Sydney - Aussie Adventure Part 5

Having ridden on camels through the Outback, snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, cuddled a koala, walked on the beach with sea lions and toured a brewery in Melbourne, we already had had a fantastic stay in Australia before arriving at our final Australian destination for this trip: Sydney.  But there was still one thing on my Life List that we had yet to cross off, and this was the city in which to do it! 

Unfortunately, our stay got off to an awkward start - as I was unlocking the door to our hotel room, I first saw that the lights were already on, and then I saw her.  A middle-aged, less-than-attractive European woman standing in her britches in the middle of my hotel room!  I quickly apologized and shut the door, not knowing exactly what had happened. But this woman opened the door and proceeded to have an extended conversation with us, still wearing nothing but her underwear, about how her key didn't work very well but my key seemed to work quite well for her room.  We finally escaped by saying we'd let the front desk know that we needed a different room, and went back downstairs to the lobby.  Sure enough, there had been a mix up (duh) and they had given her the wrong room.  They gave me her room instead, which was right next door - oh goody, we'd get to run in to her again! 

For our first full day in Sydney, we walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens on our way to the Sydney Opera House area to see what we could see.  It was quite a walk, but made for some excellent pictures!  After walking around a bit, we grabbed a bit at a brewhouse with excellent food and a great selection of beer.

On our way back to our hotel, we stopped at a giant department store in search of the Sydney Opera House Nanoblock set.  We found this fun "Wonderland" store that was set up as a Christmas toy store - reminiscent of the store in the movie Elf.  It was spectacular!
Our second day, we did some more walking around, but kept it more local and a little easier going.  That night, we got to check off #132 from my Life List - seeing a show at the Sydney Opera House!  I had bought tickets back in April to see Postmodern Jukebox, and we had great seats!  It was an awesome show, but the whole experience was just magical, knowing we were in such an iconic venue. 
The next morning we took it easy again, grabbing some donuts for breakfast and  Danish ice cream a bit later.  Sometimes in travel, I am tempted to just go, go, go, but it was nice to catch up on my reading and emails, etc.  For dinner, Jaiman found a Riclette burger place, and we just had to try it out!

Our final full day in Australia was unplanned, but we decided on a Blue Mountains tour, not really knowing a whole lot about it.  The Blue Mountains, as it turns out, is a lot like the Grand Canyon, except covered in blue-looking trees because of the eucalyptus in the air, and we had quite an adventure on our tour - including breath-taking views, a skyway, the steepest railway in the world, and another Aboriginee show. 

I think the highlight for me,though, was the wildlife park at the end, where we not only got to see our favorite Australian animals one more time, but they had joeys!!  The babies had me cooing and shooting pictures non-stop.  The wildlife park also had a little stamp passport to complete, and Jaiman and I were determined to complete it in the limited time we had, so we rushed around trying to find the remaining stamps while stopping to take pictures as I saw the joeys being cute again. 

The tour would wrap up with a ferry boat ride back to Sydney Harbor, but our bus driver took a quick detour to show us around the Olympic Park.  The boat ride was nice, and afforded us great evening views of the Sydney Opera House one more time. 
As our airplane departed for LA, I was able to snap a few photos of Sydney Opera House from the air, and reflected on what a magical trip this had been - just the right combination of adventure, food and beer, nature, experiences, and relaxation.  We would definitely be back, but we felt we had sufficiently experienced an amazing Aussie Adventure!  

Cairns & Great Barrier Reef - Aussie Adventure Part 4

Life List Achievement #53 was snorkeling or diving in the Great Barrier Reef, and I was so excited for this focal point of our trip to Australia.  We had attempted scuba certification back in Arizona in the spring, but due to illness, neither of us were able to complete the certification before moving.  I was anxious that we wouldn't be able to enjoy the Great Barrier Reef just by snorkeling, but it turned out, I needn't worry! 

This being such an important part of the trip, I had done a bit of research, and had selected Silverswift for our tour, because it seemed to be one of the faster boats, thus allowing us to see more of the Great Barrier Reef in a single day.  They had scuba and snorkeling options at three different stops along the Outer Reef, plus food for the day.  The weather was beautiful the day we went out, and we hung out on the front of the boat enjoying the wind and the views.  We were provided wet suits, snorkels and masks, and they even had prescription masks, which Jaiman and I took advantage of and were really glad we did so.  On our first trip out, we saw a giant sea turtle, large clams and anemone fish.  The next two stops we also saw large clams and anemone fish as well.  The coral and the fish were so close to us, I couldn't even imagine diving much, since we could see it all from the surface.  Sure there were deeper parts, but I definitely didn't feel like I was missing out by snorkeling.  Lunch was a buffet that was nothing spectacular, but sufficiently good and fulfilling.  On the last stop, there was a guided snorkeling tour during which our guide dove down and covered up the part of the clam that made it sense a predator, and it would close up in reaction.  He also told us about some of the other creatures and critters.  Jaiman and I pretty much maxed out our time at each of the three stops, taking in as much of the beauty as we could - it was really beyond description.  I think the only thing I would have done differently would be to bring my own dry snorkel, because from time to time the snorkel would accidentally go under water and I'd suck seawater, not the end of the world but a dry snorkel is just a little bit better. 

