We spent the entire day Thursday touring the Great Ocean Road. We weren't sure we were going to do it until Adam and Sofia told us they'd been wanting to do it for a while, so we decided to all go together. I'm really glad we decided to do it because it was one of our favorite days out of the entire trip. It was well worth the $95 AUD per person, because we wouldn't have been able to get near it on our own.

We left really early in the morning around 6:00am in order to walk to the train station in Clayton to take the train into the CBD so the tour group could pick us up at 7:25. We rode in a small tour bus that seated up to 20 people. It was a manual shift bus, so it was a little rougher than what I'm used to. The first couple of hours were mostly spent driving west from Melbourne to the southern coast. We were hungry so we ate some snacks that we brought, including the Sweet Chili & Sour Cream Doritos, which were really good.

The first stop was Bells Beach, which is popular for surfing. We had free tea, coffee, and scones to snack on but it was really cold and windy there, so we didn't hang around very long. After that, we stopped at the Split Point Lighthouse on the coastline with a few sea stacks in the ocean nearby, which was much more impressive than our first stop. By this time the clouds had started to clear away and it was getting a little warmer.

Southern Australian coastline on Vimeo.

Then we came to the actual start of the Great Ocean Road, which is marked with a big sign over the road. We stopped at the small touristy town of Lorne shortly after that for a bathroom break and then stopped to see some koalas in the wild! We saw several sleeping high in the trees. Koalas actually sleep about 20 hours a day, so the chances of us seeing one awake were small. We also saw a couple in shorter trees that were much closer to us. We even saw a baby one with its parent! We had a good tour guide who would explain things about Australia and its wildlife and plants native. He explained that when a baby koala is weaning off the mother it can't handle the poison in eucalyptus leaves so it eats the excreted eucalyptus remains from the mother.

Koala in the wild on Vimeo.

Koala sleeping on Vimeo.

We also saw a bunch of wild colorful lorikeets that would eat out of people's hands and get really close to them. They were so pretty with their bright green and red colored feathers. There were a few picnic tables at this stop, so we ate lunch there, which was included in the cost. We had some lunch meat sandwiches and the only condiment the tour guide brought was tomato sauce, better known as ketchup to us, which I thought was a little weird. Australia's version of ketchup called "tomato sauce" is very similar to ketchup, but a little thinner. If you asked for ketchup at a restaurant, the waiter would know what you're talking about, but would probably know you're not from Australia.

Ocean and coastline on Vimeo.

Anyway, after lunch, we stopped briefly at a gas station and there just happened to be another beach on the other side of the road, so we went over there for a few minutes. The next stop was for a 30 minute hike through a rain forest, which I didn't know existed in Australia. It was nice to be able to walk a little bit since we'd been in the bus pretty much all day and the weather was nice. Troy and I felt like we were back home, since we often hike through forests like that near Seattle. Everything was really green and lush, just like the Pacific Northwest. I didn't really expect to find rain forests in Australia!

Australian Beach on Vimeo.

And finally, the stop we had all been waiting for - the Twelve Apostles! There aren't actually twelve in one specific area though and a few sea stacks have collapsed as recently as June of this year. The ocean, coast, and rock formations were just incredible. It was really pretty and reminded me of the west coast in the US. It was a little cloudy when we were at the Twelve Apostles, but the sun started to come out more for the next stop, where we saw the Loch Ard Gorge. The Loch Ard Gorge is named after the ship Loch Ard, which ran aground on an island nearby in 1878 approaching the end of a three-month journey from England to Melbourne. We were able to take stairs down to the bottom of the gorge, and walk along the beach there. We could see the waves crashing in beside the rock formations out in the ocean. There was also a cave, with lots of stalactites hanging from the rock face. Going down to the beach in the gorge was one of my favorite things we did at the Great Ocean Road.

12 Apostles on Vimeo.

12 Apostles - Video 2 on Vimeo.

Rock formations and rushing ocean water on Vimeo.

Rock formations #2 on Vimeo.

View from the beach at Loch Ard Gorge on Vimeo.

The last stop was the London Arch, which actually used to be called the London Bridge because it continued to the mainland until that part collapsed in 1990. It was really beautiful watching the ocean waves crashing against the coast.

London Arch and waves on Vimeo.

