juice & snacks

Those who have known me from childhood know my affinity for penguins. My parents told me that one year I asked for a penguin for my birthday and when they gave me a stuffed penguin I was extremely disappointed because I wanted a real penguin. I don’t know what it is about them but it also led to one of my favorite baseball players, Ron Cey who was known as The Penguin for the way he ran the bases.

When I heard about the Little Penguins on Phillips Island, it became one of the must sees on our honeymoon. There are thousands of Little Penguins standing at about 6 inches tall that return to their burrow each night after a day of fishing. During the parade you get to sit on the beach or stand on elevated platforms and watch as they make their way back home. It was one of the big highlights of our trips, for Ian just as much or even more as for me.

There are lots of tour groups that make the trip out to Phillips Island, but for us it worked out better to head over there ourselves. Fortunately we left really early because traffic heading out of Melbourne was terrible. There was a lot construction on top of Friday traffic. It took us about 3 hours to get out to Phillips Island versus the 1 and 1/2 that it was supposed to. We were nervous that we were going to be late to check-in. When you go to the Penguin Parade, you need to call the day before to confirm your arrival time because the “Parade” start time varies based on the sunset. In retrospect it might have been a good idea to spend the night out there since the parade ends at about 9:30-10 and it was a long journey back to the City on a dark, unfamiliar road.

I decided to book the Private Penguin Experience which is limited to a group of 10 people and has you sitting on the stand in front of the grandstand where the general public sits. You also are assigned a ranger to give you some added insight into the experience.

As luck would have it, Ian and I ended up being the only ones in our group. Our tour guide, Sven was very knowledgeable and gave us a fantastic tour. He told us that we went at a great time because breeding season was early this year and that we would be able to see some chicks waiting for their parents to return. It was nice because we had reserved seating so we were able to walk around until the last minute before the penguins arrived. We were also able to go to several viewing platforms which was really neat because at different spots the birds perform different rituals. for example, once the birds get out of the “danger zone” they stop for awhile to preen themselves before continuing on their journey. We also saw a female penguins heading in the opposite direction picking up penguins. Sven told us that is a sign that there is going to be a second breeding season as they were picking up shells to get calcium. Little tidbits like that really helped make the tour special.

Even if we had not done the private tour, watching the Little Penguins waddle their way home was adorable. We did in fact see chicks waiting for their parents to feed them. The most amazing thing was how loud the penguins were. I never imagined their cries to be that loud and piercing. The cutest thing was watching the penguins hop off some of the ledges on the side of the road. Another place we spent quite a bit of time at was at these man-made burrows they have built inside the museum. They say that they don’t force any penguins to live there but several families have chosen to live there. We were able to see one family in particular feed and preen each other in their burrows which was really cool because had they not lived in the special burrows we wouldn’t have seen it.

One of the great things about Phillips Island is that they try not to disturb the penguins’ natural habitat. Sadly because people in the past didn’t know how to turn off the flashes on their cameras, we were unable to take any pictures but I think both Ian and I both have strong images of this visit in our minds.

Flickr: Honeymooning in Australia

Lifestyle

Sydney was our first stop in Australia so the first few days, especially for me were spent battling jet-lag. As with any westbound journey it wasn’t too bad, we just ended up waking up before daylight and going to bed after an early dinner.

I don’t know if it was because it was the first leg of our trip, but we didn’t enjoy Sydney as much as the other cities. We found it to be a little harder to navigate. Even once we figured out the train system, we continued to have trouble even getting to places we’d been before. It was great exercise but a little tiring on the legs and draining in the heat. We also found it harder to find places to eat. I would definitely recommend staying in the Circular Quay or Darling Harbor area since that’s where most of the tourist destinations are. We stayed near the Darlinghurst area across the street from the Anzac Memorial so while it was easy to get to a train station, we usually didn’t want to go back out to where we were after we came back to freshen up before dinner.

