Right Place at the Right Time

Kurt Schilling

I was up at the Army base Camp Zama for a medical class last week and all the buzz around base was about the Boston Red Sox coming to visit. They were in Tokyo to play the opening two games of the season against the Oakland A's. They also played a couple warmup games against some Japanese pro teams in the Tokyo dome.

This article from the Stars and Stripes Pacific will probably describe everything I want to say here but better..... :)

CLICK HERE





Tim Wakefield (I dont know what that is in the foreground)

And Let's Not Forget The Beaches!!

Bondi Beach, one of the more famous Sydney beaches

The last thing I still had to do on my list was to relax a few days just sitting on the beach. There were a handful of beaches in the area and I decided to hit them all up. There was a walking trail that traced the eastern coast of the island that started at Bondi Beach and went all the way down to Coogee Beach. The walk was about 4 miles long and I thought that would be how I spent the day. I started the day at Bondi and after a while packed up my stuff and walked down the trail a ways until I came to the next beach where I stopped, enjoyed the sand and water a little bit then moved on. I kept this up the entire afternoon until I reached Coogee Beach at the end of the trail.


The swimming pool adjacent to Bondi Beach


The winding eastern coast


The end of the trail, Coogee Beach


The second day of beach fun was spent up on the northenr part of Sydney in the suburb of Manly. When James Cook was sailing the harbor way back when he noted in his log that the inhabitants of this part were very 'manly' in appearance, so the name stuck. (Just a little bit of the info I learned, and who said vacations can't be a learning experience!). Manly Beach was probably my favorite of them all. From the heart of Sydney you had to take a ferry to get to the other side of the harbor. After that you needed to walk through Manly (the town) to get to the water. All along the way were shops and restaurants that had the best seafood I had had in a long time, not counting the sushi that I eat in Japan. The beach itself stretched for what seemed forever and it wasn't hard for me to kill and entire afternoon here.


Manly Beach

The entrance to the Manly ferry

Downtown Manly

Bridge Walk

The Sydney Harbor Bridge connects the southern part of the city to the north at the closest point of Sydney Harbor. It was completed in 1932 and has been a famous part of the city long before the opera house came along.

About ten years ago a pair of brothers said 'hey we can make money off of this' and got through all the red tape to make this bridge a tourist attraction, that's where I come in. For some reason I booked the earliest climb of the day on a Saturday which means last night got cut short and I didn't get to sleep in today. But looking back Im glad I did because I was the first civilian on the top of the bridge today, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

In order for this company to do this walk they had to take extreme caution that no one or nothing fell. We were fitted with jumpers and were asked to take everything off of our bodies (watches, cameras, wallets etc.) so nothing would fall over and into the harbor. Also so any pictures taken would be paid for (smart brothers they are!).

So we get all hitched up and taught how everything works. They have about half inch thick wire that runs the length of the tour, under the catwalks and up to the top of the bridge. Our belts came with a mechanism on them that once connected to the wire, you weren't going anywhere but where the wire went. It was pretty cool as at no time were you in real danger because this cable had you even if you didnt have a hold of the rails.

We got the last of the brief and started our treck. I was first, of course, as stated earlier. We maneuvered through the underbelly of the bridge and climbed up to the arches. I was probably the youngest (by a ways) so we had to move slow and stop often, not that I minded. The views were great and the sun hadn't heated up the weather yet so there was a nice chill to the air. We get to the top, the tour guide takes our photos (to be purchased later) and we get about 20 minutes on the top before we headed back down.

Rain Out, AGAIN!!

My last vacation in Thailand resulted in the day we set aside for the beach we got a monsoon. Today was almost the same, no monsoon but enough cloud cover and rain showers to keep everybody but the diehards off the sand. Luckily I learned from my mistakes and kept a couple of indoor activities undone so that I could do them during the rain.

The Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Wildlife Park are located very oddly in the heart of the city. They are both decent attractions built mostly for school field trips and tourist traps then anything else. The aquarium wasn't all that great, or maybe I was expecting too much for a city based on the sea and that survives on the sea so much. The wildlife park was good but after the past two days of seeing the same animals the luster of 'holding a koala' seemed to escape me.

