Last weekend we decided to hike at Middle Fork Snoqualmie River Trail. We had done this trail one other time, but it started to rain on us shortly after we started, so we didn't end up going very far. With temperatures forecast in the mid to upper 70s, Saturday was a great day to go hike there again.

The trailhead is almost an hour off the freeway, much of it along a pothole-filled gravel road. The trail starts by crossing the river over a nice wood suspension bridge and then follows closely alongside the river. This first part of the trail along the river is the best part, in my opinion. The trail then diverges away from the river for a couple miles. This trail has some ups and downs, but nowhere is it very difficult. Some of the hardest part may be avoiding the mud that sometimes covers the trail while not getting scraped by branches encroaching on the trail.

In a few spots, there are bridges or rocks that provide a path over small streams. This trail may be too wet to do earlier in the year, but most of these streams were pretty small. After a few miles of hiking through the forest, the trail returns back to the river. This would have been a good place to stop and rest and then turn around, but we decided to keep going. Our hiking book showed a waterfall not too much farther ahead. After hiking through more mud and thorny brambles, we eventually realized that there was no waterfall (at least not at this time of year) and decided to turn around. After a brief stop at the river, we walked the three miles or so back to the trailhead.

We hiked probably a total of 8 miles, and while the mud was a little annoying, overall it was a pleasant hike with a good amount of solitude on the trail.

Snoqualmie River on Vimeo.

Here are some pictures from my parents' and Uncle's visit to Seattle a few weeks ago. We didn't take that many pictures because we've been to most of the places we went to before. Troy took several at Fort Casey and I took a few at the aquarium.

Here's a video of the tufted puffin at the aquarium:

Tufted Puffin on Vimeo.

After three years of living in our original apartment we found when we first moved to Seattle, we started looking for a new apartment. We made a list of what we liked and didn't like about our old apartment and neighborhood and decided it would be a good idea to move. Our lease would have increased at our old place anyway, so it was good we had already resigned ourselves to moving.

Moving was a lot of work, but everything worked out well and we've put almost everything away. We really like having more space in the living room and an actual bedroom. The location is great and is still within walking distance to my work. It's actually a shorter bus ride for Troy from his work too. It's even a little cheaper than what we were paying for our old place. And we're about a 6 minute walk from the grocery store and tons of restaurants. The main drawback is that the bathroom is tiny and there isn't much storage or counter space. Otherwise I think we're pretty happy with it and are looking forward to making it feel more like home. Here are some pictures of the new apartment, during the move and after.

Here's a video tour:

First Hill Apartment on Vimeo.

I've always liked lighthouses and made it a point to visit several on the Oregon coast. Unfortunately we somehow missed the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, but we were able to see 4 out of a possible 5 on the trip. There are a total of 11 lighthouses on the Oregon coast, 3 of which are not open to the public. All of the lighthouses we saw originally had a first order of the Fresnel lens, which is the largest of it's kind at 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Lighthouses make for really beautiful coastline photos and also have interesting stories of their own.

Tillamook Rock Lighthouse
Location: Cannon Beach
First Lit: 1881
Deactivated: 1957
Height: 62 feet
Feet above sea level: 133 feet
Range: 18 miles
It was the most expensive to operate in the US before it was decommissioned. Nicknamed "Terrible Tilly" because of the exposure from terrible storm waves, the former beacon is now used as a columbarium (for storing peoples' ashes). It is the only privately owned Oregon coast lighthouse on National Register of Historic Places.

Cape Meares Lighthouse
Location: Tillamook
First Lit: 1890
Deactivated: 1963
Height: 38 feet
Feet above sea level: 217 feet
Range: 20 miles
Cape Meares is the shortest lighthouse in Oregon and is also the home of the Octopus tree. Unfortunately Cape Meares has had several instances of vandalism since the 60s, with an occurrence as recent as January of 2010 when two men fired several shots into the windows and damaged the Fresnel lens. It cost over $500,000 to repair the lens.

Yaquina Head Lighthouse
Location: Newport
First Lit: 1873
Height: 93 feet
Feet above sea level: 162 feet
Range: 18 miles
This is the tallest lighthouse in Oregon. During World War II, 17 servicemen were stationed at Yaquina Head keeping a lookout for enemy ships. This is also a popular area for whale, seal, and bird watching.

Heceta Head Lighthouse
Location: Florence
First Lit: 1894
Height: 56 feet
Feet above sea level: 205 feet
Range: 21 miles
Heceta Head is named after the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta, who explored the Pacific Northwest during the late 18th century. The lighthouse is claimed to be the strongest light on the coast by several sources. It is also one of the most scenic and is the most photographed on the entire West Coast. You can also stay at the old keeper's house which was turned in a bed and breakfast able to house 14 guests. Nice antique furniture, a seven-course breakfast, relaxing fireplace parlors, and breathtaking views make it a great romantic getaway.