Our favorite spots:

• Pink Peppercorn. Laotian restaurant in Darlinghurst. It was a short walk from our hotel and was recommended by one of the guidebooks. We really enjoyed the lamb kabobs which were cooked and seasoned perfectly and we had a delicious coconut curry with chicken. Ian loved the fragrant rice which went perfectly with both of the dishes.
• The Cantina. Tapas place in the Darlinghurst area. They had an early bird special
• Sculptures by the Sea. Sculpture exhibit from Bondi to Bronte beach. We were fortunate to catch it because it goes for only about 2 weeks from the end of October to mid-November. Many of the installations were built into the rock areas along the walkway but there was also a park right before Tamarama beach that had quite a few additional sculptures.
• Open market at the Rocks. On the weekends only. Fortunately my brother gave us a heads up about this because we were only in Sydney for 1 weekend day. The shops close up before 5pm so we were only able to shop for a little bit but we were able to get some nice souvenirs.

Places we recommend avoiding:

• Sydney Tower/Oz Trek. I’ve been to towers and lookouts in other cities I’ve visited and felt like it was a worthwhile experience, but the same cannot be said about the Sydney Tower. For one, it’s not the highest point in Sydney and also they didn’t have placards like most places do to let you know what you’re looking at. We did our best to try to figure it out with our guidebooks, but especially since a view of the Opera House was obscured it really wasn’t worth it in my opinion. As Ian mentioned in his post, Oz Trek was not a good experience for me. I’ve been on other simulators before and been okay but something about this ride made me really ill and I was out for the night.
• Museum of Contemporary Art. Admission was free and for us we were thankful that it was. Neither of us are big contemporary art fans but it is located in such a prime location we had hope. The best thing about it was to see all of the school kids on field trip doing hands on projects with the docents. It seems like they had a really good program for field trips but with the exception of a couple exhibits, it was not our cup of tea.

The only thing we didn’t do that we wish we had done was to go see a performance at the Sydney Opera House. We went on a tour there which was impressive in itself especially since we were able to see some of the ballet people do their warm-up exercises but we could only imagine how much better it would be to see an entire show.

Honeymooning in Australia

travel

We loved Melbourne. I’m sure it had a great deal to do with the fact that we have a friend who lives there who helped us out immensely while we were doing our planning but we also really enjoyed the nice, relaxed vibe of the City. It’s also set up on a grid season so it was much easier to find our way around. The Flinders Station area is a great, central location though all of downtown is easily accessible.

Places we enjoyed:

• San Churro. Cafe where they make fresh churros with different dipping sauces. Came highly recommended by my brother. They also have them in Sydney but good thing we didn’t try them until Melbourne because we went there twice in three days.
• Longrain. Thai fusion restaurant that came as a recommendation from our friend’s colleague. There is also a location in Sydney. She called it the best Thai in the world. It was conveniently located across the street from our hotel and the perfect place to celebrate our last dinner in Melbourne. It was definitely more upscale than the Thai restaurants we go to at home but it was delicious and worth every penny.
• Brighton Beach. More of a locals beach with cute little bathing houses.
• St. Kilda. Really cute beach area with lots of trendy shops and restaurants.
• Cafes in the laneways near Flinders Station. Free wi-fi and reportedly the best coffee in Melbourne.
• Phillips Island. We loved it so much it deserves a separate entry.

Skip it:

• Camy’s Dumpling House. In the guidebooks touted as the best Shanghai food outside of Shanghai. Two words: not true. It was cheap but not worth it.

Honeymooning in Australia

Photo of the day, travel

Ian’s been doing a great job of carrying our blog for awhile now, but I thought it’s about time to chime in and share my perspective.

Australia is a place that has been on the top of my list to visit for quite some time. The beaches, the wildlife, the friendly vibe that Australia seems to have has always attracted me. We figured that it would be a great destination for our honeymoon since we’d be able to spend more time there than we usually do on our regular vacations.  Also since it’s an English speaking country we hoped that it would eliminate an additional stress that usually comes with travelling to a foreign country.

Booking the flight was easy but everything else I found to be a bit more of a challenge then when I’ve gone abroad in the past. A large part of it comes from my reliance on Yelp and other online resources. Nowadays before I go anywhere or buy anything I look up reviews online so I know exactly what I’m getting into. Admittedly it does take some of the adventure out of it but I hate having a bad meal or wasting my money on something that’s not worth it.

