Monday, September 19, 2011

Day 11 – Thursday, Sep 15th, Hitting the Pool on our Last Day


Erin at the edge of the infinity pool
Natadola Bay, Fiji

We get the decent night’s sleep we were seeking after 10 days of erratic sleep, schedules and travel.  All this knowing that we have a full day+ of travel ahead of us.  Given that our flight is later in the day, we have a few more hours to enjoy the grand Intercontinental Fiji Resort.  Despite being amidst the sun of the South Pacific for nearly 10 days, neither of us has much of a tan to show for it.  It was rather cloudy during our initial Fiji visit and we shot from place to place in Australia without being in the sun much.  So we decide to hit the adult pool for our final day.  As I mentioned earlier, the pain of Fiji is that it’s marketed as an exotic beach vacation for couples to those of us in the U.S. or Europe, but in Australia, they market it as a nearby beach Disneyland where you should bring packs of young screaming kids.  So, Fiji caters to both and at the Intercontinental Resort they balance the two pretty well.  Our pool requires you to be above 16 and is reserved for “quiet” use of the pool. It’s the best pool as it borders and faces the main beach and crashing waves are only a few yards away. 
The morning sun is bright and hot in Fiji.  It’s distance from the Equator is much like Miami, so it’s a real direct sunlight.  It’s Spring in Fiji and today is a hot day.  The adult pool is not too crowded and we soak up real rays for a few hours while grabbing an early lunch. By early afternoon, we realize we’re getting cooked, so we head back to the condo to finish up packing and do some email.  Before we leave the hotel, we grab an early dinner at pool area for one last look around of the property.  The waves look amazing and are now big enough for a couple of surfers to enjoy.  Outside the main building, they are doing a ritual Kava ceremony.  Kava is a root-based drink with deep Fijian ties, so we watch a bit of the ceremony before heading to get our bags.  We have too much stuff to pack, we over-packed and grabbed the requisite number of cheap souvenirs at each place we really enjoyed.  LikiLiku, Sydney, The Opera House, Cairns, The Great Barrier Reef, the Tropical (Koala ) Zoo and now the Intercontinental Fiji.  Plus, it’s World Cub Rugby season held in nearby New Zealand, so we pretend to be Rugby fans… at least for the souvenirs.

Making "kava" - a native Fijian drink -
 at the Intercontinental Resort
We pack and say goodbye to beautiful Fiji and the great Intercontinental Resort.  We arranged for a better ride to the airport and depart with a group of Fijians singings traditional songs.  Our driver is nice and gives us a perspective on the rather poor looking communities along our drive to the airport.  Sugar Cane is their big industry and it’s 15% the price of what it was 5 years ago.  Workers are shipped in for weeks to harvest the crop from other poorer islands.  Fiji will have 40% unemployment by the fall and large families live together and most live off the land.  Tourism is the main boost to the economy and our driver has a lot of pride about his job—in his country, he’s upper middle class and does pretty well taking care of his young family. But the Fijian people are struggling and there is no such thing as unemployment insurance here.  If you are over 65 you get $35 a month—that’s all.  Fiji is actually a poor, simple, rural country.  Tourism is the big industry that gives them an opportunity to exit what is relative poverty.  But, the people all seem relatively happy. They like their island, their climate, their people, etc. Poor does not equal sad in Fiji.  It’s interesting that in most U.S. media, poor does mean sad. 

We arrive at the small but bustling Nadi airport, the only international airport in Fiji.  Our Air Pacific flight departs at 10PM Fiji time, but they request that we be there by 7PM.  Long waits await. Our business class status helps us skip the main long and painful looking check-in line with literally hundreds of people waiting and about a thousand bags to check. 

After going through the short and rather superficial security… you can keep shoes on and whatnot, it’s pretty simple compared to the full body search in the U.S.  We wander a few shops to gather some final mementos in the over-priced, but convenient airport shops. We retire to the Air Pacific first class lounge, call Tabua Lounge—still not sure what Tabua means.  The internet works and we find it odd that bottles of booze and beer are open to grab at will.  I guess Fiji is just not that regulated. A loud 80 year-old couple is playing dice near us, so I opt for headphones… dice is not a good spectator sport to watch or listen to, I discover.