After our two concluded and we were shuttled back to our hotel, we walked around a bit, looking for dinner and Pokemon, and actually found a Corsola which we hadn't anticipated catching in Australia.  We ended up catching two during our time in Cairns, and would have loved to catch more, but were happy with our catches. Just outside the McDonald's was a group of young boys apparently from an Aboriginal tribe performing some of their dances and songs for tips.  We watched them for a bit and tipped them before moving on.  Later, we'd see an Aborginal show that was very much the same dances, so it appeared they were legit.  There was also a fire dancer performance going on, but it was actually kind of silly, so we moved on quickly from that. 

At the time I was booking our trip, I wasn't sure if we'd end up scuba diving or snorkeling, so I had left an extra day after the Great Barrier Reef tour before flying in case we did scuba.  However, that was months prior, and I could barely remember what the next thing on the itinerary was without looking.  Jaiman and I were using TripIt, as we normally do, to track our progress through our vacation.  The one downside to this app was that if you don't book something for a particular day, it just shows the next thing without showing that there was nothing booked on a particular day.  We'd been traveling so long I suppose that we weren't really aware of what day it was.  So, the next thing on our itinerary was a flight to Sydney, so the next morning we packed all our things and tried to check out.  The front desk attendant informed us that we still had another night, and then it dawned on me that I had booked the extra day.  Feeling foolish, we headed back upstairs to figure out what to do with the extra time in Cairns.  On the suggestion of a couple we had brunched with in Melbourne, we used the extra day to visit the rain forest, specifically the Kuranda Village. 

By the time we were up and ready to go, we had apparently missed the train into Kuranda, so I decided we should take an Uber.  Our Uber driver was an absolute delight, and I honestly would have been more than happy to have him just drive us around all day.  He took us up into the rain forest and dropped us off in the Kuranda Village.  We weren't quite sure what it was we wanted to do, but we got our bearings and figured we'd catch the train back to Cairns later that day, and with that, we were on our way to wander the wildlife park of Kuranda.While cuddling a koala had not been on my list of things I had to do, the opportunity presented itself at Kuranda, and I decided it was a great touristy thing to do.  However, it wasn't quite time to hold the koalas when we arrived, so we went to a little wallaby enclosure and fed the wallabies by hand, which was adorable.  Then we went back up to get in line for the koala cuddles, and got our picture taken holding a koala named Yoshi.  We walked around some more, visiting Bird World where all sorts of exotic birds flew around us in close proximity, even landing on Jaiman a couple times (but I was too slow with the camera to capture it). 
When we were happy with our time with the animals, we headed over to the other side of the village for the Aborigine experience at Rainforestation, where we saw a spear throwing demonstration, and a brief introduction to the didgeridoo to start.  Next, we learned how to throw a boomerang and each got at least one chance to try it out with supervision.  Finally, we were ushered into an outdoor theater where they put on a show for us, demonstrating their dances.  With that complete, we caught the shuttle to the train station and boarded the scenic railway that brought us over the mountain and back to Cairns, with one stop for a photo opp overlooking a huge valley and waterfall.  Cairns, you delivered a dream come true, and so much more!  I will never forget my time spent there.  And then we were off to our final destination in Australia, Sydney, where one of the most awkward travel moments of my life awaited us…

Melbourne - Aussie Adventure Part 3

We arrived in Melbourne on September 21st, with minimal plans for this leg of the trip.  I had several restaurant recommendations from my new co-worker who had just moved to New York from Melbourne, so we thought we'd try one of those.  Many of them looked a bit pretentious and I was in the travel-tired mode and didn't really want to gussy up so much.  We identified one that was more on the casual side and relatively close to the hotel, so we wandered over there.  Unfortunately, it had over an hour wait to get in, and I was hungry and not really keen on waiting.  So we continued wandering around the downtown area and stumbled upon a place that was probably more our speed anyways: a video-game themed burger joint called 8bit.  We munched on delicious burgers and smothered fries, washing it all down with Nutella shakes.  Our first taste of Melbourne made a great first impression, to say the least! 

We wandered around a bit more, finding lots of graffiti which the locals seemed to appreciate, calling it "art" and taking pictures of it.  One particularly disturbing work featured America's new Idiot-in-Chief Donald Trump in an awkward position with a dumbfounded look on his face. 

We went to a mall in search of a KitKat Chocolatory - we had learned on our trip to Japan that Asia has some amazing KitKat flavors, and we had been finding Japanese KitKats in conveniences stores in Australia, and also some really good Australia KitKats.  Much like the KitKat Chocolatory we had found in Tokyo, the one in Melbourne featured really fancy KitKats and didn't really have the "normal" packs we were looking for.  I bought a couple small packs of fun flavors, and we got to sample a normal Australian KitKat (which is notably much thicker than an American KitKat).  We also played with the KitKat computer that allowed you to customize your KitKats, but didn't actually purchase anything through it. 
Back at the hotel, we decided on booking the brewery tour I had had in mind for our Melbourne excursion - it was a tour of the Carlton & United Brewery which makes Fosters, several local favorites (similar to America's Budweiser).  Then we called it a night, and got some much-needed rest. 

