This was when I got sad to be returning to America. Australia and New Zealand were clean, modern, and pleasant. I’ve often said that Australia seems like a sensible country. I’m not sure that extending tax cuts that largely benefit millionaires while our bridges crumble and we fight several trillion dollar wars is sensible. Arizona made change to their health care policy so that people needing organ donations won’t get them (meaning people die) while Paris Hilton can inherit billions tax free. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I don’t like the direction the country is going, but there isn’t much one man can do. I went for a walk, found a liquor store, and bought a bottle of vodka.

Actually, it wasn’t a liquor store. It was an ABC store, and they are everywhere in the Waikiki area. Between our hotel two blocks from the beach, and the beach, there were five of these stores. They sold booze, food, and a bunch of tourist crap. I don’t have any idea how there were so many of them, and no other stores in that space except for the purpose of catering to tourists, many of them Japanese in this area.

The next morning, our first full day, I needed to buy sunglasses as I’d left my newest pair on a tour bus in New Zealand. I hate buying sunglasses, but I especially hate buying them after I’d found a decent $80 pair that worked and looked good. We found a Sunglass Hut inside of a Macy’s, and a very soft spoken guy helped me. Half of the reason I bought them because he was very soft spoken (I hate loud and pushy sales people), and also because I really, really needed them and didn’t want to look around in any more stores. I’m still annoyed at losing my almost brand new pair, but Hawaii without sunglasses is not a happy place to be.

After spending maybe at bit too much time lying in the sun on Waikiki beach, we decided to find an AT&T store and get our phone numbers reactivated. We had to walk a pretty decent way to get to a mall (the very nice and impressive Ala Moana) that had an AT&T store. The walk was pleasant, as it followed the contours of the ocean, so you got the occasional peek of the water, the sun was shining, and the temperature was nice. Once we arrived and found the AT&T store in the basement of Sears, getting the phones reactivated was a bit of a pain — a long wait to get helped and a long wait while the woman helping us worked her magic with someone over the phone. In the end, it ended up taking me another 75 minutes on the phone before we were able to get voicemail working. The first call I got hung up on after 15 minutes, and she never called back. I’m pretty sure she had my number. The second call, I was on for another 15 minutes before the idiot on the other line suggested I reset my network settings. Really? 15 minutes to suggest I reset my network? Idiot. At that point I insisted on getting second tier tech support, and finally got some decent help. However, it took me another 45 minutes before he was able to get our voicemail working. This was a very frustrating return into the embrace of Ma Bell.

We also found a place to live when we get back to Seattle. We are renting an apartment near the University of Washington. The place is completely furnished, free wifi, parking, etc. It’s rather expensive, but it takes care of one big problem we had. We have no possessions at all at this point except for our one shared suitcase which has mostly summer clothes in it, and my camera gear. So having knives and forks, a bed, something to sit on, sheets and towels will be very nice.

Shortly after that, we got documents from our house sale that we needed to sign and get notarized. I’d expected getting something notarized would be somewhat easy, but when we asked people, most just gave us blank looks. We went to several UPS type places, hotels, etc., and all we ever got was bank looks. A USPS mail lady said we could use a bank, but they were only available for an hour a day. But as we were going to a Vietnamese restaurant recommended by the woman that painted Justine’s toes, we walked past a Mailbox, etc. type place that could notarize our paperwork and accept if for mailing, and we could do it that night.

Getting that taken care of was a HUGE relief. We’d gotten our phone numbers back, found a place to live, and did the last thing we needed to do for our house to sell. We had a nice dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant to celebrate, and well, that was all.

The next morning we went to the beach, as it was a beautiful day, and it was Hawaii. Afterwards, we had lunch at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue where I had Loco Moco. Essentially it is a hamburger patty with a fried egg on top, smothered in gravy and served along side very tasty macaroni salad and rice. Justine had Spam Sushi called musubi and kimchi. We then walked to the Honolulu Zoo, which ended up being a very nice place to be. It was a great day, and there were no people there. The animals were much closer than they are in Seattle, and quite a bit more active, except for the Lemurs, who looked like they were watching TV. They were exceedingly cute, if a bit lazy. We also walked by an ape that had captured a bird, and was using it as a toy. That was pretty disturbing to see, but it is the zoo, and you’re looking at wild animals, so it’s hard to complain about it. But still horrific. There were some Siamangs that were doing some crazy monkey calisthenics, some Giraffe’s, Zebras and a Hippo that was very, very close. All in all, I’d give the zoo a solid thumbs up.

