New Zealand

After leaving Australia my family and I flew into Christchurch, which is on the South Island of New Zealand. From there we took the train into the New Zealand Alps. It was really cold, but so beautiful! It was fun to pass by places that had been filmed for movies. I almost expected the White Witch to jump out from behind a rock when he saw the valley that was used for the battle scene in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe."

After a few days on the South Island, we flew to Auckland on the North Island. It was beautiful too, but it was green with hills and forests instead of mountains. We drove from Auckland down to Rotorua, passing the "Shire" along the way. (Unfortunately, there were no hobbit sightings.) Rotorua is cool because of its thermal activity. It's right on the ring of fire and the town is built on top of geysers, mud pots, and hot springs. In fact, the Maori people in this village cook their food over steam pockets!
This was the view from our hotel window. Cool, huh? Well, at least it would have been if not for the horrible sulfur smell!

Here we are taking advantage of the hot springs!

Dad and the twins elected to do the "Zorb." The rest of us decided to watch since it was about 3 degrees Celsius! (That translates to 'really cold' in Fahrenheit.) Basically, they stripped down to their bathing suits and got into a big bubble filled with water and were rolled down a hill. They had a blast!

New Zealand was great fun, but after a week of freezing our tails off we were ready to head to Fiji! Look for those pictures soon!

Diving on the Great Barrier Reef

Everyone in my family is a certified diver, so after they came to collect me from Sydney we went up to the Great Barrier Reef. We ended up going on about 10 dives (one was a night dive) and they were all fantastic! We saw so many beautiful fish and coral! We didn't see any Great White sharks, but we did see several White-tip Reef sharks, Black-tip Reef sharks, and Gray Reef sharks. They're all pretty shy and rarely give people any problems. There were also Green sea turtles and eels and Lionfish and Giant clams...ah, I could go on for days! But a picture's worth a thousand words, so I'll just let them do the talking. Dad has a Cannon digital camera with an underwater housing, so we were able to get some great shots. Here are just a few.

Family pictures are much easier to arrange when the kids can't complain about them!

The reef was simply teeming with life!

We found Nemo!This little guy is a fancy kind of sea slug called a nudibrank (which is just fun to say--whoever came up with that name must have had a sense of humor).

At first you might mistake this guy for an eel, but that could get you into a lot of trouble! This a sea snake. They're not usually aggressive, but they are very curious and extremely poisonous. We had to be careful not to kick them by accident when they were swimming around our fins!


This was definitely the highlight of my trip! These are Minke Whales from a pod of about 15 or 20 that had come to check us out. It's the smallest type of baleen whale at about 20-25 feet long. We also saw a calf that was only about 10 feet long! They were very curious and would swim up close to get a good look. Here's a short video to give you an idea of how they move.



Coming next: New Zealand pictures!

Traveling with my family!

I'm back in Texas! It was hard to leave all of my friends in Sydney, but it's great to be home! I didn't come straight back, though. My mother, stepdad, and three younger sisters met me in Sydney and we did a bit of traveling before coming home. These pictures are from the first half of our trip.

My family in front of the opera house!

Notice that I'm driving on the WRONG side of the road on the WRONG side of the car. Somehow I managed not to kill anyone...

Here's all of us in the Daintree Rainforrest in Queensland.

Coming next are SCUBA diving pictures!

Tasmania

I just got back from a week in Tasmania (or, as the Australians say, "Tassie")! It was pretty cold, but amazing! There were beautiful mountain ranges and rugged coastlines and lush rainforests. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

This cave is cool because it resembles the shape of Tasmania.

Tasmanian Devil! I named him Mephistopheles (from Goethe's "Faust" which I just finished a paper about!) This guy was in a wildlife park. There are hardly any left in the wild. Most of them have been wiped out by some unknown type of contagious cancer.