We board nearly last knowing that we have bin space reserved for us and 11 hours or so on this 747-400, so why rush to be on the place an hour early?  Our flight is pleasantly uneventful for the next 11 hours.  I am struck with how massive a 747 is and how when this monster of a plane shakes with turbulence—it must be a serious storm/wind/updraft.  We hit a few serious bumps near the equator, which cause me to visualize what large Pacific Ocean storms must look like. Ouch.  This 747-400 is 25 years old and it has not been upgraded much, so it just reminds you of how much water is 40,000 feet below you. The 747 travels over 600MPH ground speed for most of the trip, which is probably 625-650 MPH factoring in altitude.  Outside temperature, even by the Equator is (negative)-57F.  Wow.

Having never traveled South of the Equator, never traveled West of Hawaii and never crossed the International Dateline before—these many firsts really make this trip a full-fledged adventure.  We land in L.A. and maneuver through the many cumbersome customs processes, even for citizens that make the U.S. seem rather out-dated, but I guess somewhere in this maze of paperwork—we are protected from unwanted terrorists and whatnot. 

After a short wait, we board our American flight for St. Louis. Having flown on countless “new” airlines to us over the past week (Air Pacific, Virgin Blue, Jet Star, Pacific Blue)—we are comforted to get our platinum status upgrade on a nice AA 757 heading home. Ah, home. We love to travel and we equally love to return to home.  Our 10 days were filled with many adventures and highlights.  We learned a lot about ourselves, our assumptions, our world and where it all takes place. Great trip!  Thanks to my new wife for making it a spectacular 10 days of memories!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Day 10 - Wednesday, Sep 14th, Back to Fiji for One More Night


We arise super-early again to pack for our trip out.  Each morning on this trip, we have gotten up before the alarm and each time was super-early for us.  6AM or 7AM at the latest. Amazing.  Still, I imagine, an impact of perpetual time zone changes, flights, frenetically busy days, and minimal alcohol consumption. 

We shower and pack and realize that we have too much stuff. Too many little mementos that have now added up to 100 pounds of clothes and other check-able items.  Ouch.  On our way to the airport, we upgrade to Virgin Blue’s “Economy Plus” which affords us 140 pounds of checked bags at no added cost.

Sydney Airport: OK America, you are great at many things—but our airports are terrible, dull and depressing.  The Sydney International Airport is one of the best in the world.  Everything feels grand and new, it’s like a fantastic mall and blocks of great cafes, first-class shopping, services and bars.  Literally, it feels like a brand new upscale mall with everything you could want to do, but and see. Fantastic.  Laguardia looks like a dark rainy cave compared to Sydney.  People are bustling about shopping, doing wine tastings, I even saw a Bellevedere Vodka launch of a new flavor where people were sampling flavors, next door they were doing massages and in the next shop they were doing samples of custom perfumes.  All AFTER we got through security at the international terminal!  A great airport with great amenities.  Plus, an upscale feel and people dressed with style. 

We board Pacific Blue—which is apparently the same as Virgin Blue and head to Fiji on our four hour flight, thankfully in Economy Plus seats with no kids around this time.  The uneventful flight is only marred by a delay getting of the plane as someone failed to return the little tv viewer they rented and the flight attendants lost track of who had it.  
Sugar cane truck - unsafe  load!

