Cairns, Sydney and Area Beaches

This trip almost didn't happen. It started out as a long joke. Our friends Jason and Angela had been planning on going to Sydney since July to see Jack Johnson in concert. Every other day it seemed Jason would try to get us to go, almost pleading and making it really hard to say no. It was a pipe dream for us really, we fended him off as long as we could. We couldn't find an easy way to make it happen. Could we find a babysitter in Australia to watch Kyra while we went? Should just one of us go and the other stay home. Nothing seemed logistically possible or fair to all parties involved. Then when U2 announced a tour date just a few days after the Jack concert Vicki came up with the splendid idea that we would each go to one of the concerts while the other stayed with Kyra. Which is exactly what we did and I must say that it worked out pretty great. Now I realize that we could have all three gone to the Jack concert, it was quite mellow on the lawn, but in the end we decided that we would each be granted a night of freedom to enjoy ourselves to the utmost. Jason and Angela are good concert going friends. Both Vicki and I made the most of our evenings out and felt like we really got to experience a different side of Sydney than on our previous visit.

We stayed in a much different part of town. An area called Potts Point where the streets are tree lined and the cafe's plentiful. Still walking distance to the Opera House and Sydney's many parks and gardens, Potts Point provided us with a really good base to occupy the interests of both child and adult alike. Every other corner seemed to have a little park or playground for Kyra to expend her energy. It was a really nice aspect of the city.

One really great experience we got to enjoy that is not pictured below was the Chinese exhibit at the Sydney Museum. Some artifacts from the tomb of the first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, were on loan and we took a rare opportunity to see them accompanied by more than 200 other rare and interesting artifacts including several statues of his Entombed Warriors, Chariots and Royal Guards. It was pretty cool and I doubt we will ever go to China to see it in person, so we were glad we went, but don't have any pictures as they were forbidden like many other things in China.

Below are some photos, we hope you enjoy!!


Here is Kyra on her favorite swing in the playground just around the corner from our hotel



Vicki apparently is really popular in Sydney. Here she casually leans against a pole on her very own street.



Of all people, Oprah was in town. She pretty much took over the place. She even interrupted the Jack concert with her nearby firework display. You just have to laugh I guess. But Australia expects to generate millions of tourist dollars from her recent trip which is good I guess, but it doesn't seem like Australia is really hurting for tourist dollars. Pretty much everybody I know would like to visit Australia already, so I dont really understand the big push, but whatever. So they rolled out the red carpet everywhere she went and treated her like royalty. Which I suppose she pretty much is. But we felt skywriting was a bit much.



One of the better activities we did on this trip was to visit some of the nearby beaches. We spent a day in Bondi and a day in Coogee. Above is Kyra and Vicki posing on the ever famous Bondi Beach.



Kyra playing in the Tasman Sea.



This statue of a lifeguard diving into the ocean fascinated Kyra to no end. She couldn't figure out what he was doing and what it was all about. She was at first intrigued, then scared a bit and then just interested in its very existence. It was a very funny couple of minutes where you could just see the wheels turning in her little head.



This is what an Australian field trip looks like. By law, the kids are required to wear hats.



This is what Kyra looks like when an Australian field trip takes over the slide she had been solitary enjoying moments earlier.



Coogee Beach from a nice coastal walk along the bluffs.



Angela, Jason, Kyra, Vicki and Matt at sunset on Coogee. After a not too shabby day at the beach we finished it off with a relaxing pizza dinner on the bluffs overlooking Coogee. It was a nice evening and a good sunset over what must be one of Sydney's most serene and relaxed suburbs.



Captain Kyra



One of the added highlights to this trip was that we got to end our time in Australia with a few days in Cairns before our flight back to Guam. Now that Kyra is a bit older she can really experience all the free play areas that Cairns has to offer. One is the pool that we spent most of the day at, but the other is the kids area along the Esplanade where Kyra decided was a good place to cool off. As Cairns this time of year is quite hot, it was just what the doctor ordered.



Big fish eating Kyra.

Tokyo

Vic and I had a bit of "Island Fever" so we took a short trip up to Tokyo to check out this fair Earth's largest city. We figured 4 days was about all we could take. As exhausting as Tokyo can be, I found it pretty entertaining and when it was all said and done I felt like I could endure a little bit more. To me Tokyo is like one of those friends you had in High School that you liked being with but just gets to be too much to handle when you hang out for more than a few hours at a time. I guess any really big city can be draining and as a visitor, Tokyo seems easier to manage and is best seen in moderate doses.

We packed a lot in during our stay, had long days and soaked up as much as we could. Upon our arrival we headed to Yoyogi Park. It was very shady and cool compared to the concrete jungle circumventing its borders. In the center of the park lies Meiji Shrine, considered by many to be Tokyo's most important Shinto place of worship. It was a nice afternoon and a relaxing way to spend the remainder of the day after a series of planes, trains and automobiles.

