Our Australian adventure started with heading to the Bay area on Iver's actual solstice birthday. We left Humboldt to pouring rain (with some subsequent road closures due to flooding!), making it to the East Bay in the afternoon.
We joined our friends, Wai-Kiu, Hanh, Sophia, and Mason (who volunteers there) at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley.
We then took the kids to a "Revolving sushi" restaurant in nearby Berkeley, where plates came around on conveyor belts (you could also order a la carte), which delighted both kids (Iver had been to a similar restaurant with Uncle Kenn once, but it was the first time for the rest of us).
We headed to SFO and then boarded our 11 p.m. flight to Melbourne, which left about an hour late. We passed the time sleeping/watching and reading. I finished Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, which was a delightful intro to the continent of Australia via his travels, where he chronicles history, explorer and tourist deaths at the hands of of Australian wildlife and the punishing outback, and the unique and unexpected wonders of such a vast yet sparsely populated country.
We landed in Melbourne late morning (now Tuesday).
One of Kelvin's aunts, An, immigrated from Vietnam to Melbourne about twenty years ago, and we reunited for lunch at her house in Kings Park with delicious spring rolls and Iver's favorite, Xôi Xoài, mango with sticky rice (tip from Ba ba). Kelvin probably saw this relative (his mom's sister) last in Vietnam in 1991 before his family moved to the U.S.
The strawberries were enormous!
Relaxing in massage chairs.
We walked to a nearby park, where the kids tried kicking their football through the uprights in what I was guessing is an Australian Rules Football field.
Cute parrot-like birds.
We rode to our Hotel Adina, an apartment-hotel in downtown Melbourne and walked through the downtown to see some sights, including Bourke Street Christmas (lego) displays. Shorts-wearing with Christmas displays still strikes me as incongruent, but they're used to it down here!
The Royal Botanical Gardens, just south across the Yarra River, was a lovely place to walk in the 70-degree sunshine. Melbourne has the largest Cricket Stadium in the world and nearby Margaret Court and Rod Laver Arenas are in the Sports district (The Aussie open starts January 12th).
Tame birdlife!
Turtle (5 pts)
There was a wedding going on across Ornamental Lake.
There are a lot of Asians (and other immigrants) in Melbourne, and the downtown includes a lively Chinatown, Korea-town, and Greek town.
We had a delicious dinner at a specialty Thai food court.
On our full day in Melbourne, we had a day tour of the surrounding Yarra Valley by bus.
We first stopped at the Yarra Valley Chocolate Factory and Creamery in scenic wine country.
Tall chocolate bar!
We spent an awesome couple of hours at Healesville Sanctuary, which has a huge array of Australian rescue animals.
Koalas!
(Wish we still had the kids' "Trust me, I'm koalified" favorted tee shirts)!
While I believe I saw a koala on my only other trip to Australia in the 90s with my parents at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, it was Kelvin's first!
Echidna (one of only two monotremes, egg-laying mammals).
The platypus is the other monotreme. We watched a couple swim in darkened tanks and they were smaller than I'd thought, about a foot in length, and not easily photographed!
Resting Red Kangaroos
Close with Emus
Giant extinct marsupials
Goanna
(This is a statue of a now-extinct thylacine, or tasmanian tiger, the last of which perished in a Hobart zoo in 1936 :().
Tasmanian Devils (we hope to see more when we're actually in Tasmania)!
Cockatoo (watching for falling poop!)
Dingo (Niall "that just looks like a dog!").
We ended the day with a scenic train ride on the Puffing Billy, part of an old Australian (narrow-track) railway at high elevation.
Kids over four were allowed to "sill," ride with legs outside the railway car.
The 35-minute ride ended at Emerald Lake.
Kelvin tries to eat Phở in every country. This choice (it was in a food court!) was just ok.
The kids weren't sure if Santa would be visiting us in Australia but they were hopeful and we packed our stockings, just in case! Jet lag hasn't been horrible (Melbourne is 19 hours ahead of PST) but the kids woke up early (Iver at 5 a.m), excited.
Iver wrote a Christmas eve letter and set out cookies and carrots for the reindeer.
Santa did deliver!
We spent Christmas Morning at Melbourne Zoo, which was open (and kids entered free on the holiday!). It was a large and fabulous zoo, featuring animals from Australia and beyond, in mostly spacious humane habitats, which I appreciated.
Meerkat
Adorable meerkittens!
We tried to recreate a picture featuring a giant tortoise from the Galapagos when Iver was about ten months old.
Ring-tailed lemurs were Iver's favorite!
Mountain Gorillas
Felix the pygmy hippo
My favorite animal: giraffes (featuring baby Tambi, born in August)
Black-necked stork
Wombat (which poops in cubes and loves to burrow. Their pouch is on the backside to avoid dirt smothering their joeys while they're digging!).
Lion
Snow leopard!
Sumatran Tiger
Dingo
The aquarium section featured seals and fish, but the Little Penguins weren't in their habitat.
We had a wonderful time in Melbourne. Merry Melbourne Christmas (and a Happy 'Roo Year!!
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