Thailand-Koh Chang

After all the zip-lining and partying and early morning wedding ceremony...ing, it was time for a bit of an actual vacation. We all loaded up into a van for a 4-hour trek to Trat where we took the Centre Point Ferry over to the island of Koh Chang, which basically translates to Elephant Island. We had reservations at the Paloma Cliff Resort, which looks lovely here, but it's not. Our first clue should have been the stagnant green water in the dolphin fountain to welcome us at the front of the hotel. Our next clue should have been the broken cooler sitting in the lobby, adding an air of apathy and neglect to the place. Our final clue should have been, and finally was, the overwhelming smell of mold that hit us in the face when we opened the door to our room. This hotel was probably a beautiful place in its hey-day, but it appears to have suffered from years of neglect.

We started walking up the street to check out other hotels, and we finally walked across the street to the Keeree elé Hotel, which is brand new, did not smell like mold, and has a super-cute logo! It's so new, in fact, that they were still working on the elevators, which was kind of a bummer since we were on the fourth floor, but we were willing to overlook that bit, even the one of us that was coming off of recent knee surgery. I mean, look how cute it is! These pictures are of the hotel lobby/entrance area. It's kind of hard to tell here, but the butterflies and birds on the trees are three-dimensional, which adds a rather unique touch. You can see some better pictures at their on-line gallery. To be fair though, I wasn't getting paid for my work!

The staff at the hotel was very gracious, and were clearly trying very hard to make a good impression. There was only one person on staff who spoke English; he seemed to be the manager, and we found him sleeping behind the front desk one night. Whether this is because he didn't have anywhere else to sleep or because he was trying to be available in case we needed him, I'm not sure, but it wouldn't have surprised me to find out that it was the latter.

We only ever saw a few other guests at the hotel, and we more or less had our pick of rooms. Our rate was 1500 baht/night (about $45), and that included breakfast every day, and I mean an actual breakfast that you could order off a menu, not just some bagels and toast. I wish I would have taken some pictures of our rooms, but I forgot. Luckily, their photographer did a better job than I did in that department too. They were quite spacious, and if you looked straight out from the balcony, the view wasn't bad. I wouldn't recommend looking at the area actually surrounding the hotel though-it's a bit industrial junk yard-y. Just gaze out toward the horizon and you'll be fine.

The only real complaint I had was that every time you used the water, the bathroom would smell like sewer. It wasn't that the water stunk, it was just that sewer gas was coming up from somewhere. I'm not sure if that's something that they can/will fix or not, and yes, it's off-putting, but...it was still better than the other places we looked at.

We got settled into our rooms and relaxed for the rest of the day, and the next day, we went for an elephant ride at Ban Chang Thai! See? I'm still working through my list, which leads us to this:

I'm riding an elephant!

Heehee! That's us on An-na. Isn't she cute? We went on this jungle trek which ended at the river, where the elephants dumped us off in the water, and then we got to play around in the water with the elephants which was way cool! They were trained to do tricks too like lift us up in their trunks and stuff, but my camera died before we got to that part. =( The staff did take pictures though, and we bought some before we left, so I do have a picture of me sitting aloft in an elephant trunk. If you click on the Ban Chang Thai link above you can see pictures of other folks doing this to get a better idea of what's involved.

Our guides on the trip sat on the elephants' necks to "drive" the elephants, and at one point we looked back to see my brother-in-law driving the elephant. Later his wife got to take a turn, so they thought that was pretty neat!

Getting dumped off of an elephant into a river is a little unnerving. Elephants are really steep when they want to be, and I got a little bit freaked out because I didn't know if I would be able to stand up or not, and I'm not so good in the water, and I can float in the ocean, but this wasn't the ocean, and I wasn't sure how deep the water was, and, and, and! See? This is why I'm not good in the water. If I'd thought about it, I would have realized that the elephants were standing up in it before they dumped us off, and it really wasn't all that deep; but I forget to do things like put my feet down and try to stand up. Also, I was trying to avoid the elephant poo. The elephant ahead of us found the river extremely relaxing, apparently, and then our elephant started getting steep, and I was busy trying not to slide off my elephant into the unknown depths of the river long enough for the other elephant handler to pick up all the poo and huck it onto the river bank. After that it was fine. I still have a weird scratch on the back of my leg from where I tripped over a branch that seems like it's taking an awfully long time to heal completely, but I'm sure it's fine.