Beautiful Heceta Head on Vimeo.

For the first time on this trip, we slept in a little late. We got some doughnuts and coffee at the lodge where we stayed and then walked along the beach again for half an hour or so. We went to Luna Sea Fish House again to get more food. This time we ordered to go. While we waited for our food, we walked over to a grocery store in Yachats to buy some wine and beer from Oregon. We then headed down the road and ate at a nice viewpoint. We also made a brief stop at a viewpoint for Heceta Head Lighthouse.

Continuing on, we went toward the sand dunes along the coast where we had a reservation for a dune buggy ride. This was recommended by one of Lesley's co-workers who does this on his own ATV sometimes. We were in a group of 9 people and all loaded into the buggy. We then sped around the dunes, going around turns, over hills, and down seep slopes at high speeds. There were lots of other individuals out there riding ATVs as well. It seemed like it could be dangerous but our driver was safe and we had fun. We had to keep our mouths closed so that we wouldn't ingest any sand. Also, we made sure to secure all of our belongings - apparently it's easy for things to fall out of your pockets during the ride and some people have lost car keys in the dunes. Imagine all the junk you could find if you could sift through all the sand out there.

We then had a few hours of driving ahead of us to get to Portland that evening. We headed east along a crowded two-lane highway. We drove by the University of Oregon in Eugene and then stopped at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. The art deco building is pretty unique among state capitols as far as I know, but the grounds were nice and we spent some time there.

We had intended to stop for dinner and eat at Schlotzsky's Deli, one of Lesley's favorite sandwich shops from Texas, which has a franchise open near Portland. However, it was closed so we continued on to our hotel in Portland. We were both tired of eating fish and chips, so we walked to a nearby Thai place for dinner. That night we made a quick journey downtown looking for Voodoo Doughnuts, a famous doughnut place that had been recommended to us. However, the line was around the block, so we went to another location that had a shorter line (but we still had to wait like 15 minutes). I got a maple bar, which was very good and Lesley got a voodoo doll.

Bird running on beach on Vimeo.

Ocean Waves on Vimeo.

Heceta Head Lighthouse on Vimeo.

We woke up early again on Sunday and after a brief walk along the beach, headed to the Tillamook Cheese Factory. We did the self-guided tour of the factory and saw a few quality control workers on the assembly line of cheese. It was neat watching them pick out the bricks that were either underweight or overweight. The factory produces 167,000 pounds of cheese each day and packages one million pounds of cheese each week. The factory warehouse has the capacity to age 50 million pounds of cheese at once, that's a lot of cheese! We also ate free samples of various cheeses and bought some to take with us.

The next stop was Cape Meares, the first of a three-cape scenic route off of US 101. We continued to be pleasantly surprised by the nice, sunny weather, which allowed for great views from the viewpoint and the lighthouse. The Cape Meares Lighthouse was one of the smaller ones I've seen. After taking in the awesome views of the ocean and seastacks, we made our way to the Octopus Tree just a short walk into the forest from the lighthouse. It looked like what you'd expect - several different trees sprouting from a single above-ground trunk. It was one of the craziest things I'd ever seen.

We didn't have enough time to stop at the other two capes - Lookout and Kiwanda. Instead, we did a short hike on Whalen Island in the middle of them. It was a short, relatively easy hike through a small forested area with shorter trees than normal and lots of sand. I'd never hiked on sand that much before. We could hear ATVs in the distance riding on the dunes, which was pretty cool. Halfway through the hike you could walk to the shore of a small lake in the middle of all the sand.

We were pretty hungry after the hike, so we stopped in Pacific City to eat a late breakfast at The Grateful Bread. Then we drove on down the coast until our next hike at Cascade Head. We were lost for a little bit trying to find the upper trailhead, but we eventually found it. We had to drive on a dirt and gravel road for 3 miles. We hiked through a very green forest to the viewpoint at the top in the meadow area with lots of yellow flowers. We had a nice view of the hills and the valley below, including Salmon River and the rest of the coastline. We also saw several hawks circling and could hear sea lions making noise in the distance. Some very endangered types of flowers only grow on Cascade Head, but unfortunately I didn't find any.

By this time it was around 4:00 in the afternoon, and the next stop was another short hike to the Devil's Punch Bowl! We walked down to the beach and then out onto some slippery rock formations in order to get to the punch bowl itself. It was a little difficult to navigate around the slimy rocks and not slip. It was worth the trouble though because the inside of the punch bowl had red markings on the rock and the water would come crashing in from the ocean through small caves.

Shortly after that, we stopped at Yaquina Lighthouse near Newport and walked to the top of a small hill to the east of it for a nice view. Then we drove 42 miles all the way to Heceta Lighthouse, south of Yachats. We hiked a short distance up to the lighthouse for a great view. Then we drove to a different view point a little farther to see the lighthouse from a distance, just in time to watch the beautiful sunset over the ocean. It was amazing!

