England and San Francisco pictures.

England has been really good. Weather has been surprisingly warm, except for when it's sunny it gets quite near freezing. I've returned to the work hard, play hard -mode of living, and somehow I've managed to get by with less sleep than usual (only 7h a night). I think my body doesn't fully agree though, as I had the first tummy upset since Shanghai.... which made me think about how lucky I've been during my travels - the only time I've been ill was the ear canal infection in Koh Tao almost a year ago. I don't think I've even had a cold in a year and a half!

The initial culture shock has passed and England feels very much like home again, as there are so many lovely people around (and not enough free time to spend with them). There has been all kinds of amazing food, dinners, pub trips, cups of tea, country houses,... and still more to come! In the beginning of November I met up with my parents in London and it was awesome to see them - it has been ages since we were in Hua Hin together. We spent some quality time together shopping and sightseeing from the air, first at St Paul's Cathedral dome in the morning and then at London Eye in the same night!

Without further ramblings, here are some San Francisco photos taken with my useless old Nokia:

Golden Gate Bridge from North at lunchtime.

Golden Gate Bridge from North at sunset.

Giant Redwood in Muir Woods.

Cablecar at Union Square.

And most importantly; 50 Jelly Belly flavours! The factory is not too far from Davis...

Across the Atlantic Sea

Journey to England went wonderfully, although the airline did attempt to ruin it with bad service. The check-in person had obviously not gone through the American politeness training, snapped questions at me and then decided to ignore me completely as there was a drama unfolding next to me (someone booking with their company credit card without having it with them is apparently impossible). I didn't really care that the American cabin crews feel that their main function is safety, not service (unlike their European, Asian and Australian counterparts) as there was interesting tv to watch and a lot of sleep to be slept!

This somehow reminds me: in San Francisco pedestrian is the king. All cars stop at crossings, never try to steal space from pedestrians and I never felt worried about cars. This is a huge contrast to Perth where it felt dangerous crossing in places where pedestrians should've had priority. However, I learned on my final day in SF why one would want to drive a car: some of the homeless people get quite rude. I do understand if men whistle and compliment women they see on the street, like in Italy and to some extent in SF/America. But I do think it is very rude to try to stop someone, start shouting loudly/aggressively after someone, or corner them at the bus stop just to tell them how they'd like to sleep with you. Not only that, but try to convince you of how amazing they'd be in bed. It's not made any easier if the person doing this is about twice your age, homeless, smelly and still drunk from the last night, as it was 9 am at the time. I've heard the opinion that women should not dress so attractively as it does attract people, but I bet that my hoodie and jeans didn't really beg for attention, unless it was my toes showing from my trekking sandals...?

One final point on SF: October weather is brilliant. I hear the summer weather is nowhere as nice (a lot of fog), so if you're going to SF and can choose when, go in October! English weather hasn't been too bad either, not frozen yet in the clothes that took me through Australian winter. Luckily I'm getting a lot of my winter clothes from home this weekend, so the weather is not going to be an issue!

When I arrived to London I had the biggest culture shock I've had this far. In SF I was slightly annoyed about the people always talking to me on the bus, the street, anywhere I went, but eventually I quite enjoyed the odd word with everyone here and there. Australia was somewhat similar - people did speak to other people around them, it was usual to comment on something, but it wasn't as intensive as in SF. In London, no one seemed to talk to anyone at all. I accidentally bumped to someone and apologised - I got ignored. I said hello to the only other person on a bus stop - I got ignored. I asked a question at the train station - I got an annoyed stare and a one-word reply. Was London always like this??

Luckily there are a lot of lovely people in England! It seems that going straight into a Halloween party after a 10-hour flight is good for jet lag, but does not necessarily make you feel any better the morning after. The jet lag has been that much under control that I've been able to function with reasonably normal waking hours (9am to 2am) but my head seems to disagree a lot, as especially in the mornings understanding anything feels impossible. Last night I woke up around 5 am and had no idea where I was, how I got here and most importantly why. I spent five minutes working out the previous day and events leading to where I am right now.

So for November I'll be working in England in my old lab, and then I'm headed home for Christmas. Hopefully I'll be travelling again in January, so this blog might not be too active until then. Have a lovely autumn everyone!

