Week Twelve

Parliament House

Chinese Embassy

Lake Burley Griffin

Australian Senate

Hey guys, welcome once again to Week Twelve at JayceDownUnder! At the conclusion of this week, I will officially have a month  left in Australia and the countdown to my return to America will begin. With the end of the semester approaching rapidly, things are beginning to heat back up workload-wise. I guess the stressful, end-of-semester crunch time isn't just unique to American universities. But anyways, this week's blog post will probably be slightly more interesting than some of the previous week's entries. That's because, this week, I'm going to be discussing my recent visit to Canberra, the national capitol of Australia!

Alright, before I begin, I should probably share a few basic details about the city of Canberra. It's actually pronounced Can-bruh, as I was fortunate enough to learn prior to my visit to Australia so as to avoid pronouncing it the way it's actually spelled. As I said earlier, it is the capitol of the entire country, the equivalent of our Washington D.C. And like D.C., it does not belong to any state. The "district" in which it is located is called the ACT (Australian Capitol Territory, not the standardized test). The ACT is a lovely place with lots of nature (including the beautiful man-made lake pictured above) and is a bit colder and more temperate than Wagga and other parts of Australia. In fact, the weather and lots of the trees that been introduced and planted gave it a kind of European/ North American feel. Canberra is also an intricately-planned out city, it is very symmetrical, which works out very well for a foreign tourist such as myself.

As for the things I did while in Canberra, I was elated by the amount of historical things available to do. Regrettably, I don't know nearly as much about Australian history as I do American and European history,so I found the trip to be a wonderful learning experience. Perhaps the highlight of my short trip was my visit to the Australian parliament, a large, majestic building with over 4,500 rooms! Needless to say, I was unable to see the majority of them, but a free guided tour took me to the House of Representatives and Senate chambers (as pictured above). In the process, I received a free lecture that taught me that the house has 150 members; and the Senate 76. Like the US, the House of Representatives is based on proportional representation (out of 150 federal electorates) and the Senate on equal representation (12 for each state, two each for the Northern Territory and the ACT). Having never been to D.C., I've never visted a national capitol before, so getting to experience the center of Australian federal politics was an amazing experience.

The Chinese Embassy pictured above was not the only embassy I visited. In fact, there were several streets, like a small housing division full of different embassies. In fact, I spent the better part of an hour walking around looking at all the different ones. Each embassy was built to reflect the culture of the nation it represented, with the Chinese embassy having a traditional tile roof and the Papua New Guinea embassy with an usual tribal design on its steepled roof. Photographic evidence of all the embassies I got around to seeing is provided on my Facebook page.

After I was done at the embassies and Parliament House, I made the long (at least an hour) walk across town to the Australian War Memorial. The museum is billed as one of the world's great museums and it certainly lives up to the billing. In many ways, the setup of the museum and the presentation of the exhibits reminded me of the National World War I museum in Kansas City. While at the museum, I was fortunate enough to be present during the closing hour, where a closing ceremony was held by the "pool of reflection" in the museum's outdoor area. The ceremony was dedicated to one Australian WWII veteran in particular, with some of his relatives there to place flowers at the base of his photo on display. Following this very moving ceremony, I made the return trip to my hostel along ANZAC Parade street, which was lined by memorials for the different wars Australia has been involved in.

So, overall, Canberra was yet another successful and enjoyable adventure here in Australia. This upcoming weekend, I will be taking a journey to Melbourne (the country's second largest city). From what I've heard, the consensus seems to be that Melbourne is better than Sydney. I've been told it is a very European-esque city, so as someone who's never been to Europe, I'm pretty excited to see what it's like. The weather here in Australia has finally begun to get hot, this week's forecast predicts several days to be in the mid to upper seventies, so that's quite exciting. But on that note, I leave you all and look forward to sharing the details of my Melbourne trip with you for Week Thirteen. 

Week Eleven

Me and a large male kangaroo

Crocodiles at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary



Wagga Wagga Botanic Gardens

 

 

Hello again everybody and welcome back to my blog! We've now reached Week Eleven (once again, I'm absolutely astonished at how quickly time flies) and my time here at Charles Sturt University is beginning to come to an end. After the completion of this week, I will have exactly five weeks left in Australia: three weeks of class, followed by two weeks of exams. I must admit, now that the weeks are piling up, I'm getting a bit anxious to get back to my family and friends. However, I am not letting that distract me from enjoying my remaining time here in Australia and my academic goals. Once again, there is not a lot to talk about in this week's post; so I think I'll just give a brief update on what I've been doing, what I plan to do, and maybe a few random musings on Aussie culture.

