I took a break from blogging, but I’m back. Should have a few entries up in no time.

Hayley and I had the foresight to realize this before moving back, and we knew that planning something fun would keep our spirits high after returning. Our debate about what to do ended upon receiving Tim and Cheryl’s wedding invitation. A few weeks after our return, we cashed in our frequent flyer points and flew across the country to stay in the heart of New York city.

Souvenirs.

We arrived in the late afternoon on Independence Day at Newark Airport, NJ. We took the aging intercity train to Penn Station and rolled our suitcases a few blocks to our hotel, where we were greeted with warm chocolate chip cookies and a room the size of a closet. No matter – we quickly unpacked and changed into 95-degree, high-humidity attire and walked ten or so blocks to the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks on the Hudson River. Hayley was fighting a cold (which I caught a few days later), but she braved the crowds and the humidity. We watched the fireworks in the disgusting heat to the very end.

Macy’s Independence Day Fireworks.

We had an appointment the next morning to see the Ground Zero Museum Workshop in lower Manhattan’s Meatpacking District. Neither of us have family or relatives that were lost on 9/11, but we were still deeply affected by the exhibition. On display are dozens of artifacts extracted from the site, including a chunk of metal from one of the planes, the infamous clock that is frozen at 10:02 AM (the exact moment that the first plane hit one of the towers), personal artifacts such as employment badges and children’s toys, and an XBOX that was used by the firemen in between rescue and recovery shifts. Gary Suson’s photos are the main attraction of the museum, which doubles as a gallery for his work from 9/11 and the months following. That might sound tasteless but it’s not at all. Suson was the official photographer for the 9/11 rescue mission, and the whole exhibition is done very well. His photos are stunning and saddening, but an important part of our history that will never be forgotten.

High Line Park.

After being thoroughly depressed, we took an elevator up to High Line Park for relief. The park is a narrow strip of green situated a few stories above Manhattan’s southwestern shore. The park contains a wide variety of flowers, bushes, and trees that fill in the gaps between buildings, old train tracks (the high line) and the single concrete walking path. People working around the area use the park on their breaks so it was pretty crowded. While it’s nice and charming, it seems like more of an art exhibit than an actual park.

A lonely musician by Central Park.

Continuing on the park theme, we took the subway up to Whole Foods to pick up picnic essentials, and walked across the street to Central Park. I was disappointed by the lack of grass space, which I was expecting from the photos that I had seen. I expected a park comparable to those of Commonwealth countries: huge and spacious grass fields with large overhanging trees and old historic sculptures and architecture. Maybe we would have found that sort of thing deeper inside Central Park’s grounds, but I saw nothing of the kind. In reality it was hot and we were hungry, so we sat in the shade on some rocks and dug in, watching the billions of peons enjoy the only patch of green inside their Gotham-esque metropolis.

Waiting in the Subway.

Afterward we took the subway over to Times Square and purchased half-off tickets to Mary Poppins the musical. Above the ticket booths are steps which overlook Times Square, so after purchasing the tickets, we walked to the top of them and watched zillions of people scuttling across New York’s primary tourist destination. Thousands of people crowd the streets creating a Vegas Strip-like atmosphere without the gambling. We returned to our hotel for a brief respite before returning that night for the show. It was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (and Hayley’s choice… but she will probably read this so I’ll just admit now that it wasn’t so bad… actually I sort of enjoyed it… sort of ).

Hanging out in Times Square.

The new WTC.

The next day we did Lower Manhattan. We circumvented the enormous block that surrounds the WTC construction site, where we saw the WTC cross and the new buildings. We visited the church across the street and saw the pew that George Washington used to sit in, still intact! We continued on, observing Alexander Hamiton’s grave, and strolling down Wall Street, home of the New York Stock Exchange. We finished our walk at FAO Schwartz’s Big Piano… actually FAO is nowhere near Wall Street, is it? I completely forgot how we got there. Well, New York is that kind of place- you just never know where you’ll end up or how you got there!

Where it all goes down.

Hayley on the Big Piano.

Afterward, we took a round trip excursion on the Staten Island ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. It’s sort of anticlimactic to see, but I already knew it would be, so I enjoyed it immensely. So much so, that I took over 40 pictures of it from the boat. This was probably the only OK shot and even it is mediocre.

Lots of tiny people and one huge sculpture.

That night we met with my cousin Alice at her apartment in Upper Manhattan. We kicked back on the roof of her complex, drinking wine and soaking in the absolutely stunning view of the city. During our discussions, Alice opened up to us about her family and her experiences in WWII. We both loved speaking with Alice and were honored that she would share these memories with us. Afterward, the three of us cruised down to a local Japanese restaurant for a bite. We watched the people walk by from our window seats while we ate a delicious meal. We topped off the evening with strawberries and yogurt at PinkBerry, and strolled up to Lincoln Center and Julliard. We had a great evening – one that I’ll never forget.

