Catching up on Sydney

Text by Sabrina, italics comments by Chad.

Sorry we haven't added to our travel journal recently. We've been so busy each day, and at the end each day I have been way to tired to write anything. All I can say is that we have been having an amazing time here in Sydney and enjoying ourselves immensely. This may be a really long post, bringing everybody up to speed. Sorry about that. I understand completely if you don't have a couple of hours to devote to reading this! After I get done rubbing her feet and feeding her grapes, she goes to bed with out telling everyone what a great day we have had.

We left off with us having purchased tickets to see a comedian performing at the Sydney Opera House. His name is Eddie Ifft, he comes from LA, and he was very funny. If you are an American comedian who can't get noticed in the crowded LA or NY comedy scene, take your act on the road. The rest of the world sees USA after your name and they assume you are funny. You also make a lot more money than a local comic. He was at the Opera House taping a video, so he made us laugh for over 2 hours. It was great fun. Before we saw the show we stopped for dinner at a Bavarian restaurant that was to die for! I don't get to eat German food often, so I was in heaven. It was some of the best German food I have had and the beer was yummy too! In fact, we both liked it so much we decided to go back there for dinner on our last night here. I don't know why the Germans have to flatten all their food, but it makes it so good! There is never anything that special about the German food we have had, it is just meat and starches, but it so tasty. They don't go nuts with the spices, they just use good ingredients. I can't wait to go back on Monday, especially because we are going to have Black Forest Cake.

Wednesday morning we were up and out of the hotel super early. We took a tour of the Blue Mountains. Rainy weather was fast approaching the area, so we decided we better go as long as the weather was still nice. That was a smart idea, because since then it has been raining off and on with monsoon type rain, flooding in the areas north of here, and really gusty wind. Wednesday, thank God, was a bit cool, but beautiful. Bob was our tour guide and he was awesome.

This is Bob our guide. He was passing out Kangaroo food for us to feed to the Kangaroos in the next area.
He was a walking book of knowledge about everything Australian and we loved asking him tons of questions. Bob first took us to a place called Featherdale Park. It is a family run animal habitat and it was here that we got to pet koalas and feed kangaroos.

We got one chance at a pic with a Koala and the snotty little bugger wouldn't look at the camera.

Koala's are shy and sleepy. They are lucky they are so cute.

Hey Buddy, you need some food?

Lazy Roos, Walla and Kanga.

They had amazing birds that just wandered all around the park.

We didn't get to stay very long because as a tour we had a schedule to keep and Bob made sure we stuck to our schedule. Sabrina forgot to mention that there were a couple families that couldn't be on time all day. They made us have to rush the whole day. They didn't meet the bus at the right time, they would wander off by themselves and just generally be slow moving. Just to add to the joy, they had two kids that wouldn't stop screaming and crying.

Tasmanian Devil

The Dingo ate my BABY!
The next stop was at a park where we got to have tea and cake and Chad learned how to throw a boomerang.

Look at my form! I was a natural.
Our next stop was at a place where we got to go on a short hike to the edge of the Blue Mountains and look out over the valley. AMAZING.


We had a stop for a great lunch at a Country Club, and then headed to another part of the Blue Mountains where we got to take a gondola down into the valley, tour throw a small, and very old rain forest, and then take the worlds steepest train back up to the top.

Into the valley.

The 3 Sisters


The train is so steep that we are laying on our backs as we go up the mountain.
All I can say is that I have never done anything quite like this before and I loved every moment of it. The next stops were at the town of Leura and then through the area where Sydney held the Olympics in 2000. At the end Bob dropped all of us off at the River Cat which is a boat that shuttles people up and down the Parramatta river. It was dark by now and we cruised up the river and into a gorgeous, all lit up, Sydney Harbor, where we hopped off at Circular Quay, grabbed some dinner, and headed back to the hotel. One of the things I love about Sydney are all the different people that are here and that we have been able to meet. In our tour group to the Blue Mountains we met people from New Jersey, Canada, New Zealand, India, Beijing, and Ireland. We were quite the melting pot! I too like the melting pot of travel, but the one thing that is wearing thin with me is Japanese, Korean, and Chinese tour groups. There can be almost 100 of them moving through the city like swarm of locusts. They push and shove, smoke like a factory, and generally disrupt the good times being had by everyone else. It reminds me of what people always talk about when they say the "Ugly American". Lately it seems that the Americans are the ones on their best behavior.