Stanford, final days in SF.

So my second interview was at Stanford, and I think it went reasonably well although I haven't yet heard their thoughts about it. However, I realised that the lab in Davis is much better fit for me, so if nothing shocking happens, I think Davis is my choice!

So now it's the final days in SF, and it's been just organising things, buying souvenirs and doing laundry. I managed to find a room in England too, so everything is looking sorted for the next couple of months again!

Berkeley, Davis, Muir Woods.

I'm really tired at the moment so this will be really brief:

On Sunday I met up with a friend of mine in Berkeley area, and she showed me around that neighbourhood. Berkeley seemed like an interesting student area where everyone has an opinion and is willing to stand up for it. I really liked the feel of Telegraph Street, the little book and record shops and likeness to an oriental bazaar.

My next stop was Davis, a lovely little rural student town located in the middle of corn and tomato fields close to Sacramento. The train there took about 1.5 hours, so it's not too far from SF. I had a walk around the town, which appeared very clean, safe and full of lovely restaurants and pubs, although in a very small and concentrated area. I stayed at a hotel which had a complimentary happy hour, and very soft huge beds, which meant I had a really good rest.

So the reason why I was there is that I interviewed at UC Davis for a job. The interview went really well. I surprised myself with how calmly I managed to get through the long day of meeting people and presenting my work, as I usually get very nervous. I love what I work on, and I love learning about what others work on, but closer to 9 hours of paying attention really exhausts me! So in the evening I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow (back in SF).

This morning I woke up and started chatting to one of my dorm mates, and it turned out that she was headed out to Muir Woods to see the redwoods with some friends of hers. There was space in the car for one more, so I joined the group and had a really good day with kind, friendly people who I had never met! So most of today was spent walking in the restful woods and driving around beautiful scenery; beaches, coastal cliffs, hills, forests, and of course the Golden Gate bridge! It was wonderful to get out of city properly and get some fresh air!

Tomorrow is my second interview at Stanford, so I'll need to go and prepare (=sleep).

Homeless, sunshine and Exploratorium.

The Friday night ended up being a long and fun one, although the conversation ended up revolving around homelessness all the time. Is it ok to give them money? How about food? How to really help - giving money to rehabs? But are they all drug-addicts? Are some of them part of mafia-run money-making machine, like most beggars in Europe? Have the numbers increased with the economic down-turn, and how much? They still scare me, and the idea of a wealthy society where so many have to live on streets is a weird one.

Then to happier topics: Saturday was another very sunny day at 27C. I can't believe the weather is so beautiful in late October, maybe it would be great to live here after all. I had to change rooms at the hostel, so I ended up getting up after only a few hours of sleep. As there was no point of going back to bed, I headed to the Exploratorium with my high school friend. We walked some of the way there, from Fort Mason on Marina Blvd. It was so beautiful by the Bay, people were out en masse in the parks and the sky was the prettiest blue. And the Golden Gate Bridge looming in the background wasn't an ugly one either!

The Exploratorium was exactly like described to me, interactive displays of magnetism, optics, mechanics, plant biology, optical illusions, hearing, sensing, how our mind works... almost too much to see in there! My favourites were the visualisation of the sound wave (a long tube of water that formed longitudinal waves, something I never truly understood in high school) and the magnetic liquid that you could play with a strong magnet. I really recommend this for anyone with even a slightest interest in how the world around us works!

The evening was a very short one, as soon after my late lunch/early dinner taco I fell asleep on my book and slept for 14 hours, once again. Today I'm meeting up with another friend, and finally getting out of San Francisco for a bit! I was meant to explore the Bay area much more, but somehow there has been so much to see in the city itself.

Red hair, modern art.

Last night I found myself staring at the ceiling at midnight again, so I tried out the melatonin. Didn't help me fall asleep much (3am), but waking up in the morning was heaps easier. None of that "it's still in the middle of the night, let me sleep" fogginess at all!

