Yummy Cashmere Coats!

Hold me back - I've found an obsession that if I'm not careful, could take permanent hold... cashmere coats! I already love coats, which is unfortunate as my home state is the great state of Texas and I don't have endless opportunities to wear them, but just the same, I could spend more money on coats then handbags, shoes, and clothes combined.

One great thing about living in China is you can get clothes custom made to fit you for pennies on the dollar, in the material of your choosing. This includes beautiful coats made out of cashmere. Over the summer girlfriends here showed me the place everyone goes to get them made, so before we left on our trip, I stopped in to do just that.

I gave them my measurements (they take about 20, not just 4), picked out my winter white cashmere fabric, said yes to a belt, double breasted, and the button cuffs, and was told it would be ready after the New Year. We went back earlier this week when we got home, and I was so excited when I got to try on this:

My new coat... I'm in love. I'm not going to wear it for one second here in China, though - it's way too beautiful and it's too polluted, grimy, smelly, and gross here. Which left me with a problem - I didn't bring enough cold weather clothes, and in the meantime while getting this coat made, I was wishing I had a darker color one with a hood that would be more casual that I could wear more often.

Lucky for me, there was a coat that fit this description in the shop - charcoal gray, beautiful hood, and just my size except it needed to be taken in slightly at the waist. No problem, they did it in a day, so now I'm the proud owner of two luxuriously soft, cashmere coats.

I already wore the gray one out last night with our friends for a great hot pot dinner!

So exciting! Between these two, and my old favorite long red wool one, I promised Curt I shouldn't need another for quite awhile :-)! Thank goodness anyway for doting husbands, I love him!

They even have great inside pockets in the lining! I find myself trying to think of another coat that I need like this, but really I don't... unless I could make the argument for brown? LOL, probably not... but it's so hard not to when they're so gosh darn cheap compared to what you'd buy them for at home!

Observations from the Land Down Under

While we were on our trip, Curt and I made a few fun observations on Australia and how they are (in a great way) different and unique!

First of all, everyone always hears how friendly Aussies are, and it’s true – we found it to be so refreshing not only to be in a Western country, but any time we needed ANY help, we hardly even had to look around before it was offered readily and with a friendly smile. Felt like home!

Certain things are expensive… on the whole, you’re going to spend a lot of money on vacation so we try to cut corners where we can. In Oz, a lot of items are expensive, but then other things that you think would be, aren’t so much? It’s a mixed bag and you never know what you’re going to get when going to pay… for example, bottled water is expensive, so we tried to get tap wherever we could (duh, you say, but it’s not available everywhere, and when it’s not, expect to pay $4 for a bottle – yikes)!

The HARDEST expense that I had to swallow was in one of the many airports we were in… I brought two books with me, and I finished one of them on the plane ride down, and I couldn’t bear starting the other one and then be left without a book SO early in our trip.

So I browsed the airport book store, spent a lot of time finding just the right book, and was so excited when I found a great historical fiction about Australia’s women prisoners! For the first time, I flip the book over to see how much it is (it was a paperback, mind you), and my knees almost buckled in shock when I saw it was $32 Australian dollars!!! I couldn’t believe it, so I quickly started checking other paperbacks, and sure enough, all of them ranged from $29 to $35 (books that would cost MAYBE $14.99 at home).

The small junky paperbacks that you can get at home for $7.99 cost $20. I was SHOCKED, and curiously went up to the counter to ask the guy why books are so expensive. I was thinking maybe because they have to import them, or maybe because we were in the airport they charged more, but both were wrong… first he looked at me like I was crazy until I explained that the price was over double of what you could get a book for in the states, and then the other guy working chimed in and he said he’s pretty sure it’s because they print all of the books on the island, so maybe they don’t have the economies of scale… whatever the reason, I was heartbroken.

Curt had given me $25, and I went back to him and said it wasn’t enough… he could tell my heart had been set on this book, so he gave me the difference, and we joked that I could only read a chapter a day to make it last, and when we get home I have to frame it in a shadow box as the most expensive paperback I’ll ever own.

Seriously, if you know me, you know I can drop more money on books than clothes, shoes, purses, etc. combined, and I constantly have to find books in our library to sell to the used bookstore because when we moved we were VERY out of room for all of our shelves, so there’s one reason why I can’t ever live in Australia for a long period of time – we’d be BROKE!

This is also why I think book exchanges at hotels/traveler’s places are really the coolest thing in the world – before we left I traded the first book I had read (it was hard to let it go) for another great one. Whew!

Another unique thing about Australia, and these are things I’m not a fan of, are there are CCTV cameras literally EVERYWHERE, and they seem to fine people for EVERYTHING.

At any given point in Oz you can stop, pause, take a look around, and probably count at least 5 to 8 CCTV cameras in your immediate area. To give an idea, one takeaway food restaurant counter had them placed between every light fixture, for a total of 4…. For a sandwich place, people, please. I got used to this somewhat when in London, but in Australia it was even more so to the extent of overkill. We were never sure if this is more of a preventive measure, like a Big Brother “we’re watching you” type tactic, or a tactic to make people feel safer and they don’t really ever to utilize them. Either way it creeped me out a bit – I mean, they took away everyone’s guns already, why exactly do they need 8 cameras on you at all times, in every place except your toilet stall?

And the fines – they have signs posted everywhere that you’re fined for X or Y, and for how much. On the flip side, because they do seem to fine for such a wide range of violations, I think this is how Australia paid off their deficit in 10 years, but still. Don’t even look at someone cross-eyed or you could get slapped with a fine that far outweighs the act (in my opinion) – like if you forget you have an apple in your bag coming through customs, they could get you for a few thousand dollars.

On to more fun things, Aussies love their tattoos, and they seem to love to show them off. Culturally, I’m not sure where this comes from… while in NZ we learned about the Maori and their tattoos, but on the whole we didn’t find Kiwis to be more decorated than their Australian counterparts, and since Maori are the New Zealand indigenous people, and Aborigines Australians, that doesn’t fit. On the whole Australians are more lewd, crude, and open about certain topics as well (not the point of being offensive, just to the point where you notice it because initially you’re shocked that “x” can be said on the radio, TV, or overheard in public), and I wonder how much of this is a throwback to Australia’s beginnings as a convict state.

I learned a lot in the book I read about Australia’s beginnings, and if people had to be a bit rougher to make it here, then it makes sense that you might see some of that in today’s society, I guess?

Their fashion taste is a bit different from ours as well – not in a bad way, like “I would never wear that,” but for women, more in the pairings of things together that I really would not think of because I haven’t seen it before… it was interesting and Curt and I had fun picking out some of the more “out there” styles!

We spent roughly the same amount of time in New Zealand, and our two observations from there are one, they seem to like to be naked and are very open about it… not in the nude beaches and colonies sort of way, because we didn’t see any of that, but I first noticed it with the Air New Zealand safety briefing (which I LOVE), but also in play posters, billboards, etc. Nothing was ever SHOWED but the suggestion seems to be prevalent, which is curious.

The second observation was how the Maori people play heavily into their culture, which we both liked. Certainly it is evident that there have been problems and obstacles with the assimilation efforts and people have differing opinions, but on the whole their culture is not only accepted, it has been adopted in some ways as their own. The Maori people actually have *support* for sustaining their culture, which in no way detracts from the other and the two seem to coexist harmoniously enough. I found myself wishing it had been more like that for our own Native Americans in our nation’s history, but maybe lessons from them could be used for us still today going forward.

So those are some observations from our short time there. I disclaim they are strictly the observations and opinions of what WE observed and took note of, so obviously we could be off base, but it’s what we saw from the time we were there.

But we loved every minute of it, and can’t wait to go back and spend some more time to learn more about both of these amazing and interesting countries...

And yes, this is what I think about. Take note of something, and then ask why and ponder the question... it makes life fun!

Trying to fill in some pictures...

Take a look back at this trip's posts as I've tried to insert some pictures in... more to come when we get back to China!

We're in the airport now, just about to begin our long 26ish hour journey back... yeesh!

