Endings and Beginnings

Hello all,

Well it's New Year's Eve in Sydney and Brad and I are catching a cab to the airport in about 10 minutes. We will be spending the next 20 odd hours in the air - shudder - and, defying all laws of physics, time, space and quantum mechanics*, we will be landing in Montreal also on New Year's Eve...Weird! NB: we are transiting through LAX, which is one of the 
worst airports in the world, and is located in the USA, which is THE most security conscious country in the world, on New Years Eve, which is one of the busiest travel days of the year, so chances of us having an adventure or two while there are quite high...

However, I'm sure that we will end up in Montreal sooner or later and so will end our trip around the world. It has been a wonderful adventure and we can't wait to bore you all to tears with our stories. 

I will update le blog again once we are in Ontario, as I plan to spend 
some of the three dozen hours in the air writing out Top 10 
Lists from the trip, ie: Top 10 Best Moments, Top 10 Most
 Surreal Moments, Top 10 Coolest Fellow Travellers, etc, etc, etc. 

Happy New Year to you all.  I hope 2007 is loads of fun and that we are part of it:)

TK

*Okay, I do understand that we aren't really defying any laws of physics, but you have to agree that it's decidedly bizzare to leave one country at 3pm, fly for 20 hours, and then land in another country at 9am...

I'm Dreaming of a Sunny Christmas

Merry Christmas from a country where it's 30 degress in the middle of winter!

- Ho, Ho, Ho from Michael, Mylene and Morgan Jane, the Australian branch of the
Keefe family. 

Stargazing on Fraser Island

Have I mentioned how much there is to do in this country yet? It's crazy fun.

Here are some photos of our camping trip to Fraser Island, which is actually not an island, but the world's largest sand bar. What makes it even nifftier is that is has an honest to goodness rainforest growing out of it, even though it is composed solely of sand and not soil.

- Sunrise above the water. (Brad gets credit for these pics as he was the only one who dragged his butt out of bed, well, out of tent, at 4:30am to see the sunrise).

- Our super-cool Team Canada Group loungin by a fresh water Lake Wabbi in the middle of the island.

- Relaxing hard by the Campagne Pools:

Sailing around the Whitsundays Islands...

Hey hey,



Well, as you should all know from the email the other day, we are heading home soon...just three more weeks of living out of a backpack, and then it's back to Canada. The culture shock is going to be something wicked, I'm sure. However, I have no doubt that copious coffee sessions at Tim's while catching up with long lost friends will go far to assage the weirdness of being back home:)



In meantime, we still have about two weeks in the wonderous and wonderful land of Oz and man are we ever enjoying the last legs of this amazing vacation. As I noted in my last blog, Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef was amazing. I thought nothing could match that water and weather, but the Whitsunday Islands were just as awesome. We went on a 3 day, 2 night sailing trip around the Whitsundays and it was surreal it was so beautiful. Yet another cool crew of people on the boat with us made it even better. The water was turquoise blue and the sand was pure white and so soft it felt like flour or icing sugar under our feet. Such a rough life I lead, eh? Sleeping on board the sail boat was a fantastic experience as well.



Check out these photos of the water and the beaches:







- Can you believe there really is water this colour?

- On Whitehaven Beach; the sand was magical

I

- On board the Eureka II - living the hard life:)

Hope Santa brings you everything your hearts desire.
See you in Jan.
TK

AAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Ohmygoodness!

!!!I went scuba diving today!!!

Shocking, I know...this is not an activity I ever thought I would try, but hey 'never, say never' right? Brad and I went out on a day long Great Barrier Reef trip today, which was absolutely AMAZING. We were intending on just going snorkling, but the guys running the boat trip were so good and nice and professional that we decided to take the plunge (pun definitely intended) and go for a dive.

It was amazingly easy - all I had to do was sink and then breathe. And now I understand what all the fuss is about! So, Leslie and Phil, next time you are planning a diving trip, let us know! Although, having one's first dive trip on the Great Barrier Reef might not be such a good idea, becuase, seriously, what could possibly top these photos:

- Me, with duck feet!

- By far the best picture of Brad ever taken!!

- Green Island

- Me. Just before the dive. Not freaking out. Really...Totally calm...

- Actually in the water! We dove to about 6 metres; we saw clown fish and parrot fish and all kinds of amazing creatures living on the coral. It was AWESOME.

- Sean, Benny, Aiden and Captain Robbie (not shown) - the fantastic crew of the Ocean Free. If you come to Cairns, which you should, you MUST go on a boat ride, and snorkel and dive with this company. Perfect day out!

