Seattle has been ranked the 5th most pedestrian-safe city in the country.There are lots of cities out there that are pretty unsafe for walking and around 5,000 pedestrians are struck by vehicles and killed each year. So, it's good that we're able to walk in a pretty safe city for walking considering how much walking we do.

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.

Back in August, Seattle's primary election determined that our current mayor, Greg Nickels, wouldn't get another term. He was fairly unpopular for various reasons that I haven't been able to get a good understanding of since I've been here. I think some people felt he was too environmentally-focused, at the expense of other things, like crime. He spent lots of city money on a streetcar line and wanted to require businesses to charge for plastic grocery bags. I'm sure the city's poor response to the snow and ice covered streets last winter didn't help him either. The winners of the primary, Joe Mallahan and Mike McGinn, have been campaigning for the general election for the past few months.

One of the major issues of the mayoral election has been the replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. The Viaduct isn't structurally sound and has needed to be replaced for many years. Things take a while to happen here (you may remember we just got light rail here a few months ago), but as we recently posted about, Mayor Nickels made an agreement with the state to replace the viaduct with a $4.2+ billion tunnel.

Part of McGinn's platform was that, as mayor, he wouldn't let the tunnel be built because of the cost involved and of the potential benefits of alternative plans to the tunnel. Late in the campaign, he backed off a little and said that he'd allow the tunnel to be built, but he'd ask tough questions about it.

On the other side, Mallahan was in favor of the tunnel and part of his platform was that he'd use his business experience to help the city government run more efficiently.

There was a lot more to it than that, of course, and it was a close race. McGinn was more popular with young urbanites, and Mallahan was more popular with older and wealthier folks. Last Tuesday was voting day and it has taken a while to count all the ballots, but it appears that Mike McGinn will be our new mayor.

It will be interesting to see if the tunnel actually does get built and in what direction McGinn will take the city from here.

After 8 full days in Melbourne, we were scheduled to fly to Sydney on Monday. Our flight was around noon, so we didn't have to wake up too early. We got up, packed all of our stuff, and got on the rain for the final time to head into the city. Adam had to go to work, but Sofia was nice enough to come along with us. We got off at Southern Cross station and went to the airport shuttle. We said goodbye to Sofia and then got on the bus for the 30 minute or so ride to the airport.

At the airport, there wasn't an express check-in and the regular check-in line was fairly long. Getting through security in Australia was really easy - I could keep my shoes, belt, and watch on and didn't have to take my laptop out of my bag or put liquids into 3 oz bottles.

We had plenty of time before our flight and figured we should eat something, so we got chicken sandwiches from a fast food chain called Oporto. We boarded our plane (a 737) and the plane took off. The TVs on the plane showed some national news, which included fairly in-depth coverage of the Samoan tsunami that had just happened. I don't ever remember getting to watch intelligent news coverage on a flight in the US (or on the ground). Then, in an even more un-American way, we each got a sandwich to eat during our hour-and-a-half flight. We each got two half-sandwiches and they were kind of interesting. One was some kind of egg sandwich and another was some kind of sandwich with chutney and rocket. Chutney is kind of like relish-flavored jelly and rocket is apparently Australia's very-misleading word for arugula, which is our misleading word for leaf.

Anyway, we landed in Sydney and our luggage showed up really quickly. The airport was on the train line, so we went to buy our tickets and fortunately there was a teller who was able to sell us the tickets we'd need for the train and for the next 5 days in Sydney. Then, we got to the train platform and the train showed up really quickly. The only tricky thing was that Sydney's trains have an upper and a lower level and carrying luggage to either one is a bit difficult. One cool thing, though, was that the seats were reversible so we could reverse our seats and face forwards and put our luggage on the backward-facing seats. It was only a couple stops to Museum station, which was pretty close to our hotel. Unfortunately it wasn't accessible for heavy items, so we had to carry our luggage up more stairs. Once we were at street level it was pretty easy to get to our hotel, though the lack of people out and about was a big change from Melbourne's constantly bustling CBD.

We checked into our hotel and asked for (and got) a room with a decent view. We could see eastward to Hyde Park and St. Mary's Cathedral, though we couldn't see the water or any major landmarks. We didn't stay at the hotel for long and decided to go check out the city. Our hotel was pretty optimally located in the heart of the CBD, but after being spoiled by Melbourne's convenient tram system (and people who knew which trams to take), Sydney's lack of a tram system and our unfamiliarity with the bus system meant we'd be doing more walking. We walked north on George Street towards the water, absorbing the sights of Sydney.

Strand Arcade in Sydney CBD on Vimeo.

