New Zealand and Australia Vacation Highlights

On January 16, 2009, we left Shanghai for a 15 day vacation. We took a cruise on the Celebrity Millennium from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia. And it was a great vacation!!! We all agreed that it was our best family vacation we ever had! I have placed some of the picture we took out on Picasa, just a few of the 4 Gig worth of pics I think I took!

But we started the trip with a bit of excitement. When we got to the Pudong airport to fly out 2 1/2 hours before our flight was to leave, we unloaded all of our bags and got ready to head in. But a quick count resulted in the identification that we had in fact arrived one bag short! We packed 5 bags and only brought one. Oops. And yes, we did consider just going without it. Unfortunately it was my bag we forgot. Probably the most expensive and complicated to replace. Luckily I stopped the driver before he pulled away. We quickly decided Tom should go back, get it, and haul his behind back to the airport. So he jumped in and the driver drove like a madman back to the house. Another mistake was that 5 minutes after Tom initiated his luggage adventure, I realized his journey was going to include all of our PASSPORTS. Not smart. At that point, I couldn't check us in or change our flights if we decided we couldn't make it. Geesh. The trip home usually takes at least 40 minutes. So, Tom had at least an 85 minute trip. We had 95 minutes until they closed the check-in for our flight! We decided that it would be best if Tom took the Maglev back as that makes the trip to the airport in 12 minutes, though you still have the 15 minutes to get there. We figured that the extra 10 minutes we might save was worth it. I finally found someone who would check us in with copies of all our passports. When Tom arrived, we had 7 minutes to spare! We had crappy seat assignments, literally as they were by the bathrooms, but we had seats together and we got to Sydney. That was a stressful way to start the trip, but we figured that was our fiasco for the trip, and it turned out to be!

So, we flew to Sydney, and after a 3 hour layover, flew on to Auckland, New Zealand. We arrived around 9 pm. It was 10 hours to Sydney and another 3 to Auckland. Plus a 5 hour time change. We all took showers and went to bed. ALL of us slept until about 10 the next morning! So much for seeing the Auckland Zoo! We just took a walk, had lunch, and then headed to the cruise terminal.

Auckland, New Zealand
Saw most of the city and stayed at the Holiday Inn. Nice harbour town. We got on the boat and checked out our room, 2029, level 2. We also visited the Fun Factory which was Natalie's favorite place on the boat for the rest of the cruise! It is a kids club and they do a nice job. I highly recommend for kids up to teen age. That night we met our dinner mates for the trip: Warren, Kate, and Emily. Emily was 16 months, so Natalie had a great time for the trip playing big sister. Our waiters were Carlos and Mickey. After dinner, Natalie headed to the Fun Factory and Tom and I to the Casino. I lost $20 in about two hours. Tom did better, but he never tells me how well...

Tauranga,New Zealand
Visited Hobbiton, a movie set where some the Lord of Rings was filmed. Remember the Hobbit homes? Where the tree and the party were for Bilbo Baggins? We were there. It was pretty cool. We also visited the Glow-Worm Caves at Waitomo. You take a raft inside the caves and see that they are lighted by the millions of glow worms on the ceiling. Finally we saw Billy Black's Story of the New Zealand bush at the Woodlyn Park. Tom volunteered to help Billy sheer a sheep during the show. Interesting to see Tom work that hard! It was a long day, but we saw a lot that day.


DAY AT SEA

We just hung out the pool. Well, Natalie spent half the day at the Fun Factory (as usual) since the water was a bit chilly! New Zealand is not the warmest place in the world! Tom spent the day in the Casino and Art Shows!



Napier, New Zealand
At Napier, we opted for a less busy day. We took the bus into town and walked to the National Aquarium. After that, we had to stop by Possum World. Possums, which are not native to the island, are quite the pest, so the New Zealander's figured out that they could use the fur from the possums, mix it with wool and market the heck out it to tourists! Seems to be working. That afternoon, I opted for a "Mom Only" trip. Napier is near the xxx wine area. I visited Brookfield's Vineyards (founded in 1937), Church Road Winery (founded in 1897) and Mission Estate (founded in 1851). Of course the wines were all good! But the Sauvignon Blanc at all three was especially nice. I also recommend the Shiraz at Mission Estate. Unfortunately, I do not think these wineries export. But you can order the wine online.

Wellington, New Zealand
We did our own tour here and took the boat bus to the Trolley/Tram, downtown. We took the Tram up to the Botanical Gardens. Then we walked down to the big play area in the gardens. It was nice just to hang out and let Natalie swing, slide, and play. After the Tram, we went over to the bay area and Natalie and Tom went to the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa. That was really nice! I went shopping. Didn't buy much, just some NZ Wool yarn for the Ayi.

Christchurch, New Zealand
We didn't have any formal tours at Christchurch. We simply took the bus into town (our port was actually about 30 mins from Christchurch) and walked around the town square. We shopped a bit and checked out a local market that was set up in the square. Natalie and Tom headed back early and I continued to walk around and explore. I took the trolley around, but found it a bit over rated, at least at $8NZD. This was not our favorite stop, maybe we should have done a tour here!

Dunedin, New Zealand
At this port, we rented a car for the day. The driver took us up to the top of a small mountain for a nice view of Dunedin. Dunedin was a nice city and is home to the world's steepest road, which we did drive up and down, but it was pretty much a tourist trap! From downtown, we headed to the Penguin Place, which was out on Harrington Point. Unfortunately it was a long, windy road to get there, and Natalie go car sick about 10 minutes away! But she was a good trooper and held it until the driver got the car stopped. Of course I didn't bring any motion sickness pills with me in the car!!! Bad mom. Anyway, we got to the Penguin Place and got to see quite a few Yellow-eyed Penguins. You went from nest to nest hidden under/behind man-made blinds down in the earth. But it was really hot that day, so most of the penguins not out fishing, were hiding deep in the shade. But it was good for Natalie to experience nature so close up.

Dusky Sound, Doubtful Sound, Milford Sound, New Zealand
This day was really not a dock day, instead we were supposed to visit the famous fiords of Fiordland National Park in Southland, New Zealand. But the weather was so bad we could only enter the final fiord, Milford Sound. The waves were so big this day they were breaking onto our window, which was on the 2nd level. But once we got into the fiords, I was blown away at how beautiful it was. It is really hard to describe the size and grandeur of the place. I am sure there are other similar sites you can visit, but I found this to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited. I took about 240 pictures, but the weather was not great, so they are all pretty grey. There were really neat waterfalls and rock formations. Also, we had a formation of dolphins follow us into the fiord and swim and play right alongside the boat. Natalie and Tom were in the room at the time and took some great video of it almost at eye level! It is hard to see, but if you look, you can see the white "waves" which are really the dolphins jumping a bit out of the water.

DAY AT SEA
Was nice just to hang out. Natalie spent all day at the Fun Factory. Tom and I checked out the Casino.

DAY AT SEA
This day we really did nothing. It was pretty chilly for pool. Natalie again hung out at Fun Factory and Tom and I hit the Casino.Tom and continued our new found love of art and art auctions! We ended up buying some decent art, though due to duties and shipping cost, we had to ship it all home instead of China. Here is a Picture of an original oil by Milchael Milken.

Melbourne, Australia (2 days)
We went to the Healesville Sanctuary. We got to see lots of Koala's, Kangaroos, Wombats, and Dingo's. Unfortunately it was also 44 C. Poor Natalie about melted by the time the tour was over. The 2nd day at port, Tom went to see the Australian Open, which was underway at the stadium at the time we were there. He got to see Serena Williams play a set in the semi-finals. But it was too hot for Natalie and I and we stayed at the pool, in the water!

DAY AT SEA
Today was the final day at Sea and the final art auction. Tom and I continued our new found love of art and art auctions! We had a lot of raffle tickets since we had purchased an item (somewhat expensive!) early in the cruise, and we ended up wining a $500 credit to spend. Tom ended up getting about 2-3 serigraph prints (Pinot and Linda Le Kinff) along with a big item of a Dali print set from the Destino movie he made for Disney. I am not going explain how we became owners of Dali paintings as it is seems a bit bizarre and naive when we tell the story out loud. But we really loved the artwork we bought and look forward to the day when we own a home where it can be displayed!

