Okay I'm going to try and blast through the last two months .... k sooooo from St. Helens we then headed to The Garden's which is where the famous Bay of Fires is. It is apparently the 2nd most beautiful beach in the world ... how they determine what the most beautiful beaches are in the world I don't know .... but in all honesty I much preferred Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park. Anyway, so we drove over to The Gardens and Bay of Fires where we planned to hike the Bay and camp on the beach. We had a bit of a later start so we only hiked a couple hours and then found this amazing spot to camp, which we later found out wasn't as great as we had thought. It was right at this one part of the beach where a little lagoon/stream thing emptied out into the ocean and there was a tree that was covering this really flat bit of ground. It really looked like it had been put there on purpose. We set up camp and then plopped down and started into some lunch. Partway through lunch I felt something on my bum and I thought oh maybe it's just a stick poking into me and so I just dusted off my bum and then sat back down only then I felt this really sharp pain and definitely felt like something was biting me! .... and sure enough I had a few really really painful ant bites! Aaaaagh, so painful. It definitely put a damper on my day :(. It even continued to hurt for another few hours, and then became exceedingly ichy for several days.
Aaaanyway, my Dad and I hiked along the long long beach and admired the beautiful scenery, turquois water, and the funny scamper of numerous Oyster Catchers (birds). It was quite windy, so at night it got very cold and we packed it in pretty early after having some of the famous O'Donnell Ihara Gloop (basically a mixture of various pasta packages/rice packages, tuna, and vegetables). I thankfully had my iPod which has a few movies on it, so my dad and I watched Monsters Inc. in our tent before we went to sleep. haha. Soooo good.
The next day we hiked out of Bay of Fires and drove tio Bridpoint where there are supposed to be some amazing wildflowers, espescially known for wild orchids .... we didn't see any .... haha so we then drove on towards Launceston and stopped along the way to see the St. Columba falls which were quite beautiful. It was surrounded by this amazing rainforest, which the biggest Ferntrees I've ever seen! We also stopped at this random farmhouse type place that the Lonely Planet had mentioned and got their famous milkshakes ... but we weren't impressed.
Launceston was alright, not a whole lot going on, as far as we could tell. We just relaxed a little bit then headed to Burger Got Soul for some dinner, we got really delicious burgers and then attempted to walk to the Cataract Gorge ... only my Dad took us in the wrong direction so we ended up just walking back to the hotel and watching part of Sherlock Holmes and Law-Abiding Citizen.
The next day we went to the Cataract Gorge and took a walk around, it was quite pretty and seemed like it was a good spot for swimming .... if it was warm. We even saw a young guy in his swimming trunks and holding a towel. It was pretty cold,definitely didn't seem warm enough for swimming.
After the Gorge we headed to the famous Cradle Mountain! It was a longish drive but I slept for most of it I think and so we arrived in Cradle Mountian National Park and decided (I was a little hesitant) to hike to the Scott Kilvert Hut, we were told it would take us about 6 hours ... it took us 3 haha. We were even warned that it had snowed quite a bit in the last few days But it was quite a beautiful hike. Unfortunately it was a bit rainy and VERY foggy/misty so we couldn't get a great view of the Cradle Mountain .. and unfortunately my camera ran out of battery and I foolishly forgot the charger in Melbourne, so I didn't even get any pictures of it! :( I promise we did infact go there even if there is no photographic proof.
Some of the trail on the way to the hut was completely overrun by water, we would have to climb up on the sides of the trail and even then were still getting a bit wet. I was very thankful I had Gortex walking shoes on! The hut was really great. When we arrived there were already two groups there cooking dinner. One group was a group of 4 young guys in there early twenties from around the area and the other group was a group of 7 people that had all travelled together, and man had they brought quite the load. They had brough two bags of Port, some wine, chicken and potatoes, aaaaaaand most importantly they brough two huge bags of fire beads!!! So they made the hut nice and toasty.
The following morning we hiked back to the car and started our long journey back to Hobart. We stopped in Strahan on the way and got some lunch and then stopped in Mt Field National Park and tried to spot some platypus ... no luck, and then we had dinner at a Vietnamese place in Salamanca Square in Hobart, did some laundry at the hotel and packed for our early morning flight.
On the morning of Monday October 11th we flew back to Melbourne and had our last hours together in the airport. We had breakfast in the airport and then we parted ways, my dad staying at the airport waiting for his flight to California to visit my Grandma and me heading to Melbourne to start my solo journey.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
October 4th/5th/6th
On our second day in Tasmania we left Hobart and started driving through the beautiful rolling hills of Tasmania heading towards Cole's Bay and Freycinet National Park where famous Wine Glass Bay is situated.
To get to Wine Glass Bay you have to do about an hour long hike up through this small mountain pass and then walk another 30 minutes to get to the camping spot, which we of course planned on using. On the way to the campsite we saw a Wallaby for the first time! It even had a little Joey in it's pouch. How cute is that! We soon found out that this was not as rare a sighting as we thought. We set up camp at this really cute, simple camp area and then went and explored the area a little bit. We went to bed pretty early because we were planning on doing a pretty long hike the next day.
The next morning we woke up, ate some breakfast, and then headed for a hike around the park. We hiked up Mt Graham, then up Mt Freycinet, then down to Cooks Beach (where we had a very chilly dip in the ocean) then over to Hazards Beach over the Isthmus Track and down Wine Glass Bay beach back to the campsite ... this all took us about 7 hours ... when it was supposed to take us 6 hours to get to Cooks Beach ... not bad eh! haha Unfortunately in Freycinet National Park, water is pretty scarce so you have to bring in all your water ... adn we did not really bring enough water. We only brough 1 litre for the both of us on our 7 hour hike ... and then had very limited amount of water left when we got back to the campsite. I have NEVER been so thirsty in my life! I really hope I never am again. I had weird dreams that night ... kept dreaming of ways to get water and of finding secret wells of water and basically more water based dreams! How tortuous! What makes up for this is the fact that Freycinet National Park became my absolute favorite part of Tasmania, and Wine Glass Bay one of of the most beautiful places.