The way back was much less eventful, as we mostly drove inland through green pastures with tons of sheep, lambs, and cattle grazing. We drove through some rain and saw some of the brightest rainbows I've ever seen in my life. After a few hours of driving, we stopped for dinner in a small town, probably two hours from Melbourne. The group split up and we had our choice of mostly fast food places, including a chain called Red Rooster, which we decided to try. Adam and Sofia had been there before and told us it was basically like KFC. The tour bus had a TV and DVD player in it, so the tour guide played a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords. I couldn't hear it that well from all the way in the back of the bus, so I just dozed off on Troy's shoulder while he tried to watch it. I think we finally made it back to Melbourne around 9:00pm and then took the train back to the house. Unfortunately, Sofia started to feel sick on the train from the chicken she had, but thankfully she felt much better the next morning.

Several times throughout the day, I thought to myself how crazy it was that we were actually in Australia and that we were seeing all this natural beauty: animals, birds, forest, ocean, rock formations, and coastline. The Great Ocean Road, was truly great and definitely one of the most impressive things I've experienced in a long time, if not in my entire life.

This is the first season for Seattle's Major League Soccer team, the Seattle Sounders, and the team has had a very good first season. The Sounders are in the MLS playoffs and will play their first playoff game tonight against Houston. The mayor has also proclaimed today as "Seattle Sounders FC Day". Unfortunately I'll miss the game due to another commitment, but it's a two-game series (combined score determines winner) and I'm looking forward to watching the next game on Sunday November 8.

It's been a really exciting season and I've gotten more excited about Sounders games than I ever have before for any other soccer team. We've watched almost all of the Sounders games on TV and have picked up a lot of the nuances of the game. We also went to two Sounders games this season (1st game post 2nd game post) and I enjoyed them a lot. The Sounders have sold out every game this season and our average attendance ranks 30th in the world (which is the highest attendance for an American team).

Anyway, I hope the Sounders do well tonight and win their first playoff series, but if not, it's still been a great season.

This past Saturday we hiked to Annette Lake just off of I-90 near Snoqualmie Pass. It was our first hike in over six weeks. We started the day with bagels at Noah's on Mercer Island and then drove about 45 minutes to the trailhead. Near the start of the hike is Humpback Creek, which drains from the lake. The water was rushing pretty fast and was cool to watch. Here's a video of it:

Creek near Annette Lake on Vimeo.

It was a pretty long hike actually and I didn't realize it would be so long before we started out. We hiked for about two hours up through mostly old growth forest for three miles with a 1,500 feet elevation gain until we finally got to the top. It was a little chilly outside (probably in the upper 40s) too and my ears started to hurt because they were cold after about 30 minutes, so I'm glad Troy let me steal his beanie.

At one point it was really rocky and I lost my balance on one of the rocks and accidentally threw my cell phone down the hill about 8 feet. I had my hands in my pockets trying to keep them warm and my cell phone was in my pocket as well. So when I started to lose my balance, I clinched my cell phone out of reflex and yanked my hand out of my pocket to try to keep my balance and accidentally threw my cell phone down the hill. Troy was able to navigate the bushes and leaves down to get it. Thankfully I could see it from where I was and was able to direct him to it. It was kind of funny after the fact.

We finally made it to the top and sat at Annette Lake for a little while. There was a waterfall on one side emptying into the lake that starts from high up in the mountain peak, even farther up from where we stopped. It was a little cold and windy, but it was nice when the sun was out. The sun was at a bad angle for pictures though, so we'll have to go back again sometime next year to take better pictures. We started walking back down and I wished we had brought the hiking poles, because my knees and ankles started to get tired. We finally got back to the car after about an hour and a half and drove back. On the way back we saw a full rainbow, end to end, which was pretty cool. We were both a little sore on Sunday, but feel back to normal now. It was nice to hike again, after going several weeks without hiking.

Before heading into town on Wednesday, we all stopped at Breadtop, an Australian chain that serves oriental-style pastries. I really liked their coconut roll, which was similar to a cinnamon roll, but with coconut.

