in her chair.

From the harbor we headed to the Rocks to check out a didgeridoo store and on the way we stumbled on a cool market. A little more upscale than most other markets we've visited, but very cool. The didgeridoo store in the Rocks didn't pan out so we staid on the didgeridoo hunt. The hunt took us to Bondi Beach where there was an Aboriginal store. As fate would have it, the last didgeridoo store that we would have a chance to visit turned out to be the best. After an hour of trying about a dozen didgeridoos and getting a lesson we found our didgeridoo. I should really say that it is my didgeridoo because Aboriginal culture says that only men are allowed to play the didgeridoo.

The last night of our adventure was spent in Bondi Beach. We got all dolled up and had a classy dinner at the Icebergs Dining Room overlooking Bondi Beach. The food was great, but the view was the star that night, both Lara and Bondi Beach.

At 5am we got up and watched our last sunrise. As a native Californian it was awkward watching the sun rise over the ocean, but on Bondi Beach, everything feels good. Following the sunrise we went for a jog along the ocean trail south of Bondi Beach. At a secluded area we buried our temporary travel rings. We didn't want to bring our real wedding rings with us on this trip so we got some inexpensive rings in Greece. Since our adventure was coming to a close we thought it fitting to bury our rings. Some day we'll go back to pick them up.

After our jog Lara did yoga on the beach at the Iceberg Club and I surfed Bondi Beach (attempted to surf really). At 11am the music started and we had to head out. One last crazy van ride later we were at the Sydney International Airport. Qantas flight QF073 was on time and we took off. Our great adventure had come to a close.

Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia

Willie Nelson once wrote a song about being on the road again, I forget what it's called but it would probably apply to us. After the market in Bellingen we headed back on the road in our mighty Toyota Corolla Seca. Since Lara and I had been on the coastal road between Sydney and Port MacQuarie twice we wanted to avoid going on it a third time by taking the far inland road. That's why we left Bellingen and headed west for several hours to catch the New England Highway to Sydney. For the three hours from Bellingen until the New England Highway we drove along Australia 78, the Waterfall Way. The road is called Waterfall Way because of all the waterfalls along the road, or at least that's what the Lonely Planet - Australia said. Going from Bellingen westward we drove through several rainforests and saw a couple small waterfalls on the way. Since it was kind of early and we thought we had time we took a detour to Dorrigo National Park to go see another waterfall that our book recommended. Lonely Planet had a note about Dorrigo National Park that said, "It's well worth making the drive down to the Never Never rest area in the heart of the national park, from where you can walk to waterfalls or begin longer walks." We interpreted this to be the drive to the rest area from the main park area would take a little bit of time and from there it would be a short walk to some cool waterfalls, we decided to go for it. The rest area was only 10km (6 miles) from from the park area and it took us 45 minutes to get there! 1km past the visitor center the road turned into a dirt road that had been nearly completely taken over by the forest. Needless to say our Toyota Corolla wasn't built for this kind of driving. This was Lara's first experience driving in Australia and she wasn't too happy with it, but she did a great job. Once we got to the Never Never rest area the map there informed us that it was a 10km walk to the waterfall. We decided to walk around the forest but not make the big trek, since that would take us all day. We're pretty confident that the guys at Lonely Planet winged this write-up. Poor form.

Two hours after we started our detour to see a waterfall we were back on Waterfall Way. There were a couple cool little turn offs for waterfalls, but for the most part the waterfalls didn't live up to the hype. Continuing on the drive we stopped at a lavender farm that sold wine, go figure, and the Big Golden Guitar. Australians are serious about country music and we were in the heart of Australian country music. To honor their country music someone put up a big guitar. We didn't get it either.

We had hoped to get to the Hunter Valley in time to stop at a winery or two but we got in too late. We drove around the area but for the most part it was a dud. Hunter Valley is one of Australia's best and largest wine growing areas and we expected something similar to Napa, Sonoma, or even Livermore. There were a ton of wineries, but there was no town or interesting place to spend the night and try some local wines. Instead, we kept driving and got into Sydney around 8pm. We popped our tent and camped out near Manly Beach, where we spent some time our first night in Sydney.

Bellingen, Australia

After our morning jog we got back on the Australian road. Our first destination was the fine town of Nimbin, Australia. Like some of our previous destinations Nimbin was recommended to us by Australians. Nimbin was described as a cool hippy town with a laid back feel. Nimbin turned out to be a town where old stoners go to die. The town itself is only a few blocks long with not much to it. We got there around lunch time and tried to find a place to grab a bite. The town is without a single restaurant. In place of restaurants, Nimbin has the Hemp Museum, Nimbin Hemp Embassy and a multitude of smoke shops. There were tons of young tourists in town, but all the residents appeared to be 60 or older. I've had a lot of interesting people offer me drugs in my life (fellow students, bosses, and the occasional unnamed relative), but having a 70 year old grandma offer me marijuana takes the (space)cake. Making the situation worse, 70 year olds who spend their whole adult life doing drugs and sitting in the Australian sun don't age too well. We didn't spend too much time in Nimbin.

