I'm a little late in posting this...but we celebrated Megan's 29th (uhhhh, I mean 25th) birthday on October 10th at Three on Fourth. Am I a lucky sheep or what? Check me out with all the ladies!!! Dinner was fabulous as we listened to stories of canned corn, reminisced about Oregon and shared our juicy office gossip. 
We traveled to Port Douglas, the home of Steve Irwin...who sadly died only a couple days after we left. This was one of my favorite spots on our trip. It's a beautiful little town that reminded me a bit of a city in Orange County - maybe Laguna Beachish. We had a couple of great meals including one at the Jade Inn, and we picked this restaurant mainly because Bill Clinton ate there and figured if it was good enough for Bill it would be okay with us. 
Cafe Thailand is one of the best meals I've had in Australia. It was one of those lazy vacation days where you didn't plan anything and just kind of wondered the streets when we stumbled upon it. We were basically the only two people in the restaurant. Anyway, I had my usual Pad Thai and Monte ordered his favorite, Green Curry. We were both pleasantly surprised! Mmmmm, mmmm, goodness! After our meal we got gelato (of course!) and walked down to their shopping center and found Target. But it's "Target." not "Target" - does is matter that it has a period after the name? I was so excited thinking of all the interesting Australia products I could buy but it turned out to be more like really bad JC Penny's instead of Target. Oh well, at least my lunch was good!
We were enjoying a few beers at the local pub and the bartender suggested that we go to the Red Ochre Grill to try some real Australian mean (aka roos, emus and crocs). The thought of it made me naueous, these are afterall some of my friends. However, Monte and Miki were up for the adventure so I agreed to tag along. We couldn't even get a table without a reservation (which is odd in Carins because everything is pretty low-key unlike LA LA land), so we made a reservation for a couple nights later. We were looking forward to it since they had awards prominently displayed and it was always a full house. Ha! This place is sneaky-sneaky! We were sadly disappointed in our experience. 
Monte and Miki shared some craziness - emu pate, crocodile wontons and kangaroo with horseradish. I only wish I had a picture of their faces once they started chewing! Anyway, our suggestion is to stay with the norm. I devoured my 3 tiny pieces of salmon and udon noodles which actually wasn't bad (except of the exaggerated price). Basically, it was a lot of overpriced fou-fou strangeness. We were all still hungry and were contemplating McDonald's on the way back to the hotel (if that says anything), instead we got cheap massages from the Chinese at the night market. 
How can one go wrong at the "Chinese Garden of Friendship" in Darling Harbour? It's beautiful, serene and contains a lot of interesting rock formations (see Aunty Miki's picture). You can walk the garden at your own pace and can even purchase tasty treats that you'll receive at the end of the garden tour. 
