Last night after work I rode down to Saints and Sinners to meet up with Dean, Graham and Mark, all old newspaper veterans. I ordered my new-found favorite drink, Lemon Lime & Bitters, but this unorthodox request came close to throwing the entire bar staff into chaos as they ran around looking for some information on what exactly an LLB was. I was asked whether I wanted the one that tasted good or the one that was for medicinal purposes. Fortunately they located the dusty tome in which such information is supposedly located and mixed up an excellent concoction for me. Yum. Their chicken melt sandwich isn’t bad, either, by the way. We sat around talking and I got several helpful suggestions on my book from Dean and Graham, who have looked through it a bit. I really need to get that done soon, hopefully before Christmas.

After a while we made our way over to a new place called “China Pa”, on Xinyi and Anhe Rds. It was Grand Opening night, and the outside was decorated rather garishly with balloons and ribbons. Mark and I were waiting outside for Dean, who had fallen prey to the desires of his bladder, to arrive, discussing whether we should go in first or wait. Mark wanted to go in first. A group of people all wearing orange shirts with the words “Chivas Regal” were loading a bunch of drum equipment into the back of a truck, and we wondered whether they were promotors for Chivas Regal or some sort of drum band or both. One of the Chivas Regal guys was a stocky Chinese fellow with the sides of his head shaved and the rest of his hair tied up in a ponytail.

Dean showed up, and we proceeded inside to find a bad movie set-like atmosphere filled with the kind of people who only go anywhere to Be Seen. They all seemed to have that arrogant yet slightly furtive expression on their overly made-up faces, and both the shady characters in Armanis inside and their Benzes outside intimated more than a little participation by members of the Taiwanese underworld. A terrible lounge singer act was busy on the small stage playing terrible 70’s lounge songs, and a shimmering water light made the floor glow purple and green in slow succession. The whole place felt dark and dank, cramped by the presence of too many fake people and little tables. Dean made the observation that the place felt like a place some parents had built and left to be decorated by their school-age children. Our presence caused a ripple effect of social indignation; it’s always fun to make rich people feel uncomfortable.

Unfortunately I had to go meet Kirk and retrieve my turtles, so I left not long after we had arrived. As I was walking back from Kirk’s place, turtles in hand, I got a call from Maurice, who acted in A Man for All Seasons with me a few months back. He was wondering if I would be interested in a play called “Kafka’s Dick” (a comedy). He said they’re having a reading this Sunday at Grandma Nitti’s. I said I’d be there. I’ve never studied Kafka before, but anything that makes fun of a famous author’s penis has to be interesting.

Later on today Seamus and I might go over to Dean’s new place and hang out, even though I feel like I have a lot to do now that I’m back in Taiwan. The main thing is going through all of my pictures from Australia, and writing a piece about my journey on the Indian Pacific, updating my photo section, etc. I haven’t really practiced sword for a month, so this Friday’s class is probably going to be both painful and embarrassing. I can’t wait. In the meantime it’s nice to hear once more the pitter-patter of little webbed feet in my room at night.

I just got a letter from my 87-year-old Aunt Eva, who lives in LA. If there was ever one woman for which the word “feisty” was invented, she is that woman. The letter is dated Oct.2nd 2001. Her handwriting is terrible, which is extremely common in my family. I think my brother is the only one of us who can write legibly, but he’s an architect and has to, I guess.

“Of course you heard about the twin towers being blown to bits,” she writes.”That jerk head of the [something] is still hiding, I guess. In one of his holes. Or his crazy neighbors. But if he doesn’t come to terms soon, we shall give him a dose of being blown to bits.”

I’m back. Back in the old office. Nothing has changed at all: people are playing their stereos too loud, Whiny Woman, dressed in a baby blue jumpsuit today for some reason I will not even guess at, is doing The Whiny Thing, the air conditioning is way too high. I feel a bit numb, not just from the air conditioning, but almost as if I am not willing to continue participating in this existance as I did before. Or maybe unable. I don’t know. That’s the beauty of getting a change of perspective. I just hope it lasts.

