In adjusting to the move to the Bay Area, one thing I discovered was that I could no longer maintain my old internet service provider, which means that I have to terminate my personal sbcglobal.net email account. As I have been looking through the emails in this account, and cleaning up, I found one e-mail I wrote about the trip Michael and I took to Australia in December 2005. And I was thinking - ah, if only I had a blog then. So here is the report on our trip to Australia...
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Before I left for Australia, I was told that "I seemed to work only to finance my travels around the world." I now have an eloquent answer to that - "a man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world." I assume that Santayana would not mind to include women as well. Besides, in order to "survey the world", one has to go there!
Australia was indeed exciting, but it was neither foreign nor exotic. I found myself constantly comparing Australia to the United States, Canada or Britain, for it does resemble these countries in various aspects. Sometimes I even had a sense of deja vu. Sydney is a clean, beautiful and modern city. One can take a ferry from the downtown area (circular quay) to different parts of Sydney, such as Manly Beach, Watsons Bay, Rose Bay, etc, all of which offer breathtaking views of beaches or cliffs. While there are plenty of modern skyscrapers in the city center, the more suburban area looks like England with red brick houses and well-groomed and luscious gardens. Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney is one of the many gardens/public parks in Sydney. Unlike Central Park in New York, which is truly a green oasis in an otherwise concrete city, the gardens in Sydney are naturally spread throughout the city, and there is nothing artificial about them. With 4 million people living in Sydney, it feels like a quiet city overall, and a rather homogenous one in terms of demographics. I did not see any blacks or hispanics (even including tourists!) for the first day or two. The Chinese make up the biggest miniority (5%) in Sydney, followed by Arabs at 4%. Besides Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge, there are a lot of second-tier tourist attractions in Sydney, including The Rocks (the historic part of Sydney - but it is not that historic), the aquarium (they have some unique Australian sea creatures such as the platypus but otherwise it's not that unique), the cathedrals/churches (if one has seen some in France and Italy, there's probably no compelling reason to visit the ones in Sydney), and Art Gallery of New South Wales (arguably the best art gallery in Sydney, but nothing compared to the Met, the MFA or Musee d'Orsay). At the Art Gallery, there were lots of kids in school uniforms on field trips. Most school kids in Sydney wear uniforms, which I think is a good idea. It alleviates unnecessary peer pressure. I have to say that I do wonder about the wisdom of exposing kids to some of these incomprehensible modern art exhibitions (e.g. pictures of rather grotesque-looking naked people looking as if they were engaged in some sado-masochist acts). When I heard a kid saying "I like that one", I turned around to see him pointing to an oil painting titled "Faust's First Sight of Marguerite". I don't think the teacher bothered to explain the painting though!
Before I left for Australia, I was told that "I seemed to work only to finance my travels around the world." I now have an eloquent answer to that - "a man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world." I assume that Santayana would not mind to include women as well. Besides, in order to "survey the world", one has to go there!
Australia was indeed exciting, but it was neither foreign nor exotic. I found myself constantly comparing Australia to the United States, Canada or Britain, for it does resemble these countries in various aspects. Sometimes I even had a sense of deja vu. Sydney is a clean, beautiful and modern city. One can take a ferry from the downtown area (circular quay) to different parts of Sydney, such as Manly Beach, Watsons Bay, Rose Bay, etc, all of which offer breathtaking views of beaches or cliffs. While there are plenty of modern skyscrapers in the city center, the more suburban area looks like England with red brick houses and well-groomed and luscious gardens. Royal Botanical Garden in Sydney is one of the many gardens/public parks in Sydney. Unlike Central Park in New York, which is truly a green oasis in an otherwise concrete city, the gardens in Sydney are naturally spread throughout the city, and there is nothing artificial about them. With 4 million people living in Sydney, it feels like a quiet city overall, and a rather homogenous one in terms of demographics. I did not see any blacks or hispanics (even including tourists!) for the first day or two. The Chinese make up the biggest miniority (5%) in Sydney, followed by Arabs at 4%. Besides Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge, there are a lot of second-tier tourist attractions in Sydney, including The Rocks (the historic part of Sydney - but it is not that historic), the aquarium (they have some unique Australian sea creatures such as the platypus but otherwise it's not that unique), the cathedrals/churches (if one has seen some in France and Italy, there's probably no compelling reason to visit the ones in Sydney), and Art Gallery of New South Wales (arguably the best art gallery in Sydney, but nothing compared to the Met, the MFA or Musee d'Orsay). At the Art Gallery, there were lots of kids in school uniforms on field trips. Most school kids in Sydney wear uniforms, which I think is a good idea. It alleviates unnecessary peer pressure. I have to say that I do wonder about the wisdom of exposing kids to some of these incomprehensible modern art exhibitions (e.g. pictures of rather grotesque-looking naked people looking as if they were engaged in some sado-masochist acts). When I heard a kid saying "I like that one", I turned around to see him pointing to an oil painting titled "Faust's First Sight of Marguerite". I don't think the teacher bothered to explain the painting though!
