Amerine Online

Hey everyone, Tyner Wade Amerine was born at 9:51 AM Tuesday morning March 4th, 2008. He weighed in at 7 lbs and 20.5 inches long. Sally was absolutely amazing, and after being sent home once after no progress we were able to stick through the night and bring our baby boy into the world after a 2nd trip back to the hospital late Monday night.

For all those that didn’t know what the name was or why we chose Tyner (sounds exactly how it’s spelled)…it is actually Sally’s mom’s maiden name.  It has several meanings depending on the origin…I have not found it to be used as a first name on any searches so its unique but not too unique.

In Irish it means ‘river’, in Scottish it means ‘Tin Worker’, and in English it means ‘herder’.

Also, some other info, the name Tyne which is the closest to Tyner is much more common and could be used as a boy’s or girl’s name and also has the meaning of ‘river’.  Tyner’s middle name starts with a ‘W’ since this is a tradition for all boy’s names in my family — hence ‘Jeffrey Ward Amerine’.  ‘Wade’ can mean traveler or a ‘ford’ which is a water crossing.  Lastly, Amerine loosely translates to ‘On the Rhine’ river and has Swiss/German roots.  So really, in the end, Tyner is a ‘water baby’ since his zodiac sign is Pisces and the birth stone for March is aquamarine.

Sally has wanted to use this name for years (or at least since her sister Katie suggested it as a name) and it just sounded right to us. I’m sure he will be stuck with having to spell both his first and last names for the rest of his life to everyone but at least he will be a good speller .

After only 36 hours with our little guy we have already fallen in love with the little dimple on his right cheek, his sweet calm temperament, his very long toes and fingers, the way his forehead wrinkles when is contemplating the meaning of life, and his curly dark hair.

I’ll have to write more later but Sally and Tyner are doing great and we should be heading home with our new buddle of joy tomorrow.

Sally and I are very excited and this is great new chapter in our lives together.

Pictures of Tyner can be found on our Picasa Web Gallery.

Well, since we’ve bought the house we’ve had a lot of other changes too! I have been working in a new district at an elementary school, teaching English Language Learners. It’s been an adjustment as teaching philosophies and the student population is very different from what I’m used to. Instead of 200-650 ELL students in a school, we have 40. And that’s considered a high number in this district! I’m also teaching adult English Language Learners in a night program. It’s a program offered through the school district to promote family literacy. I absolutely love teaching the adults! I love my teaching partner and all the people who work for the program! They are really passionate about these families being successful and it’s such a positive environment in which to work.

Jeff has also had some changes in work. He now works from home. We set up a home office in the basement. He looks out of the sliding glass doors onto the park and watches deer all day. He’s had some adventures with deer fighting in the back yard! There’s a video on our Picasa link. One day a buck came right up to the door and was staring at Jasmine, our cat. Jasmine barked and meowed, but the buck just stared. Jeff goes up to the main office in Denver once a week to keep in touch with everyone. He had the opportunity to travel twice this year, once to Austin… which he loves! In November he traveled to Santiago, Chile! Even though he was there for work, he still managed to get some site seeing in. Some of the people he was training took him around and one lady even invited him to a family birthday party! So, he really enjoyed getting a glimpse into the Chilean culture.

Since moving back home, we’ve really enjoyed our families. Greg (Jeff’s twin), Lisa, and little Brianna have come to visit about once a month! We’ve also been able to see Jeff’s other brother, parents, and grandma pretty often! My parents have been a big help with taking care of our house! My mom had painted, pretty much, the whole time we’ve lived here! I’ve helped her some, but being pregnant and painted doesn’t mix well. We’ve painted the formal living and dining, the baby’s room, the hallway, Jeff’s office, and the colorful doors from the hallway.  The doors were each a crazy color and it took us 5 coats of paint and primer to return them to a calming white!  My dad has helped in the yard and doing various projects around the house. Jeff’s parents have helped organize the workshop and help get Jeff’s office set up!