Our first destination in the city was the Melbourne Aquarium. Melbourne has an extensive tram network (similar to streetcars or trolleys here), so anytime we needed to go somewhere that wasn't within a block of a train station, we could hop on one of the frequently-running tram cars to get to where we were going. We took the train into Melbourne and then hopped on a tram to get the few blocks to the aquarium. We had to wait in line a few minutes and then buy tickets at $31.50 a person, which was the most we'd paid for an aquarium. The first thing we saw was the penguin exhibit. There were lots of Emperor Penguins that we (and lots of loud children) watched for a while. After that we proceeded through the rest of the aquarium, checking out the fish and other stuff they had. The jellyfish (called jellies there) were pretty neat as well. While the aquarium was cool, overall it was not one of the better values of the trip.

Feeding penguins on Vimeo.

Penguin swimming on Vimeo.

After the aquarium, we went back to Federation Square to have lunch at Tjanabi, which serves upscale contemporary Australian food. I had the house made sweet potato gnocchi with field mushroom and cream sauce. Lesley had the South Gippsland lamp shank slowly braised in red wine and vegetables with a touch of tomato. Fortunately their lunch prices are very reasonable and the food was pretty good. We then had little cupcakes again from Little Cupcakes for dessert.

At this time Sofia had to go to work for the rest of the day, so Adam went with us back to St. Paul's Cathedral. When we went before, they were doing some work on the interior, so we wanted to go back to take more photos, and Adam hadn't been there before, so we wanted to take him to see it.

We then headed back to the National Gallery of Victoria. We started by looking at the modern art where they had some pretty neat blown glass pieces. Adam had to leave at that time because he had an appointment to look an apartment, so Lesley and I stayed at the museum for a little while longer.

After we saw the stuff we were most interested in at the museum, we walked across the street to the Queen Victoria Gardens. We'd been really busy and immersed in the city since we arrived in Melbourne, so it was really nice to sit and relax at the park. We then walked to the Royal Botanic Gardens, an 87 acre park established in 1846. Since Australia uses the metric system, the park's area would be expressed as 36 hectares. We stopped to rest on the grass for a while and then continued walking through, stopped again near the pond, and leisurely explored the park for a while. After about an hour and a half relaxing at the park, we got a call from Adam (conveniently, the day after we arrived, he was issued a cell phone from work so he could leave us his personal phone and keep his work phone since our phones didn't work there) and decided to meet him at Federation Square.

Federation Square on Vimeo.

Once we met Adam at Federation Square, we hopped on a tram to go to dinner. We went to Yeah Maan, a Jamaican restaurant that Adam and Sofia had been to before. We started with the fries, which were pretty similar to regular french fries, but a little denser. They were pretty good. Lesley got some fish with fries and salad and Adam and I got the Jamaican Jerk chicken. It was a good dinner. Afterward, we walked to the train and headed back for the day.

Australians are well exposed to American accents since they get a lot of our TV shows and movies. In the US, though, we don't often see or hear Australian accents. But, since we've gotten back, I've noticed more commercials with Australian accents than before. Outback steakhouse started an advertising campaign while we were gone. One of their commercials included scenes from Sydney, which we recognized before the narrator started talking (and before they showed the opera house). I've also seen a few Fosters beer commercials since we returned (though Fosters didn't seem nearly as popular in Australia as the commercials would imply). It's kind of neat to come back to the US and still hear the same accent from Australia.

Our current lease runs out at the end of this month. For the last several months, we'd been contemplating whether we wanted to stay in our current apartment or move to a new neighborhood in Seattle. We've used our neighborhood explorations to evaluate different areas and figured out which ones we liked the most and would ever want to live in. We also had been thinking about buying a condo instead of renting an apartment. Having a little more space would be nice, especially in the bedroom.

However, we didn't feel that strongly about moving to another area and I like where we are pretty well already since it's really close to my work. We ended up just being lazy and didn't seriously look at any condos or apartments. The timing wasn't ideal either since we were gone for two weeks and wouldn't have had much time once we got back to find a new place and move.

When we got back from Australia, we had an offer under our door saying we could keep our current rental rate and they'd give us a complimentary carpet cleaning. So we decided to renew the lease for 16 months (the longest we could make it) and locked in our rate. We'll probably make a couple of improvements to our place soon, like getting a new clock, adding more light to the living room, and rearranging things in our cupboards to use our space better.