Knights at the MET.

The next day we visited the MET museum, but retired early since my cold had developed in full force. After resting for most of the day, we walked down the street to see my cousin Shira’s comedy show at Triple Crown. Despite feeling completely drained, we had a blast and were happy to catch Shira’s performance. Her sarcastic bartender role was fantastic. It was great seeing Shira and hopefully we’ll see her again soon.

The following day we picked up our rental car and drove out of the city. Our directions took us through Pennsylvania and up to Seneca Falls, NY. The fresh air and traditional American feel of the region was enough to bring me back to life. We ate out that night at a nice bar & grill and then settled into our hotel for the evening. The next morning we walked around Skaneateles, a charming lake town with a colonial American feel. We had breakfast at a nice café, and perused the offerings at a used book sale.

The wedding cake.

Finally, we suited up (well, Hayley dressed up) for Tim and Cheryl’s wedding. Situated at Ventosa Vineyards and overlooking Seneca Lake, the location was impossible to beat. The ceremony was well done and the reception that followed was equally as elegant, held in the vineyard’s fancy ballroom. After a night of eating, socializing, drinking, and dancing, we returned to our hotel. We had a great time at the wedding, ending our trip on a very high note.

Hayley, looking as beautiful as ever.

The view from the Ventosa Vineyards ballroom in Seneca Falls.

Travel experiences like these make for a great holiday. Last month, Hayley and I flew to South East Asia and spent a night in Kuala Lumpur, five days in Phuket, five days in Vietnam and three days back in Kuala Lumpur.

The flight from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia is seven hours, which is roughly the length of the ascent and descent, a meal, and three movies. We spent our layover at the fancy Pan Pacific Airport Hotel and flew out the next day to Phuket, Thailand.

Kata Beach at Night.

We were greeted in Phuket by a monsoonal rain shower, which made getting to our hotel vehicle difficult. Luckily our driver was very nice. He took our bags to the car and returned for us, holding an umbrella to keep us dry. I’ve read that some Thai drivers will intentionally reverse over pedestrians in a car accident to avoid paying lifelong medical expenses to the victim. After experiencing Thai roads first hand, I don’t doubt it. Fortunately we arrived in one piece.

The more pleasant Phuket.

Sandwiched between two mediocre resorts, the Avista Hotel has the beautiful grounds and open air lobby that scream paradise. We were welcomed with tropical fruit juice and fresh leis and were taken to our room. Two towel swans embraced on our bed, surrounded by flower petals spelling the words “Happy Honeymoon.”

The local Wat Kata temple.

Aside from the hotel, Phuket was a cesspool of trashy tourism and immorality. Overweight, pasty tourists walk around the towns in speedos. Tourism is so important to the economy of Phuket that every business is geared towards overcharging tourists for machine-made souvenirs and mediocre meals. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend Phuket to anyone- unless of course you want to drink beer in your speedo in the middle of a run down tourist town.

Urban Phuket from Kampong restaurrant in Kata Beach.

We arrived in Hanoi five days later. Unlike Phuket International, the arrival terminal feels much more rugged. In Vietnam, most rental cars come with a driver, which hints at what the roads are like. We were picked up by a nice hotel taxi which cut straight through the chaos and dropped us off in the middle of the Old Quarter of Hanoi. Our hotel, the Hanoi Elegance Ruby, was down the narrowest of streets. Surprisingly, it was my favorite hotel of the trip. Our room was immaculate and the service was second-to-none. I suppose that’s why it is the top ranking hotel on Trip Advisor for Hanoi.

Crossing the street in Hanoi is scary. My friend Stephen told me how it works: walk into the road at a single, predictable speed and everybody else will avoid you. At first, it seemed like complete madness but my line-picking-through-traffic ability eventually improved.

We drove by minivan to Ha Long Bay the next day. Vietnamese make good use of the imaginary middle lane; we saw two accidents on our way: one involving a moped and a tour bus, and another involving a truck and hundreds of chickens in crates. Surprisingly, Vietnam has a relatively low traffic fatality rate compared to other similar countries, falling in the middle of Wikipedia’s traffic fatalities statistics.

We departed on our three-night Ha Long Bay and Bai Tu Long Bay, junk-boat cruise at around noon. We were promptly directed to a table where we shared a delicious 9-course meal with the other eight guests on board. Afterward, our friendly guide Hoanh gave us a brief overview of the bay’s geography and our itinerary. We were given the keys to our rooms and like every other hotel on our trip, the room was immaculate, comparable to the suite we once had on a Holland America cruise ship.

Our boat, the Dragons Pearl.

