Luna Park

October 31st--We took it real slow this morning since yesterday was so busy. Plus, we really felt like that we had seen all the major highlights of Sydney yesterday, so now it was just time to have fun. So, we headed to Luna Park. Luna Park is a small amusement park located across the harbour from the Opera House. We rode the public ferry boat from Darling Harbour to the Luna Park stop. It was a beautiful day in Sydney so the boat ride was really enjoyable. We got a great view of the city skyline and also saw a wedding take place on one of the islands. We arrived at Luna Park about 20 minutes later. The good thing is there is no fee to enter the park, but we had to purchase wrist bands for the rides. The kids were immediately excited and we headed to the 'Coney Island' area. This is where Mike and the kids went down the big slide numerous times. Austin had to have an adult accompany him so Mike was the lucky one of the day to get to be that adult. After Coney Island, we went to the kids rides area. There were 3 rides that Abby and Austin could ride by themselves and so they just kept alternating between them. After about an hour of this, they wanted to go back down the slides. After the the slides, Mike and Austin rode the bumper cars. Then, Mike and Abby rode the Wild Mouse. The Wild Mouse lived up to its name. Mike said that it was by far the jerkiest ride he's ever riden. From here, Austin and Mike rode the ferris wheel while Abby rode the carousel. Then, they all 3 rode the carousel before leaving the park. We had intentions of eating at a restaurant right by the park, but unfortunately when we got there, they informed us it was all booked up. We didn't realize that reservations were needed. Reservations are apparently a big thing in Sydney. All restaurants take reservations. So, we decided to head back to our apartment and figure out what we were going to do for dinner. By the time we got back, Austin was really tired and just wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Mike said he wasn't really hungry. Abby and I were starving because we hadn't eaten lunch. So, it was Girls Night Out. Abby and I went to eat at Nando's. We had eaten at Nando's in London and loved it. Nando's was about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. We really enjoyed our meal and time together. While we were walking back to the apartment, we passed a couple of kids kind of dressed up. Abby said "They look like they're dressed up fro Halloween". I said "they are dressed up for Halloween". She said "Why?". I said "Because it's Halloween". She said "Oh, it is? Are we going to make it back in time to watch Cat and the Hat?" We did made it back to the apartment just in time for Abby to watch Cat and the Hat on TV and she never gave Halloween another thought. Halloween is not a big deal in Australia. We have seen very little decorations and advertisements for it. We were at a children's park all day and saw no signs of it being Halloween. Very different than what we are used to in the States.

Best of Sydney

October 30th--Our day started pretty early, but we had an exciting day planned. We scheduled ourselves on our first all day tour since we've been traveling. We have always been hesitant of long tours just because of the schedule and the children. But, this tour sounded wonderful and hit all the major sights we wanted to see around Sydney. We were picked up at 7:30 from our apartment and boarded a 20 passenger mini-van. We were the first on the van which worked out well for us because we got the front row seats. We then drove around for about 30 minutes picking up all the other passengers before heading out on our tour. Our first stop was at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Park area. We were able to get out to take some pictures of the Olympic Stadium and the cauldron (that held the flame) that was taken down from the stadium and placed on the ground. We also got to see our tour guide, Ken, demonstrate how to throw a boomerang. It is apparently very tricky so no one was able to practice, but the kids did get to hold one. From the Olympic Park, we headed to have morning tea at Featherdale Wildlife Park. Here we got up close and personal with native animals, especially koalas and kangaroos. We also got to see Wombats, Tassie Devils, Dingo's and Willabys. The Koala and Kangaroo experience was incredible as we were able to feed and pet them. Koalas sleep 19 hours a day so we were lucky to be there while a few were awake. From here, we drove about an hour into the Blue Mountain area. We drove through the cute town of Leura which is known for it's manicured gardens. We also saw the Leura Cascades. Unfortunately, Australia is in a huge drought so the waterfall was very small. From Leura, we entered into Katoomba where we stopped for lunch. Our choices for lunch was a Chinese buffet, roast with vegetables or fish & chips. Between all 4 of us, we got to sample a little bit of all the choices. After lunch, we drove to Echo Point where we saw the world famous 'Three Sisters' and a view of Australia's "Grand Canyon". This is where we saw our most magnificent views of the tour and found out why the area is called the Blue Mountain. There is a blue haze over the area that is caused from the Eucalyptus tree vapors. There are 500 kinds of Eucalyptus trees and Koalas only eat 20 of the 500. No koalas will be seen in the Blue Mountain area because the 20 Eucalyptus trees are not in the area. From Echo Point, we drove to Scenicworld to ride the Scenic Railway which is the world's steepest incline railway and we believe it too. Once we reached the bottom, we walked on the timber boardwalk which took us through the rainforest, past coal mines and allowed us to smell the Eucalyptus trees. We returned up the mountain on the Flyway cable car. Once back on the top, we drove to visit Cahill's Lookout. Here we saw the famous "Boars Head Rock" which does actually look like a Boar. We also learned about the "Mountain Devil" which changes from a red flower into the devilish thorn. We then made our way back to the pretty village of Leura for a short afternoon snack break. When we had driven through the town earlier today, I saw that they had a Christmas Cottage. When I found out that we were actually stopping for some free time, I headed straight to the store. Unfortunately, it was so small and didn't really have anything that couldn't be purchased in the States. After our break we got back on the van and headed into Sydney while being entertained with legendary Aussie Folk music. Our van dropped us off just outside of Sydney where we boarded a boat. We then cruised back to the city along the Parramatta River. The boat took us under Sydney Harbour Bridge with a water view of the Sydney Opera House and then into Sydney Harbour where our tour ended. We walked around the harbour area for some great views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge at sunset. We then caught a taxi back to the apartment to end our long, but wonderful day.

