This morning I woke up and I knew that I was going to get ill. It was one of those tingles in the throat when it’s evident. But no worries, it was the very last morning, so I thanked my luck for being ill on zero of the days in my holiday, what a blessing. Swine flu, bring it on.

Our flight to Heathrow wasn’t until six a clock, so we had a good while morning to bounce around New York left. It was sunny as well, what a great set of weathers have we stumbled on. We generally had very little rain on this trip, only a couple of days when it was pissing down, and even then, it was entertaining.

First things first, our mission was to visit the Chinatown post office and get the very last package on its way to Finland. 26 packages total have we sent from this trip, most of them not on the smaller side if you see what I mean. The post office was an experience on its own. In there you really understand all the safety rituals, all the reasons to be alert of all times. This was like going to a prison to talk to an inmate. All the office workers were behind thick, bullet proof glass, with signs on them that said: Attacking a Postal Worker or robbing a post office is a crime punishable by 10-15 years in prison. There was a bullet proof glass cage which you put the package into, which the officer then opens only after you closed it from the other side. Later on the day we walked past another post office downtown. The security in that one was nothing like this. It really gives you a perspective on how dodgy the neighborhood where we were staying was. I didn’t see any guns, but I could feel them all around me, in the bags, under the counters.

After checking out and leaving our luggage to the hotel reception, we took bus number 15 to Battery Park again and went to visit the museum of American Indians. This was a huge, gorgeous Art Deco building which they seemed to have gained recently to the purpose of putting out this exhibit. However, it was one of the poorest experiences that I’ve seen, an excuse for a museum. It didn’t help that we stumbled onto a security guard, who was pretending to be a curator, who knew absolutely nothing about the pieces on show and then decided that he would interpret my husband’s shit which was Haida art moon that we bought from Vancouver: “See this, it’s a Killer Whale”, was the last straw. They had some costumes of the aboriginals on show (some inluded series of Moose teeth sewn on top!), which of course were interesting, but they had been placed out in the huge building by an eight year old… The museum seriously needs to pay a visit to the Asian Art Museum on San Francisco. As the aboriginals let us down, I felt no obligation or need to buy their tat, even though they had Haida art there as well.

We decided to take the metro back to the Chinatown to have lunch around there. We also tried to check out the museum of Chinese in New York, but it was –if possible- even a bigger disappointment than museum number one previously today. This one didn’t even have an entrance to it. There was a corridor, a sign, but no entrance. But not to worry, there was still plenty of post cards to write back home. I estimate that I have written around 200 post cards, at least 12 from each city (30 from some) and we were in around 12 cities on our way…

No more to do except to get a taxi to the airport. JFK terminal 8 was kind of a disappointment as well… Nothing more that I would have wanted to buy, series or burger kings and Kentucky fried chickens lurking. We spent our last hours abroad watching quality American television – the one thing that the Americans do well. I never had a huge urge to go to America, like some… And now as I’ve been there, I can say that yes, there is original culture there, hiding underneath it all… But I have no huge desire to be back soon… Back in San Francisco one day would be nice, maybe we’ll take the Transsiperian to Vladivostok like we always talked about.

Just when leaving, I stumbled onto the evil King Fu Panda Noodles shop… Forget everything I said about it being bland in here… Only in America…

We got up at eight and were by the Battery Park by nine thirtyish. You guess right, today was the time to do the boring sightseeing that all the tourists do. We had tickets for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island cruise and went through the inspection (as tough as any airport customs) to get to the ferry in no time. It surely was not the best weather to see the symbol of freedom, but tomorrow it’s promised to rain, so cloudy Liberty pictures it was.