For dinner we went to a nice Japanese restaurant, sat outside under Christmas lights and had a great dinner. I had the lobster dinner along with grilled butterfish and a sushi roll. We’ve eaten A TON of sushi on this trip and the food here did not disappoint. Our Japanese waiter was a student at the U of Hawaii, loved Ichiro, and had visited Seattle to see him.

The next day was a tour of Pearl Harbor. It was only open on the 7th for survivors, and I figured the day after would be too crowded, so we went two days after. The tour operator was less than optimal. When we first got on the bus, he was listening to hard core right wing talk radio, which I do think is inappropriate, especially given some of the things they said about Democrats. He also had an annoying habit of using the phrase “Cousin” in the way a used car salesman would use your name over and over again when trying to sell you a car. He’d use it twice in once sentence, and did so often. Otherwise he was fine, but only fine. Our first stop was Pearl Harbor, which was kind of interesting but not much in the way of history that I didn’t know. We then went to the Arizona Memorial, which was moving, but not overly so. Afterwards, we then went to the USS Missouri, which was interesting in it’s own way. First, it was where World War II ended, which was a nice bookend to the Arizona, where the war started. We saw where the Japanese surrender papers were signed, and got some details on the ship itself (such as each gun on this battleship weighs as much as the space shuttle.) It was neat to be able to walk around this ship — these things are HUGE, and kinda terrifying, if no longer needed. Afterwards, we were driven by something called the Punchbowl, which was a military graveyard, and then to downtown Hawaii to the palace of the last ruler of Hawaii.

I’d not slept well the night before, so after we returned, we went down to the beach and napped. But it wasn’t a long time at the beach, as the weather started getting bad. We went back to the room, showered, and headed out for dinner. We ended up at a place called Duke’s, sitting in a bar overlooking the beach, and had a Mai Tai and another frilly hawaiian drink. While this might sound nice (and it was in it’s way), it was freaking’ windy, as in the salt and pepper shakers were blown off the table.

The next morning was our last day in Hawaii and the last day of our vacation. It was raining quite hard out, which was a decent way to end our vacation. We have been gently introduced back into the weather of Seattle. We went from the 100+ degree days in the heart of Australia, to the cooler climate of Sydney, then Auckland, which was cooler still, and now, it’s raining and in the mid 60’s. Tonight we’ll be back in Seattle where it’s 45 degrees and raining. We don’t have jackets, which I intend to fix first thing on Saturday morning.

We started walking around the city and getting our bearings. We were near a university, and there were a ton of asian students, and asian restaurants. We wound our way to a Travel Centre, and briefly talked to someone about doing tours. They were closing in a few minutes, and didn’t have the ability to really get us any bookings, since the place they would book with was closed on Sunday, but they did point us to a place in the bus terminal that could help us. We walked over and found a tour that would fit our needs, but we decided to talk about it before booking it. Afterwards, we wandered around until we found a Korean restaurant down a flight of stairs that looked appealing. This food was great, and we were the only non-Koreans in the place, which makes me think the food was authentic.

On Sunday, Justine decided to jump off a building. The Auckland Sky Tower bills itself as the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s vaguely shaped like the Space Needle, or the tower in Toronto. The jump itself was an officially sanctioned event (so she’s still alive.) You suit up and free fall, with cables on your right and left keeping you on track, and slowing you down as you get closer to the ground. It wasn’t quite a bungie jump, but it was pretty exciting. As for me, jumping off of a building isn’t something I ever want to do, especially if I have to pay for it. I’ve come to find out that Justine is fearless. She’s jumped out of planes, bungee jumped, this, and more. I think she’s more Id that I am, but that’s probably not too hard. When she jumps, the first thing you do is jump into space, then dangle off the building for several seconds before plunging to the ground. When she came down, she was beside herself with joy, and I assume adrenaline. The next two girls did it, but they looked somewhat terrified, and neither of landed on their feet. The first of those two had a hard time standing up she was so nervous. The last girl was a 19 year old Indian girl from Australia (I spoke with her family while they were doing their prep work, etc.) She had a bit of Justine in her, and she was equally as thrilled. I think this might tie with the Koala photo for the highlight of the trip for her.