The morning started off with a brunch date with a friend of a friend, and it was good to get to yet another area of SF, this time Mission. I got off BART (local underground) at 16th St Mission, and Mission St itself seemed rather rough. The train station was surrounded by homeless people, and I was actually slightly disturbed to stand around there. Surprisingly the next street along, Valencia, was lovely and had a safe feel to it. It all seems to vary street by street, like the weather varies suburb to suburb. This is one funny city!

After the brunch I went and got my hair cut and coloured. It's bright red now, I feel like myself again, and it changes the random comments I get on the street from "wow you're tall" to "wow I like your hair".

Late afternoon I spent in the Museum of Modern Art. Some modern art I've really enjoyed (like what I saw in Manila), but this just left me feeling blank. Black squares on the wall? Black circles on the wall? Yeah that's really expressive.

Tonight the plan is to go out for a dinner and a couple of drinks with my high school friend, so probably better to go now and get pretty!

Perth, in respect to SF.

Being in SF and in America has put a lot of things about Perth into a respective. Now that I think about Perth, I see it as a clean and tidy city with no homeless people, or maybe some, but they never were in your face. People there dressed nicely, but not necessarily with class though, as everyone who I'd still call girl (people up to my age) bared a LOT of leg.

As probably mentioned before, Perth is a wealthy city making most of its money with mining. This leads to a situation where many relatively uneducated people become wealthy and even people in WA joke regularly about the tastes and the classlessness of their upper class. Somehow their working class men have become the rich, and just as in many other countries, the favourite past time of this type is drinking too much beer on Fridays. Although binge drinking appeared to be a huge problem in Perth, it seemed to be very clean with regards to other drugs. The word on the streets was that the Perth underworld was mafia-run and they were dealing crystal meth to people fallen off the honest/working life to keep them good addicted customers.

The contrast of Perth with SF couldn't be bigger. It seems to me that everywhere in SF it smells of weed and people openly talk about having access to marijuana for medical reasons (to relieve stress, anxiety and depression!?). And then there is a lot of homeless people on the street and they are in your face, asking for spare change, continuously. I haven't yet seen drunk people on the streets yet, but I haven't really been out after nine at all. Daytime everybody dresses down as dirty t-shirt and jogging bottoms seems to be the top fashion. Somehow I feel that people dress down just not to attract attention to themselves, but honestly, you could at least wear a clean shirt from this millenium!?

I think I just now felt my first earthquake! Eek! To be sitting in a basement internet cafe and suddenly imagine the whole weight of this building on top of me...

It seems that this post ended up being a drug-related one. Well I guess it tells something of the attitudes and the demographics in these areas so similar in climate but so different in economics. Four days is a really short time to say anything yet about SF, but it definitely can clear my thoughts about Perth and how safe it felt! Already a few times in SF I've had a bad feeling of someone; the way they look, their facial expression, just the general air. Then I've looked him twice: he's wearing a gun... as he's the private security man assigned to my train or bus. I hate the feeling of thinking that someone's a threat already (feminine sixth sense?), but realising that that person is also carrying a gun makes me dizzy!

Academy of Sciences and Botanical Gardens

The sleep came all too easily without melatonin, but waking up in the morning was a struggle even after 12h sleep. Eventually when I had managed to force myself out of bed, I headed towards the huge Golden Gate Park (which is logically not next to the bridge). Getting out of the Union Square area was a relief - actual people and not just tourists and shops! Height St seemed like an amazing area, and the houses near the Golden Gate Park were beautiful three-story wooden pretties in pastel colours.

In the park itself I visited Academy of Sciences, and it was not exactly what I expected (I think I was described the Exploratorium by the boyfriend and I got the two mixed up). This first made me rather disappointed, but then I realised that the Academy had amazing birds, butterflies, chameleons and other reptiles, and much better aquarium than the one I visited on Monday! My favourites were electric eels, as well as the jellyfish (Pacific nettle?) once again. But what made the visit great was the very impressive Life: A Cosmic Story shown in the planetarium. The show began with a redwood forest and continued with zooming in all the way to inside the leaf through stomata, and then into the cell and the chloroplast to see photosynthesis as a molecular level animation! Most of the rest was stars and galaxies, and I was totally immersed into the show and not able to walk straight for the next hour. All in all, the scientific content and topics like climate change and evolution were well presented and I think the Academy is awesome. Oh, except there is a cafe where everything is sold in plastic cases, just next to the climate change exhibit urging people to use less plastic.

