Sunset on the Sexy Siska in the Whitsunday Islands
We make excellent Aussie rules football fans!
Sunrise at Uluru
Fly nets at Uluru, how classy are we??!
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Here's a few pics! Sorry....
The largest wooden building in the world! Home of the Giant Buddha
Mike eating a traditional Japanese Breakfast
Me rocking a 'traditional' Japanese picture pose at the Golden Pavillion
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Konichiwa, part deux (I don't know that many Japanese words..)
Ok, where did we leave off? Perhaps the temple… We went to our first temple in Japan, it was awesome. The Buddhist temples are fascinating for a billion reasons including: they have huge complexes with a ton of different little buildings, there are often Shinto shrines near or attached because most Japanese people practice both (Shinto is more concerned with this life, Buddhism with that to come), they seem to usually be SUPER crowded (but no one minds, in a country where they fit 125 million people in a space the size of … maybe New York state?, people are just cool with crowds). And there are tons of fun ways to get luck, good wishes, fortunes, etc. Yesterday morning we packed up and headed for Kyoto (I know, weird, it has to do with when we were able to easily find hotels, we’ll be back in Tokyo before we go). Last night we used some Hyatt points to stay at the Hyatt Regency in Kyoto, let me tell you, this hotel ruuuuules. It is gorgeous, the people are lovely (we told them it was our honeymoon, technically true, and they gave us a free bottle of wine and champagne with dinner). There was turn down service with cute Japanese robes to hang out in… Awesome.
We spent the afternoon mostly up at a temple, Kiyomizu-dera an awesome temple complex, there is a place where you drink spring water to purify you (Mike did it), also this super cool place where you decend ‘into the womb of a bodhisatva’ which means into pitch black (guided by a rail of giant wooden prayer beads) through a series of twists and turns until you reach a lighted stone which you turn to make a wish. It was awesome. Attached to the temple is also a very famous Shinto love shrine. There are two stones about 25 ft apart and it is said if you can walk from one to the other with your eyes closed you will be lucky in love. We watched a bunch of school girls do it, super cute…oddly, no boys… We also bought ourselves a charm there for luck, we chose ‘safety travel’ it seemed appropo.
Our afternoon was filled with cute lanes and many fun shops, and of course about 40 fun Japanese snacks (not 40, but a lot). The winner of the day was definitely a steamed bun with boiled beef and burdock root. So tasty. Today we are heading to Nara for a day and a half or so. Then back here for a few more days. So far, Japan is a)delicious, b)fascinating, and c)super fun.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Konichiwa from Tokyo!
First of all, we made it! For anyone who was worried, we have reached a new continent safe and sound. Also our flight had amazing movies (I watched the Blind Side, Whip It and Its Complicated and Mike watched Its Complicated and Avatar!), also it takes approximately two years to get from Narita Airport to the city... not really, but it is quite a process (plus immigration took ages) so by the time we got to our hostel it was 3 hours later. In any event, the hostel is adorable (and despite the fact that we arrived in pouring rain and 6 degree weather) we were in great spirits. We decided it was a good night for some soup, and went in to the first place that looked appropriately soupy (with pictures and stuff). We each got a bowl of miso ramen (it was huge and cost around 7 dollars...I can:t even begin to describe how much better prices are here than Australia). The best part? (vegetarians and koshers close your ears... ) they ask you what level of pork fat you would like in your soup! Your choices go from 0-3... we both went with a standard 1.
This morning we headed out to explore our neighborhood, Asakusa which has an outdoor market and ａ Buddist temple. Let me tell you my first problem, I want to buy EVERYTHING in Japan. The kitchy things (because japan RULES kitch), the kimonos, the pottery, the chopsticks with adorable things on them.... I cant remember ever wanting so much before. That said, we are under control (so far...) but I:m sure will end up with a number of things from here. Second, we keep buying amazing street snacks, they are sooooo good and each cost between 1-2 dollars... so its really hard to resist. First I had some rice dough balls (ｌｉｋｅ mochi outsides...) with a salty caramel sauce( delicious) on a stick which makes it fun. Then we had cute little filled pancakes with red bean paste inside (mine was a bird, mikes a pagoda). Later on our way home we got a giant filled pancake fish with green tea/red bean paste... amazing. The funny thing is that it is rude to eat on the street, but there is a lot of street food ( a catch 22 you say?) so all the street vendors have little areas you can hover while you eat... don:t quite get it, but i will hover for delicious filled pancake treats under $2. Its just a fact.
Ok， we did a ton of other things, I will try to post later， but right now its dinner time and I am on a keyboard with a tiny space bar and if i hit the key next to it, it translates my last sentence into japanese...
This morning we headed out to explore our neighborhood, Asakusa which has an outdoor market and ａ Buddist temple. Let me tell you my first problem, I want to buy EVERYTHING in Japan. The kitchy things (because japan RULES kitch), the kimonos, the pottery, the chopsticks with adorable things on them.... I cant remember ever wanting so much before. That said, we are under control (so far...) but I:m sure will end up with a number of things from here. Second, we keep buying amazing street snacks, they are sooooo good and each cost between 1-2 dollars... so its really hard to resist. First I had some rice dough balls (ｌｉｋｅ mochi outsides...) with a salty caramel sauce( delicious) on a stick which makes it fun. Then we had cute little filled pancakes with red bean paste inside (mine was a bird, mikes a pagoda). Later on our way home we got a giant filled pancake fish with green tea/red bean paste... amazing. The funny thing is that it is rude to eat on the street, but there is a lot of street food ( a catch 22 you say?) so all the street vendors have little areas you can hover while you eat... don:t quite get it, but i will hover for delicious filled pancake treats under $2. Its just a fact.
Ok， we did a ton of other things, I will try to post later， but right now its dinner time and I am on a keyboard with a tiny space bar and if i hit the key next to it, it translates my last sentence into japanese...
Friday, April 9, 2010
Roses & Thorns - Oz & Kiwi Style
Okay folks, here you go...our roses and thorns for Australia and New Zealand!
Australia
Roses:
Sydney Harbour
Manly ferry
Sydney Jewish Museum
Holding a koala (& later seeing one cross the street!)
Petting kangaroos
Fraser Island (all of it)
Sexy Siska (our Whitsunday Islands sail)
Great Barrier Reef!
Melbourne
Aussie Rules Football game
The Great Ocean Road (and the Apollo Bay Eco-Beach YHA hostel)
Uluru sunrise
Port Arthur (Tasmania)
Thorns:
Arts Factory Lodge in Byron Bay (aka the swamp)
Kayaking into the surf (aka almost drowning)
Slipping on mossy rocks at Green Island
The cost of fish & chips at Doyles on the Beach ($40!!)
Flies at Uluru
The lack of filtered coffee (and resulting expensive espresso-based coffee)
Debbie getting kissed by a gross comedian
All of the bad weather right before and/or right after we left places (e.g. flooding in Queensland & hail in Melbourne)
Bonus - Our Top Food Choices:
Our first breakfast pie (with bacon & eggs in it!) at Pie Face
Our Tasmanian feast (featuring local oysters, Roaring Forties blue cheese, camembert, Tasmanian smoked salmon, oyster stout and delicious local wine)
Pippies on Fraser Island (dug right out of the sand and cracked open on the side of our tour bus)
Tim Tams (chocolate biscuits)
Neenish Tart (not actually that amazing, but looks like a black & white with custard inside)
Kangaroo burger
Salmon avocado hand rolls (not always the tastiest, but so cool! and cheap!)
New Zealand
Roses:
Seeing a sperm whale (and over 100 dusky dolphins)!
Paragliding!
Coming in fourth to last in a pub quiz
Maori cultural show (and Mike's Haka face)
Franz Josef Glacier
Completing the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (19.4 kilometers, may I remind you!)
Arts Center market
Christchurch Art Gallery
Punting on the Avon
Thorns:
Getting SOAKED on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing
On a related note, bad weather
Noisy neighbors at Worldwide Backpackers in Wellington
Bonus - Our Top Food Choices:
Green-lipped Mussels (beautiful looking & delicious!)
Fergburger (a SERIOUSLY delicious cheeseburger in Queenstown)
Scones with raspberry jam, butter, and whipped cream on the train (what they call "Devonshire Tea"...we got it with hot chocolate)
Manuka honey (tasty and apparently incredibly good for you)
Also, best beers: Mac's Hop Rocker & Speight's Old Dark
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Kia Ora!
Hello everyone...sorry for the lack of postings recently. We're hoping to remedy this with a few postings over the next couple of days, including this one to bring you up to date on the last week or so.
Debbie actually left one stop out of her last blog post. After Queenstown we didn't head straight back to Christchurch...first we drove to the west coast of the south island to go see some glaciers! Because we were waiting for the right wind at our paragliding location for so long in Queenstown, we didn't get out of town until later than we were hoping and wound up arriving at the Fox Glacier (which we were only planning to do a quick look-see at anyway) around dusk. We were literally the last people in the parking lot when we left. We arrived in the tiny and quaint Franz Josef Village (the town near the second glacier...named, funny enough, Franz Josef, after the Austrian emperor...I guess the glacier was "discovered" by a German explorer) around 8pm, grabbed a quick dinner (good timing too since everything shuts at 9pm) and arrived back at our hostel in time for a black out! The whole town was blacked out...possibly either from a rock slide or a car accident knocking out the main power line. We wound up making the best of it by wandering into the pitch black TV room and finding the first Americans we had run into in over a month. We'd just been saying how we had come across almost no Americans travelling in Australia & NZ, and then there they were! And even funnier, it turns out that this couple is from San Luis Obispo/Arroyo Grande, which we thought was a pretty good coincidence, particularly since the last American friend we hung out with (Nicki) in Melbourne is also from SLO and of course we have a few really good friends from there! We never actually got to see what these people looked like (at one point the guy came over to us with his cell phone and held it to our faces so he could see us, but didn't do the same for him and his wife), but we talked for a good hour or so.
Anyway, the next morning we got up bright and early, drove over to the glacier parking lot, and hiked to the terminal face of the glacier...about an hour's walk. The glacier is much smaller than it once was (they have signs along the road in showing you where it used to be), but it's actually growing now so it should continue getting bigger for the next little while. You can't climb on the glacier without being on a guided hike, and the track we took doesn't get you right up to the ice, but we were still impressed...how many times in life do you get to see a glacier afterall? We stayed at Franz Josef for about 2 hours, then booked it back to Christchurch through some amazing alpine scenery.
Debbie's last post left us about to catch the train north from Kaikoura. We enjoyed that ride (it was a beautiful day so the scenic element of the ride was on full display. The train drops you in a town called Picton at the northern end of the south island, where you catch the ferry to Wellington. The ferry was quite an experience...the journey is about 3.5 hours, so they make the most of it with a cruise-like ship. This thing had a cafe, a restaurant, a bar, WiFi, a luxury lounge, two movie theaters, a sun-bathing deck, a children's play area, etc. We mostly just lounged (Debbie wandered around a bit and took in the scenery), but did enjoy a delicious meat pie.
Our visit to Wellington was brief, and marked by some not-so-great weather, but we mostly enjoyed it. We spent one full day there: Easter Sunday! The highlight of the city is the Te Papa museum, a really well done museum about New Zealand, its history, natural history, Maori culture, etc. We spent a good four hours there, then went across the street to a brew pub for lunch. Now, the rules in NZ for Good Friday and Easter in terms of alcohol sales are pretty funny. You can't sell alcohol straight out...the only way we were able to get beer was by ordering food, which entitles you to a couple of beers. We even stretched it by asking to share a sandwich and get two beers...but the law-bending waitress finally obliged. Afterwards we went to a modern art gallery, where we saw some cool stuff including a short documentary on a modern-day Maori tribal leader who got a full facial tatoo in his 60s as a means of demonstrating his cultural heritage in the midst of modernity. That night we enjoyed a traditional NZ meal of USA Southern/New Orleans food. Okay, so not traditional at all for NZ, but delicious corn bread, fried chicken and key lime pie nonetheless. And hey, the restaurant was the top-recommended one in our guidebook!
The following day we grabbed a rental car, drove up to the Mt. Victoria overlook (more of a hill than a mountain, but good views of the city), then headed up the coast and then inland to National Park Village. Pretty much everyone who goes to National Park does so to do some hiking in Tangariro National Park, and we were no exception! We decided to challenge ourselves with a 19.4 kilometer walk (about 12.125 miles) on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, reportedly the best one-day trek in NZ. We enjoyed it, though the weather was a bit dodgy for much of the hike (fog, clouds) so the views weren't as great as they normally are supposed to be. But the trail takes you past Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings (an active volcano!) and by these really beautiful lakes. We wound up getting stuck in a massive rainstorm during the last kilometer or so, and our socks, boots, backpacks, etc. are still drying out...but we survived the challenge and managed to complete the hike in about 5.5 hours! Even with the bad weather, we're glad to have gotten to do some trekking in this beautiful country. We also met some nice people from our hostel on the shuttle bus to/from the trailhead, and enjoyed some beers and dinner with them after the hike.
Yesterday we drove from National Park to Rotorua, a geo-thermal village replete with hot springs, geysers, mud baths, and Maori cultural attractions. Last night we attended a Maori cultural experience, which included a show (the haka, the Maori challenge dance used to intimidate others, was the finale...and I got to go on stage to learn how to do it!), dinner out of a hangi...a steamer of sorts that uses the steam from the geothermal pits, and spectacular night-time views of two erupting geysers. Today we're taking it easy...heading to a spa shortly for a little hot springs and mud bath/exfoliating massage action. Tonight there are some night markets here, which should be cool, as we've definitely found the food at markets to be most reasonably priced. And maybe we'll even pick up some Maori goodies! Tomorrow we're off to Auckland, our final NZ stop (with a brief planned stopover on the way for Debbie to Zorb...that is, roll down a giant hill in a big plastic ball). Sunday we fly to Sydney, spend the night there, and then head to Tokyo the next day!
More posts to come in the next few days including roses (highlights) and thorns (low points) from Australia and NZ. In the meantime, Kia Ora! (which means hello, but can also be used as good bye!).
Debbie actually left one stop out of her last blog post. After Queenstown we didn't head straight back to Christchurch...first we drove to the west coast of the south island to go see some glaciers! Because we were waiting for the right wind at our paragliding location for so long in Queenstown, we didn't get out of town until later than we were hoping and wound up arriving at the Fox Glacier (which we were only planning to do a quick look-see at anyway) around dusk. We were literally the last people in the parking lot when we left. We arrived in the tiny and quaint Franz Josef Village (the town near the second glacier...named, funny enough, Franz Josef, after the Austrian emperor...I guess the glacier was "discovered" by a German explorer) around 8pm, grabbed a quick dinner (good timing too since everything shuts at 9pm) and arrived back at our hostel in time for a black out! The whole town was blacked out...possibly either from a rock slide or a car accident knocking out the main power line. We wound up making the best of it by wandering into the pitch black TV room and finding the first Americans we had run into in over a month. We'd just been saying how we had come across almost no Americans travelling in Australia & NZ, and then there they were! And even funnier, it turns out that this couple is from San Luis Obispo/Arroyo Grande, which we thought was a pretty good coincidence, particularly since the last American friend we hung out with (Nicki) in Melbourne is also from SLO and of course we have a few really good friends from there! We never actually got to see what these people looked like (at one point the guy came over to us with his cell phone and held it to our faces so he could see us, but didn't do the same for him and his wife), but we talked for a good hour or so.
Anyway, the next morning we got up bright and early, drove over to the glacier parking lot, and hiked to the terminal face of the glacier...about an hour's walk. The glacier is much smaller than it once was (they have signs along the road in showing you where it used to be), but it's actually growing now so it should continue getting bigger for the next little while. You can't climb on the glacier without being on a guided hike, and the track we took doesn't get you right up to the ice, but we were still impressed...how many times in life do you get to see a glacier afterall? We stayed at Franz Josef for about 2 hours, then booked it back to Christchurch through some amazing alpine scenery.
Debbie's last post left us about to catch the train north from Kaikoura. We enjoyed that ride (it was a beautiful day so the scenic element of the ride was on full display. The train drops you in a town called Picton at the northern end of the south island, where you catch the ferry to Wellington. The ferry was quite an experience...the journey is about 3.5 hours, so they make the most of it with a cruise-like ship. This thing had a cafe, a restaurant, a bar, WiFi, a luxury lounge, two movie theaters, a sun-bathing deck, a children's play area, etc. We mostly just lounged (Debbie wandered around a bit and took in the scenery), but did enjoy a delicious meat pie.
Our visit to Wellington was brief, and marked by some not-so-great weather, but we mostly enjoyed it. We spent one full day there: Easter Sunday! The highlight of the city is the Te Papa museum, a really well done museum about New Zealand, its history, natural history, Maori culture, etc. We spent a good four hours there, then went across the street to a brew pub for lunch. Now, the rules in NZ for Good Friday and Easter in terms of alcohol sales are pretty funny. You can't sell alcohol straight out...the only way we were able to get beer was by ordering food, which entitles you to a couple of beers. We even stretched it by asking to share a sandwich and get two beers...but the law-bending waitress finally obliged. Afterwards we went to a modern art gallery, where we saw some cool stuff including a short documentary on a modern-day Maori tribal leader who got a full facial tatoo in his 60s as a means of demonstrating his cultural heritage in the midst of modernity. That night we enjoyed a traditional NZ meal of USA Southern/New Orleans food. Okay, so not traditional at all for NZ, but delicious corn bread, fried chicken and key lime pie nonetheless. And hey, the restaurant was the top-recommended one in our guidebook!
The following day we grabbed a rental car, drove up to the Mt. Victoria overlook (more of a hill than a mountain, but good views of the city), then headed up the coast and then inland to National Park Village. Pretty much everyone who goes to National Park does so to do some hiking in Tangariro National Park, and we were no exception! We decided to challenge ourselves with a 19.4 kilometer walk (about 12.125 miles) on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, reportedly the best one-day trek in NZ. We enjoyed it, though the weather was a bit dodgy for much of the hike (fog, clouds) so the views weren't as great as they normally are supposed to be. But the trail takes you past Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings (an active volcano!) and by these really beautiful lakes. We wound up getting stuck in a massive rainstorm during the last kilometer or so, and our socks, boots, backpacks, etc. are still drying out...but we survived the challenge and managed to complete the hike in about 5.5 hours! Even with the bad weather, we're glad to have gotten to do some trekking in this beautiful country. We also met some nice people from our hostel on the shuttle bus to/from the trailhead, and enjoyed some beers and dinner with them after the hike.
Yesterday we drove from National Park to Rotorua, a geo-thermal village replete with hot springs, geysers, mud baths, and Maori cultural attractions. Last night we attended a Maori cultural experience, which included a show (the haka, the Maori challenge dance used to intimidate others, was the finale...and I got to go on stage to learn how to do it!), dinner out of a hangi...a steamer of sorts that uses the steam from the geothermal pits, and spectacular night-time views of two erupting geysers. Today we're taking it easy...heading to a spa shortly for a little hot springs and mud bath/exfoliating massage action. Tonight there are some night markets here, which should be cool, as we've definitely found the food at markets to be most reasonably priced. And maybe we'll even pick up some Maori goodies! Tomorrow we're off to Auckland, our final NZ stop (with a brief planned stopover on the way for Debbie to Zorb...that is, roll down a giant hill in a big plastic ball). Sunday we fly to Sydney, spend the night there, and then head to Tokyo the next day!
More posts to come in the next few days including roses (highlights) and thorns (low points) from Australia and NZ. In the meantime, Kia Ora! (which means hello, but can also be used as good bye!).
Friday, April 2, 2010
Wha? You're in New Zealand?