We decided to skip the statue itself, since there’s not exactly much to do there on the Liberty Island and just went straight to Ellis Island instead. This turned out to be a great move – Ellis Island has loads of history to see and we had very detailed audio guides once again to help us. I have come to appreciate Audio guides on this trip. They are really good for the museums as well as the visitors for several reasons: 1) You don’t need a tour guide who is yelling at a tourist group, 2) you can move along at your own phase and 3) you can skip things that might be boring to you, or 4) you can hear more about things that are actually interesting. 5) You don’t have to read, you can concentrate on the atmosphere and area and 6) If you are a museum, you can fit so much more detail, story and drama into the audio guides than you ever could to some wall texts that people don’t stop by to read anyways. Overall, whoever thought of audio guides was genious.

Ellis Island served as the immigration port for years and years of people immigrating to America. And of course, there was a lot of people. They were inspected in Ellis Island, to be fit to the society with their physical and mental health. If you were suspected to have a mental disease, you’d be marked with an ‘X’ on your jacket. If you had tuberculosis with ‘T’ and so on. The island also was a hospital to those who might get well and be fit to the society.

Looking at the exhibitions, I was surprised to realize how bad the life must have been in Europe, specially for those whose religion was not accepted. America served as the safe haven, the place where you are ‘free’ even if you do work 14 hour days, or even if you need to work as a child. Even now, sitting on the subway, it’s clear that this country is a melting pot of all the races together. No wonder they have issues!

I was touched by the gallery of ‘what did you bring with you’? The audio guide asks you, what would you bring if you only could bring a suitcase filled with things. Now a days it’s a very different matter, I feel. Memories and entertainment doesn’t have to take space. Clothes to me a quite irrelevant, as long as I’m warm or cool enough – it doesn’t matter. I bring my life on three different hard drives. All copies of themselves. All texts, all emails, all the pictures. Or better yet, access to internet gives me much more access to memories than any of these men and women immigrating had. Somehow seems more simple back then. At least they knew where the limits of the world laid.

It’s an interesting thought that America was something so much better than Europe. I’ve had Americans telling me on this trip that they should get out in the next ten years because it’s all going down hill. Who knows if that’s the way of the world. Perhaps our children will visit it with very different eyes. The current depression really shows on the streets with goods been sold in the internet more than anywhere. Unlike some, I don’t believe the postal services have come to their ends – I think shipping is a fair cost in today’s world. The Airlines are really pushing anything that isn’t the flight cost – as extra. Your luggage will cost. It’s still possibly cheaper than shipping, but for how long? I have faith in living in Europe for now. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it’s that I know where my home is and I’m pleased with it. Give me a couple of decades and I might even develop some patriotism…

We had some time after Ellis Island, so we took number 1 to 50^th street trying to get to the empire state building… Instead we stumbled onto Times Square. It was a slightly sad sight after the Virgin Megastore had closed. There was nothing I desperately wanted to shop – actually I’ve had that kind of feeling for two days now. New York crap is what you can buy anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t seem to attract me at all. Could also be that all that I’ve seen and bought on this trip has been so much more interesting… Or perhaps I’m simply tired of shopping. I certainly wouldn’t want a plastic statue of Liberty to my shelf.

It’s a great feeling to see that perhaps going home isn’t such a bad thing, I certainly have started to feel road-weary for a while now. Only one more day to go and then we are flying to London.

We arrived to the JFK after only 4 hours of flight, which meant that we basically skipped the whole night. I had maybe two times ten minutes sleep, so with jetlag, that was not the nicest day ahead.

The customs were not a Bitch, if you don’t count the continuous CNN and morning shows where the ‘stupid people’ can complain about their loans. It took about 45 minutes and we were through. We didn’t even have to fill the green leaflets again since we had only been to Canada… Not exactly abroad now, is it?

It was 7am still and we got a taxi to our Manhattan hotel, the Hotel 91 in East Broadway, Chinatown. This was one of the two options we had in our price range, which was 100euros tops. New York hotels tend to cost average of 300dollars a night, so that was a bargain. The hotel is clean and nice. We have two double beds, so technically four people could have stayed in our room… The toilet is clean, but in comparison to all the hotels that we’ve stayed at before this: It lacks a kettle. There is a lounge for hot water though, in case we need it. There is a coin laundy inside and a post office as well as a liquor store next door. This makes it a great hotel for us, but of course not for all the people.

