As usual, yours truly spent the last three hours before departure frantically packing wet clothes and praying I wouldn’t forget anything. As our flight left at, oh, the butt crack of dawn, the mini-cab was picking us up at 6 am. We made it to Heathrow with loads of time to spare, and eventually we boarded our British Airways plane to Singapore. Can I just say that I really enjoy flying BA? Their food isn’t atrocious and I always get the planes with the little individual TV screens. And they seem to have lifted the requirement that all the stewardesses have to wear funny straw hats, which is a big plus. Anyway, we landed in Singapore twelve hours later and it was none too soon. (Good as it was, if I had to watch “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” one more time I woulda gouged out my eyes.) My first impressions of Singapore were “Hey, it’s hot here! So that’s what equatorial means!” and “Damn, I need a shower.” We caught a shuttle to our hotel which was gorgeous and thankfully let us check in way early (it was technically Sunday morning there). We showered, napped, and then hit the town.

As my only knowledge of Singapore was based on that American kid who got caned a few years back, I was expecting some sort of draconian prison type place. How wrong I was. It was wonderful! Very large, very modern, and very clean. It was a little weird to see so many American chains (Hello, Denny’s??), but eventually you come to realize that it’s a very American-ized place. English is one of the official languages and everybody speaks it, so your ears don’t even register that you’re in a foreign country. The people are indeed mostly Asian, but they dress like well-to-do Westerners. And they’re shopping mad! Singapore must have more shopping malls per capita than any other city in the world. My first priority was a digital camera, so off we went to check prices and haggle with shopkeepers.

And here’s the result! I bought a Minolta Dimage 2300 for $630 Singapore, which is about £250 or $350 American. I also got a set of rechargeable batteries, a charger, and an additional 16MB (it came with 8MB) memory card for another $100. Not bad at all. Here’s the very first picture I took of Snookums posing in our hotel room after we returned that night. We had walked all up and down the main drag and had dinner in a yummy Italian place, so we were more than ready to relax. We decided to hit the hotel’s outdoor pool.

What can I say? Digital cameras are fun. Here’s Snookums showing off his bum in his little Tommy Hilfiger trunks. We were the only ones in the pool so late, and it was lovely to just float in the tropical night air and look up at the stars. The pool boy kicked us out at 9 pm, so we changed and headed down to the hotel cocktail bar. We sampled the national drink (the Singapore Sling, natch) and downed a few beers to help the jet lag along. Retiring to our room, we passed out into blissful and much needed sleep.

The plan for Day 2 was to explore the city beyond the main drag. We saw the Raffles Hotel (where the Singapore Sling was invented) and strolled through some of the funkier market areas. This is a view of the skyline, as taken from a footbridge over the highway. Pretty, isn’t it?

Next stop was Suntec City, which is a massive shopping and office complex consisting of five interconnected buildings. (According to a sign, the architect designed it to have very good “feng shui.” The whole thing is supposed to symbolize the five fingers of a hand. It sounded a bit cosmic to me.) The highlight is the Fountain of Wealth, which is the world’s largest fountain. A couple times a day they turn it off and you can literally walk out onto it. Here’s Snookums indulging in “the ritual.”

The way it works is, you walk out on the red carpet to the little geyser in the middle. Then you shuffle around it three times clockwise with your hand in the water and repeat a wish in your mind. Supposedly it will then come true! Here’s a horribly dark picture of me standing inside the fountain. When it’s turned on, water pours down from that great metal circle above me to the floor, which is seriously like a story below.

One last Fountain picture, as seen from street level.

So what are we up to? Monday night? After traipsing around the Fountain, we headed back to the hotel for a swim and dinner. Then it was off to the Night Safari, the world’s “first wildlife park built to be viewed at night.” It was awesome… We took a tram ride through the darkness and got to view all sorts of nocturnal animals (most of them are, you know) being active in ways you don’t see at normal zoos. It was a bit spooky though, like being at Jurassic Park. I kept expecting us to come up on the T-Rex paddock. Anyway, this blurry shot is supposed to be a group of giraffes at a water hole.

Another dark shot of Snookums and I before the Night Safari map. (It’s not my camera’s fault, I swear. It was the damn tourist that stood too far away.) In addition to the tram ride, they had lots of paths you could take to see some of the smaller animals. Snookums’s favorite was the “Mangrove Walk”, which was this fenced-in gardenish-type area with giganic fruit bats the size of house cats dangling in front of your face. He thought they were cute. I, on the other hand, was cringing in a crouch position and whimpering for him to get me the hell out of there.