I managed to forget the vinegar chips, leaving them at Simon’s house when I got in the cab for the airport. The driver was a talkative middle-aged Israeli woman with blond hair who happened to live nearby and needed to get up the next morning to take a test, I learned before we arrived at the airport, which appeared almost deserted. Fortunately this meant that there were no lines to deal with, and I spent the extra time browsing magazines at the news agents.

I would have liked to sleep on the airplane, but I just couldn’t get comfortable in spite of the contortionist angle and the cooler-sized space that was so generously provided for me by the airline. We did get to watch movies, though, so it wasn’t entirely awful. I wandered around the Singapore airport for three hours, almost falling asleep in a chair before boarding the flight back to Taipei.

Arriving back in Taipei was surreal, and not a little depressing, especially seeing the dim light that was able to penetrate the thick clouds that often smother the city as I got off the bus from the airport near the train station and hailed a cab back to my room on Hsinsheng S. Road. It looked so ugly after the beautiful urban designs and wonderful weather of Australian cities, and the cold pollution blowing down the dusty streets didn’t help either. The old veteran guy downstairs looked shocked when I walked in the door. “I thought you’d gone missing,” he told me.

Thankfully my plants were still alive, if only just, after a month without being watered. My little room looked downright squalid, but it was nice to have a familiar place to come home to. The election offices downstairs are in full swing now, however, and there are several trucks adorned with loudspeakers cacophonically praising the candidates over and over in the most annoying fashion possible. I’m tempted to go down there and say very loudly “Hey, I was originally going to give you my vote, but after seeing the way you have no qualms about annoying everyone around you, I’ve decided to vote for your direct competitor.” The only thing is, their competitors are very likely being just as annoying, so it’s not much of an argument. If only people would vote for candidates which are the least annoying, rather than the opposite. Then we’d see some progress.

Fortunately the weather has improved somewhat today, and the sun is shining again. Every time I return to Taiwan after an extended period abroad, it takes me a while to realize that it’s the people that define Taiwan and give this place it’s unique appeal, rather than the physical infrastructure. I suppose re-realize this is part of what vacations are all about.

Well, this is it: my last day in Australia. I can’t believe it’s over, but I am so glad I got to come here. Perth seems much smaller after visiting Sydney and Melbourne.

Yesterday we went out to lunch with Simon’s sisters, brother and father. It was a bit awkward at first, but the food at the restaurant was quite nice. Champagne, bubbly and nasty yet allowing for a few dents in everyone’s inhibitions, preceded the meal, which was followed by a piece of lemon meringe pie roughly the size of an armadillo. A couple of tables away was what looked like a meeting of the Excessively Blond Women’s Club, and from what I could tell most of them cheated to get in.

The weather was beautiful and hot when we drove back, but later on it started to storm, which sucked because we were looking forward to seeing the meteor shower last night. Instead we got another kind of show in the form of continuous lightning and occasional thunder all night. For some reason I didn’t sleep well, dreaming of things like skateboarding assassins and George W. Bush not knowing anything, and I actually fell off the bed twice, making a resounding THUMP both times, which Simon found quite amusing.

We went shopping in Perth today, and I bought a literal metric ton of books, some vitamins, potato chips for Carl and Gavin, a couple of shirts, and a teflon-coated frying pan as a gift for SImon’s family, as they take turns cooking and I have no cooking skills to contribute.

Some people are coming in to clean the floors tomorrow so all of the furniture has been moved out, and Simon is waiting for me to hurry up and finish this account so he can bundle up the computer as well. I am going to have to leave here at 11pm at the latest to make my 12:30am flight to Singapore, and I should be back in Taipei at around 2 or 4pm tomorrow.

Back in Taipei. Australia is nice, a lovely place in fact, but somehow I feel I belong in Taipei. I even kind of miss it. Hopefully I’ll feel the same way after I return.