See ya on the flipside :-)

Wildlife Day... I love Albatross!

It’s so nice to start the day off with a great breakfast, and then we were off to check out the Otago Peninsula where we saw Lanarch Castle which was probably in the best location ever (Curt and I decided we want one), with amazing gardens. Then we headed on to the Royal Albatross Center where we were in for a huge treat (but we didn’t know it when we got there)! We had a briefing on the birds (they’re huge – much bigger than I thought they would be – wing span of 9-12 feet, and standing up they are almost up to a person’s waist), and then went up to the observation center.

There are currently 3 nests within view of the deck, and we could see the mothers, fuzzy 3 week old chicks, and a juvenile hanging out nearby. We were told we probably wouldn’t see a ton of flight activity as it wasn’t very windy (they are soarers so need that extra help), so we were just checking them out, when all of a sudden, one soars in to the area of one of the nests! Our guide got really excited at that point – the parents take turns watching over the egg and chick, so one goes out to eat and feed at sea for a week or so, and then comes back to do what’s termed as the “change over.” It only happens once a week, and can happen at any time of day or night, and we were on that one hour tour where one happened!

So the one parent flew in, they chatted and clicked bills for a few minutes, then preened each other, and they did a calculated maneuver where one took over for the other so the chick was always in contact with a parent, and then the other waddled off and took flight. The whole thing happened over only 5-7 minutes, but it was so fun to watch and everyone (including the guide) was so excited!

After our tour we went down to the cliffs, and as the wind was picking up we saw some more flights, and some seals below… so perfect!

Then we went to another site called Penguin Place which is a reserve for Yellow Eyed Penguins, which is covered with blinds so you can have close encounters without disturbing them, and we saw molting adult birds and chicks about to leave the nest! We also saw Little Blue Penguins (the smallest species) in some nests with big fuzzy chicks, and some more seals on the coastline coming out of the ocean from playing. YEA!

Then we headed back into town, got cleaned up, went to Evensong at one of the main cathedrals in town, had some yummy dinner, then home to bed.

Today we caught a flight into Auckland, relaxed, wandered around town, and as our travels will officially start VERY early again tomorrow morning we’re taking it easy right now… gonna be a really long day.

This vacation has been so awesome, though… too many great highlights to pick a favorite, and we know the memories will last a lifetime!

Headed South to Dunedin

In the middle of the night after our great astronomy tour, around 3:30 a.m., I woke up to an alert siren – the kind that goes off before a tornado. I was confused and awake in 2.2 seconds, going around to the windows to confirm that it was in fact a siren. After a few minutes it shut off, but I was lying awake trying to think what on earth it could be for… we’re in the mountains so no hurricanes or floods (I would think), so that left fires and earthquakes.

Hmm… the survival girl in me couldn’t sleep, so I made us get up and drive the 3 minutes into town to the fire department that’s in the center (to see if we could get a clue). I was thinking maybe it’s what calls the volunteer fire fighters, and sure enough a fire truck was gone and it looked like activity had been going on, though there wasn’t anyone out… no big orange lights on the horizon, so we decided we could sleep… Curt is so nice to humor me.

Then time to get up and get some food, head out and get driving to Dunedin which takes about 4 hours or so, and it was a beautiful drive. We dipped our feet into the ocean and enjoyed the view, and when we got into Dunedin we checked into our B&B and headed out to explore the Railway Station (beautiful), and the Octagon and city walk which was great for us to see the city for the evening.

It was a travel day so we took it easy for the most part!

Into the Skies!

We woke up to a beautiful morning – really, the weather was just perfect – and exhaled, as we needed pretty great weather for our helicopter ride up to Mt. Cook! We had slept in until about 9:30 a.m., which was just beyond wonderful, and got up and going to town for a late 10:30 a.m. breakfast…

We didn’t know how long it would take us to go to our pick up point for the helicopter ride, so we quickly got on our way after eating to head to the Salmon Farm on the hydro canal near Lake Pukaki. It didn’t take us long at all, so we ended up checking in and paying to go check out the salmon… they’re set up in the canal, which is maybe about 40 feet deep, and maybe 40 feet wide. They have sections set up, and about 4 which you can go out on a series of bridges and see the individual squares, each of which has thousands of fish in them… of course they sell fish food, so I was reminded of Pap as I fed the huge fish small pellets as they jumped out of the water to get them.

Then time to go wait for our helicopter… As we were sitting there, I started to ask the ground guy about New Zealand (we hadn’t noticed much mammal wildlife, and an absence of predators), and he was JUST the guy I was looking for – a veritable biologist with plenty of general information to occupy my time while we were waiting! He told us how when it was found, New Zealand had virtually ZERO mammals – the only ones they had were two small species of bat, and that’s IT! The rest were introduced by the Europeans (some knowingly, some unknowingly).

New Zealand used to be the land of birds, and strange ones, at that… Apparently they’ve lost 90% of them as each species occupied a very specialized niche. The kiwi for example (still around though endangered) evolved to be much like a mammal with fur like feathers, and lives in burrows. Then there were other more unfortunate species like the Moa, a large, ostrich-like bird that was so docile that the Maori people hunted them into extinction. The loss of the Moa meant the loss of the Harris Eagle – the largest eagle probably ever in modern day times, with a wingspan of 15-17 feet, and large enough to swipe a human for food… they lived exclusively in the mountains (I think I know where dragon legends come from!), and their diet was pretty much only Moa, so you can see how the links in the chain started to come undone.

It’s written in a ship captain’s diary in the early days before there were settlers that 200 meters offshore in the ocean, the dawn birdsong from all of the different species coming off of the land was “deafening.” Hard to imagine, huh?

Then the helicopter came zooming in from the tour before us, and it was time to get excited (and temporarily blown away)! We had one other couple with us, so 5 people total including the pilot, so to take turns Curt and I sat in the back first. We climbed in (after a full safety briefing, of course which I noted had no part that said, “in the event of an emergency,” because really the next part would be, “you’re S.O.L,” though we WERE told about the emergency food, first aid kit, and signaling kit should we be fortunate enough to survive an emergency, haha), strapped in, and got our headphones on.

As we took off and I felt that weightless feeling in my stomach, it occurred to me that I had been so excited about the flight, that I forgot to consider what the flight itself would be like, which was a little bit scary but exhilarating at the same time… kind of hard to describe, actually but it was a good healthy fear mixed with excitement and wonder!

We rode out about 20ish minutes with Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman in view, and a beautiful glacial valley below with the lakes in view. Our pilot pointed out two big glaciers to us (that have formed these valleys), and then we closed in on our landing site, which again made my stomach flop as I could see the ground approaching in a way I’ve never been able to before.
When we landed on the snow I was so excited – they don’t actually stop the chopper so it’s loud and idling, but we stood up there and enjoyed the view for about 10 minutes taking pictures and exclaiming at how cool it was to be up perched on a peak like that!

Then it was time for me and Curt to be in the front, and now that we had full 360 views (including above and below), it was REALLY exciting… the take off was incredible – then we swooped off the mountain and down a little bit to get shelter behind the peak, and I literally had a moment where I thought it was just like the IMAX theater, except that THIS feeling was the feeling they try to imitate!!! It was just awesome, and the trip back felt a lot shorter… we loved it!



We were sad when it was over, but then went into town, grabbed lunch, hung out and went up to the observatory, and took a nap as we decided to book an astronomy tour. Apparently Lake Tekapo is THE place to look into the Southern Night sky – there is a huge observatory there open to the public that is run by a major university there, and I think we counted at least 6 of the huge domes for the big telescopes up there. We also had unobstructed views of the lake on the top of this mountain, and again (I know I’m being repetitive), it was gorgeous.

Our tour wasn’t going to be at the observatory though, as that tour was at 11 p.m. and was a 2 hour tour – we booked the one hour tour starting at 10:30 that was out in the field with one dome and one in ground stand for another large telescope. After our nap we cleaned up, and went into town, had a nice dinner overlooking the lake, took some pictures of the church and stars, ran home and went to go meet our tour.

