Spatafora Family - The Thailand Sabbatical

Sept. 27th

Today was Nick's 10th birthday. I am betting he will always remember turning 10 in Thailand. We had a very nice evening which included dinner at the new local Italian restaurant followed by an ice cream cake from Swensons that was delivered on dry ice.

First the Italian restaurant: there are many Italian restaurants here. The Thais love them. We also learned to order the small antipasta plate and do not expect it to come before the pasta. Also, the salads are the size of your head. Very large. But the food was quite good.

Second, Swensons and dry ice! There may not be many Swensons left in the US, but they are all over Thailand. I thought they went out of business but it turns out they cornered the SE Asia ice cream market. The cake was excellent and because it is so hot here they delivered it on dry ice. (Yes they deliver.) Very nice special effect.

Our neighbors, Sam Matthews and his kids Nate and Adrianne came over for cake. (His wife is Leslie and she lives here as well, but she could not make over tonight.) They are from California and have lived here for about three years. Leslie works in the Thailand Peace Corps office. Nate is 11 and Adrianne is 8 (or 9 I can not remember). It has been good to have kids in our building, especially for Nick, and Sam and Leslie have been great resources for us.

The birthday was really nice. Low key but Nick loved it. Gifts included a watch, alarm clock, some clothes, beach ball for the pool, bionicle, frisbee and candy. It was a good birthday. -- Joey

Sept. 24 - 26th
We took our first train trip in Thailand and went to Hua Hin. It is a town located on the west coast of the Gulf of Thailand. The train was interesting. No livestock or roaming animals but fun, but plenty of unidentifiable food. Originally we were going to go 2nd class, because it had AC, but it was sold out. So we traveled 3rd class which has fans. Luckily it was overcast and there was a breeze through the window. It really wasn't too bad - kind of like traveling in my old VW bus.

I do not think they see many Americans traveling in 3rd class, abd the people were genuinely happy to see us. I sat next to Pop, who is a computer programmer. He got to practice his English and I got to practice my Thai. Although I am improving, his English was much better. Pop was another example of how friendly the Thai people are. We had a great time talking and by the end of the trip he had invited all of us to his beach house in another part of Thailand.

The train trip from Bangkok to Hua Hin took about 4 hrs. Along the way the train stopped at a number of small depots that were actually quite cool. Like something out of a Thai "Green Acres". Once we left the Bangkok metropolitan area, the scenery was mostly farmland. Rice, sugarcane, rice, pineapple, rice and more rice. They grow a lot of rice here. They eat it 3 times a day. In fact to say you hungry is "hui kaao". Kaao is rice.

We arrived in Hua Hin around 1pm and went to our hotel. The pool was nice but the hotel was ... okay. The beach at Hua Hin is nice although it is still the monsoon season. So the weather was hit and miss and the beach had a lot of debris in spots. I think it rained everyday but it was sunny for at least part of the day. Hua Hin is a major expat town. Many Europeans spend at least part of the year here and some retire here. So it is a little different from many other places.

The second day we spent the day exploring Hua Hin, walking the beach, and eating. The food in Hua Hin is excellent. Seafood galore. Here we are at an outdoor seafood restaurant with our friends Nigel and Rung. Nigel is a mycologist and is the main person I came to Thailand to do my sabbatical with. He is orginally from Liverpool, but has lived in Thailand for 17 yrs. We have been collaborating on a research project for about 4 years and are completing it now. Rung is his partner and is from Thailand. She is an excellent field biologist. They live in Bangkok during the week and in Hua hin on the weekends. (It is only 2 hrs by car.)

The third day we slept late, or at late as we could with the construction at our hotel. Needless to say we were not too thrilled with the hotel. So checked out and went to see the Giant Budda before heading back to Bangkok. Just outside of Hua Hin there is a temple with a giant Budda. It is actually not the budda, or at least who and what I understand the Budda to be. Rather, the statue is of a famous monk who lived in the 16th century. He is highly revered by the Thais for a series of miracles that are attributed to him, including turn salt water to fresh water. It is one big budda.