On Thursday Chad had to go to work for the day so I had a day of rest. I know it sounds strange that he would work on our honeymoon, but he has a big client here who happens to be a short walk from our hotel. This client has been having difficulty using the Winshuttle software so Chad went in for the day to help them out. I know teaching in person is always easier than trying to teach over the internet or on the phone and they really appreciated his help.
It was actually a lot easier to work with this client in person. They have a different kind of SAP system that we don't have at our office, so it makes it hard to experiment and work out issues when you can't use their system. It was also nice to meet someone I have talked to on the phone so many times. The people in the office were so nice and happy that I was there to help. It is never fun to work on vacation, but they made it a lot easier to do it. I had a lazy, slow morning at the hotel and then met Chad for lunch. Afterwards I strolled through the mall and stopped at a bookstore. This bookstore was so cool because not only was it huge, but half of the store was all in Japanese. I wandered around for quite a bit, bought a couple of books, and then decided to head back. I walked outside the mall and was shocked by the rain coming down. I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it - and I live in Seattle now! It was like someone was throwing buckets of water out of the sky. As I stood in the doorway for a moment to figure out the best way to get back to the hotel I could hear people screaming in the streets because of the torrential rain. Cabs were impossible to get because everyone was grabbing cabs! For a moment I thought I would just have to tough it out and walk back expecting to get soaked, when I noticed a drug store that had umbrellas in the doorway. I'm sure they didn't waste anytime shoving those things to the front of the store! I ran in, bought one, and made my way back to the hotel. My pants were soaked, but other than that I was just great. Chad got home from work and we took off for Darling Harbor. It was still raining, but not nearly as bad as earlier. We stopped for dinner and then headed back.
The rain here has been insane. It starts and stops like someone is flipping a switch on the clouds. And when it is on, it is a deluge. Even with an umbrella, you can get wet cause the rain is all around you. It made me long for Seattle drizzle.

The cool thing about staying at this hotel is that because Chad is a Platinum member for Marriott we get to head to the executive lounge on the top floor and have breakfast each morning and dessert each night. This has been such a neat thing because we met a really neat couple who we have been sitting and chatting with the last two evenings. Their names are Ray and Lyn and they are native Australians from Melbourne. Lyn is a retired English teachers and Ray use to be a photo journalist with some great stories to tell. He photographed during World War II. They left this morning to head back to Melbourne, but before they left they gave us their address and phone number and invited us to visit the next time we come back to Australia. I will definitely be writing them when we get home and hope we can keep in touch.
Aussies are so friendly and genuinely nice. We have had the best service, the friendliest cabbies, and the nicest people to chat with. It has been so nice interacting with the Aussies this week. I would love to come back soon.

Friday was our day to spend with the animals. First we went to the Sydney Aquarium and wandered around looking at all of the fish. They have a great seal tank, but best of all were the sharks. You can actually walk under the tank and have sharks swimming over you. The best was this Manta Ray they had that was huge! Picture three Chad's standing shoulder to shoulder and that will give you an idea of how large he was. Hey, is that a comment about my weight? After lunch we headed to Wildlife World and saw all of their animals. They only have native Australian animals and we got to see spiders, snakes, various nocturnal animals, a large cassowary bird, koalas, and wallabies. It was a great time and we sure learned a lot.


What the hell is on my arm?

Sabrina likes the snake.

This morning we decided to head to Bondi Beach on a tour bus that runs through and around the city. Bondi Beach is great, but it was so windy we hopped back on the bus and stopped at the Sydney Cricket ground

Freaking Awesome!! If I could've only gone in.
and then walked into the Fox studios. The studios now house restaurants, shops, clubs, and movie theaters. We stopped for lunch and then decided to see Shrek III, which we both really liked, even though the theater was packed with noisy kids.
Why do people think it is ok to let their kids run wild in a movie theater? Why would you let them scream cry and talk during a movie? You are not at your own house!!
The funny thing was that there were two little kids, who were probably around three years old, running up and down the stairs during the entire movie. The running up and down the stairs wasn't the funny part, the funny part was the little boy who kept saying to the little girl, "C'mon, let me show you my wee wee!" Ah kids! After the movie we took the elevator up to the top of Sydney Tower and looked out over the beautiful city.

ANZAC Memorial in Hyde Park from the Sydney Tower.

Darling Harbour and the Maritime Museum

The Harbour Bridge

It was raining and gusting so much when we left that we decided to just head back to the hotel, order pizza, and stay in for the night. I have to say that I saw the neatest thing today as we were out and about. There is a park across the road from the Cricket grounds and sitting on the lawn in the tree must have easily been around 100 yellow crowned cockatoos. I have only ever seen cockatoos like this in pet stores and they cost several hundred dollars. In Sydney they hang out like pigeons - it's the coolest thing and I was completely enamored with them following them around with the camera trying to get photos.


Just to wrap up things for the night, a picture of me at a Hungry Jacks. It goes a long with my NZ Burger King Photo. For some reason, BK is called Hungry Jacks in Aus.


Now I have to go watch the cricket. From England, on TV.
Someone better remind me why I don't just move here?