Down under!

I've finally escaped the clutches of the Asian continent and made my way down under to Brisbane in Australia. From Samui I stopped off in Singapore for a couple of nights which proved to be immensely humid and in the midst of one of its many public holidays. When you have large groups of Indians, Malays, Chinese and others there's invariably someone wanting to celebrate something. The typical result was that everywhere was busy, the places I wanted to use were closed and there was a big concert opposite the road from the hostel where I was trying to get some kip in. Aside from this Singapore is a pleasant enough spot to spend a little stopover time in, even if it is rather dull if the truth be known. The mix of cultures combined with a fine colonial district do make it a reasonably interesting place to stroll around at least.

Cheap tickets were disappearing fast when I was booking my flight to Australia, so I ended up going via Melbourne, and as it turned out also via Adelaide, although I only stopped in each place for an hour or so, meaning I only had time enough to check out the view and the interior of the airport before continuing on my way. I arrived in Brisbane at lunchtime local time yesterday in time for some birthday celebrations with an Aussie friend who I'd met some months earlier in a hostel in Kyoto. It wasn't a late one though as all the travelling caught up with me and I slept like a log last night. Actually I still feel as I could sleep for a week but for now I'm going to force myself to set off out and see a bit more of Brisbane.

Brisbane seems like a good place to relax, with parks, river, even a city-centre beach which is an unusual feature. There's also a park on the edge of the city where you can see Koalas and various other indigenous animal inhabitants of this continent. Towards the sea there's the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise which I assume is good for some sun, sea and sand. Yes, I think I'll be able to while away a few days here without too much trouble at all.

One thing that struck me on arriving here is that for the first time in months I can actually understand everything. All the signs, all the people, it's all in English. I'd more or less trained myself to blanking out what others were saying as generally I could never understand a word of anything, but now it's back to normality, albeit in an Aussie flavour. It's great though, being able to converse, chat, joke with everyone. You do miss that when everyone around you tends to only have a fairly basic grasp of English.

The hostel I'm staying in is great, a real backpacker's place and apparantly it even has a pool which I'll get around to exploring in a little while. It seems to cater for the backpacker perfectly though with a travel desk, internet, lockers, and a line of laundry machines. Although I've stayed in some decent backpacker hostels here and there when you end up somewhere good it makes you realise just how good it can be when the owners know what they're doing and know the sort of guests they're catering for. I suppose it shouldn't come as any surprise that it's the Aussies, that great backpacking nation, that gets it right.

I'm off now for a late breakfast and to check out Brisbane a little more. Perhaps I'll pay a visit to the Koalas at some point too!