Sunrise on the East coast.
This place is called Wineglass Bay. See the round shape of the beach? In the 19th century, whalers would butcher their catches here and the bay would turn red with blood, hence the name. Gruesome history, but it's a beautiful place.

That water was really cold!


This looks like a small kangaroo, but it's actually a wallaby.

This little rascal is a possum. (Doesn't look much like the American possum, does it?) They're not shy at all and very curious. One of them came right up to me and gave my shoe a bite!

This is near Cradle Mountain. See the snow halo?


This is a wombat! He didn't seem to mind people at all. He just kept on digging for his lunch while I took his picture.

Waterfall in Mt. Field National Park.

This is a Fairy (or blue) penguin. It's the smallest type of penguin in the world and it nests only in Tasmania and New Zealand. They can stay out at sea for months at a time (because they can sleep while floating) but come to shore this time of year to mate and nest.

Mom, Lee, Hillary, Amy, and Audrey are arriving next week and I'm so excited! We'll spend a couple of days in Sydney before heading up to do some diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Then we'll go New Zealand and Fiji before returning to Texas! I'll be sad to leave Sydney and all of the wonderful people I've met, but I'm looking forward to seeing my family and going home. Check back for more pictures soon!

I've had a very busy last couple of weeks! I just turned in my last paper today, so I'm officially finished with class! The essay was about Liszt's portrayal of fantastic elements in his Faust Symphony. But before that, I had 2 symphony concerts. We played Kodaly's and Bartok's Dances of Galanta and Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin. The Governor of New South Wales was present and we all had to stand as she entered and left the hall! Then I had a recital, which went pretty well I think. And then this weekend I played at a music festival in Pearl Bay, which is about an hour and a half north of Sydney. It was good fun, but I'm glad that things have calmed down some. I'm leaving in the morning for a week-long tour of Tasmania, so check back soon for pictures!

Cats and bats and chicken feet, oh my!

This post is devoted to critters. I finally made it to the zoo last week, which was really cool. Sadly, I don't have any pictures because I failed to take my camera. It had most of the same animals that any zoo has, but with more koalas and other small marsupials.

Those of you who know the love of my life (my cat Dina) are probably wondering how I'm doing with the separation. I miss her terribly *sigh* but have made a new friend. This is Henry, the cat who lives in my apartment complex. He lives outside, but is fed by everyone who lives here.


THESE creepy guys make their homes in the trees in the botanical gardens. I believe they are fruit bats, but if I don't make it back to the U.S. you'll know that got me...


Last week I went to Yum Cha with my Bible study group. Yum Cha is a Chinese meal that is made up of many appetizer-like dishes. You go with a large group in the morning on a weekend and waiters bring by different things to offer you. I made myself eat with chopsticks and I think I've finally got the hang of them! (Although I now know why Chinese people are so skinny--it's hard to eat with those things!) One of the more adventurous dishes served at Yum Cha is chicken feet--yes, chicken feet. They are considered a delicacy (although I'm not sure by whom, as only one of my 9 dining companions was willing to eat them). They are fried first and then boiled and marinated. The only reason I'm smiling in this picture is because it was taken BEFORE I tried the nasty thing!
Classes are winding down and I'm busy writing papers and preparing for an orchestra concert (I'm playing principal on Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin, which is a booger of a piece). I'm also getting ready for a recital that I'm giving on June 4th. Wish me luck!

Howdy!  I don't really have anything exciting to report, I'm afraid.  It's definitely feeling like winter.  It's been really cold and rainy, but the sun manages to peek out every once in a while and Mom is shipping me some of my winter clothes as we speak.  

We've just passed mid-term time so I've been pretty busy lately.  I had a big project to present, along with three performances.  I'm glad all of that's over with (and my heart goes out to all of my American friends who are taking their finals right now)!  

Here are a couple of random things that I found to be different.  Instead of Burger King, the Australian marketing name is "Hungry Jack's."  Don't ask me why the changed it, I have no idea.  