Our biggest change has been that we’re expecting a little baby soon! I have been really lucky and have had a wonderful pregnancy! I feel great and am enjoying the craziness! The baby’s due date is leap day (Feb 29) but, we’re not holding our breath! So, I’m 35 weeks now and my belly button is a distant memory! We have pictures of my changing body on our Picasa link. Jeff is so excited, he wants the baby to come yesterday! We decided to not find out the gender. So, we’ll all be surprised when he/she is born! We’re 98% sure on a name. It’s a name that can go either way - boy or girl. We’ll keep everyone updated as the time keeps getting closer!

Well, its been a while since we have posted to the blog. This site has been one of the best things we could have done to remember our travels last year and I think it will be a great spot to keep a sort of diary of major events throughout the years.

So, we are officially moving to Colorado Springs and that brings me back to the blog to write about our adventures in home buying and also to share some photos of our new home.

We had been looking for a home in the Springs for almost 3 months and actually we were getting very discouraged by what you could get for a fair price. We limited our search area really to the north west side of town even though we did look at a few homes down the Broadmoor Bluffs area. It seemed that everytime we found a good prospect it would end up being really run down or require a lot of work due to poor maintenence or bad design decisions by the home owners.

To make a long story short(er)…we had gone down to the Springs on Sunday April 29th and went through about 9 homes we had picked from the MLS listings — we had already seen close to 50 before this point (thank you to our real estate agent Sharon for your hard work), the last of which was an open house on a home listed just 4 days prior. The house is located in the Pinecliff area on Popes Valley Drive.

Ok, let me backup a second…on the Friday prior Sally emailed me about this house and I have to share her email since it was clear that she knew this was the house for us –>

Ok, getting more and more excited about this new one. I think it’s our house! Did you see the back yard? Zillow it and take a big sigh… I could ride my bike anywhere! Even to visit Rob and Anna!

I know it has granite.. and the kitchen is kinda small… it looks like you have to close the fridge to let someone in…but I’m pretty sure it’s our house! If you zoom in it looks like stucco…

I’m feeling a bit hyper can you tell? I’m just pumped about this house! Yippee!

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The open house was a zoo…people were just everywhere in the home even though the house is in a really secluded area. Sally and I both had a good feeling about the home even though we were somewhat rushed since it was clear this home was not going to stay on the market very long. We immediate went into action. We had our real estate agent with us and had an offer on the home that same evening and secured the deal by 9:00 PM that night. We couldn’t believe our luck and felt that we had just won the lottery…

The house backs to Ute Valley Park which has 350 acres of trails and it also has several upgrades for a home built in 1984. A brand new stone covered metal roof was just recently installed, a new trex deck out back, upgraded kitchen with granite countertops. It also has beautiful hardwood floors and a finished walkout basement where my office will be. The stucco is only on the front but actually the siding on the rest of the home is in perfect condition and is very tasteful as well.

Our inspection went well with only a few things that needed immediate attention and we are awaiting a quote on a radon mitagation system given that the radon levels came back fairly high in the 8.3 range. If everything else goes well then we will officially own our first house on May 31, 2007. Going from a 2 bedroom 1361 sq ft condo to a 5 bedroom 3500 sq ft. house is gonna take some adjustment but one that is very welcome. We are just excited and anxious to start the next chapter of our lives.

We’re sitting here in our home, reflecting on our incredible journey. We still can’t believe we’ve done all the things we’ve written about. It feels like forever ago that we were watching chunks of the Margerie Glacier fall into the icy Alaskan waters, or waking to the rooster crows in Fiji. We’re really glad we did this website and wrote in a journal so we can remember this whirlwind trip.

Since we’ve been back everyone asks us which country was our favorite, and honestly, we can’t answer that. Every place is so different!

How can you rate all these different experiences? In the past 9 weeks we’ve…
sailed through Glacier Bay and seen nature carve a new landscape,
watched the waves crash as we cruised along the Pacific Coast Highway,
witnessed, first hand, village life on a small island,
jumped, rafted, drove, ooohed and awwed through a fantasy land,
witnessed our first ballet, our first opera, saw our first marsupials in the wild, and swam with our first (and hopefully last) shark,
ate our way through one of the cleanest and smallest countries in the world,
explored golden temples, got harassed by monkeys, and relaxed on an island retreat,
bartered, negotiated, and rode elephants in the only country we visited never occupied by the British,
explored, in awe, a modern city full of skyscrapers, monasteries, and a newly-found cultural identity.