And WOW – it was so much fun… educational to the point of mesmerizing (learning about light years, seeing stars with a green laser pointer that shot through the sky and learning about how old they are made us feel so small and just a tiny piece of a grand mastered universe). I immediately noticed that Orion was upside down, and it occurred to me (duh) that the sky would look completely different from this vantage point, and our tour guide filled us in on all the differences…
We learned how to identify the Southern Cross and line it up to find south (just like the Northern Star), which I’ve never seen or known about before, and of course as the Milky Way was so easily identifiable, we were able to see the Magellanic clouds which are clouds of matter

that block the view to the Milky Way (which frankly I didn’t even know existed). All of this and MORE, as the sky was so filled with more stars than I have ever seen and maybe ever will see in my life. It was so romantic, too… in the big telescope we saw where old stars live, where new stars are born, and Saturn! I even saw the rings of it, which I wasn’t prepared for at all, and it was SO GREAT – really a highlight, which we hadn’t even planned on!

It was an amazing day, that’s for sure…

The Dolphins Like Me!

We had to wake up early again the next morning, but not TOO early so we were almost relishing it because of every other morning, but it didn’t matter either way as it was time for our dolphin swim with the Hector’s Dolphins – the smallest and most rare species of dolphin. They only live here in NZ, and they are as endangered as the Giant Panda. To even get a spot in the dolphin swim with this one company is difficult as they have very strict regulations on the time, and how many swimmers there are in the water to even have the opportunity.

It was still rainy and messy, but we were about to get wet anyway (and the dolphins don’t care), so we weren’t worried about that, just that we’d get a great encounter with them.

When we got to the pier everyone changed into their wetsuits (two boats, 8 people per boat), and they were 5 mm suits, which gives a clue as to how cold the water is (this is a THICK wetsuit)! We quickly got onto the boats and headed out of the harbor, everyone looking for the dolphins (they can be anywhere, in any kind of pod size from 2 to 10+). We didn’t see them in the harbor so we kept going towards the ocean, but the skipper DID point out two separate blue penguins that were just swimming along at the surface!

I was so excited – these penguins are small and so sweet looking (much the same size as Napoleon, one of my stuffed penguins when I was younger as these have long been a favorite animal of mine), and I’d never seen a penguin in the wild before!

Then we got out to the mouth of the harbor – waves were bigger and choppier, it was raining crazy, cliffs on both sides with waves crashing against the shore (don’t worry, it’s a big harbor so no danger for us here), and we spotted two mothers and their calves (melt your heart so adorable – the calves were 2-inches-away-shadows and tiny replicas of their mothers).

We can’t swim with them, so we kept looking around, and finally about 5 minutes later, a small pod of 3 was spotted, so the skipper set the boat to idle. Now, even when dolphins are seen as prospective swimming partners, they don’t send us into the water unless those dolphins act curious about the boat, and they approach US. I guess they’ve learned after much experience that it’s pointless to unload everyone if the dolphins aren’t in the right mood, so after we (the boat) were able to hold their attention for another 5 minutes, we all quickly jumped into the water (VERY excited).

And thank goodness I was excited, because although I was prepared for cold water, I wasn’t quite prepared for JUST how cold it would be… even in the wetsuit it was utterly take-your-breath-away cold, the kind that makes you make a “ooh-ooh” sound every time you exhale as you’re fiercely doggy-paddling to pretend like there is something you can do to get warm, LOL! And don’t forget – it’s the dead of summer in NZ, so imagine how cold winter would be!

As I was jumping in (the 2^nd in – you KNOW I was up front), the girl handed me two rocks to make noise with under water. We were encouraged in the briefing to sing, squeal, chatter, etc. and basically do anything we could think of to make ourselves interesting to the dolphins. We were also told not to be within a few yards of each other, as the dolphins work off of sonar and would assume a group of 2-3 people a few feet apart was some big sea monster with lots of legs (that made me laugh – makes sense, though?), so there were quite a few guidelines to think of in order to make sure we could maximize our experience (and you know me, I was just HOPING that everyone paid attention so I didn’t have to carry the group on all of this important stuff, haha).

So I’m convinced I’m going to freeze to death, but all of a sudden it doesn’t matter because as I’m swimming out, they’re swimming around us! It was beyond amazing! You can see the gray under water when they’re getting close, and of course they breach out to breathe and check us out, and I started hammering the rocks together in a Morse code type pattern (meaning, a non-pattern at all). I clicked fast, went slow, and as everyone was getting in the water the spotters were telling us where they were, because MORE WERE COMING!

Pretty soon we had around 10 dolphins swimming all around our very big circle, in between us, and through the circle. Turns out they loved me… not just because I had the rocks (though I’m aware that obviously had something to do with it), but I think also because I was making high pitch squeal noises and rolling r’s under water. Yes – this would have been hilarious to catch on film, because although we had masks and snorkels, it’s not clear enough to really see underwater and the waves were so high anyway, so it was easier to make the noise, snarf some salt water (where you accidentally suck it in), get the water out, and start noise-making all over again.

The other people saw that I was getting a lot of close encounter attention, so pretty soon everyone was making the same noises I was making, but the dolphins weren’t fooled… the spotter girl saw the same thing so she told me to come out to the middle of the circle so the dolphins would have to swim by others on their way to and from me. It really was the coolest thing ever… some would zoom past so quickly, and a few others swam around me. One even started to spin around me (a very playful maneuver that we were told to imitate), so I started to spin madly with it in efforts to keep it there with me.

I could have reached out and touched them countless times, (of course that’s a no-no), and was loving the experience. I was helping spot for Curt too since he had the camera, and we were laughing and having such a great time. All in all we got about 40 minutes of playing and swimming with the dolphins, which the guides said was a fantastic encounter. We had about 5-10 dolphins with us the entire time, and we’re only allowed to be in the water with them for a max of 45 minutes, so by their terms, it was a perfect encounter (in both numbers and the time they stayed with us it’s unusual, so I felt SO LUCKY)!

There was one time about halfway into our swim, where it hit me (like a cold wave, oh wait, that was real), that there could very well be great white sharks in these waters... it was cold enough, south enough, and we were making a BUNCH of noise that would be bound to attract curious predators.... my blood ran cold (oh wait, it already was, but you know), and I started to edge my way closer to the group and boat... after pep talking myself, I figured there was no way on earth the dolphins would be hanging out with us if there was one of them around, so I felt safe as long as they continued playing with us. Oh geez... praise God, we made it! :-)

Curt didn’t get a single picture, but it was ok… his lense was having trouble focusing because of the water clarity and how fast the dolphins were, but we tried! Talk about fun, though, man… it didn’t matter that after we came in off the boat, that I felt like I’d never be warm again! LOL – they had hot chocolate waiting for us, which helped immensely, but 30 minutes later (and still warmer even if it didn’t feel like it), when we showered at the pier (they’re provided when you take off your wetsuits, etc.), my hands were in immense pain from the contrast!

We got cleaned up, kept reliving the morning, caught some lunch, and got on the road to Lake Tekapo, which was a 3-hour drive. The drive was interesting, and beautiful despite the rain… lots of farms, and into the mountains. It looks like Colorado or Wyoming here – and smells like it, too. We even happened upon a roadside restaurant that had real road signs that said “Driver Reviver 300 km, FREE” with a picture of a coffee mug. Since we needed to use the restroom anyway, we stopped to see what this was all about, and it’s true – the driver gets a free cup of coffee! It was really cool, actually… I think it’s a great idea, and a win-win for everyone as we bought a snack and a chai latte for me, and it probably helps keep people safe along this busy stretch of road!

When we arrived at the Lake around 5ish, we were spellbound with its beauty. The lake is enormous (you’d forget it wasn’t the ocean), and a bright blue as it’s a glacier lake (full of glacial silt that gives it its color). The Church of the Good Shepherd is right there on the edge – an old church that is tiny and is a confirmation of what I felt when we first got here… this is a place where your soul can heal.

