Days 2 and 3

This is day 2 and 3 of Candace's account of our trip. Enjoy!

…Continuing on with my journal from our trip to Australia and New Zealand this month (the zoo and Bondi were probably my favorite places in Australia, besides staring at the opera house of course)

9/6/2010. Let's take this opportunity to talk about time… 3pm Monday at home is 8am on Tuesday here in Sydney. That means home is 17 hours behind. It took us three days to figure that out. Ok moving on.

Caught the ferry to the zoo. How often do you get to take the ferry to go to the zoo?! And what a ride. The views are beautiful. Once docked we take the gondola to the top of the zoo. Traveled above the elephants, while seeing the city across the harbor. Wow.

First exhibit? Koalas we promptly feel in love with. Mother and her baby were adorable. Then there was the obnoxious one who enjoyed waking up the fourth koala by launching itself over to the other koala’s tree.

Platypuses (no picture, they are nocturnal, and abnormally small), Tasmanian devils (video), emus, and kangaroos (did I mention I got to pet a kangaroo?) -- Hey, Fernando did too, but the picture I took ended up too blurry, which happened to 98.7% of pictures I took (italics written by Fer) We also saw little wallabies and Pygmy hippo and tigers and giraffes and lions and elephants and the coolest native birds ever... We're making a little kids photo book. It's easier.

The view from the zoo was amazing, since we were directly opposite the main part of the Sydney Harbor. And then there was the posing Giraffe who seemed to move his head directly over the opera house every time our camera went to our eyes.

Next, took ferry back to Circular Quay only to take a longer ferry past the zoo and to Manly Beach. Walked around in very soft golden sand, watched the surfers for a while, ate a burger at Burger Me with the most amazing fries (they had pepper, salt, and lime juice), ate ice cream and went back on the ferry 3 hours later. Perfect. Plus, all this in beautiful 70 degree weather.

Botanical gardens are next with 2 hours till dusk. A little nervous because we don't have too much cash left (transportation took it all). One source said the entrance fee was five dollars and the other said fifty! Wandered around forever trying to find entrance until we realized that all the little plants around us had labels! So somehow we made it in. Hoping that it was free and an open format the whole time, we explored. No, we weren't trespassers. It really was free! Took pretty awesome pictures of the all the trees and gardens, the city buildings (discovered that one of the buildings seems to have a temple on top) and stayed till dusk. At dusk we (and by we I mean Fernando) took my favorite picture of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Braved the supermarket on the way home. Everything you can imagine at a ridiculously high price. Speaking of a ridiculous price… I have figured out why locals are so dang skinny... You can't actually afford to feed yourself here! Earlier, a little set of 4 bite size profiteroles cost twelve dollars! Course that was at the Lindt Chocolate café, but we (now by we, I mean me) couldn’t pass that up!
Only exception is the Subway Restaurants where you can get a 7 dollar footlong (and yes a footlong is still a footlong even though you’re in a Metric world!). This will be our backup food though. Would rather experience the local food. What is local food? Not really sure. It seems like American food although I did see a kangaroo burger but couldn't bring myself to order it.
Asleep by 7:30pm. Fer stayed up and watched Australian X Factor. He said it was good.
9/7/2010. Woke up at 3 then 4 then 6. Out the door by 8am. Off to see the temple to take a few pictures. Not enough time to go through a session.
Lets pause a second to make some observations about Sydney. They are probably completely unfounded, since I am only observing what is next to the train tracks. First, the city is truly an immigrant city. You can see each community as you pass on the train. There were Indian areas, Arabic areas, Asian areas, etc.
Second observation… everything is pretty run down. It seems like maybe they have an excess of space that they don't bother to rebuild when a building gets run down so they just abandon it. Or maybe they just can't afford to. But even lived in homes are falling apart. No fresh coats of paint. No tailored lawns. I would guess that they had a massive explosion in immigrant population in the 1950s because it seems most residential areas (disclaimer again. I only saw the areas immediately adjacent to the train tracks) seem to be built in the 1950s with little to no renovations since.
As you get further out on the train, you hit more of a suburbia feel with business centers and more cars. Residential looks a little better kept, although still the same time period. Cars here look just like the US (aka not Europe tiny). But buildings are definitely not a US feel because of them being run down.
Ok. Moving on. Temple was small and beautiful. Stained glass with red and blue and green that you can't really see during the day but must look awesome at night. Temple grounds include a variety of buildings like distribution center, institute, family services, mission home, etc. An entire complex. The surrounding area was clean (still a little run down but nicer than the other areas). Walked back to the train station and met some nice Mormon missionary boys from Utah and Arizona with auzie accents. Took the train a ways with them and talked for a while. They said there are 5 stakes here in the state and they cover pretty big areas.

Next on to the 2000 Olympic area. But it was completely abandoned. Maybe because it’s a workday. Not nearly as entertaining as Munich Olympic area. So prettier but more boring because we are obviously visiting in the off season! Although the fountains Fernando thought were really fun.

