July 2006 - continuation part IV

July 23: Off to the Blue Mountains with mama, tito Franc, and the Ortegas...for my very very third time. I'm sure I'll be visiting the three sisters a lot more when people will visit me down here. Do I need to add pictures for this (you can just take a look at my past posts on this blog)? They all look the same anyway. If you can't find them, you'll just have to come here and see it for yourself. After Katoomba, we drove almost an hour on a very winding and narrow road (not to mention on a rainy day) in the mountains to get to the Jenolan Caves. This is a must see when you visit...but not a must stay at their hotel nearby. Don't stay at the hotel there...service is not good. But its your only choice of stay coz you'll have to drive out of the narrow, winding road for about an hour (hopefully not in the dark) and the nearest motel/hotel is probably another 30min down the road. Because its a monopoly, the food is ridiculously overpriced and again, the service is horrible. Remember the name Ken Dunn...the rudest manager (in the cafe at the hotel) and the worst customer service I've seen, ever!!!

July 24: From Jenolan Caves, we drove back to the city and had lunch at the Sydney Fish Market. The trip was already tiring but the young guns (including Basti) went to Darling Harbour and met up with Raquel and Mg Boy.

I'm tired of talking about the month of July so I'm keeping all of this short...I hope, unless I really get into writing some more.


July 25: Off to Canberra, the capital of Australia. Just like Sacramento, the capital of California, there's really not much to see in Canberra. Even John Howard, the prime minister of the country, is supposed to be living in Canberra...just like Bush would be to Washington, DC. But No! John Howard lives in Sydney!

Besides seeing the Parliament and the War Memorial, we went to the Philippine Embassy and had lunch with Teod's friend who was working in Canberra. My first impression of the capital - it looks like a military base. Buildings that look like boxes. No architecture. Not too many people around. No action. It was dull. That's about it. I probably will go back to Canberra in the future and find out what else is there to see...at least the neighboring towns.

When we got back from Canberra, we went to King's Cross (red light district). That was probably the most exciting we've had for the day...including almost getting tricked into paying parking for a free parking zone!!!

July 26: Market City/Chinatown. A little bit of shopping. We thought Paddy's was open on Wednesday (FYI: they are only open from Thurs through Sunday). So we went to Bondi beach next...yup, going to the beach on a rainy day. It's been bloody raining all week! From Sydney to the Blue Mountains to Canberra. Oh well. Pictures with umbrellas. Pretty common with some of our pictures. In a couple of the pictures, we counted to three and dropped our umbrellas so you would think it wasn't really raining. After Bondi, we tried to go to Centrepoint, the Sydney AMP tower. When we got there, the city was really foggy and still rainy. They told us visibility up in the tower was really bad you can't even see the opera house. So what's the point? Forget about it and so we went to Star City Casino. Mama, tito Franc, and I played a little bit of slots. I won a few bucks and it paid for our coffee and dessert that night.


July 27: Taronga Zoo day. Mama and tito Franc finally got to ride the ferry. The sun came out...thank goodness! From kangaroos, snakes, crocodiles, koalas, tasmanian devils, emus, rhinos, giraffes (they've got prime real estate...with a great view of Sydney skyline), camels, pink flamingos (did you know that eating shrimp gives them their color?), mountain goats, hippos, chimpanzees, zebras, etc, they've got it here! A must see when you visit Australia.

Back to Paddy's after lots of walking at the Zoo. Now's the time for souvenir shopping!!!

After a long day, we had dinner at Addie's Thai restaurant near the house.