Australia Trip, Part 2

Right then, here is - finally - the second part of my vacation post. (first part)

I have covered most of the places I have been not nearly as detailed as they deserve, but I have always disliked being shown dozens of vacation pictures which show the exact same thing (from s lightly different angle), so, for each location, I picked the one picture I liked best and used that.)

The next place we went to after Uluru and Kings Canyon was Alice Springs. I am not quite sure what I expected, but it wasn't what we found. I realize that in the age of affordable air travel, even the remotest town in Australia is only one flight away, and as a result, the feel of emptiness, loneliness and whatever else one would associate with a town like Alice Springs are long gone. I do not want to be too harsh, the people there are certainly very nice and friendly (like everywhere else I have been in Australia), but the town itself was quite a disappointment. I should have known that a town like Alice Springs depends for most of its revenue on tourism (at least I cannot imagine any other significant source of income there), so the entire town centre is geared towards that. Now, ordinarily, I don't have a problem with that but we arrived in the off-season, which meant that the whole town seemed two sizes too big for the people in it, if you know what I mean. Since there was not much to do in Alice Springs itself, we walked to the old Telegraph Station  (which is basically what Alice Springs grew around), and it was interesting to imagine what it must have been like: Out in the (more or less) exact centre of what is quite possibly the most sparsely populated continent in the world, knowing that the next human habitation was thousands of kilometres (and probably weeks of travel) away.

This is the restored original telegraph desk:

One other impressive feature of Alice Springs was Anzac Hill (named after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps ), so called because of the war memorial on its summit:

I am quite happy how this picture turned out, even though the four metal plaques are unreadable (they refer to the two world wars, as well as the Korean and Vietnam Wars). I got up before sunrise so I could capture the sunrise on/over the Macdonnell Ranges (that's the mountain range in the background).

 This is what the panorama from Anzac hill looked like:

That view was quite impressive, especially since Anzac Hill is not that tall (I would imagine between 30-50 metres tall), which gives an impressionas to how flat this area is.

After Alice springs we went to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. I will probably get a lot of Flak for this, but I am not sure that the average person (i.e. everybody who is not an experienced diver) can truly appreciate it. True, it is possible to snorkle over the reef, or to look through a glass-bottom boat, but I am honestly not convinced that in doing that you will get a better view than you get on one of the countless Discovery-Channel or Natinal Geographic channel programs about the reef. As a diver, maybe, but as a snorkler or in the glass-bottom boat? I doubt it. The only advantage of actually being there over watching it on TV is, well, having been there, and I don't need to snorkel for that. I know, it sounds catastrohically stupid to have been on the Reef and not snorkled along/over/next to it, but to be perfectly honest, I was never much of a water-person.

From the Barrier Reef, we continued on to Sydney, and that was a revelation - not that I don't like nature, but after two weeks in basically the middle of nowhere, it was nice to be back in civilization. One thing that immediately struck me was how familiar Sydney felt to me, even though I had never been there before. It reminded me so much of Manhattan, it is hard to explain, especially since, apart from the tall buildings, it is nothing like Manhattan - the streets are not in a grid pattern, it is not an island surrounded by rivers, it is (or at least seems) far less crowded than Manhattan, but still, I somehow felt almost at home there.

I was not sure if i should actually take pictures of the Opera, considering that it is the most photographed building in the world and some of these pictures are bound to be light years better than mine, but I decided to ignore that fact, and snap a few anyway:

We also took a tour of the Opera House, and I was happy we did, because there were some interesting facts and  some very funny stories; one of which in particular stuck in my mind:

Apparently the ushers of the Sydney Opera House are notorious for their refusal to let people in once the Opera has started. And it does not seem to matter in the least who the locked-out person is. There is one case, where the usher refused to let President Bush (senior) in, because he was ten minutes late, and another, even funnier one, where it was decided that the main actor for the Opera Cesar was going to enter through the main entrance instead of the stage entrance. Unfortunately, nobody had bothered to inform the ushers, so they promptly refused to let the (fully costumed) main actor into the Opera! (the situation was resolved when the actor ran to another entrance where he happened to know the usher who let him in)

Another part of Sydneys cityscape I just had to see was Circular Quay, since that is basically where modern Australia was started with the arrival of the first fleet. Hard to imagine that this busy part of Sydney was once the landing site of a fleet of convict ships who (unwillingly) laid the foundation for a country that today boasts one of the highest standards of living in the world.

After Sydney, we went to Melbourne, the last stop on our trip....I was not impressed. Now, I will concede that my dislike for Melbourne had probably less to do with the city itself and more with the circumstances of our stay (when we arrived, it was a gloomy, overcast, drizzly, and overall depressing day; the hotel we had booked was in a (relatively) empty, deserted part of town, which turned absolutely desolate at night; and it was the end of our 3-week journey and I was sick of travelling and just wanted to go home).