Our first destination was the Rocks area of Sydney, which is one of the oldest parts of the city and is located along the water. We walked through briefly and then walked along the water, looking at the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House.

Sydney Opera House on Vimeo.

Opera House and Harbour Bridge on Vimeo.

We then decided to walk on the bridge and had a bit of difficulty figuring out where to get on it. Once we found it, we decided to walk to the tower on the other side, however we saw storm clouds in the distance. The week before we arrived, Sydney was sunny with temps in the 70s, but there was a lot of rain forecast for the time we were there. We didn't have an umbrella with us and decided to press our luck and continued on to the far tower. We took plenty of pictures and enjoyed the view of the harbour. As we were walking back, though, it started to sprinkle.

Sydney CBD from the Harbour Bridge on Vimeo.

By the time we made it back to the Rocks, it was raining fairly hard and we were getting pretty wet. We were looking for a place to stop and eat, but it was Australian Labour Day and we didn't find much open. So, we found a bus stop and got on the next one, assuming it would take us toward our hotel, so we could dry off and get an umbrella. The bus got us close to our hotel so we got off and went to our room to dry off.

By that time we had started to get hungry, but hadn't really seen many places to eat while we were out. We decided to walk to Darling Harbour to find food places there. There's a monorail that we could've taken between the CBD and Darling Harbour, but it's not that far to walk. Darling Harbour had a big shopping mall and a lot of upscale places to eat, along with a shopping mall food court. After walking around some, we found some mediocre Thai food to eat and then had a chocolate hot fudge sundae at Lindt, a chocolate bar place like Max Brenner. The sundae was really really good, but I'm embarrassed to say that we paid $15 for it. Darling Harbour was kind of neat, it was a harbor, obviously, and there were people there and some live music and a neat pedestrian bridge. After our time there we walked back toward the CBD and saw a bunch of stuff to the south of where we were staying. We walked around there, past a downtown mall, and some restaurants and cafes, including a really nice McDonald's (with chandeliers). That area reminded me of Melbourne's CBD. After walking through, we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Sunday, October 4th, was our last full day in Melbourne. The first thing we did was eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Los Amates in the suburb of Fitzroy. Fitzroy is Melbourne's oldest and smallest suburb and has a mixture of all kinds of ethnicities. Several of the buildings in the area are protected for heritage and historical significance.

Sofia told us before we went that the food at Los Amates tasted exactly like Mexican food tasted in Mexico when she used to live there. So now Troy and I can say we've had real Mexican food, and we had it in Australia of all places! A Mexican guy owns and operates the place and everyone speaks Spanish there. Sofia said that the owner is very nice and treats all the Mexicans he meets in Melbourne like family. The waiter was very nice and Sofia got along with her well, and she was able to get us free chips and guacamole to start with. I had authentic Mexican enchiladas, one with salsa verde and one with salsa roja, and Troy had chilaquiles verdes con pollo. The food was really good!

After lunch, we continued walking around the Fitzroy area, including Brunswick Street, which has a lot of little stores and cafes. It was a pretty cool area and I wish we could have spent more time there.

The next stop was St Kilda beach in southern Melbourne. We sat near the beach for a while and then walked out onto a nearby pier. It was a little hazy and the sun was washing everything out, so we weren't able to see the Melbourne skyline that well. There is also a small amusement park right next to the beach called Luna Park. It's easy to recognize because the entrance is the mouth of a giant scary face. We didn't go inside, but it looked like it would be fun. This Luna Park is the oldest one still in existence and also has the oldest continually-operating roller coaster in the world called the Scenic Railway, which was built in 1912.

Luna Park near St Kilda Beach on Vimeo.

Then we rode the tram back into the CBD and stopped briefly at the library to see the architecture inside. We were all a little hungry, so we stopped to have dessert at Max Brenner. This time Troy and I had the banana crepes with chocolate drizzled on it and it was alright, but we didn't like it as much as the chocolate souffle that we had before.

The main reason for going back to the CBD was so that we could buy some suitcases we had seen a few days ago at a place called Strandbags. I'd been wanting a new set of suitcases recently since the only one we have is pretty beat up and doesn't roll very easily because it tips over all the time. I don't like using the duffel bags we have either because they just don't carry much and aren't protected much at all. But all the suitcases we'd seen in the US were like $300 or more for a set of two. So when we saw two purple suitcases with wheels and expandable handles for about $150 total in Melbourne, we decided to buy them. These will be a big improvement over our duffel bags and small black suitcase that always tipped over. Plus we'll always remember that we bought them in Melbourne, Australia!

