Happy New Year of the Dog! There’s nothing like celebrating New Year’s twice, and that’s what we got to do this year. We have this week off for the Chinese New Year celebration, minus Thursday and Friday because we have professional development days. Our school celebrated with a dragon parade around the school and a Chinese Carnival for the first half of the day. Perhaps you’ve seen the dragons before? There’s a huge head with a pole connected to it that someone holds then there are several people who have poles connected to cloth, so it looks like the dragon’s body? Anyway, it was really fun. The school was completely decorated with red lanterns, red signs, and red banners. Red is symbolic because it chases away the bad spirits. It’s also part of the custom to pay your ayi (maid) double the amount in a red envelope and give her the week of Chinese New Year off. Apparently, we’re rather nice. We gave her two and half weeks off, so now we actually have to clean and pick-up after ourselves. I know-I know, poor us. Our ayi lives in the country and will have to ride a train for twenty-two hours straight. There are no seats, so she’ll have to stand the whole time. The counseling secretary says that the price of adult diapers goes up this time of year. Yah, I know. Kind of weird. I hadn’t seen the ayi in about a month, but when we saw each other we gave each other huge hugs. Anyway, she’s starting to become apart of our family. The fireworks are crazy here and go off all the time. It was the first time in fifteen years that fireworks haven’t been banned in the city, so it was chaos on Saturday. We went to a party at a friend’s house and just watched all the fireworks go off. It was really cool, the city looked awesome. Of course, it was straight-up “China” style- which means there were fire hazards everywhere. We saw little kids in the street setting-off fireworks, right next to boxes. I guess the fireworks will be going off for the next month, but I’ve been able to sleep through it fine.
As you probably remember, we went to Singapore and Australia for winter break. We had three weeks off and it flew by, but it was such a good time! Our flight left on Friday, the last day of school before break, so we didn’t mess around in getting out of here. It took about six hours to fly to Singapore and another six hours to fly to Adelaide, Australia. We flew Thai Air, which was pretty good. Singapore was okay, but very expensive. The city is rather clean and VERY humid. Of course, it’s close to the Ecuador Line so it would obviously be hot. Our favorite place we visited was the Night Safari, that’s one of Singapore’s famous attractions. You get there around 9 or 10 at night and go on a train to see all the animals. We saw some hippos, tigers, and lions, and a whole bunch of other animals. They have light that is similar to moonlight, so you can see everything. Then there was a reptile show that was pretty funny and entertaining. I held a python and got my picture taken. The skin of the snake was dry and it was flaking-off on me which was pretty nasty. On one of the days, we took a tram to Sentosa Island and went to a Dolphin show- it’s famous for having pink dolphins from Hong Kong. I love dolphins, so I enjoyed that. We also went to the underwater aquarium and saw some sharks. There’s not a whole lot to do there, but three days was perfect. We ate at some good restaurants and did some shopping. It rained on the last day, so we watched “King Kong” in the movie theater. We got a good deal because it was a stop-over trip with lots of freebies and discounts- but if you wanted to visit Asia, don’t just see Singapore.
As for Australia… That was an incredible place. We flew into Adelaide, which is in southern Australia, and stayed there for a couple of days. We rented a car for the entire time and I’m glad we did because it was nice to have some freedom. One of our friends threw a BBQ party on the beach, which was fun. Adelaide is famous for their wineries, so we drove around a place called, McClaren Vale, and did some wine and cheese tasting. The wine was great, so we bought a couple of bottles here and there. We also went to Cleland National Park. That was awesome! You walk into a huge pasture where there are tons of kangaroos just hanging out. We got to feed and pet them. They were pretty tame and used to people touching them. We also got to pet a koala bear. They are super cute! I guess they can be mean, but these ones were just adorable. We also saw the other typical Australian animals, such as wombats, emus (I’m not a big fan of those), echidnas, dingoes (wild dogs), and some birds. After Adelaide, we drove to Melbourne. On the way, we stayed a night at Mt. Gambier (famous for their blue lake) and Warnambool (famous for their 2 million dollar light show about a famous ship wreck). Our main purpose was to drive The Great Ocean Road. It’s a popular sight made famous by some cool rock formations, such as the Twelve Apostles. It was also where the first ship from England came. Did you know Australia was settled by a bunch of British convicts? The prisons in England were overcrowded, so they brought them to Australia. It used to be a source of embarrassment for the Aussies, but now people take pride in the fact that their ancestors were convicts. One lady we met traced here heritage back to an ancestor who was on one of the first convict ships, she boasted, “Yup, I’m part convict!” I got a kick out of that. On