Over the next few days we immersed our senses in the majestic and mysterious scenery that landed Ha Long Bay on the UNESCO World Heritage List. We viewed some of the scenery by kayak, paddling around the huge limestone cliffs with Hoanh as our guide. He took us into a small cave much too small for five inexperienced kayakers and he had us drop the kayaks off at a beach where three puppies greeted us (spaying and neutering pets obviously hasn’t caught on in South East Asia as dogs were everywhere in Thailand and Vietnam).

On the morning of our second day, we visited the Cong Dam floating fishing village. The locals (actually the women of the village) picked us up in row boats and dropped us off on one of the floating pontoons, where we were given tea and a history lesson about the village. We explored the village, seeing first hand how the fisherman live. Water plays a huge part of their lives from when they are children learning to row and fish to when they are adults bringing home the day’s catch to support their families. Waste management programs are in place to educate the locals about keeping the bay clean and a floating school has been opened for the children.

Dogs are everywhere, even in fishing villages.

After kayaking on the second day, the crew ferried us back to the boat to freshen up and we returned to the beach later to have dinner in a huge cave, which was beautifully decorated with candles. A long climb up stone steps leads to the small entrance which opens up like a Harry Potter tent into a huge cavern filled with stalactites and stalagmites. Apparently, a group of fisherman lived in the cave up until a few years ago, but sadly they were kicked out by the government in an attempt to “control the population” (or so we were told). We were directed not to touch the cave walls, but I saw many operators disobeying that order. In fact, we found out that one structure can be played like a xylophone. We were served a delicious dinner in the cave before returning to the boat.

The following day was just another standard South East Asian travel day- i.e. I thought that I was going to die. Although we were lucky to dock at port when we did, narrowly avoiding a monsoon, we spent the next four hours in the back of a minivan without seat belts, weaving through traffic in the torrential rain. Arriving back in Hanoi not a moment too soon, we were stuck inside for most of the evening due to the weather. We ordered room service (which was terrible) and relaxed in our room back at the Hanoi Elegance Ruby.

The next morning we ate Phở for breakfast and set out to discover the Old Quarter. First stop was the central post office where we somehow managed to mail an antique opium pipe back to the States without knowing a word of Vietnamese. Afterward we walked to St. Joseph Cathedral, a stunning remnant of colonial Vietnam in the middle of the Old Quarter and walked around the nearby streets. Like typical Western tourists, we took photos of street food stands and locals, “immersing” ourselves in the culture which is so vastly different from our own.

St. Joseph Cathedral in Hanoi.

Street goods.

Without an umbrella we were looking for a brief respite from the rain. We were standing next to a huge wall with shards of glass lining the top, lost as usual. We finally worked out that the wall surrounded a prison. Lucky for us it was Hỏa Lò Prison, or the “Hanoi Hilton,” where American POWs were held in the Vietnam War. The prison is now a museum and we paid the 10000 Vietnamese Dong (50 cents) entry fee. The prison was built by the French so most of the museum was dedicated to the Vietnamese socialist revolution, but they had a small wing dedicated to the Vietnam war. Many American POW belongings are on display including the flight suit that John McCain was wearing when he was captured. We saw torture chambers and devices from the French, as well as solitary confinement cells, all of which I suspect were also used for American POWs.

Short on time, we quickly walked back to our hotel where I desperately tried to dry my wet clothes. Not surprisingly, I was unsuccessful in my efforts, so I stuffed them into a plastic bag and packed them at the bottom of my awesome backpack. We met the driver, arrived at the airport and bummed around for a while. We ate at a small cafe in the terminal and perused the gift shops, where they sell odd things like pickled cobras in bottles. We boarded our flight and arrived at KL International Airport (KLIA) a few hours later.

At KLIA, you prepay for a cab at the taxi booth. We were given three choices: budget, premium or luxury. We chose budget, not sure what to expect. We lucked out and scored a brand new car with leather interior and a nice driver. We arrived at the Royale Chulan hotel 45 minutes later and checked into to our hotel room. It was one of the nicest hotel rooms that I’ve ever stayed in and our window looked out onto the Patronas Towers.

The Patronas Towers are stunning, and it’s a good thing because the rest of KL is very ordinary. KL is about as Western as Asia gets, and as expected, the shopping malls are absolutely top notch with a blend of the name brands from all over the world. Perhaps we didn’t have enough time to see the city, but I was coming down with a nasty cold and the humidity in KL is absolutely horrible. So we just shopped, ate out and took pictures of the Petronas Towers. We did take the train around the city and I was surprised by how nice the houses were just outside the city center. Obviously KL has a wider distribution of wealth than most other Asian cities. We ate at a South African restaurant and had drinks at the SkyBar overlooking the towers. We had a great time, but we were looking forward to the cleanliness of the West that we all take for granted.

While I wish we had spent more time in Vietnam, we had a great trip. Our first taste of Asia was amazing, although a bit spicy at times and I look forward to spending more holidays there in the future.

