Sunday, September 17, 2006

Monday in Sydney

Bad news. My blog has to be on hiatus for awhile. We arrived in Sydney yesterday. We are staying at the "University Motor Inn" directly across the street from the University and THEY DO NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS. They use this motel when they want to shoot "period pieces" from the 60's. I will continue taking pictures and journaling and upload when we get home.

I just know how disappointed everyone is.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Friday – the best day of all

Chuck thought that I was a bit crazed about my insistence on going to the Koala sanctuary, but after today he was in agreement. If you are coming to Australia, you must make a trip to Brisbane and the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

We took a boat up the Brisbane river. It makes one trip a day, leaving Brisbane (near our hotel – I really planned the whole stay in Brisbane around this day) at 10 am and taking about 1 ½ hours to get there. They point out all of the interesting places along the way and give a little history of the area. They only veered into Disney jokes once in awhile.



We only took the boat one way – they only stay for 2 hours at the park and I was sure that would be too short. (I was right!!)

At the park, we were blown away by how active many of the koalas were. In the first pen, one was walking around on the ground, going up to the fence to see the people.



We went to have our Koala Cuddle and picture first. Chuck wasn’t going to do it, but then he changed his mind. They have work rules for them here. Each one can only work for 30 minutes once every 2 weeks. They seem quite good about the whole thing. They do get a lot of tasty eucalyptus treats during their work time. When children are holding them, the kid sits on a chair. The koalas are quite heavy. Since Chuck and I are used to holding the grandkids, they seemed normal to us.



Our Koala’s name was Linus. He was quite charming.





To see our official park photos go to
http://www.koala.net/photo/1509011980.htm for Chuck and
http://www.koala.net/photo/1509011881.htm for me.

The park has lots of koalas in separate pens – mums with babies, kindergarten (just weaned), the boys, and retirees. The oldest koala here is over 20.

They also have many indigenous birds.



We went to the sheep herding demo. There are two kinds of dogs that work with the sheep. The first rounds them up and herds them to where they are wanted. He can make them go thru gates and over bridges. The second is used in close quarters to push the sheep around inside the pen. We were amazed when he jumped up on the sheep’s back.


The sheep scramble around wherever he wants them to go.

We went into the huge kangaroo pen. Chuck made a new friend:



And I held out my hand and one came right to me.



It started to drizzle so we decided to leave and take the bus back to the city. I think that one reason that all of the animals were so active was that the day was overcast and cool. Since it didn’t start to rain until we were leaving, it just made it a great day. One last wave from a friend:


For dinner we went to the fancy restaurant at the Casino. Marco Polo is a mix of Mod Oz and Asian. Lots of interesting things on the menu. Chuck had 5 spice squid dumplings and then a prawn tagine for “mains.” I had mille feuille of buttered escargot and then lamb with a Moroccan crust. Chuck had a pear & mint tempura for dessert and I had double chocolate nougat pudding. My “main” was the most photogenic:

Thursday - Travel to Brisbane

We left Melbourne, taking a picture of the Calder Freeway sign on the way out of town. That's it on the right.




Just had time to have a little rest and then out to dinner across the river. (Everything in Australia seems to involve crossing rivers. It is more obvious here that people settle on rivers and the cities grow up around them.)

Melbourne Wednesday

FINALLY, the day of the talks arrived. Chuck has been obsessing about them because he has never used PowerPoint before and had visions of everything going wrong. I waited with him until Moshi cam to pick him up. Waved goodbye and wished him luck. I went off to see some more of the city. Some interesting things that I observed:

Street signs pointing to public restrooms. This is something I can really appreciate.



A “hook sign”. This is a special traffic sign for Melbourne because of the trams. To turn right, you must pull all the way to the left, wait until the light turns yellow and then make your turn.




You can learn to be a professional level coffee maker. At Gloria Jean’s they have their certificates on the wall – just like the doctor’s office.



I stopped and had a bowl of soup for lunch. Moshi called to give directions about where to meet them. The first talk had gone very well and now we were all off to the second talk which was at Moshi’s campus, out in the suburbs.

We drove by Moshi’s house. Stopped to have a beer at his community center, which had slot machines, a bar, and all kinds of other activities. He says that when a new community is built, they always have schools and these centers. They think of it as their local pub. Then we drove to a reservoir. They don’t get the drinking water from rivers, but from these large manmade lakes.



As you can see, they have had a dry spell and the water level is quite low.

The second talk went well and an enormous weight has been lifted from Chuck’s shoulders.

We went Fawkners, near the hotel for dinner. For starters we shared a bruschetta with goat cheese and dried tomatoes, baby squid on a greek salad and twice baked crab puff. Each was about 2 bites. Then, we both had coq au vin pie.




For dessert we shared a blood orange tart and apple rhubarb crumble.

Melbourne Tuesday

Today after our brekkie at Gloria Jean’s we went to the zoo. It had a pigmy hippo (Chuck’s favorite animal) and a really good rain forest area. This was a very pleasant way to see the zoo because it was shady and the Australian sun is really strong – even in springtime.



The baby giraffe was chasing the emu around. It seemed to want to play.

