Topper's TravelsTopper Kain's blog. Topper Kain is a world-famous kazoo player and traditional norwegian food chef. He wants you to use the comments. Sunday, February 20, 2005I've now been in Australia for two whole days and it has been nothing but amazing. I was so excited to get on the plane Monday that I almost lost my passport (not a good way to start a foreign adventure). You could immediately tell that there was a some sort of college thing going on by the number of students in the terminal. I met a couple of people from different programs, but most everyone there was on the Arcadia program going to University of Wollongong. I was the only Monash student I met there. This somehow made me special, as I managed to sweet talk my way into an exit row seat on the 747-400ER we flew to Australia on.Qantas is an incredible airline. We were fed two meals of resturant (not fast food) quality, got free drinks, were given a toothbrush, warm socks and sleep blinders, the seats were comfortable, and best of all each seat had a personal entertainment system built into it. There were movies,TV and video games, the whole lot. I personally ended watching a couple documentaries and sleeping, two activities which may be related (although in this cause I think the ambien I took was more responsible). We arrived in Australia around 9 am Wednesday mornings and took about two hours getting through customs and to our hotel, the savile park suites. It took two full buses to get us there, one for people and one to carry all our luggage. Our rooms weren't ready yet so we dropped off our bags into a conference room and went on a walking tour around the city. I managed to get lost (on film no less) from the group about halfway through and just decided to walk around on my own. I ate a lunch of a steak and onion pie (aussie pie, just meat, no veggies) at this little pastry place in an alleyway full of tiny resturants and crazy boutiques. Upon further exploration I found the alleyway led to a chic and upscale shopping center (arcade they say here). It is beautiful, a big arch covering the top, marble floors and columns, decorative designs on everything. Just amazing. After having my fill of window shopping I went chose to take a walk down the river to the harbor, which was a mistake. It turns out all of Melbourne by the river is currently being built, and the harbor is really ugly, so I spent two hours walking through construction sites and looking at run down ships and buildings. I returned back to the hotel and the rooms were ready (well, for everyone but me, it took them another 15 minutes to get mine ready...) and took my stuff up to my room. It turns out this hotel is all luxury suites, and I am on the top floor, with a view overlooking a park and a bunch of victorian buildings. It is outstanding, we have the best room in the hotel I think. There is a full kitchen, full bathroom, living room, deck, and bed room. I think I just want to live here for the rest of my stay in Melbourne. After settling in my new roommate (Dan, from Maryland) and I chose to wait till are next scheduled event, a trip to Melbourne's famous outdoor Wednesday markets. However, due to a watch malfuction (the malfuction was relying on me to set and monitor my watch...) we got down to the lobby an hour late. Through some sluethy detective work on my part (asking the reciptionist) I found out were the group had gone. The Melbourne outdoor market is like a county fair combinded with a farmer's market. There was music, food, wine (lots of wine actually) and great times had by all. I grabbed a curry and a bottle of chardonay and sat and talked with the Gettysburg college crowd. Oh yeah, most of the group I am with right now if from Gettysburg college or Sarah Lawerence, and they are all going to University of Wollongong near Sydney. I have no idea how I ended up with them, it makes no sense, I should be with the University of Melbourne who are at the same hotel but on a different schedule. It's alright though, I definitely going to be enjoying having places to stay at Universitys throughout Australia. After market, and after my roommie booted off the 16th story, we all went to bed, excited to get up and see the penguins the next day. That's right, Australia has penguins, and I saw them today. But more about that later. The day starts off with Dan and I getting some money from the bank and breakfest. Good news, ANZ bank ATMs have no surcharge on them, I think, and they make your bank account look MUCH bigger than it is. Regardless of those boring details we scurried back to the hotel to get on the bus to Philip's Island, which is an amazing nature preserve about 2 hrs from Melbourne. Our first stop was a McDonalds for lunch. Lame I know, but not our choice. Aussie McD's are much better than US McDonalds though. They have healthy menu choices and McCafe, which is pastries and coffee and sandwhiches that you'd get at barnes and noble, not McDonalds. Plus the Aussie staff didn't seem to resent being there. Oh yeah, and they had Gamecubes in the corner to play with. Our first REAL activity on Philip's Island was a beach walk up to some cliffs. The beach was this incredibly beautiful spot with giant waves crashing down on white sand, rolling green scrub hills behind it and bordered on eithier side with cliffs. We walked up on of these, and after crossing a little path less than two feet wide with a sheer cliff on eithier side and then clambering along a cliff face with a six inch hold I got an amazing panorramic view of the whole island, including I think were we went next, the coolest petting zoo ever. The conservatorium/preserve we went to next I think will be one of the highlights of my life. As the group walked in we could see Emus, Wallybes, and Kangaroos (Kangaroos!) within it's confines. And then the staff gave us a bag of food and told us to go feed them. I was extatic. I held out my hand full of food to a wallybe and it's little clawed hands gripped on to mine gently but firmly and it at the food pellets out of my one hand while I petted it with the other. And then it let go and hopped (hopped!) away. Repeat for two hours with different types of animals and me making stupid comments like a retarted school boy giddy with excitement (which I was) and you get an image. I saw first hand how kangaroos jump with their tails, and Dan actually was actually attacked by this 5' tall Kangaroo with biceps the size of grapefruits. It just grabbed his arm and took his food. I thought he was going to die, cause he was the only human amongst 20 some odd kangaroos. Next we went on a wetlands walk, which was beautiful and informative, but not terribly memorable, although we did see a sort of australian porcipine called, I think, an onieda (or is that a Native American tribe...) We grabbed a some italian food in the town for dinner. Everyone chose to share some bottles of wine, but when people couldn't finish it I got volunteered to do so... It ended up only being 3.5 glasses though, so I was OK. We were then off to the penguins. Like I said, Australia has penguins, and everynight up to 500 of them come in from the water to sleep in burrows on this on beach, so it is a big deal to watch this. We wandered around the gift shop for a bit and then went down to the beach, got a great front row seat, and started the wait. As we did we were joined by a large group of australian high schoolers, who we talked to for a good hour or so, and who proved to us that no matter where you go, 14 year old boys are interested in sports, cars, candy, TV, and female celebrities. Oh, and if they aren't in the US they hate Bush. Eventually though the main event started and a good 50 penguins came ashore and waddled right past us on there way home. Close enough I could of grabbed one, it was absolutely thrilling. Anyways it is now 2 AM here and my writing skills are quickly deminishing. I'll put pictures from this journey up shortly I hope. .: posted by Topper 8:44 PM
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