I have heard people describing Sydney as a more urban and sophisticated San Diego or a cleaner and more beautiful Los Angeles, and Melbourne as an Australian version of San Francisco. Melbourne is older, colder, wetter, and considered more cultured than Sydney. Ironically, our days in Melbourne were both sunny, and it was in Sydney that we had to endure a few thunderstorms. But I do see why people compare Melbourne to San Francisco - it even has the same trolleys! While the Sydney population is predominantly Protestant, Melbourne has a large Irish Catholic population. The Melbourne Zoo is supposedly the oldest zoo in the world, and I must say that even the animals looked ancient!:)They were all sleeping when we visited! Queen Victoria Market was a lot of fun, where one can get fresh produce as well as cheap lunches. Overall, the food scene in Australia is not so impressive, as there is not really an Australian cuisine. - I had kangaroo and wallaby in some restaurants, and they tasted just like beef. But there are a lot of cafes everywhere, and they all serve great coffee. Cafes are for people to relax and chat, and Australia is a perfect country to do so. The shops all close very early every day. Since it was late November, a lot of stores have put up Christmas decorations. Instead of "Happy Holidays" greetings, I saw "Merry Christmas" everywhere. I see that they are not so much into political correctness in Australia.
The best part of the trip to Melbourne was driving down the Great Ocean Road, which offers truly spectacular views of the ocean and the countryside going south of Melbourne. With the endless rolling green hills dotted with white sheep on one side, and the aqua blue ocean on the other, it was a memorable drive. These rock formations by the cliffs were very impressive, and they formed caves and generated waves of enormous magnitude. Michael did all the driving, as I am not even a great driver driving on the right side of the road. While we did not make any mistakes, we were rear-ended by two reckless teenage boys in a small town driving a really ancient car. These boys were friendly but irresponsible. The driver said that he had to get somewhere so he drove off, leaving the passenger boy waiting with us for the police. When we asked him for the driver's phone number, he said that he did not know, for "he was just a mate." - Michael felt like asking for a translation, but decided not to in the end.
Australia is famous for its white sand beaches, and most tourists go to the Gold Coast area around Brisbane, where there are lots of hotels and casinos and therefore lots of people. Our friend Tony and his wife Helen rented a condo in Kiama for the weekend, which is two hours south of Sydney. Our windows had a terrrific view of the seven-mile long white sand beach. When we drove into Kiama, it was already pretty late at night. It was a clear night, and I remember marvelling at the sky. It was truly the first time when I felt that the sky was literally raining stars! And there were so many of them glittering in the sky. They felt so close that one could almost reach out and touch them. An astronomer himself, Tony pointed out the Southern Cross to us, which can only be seen in the Southern Hemisphere. It is really hard for me to describe the sensation of seeing such a clear night sky with stars raining down. When one looks up to a sky like that, one could not help wondering if heaven were within one's reach. We saw kangaroos and wallabies hopping around in the forest, and some really strange animals. The water was not as warm as Hawaii or Puerto Rico though. While others went swimming, I read "Remains of the Day" on the beach. At Blue Mountains National Park, while the hikes at times were strenuous, it was overall very relaxing and quiet. In fact, there were so few people around that we once got lost on the way back up the mountain. At one spot called "the pulpit rock", one could get a 280 degree view of uninterrupted cliffs. It was a gorgeous view. We stayed at a beautiful Victorian B&B in a small town near Blue Mountains. In the sitting room, they have a lot of DVDs. So we watched "In the name of the rose" based on Umberto Eco's novel, which was kind of freaky. I can see that it must have had some influence on Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code".
I loved the trip, but when asked whether I wanted to live in Australia or not, the answer from me was an adamant no. It is a huge country, but it feels very isolated from the rest of the world. If you turn on the news, you will see that the top stories are about some Australian traveler got caught trafficking drugs in Singapore, or some elderly woman barely escaping from a fire. The top federal tax rate of 49% applies to an annual income of A$125,000 and above, which really is not much considering that things are not any cheaper than in the US. It is an extremely family friendly country, and there are huge tax incentives for families with kids.
We did not have time to go to the aboriginal country, and I have never been a fan of the desert anyways. I was thinking about how to describe the Australia I saw. Fortunately, there is a poem about Australia that has done exactly that - Dorothea McKellar so accurately portrays the Australia in my memory.
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My Country
by Dorothea McKellar
a poem about Australia
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
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