Sweet Sydney!

The girls and I have been in Sydney for 5 days and will be here through this coming weekend.  We have a great studio apartment right in the city, making it easy to walk to hot spots.  Also, my sister lived here a number of years ago, so she's been emailing me about places to go.  Here's what we've done so far:

Sydney Opera House, of course

Walked around Darling Harbour where we found this great playground

Hey Innocademy--I think we need one of these for our playground.  With enough woodchips, it would be just fine.

Friday was looking like it might be our last sunny day for a while, so we decided to visit the beach.

The most famous of them all--Bondi Beach.  Just a 20 minute bus ride from downtown Sydney.

A coastal walk connects Bondi Beach with a number of other beaches.  Gorgeous views like this all along the way.

I told Celia (my walking partner) to have me buried here someday.  Such a beautiful, peaceful spot.

Almost every beach has one of these pools built into the cliff, using the ocean water.

This one was even more natural

And even had a waterfall where the overflow ran back into the ocean

We stopped to watch lawn bowls at the Clovelly Bowling Club

All the colors of the water were breathtaking

And some of us even saw a parrot!

On the bus ride home, we came across these schoolgirls.  The hats add an interesting twist to the school uniform.

Saturday was cool and rainy, so we shopped a little and stayed inside.  We had seen signs that the roads near us would be closed on Saturday morning and found out it was because of a parade and commemoration ceremony.  Australia ended Operation Pillow (their name for the fighting in Afghanistan and the Middle East) as of yearend 2014, so this was the day they were honoring those who fought.  Since the park right by us contains their most well known war memorial, this is where the ceremony took place.  Faith, Trina, and I walked down to see some of it.

Hard to capture in pictures, but the soldiers were all lined up around the memorial.  Names of those who died were read, taps was played, and dignitaries and families placed wreathes.  It was sobering and a good reminder to my U.S.-centric mind that other countries are fighting alongside us and losing lives as well.

On Sunday we ended up having two church experiences.  We've been visiting different churches each week and have had lots of variety.  I'm saving this up for another post.  But, for those of you familiar with them, I had really wanted to attend Hillsong Church while we were in Sydney.  They have multiple campuses and one is just a 10 minute bus ride from us.  I'll write more about it in my upcoming "church" post :)

That afternoon it was our intent to visit Watson's Bay, another coastal cliff spot.  Our trip was delayed when suddenly this parade appeared and the road was closed.  Apparently it was the Greek Independence Day and what looked like the entire Greek population of all Australia came out to march in it.  Reminded me of Tulip Time--costumes, schoolkids with banners, bands, random people walking along.  The girls were so grumpy about having to sit and watch it all, but I reminded them they would most likely be the only girls in West Michigan who could say they watched a Greek parade in Australia!

Contrary to what the girls thought, the parade DID eventually end and we made our way to Watson's Bay.  It was a beautiful bus ride through very upscale neighborhoods, all overlooking the harbour.

This view of Sydney in one direction and the ocean in the other.

If you haven't noticed, beaches are a highlight for our family, so today we visited another one.  This time it was Manly Beach on the north end of the harbour.  To get here we took a ferry which gave us great views of the Opera House and the bridge on the way.

You can't even imagine how excited we were to see an Aldi on the Manly Wharf!  Those little tuna kits were the cheapest lunch we've had in a long time.

And not a bad spot to eat them either!

Yet another pretty spot

  And just to keep things exciting:

The surf patrol announced through a beachwide loudspeaker system that a shark had been spotted at the far end of the beach and "strongly suggested" that everyone leave the water.

And finally, just to make you a little jealous, this is where I'm sitting right now. A view of the skyline out my window and a perk for renting this place was a free bottle of Australian wine.  Well, don't mind if I do...  (the apartment's a pretty cramped studio and a little rundown, but no one needs to know that)

An Australian Adventure

Or, an Aussie Ade-ven-cha :)

OK, I'm warning you that my Australian posts are going to get really obnoxious.  Since the days of Olivia Newton John (and I'm talking her "I Honestly Love You" days, not her "Let's Get Physical" days!) I have loved anything Australian.

We had a little bit of a bumpy start in Cairns because of the rain, but we squeezed in what we really hoped to do there.  And now we're in Sydney and loving everything about it.

You may get the pleasure of back to back posts today.  Too much has happened to squeeze it into one post, but I also have some catching up to do.