After we got done playing in the river, we got back on our elephants and rode back to where we started. We disembarked and found some tables to sit at while we waited for our pictures. Fruit and water were provided, and they also had food available for sale, for us and for the elephants. They had little bitty pineapples that you could feed the elephants, so we bought some of those and had fun feeding the elephants. Walking back to our table I got attacked by a monkey, but it was pretty small and on a leash, so I was able to bat it away and redirect.

I know it probably sounds kind of terrible, what with the pooing elephants and the attack monkey and all, but it was actually great! When we first started talking about our trip to Thailand the one thing I really wanted to do was go visit the painting elephants of the Asian Elephant Art Conservation Project, but as far as we knew they were all in northern Thailand, and after making it to Pattaya and then to Koh Chang, I was not about to do the traveling required to get back up north. So, this was a fine substitution. Looking at the site now, it appears that there's actually a painting elephant in Koh Chang...I'm going to assume that that information is out of date and that the elephant probably has not actually been there for about five years. That's probably the case, right?

The next day my plan was to sit by the pool and make people bring me drinks. Everyone else agreed with me that that was a fine idea until the next day when everyone was going to rent scooters and go to one of the nearby waterfalls. I was done. I just needed some down time. I already had a plan, and it was to sit by the pool and make someone bring me drinks. So, everyone else went off in search of scooters and a waterfall, and I got my bathing suit on, went down to the pool, walked over to the bar to ask if I could get a piña colada and would it be OK to just charge it to the room. About two minutes and 12 staff members later, the English-speaking manager finally showed up, I gratefully explained to him that I wanted a piña colada and just wanted to make sure that it was OK to charge it to my room. That's when I was informed that they don't have a bartender. So, I ordered a Sprite and walked like Droopy Dog over to the pool. To his credit, the manager did come over and offer to run next door and get me a piña colada from the neighboring bar. I'm not gonna lie-I thought about it, but in the end, I thought that would just be a little too desperate. So, I sat and drank my Sprite and read my book (Same Kind of Different as Me) and realized that there are a lot worse things than being stuck by a pool without a piña colada.

Thailand-the wedding (and our hotels)

Alright, well you've heard all about my exciting (really?) travels to Thailand, my exciting (really!) treetop adventure in Thailand; now it's time to answer another burning question, namely:

Why are three grown women dressed like they're going to prom?

First, a little more information about our stay in Thailand. The first night we arrived (me and my husband, his two brothers and their wives), we landed in the Lido hotel (not to be confused with the Lido Beach Hotel), which was clean but sparse. When I say "sparse" I mean there was no plumbing connecting the sink to the drain in the floor, so when you'd brush your teeth, you'd spit in the sink, run the water to rinse out the basin, and then end up with toothpaste on your toes. On the other hand, it was only like $15/night. So, whatever. My toes are washable, and even if I do a poor job of rinsing them off after 20+ hours of traveling, they'll be minty-fresh in the morning, which is more than I can say for them most of the time. My BIL had made the reservations for us, and he wanted to find us clean accommodations that wouldn't break the bank since he didn't really know what our budgets were, and to that end, it worked out great. Not having to worry about finding a place to stay upon arrival was a God-send. I don't really have any more info than that for you-if you'd like to stay there, it's owned by the same guy who owns Tony's gym...other than that, I'd have to get in touch with my BIL for any additional information, but I'd be happy to do it if anyone wants it.

The next day, we all decided we would like to find some accommodations that were a little more luxurious, so went around the city, and found a cute little hotel called the Sabai Empress. I can't seem to find a website for it, but there is a site for their parent company Sabai Group. They need to update their info a little since it still says "Sabai Empress Hotel OPENING 20 March 2009." As part of their grand opening, they had a huge banner out front announcing 50% off their regular rates. This caught our attention. The picture above was taken in the hotel lobby, and here is a picture of the room we had.

