I come from a land down under...
Where the women glow and men plunder...

This is my Australia trip posting. I apologize for only posting when I've been somewhere or done something, but I've just been lazy and haven't been writing at all, something I'm quite ashamed of. It's not that I'm that busy that I can't journal or write about anything, but it's just that I don't. No other excuse than that I don't feel like it or don't want to invest anything. Either way, shame on me. But I digress.

This is my trip to Australia. I had off almost the entire month of August and I went to Sydney to see family and Adelaide to see a good friend. After my Korean friends sent me off in style (a la Outback Steakhouse) I traveled to Sydney where I met up with my mom's brother Uncle Ken and his family. I spent a few days in Sydney before heading with the family on holiday to Nelson Bay and then I flew to Adelaide for a week to see Billie, a really cool friend who I used to teach with here in Korea. I came back to Sydney for the last weekend, then back to Korea. These are my pictures.

Of course, we have to start out with a few pics of the Sydney Opera house. Here's a pic of Uncle Ken and Aunt Barnetta, who graciously put up with me and my Americanisms for a few weeks.

More Opera house and Sydney pics.

I also got to hang out with some cousins who I rarely ever see. Here's me with Leanna and Stephanie.

And here's Heidi and her husband Steven and daughter Samara.

And the family shot

One thing that Korea sadly lacks is the abundance of unique and native animals. Other than the really small poodles and miniaturized dogs that the women dress up, paint up and carry around in their bags, you rarely see many animals here in Korea. So Australia was a welcomed change to that. This is the Animal portion of the post. Please observe a moment of silence for the fallen Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, then read the rest of this portion of the post in such accent.

These are either kangaroos or wallabies. Who knows? I can't keep them straight and I sure can't believe what the Aussies tell me. I was told, on numerous occasions, of the constant danger of the drop bear, a koala-like creature with huge fangs and sharp claws that will drop down from the trees and scratch you up, and the hoopsnake, a poisonous snake that does not slither, but bites his tail and rolls like a wheel. Yeah, look them up. They're all lies.

This is my favorite picture. The kangaroo was really into the shoot. He found his inner tiger.

Here's the other animals...

Wombat

Tazmanian Devil

And of course, the koala... not to be confused with the drop bear.

We spent a quiet and comfortable week in Nelson Bay just relaxing and watching the Olympics. This is my first Olympics abroad and I highly recommend doing so. Seeing another country in all its pride cheering on its competitors was a lot of fun, though unfortunately not without its America-bashing comments. I was rooting for the Aussies Stephanie Rice, Libby Trickett, Grant Hackett and Eamon Sullivan while gloating over the "Redeem Team" and Michael Phelps. But the Aussies are fiercely proud of their Olympians and I saw that in the airport as several crowded around the TVs to watch another gold being won. Good times.

Stephanie and I tried to go on a dolphin cruise and see some dolphins in the wild, but we only really saw one or two from far off. The splash of a dolphin was the best I could capture.

This was the most I could see of a dolphin.

From Nelson Bay, I headed to Adelaide, a small Bohemian-style city on the southern coast that was a complete chill place. I hung out with Billie. This is her.

Adelaide was a blast. Despite it being freezing, the food was excellent and there was more than enough to do to keep us occupied. One of the days, we went wine tasting in the vineyards.

We also went beach hopping. I'll try to wrap this up as I'm sure you all have lives to get to and don't have all the time to lounge around looking at blogs. But I promised me mum that I'd put up some pictures. So the next group are just some cool beach shots I took. See with your eyes.

And the coolest part of the whole trip was when we were at this cove and we saw three whales swimming lazily around beyond the waves. There were several whale watchers grouped around the hills with us just watching silently, enjoying the creation. I couldn't really get too many good shots, but here's a few.

Good times.