The Hook Turn

Hook turn (driving on left-hand side of road).

The “hook turn” is a (legal) driving maneuver that seems to be unique to Melbourne.

This description is changed to North American (ie. driving on right-hand side of the road) driving:

Let’s say you want to make a left turn, at an intersection. To do so, you would: start in the rightmost lane; drive into the intersection, and pull far to the right; stop in front of the cars that are waiting at the red light; wait until your light turns amber (or red), and then turn left.

In effect, you are lining up in front of the cross-traffic that is waiting at a red light. When their light goes green, you go.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve here. The city is supposed to have two fireworks shows and a bunch of stuff set up along the riverfront and docklands, which is all right by the hostel where I am staying.

On January 2, I will be picking up another campervan, and driving to Brisbane. That will be the final leg of my Australia travels.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Melbourne Museum and Zoo

Getting back into tourist mode, I visited the Melbourne Museum yesterday, and the zoo today. Both are pretty good.

The museum featured a number of different exhibits. One of the most interesting was about “evolution”. Amazingly, they are able to cover the topic without being distracted by “alternate” views from religious fanatics! (Similarly, “global warming” and man’s contribution to it does not garner any controversy, just calls for “let’s start doing something about it.”)

The zoo has some of the Australian critters, such as koalas and quokkas, that I am unlikely to see in the wild. They also have lots of kangaroos and emus, but those are easy to see, once you are out of the populated areas. The zoo does not have a Perentie Giant Lizard, however!

The koala just sits in a tree and sleeps.

The zoo has critters from other places, too. The Orangutan and Gorilla habitats are nice. Here is a very active young ape, playing with an adult:

There is also a nice butterfly enclosure, I heard some lions having a roaring contest, and there were some “small cats” that I hadn’t heard of before.

The trendy critter of the day

The Melbourne tram system seems very nice. I got to the zoo on one tram, which stopped right by an entrance. The trams get their own special lanes, and there are plenty of trams. Also, for slightly less than the cost of a return fare, you get a “day pass”, good for unlimited riding (across the number of “zones” you have paid for).

Canberra

I am in Melbourne now, but I spent Christmas in Canberra.

View from War Memorial to Canberra centre.

Canberra is the capitol of Australia. It is not in any of the states of Australia. It is in a special region called the Australian Capitol Territory. In that regard it is like Washington D.C.

Also, like D.C., Canberra is a “planned city”. As I discovered, that means that Canberra is very unfriendly to pedestrians!

Canberra hosts a number of museums and monuments. The map I had did not give a good sense of scale, so it appeared that some places were in a reasonable walking distance from my hotel. However, I discovered that the distances are quite far. I also discovered that the whole museum area is quite dead on a Saturday, and there are no services like restaurants around them.

I went to the War Museum on Saturday morning, and it was very nice. Before lunch, I figured I could stroll to an area that has a number of museums and art galleries, get some lunch, and look at some of the places. However, after a long trudge, I reached the area I was headed to, and discovered that it is just buildings and parking lots, and it looked very desolate. I was getting very hungry! I decided to just hop on a bus back towards my hotel, and the nearby shopping area, and forget about the “central” area! It just didn’t look like it was worth the effort of getting to it.

What is it about planned cities – like Canberra and the Pudong region of Shanghai – that makes them so awful?! Whatever parameters the “planners” are trying to optimize seem to be the wrong ones. The places seem to end up looking pretty, but being very impractical and unlivable spaces.

I stayed in an “apartment hotel” in Canberra. It had a small kitchenette. This was very nice for Christmas, since I could stock up on food, and not have to worry about all of the businesses being closed.

Sydney to Canberra

It’s already time to leave Sydney. I am heading to Canberra, in a couple hours. I will weather out the Christmas seige in Canberra.

I haven’t really done much in Sydney, but it is nice to just relax. I went on a Sydney harbour cruise, for two hours, and strolled a bit around downtown and “The Rocks”, but that is the extent of my tourist activity.

Otherwise, I replaced my iPod, and managed to download and sync a reasonable slice of my music collection. Fortunately, I have all of my music synchronized to mp3tunes.com. I have managed to get about 4.5G of music from there, and onto my iPod. The internet cafe only has enough bandwidth to get 1.5G during a 12 hour overnight download, so it took three nights.

I also went to see the latest Scorcese movie: The Departed. This is a remake of the excellent Hong Kong film, Infernal Affairs. Scorcese’s version keeps the same basic plot mechanics, but focusses more on the characters than the Hong Kong original, which played up the “procedure” a little more.

