tourism in your backyard

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Cruising along last week prepared me for my weekend full of fun, starting with Trunk or Treat at our school. It was the first time we had signed up and it was such a good time with kids walking up and down the carpark filling their treat bags with tonnes of candy. I gave away two baskets full starting with around 800 Hersheys chocolate kisses.

The evening was a good time and I started the night off with some delicious tacos from the food truck, which really helped get through the Friday night. My outfit was a 1980s dance outfit – channelling my youth with the bubble skirt, sequins and big hair. The trunks were so creative and ours was a crafty dancy party as I have given away a lot of stuff and I do not have a lot of Halloween decorations. We shone our disco lights through the crochet blanket but the sound of the food truck drowned out our little speaker of tunes!

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My favourite trunk was our friends who designed their trunk with the theme of The Book of Life – it is such a beautiful film.

A couple of standout costumes of the evening was My friend’s costume with the lights on her hat from the character La Muerte from the Book of Life and another fave was the LED jellyfish and her sibling was a stingray – their mum told me that she was the ocean and wrapped in a blue ocean themed throw.

After all the fun and excitement of trunk or treat my friends and I planned a hop on hop off tour of San Francisco months ago.

It was a bit strange to get the hang of as you waited around at a random bus stop and then when the bus came we had to get the ticket authorised for the Sausalito leg by the office at Pier 39. After we worked all that out half the day had gone but we packed it in and had a late lunch at this lovely traditional Italian restaurant San Drino in Sausalito (see the gnocchi and ravioli before we ate the thin crust pizza, amazing!) and had some ice cream from Lapperts as we were waiting for the bus. My ice cream was the right amount of sweetness the Ube Macapuno – Philippine Ube root with coconut puree, yummo!

Just travelling beneath the arches of the golden gate bridge atop the open bus was so cold but worth it for the incredible views of the bridge and the bay. I highly recommend these tours as you get a great overview of the city the view from the top of the bus allow for some magical photo opportunities. I plan on doing one in Melbourne when I get home to see what is new in the city 😀

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This is one of my fave shots of the day from the top of the bus while it was moving! Still, it was lucky to get this in focus with Karl the fog floating atop the water.

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After our trip to Sausalito, we went to see the rest of the loop and to check out one final destination – Lombard Street, AKA “the crookedest street in the world”. The views were spectacular and the sun was about to set so the sky was just gorgeous! As we were heading down the steep hill to go and get a quick snack for the way home we stumbled across this amazing sunset with the Golden Gate bridge in the foreground – so special and what a magnificent end to the day. That will most likely be my farewell to this beautiful city as I have two months left until we go home for good.

Sunday I had another early start with volunteering for the annual FabMo Textile Art Boutique. I wore my dress made from FabMo squares which received many comments of “cute skirt”, it is always so fun to wear it as it is the special souvenir of my time spent volunteering with FabMo – their ethos and approach to saving fabric from the landfill is something that I aspire to and maybe if I make the connections in Melbourne where I can create a FabMo there too!

This week is my last before I get into my next subject of Teaching Science and Technology – it should be a lot of fun juggling the study with moving home!

Friday was a day out to Dreamworld on the Gold Coast! We have not been to Dreamworld since we were little kiddos! Back then we used to go on all the rides but these days there is a very low tolerance for the rollercoasters. We all had a blast with the kids and their favorite ride was the log ride even though you get drenched riding a log downhill. Afterwards we had the best time drying off in the drying machine – we have this great video as we paid $5 to stand under ultra violet light and be blown by a blow dryer for 5 mins!

The fun never stops at Dreamworld and we went on lots of rides mostly with the kiddos. The rollercoasters were out and I would say the log ride was the scariest ride we went on – the other exciting ride were the dragon dodgems! The kids did enjoy the day and say they had an awesome time, without the need for huge thrills. I do think that my days of crazy rides are long gone.

The photo opportunities are endless with so much fun and colour so I had a blast being the tourist and taking pics with all sorts of characters. The Dreamworks ride area was super cool and set up beautifully focussing on their range of characters from their films – Madagascar, Puss In Boots and Kung Fu Panda. My uncle who gave us the day out wondered where the Chinese restaurant was, maybe Dreamworld should add a dumpling place to compete with the crazy priced food that was on offer. We shared a pizza between the 7 of us and it cost us with drinks $4.80 for a water so the grand total for lunch was over $70, that was insane!

Another favourite spot of ours was Tiger Cub Kindy where you could get very close to tiger cubs. These pics were taken by the trainers who took your camera into the enclosure to take shots for a donation to the DWF (Dreamworld Wildlife Foundation). They are such incredible creatures with their numbers dwindling in the wild we as humans need to do whatever it takes to save these majestic creatures. Most of the cubs were born at Dreamworld which is a success for the tigers as their habitats decrease dramatically. Any cat fan will be so excited to experience these animals up, close and personal!