As tired as we were, we didn’t really get to our room before 3pm, so we had around seven hours to kill. This involved the trial and error or buying a metcard (7day overall pass to the metro and bus system) and realizing that it does not work if you need to go out and in again. Also the Halloween time had seriously closed down some of the lines, so the closest subway station to us was Canal Street. We took the metro uptown to Central Park, since we figured that it would certainly at least be open.

It was the New York city Marathon day today, which was closing even more streets, not to mention confusing the traffic in the Central Park. We had Vancouver-type breakfast in the memory of our friend KG, I had a vegetable omelet, brown toast, orange juice and coffee. I have to say that it tasted better in Vancouver.

When ever in my head I thought of New York, my first place to visit was always the Angel Bethesda. What can I say: I just love ‘Angels in America’ so much. New York is really a city that you see through the television a lot. It’s on all the TV series, it’s on all the films. We walked past the Mall of Central park in a gorgeous yellow and green blanket of trees. This was the spot on cover of ‘When Harry met Sally’. It takes you all the way to the lovely fountain of Bethesda, which to me symbolizes all the tragedy of the big city – the aids, the religions, The cold world outside. It’s as breathtaking as it is in the series.

After wandering through the ramble of the park, we came to our senses and returned to the road which took us to the Metropolitan museum of art. It’s a huge complex, like the British Museum or Louvre, but we were mainly interested in the exhibition on Samurai art, which had just gone on. It was a fascinating layout, lots of katanas, even some cloth pieces, which we know can only be exposed to daylight for a month in every five years, and of course some helmets and armor. The Helmets were even more obscure than we’ve seen before – not even Masamune Date had a huge ‘U’ shaped golden fork decorating his head. At this point however, it started to feel as we’d have to commit ritual suicide if we didn’t get any sleep, so my memories of the exhibition are specially vague. Sleep deprivation is a fascinating thing. Man can think that can accomplish anything, but if man does not sleep… There is nothing but insanity waiting.

We then walked to a subway and found ourselves back in Canal Street. We had one of the best meals of my life for lunch in a Schetzuan restaurant there, hot but great. After that it was three hour nap and dinner to make our night complete. I saw the angel, that was the main accomplishment of the day.

Our hotel was happy to keep our luggage so we dumped it and headed to see some more museums. The museum of Vancouver this is. It was a nice, sunny day for change and we walked. Of course in the anticipation of this being one of those long two days melting together as one… Well, that was probably not the brightest idea on earth.

Museum of Vancouver turned out to have two exhibitions. The main one and something called the ‘Taxidermy’ which means stuffing animals. They were almost apologizing for it, they said they are not against it or for it, but since they have it, they show it. Fair enough. This of course meant some heads on the wall, snakes in jars and the usual. There was a full size moose and even a cute little platypus, my new favorite animal. Even a rhino head… Apparently now a days taxidermy has fallen off fashion and I can see why. People are more environmentally cautions and don’t want to be looking at stuffed animals. They would much rather see the replicas, I’m sure. I don’t object… Whatever way the world goes with it, I am sure it’s alright.

Museum of Vancouver was rich and ‘interactive’ as the girl behind the desk told us enthusiastically. It certainly wasn’t the best exhibition that I’ve seen on this trip, but fair enough, there was interesting videos. One was a real piece filmed from a tram going around the centre with people hopping away from in front of it. Another one was an advert for ‘re-doing’ your house. It was targeting the bored house wives whose biggest problem was that their fridge doors opened to the wrong direction. I had no idea that the 60’s homes had started to have dish washers… Somehow I am very interested in the totally electrical homes, it’s just that now a days you think more like ‘how to make it all wireless’ or how to have the iPod stereo go around the apartment.