We drove back north into Yachats and ate dinner at the Luna Sea Fish House before heading to our hotel for the night. We stayed at Deane's Oceanfront Lodge, which was right on the beach. Before settling in, we walked down to the beach and enjoyed the sound of the ocean waves. We looked up and saw tons of stars everywhere! It was easily the most stars we'd seen since being in Hawaii for our honeymoon. We were far away from any city lights and there was no moon out, which made them easier to see. It was really romantic and definitely my favorite part of the trip.

Ocean Waves near Three Capes Drive on Vimeo.

Cape Meares on Vimeo.

View of the coast from Cape Meares on Vimeo.

We got up sort of early Saturday as we had a full day. Astoria is a small town (pop 10,000) but it has a surprising amount of things to do - it's also where the 1985 movie The Goonies was filmed. We headed toward the 125-foot high Astoria Column on a 600-foot hill above the town. After climbing 164 steps to the top, we were treated to an awesome panoramic view of the surrounding hills and waterways. For only a $1 parking fee, the column offered one of the best views on the trip.

Afterward, we headed back to our hotel to check out and then drove downtown to park. Our next stop was the Columbia River Maritime Museum, which we had read good things about. The museum was of impressively high quality and very informative on a number of subjects including the history of Astoria, salmon fishing, shipping, steam boating on the Columbia River, dangerous weather, and ship wrecks. Astoria originally attracted settlers for salmon fishing and canning. The Columbia River is very dangerous for maritime travel but has long served as a major route for shipping. Next to the museum was a small lightboat, which used to accommodate several people to help guide passing ships. Even in the quiet waters near the shore, we could feel the boat rocking.

We bought our lunch out of a boat in a dirt lot across the street called Bowpicker Fish & Chips and sat outside to eat. Afterward, we walked farther down the riverfront and watched a big ship pass by. After this we drove back and forth over the Astoria-Megler Bridge again so that we could see what it was like in the daytime and then headed farther down the coast.

Our next stop was Ecola State Park where we parked and went on a short and moderately difficult hike through a forest near the water. We had good views of the coast and went down to the beach where we relaxed on a log. We had a good view of the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse (also known as Terrible Tilly), which was built on a rock more than a mile out from the shore in 1881. It experienced a lot of abuse from storms and was the most expensive lighthouse to maintain in the US before it was decommissioned in 1957. We walked along the beach a little and took a narrow, steep trail back to the main trail.

We were close to the popular tourist town of Cannon Beach and visited a bakery that we had read about online. I got a fresh peanut butter and chocolate chunk cookie and Lesley got a sticky bun. We went down to the beach to eat these and then we walked barefoot to Haystack Rock. There were a lot of people around, but we found a quiet spot to lie in the sand for a while. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

We then drove back into the heart of Cannon Beach and stopped at a candy shop to buy some taffy and then we ate dinner in the town. By then it was around sunset and we had a pretty drive to our hotel. We had just missed the sunset, but we had a view of the ocean from our window. We walked around the beach some at night and then had some taffy and tea in our room.

View from Astoria Column on Vimeo.

View from Ecola Park on Vimeo.

Cannon Beach on Vimeo.

Friday was our last full day together. We started the day with some breakfast at Portage Bay Cafe, one of our favorite breakfast places despite the wastefully-large portions and slow service. The food was great as usual, though and it was just a few blocks away from where we live.

We then left to check out Snoqualmie Falls. The mist was blowing all the way to the parking lot and the falls were bigger than our friends expected. The trail to the bottom of the falls was closed, so we spent some time enjoying the view up top. We also stopped by the gift shop before we left.

Snoqualmie Falls on Vimeo.

We decided to hike again after this, so we went to the Anti-Aircraft Trailhead at Cougar Mountain. There's a great view of Lake Sammamish from up there and many trails to choose from. Our visitors were interested that we might see cougars on the trail, and while we heard some kind of animal, we were most surprised by how many banana slugs and how few people we saw along our roughly two hour hike through the forest.

We had thought about picking blueberries this afternoon, but they weren't quite in season yet. So, our next stop was the Bite of Seattle festival, which had lots of good food. We tried a lot of different food and drinks, including free samples of tea, roasted corn, fried macaroni and cheese, a veggie gyro, Indian samosas, wine samples, stir-fried soba noodles (one of my favorites to get at festivals here), hushpuppies (which were really good), a Nutella crepe, donut-like fried rice balls, more Indian food, and spring rolls. Being a Friday, the festival wasn't as busy as we've seen it in the past, and we had a great time in the great weather.

That night we played some pool and went up to our building's roof to show them the view. Our visitors seemed pretty impressed that people were using our roof's pea-patch garden to grow fruits and vegetables. We also had some more cheese and Chukar Cherries, recommended some good movies for each other to add to our Netflix queues, and played Taboo for a while.