 

 

This past weekend, I had the privelege of attending the Wagga Wagga Ag Races, an all-day festive event at the local 'turf club'. A brief aside: I used single quotes around turf club in keeping with the Australian custom. I must admit, I feel unusually sophisticated when, whilst typing class essays, I write organise instead of organize. I sometimes get the urge to read my papers in an English or Australian accent. But getting back to the Ag Races, I found them very enjoyable and almost the quintessential Australian experience. I'd never been to a horserace before in my life, so needless to say I didn't know what to expect. There were a lot of people dressed very nicely (I was dressed in a semi-formal fashion, but still felt somewhat underdressed) and there were lots of women wearing hats and very flamboyant hair ornaments. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself immensely watching the horses run and meeting lots of new people. And no, I did not place bets on any of the horses. I'm not much of a gambler to begin with, and I know virtually nothing about horses so I decided not to throw away my money.

 

Other than the exciting and enjoyable time I had at the races on Saturday, not a whole lot new has been going on. The weather is getting progressively nicer each week, this week will be sunny and in the mid 70s (or the mid 20s as I've grown accustomed to saying, I'm getting better at the Fahrenheit-Celsius conversion) and the days are growing longer as well. I have just become aware that the day I arrive back in the US, November 1st, is also the last day of daylight savings; so my Circadian Rhythm will be thrown even more out of whack. Anyways, I have met no shortage of new people. Fortunately, as a foreign exchange student, I am able to make friends quite easily due to my 'exotic' nature in addition to the general friendliness of the Australian population.

So, as you can tell, the past few weeks have been rather uneventful with the exception of school assignments. I have only two assignments left for the entire semester, and they are both due on the same week in October. This upcoming weekend, I'm taking a trip to Canberra (the nation's capitol) and after that I plan on visiting Melbourne (Australia's second largest city after Sydney, the Los Angeles of Australia) over a three-day weekend. So, needless to say, there will be a lot more to blog about in the weeks ahead. By the time I've returned from my trip to Melbourne, I'll have just three weeks left in this country! Pretty crazy to think about. Regardless, I look forward to my upcoming travels and being able to share them with my readers in future posts. Cheers!

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week Ten

The infamous dingo

Echidna



Cassowary

 

 

Hello again ladies and gentlemen! This week's post is fortunately going to be online early in the week, unlike last week's post. Much like last week, there isn't a whole lot going on, so this post won't be terribly long. Before getting into the meat of the post, I'll give the customary explanation of the pictures included in this entry. The legendary dingo of Australian lore is pictured in the upper left-hand corner. Once again, I apologize for the blurry quality of these photos, most of them were taken at a substantial distance as the animals were in caged expanses. To the right of the dingo is the echidna, a peculiar, furry pig-like creature that I'd never even heard of prior to my visit to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Below both of these pictures, is the cassowary, which holds the distinction of being the world's most dangerous bird.

 

Because not much is going on this week, I suppose I should shed some light on the town in which I'm studying. Wagga Wagga is an Aboriginal term meaning "place of many crows", and believe me it is an apt description. The crows and their loud braying-like birdcall can be heard at just about any time of the day. Wagga Wagga (or simply Wagga as the locals call it) is a town more or less the same size as my hometown of Joplin, Missouri. I think the population hovers somewhere around 60,000 making it the largest inland city in all of New South Wales. In Australia, nearly all of the major population centers are located on the coast, so a town with such a population to be five hours from the nearest beach is quite rare.

 

While Wagga may not be as big as Sydney, Melbourne or the other more well-known cities in Australia, I'd have to say I am very satisfied with being able to study here rather than in any of those places. Having grown up in Joplin, I'm not much of a big city guy in the first place; and I have to admit I was a little intimidated by the sheer size of Sydney. Wagga, being much smaller in size, definitely feels much more like home; and the CSU campus is located about 10 kilometres (6 miles) north of the city centre, which gives the campus a delightful country vibe with lots of greenery and beautiful scenery. And while Wagga may seem lacking in size when compared to Sydney, it is big enough to have everything I need (there are plenty of shops and stores along the city's main street, although, getting into town can be a bit of a hassle).

 

So, I guess Wagga's perfect size makes me feel right at home. Because it's not too big, I don't feel intimidated or uncomfortable; and because it's not too small I don't feel isolated or bored. I wasn't really aware of how at home I felt in Wagga (after all it's about 10,000 miles from my true home) until I visited Sydney and the Gold Coast. After finishing my vacation, I actually felt a sense of comfort and relief upon returning to my (temporary) home.

 

 

 

 

 

Week Nine

A Wild Wallaby

Main Beach

Q1 Building

Surfers Paradise

Hey all! Welcome back to my blog! I would just like to start off by apologizing for the delay in Week Nine's entry being posted. I've been a bit busy this week, and to be honest, I seem to keep forgetting.
There isn't much to discuss in this week's post as my first week back after break has been pretty monotonous, so this week's post will be a bit short.

As I've spent the past two entries discussing the two highlights of my trip to the Gold Coast (the rainforest tour and Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary) I suppose I should talk a bit about some of the other things I did during my five day stay there.

