Saturday, came down to breakfast to find 200 blonde airheads in full squawk in the lobby. Turns out there's a skin care conference on. As the elderly Aussie in the queue for the unhealthy breakfast choices muttered darkly " hubby won't be getting his tea tonight". The spirit of the 50s alive and well in South Australia, then.

We ate at an Italian last night, outside given the weather had improved. At the next table were a man and woman, with passers-by pausing to wish him good luck for tomorrow. One called him Mr Parnell so, guessing that might be his name, I googled him when we got back. Turns out he was Mark Parnell, the first Green representative in SA to be elected to the State Legislature, whose term was up and was hoping to be re-elected. Obviously his main support base is the festival-attending, Italian-food-eating demographic.

Went to the zoo this afternoon to see the giant pandas. The picture shows Wang Wang, the male of the pair, who conveniently strolled across to me when he saw the camera.

Tomorrow after lunch we're flying to Canberra, for one night, after which we're driving down to Surf Beach. More anon

Adelaide

We arrived here Friday morning having flown overnight from Singapore. No sleep en route as the guy in the seat behind us coughed all night, so not feeling on top form.

First impressions of Adelaide: everyone seems very young, something I've commented on before in Australian cities. The Aussies welcome migrants, and have pretty much renewed their gene pool over two generations. Downtown, where we are, is a grid system, with free trams. Our hotel is in a pedestrianised bit, and the Adelaide Festival is about to start, so there's a lot of bustle going on. The bad news is that it's cloudy and rain is expected later.

It's a small(ish) city of 1.2 million, and dates back to the 1820s when it was founded as a colony for free migrants, as opposed to convicts. Fans of Aussie place names, where they name something after it's most obvious feature (the Great Sandy Desert, for example) will enjoy the local attraction Mount Lofty. In WA there's a Lake Disappointment, which is nice, as well as a Shark Bay, which must do wonders for the holiday trade.

There's a zoo, which we may visit tomorrow, which has the only giant pandas in the Southern Hemisphere. I'll post a pic or two if possible - wifi here is free but sooooo slow....

Singapore

Well we arrived here last night. We're staying at he Park Regis, just for the night.

Today it's 32 degrees, as it usually is. We're pretty much on the equator here so there are no distinct seasons, though the humidity varies from very high, to even higher.

If you ignore the climate you could be at home. Everything, literally, is in English: street names, road signs, the adverts on the side of buses, all in English. Which is odd, because of the 5m people who live here 75% are ethnic Chinese. English is spoken by around half the population.

Nominally a democracy, the same party has ruled since independence in 1959. No doubt the trains run on time, but crime is almost non-existent. Possibly this is because of the fierce punishments imposed. For example, littering is punishable by beheading. (If it's a first offence. Do it again and you're really in trouble.) Or possibly it's because everyone has a job and a roof over their head. Who can say?

We're only here for a few hours, so we're going to check out the orchids* at the Botanical Gardens, by recommendation. This evening we fly to Adelaide, where we arrive tomorrow morning. More exciting news anon.

*Did you know the word orchid derives from the Greek 'orchis', meaning testicle?

Here we go again

On 6 April 2010 I said that would be my last posting. Well, I lied, because today we're been to see Jolene in Flight Centre and booked to go back next year. Last time Trevor was in England I lent him my Spinal Tap DVD, and I need to get it back.... So on 11 March we will fly Singapore Airlines to Adelaide, with an overnight in Singapore, for a few days mooching about. Then a flight to Canberra where, after a night's stay, we'll pick up a hire car and drive to Bateman's Bay (NSW)where Glenda and Trevor live. We'll be there a couple of weeks, renting an apartment across the road from their house. After that, we'll drive to Sydney, drop off the car, and stay a couple of days. We had thought we'd take in the Blue Mountains but in view of the fires we're giving that a miss. We fly home from Sydney, again via Singapore, arriving back home on 9 April. There a still a few bits and pieces to sort out, but that's the bones of it. I'll be posting whenever I can find some Wi-Fi, and have told Trevor I want to go surfing again. More exciting news in due course.

This will be my last posting. I thought I would entertain you with some thoughts about Oz.

The universal greeting is “How’re you going?” to which the correct response is “Good, mate, how’re you?” and not “How kind of you to enquire. In fact, I went after breakfast”.

All their coffees are called something different. The most common are the long black, which we would call an Americano, and the flat white, which has no British equivalent – basically a white coffee, but not all frothed up.

Yoghurt is pronounced yoe-gurt

Universal response to any request is “No worries”

Driving is pretty much the same as here, except that ‘no entry’ signs are followed by a sign saying ‘WRONG WAY – GO BACK’ which is rather nice.

Speed limits are enforced with fierce penalties and are strictly observed, so far as I could see. I was told that many cars are fitted with a speed governor, because keeping down to 110 km/hr on empty freeways is pretty difficult.