So we'll begin with our last few days in Cairns:

High on the list was an opportunity to hold a koala, so we visited the Cairns Tropical Zoo.  This was a great place--smaller and focused on native Australian animals, with lots of opportunities for interaction and many informative programs throughout the day.

The zoo had a fenced in area for the kangaroos which we could enter--the Australian version of our petting zoos.

Teaching each other dance moves, maybe?

These are only owls if their masks are kookaburra masks!

The cassowary was one of our favorites and this picture Faith got of him is a favorite too.  Biggest flightless bird next to the ostrich.

And Celia finally got to hold her koala

Trina too!  It was quite a production.  They were handed the koala and could only hold it long enough for a picture, but at least it was something.

This is where we stayed, Trinity Beach, just north of Cairns.  A beautiful spot, although the water got really brown from all the storming.

 Thankfully, we were also able to get a beautiful day at the Great Barrier Reef.  Tropical Cyclone Nathan was expected to turn around and come back toward land, so boats had been canceled during the first round and were going to be canceled again for three days.  But in the meantime we had a pretty calm, sunny day for our trip.  Of course, the boat was full (80 passengers) because everyone was trying to squeeze it in, but it was well-organized and fun.  We drove out for about an hour, snorkeled in two different areas of the reef, and boated back.  The older girls were also able to do an introductory dive.

 

Our last three days in Cairns were beautiful and sunny so we were also able to spend some time by the pool and beach.  All that rain made us appreciate the sun all over again.

Real Life

The girls and I are spending about 10 days in Trinity Beach, Queensland, Australia just a few minutes north of Cairns.  After weeks of consistently warm, sunny weather, now we've been reminded that it's good to check the weather forecast.  When I went to get info on a boat trip to the reef I was informed that Tropical Cyclone Nathan was bearing down on the coast.  So we've been hunkering down inside, but thankfully at a time when we have a small apartment where we can make ourselves at home.  We'll be glad when the weather clears and we can do some of the things we've planned, but for now we're all enjoying a little routine--laundry, grocery shopping, making meals, reading, school...

This was the first thing Trina did

And this was the next!  She even offered to iron things for the rest of us.

Meanwhile this is what's happening outside:

The rain is warm so Trina and I took a quick walk to the corner store.

"The sea was angry that day, my friends" (sorry, a little Seinfeld humor)

Came back slightly wet.

Oh, and I'm a little embarrassed to say we're also REALLY enjoying some American TV.  We've traded Bollywood for The Office...Friends...cooking shows.  Ah, the little pleasures of life.

Singapore...and the Livin' is Easy!

We just finished up a quick two day visit to Singapore in between Thailand and Australia.  Each country we've visited has been one step easier than the previous one, but Singapore felt really easy and was a welcome break.  Wider sidewalks, fewer people on them, predominant language is English (I can read the signs!  I can understand the people!), things are organized and well explained.

Here's some of the fun we had in Singapore:

Faith began her 15th birthday in Thailand and finished it in Singapore.  But then the birthday wishes continued because of the time change, so it was like a two day birthday!

BBQ wings for my birthday?  Yes please!

Singapore is a unique place, a very small city/country.  There are some pretty green spaces but much of the beauty is man made beauty.  Our very favorite place was Gardens by the Bay which was a combination of the two--beautiful gardens combined with really eye catching structures.

These are called the Supertrees--metal structures with live plants all up the trunk.  Each evening they do a 15 minute light and sound show (we like to call it the Musical Fountain for trees)

On the left is the Singapore Flyer, same idea as the London Eye.  On the right is the cool dome that houses the indoor gardens.

We walked along this suspended skywalk between the Supertrees.  Yet another slight mom freak-out moment when Mike and the girls started discussing what would happen if the skywalk fell.

We had gotten to the gardens too late to see the Children's Garden, so the girls and I went back again the next day.

Seriously, Celia??

We were surprised by this monitor lizard who jumped right out of the water and onto the boardwalk.

Across the street was this very exclusive mall, with a river on the bottom level, with boat rides!

 Singapore is where we said our goodbyes to Mike for a few weeks.  He flew to Boston on Saturday morning for a 3 week leadership program.  On Saturday night the girls and I flew to Australia.  At the end of the month, we'll all meet up in New Zealand.