While at the camping area we met a really interesting guy named Barry who was originally from Australia but has spent the last 10 years or something living in China ... I think ... I can't remember exactly. He was pretty interesting. He was travelling by himself and doing some research into finding trees for an animation film he was working on! Pretty cool. He was also quite knowledgable about the wildlife, and told me all about the kangaroo family and we spotted some shy Pademelons and during dinner my dad and I experienced a pretty cheeky wallaby trying to eat our food .. even sticking it's head into our bowls and not leaving until I physically lifted it's head out of the bowl!
The next day we woke up, packed up camp, and then headed back over the mountain pass to the car park ... which seemed like it was never coming ... espescially being incredibly parched. I have never been so happy to have water in my life! Then we drove over to St. Helen's and checked into a self-contained unit and checked out St. Helen's Point, got some pizza, watched some of the Commonwealth Games, did laundry, annd went to sleep. Oh and it poured down rain and there was thunder and lighting .... so glad we didn't camp that night.
To get to Wine Glass Bay you have to do about an hour long hike up through this small mountain pass and then walk another 30 minutes to get to the camping spot, which we of course planned on using. On the way to the campsite we saw a Wallaby for the first time! It even had a little Joey in it's pouch. How cute is that! We soon found out that this was not as rare a sighting as we thought. We set up camp at this really cute, simple camp area and then went and explored the area a little bit. We went to bed pretty early because we were planning on doing a pretty long hike the next day.
The next morning we woke up, ate some breakfast, and then headed for a hike around the park. We hiked up Mt Graham, then up Mt Freycinet, then down to Cooks Beach (where we had a very chilly dip in the ocean) then over to Hazards Beach over the Isthmus Track and down Wine Glass Bay beach back to the campsite ... this all took us about 7 hours ... when it was supposed to take us 6 hours to get to Cooks Beach ... not bad eh! haha Unfortunately in Freycinet National Park, water is pretty scarce so you have to bring in all your water ... adn we did not really bring enough water. We only brough 1 litre for the both of us on our 7 hour hike ... and then had very limited amount of water left when we got back to the campsite. I have NEVER been so thirsty in my life! I really hope I never am again. I had weird dreams that night ... kept dreaming of ways to get water and of finding secret wells of water and basically more water based dreams! How tortuous! What makes up for this is the fact that Freycinet National Park became my absolute favorite part of Tasmania, and Wine Glass Bay one of of the most beautiful places.
While at the camping area we met a really interesting guy named Barry who was originally from Australia but has spent the last 10 years or something living in China ... I think ... I can't remember exactly. He was pretty interesting. He was travelling by himself and doing some research into finding trees for an animation film he was working on! Pretty cool. He was also quite knowledgable about the wildlife, and told me all about the kangaroo family and we spotted some shy Pademelons and during dinner my dad and I experienced a pretty cheeky wallaby trying to eat our food .. even sticking it's head into our bowls and not leaving until I physically lifted it's head out of the bowl!
The next day we woke up, packed up camp, and then headed back over the mountain pass to the car park ... which seemed like it was never coming ... espescially being incredibly parched. I have never been so happy to have water in my life! Then we drove over to St. Helen's and checked into a self-contained unit and checked out St. Helen's Point, got some pizza, watched some of the Commonwealth Games, did laundry, annd went to sleep. Oh and it poured down rain and there was thunder and lighting .... so glad we didn't camp that night.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Day 11 to .... Something.
Bbbbbblooooog
Days 11 to 28
Soooooo it's been a little while since I've checked in ... sorry .... Haha. Well I'll bring you up to speed on what's happened since Sunday.
Well Sunday night I just popped by a market and bought a few things and brought them back to the apartment and was debating going out around town .... Well I was pretty exhausted so I pretty much just crashed and passed out around 9 .... with the lights still on and the tv on ... Awesome ... Haha. So sometime in the night I turned those off and quickly fell back to sleep and woke up bright and early the next morning at like 7 ish ... For any of those that know my skipping habits this was definitely a strange occurrence. Anyway I kinda lazed about until about 9:45 cause check out was at 11:00 and sat in the courtyard of the apartment till about 11:45 which is when my dad arrived! I was no longer alone haha.
It was about lunchtime when my dad arrived so we just walked across the street to this cute little Thai place .... And when I say little ... I mean little. There was room for about 4 or5 small tables ... Good thing we were the only customers haha. After lunch we headed down the street to Chapel Street to check out a bookstore I had found the day before. Have I mentioned that Melbourne is super super fashionable?! I mean pretty much every single person is very well dressed, and the shopping! Let me tell you, every other store (if not more) is a clothing store, and not only that but in the South Yarra area they're almost all high end stores. Dangerous, very dangerous. Good thing my bag is super small and I don't have room for anymore clothing haha. Anyway, so my dad and I went to the bookstore and got a Tasmania Lonely Planet book and then headed into town towards Federation Square and checked out the neat architecture and went to the Centre of Moving Image ( or something like that ) and checked out the exhibit displaying the history of movies/television/video games. It was pretty interesting, it showed all these old movies and has exhibits introducing movies with sound and the effect sound has on the industry as well as displayed the effect World War II had on television and the effect television had on wars like the Vietnam War which was has been considered the television war due to the fact that television was really the only way most people could experience the war.
