It was just an overnight trip, so we took a bus down to Canberra on the 26th of September. There was a whole bunch of us, lemme try to list them just off the top of my head: I went (but of course!), and so did Su-Wen, Yu Ning, Ruiting, Liz, Jenny, Mandy and her siblings, Daphne and her friend Chelsea, Kevin, and Shizuka. Kevin's sister very kindly acted as our tour guide and came to the bus station to take us to our home for the night, the Canberra YHA. It's really just a youth hostel, and we had two rooms with like several double-decker bunks in them. Su-Wen, Yu Ning, Ruiting, Liz, Daphne, Chelsea, and Shizuka were in my room, and I took the upper bunk cos I missed the good ole days of my freshman year in Unimas. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the room, so you've just gotta use your imagination. I did, however, manage to take a few snaps of the building and its lobby and such over the course of the trip, so here's some of them:
By the time we checked in and unloaded our bags and peed and stuff, it was almost 2 am and we were half-starved, so we trooped over to the Canberra Centre (I'm not sure if this is the only shopping complex in Canberra but it sure felt like it, click here to check out the website) and had lunch in the food court. I had the combination laksa, which was like about AUD$13.50 if memory serves me well, which is really expensive, even by Sydney standards. That's one thing we discovered about Canberra, food's really expensive!
After lunch we walked over to the place where the Floriade was, and it's basically this great big flower fest where people are supposed to walk around and admire the pretty flowers and all. Quite reminiscent of the flower show at the Kuching Fest back home, actually. But with prettier flowers, of course, haha! The tulips (I think that's what they were) were really quite amazing, and they had arranged them into what was supposed to be artsy pictures and all, but you wouldn't be able to see it unless you were in the sky in a helicopter or something. There was even a ferris wheel and those tea cups you can sit in that go round and round and street performers and this great big automated music-blasting organ and hotdog stands and ice-cream vendors and the usual fun fair kinda stuff, so it was all really very festive.
For dinner we went to Sammy's Kitchen (click here for a description/picture), this restaurant serving Chinese/Malaysian cuisine back in Canberra Centre (again). I had the fried rice, and as you can see the portions were quite generous.
Then we went back to Floriade for the NightFest and toured around again (click here for the Floriade website). We got separated from the rest of the group, and ended up watching some animal show from some zoo people. When the others called to say they wanted to return to the YHA, Yu Ning and I decided we wanted to hang around a little more so the rest left. We managed to browse through the exhibition section, and there were some quirky stuff there. There was also this section where you could go and grab a beer and perch around tiny tables and stools (or on the ground, if you like that kinda thing) and watch this indie-sounding lady sing along with her guitarist. And then we got lost on the way back to the YHA. But that's the great thing about Canberra: it's so tiny, you just keep walking around in circles and you'll eventually find wherever it is you were aiming for in the first place. We were so impressed with our navigating skills.
The next day after dropping into Canberra Centre (I told you, it's really the only place worth going) to grab some food for our 'picnic lunch' later on in the day, we all took a bus to Parliament House at Capital Hill cos that's one of the highlights and tourist attractions. This is where the House of Representatives and the Senate meet to debate/argue/fight each other, and we managed to take a look around as well. Pretty impressive, I can tell you that.
Then we were hungry, so we went outside and sat on the pavement and ate our tapau lunch. That's what I like about Aussieland: a group of Asian girls can sit on the ground and eat their pasta and open up cans of tuna and feed the crazy crows and no one cares.
Then the journey resumed, and over the course of the afternoon we visited some art museum/gallery thingy where we had to deposit our bags at the front (hence no pictures of the paintings and artwork on display), but we went into this room where we could draw our own art on pieces of post-it notes and stick it to the great big wall. So if you're ever there and you look up and you see this piece of paper that says "Sarawak Laksa is the best!", you can put two and two together and take a pretty good guess at who the creative genius of an artist that is. Then we took a fast walk around to gaze upon the exteriors of the Old Parliament House and the High Court and then decided to call it a day (or rather, late afternoon approaching evening) and catch the bus back to the city (if you can call it that).
We had dinner at this Korean/Japanese place called Cocorea, where I had the bibimbap. It wasn't very good, but it was dinner and we had to eat. Then we went back to the YHA and got our stuff and checked out. Hiked it all the way to the bus station and took the bus back home to good ole Sydney. What's funny is we were all grinning when we stepped off the bus and onto the ground of Central station: we were all just so happy to be back in the hustle and bustle of a busy cosmopolitan city! Canberra was great and all, but nothing beats the bright lights of Sydney.
What's interesting about Canberra though is the amount of fancy structures, sculptures and statues lying around everywhere! Here are some of the ones I managed to snap:
And that's the Canberra trip, two weeks late, but better that than never! It was exhausting, partly due to the lack of sleep, but it was fun. Cheers, and I'll update again real soon!
