Travelog for: Twinette Kani

I'm Kani, Twinette Kani, and I'm celebrating the First Day of my new life as a ToyVoyager! 
I've known this to happen for long but now that it's real I'm also getting a bit nervous... I have a good family (mom, dad and 3 girls) who takes care of me and my twin brother Twister (and a "few" other furry toys). I will miss all of them very much. I'm not sure my brother will miss me as he'll get my share of attention from the girls 

I get to see places! I'm told I'll visit Australia first - all I can say is "WHOA!". My first trip ever and so far right away... I've heard they have koalas and wombats and kangaroos - I wonder if they're dangerous...? I'm sure my host takes good care of me so I shouldn't worry. 

I saw my host had written some "life missions" for me. I think they're very AU/NZ based - I want to see also Japan and Paris and Legoland and Disneyland/world (maybe I could meet Thumper, my idol...) and Rome and and and... Basically, I want to see A LOT 


Twinette Kani's itinerary:
1. becka_kate (Australia)
2. Prowl_Worshipper (Australia)
3. yumi (Japan) *November
4. alleycat (Israel) *December/January
5. starbursidereus (Canada) *March/April
6. AbbyB (Canada) *May/June

7. USATVT2008 *July

This is my neighbourhood. That white house behind the trees is a retirement home. My "mom" put these here so that I could come and see it online if I felt homesick on my travels...

My host made me that "badge" which I call a necklace 

My "mom" and the girls threw me a goodbye-party in advance! The girls did most of the job, mom just wrote the sign. That's my family  Although the girls are my family too, I love them dearly!

They threw a nice party, decorations and all... That's my twin brother Twister hugging me. I'm the one with the crown!

And there's Lucky-Ducky, a toyvoyager who has been staying with us. He gave me some good advice for the future.

Here I am - I'm in Sydney and have been promised a sightseeing trip very soon (hopefully) 

(shhh, don't tell anyone - it's a surprise, but my host's mum is celebrating a special birthday very soon and they've booked a surprise joy flight over Sydney and I'll be able to go too!!)

I've spent the afternoon getting to know everyone here. HoppyVanderHare is moving on tomorrow, but it was nice to be greeted by another rabbit when I got to this strange land - did I tell you the temperature got up to about 27deg celcius today (and its still winter!!) It was very hot and they're predicting more hot weather for tomorrow too. Another difference to winter at home was that it didn't get dark until almost 6pm and the sun will be up early in the morning.

Anyway, Hoppy loves cheeses so we had a mini cheese tasting for him to celebrate that he the Voyager of the Week this week.





Tomorrow I am going to school with Bec to meet her class and I'll send you photos of that too.

I miss you!
Twinette Kani

I visited Bec's class today. It was a very busy day as they have a student teacher visiting at the moment from the university. She is learning how to be a teacher and today she started teaching the children.

The children taught me how to play hopscotch in the afternoon. It was a lot of fun. Look at the funny looking hopscotch they have in their playground - it's a dragonfly!!  I had a lot of fun! I like to play hopscotch because I'm good at hopping! 





Tonight there was a lunar eclipse over Australia. The photos we took didn't work too well, so I can't show you right now what it looked like. The moon turned red because the earth's shadow was blocking it out. We will try to find a photo in the newspaper tomorrow to send to you to show you!

We found this link for you to see from the Sydney Observatory. It was an amazing sight to see!

I've had a fun day today.

First I learned how to play snooker with Boone Racoon. You have to hit the white ball with this stick called a cue and try to hit the coloured balls into the holes on the side of the table. Bec's family play this a lot when they have visitors - like they had today. It is very tricky.



Then Bec, her sister Stef, their cousin Justin and Stef's dog Angel took me to the park.



I had a lot of fun playing with Boone and Beak on the equipment.
I bounced in the train rocker,


went up and down on the see-saw,




climbed up the rope spider web wall,

(It was very high, but my new friend Justin made sure that I wouldn't fall!)

swung on the swings,


and slid on the very tall slide!.



There was a creek at the park too and there were ducks swimming in the creek. It was very funny -  Angel, the dog, fell in the creek and got all wet and smelly! She had to have a bath when we got home because that's how much she smelt!

Then we walked down a path to the bridge over the creek and you should have seen all the ducks there! They swam right up to the bridge to see us, but they weren't happy because we forgot to bring some bread to feed them.



On the way home from the park we saw these interesting flowers. They're called Bottle Brushes because that's what they look a bit like. They just grow in Australia and sometime you can see white ones or golden ones too, but most of them are red.

We went sightseeing in Sydney today!
We started in Macquarie Street, home of New South Wales' state Parliament House, the State Library, Sydney Hospital, the High Court of New South Wales, the NSW mint and Hyde Park Barracks.

Outside the hospital is this statue of a boar called Il Porcellino. If you rub his nose and make a donation to the hospital you get a wish, so that's what I did!
 

This is me at the Hyde Park Barracks. It used to be used 200 years ago for convicts to live in, but now it is a museum.


I also saw the Sydney Tower. It is very tall - it is the tallest building in Sydney and the second tallest building in Australia.


Next we went into Hyde Park. It was very nice to walk under the shady trees after being out in the warm sun.


This is the Archibald Fountain in Hyde Park. My host tells me it is a nice place to sit at lunchtime on a very hot summer day. There were lots of people here today too.


On the other side of Hyde Park is St Mary's Cathedral. It is the largest church in Australia!


Next we went into the Domain. This is where people go to see outdoor concerts, for festivals and other shows like Carols By Candlelight at Christmas.


All around the Domain were these great trees, called Morton Bay Figs. They have big trunks and hug roots that make great places to hide in!

Then we went to the Botanical Gardens. We saw lots and lots of plants and flowers here from Australia and all over the world (and some other exciting things too!)

Here I am with Boone & Beak and some beautiful tulips (did you know that it is spring here now?)


These ones are my host's favourites. I think I like them too!


Guess what else we saw! Cockatoos. These ones are called Sulphur-crested Cockatoos because they have the yellow crest on their heads. These ones let us get really close to them. We even saw one sitting on a lady's head and another on a man's arm! One of them even tried to bite Stef's finger!


Bec has lots more photos of them on her flickr page (about page 5-6)!

After we walked through the gardens a little bit more, we got to the waters edge, and look where I was - at Sydney Harbour.


I also had a pretty good view of lots of the city skyscrapers.


Also in the Botanical Gardens is a big duck pond with more fountains.


This pond has ducks, water hens and lots of huge eels!




Nearby was another pond with more huge eels and even bigger Koi fish.


Another type of animal that lives in this part of the gardens are the fruit bats. Look at how many there were in this tree! Can you imagine sleeping like that? Hanging upside down?

(Again, Bec has some close-up photos of them on her flickr page!)

We were just walking through the gardens, on our way to do more sightseeing when Stef spotted some tall ships in the Harbour. How exciting! So we had to run down to the seawall to get a good look of them. Sadly, in my photo the ship is all blurry, but this is what it looked like:


Can you believe that this is how the first European settlers of Australia travelled all the way here? It took months and months, often more than a year to get to Sydney from England!

We also saw one of the tugs blowing the water (but again, my photo was all blurry!)

It was time then to start heading back to the station to come home. But on the way we got to go around the edge of the Harbour and there were lots more things I could see!

I saw the Opera House


A Banksia flower:


and this is what a Banksia seed looks like. It's very unusual isn't it?

(Bec's promised that one day she'll read me a story about Banksia men!)

The Opera House steps:


The Sydney Harbour Bridge:


A large cruise ship docked in the Harbour. This ship goes all over the Pacific Ocean to places like Fiji, Samoa, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and Tonga. (I wonder if I'll get to visit any of those places?)


We also saw lots of ferries and other boats coming into Circular Quay, including some Water Police boats.


It was very busy walking around the foreshore,

so I decided to hitch a ride in Bec's pocket!

A very relaxing way to travel!

As we got even closer to the station and ferry wharves it got even more crowded with people stopping to watch the buskers and going to the restaurants and kiosks.


It was a very nice day to be out and about around the harbour!

That's all for now! It's time to go to bed.
Good night!

We went to the Farm today! What a lot of fun (and we were lucky too - everytime it rained we were inside, so we didn't get wet!!)


I saw lots of animals at the farm:
There were chickens,


and wallabies.

(There were lots of other animals too - if you look at Boone & Beak's and Kalli's pages you'll see them. Bec also had 17 kindy kids to watch and photograph!!)

I also got to see a sheep getting sheared (or as one of the kindy's called it "getting a haircut!"). There is a saying that 'Australia rode to prosperity on the sheep's back' meaning that wool was Australia's first major export to the world.


And we watched the working dogs rounding up sheep. The dog we watched working the sheep is a Kelpie, which is an Australian sheep dog. He was called Bob and walked along the backs of the sheep once he had them in the shute. He could also do lots of tricks, and he is so well trained that if the farmer tells him to sit, he sits and stays until he is told to do something else. Even if the farmer goes away and eats his lunch, Bob still stays sitting!


It was a very fun (but tiring day!)

We've had a very quiet weekend. The weather wasn't great, and Bec's having car trouble, so we stayed at home and entertained ourselves around the house. Bec finally read us the story about the Banksia Men. It was a book called "Nuttybub and Nittersing" written by May Gibbs. The story is very old - it was written about 100 years ago (which is old in Australia!)

This is what the story was about:
Nittersing was a gumnut baby. He's very cute! (That's him talking to the possum!)



There are lots of dangerous creatures in the Australian bush, and something terrible happened to Nittersing when he was very small - he was kidnapped by Red Eye, the Banksia Man Chief and taken to live with the bad Banksia men tribe. (They're very scary looking, aren't they?)


Luckily, even though all the little bush creatures were afraid of the Banksia Men a very brave young Nut called Nuttybub and his friend Mr Lizard rescued Nittersing (after all of them had lots and lots of adventures!!)

We've been celebrating Bec's mum's birthday this weekend. Last night we had a small birthday party for her. We had a cake (with star sparklers!). The cake was a sponge with lots of cream, strawberries, kiwi fruit and passion fruit on it. Bec says that the top was like a special Australian cake called a "Pavlova" but usually a Pavlova has a meringue bottom instead of a sponge.





                                            ~~~~~~~~~~

This morning we all helped Bec make her special pancakes for her mum to have for breakfast. We couldn't do it yesterday because Bec had to go to work! It was lots of fun cooking the pancakes. I took turns with Boone Racoonand Mei. My jobs were to carefully measure out the flour,


and then help Bec mix in the eggs.


Then Bec cooked them in the fry pan.


You have to make sure that the fry pan is very hot  before you can put the batter in so us ToyVoyagers weren't allowed to help with the pan. But look, Bec even made ToyVoyager sized pancakes for our breakfast too!



YUM!!



The big surprise plane trip is tomorrow - as long as the weather is nice! and I'll tell you all about it as soon as I can!

We went to a Spring Fair today. It was held by the Lions Club to raise money for charity. It was a a lot of fun. They had rides

and craft and food stalls

as well as showbags, dance performances, vintage cars and the emergency services.

It was such a warm day we just had to have Snow Cones. Have you seen these before? It's shaved ice with cordial poured on it. The green ones are lime and very yummy!!


What was the most fun to watch though was the Bubble Man. He had a long rope that he put in a bucket of bubble mix and when he held the rope up in the air and pulled the two ends apart he made huge bubbles just from the wind blowing!! Look at how big they are!

We went flying today in the littlest plane I think I've ever seen! Remember we told you that Bec's mum was getting a plane ride for her birthday? We all went with her! It was a little bit scary at first. The plane was so tiny - it only had 4 seats. One for the pilot named Phillip, and 3 for the passengers. Look - its called a Piper Comanche. To get into the plane we all had to climb up on the wing and slide in the door. It was a bit tricky!!


We got to see lots of Sydney from the plane. It was so cool!


We flew all over Sydney Harbour and got to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House and all the tall skyscrapers from the air.

(Boone Racoon and Mei have more photos on their pages, and Bec's uploaded them to her MySpace page.)
We even flew right over the top of the zoo! Elephants look funny from the sky. We tried taking a photo, but the wing of the plane got in the way, so you'll just have to believe us!

Here I am looking at one of the rivers called Pittwater. It was very pretty (sorry the wing's in the way!!)


We were so excited on the flight. Do you know we could even hear the pilot talking to the air control tower because we were all wearing headphones, just like the pilot! It was very interesting! We were wondering though if this makes us (and Boone & Beak and Mei) the first ToyVoyagers to fly in a light plane??

I went into the city today on a ToyVoyager expedition with (Playmo)Bill, Boone Racoon, Mei and Alpina- who is staying with Bec's sister at the moment!
Our first stop was the city shops in the CBD so Alpina could check out the fashions.

One of our first stops was Pitt Street Mall. It is Sydney's main shopping street and one of Australia's busiest and most cosmopolitan shopping areas. In it you see a mix of modern skyscrapers and heritage buildings. One of these heritage buildings is the Strand Arcade. It opened in 1892 and is the only Victorian arcade in Sydney that is in it's original form. Look at the beautiful stained glass windows in the stairwells!

The flowers in the centre are called Waratahs - the floral emblem of New South Wales.

We couldn't afford to buy anything from the stores in here, as they are mainly designer stores, so after a little look around and some window shopping for Alpina we moved on to get some lunch someplace else!

After lunch we continued our sightseeing expedition and stopped to have a look at the flowers in Martin Place.
Martin Place is surrounded by many heritage buildings and it is very popular at lunchtime, often crowded with office workers and bicycle couriers. Sydney's largest Christmas tree stands in Martin Place every year. A Christmas concert is held in late November, when the tree is decorated.

Martin Place is also the home of The ANZAC Cenotaph, commemorating the soldiers ("Diggers" ) who fought in World War One and all wars since. An ANZAC Day dawn service is held at the cenotaph every year on 25 April.


Continuing on our tour, we walked down George St towards the Harbour and Circular Quay, where we came across this interesting water feature (one our hosts / tour guides had never noticed before, seeing as they don't usually come to this side of Circular Quay station!) It marks where The Tank Stream once flowed. In the earliest days of White Settlement in Australia, the tank stream provided the colony with fresh water - until it was turned pretty much into an open sewer! To protect the settlers, Tank Stream was covered and now can't be seen at all.
The sculpture included images of the many animals that might have once been found living here:
lizards


and a platypus


and frilled neck lizards, snakes, an echidna, a gecko and a goanna (as well as ants - luckily they couldn't bite, seeing as I was sitting right on them!)