The highlights of the day (or night) was the penguin parade. Just after sunset, hundreds and hundreds of penguins come ashore on Phillip Island to waddle to their burrows and have a penguin party. No, they don't come here to sleep. They actually sleep in the water for 4 minutes at a time as they float on the surface. Hence their camouflage white bellies (so they look like the sky to sharks and other predators below the water) and blue backs (so they look like water for predator birds above). They leave the water to socialize and party with their fellow penguins, and do some chores like fixing up their burrows or feeding their chicks.

The Little Penguins aka Blue Penguins aka Fairy Penguins are the smallest penguin on earth at just about a foot or 30 cm. They are so adorable and so cute when they waddle across the beach! It's an incredible sight to see and absolutely worth the long drive (or bus tour).

Now, not all penguins come ashore every day. The entire colony is about 40,000 penguins but any one penguin will stay in the water for up to 6 weeks at a time. That's why you never know how many penguins (or which penguins at that) will come ashore at night. The previous night they had 1240 penguins. Yes, there are actually two people whose job it is to count penguins every night. I do wonder if that has the same effect as counting sheep...

Anyway, the penguins gather just off the coast as the sun begins to set and then swim ashore as rafts (that's what you call the group of penguins in the water). Once they are ashore, the groups are called waddles (how cute!). These penguin groups are complete strangers, they don't know each other. Most of the time they start waddling to their burrows as soon as the bravest penguin takes the first step and the entire group will follow. But every now and then you have a group of not so brave penguins and they will just stand on the beach, not daring to waddle across. We had one of those groups and it was the cutest thing to see them take a step forward and then two steps back, chatting amongst themselves about who should go first. They made it eventually but it took them a long time.

Oce shore, they take the same path every time. Either the penguin highway (a smooth and flat pathway next to the human walkway) or the off road track on the other side. A fun story they told us: the human walkway at the old visitor center cut across the penguin highway, so every night, rangers would have to close the human walkway and open a fence multiple times a night to let the penguins pass. When they built a new visitor center to give the penguins more space, they build an underpass for the penguins, but the penguins would show up at the fence every night, waiting for the ranger to open the fence when they could literally waddle a few feet to their right and continue on on their own. The rangers kept opening the fence for a few months but then decided that if they keep doing that the penguins would never learn that there's an underpass. That was 7 years ago and apparently every now then penguins show up at the fence, wait for a few minutes, and then have a light bulb moment and waddle over to the underpass. Must have been a rough day at see for these little guys.

You are not allowed to take any pictures once the first raft comes ashore, so the close-up photos on the right are from the Gorge Wildlife Park. The ones on the beach are the first raft that came ashore, but take a look at this video here to get an idea of how cute this experience was.

The Australian Open is officially underway and I can finally check that one off of my bucket list!

They call this one the Happy Slam, and while I can't point to exactly what it is, I have to agree that it's the happiest I have been to. The atmosphere is just so joyful and happy, it's very different from the US Open or even Indian Wells. The French I've been too was a long time ago but I don't remember this way either. Maybe it's the fact that everyone is on summer holiday aka vacation in Australia right now? Or maybe it's because just like the United Cup in Sydney or the Adelaide tournament I went to, tickets come with free public transportation to and from the event so the fans just sit and relax rather than getting agitated in traffic and while trying to find parking? Or it could be the soothing Aboriginal music that's playing as you walk across the long bridge from the city entrance? I don't know which it is, but I do know it's a happy atmosphere.

The weather was perfect on day 1: A nice 27 degrees, mostly sunny with a few clouds passing through. They actually move the roof too so the fans in the north and south sections are always in the shade. We definitely appreciate that every much, thank you AO!

The matches I had tickets too couldn't have been any better.