I was very happy with our room, but the rooms on the other side of the hotel are right next to a nightclub, and, apparently, not quite sound-proof enough. The other downside was the location. It was right on one of the main streets of Pattaya, which is good convenience-wise, but it is just not a relaxing vacation vibe once you step outside the hotel. (Then again, if you are going to Patttaya for a relaxing vacation vibe, you are going to the wrong place, but that's a whole other story.) Again, it was only about $34/night, and it sure beats anything you can get here for $34/night! Also, we were only going to be there for 3 nights. If we had been planning on staying in Pattaya for any real length of time, we probably would have sought out something a little quieter.

My BIL's wedding was a two-day affair consisting of a party the night before the wedding and then the actual wedding-day ceremony...which began at 6AM! We wanted to dress appropriately for both occasions, and being American and all, my SILs and I weren't quite sure what that entailed. Our SIL-to-be was kind enough to take us dress shopping (even though she had about eleventy-billion things to do to prepare for the wedding already!) and the dresses above are what came out of it. Needless to say, we were a little bit surprised! We all had traditional Thai dress in mind (whatever that means), and our mental images didn't quite match the reality! Since the bride-to-be spoke very little English, and we didn't speak any Thai, we were afraid that there might have been some miscommunications, and that we were going to stick out like sore thumbs, but it all worked out OK. She had a fancy dress of her own, similar in color to the burgundy one above, and while most other guests were in considerably more casual clothes, there were a few other dresses in line with ours, and I think since we were family we were allowed/expected to be a bit more extravagant.

The party was held at the bride and groom's home, and there were all the standard entertainments-food, drink, karaoke, and dancing. We had a great time, and went home exhausted around midnight. The following morning we were up at 5AM to be at the house by 6:00. It was a Buddhist ceremony, which is something I'd never seen before, and it was quite the experience. Ten Buddhist monks arrived and positioned themselves around the living room, oldest to youngest, and proceeded to chant and bless and unite and whatever else they did for about 45 minutes. The entire ceremony was in Thai, so I have no idea what was said, but there was a solid 15-30 minutes (?) of chanting, and about half-way through, something struck a chord in me and I got all choked up for a couple minutes. Granted, I'm pretty easily brought to tears anyway (commercials, movies, songs on the radio, etc.) but this was different.

Monks eating food prepared by the family. My husband adjusted the settings on his camera to pick up only the saffron color of the monks' robes.

After the ceremony, the monks were fed. According to

Adventure Guide to Thailand, a monk's morning begins with a bath and prayers and then they venture out onto the streets in groups to look for food. They carry alms bowls with them, and people give them food. "In Western eyes this gathering of alms would be considered begging but not so in Buddhist Thailand. It is considered an honor to give, and one makes merit, an important part of Buddhism, by giving to the monks." (p.40)

The family had prepared several dishes for the monks, and all the wedding guests also participated in filling the monks' alms bowls with rice. This was a simple act, but rife with respect and humility.

Some of the dishes prepared by the family

Monks' bowls filled with rice by wedding guests

After the monks ate and left, the wedding guests walked up the street to a local bar where plates of offerings were prepared. Everyone grabbed a plate and we all walked down the street in pairs. It was like a Noah's ark of Buddhist offerings. I had bananas, so I walked with the other banana-carrier. Coconuts walked with coconuts, etc. There was someone leading a call-and-response that involved a lot of celebratory whooping. As I understand it, the idea is to proceed down the street making lots of noise in order to draw others out of their homes to come celebrate with you. I think everyone who was going to join us was already with us at the start, but it was still a neat tradition. Also, after doing some additional reading and staring really hard at the one not-very-telling picture we have of this part of the ceremony, I think this is also the groom's attempt to prove his worth and gain the family's blessing by providing gifts to the bride and her family.

Upon returning to the house, the offerings were presented to the bride's family, and apparently they found the groom worthy (whew!) and we moved on to the next stage which involved lots of string. First the bride and groom sat together and everyone took turns tying strings around each of their wrists. Then the bride's family did the same for all of the groom's family. As I understand it, this is a good luck blessing. You wear the strings until they fall off, and after that, I guess the good luck wears off? I'm not quite sure about that part. There really weren't very many explanations given to us as we were going through all of this. The groom was doing as many grooms do on their big day, just doing what he was told and being where he was told to be when he was told to be there. He wasn't really sure about all of the customs and traditions himself.