We were excited when we checked into our cottage – EVERY place here had been booked, and out of desperation (2 days before we left to come on this trip), Curt called the nicest place here asking for advice and just double-checking they hadn’t had a cancellation. Turns out the lady said her friend had just opened her cottage and she could book it through their place since it wasn’t online, so we ended up at Roz’s cottage. Literally a 2-minute walk to the lake and the Church – SCORE! We also have this whole working house to ourselves…

After roaming and taking pics of the area (we saw a hedgehog out and about – it was awesome!), we ate dinner at a local pizza joint (this time we were warned when checking in of the early dinner rule) which was delicious, and came home to start a nice fire in the stove (it’s chilly here!) and settled in to watch a movie while I caught up on blog posts…

Bliss!

Punting on the River Avon

Knowing we had to wake up in the 4’s again was rough going to bed, but we had the alarm set and a cab driver that was going to show up at 4:45 a.m. so we could quietly slip out. Well the alarm never went off, so I woke up “alarmed” at 4:49 a.m. to a quiet rapping on the door, which sent Curt and I into utter chaos (we didn’t leave a minute to spare). Not to mention that because of my lack of clothes I was allowed to pack, I really wasn’t sleeping in anything (no weird mental pictures – this room had twin beds so all is PG here, LOL), and the window was open as the B&B is 115 years old, so no A/C. Trouble is that the window faces the street, so I was running around probably in full view of our cab driver, poking my head around the door to the B&B husband asking if we had heard the door and we were all right, etc. CHAOS!

Thankfully we made it to the airport alright, and our cab driver didn’t let on if he’d seen anything (he was an older Indian man, and even if he had, I couldn’t worry about it), so then into the airport where we’re informed our luggage weighs too much, but since we’re Gold and we only had 3 checked bags, we could repack into a CLEAR, plastic bag to be checked with our excess 5 kg… grrrrrrr! So there went half of our clothes for the world to see, not knowing if we’d see them again, and got on our flight (and slept the whole time, AGAIN).

What I do like about Air New Zealand is their safety briefing, which I happened across on You Tube before I left the U.S., but they actually use this which makes me crack up every time! My favorite part is the guy’s accent when he says smoking is a no-no… check this out! You're going to love it... LOOK CLOSELY - it's BODY PAINT!

So we landed in Christchurch, and we were still so tired that I had the idea that we should get our car rental, go find some breakfast, and then find a park to pull into and take a nap in the car. Well, we caught some breakfast (some of the BEST French toast I’ve ever had – they make it differently but it’s SO good), and then caught a big enough wind that we decided to tough it out.

So then wandered off into the streets of Christchurch, which is such an adorable little town… we went into the Cathedral, and it was gorgeous. We climbed the tower and enjoyed the views, walked along the River Avon, happened upon ANOTHER Maori performance (we just love listening to them sing, we really do), and then decided to go punting down the river (just like in England – it’s like being glided along a river with a pole/paddle in a small boat) which was so relaxing and romantic!

Then lunch in a very old building (turned pub), and on the road to Akaroa where we were staying the night. We drove through some beautiful country for a couple of hours, and though I felt a little puny, and the weather was cloudy and rainy, we were both trying to appreciate how pretty it all looked.

When we got to Akaroa we realized how very small the town was… SO TINY, but so sweet and cozy. It’s basically an old French mariner’s town that has 700 permanent residents, and in the summer balloons to 2,000 from those who have holiday homes. The main city area is basically three blocks long, two streets wide! As it was raining we didn’t have much we could see, so we went into the Akaroa Cinema and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was about to start, so we went for it.

The movie theater was of course tiny as well, but REALLY well done with leather stadium seating chairs, and nice risers. The screen was slightly larger than our own projection screen we use at home, but the movie quality was fantastic, and the movie itself was riveting (Swedish film, so had subtitles, but you know how those are – once you’re into it you hardly notice).

The movie ended at 8:20 p.m., and then we headed back to the hotel for a few minutes before setting out for dinner… which we soon found out was going to be a problem. I guess as the town is so small, most of the chefs and food makers go home after the main dinner rush, so by 9 p.m. when we were out walking, we couldn’t find anyone that would serve us a meal!

We became panicked and hurried back to jump in the car to make our looking more efficient, and kept searching…. “no, no, no, no….” Four more places confirmed and we thought we were going to go hungry – there was one more place to try and I asked the guy at the place before if we had no luck there, if we could just have some bread and cheese? He said ok, but THANKFULLY we didn’t require his services – Bully Hayes’ chef was at the front bar cleaning up, and when we rushed in with panicked looks he identified our problem, and said he could cook us up some fish and chips for takeaway, but that would be the best he could do – SOLD!

So we got our fish and chips, went back to the hotel, and watched that Vegas movie with Cameron and Ashton, and then the Other Boleyn Girl on TV, so it ended up being a great night!

Shoot! What the heck was I thinking?

So the problem with booking everything on miles and reward points is sometimes you’re at the mercy with what they have available… I remember at the time (because I booked most of this trip), when something was available I would jump and say “we’ll take it!” but the last few days I have been gritting my teeth with how tired all of the “we’ll take its” has left us… but oh well, free is free, and that’s what you have to remember, right?!

So we did take naps on our flight from Cairns to Sydney, and then caught a cab out to Parramatta – we were considering doing the train thing but I was so, so, so tired, it was already 9 p.m. and I knew if we did that it would take forever to get out there, and I just didn’t have the energy. Curt even did a one up from the taxi – we got a car and negotiated it for the same price – ahhh… Curt would insert here “nothing too good for my baby,” haha! Then we had a nice dinner at the Irish Pub and watched the Olympics at the hotel and went to sleep (knowing we had 4 hours of sleep ahead of us – ugh).

Up at 4:30 a.m., to the airport again with the same car company (ahhhhh), and then we went through the RINGER trying to get everything in line to go to New Zealand, which when you’re hardly awake at 5 something a.m. is a lot. Not that it was hard, but they just ask you a million questions, and since we didn’t already have our boarding passes we had to wait for a desk to open, blah blah blah…

Got on that flight, slept the whole time, and made it to Auckland around lunchtime (NZ is 2 hours ahead). We made it to our VERY CUTE B&B and hurried out to the Auckland Museum to try and catch a show I read about in the cab on the way about the Maori culture! We walked there (more like half ran for 45 minutes because we were going to be late, and we were late, but we got REALLY lucky because they had added a last show that wasn’t in the brochure), and got there not a moment too soon as the guided tour was just convening!

And the whole thing was worth half running to – we learned a lot about New Zealand’s indigenous culture, and got to see an AMAZING Maori performance with singing and chanting! It really was beautiful – Curt and I were mesmerized and we were so happy we got to see it! Then we spent some more time at the museum, which was great, and then made our way (leisurely) back towards the B&B, stopping at a pub along the way for a late, late lunch and NZ beer.

We were able to relax for a while at the B&B and chatted with other guests, watched the Olympics, and hung out until we decided to go hit the movies to see Valentine’s Day! We got there in plenty of time – thank goodness because just purchasing tickets was the most chaotic experience! We got there (and it’s a Tuesday night, mind you), and it was packed like it was Friday night and another Star Wars had been released! The line for concessions and movie tickets were for whatever inefficient reason combined, and the line was maybe 100 deep with just a few people working getting food and ticket orders. Then there were people picking up tickets from phone and internet pre-orders, so a whole extra long line for those people, but no one seemed perturbed so we guessed after awhile that it must be normal? And then we had assigned seats (weird), but they were good thankfully, and we were able to enjoy SUCH a cute movie!

Then home to the B&B, knowing we wouldn’t get the great breakfast and that we’d have to wake up AGAIN in just a few hours for another very, very early flight… ugh.

(continued in next post)

Diving the Great Barrier Reef!

So we’re sitting in the airport awaiting our flight from Cairns to Sydney, so exhausted but happy as we just finished our big liveaboard dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef on Mike Ball Dive Expeditions (on the boat Spoilsport)!

We still can’t hardly believe that we were able to accomplish such an amazing dream and goal that we both had… I won’t go into the nitty gritty details, but here’s our trip in a nutshell.

