08 Australia

Good Wine, Great Friends In Perth, Australia - April 25th-29th, 2007

2007-06-12T06:17:00Z

We have just flown to Perth from Sydney to visit our friends Mel and Ryan, who we had met while traveling in Vietnam. We have traveled almost the length of Vietnam with these guys and at the end of our journey Ryan had proposed to Mel. Their engagement party was the week before our arrival in Perth.

Mel and Ryan pick us up at the airport and take us back to their place. It is early afternoon and we settle into a proper Aussie barbque in their back yard. They also have a very friendly chocolate lab named Bronson. It feels good to be staying in a house and to be eating home cooked food. After polishing off some steaks Mel and Ryan take us out for a drive around Perth. We head over to a park which overlooks the city. Perth is a beautiful place. The city sits right on a river. We have a good stroll around the park. It is ANZAC day which is a holiday to observe Australian and New Zealand military men and women who have died in combat. The park we are visiting has a sizable memorial that is well decorated with flowers. We stay until after dark and then make a visit down to the river. One of Mel and Ryan's friends is lucky enough to have an apartment right by the river. She treats us to wine and we take a quick walk by the water. We eventually retire back to Mel and Ryans for beers and a game of pictionary. Aussie pictionary. There were all kinds of words in their version of the game for which we had no clue.

Sample Aussie Pictionary card and a shot of Ryan, Mel and I in the thick of the action

What the hell is a "Outback Dunny"?

The following day Mel and Ryan took us to a Kangaroo/Koala park. This place was kind of like a zoo except the animals weren't caged, you could stroll around and even pet most of them. It was quite fun, and we were happy, because you can't go to Australia and not see some kangaroos and koala bears. At the front gate you buy bags of animal feed and then wander through different sections of the park feeding the animals. We spent a good amount of time with the kangaroos.

What a rough life

What a lazy bunch these guys are. They just lounge around all day. Most of them would let us pet them and scratch behind their ears. There were two different types of kangaroos that were mixed together. Some were great red kangaroos and some were a smaller type that I can't remember the name of.

Another highlight of the park was the koalas. These were kept in their own special enclosure. They sleep most of the day away as well but we paid a little extra for Chrissy to be able to hold one of them.

These guys are as soft and cuddly as you would expect.

Other animals that were around included a bunch of lamas, some funky Australian lizards, and a good sized bird sanctuary. Outside of the bird enclosure there was a sign warning you to enter at your own risk. The birds weren't shy. There was one particular bird called a Galah that took a liking to Ryan and I. It would sit on our should as we walked around and would happily switch to one of us or the other. The funny thing was that it didn't like the ladies at all. The crazy thing attacked both Chrissy and Mel. We would try to get it to sit on their shoulder, which it would, but then it would bite them. This bird actually ran them out of the enclosure.

This bird was evil

After finishing up at the park we met another Aussie friend (also named Mel) for drinks and dinner. Preversly, I had a kangaroo steak for dinner. Its one of those things that you are supposed to try. Tasted pretty lean, as you would expect. Was good, but I won't be giving up beef anytime soon.

The next day we took relatively easy. A bit of shopping in the morning at the local mall, which is basically like any mall you see in the states. I got a much needed hair cut to fix up the mess some Vietnamese barber made of my hair in Siagon. That evening we went down to the Perth water front and had some beers and chow. We had been seeing crazy large birds everywhere we went in Australia and down by the water was the biggest pelican we had ever seen. Nuts.

Aussie sized pelican

The next day was the cornerstone event of our Australian adventure. A wine tour. Our second friend Mel had set up for all of us and some of their other friends to get on a bus and do an all day wine tour in the Swan Valley. The valley is a major wine producing area of Australia and is only an hour or so outside of Perth. We have a fantastic day. The wines are excellent and the weather is beautiful. The bus just takes us from one winery to another, we do a tasting and move on. We were responsible (even with the bus) and didn't get too liquored up.

The wine tour group sitting down to a tasty lunch

After a hard day of sipping wine we got back to Mel and Ryan's house and Chrissy turned in for a nap.

My lovely wifes 30th birthday is fast approaching at this point. I had been conspiring with our friend Katherine for months to work out the details of her making a surprise visit for Chrissy's birthday. It worked out that Katherine would be joining us in Perth. This was a crazy journey for Katherine. She was coming for only a little over a week but was flying all the way from the states to Perth via Sydney and then would be continuing on with us to Hong Kong. Anyways, so while Chrissy was napping Ryan and I went and picked up Katherine who had arrived a short time before. We took Katherine back to Mel and Ryan's and had her non-chalantly go into the room where Chrissy was sleeping and wake her up.

Katherine and a very confused Chrissy

That night we do some serious bar hopping in the Perth pub district. Aussies like themselves some beer.

