Monday, January 28th, 2008
We left Seattle and made a pit stop in Seoul, Korea. Our round the world tickets required a stop there, so instead of a 16 hour flight, we ended up spending 23 hours in the air total with a 2 hour layover in Seoul. The only thing we learned about Korea while we were there is that married couples wear identical outfits while traveling.
When we finally did arrive in Sydney at 8 a.m. local time we were greeted by our friends Sandra and Matt, along with their dog Scout. It was Australia Day (their 4th of July) observed, so Sandra and Matt both had Monday off of work. After dropping our stuff off at their place we headed out to Bondi Beach from some brekky. This was Dermot’s first and certainly not last introduction to Australian slang. (If you’re interested, go here for some help http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html) Katie was excited to order the drink she missed the most from Australia: the flat white. It’s basically Australia’s take on a cappuccino, but every agrees it’s much better than any American version of one.
No sleep for 24 straight hours was taxing on Dermot, so Matt suggested we go surfing for a little pick me up. We all loaded into the car and were off to Maruba beach. The sun and ocean was exactly what the doctor ordered and we gathered a second wind that allowed us to stay awake until 9 p.m. when we went to bed and got our natural clocks adjusted to our current origin.Our first couple of days in Sydney were slightly uneventful as we both tried to recover from a nasty case of chest/sinus congestion that we picked up during our travels. A trip to the Australian chemist and 2 days of rest set us straight for the rest of our stay in Sydney.
We explored as much as we could of Sydney after feeling better. We we awaiting the arrival of our friend Jill who was joining us for 2.5 weeks on our travels, so we didn’t want to do too much before she got there. Some of the highlights of Sydney experience before she arrived were: visiting Manly Beach, doing some grocery shopping and cooking for our wonderful hosts, heading out for drinks at Icebreakers Club at Bondi, finding and returning a lost dog at five corners, discovering some of Australia’s many scary insects, golfing at Moore Park, playing (and winning a free bar tab) in a free Australian National Poker League tournament. One last highlight was that we watched the Superbowl live on Monday. A first for either one of us. We found a pub hosting a superbowl party and were having brekky and Budweiser at 9:30 a.m. Glad to get to see a great game and glad to see that the Patriots could not finish a perfect season.
Before we knew it, Jill arrived. We borrowed Matt and Sandra’s car and picked her up at the airport. It was then our turn to help a fellow Yank stay awake so that their natural clock would not get completely screwed up.