In the morning, we checked out of the hotel, dropped off our bags, and found a place to eat lunch. We found a nice sushi restaurant near the Thai place we ate previously. After lunch, we returned to the hotel, got our bags, hailed a taxi, and headed to the White Bay Cruise Terminal. It would have been convenient if the ship had been leaving from Circular Quay, but the taxi ride wasn’t too long and only cost $35 from Kings Cross. Ship check-in was a bit delayed due to a computer problem, but the process was much smoother than Costa.

As the ship makes its slow journey to Melbourne, we took the opportunity to relax and overeat. I’m definitely going to gain weight on the cruise. The food is just so much better than Costa.

In the morning, we drove north toward Sydney along the Grand Pacific Drive. Along the way, we stopped at the Sea Cliff Bridge and several other scenic viewpoints. At our last viewpoint, we saw some adventurous individuals preparing to paraglide off the cliff. Sadly, we had to leave before they launched because we had to return car to Avis around noon. We dropped off the car in Kings Cross near our hotel.

In the evening, my second cousin Caity and her partner Ian graciously treated us to a fabulous dinner at Ms. G’s, an Asian-inspired “New Australian” fusion restaurant in Potts Point. The food was delicious; it was the best restaurant meal we’ve eaten in Australia. The last time I saw Caity was when she was 8 years old, so there was a lot for us to catch up on. It was great to see her again and to meet Ian.

We started the day with an awesome breakfast at our B&B, The Pommy Tree in Canberra. After eating, we visited Parliament House. Parliament was in session, but we didn’t have time to see it in action. However, we did accidentally stumble upon a viewing area for a committee hearing on Ebola. We stayed for a couple minutes before becoming bored enough to leave. Our next tourist stop in region was the NASA Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, which is most famous for relaying Neil Armstrong’s first words from the moon. The giant satellite dish is impressive, but the visitor center is not and the complex is probably not worth the long drive for casual tourists.

On our drive to Wollongong, we made several stops along the way. Our first stop was the Minnamurra rainforest, but unfortunately it closed at 4:30pm and we arrived at 4:50pm. Our next stop was the Kiama blowhole, a rock formation at the ocean’s edge that shoots up water like a blowhole. Unfortunately, the blowhole was not very blowy today, so we continued to Bombo beach and then Minnamurra beach for some quick sightseeing. Finally, we arrived at our B&B for the night in Bulli.

Our first tourist stop was the incredible National War Memorial in Canberra. The upper level of the memorial has a Vietnam Wall-like list of names of people who died in conflicts in which Australia participated, an eternal flame, and a shrine. The lower levels contain an extremely impressive museum that documents the history of those conflicts. There are interactive displays, old warplanes, helicopters, informative videos and posters, and a very large collection of wartime artifacts from several wars. It’s probably the best museum we’ve visited this trip.

Our second stop is the National Zoo & Aquarium. The zoo houses a large collection including lions, tigers (Bengal & Siberian), a giraffe, a shy koala, emu, kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, wombats, monkeys, bears, and otter among other animals. While it doesn’t have as many Australian animals as Featherdale, the overall size of the collection is much larger and the grounds are more impressive. Valerie signed us up for the Zooventure add-on during which we got to feed meat to a tiger and a lion, throw food to otters, feed a carrot to a giraffe, hold snake, and have a bear lick nutritious paste off our palms. Overall, the National Zoo is probably one of the better zoos I’ve ever visited. (The aquarium was not particularly impressive.)

For dinner, we returned to Dickson for an Australian take on Indian food. While expensive (as everything in Australia is), it was quite delicious.

In the morning, Fiona dropped us off at a nearby Avis so we could pick up our rental car. Driving on the left side of the road was surprisingly easier than I expected, but there were still a few hiccups. Luckily, Valerie would flinch whenever I got too close to the edge of the road or another vehicle. I’m really glad we got a GPS. Not only does it tell you where to go, it also tells you where speed cameras are located and NSW is full of them.

Our first touristic stop of the day was Featherdale Wildline Park. It contains an impressive collection of Australian animals, including koalas, wombats, kangaroos, tasmanian devils, and flying foxes. Most of the koalas were unapproachable (I hear they can be quite vicious), but the staff let us take a picture with one of the tamer ones. We also bought some kangaroo food for $1 and fed some wallabies.

After the park, we drove to Canberra and checked into our B&B. We stopped in downtown Dickson (a suburb of Canberra) for some dinner. Dickson has an impressive collection of pan-Asian restaurants. Unfortunately, most of them were closed because it was a Monday, so we settled for an inexpensive Korean restaurant with okay TripAdvisor ratings.

