The Other Side of the World

Hello there! Yep, I know, I haven't blogged in forever. Maybe we'll talk about that later, maybe not. I've missed it. But there have been other, more important things (and lots of priority shifting) going on around here. Things like our kids, our house, and oh, yeah, our trip to Australia and New Zealand!!!

Can you tell I am so excited about this trip?! It was completely amazing and I'm just shaking in my boots with anticipation over sharing it with you all. I know it will be difficult to put into words just how much we enjoyed all there was to see, do, and experience. I'm getting a little dizzy just thinking about it.

So how about some pictures? I know that's why you're all here, anyway.

Maybe I'll blog in order. Or...maybe not. I will start with our first week. We left for Australia on July 31st. We didn't actually arrive in Australia until the evening of August 2nd. Just kinda a long trip. See, when you book with frequent flier award tickets, they pretty much do everything they can to ensure your trip is absurdly uncomfortable, so next time you'll book first class for a ga-jillion bucks. This is my theory, anyway.

We flew from Austin, to LA, to Fiji, to Auckland, to Sydney, and finally to Melbourne. It turned out to be something in the neighborhood of 33 consecutive hours of traveling. I told you, absurd.

Here's a little glimpse of how it went getting there:

Our Air Pacific plane. Huge dude. I was super excited. Like, my inner stereotypical-Asian-tourist-gone-camera-crazy-in-New-York-City was absolutely dying to get out. But I kept it under wraps. Sort of.

 Our little pull-out TVs on the plane:

 And exit row seats! Life savers, especially for Kyler.

Our plane was huge. Two stories! I went exploring. Upstairs was boring. :( But that did mean I got to climb up and down the stairs a bunch of times mid-flight to loosen up my muscles. 

The Fiji Airport just looks beachy, doesn't it?

Sugar cane!

These dudes were right at the gate when we arrived in the terminal, greeting us with a guitar and ukelele trio and songs. They were there at 5am just for us! Impressive.

(If you started the blog music, remember to pause it if you want to hear the sound on the video.)

Cool, eh? :)

We watched the sunrise from the airport and boarded a plane for New Zealand four hours later. Goodbye, Fiji!

And hello, New Zealand!

We spent another four hours in the Auckland airport before boarding a plane for Sydney, Australia.

Hello, Sydney! Can you see the airport runway jutting out into the water? (That's Botany Bay.)

And...I think by the time we reached Melbourne I was a bit delirious, because I can't find any pictures. And, it was dark there. And, we found out our luggage had decided to vacation somewhere else, so that was on our minds too, I guess.

Stay tuned for more travel blogging!