Lions and Tigers and Demons from Hell, oh my...

One more brief blog about our adventures in Singapore before we start having adventures in Australia.


Here are photos from our wonderful all-day visit (seriously, we spent 11 hours there) at the zoo.

And here are photos from a place in Singapore called Haw Par Villa. It was built in 1937 by businessman Aw Boon Haw for his brother Boon Par - these are the two guys that made millions off Tiger Balm, and this is how Aw Boon Haw decided to spend his profits...The family was Chinese, so this tourist attraction is bascially a massive scale model of all the main figures and stories of Chinese folklore. Most interesting among the models, is the massive exhibition hall that features the 10 Courts of Hell, which depict in violently graphic detail what happens to sinners. Apparently, it is very common for Chinese people to bring thier children here, and man, I don't blame them: I would've been such a well behaved child if I thought some of the below things would happen to me if I misbehaved!

For example, disrespect of elders results in having your heart cut out; lack of filial piety causes you to be ground into mush by a large stone; if you demonstrate lack of filial obedience or cause trouble to your parents you will have your intestines and internal organs pulled out; and last but not least rumour mongering to cause discord among family members results in you being dumped into a wok of boiling oil...

Look at the photos below and be shocked and appalled:

Brad with Crazed Dragon and Psycho Pig

- Crazed Dragon and Psycho Pig's friend - Skitzoid the Seal and Panic the Panda...

- Oh kay...let's be serious here...how many hours of psycho therapy do you think it would take to counteract this image if seen at the age of 3 or 4? Medic rats, carrying a mutilated rat with its paws blown off...what this could represent, I really have no idea.

- Me standing at the gateway to the courts of hell, in between 'Horse-face' and 'Ox-head'. Yes - those are really their names.

Vegemite, Poisonous Jelly Fish, and Expensive Flights

Yup, you guessed it: I am writing from Australia.

How very odd it seems. All this time, all these countries and we have finally reached our last destination! We flew from Singapore to Darwin last night, arriving at about 3 o'clock this morning. We slept a bit and then spent much of this morning at the local Flight Centre trying to figure out how on earth we are going to get back to Canada for less than a million dollars....seriously, the one-way flights to Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are coming up at more than I used to sell round trip tickets for...humph...oh well, thank goodness for Mr. Visa, because he will certainly be coming to the rescue today.

Now, we have heard and read from lots of people that Australia has a wide variety of animals that seem to be specifically designed to maim or kill humans...I thought people were exagerating, but that doesn't seem to be the case because we have been in Australia for about 8 hours (4 of which we were asleep) and no less than 6 people have warned us NOT to swim, wade or paddle our toes in the water because of the plethora of Box Jellyfish that like to float near the shoreline and sting people. And, "they will kill you"...not 'maybe' not 'potentially dangerous' but "they will kill you" is what we've been told!

Welcome to the Land Down Under, right? :):)

We will be be tooling about Australia for two to three weeks and then hopping a flight back to the land of Tim Horton's and snow...all quite exciting.

TK

Cool South East Asia Photos

- River Boat on Tonle Sap, the biggest lake in Asia








- Brad and I working on earning some good karma by giving pencils to Cambodian school children












- And I thought the big yellow Ontario buses were a bad way of getting to school...












- Proof that capitalism is taking over the globe: small child selling us cans of coke and beer in the middle of Tonle Sap Lake












- A few pics of the AMAZING Jungle Temple in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The trees have grown up, over, through and along the ruins of this 900 year old Hindu Temple.

- Brad earning a metric tonne of good karma at the blood bank in Siem Reap. I tried, but apparently, I am a vien-less freak and the nurse could get no blood out of me...d'oh...

- The not so beautiful sights of Cambodia: the below two shots were taken on The Bad Day in Phnom Penh.

- Our great and shockingly cheerful Cambodian guide, Sareoun, and the rest of us having an excellent home cooked meal.

- Enroute to VietNam, this is an old-school river barge floating down the Mekong.

- Me on a motor cycle in Chau Doc, Viet Nam. Who needs helmets anyway, right?

- Brad making friends (read mooching beer) with the locals!

- Enroute to Ho Chi Minh City; ferry passenger taking a, no doubt, well earned break.

- This one is for you Dad! Do you think the total absense of rails and life jackets would meet Transport Canada's safety requirements? (Note: I am standing on the top deck of the ferry, so the drop to the water is about 10 feet down).

- View of Ho Chi Minh at night from the Sheraton....great view and great Singapore Slings!