the drive to Melbourne we saw five wild koalas on the side of the road. One of them had a baby koala on its back. That was really cool and we took tons of pictures of that. On Christmas Eve, we drove for most of the day and stayed at a hotel room in Melbourne. Trav made a mixed CD of Christmas songs, so we sang along to them while we were driving. It totally didn’t feel like Christmas, though. The Aussies think that too. That night we ordered Pizza Hut, did laundry, and watched, “The Grinch.” Pretty exciting. On Christmas day we ate lunch with our friend from ISB and her family. That was a riot and it was our first time eating Christmas pudding. It’s this stuff, I’m not entirely sure what’s in it, except for booze and some other ingredients, but it sits for five months in a cloth bag. It was pretty good with hot custard on it. We stayed at another friend’s place for a couple of days and did some shopping in the city, checked out the observation tower, and visited the Old Melbourne Gaol (pronounced jail, I have no idea why they spell it like that). On the 28th of December, we flew to Sydney. Now that is a really cool city! There’s a lot to do there and the weather was perfect. We stayed at a hostel for the week. It was our first hostel experience and it was so much fun! You share a kitchen, common room, toilet, and shower, but it wasn’t a big deal and we had our own room. We met some really neat people and the place was a two minute walk to Coogee Beach and all the shops and restaurants. Bondi Beach is probably the most common beach, but we liked Coogee better. It was less crowded and it just had a better vibe. On one of the days, our friends took us snorkeling and then Travis and I walked to Bondi Beach. It was a beautiful morning and the walk was excellent- very scenic and gorgeous. The beaches are so amazing! It felt like Southern California, but I swear the water felt warmer. For some of the time, we did an obscene amount of shopping and laid on the beach and relaxed. On one of the first days we got there, we drove up to the Blue Mountains and toured and hiked that area. It’s famous for the Three Sisters rock formation. The Aborigines believe that a witch doctor turned his three daughters to stone to try and save them from a giant centipede. But the witch doctor lost his magic bone, so the three sisters are still waiting to be turned into their former selves. There are a lot of folklore stories like that; they remind me a lot of the Native American ones. The Blue Mountains are beautiful and they really do look blue, it’s because of the Eucalyptus oil on the trees. It gives off a bluish glow. For New Year’s Eve, we met-up with a couple who were also staying at the hostel with us. We watched the fireworks at a park that overlooked the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The show was fantastic! I couldn’t believe we were all wearing tank-tops, shorts, and flip-flops for a New Year’s party. On New Year’s Day it was a record-breaking 115 degrees. We went to a BBQ that day at our friend’s house. Luckily, they have a pool so we cooled off there when we got too hot. We swam in the ocean at 9 pm because it was so hot in our hostel. One of the most memorable things we did was climb to the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It’s a three hour long process, but they put you in jump-suits and you’re attached to the bridge by a cable, so you feel completely safe. The tour guide takes you up tons of stairs and tells you about the history of the bridge. The view was incredible! We went at night, so the opera house was all lit up and the city looked awesome. On another day, we went on an Aboriginal Walk-About around the Blue Mountains. It was a five and half mile hike that was full on vertical climbing, but it was a really cool experience. The tour guide was Aborigine and he told us about his culture and stuff. It rained practically the whole time, so we had a camp fire lunch to get dried off. On the last day, we walked around Sydney and went to the Sydney Aquarium. Apparently, it’s one of the best in the world. It was okay. I’m not too keen on aquariums, but seeing the crocodile was kind of cool.
All in all, Australia was our favorite place we’ve visited so far… It was nice to be able to get around without a language barrier. Although, they do have their own kind of language… They shorten everything and put a ‘y’ or ‘ie’ at the end. For example, breakfast is called breaky, pictures are called pikies, and chocolate is called choc-ies. The country people have a very thick Aussie accent, so you have to really pay attention to what they’re saying. For the most part, the people are really down-to-earth and welcoming, much like our Aussie friends from here. But they also have there fair share of racism and homophobia. Aborigines are generally not well respected and for some reason, we met a lot of ignorant folks that said some weird things. I reckon those people are just everywhere, eh? Besides all that, we want to go back and visit Western and Northern Australia. There’s so much to see, you just can’t do it all in three weeks. We had such a good time; it was really hard coming back. Lucky for us, adjusting wasn’t too bad because Sydney is only two and a half hours ahead, so we didn’t suffer any jet lag.
I hope all is well with you! As always, we love to hear how life is going in your neck of the woods… Take care and keep in touch.
Warm Regards,
Cara
No comments:
Post a Comment