Trying on a New Look

Inside the Cathedral

St. Mary's Cathedral Sydney

Me n' Shawn Steppin' Out.

Pat, Phil, Shawn, Me n' Ive in Queensland

It's Hot, Damn Hot!

Ivan Makes Friends Everywhere he Goes.

I Think I'm in Love...

The Seafood here is not to be believed!

Ivan Meets "THE BIG BANANA"!

Snips and Snaps

Still hanging out in Sydney....may never get out of here - life is easy peazy, weather is hot and sunny and we're still havin' fun. Nah. Today we are working on getting our India leg together and will be leaving on the 15th after we visit Adelaide and I have my 29th birthday here hehheh! Ivan jammed out at the Empire hotel the other night and it was good fun. Posting some photos today for your viewing pleasure.

Heath Ledger Must be Crazy!!

I just heard that Heath Ledger is moving to New York and giving up his Sydney digs. I don't know about New York but I can probably guarantee that he won't find miles and miles of stunning beaches, fabulous weather, lovely people or breathtaking views such as we've experienced here. We are really enjoying our stay in Oz and now that we're comfortable and past the jet lag and reverse culture shock, it's all good.

Our hosts, Pat and Mike have been lovely and so accommodating to our needs and whims and for that we can't be more grateful. Last week we took a road trip up to Queensland which is the northern province. Unlike home, the further you travel north here, the hotter it gets and it was very definitely hot! Along the way to Coolum, where Pat's sister and brother-in-law, Shawn and Phil live, we stopped off in a small town called Ballingen where we were deluge with a huge rainstorm and spent the night in a funky old hotel. The road into Bellingen was a windy, loopy one with magnificent vistas of farmland and majestic trees. There are many macadamia farms and cane sugar plantations. The next morning the sun was shining and we had a great breakfast of eggs benedict and headed off up the road.

Our next stop was Byron Bay - I want to live there! We climbed up to an old lighthouse located on the most easterly point of Australia. The beaches here stretch for miles and miles and are white sand that shines like diamonds, the water is crystal blue and Byron Bay is just too cool for words. Looking down from the lighthouse we saw a school of 5 dolphins frolicking in the surf and a manta ray that must have been 2 meters wide making his black and eerie way along the coast.

Later that day we stopped into a bar called the Rails where a smokin' band was playing the day into the night. It was a friendly, relaxed atmosphere and the cast of characters were as colourful as a Whitehorse Frostbite crowd. The food was good, the beer was cold and the folks were folksy - a very fun evening. Later, Ivan and I went to visit a couple of Canadians who live in Byron, Bill and Linda Wade, friends of Larry Gray who I worked with at the college. We had a lovely visit with them and I was green with envy for the great place they are living in.

On to Surfers Paradise - MORE white sand beaches and very reminiscent of Fort Lauderdale with thousands of terraced apartments, glass towers reaching to the sky and funky beachside cafes and cool shops. I keep wondering as we roll along - where is all the money coming from? Considering the small population of Australia, the high cost of living, how on earth does everyone afford their lifestyles? It's a mystery to me.

Our trip culminated at Coolum and a lovely, relaxed visit with Shawn and Phil at their funky, Queesland house, an open, airy home that wraps it's arms around you. We hung out on the wrap around deck for 2 days and swam in their cool pool with Peaches the snow white Labrador (I got a pet fix - yay)! It was so relaxing I nearly melted. Ivan and I finally visited a beach at Noosa and nearly burned the soles of our feet off. Again, lovely buildings, more stylish shops and streets and lots of yummy restaurants. I could live here in a heart beat, I'm just not so sure I could afford it. I would really hate to have my nose pressed up against the bakery window if I couldn't buy the pastry. Apparently there is a lot of work in Sydney but this city is too big for me, I guess I'm a small town girl at heart. Coffs Harbour ( Russell Crowe's hometown, we looked for him but he wasn't about) is definitely a place I could call home, approx. 20,0000 people; it's lush and green and hilly with the world's biggest banana on display! There are the world's largest things all over Oz....including the prawn and the guitar and I could go on and on, but I won't. Ocean views, banana plantations - I could die with envy. Ok, enough already.