We B-lined it back to the coast after our Nimbin experience. We drove along the coast making the occasional stop at a beach. At one point we were driving along a large sand dune to the left of us for miles. We thought the ocean was next to us so we pulled off and hiked (bushwalked) over the dune. On the other side of the dune was a great beach that ran for as far as the eye could see. And as far as the eye could was not a sole but the two of us. This incredible beach was completely vacant. It was incredible.

We got back on the road after a quick dip in the water and headed to Bellingen. Bellingen had a didgeridoo store that we wanted to stop at and perhaps buy a didgeridoo. We got into the mighty metropolis of Bellingen (population 2721) around 6:30pm, just in time for the store to close. While in the town we noticed that a band would be playing and the town looked kind of cool, so we decided to camp out there. We pitched our $50 beach tent and hit the town. For a tiny town, Bellingen knows how to rock. The bar next to our campsite was busy all night and the band that was playing across town was pretty good too. While we were out partying it rained about an inch. We got back to our tent to discover a huge puddle in it. We also had a large green visitor. Luckily, the Youth Hostel we were camping in had a room available.

The following morning we checked out the Bellingen Market. Again, for a tiny town Bellingen can put it together. This little town had a large craft and farmers' market that provided us with some nice Christmas presents. After a quick tour of the market we headed out of town. The didgeridoo store that we came to Bellingen for ended up being a dud, but the town of Bellingen was a great little stop.

Byron Bay, Australia

During the past two months and change we have bumped into a lot of Australians and when ever we mentioned that we were going to go to Australia they would mention the Whitsundays and Byron Bay. Since we would be passing by Byron Bay on our way from Brisbane to Sydney we thought we had to spend some time there.

Since we were on the road at 7am after getting up at 5am and doing a nature hike, we drove from Lamington National Park to Surfers Paradise for breakfast. Surfers Paradise sounds like a small surfing town where the surf is perfect and people are laid back; I was expecting something like Santa Cruz, CA. Instead, Surfers Paradise is like Miami. High rise condominium towers everywhere with more going up every minute. Lots of high end shops and almost no charm. Lara wanted to stop in Surfers Paradise because it had a bungee jumping platform and Lara had, "Bungee jump in Australia" listed as one of her must dos on the trip. We got to the bungee jump platform and it was some guy who had a bungee setup off of his construction crane. This, and the fact that it didn't open for another 2 hours made us leave Surfers Paradise without much hesitation. The surf did look good, but it looks good all over Australia.

We kept heading south after Surfers Paradise driving right along the coast. The high rises and sprawl ended pretty quickly and the short (2 hour) drive to Byron Bay was really nice. Driving in Australia isn't as hard as people think it is. In Australia, like almost all other British Commonwealth countries, people drive on the left side of the road and the steering wheel is on the right. Driving on the left side of the road isn't hard at all. Driving on the right side of the car with all of the controls and mirrors reversed is kind of hard. The hardest part was actually the most humorous. Since the controls are reversed the turn signal and the windshield wipers are reversed compared to American cars. We can't count how many times I tried to signal a turn and the wipers started going off. It's better than plowing into an oncoming truck I guess.

We got into Byron Bay around noon and spent the remainder of the day there. Byron Bay is as good as the Australians make it out to be. The town is really laid back, with no high rises or high end stores. It's mostly small hotels and cool boutique shops. The beach on Byron is also fantastic, but so are most beaches in Australia. We spent the day walking around the town nursing a sunburn and in the evening we had a barbecue on the beach. Australians love their barbecues. They have nice gas powered barbecues at all beaches and parks. If you want to barbecue you just bring some meat and grill it. Awesome.

The following morning we got up and jogged around the Byron Bay Lighthouse and the eastern most point of Australia's mainland. After our jog we got back on the road.

Lamington National Park, Australia

Good news - Road Trip! Bad news - it's the last week of our adventure.