After that we checked out the BMW Edge which is this building where this arts college was putting on a bunch of little concerts, basically showcasing their students and looking for new students. We just listened to one of the acts and she was good! A beautiful venue to play too. Needless to say I was quite jealous haha. Anyway moving onwards, after that my Dad and I just headed back to the apartment in South Yarra and then we went to this really good fish and chips place that was actually kind of healthy believe it or not haha. The next day (Tuesday) my we headed into St. Kilda, which is this really nice beach town that only takes about half an hour to get there by tram and we walked along the beach boardwalk and admired the views and tries to find some penguin, we didn't find any though:( haha but we did experience some pretty crazy weather! That morning had started off pretty sunny but the clouds were looming, by the time we got to St. Kilda there was a very dark menacing cloud following us so we just walked toward the patch of sun we saw in the distance. Unfortunately the cloud was too darn fast and it started pouring rain, thankfully only for a moment haha, so we headed back into the main part of St. Kilda and searched for a place to have lunch and we found this great seafood place and had this amazing seafood linguine mmm so delish. After lunch we just headed back to the apartment because my Dad wanted to get sone fencing practice in and I wanted to check out the yoga scene. I had some difficulty trying to find out class times and such so while my dad headed to fence I went to Federation Square to use the free Wi-fi only to find out that I was too late for the 4 pm class and would have to wait till 6 for the next class ... Bummer haha. I ended up just spending my time searching stuff on my iPod till I had to leave for the class. I went to the Richmond Bikram Yoga studio and had a sweet super hot and sweaty class and then headed back to the apartment and my sweet awesome daddio made some din din :).
The next day I was finally going to be able to meet up with my friend Heshan who is doing a work term at the University of Melbourne. Heshan and I met up for lunch and wandered the streets for awhile in search of a nice cheap place to eat. Much harder than it sounds. Everything is so much more expensive here! It is considered really cheap to have a meal for $10 ... Bah. Despite this, we actually found a pretty great fish and chips place that also serves lots of fresh sushi so we ate there, then Heshan showed around the University a little bit:).
I had agreed with my Dad that I would go and meet him at his fencing after I was finished lunch with Heshan. The only problem was that I sorta forgot where exactly he was going to be fencing. I knew it was in North Melbourne in the community centre but didn't really know where that was. Soooo I started walking in the direction of the tram that would be heading that way, hopped on a tram and took it to North Melbourne. When I asked some people if they knew where the community centre was or where the cricket club was ( that is where the main stuff was happening ) no one, and I mean no one knew what I was talking about. Awesome. I then just sorta started walking aimlessly trying to find these elusive places haha and not having much success. I even went into a travel centre and they said they couldn't help me haha. Finally I went to the North Melbourne library to ask if they knew where they were or if they maybe had map of the area. Thankfully the librarian was kind enough to print a map off of google maps for me and then I was on my way again. It took me about 2 hours to get there when it should've taken me no longer than half an hour bahaha. I'm just glad that my dad had found someone to fence so he wasn't completely just waiting for me. We then cruised on home and went to a restaurant in South Yarra called Globe, it ended up being way fancier than we thought it would be but very delicious, even when our waiter gave us someone else's meal by accident and we not knowing what to expect started eating it! Oh dear, poor guy. We ordered bread with baba ganoush, humous, and tzaziki I think. Then we got duck and something else, I can't remember haha. That's what I get for taking so long to blog haha. We then went home to bed to get well rested for the out next big day.
On Thursday we had planned to drive along the Great Ocean Road which is this amazing road that goes all along the coast in Victoria. Part of the adventure started just with renting the car and my dad getting used to driving on the left side of the road and the right side of the car! Very strange indeed.
The first place we stopped along the way was Torquay, home of famous Bells Beach where there is a huge surfing competition. There also is this really sweet surfing museum! Surfworld Australia Surfing Museum. Gnarly Bra haha. The museum had some interesting facts about the history and development of the sport of surfing, including the development of the surfboard and such. There was also this pretty funny movie playing about these two Aussie blokes that decided that they were going to go to the US and surf in all 50 states haha. While we were in Torquay we also stopped by Bells Beach itself and checked out the surf. That beach is huuuuuuge! It seemed like a really sweet spot, I was definitely envious of the surfers out on the water. There was just too much left to see for my dad and I to stop and surf. Who knows, maybe I'll hunker down in Torquay and become a regular surf town bum haha.
The next stop along the Great Ocean Road was just a little look out called Urquhart Bluff which was quite pretty.
As we were driving I was reading through the Lonely Planet book and kept reading about Koala sightings and such and I really really wanted to see some Koala. We started driving through the Otway National. Park and my dad said "Why don't you just start looking up in the trees? Maybe you'll see one." almost immediately after I spotted some and some other tourists had pulled over to take pictures.
CONTINUATION
We pulled over as well and spotted several Koalas and we took a bunch of photos (that's for you Deanna if you read this). It was so very exciting! Many of the Koalas had baby Koalas with them, which was quite cute. After that we headed onward and drove the extremely windy roads all down each of the towns, stopping here and there to take pictures and check out some of the scenery. We stopped at the Cape Otway Lighthouse and went on a short walk .. which unfortunately didn't have much scenery ... oh well. And of course we drove onwards to see the Twelve Apostles (of which there are only 6 left I believe). After that we drove back to Melbourne .. but drove inland since it was going to be dark and wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.