Outside of my visits to the hinterlands and the wildlife sanctuary, I'd have to say my favorite thing in the Gold Coast was the beach. As the city's name would suggest, Gold Coast is very much a beach town. There were several very popular beaches in the area, but Main Beach was the one that I chose to visit, as it was very close and easily accessible from the hostel I was staying at. While the weather wasn't exactly hot on the days I visited, it was pleasant and sunny and the water wasn't too freezing.

The place I stayed in was a very nice and pleasant hostel called Gold Coast Backpackers. Having always stayed at hotels during my vacations, the concept of a hostel was very foreign to me. For those of you unfamiliar with what exactly a hostel is, it is basically very affordable accommodation where you share bedrooms with strangers. I would probably prefer to stay at a hotel, but very fortunately, everyone I have stayed with so far has been very nice and courteous. In fact of the four nights I stayed at this hostel, I only had to share my room once.

The hostel was located in a place called Surfers Paradise, which is the main commercial district in the Gold Coast. It was very tourist-oriented, there was a very convenient tram system that actually stopped right outside my hostel. In fact, Surfers Paradise was so tourist-oriented that it really seemed to me like an Australian approximation of Los Angeles, with the way the buildings looked and they manner in which they were arranged. Regardless, however, it was a very nice area to stay in.

As you can tell, while I enjoyed my tour of the Queensland Hinterlands and the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary the most, I thoroughly enjoyed my entire stay in the Gold Coast. Just for the clarification, the building pictured above labeled "Q1 building" is the Queensland One building, the tallest building in Australia and the entire Southern Hemisphere. It was formally the tallest residential building in the world until just recently.

That's it for this week guys! You'll all hear from me again next week, and I'll try and publish my post a bit earlier in the week. Thanks for bearing with me!

Week Eight

Waterfall

Springbrook Rainforest

Me and the parrots

Tambourine Mountain

Hello again everyone and welcome back to JayceDownUnder! Well, it's Week Eight now, which means that I'm  officially halfway through my time here in Australia. This is beginning of the second week of the mid-term break, and after this week there will be six more full weeks of class followed by two weeks of final exams. After that, I'll be back home. Now that I have returned home from my short vacation up to the Gold Coast I plan to spend the remainder of my break relaxing and completing some pretty big assignments due in the near future. As there's not much other than that going on at the moment, I'm going to spend this post discusing the all-day tour of the Gold Coast "hinterlands" I took last week.

On Monday, the day after my visit to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, I embarked on a Southern Cross 4WD all-day tour. After being picked up from my hotel, we headed up to Tambourine Mountain, pictured above. I have to say Tambourine Mountain was probably one of the most uniquely Australian I've been to so far in. For those of you that don't know, wilderness in Australia is commonly referred to as the "bush". Therefore, the term hiking is not used down under; instead it is called "bushwalking". Tambourine Mountain is considered bushland and is considered to be distinctive from the rainforest. As you can tell from the picture above, it is full of eucalyptus and gum trees and is a fascinating place.

While on Tambourine Mountain, we stopped for morning tea at a lovely place called the Old Church. After that, we continued on to Tambourine Rainforest. As if the bushland on Tambourine Mountain wasn't fascinating enough, the rainforest was one of the most naturally beautiful places I've ever laid my eyes on. Having never seen a rainforest with my own eyes, but having viewed many photos,  I kind of had an idea of what it would look like but I was still absolutely blown away. True to form, the rainforest was noticeably colder than the rest of the mountain, due mainly to the fact that the forest was so thick and dense there was barely any sunlight shining through the canopy. Inside the Tambourine Rainforest, there was a beautiful waterfall and a picturesque creek on the forest floor.

After we were done walking through Tambourine Rainforest, we stopped for lunch after a half-hour drive through the Queensland "hinterlands". After lunch, I tried having a go with a boomerang and managed to get it to more or less return to me a couple times (the other throws were complete disasters however). After we were done, we took another 45 minute drive through the mountains up some very steep and windy roads, some of which were more than a little nerve-wracking. Upon completion of our drive, we arrived at Springbrook National Park, another mountainous rainforest filled with strangler trees, Wonga vines, and Australian birds. Australian birds are not only more exotic and more colorful than North American birds, they are also much louder. As I walked through Springbrook Rainforest, the air was filled with all kinds of exotic birdsongs. There is a bird native to the Gold Coast area called the Queensland Albert Liar bird, which is incredibly unique in that it can imitate almost any sound from a camera snap to a running chainsaw.

The Springbrook Rainforest trail eventually gave way to the rainforest skywalk which consisted of rickety bridges several meters above the rainforest floor. The last thing we did on the tour was bird feeding just outside the entrance to the rainforest trail. The moment I was handed the feed tray, I was swarmed by beautifully colored birds. While the parrots were absolutely gorgeous, I could only hold the feed tray for a few mintues at a time as it was quite painful to have all their talons dug into me. It was also a bit frightening the way they would come to you, swarming right at your face and landing atop your head. But overall, it was an immensely enjoyable experience and I'm very glad I did it.

Well, that concludes this week's blog post. See you all next week!