Australia!

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!

We haven't had a whole lot of internet access since coming to Australia, but for the moment we've got a connection so I thought I'd give some updates. The main news is, Mom and I are doing great and having an awesome time. There's tons of stuff to do, and Australians are very friendly and helpful.

During our first stay in Sydney, we stayed at an old hotel in the Rocks, a historical district down by Circular Quay. We saw a ton of things, including the Taronga Zoo (I loved the platypus and echidna, Mom made friends with a cassowary), Manly Beach on Christmas Day (but no swimming because of rough surf), the aquarium (dugongs!), the Queen Victoria Building (upscale shopping center), and plenty of random shopping areas along the way. For transportation we hopped on and off the subway, which is sometimes above ground, and also took ferries.

Our next stop was Cairns, which is further north along the coast. Our main purpose there was to see the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest. We signed up for two days of tours so that we could see both. We started with the Great Barrier Reef. A boat took us and about 100 other people out to the reef for snorkeling and diving at two locations. It took me a few minutes to get used to snorkeling again; I didn't like being unable to breathe through my nose, but I got used to it. Mom jumped right in and was ready to go. We had three hours to snorkel at the first location, but I didn't stay in the water the whole time. I got back on the boat a bit early, which was probably a mistake given how choppy the water was at that location. After a little while I was feeling seasick, and eventually I ended up vomiting spectacularly. I was really embarrassed, but the crew of the boat was very kind and didn't get irritable about it. I guess that's something you have to get used to when you work on the ocean with tourists. So, for the rest of the time on the boat, I stayed outside and on the lower deck where I could get fresh air. At the second location both Mom and I stayed in the water for the full two hours, partly because the reef was even more beautiful there, and partly because I wasn't seasick when I was in the water.

At the Great Barrier Reef, there were all kinds of tropical fish. Some of them were kinds of fish we had also seen in Hawaii, but here they were bigger and brighter. The coral formations were amazing, too. My favorite sighting was two giant clams. They were massive, maybe as wide as I am tall. We watched them filter water for a while. There were plenty of giant fish, and Mom saw a little white tipped reef shark at the first location. I was out of the water then, so I didn't see it. At first I'd been a little worried about sharks, but the tour guides explained that there are basically only two kinds of sharks on the Great Barrier Reef and they have tiny mouths and can only eat very small fish. So once I knew that, I wasn't worried.

There was one more unfortunate consequence beyond the seasickness. Despite several very thorough applications of sunscreen, I got a nasty sunburn. Mom was smart and wore an anti-jellyfish suit which also kept her skin covered, though in the end it didn't entirely protect her from jellyfish. She got a minor jellyfish sting but avoided sunburning. I, on the other hand, ended up with a bright red backside. Because I was floating face down in the water for a few hours, the parts of me that got burned were my back, the backs of my upper thighs, and part of my butt where my swimsuit didn't cover. I don't think I have ever seen my skin so red, but it didn't blister. Now my back and thighs are pretty much back to normal, but my behind is still very red.

Anyhow, between tours we had one day off, and we used that to do some sightseeing in town. On top of the casino there was a little rainforest zoo, and we took a look at that. While we were there we got our photograph with a koala (I got to hold him! He was heavy) and petted a frogmouth, which is a bird that looks kind of like an owl but has weaker talons and a less sharp beak. We also checked out the main mall and an outlet mall.

The next day we had our rainforest tour. We were on a mini-bus with fifteen other tourists and a very nice tour guide named Shane. We saw Cape Tribulation, an Australian-themed zoo, two sections of the Daintree Rainforest, a beautiful river gorge, and one crocodile named Scarface. The rainforest was amazingly dense with trees and plants. A lot of the roads we drove on had cassowary crossing signs, but we didn't get to see any. We did, however, see a goana at lunch time. A goana is a large lizard; this one was maybe 4 or 5 feet long. The goana made me think of Steve Irwin (The Crocodile Hunter) because he was always harrassing them. At the zoo we got to feed some wallabies and small kangaroos. The kangaroos had slobbery mouths, they got spit all over our hands. The wallabies looked like tiny kangaroos, though slightly more ratlike. I liked them better than the kangaroos. During the boat tour on the river, it was raining quite a bit, so we didn't see many crocodiles. With the help of another boat's captain we managed to find one. He was pretty big. We watched him swim away into the mangrove. I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to watch the captain feed him anything, because that's how the alligator tours in Louisiana went. But I suppose that wasn't a realistic thing to expect in a World Heritage site. What's more, teaching crocodiles to expect food from humans is very dangerous, since they're more aggressive than alligators to begin with. Apparently one of the crocodiles had eaten a boater's dog just that week. They left the dog loose at the river's edge while they were sailing, and the dog got eaten.

Anyhow, the rainforest tour took up a full day, and the next day we had a flight back to Sydney. Yesterday we went to Paddy's Market, which is a large indoor market with fruits, vegetables, clothes, and souvenirs for cheap. Then in the evening we braved the crowds to watch the fireworks in Sydney Harbor. We didn't go downtown because the crowds there would've been insane, but we got a reasonably good vantage point from a park on a hill. There were plenty of people there, but things were mostly civil because no alcohol was allowed into the park. Of course there were some people who snuck in alchohol anyway, but even they weren't too rowdy. There was one drunk guy with an inflatable kangaroo who was a little obnoxious, but even he wasn't too bad. The 9 o'clock fireworks show for the kids was pretty neat, and we stayed for the midnight one as well. We were kind of on the wrong side of the bridge, but we still got a good view of the main fireworks. It was very impressive; I think the fireworks went on for 12 or 15 minutes straight. Then we walked back to our place. I was happy enough not to get mixed up with the obnoxiously drunken crowds that must've been downtown.

Today we walked across the Harbor Bridge, took a ferry to Drummoyne and walked around for over an hour trying to find an outlet mall. We didn't have precise directions on how to get there, so we couldn't find it. Just as we gave up and got on the bus to go back into the center of town, we drove past it. Dang. But we didn't feel like getting off and walking back to it, so we just returned to the downtown area. During our wanderings, we both got sunburned. Mom mostly got it on the shoulders and I got it on the arms. I am going to be a mess of peeling skin when I get back to Japan. But in better news, I also managed to finish up all my souvenir shopping, so I'm pretty sure I've got all my obligations covered. It's considered pretty rude not to bring back some sort of souvenir (usually food) to your workplace, so I got various treats for the Board of Education, my two junior highs, both of my Japanese teachers, and the other students in my Japanese class. I'll probably have to buy another suitcase or duffel bag to get all of my stuff home, though.

So, that's more or less what we've done since arriving in Australia. Tomorrow we're going to try to get to Bondi Beach and maybe check out some shopping in that area as well. Of course, we're going to have to cover up so as not to get even more burnt, but hopefully we can get some swimming in. I'm not entirely sure when my next update will be, but I'll try to let you know how the rest of the trip goes. Overall, it has been a lot of fun. Australia is a pretty cool place.