We then caught a bus back to Bangkok. It only took 3 hrs, but I would have to say it was not as unique as the train. We returned to Bangkok to one hell of a storm.

Well this was our first solo venture out of Bangkok and it went pretty well. I think we will go back to Hua Hin before we leave so that we can see it in the dry season. I imagine the beach will be much nicer. Regardless we are ready to see more of Thailand and Southeast Asia. -- Joey

We are still catching up on postings about a number of things we have done since we have been in Thailand. Last weekend (Sept. 16th) we went with some friends to the Muang Boran - the "Ancient City". The picture is of our good friends Jennifer, Suchada and Game. They are great and have gone out of their way to make our transition to Thailand easy. I am not sure what we would do without them.


Muang Boran is in fact not ancient. It is an outdoor museum or park that was started in the 1960s. It is approximately 250 acres and is laid out in the shape of Thailand. It is pretty large so the best thing to do is use one of the provided bikes and tour it that way. They even have old tandems, which Elizabeth and I rode. It was fun, but damn it was hot!


Throughout the park there are replicas of important Thai historical sites that are built to approximately 1/3 scale. I know it sounds a bit weird, but it is actually pretty cool. All of the monuments and building are placed in the park where they are in Thailand. It is a great geography lesson of the different regions of Thailand, the people of the region, and the major historical buildings, temples, etc. There is also access to areas, like the throne room in the Grand Palace, which in the real sites are not open to the public. We saw lots of families having their portraits made inside these rooms. Interesting....

After Muang Boran we went to the Crocodile Farm. This is like the zoos and circuses of our childhood. Very politically incorrect - and a lot of fun. It actually started as a breeding facility to raise meat and skins to prevent illegal poaching. It as since morphed into a very carnival-like venue. Nick got to pet a 6 year old Bengal tiger - yes a real tiger - and ride an elephant, and the kids fed hippos. Feeding a hippo is a must on the things to do in life. Very disgusting! We also saw a crocodile wrestling show that was very carney-like. (See above show finale photo.) After that we went to this area where you can toss chickens (dead) to crocs and alligators that are bigger than any I have ever seen. Very exciting.It was a bizarre place, but we did enjoy it.












Afterwards we had dinner at Bang Poo, an outdoor seafood restaurant situated on the Gulf of Siam. If I understand correctly, it is an old officers club of the Thai Navy. There was one large ballroom where there was dinner and dancing with a live band that seemed just like the Officer's Club in Huntsville. We ate in a restaurant out on the pier and watched a beautiful sunset(photo at left). I kept asking the kids, "Do you understand that you are eating incredible food, at sunset, on the Gulf of Siam?" They assured me they understood. --Joey

It is day three of the coup d'etat and everything is back to normal. The traffic, the construction cranes, the restaurants, the street vendors ... You name it. I am not sure what you are hearing or seeing about the coup, but I am assuming it is beginning to fall off the CNN radar. When I look on the CNN website or watch the BBC there is not much new attention given to the coup.

The vast majority of the people in Thailand are very happy the military ousted Thaksin. They are literally walking among the soldiers giving them flowers and food. Even though the majority of them would have prefered it happened via a democratic process, most people tell you the system was so corrupt that there was no chance of a change in government by an election. Apparently Thaksin, who is a multibillionaire, had bought too many people and placed too many of his relatives and cronies in power for a fair election to happen. Especially the Election Commission which runs the elections.

Elizabeth and Anna scoured the area of town we live in for troops and tanks, but our neighborhood is so laid back there was none. They did see this small hummer-like vehicle (picture) in a nearby section of town. Unoccupied. I think the soldiers were shopping. Anyone for a joyride and a little automatic weapon fun? I did see several tanks on the highway when I was coming home from work. But again there was traffic jam caused by people stopping to take their picture and give them gifts.