Sydney, Australia (2 Days)
We went to Bondi beach and took in a bit of sun. Natalie and I swam a bit, but the water was really cold and we also had a big wipe out, so we mostly just relaxed in the sun. Bondi was pretty busy and we watched young kids (8-12 years?) learning how to be lifeguards. Pretty hard work. We had a short day as we had to head back and pack. On Sunday, we flew out of Sydney and back to Shanghai.

Summary
First of all, 14 days was the longest vacation we ever took. I HIGHLY recommend to those of you who have trouble relaxing until 5 fays into it. It really gives you a chance to slow down and not worry about cramming too much in to each day. And we absolutely loved New Zealand. hard to explain exactly why, it was more a combination of things. The people were great, the homes and businesses were tidy, and the landscape was clean and "unprocessed". Australia was OK, but paled in comparison to the NZ ports.

Christmas in Hong Kong

Instead of going back to the US this year for Christmas, we stayed in Asia. Neither Tom or I get the official "Christian" holidays here in China, so we were had to localize our Christmas plans. We decided to take a break from China and head to Hong Kong for some shopping and an English-speaking break! Little did I realize that in fact, many Chinese also took advantage of the shopping side of that quest and were also in HK during this holiday! Oh well! I put all of the pictures out on our updated (finally!) website. And there are a couple of YouTube videos as well, including some from her earlier 1st Grade Christmas show.

The night before we left, Dec 23, we let Natalie open a gift she had received from our driver, Zhong Biao. She got a neat game and some cut-out animals. It was very nice of him and his family to do that for her!

We arrived in Christmas eve, almost two hours late. Air traffic going to Hong Kong was cited as the reason we sat on the ground in Shanghai for so long! We arrived around noon and worked our way through the Hong Kong airport to the Airport Express station (fast train) which is right at the airport. From there we headed to Kowloon where we exited and grabbed a taxi. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Golden Mile which was close to the Star Ferry and had a MRT (subway) station right across the street. We checked in and then headed out to go to the island. We took the Star Ferry over to the island portion of Hong Kong. From there, we caught the subway and headed to Times Square. We grabbed some pizza for lunch and then went and hit the stores! We bought about $200 in books! Natalie spent ALL of her saved allowance on books. She ended up with about 15 new books she picked out. Plus Gammaw bought her a book too! After buying our books, we shopped for some new athletic shoes for Tom and Natalie and some dress shoes for Tom. Unfortunately we had to haul all this stuff back to the hotel on the subway. When we arrived at our stop, we found out that the exit by our hotel was closed due to Christmas events being held outside in the streets. Oh well! Finally made it back to the hotel around 7:30. Went and had our meal in the Executive lounge. Then to bed!

Christmas day got going with Natalie opening a couple of gifts from Mom & Dad, the book and Fairy craft that Gammaw and Pappaw had bought her. Breakfast in the lounge, and the off to Disney! We took the subway and made it there at 10.15, right at opening! Hong Kong Disney is soooooo much smaller than Orlando! It was really nice, at least from our perspective. You could easily get from one area to another with a 2-5 minute walk. Still long longs for a couple of the rides, but overall was pretty easy. Only thing we underestimated was the temperature. It was pretty warm, and our little Heat Miser was wearing long sleeves and jeans. She had pink cheeks all day. We called all of our Family once we got there. Sad to not be home this year, but that's another blog...


After a full day of playing at Disney, we headed back to the hotel. Again at dinner in the lounge and then Natalie passed out around 7:40. So we all went to bed (we share a big king size!) reading our new books! Lovely Christmas!