I know, we fell off the planet, and ironically, we've had really good internet access. Don't judge, we had important things to do, like figure out where we are going in Japan (and New Zealand for that matter), and Mike just HAD to watch Lost :) Anyway, I'll write a longer post today on the ferry and post it the next time we're online, but our week in NZ so far has been great. We spent a couple of nights in Christchurch just getting oriented, went punting on the Avon (they fancy themselves an English city), went to an amazing craft market with silverware candelabras (Bailey, new business? They were awesome), climbed a church tower and hung out.
Then we picked up a rental car and droooooove to Queenstown, center of adventure on the south island. It is also adorable, and incredibly scenic (mountain town on a lake... you know). We spent our first day just checking everything out, went for a nice long walk, ate lunch by the lake, etc. We wanted to go paragliding, but the weather was wrong (wind direction/strength is important). That night we went to a New Zealand Quiz Night (you know how we love trivia!) and as a two person team, we managed to come in 8th out of 12! Which is amazing, considering our teams usually come in around there and here there was a round on New Zealand geography....
The following day we actutally got to go paragliding! It was lovely, that will have to be described later though.
That afternoon we drove back to Christchurch up the west coast, which was GORGEOUS. Really changing and beautiful scenery. Really enjoyed it. That brings us to yesterday! Whirlwind, I know. Anyway, yesterday we took the Tranzscenic railway to Kaikoura on the East Coast. The journey was a little funny, we were fogged in for a lot of it, I started calling it the Trans-sorta-scenic railway, but then it got beautiful on the coast. We got in in the morning, and weren't sure if we would be able to go whale watching (which is what this town is famous for, and it is only done by one locally owned Maori company), because Mike had a bunch of work to do all day... but yesterday there was a 3:30 tour, and by that time the weather cleared and it was really pretty.... And we saw a whale! A sperm whale named Taiaki, who looked at us (twice, apparently rare) and hung out on the surface for like 10 minutes and did an awesome dive. Then we found a pod of Dusky Dolphins (look them up, adorable), they said there were around 100, we were surrounded, it was magical. We also saw a number of Wandering Albatross (they are huge, and I think endangered), amazing birds.
Today we get back on the train, then head to the ferry across to Wellington, then on to our week of North Island adventure! Phew... That was some fast typing. Happy Passover/Easter to you all!
Then we picked up a rental car and droooooove to Queenstown, center of adventure on the south island. It is also adorable, and incredibly scenic (mountain town on a lake... you know). We spent our first day just checking everything out, went for a nice long walk, ate lunch by the lake, etc. We wanted to go paragliding, but the weather was wrong (wind direction/strength is important). That night we went to a New Zealand Quiz Night (you know how we love trivia!) and as a two person team, we managed to come in 8th out of 12! Which is amazing, considering our teams usually come in around there and here there was a round on New Zealand geography....
The following day we actutally got to go paragliding! It was lovely, that will have to be described later though.
That afternoon we drove back to Christchurch up the west coast, which was GORGEOUS. Really changing and beautiful scenery. Really enjoyed it. That brings us to yesterday! Whirlwind, I know. Anyway, yesterday we took the Tranzscenic railway to Kaikoura on the East Coast. The journey was a little funny, we were fogged in for a lot of it, I started calling it the Trans-sorta-scenic railway, but then it got beautiful on the coast. We got in in the morning, and weren't sure if we would be able to go whale watching (which is what this town is famous for, and it is only done by one locally owned Maori company), because Mike had a bunch of work to do all day... but yesterday there was a 3:30 tour, and by that time the weather cleared and it was really pretty.... And we saw a whale! A sperm whale named Taiaki, who looked at us (twice, apparently rare) and hung out on the surface for like 10 minutes and did an awesome dive. Then we found a pod of Dusky Dolphins (look them up, adorable), they said there were around 100, we were surrounded, it was magical. We also saw a number of Wandering Albatross (they are huge, and I think endangered), amazing birds.
Today we get back on the train, then head to the ferry across to Wellington, then on to our week of North Island adventure! Phew... That was some fast typing. Happy Passover/Easter to you all!
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