My second stop in the park was the Botanical Gardens. The first area I happened to walk into was Australian flora, and it had quite a few familiar banksias and kangaroo paws, which made me smile. The main attraction obviously was the sequoias, or the coastal redwoods. They were red and huge, as expected. The weather wasn't the greatest, so I headed back home after relatively short time in the gardens. I did have time to notice great numbers of squirrels who started following me in the hopes of a snack, which was slightly disturbing. I'm not squirrel food! The rest of the gardens seemed to contain plants from other Mediterranean climate areas in addition to California and Australia, namely South Africa, South Americas as well as Mediterranean itself.

On the way home I did a spot of shopping for good quality skincare products, as my skin seems to hate long-distance flights and is about as jetlagged as rest of my body. I also ventured into Tiffany's to declare their selection all too small for my tastes! Right now I'm doing laundry and I think it's the time to put my washing into the dryer!

Jet lag stories.

First night in SF was 15 hrs of sleep, waking up at 8am.

Second night was 14hrs of sleep, waking up at 1pm. Huge mistake. Yesterday was spent in confusion resembling hangover, sunstroke, being woken up too early and pms.

Third night... what night? 2hrs of sleep in the evening, then rolling awake in the bed, reading Catch-22 and plotting for world domination for seven hours... until the sleep came at 7am.

Luckily to keep me from sleeping all day I had a breakfast date with a dear high school friend who I haven't seen in three years. Luckily she and her sister are still awesome, and we went shopping for all day. Or rather, they shopped and I decided to come back later when my final salary had hit my bank account! It didn't prevent me from enjoying the supremely capitalist country in the best way capitalism works - the huge variety of clothes, shoes, bags, cosmetics, cocktails, cheesecake, Mexican food...!

Just about the only thing I bought today was some melatonin to try out for jet-lag; it's meant to do wonders for falling asleep and changing the circadian rhythm. We'll see! I guess I'll try sleeping without it first, 4hrs of sleep last night should make me fall asleep anytime day or night! Yesterday I bought this awesome handbag as I was too confused to go too far from the Union Square!

First impressions on San Francisco.

Sunday was epically long for me, it started in Perth with my alarm clock going off at 2:45am after maybe three hours of nervous sleep, and carried on til 30 hours later me falling asleep in San Francisco. I have to recommend the power of a good book at keeping me entertained: I didn't even want to sleep during the 13hr flight from Sydney to LA. Also, I have to recommend Qantas for long distance flights; not only do they serve two top quality meals on a long flight, they also serve a range of snacks, including toasties, fresh fruit, hot chocolate with marshmallows, caramel slices, ice lollies, cheese and crackers... and the items that I missed as too engrossed in my book! They also kept people updated on the results of the rugby world cup finals!

The first impression on San Francisco is very casual (people), very sunny (October weather), steep (hills) and cheap (America). Obviously these perceptions are through a haze of jetlag, which didn't exactly go away with the 15 hours of sleep I had straight after my arrival. My sleeping rhythm might be good now (waking up at 8am), but my body keeps telling me it should be in the middle of the night!

Random note: I eat a lot, and I am yet to finish a main course at a restaurant in America.

Today I had the most touristy day ever: taking the cable cars up and down the hills, visiting Fisherman's Wharf, visiting the Aquarium (cool jellyfish and anchovies), looking at the sealions, going on a cruise under the Golden Gate bridge and around Alkatraz. All of it was very pretty and picturesque, but my mobile phone was out of battery so there will not be pictures. I bet there are already about 2 million pics of the bridge in the interwebs! Tomorrow's plan includes the Academy of Science and Botanical Gardens, or potentially meeting up an old friend who happens to be in SF!

Final days in Australia.

The last few weeks have gone by in a flash. Finishing up at work and trying to do the final touristy things in Perth have used up some energy, as well as the numerous leaving drinks and especially the packing. Somehow we've accumulated once again all too much stuff, and even though we threw away kilos of stuff whilst packing, it's not enough. Posting things is extremely expensive and/or slow, so we decided to gamble and show up at airport with some extra weight. My boyfriend left already last night to Hong Kong, and I hear he had to threw away 5kg and hide another 5kg in his pockets to avoid paying 360USD for the extra weight. Honestly, since when has the long distance hand luggage limit been 8kg? I'm already dreading my airport experiences, given that I took most of our books and heavy items to carry as I don't have quite as much crap to carry with me.