Finally, Friday came and we just spent the day shopping at a big mall, Harbour City, that was close to our hotel. Natalie had a meltdown in Toys R Us when we first arrived. She wanted some toy and we told her she had already gotten lots of stuff and Santa had probably delivered gifts, but she totally started crying and saying we were mean. I was pretty frustrated with her, but I guess it is understandable. She had gone for 3 days getting everything she wanted, so why not continue that! Anyway, I got to shopping by myself for awhile. I got a new pair of shoes, new jeans, and a skirt and top. Nice to find western sizes. Tom and Natalie went and saw Bedtime Stories, which none of had heard about, but was the only non-dubbed movie to see.

Then we headed back to the hotel, checked out, and headed to the airport. We got back to Shanghai and our house around 10.30. A bit late, but not bad. Natalie got to see the gifts from Santa, but we waited until Saturday morning to open. She got lots of stuff from Santa, including a new Nintendo DS. She got lots of stuff from Santa and turns out that Santa had stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Bramer's and brought some stuff with him from them!

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Hong Kong Trip, or Was it???

This past weekend was the last weekend before Tom came home. So I had planned to take a little vacation to Hong Kong with my friend here. Sort of a Shanghai Girl's trip. Kathy M, Angie, Deb, Raquel, Rebecca, Karen, and I all were looking forward to shopping, eating, and maybe more shopping. But, we forgot to plan on the unplanned. Tropical Storm Nuri. It blew through on Friday afternoon. Three of us (Raquel, Rebecca, Karen) took an early flight Friday morning. They successfully left at 8:40. Unfortunately that was the last flight out that. Boo Hoo. And in fact it took most of the afternoon to figure out if we could even get there on Saturday. But we were able to rebook for Saturday morning at 9:45. We four got on our flight and headed out. All was looking good until the pilot came on and said that Hong Kong was currently overwhelmed with flights and that our flight would have to wait a bit until we could receive clearance to land. After 45 minutes, he came back on and said there might be a chance that we would be diverted to Xiamen (an hour and half away). And another 45 minutes later he said we would in fact land in Xiamen for fuel. It was supposed to be about a two and half hour flight. At this point, it had already been 4 hours. We did land in Xiamen, fueled, and then the pilot again informed us that we had not received clearance from Xiamen Customs. I guess they thought we had smuggled a bunch of HK migrant on or something. We were almost 3 hours delayed on the ground in Xiamen. Then we took off and landed in HK about 3 hours later. We basically were on the plane for the same amount of time as it would take to fly from Tokyo to Minneapolis, US. And none of were prepared for that long of a flight. But we did entertained ourselves with hangman and drawing pictures.

After we finally got to Hong Kong, it was 8:30. And there were huge lines at immigration. We had originally made plans to join up with the other girls at the Felix at the Paramount hotel, but we were all wiped out and decided to just head to the restaurant in the hotel. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, on the island, near Happy Valley Race Course. After eating, a few of us headed to Lan Kwai Fong, which is on the island as well. I felt pretty old. It was sort of like going to Mardi-gras. There were several blocks of restaurants and bars. Open containers and people walking around with drinks. And the girls all seemed so young and vastly under dressed. We didn't get back to the hotel until after 1 a.m. What a long day...

Sunday, some of us headed to the Peak. The weather, believe it or not, was great. Hong Kong is so much cleaner the other big cities we have been to in Asia. It is nice to be able to breathe. The Peak is at the top of a mountain and has a tram that goes up and down. The views were great. Then to shopping at Times Square. That was nice as there was a huge English bookstore. Nice to shop with such a nice selection. Finally to lunch at the big IFC Mall where the Central station is. You can check in to your flight there, check your bags, and then go back to shopping.

All in all, a nice getaway. If we had not had the logistics issues, it might have been perfect.

Macau

While Natalie is gone (boo hoo), Tom and I decided to take a weekend trip to Macau. Our spur of the moment activity for the year! We decided on a Monday to go that upcoming weekend! So we flew in on Friday afternoon. After we arrived and figured out the local currency situation (they use the Pataka generally and the Hong Kong Dollar) we headed to the Rio, where we stayed. The lesson learned with the hotel was that unless you are staying at the Wynn, MGM, the Sands, or the Venetian, go cheap! While our room was nice (see picture from the window), because the idea of a "Strip" doesn't really exist yet, there was not much at the Rio. The casino was awful, one blackjack table, slots mostly with "blue screen", and no real life there! I saw better Casinos at the Denney's off-strip in Vegas. It is definitely the place to go to escape the "mainland" either. But that is primarily due to the fact that 75% of the money made in Macau is from the big players who play in private casinos or rooms. But really, it is not really fair to compare to Vegas right now. There are lots of casinos, but only the four I mentioned are run by guys with Vegas experience, so it is just different!