The following day we head down to the ocean to get a look. It is a bit cold for swimming or sun bathing but the surfers are out in force. The beaches near Perth are some of the best surfing in the world. I wouldn't mind giving surfing a go at some point. Not this trip though. We wander around a boardwalk down by the beach and have some beers while watching Aussie "Footie". Footie is kind of a mix between ruby and European football.

Our last day in Perth Mel and Ryan needed to return to work so Chrissy, Katherine and I did a bit of sightseeing on our own. We wandered around town and took a ferry across the river. Some big geese didn't mind getting their picture taken.

Three silly birds

After work Mel and Ryan drove us over to the other Mel's house and she cooked us all a fantastic dinner. We had roasted lamb with a fresh mint sauce, baked pumkin, lots of wine. Mel and Ryan brought a delicious cake for desert. The name escapes me, but it was a light egg white based cake (kind of like angel food cake) covered in fresh fruit. It was awesome.

Our Australian friends took very good care of us. They must come to Texas so that we can attempt to return in kind. We even got parting gifts.

INSERT SANDLE PICS

After saying goodbye to our friends we caught a late over night flight back to Sydney.

Back in Sydney we would cram in a full day of sightseeing. We arrived very early in the morning so had a complete day. We managed to:

Hit the Opera House
Climb the Sydney Harour Bridge Pylon
Visting the Botanical Gardens
Lay out on Bondi Beach
Do a coastal walk
Hang out at Katherine's hotel in the evening

After all this Chrissy and I catch a flight to Hong Kong that evening and Katherine will join us on a different flight the next morning. Sadly, the Australian leg of our trip has come to an end. A few final thoughts on the wonderful people and fantastic place that is Aussie Land.

Aussies don't like multi syilibal words
Aussies can drink beer
They don't know what patio is (inside joke)
Beaches are beautiful, like southern california without the pollution

- Bill

A Homecoming of Sorts...Bill and I Get Re-Acquainted with Beef - Sydney, Australia - April 20 - 25, 2007

2007-06-07T06:00:00Z

When Bill and I started to plan for this trip, one of the first questions we had to tackle was which countries we thought we might want to go to and which ones we would skip. We set about trying to find a good way to figure this out and decided that because this trip was so long-term, we would need to stick with less expensive countries. That pretty much eliminates the western world and a few other notable mentions - specifically Australia and Japan. We didn't worry about this oversight because we knew that one day in the near future we would visit these places as separate, independent trips.

We'd been working on the hellatious round-the-world ticket for months with the best reservation agent I have ever come across. We were literally days (as in less than a week) from leaving and still trying to finalize the reservation and get it ticketed. Finding flights in and out of India and onwards to China was a difficult feat - we were trying to book award tickets between the two most populous countries in the world, after all. Finally, our reservation agent found a flight on Qantas. This required connecting through Sydney, Australia. At that point, we had a decision to make - and I knew which way I was leaning - we could just connect or stay a while. Bill agreed that it would be a travesty to fly so far out of the way and not at least get out of the airport, so we allocated 10 days to the large continent (another travesty by an standards, but again, we'll rectify that down the road).

View of Sydney Harbour from the plane, notice the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in the background

We arrived to Sydney mid-afternoon and headed to our hostel in King's Cross. We both collapsed in bed nearly immediately. We thought we were goners for the day, but we somehow rallied and ended up at a nice steakhouse down the street. We hadn't eaten one morsel of beef in 5 weeks in India and we were both anxious to eat a cow. As I'm sure we all know, Australia is known for it's beef, so it was "no worries" as they say.

In hog, er cow, heaven, we each ate our steaks and slurped our precious red wine in record time. We were sitting at an outdoor table and we could not get over the cleanliness of the street. It literally looked like you could eat off the ground. Coming from India, we were both a little shell-shocked to see such fantastically clean streets.

We made our way down to a bar where Bill immediately spilled a beer on a friendly English guy. He was polite and we ended up chatting. That's one way to break the ice, I guess. We told our new friend about how clean the streets were here and he laughed. "You are in the nastiest part of Sydney", he said. That actually is true. King's Cross is infamous for all-night bars and prostitutes and nasty places that somehow get away with the phrase, "Gentleman's Club".

We moved onto a swanky club that had a dress code that I didn't fit. I was wearing a new Indian outfit that I had bought and thought was pretty fabulous. A full skirt with a vivid print in orange and green and little silver dangly things that jingled when I walked, paired with a nice handmade cotton shirt. The fashion faux pas was the flip flops on my feet. We were sure we wouldn't even get in, but as we stood in line we were ushered to the front of the line along with the girls in front of us that definitely fit the bill. Maybe I looked exotic for them, I'm not sure, but we were all quite amazed that we made the cut. I felt woefully out of place though because every other woman in the bar had on 3-inch minimum stilettos and short mini-skirts. No, they weren't the prostitutes.