The next day my dad went to fencing and I met him there and then we walked through part of the Queen Victoria Market and got some food and then headed onto the Tourist Shuttle to see a bit more of the city. Went home then went to this Indonesian restaurant called The Rice Table and then we got the Rice Table (Rijsttafel) which is basically a ridiculous amount of food haha. It was really delicious though. Then we headed back because my dad had to get some rest for his competition in the Commonwealth Fencing Championship the next day.
On Saturday October 2nd, my dad headed off for fencing and I went to watch and met up with my friend Heshan who kindly watched the competition with me. It was a pretty cool competition. My dad fenced quite well (although he probably wouldn't say that) and made it to the 8's I believe and unfortunately lost to a past Australian Olympian who I believe ended up coming second in the competition! Not bad Daddio :). During one of the breaks Heshan and I went to the Queen Victoria Market for some lunch and got a "burger with the lot" which is one of the biggest burgers I've ever seen! It had lettuce, tomato, bacon, egg, beef patty, cheese, and more I think. Pretty awesome. After my dad finished I met up with him back at the apartment and we went to this szechuan restaurant called Dainty Sichuan that my dad had been wanting to go to the whole week. Man, that was some HOT food, and a lot of it! We then went back home and got all our stuff packed up for our early morning flight the next day to TASMANIA!
Sunday October 3rd
We woke up ... late ... because well there was a time change and we foolishly forgot to change our watches :S. We got a taxi to Southern Cross Station to get the shuttle to the airport and then flew to Hobart, Tasmania! We arrived pretty early and didn't think we'd be able to check into the hotel yet so we ended up going to the Royal Botanical Gardens where the Spring Festival just happened to be going on. We walked around the beautiful gardens, bought some Abalone wraps and then situated ourselves on a nice quiet, sunny hill and read our books for a few hours haha. Then we went to the hotel and checked in and then headed out to walk around the harbour where the Silimanca Market happens and then we drove up Mount Wellington and watched the sunset before we headed back to the hotel to make some dinner.
Days 11 to 28
Soooooo it's been a little while since I've checked in ... sorry .... Haha. Well I'll bring you up to speed on what's happened since Sunday.
Well Sunday night I just popped by a market and bought a few things and brought them back to the apartment and was debating going out around town .... Well I was pretty exhausted so I pretty much just crashed and passed out around 9 .... with the lights still on and the tv on ... Awesome ... Haha. So sometime in the night I turned those off and quickly fell back to sleep and woke up bright and early the next morning at like 7 ish ... For any of those that know my skipping habits this was definitely a strange occurrence. Anyway I kinda lazed about until about 9:45 cause check out was at 11:00 and sat in the courtyard of the apartment till about 11:45 which is when my dad arrived! I was no longer alone haha.
It was about lunchtime when my dad arrived so we just walked across the street to this cute little Thai place .... And when I say little ... I mean little. There was room for about 4 or5 small tables ... Good thing we were the only customers haha. After lunch we headed down the street to Chapel Street to check out a bookstore I had found the day before. Have I mentioned that Melbourne is super super fashionable?! I mean pretty much every single person is very well dressed, and the shopping! Let me tell you, every other store (if not more) is a clothing store, and not only that but in the South Yarra area they're almost all high end stores. Dangerous, very dangerous. Good thing my bag is super small and I don't have room for anymore clothing haha. Anyway, so my dad and I went to the bookstore and got a Tasmania Lonely Planet book and then headed into town towards Federation Square and checked out the neat architecture and went to the Centre of Moving Image ( or something like that ) and checked out the exhibit displaying the history of movies/television/video games. It was pretty interesting, it showed all these old movies and has exhibits introducing movies with sound and the effect sound has on the industry as well as displayed the effect World War II had on television and the effect television had on wars like the Vietnam War which was has been considered the television war due to the fact that television was really the only way most people could experience the war.
After that we checked out the BMW Edge which is this building where this arts college was putting on a bunch of little concerts, basically showcasing their students and looking for new students. We just listened to one of the acts and she was good! A beautiful venue to play too. Needless to say I was quite jealous haha. Anyway moving onwards, after that my Dad and I just headed back to the apartment in South Yarra and then we went to this really good fish and chips place that was actually kind of healthy believe it or not haha. The next day (Tuesday) my we headed into St. Kilda, which is this really nice beach town that only takes about half an hour to get there by tram and we walked along the beach boardwalk and admired the views and tries to find some penguin, we didn't find any though:( haha but we did experience some pretty crazy weather! That morning had started off pretty sunny but the clouds were looming, by the time we got to St. Kilda there was a very dark menacing cloud following us so we just walked toward the patch of sun we saw in the distance. Unfortunately the cloud was too darn fast and it started pouring rain, thankfully only for a moment haha, so we headed back into the main part of St. Kilda and searched for a place to have lunch and we found this great seafood place and had this amazing seafood linguine mmm so delish. After lunch we just headed back to the apartment because my Dad wanted to get sone fencing practice in and I wanted to check out the yoga scene. I had some difficulty trying to find out class times and such so while my dad headed to fence I went to Federation Square to use the free Wi-fi only to find out that I was too late for the 4 pm class and would have to wait till 6 for the next class ... Bummer haha. I ended up just spending my time searching stuff on my iPod till I had to leave for the class. I went to the Richmond Bikram Yoga studio and had a sweet super hot and sweaty class and then headed back to the apartment and my sweet awesome daddio made some din din :).