After the world-class airport of Sydney, we arrive in Nadi, Fiji and it feels nearly Third World.  But, we get our bags rapidly and grab taxi to our hotel, the Intercontinental Fiji, which is about 40 minutes South of the airport on the main island of Viti Levu.  Our taxi is an old old Toyota stationwagon driven by a local who is from India and practices Hindi religious, of which he is giddy. He notes that Fiji has 40% Hindi and I add that the island is 30% Methodist (which I read).  He replies “No” it’s 40% Christian.  It becomes clear to me that when you are Hindi… all of our Catholic vs. Methodist vs. Anglican vs. Baptist all falls on deaf ears. We are all Christian in his eyes, in Hindi eyes, no difference.  I mean, it makes sense.  If he said I am Orthodox Western Fiji Hindi vs. Eastern Island XYZ… would I know or care? No, he’s Hindi. That’s it.  It’s a religion.  It makes me realize how minute our differences are sometimes—relatively speaking. Wow.

View from the lobby at the
Intercontinental Hotel at Natadola Bay
Our lengthy ride in a rickety old Toyota reminds us why seatbelts exists. Plus, we pass dozens of trucks that would fail any inspection standard in any country.  Many are loaded with tons of sugar cane as it is harvest season here.  These trucks are clearly unsafe.  So, we take photos to send to our friend Kevin Ryan for his fun website, www.UnsafeLoads.com . This is the COUNTRY of Unsafe Loads. Old Trucks packed with trees and giant loads over-heaping on all sides.  Our driver stops for me to take a picture of a really Unsafe Load~|**|~.   

We arrive at the hotel and tip our very friendly driver well. The entrance is grand and long and we are greeting with shell necklaces and more “Bula,” which is there “hello/greetings.”  The sunset view from the open air massive lobby area is amazing ,so we snap a few photos.  The beach and fire torches frame a perfect and brilliant Island sunset.  We are on the far Southwest of the main island of Viti Levu, so the sunset is directly in front of us.

The swimming pool at the Intercontinental Hotel
Our room is great with very open spaces, a great balcony with a bathtub/spa area, lots of seating, and modern décor.  We make a dinner reservation at Navo, which requires playing the honeymoon card as they are already booked for the night and we head to dinner. The restaurant is a fabulous setting on a separate little cove with nice outdoor seating.  The waves crashing to the beach are lighted by large spotlights and our meal options are show to us over at the kitchen window.  Tons of seafood and shellfish are there specialty. Our meal is great, again and we head to explore the property.  The main lobby has a huge bar where everyone is still watching Rugby. Rugby is everything here in Fiji and even more so in Australia.  Most guests are Australian, so the loud TV of Rugby games sends us to the shops which are open late at the resort.  We return to an outside cocktail bed (think Miami) to watch the waves roll in and finish with a night cap.  Another great day in the South Pacific.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Day 9 - Tuesday, Sep 13, Koalas, Wombats and Dingoes!


We eat a quick breakfast, pack and grab a car service to drive us to the Cairns Tropical Zoo, which is 35 minutes North of the city.  Our driver, Jeanette is very friendly and quite proud of her Cairns area tour.  Which is hard, because from the back of our large vehicle—we simply cannot hear hear her soft voice.  She goes on and on about exotic mango trees, osprey farms, wallabys, wombats and whatnots.  ----From what I can gather, all of the animals we are about to pay $60 to see at the Zoo are freely wandering right outside our car, but we are moving to fast to see them.  Oh well, we want a photo with a Koala!

So, we arrive at the rather small Cairns Zoo, probably 1/50 the size of the St. Louis Zoo, but nicely situated along the edge of a rainforest.  We rush to the Koala section and “queue” for a “cuddle and photo with a real Koala.”  Sounds kid-friendly, but today the line is all middle-aged adults, many with “Outback Steakhouse” attire on—looks like a company trip and we await our turn.  Asians love Australia and they love Koala’s and the line is long.  We read about Koala preservation and conservation and whatnot and then we arrive to the front of the line where a Zookeeper hands “Buster” the Koala to Erin. Buster hugs Erin with arms out and looks around. I take some sweet photos.  Then the official photo is taken by the Zootographer.  Buster then jumps to me. Koala’s are not that heavy and they are super friendly .  They don’t smell to great, but then they are WILD BEARS.   Their poses and mannerisms are the best. 

