Jiemei: January 2010

"Why Are Koalas Always Sleepy?"

One of the things on my 'List of things to do' has always been to count down by the Sydney Opera house as one of the first people to ring in the new year. This dream finally came true when our family decided to take a trip to Australia while my sister and I were both in school and had long enough vacations to accommodate a lengthy trip to visit our fifth continent. My dad booked a tour through my uncle in Taiwan and we left from the Taipei airport on Dec. 29th with the rest of our group.

Day 1: Dec. 29th

After a significant amount of anxiety involved with Jie and I obtaining our tourist visas, our family finally set off to our much-anticipated journey to Australia! Here is Jie and I at the Taoyuan airport late at night waiting to catch the red-eye to Sydney.

While we were waiting to board, we had fun posing with the China Airlines flight attendant cardboard cut-outs and the slightly disturbing persimmon man.

Day 2: Dec. 30th

After a grueling 8.5 hour flight, we finally woke up bleary eyed to warm, sunny Sydney! What a relief to finally be back in the sunshine! Our first stop was the Olympic village:

We discovered that Australia is very eco-conscious and the Olympic committee had taken great strides to build the stadium and surrounding areas using energy efficient methods, including use of sun panels seen in the back.

Lunch was at a retired soldier rest station, in a home-style buffet type of asian-owned restaurant.

Our next stop was the Blue Mountains, where we soaked in the Australian sunshine and took in the natural scenery at the national park. Dad helped us reminisc our old days of celebrating the holidays in the Middle East with his rendition of the ’12 Days of Ramadan’ instead of the ’12 Days of Christmas’. We began viewing the surroundings by going down the mountain via a huge cable car which packed at least 80 people. The most interesting stone structure we saw was named the ‘Three Sisters’ which are three rocks protruding from the rest of the formation.

Three Sisters formation

Once we reached the bottom, we took a little hike through the park. I noticed that the trees looked different from the ones in the tropical rainforests in Malaysia. In particular, a lot of the trees seemed to have a flattened out top. The leaves making up the canopy made pretty patterns:

Eucalyptus trees, the main source of food for koalas, were also scattered throughout the forest. Eucalyptus trees have a tranquilizing effect, and send koalas into a state of grogginess. This is the reason why koalas are sleepy all the time!

Eucalyptus tree

We journeyed back up the mountain backwards in a little train that’s supposedly run on one of the steepest railways in the world. Felt kind of like being in an amusement park!

At the top of the mountain

Day 3: Dec. 31st

New Year’s Eve! We woke up refreshed after spending the night in our little hotel in the Blue Mountains, ready for a day of sightseeing in Sydney and preparing for our New Year’s Eve celebration at the harbour. Here is dad and Jie happily eating breakfast (the 2 important elements to a good hotel is having free wifi and free breakfast).

First stop: Sydney harbour and opera house! Here is the bridge at the harbor:

At the steps of the opera house. Stunning!

Jie and I with how the structure was made:

They had really cool bathrooms inside and I couldn’t resist taking a picture:

Inside the opera house:

Saw this outside the door to the inside of the opera house. Did Santa get stuck in Australia?!

By then, we could already see a bunch of people who had staked prime fireworks viewing spots (this is around 10 a.m. in the morning!)

Reading the Sydney paper while waiting to go to the next location (We are a family of bookworms!)

Touring St. Mary’s Cathedral and Hyde Park. This area reminded me a lot of London.

A can of coke was 3 AUD. Expensive!

Waiting to get on the boat to take a tour of the city from the water and to eat lunch. We found a bunch of seagulls and decided it would be fun to feed them while we were waiting for the boat to leave by the harbourside.

Beautiful views of the opera house and Sydney skyline from the boat

At the harbor after lunch, so we could stake our own spot in front of the bridge to watch the fireworks. This was around 2 pm, but the place was already packed!

