The Whitsundays

After a cou­ple of days in Air­lie Beach, we took a trip to the Whit­sun­day, a group of islands sit­ting on the Great Bar­rier Reef. After an hour boat trip, we reached Whit­sun­day Island, home of the famous White­heaven Beach, a seven-kilometer long beach of pure-white sil­i­con sand. The sand was so thin it looked like flour or clear dust and the light was blind­ing us.

Magnetic Island

Once you step out of the air­port or any air-conditioned place you were lucky to be in, the heat hits you. It’s moist, humid, the sun hit any inch of bare skin and you can’t escape. Wel­come to Queensland.

Sydney Fish Market

It’ no secret that I love mar­kets: they are often the best place to sam­ple cheap fresh food and local del­i­ca­cies. That’s why I was so happy when I heard about the Syd­ney Fish Market.

Sydney, Australia

Syd­ney hasn’t changed that much in seven years. The land­marks, the Har­bour Bridge and the Opera House, are still there. The city looks busier but it may be because it’s summer—it was fall last time we were here and the weather was get­ting cold. There are more tall build­ings and King’s Cross, Sydney’s sketch­ier dis­trict, was cleaned up much like Carn­aby Street in London.

Bondi Beach

In Aus­tralia, not going to the beach on Sun­day is almost a sin. So we fol­low pretty much half of Syd­ney to Bondi Beach, the city’s iconic patch of sand.

Let’s be fair: Bondi is a lovely beach and cer­tainly more than a “patch of sand”. Sure, it’s packed because it is sum­mer Down Under and the kids are out of school but it’s still a great place to soak up the sun and relax.

Blackbutt Reserve

The high­light of our two days in New­cas­tle was the Black­butt Reserve (funny name, I know!), located out­side the city. Get­ting there by bus wasn’t easy but it was well worth it: we met the Aus­tralian fauna!

The New OZ

Aus­tralia has changed. We can tell by the Coke bottles.

The first thing we did after clear­ing cus­toms at Syd­ney air­port was to buy a Coke, since we were both thirsty. It costs AU$3.50 and we found that expen­sive, con­sid­er­ing the Cana­dian and the Aus­tralian dol­lars are roughly at par and that a bot­tle of Coke is less than CA$2.00. But we fig­ured it must be because we bought it at the air­port, where every­thing is more expensive.

The Rich L.A

I was curi­ous to see the other side of L.A, the glam­orous one. So far, I wasn’t too impressed: houses looked nice but noth­ing out of the ordi­nary. I cer­tainly couldn’t pic­ture all these movie stars and socialites liv­ing here, in Korea Town or in Lit­tle Armenia.