We then walked our way to town via the rainbow village of the city which was preparing for Halloween by costumes and decorations. I’ve got news for Finns: We have no idea how to do it! Now in North America… Well, they take the pumpkins really seriously and it’s an adult carnival that vappu(1^st of May) has no comparison to. It’s the time to dress up to the sexy nurse costumes, or the short skirt maid as I discovered in the sky train. My favorite was still the Drag-Marge with tits serving tables.

Unfortunately the only Halloween party I was going for was a flight to New York. The airport was pretty deserted as no one wants to travel on Halloween. My husband and I decided to have martinis in the empty bar, where we were accompanied by one of those ‘I-know-him-from-television-stars-but-cant-quite-remember-who-it-is’. It took me all flight to realize that he was Scott Wolfe, flying on economy with his wife… He as well as us, was surprised of the flight being postponed for an hour because of the time turning back for an hour here… It turned out that this was good for us because the JFK opens its customs at 6 sharp and we would have had to have wait 1,5 hours instead of half in the plane at the other end…

Last city to go, trip almost over. Let’s go to the place where the boys are pretty, New York City!

We must have done something right when it was sunny two days in a row in Vancouver. Our quest of the day was to see the museum of Anthropology in the campus of the University of British Columbia. Luckily we got a straight bus there, which only left us with a short walk to the museum. This meant that we saw the rose garden and its beautiful view over the mountains. Little did I know that it was used as ‘Cloud Nine’ ship outdoors area in the first season of my favourite show Battlestar Galactica. Luckily, I take a lot of pictures so we didn’t need to do another trip.

The museum of Anthropology is still on its way and not completed, but it had a very impressive collection to show as it was. We saw a start of an exhibition thousands of hand-made baskets and cloths, which had been sent from all over the country to be kept in the museum. However, some of them had some ritual meaning to some tribes, so they had also come up with a room where you can go and perform your ritual with your item from time to time. This is the modern days of respect, British museum be ware!

We admired the totem poles and the canoes and of course the great, gigantic Bill Reid piece, Raven and the first men, which is just an astonishing piece of art. Unfortunately there was no small replicas of it on sale, I am guessing because of copyright issues… I would have bought this one for sure… It was made by Bill Reid to this museum particularly, so that they could keep the room that used to be an fortress.

After lunching at the cafeteria and shopping our credit cards to debt, we decided to catch a taxi and therefore buy more time in Stanley Park, as the afternoon was still looking gorgeously sunny. The taxi took us to the totem poles and we had a nice two hours until sunset which we spent rambling in the park. There is a ‘woman in a wetsuit’ statue, which looks remarkably like a replica of the little mermaid… There was also a seagull sitting on her head who would seriously not move whatever kind of noise I made.

Stanley Park is one of the most gorgeous ones that I have been to.  There was a sunset avenue of maples and of course tons and tons of leaves which had already fallen. I suppose you can imagine that as far as camera day goes, this one was a pretty good success.

We ended up to the harbor and ferry terminal by our walk and got the skytrain home. Our hotel’s street the West Broadway really has a good selection of restaurants, but as it was KG’s last night with us, we had a special treat of Malaysian cuisine of ‘Banana Leaf’. If you are ever in Vancouver, I recommend that it’s a great place to eat.

Once again, an excellent day in Vancouver. It’s truly a miraculously beautiful city. I see what the fuzz over it is all about. Very Finn-friendly:)

Day

After a full day of Piss down rain, we weren’t expecting much from Tuesday. It so happens that the Vancouver weather doesn’t exactly follow the forecasts, so we ended up having a sunny bright day of wonders. There is nothing like a miserable day to make you appreciate the joys of a great sunny day, that’s for sure.

We headed to the waterfront with the skytrain to sneak some pictures of the harbor. Since Vancouver is going to be the olympic city fairly soon, also the harbor was showing its very best side. The old area next to the harbor is called ‘Gas Town’, because it was the first to get gas on the area, to be lightened up by series of lightpoles. There is also the famous gastown clock, which is breathing smoke… It’s a great old piece, but hardly keeping the time now a days. Gastown is where you can find Vancouver’s most efficient (and cheap) tat shops.