Glenn and Fiona drove us up to the Blue Mountains. From a distance, the mountains have a slightly bluish tint. Glenn says that the bluish hue is caused by a chemical released into the air by the many eucalyptus trees that grow upon the mountains. We stopped at several scenic viewpoints along the way. Australia is a truly beautiful country (and I’ve only seen a tiny part of it).

One particularly memorable stop were the Leura Cascades, a series of small waterfalls followed by much larger waterfall. We hiked the trail down along the stream, taking pictures along the way. Valerie was initially frightened that she would be bitten by mosquitos along the way, but later revised her fear to include some kind of Australian biting fly.

We were all hungry from the hiking, so we stopped at a favorite local eatery for lunch (or dinner or whatever Australians call the mid-day meal). Unfortunately, they were full, so we found a nearby French restaurant that was notable for its particularly non-descript dish names such as “piece de boeuf.”

Our drive continued into Katoomba where we saw the Three Sisters, a formation of three adjacent pillar-like rocks. Glenn, Valerie, and I hiked a bit to a better viewpoint of the Sisters and the top of something called the “Giant Staircase.” Perhaps earlier in the trip Valerie and I would have attempted to descend the staircase, but by this point in the trip neither of us was in good enough shape to do so. Thus, Valerie descended a couple flights of stairs for a picture and then we returned to the parking area. From the top, we could see Scenic World, which offers a touristic mine car ride down into the old mine shaft as well as a gondola to somewhere in the adjacent valley. We decided against taking the death-defying descent into the mine shaft.

In the morning, Glenn took Valerie and me on a nice scenic drive along Lake Burragorang culminating in a visit to Warragamba Dam. Glenn says that visitors used to be able to walk along the top of the dam (similar to Hoover Dam in the US), but after 9/11, new security measures disallowed it. Tomorrow, there is some sort of dam celebration during which people can once again walk on the dam, but we’ll be busy visiting the Blue Mountains.

The highlight of the day was the Fernandez family gathering. I finally got a chance to meet so many of my relatives living in Australia including several of my grandmother’s siblings, their children, and their families. We ate a feast of Indian food while discussing the family, Australia, and current events. It was great to meet and talk to everyone who came and hopefully some of them will come to visit us in the Bay Area in the future.

The international airport in Male, Maldives is much smaller than most of the ones we’ve been to so far. Located on an island a short distance away from the main island, the airport appeared to have 3 airplanes on the tarmac at the time we landed. Outside of the small terminal were a collection of fast food restaurants and a harbor from which passengers can board a speedboat or ferry to the island of their choosing.

We waited about an hour for our speedboat to arrive and then took the 90 minute ride to the Chaaya Reef Ellaidhoo resort where we are staying. Valerie picked this resort because they allegedly have a very nice house reef that we can snorkel around.

Our flight from Doha to Male is very early in the morning, so we are staying the night in Doha today. After flying into Qatar, we visited the incredible business class lounge at Hamad International Airport. This is the best lounge I have ever visited, by far. It is huge, with two restaurants, tons of seating, a quiet room, storage lockers, showers, and basically anything that anyone could think to put in an airport lounge. We contemplated spending the night in the lounge, but Valerie cannot sleep in anything but a bed, so we booked an 8-hour room at the Airport Hotel (which surprisingly has a pool).

Before going to sleep, we took a free city tour of Doha offered by the Qatar Tourism Authority and Qatar Airways. About 3 hours long, the tour showed off the ongoing development projects of Doha. It also provided insight into the culture of Qatar and its economic development.

On our first day in Dubai, we saw new Dubai. On our second day, we saw old Dubai. On our third, we wanted to see tourist Dubai, so we took a taxi to the Dubai Marina / Jumeirah Beach Resort. The beach actually looked pretty nice and the Persian Gulf waters were very warm. Sadly, we didn’t bring along our swimwear.

We ate a quick lunch at a local Pakistani restaurant and then took a taxi to the Atlantis hotel on Jumeirah Palm (a set of islands shaped like a palm tree when viewed from space). The public area of Atlantis was fairly small and crowded. The water park didn’t look as good as the ones back home. To get a better view of the palm islands, we took the monorail back to the trunk of the tree. Annoyingly, the monorail doesn’t connect to the metro (and the new Dubai tram isn’t opening for another two months), so we had to get a taxi to the Metro station.

On a whim, we decided to walk around Deira, the area where our hotel is located. Valerie found a self-guided food tour online. Sadly, many of the places were closed, but we were able to buy some really delicious falafels and desserts.