As we wander and look at the whole Koala farm, we are stuck by how they look at you and have such a goofy smile with their ears all hairy and arms clutching a tree limb.  They sit atop a tree in a position that looks uncomfortable and unbalanced, but they look just fine.  They are a happy animal, but, of course these guys get all the food they can eat and just have to pose for photos with people for 15 minutes a day. 

The rest of the Zoo is superb.  You can get close up to many animals and wander the park with ease. Dingos (wild dogs), cassowaries (horned birds), lemurs (they look like raccoons), wombats (funny, ground-dwelling tanks), crocks, alligators, more birds, lizards, etc. You get the point.  The highlight is the Koalas, second place is the wombat and third place is the dingos. The dingos just look like dogs, but you get the say the phrase “Maybe a Dingo ate your baby!” over and over… a classic line from Elaine on Seinfeld, which is said in a bad Australian accent, which we can handle!

Beach in Cairns, Australia
We depart the Zoo and head for some local beaches to explore—per our driver/tourguide.  We take some nice photos and some beaches with names I cannot remember along the North Queensland Coast.  Then, we head to the Cairns airport for our flight to Sydney. 

Our flight is, again, LOADED with small screaming children.  We now come to the realization that it’s not the kids, it’s the parents in Australia who simply do not discipline their kids, period.  Thus, they run rampant and treat the back of your seat like a romper room toy.  Seriously annoying! 

Arriving in Sydney, we head to the Fantastic Obervatory Hotel, truly a 5-Star hotel in the old part of town and drop off our bags. We then head out for a walk to the downtown area and shopping on Georges street.  It’s a busy city and a very busy day.  Sydney is beautiful.  A grand harbor, great architecture, lots of stylish people and beautiful cityscapes.  We wander a long way looking at shops and people and offices and the overall downtown area.  We find the city to be similar to San Francisco in its layout, but far nicer. Cleaner, more updated, and the people here dress sharply.  The streets are lined with up-scale shops, dining and cafes and lots of public transit.  The city is about 4.5 million, but feels friendly, safe and stylish. As similar as it is to San Franciso, you realize that the liberal come-as-you-are attire in San Francisco is a real detriment to the city.  People here are well-dressed, polite and seem to love their city.  There are zero bums like San Fran and we did not notice a “rough” part of town.  I am sure they exist, but not near the downtown area.  The downtown Sydney area is revitalized and fresh and vibrant with activity.  “Lovely” as they say.

We return home to our awesome corner suite at the Observatory and make dinner reservations for EST. a nice restaurant at the Establishment Hotel nearby.  We take a taxi to dinner and arrive and the most lively place in town.  The massive lobby bar at the Establishment Hotel has 500 or so people drinking and SALSA dancing. Apparently, it’s an exotic treat here to have a “Salsa Night!  We Salsa our way through the lobby to find an elevator to the 2nd floor where Est. is located.  We enter a beautiful open while room with Roman columns and two story ceilings.  Our table is by the front windows and our service is superb and prompt.  The menu features an array of 4 to 7 course prix fixe options, all priced like 5-Star NYC.  We opt for an a la carte selection given than the menu items are each outrageous… and that’s by our well-traveled standards.  We enjoy a great few items including a new item that they describe as “between shrimp and lobster but much more buttery and sweeter” and Erin loves that entre!  My scallops are great and we enjoy our last meal in Sydney.  We cab back to the Observatory Hotel and again, we are both supremely tired and call it an early night. But a very nice day in one of our new favorite cities in the world and easily one of the most livable cities… Sydney!

Day 8 - Monday, Sep 12, Diving the Great Barrier Reef


We get up early and have a light breakfast in the room before walking to the Reep Point Ferry Terminal, which is quite close. We buy towels and bring a change of clothes and check-on for the boat.  Our boat is a nice 65 passenger catamaran called the Cairns Freedom.  The staff is super-nice and we complete our paperwork for snorkeling and scuba.  Our boat ride is 45 minutes, mostly filled with instructions and training and we arrive at the GBR by 9AM.  The boat is not full and we all begin our independent explorations. 