Australia still keeps surprising me. The other night we walked by the Swan River and found some nice parks, and a few days later we went to barbecue some burgers in a riverside park in Peppermint Grove (free gas BBQs and clean toilets in most of the of parks in WA). We also went and took photos of the biggest roses I've ever seen in a public rose garden. In any other country, these facilities and gardens do not exist. Or if they do, they are not free to use. Brilliant!

Other surprises have included the ease of calling up gas and electricity for final bills, the change of address to an overseas address with tax office, cancelling my library membership - it's just been a matter of calling up and saying that I'm going. Email addresses and online accounts are valid ways for getting the information on final bills. This is hugely unlike leaving England, where you had to have a forwarding address in England. Also our English gas company tried to sell us more gas in our next address although we'd told them three times that you were leaving the country. And when we visited your bank to cancel our home insurance, they cancelled the direct debit for it instead and sent us a letter about how you're behind in your payments... I could keep going with the rant, but the point is in Australia everything has gone surprisingly smoothly this far.

And the final surprise Australia had in store for me: weather change from a blue sky and sunshine into black clouds and heavy rain... whilst I was cycling. When I got to work this morning I was soaking wet. Not a good way to start a day! Also the weather forecast is showing 33C for the day that I'm leaving, so I guess it's the time to celebrate me going with some proper summer temperatures!

Winery, cave and forest tour of Southern WA.

Our time in Australia is coming to an end, and we are headed into separate directions around the world to return to Europe for the rest of the year. I will be flying via California (to check out/interview for a couple of prospective jobs) and boyfriend will be travelling via Hong Kong. I'm quite excited about literally going around the world - never gone over the international date line before! And for the curious ones: I plan to be at home for most of December, and then spend beginning of the next year.... travelling in Asia! Who would've guessed?

Anyway, as my contract here is coming to an end, I've been forced to keep my holidays. Oh no, what a terrible obligation. To survive the sadness I felt from being prevented from going to work, we did a short tour of Southern West Australia. Pictures ahead, copyright belongs to my boyfriend, and click to see a bigger version.

Driving south from Perth there are a couple of lovely coastal towns on the way. First one, Rockingham, is supposed to have really lovely fresh seafood, but we missed that and soon we were in Mandurah. We were planning to drive straight through, but I spotted claw-like canals all over the suburbia on the street map, so we decided to check those out. It turns out that yes, the town has numerous canals lined with big suburban houses. Most of them have also big boats in front of the house, and when you look at the cars that these people drive, they're normal... oh wait, that guy is a plumber! The picture shows some of the houses facing the canal (you can see a boat or seven there).

Our next stop was a quick one in Busselton just after sunset. There is a 2km long jetty reaching out to the sea, and there were quite a few people fishing on it. But we didn't fish, or even walk to the end, as we were in a hurry to get to Margaret River by a reasonable time.

Margaret River is a famous wine growing region due to its Mediterranean climate. There are hundreds of wineries in the region, and most of them have "cellar doors", which basically are shops with a bar where you can sample their premium wines for free. We visited Leeuwin winery, which was on impressively beautiful grounds surrounded by tall Karri forest (more on trees later), and Xanadu winery, whose wines we liked and bought some to bring home. I think I could spend a forever sampling all the wines of Margaret River and eating in the fine vineyard restaurants.


In addition to fertile land to grow wine, there were a few limestone caves in the region. We visited the lake cave, which went about 70m underground and was 80m long. In the picture you can see the entrance to the cave as well as some very tall Karri trees.

The cave was absolutely stunning with the numerous stalagmites and stalagtites reflecting from the lake at the bottom. The lights were fairly dim to prevent algal growths, so the taking pictures was a bit tricky. This picture is taken at the very end of the cave towards the entrance, and for the scale, you can see a person leaning on the railing on the right.