We arrived on the boat 4 nights ago (4 night, 3 day trip), to a very friendly crew of 10 people, and 19 guests, including us. The boat is a huge catamaran with facilities to accommodate that amount of people with cabins, a kitchen, big dining room area, living room/resting area, large sun deck, and scuba gear deck (3 levels in all). Curt and I had a bunk bed room booked (all the double beds were taken already), so our room was small and cozy, but by the end of the trip we hardly noticed as the majority of our time was spent chatting with the other guests, and we made a ton of friends from all over the world!

There were a few other Americans (also expats living in various places), Team Sweden, Team Austria, some Aussies, Canadians, Kiwis and more.

We got in lots of diving (I dove 10 dives, Curt 12 dives), so minus our specialty courses, we are now Master Divers (have 50 or more dives). We also took an underwater photography specialty course while on the boat, which was a ton of fun, too – we both learned a lot and our pictures really show the improvement!

While diving we saw lots of new fish we’ve never seen before, lots of sharks (gray reef, white tips, and black tips), and a lot of cod (something that is unique here in Australia – they’re huge and kind of act like puppy dogs, LOL).

One of our dives on Osprey Reef was a shark feed dive, where the coral creates a natural amphitheater… as that coral is dead they sit you down around to watch it, and we saw maybe 30-40 sharks, cod, and fish of every shape and size vying for a chance at some tuna heads… yummy!

Some of the diving was on shallow coral heads (or bommies, as the Aussies call them from the Aborigines), and some of the dives were in the deep blue with the sand and coral very deep down! Curt had a great time taking lots of pictures with some of our new knowledge, and I had a great time learning it from scratch – worrying about taking photos along with everything ELSE you have to think about down there is very challenging, as it’s pretty difficult!

I did still have my cold the whole time, which was a bummer and hindered me quite a bit. The first couple of dives I had a slight bloody nose, and on the third dive blood filled the bottom of my mask, and kept going as I was doing my 3-minute safety stop I could feel the pressure (and obviously see the blood), and I tell you what, it was the longest 3 minutes of my life (after a dive you should always do a safety stop to avoid decompression sickness, or the Bends, which is a big deal if you get it, so you should never ever bolt to the surface and have to always keep your head about you).

When I finally was clear to surface, I popped up, took off my mask and the extra relief of that pressure brought even more snot and blood out of my nose. I put my hand up to my face and it came back with a TON of blood and stuff and I just lost it and started to cry. Curt was there with me floating obviously calming me down, and the boat was also right there so I wasn’t in any danger, it was just one of those things that scares you a lot.

The silver lining was that the pharmacist in Melbourne who prescribed me some Sudafed with Ibuprofen was also a diver, and told me that he’d gone diving once with a cold and had the same thing happen to him, so I had it in the back of my mind that it was normal for diving with a cold (but again, when it did happen and I experienced it for myself, it still was enough of a shock for it to shake me up).

From then on as my capillaries were sensitive, I didn’t go too deep, but more than that, I was extremely deliberate in the rate of change in my depth, meaning I descended at a very slow rate, and ascended at a very slow rate (even slower than they already advise you to do). I had a bloody nose after every dive (but much more mild than my bloody mask), but I was able to learn the “signals” very well so that we could prevent anything from happening. So that was a huge bummer, but it’s not like I was going to sit out, so we just had to deal with it and I was happy to be able to dive at all.

P.S. After every dive I was checked in on by the staff, and as all of them do this for a living they assured me it was quite normal, and if I was going to insist on diving to do the slow rates of change and I would be ok as it was only for 3 days of diving. I did sit out 2 dives, too, which also helped my body to take care of itself in the times in between. Yesterday, at our very last dive, was the first dive I didn’t have a bloody nose, and even though I’ve still got some drainage and congestion pressure, I’m feeling a lot better.

I can’t wait til we get the pics uploaded, and we also bought a video from the whole trip, so I can’t wait until we can show that to everyone, too – it’s so wonderful and I had tears in my eyes by the end it was so beautiful and a great representation of what we saw on the whole trip!

Curt even entered the SLR photo competition and one 2^nd and 3^rd place for two of his photos, so we were really excited about that! They’re beautiful, too, so stay tuned and we’ll get them uploaded as soon as we can…

This morning we made it to Lizard Island on the boat, where they ferried us to shore to catch a small plane back to the mainland (purposely part of the trip so they can fly you over the reef, and even the dive sites we stopped at all along the way), and that was beyond beautiful. They fly us at 700 feet over the water, so you can see the coral below, and I even saw a sea turtle that popped up for some air and went back below! We also saw a ship wreck from long ago called “Emily’s Wreck,” which is now a rusting and broken down reef and stop over for sea birds, so that was pretty awesome, too! It was the perfect ending to our amazing trip, though I always find it sad (and so did many others on our trip) to say goodbye to new friends that you’ve spent so much time with doing something so special… we all got along famously and I’m sure some paths will cross again in the future.

We dove the Great Barrier Reef, and in the meantime, have fallen in love with Australia. We’re so excited for New Zealand next, but in the meantime, we’re going to take a nap on this next flight as we’re EXHAUSTED!

Great Ocean Road (West to East)

Today was another amazing day on the GOR – and even though it was the same road, just going back the other way, it was equally as beautiful and wonderful as the first day!

Curt was kind enough to let me sleep in a little again, so we got a bit later start than we had originally planned, but it’s ok because we literally had all day to get to Melbourne again.

We got up and going, and went and saw Logan’s Beach in Warrnambool where the Southern Right Whales breed and have their babies starting in June and they have a large viewing platform. These whales are in the baleen family (the kind with the big comb-like teeth), so that’s pretty cool even though we didn’t see any.

Next we stopped at Bay of Islands and Bay of Martyrs for a few great pictures – the coastal landscape all along the GOR is so picturesque! Next stop was Loch and Gorge, which we thought would be another “see, soak in, take the picture and go” stop, but it was so much bigger!

At Loch and Gorge was the Blowhole, Thunder Beach, and Broken Head, which were all hikes in different directions. Each of these was unique so we ended up spending a lot of time here… one of the highlights for this site was there was a bad shipwreck in 1897 (I think) that carried 54 people, of which only two survived. A man, Tom Pearce, the second mate apprentice (I think), who made it to shore at one of the cliff beaches, which was amazingly beautiful, and when he got to shore he heard a scream and turned to see a young woman (Eva Gardiner) clinging to something, so he swam back out and spent the next hour trying to drag her to shore. She was in shock, so he found some brandy that had washed up, took her to a cave and then they both slept for a long time. When they woke, he went for help and rescue… what a story!

So sad though, Eva was a passenger and lost her ENTIRE family (dad, mom, and 5 other brothers and sisters)… they had sailed from Ireland for 3 months to get there (for whatever reason – her dad was a doctor, so maybe something to do with that?), but instead of staying and marrying her hero (which I thought would be a good idea, and apparently 5,000 Australians who watched Tom receive a medal in Melbourne agreed), she stayed in Australia for 3 months (no doubt getting affairs together), and sailed back to Ireland never to return again…. Devastated, I’m sure. It made us reflect on how difficult it must have been for these pioneers… I picked up a book about the women prisoners in this time period who were sent to Australia to this strange new world, which is also giving a lot of insight!

After seeing the cemetery, we headed out to the Twelve Apostles again to catch the same, magnificent sights (in a different light), it was just as AWESOME again the second time! We stayed awhile, again, and then back on the road…

I had mentioned to Curt that we kept seeing these “caution kangaroo” signs, and since he was driving today, I was looking out the window like crazy for any sign of anything! We went through the rainforest soon after, and found Moonlight Head where Wreck Beach was located… drove along the dirt road for about 20 minutes (we kept wondering when we’d reach the point!), and finally found a very off-the-beaten tourist path site (Lisa had told me it was one of their favorites, and it wasn’t too publicized so there was only one other car there). Then we had to climb down a mountain on the trail (and all we could think was holy cow, we have to climb UP this when we’re finished!), but we could tell it was going to be another highlight!