I decided to fly back and give Pat and Ivan a chance to boy bond on the road. I booked my ticket online and pushed the wrong button - as I am wont to do - and ended up booking out of the Gold Coast instead of the Sunshine Coast - easily enough done - and ended up paying for a new ticket at the airport - duh. Another blunder, more money - oh well, it's only money. The flight took an hour and a half and on the take off, I was overwhelmed by the miles of white sand and brilliant blue water and landing in Sydney was an awesome experience. When we flew in our first time, it was at night but this day the sun was shining and the view of the harbour bridge, the yachts, the sailboats, the opera house and the vast, sprawling city. Wow. As I said, Heath Ledger must be crazy.

One of the most amazing things we found about travelling is how wonderful the roads are. They are mostly concrete with many lanes and super signage. Again, how do they do it? It's mind blowing, the infrastructure in this country is topnotch and convenient to the extreme. There is a billboard that says "Fixourbloody roads.com" for people to whinge about the roads on, and I just can't believe there's anything to complain about. They should travel some of our roads! As we've gone along, we've met lots of friendly people and everyone is so proud of their country, as well they have a right. The one thing we are missing is the extensive coverage of the Olympics that we have at home. While they do cover it here, it's limited and of course geared towards the sports Australia is entered in. No ice hockey but good on the girls hockey team. Yay Canada.

We have abandoned the camper to Melbourne as the insurance was $800.00 upfront and it's a worry with all the interchanges and driving on the other side of the road but are still planning on travelling south. So many people say we should go to Melbourne and we are heading to Adelaide so have to make a decision whether to do both.

On another note, I just heard from home that my roof is leaking like a sieve and am trying to sort that out through my friends helping me out at home. It's always something! I'd really like to say thanks BIG TIME to Sophie and Austin for their assistance for without their support at home, I'd have to be on a plane home tomorrow. More news is that I've heard from my relatives in Poland who I've never met and we are all excited that we will finally meet when we head to Europe. I am so excited about this, it's a dream come true. That is if we don't lay roots here!! I will post more pix very soon.

Photos

Hiya...I finally got to an internet where I can give you some new views! I am including some Vietnam pix of Sapa (the place I got sick) and some of Sydney and our friends and after that an update on our adventures in Oz. Enjoy.

Something's Fishy Here...

Sydney Aquarium

Jammin' at the Empire Hotel

My First Kangaroo!

My First Koala!

Sydney Opera House

Regatta - Sydney Harbour

Sydney Harbour by Day

Pat, Ivan and Mike - Old Friends Meet Again

Dinner with Pat and Mike

Sydney Harbour at Night

Arrival Night in Sydney

Sapa Waterfall

Heading Home to the Village

H'mong Home

Sapa Boys

Sapa Market

The Sydney Experience

Sydney - one word I can think of for this city is KA-CHING! This is the seventh most expensive city in the world and don't we know it. After travelling through southeast Asia, the prices in Sydney can only be described as sticker-shock. Although it does help that our good old Canadian dollar is worth approx. 20 cents more than the Aussie dollar, the prices are still up there. For example, if you go for a meal, you can count on $20.00 for a main course, a glass of wine will run you $7.00-$10.00 and even a bottle of water can run as high as $3.00. We were paying about 25 cents a bottle of water in Vietnam! I often wonder when I see families how they manage here.

We have been out and about though, and are making good use of the extensive train system here. Pat took us to the zoo here one day, a lovely ferry ride across the harbour, a spectacular view from the tram car up to the zoo and ta-da, we spent a sultry summer day amongst the koalas, wallabys, exotic birds and gorillas. It was fair dinkum.

Yesterday we trained into the city and went to the aquarium ($27.00 entry fee) and took 3 hours to cruise around the sea creatures. Most impressive was the shark tank. The aquarium seems rather average until you cross a dock and wind your way down pathways to the bowels of the structure where suddenly you are engulfed by tubes of glass with huge manta rays, gobsmacking sized fish and menacing, fiercesome sharks swimming around, above, below and beside you. As they glide by you (about 5 different species), you can gaze into their deadened eyes and jagged, hideous mouths. It gave me the skin crawls and really makes you think twice about hitting the beaches here. While shark attacks are relatively rare, they happen and it only has to happen once - with my luck on this trip, I will be keeping my head above the water scouting for fins! The fish tanks are so impressive and massive depicting life on the barrier reef that we were oohing and ahhing for hours. Well worth the cost, that attraction.

