G'day Mates! Since I've been in Australia, I've had shrimp on the barbie every night, Foster's (Australian for Beer), rode kangaroos instead of buses, and cuddled up next to my koala bear every night. Hmmm, wait a second, none of that is true (but I wish the kangaroo part was).


Despite the lack of roo-portation, Australia has been wonderful to me. It's winter here in Sydney, but when I say winter, I'm not sure I really mean it. True, the ocean is freaking cold, but there are still surfers in it, and people on the beach, and bright sun shining. It's the kind of winter I love.

Now, some people might think that the differences between Aus and the US are small since both are English speaking countires. Let me tell you this: when Burger King Changes it's name to Hungry Jacks (for reasons I haven't figured out yet), you have to admit there are big differences.

But let me recount three small differences I have taken note of.

• Toilets. Not the toilets themselves, but the flush buttons. In place of one flush, there are two...I believe that one is a half flush and the other's a whole big flush, or perhaps the half flush is equivalent to a urnial flush, but I haven't asked anyone about it for sure. Either way it seems like pretty solid water conservation.


• Sports Uniforms. In the US I've sometimes marveled at how basketball players keep their shorts on, they're so long and they sag so much, it seems inevitable that some player is going to be panced. Here I have no such fears. Athletes (Rugby, Australian Football, etc) wear much shorter shorts, shorts that are reminicent of 1970s basketball uniforms.


• Traffic patterns. It's not so much the automoblie traffic that throws me off -- I am prepared to look right and then left to avoid being hit by cars, and I have no intention of getting behind the wheel of a car. Instead, it's the pedestrian traffic that throws me off. I haven't figured out a way to have another pedestrian "drive" for me. And so, when I pass another walker on the street, I attempt to give way by swerving to the right. The problem is that pedestrian traffic follows much the same rules as auto traffic, and I swerve right, right into people. Crud.


• Birds. Instead of big ravens to hassle you, here there are cocatoos. Oh, how sweet, how pretty. No. No. No. These birds get agressive too. Sure, they look prettier than many other birds, but you know what? When there's a large, wild bird flying at my head I don't really care what it looks like. These ladies found out the hard way.

Westward Ho!

Just two days after arriving back in Shanghai (just to refresh: this was back at the end of June), I went to the far south west of China to the towns of Lijiang and Dali. –On a side note, Yunnan is noted for its ethnic diversity and has the highest number of ethnic groups in all Chinese provinces. 38% of the population are members of a minority, and 25 of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups are represented in Yunnan. Both towns were beautiful, and both towns were bumping with people. In general, there was a more backpacker-esque vibe, with cafes blarring Bob Marley and boasting book exchanges.

We started off with Dali, and at one point while we were driving, our guide casually said, “oh yes, this is the road to Burma. That road they’re building will go to Laos.” Uh, really? Anyone want to take a side trip? Sadly, passports were left at the hotel, so we went to market instead. And to console myself from my non-Laotian trip, I thought about buying a bunny,

…or a waterbuffalo,

…and I considered a pig with these ladies, ….

but considering the fact that I have too much stuff as it is (and I’m not sure they’d get along with the dog I hope to have in the future), I settled on a horseshoe.



In all seriousness, it was great to get out into the country and visit some local markets where I really could have bought livestock, fresh veggies, cleaning supplies, without an “antique” seller in sight.

And then! Onto Lijiang, where the Old Town was built on a canal system and is incredibly beautiful…if you can see it through the hoardes of people. Which I could…sometimes. We decided to take the “old road” from Dali to Lijiang, which was supposed to take 6 hours compared to 3.5 on the “new road” but came with the added benefit of being beautiful. Well, if you’re on vacation and the point is to experience where you are, might as well go with the scenic route…10 hours later we arrived in Lijiang all ready for bed. Luckily, on the way we visited statues carved into the mountain side about 1200 years ago (sorry, no pictures, per 10+ signs requests), a monestary built into the mountain, and ran across a fair share of wild monkeys (which scared the beejesus out of me when the first appeared right over my head).

In Lijiang we spent the 4th of July on Yak Valley in Snow Mountain. I can’t promise there was a mountain because it was clouded over the entire time, but I did see yaks, so I’m going to take it on faith that there was a mountain too. Also, the “trek” up to Yak Valley involved a bus and a chair lift up to 3500meters.

There was another chair lift all the way up to 4200m, but that one just made my trek up Mount Meru in Tanzania seem useless, so we stuck with the 3500m lift.

And jiminy cricket, I think that will bring us all up to speed for the most part. Except for anything having to do with Sydney, I’ll let you know more about it in the days/weeks/month to come!

Dis -- Connect

There are a lot of things for me to write about – you know, like what I’ve been doing for the past 2 months. But let me just start right …here…and work backwards.

I’m in Sydney, Australia now, and this is where I’ll stay through mid-August. I was in China for a little over 2 weeks before, and I would have loved to write all about it in a timely manner. Sadly, access to my blog was blocked by the Chinese government. In fact, internet access has apparently been blocked repeatedly in recent months by the government. When I first arrived in Shanghai in June, access to google and gmail had just been restored, and sometime after the 4th of July access to facebook was blocked (http://www.examiner.com/x-15615-Asia-Headlines-Examiner~y2009m7d8-Facebook-Twitter-inaccessibility-makes-China-expats-feel-disconnected). Apparently it’s due to the riots in northwestern China, but I haven’t heard too much about those either (probably a combination of censorship and lack of news seeking, but I did hear that Palin resigned and Michael Jackson died. I’m getting all the important news, right?)

While I was in China before I knew that my access to youtube was completely gone and that skype was iffy, but google? Facebook? Call it what you will, but I feel a deep seeded need for those! With the right combination of sites being blocked I would have no way to contact people back in the US other than phone (and goodness knows I do not use those while abroad).

But now I can breath a sigh of relief; a *ahem* thorough google search revealed no disruptions in Australian internet access. Hell, I may even be able to keep my same skype name for the entire time I’m here!

And to fully catch you up on what I’ve been up to: I ordered a pair of boots. Fingers crossed that they’re less drama than the dresses!