One of my colleagues who has lived in Melbourne for several years has since told me that my opinion of Melbourne was very unfair, but be that as it may, at the time I could not be bothered to take any pictures of it. I may go back there one day to find "the other" Melbourne, but right now, my priorities lie elsewhere (Kuala Lumpur, here I come!!)

Going places

After my mess-up in America ("I don't need to travel right now, there's always time later on".... yeah, right), I decided not to make the same bone-headed mistake again, and travel as much as possible (and practical) while I am down here. I'm not planning to leave Australia at this point, but I didn't exactly plan to leave the US, either - one month (literally!) later, I was on a plane to Perth, leaving the US for good (I'll probably go back there, but most likely only as a visitor - then again, who knows? Certainly not me...) .

First step is Kuala Lumpur next month. This one is easy (relatively speaking), since I have a colleague/friend who lived there for 6 years and volunteered to come along and show me around, I am definitely looking forward to it. I have two colleagues from Malaysia who recommended some malay dishes I have to try - can't wait. I already decided that I want to visit all the major Asian metropolises - Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Bejing, (possibly) Shanghai...maybe more, but these should keep my travel schedule busy for quite a while.

Maybe I visit one of these cities during this year's Christmas break, since I won't be going to Germany - who knows?

...at least I don't have time to do stupid things

Holy Canoli, have I been busy the last couple of weeks! I wanted to post the second part of my travel post, but no luck. On top of that, today was probably one of the most annoying, vile days I have had at work for a very long time - in fact, I cannot remember a day that was more messed up; and since I am on call for another 4 nights, there is plenty of potential to get worse :-p

Anyway, just posting something so that people don't think I have abandoned this blog (yet again)....as a parting gift of sorts, this is what a sunrise over the barrier reef looks like:

Finally a trip that had nothing to do with work!!!

Alright, after over a year of radio silence, I finally managed to once again pick up this blog.

So, after over a month since my 3-week trip around Australia, I started looking at the pictures I took and sorting out the crap from the slightly-less-crap. Several things became painfully obvious when I looked at the pictures on my PC:

1. I may have bought a really nice DSLR, (Canon EOS 550D), but, unfortunately, now the camera is lightyears better than the skill of its operator.
2. As nice as the screen on the camera is, it is utterly useless to determine whether a shot is in focus or not, or whether it is slightly over/underexposed.
3. You can never, ever, EVER take too many pictures of any given motif (especially with a Digital Camera). Case in point: I took about 15 pictures of the Sydney Harbor Bridge at night, and all but the last one of them were either out of focus, or jittery, or both. Now, this is not to say that the last picture was perfect, but rather that it is the least crappy out of the lot: 

(now before you think "Oh shut up, there's nothing wrong with that picture", click on it and see the difference...)

Anyway, I have made a number of pictures, and while they are not the greatest pictures ever made, they should give at least something of an impression of the places I have been to.

First (and probably most famous), there is Uluru:

during the day...

...and at sunset (from a different angle - the "narrow" side)

If you look very closely at the second picture (and have a lot of imgination ;-) ), you can just make out the footpath that leads up Uluru.

From Uluru we went to King's Canyon, which - as the name implies - is a Canyon roughly 50 km north of Uluru (330 by road). The road to King's Canyon (and later from there to Alice Springs) gave a very good impression of the loneliness of the outback:

The above picture is basically what we saw most of the time. I have never ever in my life seen roads that are as staright and as deserted as these. Going from Uluru to King's canyon and then on to Alice Springs, we drove about 700 kilometres, and saw a grand total of 11(!) cars. Now, keep in mind that the road between Alice Springs and Uluru is relatively busy due to Tourists going back and forth, otherwise, we would have probably seen no cars at all... The funny thing is, if you look at Uluru and Alice Springs on a map, they seem right next to each other. The distances in this country are so vast, they boggle the mind. Australia is actually home to the longest stretch of perfectly straight road in the world, a 400-kilometre-section of highway between Adelaide in South Australia, and Perth on the West Coast, some 2000 kilometres away. Or, as an Australian said:" You may think you know some lengthy roads, but this is long with a vengeance."

Anyway, back to the show.

The other interesting thing about Australia is that to help with the exploration of the outback in the 19th century, the Ozzies imported a bunch of Afghan camels and their camel drivers (if you can't see the connection to the above picture, click on it, and all will be revealed ;-) ). After they had done their job, the camel drivers went back to Afghanistan, but didn't bother to take their camels. Now, 150 years later, Australia is home to more wild camels than any other country on earth!

Once we arrived at King's Canyon, we went for a 3-hour walk along the rim of the canyon along a very well-made footpath:

One thing that really impressed me was the almost perfect balance the people who built and maintain this footpath have struck between convenience/safety and preservation: It seems they have taken great care to create the footpath out of as much natural material as possible, using as little concrete as possible. And, wherever they had to use concrete, they tried to make it as "natural" and as inconspicuous as possible. In general, they seemed to have made an effort to leave the Canyon as untouched by human hands as possible, while still making it reasonably safe.