After lunch (back at the food court with Asian noodle dishes) Chuck went back to work and I went to the Como House. This is a Victorian mansion that showed how the really wealthy members of Australian society lived. Very Well!



This is the ballroom wing. The long windows on the first floor were able to be opened and used as doors. They put little steps on both inside and outside so that people could step outside to the croquet lawn. I was the only person on the 2:00 tour, so it was very personalized. I was invited inside the ropes so that I could look closely at special items. Unlike many large houses, this tour included the kitchen and laundry rooms – so that one could see how the servants lived too.

For dinner we went to Kuni. It was Japanese and we had the tasting menu. For $40 it was a great deal. There were 12 courses and I can’t remember what they were.

Melbourne Monday

Chuck wanted to work on his talk, so after coffee and croissant at Gloria Jean’s (the Aussie version of Starbucks), I went off to explore the city. First on my agenda was the Fitzroy gardens with the cottage that had belonged to Captain James Cook’s parents. This was where he was living when he set off to explore Australia.



It was a “3 bedroom” house. The bedrooms made the cells in the jail seem spacious. I was standing in the doorway to take this shot.




This was the first really nice spring day so all of Melbourne was walking around in shirt sleeves. I still had my jacket on. The flowers were in bloom and it was just lovely walking through the garden. I stopped at the Fairy Tree, which is a carved tree trunk.



Now I walked down Collins Street – this is more like Beverly Hills to me. Wandered and shopped until it was time to collect Chuck for lunch. Downtown Melbourne has a lot of Arcades, so it was fun to wander and look at the shops. I found a food court and took Chuck back to it. We had paninis for lunch and then went back to the room to wait for Moishi.

Chuck and Moishi had planned to work some on the talk and discuss some other business and I just went along with my knitting and a book, so that we didn’t have a hard time meeting up again. Moshi likes to show us things each time that we get together, so we had a tour of the casino and the observation platform on the highest building in Melbourne.

For dinner, we went to Becco, a very nice Italian place. I had carrot soup and quail stuffed ravioli with parsnips; Chuck had beef carpaccio and Linguine with sugo of olives and white anchovies and rare swordfish. For dessert we shared deep fried truffles stuffed with valhrona chocolate with orange crème anglaise.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Sunday in the country

Moshi and his wife Miriam treated us to a “typical Australian day in the country”. They are originally from Iraq, so all of the Aussie culture is being translated through their eyes.

We started by going to a plant nursery. It had a café attached. We looked at the plants for awhile, watched the children trying to feed the ducks, (These ducks obviously get too much food! They weren’t even interested!) and then went into the dining room where we had a reservation for lunch.

First we had pot bread; you can see that they are following the nursery theme:




Miriam and I had chicken pot pie. It had zucchini, carrots and chicken:



Moshie had the middle eastern dips:



Chuck had open faced steak sandwich with fries (again in a flower pot.)



After lunch we drove to the Yarra valley to a vineyard. Miriam had checked at her work for the “best one.” As we were driving, looking at the country side, I spied a herd of kangaroos. We stopped to take pictures, with much honking behind us. A little further down the road – another herd of kangaroos, much closer to the road. We stopped again for more pictures! We’re foreigners – wild kangaroos are exciting. When we got out of the car, they all looked up, much the way that deer do in the US.




Here’s me with the roos in the background:



On to the vineyard. This area is much like Napa, with one right after another. The one that we went to also had a cheese tasting with 6 cheeses, so we could wander back & forth pairing wines with the cheese. Lots of fun.

On the way home we took the “scenic route.” Neither Moshi nor Miriam can find there way out of a paper bag. I thought that we were going wrong at the first turn, but didn’t say anything because I thought that they really did want to go a different way back to the city. After about 10 minutes, Miriam looked at me and said, “This doesn’t look familiar.” Then Chuck said, “This is new.” Moshi was still driving along, not noticing that we were not going the same way that we had come.

I finally had to help read the map to get us home. Moshi recently went to Seoul, Korea and said that he really didn’t go far from the hotel, because he didn’t want to get lost.

We dropped Miriam off and went back into Melbourne. Stopped into a pizza place on Melbourne’s Italian street, for a nosh before going to the hotel.

Each night we stay up a little later – I think that it was 10 when we collapsed into bed.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Saturday afternoon

After lunch we decided to give our feet a little rest, so we took the tram to St. Kilda’s beach. It is still pretty chilly but was a great day for walking along the esplanade. They also have a very old amusement park there with a roller coaster modeled after the first one build in Coney Island, NY.



Just as we got to a good ending point, it started to shower, so back we went to town to see some of the Saturday activities.

Melbourne has a strange mélange of architectural styles. The Federation square:



Is right across the street from the train station:



In Federation Square they were having something called “Saturday Jam” for children. The ones who brought instruments were put in groups (winds, percussions, strings, etc.) They were given series of notes or tempos to play. The ones without instruments were given newspapers. (Yes, we watched them play the newspaper - scrunch, scrunch, flat) Then they put it all together. It sounded pretty good and looked like everyone was having a ball.

