Strike a pose...Koala style

If you were a Koala, you too could sleep 18 hours a day!

Kangaroos, Koalas and Blondes, oh my!

Finally some wildlife, other than the Aussie Boys!

Today we went to Koala Park to feed some Kangaroos and pet the Koalas! I am pretty sure that the Kangaroos were pretty happy about seeing us, they didnt say so but I think it was pretty obvious. We walked around the park and got to see Fairy Penguins (lilttle warm weather penguins), Wombats, Cocatoos, and Emus and of course sheep!

Tonight we are going out to dinner to try Kangaroo. Its horrible I know, but to quote Jeri, "we feed them, they can feed us!"

Tragedy has struck... death of a good friend

Last night there was a great tragedy. We lost our good friend the Flat Iron to a freak power- conversion accident. If you dont know, Australia's outlets work at a much higher voltage so you have to use a converter to lower how much power goes into the devices. After about 5 minutes of use, the Flat Iron just quit. Jeri and I almost didnt leave the house that day. But decided to wear our very puffy hair out in public as a sign of loss to pay our respects.

We are happy to report that after a trip to town we have replaced our friend with an Australian flat iron (no conversion needed) so all is well in the world of hair once again.

May you rest in peace Flat Iron, you will be greatly missed. Please observe a moment of silence for a good friend.

Roses and Bats...

When walking through the Royal Botanical Gardens here you would expect to see flowers, the typical and flora and fauna. However, bats werent something we were expecting. In the Middle Garden (the Botanical Gardens are huge) there are trees filled with thousands of bats. And they all "hang out" there (haha) during the day, and at dusk leave the trees to find more shelter. It was insane to look up and see the bats everywhere! If you tell from the picture these are flying foxes because their faces look like little fox faces. Weird.

Sydney Harbour Bridge: A documentary! (or a short)

Across the Harbour Bridge!

I guess its not really appropriate to ask, "so do a lot of people jump off your bridge too?" But it only seemed logical to compare our bridge to the Harbour bridge. And as of last year about 602 people were jumping each year but they now they have a barrier up. After walking across the bridge, we got to climb a pylon to the top of the bridge. It had amazing views of the Opera House and of the Harbour. It took us only about 1/2 an hour to walk across and back, and definitely wasnt as windy as the Golden Gate.

And because we thought we should....The Harbour Bridge!

We realized that perhaps you might not actually believe we were in Sydney from the blogs we have posted so far. I mean you can buy Vegemite at Cost Plus, and we could have just made up what was on that Buger with the lot...and Chinatown--we could just be in San Francisco.

So just to clear the air and make sure you know we aren't just pulling a fast one on you for 5 weeks, here is a picture of us with the Harbour Bridge! We got to see this on our first day in Sydney, but we plan on walking across it tomorrow, so we will have even more pictures for you then! Til then, hopefully this will help prove we truly are in Sydney!

Yes, there is a Chinatown in Sydney (I know what you are thinking)

Welp! Leave it to us to find Chinatown in Sydney!

Have you ever just had an urge for noodles? Or chinese? I know I have.

If you didnt know, there is a huge Chinese population in Australia; almost as many Chinese Australians as there are are the typical white Australians. And when there is a huge Chinese immigrant population, there is always a Chinatown. And we found it!

I am realizing that most of our blogs involve food, but really, we've got to eat! We had the dumpling noodle soups today. Jeri had the hot and sour dumpling soup and to quote Jeri, "it was the spiciest thing I have ever had, but totally worth it!. 5 hours later and I can still feel the hotness in my stomach." I had the dumpling soup with veggies and hand-rolled noodles. Best noodles I have EVER had. We took the leftovers because if you can tell from the picture the bowls were huge!

(The menu's were in Chinese so we ordered by picture from the window behind us!)

The Challenge: Burger with the lot

Today Jeri and I ventured to Manly beach which is about 1/2 hour ferry ride out of the Sydney Harbour. We went in search of hot beaches, and the burger with the lot! The beach at Manly was absolutely stunning and not to make you too jealous but it was about 82 degrees today! After about two hours on the beach we ventured to Burger Me to get the Challenge. Burger with the lot is a staple of Australia, and unlike Vegemite, this one is actually worth trying...

Burger with the lot includes: Beef patty, sweet pineapple, melted Aussie Cheddar, fried egg, bacon, tomato relish, beet root (pickled beet) mayo, lettuce, onion, and tomato. Oh and of course a sesame seed bun.

This burger was bigger than my hand spread out wide! Jeri and I each ate half for lunch and couldnt even try to eat dinner. Definitely a staple worth trying!

Our Australian Initiation!

What is Vegemite you may ask? Besides being one of Australia's food icons, it is a yeasty, salty spread commonly put on toast and cracker biscuits. It has the texture similar to peanut butter. Upon our arrival in Sydney, Jeri's friend Rebekah, whom we are staying with our first few nights, welcomed us and explained that it is customary in Australia to have Vegemite upon your arrival. (This we found out is not true) It tastes just as great as it sounds, so we decided to film it so that you could understand the feeling we had when we tried it.

Australian Hazing: Vegemite

How this Saga Began....

Before we can begin documenting our Australian Adventure, you must understand the origin of this great journey...

Some great ideas come from months of research, with men doning white coats sitting around discussing hypothesis and theory. As it is the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, it is only fitting that our GREAT idea came about this very year; yet ours came about in a very organic way. Our great idea started with Vegas, 8 days of Vegas.

While working, I had planned a Vegas weekend with friends for my quarter-life crisis, but upon being laid-off, and Jeri being unemployed due to her relocation back to the bay, suddenly staying in Vegas for the whole week seemed like a good plan, and Jeri agreed. That's when all of the crazy ideas began (it could have also been the wine and vodka--guess we will never know!)

When you aren't working, anything seems possible, so maybe just as a joke, we threw around the idea of traveling to Australia, and it stuck. Soon friends (you know who you are) asked, "are you guys really going to go, or are you just saying that to mess with Garrett and Jason?" Perhaps at first it was a little bit of both!?

The rest of the time Jeri and I were in Vegas, we met some amazing people, we were definitely spoiled, danced with Akon, took a picture with Evander Holyfield (I was on the earless side, see above) and karaoked with some southern boys. We had a blast, but besides realizing that we can never do 8 days in Vegas again, we decided to actually follow through with our travel ambitions and see Australia. So although 8 days of Vegas was way too much for us to handle again, we are ready to embark on 5 weeks in the Land Down Under!

Our flight takes off Friday Feb. 20th at 10:30pm, so stay tuned!