"This Is It"

October 29th--We slept late this morning...basically we had to make ourselves get up at 9:15. Obviously, you suffer from jetlag even with a 4 hour time difference. I think it's more from not much sleep the night before on the plane than the time difference. Anyway, we ate breakfast in the restaurant downstairs from our apartment before getting ready for the day. We decided to take it easy today since we were all really tired. We had seen on TV that the Michael Jackson movie "This Is It" was playing here in Australia. It was actually all over the news here because one of the dancer's in the performance was from Australia. So, we decided to go see the movie. It was playing at the IMAX theater at the Fox Studios area. By the time we took the bus to the area, it was time for the movie. All 4 of us really enjoyed the movie. Abby was dancing to Billy Jean and Austin was singing "Beat It, Beat It". It was really good and showed how wonderful of a musician, dancer and performer MJ was...truly the King of Pop. After the movie, we went to the playground in the area for a couple of hours. The weather is absolutely gorgeous here...very springlike. So, it's really nice to sit outside. We left the playground to find some dinner in the area. We went to eat at ABLAZE which should actually be named "The world's largest hamburgers". We ordered way too much food because the portions were enormous, but the price showed it too. Australia is one expensive place. Of course, we had gotten ourselves accustomed to the prices in China and Thailand. After dinner, we went back to the apartment for bedtime. We were off to bed early because we booked a tour for the next day that started at 7:30am.

Heading Down Under

October 27th/28th--When we got up this morning, we quickly packed our suitcases up in order to leave the resort at 10:00 a.m. We made it to the airport by 10:45 a.m., which was plenty of time for our 12:05 p.m. flight back to Bangkok. Again, we had an hour long flight from Phuket to Bangkok. Upon arriving in Bangkok, we had to retrieve our luggage and then re-check for our International flight into Sydney. We got a little caught up at baggage claim though. Only 2 of the 4 suitcases came out and the carousel was saying Last Bag. Well, we finally found out that a whole cart went to the wrong place and was on its way back. We did finally get our other 2 suitcases and off we went to check in with Qantas. It was an easy process and we had a pass to get inside the Qantas Business Lounge which was wonderful. We had over 2 hours until our flight left and the kids were starving. So, we spent time in the lounge eating, watching a movie, and checking e-mails. Our plane started boarding at 4:45 p.m. and everyone was on with doors closed by 5:15 p.m., but we couldn't take off early because of the 6:00 a.m. curfew into Sydney. Since Sydney Airport is located in the city, planes can't land until after 6:00 a.m. Anyway, the flight was very nice and uneventful. We all ate dinner, watched movies and then the kids went to sleep pretty quickly. Mike and I got a little bit of rest before landing. After landing, we went through Immigrations, got our bags and then went through Customs. Customs in Australia is like no other country. They are very strict about what you bring into the country...no food of any kind, no soiled clothing items, and no wooden products. If you have any of these items, they have to be searched to approve entry or be put in quarantine. We were lucky to get clearance from a guy at the baggage claim. He came by asked for our customs form and then asked us the major questions. He stamped our form and pointed us to an exit that would make us getting out a whole lot quicker. And boy did it make it much quicker...everyone else that wasn't following us was having to put all their luggage/bags through x-ray machines. So, we were out of the airport a little after 7:00 and getting into a taxi. We arrived at our apartment by 8:00. Unfortunately, our apartment was not ready for us. We had planned on all crashing until about lunch, but that clearly wasn't happening. We stored our baggage and walked down to the Darling Harbour area. We immediately found a playground so the kids played there for about 2 hours. I actually laid down on the ground and took a little nap. Yes, I was that tired. Mike said I looked like a homeless person. We then walked back and were able to get into the apartment about 11:00. I laid down again and took another short nap until we had our luggage delivered. Once our luggage arrived, we sorted out the laundry and started washing. We had a weeks worth of clothes to wash. We ate lunch at Subway and then went to the Sydney Aquarium for the afternoon. The aquarium is on the Darling Harbour. It was a nice outing for us especially since it was pretty low key and kept us from all sleeping too much. After the aquarium, we enjoyed some sunlight by the harbour before heading back to the apartment. Austin and Mike laid down about 5:00 p.m. Mike woke up from his nap, but Austin was asleep for the night. The rest of us ordered pizza before heading to bed early.