The next day we headed to the real Singapore Zoo to have tea with an orangutan. Seriously. Unfortunately it was an obscure public holiday so the event was cancelled. We did manage to get our picture taken with a chimpanzee though. Isn’t she adorable? The photographer seated us on the log and she just climbed right up into my lap and put her arms around us. What a sweetie.

In another of the photo areas, a big mama orangutan was getting her picture taken with some people. Her baby was playing on the ground in front of us, hiding in a cardboard box and peeking out at the tourists. It crawled right up to us here, less than 4 feet away. My maternal impulses are getting quite disgusting – I was cooing at it like an idiot. *grin*

Singapore Zoo is cool because it’s open-plan, meaning that the animals aren’t contained in cages or anything like that. They all have their little areas separated from the paths by a moat or barrier of some kind. You really get the feeling that you’re viewing them in a normal habitat (or at last more normal than most zoos offer). In this area several elephants were giving visitors rides. This smaller one, though, was just showing off for the tourists. He took a big dump right in front of us, and then proceeded to suck up a bunch of water and spray it at an Asian family. It was pretty funny.

In yet another photo area, you could get your picture taken with a python. (No, thank you.) This brave mother was biting her lip to keep from screaming as she allowed herself to be draped with this gigantic snake, much to the amusement of her little boys.

Here’s Snookums with a seriously rare animal called the bongo. It’s a sort of antelope with really cool striped markings and spiral horns. We saw one at the Night Safari too, and every time anyone would say “bongo” I’d have to imitate Boss Nass from Star Wars Episode 1 and drawl: “Weesa give you una bongo…” Yes, I’m a nerd.

Snookums was really excited about this exhibit – the polar bear tank. The big female in there, Sasha, would wave to the crowd and dive under to swoop up near the glass. At one point the keeper tossed a live fish in so we could watch her chase it. The hot day was obviously getting to her though (or else the fish was just a really good swimmer), because she eventually gave up and went back to the coconuts generously provided. (Whoever would’ve thought that polar bears like tropical foods??)

This might be my favorite picture of me from the entire trip. No particular reason – just that camels are inherently funny and I look pretty funny here too. *grin*

So I’m sitting on a bench with my back to some bushes, minding my own business, when I suddenly become aware of something behind me. I turn around, and there sat a golden lion tamarin (I think). They let the things run loose and this one was just watchin’ me. It was pretty cool. Some little brat saw me taking the photo though, and ran up to see what I was looking at. When he saw the tamarin, he pulled out his little toy gun and acted like he was gonna shoot it. I yelled at him.

The tiger area, as you might guess, was bordered by a much larger moat than some of the other animals’. Most of them were sleeping in the shade, but the one Snookums is looking at was seriously stalking us. He’d walk all around the perimeter of the enclosure watching us the whole way. Then he’d get in the moat and swim past the tourists looking down at him. When he got to the other side he’d climb back up and repeat the entire process. Carnivores can be scary.

You’re probably wondering, “Um, where the hell is the Australia part?” Never fear, our time in Singapore was drawing to a close. After the zoo we hurried back to the hotel and caught a cab to the airport. We boarded our flight to Sydney and settled in for the eight hour flight.

We were due to land in Sydney at 6:30 Wednesday morning. The sun was just starting to rise, so I had a great view of the harbor with the famous Harbor Bridge and Sydney Opera House in the distance. We were met by Mama and Papa Snookums who bundled us into the car and headed back to the city. In deference to me, the tourist, Papa Snookums took us over the bridge so I could get a better view of town. Wow, it was gorgeous. Sydney bills itself as the most beautiful city in the world, and I can’t see that they’re exaggerating. We stopped off at Snookums’s sister’s house in North Sydney so the two of us could have a shower and a change of clothes. Then we headed up the Pacific Highway to Casa Snookums, about five hours to the north.

We stopped off at a highway attraction called something like the “Billabong Koala Centre and Zoo.” It was a rundown little place, but they did specialize in native animals. Here’s an emu that was trying to escape. Funny lookin’ things, aren’t they? We couldn’t get back to the kangaroo paddock because recent rains had overflowed the little creek we needed to cross. (We had no idea how prophetic that would be at this stage.)

The first thing I learned about koalas: if you call ’em “koala bears”, you look really dumb. They’ve got nothing to do with bears. Second thing I learned: they’re pretty boring. They just hug trees and eat and sleep. I’d have thought these were all stuffed if they hadn’t blinked or shifted every now and then.