I am not advocating coups - and one per sabbatical is plenty - but this does not seem that this is a big breach of democracy to me. Of course the big catch will be if a civilian government is put in place as promised. An interim prime minister is supposed to be announced within a week. He or she, will preside over a reworking of the constitution and then a new election will be scheduled by October 2007. We shall see, but I can tell you there is great optimism in the streets of Bangkok today.

If you are planning a visit to Thailand, do not cancel it. In fact, it might be a good time to plan a trip. I bet plane flights are a little cheaper right now.

That's all for now. -- Joey

Sept. 20th

Well a coup d'etat was initiated last night against Prime Minister Thaksin by the military. You probably have heard and seen reports on the news. So far things are very peaceful and there really is not much to report - at least from our apartment. The military declared a "holiday" so no one is going to work and most of the local media is not operating. We can not read Thai anyway so it does not impact us directly.

Here is a brief background on the situation as I understand it:

Thaksin is the prime minister and is very wealthy. We're talking billions of dollars. He owned a large media corporation and is a similar figure to the former PM of Italy, Berlusconi. After the Asian economic collapse in the mid 1990's he passed a number of laws that essentially removed all capital gains taxes. Just this past year, he sold his media corporation for over $1 billion to a firm in Singapore and paid no taxes on it. This did not go over well with the middle and upper class and he has been on the outs ever since. He is popular with the poor and rural groups, but his support among them has been slipping as well.

He called a snap election earlier this year, which he won but in which most of the opposition parties boycotted. (A snap election is called by the ruling party and rarely offers the opposition parties any hope of organizing a campaign and winning the election.) Also, the Election Council, which essentially runs the election, was proven fraudulent and removed from office. All of this resulted in a meeting between Thaksin and the King, after which Thaksin said he would step down. Then after a while he changed his mind and has stayed in power with another election scheduled for a future data not yet determined. This has caused a lot of political turmoil that detracts from national unity - a very big deal here. Historically, Thais do not like long drawn out bickering within their government like we have between the Democrats and the Republicans.

You should understand that the King is a constitutional monarch, not unlike the Queen of England, but highly revered. Thais love their King and this point is not to be taken lightly. With the suspension of the constitution, which was dictated as part of the coup, it is unclear if the King's constitutional status will change. Probably not. The military has pledged their loyalty to him and they would lose any support they have with the people if they were perceived as being against the King. Currently, all the military soldiers have yellow ribbons on the rifles and vehicles. Yellow is the King's color and this is very symbolic. The military wants the support of the people and as I said, the Thais love the King. They'll do anything for him. Supposedly the generals are to meet with the King with the goal of setting up an interim government until elections can be held sometime in November. The one report I have read is that the generals do want the interim government to be led by civilians.

So that is where we stand. I will let you know as soon as I learn anything new. But rest assured that we are safe and sound.

--Joey

Here is a photo of our apartment building, Baan Yoswadi. Baan means house, but I am not sure what Yoswadi means. I believe something about happiness. The building is quite nice and our apartment is very large, four bedrooms, four bathrooms, kitchen, living area, dining area, and a foyer. It is mostly Teak wood and marble. Very nice. It is still a bit spartan inside but we are slowing and surely accumulating stuff that is giving it a lived in feel. The majority of people living here are foreigners. So far we have met an American family and a British family with kids a little younger than ours, and a group of Italian students who are here on an exchange program. Having said that the neighborhood is very Thai and not major tourist area.

Our apartment is on the 11th floor. The view is pretty good and an excellent place to sit and watch the monsoon storms roll in. The monsoon season runs from roughly June through October, so we are heading into the last month. The rains are quite dramatic. Those of you who made it to the OSU-LSU football know what I am talking about. In addition to a nice view, being up on the 11th floor affords us a cool breeze now and again.