Get up early and get going, the start of most of our blog entries. This time, get up early, go to the airport, get our rental car, and head out on our road trip. Our plan of attack for the final days of our trip was to rent a car in Brisbane and drive (slowly) from Brisbane to Sydney. The first stop on our road trip was the Australia Zoo, former home of Steve Irwin, just an hour north of Brisbane. We're not big zoo people but the Australia Zoo was written up in our Lonely Planet - Australia book so we thought we should visit it while in the area. The detour was definitely worth it. The Australia Zoo is a great zoo and different from any other we have been to. Since this was Steve Irwin's (the Crocodile Hunter) zoo you can easily guess what the star animal is at the zoo. There are no fewer than a dozen pens for crocodiles in the zoo plus the Crocoseum. The Crocoseum is a large arena where crocodiles and other animals are brought in and shown off. We got to catch a show in the Crocoseum and see a croc go to town on some chicken breasts. The crocodiles are huge, 12, 15, even 20 feet long and most were actually caught by Steve Irwin. The rest of the zoo is made up mostly of indigenous Australian animals: kangaroos, koalas, poisonous snakes, Tasmanian devils, dingos, etc. Not only were the animal exhibits cool but we got to touch some of the animals. The kangaroo exhibit is wide open, you can feed and touch the kangaroos. In another exhibit there are koalas just chilling out and they will even let you hold them. Definitely one of the coolest zoos we've been to.

After the zoo we meandered southward past Brisbane to Lamington National Park. To add to our adventure and cut down on costs we bought a little beach tent in Melbourne and we were going to camp with it on our road trip. We drove to Lamington National Park to both get some cheap lodging and see the Australian outdoors. Like most of our camping experiences we got to our campsite well past dusk and setup camp under the stars. After we setup camp and had a celebratory bottle of wine we took a short night walk. We stumbled upon a field filled with wallabies (a smaller relative of the kangaroo) that scrambled away when we got close. We turned around when we realized we really weren't going to see anything and the field was filled with wallaby poo.

The next morning we got up with the sun, 5am (Queensland, the state that we were in, doesn't do day light savings). Getting up at the crack of dawn has its privileges though as we took a walk through the rainforest seeing dozens of wallabies and stumbling on an awesome view. After the bushwalk (aka hike) we got back in our Toyota Corolla Seca and hit the road.

Brisbane, Australia

We got into Brisbane late at night, it rained for a few hours during our only day in town, and we left first thing in the morning our second day in town. So we didn't see much of Brisbane, but it still made a good first impression. We didn't have any plans for Brisbane so we spent the day walking around the city trying to get a feel for it. The biggest impression we got from Brisbane is that it's really tropical. Monsoon rain, warm, humid, and lots of lizards, Brisbane is pretty tropical. Like most other Australian cities it has tons of large cool parks. At one park there is a quarter mile long cliff that is about 100 feet high and is the largest outdoor rock climbing gym, right across the river from downtown Brisbane. All around the city there is cool artwork and awesome outdoor activities.

While we were walking around a neighborhood we got caught in a monsoon downpour. We were close to a bar when it happened so we got to watch it pass as we tried some of Australia's finest beer.

We finished the day by going to XXXX Brewery, one of Australia's largest and best. Unfortunately we were 15 minutes late for the last tour. Fortunately, the bar tender at the tasting room felt bad and let us try 6 types of beer free of charge. Gotta love those Aussies.

Whitsunday Islands, Australia

Everyone is told that when in Australia you have to go to the Great Barrier Reef. In addition, Australians will also say you have to go to the Whitsunday Islands since it has the best beaches in the world and it's absolutely beautiful. After spending some time on Australia's beaches (see Sydney P.2) I am willing to say that Australians know beaches and I was willing to listen to their beach advice. To knock out two birds with one stone, the Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday Islands, Lara and I decided to join a small boat cruise that goes to both. After a flight halfway across Australia, ferry ride, and hike across town we arrived at our boat in Airlie Beach. The boat was a large, 3 masted, sailboat with 20 passengers and 6 crew. We left the dock at 4pm and spent the remainder of the day boating to and around Hayman Island. The water everywhere was awesome. It's that crystal clear blue that you see in movies and you can see at least 20 feet deep. It's just like the San Francisco Bay...... The first night we dropped anchor in a bay inside of Hayman Island. Lara and I had never heard about it, but apparently Hayman Island is an ultra posh resort island that only the rich and famous can get into. Since we were only peons to these people we were confined to the water, but the back side of the island looks nice. We can't complain at all about spending the night on the boat instead of a super resort because that night we were treated to an incredible show by mother nature. After the sun set Lara and I laid on the deck of the boat and watched no fewer than eight shooting stars go by as we checked out the southern stars. Since we had never been south of the equator we had never seen most of the stars in the Australian sky. The star show was amazing. Not to be outdone, the fish put on an equally impressive show. As we were watching the stars we heard splashing almost non-stop. We got a flashlight and headlamp and shined it on the water. For about an hour we watched huge fish chase and eat medium sized fish as the medium sized fish chased and ate the small fish. There was one fish, two fish, red fish, and blue fish, but alas, the dog did not go. That night will definitely be one that we remember for a long time.

