Ella, Lauren, Kate, Josh and Gavin

Australia was great.  We even appreciated some of the lesser-noticed wonders of the city like clean (and frequent) public bathrooms, sidewalks (and they weren’t even broken!), traffic signals that everyone follows, “jacket-weather”, Target, Toys R Us, and food at the grocery store that I not only recognized, but I also knew how to eat!

I also didn’t realize how much I’ve missed being invisible.  In Sydney, no one asked for photos, wanted to touch the kids, in fact no one even gave us a second glance.  I’m thinking that Australia could use a new tourism marketing campaign that goes something like this: “Australia; Where People Don’t Really Think You’re All That Interesting.”

So now comes the task of blogging about the trip.  This will be the first in a series of three or four Australia posts.

We flew Singapore Air, which was great.  And our layover was in… you’ll never guess… Singapore!  The Changi airport is probably the best I’ve ever seen.  They have lounge chairs all over, big screen TVs, a movie theater, a butterfly garden, tons of beautiful indoor landscaping, free internet, free PS3 and X-Box stations, tons of shopping, and much more.  I highly recommend it for a layover if you are ever traveling in Southern Asia.

The kids did a bang up job on our journey.  The airplanes are always outfitted with on-demand movies and video games, which doesn’t hurt.  And the flight attendants are constantly bringing food and drinks and little toys for the kids.  Here are the pictures of our travels to and from Australia.