The street we live on is Phahonyothin 7. This is a Soi, or small street or lane (by Bangkok standards) off the major road, Phahonyothin Thanon. (The 7 refers to the fact that it is the 7th Soi, counting south to north, off of the main road.) The picture is from a Sunday afternoon and it is actually pretty calm. Usually it is lined with carts selling food and assorted items. The food on our Soi is excellent. We love walking and sampling different food carts - a progressive dinner of sorts.

Well that's all for now. We have really settled in and are pretty comfortable in Bangkok. While it is a city of 10 million people, it is definitely a city of neighborhoods and we have landed in a good one. Our address is below. --Joey

Baan Yoswadi #111
34 Phahonyothin 7
Phayathai, Bangkok
Thailand 10400

Gioia Spatafora
9/19/06
Lad Prao


When walking into the food court in Lad Prao, amazing and wondrous smells jump out at you as you try to find your way through the maze of stalls. The food court looks more like a crowded market with a sanctuary of four-person tables in the center. The longest line in the court is surprisingly not leading to a food booth, but instead to a tiny, enclosed table where a teller is handing out cards that look like sky train passes. Once you reach the table, you are to give the teller 100 baht ($2.70) per person in return for a flimsy piece of plastic covered paper. These debit cards are actually the key to buying any food at all. With this debit card, there are still two problems left to deal with: what to eat and where to sit. From Pad Thai to waffle-covered hot dogs, noodle soup to icy fruit desserts, the choices seem endless! If you cannot read or write Thai, having a Thai friend come along with you will ensure that you choose treats you are sure to enjoy. Most of the dishes cost 20-40 baht, debited from your card, and feature large servings. Once you have chosen from the bountiful array of foods, choose a drink, (only 10 baht for a small), from one of the three drink booths located near the eating circle. Unlike in the U.S., the food vendors rarely sell drinks, so drink booths are provided at three of the forty booths in the entire court. The other, harder problem is to find a place to sit and eat. Lad Prao is a popular place to eat, especially on the weekends. Fortunately the staff is fast-moving so a table is sure to open up soon. If you have not used your entire card up on your lunch, return the debit card to the teller and receive change for your balance. Satisfied and full, a five-floor shopping center awaits you upstairs.

Anna: So, after a few weeks we've finally settled into our neighborhood. We have a bunch of really good resurants around our apartment and a million little street vendors all up and down our street.

Gioia: Yeah, the vendors have really good food. The best thing to do for lunch is just get several different things on the street to go, and take it back to our apartment. Our favorite venders so far are "The duck lady" who has really good duck, the coconut dumpling type things, the peanut-chili-some form of meat product dumplings, and the banana-fritter-pancake things.

Anna: So you can see that we're starving here.

Gioia: No, quite the opposite. If I'm not hungry here, I'm stuffed.

Anna: The venders also have really good fresh fruit. I had what could possibly be the best pineapple I have have ever eaten today.

Gioia: Yeah, that pineapple was really good.

Anna: Yeah. Ohh, we also have an awesome little coffee shop in our parking lot. It has free wi-fi, so we were in there all of the time before our internet got set up. The guy that works there is really funny, because he is always singing along to the radio. It's very entertaining.

Gioia: I haven't gone in there yet, but I should because I want a a piece of dark forest cake that you said they have and I would like to see the coffee boy sing. I don't know if I could walk all the way to the coffee shop right now though because "I have blisters on my fingers!"-The Beatles, I mean feet. We walk around ALOT here because only crazy people drive. So when you really think about about it, I guess we should be driving.

Anna: Yeah, driving somewhere always takes you about and hour longer then it would in any other way you could possibly think of, including sliding on your belly like a snake. Our favorite form of transportation is the BTS (Bangkok Transit System). When you're walking around in the blistering heat and your feet hurt, you come to the glorious BTS which moves at what seems the speed of light compared to walking behind the Thais* and is highly airconditioned.

Gioia: Ahhh yes, the BTS. Plus, if your lucky there will even be a seat open for you and you won't have to stand for the fifteen stops it takes to get to church... in heels.

