任是无情也动人

Continued from previous entry... So, the flight from Australia to New Zealand was not quite uneventful.

One family apparently joined our tour group using a third party tour company from China. Everyone else are from the USA using the actual tour company (Ritz Tours). The problem is whoever hooked that guy up only got him a visa for Australia. Now, apparently if you have a US passport, you don't actually need a separate visa for NZ. But a chinese passport? SOL. The guy ( who was there with two twin daughters maybe 12 years old) had to stay behind in Melbourne. Not sure if he can get a last minute visa to join the rest of the tour eventually or figure out a way to go back to Sydney and stay there until the return flight at the end (which has a connecting stop there).

Another thing that took everyone by surprise was how stringent Customs was in NZ about bringing in anything resembling food products. One family got fined $400 for a container of commercial honey they bought in Australia. My mom got pulled aside because their k9 unit caught a sniff of some shreds of curry beef jerky in her backpack (the rest of it had been eaten in the flight and it was just some spilled remnants, thank god). There was also a camera guy there taking pictures of everyone being pulled aside. When asked he said that the film was going to go on TV. Ugh. Dick move.

Anyway...after the almighty struggles with Customs, we finally left the (very...small) airport into the city proper. Queenstown, though, is also a very small city, for all that it's an almost 100% tourist city. It is maybe ten blocks by six blocks in size, and at most a 30 min walk to cross the whole place. Then again, NZ itself is a sparsely populated country; I think the entire population might be smaller than some chinese cities.

The hotel is called the Millennium Hotel. Decent for a small town I guess. WIFI is only freeform the lobby for 30 mins out of every day, so I'm actually purchasing my internet use for an outrageous price. Bleh.

Dinner was just some random chinese restaurant in the town. Tomorrow is another full day.

EDIT: Forgot to add...we did get some time to wander the town after eating. We took a short stroll through along Lake Wakatipu and then through the local rose garden. The flowers were mostly in bloom, and they were beautiful.

Merry Xmas from Australia. In the midst of summer, hah. Departed Sydney early this morning and took a short domestic flight to Melbourne.

Lunch was provided by the tour and was at a dim sum place. However, the dishes were predetermined rather than a la carte, so they weren't all that varied. Tasted pretty much like every other dim sum I've had. Meh.

We checked in early to our hotel, the Crown Metropol, which is attached to this huge casino complex, also called Crown. Gotta say, the place looks really high class both inside and out. However they're more stingy about their internet, which sucks. I'm pretty much relegated to using the free wifi in the lobby for this post.

After checking in, our tour guide took us on an 2 hour walk around the surrounding area, which is the city center. Man, this guy is a beast.

We saw the Yarra river, the town square, Hoiser Lane (aka Graffiti Alley), the town hall and government buildings, and ended up at the local Chinatown (aka the long street with all Chinese restaurants and pretty much nothing else).

I am further impressed by the city, which is prettier than Sydney. There are old style buildings from the colonial days interspersed with glass covered modern high rises, and yet the mix blends well instead of being schizophrenic. Also, the newer buildings all have their stylistic quirk, without giving the impression of trying way too hard to flaunt gaudily. I like it here.

Tomorrow we'll be finishing really late since we're going to see some penguins in their natural habitat. Since they're nocturnal, that means after sunset. So by the time we get back it'll be around midnight. Then the day after that we have an early flight to NZ. So probably the next journal update is going to be delayed.

This morning we went to the Featherdale Wildlife Park where we were introduced to Australia's native wildlife. The place is actually kinda a cross between a normal zoo and a petting zoo. I got to pet a koala, an emu, and some kangaroos. Koala fur is surprisingly coarse, like wool. Emu... feathers feel more like fur than feathers. Kangaroo felt like oversized rats. Things that weren't for petting: dingoes, crocodile, echidna. I did not find any platypus there, sadly.

Afterwards was a long drive to the Blue Mountains, so named due to the refraction of sunlight off eucalyptus leaf oil. Unfortunately, during our short stop in a villa for lunch it started to rain, so we couldn't get the full effect today.

At Blue Moutains we started off taking pictures from Echo Point at the Three Sisters cluster of rocky peaks. We then took a ride downhill in the scenic rail, kinda like the one in Lucerne. Difference is, the ride is very short, and the track much more steep. The track must have been like a 50 to 60 degree incline. After that we hiked for a bit (in a quick thunderstorm no less...though with more lightning and thunder than actual rain) until we got to a small waterfall. That parts was really underwhelming to be honest. We took a cable car back up. The operator in the car showed off by repeating his scenic spiel in a bunch of languages, including Mandarin, Cantonese, French, and Japanese.

Dinner was at a buffet inside a huge casino called The Star. Mostly western cuisine with some eastern, but nothing really stood out for me except the dessert. They had some really fancy dessert items in shot glasses. And a chocolate fountain.

In the evening, the weather was clear once more, and our tour guide took us on a walk around our hotel. We passed by the St. Andrews chapel, the Town Hall, through the Queen Victoria Building (supposedly the first mall in AU but it was renovated in the 80s so the inside looked like any other fancy modern mall).

We went up the Sydney Tower (to the "Eye"). There was a 4D intro that was pretty cool. The actual observation deck was pretty meh though. The tower wasn't as high as the ones in HK or Shanghai; nor did the city below have any especially fancy lights to go wow about.

By the time we finished everything it was about 10 pm. Tomorrow is another early day. Le sigh.