The Longest Thursday of My Life!

We wake today in Sydney, our last day in Australia.  Our plane is scheduled to depart today (Thursday) at 9:20pm for our return to Hawaii.  We have a leisurely morning then check out of our apartment, leaving our bags with the front desk.  Our plan today is to go the Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour.  The aquarium does not disappoint us!  You follow a winding path through the facility and see all sorts of sea creatures.  I especially like the seahorses.  Then you come to the larger tanks.  The first one has the underwater tunnels that many aquariums have (I wouldn't know from first hand experience -- I honestly can't recall ever having been to an aquarium before!).  The tunnels are pretty cool.  We see small sharks and other beautiful fish.  I really didn't make an effort to learn the names of the fish, since it would be unlikely I would remember them anyway.  In the second large tank, there is a creature that looks like a manatee, but is called a Dugong.  There are two, very playful and large!  The final exhibit is the best, and it is a super large tank (no tunnel for this one, but lots of viewing points) that contain all of the gorgeous tropical fish from Australia's Great Barrier Reef.  You could stay here and watch these amazing fish for hours.  The aquarium was expensive, but worth it.  You could save a lot of money by combining the ticket with other Sydney attractions, but today we are only interested in the aquarium.  There are several restaurants along the water in Darling Harbour, but they are all kind of tourist traps.

We really have not other plans for the remainder of this day, so we decide to do a little shopping, but first we have lunch at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB).  We eat at Cellini's on the top floor, both of us getting grilled chicken sandwiches, which the Australians call chicken burgers.  It seems that if the sandwich is cold, it is a sandwich; if it is hot, it is a burger.  We walk around the QVB and then stroll over to the giant Westfields shopping center.  I buy a small backpack at the department store, Myer, to augment what we can carry on the plane later today.  Other than that, we check out the men's clothing.  We both try on pants that seem to be a trend in Australia that we have not seen before: khaki type pants that are gathered at the ankle with elastic, like sweat pants.  Rob says that he liked them except that he needs to be about 30 years younger to pull it off.  We both just feel ridiculous in these pants.  With a little more time to kill, we relax in the lobby of the Hilton across the street and log into their wifi.  One final thought on Australia regarding men's restrooms:  although urinal troughs are not seen very often in the USA, they are the norm down under -- yuk.  Here is one example of the many encountered here:

We return to our apartment building to collect our bags and take a taxi to the airport.  Our bags are too big to try to use the train service.  At the airport, we are allowed to use the Air New Zealand lounge since we are flying business class to Honolulu.  It is surprisingly nice with a large buffet with pretty good food and wine for us to enjoy.

We board the plane and get ready for our 10+ hour flight.  After dinner, we each pop an Ambien sleeping pill, which usually has no effect on me, but tonight was completely different.  I am out like a light, and the next thing I know we are two hours short of landing -- wow!  The downside of this is that the pill has left me very groggy, so I am really out of it.  How odd that the most I have ever slept on a plane has at the same time left me so exhausted!  Landing occurs at 10:30am -- and it is still Thursday!  Will this day never end?  Darn that international dateline!

We take a taxi to our hotel, the Hilton Hawaiian Village, and check into our room in the Ali'i Tower -- very nice ocean view room on Waikiki Beach -- who can complain?  Our day consists of lunch and lounging at the pool, and a very nice nap in the hotel room afterwards.  The nap ends when I hear a pigeon making its pigeon sound.  Yikes, we had left our balcony sliding glass door open a few inches and a big fat pigeon is not walking around in our hotel room!  Fortunately, when he sees me, he reverses course and walks back out.  Crisis averted

Dinner tonight is at a restaurant called Orchids in the Halekulani Hotel, a ten minute walk down the beach.  The staff here had recommended it, and we enjoyed it very much.  The restaurant is like old time Waikiki, with waiters in white coats and a dress code: no t-shirts or shorts.  We both order the same food: a grilled romaine salad with japanese cucumber and feta cheese.  Our main dish is the specialty of the restaurant:  steamed onaga (Hawaiian red snapper) with Asian vegetables and steamed rice.  It is a simple preparation, but really delicious, just exactly what we wanted.  We are really happy with this restaurant choice.

Time to go to bed for a good night's sleep.  The 45 hour Thursday will finally come to an end.  Here is a photo of the sunset from our room: