Last full day in Sydney...

Rach and I attempted to get an early start but that apparently didn't work so well. Anyway, we took the ferry across the harbor to Taronga Zoo. It's a really good zoo in the sense that you can get pretty close to a lot of the animals. Rach and I paid to be able to take pictures with the koalas, which was cute. :)

After spending the day there, we made it out to Bondi to meet my mom's college best friend. Judy showed us around the eastern suburbs and she and her husband took us to dinner at an italian restaurant on north Bondi beach. Really great views. I had "spaghetti cooked in a bag"... which was literally cooked and served in a bag... kinda weird. Don't know what it did for the pasta, but it was still good. haha.

We leave Sydney today and I'm pretty bummed about it. It's been nice to be in warm weather, able to go to the beach, speak English, see my relatives, and just be in a laid back culture again. Alas, it is quite frosty (comparatively) in Japan. But Lyndsey gets here later this week and I'm looking forward to that. :)

We seem to end up in Sydney Harbor a lot...

Yesterday the whole Moen (my mom's sister's side) family met up for a lunch cruise around the Harbor. The day started off fairly rainy but cleared up just as the boat took off. It was a good way to get to see around the entirety of the Harbor - lots of beautiful homes and boats... it's really amazing how pretty that harbor is. It was nice having the whole family together. My aunt took pictures, so hopefully I'll have copies to post later.

The rest of the day was pretty low key. We hung out at home, caught up on Grey's Anatomy (the past two episodes have been kinda crazy!), and watched Ocean's 12 with my cousins.

Today we had to be up early for our appointment to climb the Harbor Bridge. They only starting doing it a couple of years back and my aunt thought it would be a good thing for Rachel and I to try. Even though the forecasts were pretty gloomy for our entire stay, it ended up being sunny most days. That luck changed today. We made it to the office at 8:15 and knew we'd be in for a wet climb. Apparently they do the climbs in all weather conditions, unless lightning or extreme wind makes it impossible. After about an hour of getting instructions about how the climb would proceed, plus getting geared up, we headed off to the bridge.

Now, I have a mild fear of heights. Well, more like falling. Regardless, for some reason, I wasn't all that nervous about the climb. Ha. That was until we got to the first pylon and had to climb on this catwalk thing out to the actual bridge. The thing kinda wobbles as the cars and trains rush by overhead. You look down and see the water and roadway below. Kinda freaky. Then you climb up these five vertical ladders (thankfully you are connected to a cable), which is also a bit scary. After that though, it's an easy walk up and over the arch. If you ever go to Sydney, I highly recommend the Bridge Climb. It's such a fantastic way to see the city! You have some awesome views from the top. You can see all of the harbor, including the Opera House, from an angle that not that many people have a chance to view. The rain passed intermittently throughout the 1.5 hour climb (they gave us some fab rain outfits), and our leader gave us a great history of the bridge. We weren't allowed to bring our own cameras, but our leader took some, so I'll be able to show them later.

Afterwards, Rachel and I walked around downtown. We were able to have some Subway for lunch (that nows makes 4 countries and 3 different continents... about as good as Starbucks, which is up to 5 countries and 3 continents... fyi, Japan appears to be winning the contest for best caramel macchiato outside of the US). We managed to avoid the rain by shopping (such a sacrifice, I know) and we picked up some stuff we'd both been looking for.

That's it for now. I can't believe we only have one full day left of this trip! I don't know that I'm ready to go back to Japan!

Time to see the other side of the family...

Yesterday Rach and I met up with my Uncle Chris and Aunt Verity. They took us around the Olympic Park and we even got to go for a swim at the Olympic Aquatic Center. Definitely the nicest pool I've swam in ever...

Afterwards we met up with my 19 year-old cousin Penny and my 21 year-old cousin Robin and her boyfriend Adam. We had a nice lunch at the Newport Arms, which is a outside lunch place on the river. Penny eventually had to leave for her job at a nightclub, but Rach and I stuck around with Robin, Adam, and their friends. It was fun comparing our culture with Australian culture, discussing what each culture had and the other didn't, stereotypes... that sort of thing. In all, I feel like guys our age are pretty similar here, which they were shocked to hear.

Eventually Robi dropped us of at Manly Beach, one of the other popular beach areas in Sydney. There a bunch of cute shops and restaurants on the water, though most of them were closed by the time we got there. Rach and I got dinner at an italian restaurant and had some icecream afterward. :)

Day two in Sydney...

Today Rach and I met up with my cousin Alissa in downtown Sydney for lunch. We were supposed to be there at 12:30 but we took the wrong train (it got us to the same place but took much longer than it should of) and so we didn't make it until almost 1. She works as a barrister in a beautiful office with a great view of the harbor. We caught a cab down to the old wharf which is right near the bridge and had a really great lunch.

Afterwards Alissa was nice enough to drive us out to Bondi Beach, one of the most well known places to get a tan and catch a wave. Despite being overcast in the morning with promises of rain from weather forecasters, it ended up being blissfully sunny by the time we got there. We napped on the beach for a while... so pretty (you know, the part when I was actually awake and all). We looked at some of the cute shops along the water, grabbed a smoothie, and caught the train back home.

Not all too eventful a day, but very nice nevertheless. :)

Sydney is quite lovely...

I'd visited Australia twice before, but it doesn't count when you're younger than speaking age, and guess what - you don't know to appreciate anything when you're nine. So anyway, after a rather long flight (about nine hours that sucked up all of yesterday), we made it to Sydney at around 10pm.

This morning we tried to get started early, so we took the train into the city. The weather forecast called for morning showers but really, it couldn't have been a prettier day. We got lunch in the business district (yay for yummy sandwiches), wandered around downtown, and took pictures of the Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. After that we walked around the Royal Botanical Gardens and enjoyed some smoothies.

Seriously, I don't know that I can think imagine a prettier city. Yes, I know that statement comes after a few days spent in Bangkok, a place that many tour books politely refer to as "gritty," but nonetheless, it was a very nice day. :)

And then we decided we really needed to go through the Bangkok airport again...

On our last day in Cambodia, we got up early, had some breakfast and made our way back out to Angkor Wat. We satisfied one of Rachel's biggest desires by taking a ride on an elephant! We were lead around one of the major landmarks at Angkor Thom we had visited the previous day. Afterwards we bought some bananas and fed some of the elephants... believe me, the pictures are hillarious.

I'd like to take the time to list all of the modes of transportation we have taken while on this trip:

-Plane
-Train
-Subway
-Boat
-River boat
-Tuk-tuk
-Taxi
-Elephant
-Monorail
-Bus

Afterward Kosal drove us around to the rest of the major spots at Angkor Wat. Then we made it back into town, grabbed some lunch at Eccentric Pizza, and some really yummy gelato from this place called The Blue Pumpkin. We made it back to the hostel, showered, and eventually headed back to the airport for our flight to Bangkok. I don't think I can emphasize enough how awesome Cambodia was. I have heard of people having negative experiences in Phnom Penh, but Siem Reap was such a fun little town with so much character! While I am sure some of it was circumstantial - our warm hostel, our really great driver, and the restaurants we happened to have picked- but I am so glad we went.

On our first full day in Bangkok, we hit the malls. They are absolutely huge here! MBK mall is 8 levels of knock-off purses and whatever else you could ever need. We went to Siam Center which was a bit more like American malls... Oddly enough, neither one of bought anything. Then last night we went to Lumphini Park at the suggestion of our hostel's manager. The park had a huge outdoor market which was a lot of fun to wander through. We grabbed dinner at a place called Safari Steak, which served a variety of meats, including ostrich, crocodile, frog, etc. I'll let you take a guess as to what Rach and I ate.

Today we decided to do all the touristy stuff. We got up early, took the SkyTrain down to the river, and then took a river ferry to the major site-seeing points. We started off at the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew (The temple of the Emerald Buddha). I swear, I have never seen something so glittery and ostentatious a place as the Grand Palace in my life! Really, you're just going to have to see the pictures when I update. The Emerald Buddha was actually made out of jade and is apparently a place many monks travel far and wide to see. Supposedly the King shows up three times a year to help change the Buddha's clothes.