The surfs in Margaret River region are meant to be really good too, so we went to see the waves at Prevelly Point and managed to catch some surfers practicing.


After two days in Margaret River we carried on forward. This is Cape Leeuwin lighthouse in the most South-Western point of Australia. It's also the tallest lighthouse in main land Australia. However, we were more interested in watching the beautiful waves of Southern Ocean whilst eating a picnic lunch in the car, as it was very windy and raining.


Then we were headed to the Southern Forests and the trees suddenly got very very tall. I started learning that there were not just Eucalyptus trees (as an European would think), but several species of Eucalyptus, which included the usual Jarrah trees, the tall Karris, the Marris that flower red when the grapes are ripe for winemaking, a variety of Tingles, the lemon-scented gum that shed its sticky flowers on our car overnight... Simply stunning and beautiful!


In the Walpole-Nornalup national park we saw gigantuous Red Tingles, where a car could've fit in the middle of the trunk. The holes were caused by fires and fungal degradation, but only the outernmost layer of the tree is required for growth. The reason for widening tree trunk was that the roots of Tingle trees are very shallow and the wide trunk gives support against strong winds (which came with some rain whilst we were there). This tree is approximately 400 years old!


The tree-top walk in the Valley of Giants rose to about 40 meters and swayed gently in the wind, allowing a good feel what would it be like to be in a tall Tingle tree.


Finally we had to head home, as Monday and work were looming ahead. We ran out of time to go whale-spotting in Albany and explore the Stirling Range national park, but we at least had time to go and see the Stirling Range looming in the horizon (above). The landscapes of Western Australia seems to have such variation; from desert to tall forests, from sea and islands to tall mountains, from bushland to vineyards and farmlands, and we even haven't seen any of the north with savannahs and much higher all-year temperatures. It makes me wish we had more time to explore!

Zoo!

These pictures are from a couple of weeks back when it still was a bit sunnier and warmer! It has been quite rainy and windy for a week or two now, doesn't feel like spring at all! Anyway, here's some pictures from Perth, and as usual, copyright belongs to my boyfriend and all pictures can be enlarged by clicking them.

View from the Swan River front near our new home where we had a picnic. We actually live in a fairly nice area, and there are some amazingly big houses and beautiful gardens around.

I've been wanting to go to Perth Zoo for a long time now, and it was definitely the best zoo I've ever been to. There were only a limited number of animals, but they had a lot of space to move in. This little cutie is obviously a koala!

Some of the Australian animals were inside a fenced area which the visitor path also went through. So basically you were strolling amongst kangaroos, quokkas and wallabies just like you would in the bush! There were designated animal resting areas where the kangaroos liked to take it easy.


These cute lizards were also in a pen without roof and with reasonably low plexiglass fences. Luckily they had the huge boa inside a properly enclosed terrarium!!


This is a wombat. It likes to dig burrows and block the hole with its bottom, which is adapted to the purpose and is protruding and hard.


And these birds are local pests, rainbow lorikeets, and they were spotted in the park outside the zoo. From the zoo birds I liked pelicans the most, although I don't understand how they stay there when they are kept in a completely open pond. Maybe it's just that lovely in the Perth Zoo!

Ponderings on Australians.

Cycling

Quite a lot of young Europeans think that Australians are tanned, sporty (surfers) and drink a lot of beer. This actually is very true. Sport here is not a hobby, it's a lifestyle. People run, swim, bike, paddle, surf and go to the gym a lot, and I can tell you that there is nothing leisurely about the way how they go about it. In the recent City to Surf run a great chunk of my co-workers ran either half-marathons or 12 km. I think it's all great, but it makes me question: why does everybody then drive to work?

I recently obtained a bike, and living a short cycling distance away from my work I started attempting to get to work by bike... but there are no bike lanes. Or there are bike lanes, but they suddenly end and the cyclist is forced to drive with the cars who really do not give space to cyclists (let alone pedestrians, even in tiniest roads with pedestrian crossings). So every day I've taken a different route to work, trying to find a way to cycle the distance so that it's not stressful. I've previously cycled with the traffic in Europe, and it's not an issue there. Here, it's impossible!