We feel privileged to have been able to take this trip, meet wonderful people along the way, and see and do things that are once-in-a-lifetime. We managed to be together every second the entire trip and love each other more now, than ever. We are, and forever will be, best friends. We will treasure these memories and times together, always.

As we read on the Auckland tower right before we jumped off…

Don’t Just Dream It - Do It!

We took the train from Chiang Mai down to Bangkok airport to catch our flight to Hong Kong. Since we had a 8 hour layover Bangkok before our flight left, we checked into a hotel at the airport. The Amari hotel is connected to the airport and they have a special program called a “mini stay” for people with layovers. So, we were able to take showers and get a nice nap before our flight.

The Thai officials pulled us out of line at customs. We don’t really know what was wrong with our passports, because they didn’t speak English. But, we just kept smiling innocently at them and they let us go after a while.

Our first views of Hong Kong were very impressive. We took the airport express train into Kowloon and were able to see some of the massive skyscrapers lit up since it was nighttime. This train was insanely clean and smooth and even had LCD screens on the back of each chair. There was a bus waiting for us at the train station to take us directly to our hotel, The Empire Kowloon. Since the airplane food was some kind of gelantenous meat/noodle dish, we were hungry and decided to walk to a street filled with restaurants. Skyscrapers were everywhere, even these restaurants were in skyscrapers. They had one restaurant on the ground floor and people standing outside with the multitude of restaurants that were an elevator ride up.

We chose a Russian restaurant and were in for treat! After riding the elevator up many floors, we were greeted by some very energetic Russian folk singers who were accompanied by a table of Asian men singing along. We ordered some dumplings, which were delicious and met a couple that are from London and are living in Hong Kong. They gave us some travel tips and then the girl started speaking Russian to the Asian men who were now dancing and playing instruments in the middle of the restaurant! The men turned out to be from Siberia. That was pretty cool; we’d never met anyone from Siberia before. We then, got all dressed up in fur coats and hats and went into the ice bar. It’s a bar entirely made of ice and set below freezing. We enjoyed some vodka drinks quickly before our feet froze in our sandals! This was a very fun way to start our stay in Hong Kong!

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After having a yummy cup of coffee at the Pacific Coffee Company, we went to the history museum and were happy to discover it was free on Wednesdays!!! It was fascinating to hear about history from their point of view. We’ve discovered that the recorded history in S.E. Asia (at least that they have in museums) starts when the European explorers came. They have very few displays about the country before the explorers. We then went to the art museum, also free on Wednesdays. But, we discovered quickly that we don’t have enough knowledge about calligraphy to appreciate the many paintings of Chinese characters written with calligraphy.

We had our first real “Chinese food” in a restaurant near the Harbour. The items on the menu were interesting to say the least. I ordered Chicken with Lychee, which tasted similar to orange chicken. But Jeff decided to be more adventurous and ordered the Duck’s Web. Yeah, so it came to the table looking innocent enough, but when Jeff picked up one of the pieces of meat out of the pot, it was a duck’s foot! Bones, joints, web… the whole thing!! He ate most of it and said it tasted fine. (Although, I don’t think he’ll order it again!)

We then watched the light show across the harbour on Hong Kong Island. They’ve rigged up lights and lasers to many buildings on Hong Kong to music. A bit cheesy, but fun!

The next day we took the famous Star Ferry ride over to Hong Kong Island. We then took a bus to the Stanley Market on the opposite side of the island. Along the way we got to see a lot of the island. From the multitude of skyscrapers, to the corragated metal shacks (where some of the poor people live), to the cemetary that spread out along the hillside, to the million dollar mansions/castles; it was a fascinating ride. Apparently there are more billionaires per capita in Hong Kong than anywhere else in the world!

We then took a bus to the top of Victoria’s Peak. It’s a beautiful vantige point in which to view Hong Kong and Kowloon. We ate at the Deco Cafe; which has huge windows. We ate some VERY hot Indian food overlooking the citys as the sun set. We then took the famous tram (at a 45 degree angle) down the peak. We then went to a night market back in Kowloon. It was similar to the ones in Thailand with slightly different things for sale. But, we did see a display outside a restaurant with EXTREMELY fresh seafood. The shrimp, crabs, and other food were out of water and still moving!

