OZ, Part 4: The Fair

The last part of our trip was the job fair in Melbourne.  We weren't sure what to expect, and when we first arrived it seemed like it would be hard to get interviews since everyone else seemed to have a lot more experience.  One of our coworkers was attending, and we also made contacts with people from all over.  The fair was run very well and most recruiters were pretty nice and open to interviewing candidates.

We had 8 interviews... Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Germany, Malaysia, and Jordan.  It was a really long day!  We turned down an offer from HK and decided not to continue pursuing more interviews for the job in Saudi, but we accepted the offer from Dubai!  It was a great feeling to know that we had succeeded.  There will definitely be more adventures to come in 2014!

OZ, Part 3: Sydney

After the very long night train from Melbourne, we arrived in Sydney.  We checked in at our guesthouse, cleaned up, and then met our friend Amanda for lunch at a restaurant called Ripples under the famous Harbour Bridge.  Amanda grew up in Sydney, but we met her when we were all teaching in South Korea.  It was so nice to catch up with her and her fiance Cameron.

After lunch, we walked around Luna Park, had ice cream, and took photos with the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House in the background.  It was a nice afternoon!

 

 

After saying goodbye to Amanda and Cameron, John and I decided to walk across the Harbour Bridge on the pedestrian walkway to the other side of the harbour, down near the Opera House.  We had great views of Sydney and even got a glimpse of the "Bridge Climbers" who were climbing the top of the bridge as part of a tourist attraction.

It was pretty cool seeing the Sydney Opera House up close.  It's always fun when you see many photos of a building but then you finally get to see it in person.

In Sydney, John and I also took a ferry to Manly Beach.  The beach was pretty busy with sunbathers and surfers.  Walking up to the beach was a nice pedestrian road called "The Corso" which had tons of shops and restaurants.  We had a picnic on the beach and had ice cream afterwards.  It was nice to just relax there and take in the nice views.

We also made a trip to Darling Harbour, a colourful spot with a great view of Sydney's tall towers.  At Darling Harbour we watched street performers and had a nice 3-course dinner at a pretty good price for Sydney.  Travelling in an English-speaking country much like Canada was definitely a treat, but it came with a nice price tag.

Our final full day in Sydney was spent hanging out near the Harbour Bridge, waiting for the fireworks show on New Year's Eve.  We arrived at one of the parks near the bridge at around 1:30pm and stayed there all day until midnight.  It was pretty packed when we arrived, and we were lucky to get a decent view.  The place became CRAZY busy... people everywhere, sitting anywhere there was a shred of space.  The line for the public toilets was long, but getting to the toilets was an ordeal.  It was quite the trek passing through the crowds of people in the quickly narrowing pathway.  In the end, it was worth it for a great experience!  We saw the "family fireworks" show at 9pm and then the midnight showing.  I always saw TV clips of the New Year's Eve celebrations from Sydney, so it was very cool to be there live to do the countdown to 2014!  Getting back to our guesthouse after the show took a while due to the massive crowds.  At least public transportation back was free!

Our visit to Sydney was lots of fun, but it seemed like the end of our holiday since we were headed back to Melbourne for business... the job fair, the main reason why we came to Australia for our holiday...

OZ, Part 2: Melbourne

Melbourne was a pretty cool city.  It had a European vibe to it with its many cafes and quaint alleyways.  There were some cute Christmas decorations up around the city, but for some reason we didn't feel like it was actually Christmas due to the warm weather and lack of snow!

In Melbourne we did a free walking tour which took us around the central area of the city.  My favourite part was walking through the narrow lanes filled with street art.  It was so colourful!

For Christmas day we had a nice lunch at a cafe and walked near the Yarra River and also around downtown to see the decorations and watch street performers.  On Boxing Day we attended a performance of King Kong at the Regent Theatre.  It was very creative how they portrayed King Kong - if you get a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it!

Our stay in Melbourne was a fairly short one before we headed on to Sydney on a long, uncomfortable night train (unfortunately didn't have sleeper seats)!  We would visit Melbourne again at the end of our trip.

OZ, Part 1: Adelaide & the Great Ocean Road

Australia is a place I'd wanted to visit since being a little kid.  It seemed so far away (it is), but luckily when there was a seat sale on Air Asia we scooped up the 2 for 1 tickets and were on our way from Vietnam (still far away, but not too bad)!  We had a short flight to KL, then flew to Adelaide which was about 8 hours away.

Upon arrival in Adelaide we rented a car with Thrifty at the airport and drove into town.  I forgot my license so John had to do all the driving.  Australians drive on the "wrong" side of the road so at first it felt weird.  Adelaide is a small city and we didn't have a lot of time to explore it.  Our guest house was within walking distance of Central Market in China Town and a nice street with many restaurants on it.  We ended up having our first dinner in Australia at the famous "Hog's Breath Cafe" and ordered Angus steak burgers which came with "chips" (aka fries).  Yum!

In Adelaide we also visited Cleland Wildlife Park, where we got to see animals roaming free in the park.  We were given some kangaroo food (a pack of pellets) and although some kangaroos seemed shy, most of them came right up to eat out of our hands!  Some of the emus even liked the food.  We also got to pet a koala.  Apparently koalas sleep for 20 hours a day and the koalas at the park were feeling tired since it was the end of the day.  We only got to see one up close for a short period of time before it went back to sleep again.

On the second day of our trip we began the official road trip to Melbourne.  We rented an orange Nissan Micra and took to the empty country roads.  Honestly there were times where it felt like we were the only car on the road.  We took a wrong turn and backtracked on a side road at one point, and it was so empty except for a tumbleweed that blew by... we actually had time to get out of the car and do a photo shoot in the middle of the road without any traffic whatsoever!  One cool stop we did on this leg of the trip was to a lookout where we could see pelicans flying overhead.  They were huge!  It was peaceful there, and of course no one was around.

After several hours of driving we reached the town of Robe, a sleepy town on the southern coast.  Robe only has a population of less than 2000 people but apparently during the Australian summer months they have around 15000 people with the influx of tourists and seasonal workers.  There is a beach in Robe where cars drive on.  We tried it out but our car wasn't the best and got stuck in the sand near the ramp down, so we decided to go back up to the parking lot!

The second day of our trip we drove to the town of Port Campbell.  Along the way we made a stop in Mount Gambier to see the famous "Blue Lake."  It was pretty blue!  It is a crater lake with the deepest point being 77 metres.  There is some scientific explanation behind the colour, but I couldn't tell you what it is!  After visiting the Blue Lake, we made a few pit stops in cute towns before making it to the official "Great Ocean Road."  We expected the GOR to be along the coast the whole time, but this was not the case.  When we reached the section of the road around Port Campbell we had finally found what we were looking for... the coast!  We saw several scenic points such as "London's Arch" (an arched rock bridge in the water), "The Grotto," and finally the famous "12 Apostles."  Although not all 12 rock formations remain today due to erosion, it was still amazing to see.  We came at the right time... the sun was going down and the colours were beautiful.

 

We liked the 12 Apostles so much that we went back the next morning (a short drive from our hotel) and descended the "Gibson Steps" down the rock cliff to a large beach area.  Swimming down there is not recommended due to currents, but there was a large stretch of sand and it was a nice place to take some photos.

The third day of our road trip took us from Port Campbell to Melbourne.  There was a stretch of the GOR that was very scenic, as it followed the coast for a long time, with views of beautiful beaches around every turn on the winding road.  It was sad when the GOR ended and we had to get on a highway to Melbourne!

Stay tuned for part 2 of the trip...