The first stop of Day 3 was South Yarra, a nice neighborhood with lots of shops and restaurants close to the CBD. There are a lot of historic houses in South Yarra, including the Como Historic House, which we took a tour of. There are some pretty gardens surrounding the old house and a courtyard with a fountain in the front. We weren't sure what to expect when we were walking up toward the house for the tour, but we realized once we were inside that it would be worth it. The house has been preserved well and contains the same furnishings that were there in the mid 1800s. A few volunteer tour guides walked with us through the different rooms in the house, including the elegant dining room, and ballroom. They shared stories and information about the Armytage family who lived in the house for 95 years. For example, there was no electricity back in those days, so the tour guides explained how mirrors and candles were used to magnify whatever natural light was available. We spent a couple of hours at the house and enjoyed everything about it.

After that we walked along Toorak Road and stopped at Soda Rock for lunch. Soda Rock is just like a 50's style hamburger joint from the US and they advertised themselves as being just like the ones in the US. This is where I had my first Dr Pepper of the trip. Dr Pepper is not bottled in Australia so it has to be imported and is difficult to find. I had the hamburger and Troy had a sloppy joe, which wasn't really much of a sloppy joe. We shared some onion rings and a banana thickshake. In Australia, a regular shake is very thin and almost just tastes like milk. What we think of as shakes or milkshakes are called "thickshakes" over there. Troy also had a Lift Lemon soft drink, which is produced by Coca-Cola and tastes like a combination of lemonade and Sprite.

After lunch, Sofia had to go to work for the rest of the day and Adam took us to the Shrine of Remembrance. The Shrine was built as a memorial for the Australian men and women that served in World War I and subsequent wars. The main sanctuary has a marble stone with the words "Greater love hath no man". Once a year, on November 11th at 11am (Remembrance Day in Australia), a ray of sunlight shines through an aperture in the roof to light up the word "Love" in the inscription. There is also a viewpoint near the top of the Shrine where you can see the CBD.

After that, we were going to visit the National Gallery of Victoria, but the main art gallery just happened to be closed on Tuesdays. So instead, we went back to the CBD and purchased our tour tickets for the Great Ocean Road tour at the Melbourne Tourist Center, which is actually very helpful for tourists. We explored more of the CBD with Adam including some neat shopping arcades.

Arcade in Melbourne on Vimeo.

Then we went to the Crown Casino to have a look around. It's similar to any of the major hotels on the Strip in Las Vegas, in that it's pretty big, has a huge casino floor, has fancy fixtures, and a water/laser light show in the main atrium. We ate dinner at one of the restaurants inside and Adam gave us coupons for free wine with our entree. Both Troy and I got the chicken parmesan that came with chips (better known as french fries in the US), and salad. It was actually really good and was only $10 a plate. It was nice to relax after a busy day and have dinner and talk with Adam for a good while.

We explored the casino a little more and then went outside to see the fire show at night, which was really neat. There are 6 or 7 black pillars along the river on the side of the casino and every hour they create a fire show of big bursts of flames in patterns. Some of the balls of flame were so big that we could easily feel the heat they generated, even from 50 feet away.

Crown Casino flame show on Vimeo.

The last stop of the day was at Melbourne Central for dessert at Max Brenner, an Israeli chocolate bar chain with stores all over Australia. I'm a big fan of desserts, especially chocolate desserts, so I was almost in heaven at this place. The three of us split the chocolate souffle and a cinnamon roll with chocolate sauce on top. They were both so good, it was amazing. I liked it so much, we went back two more times on our trip.

We slept pretty well and woke up Monday looking forward to going into Melbourne. Adam had to go to work that day, so Sofia was our tour guide for the day. Our first stop wasn't exactly scenic, but we stopped at the bank in Clayton to exchange the US dollars we brought. While we normally charge as much as we can, most credit cards have a foreign transaction fee of 3% that makes it cheaper to use cash. After that, we went to the train station and took the train to downtown Melbourne (Australians don't use the word downtown, they call it the CBD for central business district). The train ride into the city was around 30 minutes and we got off at historic Flinders Street Station in the most exciting part of the CBD.

Flinders Street Station at Federation Square on Vimeo.

It was a little overwhelming to get off of the relatively quiet train ride and walk into the middle of a busy city. There was so much to look at - the historic buildings, the stores and cafes, all the people crossing the street - and I had to pay attention to where I was going, and watch out for traffic flowing differently than I'm used to, oh, and stay on the left side of the sidewalk instead of the right so I wouldn't run into people.