Phuket, Thailand

October 20th-October 26th--We have truly been on "vacation" this week and have found our spot in Phuket, Thailand. We couldn't be pulled away from the pool or the beach to update the blog so we are putting the entire week into one post. Plus, we figured that it would get boring to everyone reading day after day that we lazed around the pool/beach a lot...certainly not boring to us though! Anyway, we left Bangkok on October 20th and took a short flight into Phuket on Thai Airways. We arrived into Phuket around noon and were at the Laguna Beach Resort by 1:00. We were lucky to be able to get right into our room and immediately put on our bathing suits. We were able to enjoy the pool all afternoon long. The resort has a wonderful pool area and a really fun waterslide. We also got to meet Meena, the one year old elephant, that lives on site. She comes out for breakfast every morning and then to swim in the ocean in the afternoon. By the end of the week, the kids were best friends with this elephant and feeding her lots of bananas. On our first day in Phuket, Abby got her hair braided on the beach. There were about 6 Thai women all around her doing the work. They had it perfectly done in 30 minutes. Austin was cute sitting right in front of Abby watching all the action. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were much of the same as the first day with lots of swimming, sun and beach. Abby went to Kids Club Wednesday morning while Austin swam with us. Kids Club meets twice a day (morning and afternoon)and is free for Abby, but Austin has to have a babysitter since he's under 4 and so we have to plan ahead. So, he went to Kids Club on Thursday morning and they got to build sand castles out on the beach. On Thursday afternoon, I learned how to do coconut leaf folding. I made a fish, a bird and a grasshopper out of coconut leaves. I use the word learned very loosely because there is no way I could repeat the folding. While I was in my class, Mike and the kids were at the pool making really good friends with another family. So, when I got done, I joined them out on the beach. This family is originally from Sydney, Australia, but now live in Beijing. Both of those locations gave us a lot to talk about. Dave and his wife Ren have 2 kids, Miles who is Abby's age and Reuben who is 2. The kids got along great. As a matter of fact, Miles and Abby hit it off from the beginning. We laughed about them becoming boyfriend/girlfriend. After a long afternoon in the pool, we all ended up going to dinner together at a restaurant on the beach named Tom Yam Goong. It was so much fun and was a great introduction into Thai food. We apparently needed some assistance in ordering the right dishes. Mike and I both opened up our menus and pretty much shut them immediately. We let Ren order all the dishes for us and everything was fantastic. We had a sampler platter of fish cakes, fried shrimp, spring rolls, chicken satay and chicken wrapped in pandan leaves and Spicy Beef Salad. By the time we finished up, all the kids were really tired so everyone put their kids to bed. Mike and Dave met back up on the beach to have some guy time the rest of the evening. Friday was much of the same except we scheduled the kids to go to Kids Club Movie Night. Dave and Ren joined us for dinner this night at Lotus. This was a very nice Seafood/Thai food restaurant on the beach about 10 minutes away from our hotel. Again, Ren did the ordering and the food was excellent. We had chicken satay, fish cakes, papaya salad and soft shell crab just to name a few. It was a wonderful night with our new friends. When we picked the kids up from Kids Club, we had to sadly say our goodbyes to our new friends though. They were leaving early the next morning heading back to Beijing. On Saturday, we took it kind of easy in the morning. We thought we could use a break from the sun for a while. So, Abby and I did Batik Drawing at the resort while Mike and Austin played on the beach. Batik Drawing is the process of waxing and dyeing cloth by human hands. Abby finished up her painting before lunch, but I needed to go back after lunch. However, first we went on our elephant trekking. It was quit an experience because of course, mine and Abby's elephant had to be the one to go off-roading. At times, it actually felt like we were going to fall off even though I knew we weren't (or at least I had convinced myself we weren't). After the elephant rides, we returned back to the hotel. Mike and the kids went swimming while I finished my painting. Abby and I were very pleased with our final products. Abby turned hers into a bag (this girl loves bags and purses!) and I'm going to hang my on the wall someday. On Sunday morning it was more cloudy than usual, but wasn't raining at first. After breakfast, Mike and Austin went kayaking in the Laguna. We all then went to the pool, but right after we got in the pool, the dark clouds really started rolling in and it did start pouring. We all ran back to our room and hung out for a while waiting on the rain to let up. Once it let up some, we walked around some of the beach front shops before eating lunch. While we were eating lunch, the sun started coming out so we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming. We went back to eat at Tom Yam Goong and we were so proud of ourselves for being able to order good Thai food. On Monday, it was pretty much the same weather conditions in the morning with rain. So, we went over to the Canal Village to look around the shops there for about an hour. By the time we got back to the pool, the sun was out and we spent the rest of the afternoon swimming with some of our other Australian friends we had met during the week. This is a popular vacation destination for Aussie's. We were already looking forward to our time in Australia, but are now really looking forward due to the great Aussie's we have met this week. Mike and I had the kids signed up for Movie Night again so that we could enjoy our last night in Phuket. We were a little late dropping them off because we took Abby's braids out. Apparently we needed all 6 Thai ladies again because it took us a little longer than we had anticipated. We ended up eating dinner at the nice Thai restaurant in the hotel. I took a hold of the menu and ordered with confidence. Mike says I did an excellent job with my selections. We enjoyed a spicy papaya salad and a deep-fried seabass dish. We then hung out on the beach for a little while before picking up the kids. We are very sad to be leaving Phuket tomorrow. This place is such a great vacation location and this is truly the first week that we have spent it like we were on vacation. No sightseeing and no obligations at all. It has been really nice and we hope to return someday.