Isn’t she adorable? Her fur was so soft and incredibly thick (I swear, like an inch deep). She just sat there patiently while we petted and cooed over her. *sigh* Oh, and please ignore the fact that I look like crap here. If you’d just gotten off an 8-hour flight and then immediately launched into a 5-hour roadtrip, you wouldn’t be exactly daisy fresh either.

Here’s Snookums holding the koala’s hand. Isn’t that cute? And check out those claws. These things could be vicious, if they weren’t so damn A) cute and B) lazy.

Even cuter – Snookums making a koala face. Since there were only two other visitors besides us, we basically got to play with the cuddly-wuddly thing as long as we wanted.

Well, we eventually decided to leave the koala alone and continue our journey. Eventually we found ourselves in Snookums’s home town, Eungai Creek. After we dropped our stuff off, we headed up Mount Yarrahapinni so I could check out the lay of the land. “Yarrahapinni” apparently means ‘koala rolling down a hill’ in the local Aboriginal tongue. As it was threatening to rain, we only went about halfway up one side. The block of land below us belongs to Snookums’s sister and her boyfriend.

Another view from Yarrahapinni, looking towards the sea.

This is the part of the trip where dates get confusing. Because of the horrible weather, we stayed at the house most of the time and only made short trips during the dry spells. I’m pretty sure that this was taken on the next day, which would’ve been Thursday the 8th (if anybody’s keeping track). It’s the view from Scott’s Head, I think, and you can see just how icky and dismal it was. This is when we started to realize that some of the low-lying places were going to flood.

Friday the 9th of March was the date of the fateful Leech Attack. Snookums and I had been staying in his old room, which was above the family garage. That morning I had put on my sandals and walked the 15 yards to the house. We had breakfast, and I kept my shoes on for the next two or three hours. That afternoon we decided to check out his parents’ whirlpool. (No snickering – they told us we could!) When we got out, Snookums noticed that there was a tiny spot of blood on the floor. We both looked at our feet, but we didn’t see anything. That’s when Snookums said, “Don’t put your shoe back on.” He shook my sandal over the sink, and this fell out.

Isn’t that atrocious?! Apparently it’s a “land leech”, which is a creepy crawly particular to Australia and not the U.S. (thank your lucky stars). We finally found where it had bitten me on the side of my foot and Snookums bandaged me up. Then we salted the sucker and watched him shrivel in agony. Apologies to all NSPCA members, but come on. The thing was sucking my blood. I was entitled to a little retribution.

In case any of you tree huggin’ hippie types are still upset over the death of the leech, let me direct your attention to the wound that is still in the process of healing on my right foot. The suckers inject some kind of anti-coagulant, so even though he’d barely bitten me it bled and bled for hours. It was alright for about a week after that, and then it began to itch like mad. Suffice it to say that whenever I went outdoors after that, I was wearin’ my boots.

Here’s me and Snookums on Saturday, down by the sign for “Eungai Creek” (which actually runs under the bridge we’re on). Apparently on Friday the creek waters had swollen to reach the level of the road, and though it was lower now, Papa Snook said that it was still well over its banks. Scary.

Mama Snookums, who is a primary school teacher, came up with the idea that we should play Pooh Sticks. So we each had a pine cone and we dropped them off the upstream side of the bridge, and then raced across to see whose cone emerged first on the downstream side. Unfortunately pine cones all look more or less alike, but we reckoned that my pine cone had come out first and I won the prize: two shiny nickels. *grin*

This is a flooded road in Macksville, which is situated on the Nambucca River not far from Eungai. It was a pleasant little town, but most of the shops were closed and had sandbags out front in case the water rose any higher.

We rounded a corner in Macksville and I stopped dead in my tracks. “An Iga!” I squealed. I had worked in an IGA grocery story in Wolcottville, Indiana for three years in high school. I didn’t even know they were an international company… yet there was one out in the middle of rural Australia. I was dumbstruck. My dad, I thought, will never believe it.

Though my birthday wouldn’t be til the following Thursday, on Sunday Mama and Papa Snook decided to take us out to a nice breakfast in Nambucca Heads to commemorate that and the fact that the sun was shining for the first time in days. We went to a lovely cafe on the seashore near the “V-Wall”, which was a barrier that forced the river into a V-shape and created an area safe from battering by the waves.

I think this picture conclusively shows that I was still jet-lagged at this point. Not even the site of such a large glass of freshly squeezed orange juice could wake me out of my stupor.