Large Torii at the entrance to the Meiji Shrine. The logs used to build this torii are said to have come from a 1,500 year old cypress tree on Mount Tandai in Taiwan, which surprised me due to my previous held opinion that everything that came out of Taiwan was plastic. Who knew!

Saki Casks along the path to the Meiji Shrine - these were typical gifts for the Emperor given by various important people and dignitaries over the ages.

We were sure to adhere to the cleaning rituals at the Meiji Shrine in Yoyogi Park. Left hand, right hand, then the face. Don't forget to bow.

When we go to sleep Kyra must sneak out and socialize because she seems to be pretty popular everywhere we go. Just one of many instances where we were stopped by a gaggle of Japanese locals who wanted to capture the enigmatic white child. I'm pretty sure these people were tourists themselves since they took about 200 pictures a piece. She took it all in stride for about 5 minutes and then got kinda sick of it all and started crying.


Across from Yoyogi Park lies the Harajuku District where you can glimpse the future leaders of Japan dressing up like comic book characters. Big hair, Little Bo Peep style outfits and lots of makeup. It was a pretty crowded area, full of self expression and individuality. Culturally interesting but not exactly enticing for me to adopt. It was just another one of those days where I just kept reminding myself how goofy some of the Japanese cultures can be. We all have our quirks and peculiarities, but it seems to me that the Japanese have more than their share.

Where's Waldo. One of these things is not like the other. Most places we visit we attempt to blend in as best we can, but I pretty much gave up in Tokyo. Even in the widely diverse Harajuku District I couldn't seem to fade into the masses.


We stayed near the world's busiest train station - Sinjuku. The book we had said about 2 million people pass through there every day. It seemed more like 4 or 5 million to me. We went through there several times and at all hours of the day and it was simply jam packed all day long. It made me miss Guam just a little bit.

Typical busy street near our hotel in Shinjuku.


We spent some time at Ueno Park, Tokyo's version of Central Park. It was filled with shrines, temples, statues, Japanese street performers singing La Bamba (Sabes Guantanamera?) and a Pandaless zoo. Everywhere we went we saw billboards and signs directing us to see the Pandas at the zoo. The little zoo map even has a big panda on the cover. Once inside you can take your picture with a 10 foot tall ceramic panda. Wouldn't it be safe to assume that there would be real live Pandas inside as well? Stay thirsty my friends. There are no pandas at the Tokyo Zoo. They had otters, tigers, gorillas and penguins, but no pandas. A few hours after leaving the zoo we ran into this guy who asked us what we had been seeing in his city and when we told him that we had just come from the zoo his head bowed in what I could only assume was shame and said "I am very sorry, we have no pandas anymore." I guess its a big controversy, perhaps China stole them, but there are definitely no pandas and Tokyo's citizens sure seem upset.

Swans at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo

A very large Hello Kitty in the Baskin' Robbins near our hotel, Kyra kept looking at it as if she was wondering what the purpose of such a thing could be. Sometimes even I have no answers.


One really cool thing we did was visit Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market. The largest fish market in the world. (are you sensing a theme here) It was big. Lots of strange things going on. The metro stop for the fish market is 4 floors underground and when you get off the train you can already smell fish. We followed our noses several escalators and multiple stairways up and had a nice morning meandering through the stalls and watching the salesmen tolerate our presence. There were lots of crazy fish I'd never seen before and several of the stands sold live seafood. Not jsut fish, but crab and eel and all sorts of other living creatures packaged up and squirming around in see through containers.

Tsukiji Fish Market

This guy is sawing up some frozen tuna. I tried to get Vicki to distract him while I grabbed a slab but he was not easily swayed.


We spent an afternoon in Odaiba. Japans architecturally interesting district as we later named it. There were lots of cool buildings that stood testament to Japan's superior engineering. I guess they have to somehow make up for the runway I often land on in Osaka that is sinking into the ocean. We spent a long time at the Miraikan building which is their National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Most of it was in Japanese (but there was a lot of English explanation) and there were several elementary school field trips going on, but we pieced together the gist of it all and came out a bit more educated in the process. The coolest thing they had was a huge room with a rotating electric globe hanging 50 feet up from the ceiling. You can lay in comfy couches and look up while the earth changes in real time. They also have sequences of weather patterns over the last 30 days as well as ocean temperature changes over various periods of time. Kyra liked it quite a bit and later decided to take a nice little nap. We didn't argue one bit. It was quite relaxing.

Kyra looking up at the globe

Big Globe

Shibuya - The worlds busiest intersection is here, there were lots of people. Kyra almost lost her pacifier crossing the street, but alas it was found and she was able to sleep that night.

It was a good trip, we were glad we went. I liked Tokyo even though it can be a bit too much at times. I think that visiting in the fall or spring would make a big difference as the cherry blossoms are supposed to be a nice background compliment to the vast urban feeling all around you. I'd go back, there was just so much to see and do, we had to be picky and selective, but I would like to see some of the other parts that we neglected. Survey says: B+.