Only a couple of days until I go back to Taiwan. Things to be done. It’s been a great vacation; I’m really glad I was able to take it finally, but I promised myself I’d have my book done by my birthday this year, which happens to be Christmas, and so I really need to get back to work on finishing it.

Simon’s mum drove us down to the Swan River yesterday, passing through a series of rich neighbourhoods, but we failed to suffieciently alarm the residents. Apparently I do that best on my own, which is just as well. Wouldn’t want my gracious hosts to feel the glare of police suspicion, now would I?

Eventually we ended up at the beach, the same beach where Simon, Ryan and I hung out a couple of nights ago, only it looks completely different by day. The wind whipped a low cloud of sand sufficient to sting legs and fill socks, but I enjoyed dipping a toe or two in the Indian ocean. The water was a striking blue-green and windsurfers were making spectacular jumps in and out of the white-topped waves.

We came back and Simon’s mum fixed up a genuine Ozzie meal consisting of roast lamb and bread-and-butter pudding, after which we watched The Dish on DVD. It’s a good movie, but the music and cinematography nearly overwhelmed the characters and story. A difficult mesh, I suppose.

The weather today is fine and windy but predicted to turn nasty later. We’re going to go out for lunch in a bit with Simon’s dad, and then possibly to the historical farming town of York to watch meteors later on it the weather holds up.

Yesterday was a busy, fun day. Simon’s mum drove us over to the Swan River valley, which isn’t in truth much of a valley at all and only seems to have one side to it. we stopped off at a chocolate factory. I had envisioned a huge complex, chocolate-coloured smoke belching out of huge smokestacks and the smell of chocolate, indeed a thin film of sweet dust covering everything in sight, sort of like a Chernobylesque aftermath of a huge chocolate meltdown.

Instead it was just one largish building with a couple of rooms; one in front where there were several different kinds of chocolates for sale, and a window looking on a rather smaller room where a surly-looking fellow who apparently enjoyed sampling his work spread thick chocolate cream onto dirty platters, after which he would sprinkle nut slices onto the platter. Then he mashed the nuts into the pan with surprising force, causing us to take a step back from the window. I think there was serious job-related stress involved there.

I bought a large sackful of chocolates and we drove on to Western Australia’s olderst church, the All Saints church. Oddly enough, All Saints was the name of the church our family went to for a period of time when I was in junior high school. It was located in a posh part of Winter Park, Florida, and I’m sure that the only reason we went there was to feel we belonged to a higher class than we actually belonged to. The kids were mostly spoiled blond types and I was pretty much kicked out of confirmation class because I took issue with just about everything they tried to teach me there.

Anyway, the WA All Saints seemed much more innocuous, just a small brick building in the middle of nowhere, on the banks of the much smaller-looking Swan River. We got out and looked at the surrounding graves, then walked down to the river followed by thousands of flies. Inside the church itself, Simon spent 50 cents to play organ music that I could have gone without hearing. Outside the church’s windows was a beautiful view across the valley to the hills beyond, and I imagined several generaltions of bored churchgoes vying for the window seats so that they could have something other that the boring sermons to concentrate on. This is why most churches have stained glass windows rather than transparent ones, I am convinced. It kept your gaze hostage inside the building.

Our next stop was Bell’s Rapids, which also happened to be the site of the bush fires I flew over a couple of days ago on my way in from Sydney. The blackened hills were still smoking as we made out way down to the river, which was quite low. Simon tried to skip rocks across the muddy surface while his mum stayed up on the wooden bridge, her shoes unfit for rock climbing. The sun reflected off the water just so, and I took several nice photos. Unfortunately we also discovered a bit of other people’s rubbish, in the form of a tennis ball and an empy coke bottle, floating in the river. Simon gave the bottle to some rubbish truck people who were lingering in the vicinity, and we kept the tennis ball.