Our last day of our trip finally arrived! We couldn’t believe it was here! It seems forever ago that we were in Alaska!

We headed to Lantau Island on the highly efficient MRT. Then, we took a double decker bus ride across the island to see the Bronze Buddha. We sat in the front row of the top level of the bus and were fascinted with the rainforest still in tact on this island, which hosts the airport and Disneyland! This Buddha is the tallest, bronze, outdoor statue in the world. It was pouring rain, but we walked up the many stairs to see the Buddha up close and a little museum. Afterwards, we went to get the complementary vegatarian snack from the restaurant. Most of the items were gelatenous balls of goo. But, we chose the eggrolls and some noodles. Not bad.

We tried to hike the Wisdom Trail, but the mosquitos, mud, and rain kept us from getting far. We headed back to the restaurant road on Kowloon that we went to our first night. This time we went to a Chinese restaurant with a little more Westernized menu.

We boarded the plane the next morning excited to go home and in disbelief over the things we’ve done this summer! Jeff stayed awake for the entire 26-hour journey home due to teeny little airplane seats. We will never complain about the legroom on American Airlines again. China Airline’s seats were so close, Jeff’s knees were pushed up to his chin! An exhausting way to end our exhausting, yet exillerating journey!

So we arrived in Bangkok after our lovely “bus” ride at 4:30 in the morning. We took a cab with Emera, from the Sudan, to Khaosan Road. We’d heard that this road was a good place to start for tourists and thought we’d look at the hotels there first. Since this is our first city we’ve visited that was never owned by the British, no one speaks English. So, after a very long taxi ride around the city to arrive about 4 kilometers from where we started, the sun was rising.

As we walked down Khaosan Road, it looked deserted until…. A very skinny “lady” in a miniskirt and very high heels brushed past me up to Jeff. She began to whisper sweet (or not so sweet) nothings into his ear and ran her fingers down his arm. Without thinking, I grabbed her hand and threw it down saying in my meanest voice, “Get off of him!” Now, this wasn’t probably the best move… not knowing (or, worse, knowing) where her hands have been. But, she sulked off behind me. A few minutes later, Emera yelled, “She’s in your bag!” This “lady” had tried to open my bag, but the double zipper thing confused the poor thing.

After that Jeff, Emera, and I found the nearest internet cafe and booked hotels far away from Khaosan Road.

Our hotel, Siam City, was in the middle, but near nothing. So, we got really good at taking taxies and using my ESL skills to communicate where we wanted to go. On our first day… after we showered away the Khoasan Road experience, we learned quickly not to believe anyone who offers help. During our stay in Bangkok we were inundated with men giving us “help” by telling us that a certain temple was closed that day, but they’d arrange for a tuk tuk to take you across town to the temple that was open for a small fee. The temples were always open and these men were always lying. They would try to change the taxi price at the end of the trip, but we never budged from our previously agreed upon amount. One time, our hotel doorman had to usher us inside after a taxi driver got really upset.

We did see some amazing Buddhist temples. The Reclining Buddha was phenomenally huge. The artistry that goes into the temples is breathtaking and overwhelming.

One night we met up with Jeff’s friend from J.D. Edwards, Ekvara, who lives in Bangkok. She took us out to try some amazing dishes I don’t think we’d have tried without her guidance. She took us to a night market where we, Jeff really, haggled and bargained the prices down. Ekvara spoke with one of the ladies selling things and she said that she has a Thai price and a tourist price. She doesn’t understand why tourists want to haggle so much and offer so little. She really felt tourists should pay more than Thai people. After the market, we went back to Khoasan Road to see what it is like while it’s busy. Well, it’s really touristy with many American and European college kids running around and buying dreadlock hair extensions. We, again, didn’t stay long.

