I thought to just drop a quick note before we wrap up the day. The flight to Brisbane was very short and sweet and they offered fresh apple on the airplane for snacks, which I thought was pretty cool and very healthy. All of us arrived safely and met Chris (and Albert's host family) at the Brisbane airport, and the first question the kids asked Chris was "is tomorrow's workout hard?". Hum... I hope they are ready. The city looks very different from Sydney and seems to have more forests in its suburb areas. The weather, again, was exceptionally warm. Chris said that it was supposed to rain in the afternoon, but I guess we brought the sunshine with us one more time to Brisbane.
On the way to the Aquatic Center, Chris reminded everyone about the snakes, spiders, and kangaroos. He said that the big black spider is ok, but the small one with red stripe on its back is very dangerous. And I think he said that if we see a brown snake, we need to run the opposite direction as fast as we can. Oh boy, I hope I don't see any this, but I did spot a "snake hunter" guy going through the bushes on the side of the road. Kangaroos should be around the roads as well and we just need to pay attention to spot them. He also said that the house Zack and Jarrell stay in often have kangaroos visiting the backyard. How fun!
The drive from the airport to the Aquatic Center was not long at all. The facility is beautiful with an indoor training facility (one 50-m pool and one 25-m pool), a mini water park, few tennis courses, a beach volleyball field, a very big gym and other amenities. Truly wish that we could have a facility like that back home on the island. The kids then met their host families and got "adopted" at the pool. I met each one of them, swimmers and their parents, and they are all lovely people. I could also tell that they are just as excited as we are. Our Sun-shine kids were a bit shy to start but by dinner time they seemed to be doing just fine (based on their FB updates/communication). Michaela already tried and decided she doesn't like vegemite, and her host family had ice cream after dinner. Albert had a good dinner as well with ice cream as dessert. Oh well, perfect much for these two. Zack and Jarrell were already on Xbox Live by the time I was ready for my dinner, and Kenji was on FB chat with Albert.
A short funny story of how we still in process of adjusting the differences. Albert and I both made mistakes today (I did at the airport and he did at the pool while being picked up) that we went to the wrong side of the car without realizing the wheel is on the other side of what we have back home. I was waiting outside the door ready to jump into the car, and Albert just started to climb in until his hosting Dad asked if he would like to drive. We had a little laugh of ourselves and then took off for our hosting houses.
No picture at this time because we were too busy meeting everyone. Tomorrow morning is our first morning workout and I will take a picture of the kids' faces at 4:45 am. I have to get up at 4 am the latest because I live the farthest with a 30-min drive to the pool. Weight room first at 5 am and then swim to 7 am. Then Chris and I plan to bring the kids back to his house and might go on an excursion or do something together. I found a picture at Chris' house the very first members of then-called Jr. Warriors Swim Team (later became Sun-shine Aquatics in 2006 when I took over from Chris) and it just brought all the good memories (Tammy and Chris, remember your little Zack back in those days?). For those of you who don't know yet, Chris was the person who started the Jr. Warrior while we coached at UH and then after he returned to Australia, I took over and registered it officially as Sun-shine Aquatics. His wife Erin was the original fish-food lady in charge of all the snacks at every workout.
Anyway, everyone is already in bed as of 9:20 pm. Sweet dream to all of us and we will be ready for the early wake-up call. I will take pictures of our training sessions and post later during the day. Our greetings to all of you and good night.
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