Night turned to early morning and our friend was quite intoxicated. We tried to usher him into a cab but he wanted to stay out so we felt obliged to leave, hoping this would convince him to stop drinking and go back to his hotel. Instead, he stayed and we left and we grabbed one more drink at a different place before really heading to bed.

The next day, we got up reasonably early and headed out to the Sydney Opera House. We shamelessly got a Starbuck's (or StarSucks, as my dad says) en route and tried to look cheerful for pictures of us in front of the beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, despite the bad weather.

Bill and I in front of the Opera House with our Starbucks

The Opera House, like everything in Sydney, is ridiculously overpriced to take a tour ~$30 USD. We couldn't justify the price so we visited their fantastic bathrooms (backlit toilet paper!) and headed out. I connivingly convinced Bill to walk through the Botanical Gardens because as it looped around the edge of the harbour I thought we might be able to get a picture with both the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in one shot. We did, but again the rainy weather made the pictures not-so-hot.

The Opera House and the Harbour Bridge

The detour had other fringe benefits. Australia has just crazy, large birds. Maybe everyone knows this, but I didn't. We saw lots of cool birds that I will never know the names to, and then came to an open field of wild cockatoos just hanging out. That was really cool.

One of a couple dozen cockatoos in the Botanical Garden

The day cleared up a bit and we found our way over to Bondi beach. Well-reputed as one of the best beaches in the world, it certainly lives up the hype. Crashing waves, fine granulated sand and people that can actually surf. We strolled along the coastal walk which is an absolute must in the city. The walkway has been well landscaped and as you stroll from beach level to street level and back down again, you pass old fashioned photos of what the area used to look like and see native flora.

View of Bondi beach from the Coastal Walk

The following day, we got up and had an easy morning in preparation for our big activity - walking across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Maybe not in the sense you are thinking. I mean, over the top of the bridge. Bill hates heights with a passion. He has been constantly lamenting this whole trip that the vast majority of cool stuff requires death-defying heights to enjoy. I offered him an out, but I said that I planned on climbing the bridge either way. He didn't like the sounds of that and reluctantly agreed to go.

We had booked weeks in advance because we heard it can get booked really fast. As our luck would have it, it was pouring on climbing day. Bill was not pleased. But he was a trooper and we did it anyway. The set-up is pretty cool. They put you in a one-piece suit and make sure that any ancillary items are tied down or left behind so that some poor driver on the bridge doesn't get a rude awakening while crossing, courtesy of you. This means no cameras, no hats from home, etc. You wear a harness and have a roller clip that gets inserted into a cable hook as you arrive onto the bridge. The cable loops through the whole way and the roller glides almost effortlessly through. At no point are you ever unattached to the bridge. Because you cannot take pictures, they take photos at strategic spots for you and then give you one free group photo at the end. Of course, no one wants a group photo with a bunch of strangers; you want one with you and your honey, so the theory is that you will be willing to shell out an additional $16 USD per photo. Not sure what they're smoking, but we made do with the group shot.

If you aren't particularly concerned with heights, I think it is pretty serene. Bill thought that it was not bad and was only really nervous a couple of times - once when we went up between the two lanes of cars and once when we descended between a car lane and the train lane with a train passing by at that exact moment. Admittedly, that is a bit nerve wracking, but it's also kind of exhilerating and I almost knocked him down so that I could see the train. This was, on my part, totally uncool because they tell you time and time again to let the person in front of you ascend and descend fully on each ladder before you commence. If looks could kill, Bill would've bumped me off at that moment.

We walked around the Rocks after the climb, which is the original part of downtown. There isn't much left, save for literally a few rocks that is now an archaeological dig area. Otherwise, the bar and restaurants have capitalized off the name and most of the buildings are newer.

The following day, we took a ferry over to Darling Harbour. This was hardly necessary as we could have easily walked, but we had bought a red zone pass for a week (~$40 USD) which enabled us to ride the trains, buses and ferries an unlimited amount of time. It was expensive, but a good value when we added up where we wanted to go. We hadn't rode a ferry yet though, so we decided to take a spin in the world's largest natural harbor. We spent the remainder of the evening at Darling Harbour and then headed back to our hostel.

As I mentioned at the beginning, we had orginally allotted 10 days for Australia and we intended to stay in Sydney the whole time. But back in March, we made some Aussie friends, Cousin Mel, Mel and Ryan (a subset of the Snake Wine Bandits). We'd all become good friends and we called the airline and inquired about changing our flights. We were able to do so and made plans to meet them on their turf in Perth (capital of WA, or Western Australia).

Excited to be reuniting with new friends and experience first hand Aussie hospitality, we headed to Perth the following morning.

- Chrissy