Wreck Beach (as you can deduce from the name), is a very treacherous area that has claimed more than one ship, of which there are still some remains. So we finally got to the bottom, started looking around, and encountered the one other couple and asked which direction the wreckage was. He pointed down the beach to the point, but cautioned us that the tide was coming in, so that put me on SUPER high alert! I mean this place was ocean, rocks, sandy beach, and CLIFFS so definitely not a place you’d want to get caught in! We hurried to walk in the deep sand, beat back the horse flies, and got to an old rusted anchor, and another part of a ship that I don’t know what it was, that have been there so long, they are stuck in the rock formation just sticking out of the sand, like a gravestone – rusted, broken, and standing strong against the elements.

We were ecstatic to be there – the waves were huge and crashing, the ocean was all shades of blue, the wind was blowing so hard we could barely hear each other, and the colors all around us so vivid we will remember it forever.

Sidenote on the flies that is hysterical: There are two kinds here that are everywhere along the coast – a regular small house fly, and horse flies (or what we know as biting flies that hang around horses). For whatever reason, the small house flies SWARM Curt – at any given time he would have literally 20 to 30 around him, with me only struggling with a couple of pesky ones (and so did all the other tourists, it wasn’t like he was Linus or something). Then, for the same “whatever reason,” at different sites, the horse flies LOVED me! I killed probably a dozen and became like Mr. Miagi (sp?)… the flies don’t inhabit the same places, so where he’d be having problems, I’d be fine, and vice versa… so weird, huh? The funniest though was when we were at Loch and Gorge, and he actually INHALED one!

We were headed back to the car, he was swatting as usual, and all of a sudden he started this violent cough and leaned over the rail and started dry heaving! I was like, what the heck is going on? And he was SO PISSED and practically shouted that he inhaled a fly! I couldn’t believe it and thought back to that nursery rhyme… After he said he was ok (but the fly is still in there), I joked that it’s probably still alive in him which kind of grossed him out… hopefully he’ll be fine (though he says it’s no joking matter as he could get an infection, which is true, I just pray his body will know what to do with it – it couldn’t have been the first time that someone has accidentally inhaled something they shouldn’t have, right)?

Anyway, back to GOR Wreck Beach, after we spent time with the wreckage we walked the opposite way to the other point, which seemed to take forever… but along the way we saw starfish in the tide pools, anemones, lots of mollusk type things that are everywhere, and I even found two abelone shells!

Then we started the hike back up the mountain – with the sun shining bright we were dying, but we eventually made it up and blasted the A/C in our car on the long dirt road out of there… exhausted but happy that we just saw something so great!

Then, as if God had heard me earlier, we both spotted something along side of the road that didn’t belong – a Kangaroo (or Wallaby!) It was dark black – it’s coat shined in the sun and it was big and fat, but as we both recognized it, it spied us as well and it was gone in an instant – almost before we could even process what it was! Even so, it was so exciting!

Back on the road, we enjoyed the drive through the rainforest and through Glenaire again (GORGEOUS). Then we got to the Otway National Park lighthouse which was another long drive back in the back country, and again, on the way out near the side of the road, we saw another animal – this time I’m pretty sure it was a wallaby!

Then through Apollo Bay on our way to Lorne (to eat dinner), we saw another small kangaroo – holy smokes, I was so excited! I dared to think we’d see more, and on our next leg we saw a caution sign for Koalas for the next 20km. I started looking in the trees, but not long after we saw a few people on the side of the road looking into the treetops with cameras – BINGO! I told Curt (hurriedly) to pull over, and we got to see 8 koalas – some eating, some sleeping, but all very visible and it was so exciting I wanted to jump up and down! I couldn’t believe our luck!

After we spent some time observing these very interesting animals, we got on the road again to Lorne, enjoying the sun getting low in the sky and the ocean right below us, with the cliffs on our other side (very windy road). Then, JUST as we were coming into Lorne, there was a small river valley with a house higher on the hill, and I spotted a family of grey kangaroos (the BIG ones)! I squealed for Curt to pull over, and what I had seen as 3, we soon found out was 9 scattered around this small hilly field – I was completely and utterly over the moon! My Australia experience is complete (minus the Great Barrier Reef, so almost then, really)! We stayed and watched them for a bit, and at points they watched us as well (they are so much bigger than what we saw in the sanctuary – these guys must be juveniles), and it was just the coolest thing ever…

Then a lovely dinner at the same place (chicken schnitzel again – yum), while we watched wild cockatoos and kookaburras flying all over the place as the sun was setting lower… a loud cacophony that is but still awesome… I find it surreal to see colorful parrots and cockatoos in the wild as common as a cardinal, I keep thinking someone has let their bird from the pet shop go!

And then we finally made it Melbourne after our GPS was a little confused, but we’re happy – it’s been a long day but tomorrow we fly out to Cairns to begin our GBR adventure… Curt noticed that Australia thinks they’re pretty great – everything is called Great X… but really, it is, so I can’t wait to see what the Great Barrier Reef has in store (continued prayers that I get completely better so I can enjoy all it has to offer)!

Miss everyone from home, but yeah, we’re having an amazing time… sigh!

The Great Ocean Road (East to West)

Melbourne is awesome! We had some more great and friendly Aussie experiences, and headed out for our adventure on the Great Ocean Road (GOR).

Our GPS did us right, and really, the signage the whole way was so clear – it was impressive (all of the sights had warning signs so you didn’t miss anything big, and constant reassurance signs that we were still going in the right direction). We hopped on and off the freeway all day, stopping in several towns, and stopping even more all along the ocean sites… the whole day was gorgeous, and the terrain and geography were so varied the whole way, and it was everything we ever imagined.

We started out in Torquay, the surfing capital of the world, drove all along the coast through Anglesea, Airey’s Inlet (great lighthouse), Point Danger, and by then it was lunchtime so we stopped in Lorne at a great café out for gourmet chicken schnitzel burgers (YUM) in the beautiful ocean air (it’s weird because it was cool and breezy, and dry somehow – like Colorado weather with an ocean right there?).

We went down to the beach and waded in the water, looking out on one of the most southern points of land (inhabited) in the world – we imagined how far Antartica was and it was humbling looking out at that ocean.

Then onto Sheoak Falls for a short hike, where along the way we saw a million dewberry bushes – so many that the birds and animals can’t apparently keep up because there were so many ripe berries. The falls were beautiful and pristine, a steady trickle of water flowing down as a river to the ocean.

The section from Lorne to Apollo Bay is one of the more beautiful sections – high cliffs dropping into the ocean, winding roads with amazing views of the coastline looking out at bright turquoise water – gorgeous.

We continued through to Glenaire, which is one of my favorite areas as we passed through a rainforest sitting on top of mountains – the trees were so tall, and the light was so beautiful through the Otway National Park.

Princetown was next, with Gibson Steps, and The Twelve Apostles, which is what The GOR is kind of famous for, and for good reason… it was one of the most beautiful natural sights I have ever seen. It was around 5 p.m. so the lighting was just gorgeous, weather amazing, and looking at these sentries guarding the coast. We were so glad we fit this in to our schedule – it would have been a great shame to miss it!

After we spent some good time with the Twelve Apostles, we went on to see The Arch, the London Bridge, and the Grotto (all natural rock formations along the way), and then onto Warrnambool, driving through miles of dairy farms and small towns watching the sunset to get to the end of the GOR (where we are staying for the night).

It took us about 8.5 hours from start to finish, but it didn’t seem like that long as we stopped so many times and were seeing such beautiful things!

Tomorrow we go back the other way to Melbourne, and we’re so excited as there are a few stops we had to skip as we weren’t sure how much time we had, so it should be another amazing GOR day!

(For the moment, see FB for pictures - once I get back or have more time here I'll add them, but for now, this will have to suffice!)

Sydney, Part II

The aquarium made us really excited for our dive trip, so after a great day we decided we’d pioneer the train system to see how it would work the next day to get in and out of town, and went on back out to the suburbs (and saw more of the outskirts of Sydney on the way)!

