"At the onset of this trip, I committed to myself one thing - among others, which is to negate (or otherwise) Bart's claim: toilet flushes in counter clockwise direction Down Under. Ah, a phantom curiousity lingering with me since the early seasons of The Simpsons."
I almost thought the last couple of hours before landing in Sydney was not going to end. We've been airborne for the last 12 hours since it took off from Vancouver. Throughout the long flight, my feet had become familiarized with the number of steps needed to make a whole round and back inside the double-aisle Airbus.
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Aside from forced exercise I imposed to myself, few of the consolations I got inside the pressurized cabin was to look OUT the window only to see an equally distinct cast of time-line manifested oddly from the space: to the left side wing, a pitch darkness; to the right side wing, the brightness of the sky...and DOWN the window only to imagine we were lightly gliding on the immense thickness of the slumbering clouds. But then you get bored. Casting a glance beside my sleeping wife, I followed her through.
I woke up from the captain's announcement that we're landing in close to an hour and a half time. I guess we're still few thousands feet above, and the vista - more vivid in colour and outline, are the expansive cobalt blue ocean brush-marked with multiple white crests rushing toward countoured shores and cliffs.
There was still an apparent trail of scare from West Nile virus at that time when we arrived to Sydney. The fumigation process was done a few minutes after the aircraft finally parked at the tarmac. Afterward, everyone deplaned. The weather on that first day of July down there was relatively fair. A point for you, Australia! Unlike in Canada, where the weather can hover on both extreme ends: an intense heat wave at the peak of summer or a relentless snowstorm enveloping, at its worst, from east to west of the country.
At the onset of this trip, I committed to myself one thing - among others, which is to negate (or otherwise) Bart's claim: toilet flushes in counter clockwise direction Down Under. Ah, a phantom curiousity lingering with me since the early seasons of The Simpsons. Time has come; I can prove it now, firsthand!
I found customs officers to be diligent and inquisitve, yet at the same time they had demonstrated a fair amount of their amiable personality. As a matter of fact, one older officer even chatted with me for awhile about our countries, and on how he'd like to visit Canada one of these days - which was fine, only it took us some time by going to another queue probably because it's our first time visiting Australia.
From the customs officers, a ticket attendant, city train passengers, to a kind passerby whom we've met along the way leading to our hotel; all of them were courteous. These particular encounters and others that I will write later on, were of a complete turnaround from the event I watched at the hotel lobby TV unfolding at that time about a scuffle in Melbourne. Apparently between young locals and South-Asian students. TO BE CONTINUED.
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