It was a great evening to end a wonderful visit. It was very nice to have visitors, especially people we enjoy spending time with and it's a shame that we'll be going a few months without spending time with any more good friends or family from Texas.

Thursday both Troy and I worked full days, so David and Karen were on their own for most of the day. It sounded like they had plenty to keep them busy. They did a coffee tour that went to several coffee shops around Seattle, including the original Starbucks location. They got to try samples of different coffee and hot chocolate.

After the coffee tour, they stopped in the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Troy and I had been there before and enjoyed it. For lunch, they ate at Elliott Bay Café in Pioneer Square before heading back into the main part of downtown. They waked through the Westlake Center and took a ride on the Monorail to go to the Seattle Center.

The next stop was the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. Neither Troy or I are that interested in science fiction, besides Star Wars and LOTR, and we'd always heard mediocre reviews of the EMP, which is why we've never been to either before. David and Karen really liked the Science Fiction Museum, but they thought the EMP was a waste of money. Thankfully you can just pay one admission and you get into both, so it wasn't too bad. Apparently a lot of the exhibits at the EMP are kid-oriented and there just wasn't much of anything that interesting to learn about.

By the time they were done with the EMP, Troy and I were ready to pick them up to go to dinner. We tried to make the early ferry, but decided we wouldn't get there in time because of bad traffic. We decided to go eat dinner at one of our favorite Italian places, Ristorante Machiavelli. The bread is quite interesting there because it has pieces of olive baked into it and is served with a different type of oil dressing. I got the fettucini alfredo, Troy got the spinach ravioli, Karen got the eggplant parmesan, and David got the special of the day which was fennel bulb ravioli.

After dinner we rode the ferry to Bainbridge Island. It was a little cool and windy once we got out on the water, but it was a great view of the skyline and Mount Rainier.

Ferry ride near Seattle on Vimeo.

We also had dessert at B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill. I shared a piece of carrot cake and Karen and David shared some kind of chocolate cake with vanilla icing and some raspberry filling.

We went back to the apartment and played some games, including Apples to Apples and more Mario Kart 64. Only one more full day of their trip left.

A year ago we bought a season pass to the Space Needle for a pretty cheap price. Since then, we've gone up quite a few times to enjoy the view. It was nice to be able to see the view from up top throughout the year as the seasons changed and at various times of day. Unfortunately, our pass expired this past week, so we probably won't go up any time soon. But, that's okay, we got our money's worth out of our season pass and enjoyed seeing so much of the city from up high.

View from Space Needle on Vimeo.

On our way to Vancouver, we went to our favorite breakfast restaurant, Calico Cupboard! We weren't sure if we wanted to stop since we didn't know how bad the wait at the border would be, but we stopped anyway because we were hungry and couldn't pass up a chance to go there since it's more than an hour away from Seattle. I love the apple cider there! We thought we might have left a little late in the morning, but we ended up getting to the border by 10 or so and there was no wait whatsoever. I was really surprised.

When we got to Vancouver, we had to kill time before we went to the place we were staying. So, we went to the VanDusen Gardens for a little over an hour. They were ok, but I'm sure they're much prettier in the spring and summer. We had rented a room at someone's house that we found on the internet, so we weren't sure what to expect. But, our hosts were really nice people - they made us fresh hot breakfast every morning and they made us steak dinner the first night. It was like staying at a bed and breakfast.

The first few days in Vancouver were mostly spent exploring downtown and going to the speed skating event. We tried to eat some Chinese food, which there is tons of in Vancouver, after the speed skating event was over around 3, but all the ones we knew about were closed until dinner at 5. Hopefully we'll have a chance to have Chinese food next time we go to Vancouver. We did have sushi one night, which Vancouver is also famous for. It was decent, but nothing that great, I'm sure a different place would be better.

Vancouver also has a public market called Granville Island, which is very similar to Pike Place Market. There are all kinds of shops and places to get food there. Unfortunately it was swamped with people who were in town from the Olympics and was busier than it ever gets in the summer. We'll definitely have to go back some other time maybe during the week when it's not so busy.

We went to several parks in the city, including the awesome Stanley Park, which is one of the largest urban parks in North America. In fact, it's 10% bigger than Central Park in New York. We walked a few miles along the eastern seawall facing the main part of the city and could see the Olympic Cauldron and the rings on the water. We didn't spend nearly as much time there as we wanted to, so it is yet another thing we'd like to go to again some day.

On Monday, we took a ferry to North Vancouver and spent a few hours hiking in Lynn Canyon Park. The weather was much better than Saturday, so that was nice. After the park, we went to eat at Nando’s. We first had Nando’s when we visited Australia last October and I loved it. So I researched whether they had any locations nearby and found three in Vancouver! Unfortunately it wasn’t as good as what we had in Australia. The sauces were very different and the fries weren’t as good. It was decent though, and brought back fond memories of hanging out with Adam and Sofia in Melbourne.