The only problem with buying them Sunday afternoon was that we had to carry them with us the rest of the day until we went back to the house. But it was most convenient for us to carry them this day. It helped that they were different sizes and the small one fit inside the big one. So, Adam and Sofia helped us carry them at our next stop, Dendy Street Beach in Brighton. I really liked this beach because of all the bathing boxes along the shore that are painted different colors and designs. People actually own them and use them to store surfing and boating equipment. They are currently selling for AU$200,000 each, which sounds crazy. It was really nice walking along the beach with the sun setting over the water.

Dendy Street Beach on Vimeo.

Sunset and bathing boxes on Vimeo.

We took the train back to the CBD so we could catch the other train to go back to Clayton. In between train rides, Troy and I wanted to sit one last time at Federation Square for a while and take in the awesome city aura. It had just turned pretty dark outside, so all the buildings were lit up, it was really cool. Remembering it makes me wish I was still there.

Federation Square at night on Vimeo.

But I guess we couldn't stay there forever, so we took the next train back to the house where we ordered pizza for delivery. It was pretty late by the time we got back and we had to finish packing and do our two loads of laundry. In fact, we stayed up until probably 2 AM waiting for our laundry to wash, which took about 30 minutes, and dry, which took about 90 minutes.

But Adam had to go to work the next morning really early, so we had to say goodbye before he went to bed. We both gave him big hugs and thanked him for letting us invade his and Sofia's room for a full week. It was so sad saying goodbye, I didn't want it to be over! We both miss you Adam, but we had an awesome time with you and are glad we were able to see you and hang out so much in such a cool place.

We typically go to Target for household stuff every 6 weeks or so. The closest one to us is the one near Northgate Mall, about 6 miles north of us, but it’s not a Super Target. The regular Targets only have a small selection of cereals, chips, drinks, some canned goods, and a very small frozen section. Unfortunately there isn’t a Super Target in the entire state of Washington (or Oregon and Idaho for that matter), so we buy the vast majority of our groceries at one of the nearby grocery stores, which are more expensive than Target.

We hadn’t been to Target in a while, and the last time we went to the one in Northgate, they were doing a lot of remodeling, so everything was a mess. We had to go last week because we were on our last roll of toilet paper, so we went to the Northgate Target expecting it to still be a disaster from the remodeling. It was quite the opposite, in fact, the remodeling was done and everything was a billion times better because they basically turned it into a Super Target! Actually, it’s not quite a Super Target though because it doesn’t have a produce section or a very big meat or bread section, but it’s still a huge improvement over what they had before.

Being the nerds that we are, we were very excited and almost giddy that our Target had expanded the grocery section so much. We spent a lot more time there than we expected to, just exploring the new aisles and looking at all the food we could buy for cheap. And they also had this really good raspberry lemonade made by Simply Orange, that I'd never seen before at other grocery stores. I think Simply Orange makes the best orange juice, apple juice, and lemonade by far.

We didn't even have time to go down to the bottom floor (yes, the Northgate Target is two stories tall). One other cool thing about this Target is that they have a vermaport, an escalator specifically for shopping carts. You just put your cart on the belt and then you get on the escalator next to it and watch it ride up or down right next to you. I thought it was so cool when we first went there.

But anyway, I'm really glad that our Target is so much nicer and bigger now. I almost can't wait to go back. Now we can do most of our grocery shopping there for a lot cheaper than QFC or Safeway.

Since Queen Victoria Market had started to shut down yesterday by the time we arrived, we decided to make that our first stop of the day. We got there and started looking for breakfast. Lesley decided to have some churros (Spanish doughnuts). Adam and I decided to have some "American" Doughnuts, which were not like American donuts at all - they were covered with granulated sugar, tasted doughier, and had fruit filling. Still, they were good, and I couldn't finish them all, so I saved some for later. We continued to explore the market. There was an indoor section with meats for sale and other stuff. Outside, the market had a pretty big produce section that we walked through, but we spent most of our time exploring the section with general merchandise. There were lots of clothes, some was typical souvenir apparel, but there were lots of other clothes as well, including some NFL jerseys. There were other booths, some with magnets or calendars or other things. Some booths sold electronics or watches or sunglasses. We picked up a few souvenirs while we were there as well as a green sherpa hat and purple plaid scarf for Lesley. I got to use my hardly-ever-used negotiating skills to get better deals on stuff that was already pretty cheap.

Queen Victoria Market on Vimeo.

Sofia had an appointment to tour an apartment so she had to leave as we were finishing our time at the market. Adam, Lesley, and I left to have lunch on Lygon Street, where there are lots of places to eat, especially Italian restaurants. I wish I lived near Lygon Street (or somewhere similar). We just walked along until we found a place that we felt like eating at. We sat outside and enjoyed a good meal together.