Next was the cheese factory, which was just like the chocolate factory except for four important differences: First of all, it was cheese. Secondly, the cheese-making room was empty and we weren’t able to watch the cheese being made. Thirdly, we were able to sample the cheese on trays, and fourth, the sexy fellow who made the cheese was portrayed in pictures from newspaper articles and in a photo on the wall of him and his product. *drools simultaneously over cheese and cheesemaker*

After cheese, of course wine must follow, and so we proceeded to the Houghton Winery, a lovely setup with rolling green lawns flush with afternoon sunlight and low wooden buildings. Inside we were treated to several wines, three whites, three red and port. I finished every sample, while Simon merely took a sip and poured the rest into a waiting used-wine urn. I would have kept going but a large group of Asian tourists spilled in, ending our tasting session, so I wobbled back out to the car, and we went to pick up Simon’s brother David, who had just finished his exams.

While we waited we walked around the school campus and Simon pointed out some of the buildings, including the huge stone chapel, and some of the teachers, whom he recognized from his own days there. It’s really a beautiful campus, but I don’t think I could stand being made to wear a suit and tie everywhere I went.

After we got back Ryan came over and we piled in to his 1974 Datsun, which smelled delightfully familiar (my first car was a 1977 Datsun 810), and we headed down to the cinema to see The Man who Sued God. It was a good, solid film, and I enjoyed it immensely. Billy Connoly was good as usual, and it manipulated the audience’s emotions in such a way as to remain fresh without too much Spielburgesque puppeteering of atmosphere.

After the movie we got some junk food and headed down to the beach. It was evening by then, and all we could see of the ocean were the lights of ships and buoys, as well as a huge spotlight outlining the spread of clouds above us. It was really nice,. I haven’t driven around late at night with friends since high school, really. Back then Shawn and I would go driving around for no apparent reason, and this felt a lot like that, only now I’m pretty sure my parents aren’t calling the police.

Later on today we’re going down to the river to do some more sightseeing. It’s kind of cloudy today, so the beach probably wouldn’t be such a good idea. Whatever we do, I’m sure it will be fun.

I’m back in Perth now. Have been since a couple of days ago. Simon and I are pretty much just hanging around the house. The flight from Sydney was uneventful, my favorite kind as Jim Northrup would say. As we passed over the south coast of the Great Australian Bight, the water was so clear I could see the bottom several kilometers out from the white sand beaches. Later, as we approached Perth, we flew through a thick column of smoke eminating from a large bushfire.

At the airport I discovered that my ATM card was not working, so I had to use my credit card to pay for the cab. For some strange reason, taxis here have a deep enmity for the VIsa corporation, so I had to resort to the “Hero Card” I got when I was in the army. The cabbie looked at my signature and asked “What language is that?”

“Chinese,” I replied. He gave me the familiar once-over, trying to ascertain whether I had appeared Chinese before and he just hadn’t noticed. After concluding that his previous impression of me as Not Chinese was not in fact erroneous, he went on to comment on the fact.

“It’s a long story. Have a nice day,” I said as I exited the cab.

Yesterday I watched four movies in a row on Simon’s DVD player: Being John Malkovich, Trainspotting, The Crow and Dead Man.

Being John Malkovich was a clever idea poorly executed, I thought. While the facination with the interesting plotline nearly manages to steal one’s attention throughout most of the movie, the utter lack of character development creates an empty feeling one cannot ignore by the end of the film. I have to admit, though, that at one point when I was working for the newspaper, I did in fact look quite a bit like John Cusack’s character. I also have to admit that the name Spike Jonze sounds just plain silly.

Trainspotting was more interesting, with real character arcs and spunky editing. I appreciated the brutal honesty of the flick ensured by solid perfomances. Another guilty admittance: I had to turn on the subtitles to understand nearly everything Begbie was saying.