We also explored the western part of downtown, mostly along Dedman Street. There were tons of restaurants and stores in that area, including an Italian restaurant where we had our Valentine’s dinner, Ciao Bella.

It was a nice trip, but a little too short. We didn’t try to do as many things as we would on a normal trip, due to the amount of additional people in the city for the Olympics and slower public transportation. We completely avoided museums and the aquarium. I’m looking forward to going back and exploring the city more thoroughly. Fortunately it's less than 2.5 hours away from Seattle.

Here are two videos we took of the Vancouver skyline from the south side of the city:

Vancouver Skyline on Vimeo.

Mountains and Vancouver Skyline on Vimeo.

We went to two Olympic events when we were in Vancouver. The first one was the men's 5,000 meter speed skating at the Richmond Olympic Oval. The event started at noon on Saturday, February 13th and was the second medal to be awarded. We rode the light rail to Richmond and arrived pretty early so we would have plenty of time. The weather was bad most of Saturday unfortunately, with windy, cold, and rainy conditions. We waited outside in line to get through security for probably 30 minutes, so I was happy to finally get inside the Oval.

I was in awe when we came up the stairs to our seats and could see the ice and all the flags for world countries hanging in the rafters. We were going to see an Olympic event! It was really amazing to watch. There were a lot of fans from the Netherlands, which apparently has a history of having great speed skaters. They were all dressed in orange, so they were easy to see in the crowds. There also weren't nearly as many seats as I thought there would be, it only seats 8,000 fans.

There were 14 pairs of skaters with an intermission in the middle. They started out with the slower pairs, but they still seemed fast to me. Each skater had to skate like 10 laps around the rink, I don't remember exactly. It was really exciting toward the last few pairs of skaters because each time they would just destroy the time set by the previous number one spot. As expected, Sven Kramer from the Netherlands won gold, with an Olympic record time of 6 minutes and 14.6 seconds. A Korean won silver with a time of 6 minutes and 16.95 seconds. Russian, Ivan Skobrev, won bronze with a time of 6 minutes and 18.05 seconds. It's hard to believe only a few mere seconds determine who wins gold.

One thing I didn't like was that we did not get to see the medal presentation. We only saw the flower ceremony. We would have had to pay even more money to buy a ticket to see the medal ceremony at BC Place. For some reason most of the events except the ones in Whistler are having the medal presentations at BC Place instead of the individual venues. So, I felt ripped off in that aspect.

The other event we went to was the first preliminary round men's hockey game, USA vs Switzerland at noon on Tuesday, the 16th. This took place at the General Motors Place (aka Canada Hockey Place) in downtown, normally where the Vancouver Canucks NHL team plays. This is the first Olympic games to use an NHL-sized ice rink. It's a really nice facility and only 15 years old.

We had really good seats, only a few rows up in the upper level and toward the end the USA would shoot at twice. Despite not really following hockey the past several years, I still recognized a lot of the USA players. I was disappointed though that Mike Modano wasn't on the team. I heard that they had decided to use a lot more younger players rather than the older, more veteran players like Modano. I did see former Dallas Star Jamie Langenbrunner play as the Team USA Captain. There were actually a lot more Switzerland fans than I thought there would be. There were also a lot of Canadian fans, who really cheered for Ryan Kesler, from the Canucks. It was a pretty clean game, no fights at all. The USA won 3-1.

Here's a video from the pre-game warm ups:

USA vs Switzerland Men's Hockey Warm ups on Vimeo.

I was a little disappointed we only went to two events. I wish we could have gone to more, especially short track speed skating or figure skating. It would have been really cool to see Apolo Anton Ohno win a medal. Still though, going to two events is probably more than most people will see in their lifetime. I'm very happy and lucky to have been able to go to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

Here are pictures from Vancouver and the events we went to:

Lesley is a much bigger fan of the Olympics than I have been, though I have been watching the Olympics more in recent years. One thing I like about the Olympics is how they bring the world together. The Olympics are truly a world-wide set of events, and having the Olympics so close to where we lived seemed like a rare opportunity. So, we decided to go to the games.

Leading up to the games, I was a little concerned about how the enormity of the Olympics might add to the crowd and make the city too full of people to enjoy doing anything.

Fortunately, there was no wait to drive across the border. And, while the public buses were crowded, it wasn't any worse than when we visited San Francisco. It looked like most people just stayed downtown. A few of the streets downtown were closed to vehicle traffic and full of people, especially on the Friday of the Opening Ceremonies. There were lots of people there, but they all fit downtown without making the city too crowded.

The atmosphere downtown was very festive. Buildings were decorated to support the Canadian Team and there was Olympic-inspired public art. There were also several celebration sites, which people waited in line to enter. One of the centrally-located sites, the one at Robson Square, was very crowded and every few minutes someone flew overhead along a zip line.

Robson Square during Olympics on Vimeo.

There was also an official Olympics store downtown. The few times we walked by, the line to enter the store was 30 minutes or so, combined with a long wait to check out inside the store.