Our first full day on the boat our captain took us to the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef to go snorkeling and scuba diving. Lara and I signed up to do scuba diving and it would be my first time and Lara's second, but first real dive. I think our dive instructor was Jacques Cousteau's lazy son. Our dive lesson was as follows (in a french accent), "Poot yure arms up like theece. Steek theece in yure mouth. Can you breathe? Gewd. Now off zee boat." Our dive lesson wasn't the best. We were told to equalize our ears when diving the night before but I wasn't sure how hard we were supposed to push and how painful it was supposed to be. Once we dove down Lara had ear problems and Jacques Jr. sent her back to the boat. I was having off and on ear problems and tried to equalize my ears several times but just gutted it out. When we finished the dive 1/2 an hour later I had a bloody nose/mouth and my ears were filled with fluid. Junior told me to just toss some water on my face to wash off the blood. Clearly, staying underwater with my ears in pain was the wrong decision since it's been almost three weeks and my left ear still isn't back to normal. Thanks frenchy. The dive was pretty cool though. It was just me, Jacques Junior, and a guy from Seattle, so very small. I saw a shark, crazy fish, and got to touch a jelly fish. The giant squid and mermaids were not in season I guess. The remainder of the day was spent lounging on the boat trying to pop my ears.

For day two of our boat adventure we were taken to Whitsunday Island for a bushwalk. We've come to realize that a bushwalk isn't some crazy Australian adventure that involves finding yourself and fighting off crocodiles with your bare hands. A bushwalk is simply the Australian name for hike or outdoor walk. Our bushwalk involved being dropped off on the island from the boat's inflatable raft, hiking 1/2 a mile and lounging on the beach for a few hours. The beach was absolutely beautiful and the sand on the beach was like powder sugar. It was like no place we had been before. Unfortunately, we couldn't go swimming in this paradise because of jelly fish and sting rays. That was fine with us because we got to watch the sting rays from the shore. The sting rays were huge, some as large as a trash can lid and they would bury themselves in the sand or just swim right along the coast. After spending some time on the beach we got back on the boat and went to a snorkeling spot. On the way we spotted some giant turtles and dolphins (the dolphins weren't giant). That night we were treated to a great sunset and meal (the cook on the boat was incredible).

The following morning we did another bushwalk to an aboriginal cave with interesting cave drawings. After the bushwalk we pulled up the anchor and made for port. Our experience in the Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef was incredible, even with Jacques Junior.

Melbourne, Australia

Where the heck are we? Four hours prior to landing in Melbourne Lara and I were on the beach in sunny 90' weather. When we got off the bus in Melbourne it was 60' and lightly raining. WTF?

As mentioned above, the weather in Melbourne wasn't the best when we started our first day. Overcast, slight drizzle, and kind of cold. We had always heard comparisons of Melbourne to San Francisco, this was more like Seattle. Since the weather wasn't cooperating for us to hit the town we headed out to one of Melbourne's many museums, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, aka a museum for Australia's movie history. You quickly realize the many contributions Australia has made to cinema, such as; Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee P. 2 - Mick's Revenge, and lots of material for making fun of Australians. One interesting fact, until the 1970's only Melbourne and Sydney had television and to this day Australia still does live commercials similar to the ones the US did in the 1950's.

After our museum trip Lara and I decided to have lunch at a normal restaurant. Up to this point we had kind of noticed that Australian portions of food were a little on the large side, but we hadn't thought much of it. At this particular restaurant (a non-chain restaurant similar to Chili's) I ordered a kangaroo burger and Lara ordered chicken parma. As you can tell from the picture, the portions at this particular restaurant were massive. We asked our server if she would expect a chicken parma to be as large in America as the one she gave us in Melbourne. Her reply, "I reckon so, but with less salad." This response as well as many similar ones gave us the impression that Australians think Americans are all fat and do nothing but watch the Simpsons and eat Super-sized Big Macs. Whatever. We go to Burger King too.

The following day the skies cleared and the two of us headed out to St. Kilda. St. Kilda is a beach neighborhood in Melbourne about 7 kilometers from the city center. We realized in Sydney that cities in Australia are really small and you can walk everywhere. For some reason the locals thought we were crazy for walking to St. Kilda since it was 2 miles away. But then again, Australians are almost as fat as Americans.