Fortunately to satisfy my need for information, I was able to get references from friends and friends of friends which put my mind at ease. I also relied heavily on TripAdvisor.com when looking up accommodations and activities, but I found it to be a little cumbersome to navigate not to mention that it’s harder for me to determine the reviewers reference point to see how they stack up to mine.

Here are some of the useful things we discovered during our travels.

General

• Most restrooms do not have toilet seat covers. Toilets also have half and full flushes.
• Free internet at the Apple Store. Internet at hotels were quite expensive. We also got a 50MB plan for Ian’s phone for about $50.
• This is applies to anywhere you travel, but be careful about marking yourself as a tourist. We got yelled at by a panhandler in Bondi Beach in broad daylight for pulling out our map.
• Sun is INTENSE. The no ozone layer thing is not a joke. Bring lots of sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses. The highest SPF they sold in Australia was 30, so if you think you need more protection, bring it with you.
• No international driver’s license required if you have a driver’s license written in English.

Money

• Bank of America has a “sister” bank called Westpac. ATMs can be used without any additional service charges.
• Many hotels charge a 1-3% surcharge for using a credit card.
• Tipping is not required. Though the guidebooks often recommend 10% at fancy restaurants our Australian friend told us that tipping is not necessary anywhere. To us it felt really wrong especially since there were many places we received excellent service so we did tip, but as the trip went on we got a little more used to the concept. As an alternative many hotels and restaurants allowed us to make small donations to charities in lieu of tipping. We thought it was a nice way to solve the issue.

Eating/drinking

• Food is expensive. Expect to pay $30+ for a main dish. Of course there are many fast food options, including Subway all over the place but we found that cafes were good places to sit down and get affordable and good meals especially for breakfast and lunch.
• It is standard that hotels provide hot water heaters, tea, coffee and milk. Most of the hotels we stayed in also have small kitchenettes.
• Most days we bought pastries for breakfast which was a more affordable option and also saved us from having to rush out first thing in the morning.
• Most restaurants allow you to bring in your own wine for a small corkage fee.

travel

I have lived in California for most of my life with limited travel to other parts of the country. In fact, I’m quite sure that I’ve traveled to more foreign cities than US cities. I have quite a few Japanese colleagues who have been more places in the US than I have despite them living here for a much shorter amount of time. Pretty sad, but I hope to change that.

Diversity in the US can easily be taken for granted so when we went out to St. Louis for the MLB All-Star game, I experienced a little culture shock.

Though it’s only about a four-hour flight away, St. Louis is a very different place than California. Driving from the airport to my friend’s place, there were rows of quaint, cute brick houses surrounded by lots greenery. I noticed that on our way from the airport, we were forced to taking side streets—a result of a one-year freeway closure of the main highway. More surprisingly, these closures hadn’t caused any major problems with traffic or delays. Freeway shutdowns would be unthinkable in California, as they are nightmares already as it is.

Living in the Bay Area, I am spoiled with all the choices of varying cuisine. Just within a one-mile radius of our apartment, we can get American, Indian, Mexican, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Peruvian…the list goes on. In St. Louis, the selection is much more limited. Admittedly, we didn’t go too far out of our way, but our friend who has lived there for more than a year wisely suggested that we stay away from anything ethnic. We did find some awesome barbecue at Pappy’s Smokehouse. We also enjoyed frozen custard from the famous Ted Drewes.

The racial and political make-up in St. Louis is also very different from the Bay Area. Based on the reactions we received when we went places and the boos and cheers during the video clip of past presidents at the All-Star game, red doesn’t just represent their love for the Cardinals. Perhaps that was just in the area we were sitting, because on TV, the boos for the President were not quite as apparent as they were for us. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to criticize, it was just a shock coming from the San Francisco Bay Area where things are much different.

St. Louis is a great baseball city. It was awesome to see a city so unified in their love for the team. If anyone’s seen the attendance at A’s games this year, you know this is a shock for us, too. Everywhere we went we would see someone wearing Cardinals gear. It seemed like the whole city was off on the day of the All-Star game based on the masses of people present at the parade. It was really great to feel that energy.

Overall, we had a great time with our friends exploring St. Louis and all the sights and sounds that were there. It was nice to be able to explore another part of this vast country of ours.

Lifestyle