There were also some protests, though the only protest we saw was of a large group of people holding signs and chanting in a plaza.

One of the big attractions was the Olympic cauldron. On the first day we visited it, people filled the area around the cauldron, some of them climbing on barricades, sitting on shoulders, or pushing their way to the fence to get a picture of the cauldron.

Olympic Cauldron on Vimeo.

Olympic Cauldron at night on Vimeo.

Being in Vancouver for the Olympics was quite an exciting experience.

We went to the Men's 5000 meter speed skating event today at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. It was a lot of fun and we saw a new Olympic record set by a skater from the Netherlands who had a lot of supporters in the stands.

Note: We had posted video of the last half-lap, but YouTube took it down due to copyright infringement.

The first thing we did on our final day in Sydney was exchange some money because by this time we had run out of Australian dollars. Unfortunately this time, the exchange charge was like $20 instead of $8 that it cost us when we exchanged the majority of our money at the start of the trip through Sofia's Australian bank. Also, the exchange rate at the end of the trip was much worse than when we first got to Australia, so we didn't get as many Australian dollars for our American dollars.

We took the train to Paddy's Market, in the southwestern part of the CBD. We arrived at the market after a little difficulty, since we weren't sure which way to go from the train station. Paddy's Market was similar to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, but wasn't nearly as big and didn't have as much produce, food, or restaurants. We bought a few souveniers, including a small replica of a boomerang and a sweatshirt for me. The top level of the market is actually a mall. We were hungry and expected to find food at the market, but since we didn't, we decided to get some cheesecake at a coffee shop in the mall.

We continued walking through Chinatown, which is right next to Paddy's Market and then ate at an authentic Malaysian food place called Mamak for lunch. I had the chicken satay with sweet and spicy peanut sauce and Troy had the chicken curry soup with potatoes.

It started raining after lunch, so we decided to go to the Contemporary Art Museum in the Circular Quay so we could be indoors for a while. I'm not a big fan of contemporary art, so I wasn't that impressed. There was a lot of strange art, but we did like a few things such as a room full of small glass sculptures in ponds and metal wire sculptures. After the museum, we walked through The Rocks again and went back through the CBD, including the Strand Arcade again, where we sat and rested for a while.

We knew we'd have a hard time finding food for dinner, so we decided to try to find a Greek place we'd researched before the trip to see if we might want it. We finally found it, but the menu posted outside was a little expensive for our taste. For some reason we were really tired from walking all day (and all day the past 12 days for that matter), so we went back to the hotel to rest and check out the observation deck on the 45th floor.

View from Hotel Roof on Vimeo.

We decided to head back to The Rocks to eat at an Italian restaurant we had seen earlier in the day. I had some sort of ravioli and I forget what Troy had. We also had some wine with dinner, which was nice.

The last thing we did was take the train back to Newtown for some dessert. We had cookies and cream cheesecake and english breakfast tea. It was nice to relax and think about all the fun we had had the past 13 days.

Originally we thought we would take public transportation to the Blue Mountains, about 60 miles west of Sydney. However that would have cost us about $50 per person and we would have had to figure out where exactly to stop and what to do ourselves. So we decided at the last minute to book a day tour for $90 per person instead. This tour was not as good as the Great Ocean Road and it also wasn't as pretty, but it was still worth the trip and it was easier to do with a tour than by ourselves.

We waited at our hotel to be picked up by the tour company and they were about 30 minutes late, which was a little annoying since we had gotten up so early to meet them. We still had to pick up more people before we headed out to Olympic Park, where the 2000 summer Olympics were held in Sydney. There wasn't much to see there, but they did have the torch near one of the parking lots and plaques of all the medal winners. At the entrance of ANZ Stadium, there's a ring hanging on the building that has a feather from the national bird of every country that participated in those Olympics, which I thought was really cool.

After that short stop, we continued on to a small touristy town of Leura on the edge of the Blue Mountains. There were a few cute shops there, including a place to buy candles and other decorations and a candy store with lots of candy from all over the world. We didn't spend much time here either before we went to the next stop, which was finally inside the Blue Mountains. We rode a small train called the Scenic Railway down into the mountains. It claims to be the steepest train in the world, with a downgrade of about 52 degrees. It was pretty darn steep and there wasn't much to hold us in our seats except for the rail and seat in front of us and the cage above our heads. In retrospect, it probably isn't very safe. It was kind of funny though because they played the theme song to Indiana Jones as we headed down on the train.

Once at the bottom, there was a network of boardwalks going through the rain forest and it wasn't too busy, which was surprising. After spending about 30 minutes walking around the rain forest, we took the Scenic Cableway back up to the visitor's center. We had some good views from the top.

