We
arrived in Sydney today after a relatively easy flight. I never thought I would say that a 9 hour flight would be easy. It did help that we took the red-eye flight. The kids loved having their own TV's with
remote controls at the ready to watch movies, cartoons, or play video
games. It will be hard to fly another
airline after having been spoiled flying Qantas Airlines. It was quite a lengthy process to get through
everything at the airport (especially as we were all a bit tired) but we survived and caught a maxi taxi (the biggest van we could find) to the Marriott Hotel in downtown Sydney. The weather was warm and the air was clean and everything was green. It was a far cry from what we were used to in Tokyo. Our hotel was only a couple of blocks away from the
ship so we headed down to see the ship and explore a bit. The ship was HUGE which made us all the more excited to get on it. We eventually met up with my parents back at the hotel. Our reunion was sweet as the kids ran up to give my parents big hugs. It had been almost a year since the last time we had seen them in person (except for skype of course). It was a great moment.
We didn't waste any time and headed to eat breakfast at Pancakes on the Rocks which was fantastic. On the way we browsed through the market which was super fun. We headed back the long way just to explore the Sydney Bridge and the other streets. By the time we got back to the hotel I was so exhausted from not having slept that well on the plane. I took a short nap while the girls played with Grandma and the boys went out with Grandpa and dad.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the Botanical Gardens near the Opera House. The weather was gorgeous and it only slightly sprinkled on us for a short time. We decided to head on the little train to take a tour of the gardens and then walked around the gardens for the rest of the afternoon. The kids loved walking and running barefoot through the many fields of grass. In fact, we all took off our shoes to enjoy that feeling. Real grass is something we don't get in Japan. It was a nice perk to today's adventure. We ended up walking all the way around the gardens and then back to our hotel with fish and chips for dinner. The kids weren't too thrilled with the fish but had no problems eating all the fries. At least they all tried the fish and then filled themselves with granola bars afterwards. My parents treated Emma to a sleepover in their room. Emma was so excited when I dropped her off that she immediately told me I had to leave. Funny girl. The rest of the kids enjoyed watching Zahara on TV--except for Andrew who fell asleep at 6pm. Looks like staying up all night watching TV and playing video games on the plane finally took its toll on him.
We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the Botanical Gardens near the Opera House. The weather was gorgeous and it only slightly sprinkled on us for a short time. We decided to head on the little train to take a tour of the gardens and then walked around the gardens for the rest of the afternoon. The kids loved walking and running barefoot through the many fields of grass. In fact, we all took off our shoes to enjoy that feeling. Real grass is something we don't get in Japan. It was a nice perk to today's adventure. We ended up walking all the way around the gardens and then back to our hotel with fish and chips for dinner. The kids weren't too thrilled with the fish but had no problems eating all the fries. At least they all tried the fish and then filled themselves with granola bars afterwards. My parents treated Emma to a sleepover in their room. Emma was so excited when I dropped her off that she immediately told me I had to leave. Funny girl. The rest of the kids enjoyed watching Zahara on TV--except for Andrew who fell asleep at 6pm. Looks like staying up all night watching TV and playing video games on the plane finally took its toll on him.