Me, receiving my good-luck string from one of the bride's family members. The pillow on my lap is a gift made by the bride and presented to us as a thank-you for attending the wedding. They used pillows similar to this one during the ceremony, which involved lengthy bits of kneeling on the hard floor. My red dress and the one to my right? Also results of our shopping trip with the bride.

This pretty much ended the ceremony. We ate and then we went back to our hotel to prepare for the long drive with the new bride and groom (about 4 hours) down to Trat, where we then took a ferry over to Ko Chang (Koh Chang). That's right, we all honey-mooned together! My BIL has found himself one tolerant woman, let me tell you! The good news is, if she wasn't scared off after spending the two weeks surrounding her wedding with all of us, it should be smooth sailing from here on out!

View Thailand in a larger map

Well, kids, thanks for sticking with me. I'll tell you about Ko Chang another day. Right now, I suspect we all need a break.

Cairns...gateway to the Great Barrier Reef

After our stay in Newcastle, we took the train back down to Sydney and then flew from Sydney to Cairns (pronounced Cans) because this was a far better option than flying from Newcastle to Cairns via Melbourne. For those of you not familiar with Australian geography and too lazy to go look at a map, this would be the rough equivalent of flying from Los Angeles to Portland, OR via Albuquerque. For those of you not familiar enough with U.S. geography for this to mean anything, you should be ashamed. Go find a freakin' map and learn some things. If you are not from the U.S., you can ignore the implied exasperation.

In Cairns we stayed at an out-of-the-way little place called the Cairns Queen Court Accommodation. By out-of-the-way I mean not in the heart of downtown and also not anyplace I ever would have booked on my own. However, if all you need is a cheap place to overnight, this is a fine facility for that. The rooms were spartan-anyone who is familiar with military recreational facilities will have a good idea of what to expect from this property. Their web site shows a swanky studio room and foyer, but I'm not sure what those are all about. The studio room may just be a much higher grade room than what we had, but the foyer pictured is definitely not the area that we checked into.

Our room was similar to the standard room pictured here. We had a "family room" which consists of 2 adjoining rooms, one of which has a bathroom with a double bed and one of which has 2 twin beds and no bathroom. There are communal bathrooms down the hall if sharing with your traveling companions doesn't quite work for you. We stayed there on 2 separate nights, and one time our shower had a "ledge" to keep the water from running out all over the bathroom floor; the other time it didn't. Neither set up is particularly effective at keeping the bathroom floor dry. That said, the rooms were clean, the staff was extremely friendly, and the food at the restaurant was quite good. Also, they have a lovely little pool-side area where you can hang out and read, drink some wine, or just relax. So, all said and done, if you are on a budget and just want a clean no-frills place to stay, I would totally recommend the Cairns Queen Court Accommodation. If you do decide to stay there, be forewarded: there were no elevators. If we hadn't been toting around 7 bottles of wine, this wouldn't have been as big a deal, but it's one of those little things that, if you're not prepared for it at the end of a long day (or week or month) of traveling, can bring you to tears.

Another reason that I would recommend this place is that you can store your luggage here. We were limited in the amount of luggage that we were allowed to take on our dive boat since we would be returning to Cairns on a small commuter plane, so it was nice to not have to worry about what to do with our luggage while we were on the ship.

The Cairns town center is about a 10-15 minute walk from the hotel. There's a nice esplanade where you can walk along the sea shore, but signs warn you not to play near the water because of the crocodiles! Across from the esplanade are all the hotels, hostels, and tourist shops. One place I would like to mention before I move onto our Great Barrier Reef experience is a little ice cream store called Movenpick. Despite our hellacious experience as Cold Stone Creamery franchisees, we still like ice cream. This baffles some people, but it isn't the ice cream's fault that we had a terrible experience; I guess this might be the entrepreneurial equivalent of hate the sin, love the sinner? Anyway, we stopped at Movenpick, and their ice cream is fabulous! They have a bunch of different flavors, and we chatted with the owners, who still had that glazed, new-owner look, and they confirmed that they'd only been doing this for about 3 weeks. They seemed like nice people, and I hope they have a better experience than we did, so if you are in Cairns and a hankering for ice cream hits you, stop in and try some Movenpick. Sorry I can't give you any good directions, but I'm sure if you ask, someone there could tell you.