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We thought Bangkok was interesting. It was insanely busy with rush hours in which your car just sits absolutely still. They have a monorail and a subway… neither of which goes anywhere tourists, or many people, need to go. The air was extremely smoggy and we both had difficulty breathing. So many of the people we ran into lied to us to try to make a buck. But, the temples were amazing. The devotion and love for their king (who underwent surgery while we were there and has reigned for a record 60 years) was beautiful.

After 3 days in Bangkok, we caught a taxi for the train station to go to Chiang Mai. Yeah, we left one and a half hours before our train. The trip was only 10 kilometers or so. Our taxi driver nodded his head when I showed him the slip of paper on which was the name of the train station written in Thai. (Looking back, I don’t think he could read.) We headed in the wrong direction for way too long. I kept thinking he was going to turn. But, he never did and Jeff finally had me say something and give him our map… pointing to the train station. After a bit of gesturing, we discovered that he was taking us to the airport. Nice. So we turned around to back into town and… what do you know, the traffic was at a stand-still. We sat in the same spot watching the time tick by. It was 6:30 and the train was boarding at 7:00. We were on the opposite side of town, not moving. Jeff and I looked at each other and thought, “What would we do if we were on ‘Amazing Race?’” If you watch the show… you’d know.

After we bribed the guy with an extra 100 baht (about $2.50) to get us there on time, he found alleys and parking lots. He even called someone to help him find the quickest route. Even with all his maneuvering, we arrived at the station at 7:25… 5 minutes before departure. We ran on the train and sat to breathe just as it pulled away. Now, the kicker is… he didn’t understand “take us to the train station” but he did understand, “We’ll give you an extra 100 baht for getting us there by the time our train leaves.” Interesting.

We arrived in Chiang Mai and were greeted by a man who offered to take us to our hotel for a really good price. Jack was really sweet and spoke amazing English. He offered to be our driver during our stay and if we booked a tour with him, he’d drive us around for free that day. His price was a lot cheaper than the same one offered by hotel, so we agreed. We spent the rest of the day looking at temples and going to some factories. We saw how silk is made…very cool. Each factory he takes us to, he earns 50 baht. So, we went to a few more so he could earn more money… we liked him so much.

The next day, we were excited for our tour and poor Jack’s car broke down. He had quickly arranged for another driver, but we were disappointed as we really liked Jack. We went to an elephant show and rode on the elephants. I was, initially, nervous about how they treat the elephants, but after going I was reassured that they are treated pretty well. We then rode an ox cart and took a bamboo raft back down the mountain.

The next day, we took a Thai cooking course. It was really fun and we loved the guy who taught it. He was hilarious! There were some girls from Amsterdam there who flipped their hair and didn’t think his jokes were funny… but the rest of us couldn’t stop laughing. The food was amazing, if I do say so myself.

We were sad to leave Chiang Mai as it was slower paced and people were really kind and helpful. But, we boarded another train for the trip back to Bangkok, then a plane to Hong Kong.

(By the way, since apparently it’s not clear, the “lady” in this entry refers to what the Thais call a “ladyboy.” )

Ok, to begin… the night train to K.L. was interesting. We booked a first class which had a bathroom and bunk beds. The beds were vertical with the train, so we kept thinking we’d fall out of bed as the train rocked. I was on the top bunk and luckily had a bar to keep me in. The train jolted to a stop every 20-30 minutes, so needless to say, we arrived in Kuala Lumpur pretty tired. We took the monorail to an area known as Times Square and we found a hotel there. We couldn’t check in yet, so we dropped off our bags and headed out. We went to the Petronus towers (the tallest twin towers in the world— for now.) There we walked around the mall and went to a science exhibit called Speed. We had fun figuring building Lego cars and racing them. Don’t ask how the race went. Check out the picture to see the results.

After trying some traditional Malay food of things the waiter ordered for us and I couldn’t pronounce, we took a nap back at the hotel. Later.. more shopping. The prices were similar to Singapore and we didn’t buy anything.

The next day, we went on a tour with a personal guide. First, we went to a pewter factory- which was actually more interesting than it sounds. We then visited the Batu caves, which are caves that are a Hindu temple. There were hundreds of steps up to the caves! I noticed several people staring at my head when we stopped to take a breath. I turned around to be facing a MONKEY! Right there next to my head was a little monkey! Then I noticed they were everywhere stealing food and drinks that anyone was carrying! Very scary, yet cute. The caves were amazing and we saw many statues that represented different Hindi stories.

