Travelog for: Taro

Hi, I've just arrived to Prague. I met another toyvoyager here. He is a rhino and his name is Filibert.

Today I found some candies in the kitchen. Their name was "Happy Bear's", so they were actually mine, weren't they?

Yesterday I finally visited the city center, although Ondrejliska kept saying that the weather was not optimal for taking pictures.

This is me and Filibert in front of the National Theatre, built in 19th century. (As you can see, the building is now under reconstruction.)


While we were viewing the Theatre, a historical tram passed around us. It was amazing!




From the bank of Vltava river, you can see Prague Castle with St. Vitus Cathedral. The Charles Bridge was built in 1357.

Here I am in sunny(??) Australia, ready to celebrate Christmas in the sun(??)



Those birds on the electric cables are pink and gray galahs, having a shower in the afternoon rain.

Hopefully the weather will be better by Tuesday!

Bec's family had an early Christmas lunch this weekend with her cousins who were visiting from up the coast.

No hot food - ham, cold pork, salad and rolls.

Today we went into the city to check out all the Christmas decorations in town. We left home late in the afternoon, around 5pm so that we would have some sunlight to view the city sights and not have too long to wait for it to be 8:30pm and the sun to go down so we could see the lights.

We were lucky and got the intercity train that travels the country route. They're much more comfortable than the suburban trains and went directly from our station into town with no stops.

Last year, Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney was criticised for not putting up a lot of decorations, so this year they have tried a lot harder.

Our first stop was at St Mary's Cathedral to view the life size Nativity scene.


Next we went into Hyde Park to view the gardens, which, like many of the gardens around the city have been planted to represent the colours of Christmas.


While we were in Hyde Park we took the time to be regular sightseers and looked at the Archibald Fountain (it was very windy, so we got a little wet!)


and we also found one of the many Christmas trees that have been put up around the city.


Next we went to David Jones (a large department store) to view their windows. Every year they decorate them with motorised marionette puppets depicting Christmas themes. Bec and her family used to come in to see them every year when she was little. This year the theme was The Nutcracker. (There are more photos on Tippi's page)







Could I be a part of their choir do you think?

Next we made our way to the Christmas tree in Martin Place.

This is the largest of all the Christmas trees decorating the city - it is 20-metres tall. We looked at the tree for a while and then moved on with plans to come back to see it light up later.


It appears that stars are a major part of the city's Christmas theme this year. And, that's a sulphur crested cockatoo on the banner. All the banners had Australian images on them.

While stopping at Circular Quay  to get some dinner (fresh, beautiful fish & chips - Bec was going to take picnic photos but was attacked by seagulls wanting chips, one even hovered over her left shoulder scaring her greatly, so she was a bit distracted) we checked out the traditional tourist sights:




Next we ventured around to The Rocks, a historical district in the city. Something very strange was going on. My travelling companions kept disappearing into shops and wouldn't tell me what they were looking for. Wonder what they were doing?
Never mind, I enjoyed looking at the street decorations and the Christmas tree.

Eventually, after a bit of a rest and some hot chocolate at Starbucks while we waited for the sky to get dark, we made our way back to Martin Place to see the tree all lit up. We waited anxiously for the clock to strike 8:30 and the lights to come on.


Well, it got to 8:30 and nothing happened. We waited and waited and waited.

The decorations on the light posts lit up

making the plaza look really pretty

but nothing happened with the tree.

We got very impatient about waiting. Finally we decided to walk up the plaza to Macquarie St and look at the Christmas Projections on the building and if the lights on the tree did finally come on we would be able to see them on the way back to the train station. The Christmas Projections are very pretty. What happens is that five landmark buildings along Macquarie Street are lit in a magical display of colour and light. The projection designs explore Summer in Sydney through a variety of themes.
This is the New South Wales state parliament house. (Again, there are other photos on Tippi's page)


And this is the old Mint building


Luckily, by the time we walked back to Martin Place the tree was all lit up!





I could have stayed here for a long time just watching the tree change colours, but my companions had to get home. Oh well,

I have spent Christmas Eve helping to make sure everything is ready for Christmas Day. I've helped to organise the Christmas cards and make sure they're all hung up,


and hung Santa's key on the door knob. Bec's house has no chimney, so Santa needs the key to get in to leave the presents for good travelling bears, rabbits and koalas!


Bec's family haven't done much about decorating the outside of the house this year, as that was always her dad's job, but Tippi and I think we've made the front door look very pretty.


and the flowers on the native plants in the gardens have greatly appreciated the wet weather - even if us ToyVoyagers haven't!


Bec's youngest cousin helped me make this to wear for Christmas:

but I don't think Christmas angel is quite my style, so I'll have a surprise outfit for you tomorrow!

While being an ever so helpful bear (Santa's always watching you know!)

I was helping to hang up the family's Christmas stockings and I realised something very important seeing as it's Christmas Eve and I just heard on the news Santa's left the North Pole -
I DON'T HAVE A STOCKING TO HANG!

So, never fear......
Being the ever so resourceful bear I've learnt how to be on my travels I made a check of Bec's mum's crafty supplies for materials, scissors and glue (I can't sew) and Bec's teaching resources for templates and.......


Ta-da!!
I have made some!


One for Tippi, one for Kalli and one for me.


I just hope I'm on the "nice" list!

