This is the first thing I saw after entering Canberra airport, which was a huge advertising mural for the Floriade, an Australian way to celebrate Spring with over one million of flowers. It immediately put a smile on my face--you can tell how laid back Australian are from the design right away. They have no problem in making fun of their national Coat of Arms and of course they have to incorporate their favorite outdoor activity, "barbie", as Australians call it, along with a bug and bug-repelling devices.
(Obviously bugs are part of the Australian life. As rumor says it, the reason why Australian are "drawling" when they speak is because this way they could keep their mouth shut as much as possible so that no buy can fly in! )
The second thing I noticed was how much Australians like roundabouts. For a less than ten minute taxi drive between the airport and hotel, there were at least eight of them! Umm, I just had my first encounter with roundabouts in Boston not a while ago, and frankly that was scary. Let's see how long it is going to take for me to drive here in confidence, considering I have never driven on the left side of the road!
Of course it was hard not to pay attention to all sorts of bird chirping, warbling, and eeyoring. Not sure eeyor can be used as a verb, but one type of bird did sound like a donkey to me. It was a cockatoo, according to MM.
When those flying donkeys were quite, the city suddenly became a very peaceful place. We walked to Civic, the center of the city after a short nap. Surprisingly, there were not many people around for a Saturday afternoon, and most stores closed at 7pm?!
According to MM though, this is a result of government's regulation, which tried to divert people from the city center to community shopping areas. Make perfect sense, but for people living in this neighborhood, there is nowhere else to go other than this center market, isn't it?
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