Sunday, January 16, 2011

At The Zoo

   Today was a day just for the family. Anxious to see real live roos and koalas, we visited the Melbourne Zoo. We even met up with the other family on our plane who moved to Melbourne from the States. It was fun to compare notes and complain about the shocking prices. Apparently you can get Dr. Pepper here, if you go to Costco, and it's about $30 for a 24-pack. I thought that was almost reasonable compared to the kids sunglasses I saw at Toys R Us for $23!! In case you're wondering, the US dollar is almost at parity with the Aussie dollar. While at the Gladstone Mall yesterday, we checked out a Target store, but it was just as expensive as everything else here, and a very limited selection. No Cliff Z-bars either, much to the kids dismay. They also charge $0.10 for a bag, so I'm glad a brought a bunch of my Trader Joes bags with me.
   And now, some pics if you're interested. We're really loving the zoom lens on the camera, if you couldn't tell.
Not an Opto EMU, but an emu nonetheless
Fun fact of the day: Their tongues are dark, not pink, so they
don't get sunburned while spending 9-10 hours a day eating


      On the way home, we stopped to find some bike helmets for the girls. We also picked up a sun hat for Aliya. At the same shopping center, we found another interesting difference. They have escalators that are moving walkways, or maybe I should call them moving walkways that are escalators. They came in handy for people using shopping carts and then need to take the cart trolley down to the parking garage in the next level. To the girls, they were a source of great entertainment as they liked walking up the down walkway, treadmill style.
   Okay, I just found out the girls' school can't access YouTube, so I'm going to post a video or two here.
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. benoJanuary 23, 2011 at 4:19 AM

    Its interesting to hear your comments about the expense of living there... Im sure you can recall my comments about the high cost of living in SoCal.
    I wonder if things have changed in 2.8 years? Or if its a Melbourne thing?
    I think the best way for us to settle this, is that we come back for about 3 months and see just exactly whats going on!
    BTW, we discovered that your gift glasses are perfect for port!

    Cheers!
    Ben

    ReplyDelete
  2. A-teamJanuary 24, 2011 at 3:49 PM

    Sounds like a plan to me! I don't think it's a Melbourne thing though. The expat forums are full of talk and lists of things to bring from the US when you're moving to Australia. The clerks at Borders and B&N told us that the Qantas flight crews come in all the time to buy books while in the US. And at Costco yesterday we met another flight attendant who says she does tons of shopping every time she goes to the US.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)