Can you believe that blue sky? Unfortunately the emptying flood waters made the ocean look a little brown and icky though. Here we are on the V-Wall, which is lined with large rocks and boulders that people have decorated over the years. See ’em, there to the right? Too bad we forgot to bring paint with us.

Here’s a close-up so you can see what I mean. The area is fairly popular with tourists, so there’s graffiti from just about every part of the world. Some simply commemorate a trip, while others are actually memorials to people who used to love the area. There were Gospel messages, as well as notes of people’s weddings and honeymoons. Some families add more to their rocks every year that they visit.

Father and Son Snookums are enjoying this brief bit of sunshine…

…while Mama Snookums stayed safely under her umbrella and out of the harsh glare. She was the smart one. The rest of us ended up burnt.

See? Can’t you just hear my pasty white skin frying like bacon? (Ewww, gross image. Sorry.) Here I am with the mighty Pacific. I thought that this was the first time I’d ever seen it, but then Snookums pointed out that I’d been to Acapulco once before in college. Drat. At any rate, this was my first time seeing it from the Eastern Hemisphere.

Shiver me timbers! What a couple of land lubbers. 🙂

I was sad that I wasn’t going to get to leave my name on a rock, but then luckily we spotted another “Kris” that would do just as well. So there I am, right below “Langley.” A little permanent reminder of yours truly for the town of Nambucca Heads.

Papa Snookums had told me that there was a wallaby living near the house that could often be seen in the yard. (Wallabies are basically a form of kangaroo, but much smaller.) It wasn’t until our last day at Eungai, Monday the 12th, that I finally saw the bugger as we were pulling out of the driveway. He looked up in alarm was I shouted “Stop!” and frantically grabbed at my camera. I had just enough time to take this picture… of nothing. He ran into the woods about half a second before. He’s in there somewhere, peepin’ out at me.

For our last day, we headed up to the top of Mount Yarrahapinni. The clouds were rolling in and it was getting misty, but we managed to make it before it got too bad. Isn’t that a beautiful sky?

Though you can’t see so well in the picture, it was actually possible to spot a bit of Casa Snookums from the top of the Mountain. It’s lurking in that bit of trees right near the center of the picture. That’s all Papa Snookums’s land.

There’s my Snookums, saying goodbye to his native soil.

Here’s me and Snookums at the top of the mountain. There are all sorts of weather and radio towers up there now. Yeah, 498 meters above sea level. Not the highest mountain in the world, but it’s a whole lot less flat than Indiana, let me tell you. (Also note me wearin’ my boots. I told you I was at war with the leeches.)

I was trying to get another picture of the flooding but you can’t see it so easily. Basically, all those little shiny areas that look like lakes? Yeah, those aren’t normally there.

Another nice pic of Snookums and his Pop.

Tuesday the 12th we caught a train from Eungai down the coast to Sydney. Snookums’s sister Jeannie (along with her boyfriend Chris and their son Kurt) met us and took us to their place in North Sydney. Here’s Snookums gettin’ ready for a cosmopolitan night out on the town. No, he doesn’t pose like that normally. He’s just doin’ it for my benefit. 🙂

Adorable! Baby Kurt and his uncle Snookums.

On Wednesday, as soon as we were up and ready, we headed into town. Here’s the first of many picture of Sydney Harbor Bridge, as seen from The Rocks. The Rocks is the oldest part of Sydney, and it’s a seriously gorgeous place to mooch around.

This is the Fortune of War, the oldest pub in Sydney. As it was still pretty early in the day, we declined to sample the wares.

The sailing ship on the left here was “The Bounty”, which was supposedly built for the Mel Gibson movie “Mutiny on the Bouty.” Nowadays these boats give dinner cruises around the harbor. We’d see them sail out occasionally, and it always reminded me of the end of “The Goonies” when One-Eyed Willie’s ship sails out to sea.

Me, Snookums, and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. (Note that I’m not quite so white anymore. I told you I got burnt at Nambucca Heads.)

Here we are with the famous Sydney Opera House in the background. Cool, huh?

Yes, there are people up on the bridge. You can climb the bloody thing. No, we didn’t do it. It looks terrifying.

For the end of our first full day in Sydney, we decided to see a play at the Opera House. We saw a fantastic production of “Julius Caesar” down in the Playhouse. It really is a huge structure when you get right up next to it. There are, like, four different venues in there!

As Thursday the 15th was my birthday, we decided to celebrate by catching some rays at the famous Bondi Beach. Here’s the first thing you see when you get off the bus.