The next day I was finally going to be able to meet up with my friend Heshan who is doing a work term at the University of Melbourne. Heshan and I met up for lunch and wandered the streets for awhile in search of a nice cheap place to eat. Much harder than it sounds. Everything is so much more expensive here! It is considered really cheap to have a meal for $10 ... Bah. Despite this, we actually found a pretty great fish and chips place that also serves lots of fresh sushi so we ate there, then Heshan showed around the University a little bit:).
I had agreed with my Dad that I would go and meet him at his fencing after I was finished lunch with Heshan. The only problem was that I sorta forgot where exactly he was going to be fencing. I knew it was in North Melbourne in the community centre but didn't really know where that was. Soooo I started walking in the direction of the tram that would be heading that way, hopped on a tram and took it to North Melbourne. When I asked some people if they knew where the community centre was or where the cricket club was ( that is where the main stuff was happening ) no one, and I mean no one knew what I was talking about. Awesome. I then just sorta started walking aimlessly trying to find these elusive places haha and not having much success. I even went into a travel centre and they said they couldn't help me haha. Finally I went to the North Melbourne library to ask if they knew where they were or if they maybe had map of the area. Thankfully the librarian was kind enough to print a map off of google maps for me and then I was on my way again. It took me about 2 hours to get there when it should've taken me no longer than half an hour bahaha. I'm just glad that my dad had found someone to fence so he wasn't completely just waiting for me. We then cruised on home and went to a restaurant in South Yarra called Globe, it ended up being way fancier than we thought it would be but very delicious, even when our waiter gave us someone else's meal by accident and we not knowing what to expect started eating it! Oh dear, poor guy. We ordered bread with baba ganoush, humous, and tzaziki I think. Then we got duck and something else, I can't remember haha. That's what I get for taking so long to blog haha. We then went home to bed to get well rested for the out next big day.
On Thursday we had planned to drive along the Great Ocean Road which is this amazing road that goes all along the coast in Victoria. Part of the adventure started just with renting the car and my dad getting used to driving on the left side of the road and the right side of the car! Very strange indeed.
The first place we stopped along the way was Torquay, home of famous Bells Beach where there is a huge surfing competition. There also is this really sweet surfing museum! Surfworld Australia Surfing Museum. Gnarly Bra haha. The museum had some interesting facts about the history and development of the sport of surfing, including the development of the surfboard and such. There was also this pretty funny movie playing about these two Aussie blokes that decided that they were going to go to the US and surf in all 50 states haha. While we were in Torquay we also stopped by Bells Beach itself and checked out the surf. That beach is huuuuuuge! It seemed like a really sweet spot, I was definitely envious of the surfers out on the water. There was just too much left to see for my dad and I to stop and surf. Who knows, maybe I'll hunker down in Torquay and become a regular surf town bum haha.
The next stop along the Great Ocean Road was just a little look out called Urquhart Bluff which was quite pretty.
As we were driving I was reading through the Lonely Planet book and kept reading about Koala sightings and such and I really really wanted to see some Koala. We started driving through the Otway National. Park and my dad said "Why don't you just start looking up in the trees? Maybe you'll see one." almost immediately after I spotted some and some other tourists had pulled over to take pictures.
CONTINUATION
We pulled over as well and spotted several Koalas and we took a bunch of photos (that's for you Deanna if you read this). It was so very exciting! Many of the Koalas had baby Koalas with them, which was quite cute. After that we headed onward and drove the extremely windy roads all down each of the towns, stopping here and there to take pictures and check out some of the scenery. We stopped at the Cape Otway Lighthouse and went on a short walk .. which unfortunately didn't have much scenery ... oh well. And of course we drove onwards to see the Twelve Apostles (of which there are only 6 left I believe). After that we drove back to Melbourne .. but drove inland since it was going to be dark and wouldn't be able to see anything anyway.
The next day my dad went to fencing and I met him there and then we walked through part of the Queen Victoria Market and got some food and then headed onto the Tourist Shuttle to see a bit more of the city. Went home then went to this Indonesian restaurant called The Rice Table and then we got the Rice Table (Rijsttafel) which is basically a ridiculous amount of food haha. It was really delicious though. Then we headed back because my dad had to get some rest for his competition in the Commonwealth Fencing Championship the next day.
On Saturday October 2nd, my dad headed off for fencing and I went to watch and met up with my friend Heshan who kindly watched the competition with me. It was a pretty cool competition. My dad fenced quite well (although he probably wouldn't say that) and made it to the 8's I believe and unfortunately lost to a past Australian Olympian who I believe ended up coming second in the competition! Not bad Daddio :). During one of the breaks Heshan and I went to the Queen Victoria Market for some lunch and got a "burger with the lot" which is one of the biggest burgers I've ever seen! It had lettuce, tomato, bacon, egg, beef patty, cheese, and more I think. Pretty awesome. After my dad finished I met up with him back at the apartment and we went to this szechuan restaurant called Dainty Sichuan that my dad had been wanting to go to the whole week. Man, that was some HOT food, and a lot of it! We then went back home and got all our stuff packed up for our early morning flight the next day to TASMANIA!
Sunday October 3rd
We woke up ... late ... because well there was a time change and we foolishly forgot to change our watches :S. We got a taxi to Southern Cross Station to get the shuttle to the airport and then flew to Hobart, Tasmania! We arrived pretty early and didn't think we'd be able to check into the hotel yet so we ended up going to the Royal Botanical Gardens where the Spring Festival just happened to be going on. We walked around the beautiful gardens, bought some Abalone wraps and then situated ourselves on a nice quiet, sunny hill and read our books for a few hours haha. Then we went to the hotel and checked in and then headed out to walk around the harbour where the Silimanca Market happens and then we drove up Mount Wellington and watched the sunset before we headed back to the hotel to make some dinner.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Day 8/9/10
Holy moly folks ... This is really happening! Deeeeeeefinitely has not hit me yet. Even though I am sitting in Federation Square in Melbourne as we speak! Ha ha. Okay so I started this blog on Friday but couldn't finish it so I had to do it on my "notes" on my iPod so I'm going to copy paste that stuff .....