Last night in Bangkok

October 19th--Since we loved our apartment so much here in Bangkok and didn't know what our accommodations were going to be like over the next couple of weeks, we decided to take the opportunity to just hang out for the day. There are 3 televisions, so plenty for everyone to watch what they wanted to watch as well. Abby and I did a lot of schoolwork this morning before heading out to the pool. We spent several hours swimming at the pool before...you got it...it started raining. After going inside, we all hung out watching movies and packing up our suitcases. Mike and I had arranged for a babysitter for the night so that we could go enjoy our last night in Bangkok and some local Thai food. We had KFC delivered to the room for the kids before the babysitter arrived at 7:00. Mike and I left via taxi heading to Baan Klang Naam restaurant. It took our taxi driver a while to find the restaurant. He had to make many turn arounds and pull over to ask another taxi driver. But, we got there nonetheless. The restaurant is open air and right on the river. We were able to enjoy some wonderful Thai food including crab sushi, fried prawns & fruit salad and a spicy shrimp salad. They aren't kidding when they say spicy either. It was probably the hottest thing I've ever had. It was a nice night out. When we got back to the apartment, the babysitter had the place all cleaned up and had even got our laundry out of the dryer and hung it up. She also told us that she rubbed Austin's back to get him to go to sleep. She was wonderful! After she left, we went to check on the kids and saw the funniest thing. Austin was in his 18 month footed pajamas that he carries around as his "blanket". He couldn't even straighten out his legs from being so crammed in there. Mike and I had a good laugh thinking about what the babysitter must have thought as she crammed him in the pajamas. She probably thought it was time for us to get him some new pj's! Anyway, after taking a picture we changed him back into his normal pajamas and headed to bed.

Shopping in Bangkok

October 18th--Today, we would experience the two extremes of shopping in Bangkok. We headed out this morning for the Chatuchak Market, the huge weekend market in Bangkok. We tried to get there before it got too hot, but I don't think that there is any good time to avoid the heat and humidity. This market is by far the biggest outdoor market we have seen along the way. It was endless stalls combined together and there was everything from souvenirs to food to clothing. It is such an experience on your senses, both smell and sight. We actually enjoyed walking around because unlike in China, we were not bothered at all while shopping. No one pressured us into buying anything. It was nice to walk away from the market with a headband and dress for Abby for under $5.00. Now, I told her she better wear the dress before we wash it because it might fall apart after one wash, but she was happy with her new dress. After we left the market, we were going to let the kids play at the playground by the market, but it was covered in water from the rain so we headed back to the apartment. We went swimming for a little while this afternoon before the usual Bangkok afternoon rain came rolling in. So, we then just hung out for a couple of hours before deciding to go to Siam Paragon. Siam Paragon is 5 story, high tech shopping mall...very impressive and better than any shopping mall we have ever seen in the States. The ground floor has a huge food hall. It was here that Mike and I got to enjoy all the street vendor food, but safely. We had grilled bananas, crispy pancakes, chicken satay, and a traditional Thai sweet. We enjoyed all of this food while sitting with the kids in McDonald's. We still aren't able to get them to be too adventurous in their food. After dinner, we made our way up the escalators passing all the shops to the top floor where the movie theater and bowling alley is located. We were going bowling. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a wonderful time. It doesn't matter where you are in the world...bowling is still all the same!