Going Down Under

Before our son Drake was born Greg and I made a family travel list. It included Turkey, Costa Rica, Europe and a few return trips to Galapagos and African safari. We didn't plan to make a trip to Australia for another ten years or so but sometimes you gotta keep your plans flexible.

A friend was invited to a wedding in Melbourne and she asked if we wanted to join them on the trip. We said YES! Greg and I are sometimes very impulsive about our travel and we have been itching to start to plan our first family travel. Two weeks after our friend popped the question, we had booked our tickets. We are going down under in March with a two week stop over in China so Drake can meet his family.

To be honest, Australia was never high on my wish list. I always thought it was too civilized and developed for my taste. I also heard that Australia is just like North America with funny accents, but I consider myself pretty open minded. Not to mention I miss traveling terribly. Australia will be a great and easy (relatively speaking of course) travel intro for Drake.

We started doing some in depth research. Many of our friends have been to Australia and we are getting really good advice. We wish we got the same when we went to Ethiopia and Bolivia.

I'm getting more excited about hitting my last populated continent. I am even more excited about our first trip as a family that will involve diving in the Great Barrier Reef, petting a kangaroo, hiking the outback, and dealing with a tantrum or two. I'm less excited about the over ten hour flights though... (We are also getting a lot of advice from friends on this topic as well).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Vancouver

Getting a Passport for a Baby

Here is how I went about getting Drake's passport. 

In Canada, babies under the age of 3 can get a passport for $22 CAD and is valid for 3 years.

Fill out the application form: It is pretty straight forward, only two pages. One parent can be the applicant on behalf of the baby and the other parent (or relative) can be the guarantor. Baby passports don't need a signature, I almost accidentally signed the signature box on Drake's behalf.

Birth Certificate: One of the required document for Drake's passport application is his birth certificate with our birth information. The certificate can be ordered online which was a disastrous experience.  Greg (yes, he is taking the fall for this one) filled and submitted the online form with the wrong birth province, his own birth province. I thought I just had to pay the fee and submit the online form again to receive the birth certification with the right information.  When I received the new certificate, it still had the wrong province on it.  Apparently the form can only be submitted once and that one was the one that counted.  There was no changing it online due to security reasons but when I ordered it the second time there was no prompt to warn me that the information I entered was different from the first one to stop me from paying second time for the wrong information.  To correct the situation, Greg had to pay for a notarized copy of his birth certificate and pay a change fee. Finally a $27 certificate cost us almost $100.

Passport photo: Not every passport photo shop will do infants (ie: Costco). Walmart and Sears will do passport photo for infants. We went to Lens and Shutter in downtown Vancouver. The photographer laid Drake down on a white mat on the ground. He took quite a few shots since Drake decided he was going to put up a fight and not make this easy. The best one out of the bunch had Drake not looking straight at the camera (not to mention it is a bad picture of, in my none-bias opinion, my very photo generic and cute baby which is proof that no one takes good looking passport photos). I was a bit concerned whether the passport office would accept them. The photographer said they tend to be more lenient with babies. Besides, if they were not accepted Lens and Shutter would retake for free. Cost: $9.99 CAD plus tax.

Trip to the Passport office: the Downtown Vancouver passport office opens at 7:30AM. I was there right at 7:30 hoping I didn't have to wait too long. Apparently everyone else had the same idea. There were at least 40 people ahead of me and I had to wait about 45 minutes for my turn. They did accept Drake's passport photos. Phew.

Two weeks later the passport was delivered to me at home via Canada Post.

Travel with a baby, bad idea?

I'm finally back blogging! Since my last trip to the New Orleans, I have been busy creating another human. Meet the future world traveller: Drake David Rui Matthews.

Earlier this month, Drake at age 2 month got his first passport.

Before Drake was born many people told us life is going to completely change after children including not being able to travel as much as we use to. While I looked forward to my son's birth I was getting a bit bummed about our future travel prospects as a family.
One day I was sitting around with my massive belly eating ice cream and watching a Chinese talk show about traveling with children. One of the mothers said: We love to travel. We believe making our children fit (or adjusted) into our way of life, not trying to fit our life into theirs. A light bulb went off! She was absolutely right. Why should we change how much we travel because now we have a baby? We just had to travel differently. Greg and I became very excited over this new take on parenthood. We did some research. There are so many benefits to traveling with your baby as much as possible.