We walked around St. Kilda most the day and had a great time. St. Kilda is on the water and has a cool pier, boardwalk, beach, small amusement park, and neat downtown. On the pier we saw an endangered penguin and a bunch of jelly fish. We had a nice drink and some oysters on the boardwalk. And in the downtown we stopped in a few shops and got some rare records at Rare Records.

From St. Kilda we took Melbourne's overpriced tram to its botanical gardens. I'm not a big botanical gardens guy, but after walking through Melbourne's I could be. The gardens were huge (or maybe felt huge because we got lost) and were like walking through a very well kept rainforest. Since it was late in the day and near closing time Lara and I were the only ones around for most of our walk. We exited the botanical gardens into one of Melbourne's many great parks and the park was totally packed. Lara and I have been living in San Francisco for 5 years and have seen tons of marathon training sessions and packed San Francisco parks filled with yuppies like us. But Melbourne has this to a whole new level. Corporate fun runs filled with white collar 20 and 30-somethings. Boot camps. 35 year olds jogging with their young kids biking. Was this Melbourne or San Francisco's Fort Mason? On the way back to our hotel we walked along the river and were stopped by a group having a party in one of the riverside crew houses. The group was having their Chrissy Party (Australians shorten everything. Christmas is known as Chrissy) in a building along the river and invited us up to help finish off their leftover alcohol. We were more than happy to help and we made some friends in the process.

That night we hung out with some guys that we met the night before. Two of the guys are from the US and one was from Canada. The five of us bar hopped around one of Melbourne's many cool neighborhoods. As we were walking from one bar to the another we saw a car drive by and some people yelling from it. Then all of a sudden we heard a POP. We had a man down and I was hit too. It was a drive-by egging! One of the guys in our group took an egg to the neck and I got some of the ricochet. Luckily, a welt and some yoke was all that we ended up with.

In our third full day in Melbourne the two of us hit up Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market. The market was fantastic. Australia was the most expensive country we have visited and we hadn't been buying much because of it. The stuff at the market was cool and actually inexpensive. We loaded up on Chrissy presies (Christmas presents) for the family and had a great experience. Again, all the people we met were incredibly friendly and helpful. We finished the day by walking around another of Melbourne's great parks and spent the night hanging out with our new friends hopping around more bars.

We had a flight to the Whitsundays early the next morning. That night we had a dilemma, move to Melbourne or Sydney?

Homecoming Party in SF

Alas, the end of our great adventure is in sight and we will be in San Francisco for one night before we head to Michigan. Please mark your calendars for December 22nd (day and night) and let us know if you would like to meet up. We sure would love to see all of our SF friends before the holidays. If necessary, we will select a central location (read bar) to catch up with everyone, celebrate the holidays and toast the New Year!!

Sydney, Australia (Part 2)

After a night in Port MacQuarie and seeing a kangaroo somersault in front of us we got back to Sydney late on Saturday, December 5th. Lara and I had dinner with my parents and then bid them adieu so that the two of us could hit the town on a Saturday night. Since the two of us are travelling in backpacks for three months we packed kind of light and didn't include much in the way of nice clothes. We hit the town in jeans and nice dry-fit shirts. The rest of Sydney was in designer dresses and suits. We felt a little out of place. Instead of partying like Hong Kong rockstars we walked around the city and watched the night from the streets. We did find one bar where we kind of fit in. Moral of the story, bring your clothing A game when partying in Sydney.

In our last full day with my parents we decided to visit the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are 2 hours out of Sydney and are, as the name says, blue (the oils from the eucalyptus trees refract the light differently than the normal air making the mountains look slightly blue). The Blue Mountains are very cool. There are canyons all around, rainforests, waterfalls, and spectacular views. We did the standard tourist itinerary; a couple quick hikes (or bushwalks as the locals call it), saw some big views, and went to the rainforest tourist trap. All of these activities were cool though. The rainforest tourist trap included a glass bottom gondola over the rainforest (not as cool as Hong Kong's glass bottom gondola though), a rainforest walk, and the world's steepest railroad. With our tourist checklist complete we headed back to Sydney.

The following morning was my parent's last day so we decided to see Bondi Beach before they left. After they took off Lara and I decided to spend the rest of they day on Bondi Beach ourselves. I don't want to jump to rash conclusions but Bondi Beach is the best beach in the entire world. Nice easy surf, powder sand, topless Australian women, spectacular views, great food, walking trails, dog park(beach), ocean fed pools, laid back atmosphere; Bondi has it all, and it's only 4 miles from downtown Sydney. By the end of the day Lara and I were not only ready to move to Bondi but were evaluating which ocean side elementary school would be the best fit for our unborn Australian children (Bondi Elementary by far. Smidwick Preparatory doesn't come close and its PTA is way overbearing). We also finished the day with some bad sunburns. But since we hadn't gotten much sun in the past 2 months we were okay with it. Besides, we were ready to be Australians and two out of three Australians get skin cancer by the age of 50 so we had some catching up to do.

Later that night Lara and I packed up, said bye to Sydney, and headed out to Melbourne.

Port MacQuarie, Australia

Port MacQuarie is a big town by Australian standards (39,000 people) about 1/3 of the way up to Brisbane from Sydney. The reason we took this little endeavour up the coast was to see a koala hospital that is supposed to be fantastic as well as the great Australian scenery and possibly a winery or two. Our first day was at the koala hospital (it's more of a refuge). It was definitely cool. It was sad though seeing koalas that have been hit by cars or burned by wildfire. It was also hard seeing several koalas suffering from the effects of syphilis. Apparently, koalas aren't practicing safe sex and syphilis is a major problem in the population. To give the koalas a break though, I'm sure it's hard to put a condom on without opposable thumbs.

After the syphilis koalas we all went to downtown Port MacQuarie. There isn't much to Port MacQuarie except for some great views, a small downtown, and lots of painted rocks along the coast walkway. I guess it's a thing for tourists to come to Port MacQuarie and paint rocks. We left our paint stateside so we had to just look. In the evening the four of us stayed up on the deck of our hotel room and watched a storm come through, very cool. When the storm passed Lara and I went out clubbing in Port MacQuarie. The club scene in Port MacQuarie is made up of two people. 18 - 20 year olds who are in town to enjoy the beach during Spring Break and the local 40 somethings. Which made us wonder, how often has a kid come up here to party and bumped into his cougar mom on the dance floor. Ugh. We didn't stay out long.

We were only spending one night in Port MacQuarie so first thing in the morning we headed back to Sydney. We took a leisurely pace and decided to head to a winery first. The winery was off the beaten path and as we were driving in Lara noticed a small heard of kangaroos, about 6 - 12, 20 yards to the side. We slowed down to look at them and then one of them decided it needed to cross the road. It took a few hops and then tried to clear the wire fence. Unfortunately for the kangaroo it didn't see the top wire and it tumbled feet over pouch right in front of us. Fortunately for us, it was a great show. The kangaroo got right back up and hopped across the road. It was definitely the coolest wildlife experience in the previous 5 days. Although the winery was a great experience, it was kind of anitclimatic after the kangaroo incident.

Staying along the coast back to Sydney we stopped at an awesome dive restaurant along a small salt lake. While we waited for the food to come out Lara and I paddled around the lake in a paddle boat. The lake was crystal clear and we were the only people around. Best paddle-boat experience ever. The food was great at the restaurant, but as we have since found out, Australians don't know how to make milk shakes.

Sydney, Australia (Part 1)

Sydney, Australia! Due to a delay we had in Darwin, Australia we got into Sydney a little after noon. From the airport we made our way to our hotel and met my parents. My parents were the fourth, and final, party to meet us on our trip. They were taking a two week vacation around Australia and were spending the final 5 days with us in the Sydney area. After we got settled in the hotel and caught up a little we headed out to the center of town to catch a ferry across Sydney Harbour to Manly Beach. The ferry was at dusk and it was definitely the best ferry experience of our trip. Seeing Sydney Harbour with the bridge and Opera House at night is spectacular. Manly Beach is a cool little area with lots of nice bars, shops, and restaurants, and one spectacular ocean beach. Since it was getting late (10pm) we had to get back to our hotel for my parents' bed time.

Our first day in Sydney we got up bright and early and climbed the beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge. It took about 4 hours to climb the bridge and it was an incredible experience. We spent a lot of time preparing for our climb since there are a lot of instructions and you have to get in special jump suits. The climb itself was relatively easy. From the point that we left the prep area until we got back to it the views were incredible. Unfortunately, cameras aren't allowed on the climb for safety reasons (they don't want somebody dropping their camera onto moving traffic nor people taking their own pictures when the company is selling their own pictures for $25 a piece) so you'll just have to believe me when I say the view was great.

After the bridge climb the four of us regrouped and took a tour of the Sydney Opera House. I would never take a tour of an opera house, but for the Sydney Opera House I made an exception. The tour of the building was great. The building is beautiful inside and out. I have to say the Sydney Opera House is the best looking building I've ever seen. With our cultural fix in for the day we headed out to the Rocks, one of Sydney's many 'hip' neighborhoods. We caught some drinks and some great views of the city from a rooftop bar. After the rooftop bar we continued to Darling Harbour for dinner. Lara and I were amazed at Darling Harbour. It's a harbour area with lots of corporate offices and apartments that totally goes out for Thursday night happy hour I guess. There were dozens of bars and restaurants that lined the harbour and every one was filled with twenty and thirty-somethings dressed to impress. The women were all in nice dress or skirts and the men were all in nice business attire, some in suits and ties. It was weird being in a place where there wasn't a single pair of blue jeans. After dinner we took Sydney's monorail back to our hotel. Sydney's monorail is just like other monorails in Detroit, Seattle and Springfield. Pretty much useless and expensive. $5 to go 6 blocks.

The next morning we got up and headed out for Port MacQuarie to check out some koalas.

Singapore, Yawn

Singapore is the most exciting place we've ever been to.....or not. We landed in Singapore, got on the immaculate train and went to the city. After we got settled we walked around, first stop, Little India. We had Indian food and saw a temple. Little India is a small neighborhood that looks exactly like the rest of Singapore's neighborhoods, but with lots of Indian people walking around and Indian restaurants everywhere. After Little India we walked down Orchard Road. Orchard Road is the main shopping street in Singapore. It has lots of malls and Christmas displays. We walked through a bunch of malls and saw Christmas displays. wow.

We started our only full day in Singapore by riding the Singapore Flyer. The Singapore Flyer is a 40 storey Ferris wheel that has views of the whole city. It was a cool experience. After the Flyer we were treated to a great buffet lunch by Jen's mom. Jen's mom was travelling in Asia and we met up with her in Singapore. After stuffing ourselves silly Lara and I went out to explore the city. Our first stop was the Merlion waterfountain at the entrance of the port. The Merlion was pretty lame, but taking funny pictures with the fountain was fun. Singapore is a city of about 7 million people and has a large central business area with high rises and a substantial financial district. We walked around the central business district and it was totally dead. This was at noon on a weekday. At noon on a weekday in San Francisco's Financial District it's super busy. In Singapore you could have heard a pin drop. Of course you actually wouldn't hear a pin drop because that would be littering and you could lose a finger for that. We quickly realized that the only thing to do in Singapore is shop in its many malls. Since we didn't feel like shopping we decided to walk the city and take pictures of all the ridiculous signs.

Since our flight out of Singapore wasn't until the evening we had most of the day to kill. I would compare killing time in Singapore to a baseball game, during a four hour rain delay. We decided to take the subway to the outskirts of town to see the Body World exhibit that was on display in the Singapore Science Center. It was a very cool exhibit that isn't for those with a weak stomach. The exhibit is made up of human bodies that have been 'plasticed' and are permanently frozen. These bodies show how the different systems in the body work and are the actual bodies and organs. After Body World we subwayed over to Chinatown. Singapore's Chinatown is similar to San Francisco's except smaller, cleaner, not as interesting, and nothing like San Francisco's Chinatown.

We left for the airport 3 hours early because we thought the airport would be more interesting; it wasn't.

Bangkok, Thailand

The bus rides from Siem Reap to Bangkok took us 10 hours, including the time spent crossing the border. That was how the three of us spent our Thanksgiving Day, sound like fun?

We were outside our guesthouse ready to be picked up at 7am, but our bus was on Cambodian time and picked us up at 7:40. Three hours later, the bus dropped us off at a bus terminal in Puepet, Cambodia near the border. We waited 1/2 an hour for a shuttle bus to pick us up. The shuttle bus took us to the Thailand/Cambodia border a mile away. We weren't sure why the larger, original bus couldn't take us to the border, but whatever. At the border we waited in a very hot line for 1/2 hour to have a Cambodian border agent stamp our passport and take our departure form. Then we walked to Thailand. In Thailand we waited 1/2 an hour for a border agent to stamp our passport and take our arrival form. After the border crossing we had to find our bus to take us to Bangkok. There were about 30 buses scattered around the border area, none with names or signs and no organization at all. After an hour of looking we found our bus and got on. Our bus wasn't a bus, it was a 12 person van that became packed with 13 people and all of our luggage. Our van driver had a serious lead foot and on the mediocre roads of Thailand we did about 90mph the whole way. We stopped twice; once for the driver to do his grocery shopping and once for a bathroom break. We got to Bangkok at 5pm starving for our Thanksgiving Dinner.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Lara created a 'Must Do' list for things she wanted to do on our trip. Another item on the list was to get a Thai massage in Thailand. Since we were a little stressed from our travels we thought "What a good time to get that Thai massage?" So that night the three of us enjoyed a Thanksgiving Dinner in a Bangkok mall food court and Thai massages. We didn't have turkey or pumpkin pie, but the food was great and the massages made us forget about our travels.