We did our fair share of shopping and staring at art pieces out of our price range. The aboriginal art of this area seems to us perhaps even more appealing than the Asian art, and that’s saying a lot. So if we weren’t in debt yet, we sure are now… Canadian stuff is really cool. That’s the truth.

After wandering around the shops we stopped for an indian for lunch and then doodled towards the Chinatown. It too, had loads of shops. And if I hadn’t yet been to China and around three other Chinatowns, I would have probably been tempted by their cheap gowns and jackets. (None of which were as classy as the one I got from San Francisco Chinatown though…) We also observed that Chinatown is just around that area which has the least appeal in Vancouver. Lots of homeless people with their shopping trolleys.

We found a full on Chinese Garden on its Autumn blossom, accompanied by a lesbian wedding. We sneaked some pictures and I visited the 10dollars-visitor section, while my J and KG waited outside. No point in wasting money on what we already saw on the other side of the fence. The museum was of course closed – it was Monday.

On our walk back to the city central, we run into a road of white trucks. This means something was being filmed right there. The TV/Film fan of me decided to find out if I can telephoto some pictures and find out what the series was. Luckily my husband has the best memory in the world so he recognised it as the TV-series ‘Fringe’… We didn’t really last long after the pilot on that, so I had no clue who the Blond lead was. Vancouver being the major film city though, this is very normal.

We treated ourselves to a Chinese meal at the end of a good day of picture hunting and shopping. Sun makes all the difference when you are judging whether you like a city or not… Vancouver is looking pretty good to me.

We were early in Civic Centre, wouldn’t want to miss our appointment with our Asia specialist at ten. So I suggested we’ll have some coffee, which lead us into stumbling to him by the corner of the museum. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is opening a new exhibit today: The art of Siam and Burma. It all came from a private collection of Doris Day who had spent her honeymoon in that area, collecting artifacts that would have now been eaten by the climate had they been there… Instead she brought them to US and had an indoors tennis court filled with these wonderful and mystic things.

We went through the whole museum though, with our better than excellent guide. It starts off with India, Cambodia, and such and moves through China, eventually reaching Japan. Beautiful things, some of which I hadn’t seen anywhere else. For example the jug made of human skull was particularly appealing to me.

We then managed to somehow keep the interest of David, who took us for dim sum in Chinatown. This is where he crew up in, on the times when the Chinese wouldn’t be allowed to leave the area. San Francisco Chinatown is on a great place in the middle of downtown, placed on the up and down hills as can be expected. They had wanted their doors not to open to the big streets so there is a lot of alleyways, which no one cleans apparently. It was much more clean than I had ever seen in China though…

We visited a couple of temples and popped into a fortune cookie factory, in which I optimistically bought a bag of fortune cookies. The idea for those was invented in San Francisco, I bet you didn’t know that… Finally, the last item that David showed us was the god of Democracy.

China town is also filled with great shopping opportunities. My husband bought himself some t-shirts while I put my eye on a Chinese jacket, which they had in my size – this is America! I then had to drag my husband along lovely tat flee markets where I would have happily spent hours browsing all the weird and cheap stuff. The historic California line took us to Embarcadero, from where we then walked throughout the harbor area and its 50 piers.

Alcatraz cruises start from Pier 32, which is where we booked tickets for tomorrow. You can’t get them for the same day, not that I would have had any energy to go today anyways. Asian Art, Chinatown and shopping completely weared us both out and we decided to take sushi back to the flat for dinner. Sometimes it’s good to have a night in…

Day 41/63

We got up early and checked the complimentary breakfast at our hotel the Aqua Aloha Surf and Spa. This consisted mainly of pan cakes, fruit and muffins. If I have not told you yet, the Hawaiian fruits are gorgeous and brilliantly fresh. I can’t eat raw anything in Finland, but in here it’s no problem, since they don’t have to use toxins for keeping them up until the get to Finland…

After breakfast we consulted our lobby consierge who booked us into a shuttle to Pearl Harbor. We were there about 9:30am, which meant we didn’t really have to queue very much for the USS Arizona tickets. The USS Arizona is the main sight in Pearl Harbor, consisting a 15 minute film about the events of 7^th of December 1941, trying to get the audience into the mood of about 1100 men who were killed on board. They carefully tell the story in a way, that the ‘Japanese had to attack’, because they had no choice. Where as of course there has been theories that perhaps the US knew they were coming, but did nothing so that they could later on justify their own cruelties against Japan. None of this has been proven of course.