Also, the secure bike parking provided for a big building of maybe 300 workers is 20 spots. It is possible to salary sacrifice to pay for your car parking and to buy a car (so that you don't have to pay income tax on that money), but not for paying for a bike or public transport. This is definitely a city of cars, and it's not going to change anytime soon.

Reality TV

A lot of TV here is reality TV; MasterChef, Biggest Loser, Renovators, the Block, Next Top Model, X-Factor, you name it, there is an Australian version of it. Some of these programs actually have been pretty good in other countries - for example I loved the British MasterChef to bits- but here everything is made to take five times longer. So MasterChef UK was an hour a week for maybe 15 weeks. MasterChef Australia was 6 nights a week for the same period! An hour-long episode would usually consist of 15 minutes of ads, 15 minutes of "what will happen in this episode / after commercial break / happened before the break / will happen in the next episode", 15 minutes of how the contestants were feeling and maybe 15 minutes of the actual cooking and tasting the food. And still I ended up watching a lot of those episodes...

It seems that the main point of the programs is shifted from the actual competition to the people competing in it - their feelings, their interactions and relationships. MasterChef loves people who get along and cry together when one of them has to leave, and the Top Model loves girls who are bitchy and start fighting.

And this reflects to the politics too. It seems that people are interested in two things: paying as little tax as possible and scandals. Who cares how the prime minister has been running the country - there was someone in her party who cheated a big sum of money from the tax payers into his own pockets! Everything is made very personal it seems, and the closer the politics are to a Big Brother house, the happier the people are to talk about it. On the other hand, it is the only country where I've seen the PM (and the opposition leader) go in front of a live audience to answer people's questions on a regular basis.

Feminism

One day over lunch I was chatting to some of my co-workers and the conversation turned to women and their rights. And shockingly enough, there were a few young women who seemed to think it was progressive for women not to submit to men. I can see that there are still work to be done in women's rights if this is progressive thinking for Australia!

One year on the road!

I just realised that it has been exactly one year today that I left from home. Just one year?! Already a year?! I don't know what to say. Happy birthday to my travels I guess!

In the other news, me and my boyfriend moved yesterday. Our previous houseshare came to a sudden end as our housemate decided to move, taking all the furniture with her, but kindly offering us an option to move with her. After some pondering and checking out the market, we came by a lovely two-bedroom flat in an area that has vastly better access to public transport (train), shops and restaurants, beach and my work... so we decided to move last Monday and then actually moved on Saturday! It's been amazing having a little flat of our own, not worrying about waking up housemates or leaving too much mess in the kitchen. Somehow it still feels bit like someone else's place though, but I guess it won't be long until I start thinking about it as my home.

Melbourne.

There are good and bad sides to working; the worst one is that you don't get to travel, and the best one is that you get to travel! So we had an opportunity of spending a week in Melbourne for my work, so of course we went! Melbourne was very European, had reasonable public transport (unlike Perth), had a lot of museums and theatres, and had the best cafes and bars. Here's some pictures, and as always, click to view a larger version and copyright my boyfriend.

The Central Business district (CBD) viewed from the South Bank during the day.

The Central Business district (CBD) viewed from the South Bank during the night. The well-lit building at the front is Flinders Street Station.

Another day view of the CBD from South Bank. The tall building on the left, Rialto, had a brand Lui Bar on the 55th floor where we had the pleasure of drinking beer and looking at the city lights.

CBD from 55th floor. Flinders St Station on the right next to the river.

South Bank from 55th floor. Most of this picture is Crown Casino Entertainment Complex which had a Hong Kong / Las Vegas -feel to it inside. In the horizon the lights of St Kilda Pier are visible.

Docklands from 55th floor.


We spent a day off exploring the Botanical Gardens. Not very many of the local plants were flowering in the middle of the winter!

The day was a sunny one, maybe 20C.

After the Botanical Gardens we took a tram to Chapel Street. The tram network in Melbourne is supposedly the most extensive in the world!

Chapel Street area had a lot of elaborate graffiti on the side streets. It also had a lot of small boutique shops, bars and restaurants. I bough a pair of shoes and we enjoyed a Moroccan dinner at Mama Ganoush. We also checked out St Kilda after the sunset, but unsurprisingly the beach esplanade would've been better during a summer's day!