The trail winds through temperate rainforest packed with ferns, eucalypts and waterfalls. Aside from a few abseilers, we didn’t see anyone until the very end of the trail. About a third of the way along is Edinburgh Castle Rock, a natural lookout that provides sweeping views of the surrounding mountains.

The trail quickly descends into Lillian’s Glen, a nice area with a stream and stone steps to walk across.

After passing a small rest area the trail climbs up past the Empress Falls- worthy of a detour- and over to the Queen Victoria Lookout. The trail ends back where it started at the Conservation Hut.

After our hike, we walked around Leura and Katoomba, two charming mountain towns. We had delicious veggie burgers at a restaurant that sold both food and hats in Katoomba, and walked around the main shopping area. That weekend, Leura was hosting a 1920s festival with Model-T looking cars from Australia’s early automotive days. We ended the day with tea at a tea pot collectors’ shop. I’ve never seen so many tea pots in my life; it was a bit disturbing.

Our gracious host Reggie welcomed us to the guest house and showed us to our garden room. After laying down our bags, we relaxed under the garden gazebo with a bottle of chardonnay and a cheese and fruit platter, compliments of Splinters. A few hours later we went for a walk and found a family of kangaroos grazing along a nearby pond.

On Christmas Eve we attended the Hunter Valley Gardens light exhibition. While I’ve heard that the gardens are immaculate, I was disappointed by the very unchristian $18 admission fee into the gardens. Regardless, it was probably the most festive event in Hunter Valley. (On an unrelated note, I had a “California Churro” for a $4 at the gardens. It just didn’t compare to Costco or TJ-street churros.)

On Christmas day we opened presents in the morning, drank a few glasses of wine, swam in the pool, BBQ’ed and chipped a few balls on Splinters practice green. Christmas lunch was had at the Vintage Golf Course.

On our final full day we visited three wineries for wine tasting: Hungerford Hill, Tulloch and Draytons. We tried many wines, but after a while they all seemed to blend in to one. After buying several bottles of wine, we walked around some nearby vineyards and found more kangaroos. We also visited one of Australia’s oldest vineyards, Tyrrell’s, on our way back to Sydney the following morning. It’s a must-see for anyone visiting the region.

For New Years Eve, we walked across the street to Kurraba Reserve and found a patch of grass on the harbor railing. Just like NYE last year, the fireworks display was spectacular.

These fireworks photos are hosted on flickr. Click them for bigger versions.

We capped off our holiday break by spending three days in Lilli Pilli (near Batemans Bay, NSW) with our friends Ping, Dre and their families. The casual weekend stay turned out to be the highlight of our trip. We surfed every day, relaxed on a local beach, played card games and ate delicious home cooked meals. We even got up close and personal with an Aussie possum!

It was definitely a holiday season to remember.

Aside from traveling to a fantastic destination, we were lucky in many other ways. While heavy rain was predicted for Friday through Monday, we had nothing but sunshine. We discovered while boarding the aircraft that our package included Virgin Blue premium economy tickets, which gave us a full row to ourselves, priority check-in, free entertainment and free premium snacks and drinks. I mentioned Hayley’s birthday to the Reef View hotel staff and they upgraded our standard garden room to an ocean-view suite overlooking the islands.

We spent our first day hiking around the island. We walked over the hill to the other side of the island and relaxed on a secluded beach in Coral Bay. We waded out into the water which was nice and warm, and marveled at its clarity.

On our second day, we explored the resort side of the island. At low tide, we walked way out on Catseye Beach, avoiding stingrays and large tropical fish. We swam in the resort pool near Sails restaurant and stand-up paddle boarded at dusk.

We spent our final full day snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. We saw human-sized clams, hundreds of tropical fish and beautiful iridescent coral. At low tide, we swam side by side with a sea turtle in three feet of water.

This tops the list as our best tropical vacation. Our Maui honeymoon was fantastic, as was staying in the South African sub-tropics, but this was a step above those in terms of accommodation and relaxation. I unplugged from the busy monotony of daily routine, disconnected from the internet, and just enjoyed the unadulterated tropical feel of paradise.

Here are some pictures from our journey.

The view from our hotel room.

Hayley, enjoying paradise.

The resort beach.

Hardy Reef, home to “heart” reef.

Wine and chips on our patio.

Check out the rest in my Hamilton Island Flickr Set.

The Koalas of Raymond Island from Mike Weber on Vimeo.

On a small island in the Gippsland Lakes region of Victoria, Australia, over 200 koalas are spread throughout a small sanctuary that is shared with kangaroo and human inhabitants. Residents do their best to keep the island safe for the marsupials by keeping the eucalypts alive and the koala population under control, but people are still permitted to visit the island by ferry and walk around the well maintained trails.

It was definitely a memorable experience for us and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the area.