Jie and I then made the dumbest decision of the whole trip, and ventured outside into the city to buy books so we wouldn’t be bored out of our minds during the 10-hour wait. Even though we checked with the security guards to make sure we could get back into the opera-house area, by the time we had found a bookstore and purchased our books, security had sealed off the area and announced it full to capacity. Despite our best efforts to persuade the guards to let us in, they were unwavering and had no intentions of letting anyone in. At that point, we were left with no phone, 2 books, a set of playing cards, 1 bag of gummy bears, and 2 potentially very angry parents. Luckily, we got a hold of a gracious Australian who let us borrow his cell phone to call our tourguide to tell our parents that we had to wait outside the main viewing area, which ended up being only about 50m away. The entire area seemed more like a refugee camp than a celebration post, with masses of people camping out on the ground, becoming gradually more tired and impatient. At one point, rogue trespassers tried to enter the area we were waiting in which had become a coveted viewing spot for those who arrived later in the afternoon and couldn’t get into the closed off section. We would hear random cheers erupting whenever one of these trespassers were successfully blocked off by the people sitting at the periphery. I felt infinitely more grateful that I don’t need to sit in one spot for more than 10 hours at a time on a regular basis, because not only was it uncomfortable, but I was bored out of my mind even with a book in front of me. At around 8:30 p.m., my sister and I started getting slightly delirious from hunger pangs and the thought of standing for another 4 hours in the wind. Although we had initial ideas of bartering potato chips from the group in front of us for whatever kind of grad school advice we could offer, I decided the best option was still to purchase real food to tide us through the rest of the night. After pushing through a sea of stubborn, unyielding, not-so-happy-to-have-their-personal-space-invaded campers, I broke through the crowd to snatch a sandwich and a bag of chips before having to wade back to our sacred spot. I was never happier to see my sister, nor did a bag of potato chips ever taste so good. We did get a set of funny playing cards though that displayed a nice Aussie gentleman with some of his funny sayings:

Bridge at dusk:

At 9 pm, there was the first set of fireworks for kids who can’t stay up until midnight. Then there were consecutive sparks at 10 p.m. , 11 p.m., 11:30 p.m., 11:45 p.m. until the big show happened at 12:00. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a watch, and the last 10 seconds weren’t very clearly announced, so we ushered in the new year amid some confusion after a bunch of sparks started flying. Nevertheless, it was nothing short of spectacular, and I admire Sydney for going all out with its display of fireworks! Not only did sparks explode all over the bridge, but also flew from all the surrounding skyscrapers, resulting in a brilliant display of lights. A beautiful way to usher in 2010!!

Day 4: Jan. 1st

We started off the brand new year by catching a flight on Qantas first thing in the morning to Melbourne. On the plane, I was served the cutest little can of diet coke:

I also thought it was good that they’re really focused on the environment here:

We had lunch in Chinatown and I was amused by the little sayings that were posted on the building walls about how to live your life:

Melbourne city tour:

Park with cool aboriginal art at the base of the tree:

British territory by way of a cottage established by Captain Cook:

Inside the shrine of remembrance:

Light show over the monument remembering those who sacrificed themselves in the first world war:

At night, we drove to Philips Island to see the parade of little penguins as they come onto shore each night when it gets dark. These penguins were SO adorable! I loved how they hobbled home in small groups on their little legs after reaching the shore. We weren’t allowed to take pictures on the island, but we saw the penguins again the next day at the Melbourne Zoo.

I saw some interesting things at the gift store. Including penguin poo candy:

Day 5: Jan. 2nd

They had vegemite at the breakfast table! Jie was pretty excited about this.

In the morning, we visited the National Art Gallery:

Australians do a fantastic job with creative architecture. Here is the roof of the theater:

Jie and I went off exploring the city ourselves afterwards. I found a cupcake store inside the shopping center! (Cupcakes are approaching global domination!)

We then visited the bustling Queen Victoria market, where we explored the traditional markets and had our lunch. They were selling these ugly uggs at the market. I wasn’t sure if they were real or not, but I definitely see nicer ones being sold in the U.S.