Blog
Well awesome .... Right now I am sitting in the San Francisco International Airport .... And I accidentally logged into the free wifi a long time ago and now ... Even though I haven't used it at all I can't log into it. Laaaame. So I guess this won't be posted until I'm in Australia! Holy moly.
So I'll give you a little break down of what I've been up to this past week in California.
As you know I was staying with my Grandma in her house in Kensington (close to Berkeley, which is close to San Francisco). It was so nice to spend time with her, not to mention all the rest of my relatives that I got to spend time with. The Bay Area has always been like a second home to me. I've spent many Christmases there and it really is a pretty awesome place. Anywho, I took it pretty easy this past week, like I said before last Saturday sleeping in going to the restaurant Lulu's in San Fran and going to see the Stanford women's volleyball team play USF. On Sunday I drove myself over to St. Mary Magdalen church, then did some errands including buying mew walking/hiking shoes! Which took waaaaay too long .... Damn my indecisiveness ... And then realized later that they weren't going yo work ha ha, then went home to Grandma and made some Tacos haha. On Monday I slept in ... So nice ... And then
went for lunch with my Aunt Toni and my grandma to a Jewish Delicatessan place called Saul's. So delish ... Mmmm then I did some errands, which included driving all over the place tryin to find some cheap new ear buds with a mic and remote for my iPod ... Fail. So I eventually went to the Apple store where I was informed that I would need to make an appointment to get replacement ear buds ... And there were no appointment openings until the next day! Ugh so lame. Then realized it was too late to get the other stuff I needed to get. Defeated I went home to grandma and I just chilled out. Typical evening ha ha. Then Tuesday Toni grandma and I went to lunch at T-Rex ... Very good as well ... And then they really spoiled me. We went to REI and Toni bought me a wonderful down jacket!!! Sooooo nice. It's black and ridiculously light and warm ... Couldn't be more perfect. Except that I forgot to say earlier that I somehow managed to loose my rain jacket that I had brought to be my primary jacket. No idea how I lost it ... But I did ... But anyway, my grandma gave me one I her jackets! So now I have a wonderful rain jacket and down jacket! My family is waaaaaaay too nice. Plus while we were looking at jackets I brought back the shoes that didn't work and got the ones that I now have on my feet haha. Then went to the Apple store and they replaced my ear buds for free! :) What a great day.
Wednesday was really nice, pretty much just hung out with my Grandma and made lunch for her and made lasagna for the second time ever! And yeah ... Just took it easy and Grandma and I watched some Glee and she told me a little bit about what it was like growing up in L.A. and what it was like to be inthe Internment camps during World War II and getting married in the camp too! Crazy. So then it became Thursday which really flew by and Toni and Jake took grandma and I out to grandma's favorite restaurant Fonda which is this amazing Mexican Tapa place .... Soooo good and then Grandma and I watched some more Glee and then I started packing ... Again ... Which was almost as hard as the first time . And then Friday ... Wow it really flew by ... I finished up packing and hung out with my grandma and then I headed to Les and Dan's cause they were making me a BBQ dinner and were going to take me to the airport :) . Oh I forgot! Before I left Grandma's house I took her for one last walk around the block ... But this time with her brand new walker! Very exciting :). Ha ha. Anyway that was great and then I started headin towards Palo Alto (where Les and Dan live). Except I somehow managed to make an hour long drive turn into an over two hour long drive! Gah curse you confusing Freeways! Ha ha but don't worry I haf planned on trying to beat the traffic (didn't work) so then unwound just have more time at Les and Dan's but oh well, I got there eventually and the dinner was amazing! Dan got two of the biggest steaks I've ever seen in my life and cooked them on the bbq and zuchinni and much more! Then they took me to the airport and I waited there door a couple hours then got on the plane and had a crazy long flight. At least the peoplebi was sitting with were nice, too bad the guy that was inthe aisle seat slept lie a log so I basically had to straddle him to get to the bathroom (thank goodness he didn't wake up while I was straddling him .... Awkward ... ) so I only went to the bathroom once the whole 13 hour flight! I'm proud. So then the plane landed in Sydney and Oh My Goodness it was such a beautiful morning ... We landed at 6 something so the sun was still rising and man it was gorgeous .... Then I transferred onto my flight to Melbourne which was weird cause the first flight had about 400 people on it. The second one had maybe 100 and it was still a huge plane ... Seemed like such a waste to have such a huge plane fly with so little people. Oh well ... I got to Melbourne, took the shuttle into town then I decided I'd rather walk to 7 or 8 blocks to the tram station instead of taking a taxi like the people at the airport told me. And it was beautiful! So glad I did that. Then got to the Punt Hill Apartments got my room, had a much needed shower and then headed out to explore the city :). I walked around the neighbourhood I'm staying in (south yarra) and then just started wandering and found myself on this beautiful walkway that goes along the Yarra River and followed that all the way back into town ... A pretty goo walk if I do say so myself. It's really cool on the walkway because there's all these park benches and BBQ pits and picnic tables and it has been a gorgeous day so it was totally busy with all these families and groups of people. So nice. And then once I got ink town more I found this Sunday market that was pretty cool and ate some Turkish food which was soooooo good and checked out the stalls and then checked out the Melbourne Arts Centre where they have a free Bell Shakespeare exhibit going on. Sooo I think that's just about everything ... I'm ginna go now ... My butt is getting sore. And it's kind of a pain to type this all out on my iPod ha ha sooooo gnight folks! I have arrives safe and sound on Melbourne and I will check in again as soon as I can! :). Sachi signing off!