After that we ate lunch at a cafeteria type place, which was nothing special. I had the fish and chips and Troy had roast lamb. It was interesting talking to some of the other people on the tour during lunch. One guy was from New York City and had an interesting accent and smacked his food a lot. We also talked to a woman with her husband and kids and found out they used to live in Fort Worth, specifically in Wedgwood. They now live in Canberra because the husband works for Lockheed Martin and they transferred him there. It's a small world indeed I suppose.

The most popular viewpoint in the Blue Mountains is called Echo Point, where the Three Sisters are located. The Blue Mountains are named so because of the way the light reflects off of the vapors given off by the eucalyptus trees. One thing I would have liked to see was the Jenolan Caves, but it would have taken too long to get out there.

Three Sisters at the Blue Mountains on Vimeo.

On the way back to Sydney, we both took naps and then stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park to spend about an hour interacting with koalas, wallabies, and other native Australian birds and mammals. I probably enjoyed it more than Troy. It was fun getting to pet some of the animals.

Koala eating leaves on Vimeo.

Pretty peacock on Vimeo.

Baby Koala on Vimeo.

Our tour guide was kind of weird and goofy too, so we weren't very impressed with him. We had to catch a ferry back into the city and we were running behind schedule so he drove pretty fast in order to make it to the ferry in time. In fact, he told us to run toward the pier so the ferry wouldn't leave us there. It was nice to be off the bus and to relax and have more room on the ferry. Sydney has a pretty extensive ferry network and so we stopped at like 10 piers before we finally made it back to the Circular Quay in the CBD. It was really cool riding the ferry underneath the Harbour Bridge and next to the Opera House. The only downside is it was incredibly windy, so windy it almost knocked me over. It was hard to take video in what was probably the heaviest wind I've ever experienced.

Ferry Ride into Sydney on Vimeo.

We were pretty hungry by the time we got back. I wanted to eat at Nando's one more time before we left Australia, so we went there for dinner and it was really good. There's actually a few Nando's in Vancouver, BC and one in Washington DC, but I've heard the one in DC is a lot different from the ones in Australia, so who knows if the ones in Vancouver are any good either. I guess we'll find out when we go there for the Olympics in 4 months.

We walked around the Queen Victoria Market and The National Gallery of Victoria a little more and then decided to take the train down to the harbour again to take some nice night photos of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. We walked around the Rocks briefly and then went back to the hotel to rest from the long day.

On Wednesday, the first order of the day was to get something to eat for breakfast, or brekkie as Australians often call it. We really liked the Asian-style pastries at Breadtop and decided to try a similar place nearby called Barby's. We walked to a nearby park to sit and eat. It was kind of cool in the morning, but our blueberry pastry was really good.

After that, we wanted to go to the Powerhouse Museum, which we had read about in several guidebooks. To get there, though, we had to navigate our way up a hill and across some elevated roads. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it wasn't as easy or pedestrian-friendly as I expected a world-class city like Sydney to be. When we got near the museum, it wasn't yet open, so we continued walking into the quiet, historic neighborhood of Ultimo. We sat at a park bench near an old hotel, enjoying the morning sunlight.

We got to the museum and walked around. It was a pretty cool museum. There were a lot of interactive scientific exhibits that were popular with the kids there. There was also a neat little exhibit about Australian inventions, including the bionic ear and Vegemite. Australia overall was a pretty environmentally conscientious place, and there was an exhibit at the museum with environmental facts and a model home with examples of ways to limit your environmental impact. Our favorite exhibit, though, was about outer space with a lot of amazing color photos of planets, galaxies, and nebulae.

Since we had spent most of our time in Sydney so far in the CBD and immediately surrounding, we had decided to spend Wednesday afternoon exploring some of Sydney's neighborhoods. After the museum, we hopped on the light rail tram to Jubilee Park, where we had a view of the Anzac Bridge.

Anzac Bridge in Sydney on Vimeo.

From there, we found our way to Glebe Point Road, which went through the neighborhood of Glebe. It was a neat area and there were lots of cafes that we walked past. We stopped at a busy Thai restaurant that we had read about and found a place to sit and eat. After that, we walked through the University of Sydney, which is the oldest university in Australia and had some impressive historic and contemporary architecture.

Then we came to the neighborhood of Newtown, which seemed to have endless eating options. We walked along Princes Highway in Newtown for like 45 minutes and the cafes and fast food and restaurants continued on and on. We kind of wished that we hadn't already eaten, but hoped to be able to come back later. We stopped at a cafe where I had some Russian Caravan tea, which I had never seen previously in the US, but seemed to be somewhat common in Australia.

Newtown, Sydney on Vimeo.

After that, we took a train to the neighborhood of King's Cross on the other side of town. That neighborhood has had a mixed past of drugs and crime, but has been cleaned up considerably and is now a somewhat bohemian area with some historic surroundings. There were more strip clubs than we'd seen anywhere else in Sydney, but otherwise it wasn't too much different from other neighborhoods. We walked to the Elizabeth Bay House, a historic home in the area, and sat at the park across the street with a peaceful view of the harbour. It had started to get windy, though, so we got up to walk.