Tonight we went out looking at Christmas lights. Lots of people in Australia decorate the outside of their homes and the good thing about it being Summer at Christmas time is that it is great for walking around the streets to view them all without getting cold! (Sorry, the quality of the photos isn't that good!)




As you can see from the car's thermometer it was still rather warm out, even at 10:30 at night.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

After finishing our travelogs on Christmas Eve all us ToyVoyagers raced to get to sleep so Santa would come to visit us.

(Do you like the 'sheet' - It was made in Pakistan and one of Bec's families at school gave the scarf to her as an end of year gift!)
To help us fall asleep we listened to some Australian Christmas carols
Six White Boomers (includes images of Australian Christmases)
12 Days of Christmas
An Aussie Jingle Bells

I woke up this morning to find that Santa had come and there was a present in my stocking. Yippee!


A balloon and a party blower! (I'm a Christmas elf today, by the way!)


I just had to have my balloon blown up for me, but I don't think it was quite the best idea I'd had all morning!


Then we were allowed to open the presents under the ToyVoyager Christmas tree. I tried really hard not to rip up the paper.


Ah, so this is why my companions kept disappearing on me when we were in the city the other night! It's a bandanna with a traditional Aboriginal design on it! I think I'll send it home to Yumi for safe keeping!


Soon it was time for lunch. Bec's family don't have a hot Christmas lunch. It's generally not a good idea when usually the weather is in the mid to high 30's! (Not that it got that hot this year!) Sometimes they have a seafood lunch, but this year they decided to have cold ham, pork and chicken with salad. I helped set out the creamy salads and cold meats onto the table.


Yum!


Oops! Halfway through lunch we realised we'd forgotten the Christmas crackers. You have to find a friend to help you pull and pull until they pop!
First I helped Tippi pop hers,

and then Kalli helped me with mine.

Inside was a party hat (too big for a TV's head!), a small plastic toy (I got a thimble!) and a bad joke.

This was my joke:
Why do dragons sleep during the day?
So they can fight knights!

Desert was (again) cold Christmas pudding with custard. Normally Bec's mum makes the pudding, but she's hurt her back, so this year they had to have a store bought one, but it was still yummy!


After lunch, everyone else opened their presents. Traditionally in Bec's family they had to wait until mid-afternoon to open the presents because that's when her dad used to get home from work. In my role of Christmas elf I tried to help give out the presents.......

which wasn't so easy!

Then it was time for everyone to have their afternoon naps, before starting the eating thing all over again!

There are three major sporting events that take place in Australia on Boxing Day:
1) The Sydney to Hobart Yacht race starts in Sydney Harbour.

This is one of the world's major yacht races and the record time for completing it in is 1 day, 19 hours. The average time is around 2 days. It is always a dramatic start as not only are there lots of yachts in the harbour lots of other people go out on small boats to wave them off.
Plus the shoreline is very crowded from very early in the morning. We decided to stay home and watch it on the TV instead!


2) The Boxing Day Cricket Test is held in Melbourne every year.

It runs for 5 days and this year Australia is playing against India. It is a very trying game to watch for long periods. The team that goes into bat first (Team A) bats and gets as many runs as possible until they are all out or until the team captain 'declares' (decides to stop batting). Then they swap positions with the first batting team becoming the bowling/fielding team who try to stop Team B from matching or beating their score. When Team B is either all out or have 'declared', Team A goes back into bat for a 2nd innings until they're all out / declared before Team B gets their final innings. The team with the most runs at the end (once both teams have played two innings) is the winner. Confusing hey?

It can have very exciting moments, with dramatic outs or if a batsman scores a Century (100 runs - doesn't happen very often!) but for the most part it can be very boring. My hosts would rather watch the One-day matches, which are much shorter.

3) The final sport (and for this I don't have pictures....) is the post Christmas sales at the stores in the city and people go crazy racing to get the biggest bargain they can on items that they probably won't use during the year.

Boxing Day is also Bec's future brother-in-law's birthday, so we went to their place for dinner.
But, before we could go, I realised there was an important job to be done:


I had fun playing fetch with their dog Angel.

Crazy dog. At first she had trouble finding the ball, but eventually she got it!






When the dog eventually got tired of playing fetch I came inside and inspected the tree. It's a fibre optic one which lights up.

I knew I'd have to wait a while for it to get dark enough to turn it on, so I found a way to make the time go.......


Meet all my new friends!

Let's see.... What else did we do?
Oh, we decorated Gingerbread Men. Something we'd planned on doing on Christmas Day, but with afternoon naps and all never got around to doing.
First you draw the design with the icing tube. You have to be very careful so you don't get great big globs,


then you add the sprinkles to decorate them.

It's trickier than it sounds!

Then, you sit back and admire your work of art while you wait for the icing to set so you can eat them!


I didn't feel right about eating my gingerbread man, so I had a chocolate coated shortbread biscuit instead. Mmmmmm.

With all this eating and snacking, I'm going to have to find some way to exercise!

Eventually it got dark and we could turn on the tree. How pretty! Each branch changes colour as the coloured disc in the base spins around.

(I am in this photo - if you look carefully at the bottom left hand corner!)


Can you see me now?

We drove to Taoyuan Airport today to pick up David.



Can you see the airplane in the distance? That's his airplane that was about to land...what a coincidence!