First Day In Sydney

My first day in Sydney has not been too exciting. I have not strayed more than a couple of blocks from my hotel.

I first went the Apple Store, which is half-a-block away. There, I learned that my iPod has a hardware fault, and is not worth repairing. Then I discussed buying a new one.

Next, I visited an internet cafe, which is next door to the Apple Store. I discussed whether I can download all of my music from mp3tunes.com. I am now trying to set it up so I can try overnight downloading.

After lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant next door to the hotel, I did my laundry. This involved cruising down the street to find a place where I could get enough change to plug the washer and dryer. Then I had to buy some detergent. Buying detergent, I discovered that there is a shopping mall on the same block as the hotel.

After watching some TV, it was time for dinner. Then I played some pinball.

Now, I am finally trying to set up my download.

Adelaide and Area

I arrived in Sydney last evening, after a week in Adelaide and the surrounding area.

I really only spent one full day in the city of Adelaide. Then I was off on another campervan adventure. I had another 4wd “Trekker”, which is the same vehicle I damaged in Darwin. This time, I managed to return the vehicle unscathed, even though I did drive some 4wd roads.

Adelaide

Adelaide seems like another pleasant, small city, much like Perth. I didn’t see to much of it however. On the afternoon of my full day there, I just went to see the new James Bond film, Casino Royale.

They could have called it Bond Begins, as it shares many traits with Batman Begins. The main thing is that they ignored all of the previous movies in the series, and started afresh defining the Bond character. In the last 20 Bond films, the character of James Bond has almost no character development, and he is mostly just a prop that is moved around between action sequences. In Casino Royale, the focus is primarily on developing the James Bond character, and the action scenes are secondary. It makes for what may be the best James Bond film, competing the first two or three Sean Connery films.

Mungo National Park

Mungo is actually in New South Wales (Adelaide is in South Australia), and I also had to drive through Victoria, to get there.

There are a number of lakebeds in the park. The lakes have been dry for 20,000 years, but the former shorelines are now significant archaeological sites. Traces of human habitation have been found, dating back 60,000 years. The traces are primitive tools, fireplaces, and the remains of meals. They are buried in the sand and dirt of what had been the beach.

Now, the former beach areas have interesting eroded formations.

Murray-Sunset National Park

South of Mungo, the Murray-Sunset park is mostly accessible via 4wd roads. These roads could be mostly driven by car, except for some short stretches which require the high clearance and traction of a 4wd.

There was only one short “technical” section that I encountered. The track I travelled had to cross a few hills that were really vegetated sand dunes. At the crest of the hill, the sand was very deep and loose, similar to what I encountered on the Jim-Jim Falls track. However, in this case, the track was quite wide and straight, so the chance of hitting a tree were slim.

I have learned that crossing these sandy stretches requires the delicate use of lots of torque! You need power to “break trail” with the front wheels, but too much power will cause the wheels to spin in place, and dig downwards, until you get stuck.

On one dune crest, the track up was very steep, and I could not quite reach the crest before I ran out of momentum. I put the gearbox into “low range” and backed up a bit in the track I had already made. I then ran forward, using momentum to move a little forward of the previous position. After doing this a dozen times, I was over the crest, and I could go back to high range to descend the other side.

Other than the 4wd track, there was not much excitement.

Limestone Coast

The final place I explored was the Limestone Coast. It has some mildly interesting beaches and seaside towns.

The most notable thing, for me, is that it gets very cold at night, camping near the ocean!

Dead iPod

Yesterday, I found my iPod is dead! It comes up with a “sad iPod” icon, which means a hardware fault. With an iPod, it means: time to buy a new one. Fixing an old one will cost as much as buying a replacement! I do not feel or hear the hard drive spinning up, so the drive is probably dead.

I have all of my music backed up on mp3tunes.com, so I may be able to buy a new iPod, download all of my music (over 30GB!), and install it. I have to investigate the feasibility of doing this.

Still No Packages

The packages sent to both Alice Springs and Sydney still have not shown up. This is very bad! I am trying to get the tracking numbers for the packages that were sent by Express Mail through USPS and Australia Post. Obviously, something has gone horribly wrong to make these parcels so late!

Beijing Wrap-up

Beijing is a good mix between the old and the new. It has lots of interesting cultural stuff, like the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, Great Wall, opera, acrobats, etc. But, it also has the facilities you expect to find in modern cities. Of course, once you’ve seen the tourist places, you probably don’t bother to visit them anymore, and then Beijing becomes just another modern city, like Shanghai.

