I’m back from Australia and into my new appt. I’m still not fully un-pack. I have been writting in my journal I just have not had the time to upload it yet. As soon as I’m fully movied in I’ll catch my on-line journal up. It should be atleast by say… Sunday. Sorry for the delay.
By The Way. I have a supprise for you. I’m hoping you all will like.
This is my last day so I just spent my time revisiting my favorite places. I went to the beach, the park, walked up the coast of the river, and in general got my last feeling for wide open spaces. It was nice getting to see a horizon for a change. (In Tokyo there are too many building for you to see a horizon) Nice last day. The taxi driver on the way to the airport was an interesting guy. He was a retired truck driver and was helping out his son who owned the taxi. He was telling me about some of the fares he’s had. This man seems to have lead an interesting life. Jumped on the plane and went home.
I went to the zoo today. They have a really cool zoo here. Lots of space and the animals seem to have a very good clean environment. I didn’t feel sorry for them like I did at the Kyoto zoo. Got to see all the weird Australian animals. My favorite were the large Kangaroos. They just looked funny the way they hung out.
I rented a bike for the weekend. I figure I may just putter around here today and go start off on a 2 day trip tomorrow. I head down the cost. Within the first 20 min the seat got real uncomfortable. It as a hard racing seat and it was at a real unconformable angle. I can’t imagine how a guy could sit down and not hurt himself. A few time I did. So the rest of the day I had to peddle standing up. I followed the coastline for about 35k. along the way I saw some sand dunes and I wanted to see what was on the other side so I went off the trail. Just incase you don’t know, bikes are really really hard to peddle in sand. I just traveled about 35k in a few hours and I worked harder in 100 yards on the sand.
I went maybe 1 or 2k back through the sand and I came across a bike track out in the middle of know where. There were two kids on bikes doing the jumps so I went over and watched for a little while. One of the kids (maybe 18 years old) did a complete summersault on one of the dirt ramps. I told him that was impressive and he told me he has to be. He was on the pro-bike tour. So I got to watch a pro-biker practice for an up coming competition.
Anyway except for having to stand up on my peddles the whole time it was a real nice trip.
I got back to my hotel about 5 or 6, cleaned up and met a lady for dinner. I originally met this lady on the train a few days ago. We started talking and she found out I as from the US. She asked if we could get together some time to talk.
She was a very interesting person to talk with. She worked at a college as a Psychologist. She was also very into Astrology. I find that to be a very interesting and odd combination. A psychologist that believes our personalities are preordained by the placement of the stairs when we were born.
I went out for drinks with some of the girls I spent New Years Eve with. They invited me to catch with them at a bar were a lot of people meet after work for drinks. I got to meet a lot of people and talk with them for a while. After that we went to a night club for dancing. That was a lot of fun. Two of the girls I was with even danced on the bar
This morning, on the way to work I saw an odd sight. Have you ever heard the joke about why the chicken crossed the road? Well as I was walking to work, I saw a bird standing at the edge of the street. As I watched, the bird looked both ways, waited for a car to pass, then walked across the street.
Remember the old Disney movies where they have live animals doing stuff. They dub in words as if they were human. This bird seemed straight out of one of these movies. It was so odd I stopped and just watched this bird. It got to the other side and stood by a light pole. It just stood there watching me watch it. I finally just turned and went to work. So I guess I will not be able to answer the age old question.
Went out for a walk after work. I wanted to go to the west side to see the sunset again. On my way there I got to the south shoreline. The wind picked up and it was cold. The wind felt like a constant 10-15 miles/hr. I kept walking but, within 200 yards I was too cold to enjoy myself, and the wind was gusting up to what felt like maybe 30m/hr. It was enough to push me around (you had to lean into it to walk thru it). I had to turn around and head back into town. During the day it was about 80-90 degrees and still. The weather here changes even more than Cincinnati weather. I guess that is to be expected, there is nothing between here and the ant-arctic.
Went for a walk along shoreline other direction. Walked maybe 5 or 6 miles. Except for the flies it was a very nice walk. Incredible sunset.
I bought a pop from the pop machine today. The interesting thing was that I think the change I used to buy the pop was heavier than the pop itself. Their change here is really big. The fifty cent coin seems over twice as big as our quarter and a lot heavier.
Their 20 cent coin is almost as big as their 20 cent coin. If I’m not careful about using up coins as much as I can, by the end of the day my paints are falling down from the weight.
Hung out in the park next to the docks. Went to bed early.
Well I’m headed into downtown Melbourne to some big market. I have know idea where it is but I figured I would find it some how. I get on the train to downtown. After I get settled in there was this family that got on at the next station. An Sr couple (grand parents), a middle aged couple (Mom and Dad), a young couple(son & daughter) and two kids (the kids).
One of them made eye contact with me. (Big mistake) That was an invitation for me to start talking with them. So I did. I asked them where this market was. The mom said that they were headed there and that I could follow them. So we chatted for a bit. The train finally stopped and we got off.
The mom asked if I minded if they could go to another place before the market. I said anything was fine with me. It turns out the dad worked heavy equipment for construction. He was a crane operator for a new building in down town and they wanted to show the grandparents the building.
The building as interested. It was a real modern art type building. It seems a lot of Melbourne people dislike the new building because it does not fit in with the architecture of the rest of downtown. I don’t know about matching architecture or the art value of the building, I can’t even match my shirt to my pants, but the geometry of the building was really cool. The building seemed to change as you walked past it. Hard to explain but really cool.
The dad was explaining all about the building process and all the things it took to build it. It as great. I had a guided tour by one of the guys that built it.
After that they lead me to the market. Once we got there they decided to get a coffee and asked me to join them. I declined and thanked them very much for all of their hospitality and headed on to the market.
The market was an open air market where you could get all kind of interesting things. There was a lot of art and some interesting woodworking pieces. There were also a few street performers.
I think I saw about 4 or 5 performers. 1 was really good, 1 was pretty good and the others were pretty bad. Several of the performers made jokes about Americans. The really good one also made a joke about Americans so I thought I would have a little fun. After his joke I said “HEY NOW!” rather loudly. Everyone thought that was really funny. The rest of the show he kept referring to me. It was a lot of fun.
While I was knocking around the market I meet several people. About 1 out of every 5 or 6 people I had a conversation with really got excited when they found out I was from the US. They would go on and on about how much they liked US and Americans. How they wanted to go there or go back. The first time it happened I just though to myself “Well, he was an excitable guy!”. The second time I thought how odd. The third time just confused me. I’m still trying to figure this one out.
Later on that day I ran into the family again. They were headed home and asked if I wanted to join them. I really wanted to say yes but the grandparents were in from UK for just a little while and they all don’t get to see each other much so I thought I would let them visit without me taking center stage.
After I left the market I stumbled onto a free concert in the park so I hung out for a while. It was a lot of fun and the music was pretty good.
