Sydney was the first city we visited in this fourth continent I ever set my foot, Australia. I had been wanting to come to Australia since way back when I was still working for IBM in Indonesia but my training or assignment was always to Asia and once to Canada (that made me wanting to move to). Because of the meagre pension I got from IBM (don't tell my ex-boss, he already knew) I chosed the last day of the low-fare season which fell on June 14th. That was the main reason why I flew to Sydney on my birthday :-). The combined airfare from TO to Jakarta return and Jakarta to Australia-New Zealand return was cheaper than if I bought 'around the world' fare. Besides that, we would have to come back through the U.S.A. As I said earlier, coming back through the U.S. is always my last choice. The U.S. custom officers are terrible, especially if they know we come from Indonesia. All in all, we spent about Cdn $ 6000 for our air tickets. Yes, three new canoes but what the heck.

Prior to our departure to Sydney, we already knew that both Australia and New Zealand have strict custom regulations. I didn't know therefore that going through the 'green line', non-declare exit route, almost cost me my Australian dollar allowances. We didn't bring prohibited items like meats and dairy products so with full confidence I checked 'no no no' in the custom declaration. Lo and behold, all our packs and luggage were x-rayed. The officer asked us to open them all and found two items that deserved questions. "What is this?" "Oh, that is a spice for cooking sir," I replied. They were 'bumbu masak' that made Indonesian dishes par excellent :-). "This is still food but it's OK," said the officer. I took my breath again. "What is this?" "Those are candies," was my sheepish answer. "It's chocolate but it's OK too." For the second time, I was able to breath and after that, I knew how to spell relief when the officer let us go without digging any further. We later learned from the Indonesians we met in both countries, DECLARE something that would make the officer happy and your 'martabak' plus all your other delicacies would be blessed to go to your friends or relatives' tummy.

We were very happy when we exited the door to see familiar faces, Winarta and Giokkie who we last met in Toronto about 20 years ago. Believing and enjoying our canoe camping stories, they ignored the fact that we almost didn't sleep at all in the airplane. It was fully loaded, thanks to the last day of the cheapest fare and there are 3 hours time difference between Jakarta and Sydney so that we arrived at 4 AM our body clock time. We went sight-seeing through-out the city, taking all kind of public transportation, from train to boat to monorail. My life long dream to see Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House came true. The ports are beautiful, more than Toronto and Vancouver, forget Halifax :-).

Sydney is about the same size as TO, around 4 million people live in an area that I believe is not much different from TO. The public transportation is quite OK though a bit expensive. A fare called 'day tripper', unlimited travel around Sydney for a day cost Aust.$ 13. Our Canadian dollar worths about 10% more than Australian. Sydney was 'discovered' by James Cook when he landed at Botany Bay in 1770. So it is about the same age as Toronto, much younger than my birthplace Jakarta which was built in 1527. Blame my Indonesian history teacher if the year is wrong :-).

The Winartas took us to Sydney Tower, slightly smaller than our Toronto CN Tower, still the tallest free standing structure in the world I believe. In there, we took Skytour, an animated 3D surround-sound virtual journey around Australia. Not bad mate :-). Yes, the continent is splendidly amazing and as beautiful as Canada :-). The floras and faunas are quite different than the rest of the world, and so are the people. My friend Dave at IBM said, "If you travel around the world (Dave is a world traveller) and find your fellow travellers, the American and Canadian would probably spend a week holiday in the place you visit. The European about a month and the Australian a year." I think Dave is right :-). Everybody I met ridiculed me for staying only 3 nights in each cities. I was glad that I could make an excuse that my wife wants to be at the World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto at the end of July :-).

In the evening, after dinner the Winartas took us to a beach, too bad it was not a lover's lane type but we were not after that though. After 27 years of marriage we look more to the stars above than to each other. :-) Yes, it had been a while I have not seen the Southern Cross constellation. It was beautiful, no wonder the Aussies put it in their national flag. I printed the sky-map of Melbourne prior to leaving Indonesia for Australia. We planned to go to a cottage at Phillip Island near Melbourne to watch the penguins and the stars but that will be in a different story. To be fair to both our friends in Sydney, on the second night we moved to stay at the Basukis. The sight- seeing and our Australian journey will continue in the next episode. Till then, bye for now.