Blog
Well awesome .... Right now I am sitting in the San Francisco International Airport .... And I accidentally logged into the free wifi a long time ago and now ... Even though I haven't used it at all I can't log into it. Laaaame. So I guess this won't be posted until I'm in Australia! Holy moly.
So I'll give you a little break down of what I've been up to this past week in California.
As you know I was staying with my Grandma in her house in Kensington (close to Berkeley, which is close to San Francisco). It was so nice to spend time with her, not to mention all the rest of my relatives that I got to spend time with. The Bay Area has always been like a second home to me. I've spent many Christmases there and it really is a pretty awesome place. Anywho, I took it pretty easy this past week, like I said before last Saturday sleeping in going to the restaurant Lulu's in San Fran and going to see the Stanford women's volleyball team play USF. On Sunday I drove myself over to St. Mary Magdalen church, then did some errands including buying mew walking/hiking shoes! Which took waaaaay too long .... Damn my indecisiveness ... And then realized later that they weren't going yo work ha ha, then went home to Grandma and made some Tacos haha. On Monday I slept in ... So nice ... And then
went for lunch with my Aunt Toni and my grandma to a Jewish Delicatessan place called Saul's. So delish ... Mmmm then I did some errands, which included driving all over the place tryin to find some cheap new ear buds with a mic and remote for my iPod ... Fail. So I eventually went to the Apple store where I was informed that I would need to make an appointment to get replacement ear buds ... And there were no appointment openings until the next day! Ugh so lame. Then realized it was too late to get the other stuff I needed to get. Defeated I went home to grandma and I just chilled out. Typical evening ha ha. Then Tuesday Toni grandma and I went to lunch at T-Rex ... Very good as well ... And then they really spoiled me. We went to REI and Toni bought me a wonderful down jacket!!! Sooooo nice. It's black and ridiculously light and warm ... Couldn't be more perfect. Except that I forgot to say earlier that I somehow managed to loose my rain jacket that I had brought to be my primary jacket. No idea how I lost it ... But I did ... But anyway, my grandma gave me one I her jackets! So now I have a wonderful rain jacket and down jacket! My family is waaaaaaay too nice. Plus while we were looking at jackets I brought back the shoes that didn't work and got the ones that I now have on my feet haha. Then went to the Apple store and they replaced my ear buds for free! :) What a great day.
Wednesday was really nice, pretty much just hung out with my Grandma and made lunch for her and made lasagna for the second time ever! And yeah ... Just took it easy and Grandma and I watched some Glee and she told me a little bit about what it was like growing up in L.A. and what it was like to be inthe Internment camps during World War II and getting married in the camp too! Crazy. So then it became Thursday which really flew by and Toni and Jake took grandma and I out to grandma's favorite restaurant Fonda which is this amazing Mexican Tapa place .... Soooo good and then Grandma and I watched some more Glee and then I started packing ... Again ... Which was almost as hard as the first time . And then Friday ... Wow it really flew by ... I finished up packing and hung out with my grandma and then I headed to Les and Dan's cause they were making me a BBQ dinner and were going to take me to the airport :) . Oh I forgot! Before I left Grandma's house I took her for one last walk around the block ... But this time with her brand new walker! Very exciting :). Ha ha. Anyway that was great and then I started headin towards Palo Alto (where Les and Dan live). Except I somehow managed to make an hour long drive turn into an over two hour long drive! Gah curse you confusing Freeways! Ha ha but don't worry I haf planned on trying to beat the traffic (didn't work) so then unwound just have more time at Les and Dan's but oh well, I got there eventually and the dinner was amazing! Dan got two of the biggest steaks I've ever seen in my life and cooked them on the bbq and zuchinni and much more! Then they took me to the airport and I waited there door a couple hours then got on the plane and had a crazy long flight. At least the peoplebi was sitting with were nice, too bad the guy that was inthe aisle seat slept lie a log so I basically had to straddle him to get to the bathroom (thank goodness he didn't wake up while I was straddling him .... Awkward ... ) so I only went to the bathroom once the whole 13 hour flight! I'm proud. So then the plane landed in Sydney and Oh My Goodness it was such a beautiful morning ... We landed at 6 something so the sun was still rising and man it was gorgeous .... Then I transferred onto my flight to Melbourne which was weird cause the first flight had about 400 people on it. The second one had maybe 100 and it was still a huge plane ... Seemed like such a waste to have such a huge plane fly with so little people. Oh well ... I got to Melbourne, took the shuttle into town then I decided I'd rather walk to 7 or 8 blocks to the tram station instead of taking a taxi like the people at the airport told me. And it was beautiful! So glad I did that. Then got to the Punt Hill Apartments got my room, had a much needed shower and then headed out to explore the city :). I walked around the neighbourhood I'm staying in (south yarra) and then just started wandering and found myself on this beautiful walkway that goes along the Yarra River and followed that all the way back into town ... A pretty goo walk if I do say so myself. It's really cool on the walkway because there's all these park benches and BBQ pits and picnic tables and it has been a gorgeous day so it was totally busy with all these families and groups of people. So nice. And then once I got ink town more I found this Sunday market that was pretty cool and ate some Turkish food which was soooooo good and checked out the stalls and then checked out the Melbourne Arts Centre where they have a free Bell Shakespeare exhibit going on. Sooo I think that's just about everything ... I'm ginna go now ... My butt is getting sore. And it's kind of a pain to type this all out on my iPod ha ha sooooo gnight folks! I have arrives safe and sound on Melbourne and I will check in again as soon as I can! :). Sachi signing off!