Valuable bonding time: Most people argue that taking a baby traveling is pointless since he is not going to remember the experience. I'm lucky that I will be spending almost 24 hours with Drake for the next 10 months. Greg doesn't have that luxury. Travel will give him that chance to deepen his bond with Drake.

Baby travel is cheap. Most domestic air travel for kids under 2 years old is free. International air travel is 10% of your airfare. Of course, free fare also means I have put the baby on my lap during the entire flight, but I found some airlines (ie: China Eastern) will provide you with a complimentary bulkhead bassinet . A friend also gave me a tip when booking seats. Instead of booking seats right next to each other if you are traveling with the hubby or another person, book the seats with an empty seat in between. Doing this increases the chance you will end up with an empty middle seat to put the baby in since most single travelers tend to stay away from middle seats.

Of course, we understand we still have to make certain adjustments and take precautions while we travel with him. For example, we have to reduce amount of bouncing around from one spot to another. During our trip to South America we spent a few hours in Lima, a couple of days in Cusco and Macchu Picchu, before flying to La Paz. We moved around a lot and spent two nights at the most at one hotel. With a baby we will reduce number of spots we hit and take our time with the spots we do hit.

We can't wait to plan our next trip with Drake!

(found this on weibo.com and love it. but don't know where this photo came from originally)

The City and the Swamp

Amidst of all the festival fun, we managed to plan ahead and booked a two hour New Orleans city bus and three hour swamp boat tour for today. We woke up early to jump on the bus. The company is called VIP City Tour and costed us $35 USD per person. Our driver and tour guide was a local New Orleans fellow named Henry. He spoke with a mellow southern drawl but he drove like a bat outta hell.
Henry explained interesting facts about New Orleans along the way. We drove through the garden, lakeview, and the "beverly hills" areas and neighbourhoods. There were no gated communities. The poor, rich and the wealthy all lived together.




Author Anne Rice (Interview with the Vampire)'s house with a tree full of Mardi Gras beads in front it.




The areas that were affected by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 drew the biggest fascination. Most of the city is built below sea level and most on top of swamp land. When Katrina hit, the water spilled over the levees below and caused severe flooding.




Some of the houses were still abandoned with the mark TFW which stood for Total Flood Water in front of it. Some houses you can see the yellow water stain mark left behind.
We drove through the neighbourhood Brad Pitt donated and built. The houses looked very colourful and funky looking. They are also now designed to have an escape hatch on the roof. A lot of people died trapped in their attics during the disaster.
The other fascinating attraction about New Orleans is their cemeteries and their culture.




One tomb can contain hundreds of bodies like this one. The whole family will be buried in it. They don't cremate bodies either. The body is allowed one year and one day to decompose before the casket is removed and body/ bones are pushed to the back of the tomb with a pole to make room for the next deceased family member.








This particular cemetery we stopped at ironically had a luxury retirement home right next to it. In addition, it almost blends into a residential area. This would never happen in China. No one would ever dare or want to live anywhere near a cemetery.
The city tour ended just before noon and we were ready for our next tour. Our swamp boat tour with Louisiana Tour Company cost $52 USD per person including hotel pick up. There was an air boat option which was $72 per person. The air boat has the big fan on the back and is very loud and fast. I wasn't allowed on it since I was pregnant. We drove about 30 minutes outside of French Quarter to reach the boats and swamp. Our boat captain and guide again was a local guy with a few missing teeth, but had all of his fingers.








Although the boat captain told us 'this ain't Disneyland' and there was no guarantee, we came across a young alligator within the first 15 minutes of the tour. He was resting under the shade on land.
Our second alligator was an adult about 7 feet long swimming in the water. The captain started throwing marshmallows at it. Apparently, the gators really like them because they float and are white and sweet. The captain then leaned towards the water with the gator alongside of the boat and less than one foot away from his face. He tapped the gator's nose and petted the top of its head. When the gator opened its mouth, he would throw a marshmallow into it. The captain even put a marshmallow on top of its head which the gator swam around with for a while.