We walked into an alley, which was full of outdoor cafes, and stopped at one of Australia's many cupcakeries. This one was called Little Cupcakes and it had several different kinds of freshly-made cupcakes for sale in regular and mini sizes. We got several different kinds of mini cupcakes and ate them all. They were all really good, we both really liked the red velvet and Lesley really liked the white chocolate raspberry and the carrot cake. They cost a bit more than home-made cupcakes ($2/each for mini cupcakes) but they tasted a lot better.

Shops and Cafes in Melbourne on Vimeo.

After the cupcakes, we stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral, which is a beautiful cathedral in the heart of the city. We went inside and walked around, appreciating the ornate architecture. There was also a big organ, which would have been nice to hear.

Next, we went to Hosier Lane, which is an alley that is covered with graffiti art. Graffiti is popular in Melbourne, which we noticed traveling into the city as the fences along the entire train ride into the city were covered with graffiti. The graffiti on Hosier Lane was especially impressive, though, as it's much more artistic than average street graffiti, and the whole alley is covered with it.

Then we went to Federation Square, across from Flinders Street station. Fed Square, which is tagged as "The Centre of Melbourne", opened in 2002 and was somewhat controversial at first because of the cost and the striking architecture. But, I thought it was great. It was a full block of open space where you could admire the historic architecture of Flinders Street Station and St. Paul's Cathedral. The square has a giant TV screen, which wasn't showing anything when we were there, but shows sports matches for the public to watch. The square wasn't especially busy when we were there the first time, but it became more active at times when people were off work. And, I really liked the architecture of the square itself. It's unique without being ostentatious, open while being interesting, active while being relaxing, and in the middle of it all while feeling like a retreat from the city.

Fed Square was next to the Yarra River, so we walked along the river a ways. In the summer, I can imagine the path next to the river would be busy and beautiful.

We returned to the CBD and walked around some more. While Melbourne isn't especially touristy, the area near Flinders Street Station and Federation Square had a few souvenir stores and currency exchange stands. The CBD is full of 7-11 convenience stores as well as McDonald's, Hungry Jack's (Burger King), and Krispy Kreme. But, while all of that stuff is ubiquitous, there is much much more to Melbourne's CBD. The regular city blocks in Melbourne are large, but in between the major streets are little streets and alleys, some of which are closed to cars and are full of outdoor cafes. There are also lots of shopping arcades downtown (basically block-long shopping malls). Melbournians are rather fashion-conscious, so there are a lot of shopping options. There were a lot of people out walking around whenever we were downtown, mostly suit-wearing office workers during the day, and very rarely any homeless people.

After checking out a few of the shopping arcades, we met Adam at his office building to have lunch. We walked to the popular Australian chain Nando's. They serve Portugese-style chicken, which is basically chicken with a spicy kind of sauce called Peri-Peri sauce. They also put some spicy seasoning on their fries. It's one of Adam's favorite places to eat and Lesley loved it as well.

After lunch, Adam went back to work and Sofia, Lesley, and I went to a historic cathedral on the other side of the CBD, St. Patrick's Cathedral. We weren't able to go inside this one, but it was impressive from the outside. We then walked through a small park and went to the Parliament building. We had missed the tour of the building but took a few pictures in front of it.

We then went to Little Collins Street, which had a lot of shopping. It was a really cool area, but we didn't spend a lot of time there before taking a tram to the Docklands, west of the CBD. There was a relatively new outlet shopping center built there along the water. Lesley and I stopped at one of the stores, Cotton On, to buy some clothes. We also found some suitcases that we liked, but didn't buy them then because we didn't want to carry them around the rest of the day.

By this time, Adam was about to get off of work, so Sofia decided we'd meet him on Flinders Street. The Starbucks in Australia have a English Breakfast Tea Latte, so we went there so Lesley could try it out. I got some Earl Grey tea and we chatted while waiting for Adam. We stayed a little longer after he showed up and then went to Rialto Tower to get a view of the city from the observation deck. Adam and Sofia pointed out landmarks to us from up there and we stayed up there until it got dark.

View from Rialto Tower on Vimeo.

We couldn't figure out where to eat after that, but Sofia remembered a place she'd been to in Chinatown, so we went there. Lesley and I had never had Peking Duck before, so since none of us were particularly hungry, we were just going to share one. The waiter, however, claimed that there was a minimum purchase amount of $20 per customer and insisted that we get one and a half ducks (which still wasn't quite $20 per person, but was apparently okay somehow). We were all skeptical of this minimum charge and almost left, but decided to stay and get one and a half. I thought the food was great, and we all had a great time. We all get along really well and this was the most fun I'd had hanging out with people in quite a while. It was a great way to end our first full day in Melbourne.

We've been wanting to go to a Seahawks game ever since we moved here a year ago this past February, but didn't want to spend the money last season. So, we decided to wait until this season and finally got tickets to the game this past Sunday against the 2008 NFC Champion Cardinals. We wore the replica jerseys that Adam gave us before we moved to Seattle. I wore a Shaun Alexander jersey and Troy wore a Julius Jones Cowboys jersey.

We wanted to get to the game at least 30 minutes before it started at 1:00pm, but unfortunately, it took longer than we thought to take the light rail to the Stadium station. From there we had to walk for about 15 minutes and wait in the security line to get into Qwest Field. So we had maybe 15 minutes in our seats until the game started. Our seats were in the upper level pretty far up near the end zone facing toward the North. We could see downtown Seattle and even part of the Space Needle from our seats.

Almost every seat in the stadium was taken and it was really really loud, probably the loudest stadium I've been in before. Unfortunately, the Seahawks went down 14-0 before the first quarter was over and never even scored a touchdown the entire game. They played terribly the whole game and lost 27-3. I guess Troy and I are just bad luck for Seattle sports teams. Still though, it was a neat experience, and I'm sure we'll go to another game someday, maybe when the Seahawks have a better team.

Here's a video of the Seahawks coming onto the field:

Seahawks players from Troy on Vimeo.

Adam and his girlfriend Sofia are good friends that we have known for a while and are both studying at Monash University in Melbourne. They were waiting for us when we exited the baggage claim area. It was good to see them both, and a little strange to meet them so far away from where we normally see each other.

It had taken us a while after we landed to find out our bags didn't make it and to submit a claim with the airline, so our friends had been waiting a while. The same thing had happened to them before though, so I think they assumed that's what happened to us, rather than assuming that we weren't coming and that we had just told them to meet us at the airport as a prank (but that would've been a good one).

Their friend Jason had driven them to the airport and drove us all back to their home outside the city. The weather was cool and cloudy, and as we drove in Lesley and I took note of our new environment, which included speed limit signs in kilometers, billboards that you wouldn't see in America, and, of course, driving on the wrong side of the road. I also noticed the cars there were a little different looking than cars in the US, though some of them seemed almost identical with different names or slightly different looking head and tail lights. And of course the steering wheel was on the right side.

After a roughly 45 minute drive, we arrived at their shared house in the suburbs near their university. Since we didn't have any luggage to unpack, they went ahead and gave us a tour of the house and we got ready to go on a tour of their campus. Australia measures temperatures in Celcius and temperatures were in the teens (roughly in the 50s Fahrenheit). We didn't have our jackets with us so we had to borrow theirs before heading outside.

As we walked to campus, Adam and Sofia admitted that their neighborhood is full of bogans (the Australian equivalent of hicks). We passed a shopping cart in a tree (which had been there since they moved in 8 months before), a couple printers near the street, and a few cars parked on the lawn (which didn't seem that uncommon in Melbourne). I don't want to give the wrong impression though because overall their neighborhood was a standard, quiet, and safe suburban area.

We arrived on the campus and they gave us the tour. Classes started on campus in the early 60s, so it didn't have the old architecture that many colleges have. We didn't spent much time there, and then took a relatively nice bus from there to the nearby suburb of Glen Waverley, though it seemed like another neighborhood more than a suburb.

Melbourne has a very good commuter rail network that was largely built in the late 1800s. These neighborhoods, or suburbs as they'd be called in Melbourne, typically center around the rail stations, with a fairly walkable, low-density, commercial neighborhood center with restaurants, shopping, banking, etc. Outside of the commercial centers are predominantly houses, like in any other suburb.

Anyway, upon arriving in Glen Waverley, we went to Bob's Kitchen, which has the most un-Asian sounding name of any Asian place I've ever been to. They had fantastic Chinese dumplings that Lesley talked about for the remainder of the trip. While prices in Australia were overall very similar to those in the US, one nice thing is that tax is included in all purchases and that waiters don't expect tips. This meant that we ended up paying the price that we saw on the menu, which was always a round number.