Yet another night-time pic of central Melbs! Beautiful!

On our final day we went to Fitzroy area (Brunswick Sq) which similarly to Chapel St has a lot of cafes, bars and little independent shops. The houses were old yet lovely, and the atmosphere very friendly.


The sidestreets had lots of funky graffiti.

And this dim-lit picture is from my favourite bar/restaurant ever, Naked for Satan. The bar was housed in an old distillery, and derives its name from a secret code for making illegal vodka in the heat of the summer. The bar was decorated with all kinds of lamps (like the bottlecase-lamp shown in the pic) and tasteful pin-up pictures. They served their in-house brewed beer as well as delicious pintxos. I could've sat there for days!

When we were finally in a taxi headed back to the airport, we spotted a full 180-degree double rainbow over Melbourne. What does it mean? I thought to myself. Maybe Melbourne wants us to stay? Or maybe it means that it rains a lot in Melbourne and that the sun shines from a low angle!

Roadtrip to Kalbarri.

Last week we had the pleasure of boyfriend's mum visiting us here in Western Australia, and we hired a car to tour the vast bushy coastline to North for five days. We had really good time, beautiful views, delicious food and some sunny weather too. Here are some pictures from the roadtrip.

The Pinnacles Desert at sunset. The shadows were long and the atmosphere magical.

There were a lot of Pinnacles!

The colours changed with the setting sun.

And the evening sky was the darkest blue.

A rainy morning in Cervantes made the beach even more beautiful. After Cervantes we stopped in Jurien Bay for fish and chips, and Geraldton for the night and trip to the museum.

Pink Lake near Port Gregory. The colour was quite intense and comes from beta-carotene produced by halophilic alga Dunaliella salina.

Coastal cliffs of Kalbarri by the Indian Ocean - next stop Africa. I could stand here for ages watching the waves hit the rocks... if it wasn't raining! Also, we spotted a Sea Lion swimming in the sea.

What would holiday pics be without one with a huge Bougainvillea bush (notice the bike as a reference)?

We climbed up to a whale-watching tower, and I was handed a pair of binoculars and told to spot a whale. Usually I do what I'm told, so I managed to spot a group of migrating Humpback Whales spraying water out in the ocean!

Rainbow Jungle had a huge collection of all kinds of amazing exotic birds, Australian and otherwise. These birds were Lovebirds, and I think they were the cutest! I also learned a lot: not to walk under beams in the huge walk-in bird cage, and that the Rainbow Lorikeets that are so abundant in Perth were originally introduced into the area by animal activists releasing them from their cages... and now they're so numerous that they're considered as pests and they have taken over some of the native bird species.

My boyfriend managed to convince us that quadbiking would be a great way to see the nature... and he was absolutely right! It also was great fun!

The wildflowers were starting to flower, the spring is slowly coming! The quadbike in these pictures is the one I drove with boyfriend's mum on the passanger seat at the back.

The Little Red Hill, which truly held its name.

The view from our little apartment balcony in Kalbarri. I could've stayed there for so much longer!

The Murchison River runs through the Kalbarri National Park, and it was gorge-ious.

During the winter rains the river is much bigger, but now it was still and beautiful.

On the drive up north we saw a lot of different types of bushland, coastal vegetation, salt lakes, and some farmed land. All of the vegetation has to cope with the hot summers as well as the wind from the ocean. This is one of the wind-sculpted, leaning trees of Greenough.

And eventually we had to return to Perth. I don't think I've posted a pic of the city centre (CBD; central business district) before, so here goes!

After the trip to Kalbarri, I had to return back to work but it didn't prevent boyfriend and his mum enjoying Perth sightseeing, including some Aborginal art galleries and the Aquarium. For the evenings we managed to cram so delicious dinners as well as catching the final Harry Potter in 3D. And on the Saturday before her flight back home we went on a wine tasting cruise in Swan Valley, which was heaps of fun although the Water's Edge wines were too close to their name (watery).

This week has been a busy one at work, as on Sunday we're flying to Melbourne for a week as I'm attending a conference there. Really looking forward to it; seeing another part of Australia and the city which is meant to be the cultural centre of the continent!