After lunch, we walked around the Carlton Gardens, which is where the Melbourne Museum and the Royal Exhibition Hall were. We didn't go into either one, but we spent some time relaxing in the park. At the park was one of the only public drinking fountains that we saw in Australia. Lesley and I were carrying a water bottle with us, which we had already emptied, so I tried to fill it there, but had a hard time because the water basically shot straight up instead of in an arc. We had started carrying water with us because after being out all day, we had always gotten very thirsty because restaurants never gave us enough water and we didn't want to spend $3-4 for a bottle of water every few hours every day.

Anyway, after the park, we headed back to Lygon Street to meet Sofia for some gelato. We then decided to go visit the neighborhood of Toorak, which we had passed through before. It's one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Melbourne. We took the trams there and looked out the windows at the upscale homes. We just stayed on the tram to ride back and got off for tea and coffee at Laurent, an upscale bakery.

Our next place to be was Etihad Stadium to see the soccer game that we had tickets to. Soccer isn't the most popular sport in Australia. In Melbourne, the most popular sport is Australian Rules Football (also called footy). Adam and Sofia say that it's really fun to go to a footy game, but the season had just ended when we arrived, so we weren't able to see a game. By contrast, in Sydney, the Australian Football League (AFL) isn't as popular and rugby is the biggest sport. Etihad Stadium was designed for the AFL, which uses a larger field than soccer and attracts more fans, so it was a little oversized for an optimal experience. The game featured the Melbourne Victory against the Brisbane Roar. At halftime, Lesley and I had Australia's unofficial national dish, the meat pie, along with a sausage roll. While they are both popular, we seemed like the only people getting food and not beer at the concession stand. They came with tomato sauce (ketchup) packages that, once you opened them, you could just squeeze them and the tomato sauce came out really easily without getting your fingers dirty - much better than the messy ones in the US. The sausage roll and meat pie were both pretty good, but I can live without them. The level of play of the soccer game was pretty similar to Major League Soccer in the US and overall the game was pretty entertaining. In the end, Melbourne won 2-1.

After the game, we stopped at a British pub downtown for a drink so that we wouldn't be on a crowded train with all the other soccer fans. When we got home, Adam made us his specialty, Chicago-style hot dogs, which were pretty good.

I have some sad news to share. Sassy passed away about two weeks ago. She was mine and my parents' cat since 1996, so I grew up with her. She was probably 16 years old when she died, which is pretty old for a cat. My parents couldn't find her in the house for a few days and thought she might have gotten out of the house somehow. They were afraid she was outside in the rain. She actually went blind about two months ago and wouldn't have known how to get around outside. But they finally found her three days later, already gone behind a shelf unit, poor thing. At least she died in the comfort of her own home, where she was safe. I'm still pretty upset and heartbroken, but I'm glad she had a good life. I thought I would share my memories of her, as well as some pictures I have of her and the video we posted a few months ago.

I remember when we started seeing her outside and how thin she looked. She didn't look like a wild cat though. She actually looked like she'd possibly been abandoned by her previous owners. Maybe they moved away and couldn't take her with them. Either way, we kept seeing her outside and my sister and I finally convinced Mom and Dad to take her in. I remember she was pretty hesitant to come into the house, but we finally got her inside.

I'd always wanted a cat, so I was really happy to have Sassy. I used to "wheelbarrow" her around the house by picking up her hind legs and pushing her forward, making her use her front legs to walk. After we had her for a few years, she was afraid to be outside anymore, so I would also take her outside across the street and sit her on the ground just to watch her run back into the house. I also put her on her back, which most cats don't like, but she never seemed to mind that much.

I remember when we used to go on long vacations and we'd come back and she'd be in the entry way to greet us, meowing for us to pet her.

The only time I specifically remember her scratching me was when she was sitting on my lap and she heard something, so she jumped off my legs and dug her claw into my thigh. I still have the scar on my leg from it.

When she was younger she used to run really fast around the house and you could hear her claws picking at the carpet. When we had her cat house inside, we'd put catnip on the top where she always sat and she'd go crazy sniffing the catnip. She was such a funny cat. It was really funny when we put a cat-sized Santa hat on her and she'd try to shake her head to get it off. It didn't come off that easily because it had an elastic band to keep it on her head.

But my favorite memories of her are when she used to play with ice cubes. We would get ice from the ice maker in the fridge door and she'd come running into the kitchen with big eyes, wondering where the ice was. I'd show her a piece and she'd watch it intently as I put it on the edge of the bar. She'd sit there staring at it and would finally stand on her hind legs and bat at it with her paw. It usually took her a few times of standing up and batting at it before she could knock it on the floor. Once it was on the floor, she'd bat it around and chase it as it slid all over the kitchen floor. She was such a silly cat.

She was a good kitty and I loved hugging and petting her so much. She was a pretty kitty too, I liked her grey stripes and short hair. I'm so glad we decided to take her in. We gave her a good home for the vast majority of her life. The last few times we've gone back to Texas, I made a point to see Sassy and pet her for a few minutes, since I wasn't sure how much longer she'd be with us. The last time I saw her was when we went back for Lauren's wedding in July. I'm sure if I was still in my parents house, it would be even harder for me to let go. I would miss seeing her and petting her obviously, but I'd also miss just hearing her collar jingle or her meow. I'll never forget my first cat, Sassy. I really miss her.

Click the picture below to see other pictures of her.



Here is the only video I took of her.

Sassy on Vimeo.

Friday we went to the Melbourne Zoo first thing in the morning and spent a few hours there looking at all the animals. They had a bird sanctuary that had lots of weird birds I'd never seen before, like a blue-billed duck. We saw the usual giraffes, elephants, zebras, and gorillas. And of course, we saw kangaroos, emus, wombats, and koalas! They also have a butterfly house that you could walk through and have the butterflies fly all around you and land on you! It was so cool. I'd never been in a butterfly house like that. There must have been thousands of butterflies in there of all colors and sizes.

Butterflies at Melbourne Zoo on Vimeo.

One of the things I wanted to see the most was the snow leopard cubs that were born there recently, as I mentioned on the blog a few months ago. They were the first thing we went to see and they were both hiding far back in their cage, but we went back to see them right before we left and they were both awake. It was really cool seeing them since I don't think I've ever seen one in person. Every time we went to see the snow leopard at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, it wasn't anywhere to be seen. So I was really happy to see them at the Melbourne Zoo. I also enjoyed seeing their other big cats, like the puma, tiger, and lion.

Snow Leopard in the Zoo on Vimeo.

It was probably one of the best zoos I've ever been to. The coolest thing about it was being able to get so close to the animals. For example, they had several giant tortoises in one area we could have easily just walked into because the small wooden fence was so low on the ground. It just seemed like they were a lot more relaxed and not as concerned about safety as the zoos in the US. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't unsafe, but I could have easily touched so many animals I wouldn't be able to even get within 20 feet of in the US.

After picking up a few souvenirs at the zoo, including a stuffed baby snow leopard and a Melbourne Zoo magnet with a snow leopard on it, we headed over to the Queen Victoria Market for lunch. Sofia had to go to work though, unfortunately. The Queen Victoria Market is similar to Pike Place Market, but has more stuff to buy such as clothes, suitcases, and live animals. There were several isles of produce and tons of meat, cheese, nut, and pastry shops. We had some bratwurst at the Melbourne Bratwurst Shop and they were really good. Unfortunately it was already 3 in the afternoon and most of the market was already closed or in the process of closing. So we decided to come back the next day.

After the market, Adam had to go do some apartment hunting, so he left Troy and I at the DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) mall to look around some. There wasn't much there and even though it claimed to be an outlet mall, prices didn't seem to be any cheaper than regular stores in the CBD.

Since we were still hungry from only having brats for lunch, we decided to have an early dinner at a Thai food place on Lygon Street, which is actually the heart of the Italian district. Adam met back up with us and we headed to the Thai place. I had the Pad Thai, which was surprisingly not spicy at all. They didn't ask any of us for a spiciness level for some reason, so I was afraid our food would be spicy. We also shared the coconut jasmine rice, which was really good and really sweet. Thai food is one of my favorite foods to eat, it's so good!

After dinner, we somehow still had room for gelato. Troy and I shared three flavors: passion fruit, strawberry, and Snickers. They also had durian flavored gelato, which I thought was weird and interesting, because I've heard durian is a fruit that smells really bad. After that we decided to hang around the CBD a little longer and went to a pub at Melbourne Central for drinks. It was a pretty nice pub actually, with no smoking allowed inside of course. Troy and Adam had some Australian brewed beer and I had a glass of white wine. It was a lot of fun hanging out and talking to Adam at the bar. We went back to the house after that and played some more dominoes before going to bed.

Lately I've been lucky enough to be able to watch TCU football games on TV at home. Their games aren't normally televised, but Versus has been showing their games in our area. TCU is actually ranked 6th in the entire nation (woohoo!) and has consistently been very good for several years. I really hope we can win the rest of our games this year and have a chance to play in a BCS bowl game. The biggest game we have left is against 14th ranked Utah at home. I'm looking forward to watching that game in two weeks. Go TCU!

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.