Newcastle

We took a train from Sydney to Newcastle, which was a pretty scenic ride for the most part. Newcastle is about 2 1/2 hours north of Sydney via train, and it's an old coal town which is trying to revitalize itself as something young and hip. To some extent they are succeeding, but it's currently an odd mix of ghetto and swank. When we arrived at the train station, we walked outside to the taxi stand area where we watched one taxi pull away and then waited about 10 minutes for another taxi to show up. I thought that the taxi stand would have taxis lined up waiting for passengers; but, then again, we did seem to be the only people actually standing around looking for a taxi...so, I guess everything was doled out proportionately. My husband went in search of some information, and we found out that our hotel was within walking distance, so we started hoofing it. While we were waiting for the taxi, I took this picture:




We stayed at the Crown Plaza Hotel Newcastle. As we were approaching the property, I was skeptical. It was on the water's edge (swank!) in this industrial port town (shetto!), but it turned out to be quite lovely. Our room was a nice one-bedroom with a little kitchenette area and a view of the waterfront, sort of. After we unpacked we grabbed some lunch and then walked along the waterfront, past the lighthouse at Nobby's Head, down to the end of the pier where we sat on a pile of rubble (ghetto) for a while watching a seal play in the water (nature-imposed swank). Every once in a while we saw whale spouts in the distance, and we watched all kinds of sea-faring vessels going in and out of the harbor. It had been a bit rainy and cold when we arrived, but it turned out to be a lovely sunny day. That night we ate at the near-by BWP (which stands for Blue Water Pizza) which had great food and very friendly staff. I ate an entire pizza all by myself.


On the news that night, I learned that the Pope is affectionately known as "B16." I don't know if this is an Australian thing or something that is sweeping the world, but I wondered if the Pope was aware of this nickname and, if so, if he approved or not. Again, as with the flags-as-capes situation, I'm a little conflicted; it's nice to see the Pope as approachable and that people are referring to him affectionately, but he's THE POPE. Is nothing sacred anymore? I mean, really, when it's ok to be casual about the Pope, what's left?

For the rest of the week, my husband was working, so I pretty much wandered around the town, spent a day washing laundry in our sink (underwear, socks, tank tops) (self-imposed ghetto), and took a ferry ride. The wandering around town part took me to Darby Street which is where all the restaurants are. Everything we ate in Newcastle was great and also quite expensive. The cheapest thing I ever found was a noodle house where the small portions were around $6 or $7. Other than that, everything starts at about $20. This is what we can't quite figure out about Newcastle. At night, there is definitely a young, hip vibe going on in the swanky new part of town (where we were staying) and on Darby Street. There are a lot of people coming out and spending a lot of money, but we're not sure where any of it is coming from. Newcastle is a coal town, so unless these are all kids whose grandparents made millions in the coal business, where are all these people getting all this money to go out and blow $25-$50/night on food, not on drinks and food, just food? Maybe their parents all own restaurants. Anyway, like I said, everything was good, but we ate twice at Anacapri and both times it was wonderful.

As I was wandering around Darby Street, I kept seeing signs saying "The Obelisk." I decided to follow them and see what this obelisk was all about. Turns out it's...an obelisk. Who woulda thunk? It looks just like the Washington Monument only smaller and whiter. It's on top of a hill and there's a great view of the city from up there. As I was climbing up the super steep streets that lead to the obelisk, I noticed that you cannot live here and be a bad parallel parker, at least not in the steep-street neighborhoods. There is no messing around with the parallel parking here.





Once I reached the obelisk, I knew I was there by the nice signage(bottom right corner).

