That’s Right we said The Great “BLUE” Barrier Reef! We expected the ocean to be BLUE and we were not disappointed! What took us by surprise was the other BLUE things we would encounter. After a bit of a bumpy ride on windy seas their were several greenish BLUE faces on the boat. When we arrived at the reef the we were told to don our lovely tight bright BLUE wetsuits. Most surprising of all was the tiny BLUE bottle jellyfish swimming all around us in the water. Now we don’t want you to think we didn’t enjoy going to the [View Full Entry]

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We arrived on a lovely cool evening in Melbourne, Australia. After our action packed time in New Zealand our plan was to slow down and relax for a few days. We stayed in a peaceful suburb called Fern Tree Gully at a very nice apartment complex. We needed some time to plan and book some of our future travel arrangements. We went into the city of Melbourne a couple of times to enjoy walking around town, browsing the shops and eating in Melbourne’s fantastic restaurants. (they are known as the restaurant city of Australia) Near our apartments was the Steam Engine [View Full Entry]

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New Zealand’s South Island is a remarkable contrast of awe-inspiring mountains, fjords, glaciers and deep canyon raging rivers with rolling pastures, forests and smooth deep blue lakes. It is almost a third larger than the North island but has only a fourth of the population. In spite on this fact, we managed to get into two big traffic jams…sheep traffic! We were really amused to find ourselves right in the middle of a herd of sheep (twice) as they were being moved from one pasture to another. It’s hard to believe, but getting there really is half the fun. We set [View Full Entry]

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Flying into New Zealand, we suddenly realized that we were entering “Middle Earth” a land of amazing beauty. With a population of only 4 million, it may appear to be a tiny place when looking on the world map, but when driving along taking in the sweeping views you realize New Zealand’s immense landscape. Our North Island journey begins in Auckland with a spectacular view of the city from the Sky Tower which is the tallest man made structure in the southern hemisphere. You can see the Crown Plaza hotel that we stayed in and about 30 miles in all directions. [View Full Entry]

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After arriving in Sydney, we had the pleasure of joining Stuart Kirkwood and family at their lovely home for a barbeque. We first met Stuart when he and "A" were working in Hong Kong. His children Rochelle and Bradley use to come play dress up with the girls. (Sure wish we had the pictures…but they would probably kill us if we posted them!) Stuart, Karen, Rochelle and Bradley were awesome hosts and we thoroughly enjoyed their company. Our hotel was right across the street from the famous Manly Beach. "j" and Dad took surfing lessons and are now gnarly surfer dudes [View Full Entry]

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#10 MOO MOO IS MORE THAN A SOUND A COW MAKES (The Hawaiian dresses.) #9 THERE MAY NOT BE A BIG FOOT LEGEND BUT THERE'S A LITTLE FOOT LEGEND (Hawaii has a famous tale of the Menehune, a group of hairy miniature people who once lived here) #8 MCDONALDS SERVES SPAM,EGGS AND RICE AS A BREAKFAST PLATTER (In Hawaii everyone loves spam and they even host a spam cook-off) #7 TARO CHIPS ARE JUST AS DELICIOUS AS POTATO CHIPS (But the taro root when mashed into poi is yucky!) #6 HAWAIIAN TIME MEANS WHENEVER YOU GET THERE (Works great when your [View Full Entry]

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A little about the places we have stayed these last few weeks. We were very fortunate to experience the REAL Kauai by staying outside of the tourist area in a cottage near Kapaa. The cottage was close to the beach and surrounded by swaying palm trees. It was a great time to relax and try to be more of a local. Of course we did the usual daytrips to all the beautiful scenic spots but we also shopped for groceries and even went to see a movie in nearby Lihue. After flying from Kauai to the Big Island we first stayed [View Full Entry]

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Aloha from Kauai! We are spending the next few weeks in Hawaii on three Islands- Oahu, Kauai and the Big Island. The first three days were at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki, Oahu. We spent a beautiful morning at Hanama Bay snorkeling and enjoying the amazing scenery. Our visit to the Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor was both moving and interesting. There were many Japanese visitors at the memorial… which made us wonder what it will be like when we visit Nagasaki, Japan’s ground zero memorial. Sunday we visited the very friendly Living Waters Baptist Church in K [View Full Entry]

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Wouldn’t you know it, we happen to be in Los Angeles while they are getting the most rain they have received in recorded history. We made the best of it and yes, there were a few breaks in the downpours. During our stay we went to Disneyland, the new Disney park California Adventure, and much more. It was interesting (and a little scary) to drive along some of the roads that are having mudslides. Another cool place to visit right in downtown LA is the La Brea Tar Pits which has more Ice Age mammal bones discovered there than anywhere else [View Full Entry]

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The first part of our international journey began with a cruise on the Disney Magic. It was a 7 night / 8 day trip to 3 different countries. We sailed on Feb 12th from Port Canaveral, Florida. The ship holds approximately 2700 guests, 1000 crew members and the Magic was built for Disney in 1998 by a ship builder in Italy. One of the officers of the ship told us that it's 1000 ft long and 10 stories high. The Magic was built for $700 million dollars. They went to great lengths to give the ship a "classic cruiseliner" look. The [View Full Entry]

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