The third thing was the AMP tower in the middle of the city. The very peak of the tower is the tallest point in the city at 305 meters. This was a nice place to relax and have lunch as I looked for several places in the city. It was like "Where's Waldo" if Waldo were Australian buildings. Great Pictures too:

I'M IN AUSTRALIA!!!

(4MAR) Finally after a long over night flight I finally made it down here to Sydney. With very careful planning before the trip started I found my hotel with ease. I checked in and began walking around anxious to get this vacation started.

I figured I'd get the basics out of the way first and just wondered down town. I got the pictures of the Opera House and the bridge as everyone does. I finally associated the terrain of the maps I had been looking at for the past month to understand what I was looking at. I found a nice little cafe on one of the piers staring right at the opera house for my first dinner down under.







(5MAR) Obviously the first place I was getting to today was the zoo. It is nicely located on the other side of the Sydney Harbor so getting there also knocked out riding a ferry over the harbor. Typical Zoo stuff, but they did have the koalas and kangaroos and platypuses and other local animals. I easily spent all morning and part of the afternoon there and got some great pictures. The koalas slept pretty much all day so getting a good one with them was a little trickier than I imagined.




In the later part of the afternoon I walked around the rest of the inner city and got to the Harbor Bridge. To actually climb the bridge required reservations so I made those for Saturday and just ventured up the pylons which were also a tourist attraction. Got a good bit of history out of it and some great pictures.




(6MAR) The Blue Mountains are neither Blue or Mountains, yet when Australia was discovered they looked blue so hence the name. They are about a 2 hour drive outside of the city and having no car I was forced to book a tour (which wasn't that bad) out there. The tour threw in a couple other stops too that included a wildlife reservation along the way. Another place where pictures 'with' koalas were the main attraction. I like this place a little more because of the free roaming kangaroo yard. They really like their belly scratched, as this one wouldn't let me leave until he had had enough of it. I named him Morty, the name won't stick but I'll always remember it.


The tour continued on and we got some spectacular shots of the mountains and the valleys. It was described by the tour giude as the Grand Canyon, but with trees. We then went to a park that provided rides down to the valley from the top and back up again, while walking along the forest floor in between. The Three Sisters rock formation was the nice big rock formation that everyone flocks to.



We then continued on back down the elevation to sea level and stopped at this park ion the afternoon to have a snack and look for wild kangaroos. With luck we did spot some and got pretty close to them, they were comfortable with us being there but didn't want anything to do with us like the ones earlier on in the day. To wrap up the day the tour guide dropped us off up river from the city. From there we caught a ferry to take us up the river and back to downtown. It was a nice change of pace to see the city from the west side.

Making the Most of a Layover

(3MAR08)Nobody likes layovers. Part of the 'good deal' I got on my airline tickets to Australia were to be holed up in Narita (JP) for 12 hours. Fortunately the town of Narita had a few things in it to keep travellers busy.

I had to stay in a Fukuoka hotel overnight because of the early departure this morning for Narita. I managed to get there in time and get to Narita around 900 in the morning. My flight didnt leave until 930 that night so I quickly found the train station and bought a ticket to get out of there. I was lucky that they kept my luggage. Usually when transfering from domestic to international they make you take your luggage over to the international terminal and check it there.

I got off a couple stops later for the small town of Narita. A few checks of the internet before I left gave me a few ideas on what to do for the day I was to spend there. I walked down to a small mall in the center of town and shopped around until lunch time then went to the Hard Rock Cafe. I love coming north because there are more American restaurants up here. Don't get me wrong I love Japanese food, but sometimes its good to get something from back home.

After the meal I walked to the main attraction in Narita; the Narita San Temple. The town had built a huge park around the main temple and several others were built to. The park included several ponds, flower gardens and even a decent sized waterfall. I walked around for about 3 hours just killing time knowing it was better to be out here than sitting at the airport. The town itself boasted several different Japanese crafts (souvenirs) that I really wanted to pick up but thought better of it as my space was limited. The cherry blossom trees were ready to bloom but hadn't quite started while I was here, I hope I can get back here when they are in full bloom because there are alot of them.


The Narita-san Temple




Another temple viewed from underneath


The entrance to the park