Ivan has had and opportunity to jam at a local blues bar here and really made a big impression as most of the jam acts we watched were, to be polite, really, really bad! He could do really well here given enough time as the local live music scene is vibrant and varied, but it would take a good deal of time and effort and this really isn't the place we want to hang for a long time. The expense compared to the effort would likely not come to any great fruition.

There are some oddities that we have noticed here, that while the general population looks a good deal like North America, it differentiates Oz from our corner of the world. For instance, while the service industry employs 62% of the population, overall, the service here sucks. There is almost a disinterest or boredom factor when it comes to dealing with clerks and service providers. The TV here is atrocious and the programming is even somewhat juvenile, very weird. Attitudinally, it's a very macho society and I don't see a lot of happy, smiling faces here. These are only my impressions and I haven't been here long enough to make judgements, but this is how I initially see it. There are a lot of racial tensions emerging here right now and it's quite fierce between the Muslims and Aussies, this is not just my observation, there are acts of violence happening here with great frequency right now. I guess it's the way of the world now but especially high profile here.

Oh yeah, and they drive on the other side of the road. This in itself is no surprise but on occasion I have neglected to look right and nearly been splattered. Some streets have "Look Right" printed on the curbs - mostly in the tourist areas - and I am thankful for them. Our next adventure is tomorrow when we visit a place called the Blue Mountains - the pix look like the Grand Canyon and I'm looking forward to seeing some wilderness. Hopefully we can get up to Brisbane in the next 2 weeks and after that we have decided to brave the roads and have rented a camper to head south to Melbourne and on to Adelaide by plane. The camper deal is great! They have a thing here called the relocation program and you call in daily to see if there are any campers needing a return to their home stations. We have reserved one for the 25th of Feb. to Melbourne and the best part of the deal is that they only charge you $1.00 per day plus fuel and insurance. You get your insurance returned at the end of the trip (providing a kangaroo doesn't decide to use you as a runway), so for the cost of gas and a buck a day we get to see some of the countryside.

We are most grateful at this time for the wonderful accommodation that Pat has provided for us and we are sleeping like sloths. The 4 months in Asia was far more exhausting than either of us realized and our bodies, minds and spirits are in dire need of the peace being afforded us in the Shire.

As we have come to the realization that the pace of travel we set for ourselves was highly ambitious, an understatement to be sure, we are revamping our plans for the next year. After we leave Oz, we are going to India and then on to Europe and then....WE ARE COMING HOME....well, for a while anyways. We have decided to cut out the Africa and South American portion of the trip and to head home for the summer months, after which we will resume our travel next winter to those 2 continents. It is mentally and physically a good plan we realize now, so look for us to come your way in July '06.

Life in Oz

Australia...finally! Well, southeast Asia and all it's attendant noise, bustle, excitement and travails is behind us now. We are staying at a friend of Ivan's named Pat Catlin. It's been a real treat so far and he and his brother Mike have gone far beyond kindness in giving us a nice place to stay, air conditioning,a mobile phone to use, the run of the house and dvds to last us til our eyeballs fall out. It's such luxury to sleep in a real bed with real pillows and to cook comfort food. I am feeling better now and aside from a small weight loss, no lasting effects from the deadly beef hot-pot. We've been just laying about a lot, looking at tv and movies while we recover from jetlag and have only made one brief foray into the big city of Sydney as we are staying out in the Shire as it's called here - Yowie Bay to those in the know.

By weird coincidence, on the boat we took in Halong Bay Vietnam we met 2 lovely ladies named Tonia and Rosemary, her mother. Her house is 5 minutes away from Pat's house and today we had a lovely brunch with her and her family. Small world hardly says it. For the time being, we are just hanging out and have yet to make any decisions on the next destination. We will be travelling to Brisbane while we are here and also to Adelaide to visit other folks we met in Vietnam. It's hard to say where we go from here but stay tuned as I'm sure there will be twists and turns to follow in this story. Cheers and Love to all.