After lunch, Lesley and I were still hungry, so we stopped by the Pancake Parlour, which, according to their website, is apparently a Melbourne institution. Pancakes in Australia seem to be considered more of a dessert than a breakfast and we were offered ice cream with our pancakes. We got "The 'IT'", which had pancakes with banana and walnuts. It was good and filled us up.

Following that, we went to a shopping center and walked around. There, Adam called the airline about our luggage and was told that the airline would deliver it to their house that night.

There was a grocery store in the mall, so we went there to pick up anything we might need during our time staying with Adam and Sofia. Overall the stuff at the store wasn't really that much different than what you'd find in the US. There were a few interesting differences. For example, eggs were not refrigerated. Apparently eggs don't need to be refrigerated at the store. That was really mind blowing for me. Some food there was slightly different, like Rice Krispies were called Rice Bubbles and raisins there all come from sultana grapes and are just called sultanas. Seeing a box of cereal called Sultana Bran seemed a little strange to me. There were a few different kinds of teas there than I'd ever heard of before, so we picked up some of those. They also had apple and black currant juice, which I'd never had before - so we got some, though I never did get to drink it. Doritos were introduced to Australia in 1984 and have different flavors there than in the US, such as Sweet Chili & Sour Cream.

After the store, we headed back to our friends' house and just hung out. They introduced us to the Tim Tam Explosion, which is also called the Tim Tam Slam, or Tim Tam Suck. Tim Tams are a popular Australian biscuit (cookie) and the Tim Tam Explosion involves trying to drink a beverage (we drank hot tea) through the cookie before it falls apart, and then eating the cookie. It was pretty good and not too messy if I ate the cookie before it melted.

Anyway, that night we played dominoes (no crazy Australian dominoes game, just some crazy Mexican dominoes game), had pasta, and watched the Simpsons. Lesley and I were really tired by the end of the night and started to doze off just before our luggage arrived around 11:30 PM. It had been a very long day and we were happy to finally be able to brush our teeth and go to bed.

We left Seattle on Friday, September 25th, for an adventure of a lifetime to the exotic continent of Australia.

We both left work a little early and I took the bus to the airport while Troy took light rail and then transferred to a shuttle to the airport, since light rail doesn't go all the way to the airport yet. We got to the airport in plenty of time and had to check in with an agent, instead of going to one of the self-service check-in computers, since it was for an international flight. We ate mediocre overpriced airport food for dinner.

We took off from Sea-Tac Airport around 7:20pm and arrived in Los Angeles around 9:45. LAX was a little stressful because it wasn't very clear where we were supposed to go for international flights. There were no signs telling us that we had to exit the building and walk to the other terminal. I guess it would make sense for us to do that now that I think about it, but at the time it was confusing and we were in a hurry.

We eventually found our way to the security area for our international flight and waited in a long line. Once we got to our very crowded Qantas gate, we still had probably 30 minutes to spare. I could see the gigantic 747 out the window, it looked enormous. We finally boarded around midnight and settled in for a 15 hour flight to Melbourne. The plane had two aisles, with 3 seats on each side and 4 in the middle. We had two seats on the right side of the middle section, so I only had to get up whenever Troy needed to get up. No one else had to climb over us or wake us up, which was nice.

Qantas is probably the best airline I've ever flown with. Each seat has it's own 6" tv screen and they actually had a decent selection of current movies, older movies, tv shows, documentaries, and music to choose from. They also have a flight path tracker that I could look at whenever I wanted to see where exactly we were over the Pacific Ocean. It told me how long we'd been in the air, how many miles we'd traveled, how much farther we had to go, and the temperature outside, which was as low as 50 below zero.

Qantas served us two meals, with several snacks and drinks in between. We had dinner after about an hour in the air and it came with our choice of beverage, including free wine, so I had the white and Troy had red. We were so tired by then, after having woken up at 6:30am Friday morning for work, that we went almost directly to sleep.

They gave us a "comfort kit" which included a small toothbrush, a small bottle of toothpaste, a sleep mask, and a pair of socks. We slept fairly well on the way over, for about 7 hours. I woke up with about 4.5 hours remaining, so I watched some episodes of Family Guy and then we had breakfast. The flight actually seemed to go by fairly quickly. We landed in Melbourne at 8:00am on Sunday, September 27, after flying over 9,000 miles from Seattle.