Anna:*So the Thais walk extrememly slow and seem to randomly move all over the side walk. As my dad says, "You could be walking behind the smallest, slowest Thai, and SOME HOW you would NOT BE ABLE to pass them in any way!!!" Plus most of the Thai's don't seem to sweat much, which is really annoying when we're sitting there sweating our guts out.

Gioia: The worst part of that is it's the rainy season right now. so it's supposedly " cool". Yeah right!!! Oh, also in the rainy season there is lightning all night long!!! The thunder doesn't bother me as much as the fact the lightening seems to light up the entire sky... and our room!! Gggggaaahhhh!!!!!

Anna: It's really not THAT bad. She just sleeps under the window and it keeps her up.

Gioia: No, it really IS that bad!!!

Anna: Whatever. So school here is okay. I'm doing online courses, which are fine. I'm taking Latin, Journalism, Health 2, Poetry-Short Stories-and a Novel, and Algebra 1.2

Gioia: I on the other hand am being home schooled by mom, which is fine. Nick and I don't always get along, but it will be fine.

Anna: Yeah, I just lock myself up in the room with the computer.

Gioia: We also forgot a math book for me, so that's been ummm... a tea party.

Anna: What the heck does that mean?

Gioia: It literally means that instead of doing math, I was drinking tea.

Anna: Well, we found a few math book type things not really that you get to use until the real math book we ordered comes.

Gioia: Wooo hooo math! (cough, cough)

(Well that's all today from the girls. Elizabeth and I will write more soon and include some photos. --Joey)

Fri. – Sept. 1

And we are off to Bangkok. Today we checked out of our hotel and left Australia. I really enjoyed our stay here. It sure is a beautiful country. In many ways it reminds me of the western US.

The flight to Bangkok was uneventful and about 8 hours. We arrived in Bangkok around 10:30 pm and went through immigration and customs without a hitch. Our friends, Suchada and her husband Kasem, met us at the airport and brought us to our apartment. It is huge! It is probably as big as our house but with 4 bathrooms. Excellent! The kids quickly claimed rooms (and a bathroom each) and headed to bed as all were exhausted. The view from the 11th floor is very intriguing and we are excited to see what our neighborhood is like.

Thurs. – Aug. 31st

Today we did a package tour of the Blue Mountains. We normally do not do such tours but the Blue Mountains are about 2 hrs west of Sydney and we did not have a car, so we joined a tour group. It goes up to a little village called Katoomba that was cool. On the way we stopped and saw some wild kangaroos (see photo) and did a short hike.












Then we went on to the Blue Mountains for about an hour hike. The scenery was excellent, as was the weather. We got lucky with the weather as the previous week it had been cloudy with little visibility. One of the major attractions of the region is the “3 sisters” rock formation (photo). The area in general is similar to parts of California and the Southeast US with dry mountains, although there are some rain forest areas near by. Supposedly they are called the Blue Mountains because the haze created by eucalyptus oil from the trees makes it look blue.

Wed. – Aug. 30th

The highlight of today was going to the opera. We saw Pirates of Penzance at the Sydney Opera House (SOH). Wow! What an incredible building! We did a tour prior to the performance. We saw a number of the theaters and learned a lot about its construction. It is such an impressive building, perhaps the most impressive piece of modern architecture I have ever seen. The opera was very good and the perfect performance for us to see for our first opera -light-hearted and in English-gotta love that. Excellent day. It was up there with the Great Barrier Reef.

Tues. – Aug. 29th

The kids were a bit tired of museums, botanical gardens and the like, so today we went to the Taronga Zoo. It is across the harbor so you take a ferry to it. Sydney is situated on a number of harbors, so it has a great system of ferries that allow you to go just about anywhere. The zoo was good with some great view of the city from across the bay. (Pict 1 : kids at the Taronga Zoo statue; Pict. 2 Gioia and a sleeping Kangaroo; Pict. 3 Anna's wingspan)

Mon. – Aug. 28th

This time around, we are staying at the Holiday Inn in Old Sydney, located in the Rocks section of town. It is a very nice hotel with a pool and hot tub on the roof that have the greatest views of the Sydney Opera House (pict 1), skyline of the Sydney Harbor (pict 2) and the Sydney Harbor Bridge (pict 3). It is a small room, but great view.