Our first day in Bangkok we decided to explore the Bangkok area by taking a tour of the Floating Market. The Floating Market is a small area of a bunch of canals with souvenir and food salesmen on boats in the canals. We jumped on a boat and boated around the canals as well. It was a cool experience, but you can only make buying cheap souvenirs so much fun. To get to the Floating Market we had to take a motorboat and on the way we saw several Kumodo Dragons. That was extra cool.

We got back to Bangkok in the afternoon and toured the city a little bit, spending some extra time in Khao San Road. Khao San Road is a backpacker's Mecca. It's filled with cheap guesthouses and hostels, a street market with great cheap clothes, lots of bars, and tons of excitement. We bought some stuff along the way and were really close to buying some fake identification cards at one market. I was thinking about getting either a Harvard University student ID card or an Air France pilot's license. Both would have been pretty cool.

After Khao San Road we took off for Lumphini Boxing Stadium to catch some Muay Thai kickboxing. Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand and the people love it. Lumphini Stadium is the biggest and best venue to watch Muay Thai and we were sitting front row for the fights. For three hours we watched 8 bouts of great kickboxing. $2 beers, guys getting beat up, screaming gamblers, Friday nights don't get much better. Before the headline fight there was an exhibition fight between two guys in a different martial art. These guys didn't wear any padding and there was no clock; just beat each other up until someone gets knocked out. And somebody did. Since we were in the VIP section we got to get our picture taken with the night's champion. The little guy might be the champion, but at 121 lbs, I think I could have taken him on. The experience in the stadium is incredible. In the lower section where we sat there are chairs and assigned seating. Outside of the lower section it is just bleachers and unassigned seating. Gambling is technically illegal, but everyone does it. Before each fight and before the 2nd round a whole cluster of gamblers just go bezercks screaming to make their bets. It looks similar to the stock exchange but with more screaming and beer. The stadium itself is also unique. I've been in high school gyms that are better than Lumphini. As you walk through the hall to enter or exit the stadium the fighters are changing and stretching because their lockers are in the hallway. Part of the stadium is indoors and part is outdoors. It's a total hoot. The city of Bangkok has really good infrastructure, but Lumphini could use a lot of work. When the entertainment was over the three of us headed back to our hostel and called it a night.

The following morning we got up early again to go on another tour, this time to the Bridge over the River Kwai and Tiger Temple. The Bridge over the River Kwai is a famous World War Two sight and we thought it could be entertaining to see. It's about an hour to get there and once you get there you realize it's just a wooden bridge over a river. yawn. There are some small museums and a cemetery, but the quality isn't that great. The cool part of the bridge is that you can walk across it and there are zero safety precautions. The bridge is a railroad bridge and doesn't have a walkway. You walk across and have to make sure you step on the railroad ties, otherwise you're going into the river 30 feet below. After the Bridge we went to Tiger Temple. Tiger Temple is a Buddhist temple that has been around for a decades. About 8 years ago an orphaned tiger cub wandered into the temple complex and the monks took it in. When people heard that the monks were taking in tiger cubs people brought over other abandoned tiger cubs. Since monks don't believe in altering nature's course these tigers have bread rapidly and the temple now has 47 tigers. All of these tigers have been raised by humans and they are as tame as a tiger can be. When we walked into the temple grounds there were tigers all around. There were probably 20 tigers in the area. All of them were on short chains to the ground with several handlers nearby. The three of us and all other tourists were free to walk around the area and pet the tigers, which we did. A little later on we all walked to a special covered where we had a tiger lay in our laps. It was definitely a unique experience, but kind of weird too. The reason the tigers are so tame is that they play for hours before the tourists arrive and they are given their food before hand as well, so they have to gorge. This makes the tigers super tired and they just lay around the rest of the day.

A couple hours later the tour bus dropped us off at our hotel and we hit the town for a night in Bangkok. Of course, when in Bangkok you have to walk down Patpong Road, the red light district. It was an experience to say the least. A friendly salesman tried to get us to watch a ping-pong show in his bar and although we said no thank you he continued to walk with us and give us a tour of the strip. We were shown the Japanese street where Japanese business men go to have massages. The salesman commented that the Japanese are known for "Big wallets, small dicks." The salesman also pointed out other fine establishments in the area. We decided that the most entertaining thing to do would be to go to a bar and just watch the action. We stopped at one bar and observed all the old white guys picking up their 'desserts'. To get by the language barrier all of the working women wear numbers on them. It makes it kind of like In-n-Out Burger ("I'll have a triple-triple, number 3, animal style"). The night was actually very tame. With the exception of me trying to converse with a hallo person nothing exceptional happened. The next morning we got up early, again, and headed out to the airport to go to Singapore.