In 1941, Japan bombed all eight battleships in Pearl Harbor bay, sinking many of them. USS Arizona was hit to its ammunition storage which blew up and made it sink so very fast that most men didn’t stand a chance. The memorial is a white capsule built on top of the underwater grave of these men, the ship itself, which they left in place. All the other battleships have been recovered/taken out of the harbor. You can see some of the bits of it from the impressive memorial, in which, you should only speak in whisper. I think this was much harder for the Americans than for us.

After the theatre and the boat trip to USS Arizona, we scampered into the USS Bowfin, a submarine that served in the WWII and managed to get through two missions to Japan sea without harm. I am scared of submarines, as I find under water excursions to be scary in general – I wouldn’t want to drown as my death. USS Bowfin is an impressive sight on its own, and we had good audio guides telling us what was going on. We saw the torpedo rooms, the four big engines and of course the quarters of the submarine men. They were luckier than most sea service men, because their life expectancy was so low that they got better food in general. Fresh fruit and vegetables were available as long as they lasted and they even had an ice cream machine. The ship had less beds than men, so when one would get off duty, he would go and wake someone up, take their bed and keep it warm.

When the submarines would sail to shore, they would hang up a flag of their conquests, which are all presented in the museum of the submarine. They had small Japanese flags calculating the ships they had sunk. Some flags have even German flags on them. The whole experience of Pearl Harbor is somewhat contradictive to me, not because my grand uncles fought on the other side, but just the feeling of late events in the world: What is a good reason to go to war? You want something so badly that it justifies killing of others…

We couldn’t visit the USS Missouri, the great big Battleship that is normally one of the main big attractions. It had been taken on dry land, I am assuming for service. Instead there was a real air-craft carrier on the Pearl Harbor bay. It had arrived three days ago. Pearl Harbor is still a major military base, which you can see of all the army men in the hotels partying on their leaves.

Later on, we went shopping in the neighborhood. I bought some tiki-tat and immediately sent it home. Not only was this a relatively cheap sending service, but they say it’ll get there in 5 days. This kind of post looks really effective in comparison to the Australian “maybe it’ll be there in three months -policy”. There is a ton of Twilight crap around and I am hoping to run into some quality TV series tat shop in San Francisco/New York.

Finally note to self: When you are deciding which size your drink/soda/shake should be, bear in mind that this is America. So ‘medium’ size means the size of my freaking head…

Day 29/63

It was pissing down from the sky all morning, so we decided to head for the museum of Sydney. History of Sydney is a very interesting, but partly sad story. Highlights include James Cook finding it and claiming it for the British after which they decided to send a bunch of ships to this land, far far away. The museum has a big whole section on mutiny on the Bounty, which is a story that I suppose everyone knows. Captain William Blight was in charge of the Bounty, not letting the convicts even speak to each others and treating them like factory workers. He was left in an open ship, sail away on the sea, which he somehow managed to navigate and was later on pardoned in Brittain on the loose of his ship the Bounty. He later became the governor of New South Wales, but he was not popular even then…

We listened on the stories from around that time in the shore, one of which stuck to my mind. It was a local, aboriginal woman’s story of nails. The men of these ships hadn’t seen women in months, so the locals traded two nails to some services in the bedroom. With the nail they could open a coconut, build a house or kill a man. All very useful functionalities. Better the nail, better the service, apparently.