I was really impressed with the signage. It was all on street signs and everywhere I needed to turn, there was a sign. I didn't need a map or anything, and for me that's saying something. From the obelisk I walked to Strzelecki Lookout which was listed on my map as a scenic lookout. (I didn't say I didn't HAVE a map, I just said I didn't NEED a map.) Turns out it is also the jumping off point, literally, for the local hang gliders and paragliders. They just walk off the hill and swoop up into the sky! Go to Air Sports' home page and watch their videos of people taking off-they did a much better job with the photography than I was able to do! It was really cool to watch and a nice surprise at the top of the hill as well. If we had been there through the weekend we could have gone on a tandem hang glide, which I think would have been cool, but we didn't have the time, what with our pending wine tour and all.

As I was walking back to the hotel I walked past a lot of houses that were for sale. The Aussies don't fool around with their For Sale signs. They're these huge signs, probably 4' X 6' and they have a big color picture of the property with the address and other pertinent information like how many bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. They don't list the price, however, which I guess is fair. You have to call the realtor for that kind of info.

One day I stopped in Newcastle's local library which also houses the Lovett Gallery. I almost didn't stop in, but I'm glad I did. They were displaying the winning entries from the 2007 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and they were amazing. This picture was in the downstairs entry, and as soon as I walked in and saw it, I knew I had to go upstairs and see what else they had.

On another occasion I took the ferry across the channel to Stockton to see the Shipwreck Walk. At one time Newcastle was a very dangerous place if you were trying to navigate a boat through its waters, and lots of ships ended up wrecked off its shores. They finally built a breakwater, and they incorporated one of the wrecked hulks into the sea wall, so I wanted to see that. I sort of over dramatized it in my mind. I thought I would turn a corner, and there would be a whole beach full of wrecked ships, their monstrous carcases towering over me as they stood watch over the shores, keeping them safe...from other dangerous ships...or pirates or something. I'm not sure why I thought this; the brochure that I had showed a picture of the ship in its place in the breakwater and pretty clearly explained what the situation was. I guess I just got excited. I've never seen a wrecked ship on land before. Apparently I am a carnage junkie. So, while I was a little disappointed that I only got to see one wrecked ship, I still enjoyed my 3-minute ferry ride over to Stockton and my walk to the end of the pier and back.

It's hard to see, but there is also a bird on one of the rocks with his wings outstretched, sunning himself. See how artsy I am?

Another thing I did in Newcastle that I have never done before is I went to a spa to have my legs and bikini area waxed. We were getting ready to jump on a live-aboard dive boat, and I didn't think I wanted to be trying to shave at sea. Just down from our hotel was a lovey little spa called Sugar Suite. Emma, who is possibly the teeniest and most adorable person ever, was my aesthetician and she was so sweet! I walked in and was trying to work an appointment out for the next day, but the times they had available weren't really what I was hoping for, but they were workable. She was at the counter and said that she could get me in at 8:00 that night if I wanted to come back, which worked out much better for me. She gave me champagne and a little fruit plate when I got there (I'm pretty sure that's part of her job, but still.) As she was viciously ripping out all of my hair, we chatted as though nothing traumatic were going on south of my navel and she made some recommendations about local attractions and then wrote everything down for me later so I wouldn't forget. And now we come to my conundrum. Tipping is not really the norm in Australia, and from what I hear it's kind of pissing them off that we Americans keep coming in and tipping everybody because now people are starting to expect it. They had a good thing going and we're screwing it up. I'd be pissed too. I think they do tip in restaurants, but I'm not sure where else, if anywhere, they tip. So, do I tip for my spa service or not? Emma and I had been talking earlier about how you have to be sensitive when you are visiting other cultures and should make an effort to play by their rules, and here I was, a hairy American coming in and foisting tips on people who aren't expecting them and are not happy about the prospect of other people becoming accustomed to them. Emma stayed late to accommodate me, she went out of her way to be helpful with tourist information, and she handled all my bikini-area hair, something I don't even want to do for myself let alone for someone else. I decided that some things are just worth the tip, customary or not. Emma protested and assured me that it wasn't expected, but I insisted. So, if you're ever in Newcastle and need some spa services, ask for Emma and while you're enjoying your treatment tell her I'm sorry about messing with their gratuity system.