Uggs - Thumbs down

We then took Tram 55 to take us to the Melbourne Zoo. After arriving at the zoo, we saw these funny birds with big feet:

Some Australian animals!

Emu

Wombat

Kangaroo

The adorable penguins we saw the night before

Tree kangaroo

After the zoo, we took the tram back to the city to explore and walk around. We saw a cool stand selling fries with Obama sauce!

Little lanes of Melbourne with European style cafes and cobbled roads:

The coolest snack we saw was sushi-to-go, where you basically eat it like a burrito:

Day 6: Jan. 3rd

We woke up bright and early this morning to catch a flight to Brisbane, where the weather was even warmer than Sydney! The heat was a nice welcome to the slightly chilly temperature in Melbourne.

We started off by taking a boat to some kind of park:

We practiced jumping shots while we waited for the boat

Admired the Brisbane skyline on our way there:

For some reason, they had a map of Taiwan which was grossly enlarged relative to Australia, so of course we had to take a picture:

Australia gets hot in the summer! At the park, I also noticed a sign where it said free water and sunscreen since there’s a high incidence of skin cancer from the harmful UV rays (wish we had this in Bermuda):

Brisbane’s version of the London Eye?

At Kangaroo Peak, some kind of place overlooking Brisbane (ironically, with no relation whatsoever to real kangaroos)

Brisbane city tour:

In the afternoon, we headed off to a winery for wine-tasting. We took a tour of where they age the wine in barrels:

Stopped by the beach afterwards, but it was a little rainy, so we didn’t get a chance to stay there for long:

Dinner was a buffet, where dad picked a nice dessert spread. This was a nice change from the Chinese restaurants we frequented often at lunch.

After dinner, we went to a park to see glow-worms. In Chinese, glow-worms are translated to be the same word as fire-flies, so all along, we thought we were going to see fireflies, but in fact they turned out to be completely different insects. After taking a bus to the edge of the forest, we went into a little ranch for a viewing of how to make traditional tea and received a briefing on the anatomy of glow-worms as well as a visit from a frog which landed on my sister’s foot and a cockroach which landed in my coat. We also Finally got to try on the traditional fly-swatting, cork string hats which turn out to be slightly more annoying swinging around your face than flies themselves:

After the briefing, we trekked through the forest in the dark, and saw a bunch of glow-in the-dark mushrooms and went into a cave filled with glow-worms that gleamed like stars making up constellations in the dark. There was a huge waterfall near the mouth of the cave (artistic rendition behind us), which made the whole place feel very mystical.

Day 7: Jan. 4th

Next morning at our resort at the Gold Coast. Bright and sunny day!

Lobby area was still decked out in Christmas decorations. I’m always sad when the holiday decorations get taken down.

My breakfast. I like to eat the weirdest mix of foods

My favorite time is in the morning when everyone is refreshed and ready for the start of a new day (as long as I’ve had enough sleep that is).

Hello Mr. Koala!

We each got a chance to take a picture with a koala bear

Dingo, one of the only dangerous animals that can attack humans:

Watching sheep shearing. Before:

During:

After:

Poor guy.. it's naked!

My dad got asked to go up and peel a bucket of potatoes as part of a demo for traditional Australian village life:

Dad diligently peeling... and peeling..

Going on the rides.. Ride 1: River Rapids

Ride 2: I decided to go on the Giant Drop, one of the highest rides in the world. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to go with me after lunch.

It was pretty amazing. You shoot up and stay suspended in the air for about 45s or so with the most incredible view of the whole area. Then, with a stomach-lurching sensation, you are sucked down to the bottom.

AWESOME!!!!

Ride 3: Tower of Terror. While the Giant Drop is the highest, the Tower of Terror is the fastest, and basically runs up the side of the structure used for the Giant Drop. Another awesome experience. This one, Jie and I rode together.