The Crow was, unfortunately, not displayed in its original widescreen format, so I didn’t get a chance to appreciate the cinematography. The crappy editing nearly ruined the film, though, and the job was almost but not quite finished by the bizarre plotline, which induced a feeling akin to passing an autonobile accident. I just couldn’t look away, but it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Dead Man was good, meaty cinema, but overlong I think for most audiences, which includes me. Granted, it was the fouth film I had seen in one afternoon, but even not considering that it seemed long and repetitious. Gary Farmer was, as always, excellent, and we even get to see another glimpse of his nekkid butt, the first such view since he did Powwow Highway.

Later today we’re going to drive out to wine country and get drunk. No! We’re just going to have a couple, honest! I hear there will be chocolate involved as well, and perhaps cheese. After that we’re going to go see The Man who Sued God, starring Billy Connelly.

Today started out with a sunny, deep-blue sky. I checked out of the George St. Hostel, bidding a sad farewell to Andy with a gift of cookies for his already-ample stomach, and lugged my stuff up to the Town Hall station, on the subway train back to Bondi Junction, where I am going to stay tonight at Rick and Jimmy’s apartment.

I called up my friend at Fox Studios, Grant, and we arranged to have lunch over there at a place called the Fox and Lion. The weather was just about as perfect as one could wish for as I walked down Oxford St, making a mental note of a barbershop where I could get my hair cut later on my way back. It’s difficult to find a real men’s barbershop these days…so-called “stylists” are so much more popular, probably because women care a lot more about their hair than men do.

I circled the cricket grounds and the stadium, finally arriving at Fox Studios to find the usual assortment of high-powered movie execs mixing with the tourists like oil and water among the cheezy shops. We ordered BLTs and wedges, but the amounts were far greater than I had anticipated, and I had to order another LLB just for the wedges. Afterwards I paused to watch the people at the Sony shop demonstrate the Aibo robot dog, which was cute but surely annoying after about five minutes of its truck-backing-up noise. Clever, but rather useless. What they really need to do is make a robot maid, like the one on the Jetsons. That’d sell like hotcakes, provided hotcakes are something anyone would want to buy. I assume that whatever they are, they sold well at one point, otherwise we wouldn’t still have the saying. Aren’t weblogs wonderful? I can ramble like this all day and nobody’s going to slap me like they would in real life.

After lunch I walked back through the park. The weather was getting colder, and by the time I reached the barbershop, which was, of course, closed at 2pm because this is Sydney, the skies were cloudy and a cold wind was picking up. I looked all over for another barbershop that didn’t have the word “style” in it’s vocabulary, and finally found one. I usually cut my own hair, but I figured I would splurge a bit since I’m on vacation. I love the feeling of someone handling my head.

As I walked out of the barbershop, head freshly shorn, the shop’s sign blew down, and gusts of rain were spraying pedestrians. I walked past the Coles supermarket, which was chockablock with shoppers. I wondered if there had been another terrorist attack or something. I saw one man literally straining under the load of a few dozen boxes of Tim-tams. It looked serious, so I came back to the apartment. Jimmy just came back, and the three of us are going to go out for dinner later on tonight after Rick gets home from work. And tomorrow I’m flying out to Perth. Sydney’s been fun. I wouldn’t mind living here, or in Melbourne for that matter. The only problem with living in these cities is that they aren’t Chinese, which is something I’ve become rather accustomed to. In any case, I doubt I will be moving any time soon, but it’s nice to speculate about moving someplace new. I’ve been in Taiwan for so long it has become almost too familiar, or so I thought, but even now I am beginning to miss it just a little.

After a scrumptious dinner last night, courtesy of Shauna’s sister, we stuffed ourselves with most of an apple cake she had just baked, and then we sat around talking in that comfortable after-dinner haze that really only happens after a nice sit-down meal with friends. Lurvely. We discussed the Australian accent, and I countered the accusation that Americans over-use the “R” sound by commenting that Australians always tack a bit of an “y” sound to words ending in “o”. It’s a legitimate sound in Chinese, so I didn’t have a hard time distinguishing it. “No” becomes “Noy”, Go “Goy”, etc. I heard one boy at the Taronga zoo protesting loudly to his mother, shouting “Noooyyyyyyyyy”, and when I tried to imitate the boy’s cry to Shauna and her sister, they burst out laughing and kept wanting me to repeat it. Language is a funny thing. So is laundry, but I won’t get into that right now.