Sydney, part II

So far, we have been walking around Sydney without a camera. This is not because I didn't think ahead and bring batteries AND a battery charger. This is because we accidentally blew up our battery charger and its contents when we plugged them into the adapter in the hotel room. (Note: Adapter, not converter.) Oops. Anyway, we figured the convenience store across the street would have batteries, and we knew we'd be paying tourist prices for them, but that's what happens when you do dumb stuff and have to rely on a convenience store across from your hotel. Anyway, we grabbed the batteries, and the guy rang them up and said, "That will be $30." I said, "Is that right?" and he turned the battery pack over to show me the price tag on the back which did, indeed, agree with his cash register. After my heart started beating again, I said, "30 dollars?? Why so much?" He seemed surprised by this. "Well, these are the lithium ones." "Are they also made of gold?" Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I was thinking it. Did I mention that these were not rechargeable? These were Energizer. I was pretty sure that I had about an hour's worth of use to look forward to from these batteries, maybe two, based on previous experience. We passed on the batteries. I'm prepared to pay tourist prices, but not $30 for batteries. My husband had been to Sydney before, so we already had a lot of pictures from there. Otherwise, I might have caved for the batteries. A few days later we finally gave in and paid $20 at another convenience store. Hey, it's better than $30. BTW, for any of you who are thinking, yeah, but that's in Aussie dollars, it makes no difference. The US dollar and the Aussie dollar are almost one-for-one right now, so it really was $30.

fter that we took the ferry over to Darling Harbour, which is just sort of the next harbor over, walkable, but my husband likes being on the water, so we took the ferry. We walked around for a while and then visited the Sydney Aquarium which was pretty cool. Near the entrance, they have a platypus, which is cool because I don't think I've ever seen one, and they're just so wierd! After that I wasn't overly impressed until toward the end where you get to walk through tunnels which go under/through one of their giant tanks, and you find yourself surrounded by lots of different sharks, big rays, and huge turtles. I could have spent hours in there. After you leave that area the overall aquarium experience picks up considerably compared to the pre-shark-tank part, in my opinion. They have lots of salt-water tanks that are very cool. I probably enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef because here I wasn't worried about drowning all the time. (More on that later.)

At the end of the day, we took a taxi back to the hotel. It was cold and my knee was pretty sore, and walking from the harbor to our hotel seemed like more than I could do. That was the night of the 3AM fire alarm where I realized that there would have been no way for me to make it down 26 flights of stairs in my gimpy condition and I would have burned alive had there been an actual fire.

The next day we walked around The Rocks where the main street was closed off for a street market. There were a lot of quality goods there, as far as street markets go. By the time we were done walking around we were getting hungry. We'd walked past a number of restaurants, but nothing looked quite like what we wanted. We thought about going back to GG espresso, which we'd been thoroughly impressed with a couple days ago, but that was all the way back by our hotel, and we were not too far from Lord Nelson's, so we decided to go back there and get a meat pie and some beer. After a fabulous meat pie and some great beer (my husband finally got to try the Nelson's Blood) we started chatting with some of the folks that were hanging out there. Turns out one of them was the brew master, whose picture you saw here . I'm going to call him Robert because I think that was his name, but I can't remember for sure. Whether his name is Robert or not, he was a very nice guy who gave us a tour of his brew operation and then plied us with free sample beer all afternoon. Quality control is important when you're the brew master! His mates, Jason, Eleisha, Tank, and Joel were all fun folks who were nice enough to let us hang out with them for the afternoon as well. Thanks guys! We had fun!

All in all, I would totally recommend Lord Nelson's Brewery Hotel. Their food was great, their beer was great, the people were friendly, and I suspect their accommodations would be great as well. Check them out if you are in Sydney!

After leaving Lord Nelson's we headed back over to Darling Harbour because I had purchased a package deal for the Sydney Aquarium and the Sydney Wildlife World. Turns out the Wildlife World was not that impressive, but I did get to pet a koala, which was as close as I got to grabbing a koala, stuffing him in my suitcase, and bringing him back home to hang out with my Basset hound as I was ever going to get. They will take your picture with the koalas as well and, of course, sell you the picture for about $20, but we ducked out after I got to pet the koala and before they tried to sell me a $20 picture...which I probably would have given in and bought, and now I kind of wish that I had because it's the only picture in existence of me and a koala. We had plans to go somewhere where I would actually get to cuddle a koala though, so we were counting on getting THOSE pictures. Never happened. Bird in the hand, people. Oh well.