I had thought that Beijing was too much of a soulless modern city, until I went to Shanghai. In retrospect, I think Beijing has a decent mix of modern life and tradition. However, I still prefer the smaller cities, like Xi’an and Chengdu.

My posts from Beijing were very light on photos, so I am including a lot of photos in this post.

Old bridge and modern skyscraper.

Beijing is a better tourist city than Shanghai. And, when 2008 rolls around, the whole world will learn a lot more about Beijing, when it is spotlit during the Olympic Games. I can already imagine the cliched stories the television network will air regarding Beijing.

Beijing opera.

Acrobats in action.

The Great Wall.

Me, at the Great Wall.

One of the most interesting things was learning about the Empress Dowager: Cixi. She was literally “the power behind the throne” for 47 years and three emperors. She sat behind a yellow curtain, behind the Emperor, and “gave advice”.

Cixi became Empress Dowager when her son was appointed as emperor. He was only five years old, so Cixi was really running things, along with the Emperor’s widow Ci’an. She was a good politician, and everyone in the palace knew who held the true power, so, when her son died and a new emperor was appointed, Cixi retained her leadership. She even had the second emperor placed under house arrest for ten years when she opposed his reforms to the government.

There are lots of stories about Cixi’s extravagant lifestyle. One year, she took the entire Chinese naval budget, and used it to restore and improve the Summer Palace, including building this marble boat:

She also had this “Suzhou shopping street” built at the Summer Palace, so she could go shopping when she pleased. Now, it is a bunch of shops selling overpriced stuff to tourists:

Some say that Cixi’s policies weakened and bankrupted China, and made it easy for foreign powers to demand concessions and partially “colonialize” China. The other complaint is that she stopped reforms from happening, and the sticking to “old ways” made a revolution inevitable.

In case of fire, tip over this urn of water.

There are also plenty of Chinese tourists visiting the sights in Beijing.

Posing at the Temple of Heaven.

Beijing has a good number of parks and places for recreation and relaxation. If you get up early enough, you will see the usual groups doing Taichi and ballroom dancing. You may also see some stranger forms of exercise, like whip cracking. This guy has two whips, and alternates cracking them between his right and left arm:

Crack that whip!

Perth and Surroundings

I’ve spent a week in and around Perth. My film arrived last Tuesday, so I was then able to head out into the countryside.

Perth is a very relaxed city of 1.4 million people. It is quite pleasant to hang out here. My hostel is two blocks from what they call “Chinatown”, but should really be “Asiatown”. There are plenty of Vietnamese, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese, Indian, and Chinese restaurants here. Perth has a “free transit zone” around the city centre, and the hostel is just at the edge of it, so I can hop on a bus to the core (or it is only a ten minute walk).

There are plenty of critters around here. I saw many kangaroos and emus. Most were roadkill at the side of the highway, but I did also see some live ones. A parrot committed suicide by flying in front of my camper, with a resounding “thunk” and cloud of green feathers. Fortunately, the camper was not damaged.

Tame kanagaroo at campsite.

Family of emus crossing the road.

In the national parks to the south of Perth, the Karri tree is the big deal. It is the third tallest tree in the world, following the California Redwood and Sequoia trees. The Karri is tall, but it does not reach anywhere near the girth of the Sequoia.

Road through Karri trees.

To the north is Nambung National Park, featuring the Pinnacles. These are a great photographic subject.

Here is my third camper. This one is a Toyota Hi-Ace van, converted to a camper. The arrangement inside was quite nice, as the kitchen area had the sink and stove conveniently located. It also had much better fuel economy than the 4wd vehicles.

I rode in many Hi-Ace vans in China. It is the standard vehicle for small tour groups. For that purpose, it is fitted out with four rows of seats (including the driver’s row), and a standard low top.

It takes some getting used to, when driving the Hi-Ace. You sit on top of the front wheels, so your judgement for turning and parking is thrown off. It is also quite long, and care must be taken when reversing.

There is a nice aquarium north of Perth. It features a large shark tank, with an acrylic tunnel under the tank.

Stingray in aquarium

Today, I fly on to Adelaide. I will stay in the city for a couple of days, and then head out again in another camper.