I kicked off the AO with third row seats for the day and night session tickets on Rod Laver. I saw Coco Gauff win her match easily at 6:1, 6:4. Then Maria Sakkari entered the arena and won with the exact same score. I actually caught her serve too. It was deflected by Yuan's racquet, bounced off of the center camera, got deflected again by the person in front of me trying to catch it and then it landed on me. By the time I got it, the match had continued and even though I was waiting for a ball kid to look up for the ball after the ralley, they never did. So I kept it as a souvenir. Now I gotta find a frame for is somewhere :)

You know that time when the lottery is up to $1B, you buy a ticket and fantasize about what you would do with the money if you win? I felt like I won the lottery for a few days when I walked into my AirBnB in Southbank, Melbourne.

Take a look at that view from literally every square inch of the place. It's incredible. It's a corner unit, too so I have a roughly 180 degree view of the CBD aka downtown and the Melbourne skyline. The Yarra River is just a couple of blocks away and the Australian Open is a quick 20 min walk.

The absolute best view is from the master bedroom. How you are supposed to fall asleep or get out of the bed in the morning with that incredible view is beyond me. Quite frankly, it feels surreal walking into this place even three days into my stay. Today is a rainy day and I'm honestly perfectly happy just sitting on the bed and taking in that view for the last full day I have here in Australia.

This apartment is hands down the best grand finale for the most epic trip of my life.

Yes, I already had one entire post dedicated to buying beer in Australia. And here's another one, dedicated to one of the weirdest traffic rules I have come across: the hook turn.

Keep in mind that everything is backwards here since you drive on the left side in down under. So when I talk about turning right, it's really like turning left everywhere else in the world.

Just like Sydney and Adelaide, the public transportation system here in Melbourne is top notch. It's easy to get anywhere by bus or tram, it's reliable, clean and free (yes, free!) in the CBD, which is the downtown area. Did I mentioned that event tickets come with free public transportation to and from the event? Imagine the US or Germany adopting that...

Anyway, I mentioned this because the hook turn is a way to give trams the right of way and prevent right turning cars from blocking the tram tracks. The idea makes sense, but here's how the hook turn works: to turn right, you first get into the far left lane. No, that's not a typo, you drive in the far left lane to turn right. Then you drive into the intersection and pull over on the left (yes, you go even further left than the far left lane), basically blocking the cars in the cross traffic lane. You hang out there while the other cars and trams behind you pass you. You wait and wait until your light turns red and the cross traffic light turns green. That's when you make your right turn just as the cross traffic starts going straight right behind you.

Sounds complicated? Watch the video and see if you can figure it out. It was entertaining to watch, especially when there was someone who didn't know how it works and the locals got annoyed at the clearly non-Melbournians driving on their streets. I think I would rather make three left turns instead of one hook turn if I was driving here.

It feels like a lifetime ago when I got on the plane in OAK to depart on my adventure Down Under. And now it's time to say goodbye to Melbourne, to Australia, to Down Under and to a trip of a lifetime.

And what better way to say goodbye than to catch up with a formerly and now-again local. It's been ages since we worked together (or so it seems) but I'm glad I got to meet Michael in his old new home, Melbourne, for lunch. And thanks to Michael, I felt adventurous and tried kangaroo for lunch. Yes, it took a strong will to not think about the cute kangaroos and how they came hopping towards me, how they let me feed them. But I was assured that it's a sustainable and not an offense to serve kangaroo, and I almost hate to say it, but it tastes very good! Much leaner than steak, less fat. If I were to live in Australia, I think this would be part of my diet on a regular basis.

I'm glad I didn't leave without trying this. Just like Tim Tams, pure chocolate indulgence, and it's the originals for the win. Vegemite on the other hand, even in a tiny, tiny dose... yea I won't be missing that.

It doesn't happen very often that I visit a new country (or city for that matter) and get the feeling that I could live here. But that was definitely the case with Australia, and Sydney and Melbourne in particular. Maybe one day I get to live here, maybe not forever but for a few months at a time? Who knows, but I will definitely be back.

And so I waved goodbye to Melbourne on my flight to Sydney, and then waved goodbye (for now) to Australia as my plane took off at 9pm on Thursday... but befittingly for a trip of a lifetime, I got to relive Thursday one last time, because my flight would arrive in Honolulu just after 10am that same day. Read what it's like flying back in time.