We ate at a cute pub near our hotel, enjoying a live band and different sports on the tv’s (greyhound racing, cricket, some sort of horse/cart racing, etc.) and had a great time watching the locals.

Sydney Day 2

It was a very short sleep before waking up for another day in Sydney. We had to wake up around 5ish (our Bridge Climb was scheduled for 8:25 a.m. but we had to check out, take the train into the city, drop off our luggage at the more central Marriott for the day (Aussies are so nice), walk to the Quay, and be there early…

SO, the alarm went off and I told Curt, “I hate myself for this right now,” because I had set the time for us that early, not really thinking it through and just thinking the light would be better the earlier we went, and being the great hubby he is he didn’t complain along with me, he just laughed and said he was just glad he didn’t plan it so I could only be mad at myself, LOL!

After lugging our luggage around, at times in the pouring rain, we barely made it to the Bridge Climb on time, but we made it – whew (so far, the hours between 5 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. were the worst our trip so far…. GRUMPY)!

But as we went through the very well-organized assembly line, learned about what we were going to do, took a breathalizer test (there was a guy in our group who didn’t make it – I think the level was .05 so it was pretty sensitive, but they said he could go as soon as his level was down… and don’t worry, they didn’t publicize it, they just told him to hang back and I overhead a couple words and put it together… bummer though!)

We got suited up, and as it had been raining all morning we had to also put some rain pants on, and I was PRAYING it wouldn’t rain anymore so we could have a good time, and we got lucky! The sky was overcast, but no rain, and as it was pretty humid and hot so the cloud cover actually made it better. It was amazing to have a tour (we had headsets), learn all about the history of Sydney, the bridge, what we were seeing (bridge descriptions as well as city descriptions), and to be on top of it all!

Interesting tidbits about the bridge:

There are more than 6 million rivets, and they used to cook them in a portable oven (a man on the edge of the bridge – way up high, no ropes or safety lines attaching them), and because they only had 15 seconds to set them, they threw it to the man out in the middle of the bridge who was setting the rivets who caught it in a small bucket (who ALSO had no safety ropes or harnesses) – I couldn’t believe it! Can you imagine trying to catch white hot rivets suspended 500 feet above water?

The abuttments (sp?) are made from blue granite mined from Australia, and each block is unique and was masoned by 200 masons commissioned from Scotland (as in, THE Masons), and each block had its own specifications, which took the masons 2 weeks per block (one mason per block). The Australians made a temporary town for the masons near the quarry, and then the blocks were marked with their spec number, and shipped to the bridge… cool, huh?

The Bridge Climb was truly spectacular, and we had a great time with our group, leader, and seeing what Sydney is all about, just too cool! We kept pinching ourselves, not believing where we were, even when we were staring right at the Opera House – what a dream come true!

Afterwards we went to the Lowenbrau and had the most amazing German food, and by that time (1 p.m.), the weather was starting to clear out with some cool breezes and soft sunshine, so we ate outside at The Rocks, only one street away from KENDALL LANE!

Then we walked around Sydney for the rest of the afternoon, and when we got tired we settled down in Darling Harbor at the Starbucks to people watch, write blog posts, and rest (we were knackered).

Then off to the airport to catch our flight to Melbourne on Qantas – which, as we were told, was a very nice airline!

I had some more ear trouble on this flight, which is still a concern for diving to come soon, so pray whatever is going on clears out soon!

Then off to one of our nicer hotel stays at the Marriott in Melbourne, on the way to which I drove on the OTHER side of the road for the very first time (for a solid 20 minutes, it was a big deal)! I was being VERY careful, constantly repeating “Stay on the Left,” and almost peed myself when we both saw a “roundabout” sign 5 minutes into it, but I did it!

We slept amazingly well (I love Marriott beds), slept in a bit as we didn’t have a hard schedule the next day, and woke up to a beautiful sunny day.

In the Land of Oz (Days 2 & 3)

On the flight over, Curt slept a LOT, and I was up pretty much the whole time reading a book cover to cover (I hate when I do that, I only have one more book that I brought – then what will I read?!) and then watching a few movies which were great! We had some beautiful Business Class meals, all the tea the nice Thai lady could stuff down my throat (I say that in a nice way – Thai airlines is so lovely and the flight attendants are ridiculously friendly and accommodating).

A nice surprise we got in the air was watching the sunset over the desert in Australia – all red, and beautiful… though you can tell you wouldn’t want to be caught out there for even a day, there was NOTHING! It looked like what you picture Mars or something to look like!

We got into Sydney around 10:15 local time, and were so excited – we made it! Our first time to Australia, and both of our first time to be south of the Equator – two biggies (p.s. we’ve been looking in all of our toilets to see if the water swirls the other way, but so far there have been no swirly toilets encountered –we will keep you posted!)!

We stayed a little outside of Sydney city proper about 20 minutes away (again, free hotel room/points), but Sydney has a great over-ground train system so we knew it wouldn’t be a big deal… We got sorted, and then to bed (Curt was wired, I was grumpy, but thankfully he slept)!

Oh! Forgot to throw this in there, but the day before we were to leave China I started to get the dreaded tickle in my throat – I tried hard to fight it off but this whole time so far I’ve had a cold… HUGE bummer, but the kicker was at the end and after our long flight my ears wouldn’t clear, and even after we landed it didn’t… talk about pain! I finally got it to clear last night (a full day of not hearing anything out of my left ear) using some hot salt water, after trying a whole host of meds and remedies… am getting paranoid that I’ll be in trouble for our dive trip, so trying anything and everything to get all of this crap out of my head/nose/chest/ears! What a nightmare it would be…. But that’s not going to happen!

We both slept well, and the next day were up and at ‘em for a fun day in Sydney! We started out with a $56 Courtyard Marriott breakfast (insert jaw drop here – some things about Sydney are reasonably priced, and others, like some food and CAB PRICES are flat out murderous, it’s insane). Breakfast was good, but this is what we mostly get for free?!

Then Stuart and his fiancée, Natascha, came to pick us up to take us around Sydney a little bit. We first went to the Koala Park Sanctuary and had up close encounters (as in petted and interacted) with koalas, grey kangaroos, wallabies, dingoes, and saw even more (penguins, cockatoos, night fox bats (we saw the cockatoos and bats in the wild here already, too!), peacocks, and tons more things… it was awesome!

The kangaroos were my favorite… seeing the little joeys poking out of their mommy’s pouches was really the cutest thing ever. There were a couple really tiny babies, and then there were some bigger joeys who will shortly (I have a feeling) be kicked out, LOL! There was one whose body and head fitted in, but his legs and arms were all hanging out at weird angles – it looked hilarious! Seeing them hop around was awesome, too… their tails are huge, and you can tell how strong and powerful they are! We also saw some of the bigger males (not in the same enclosure you interact with them because they’re about as big as us) boxing each other and standing up really tall which was impressive, too. Just amazing, amazing, animals.

Everyone that knows me knows I’m a Discovery Channel girl, and I knew a lot about the majority of animals in the sanctuary, but seeing them that up close and personal gives you a new respect for just how unique Australia is – some of these guys don’t even look “normal,” almost alien somehow?? And it’s totally different than seeing a few in a zoo enclosure, too… it was just the coolest, I can’t even describe it??

After a nice morning there, we all went into Sydney for a nice walk into the city over the Harbor Bridge, and then stopped at a “hotel” for lunch. A hotel in Australia, turns out, is a pub or a bar… I don’t know how this miscommunication stuck because it gets a little confusing, but we had a wonderful and relaxed lunch at “The Rocks” (area below the bridge where Sydney first set down its roots – a bunch of old buildings, warehouse-ish and stylish area).

Then Stuart and Tash showed us around Sydney some more before we had to say goodbye so Stuart could catch a plane later that afternoon… it was so nice to see him again, and I found myself thinking again that the world indeed can be small…

Curt and I then did some more wandering and came to Darling Harbor (or Harbour, to the Aussies – they spell things like the Brits), and as it started to rain we decided it would be a great time to hit the Sydney Aquarium!