Scuba: Having never done a Scuba Dive, I was anxious about the fact they late you dive here with no license.  This is acceptable because a guide goes with you and helps you with all the equipment… regulators, oxygen tanks, buoyancy regulators, etc.  I jump in and meet up with my guide carrying a large tank on my back and 75 pounds of weights on my belt.  This is the first athletic activity I’ve ever seen where they need to add more weight to me for it to work right.  It takes me a few minutes to master the awkward nature of the breathing apparatus and get used to it.  Also, anxiety leads to FASTER breathing, which makes it even more unnatural.  Over the next few minutes as I see the surface of the water disappear, 100 disaster scenarios race through my brain.  The pressure is causing my ears to hurt and my brain, breathing and ears all seem to be working against one another. After doing some “ear popping” to regulate the pressure, I notice some fish ahead, some rather large. Now I can add sharks to my troubled mind.  However, the fish are not sharks and the colors erupt forth. It’s almost like turning on a B&W TV and then switching to 3D Color.  Wow.  The colors are stunning.  We are about 15 Meters (50 feet) below the surface. By now, you have to ignore the surface—you can’t swim to it in one breath and if you did—you’d pop or crush something due to the pressure. So, you look down and forward and just breathe.  Wow. Giant Clams, huge Sea Turtles swim by and thousands of fish of every color.  The real color of the GBR however, is the bright colors of the living coral itself. With lots of fish going in and out and some even embedded inside, like clams.  Truly stunning. 

Great Barrier Reef - just east of Cairns, Australia
The ascent to the surface passes a school of Clownfish (aka NEMO) and more exotic fish.  You can tell you are going up and up and the guide helps to regulate my controls.  I see a line to an anchor just up ahead and the timing is just right—after about 20 minutes—I’m ready for surface.  The light gets brighter and we slowly float back to the ocean surface.  Oddly, after above water, I still feel compelled to breath only via the oxygen regulator.  It’s a bizarre feeling to be a breath away from drowning—yet determined to do it and see the GBR.  Everyone’s bucket list has the Great Barrier Reef on it, so now the feeling is pretty satisfying to mentally check it off.

Erin and I then put on different equipment and swam to a more shallow reef to snorkel.  It’s also amazing and beautiful.  We spend 45 minutes more swimming the reef with our fins and seeing one amazing array of colorful fish and corral after another.  We eat a nice lunch on the boat and then head to a little island that has just appeared nearby as the tide goes lower.

We head to the back of the boat with our snorkel gear to board the large glass-bottom boat to take us to the island.  The captain pulls us aside and says, “So this is your honeymoon, right?” “Yep,” we say. So the captain moves us to his small speed boat and takes just to two of us to the island about 20 minutes ahead of the big boat.  At the island, he passes us a towel with two small Champagne bottles and two Champagne flutes.  Wow. Really?  Truly awesome touch by the captain!!! Wowzers.  Nice touch. Erin and I share Champagne on our “private island” for 20 minutes until 40 more snorkelers arrive by boat and look as us like “How’d you guys get here?”  That also affords us the time to snorkel back toward the main boat—just the two of us—and we see even more amazing fish and coral and clams and strange sea creatures.   

Back on the boat, we marvel and the amazing colors of the reef and think to ourselves that everyone should go at least ONCE in their life.  Now, we’ve gone once… and want to go back.  Just like Cabo San Lucas, “You go there once… you’ll be there twice!”

Back on dry land, we shop for some souvenirs of our adventure and return to our hotel. Our grand ambitions of having a fancy dinner in Cairns are dashed when we both realize that a 9 hour trip in the sun to the great barrier reef and hours of swimming have taxed us to a level of exhaustion hard to imagine.  Unable to stand, we order room service and work on photos, email and blog updates before turning in early again.  We have another early wake-up call at 6:30, for…

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Day 7 - Sunday, Sept 11, Sydney Opera House



We wake up amazingly early again and have room service for breakfast.  We zoom over to the Sydney Opera House to get tickets to the daily Backstage Private Tour.  Arriving at the Opera House, we are amazed by the view of the building and equally of the harbor and harbor bridge.  Probably the most magnificent harbor in the world is bustling with tour boats, shops and a sunny array of people bustling about.  We are able to get tickets to the tour and meet our charming little guide underneath the building for a quick photo.
 