After Sydney was established as a port, they soon started to build the bridge over the harbour and of course send goods to China, India and Europe. There is a whole section on the trams of Sydney. They used to have a big network of trams built after the war, but unfortunately as the cars started to become more popular, the network was dissolved and the trams were burned. Funnily enough, because of the global warming and more environmentally safe options of travelling being in fashion right now – they are planning to get a new tram network.

There is currently only a monorail, which is more like one circle line of a metro, going around in the air. It seems to be focusing on tourists, but markets itself as a fast and clean way to get to lunch as well… We took a ride around the harbor and centre, just to shield ourselves from the rain, really.

It was Saturday night, so we had tickets to the ‘Mikado’, which is a operette, a humoristic musical about the Japanese society, written in 1885 by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. As far as musicals go, it was alright, nothing really fancy, but of course part of the experience was that we got to see it in the Sydney Opera House. Lovely experience and you can really feel the Scandinavian influence in the Danish architecture. It’s very much like Opera/Theatre halls in Finland (from the inside)… But of course it’s one of a kind miracle from the outside.

I enjoyed Mikado, however, I think it’s a bit cruel towards the Japanese… I mean, whose name is “Yam-Yam”? And did they really come up with stupid rules like “if the man is executed, then the wife must be buried alive?” Perhaps. Musically, I didn’t think much of it, but visually it was good. Specially the entrance of Mikado and Katisha is a very massive and interesting. I would say: If in Sydney, one should really do the Opera. But see what is on – perhaps it’s something more exciting than this one.

Day 28/63

It was the day I bought socks. For the first time since leaving Finland about a month ago, I really felt like needing socks. The wonderfully sunny and warm Sydney turned into a cold and rainy place over night. Our mission was to see some of the downtown and head for the Chinatown. Our doodle took us first to the post office where we sea mailed 5 packages to Finland. Three months it takes apparently. I shall have many birthday presents in January then.

Sydney is built like London, the streets are similarly named, St.Mary’s cathedral looks like a copy of Westminister Abbey and the park along is called the Hyde park. There is a large fountain in the middle of it, a gift from the French for all the aid in WWII. So, like Hyde park, but green and fountainy. We walked past the park to the museum of Sydney.

The bottom layer of the museum is focusing on the aboriginals and the way the imperialists tortured them over the years. It’s a very guilt driven show with stories of the Dreaming and how they were forced into saying that it means the same as the Christian religion. The aboriginal children were also taken from their families to stop them from knowing anything about their religion and origins. The white people just assumed there was nothing spiritual going on *just because they couldn’t see any althars*… There is a mother with his son in the museum, trying to explain to him why the black men are in chains around their necks in the picture… He says to her: “Because they were bad!”, and she says: “No, no. They hadn’t done anything. We did that to them without a reason”. She me very proud to be white in the white world at that moment.

After the aboriginal Dreaming, we go back in time to the attic, where they have not only constructed massive skeletons of Dinosaurs, but also some fluffy predators of the Megafauna, great big extinct animals of Australia. The megafauna were the biggest and slowest animals in the environment. These kinds of animals were very vulnerable to hunting, but not to climate change… However, the extinction of megafauna was most extreme in places where humans arrived as already skilled hunters. Breathtaking monsters really… I am much more impressed with them than the dinosaurs. The latter ones you always wonder – did they actually make that skeleton out of the found bones or did they just put together some pieces of plastic.

We head for lunch in China town, or what we thought was the Chinatown. This is one of the best 20dollar lunches we’ve had. Later on we find the gates to the real Chinatown and stumble onto Paddy’s market, just down the Chinatown street. This market is pretty much like the tat shows in China, but without the constant hassle of ‘Looky-look’ and such yelling at us. This is why we are happy to spend perhaps two hours browsing the market. I bought myself some work clothes, an aboriginal top and painting, road signs as well as a dress to the opera. My husband bought four shirts. I call this good days work of shopping.

We popped into Kinokuniya, the big bookshop, only to discover that our friend who we were meeting for dinner, was there. It’s a small world even on the other side of the planet.