Today we did the Rocks museum and the Royal Botanical Garden.
The Rocks Museum was free and was probably one of the best museums we visited in Australia. It provided a great overview of both European colonization of the world (Daddy what was the Treaty of Tordesillas?) and the early history of Australia and Sydney.


After lunch we toured the Royal Botanical Garden, a very large garden that borders the harbor and the Sydney Opera House. A
large number of amazing ficus trees (see photo of the kids at the
base of one) and the old government house (see photo) are prominent features. We were also quite taken with the huge colony of flying foxes in the park and wished we could stick around until nightfall to see them take off. Sydney really is a beautiful city. If you were going to live in another country and city, Sydney might be it. Very nice.

Sun. – Aug. 27th.

This morning we went to mass at the cathedral in Cairns. It could not be more different than the one in Sydney. It is very, very modern. It had this wild set of stained glass windows depicting the Creation with Australian and Aboriginal elements incorporated. Wow!? After mass we checked out of the hotel, went to the Cairns Art Museum, which was very nice, and then bummed around town until it was time to go to the airport and catch our flight back to Sydney. To avoid paying the extra baggage weight that we were hit with on the way to Cairns, we reduced our baggage weight surcharge by trading in books at a used bookstore benefiting domestic violence shelters, throwing away clothes that we didn’t like or were worn out, and wearing as many layers as possible! We have way too much stuff.

Anna with cacao (chocolate)


Inspector Gioia

Aug. 26th
We were all exhausted from yesterday, so we slept fairly late today. Today was a lazy day of checking our email and visiting the Cairns Botanical Garden. Lazy? Did I say lazy? I take that back because we walked there and it turned out to be a bit further than we thought. (about 2.5K) It is a nice garden that highlights both the Australasian tropics and the Neotropics of the Americas. After touring the gardens we had lunch at a little seafood place on the road and then headed back to the hotel for swimming and laundry.

Friday – Aug. 25th

Today was an excellent day. We went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. It was too cool for words. We went on one of these large boats with 50-75 other people. It is about a 1.5 hr ride to the outer reef where they have a pontoon platform setup. They have all the equipment and provide lunch. It is like docking at the space station! It is very touristy, but for non-scuba divers like us, it is a pretty good deal. The trip out was a little bumpy but not too bad. There was a semi-submersible glass-bottomed boat at the pontoon which we rode around and saw so many kinds of coral and fish. Some of us saw sea turtles as well. Then we snorkeled for about 4 hours and had a blast. The coral and the fish were amazing. The colors of these fish did not seem real. It was almost like they had been painted. In addition we saw two hump back whales, a mother and her calf. They were playing very near the platform, jumping in the air, and slapping their tails. These were big animals. Amazing! Like I said, words just will not
do. (Picture 1: a section of the reef. Pict 2: Gioia taking a break from snorkling. Pict 3: Nick and a big Rasse.)

Thurs – Aug. 24th
This morning we rented a boat and went fishing with Rytas, a student from Duke (Heath), and a postdoc from NY (Andy). (Rytas is my former postdoc adviser from Duke and one of our family’s closest friends.) We went up the Trinity River, which is the river that Cairns is on and feeds into the bay here. We had a great time. Nick got to drive the boat most of the time which absolutely made his day. We did pretty well fishing, catching a puffer, a few grunters, and a ray. We released them all, but still it was fun. The trip up the river was a nice break from the cities and the meeting. The river here is very tidal and lined with Mangroves. Very scenic and no tourists – except for us of course.