We went to a great restaurant for dinner. It was in the middle of Albert Park and we can see its reflection on the windows of the building outside of our window. It is the black one on the right.




We started with a gift from the chef: a tiny cup of mushroom soup with a cheese straw. We both had the marrow bone on toast with salad and sea salt for the entrée. It came as two bones sitting upright on the plate. We had marrow spoons to scoop it out and put it on the toast. I had lamb cooked 4 ways (chop, steak, stir fried, and spring roll) Chuck had roast suckling pig. For dessert we shared a passion fruit tart with vanilla ice cream.

Then home to bed. We managed to stay up until 9.

Saturday exploring

Well rested, bright eyed and bushytailed, we set off to conquer the tram system and explore Melbourne. We walked around Albert Park (right across the street from the hotel) so that we could see how far that night’s restaurant was. (By this time, those of you who have read my letters before, are seeing the same theme – take care of the food first!)

The weather is brisk! I’m wearing my fleece jacket under my raincoat, and very comfortable.


We came upon a---Starbucks! Stopped for latte and pastry. We always hope that each new Starbucks will have better pastries – and we are always disappointed.




Because we were very early, we decided to go to Queen Victoria market first. It is much more than a farmer’s market. It is huge and has different sections – fruits & vegetables, meats, fish, deli’s , organic, clothes, ugg boots, (did you know that those were Aussie??) household items, etc. I saw a sign for Tasmanian steak and had to ask. “Its from Tasmania, of course.” It turns out that means that it would be grass fed and not have as much pollution in its diet. We looked over the food stalls, but it was a little early for lunch.

So – off to the Melbourne baths, built in 1903. They have two swimming pools – probably male and female at the time, but now lap and lessons.



Then on to the Old Melbourne Gaol. The purpose was to punish and they did. If you were poor, your chances of going to jail were quite good, and once there, if you broke any rules (talking, whistling, looking crosseyed at the guards, etc.) and your sentence would be extended. One man attacked the warden in the mistaken idea that he would then be able to explain at a trial that he was unjustly imprisoned. Instead they hanged him.



Lunch time – back to the market. We shared two kinds of small open faced savory tarts. See, I told you that there would be pictures of food.

We have had a hard time getting used to where to board the tram. The stops are often in the middle of the road without any protection and not very much room. This is a picture of Chuck waiting for a tram. Notice the white line – that is where the side of the tram will be.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Arrival in Melbourne

In real time it took 24 hours door to door – my little sitter was very tired. We left Los Angeles Wednesday evening at 9:30 pm, crossed the international date line, and arrived in Melbourne Friday morning at 9:30 am. One reason it took so long was that we landed in Auckland and spent about 1 ½ hours in that airport. The good part was that we could walk around and get the blood moving in our lower extremities again. We did have 3 seats for the two of us, so were not as cramped as we could have been.

Notice that I didn’t describe the food on the plane??? It was normal airplane food – not good.

Moshi (the former grad student who arranged our trip) met us at the airport and took us to the hotel. Moshi’s sense of direction isn’t too good, so we took the “scenic route”. Then he missed the driveway, so decided to back up on a busy street. Many cars honked at us. I was really happy to get there in one piece. First on Chuck’s agenda was to find someplace to eat lunch. First on MY agenda was to find an ATM so that we would have money to buy lunch. The concierge provided a map and advice and off we went. There was a choice of Quizno’s, Subway, and some Asian fast food place. We decided to live dangerously and do the Asian. We had Vietnamese wraps, a Chinese beef & vegetables on rice and miso soup.

Chuck went back to the room and I took a long walk through the upscale shopping street. Perhaps my idea of upscale and Australia’s idea of upscale is different – I thought that it was more like Melrose Ave. I did find a French restaurant and made a reservation for dinner.

We went for a very early dinner – 6:00. We shared a salad, had mussels with fries, and shared a tarte tatin for dessert – with a nice Sancerre, by the glass, we were very happy. This place was very much like bistros in Paris.

Walked back to the hotel and were in bed by 7:45. I took a sleeping pill to ensure that I would sleep through and not wake up in the wee hours. Jet lag hits me like that – I’m wide awake in the middle of the night and then want to go back to sleep in the morning when I should be out sight seeing.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

My Birthday

Another year has bitten the dust. As I age, my birthday celebrations seem to become longer and longer. It now takes me at least a week to celebrate.

Some of the aerobics group visited Patty at her new home in La Quinta. It was after her birthday and before mine – so I think it counts. We had a fabulous time and since Patty was recovering from back surgery she really appreciated out visit.



Sunday of birthday week, we all went to Marie’s for dinner. Marie made steak and Jef made a cake.

Tuesday, the group celebrated with cake (made by Ursula) and champagne.







Wednesday, Marie took me out to lunch at a Brazilian café and then to see “Little Miss Sunshine”. Chuck and I ate at home.

Thursday, we went to Manpuku with Alec, Jef, Calder & Branwen. They gave me a Santa Claus story teller figurine with 2 children. Calder says that they are “Me & Branwen.”

Life is good and I am grateful for every minute of it.