One Final Look at Sydney, Australia

Due to a missed flight connection, we spent an extra day in Sydney. Not a bad place to have a 24 hour layover- especially when the weather was perfect. We went to Manly Beach- where there was a shark siting and alarm warning! Only about 80% of the surfers left the water.

Stuff Jin Sun Likes

See if you can pick up on a theme...

Chasing Waterfalls

With apologies to Left Eye Lopez and T-Boz, we eschewed their advice and chased ourselves some waterfalls.

We went from underwater to under waterfalls in the wet tropics of Queensland. Click on the video to see what Jeff wanted to do but never happened.



Can you find 3 blobs of clotted cream in this picture?

The Wet Tropics

Great Barrier Reef

The #1 underwater crime fighting team was back in action. We put our PADI certification to good use and scuba-d in the Great Barrier Reef. We saw giant clams, colorful clown fish and even sharks! (can you see the little guy in the picture?) The best part was that the water was warm enough that we didn't need wetsuits.

Brazilian?

You be the judge.

This could be the making of a new game...

Queensland- Beautiful and Deadly

Everything we read about Australia reminded us that we were among the deadliest snakes, scorpions, spiders, ocean life, and plants in the world. See if you can see the python coiled in this tree in Palm Cove- someone pointed it out as we were walking down the street with our ice cream cones.

Exotic Fruits- much better than Durian

Exotic fruits have redeemed themselves- here JSP holds up (and will later eat) a type of custard apple and a dragon fruit. For those of you who recall her extreme distaste for that other exotic fruit, durian, check out Andrew Zimmerman's reaction.

Western Australia

Great beaches (and surfing) in Perth, Western Australia.

Neither of us had been in the Indian Ocean - very nice.


Watch out for those snakes!

Fremantle/Perth, Australia

Jeff's paternal grandmother was born in Fremantle (southern section of Perth on the water) before moving to the US in the early 20th century. Locals call it "Freo".

Jeff's sister found their grandmother's birth certificate and this is the street (King William) on which Jeff's great-grandparents lived.

Creatures in the Outback

From the zoo straight to your table...

Virtual Special Guest Shout out to Lynette

Thanks to Lynette (who we first met in Shanghai) for all her great suggestions on Melbourne. We went to this great pizza place our first night in town.

Some other foodie pics...

Melbourne Special Guest Liam Cahill

The Lion Tamer... The Little General... by any name, he's one of Australia's finest. It was great to see Liam and share a few pots of Crownies (heaps, really) in his native Melbourne.

Liam lived with Jeff, Woody and Eric Myers in Chicago for a spell in the 90's.

Despite the fact that he's a tennis professional, he lists tennis as his 5th favorite sport. Aus. Rules Football (huge in Melbourne) and cricket are 1-2.

Stuff Jeff Likes... Part 2

More stuff Jeff likes:
4. Drinking from public water fountains
5. Extremely hard to find boutique sparkling water from Campania, Italy (Jeff note: Farrarelle is truly the greatest water on earth - I couldn't believe we found it in Melbourne. You can't really get it in the U.S. Yet another reason to move to AUS)
6. His initials posted anywhere
7. Anything having to do with Butter

Stuff Jeff Likes... Part 1

Jeff likes:
1. Any sort of cake for brekky... in this case, corncakes and pikelets (Aussie pancakes)
2. Totally Dog Free Zones
3. Multiple over the top desserts BEFORE and AFTER any meal

Sydney Harbour

Sydney harbour is a big, extensive inlet with roughly 150 miles of coastland that surrounds the city, parkland, and suburbs. The city sits about 4 miles inland and is sort of set up like a larger San Francisco. The main differences are that the beaches around Sydney (Bondi, etc) are not 54 degrees all of the time and that the water is a perfect shade of blue.

We got up close and personal with the Opera House and actually took in a show (Cuban pianist Roberto Fonseca). It's pretty cool on the inside too. The guy who designed it (in the late 50's) never actually saw the finished product after getting into a spat with contractors.

Shirtless in Sydney

Shirtless has gone international in fashion forward Sydney.