After fishing we went back to the hotel around noon. While the kids and Elizabeth swam and rested I headed back to the meeting for the afternoon sessions. For dinner tonight, we had a barbeque on the Esplanade. They have several public grills for people to use, which makes for a nice setting. We met up with Rytas, Tom Bruns (another good friend whose is also a mycologist), and several other mycologists. We cooked enough burgers and sausages for an army, but had a good time doing so. Afterwards we all headed up to Rytas’ room, which is next door to our hotel, and balcony for drinks and as the kids put it, “nerd talk”.

Wed. - August 23rd

View from room at Holiday Inn
This morning we woke up and checked out of Crocodile Hides and checked into the Holiday Inn. Elizabeth says I am getting soft in my old age, but I did not hear anyone complain. The Holiday Inn is a very nice hotel and we have a room with a fantastic ocean view. The hotel is cylindrical and the room has a sliding glass door that opens from the middle to give us an almost 180* view. Love it! After getting checked in we took a trip up to Kuranda Village, a rainforest town which is located about 45 minutes NW of Cairns. It is essentially a large market with all of the Australian gifts you would ever want to buy – and more.

Fruit bat
The bus ride up was on a very winding road and the bus driver drove it rather fast. The result was some upset stomachs and headaches. We survived it though and took a nice hike through the forest and along the river. One the best stops along the hike was a flying fox (the local name for fruit bats) rehabilitation house. These bats are large. Some are huge. You see them flying at dusk and it’s amazing. (Somewhat like the flying monkeys out of the Wizard of Oz.) In fact they are closely related to lemurs and not to the smaller bats we have at home, which are closely related to shrews. Very cool.

Dinner tonight was at the Rattle-N-Hum. Okay food but the highlight of the evening was the bathrooms with one-way mirrors – looking out of course. Nick was impressed.

Tues. - August 22nd

Today I chaired my second and final session of the conference. The speakers did a good job and my day was very similar to yesterday.

Lagoon at the Cairns Esplanade
Because the tide is so large here, the beach is not that great. Instead they have built a man-made “lagoon” which is actually quite nice. It is essentially a large swimming pool with a beach and surrounded by a large grassy area. It is where everyone hangs out and Nick loved it. He spent a big chunk of today there playing in the water. If there is water he is happy. (He also manages to position his towel near the southern Europeans who sunbathe topless!) The lagoon water is very cold to the rest of us and we can barely get in for long. It is winter here and a balmy 85F each day with sunny skies. Winter rocks!

Our last night in Hides – I am happy about that.

Mon. - August 21st

I gave my talk at the 8th International Mycological Congress today. It went fine, I guess. I can never tell how my talks go, but there were questions, which is usually a good sign. In addition to speaking, I co-chaired the session and things went fairly smoothly. After the session, I had lunch with the speakers and returned to the conference to listen to afternoon talks and checked out the students’ posters.

After the meeting I met back up with Elizabeth and the kids and after dinner we walked the Esplanade. It is a boardwalk that runs a large stretch of the Cairns harbor. The Harbor here is very tidal with a good section of it being essentially a mudflat when the tide is out. Along our walk were several hotels and we were able to get a room at the Holiday Inn for only $20 more than the two rooms at Crocodile Hide. We are out of there as of Wednesday.


Sun. - August 20th

This morning we woke up and went to mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral. It is a beautiful gothic church complete with flying buttresses, very much like Notre Dame, but made out of local sandstone which gives it a unique quality. It was started in the late 1800’s but not structurally completed until the 1920’s, and not completed with its copper spires until just recently.

After mass we had lunch and then made our way to the airport for our flight to Cairns. I do not think I have mentioned it, but since we are going to Thailand for six months, we are traveling heavy with more bags than we would like. The result is a laborious transit between airports and our disclaimer to anyone who will listen, “We normally do not travel with this much luggage, but …” I am not sure they believe us. It also cost us quite a bit of money today to pay for the “overweight charge” in baggage. Domestic flights have a 20kg weight limit per flyer whereas the international flights limit to two checked bags per flyer. Expensive mistake!