All in all, this train ride was horribly long and boring. Going to Bondi next in hopes we'll get our fill of people and shops. Hoping that would wake us up.
And it certainly did! Bondi was cold! More beautiful than Manly Beach but cold and not as many shops (I hear they have a market up on weekends but it wasn't a weekend) and to be honest there were too many creepy people there (not really creepy, but someone thought everyone was... including the nice little 80 year old lady and the beautiful family with 3 kids and the mom pushing a stroller). Strange people wandering around a high tourist spot by themselves is a little strange. Fernando’s favorite spot though and he said there were no creepy people. I think I was a little tired and in a strange mood so oh well. Paranoid Candace.

Went back to hotel and took a break. Relaxed till dark and then decided to go to George street. Posh designer stores. Queen Victoria Building turned mall was stunning. And to top off a night of high fashion, we ate at burger king... Er... Hungry jacks. I know. We're fancy. Fer ate a burger called "The Australian"and they put beets in it. Beets?!! What are they thinking? Of course Fer threw the beets away.

...I'll post another few days in a few days : )

Our Latest Greatest Vacation

Alright. So every time we travel, Candace pulls out the iPod notepad and takes detailed notes of our trips so we don’t forget anything. So she’s put this post together and here's a little sampler of our vacation. Since being back, she’s tried to cut it down as much as she could but it’s still very long so she divided it up into multiple posts. Hopefully through our scattered thoughts and pictures, you will feel like you’ve been there too! And at the end of the trip report, I'll post all the main pictures of the trip. I only took 765 pictures, but I promise I won't bore you with all of them.

9/3/2010. Traveled from SLC to LAX flying Delta. Writing this note 24 hours later and can’t even remember the details of the flight. Too many flights ago. Too many airports ago. So tired. But not done traveling yet so might as well write. LAX showed me my first interaction with New Zealand locals, waiting for New Zealand Air. Not pretty. Sitting reading while Fernando abandoned me to charge his phone at a charging station (quickly becoming his most common pastime). Some guy came up, shoved Fer’s stuff aside and sat down, man-handling another woman’s stuff on the other side of him. Kept reading without even looking up. Annoyed. Apparently, other woman was holding the seats for her kids and grandkids. She starts yelling. What a mess. I just read the book as loud as I could in my head. Didn’t feel like getting into it at midnight Mountain time. Started wondering if locals’ interactions often led to arguments and if this was normal. [no indication of this in NZ, thank heaven]

Boarded 747 monstrosity. New Zealand Air has a huge selection of movies (50+), tv shows (100+), music and everything else you can think of to keep yourself occupied for your initial 13 hours flight. But instead, we slept. More leg room than normal, and chairs lean back more than normal. Meals are decent too. Slept for 8 hours without even realizing it. Can you ask for anything more when you’re taking a transpacific flight? My only disappointment was that I put 10 movies and shows in my queue and I watched one.

New Zealand Airport. Empty because it’s still early in their morning. Back on to a plane and off to Sydney. Somewhat local flight of three hours and still 35 movies to chose from. Another breakfast. I love this airline.

9/5/2010. Arrived in Sydney at 10am. Left Utah at 6pm and in Sydney at 10 am except that we flew 24 hours and that it's not Saturday in Sydney but Sunday. I can’t figure this out right now.

Took the airport shuttle to our hotel crammed in the back like sardines. The driver gave a tour of everything as he was driving so thank heavens we were the 8th of nine stops! We saw the whole city this way. Learned from the driver it was Father’s Day as his daughter had just called him. Very cute.

Hotel room was small but clean. Bathroom was actually pretty nice with tiled floors and walls.

Window faced buildings except out the left corner of the window is the freaking Sydney Opera House. We have arrived! No sleeping... Too excited. Took the subway (which the entrance for is literally the next door from our hotel entrance, which my dad would be happy about because we also seem to be one block from bum central) to Circular Quay (pronounced key) And wow. The pictures say it all.

The weather was perfect. About 70 degrees and sunny.

A word about the city: No trash cans. So naturally the city is littered. How cheap it would be to fix that problem?! Plus a billion birds from seagulls (mine?) to pigeons to cockatoos to some crazy bird I’ve never seen before.

Bird poop on Fernando’s head made me laugh but so many birds around that I'm sure it will happen many more times before the end of the trip.

The Rocks area is pretty cool. Old architecture. Its Sunday so Street market galore.

Darling harbor was darling (how pathetic am i). Fun to walk around. Tons of restaurants and fountains and museums.

Ate at a restaurant in the local mall food court called Nandos (had to for Clint, Katy, and Ben) where mild means mouth on fire.

Stopped by the Lindt Chocolate store to pick up some dessert. Everything so very expensive. Bought a little box with 3 profiteroles for $13. Delicious, but pricey.

Took the subway home. Only 6pm and already dark. Keep forgetting it’s the end of winter down here. We did our best to stay awake for a while but we only lasted until 7. 7pm to 3am.

Watch for more of our vacation to be posted this week!