It was really cold out by then, but the sky was clear. Shauna drove me back to the hostel, which she said was known around those parts as “the ugly grey tower thing”. She zoomed off just as I closed the door, as if she were afraid of something catching her. In fact she was afraid of being run down by the ravenous pack of cars advancing rapidly from the rear after just being released from the iron grip of the red light. It was all quite exciting.

I’m really glad I went to Canberra as well as Melbourne, since the latter is a really pleasant place although I don’t know anyone there, and it was great to finally meet the woman behind the world-renowned “What’s New, Pussycat?”. I almost feel like a star reporter, getting to meet all of these weblog celebrities like Shauna and Jeb. They are the true A-listers, no matter what others think.

This morning dawned just as brilliantly as yesterday, and I walked down to the bus station for my ride back to Sydney. Again I was denied the choice of neighbor, and was stuck next to an older Australian businessman who was constantly on the phone making pointed references to the fact that he was about to go overseas. Most of the passengers watched the on-board video, “You’ve Got Mail!” while I elected to ooh and aah over the scenery, which was much nicer than the movie. More green, rolling hills, streams, rivers, etc. It really is beautiful country. Lots of sheep and white cows. Don’t ask me why there were only white cows. Maybe it’s part of the old “White Australia” campaign, when they only let white cows in.

After we pulled into Central Station, I walked over to the YHA backpackers hostel and was immediately laughed at for wanting to stay there. “You’ve got to have reservations from weeks back to stay here, mate,” the attendent behind the counter told me between giggles. “It’s chockablock, even in the dorms. This here’s a popular place! You can’t just walk in off the street and expect us to have room!”

The hostel on George Street where I stayed before, however, did have rooms, I was informed by Andy, the Filipino guy at the desk, so I’m staying there for the two nights before I fly back to Perth on the 14th.

I called K as soon as I got in, but he said to call back around 5pm, when he would know whether he had any free time tonight. Since I had a few hours to kill, I went over and toured the maritime museum, which includes a navy gunship, a submarine and an old sailing ship. It was really facinating, reminding me of the time I got to go on a cruise on my brother’s ship, the USS John Rodgers out of Charleston, when I was in high school. I spent most of that cruise chasing an attractive Filipino through the ship, and when my brother couldn’t find me on board, they nearly turned the ship around to look for me.

Anyway, I called K again after 5, but all I got was a message saying that that number wasn’t listed. Jimmy and Rick are out watching Jimmy’s hero Andre Agassi play tennis, and I got Jeb’s answering service, so it looks like tonight will be fairly uneventful. I should make some non-individual-dependent plans for tomorrow in case I still can’t get in touch with anyone. I’m feeling pretty tired anyway, so perhaps turning in early isn’t such a bad idea. Half of the computers in the Internet cafe just went down, so I should wrap this up. At least they have javascript and FTP, unlike some other Internet cafes who happen to be named the Satellite Internet Cafe and are located on Elizabeth Street just south of Victoria Street in Melbourne.

In other news, Taiwan was granted WTO membership today, apparently. Woo-hoo! Now I can officially start dreaming about getting a new, proper-sized 4-stroke motorcycle!

I’m in Canberra. The bus journey wasn’t as bad as I had expected. As I got on the bus in Melbourne, I saw that there was a rather hefty middle-aged man sitting next to me. I wish that we could choose our neighbors on trips such as this:

Bus Booking Person: Would you like smoking or non-smoking?

Me: Ooh, that’s a toughie. I’ll go with the Indian, thanks.

