Tales from Down Under

A disclaimer to start...we have become somewhat accustomed to being able to use hostel free wifi to download our favorite shows. So this particular post comes to you via McDonalds (at least I started it there last night), where I landed in my search for free wifi tonight. Alas my efforts to download Survivor and other shows did not get past "go", as McDonalds has a very minuscule download data limit. I'd be more specific about how I really feel right now, except I know that children on occasion frequent the blog and I don't want Heather mad at me.

We were shocked tonight to realize that we have now been in Sydney for 5 days. It's just flying by. So far we have been graciously hosted by the family of one of Heather's ex-students and made our way around to see a few things.....

A trip out to Bondi beach enabled us to discover an outdoor art sculpture exhibit that we enjoyed injecting ourselves into.

The next day we set of to visit some local (and some not so local) wildlife at the Taronga Zoo.






We headed out one night on a quest to see the sunset, and ended up taking a different turn to Cockatoo Island, where they were having another outdoor art exhibition. Yes, they are free. That becomes a very appealing entertainment option when one is on a limited budget. This particular event enticed me by its cover art of a mash-up between Thor and the Hulk. Sadly once we arrived at the Island most things were closed, except for some outdoor pieces, the beer gardens, and the Xbox Kinect booths, where we tried out virtual racing and tennis before seeing the lights of Sydney (and some fireworks)on the ferry back to Circular Quay.

I had to explain to Chloe that these were all Michael Jackson's face

A trip out to the Blue Mountains provided a lovely day of fresh air, exercise, imposing views of the Australian rainforest and natural monuments, with a comedic moment thrown in when the parrot flew suddenly over Heather's head and a confirmation that the world is in fact a small place when I encountered an ICBC colleague on the 3 sisters viewing platform

We descended the stairs at the back of the 3 sisters and walked around the base of the cliff

The steepest staircase ever down one of the sisters

Me and Noy having an ICBC meeting

The parrot that nearly decapitated Heather

The last couple of days we had some quality beach time at Manly and Bondi, but those are posts for another day once we recover from all that vitamin D.