That night we ate at Alfredo's, the adorable little Italian restaurant which is right next to the Marriott. They offer authentic Italian and, if you're lucky you might catch them on a night when they have live entertainment, opera if I remember correctly. Anyway, we decided to try them out, and it was terrible. It was the worst food we had the entire time we were in Australia, and it was probably the worst Italian food I've ever had. I ordered a pesto dish which was flat noodles-larger than fettucini but smaller than lasagna. I'm sure there's an official name for these, but I don't know what it is-so, anyway, big flat noodles, pesto, and olive oil. This sounds great; I eat stuff like this at home all the time. It was a disaster. You couldn't taste basil or nuts, but it was super oily. It just tasted like oil, and not even good olive oil, just oily. The parts with the sprinkled-on parmesan cheese were less nasty, but not enough so that I was able to finish my dish. My husband ordered the Penne with Italian Sausage. This came out looking like someone had dumped a can of Chef Boyardee on top of some penne. Always willing to give the chef the benefit of the doubt, he tasted it, and it tasted like it was straight out of a can. The sausage was...mealy? I know sausage is ground up meat parts, but it shouldn't be squishy. Also, it was not Italian sausage, at least not what I consider Italian sausage-spicy, flavorful, not squishy. I'm willing to allow for the fact that I've never had Italian food from Italy. I know and love my American versions of Italian food, but I'm pretty sure that this was not a matter of authenticity, especially since we were in Australia, not Italy. I think this was just bad food. I think if Gordon Ramsay had been called to consult on this place, he would have had some choice words for the head chef. There was a plaque on the wall behind us thanking Alfredo's for their service to the 2004 Olympic teams? commission? I don't remember exactly, but I remember thinking that this couldn't have been good for anybody's morale during the Olympics. Then again, a lot could have changed since 2004. Maybe ownership has changed, maybe management has changed, maybe the head chef has changed. Or maybe they just had a bad night the night we were there, but our experience was not good. I will give props to the lovely gentleman who was playing the piano. He came around and asked all the tables if there was anything he could play for them, and did his part to keep up the ambiance. So, for the entertainment, I will give Alfredo's one star.

After our disappointing dinner we returned to our hotel to find two clean, non-smoky robes hanging nicely in our closet, not draped sloppily on a wire hanger on our bed like the last one.

The next day we walked through Hyde Park. (Yes, we're still in Australia; it turns out Australia has lots of things that England had first.) Pilgrims are beginning to arrive en masse and they are walking around everywhere wearing their countries' flags as capes. I sort of have mixed feelings about this. I'm not super patriotic, but some things are just tacky. Along with the flag capes there are lots of people with guitars and lots of groups singing and generally being youthful and excited but in a good Catholic way.

From Hyde Park we walked over to the Chinese Peace Garden, which was beautiful. They have a bamboo garden area that I really liked, and I would like to do something similar in my backyard.

The gardens were very well laid out and even though they didn't cover a huge area, there were lots of places that were tucked away around a bend or down a hill so that you discovered them as you walked through the gardens, rather than being able to stand in one spot and scope everything out. Also, the temples were painted in colors that perfectly matched the winter foliage. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I thought it was a nice touch!

After this we walked back through Hyde Park to the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain where they have a "Sex and Death" exhibit starring orchids and carnivorous plants and it's housed in the Tropical Center which is this cool glass pyrmid that reminded me of the one in front of the Louvre. I was really disappointed. For as phenomenal as the rest of the gardens are, this was a sad, sad display. Everything looked overgrown and half dead. I don't know if they were attempting to make it look "natural" but it just looked "unkempt." So, my advice would be to go check out every nook and cranny of the Botanic Gardens and Domain that you can, but don't waste your money on the Tropical Center. I would, however, highly recommend the United States Botanic Gardens in Washington DC. They're display is largely indoors, extensive, and quite well-kept. And, I didn't get mugged while I was there.

We finished off our night with another fabulous meal at Lord Nelson's Brewery Hotel, and went back to the hotel to pack up for our travel to Newcastle.