Down Under

Hardly 2 weeks after we got back from US, we were off again to Australia! This was the planned holiday while the US trip was unplanned. But since we had booked the lowest tier flight tickets, it did not allow us to make any changes to flying times.

Thanks to the Siu family who opened up their lovely home to us whilst our stay in Melbourne. It was good to meet up with them again. This was the first time Shanna spent so much time with another toddler her age and she took some time to learn how to share stuff, not take Esrene's friendly advances as threats.... while Esrene was thrilled to have 'Na-na' around to play with, follow around, touch & hold hands with. They were so cute together!

We had lots of nice food at Melbourne, including the biggest and sweetest strawberries we ever had, great pizza at the Italian quarters, and very yummy Japanese food. The weather was mostly good when we were there so we went outdoors quite a bit, to the Royal Botanical Gardens, National Rhododendrum Gardens, Collingwood Children's Farm, Frankston beach and Mornington Strawberry Farm. Spring is a good time to visit, with pretty flowers in bloom everywhere and... spring fashion on sale at the stores! This was a nice change from US where we found most fall & winter fashions in stores. We got Shanna some nice (and very reasonably priced) shoes, socks and clothes from OZ.

We also spent 4 days at Tasmania, staying at a small rented cottage with views overlooking Lindisfarne Bay. Tasmania was beautiful, but cold! Our favorite place out of those that we visited was Bruny Island, a naturally beautiful place. We had to take a ferry to get there. It is an island the size of Singapore, but with only 620 permanant residents. One of the scenic routes we took was on 18km of bumpy gravel road (Shanna sleeping all the way).

I had the best fresh oysters of my life at Tasmania. Even though I got diarrhea from eating past my limit, it was so good that I had it again the next day! Slight gluttony there. Tasmanian local ice cream was good too. Yes, we ate yoghurt ice cream despite the cold, including Shanna.

It would take too many posts to go into details, so we'll let the pictures do most of the talking :)

We had a nice time altogether, but we are also very glad to be back in Penang, and back to our normal routine. Glad to put away all the luggage bags. Shanna was glad to be back at her babysitter's, and she finally got her injection which was supposed to be taken when she was 18 months old.

Home sweet home...

~ Audrey