Courgettes are called zucchini

Distances are vast. You can drive two hours from Bateman’s Bay, NSW, to Canberra, in what is a fairly well-populated part of the country, and encounter just two small towns along the way. In WA, the largest State, there is a population of 1.4 million, of whom 1 million live in Perth/Fremantle. The remaining 400,000 live in an area half the size of all Europe; clearly there is a lot of space between the people.

Thongs are flip flops, not uncomfortable pants

The major cities seem full of young people – through immigration Australia has added nearly 50% of its population in the last two generations. This bodes well for its future, by which I mean there will be someone to pay the pensions of the oldies, which is important, I think..

Fire is a constant worry, especially in NSW and Victoria, the most populous States. The Australian terrain, and the plants and trees that live there, have evolved to depend on regular fires, usually started by lightning, for regeneration. Pretty well every summer homes are destroyed and lives lost through fires, which can advance at devastating speed. We saw camp site notices prohibiting fires in all circumstances, which kind of defeats the object of camping, I should have thought.

The Aussies are, in my experience anyway, open and friendly. They will always stop and have a chat – if they hear an English accent you can rely on hearing about their geographic connection/ancestry/trip to England or whatever.

Despite the harshness of the interior, the large number of species that can kill you (whilst this can be exaggerated, there are certainly a large number of creatures which can seriously spoil your day), and the possibility of having your house burned down every summer, Australia is a beautiful country, blessed with, for the most part, good weather. It is not surprising that so many people go to live there. If the opportunity arises, we will go back, certainly to Bateman’s Bay, which is a gorgeous area. If we don’t, we’ve got many happy memories to bore people with.

Finally, I had so many complaints because people could not access the photos I put on my Facebook page, I have opened a Flickr account. The photos can now be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobzinoz

This week we have two Wednesdays. We left Sydney, flew for thirteen hours, and landed in San Francisco five hours before we took off. How is this possible? Someone should look into this.

Anyway, it’s back to winter coats: on arrival, it’s cold and wet here. Staying at the Chancellor, on recommendation of friends; it’s a fine old boutique hotel, and in a good position in the city.

SF is not, I suspect, a typical US city. It is quite European in many ways: there are trams, and 3 cable car routes, not too much traffic, steep hills, haphazard little streets, and above all the views of the bay and the bridges. For my money the Bay Bridge is every bit as grand as the Golden Gate, for all the latter’s iconic status. We did the usual touristy things: up to Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, for the views; Pier 39 for the tat; and cruise around the bay, taking in the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

Apparently, of all the prisoners who ever escaped from Alcatraz ,only five were not recaptured, and they probably drowned; although the island is only 2,000 yards from shore, the waters are very cold, the currents strong, and there are sometimes sharks.

The customer service ethic is very strong here, and people are very keen to please you. They have the original Levi’s store just round the corner from where we’re staying. I needed some new jeans so we popped in. The staff couldn’t have been more helpful, and one in particular was very keen to let me know his name was Bill. When we got to checkout, the cashier said “…and were you helped by anyone? Yes? I don’t suppose you caught their name?”

Finally, from the USA, the last word on the great thong debate. We think it’s a G string, Aussies a flip flop; here, as you would expect, they go both ways (see pic).

Tomorrow, we fly home.

PS. Sorry about the lack of more photos – wifi here is very flaky, and doesn’t last long enough for the upload. Will deal with this when I get home

Had to buy an umbrella! For the first time since we left home on 1 March it’s raining.

We walked down to Circular Quay, to the Museum of Contemporary Art where there was an installation by Olafur Eliasson, who did the weather project at Tate Modern, which we enjoyed. This was very good too; doubly so as we were able to claim concessionary prices as old codgers.

After lunch we caught the ferry to Manly. Manly is a suburb of Sydney, noted for its surf beach. It gets its name from the fact that a governor of NSW “admired the manly bearing” of the local Aborigines. Possibly he was a naval man. Not much to do there, given the rain, so we mooched around a bit and caught the ferry back.

In the evening we went to George and Natalie’s in the suburb if Lewisham. They’ve done a lot of renovation to the house and garden of which they’re justly proud (“come and see my basil!”). They’ve done it all really well, and have ‘before and after’ photos, including pics of Natalie covered in paint, and wriggling in the ceiling space. He had promised us a barbie, and wasn’t going to let the rain stand in the way, rigging up a huge canopy over the patio. We were joined by Natalie’s mum and dad, and after baby Amelia (7 weeks) had been put to bed, sat down to a feast (including kangaroo – much more sustainable in Aussie conditions than beef). This was our last night in Australia, and it couldn’t have been nicer: lights in the garden, rain pouring down…..

Last word on Australia: two countries divided by a common language. We were half-watching some crappy morning TV programme in the hotel, and the big story concerned a restaurant in Brisbane who was surcharging customers who came in wearing thongs. Why would you go out to eat in your pants? Turns out, over here when they talk about thongs they mean flip flops. When we were in Perth I had seen a sign outside a pub saying no thongs or workboots, which makes sense now. I know in Wales or somewhere they’ve had to stop people going in Tesco in their pyjamas, but pub-goers in thongs and workboots…..? I would pay a lot to see that.

On to San Francisco in the morning.