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Day 2
Hurro everyone!
So today was pretty great. I got to sleep in stress free for the first time in months! And man was it glorious!
I guess I should back track a little bit. Yesterday I didn't end up arriving in San Francisco until about 6:40 ish when I was supposed to arrive at about 3:15 originally. My poor aunt Les had ended up waiting at the airport since about 4 ish for me! Dag. So we just headed into Kensington to my Grandma's place where my aunt Toni had left us half of a large pizza from Zachary's (best deep dish pizza I've ever had besides when i was in Chicago) and some salads. Deeeeeeeelish. Then I pretty much passed out until today.
Onto today, so I got to go grocery shopping by myself. I drove there and back and didn't even get lost! So proud. Then Les and my uncle Dan took me out for dinner at this great restaurant in downtown San Francisco then took me to a Standford women's volleyball game! Pretty sweet, how great it my family eh?! Now I'm back at my grandma's and ready for bed :). So goodnight! Sachi signing off.
So today was pretty great. I got to sleep in stress free for the first time in months! And man was it glorious!
I guess I should back track a little bit. Yesterday I didn't end up arriving in San Francisco until about 6:40 ish when I was supposed to arrive at about 3:15 originally. My poor aunt Les had ended up waiting at the airport since about 4 ish for me! Dag. So we just headed into Kensington to my Grandma's place where my aunt Toni had left us half of a large pizza from Zachary's (best deep dish pizza I've ever had besides when i was in Chicago) and some salads. Deeeeeeeelish. Then I pretty much passed out until today.
Onto today, so I got to go grocery shopping by myself. I drove there and back and didn't even get lost! So proud. Then Les and my uncle Dan took me out for dinner at this great restaurant in downtown San Francisco then took me to a Standford women's volleyball game! Pretty sweet, how great it my family eh?! Now I'm back at my grandma's and ready for bed :). So goodnight! Sachi signing off.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Day 1
Hey y'all!
So I'm finally starting my journey first to San Francisco for a week then to Australia for a year! My last day in Victoria went by so ridiculously fast. I spent most of the day packing up the last of my life belongings into boxes to store in my parent's attic, visiting with Andrea ( as I packed ). In the evening I went for a nice walk around Thetis lake and went out to Basilico for dinner. I think as I was saying goodbye to my sister Emiko it finally started to hit me that I'm actually doing this! I'm actually leaving my home and going traveling for an undetermined amount of time ... And I'm doing it on my own! For the first time I am going to be totally and completely in charge of my own life. I am the only one who is determining what I'm going to do and where I'm going to do it. Wow. Anyway, last night I also got to see my best friend Cortney one last time before I left which was a little emotional, not gonna lie ... And then I went home to continue my packing.
It is sooooo hard to try and figure out what exactly I'm supposed to pack into my mini backpack and what do I pack away to sit in a box for a year. And what exactly am I supposed to do with all the random things that I've accumulated over the years. For example, a plastic gun that shoots up to 6 elastic bands .... I know random right? Oh well. I'm gonna have an awesome time going through all that stuff when I come back. Needless to say, definitely pulled an all-nighter last night and somehow was still running around my house doing last minute things. Classic procrastinator Sachi move.
So my Dad and I rushed to get the 9 o'clock ferry (a ferry ride that I completely slept through .... So much for my last ferry pictures ha ha) and then rushed to the airport for my 12:56 flight. And now here I am waiting in the terminal because I found out that my flight is now delayed till 4:05!!!! Dang.
On the brightside, I'm safe, I didn't miss my flight, and I can start this blogging stuff ha ha. I'm going to try to update this blog at least once a week ... We'll see how that goes ha ha. Sachi signing off!
So I'm finally starting my journey first to San Francisco for a week then to Australia for a year! My last day in Victoria went by so ridiculously fast. I spent most of the day packing up the last of my life belongings into boxes to store in my parent's attic, visiting with Andrea ( as I packed ). In the evening I went for a nice walk around Thetis lake and went out to Basilico for dinner. I think as I was saying goodbye to my sister Emiko it finally started to hit me that I'm actually doing this! I'm actually leaving my home and going traveling for an undetermined amount of time ... And I'm doing it on my own! For the first time I am going to be totally and completely in charge of my own life. I am the only one who is determining what I'm going to do and where I'm going to do it. Wow. Anyway, last night I also got to see my best friend Cortney one last time before I left which was a little emotional, not gonna lie ... And then I went home to continue my packing.
It is sooooo hard to try and figure out what exactly I'm supposed to pack into my mini backpack and what do I pack away to sit in a box for a year. And what exactly am I supposed to do with all the random things that I've accumulated over the years. For example, a plastic gun that shoots up to 6 elastic bands .... I know random right? Oh well. I'm gonna have an awesome time going through all that stuff when I come back. Needless to say, definitely pulled an all-nighter last night and somehow was still running around my house doing last minute things. Classic procrastinator Sachi move.
So my Dad and I rushed to get the 9 o'clock ferry (a ferry ride that I completely slept through .... So much for my last ferry pictures ha ha) and then rushed to the airport for my 12:56 flight. And now here I am waiting in the terminal because I found out that my flight is now delayed till 4:05!!!! Dang.
On the brightside, I'm safe, I didn't miss my flight, and I can start this blogging stuff ha ha. I'm going to try to update this blog at least once a week ... We'll see how that goes ha ha. Sachi signing off!
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