The captain then showed off his pet baby alligator. He said it was his back up plan in case we didn't see any in the wild. He said baby gators are very prone to predators before the age of 2.5. In the wild, out of a litter of 50 eggs only 15% will survive. He plans to release his after 2.5 year old.




Locals Cajuns do hunt alligators. It is tightly controlled and an allowance is given to each family with alligators on their property. Each hunted must be tagged and reported.




On our way back from the swamp tour, it started pouring rain. We thought it was a fitting way to end the trip and condition our mind to head back to the always rainy Vancouver.
Our last meal in New Orleans had to be good, not that it has disappointed me so far. I have loved everything I ate, maybe a little too much. I even picked up Cajun cooking spices to bring back. ACME Oyster Bar off of Bourbon Street is very popular and we had to wait in a line up for a table.




The wait was totally worth it. I ordered my third crawfish boil dinner. Two lbs of pure heaven! By far the best tasting crawfish boil so far. It was more expensive at $9.95 USD per lb than Montrel's ($7.95 per lbs) and the festival ($8 per 1.5lbs) but it was worth very penny. The crawfish was big and fat and tasted like they injected the spices right into the crawfish individually. I ordered 2 lbs with the thought of taking half of it back to the hotel for later. None made it back. I ate the 2 lbs in one sitting and even mulled over the idea of ordering another pound to go. Did I mention I really love crawfish boil!!




Tomorrow we fly back home. I really enjoyed our Southern trip. New Orleans is a city with a lot of flavor from its history and culture from its people. I would totally come back here for a second round.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:New Orleans

From the Sea to French Quarter Festival

Our last day at sea was pretty uneventful. The thought of no more towel animals on our bed every night or the 24 hour ice cream machine and pizza parlor made us a little sad. Greg put in a few more hours of sun time to even out his tan while I just napped and ate a little more.


Mongolian grill!!


We also explored the areas we haven't even been to on the ship, like the mini golf course,


and the water slide,



We still didn't manage to locate the gym. To be honest, we didn't look that hard.

At dinner our servers sang their version of "leaving on a jet plane (ship)" to us. We exchanged information with our dinner mates Timothy and Renasha. They were a lot of fun.

Our cabin guy left a seal tonight. Greg thought it looked something else...


When we woke up the next morning, the ship had already docked in New Orleans. Since we didn't have a lot of stuff we opted not to put our luggage out last night to be checked straight through. Immigration was smooth and since we didn't have to wait for our luggage we were in the French Quarter ready for the festival before 11AM.

It was actually the last day of the French Quarter festival. How lucky were we! There was live music everywhere in the quarter, but mostly concentrated in the Old US Mint, Jackson Square and along the water front.











It was a hot day. The solution: strawberry snowball with condensed milk!


Aftermath of the snowball.


Live latin band + crawfish boil = awesomeness! By the way, the big box of crawfish was only 8 bucks. For 25 bucks you can get the family size which came in an aluminum pan that you normally oven roast a turkey in. Can't lie I was very tempted.


Sugar, sugar, sugar!!!!


At the end of the day and before night fall, we made our way to Congo Square and Louie Armstrong park located on the north edge of the quarter. The square was where slaves gathered and played music. It is the birth place of jazz. It was a very serene little square with a giant oak tree hovering over it.





The Louie Armstrong Park has a canal that snaked around it. There are little bridges and bronze sculptures all through out the park. A few people were on the green lawn enjoying the sun.





We were told the park and square were not safe after dark. It is really sad to me that people would commit crimes in a such historically significant part of the city and in a park that honors the guy who wrote the song "It's a Wonderful World". Oh, the irony.

It was time for dinner. At Old Coffee Pot restaurant Greg ordered the Fleur De Lis Chicken which was a dish featured on the Food Channel. It consisted of a chicken breast paired with crabmeat and Louisiana crawfish stuffing topped with Buerre Blanc with Andouille sweet potato hash and green bean casserole.



I ordered a Crawfish Étouffée which had Louisiana crawfish tails, Creole tomato, onion, bell pepper, and celery shimmered and seasoned with Cajun spices and thickened with a roux served with white rice. I could've licked the bowl clean.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans

Finally, Hola Mexico

Cozumel, Mexico was our last port call on this cruise. We were again not too ambitious and took our time getting off the ship. The pier we docked at was full of shops and restaurants. Almost felt like we didn't even need to leave it to have access to everything.




