December’s Whirlwind Tours: US, Australia and New Year’s in Hong Kong

Forgive me – it’s been six weeks since my last confession. Way too much going on in December – first, we had a short trip to a little country you may have heard of called the United States.

Highlights:
My sister Lisa’s wedding! Hooray! To Charlie Kaiser, in Illinois. I got to see my whole family, and Allison shot the most embarrassing dance video I have ever seen of me cowboy-dancing with my nephews. I am truly sorry. The shame of it! Feel my pain at:

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And, a wonderful though brief visit to San Francisco, where I got to see many of my students and colleagues at Capuchino High, and attend a great party hosted by Marija, for holiday smoozing with friends. Thanks to Erik, Anastasia, and Zane, my hotel in SF!

After the US, Allison and I flew to Sydney, Australia to meet up with our friends Shauna (a Sydney native) and Daniel. Daniel and Shauna took us to the overwhelming Sydney Fish Market (for prawns, Daniel’s favorite), and then we suited up to climb the beautiful Sydney Harbor Bridge. Can you imagine walking to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge? It was a bit like that. It’s practically a military operation, and fours hours well-spent! See pics at:

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After repacking (and stocking up on cold medicine as we all had colds!) we headed to Hervey Bay in Queensland, on Australia’s East Coast, and then to tiny Lady Elliot Island, which is the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef. We could only take 20 pounds each on the plane – and our scuba gear weighed nearly that! Once we boarded the plane, we understood the weight restriction. It was a true puddle jumper, only nine passengers, and one of us had to sit next to the pilot! (Shauna volunteered.) Lady Elliot Island is basically just a sandy rock made out of old coral, and the birds outnumber the humans by at least 1000 to 1. You literally would step on them at night if you weren’t careful! It is also a turtle nesting ground – Shauna and Daniel stayed up one night to get some photos of turtles laying eggs:

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After a brief tour of the island we donned our scuba gear and headed out on our first dive. Allison and I had a new underwater camera and we got carried away snapping photos. Here’s a link to (yikes!) 201 of the best photos (yes, there were many more that we edited out –if you can believe that!):

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We did six dives and four snorkels; they were truly awesome. We saw sting rays, turtles, sharks!!, eels, crabs, more fish than you could shake a fish-stick at, and phenomenally beautiful reefs. At one point we swam with about 20 sharks, as big as me or bigger. They were not man-eaters, but it is still an exhilarating and somewhat terrifying experience! And I got to swim with a beautiful and huge turtle! Allison made a short but terrific video of shark and turtle, to give you a little taste:

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Not only was the whole experience incredible, but Allison and I (and Daniel and Shauna too) –are now certified advanced divers. To attain that exalted status we did a night dive, a drift dive, a deep-water dive, and learned to navigate. Want to know more about the ocean, which covers more than 70% of Earth? Here I will do a plug for a BBC documentary we have been watching called “Blue Planet” about the oceans, fish etc! It’s amazing and for anyone that likes to dive, snorkel or swim in the ocean, it is a must!

After 3 nights, we hopped back on the puddle jumper to Hervey Bay and picked up a 4WD to go camping on Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, and alleged home to dingoes (wild dogs – which we never saw until the Sydney Zoo! We didn’t encounter Meryl Streep, either.) Still, the island was a blast:

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We did a whirlwind tour of Fraser on barely passable sand roads, and then along the ocean. Beautiful freshwater lakes, sand dunes, champagne pools, old wrecks and sea-bound rivers. It was truly breathtaking! Also, we were very impressed with Daniel’s driving skills! After 2 nights of camping in the wild – back to civilization- via Hervey Bay to Sydney.

The Lovells, Shauna and Daniel’s friends in a remote community in the north of Sydney, hosted us the first night back. It was a community accessible only by boat/ferry and surrounded by national park. It was beautiful, as a walk the next day showed:

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Then, Allison and I headed into the city for adventures on our own. Sydney has about 4 million people – it’s Australia’s largest city. The first night we took a tour of the Sydney Opera House and then saw a show. It was amazing!

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The next day, Christmas Eve, we did a tour that took us to major sites, including a very old amusement park, botanical gardens, the art gallery and finally the aquarium (never can get enough fish!) We ended the day with an amazing meal at the Flying Fish – anyone headed to Sydney really should try it! Christmas Day included breakfast in bed, followed by a visit to the Zoo (kangaroos, wallabys, koalas, echidnas, dingoes, and my all-time favorite, the platypus!) and then Manly Beach. (It’s called Manly Beach because the English saw some “manly” looking aborigines on the beach when they first spotted it.) It’s a big Australian tradition to head to the beach on Christmas, which is Summertime there. We even saw a guy surfing in a Santa Claus suit!

The next day we headed home with way too much luggage, and after frantic repacking attempts the nice lady at Singapore Air didn’t charge us for the excess baggage. After doing laundry and answering e-mail, New Year’s was upon us. We went to a yummy dinner of Peking Duck, and then headed to Times Square for the countdown:

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Yes, they really do have a Times Square in Hong Kong, too. But unlike the NYC version, Hong Kong’s Times Square is small and we were too late to get anywhere near the action, so we went to the waterfront to hear Hong Kong’s cannon blow. We actually gave up on that too and ended up at home at midnight! Still, an amazing end to a wonderful year.

We did a terrific hike to Tong Wong Beach on New Year’s Day, a beautiful remote beach in the New Territories. On the car trip to the trail, Allison did her first driving in Hong Kong – this can be terrifying on the “wrong side of the road”, take it from me – but she was a star. There was a good symmetry to be on a beach on both Christmas and New Year’s Day!

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Can you believe it’s 2007? Where’s my flying car? Happy New Year, everyone!