Afterwards we traveled back down the river to Wat Pho which houses the HUGE golden, Reclining Buddha. Wow. Even my panoramic setting on my camera couldn't fit all of the Buddha in. Afterwards we put coins into this metal containers, supposedly for good luck.

Then we took a ferry across the river to Wat Arun, which is a series of stupas along the water, covered in tile that the Chinese supposedly left in Thailand a while back. It's one of the most famous landmarks of Bangkok. I thought it was pretty :)

After that we made it back across and down the river to China Town. We wandered through China Town, and finally found the Golden Buddha (Yes, that makes 3 Buddhas in one day, haha). Apparently this Buddha was once covered in cement to protect it during a Burmese invasion, but only within the past 200 years or so did they discover what was beneath the cement.

Then we went to MBK for lunch and wandered over to Jim Thompson's House. Apparently Jim Thompson helped bring the silk trade back into Thailand... and then he mysteriously disappeared.

Finally, we got massages. Quite a relaxing hour, for around $10. :)

Okay, we are off to Sydney in the morning, so I'll update from the Land Down Under soon!

Only one word to describe Cambodia...

AMAZING.

I don't exactly know what I expected in coming here... I think I was most worried about this leg of our trip, just because I didn't really know anyone who had ever been here. Rachel and I had heard all kinds of good things about Siem Reap and Angkor Wat in particular from random people, but we were still both a bit concerned. Regardless, Cambodia has surpassed all of my expectations.

We had a really nice flight from Bangkok on this boutique airline called Bangkok Airways... hard to explain, but the airline was definitely really different. There was a frustrating delay with the e-Visa line, but once we made it through, a guy from our hostel met us at the Siem Reap airport. We were a little surprised to be picked up in a tuk-tuk (basically a motorcycle pulling a small , covered carriage behind), but we thought it was a cool introduction to life here. We sped through town, taking in all the sites of the city around us... a bit dusty, with motorcycles, bicycles, cars, and other tuk-tuks weaving in and out of each other down the street. We eventually made it our very cute hostel, where the manager told us about the place and suggested we get dinner and a show at a restaurant down the street.

We went to Koulen, which can really only be described as a Cambodian luau. The place had a massive buffet (with some really yummy food, though we felt pretty damn guilty for eating so much food in a less-developed country... Thanks Giorgio) and was packed with tourists from all over (including a ton from Japan... as a matter of fact, our driver correctly guessed Rach's ethnicity, haha). The show was basically Khmer dance, which is apparently a huge part of Cambodian culture. It was really pretty and something unplanned, but definitely worth the $12 (a lot by Cambodian standards).

Today we got up early, ate breakfast at our hostel, and Kosal, our tuk-tuk driver from the previous day, took us out to Angkor Wat. For $40 over two days, he's touring all around the place. I had heard that Angkor Wat was worth the trip to Cambodia but I don't think you can really understand what the place is like without going. It's absolutely breathtaking. Ruins of the Angkor people, nearly a thousand years old, almost perfectly maintained. The etchings in the stones are insanely carved and perfectly symmetrical. I just imagine this place being better than the pyramids in Egypt. It's just that ridiculous. Rachel and I spent 2 hours climbing all over (literally - up some crazy stairs... wait til you see pictures. The Angkor people must have been really agile) the first main palace. Afterwards Kosal took us to Angkor Thom. We wandered around the library, caught some lunch at a one of the little restaurants outside the temple and then went around the rest of Angkor Thom. 3 hours later we went on to two more temples, including one where many scenes from Angelina Jolie's "Tombraider" were shot. We also say a bunch of monkeys which was kind of funny. Finally, Kosal took us back to another temple to watch the sunset. After that, we got some pizza in the very cute town of Siem Reap. This place has so much character!!

We have one more day at Angkor Wat before we fly to Bangkok tomorrow night. We're planning on catching a few more of the city's temples as well as riding an elephant for part of the journey.

My time at this internet cafe is almost up, so I better get going. I'll update in Bangkok! :)