Snookums catches some rays and reads his book.

Here’s the view down the beach as seen from my towel. Bondi’s the most famous tourist beach, but it actually wasn’t too crowded. And luckily the waves were pretty flat, which meant yours truly didn’t squeal like a baby when they knocked her over.

After I finished sunburning myself, we headed to the Royal Botanic Gardens to catch a performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It was a lovely birthday.

Friday we decided to see yet another zoo – the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Here’s yet another overexposed silhouette of us as taken by some dopey tourist. I’ll never learn.

One neat section of the zoo was a walk-through area with lots of kangaroos. It was a hot day though, and most of them were just lying in the shade like this one.

I happened to glance down over this low wall and saw two little porcupine-lookin’ things snufflin’ along the ground in front of me. Snookums ran over astonished. Echidnas, he says, are hardly ever seen so active during the daytime. These ones were just walkin’ around, looking for food. They looked kind of cute, except for the prickly part.

Apes are always entertaining. Here’s a female gorilla. She was hot and she didn’t care whether we knew it or not.

Is Snookums’s wingspan as large as a condor’s? Not quite!

Here’s Snookums doing his meerkat impression, much to the amusement of the meerkat sentinel keeping watch over the sleepy group.

Why, Kris, what big ears you have!

The better to hear you with, my Snookums!

Do you know what a wombat looks like? I sure as heck didn’t. That’s a couple of ’em there in the back. They’re HUGE! Seriously, to me they looked like huge overgrown fluffy rodents of some kind. They were kinda cute.

The Zoo was built along the side of the harbor and they had a great cable car ride that took you up and down the hill. Here’s a self-portrait of me and Snookums in our car.

Here’s the view from our cable car looking down the hill towards the harbor.

And yet another shot of that beautiful bridge. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we took a ferry across to the city. There were cruise ships and sail boats and all sorts of people out on the water.

Again, here are the two cutest boys in the world. As Snookums and I spent Friday night carousing with some of his old college friends, Saturday was a day of rest and reflection. Rest assured, my Irish friends, that our Guinness consumption the night before more than made up for this holiday of abstinence. 🙂

On Sunday Snookums and I ventured into town to the AMP Tower (formerly the Centre Point Tower), the tallest structure in Sydney. Here it is as seen from the bottom.

And here’s the view from the top. Breathtaking.

Snookums uses the binoculars to get a closer view.

Yet another pictures of us in silhouette. This kind of thing is never a problem in London, because the sky is always gray and dreary. *sigh* I miss Sydney already.

This is looking out of Port Jackson (the real name for the harbor) towards the sea. The little white dots are all boats.

After visiting the observation deck, we went back downstairs to ride Skytours the Australian Adventure. What a load of crap. It was one of those 3-D rides, where you’re looking up at a big screen and your chair sways and swoops and blows mist in your face. Quite frankly, it was a bit nauseating. Just an excuse to raise the admission price to the tower to $20.

Did you know Sydney had a monorail? I didn’t until I saw it in the movie “Two Hands”. Then, of course, I had to ride it. Most Sydneysiders make fun of it though, because it travels such a small route and there’s only, like, half a dozen stops. Still, it was fun to whiz along above the traffic and sing the “Monorail” song from “The Simpsons.”

After the tower Snookums had to show me his alma mater, Sydney University. Here he is in the main quadrangle.

This is the Physics building, which I thought was particularly pretty. It was situated alongside a huge playing field and the names of important physicists were carved around the top of the facade.

You can’t see them too well, but a cricket match is going on there on the pitch. Snookums astonished me by pointing out that this match was, for them, the equivalent of the Notre Dame football game I took him to last year (meaning that this was a top division contest). There were less than 20 people in the stands. I argued unsuccessfully that a college sport isn’t authentic unless it involves beer and a marching band. 🙂

This is Wesley College, where Snookums spent his formative years. Notice the balcony above the main entrance. Yeah, that was his room when he was senior student. We talked a student into letting us in to look around. It was just like the dorms I was used to at ND, except with a LOT more amenities (dining room, big lounges, etc.).

On Monday, my last full day in Australia, we decided to go to Bronte Beach. Unfortunately, as you might already know, I had a slight accident on the way. The beach was still nice though, in spite of my pain.

One last shot of the ocean to tide me over til the next time I visit…

And that’s it! I left Tuesday afternoon and flew to Bangkok, and from then straight on to London. Twenty-one hours in an airplane. As I’m still a little jet-lagged, I’m off to bed. Thanks for reading. 🙂