It was also our first trip to Southern Asia in the summertime. Let me tell you, I will no longer complain about Shanghai being hot. In the picture on the right, you can see the heat haze. You practically melted walking to far.

After we figured out we would not be playing in our Casino, we headed out to the Wynn. And it was a mini-version of the one in Vegas. They had this big gold tree that "grew" in the lobby. After entering we walked around. No video poker (my fav!) to be found! Many Baccarat tables, some Black Jack, no Keno, no free alcoholic drinks??? What was up with that? And it took me half an hour to find a place to have a drink! The bar was tucked way in the back. Weird. We then headed back to the hotel and then on to the Sands. The layout was nice with a stage with live entertainment right in the center of the casino, open to the rest of the casino. And a big bar wrapping around it. The entertainment was so-so, with the funniest thing being the Filipino band singing. It is totally acceptable in Asia for the bands to use sheet music. Sometimes I guess that is because the bands are just a step above Karaoke. Even when the band is playing, people still think it is karaoke! Hilarious. And that was the Case this night. Many of the guests were singing right along with the band, and really loud too. The funniest part was that the most rocking song was "Ret's Get Roud". Oops, I mean Let's get Loud, by Jennifer Lopez.. But that is not how they sang it or what the audience sounded like singing with them. How funny is that song selection? After the band, the next entertainment was 3 sets of ballroom dancers. No kidding. How do you end up with that job??? Anyway, it resulted in most of the crowd dispersing.

Saturday we headed early over to the Venetian. It is on the Cotoi Strip which is on the two small islands of Macau. That Friday night the US Olympic Basketball team had stayed here and played some non-Olympic team. So, there were many more foreigners at this hotel. We enjoyed this one the most I think. And not just because we both won there. We watched a band play in the Bellini Bar in the casino. Mostly jazz with a decent trumpet player. Tom enjoyed a drink and funky little cigar while we relaxed in the bar. I focused on more interesting things such as making art out fruit and thinks from my purse. There was lots of shopping and so many things to do there. We ate dinner that night at the Morton's Steakhouse. Wow, it was delicious. Of course we ate too much and felt miserable, but it was fun.

I noticed a big difference in that there were not a lot of attractive women here. Part of this is due to the fact that Shanghai in general seems to have more attractive women. But it also seemed to be a different mix of people. There were quite a few Malay, but many were hard to place in term of ethnicity. Another big difference was that we saw people looking on the floor for dropped chips. I saw someone doing that and wasn't sure what it was, but Tom confirmed later that it was a chip searcher! Another thing you would never do in Las Vegas is to put chips on someone else's hand. If you are at a table with other players, you can play money on their hands. Kind of freaks you out. But I guess if a player is hot, you can win long with him! At the end of the day, Tom and I both lost what we had won Saturday. But we had a nice time and enjoyed our adult weekend.

OK, So I am a little behind!

Just returned from Summer trip home and realize how many people keep in touch with us here by reading the blog. So, I will have to do MUCH better at putting updates out here! Sorry to all of you who are feeling out out of touch. Here is a quick update of what has happened in the last few months:

• I participated in the 2008 Great Wall Marathon. Well, it wasn't pretty, but I did it! I did the half marathon and did it with a combo of run/walk. My goal was to finish in under four hours, which I did. Check out the final results here. I think there is a video somewhere, if I find it, I will put it on YouTube.
• Work for both Tom and I is going well. Tom has a decision to make regarding staying with Delphi or going with the new company that will be buying the brake business from Delphi. Both appear to be good opportunities, we will just have to wait to see what the final decision is...
• Natalie finished Kindergarten. All good stuff! In fact, they would like to have her move up to 2nd grade math (only math, the 1st and 2nd grades at Concordia are already combined for some classes). So, now she has to do math worksheets this summer!
• We all traveled home to see family in the States in June. Very short visit as I am working now and don't have as much time as I used to. Sorry to all I didn't get a chance to see!
• Tom and I went to St. Martin in July to celebrate our 20th anniversary this year (it is in August). Stayed at the Alamanda resort which is right on Orient Beach. Took another Random Wind tour (highly recommend) and basically just laidon the beach! This was our first vacation of more than 7 days. Very nice!
• Spent the last few days in the States with my family.
• Said goodbye to Natalie for 6-weeks! We felt it best to let her stay in the states rather than come back here with us working every day. Plus, Vizcaya is a ghost town right now! Nothing for her to do without me home all day. I am sure there will be more to come in the future blogs regarding my loneliness for my little girl!
• Went to Indy to catch my flight back, then had to reschedule for following day due to flight delays. rented a car, drove back to Fowler, then turned around and drove back in 15 hours. I HATE TRAVELLING!

Which brings me to my only rant for the day... Travelling. When did travel become such an awful activity? If you have travelled by air lately, then you know what I am talking about. The whole activity stream, from booking travel all the way to actually executing the travel plans is just not a pleasing experience anymore. I know it is an industry wide problem, but come on, surely there is some what for someone to figure out how to get people from A to B without all of the hassles. Anyone have any ideas???

Thailand Vacation

We just got back from our family vacation in Phuket, Thailand. What a great trip! It was my first time traveling in Asia outside of China. We left on Tuesday, March 25 at 8:45 a.m. and got back Sunday around 4:30 p.m. The only bad part of the travel was that both Tuesday and Sunday were full travel days. The flights we had were on Singapore airlines and went through Bangkok. Be prepared for a long day of travel if you decide to make the journey from Shanghai! It takes about 5 hours to fly to Bangkok and another hour to Phuket. And we found out that Natalie still gets a bit air sick, though she didn't actually vomit this time! We stayed at Laguna Beach Resort. There is also several other hotels really close that are part of the area referred to as Laguna Phuket. The beach there is called Bang Tao Bay. I would guess that all of the hotels there are nice.

The hotel is a 5-Star hotel, but again, in Asia that does not mean the same thing as in Europe and America's. The hotel itself was beautiful and the rooms were nice. But our room smelled overwhelmingly of mold. There was very little hot water in our shower, which really didn't matter after coming in from the 90-degree beach. And there was a woman in the room above us who we referred to as the "Clacker" as she apparently wore high-heels all day and all-night long. We could hear her before she left for the evening around 9pm and then again when she returned around 3:00 a.m.! Too funny.

We really liked the beach there. It really is nice. And the food was good, though I had enough lemongrass by the time I got back. Natalie loved the pool at the hotel as it had a big water slide. She must have ridden on it several hundred times. Unfortunately she was a bit too small to be in the pool all by herself. There were too many other kids and people. She played in the ocean a lot too. She loves the ocean! She only got wiped out by the waves a couple of times. I had to admit that we didn't leave the Laguna Phuket property. We hung out at the pool and beach at the hotel and grabbed lunch and dinner at the cheaper restaurants right on the beach. We thought about going and doing some sight-seeing, but frankly it was nice for Tom to just lay around and do nothing. Maybe if we go again we will venture away from the tourist location. Every day, the hotel had two small elephants brought to the property for the kids to ride. Natalie didn't ride (surprise!), but she did touch them both a couple of times. Tom and Natalie had a sailing lesson one day. Unfortunately it was during a time when there was no wind. So, the guy teaching them did a lot of paddling off the front of the boat. After the sailing they took out a kayak and rode around the the lagoon. Tom was pretty tired by the time they got back. It seems that Natalie did NOT do a lot of the paddling.

I did get a chance to play around with the camera. It was quite fun trying to capture good pictures of the sunsets. You will have check out all of the pictures on shutterfly. I added a few videos out to youtube as well. Enjoy!