The next morning, we satisfied Jaiman's quest for great donuts at Shortstop Coffee & Donuts.  They had a number of unique flavors, many mimicking tea flavors like Early Grey and Green Tea. 

We were to meet for the brewery tour at 12:30 at Federation Square, a neat little area with museums and foodie places.  So until then, we did a lot more walking around town, first finding a street fair selling all sorts of Australian souvenirs and various other goods.  We found some neat Australian jerserys for cheap, and bought those.  As we walked around, I was struck by a lot of juxtapositions: the flashy, modern new buildings next to old world English-looking pubs and hotels; business-types in suits walking through graffiti-covered streets; and fancy English names for things alongside sillier-sounding Australia slang.  I even took this great picture of a business-type getting his shoes shined in one of the most decorated graffiti alley we saw - it was an alley in which, based on the behavior of the dozens of people walking through it, you'd think we were in the Guggenheim.  People were stopping and pausing in front of every four-foot expanse of graffiti as if pondering and appreciating the artist work, and taking pictures of just about every angle possible.  I honestly wasn't sure what to make of it.  For lunch, we found a seriously legit Japanese ramen place - greeted with the traditional Japanese greeting as we entered.  The bowls were ginormous and delicious, and we were full and happy by the end of our stay at Shujinko Russel.

We made our way to the Federation Square area with plenty of time still before the tour pickup.  Seeing an interesting-looking exhibition, we wandered into the little museum.  It was all about swimming pools, talking about the symbolism of bringing the community together and learning how to share.  My favorite quote in the exhibition was from Paul Kelly: "As you move through life, it seems to be like a series of steps into deeper and deeper water.  What comes along in life are the things that we don't know.  The things that everyone goes through but are not known until you do it yourself.  The loss of a parent, the birth of a child, the beginning of love, or the end of love.  All those things.  You don't know them until they happen to you.  It's all deep water when you get there."  After going through the exhibit, we perused the book store and I found a lot of interesting-looking books. 

Finally, it was time to load onto the Carlton Brewhouse bus and head over to the brewery.  It was incredibly interesting to see how a massive brewery like this one operates; before this trip I had only toured small craft breweries.  I think it's neat when tours include a chance to taste the raw ingredients, and I've tasted the grains and burnt grains before.  A first-time for me was being encouraged to try the hops - not the raw hops of course, I knew that wasn't a good thing to do.  Instead, they passed around the raw hops to smell, and then passed around the pelletized hops and encouraged us to take the tiniest of bites of a pellet.  Skeptical, I wanted to give it a try, and sure enough, the bitter hop flavor enveloped my mouth instantly.  It was definitely too much, but hey, they had water to wash out the awful flavor, and beer would soon follow.  And follow it did - after we checked out the mesmerizing bottling operations, we were guided back to the main tasting room where we were treated to several samples of the freshly-made local beer.  We learned that this brewery also was responsible for making the local version of import beers such as Stella Artois, so naturally, I had to try it to see if it tasted the same.  We got some wings to go with our beer samples, and the wings were pretty darn good too.  My favorite beer was the Wild Yak, and I would later try other Yak beers because of my experience at the brewery, but Wild Yak remained my favorite.  All in all, a great tour experience I would highly recommend to beer lovers!  We had a few minutes in the gift shop before the shuttle left, and Jaiman found an awesome Yak shirt there. 

It was admittedly a bit early for dinner, but we did want to try Taxi Kitchen on my colleague's recommendation, so we dilly-dallied around Federation Square for a bit, finding a strange little room tucked away in a corner of an otherwise open public area - it was meant to be like a little family room, and was decorated with slightly retro furniture and homely décor, with a small book case and various places to sit and read or recharge.  We took a break here, charging up our phones and enjoying the little piece of serenity in the middle of a bustling city.  Then we made our way over to Taxi Kitchen.  I guess it was still far too fancy for us - we immediately felt judged by the host, who asked if we had seen the menu online, implying that this wasn't our kind of place.  Whatever dude, just seat us.  We got high-top seats overlooking a busy part of the city and just ordered one plate to share between us.  While watching the city, we saw a few people with Free Hugs shirts hugging willing passersby, and other similarly entertaining people watching.  The food was, as predicted, weird, and also not very filling, so we moved on quickly. 

Jaiman had been eyeing some sushi places that had the sushi already made and sitting in the window, visible from the street - and the rolls were HUGE!  He opted to get some of those for dinner, and I opted to try some wings from the place near our hotel.  I had noticed that the "footy" championship was this weekend, so we got our eats to go and unwound in the hotel room watching "footy" and eating our respective dinners.  As a foodie's haven, Melbourne did not disappoint! 

The following day, we went to another mall and toured around the city a bit more before catching a taxi to the airport and heading on to our next destination - Cairns!