The only hiccup we had was that our luggage didn't make it with us to Melbourne. It was held up in Los Angeles because the Alaska Airlines and Qantas people apparently don't communicate that well and our luggage was put on the next flight to Sydney and was then flown to Melbourne. Thankfully we didn't have to go back to the airport to get it, Qantas delivered it around 11:30pm that night, which was nice. Yay for Qantas and yay for finally being in Melbourne to see Adam & Sofia!

We spent the past couple weeks in Australia, including more than a week in Melbourne and about five days in Sydney. We weren't able to post much while we were gone, but we intend to make up for it now. We had a great time, made lots of good memories, and would like to record and share what we did on a daily basis.

We took over 4,000 pictures and 2.5 hours of video, so it will take a lot of time to gradually review it all and pick out the things we'd like to share the most. We hope you enjoy reading, looking at, and watching it all.

In case you're unfamiliar with Australia, here's a few interesting facts:

• The population is 22 million, with approximately 60% concentrated in and around the mainland state capitals of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide.


• Sydney is the most populated city with about 4.4 million people (about the size of the San Francisco metro area), while Melbourne is a close second with a population of about 3.9 million.


• The nation's capital city is Canberra, located in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). Canberra's population is only 345,257.


• Australian cities routinely rank among the world's highest in terms of cultural offerings and quality of life.


• The name Australia is derived from the Latin australis, meaning "southern".


• For some 40,000 years before European settlement commenced in the late 18th century, the Australian mainland and Tasmania were inhabited by around 250 individual nations of indigenous Australians.


• In 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast of Australia, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain.


• On 1 January 1901, federation of the colonies was achieved after a decade of planning, consultation, and voting. The Commonwealth of Australia was born and it became a dominion of the British Empire in 1907.


• Melbourne was the temporary seat of government from 1901 to 1927 while Canberra was being constructed.


• Australia has six states—New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia—and two major mainland territories—the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).


• The world's smallest continent and sixth largest country by total area, Australia – owing to its size and isolation – is often dubbed the 'island continent' and variably considered the world's largest island.


• Australia's total area is 2,967,909 square miles, almost the size of the contiguous 48 United States (3,119,885 square miles).


• The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest coral reef, lies a short distance off the north-east coast and extends for over 1,240 miles.


• By far the largest part of Australia is desert or semi-arid lands commonly known as the outback.


• Australia is the flattest continent, with the oldest and least fertile soils, and is the driest inhabited continent.


• Australia has the greatest number of reptiles of any country, with 755 species.


• Australia hosted the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, and has ranked among the top six medal-takers since 2000.

We noticed a couple of things had changed since we left Seattle for two weeks. The most noticeable was that a lot of the leaves on trees have already changed colors and some trees have shed their leaves almost completely. The sun rises like 20 minutes later and sets like 20 minutes earlier than before we left. It's also a lot colder, with highs this week mostly in the 50s, compared to highs above 70 (including a high of 84) the week when we left.

One of the new buildings downtown has gotten closer to completion (after like a year and a half of construction) and the sidewalk finally opened up again, which will be nice. The scaffolding over one of the sidewalks on my way to work has been removed after being there as long as I can remember. I guess a lot of stuff can happen in two weeks.

We were in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia over the past couple weeks and just returned to the US today.

Melbourne is an awesome city and our friends there made sure we had a great time. There is a lot of stuff to see and do in the bustling central business district and we spent a day along the beautiful Great Ocean Road. We also had a lot of fun in Sydney, seeing the landmarks and visiting some of the fun neighborhoods in the city.

Now that we're back, we'll start sharing what we did and some of the pictures and video we took. But, for now we'll be trying to make up some of the sleep we lost over the last 24 hours of traveling.

The recent economic struggles, which included the failure of Seattle-based Washington Mutual, has led to an 18.5% vacancy rate in Seattle central business district.

More than one-sixth of leasable office space in greater downtown Seattle is vacant — the highest percentage in at least 20 years, brokerage Cushman & Wakefield says.

Seattle's vacancy rate hit 18.5 percent in September, climbing sharply from 14.7 percent three months earlier. The rate never has been higher since the brokerage began tracking the market in 1988, a spokeswoman said.