We arrived in Cairns and immediately went to our hotel, Crocodile Hides. What a dump! It is basically a backpacker hostel, like many I stayed in when I was younger and not traveling with kids. It billed itself as an historic hotel, but I am not impressed. I am not sure about this place.

Sat. - August 19th

HMS Endeavor (replica)
Today we hopped on the Sydney Explorer bus and did some sight seeing around town. The bus works pretty well in that you can get on and off as much as you like, stopping at the points that interest you. Our first stop was the Australian Maritime Museum. It basically covered the period from the British colonization of Australia from Captain Cook in 1770’s to post WWII. We did not take in everything as it would have taken all day. Rather, we hit some of the highlights of the early period including a replica of the Endeavor (pictured below), Capt. Cook’s ship in which he ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

Kids in front of the Sydney Observatory
After the Maritime Museum, we stopped in a section of town called the Rocks. It is named after the quarry that was originally there and from which much of the stone was quarried to build that area of old Sydney. It is a nice section of town very near Sydney Harbor. The Observatory is located here and we briefly toured it, but unfortunately tonight’s show was sold out. We did, however, have a look around and learned that the purpose of the original voyage of Capt. Cook was to chart the transit of Venus across the Sun. This would allow scientist to more accurately calculate the distances of the Earth and other planets from the Sun. (Home school for today.)

For lunch we found ourselves in an artsy section of town near the Rocks. There was a street market going on with local crafts and foods. We walked it and had a bite to eat. Afterwards we went to the Contemporary Art Museum. There were some interesting exhibits, many by Middle Eastern and eastern European artists. Some we enjoyed a lot, while others … well I guess I just didn’t get it. Thank goodness we got the kid’s worksheet for Nick to look at or else we would not have learned a thing!(Art class for today.)

Three museums today was definitely our quota. For the late afternoon we finished the bus tour just riding through downtown Sydney to get a better feel for the city, then headed back to the hotel and packed for our trip to Cairns tomorrow.

August 18, 2006

Bondi Beach.
We spent today visiting some of the beaches of Sydney. We bought a 2-day Sydney Explorer pass, which gives us two days of unlimited travel on a number of the bus lines. Sydney is a large city of ~4 million people and it is also quite large in area. So although you can walk areas of town quite easily, you need to use public transportation to get around and visit different sections of the city. We decided that after the long plane rides and while we are still acclimating to the new time zone, the beach was the perfect thing to do today.



The most famous beach in Sydney is Bondi Beach. It is where all the beautiful people go; since its winter here they let us show up as well. First let me say winter in Sydney is my kind of winter - warm and sunny, although we keep seeing people wearing coats and scarves. We hopped off the bus at a few stops along the way to Bondi to take in some scenery. The coast line here is very similar to northern California – southern Oregon. Beautiful! In fact we decided that Australia, or at least Sydney, is like a European/Asian California.

Our main stop was at Bondi Beach. We hung out on the beach for about two hours. Nick and I swam in the ocean. It was cold but not too bad. Early in the day it was quite warm but by mid afternoon it had cooled off enough and a breeze came off the ocean that made it a bit too cold for lying on the beach. So we moved on, hopped back on the bus and checked out a few more beaches and neighborhoods along the southern part of the city’s coast line. Bronte and Coogee beaches were very nice, more Nick at Bondi Beach family/neighborhood oriented.

After a day at the beach, we took the bus back to Hyde Park, which is about 1 mile from our hotel. It dropped off near St. Mary’s Cathedral, the major cathedral of Australia. It is a classic Gothic style cathedral built over a period of 75 years. After a brief tour, we headed back to the hotel and collapsed, took naps, showers and then ran out and got some take out Chinese BBQ. It was quickly consumed and then we all crashed.

A good day at the beach!!