I've been reading some Australian books, which really helps my Aussie spelling.  There are some obvious words that I know are different, like 'harbour' instead of 'harbor' and 'specialise' instead of 'specialize.'  But every once in a while, a sneaky word will crop up.  My favorite is the Australian spelling for 'pajamas'--'pyjamas'!  

And this next photo is for all of you Harry Potter fans out there.  The British/Australian version not only has different artwork; it also has a different title for the first book!  It's 'Philospher's Stone' instead of 'Sorcerer's Stone.'  I've also seen the movie over here, and they just exchange the scene for another one whenever the '____ stone' is mentioned!

I've been craving Mexican food like crazy since I've been here, but I just haven't been brave enough to try it until the other night.  It wasn't really close to being real Mexican food, but it wasn't bad after I got over the initial shock of receiving my burrito with white rice and black beans!  (For those of you Australians who read this, Mexican rice and pinto beans are the usual fare.)

That's it for now, but I'll post again soon.  Cheers!

Mom's visit!

My mom (or 'Mum' as the Australians say) came to visit me this week! We did all sorts of cool things. I believe we might have walked across the entire city. I think mom's favorite place was the Royal Botanical Gardens (which is good, because it's right next to the Conservatorium and that's where she went when I had to go to class). We also made it out to Manley Beach, Bondi Beach, Chinatown, the Opera House, the Rocks, Darling Harbour (Australian spelling here) and the Blue Mountains (not to mention plenty of shops!) and plenty more. I turned 21 while she was here, so we went shopping and out to dinner. It was really nice to have her here, and I can't wait until the whole family comes in July (excluding Ashley, who is a dork and has her silly-but-necessary board exams, and Jason who will busy farming). Here are a few pics from this week:



Mom got a kick out of the Didgeridoo player (sitting on the ground to the right) at Circular Quay. It's actually a pretty complicated instrument. You buzz into the mouthpiece and use your tongue and voicebox to manipulate the sound to imitate animals or nature. All of this is done while circular breathing! (This is a pretty difficult technique! The idea is that you store some air in your cheeks and push the air out of your mouth while breathing in through your nose. This way the sound doesn't stop. Try it--it's pretty hard. You can experiment by blowing bubbles in a glass of water through a straw. You'll know if you're getting the hang of it when you can keep the bubbles going. It's even harder on an instrument because a didgeridoo is a lot bigger than a straw!)




Here's Mom and I on the ferry going over to Manley. That's the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in the background.




Here is Mom in the main Quadrangle at the main Sydney Uni campus. It's very Harry Potter-esque. Sometimes at noon, the clock bells will play the main theme of the Harry Potter music!















This is in the Blue Mountains, which is a mountain range just West of Sydney. It only takes two hours to get there by trains, so we just made a quick day trip of it. The Blue Mountains get their name from the blue tint they have from a distance. The blue effect is created when the light hits the oil emitted from the eucalyptus leaves. There were tons beautiful waterfalls and cliffs and the flora and fauna were really cool!

Easter holiday in the Northern Territory

I spent the last week in the Northern Territory (it's not a state because there aren't enough people living there)! I had a great time and saw lots of cool stuff. I spent time in Darwin, at the Litchfield and Kakadu National Parks and in Katherine before coming back home to Sydney. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves (although this is only a small fraction of all the pictures I took), so I'll just let you see for yourself! These pictures are kind of small to save space, but you can enlarge any picture by clicking on it.

Owl finches
Two beautiful sunsets! The black figure in the second picture (if you can see it) is a fruit bat!
There were tons of waterfalls (this is the tail end of the rainy season).
Big termite mound! Luckily, these aren't the kind that eat houses.
Fruit bats

Wallabies

Gecko

Ancient Aboriginal rock art

Katherine Gorge

Baby snake. I have no idea what type of snake, and I don't think I want to know!

Crocodile! This guy is about 2.5 meters long. That's a fish in its mouth!