Our driver’s name was Nigel. Nigel fancied himself a bit of a comedian, but it was painfully clear why he was still stuck in the bus driver industry. We drove a little out of the city before Nigel remembered that there was a video we could watch, but the tape was broken, and Nigel called one of the passengers, a black man with a beard and an accent I couldn’t quite identify, up to the front to fix it. The passenger asked around for some tape and a nail file, and then went back to his seat to fetch his bag, which it turned out contained quite a large collection of shiny, sharp knives.

“Please tell me you’re a cook,” one of the women sitting nearby said, staring at the blades. We never found out exactly what the man’s trade was, but eventually he did get the tape working with the help of several of the women. There was a bit of flirting going on between him and his various assistants, actually. The movie was Simon Birch, adapted from A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I read the book and so spoiled the movie, but it wasn’t bad. Thankfully I had seen it before so that when the tape broke again just at the end of the movie, I wasn’t too disappointed.

At one point we stopped to so that Nigel could rest, as is required by law, for 35 minutes. We were in the middle of nowhere, and the midnight silence was marred by our noisy emergence from the bus at a truck stop. I gaped at the carpet of stars, the Milky Way clearly visible slicing across the night sky while a group of Americans laughed and joked next to the snack-dispensing machine.

We reached Canberra at about 4:15am, and I eventually found the room reserved for me. It seemed the height of luxury to have an entire room, complete with hot shower, double bed, TV and balcony, all to myself. Needless to say I slept well.

Shauna called at about 10am, but I was already awake from the bright sunlight streaming through the curtains. We met up at the bus stop. She and her friend Rowena took me on a tour of the city, which is tiny and extremely well-planned. Rowena claimed that there were kangaroos frolicking on the gold course, but when we walked down to the site of said frolicking, no roos were to be seen. Perhaps they were stuck on that mean Par-5 just a ways up the course.

Canberra feels like the loop of highway that runs around Disneyworld in Florida, except there is no theme park here, just the Australian government. The ultra-modern Parliament house is at the center of all of this space, and it looks rather like a large shopping mall. We strode inside and I immediately began to wonder aloud whether the various parliamentarians played basketball and sang Karaoke at night when no-one was around. We also went to the tower, which from a distance looks like something out of Star Wars. It was quite cold and windy, despite the sun, and we came down after only a few minutes. The view of the city and the surrounding valley is great, though. This really is a small place. Shauna is much as I expected, although her hair is shorter and a bit blonder than I had expected. She’s really fun to be around, with a great sense of humor.

Later on, after I had dripped most of a kebab onto my shirt during lunch at a restaurant called Ali-baba’s, we tried to locate the Motorcycle Museum. We were stymied in the end, but we did manage to find the Erotica Museum, though we didn’t go in. I suspect it is now on all of our list of Things To Do By Ourselves One Day When No-one Knows Where We Are.

So here I am at Shauna’s comfortable abode. Her sister is cooking up something delicious for dinner. Earlier I humiliated Shauna’s dog Harry by trapping him in a headlock in the back yard. He then tried to avenge his honor by trying to bite my arm off and eat my shirt, which smelled like kebab sauce, but these attempts were for the most part unsucessful. The weather outside is cool and sunny, and slanting rays of sunlight are marching across the living room as The Crocodile Hunter (“Next I nearly get my arm rolled out of its socket!” he says enthusiastically, as if he’s genuinely looking forward to it) is playing on the TV, which just completes my day. Travel is more than just seeing sights; it’s seeing friends and just relaxing in comfortable surroundings; I’m feeling pretty good right now.

I’ve got a bus ticket back to Sydney for tomorrow morning, and hopefully I’ll find another place to stay when I get there. I look forward to seeing my friends in Sydney again, including Jimmy, Rick, Grant, and especially K, but I’m happy I got to see Melbourne and Canberra as well. My time in Australia is winding down, but I can’t bear thinking of going back to my job just yet.