The neighborhood of Darlinghurst was nearby so we walked south towards it. Unfortunately, it was somewhat cool and windy, and the walk wasn't particularly interesting. We did arrive at the Taylor Square area, which had lots of shopping and cafes and restaurants. It was a pretty neat area, but the public pay toilets weren't working and we were both pretty cold. We actually weren't that far away from our hotel, so we decided to walk there to warm up and figure out where to eat.

I thought I had read that the neighborhood of Paddington, which was in the same direction from the CBD as Darlinghurst, but just a little farther out, had a lot of places to eat. We figured out what bus to take and went out to take the bus there. We got off the bus at before we went too far, but we didn't see much to eat in the area. There were a lot of places to shop, and some places to eat, but even though it was only like 6:30, pretty much everything had closed. It also started to rain, but fortunately we were able to find a place to eat.

Dinner was pretty unremarkable. Afterward we caught a bus back into the city and went back to our hotel room. We were a little hungry for dessert, so we found the nearest Max Brenner and went there for the last time. It was kind of busy. We found a seat at the bar where we could watch them preparing food and we got the very rich and very good chocolate souffle.

The sun shined through our east-facing hotel window and woke us up early on our first morning in Sydney. We got up and started our day by walking a few blocks to Bread Top for dim sum / Asian-style pastries. We got an apple bun, a coconut bun, and a ham & cheese croissant, which were all good. We then walked through Hyde Park, which is a fairly large park in the heart of the city and just a couple blocks from out hotel. Then we walked by St. Mary's Cathedral, which is the large cathedral we could see from our hotel room.

We then continued walking to the Royal Botanic Gardens. The weather had been cool, but by this time the sun had come out and it felt a little warm. There was a neat part of the gardens with succulent plans from around the world. The gardens are on a small peninsula and we continued walking out to Mrs. Macquarie's point. From there, we had an awesome view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There was also a seat, called Mrs. Macquarie's chair, which was carved in 1810 for the governor's wife. We had a good view of the CBD and the opera house from this area.

Sydney CBD, Opera House, and Bridge on Vimeo.

We walked along the water to Bennelong Point where the Sydney Opera House is. The Opera House was pretty neat. It's such a unique and interesting piece of architecture. We took a few pictures there before heading back into the gardens. There were lots of neat plants and flowers as well as a pond with ducks. There were also a lot of very large bats perched on the trees, technically they were grey-headed flying foxes, which have killed several trees since they have moved in.

By this time we had spent enough time at the park and were about ready for lunch. Again we had trouble finding anything good, so instead we ate cheaply at some food court. Our next stop was Bondi Beach, where the beach volleyball events were held during the 2000 summer Olympics in Sydney. To get there, we took the train from downtown to Bondi Junction and from there, took a bus to the beach. We were fortunate enough to have clear skies and pretty comfortable temperatures, which made the beach seem even more beautiful.

Bondi Beach on Vimeo.

We spent a lot of time here walking along the beach. We walked to a viewpoint where we watched the waves crash into the rocks.

Pacific Ocean Waves at Bondi Beach on Vimeo.

There were a pretty good amount of surfers here and other people just out enjoying themselves. And the area around the beach seemed pretty neat as well. We stopped inside somewhere to have ice cream before heading back into the city.

Sydney has a pretty good ferry system and we took a ferry from downtown to the suburb/neighborhood of Manly. It was a very scenic ride out of the city with views of the city skyline and its landmarks as well as the forested and rocky harbour shoreline. Once we arrived at Manly, we walked along the water for a while. On our way back, it started to rain, and by the time we got back to downtown Manly, it was raining pretty hard. Fortunately we had an umbrella this time, so we didn't get wet, and fortunately there were several places around to eat. We decided to stop at a pizza place, which claimed to have the best pizza in Australia. In my experience, when a place says they have the best food, they usually don't. Still, we decided to give it a try. The pizza was pretty good, but nothing too special. Pizza in Australia is a little different from American pizza. They put much less sauce on the pizza in Australia and the crust is thinner, though not really thin-crust. While we ate we could see the rain pouring down outside. We also heard thunder, which was cool since we so rarely have thunderstorms in Seattle.

After dinner, the rain had slowed down some and we decided to walk to the beach on the other side of Manly. While the beach had emptied, there was a very bright rainbow out in the ocean.

Manly Beach and rainbow on Vimeo.

Before heading back into the city, we stopped in the grocery store to pick up some snacks for later. It was dark outside for our ferry ride back into the city and again we enjoyed the beautiful views of the Opera House and the city lit up at night.

By this time a lot of the stuff in the CBD had closed, so we went back to our hotel and went to the observation level on the 45th floor. It was a fitting way to end a day of beautiful scenery. This was possibly our best day in Sydney, as we got to see a lot of beautiful things, and had good weather overall.