But we did anyways. When we made it to the street people shouted at us for tours and scooter rentals, but they weren't as persistent or annoying as the hustlers in Jamaica. A friend recommended to us a beach park called Chankanaab. We caught a taxi for $10 USD (for 1 to 4 passengers) for the five minute ride to the park.




The standard entrance fee was $21 USD. For extra $2 USD, you can get a souvenir T-shirt and free drink or extra $27 for a 30 minute massage.
The park is a beach resort with different sea animal shows but to swim with the dolphins was extra.




We caught the sea lion show. They were cute and impressive, good for a few giggles.




We hit the beach after the show. The sand wasn't as white and soft and the water wasn't as calm or blue as the 7 Mile Beach in Grand Cayman but we could snorkel right off the beach. There were reefs, a lot of fishes, even a statue and tombstone.




We ordered lunch (pollo tacos, of course) and drinks right from our beach chairs.




On our way out of the park, we walk through its lagoon and the archeological garden. With everyone on the beach the garden was deserted, which was a shame. The path was full of tropical greenery, Mayan artifact replicas, and a small waterfall with three turtles just hanging out.




















I was a little disappointed that we had no time to check out rest of Cozumel. We picked up a few sample tequilas from the pier duty free shop which had to be checked when we re-broad the ship. They will be returned to us the night before we disembark.

The ship left the dock promptly at 5PM and we started our 7 hours of non-stop eating. Sushi bar first, followed by the dinner buffet, then our actual dinner (with dessert) and finished with a Mexican buffet at midnight!!! In between we took a break to watch a comedy show and 6 lap walk on the jogging track.

Can someone tell me what in the world this thing is?




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Cozumel, Mexico

Swimming with the Lobster

Learning from our Jamaica experience, we wanted to book a diving excursion for our second port in the Grand Cayman. Since I wasn't able to dive and the ship wasn't sure if I could just tag along, we were told to speak to the dive company when we get to shore.

Our ship had to anchor in the bay due to shallow water. We took a "tender" or ferry boat to shore.


When we got to shore, the diving company told us we had to buy the excursion on the ship due to a none compete contract clause and the ship was unable to sell it to us on shore due to being a non-Cayman Island company. Our best bet was to go to another dive company down the road before it was too late. Crap! We didn't want a repeat of Jamaica.

We were in luck, Greg got on a two tank deep dive trip that was leaving in 40 minutes and I got to come along for a ride.





The first dive was 100 feet at a site called Knife. The site got the name because the topography looked like someone took a knife and chopped it up. Greg got to see plenty of marine activity. He's no fish connoisseur so he wasn't able to identify what he saw but he could recognize the lobster a mile away. Apparently it looked to be of the "tasty looking" variety.


As Greg was coming up from his first dive, he caught some jelly fish in the neck area and left these nasty stings. The dive master had to douse him with vinegar. I didn't stay downwind from him for the rest of the afternoon.


The second dive was a shallower dive at 60 feet at a site call Angelfish's Reef. It got its name due to schools and schools of angelfishes. I noticed both sites were very close to the city shores. All the other dives we have been on involved at least one hour boat ride out to the middle of the ocean or somewhere pretty remote. Greg saw a lot more colourful coral and tonnes more unidentifiable fish. No lobster this time.

I even got to snorkel here. I didn't see a lot, but the water was perfect. After the second dive was done, we were dropped off at the 7 Mile Beach, a beautiful white sand beach, but we had to grab lunch first. By the recommendation of our dive boat captain, we checked out Eats Cafe across the street from the Governor's mansion. We ordered an island specialty to start, conch fritters.


For main, I ordered a Jerk Chicken burger. The chicken came twice as big as the bun.


After lunch, we headed back to the beach, right in front of the Governor's Mansion. The beach was so hot that I kept running back to ocean to cool off.





When it was time to head back, we caught a mini van taxi off the street for $2.50 USD per person. This was a really good day. We did everything we wanted to do and no street hustlers were involved. It even ended with a rainbow.


Is there an elephant in my room?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Grand Cayman Island