Sydney Opera House Tour: Over the next our, we have one of the greatest tours of our lives, viewing all four performance halls of the Opera House and going up-around-and-backstage of this architectural marvel.  The views and overall architecture is amazing and unreal.  Even 35 years after it was completed, it still seems new, innovative and groundbreaking.  The tour shows us how hard this massive marvel was to build. There were thousands of designs submitted in the 50s for a competition to design the Opera House.  Aero Sarien (a main judge and designer of the great St. Louis Arch) had arrived late and asked to pull out submissions that had already been rejected and re-review them all. As he did, he found the bizarre and rough sketch of the Sydney Opera House by XXX, XX. The design, however, was so rough that it did not contain enough detail to build it.  By virtue of  the roughness of the drawing and complexity of the design, it took over 15 years to build the Opera House vs. the original 3 year estimate.  It’s a fascinating story and it resulted in the greatest architectural marvel of the 20th Century, so says the Pulitzer Foundation and UNESCO.

Our tour took us all over the four venues in the building and we got to see an opera set being built.  The acoustics of the Symphony Hall are so good that musicians do not need amplification for 3,500 listeners. Amazing room.

Our photos inside and out are magnificent.  Amazing building in every way with a glorious view of the harbor and it is visible from everywhere in the harbor too.

We then head to our hotel for lunch and a flight to Cairns.  Cairns is a remote city on the very Northern coast of Australia where beaches and trips to the Great Barrier Reef make it a hot spot.  It’s a three hour flight aboard Virgin Blue, again loaded with loud rambunctious kids.   We arrive in Cairns and take a quick taxi to the Pullman Reef Point Casino Hotel.  Cairns (pronounced Kaan) is nice, but NO Sydney.  If feels like Dayton, FL or even Myrtle Beach, SC.  No too fancy, lots of T-Shirt shops, modest hotels and homes.  It has a few nice shops, but the majority of Cairns was built decades ago and feels like it. The Casino Hotel is rather nice and newer with bright rooms, an friendly staff and 24 hour services.  The Casino next door looks like typical Harrah’s.  Then upgrade us to a corner suite (you should always mention that it’s your honeymoon when you travel) and it has a nice wrap-around balcony and floor-to-ceiling plantation shutters. We are rather fatigued by dinner and head to the Tamarind Asian Restaurant in the Casino.  A good, but not great dinner follows and we now find ourselves to tired to explore Cairns and we have a 6AM wake-up for our Great Barrier Reef trip in the morning, so we turn in early.

Day 6 - Saturday, Sep 10, Sydney


Last day at Likuliku Resort!

We had a nice breakfast at the Likuliku Resort, again with fantastic fresh fruit and local produce. We’ve gotten up very early each day on this trip and really have not adjusted to the wild changes in time zones/days.  But with each day a new adventure (and a few Diet Cokes) gets us pumped for the day.  Our journey today started with a hike to the end our out long dock at Likuliku and a send-off by the staff with music and frivolity.  We boarded our small people shuttle out to the middle of the Malolo bay where our luggage boat met us.  Then, the ferry approached and we headed for the mainland of Fiji (Vitu Levu).  Upon arriving there, there was a bit of chaos around where to retrieve bags.  Fiji is a major tourist destination, but you deal with so many different companies to get around—that it’s rather disjointed.  You also realize again that this is an Island of leisure—even for the workers it seems—and you momentarily feel like you are in a third world country.  The South Pacific Islanders haven’t been to LA or NY, and if they have—they don’t like all that speed and efficiently, I guess.  So, we Americans get rather frustrated and even mildly concerned about the chaotic process of finding and gathering bags. As it turns out, we were in the entirely wrong area for our bags since we were transferring to the airport and not staying on the Island, but NOBODY tells you what to do nor where to go, so we and 100 Australian tourists all gasp with frustration and head to the “right” place.  International travel is always a crazy journey, no matter where you go. 

Our bus ride to the airport is comfortable and gives us a rapid tour of Nadi, a larger town in Fiji.  The airport is crowded and we get in a crazy long line for “Jet Star Airline.”  Immediately, if feels like a cheap Southwest Airlines (and that’s saying something as we find SWA to be a royal pain for travel.) We are correct!  Long lines, slow service and HUGE bag fees. As we found in Europe, they charge by pound (or Kilo) here and our 2 weeks of luggage totals $600 for bags and we now realize why Jet Star is so cheap for the ticket.  At least Southwest (which we still dislike) offers FREE bags. We negotiate a better rate for our bags and go to get light lunch.  In darkly lit corner of the Nadi airport is a little pizza place, Mario’s or something, where we manage to pull a worker away from her daily gossip hour with her co-workers to make us a pizza and get a couple of Fiji Gold.  Like Europe, they hate light beer here, so you get slightly lighter brews, and the one here is Fiji Gold.  Forget an A-B products or even Eurobeers. Fiji sells Fiji beer.

We head to our flight on Jet Star for the long 5.5 hour journey from Nadi, Fiji to Sydney, Australia. While boarding, we note lots of rambunctious and out-of-control kids and toddlers running all about in security.  Most have bizarrely spiked or even colored hair, which for a 2-4 year-old in the US is considered quite inappropriate.  We figure Fiji is a surfing country, so maybe these couple of crazy kids are an anomaly of our security line.  NOT SO.  The next five hours are the most painful of our trip. Imagine a flight with 120 adults and 100 kids.  Seriously.  Most aged 1-7 and they all have just eaten two chocolate bars and had two cokes.  They are not ready to sleep, they are ready to climb. Somehow, Jet Star loves small kids and lets them run up and down the aisle all flight. We have kids kicking and climbing on our seats in front of us… pushing the “call button” over and over and behind us… LOUD screaming and kicking.  Look to the aisle and see girls grabbing seats and headrests and the run down the aisle and do “parallel bars” on each seat.  Yep. Jet Star. Our first and last flight.  We later find that Fiji is the “Disneyworld” for Australians and Fiji offers huge deals to families with kids. Back in the US, Fiji is a tropical, exotic, adults-only private 5-star resort place.  The two collide. Should you travel to Fiji, be careful what you select.  Even noise cancelling headphones were put to the task on this flight and you can’t ignore kids when they are kicking your seats for hours on end.  Ugh. Control your kids Aussie parents.  Americans get bashed a lot.  But rarely do you see this kind of rambunctious kid behavior in public, and post-9/11 NEVER would they allow kids to run about on a plane during flight.  Plus, really? Do your kids want/need spiked hair and colors? Really? Bad taste does not begin to cover it.

View from our room at the Shangri-La Sydney
OK, after that mess of a journey, we find ourselves in world-class Sydney! Wow.  The taxi to our hotel is quick and we check-in.  Unfortunately, the Shangri-La does not hold room types, so our honeymoon room is TWO SINGLE BEDS.  Really? There goes your Trip Advisor 5-Star rating Shangri-La!  We have a so-so view at a hotel known for harbor views, so we head to the 36th floor restaurant, Altitude, where they give us a fantastic window table facing the harbor and beautifully lighted Sydney Opera House.  Wow. A good four course meal and we now are uber-tired as 11PM Sydney is 1AM Fiji time and heaven knows what time in the US.  The wonderful meal and wine made us forget the Jet Kids flight and we are now tired enough to sleep in our tiny beds.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Great Barrier Reef scuba dive completed!

Chris completed a scuba dive for the first time in his life this morning - and on the Great Barrier Reef! He saw some beautiful creatures "down under". I'm so proud.  It's not easy to just let yourself breathe underwater and descend 25 meters deep!
Check out the photos!