It’s said to be one of the best in the world – and it really was fantastic… a TON of species and specimens, an amazing shark tank with tunnels with sharks that we’ve never even HEARD of (they all live down here, apparently), and again, seemed alien.

(We have to go catch a taxi now, but more to come later, including pictures!)

The World is So Big, and Yet So Small…

Because we’re trying to do as much of this trip on rewards/miles, our travels to Australia took a little while as we had a night stop over in Bangkok, Thailand. As Curt and I both LOVE Thailand, we were fine with this because we were flying to Australia (and back) essentially for free. So we had our first flight early in the morning from Shanghai to Bangkok, getting in later that afternoon.

We got settled into our hotel, and as we’d stayed there a couple of times before, we knew where we were going so set out on the town. It was an amazingly beautiful day there (albeit hot, but coming from cold China we were soaking it up) and we were enjoying just walking around.

After exploring (and checking movie times), we went and got showered up for the evening, popped over to Central World to see “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” (so cute), then went to the BBQ/World Festival right outside there (we checked it out earlier and made that plan as we saw a band from the U.S. would be playing along with other bands from all over the world.

It was great! We had some BBQ ribs from Bourbon Street (stand was labeled the American Style BBQ), which apparently is an actual restaurant somewhere in Bangkok, and listened first to a Thai guitar player who specialized in Latin music! He played some Gypsy Kings, which we love, and it was such a nice evening. The band up next was from Southern Louisiana and they were a Zydeco band – now I felt like home!

We were sitting there enjoying ourselves, and I mentioned to Curt, “We are in Bangkok, Thailand, on the other side of the world, listening to Latin and Zydeco music, while eating BBQ – how funny is that?” It was surreal… and SO fun…

We didn’t hang out there all night as the next day was another long travel day. Woke up early for a 7:45 a.m. flight (so had to wake up in the 4’s), then onto the plane for another 10.5 hours. Thankfully, we are in Business Class for these long legs (our first time to ever be so), and holy cow, no wonder people get spoiled and Economy gets hard after this! This in itself was a lot of fun, or, as much fun as long flights can be…

People wise, the world is small, and seems smaller all the time, but with these kinds of long flights I’m reminded that the world is also pretty darn big, too! There were advertisements for Antartica flights/expeditions from Australia, and that is ANOTHER 12 hour flight from here (Curt and I both were like, “that far?!”).

So that was Day I of our trip… it seems to be starting out GREAT (pics to come soon)!

Sea Pearls, Trip Planning, & More...

The last couple of days here have been on the exciting side, mostly because we're getting ready for the trip of a lifetime: Australia/New Zealand!


Update on my trip to the pearl market, first though - I bought my first sea pearl! Now, to be honest, before I lived here I really didn't know the difference between freshwater pearls and sea pearls, but holy smokes if you've ever felt a sea pearl (a much more rare cousin of the freshwater pearl) it feels like warm butter on toast! Literally, I'm not joking, the first time I felt one I said, "it feels like butter," as that was the most luxurious, similar thing that came immediately to my mind. Since I've learned more about these much more expensive and rare pearls, I decided that before I left here I had to get me at least one!


They sell them at the pearl market, but if a certain stall carries them, they're kept in a small safe that's bolted to the floor, and at any given time each place may only have 20 single (different colored) pearls at a time, to give you an idea of how special these are. If you were rich enough to be able to afford an entire strand of them, you'd have to special order them from Hong Kong. Most ladies here, though, have a single pearl mounted in a ring or as a pendant necklace.

My pearl was hand chosen by me, has only one tiny flaw, is gunmetal gray (it reminds me of the ocean on a dark, cloudy day), and over 11 mm. I'm going to put it into a ring after I get a design ready to take to the local jeweler here who specializes in just such things. It's going to be BEAUTIFUL!

So... that was a big deal :-).

Yesterday I didn't have any time to blog post as I literally spent 6-7 hours on the computer booking our hotels for our trip. There aren't a ton of chain hotels outside of the major cities, which required a lot of review reading and clicking on individual sites (only to get far into the process to realize they were booked as it's a popular time of year), so by the time Curt got home I was in a pretty foul mood. After a couple more hours this morning, I'm happy to say we have a place to lay our heads in each city, which is a lot to say as we're only staying in the same place 3 times (8 nights) for 20 nights - whew! We also have a car rental, and all of our major excursions lined up as well.

I can't wait to experience all of these things... a few highlights to look forward to reading about:

Australia:

Sydney: Koala Park Sanctuary, Bridge Climb


Melbourne: Driving the Great Ocean Road

Cairns: Diving the Great Barrier Reef on a 4-day liveaboard, which INCLUDES a low level flight back over the Great Barrier Reef to have a close bird's eye view! (crossing off an item on my life goal list - which was really just to SEE the reef, diving was always on the list but way farther down and more in the "maybe" category, so it wasn't as much of a given, if that makes sense, so now I kind of get to kill two birds with one stone!)

New Zealand:

Akaroa: Swim with Hector's Dolphins, the smallest dolphin species in the world - I believe they only live here in the whole world, so this will be amazing (crossing off an item on my life goal list)

Mt. Cook/Lake Tekapo: Helicopter Ride to Mount Cook with glacier landing (yes, just like the Bachelorette and this will be my first helicopter ride!)

There will also be lots of driving and other sightseeing in there as well... Curt and I really want to do something related to the Aborgines in Australia and the Maori people in New Zealand, and we've heard the Sydney Aquarium is a must see as well (one of the best in the world which I didn't know?) so we'll fit those in as well, I'm sure.

Should be something to remember for a lifetime...

In the meantime though, still stressing about Maverick. Mom had to take him to the emergency room last night as he was bleeding a lot on the outside, and then was bleeding internally as he had a blood pocket quickly pop up. Sigh... I believe there is no worse feeling than relying on someone the way I'm relying on my family at the moment for his care. Obviously no one likes to feel like they're burdening someone, and to be honest I don't know I've ever had this feeling in my life to this extent which is entirely unsettling - and heavy... I feel grateful that they love me enough to do this for me because any other alternative would be much, much worse, but I feel so awful at the same time.

I'm not sure I'll ever be able to serve my family in the way they are serving me now, but I know I will owe them all and will be on the lookout for ways to repay them. Hopefully, in the end, it will have been worth it if Curt and I get to come home soon, and if we have been able to prolong his life enough to be able to have plenty of time left with him. Loving something, or someone so much is always hard, I guess, whether it is a person, or in this case, a big ol' dog.

Funny story that cracked me up, though - here's part of Kendyl's nightly update from his first night home (she stayed the night with him in my room - don't I have the most amazing family?):

Mav was fine last night, didn't even get up at all that I noticed. He woke up really happy and wanted to go with me when I left. The wound doesn't seem to bother him at all. Last night Mom waited to give him his meds untl we got upstairs because they are supposed to make him woozy, so she brought up the 2 pills and a slice of cheese, and Mav kept spitting the ball of cheese out and sticking his tongue out like he was trying to get a disgusting taste out of his mouth... Mom had to go back down and get some peanut butter and fish out the pills and then he gobbled it right up! It was pretty funny!

Some back story there is that Cottonwood, Kendyl's dog that we had for many years LOVED cheese, and that's also how she received all of her meds. Maverick and Savannah, however, grew up with peanut butter glob birthday cakes, etc. and LOVED that, so I learned to use that for delivering meds as it works well for them?

I'm assuming Mom was just going with the less messy option as she thought it would work just as well. In truth, I would have though it would be fine, too - Maverick usually isn't picky but I guess he's never had cheese? And I guess he doesn't care for it, LOL! What's hilarious to me is that I can perfectly picture every person in this and they're faces, including Maverick's - I'm sure he was thinking, "What the heck is this stuff? Where's my peanut butter?!"

Anyway, we leave for our first stop, Bangkok, tomorrow morning... don't worry, just a quick stop over before we get to the land down under!

I'm going to try and blog regularly while we're gone - until then, G'day mates!