Pacific Rim Post 1

Please follow along with our trip along the Pacific Rim.  I am going to add photos as we go along.  These will be letters sent from Keith to the family and in my defense I may/will add some comments. 

--------------------------------------------

All,

We arrived in Sydney as planned.   Long flight and we arrived at 6:00AM Sydney time on Friday and we were able to catch a few hours of sleep on the flight. We spent the day touring Sydney Harbor, the botanical gardens, took the ferry to Manley Beach and now we are about exhausted!   We are 15 hours ahead of you guys.  The weather is perfect – it is Fall here and the high today was about 78.   Lots of palm trees – I don’t think is ever freezes here.

We will venture out for dinner in a little bit and will probably be in bed when you guys eat breakfast.

It was truly a long flight and we were in economy but at least we had an open seat between us.  The Gardens were wonderful, large and had the coolest bats hanging out in the trees in the middle of the day.  I did not know bats were ever out during the day.
-----------------------------------------

Hey,

Kim and I are out at sea today – Monday the 16th.   It takes two days to sail to New Zealand from Sydney.  Kim is slowly getting use to the confined space of a balcony cabin – Did I say slowly!

Sydney was a very beautiful city and the Harbor area is a thriving market center with great restaurants, night life, shopping and all kinds of excursions.  It is also very expensive.  Across the board things are 30 to 40% more expensive when you factor in the exchange rate.  A decent meal for us with a bottle of wine in Dallas is usually around $60 the same meal in Sydney - $110.00.  It is a very clean city and also very Green.  One of the political parties in power is the Green Party – Kim is ready to move!

Today Kim is taking up Zumba and I’ve been to the gym .  We had to work out due to the large breakfast.  The most entertaining bar tender is working in the buffet area and we already have our seats in the bar area for most meals.

Princess Cruises was kind enough to reward me with this Graduation Cruise; however, there is NO CRAPS TABLE IN THE CASINO on the Sea Princess.  I will personally take up the matter with the board of directors as soon as I get back home!  J

More to come – We are checking email early in the morning – that is in the afternoon for you guys.

It is a small cabin.  We still like each other right now ;).  Even when you get out into the countryside of Australia it is green by design.  We were way out of the city up in the Blue Mountains and where they were doing road construction they made sure there were still fenced off areas for bikes and pedestrians to continue to use. 

Zumba was fun but I think you should have ‘some’ rhythm.   Good workout and I need to continue if not playing tennis.  I just returned from my first Rotary meeting, there were only 4 of us today.