7/28/11

This was our last day in Australia.

We visited the Aquarium! It was so neat!

This is a lego King Titan!

A seahorse :)

Me and a Lego mermaid.





We saw all sorts of aquatic life -- go figure.
Sadly, most of it was hard to photograph.
After the aquarium we went to the market and bought a few souvenirs and packed up to head to Malaysia.

From my journal 7/27/2011

Today we went to the Wildlife Conservatory.  It houses several native Australian animals!  Kangaroos, Dingos and Kuala Bears were all in my top favorite.


Me cuddling the kuala <3

The kangaroo moved and scared the poo out of me!!!!
After the Conservatory we went to the Blue Mountains.

This is a picture of the 3 sisters.  Legend has it that forever ago there were two warring villages in this area, the magician of one of the villages had 3 beautiful daughters.  He was afraid that they would be hurt in this war so he turned them to stone to protect them until the war was over. Sadly he died in the war, leaving all three of his daughters as stone.

We walked the trails in the Blue Mountains for about an hour or so. It was so pretty.
We stopped at the Sydney Opera House on the way back to the hotel.

From my journal 7/26/11

So we left at 8am to go to the Hudson Valley in Australia to go to a couple wineries for wine tastings.
It was about a 2 hour drive through the beautiful Australian country side. We even got a view of the Blue Mountains from the drive.

This is at the Tempus Two winery.


We also went to The Cellar winery


The view was much better then the wine!!!

I found a few wines that I could stomach, but I ended up pouring most of them out.
We went to a pub called The Wollombi Pub and watched the sun set behind the Blue Mountains. This could quite possibly be the most majestic thing I've ever seen.

Land Down Under

From my journal on 7/25/2011





We finally arrived in Australia. After a 6 hour flight from Singapore to Australia I am ready to settle down for a few days in one country!
Singapore's airport has been the best one yet. Everything was absolutely spotless, plus there was a butterfly garden inside the airport with HUNDREDS of butterflies!


There was also free wifi, charging stations and lots of computers to use! It was SO nice!!!
All of these wonderful amenities were a stark contrast to what the Sydney airport offered... Which was basically nothing besides free lung cancer from all the cigarette smoke.
Our plane was 1 hour early (imagine that!) So we had a bit of time to kill while we waited for our bus drive to get there.
We loaded all our luggage into the van and drove about 30 minutes or so to our hotel. Our hotel was located in Sydney's China Town. Our rooms weren't quite ready when we arrived so we stored our luggage in a closet-like room and went out touring around our hotel.
After we toured a bit, we went back to the hotel to get our rooms but Sonya and I's room was not ready yet so we threw our stuff in a friends room and went to Manly Beach.
Before we got on the ferry we ran into an aborigine! Starr played along and got her picture taken with him!

We took a ferry across the Pacific Ocean, the view was breath taking.



The Pacific Ocean -- just beautiful!

Sonya and I got some awesome ice cream, and walked along the boardwalk.

Oh how I love ice cream....

Boysenberry and Vanilla! Yum!

While we were on the boardwalk it started raining really hard. Sonya and I took shelter and watched the rain fall. After a few minutes a rainbow gleamed through the clouds.

After we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted and ended up falling asleep by 8pm!

Forgive me!

Please forgive me for not posting for a whole week!
We haven't had wifi (which has been a culture shock in itself).
So let me try and update you!
So our 2nd day in singapore we went to the zoo. Very cool.
We saw the typical animals really. The main difference I saw was that there was a lot of vegetation and not so many flowers in the landscaping.

This is the squatter toilet which scared me so I did not use it! It was rather dirty. And gross. And I just couldn't handle it. Apparently they will be all over Thailand -- not looking forward to that.

And so here we are

My first day in Singapore was a whirlwind.
We landed at 7:30 AM (which was 7:30 PM to my internal clock and everyone reading this). We took about an hour to get through immigration, grab our luggage and get on the bus to our hotel. The bus was blaring 70’s disco music, and the drive had a pretty radical mullet.
It took us about an hour by bus to drop off other passengers and ourselves at our hotels. During this hour ride, it became apparent that driving rules are much different here than in the US. The shoulder is often used to pass other vehicles, and despite our bus being quite large, other cars would refuse to let us in merging lanes, and cut us off. It was quite the adventure.
So we got our stuff in our rooms, we left to go to the mall. A 4 story mall. It was HUGE! The top floor was a full grocery store. We went there to get water and snacks, and then we ate lunch. I had noodles and dumplings and watermelon juice! The watermelon juice was not my favorite, but the dumplings and soup were delish!!!

After lunch we went on a boat tour at Boat Quay.
This is where a lot of sight seeing took place.
It was so beautiful! Although we were all exhausted so the soft rock of the water made everyone at least close to dozing off.
By the time that was over it was around 5pm locally but my body new that it was 5 AM to me, and I was exhausted.
Even though we were tired we decided to go to an open market. It was ginormous! Funny thing is that about 75% of the stores were IDENTICAL! It was a lot of fun seeing the locals, and other tourist.
Singapore is a lot more Westernized than I expected, the biggest difference I can see is the food.
Today we are going to the Singapore zoo, which is apparently the largest zoo in the world. Tomorrow we fly out for Sydney!

In Singapore!

After being in planes for a SOLID day I have made it to Singapore!
The plane rides all went well, with little delays to speak of.
The food was EXCELLENT and served about every 3 hrs.

Just a few pictures!

Last day in the US of A

I fly out tomorrow, just about 24 hours from now, on my way to JFK!
I'll be leaving the country for 26 days and around 9:30 pm I'll be headed to Singapore.
Woah.

We refuel in Germany at some point, then on to Singapore.
Crazy.
Life is about to change in so many ways I don't even know yet.
I'm scared, but so so ready to see what the next 4 weeks bring.
Let's hope I love flying, only done it once before!

Watching Cast Away is not in my plans tonight, just in case you were wondering ;)

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru

Where'd summer go?

I am leaving the country in 3 days!
I've been in a whirlwind of packing, saying my goodbyes, and freaking out.

I've finally gotten a majority of my belongings packed for my trip.
Hopefully I haven't forgotten anything dreadfully important.

Back to packing!
<3