Shanghai Wrap-up

Shanghai is not really a good tourist city. It only has a few attactions for the tourist, and then all that is left is shopping. Add to that the “annoyance factor” of the constant “want to buy Rolex” and “we are art students”, and Shanghai hardly seems worth visiting.

In a nutshell:

1. Half a day for “old Shanghai” and Yu Garden.
2. At least 1/2 day for Shanghai Museum.
3. Go to Pudong and have a drink at the Cloud9 Bar in the Jinmao Tower, in the evening.
4. Stroll through part of the old French Concession.
5. One hour boat cruise on the Huangpu, in the evening.
6. Fill in the extra time with some shopping.

Jinmao Tower disappearing into the night.

Other than that, I would recommend spending time in Suzhou and Hangzhou, both of which are a two or three hour bus ride from Shanghai, and far more interesting.

I thought Beijing was too much like a modern “international” city, lacking a feeling of local culture, but Shanghai makes Beijing seem very “Chinese”.

Shanghai seems to be more of a place you go to do business. If you are doing business in Pudong, then stay at the Grand Hyatt in the Jinmao Tower. However, if you are a tourist, don’t stay in Pudong! It is too far away from the places you will want to visit as a tourist.

I found almost no need to try to speak Chinese or use my phrasebook in Shanghai. Almost everyone you will interact with speaks English, or can summon a person who speaks English. If your goal is the learn Chinese, don’t stay in Shanghai!

I had seen lots of “traditional” Chinese art. I wanted to see some modern Chinese art. In the People’s Square, some art was on public display, for free. I particularly liked this sculpture:

I also visited the Shanghai MoMA (Museum of Modern Art). Again, there was one sculpture I thought was especially nice:

This is a metal version of the tortured-looking rocks that abound in every traditional Chinese garden. (These rocks come from Taihu – or Lake Tai – near Hangzhou, which seems to have an endless supply.) I like this sculpture because it is a modern twist on traditional Chinese art.

Shanghai also has a “planning museum”, which shows the master plan for Shanghai’s development:

Shanghai planning model.

The unfortunate part, as I mentioned previously, is that much of the planning seems to centre on making a more car-based city. That seems like an unfortunate decision. However, that said, the metro system is very good, and very useful. The metro is also being expanded considerably. 

In my last couple of days in Shanghai, I decided to buy a piece of jade as a souvenir. I started looking in the evening before my departure day. I was low on cash, and could not cash in a traveller’s cheque until the next day. This was good, because I could not be tempted into buying anything immediately (I had the excuse: “I have to come back tomorrow, after visiting the bank.”), and thus was able to visit a few different shops.

I tried a few jewellery shops with jade counters, and also two of the department stores: No. 1 Department Store, and New World Store. I don’t know a lot about jade, but there is a wide variation in price, which reflects the quality and the size. While I learned something about quality, there seemed to be some inconsistencies. For example, uniformity of color and pattern is a sign of quality, but some very expensive jades had strong stripes of dark green in an othersize light green rock.

After shopping at a few places, I found that they all seemed to have about the same price for equivalent size and quality. Initially, the prices were very different, but most shops immediately discount from 15% to 50%, and they end up about equal (or so it appeared to me).

The next morning, I decided to revisit some of the places. There was different staff from the previous evening, so I didn’t get any, “So you’ve come back to buy that jade.” I was free to browse at my leisure. In the end, I found a small disk/ring that I liked the color and pattern of, and it was within my budget (around $100US). It was at No. 1 Department Store. Even better, the salesperson discounted by 20%, whereas, the evening before, the discount was only 15%.

Shanghai maple leaf.

Finally, I have Canadian flag sewn onto my backpack. A lot of Chinese recognize it, and comment on the beauty of the maple leaf. However, Shanghai has maple leafs, but they don’t seem to turn color – they just turn brown and fall off of the trees.

Arrived in Perth

I arrived in Perth, around lunchtime.

A package of film is on its way to my hostel, by reliable Fedex. It will arrive on Monday. I have a tracking number! Hoorah!

What is ironic is: the cost to Fedex the package overnight (but really two days, considering the international date line) is not much more than sending it by unreliable “express mail”! I should have just Fedexed the package that is currently in limbo. Live and learn!

Perth is mercifully un-hot! It is around 22C here today, but the forecast is for increasing temperatures up to 28C or even 30C. But, compared to 35C and high humidity in Cairns and Darwin, or the drier 42C in Alice Springs, even 28C will be pleasant.

I pick up another campervan on Sunday, but I have to stick around until I get my film on Monday.