Afterwards, we booked our trip for the next day (Hobbiton!!), bought a All Blacks T-shirt, and walked around the city. Justine developed a crush on the Sky Tower. You can see it from most of downtown Auckland, and she was looking at it all day long. We walked through the University of Auckland, Victoria Garden, along the waterfront, and the rest of downtown.

On Monday we had our tour. It was another one of these long days, and I wasn’t 100% sure of it when we booked it, but it did include a Hobbiton tour. The first place we went was a small town called Matamata, where we transferred to another bus for a tour of Hobbiton. This is the farm where the exterior (and some interior) shots of the Shire, and it was great. I love the movies, and it was great seeing those places (photos will be forthcoming.) There was the tree where Bilbo had his going away party, the various houses, including Bilbo and Frodo’s house, and the house Samwise and his wife shared at the end of the movie. They were also building a some of the set for the Hobbit movie coming up. One interesting bit of trivia was that they imported sheep for the movie. The New Zealand sheep wasn’t the right type for movie. Afterwards, they had a sheep shearing exhibit, which seemed to be an odd pairing. The only good part was that you could feed baby sheep (mutton?) milk. They are cute, and some people had a great time doing it.

After hooking back up with our tour bus, we went to a place called Rotorua. This was a Maori cultural center, build around hot springs. There were some small exhibits, meeting halls, and somewhat extensive hiking trails. They fed us an authentic Maori lunch, and we got some time to wander around. We were supposed to be back at 2 PM, but we had a Finnish woman get lost, or not understand, and we spent 45 minutes trying to find her so we could leave. This ended up annoying everyone on the bus, which made it a little bit less pleasant ride to the next step.

The last stop in our trip was a place called Waitamo Caves. This was a cave used for burial by Maori people in the past, and it’s most famous for the Glow Worms which hang from the ceiling. It started as just a cave, but then we had to get into a boat, and ride/glide to the Glow Worms. They were pretty amazing, and to be in the dark, it made it a pretty awesome adventure. The pacing of this was pretty good, and it was enjoyable. I’d gotten a touch of car sickness, so I ended up sitting in the passenger seat. I talked to the driver most of the trip, and he was a fascinating guy. He graduated with an Economics degree, and worked for the government until he was 40. At that point, he bought some Robert Smith franchises and ran 13 of those. He had a son that played rugby well enough to place for the All Blacks, even though it was only three games. He might have been bullshitting me, but he was pretty sharp, and was able to talk about a wide range of subject, so even if he was, I enjoyed it. He’s now retired, and does this so he can make some extra money, so long as it doesn’t interfere with his golf games or other task.

We got back pretty late (45 minutes later than we were supposed to.) We hopped off the bus pretty far from our hotel room because we’d gotten hit by that before. In Perth we were about two blocks from our hotel, but we stayed on the bus. It ended up taking 20 more minutes of city driving to get us back to our hotel (there was a pedestrian walkway that kept our bus from going directly there.) Once off we found sushi for dinner. Auckland had more sushi restaurants than anyplace I’ve ever seen before. I expected more lamb dealers.

We left early the next morning, and got a driver that normally worked for the hotel. He took an equally convoluted route back to the airport. He was a huge All Blacks fan, and once he started talking about it, that was all he talked about, until we were at the airport (about 45 minutes.) Once we were at the airport, we got our first taste of being back in America. We had to go through an additional security check, and be segregated from the rest of the airport, where we were warned against having more than 3 oz of liquids. America, land of the free, home of the brave.