From the top of the canyon, we had a breathtaking view out of the mouth of the canyon into the flat, barren outback, which gave us another impression as to the vastness of this land:



To be coninued

Second Bermuda Triangle in the Pacific?

So, my moving container was supposed to arrive in Australia the day before yesterday, but apparently, the ship is delayed by 7 days. It isn't a big deal and I am not familiar with the operation of a ship, but how can a ship suddenly be late? And when I say suddenly I mean that, apparently, the captain - who has been at sea for four weeks at that point - only finds out about a 1-week delay two days before the scheduled arrival date. Being completely unfamiliar with maritime navigation, I assume that you know your starting point, you know your end point, the distance between the two and your average speed - should be pretty straightforward to figure out how long it takes (give or take a day or two). And, failing that, it should be possible to figure out any possible changes in the arrival date way ahead of time.

As I said, it's not a big deal, I'm mostly just curious as to the inner workings of the shipping industry.

On a more annoying note, this means that I have to spend at least another seven days on the air mattress - I am so sick of it by now (it's been over 3 weeks), I can't wait to sleep in a REAL bed again - not to mention the fact that my apartment is still essentially empty, and the emptiness and echo are starting to get really old.

At least I finally got my driver's license and a credit card (applying for them required documents I received only recently - namely, a printed payslip and a utility bill) - well, technically, I don't have either yet, but I have a temporary license and an approval-note from the credit card issuer, so in a couple of days, I should have both, taking one more step back towards normality. I also submitted a lease-application for a car, so hopefully, in a week or two, I will have my own set of wheels again...

One step at a time (and other blunders)

Booya!!

I finally got an apartment...unbelievable how hard it is to get an apartment in Australia - or maybe I just suck at apartment-hunting? Either way, I now have a place again. I actually got more than a bit concerned, since the one month of company-paid temporary accomodations was about to end (after which it would have gotten very pricy very fast), so I applied for the first apartment I looked at after I got rejected the last time. Surprise, suprise, I got accepted - now I have an apartment that is quite a bit more expensive than I had planned, but also quite a bit nicer - and it is also in Perth. For those of you who don't know what that means: Even though Perth is usually listed as having 1.6 million people and occupying 5382 sq. km, these numbers are actually referring to "greater Perth", i.e. Perth and all its Suburbs; Perth itself is much, much smaller - essentially only the Central Business District (CBD), which is the Ozzy-equivalent of the American "downtown". So now I am not only very close to the center of Perth, but also only 15 minutes away from work - and all "by accident".

Naturally, as always, there is a fly in the ointment: The apartment does not seem to have air conditioning (or I am really, REALLY blind!) ; at this point I assume that the A/C has not been installed yet (the building is brand new and only opened recently; there is actually still small-scale construction going on in some parts of the building) - otherwise, the summer is going to get extremely toasty ;-)
It's also missing most of the appliances (basically, it only has an oven and a drier right now), but we'll see if there is more stuff to come or if I have to buy the rest myself (wouldn't be a problem, even though I am not keen on it)

Unfortunately, since my stuff from the US of A is still floating on the Pacific somewhere, I still can't put up pictures as of yet, so hold your horses! (especially you, Chris ;-p )

Oh, and I now have a suspicion why I might have been denied for the other apartment: There is one particular question in the (pretty detailed) questionnaire: "Are you a smoker?" with the words "Yes" and "No" next to them (just the words, no checkboxes). Naturally (being mostly a non-smoker), I marked "No". I didn't realize at the time that this could also have been interpreted as me crossing out "No", essentially answering "Yes". I only realized this problem when I applied for my current apartment and the lady at the real estate agency checked the application and verified my answer with me. In my opinion, it would be extremely easy to prevent this from happening by putting small checkboxes next to each answer. But I guess the moral of the story is: If you fill out a form, make absolutely sure that your choices cannot possibly be misinterpreted.

My home is my castle....

....unfortunately, I nave neither right now - I'm still living in temporary housing arranged by my employer, and while I definitely appreciate not having to pay for my accomodations right no0w, I cannot wait to get back into a place I can call "home". Fortunately, I have applied for an apartment and with some luck, I should get approved by Monday or Tuesday.

Even though I went through the exact same experience when I moved to the US 8 years ago, I had completely forgotten how many of the daily comforts we enjoy in the "western" world are contingent on having a permanent address - the ability to get decent TV channels (Hotel TV channels are bearable, but nowhere near decent), a personal cell/mobile phone, a car that is not a rental, not to mention cheap Internet-access, all those require some "proof-of-address", or, in other words, a utility bill.

Well, hopefully, after next week, I'll have my own place again, and can start to get back all those little amenities we all depend on far more than most of us are willing to admit...