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We visited a few more factories that made local goods; including batik, chocolate, and leather factories. We then boarded our next train for Arau. This room had no bathroom, just a sink. But since the beds were perpendicular with the train, we slept better and arrived in Arau ready for our ferry transfer to Langkawi island.

After a very long, stuffy, and packed ferry ride to Langkawi, we rented a car and checked into our resort. Pelangi resort was very nice! It was so hot outside, Jeff was ready to pass out and was grateful for the strong air conditioning of our room. We walked down the beach to see that it was very polluted with trash everywhere!

So, again, no beach can beat Okaloosa Island for sand quality and cleanliness among other things.

But, the pool was beautiful and refreshing with a swim up juice bar and waterfalls. We lounged for the next few days enjoying a vacation from our trip. We ate at the resort since it had many restaurants and the food in the village didn’t look very sanitary.

We drove up to have a drink at one of the top hotels in the world and decided we liked the pool better at Pelangi. Then we visited the Seven wells. We walked up hundreds of stairs in the really hot jungle to arrive at the top of a waterfall. On the way down, we saw many monkeys and Jeff saw some babies. So, he went off to take pictures as I waited, sipping my Coke, on the path. Suddenly I saw a monkey coming toward me. I tried to make myself look big.. but he didn’t care! He came within a couple of feet and bared his teeth. He wanted me to throw my bottle at him. I yelled, “No, that’s MY Coke and it’s not good for you to drink.” But, apparently the Malay monkeys don’t speak English and he thought I said, “Sure, here please take my Coke.” because he came even closer and started grunting! So, I yelled for Jeff to come to my rescue, or my Coke’s rescue as it was.

We were a bit tired of trains at this point, so we decided to take a bus for the 12 hour bus ride up to Bangkok. Well, really it was a van. We bought extra seats so we could stretch out. But, they oversold the back seat to Thai men. So here we were stretched out with room to spare and they’d shoved 4 men in the back seat of the van. We gave up our seat so they could spread out a bit. Regardless, we didn’t sleep anyway since the Thai roads are similar to the topography of Swiss Cheese. More on our adventures in Bangkok later…. but to give you a taste… our next title will be: No, silly “lady”… that’s MY husband!

Singapore was everything we expected and more.  It is actually named after the word ‘Singapura’ which means lion in sanscrit.  We arrived very early in the morning with no place to stay again and nothing was open yet.  The airport was immaculate like everything else in many parts of the city.  The entire city though it just dotted with skyscrapers and other tall buildings — it feels like this city has multiple downtown areas.

That first night we decided to head up to Little India which was a 10 minute walk from our hotel called ‘The Beach’ — even though the beach was several miles away.  It was a Sunday night and we were in for a treat — all of the factory workers gather on Sunday nights in the streets and we got our first taste of the busy streets we didn’t expect to see until we got to Bangkok.

   

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We then walked up Orchard road which was the shopping area that we had heard so much about…we didn’t make it very far up the road really but spent some time in one of the malls there just doing some window shopping.

The next day we walked over to the Oracle office building in the Suntec area to meet up with Desy, Grace and the rest of the Oracle team over here.  Desy was out sick unfortunately but Grace and some of the coworkers took us out to an amazing lunch and had us trying all kinds of different foods.  It was really great to visit with them and we bought some durian fruit to share with the team as well — it actually was not that bad – we were told it was an acquired taste.  It wasn’t something that I wouldn’t order daily but it certainly didn’t taste bad — in fact I tried it again in Kuala Lumpur.  It was very slick feeling but still very sweet at — the smell definitely disrupted the office a bit since it gets everywhere.  We can say we tried the King of Fruits though and that was well worth it.

Santosa Island was on the agenda for the next day and we took in as much as we could in the little time we had.  The entire island is setup for tourist and entertainment…and we were able to learn a little history about Singapore from the Images of Singapore museum and even took a little luge ride down to the beach which was a lot of fun as well.

That night before heading to get on the night train to Kuala Lumpur we tried the most amazing chili crab and chili crayfish – all for free with vouchers Sally had picked up from the airport.  Singapore is famous for this type of dish and it was perhaps the best crab I’ve ever tasted.

The night train was quite an adventure but I’ll tell you all more about that and the rest of the Malaysia on the next post.

Hey everyone, we are sitting in a nice hotel in Kuala Lumpur that has internet access but we haven’t had much time in the room so we will have to post more later on our stay in Singapore and our travels on the night trains through Malaysia.

Hopefully we’ll get better sleep on the next one tomorrow night to Arau; we will be heading out to Langkawi island for some beach time and then a few days after that we should be in Bangkok. 

We arrived in Sydney in the afternoon with no place to stay. After calling several places, we decided to just grab a shuttle into town and try our luck. We settled in to a backpackers that was cheap. Since it wasn’t ensuite, we decided to just stay one night and set out to find someplace else. We wandered around the busy street and found the hotel Ibis. We booked it for the next few nights. We walked up to Darling Harbour and admired the beautiful lights from all the buildings reflecting on the water. After dinner at a restaurant called ‘Ice Cube’ we wandered around the harbour. We ran into a friend from college!! Erin and I were in the education program together. What a small world! We chatted for bit, but since she and her husband had just flown in from the states, they were pretty tired. We then went to the movies and saw ‘Click.’

The next day we booked the local “Hop on, Hop off’ bus and rode up to the aquarium. It was interesting and they had a lot of fish and animals that we don’t have in ours. The rays were enormous! They also had Platypus (platypuses? platypi?). We ate a quick lunch overlooking Darling Harbour. Then, we rode up to Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) area and saw the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. We then rode the bus back around to our hotel where we called an early night.

We were really excited to go to the Taronga Zoo here in Sydney. We’d booked a personal tour with a zookeeper. We took a ferry to the zoo enjoying the view of the Sydney Harbour, then took a gondola ride up to the zoo. It was cool to overlook the zoo and the city. We wandered around the zoo before our tour began. We saw some gorillas playing. One male was spinning on his heels.

    

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We met Lisa, the zookeeper, and four people from California who went on the tour with us. We first went to see the wallabies. They are similar to kangaroos, but smaller. We went in the area with them and were able to feed and pet them. Allie was very friendly and sweet. A persistent emu followed us around, I feed him too. We then got up close to the koalas. The law in this state says you can’t pet them or hold them, but we were close enough to. They sleep 20 hours a day and were sleeping when we were there. We walked into the echidna enclosure next. They’re so funny! They have spikes similar to porcupines, a long skinny snout like an anteater, and their hind paws are backwards. We were able to pet one, as much as you can pet something covered in spikes. After that, we went to see the platypi and learned that they are considered a dangerous animal. The males have a venomous spike on their heel that destroys your nervous system. They are so strange with their duck bills and little furry bodies.

Next, we went to the kitchen to see how the zoo prepares the food for the animals. We grabbed some food trays and went into a small darkly lit room. A ring-tailed possum leapt onto my shoulder and wrapped its tail around my neck. Lila proceeded to eat some corn out of the bowl I was holding – very cute little gal. Jeff’s possum, Lavendar, just jumped quickly down to get the food from him before scrambling back up the tree. I had to gently shove Lila off my shoulder so we could go into the next room. There, we saw little yellow bellied gliders. They’re a little mammal that has skin stretching from its front to its hind legs so it can glide as far as a football field! Lisa was feeding this one named Flopsy.  It suddenly leaped onto Jeff’s shoulder, took a quick pee, and leapt back to Lisa. Jeff just stood there looking at his dripping hand and knew he and Flopsy had bonded. She’d left her scent on him, out of our whole group she chose Jeff. Lucky Jeff. After washing our hands, we had a nice hot chocolate.

Our last full day in Sydney, we took it easy before went to our first opera. We were thrilled to see our first opera in the Sydney Opera House. We saw La Clemenza de Tito; the arrangement was by Mozart. I don’t know if we’re opera people, but we were grateful for the opportunity.

We’re off to Singapore on the red-eye flight!