All in all, the access sucks. I somewhat expected it, since Australia is pretty isolated, but I don’t like it. When I get back to Seattle, or wherever we settle, I intent to splice the Ethernet cable into my arm, and try to create some sort of Borg like person. Then I’ll get Comcast, which sucks, but is fast, and a backup DSL line (cause Comcast sucks.)

After our lovely time in central Australia was over, we found ourselves back in Alice Springs. We’d not seen much poverty, beggars, or people sleeping in the streets, but in Alice Springs, it all changed. It seems like all the racial prejudice had been funneled into this one small town. It was depressing beyond belief and a little bit menacing. I grew up in a small town in Florida, so I was somewhat used to it (which makes me sad), but Justine was especially shocked by it. We walked around a bit, and ended up back near our hotel, if only because it seemed like a reasonable place to eat dinner. I had Kangaroo once again, which made me happy. We got up at an hour that used to be early, but is now normal, and went for coffee. We waited until my bank opened and closed the account. I went to that fancy camera shop and bought something to clean the sensor on my D7000 (the Arctic Butterfly, which sounds like a sex toy.) Happily enough, it seems to have cleared my sensor successfully. We then flew back to Sydney.

Sydney wasn’t a bad place, but the hotel was horrible. It was small, the beds (one short queen and one bunk bed overhead) were horrible, and there was mold in the shower. Lots of mold in the shower. We walked to a nearby blue collar neighborhood called Botany Bay (where I believe Captain Cook landed.) We found the place by asking a guy in the liquor store for a recommendation. He said “where the hell you from?”, in his best American accent. He directed us to a very nice Sushi restaurant. We went back to the hotel along a less treacherous route, and went to bed somewhat late (when I say we, I mean me. Justine sticks to an early bedtime.) About 5 AM, the fire alarm went off in the hotel, helping us get an early start on the day, and to New Zealand.

• Maps. Google Maps has saved us from walking around aimlessly or getting lost many, many times. The Google iPhone app was equally valuable for helping us find things nearby (museums, restaurants, etc.)
• Calls. I got a great plan from a company called Optus. They are a new-ish rival to Telstra, owned by the Singapore phone company. The coverage wasn’t great most places, but it was $.05 to call the US, which is almost as cheap ask Skype, and a lot easier.
• Camera. I brought a D7000 and a D700 camera with me (remember, we were moving here.) But I probably took 50% of my photos with my iPhone. The best camera is the one with you.
• Video Camera. The video on the iPhone was top notch, and again, it’s always with me. The D7000 does video, but I probably took 85% on my iPhone.
• Internet Access. When I couldn’t get WiFi, or didn’t want to pay for it, the iPhone could let me read my news feed, or check email.
• Sign loan documentation. We needed to sign some loan documents. Our choices were to find somewhere to print them out, sign, then fax back to the US. Or I could download an iPhone app. The app probably saved us $10 and a bunch of hassles. We did it on the Great Ocean Road tour.
• Podcast. Great way to pass the time when you don’t have TV, or if you can’t read on the train or bus.
• Long form reading. Instapaper or Kindle for the iPhone both work great.
• Financial upkeep — I could check my bank account and my credit card statement with the iPhone.
• Facebook.
• Blog maintenance (and posting if I had the patience.) My web host went down, and I initially thought it was just my instance.  I was able to fire up an SSH session into the blog, reboot, etc.  Didn’t work very well, but that’s because the issue was with my VPS rather than my instance (so I had no control over much.)
• Kill and skin a crocodile. Ok — I made that up, but I bet you could figure out how using your iPhone.
• Conversions — Temperature, area, currency, etc.
• Alarm Clock — every hotel has a different clock.  I know how the iPhone alarm works, and it always works for me.  No missed flights.  Very important.

The only regret I have is that I didn’t have the one app installed that let you use your iPhone as an wireless modem, sharing your 3G connection to either the iPad or laptop. It was one that was in the App store for about 20 minutes, but I was able to grab it. I didn’t sync it to my phone because I thought I’d have WiFi forever. It would have only made the iPhone even more perfect.

If I had to travel the world, and could only bring one thing, it would be my iPhone. No camera, no kindle. Just an iPhone.

I’d like to direct you to this post

I love you, iPhone 4.