2 more days to go before flying home and now i am hanging around in Canberra where my brother is. I will write about my nine days in tasmania later once i have some time to look through my notes. Have stopped writing notes since i got to canberra cos' i was lazy and just wanted to relax.

So what did i do in ACT (australian capital territory)? This is already my third day here and first thing of note is that the weather is hot, hot, HOT. The sun is blazing and temp is soaring. Great if there is some beach to go to but alas, there's only the lake Burley Griffin where most of the important buildings are located around it (example, the parliament house etc). But no one swims there, except maybe some wild kangaroos.

Monday
Flew in late in monday afternoon to canberra on a twin propeller plane from sydney (A$69 from REX) and rested awhile at my brother's place before dinner and then he drove us around looking at the sights in the night. Not much of a first impression except that the city is pretty well planned and buildings/roads are spaced out so it felt quite "roomy", not that congested feeling of everything being built one on top of the other in other cities.

Tuesday
Drove about 40mins out of canberra because i wanted to visit the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve where i read that you can see wild life such as kangaroos and koalas while trekking through the reserve. On the way there, we passed by hills and hills of dead trees which reminded me of tiny burnt out matchstick from afar. The sun was scorching hot when we reached there and then we found out that the bushfire in January 2003 killed most of the animals around the reserve as well as destroyed the flora. I have totally forgotten about that disastrous bushfire which happened around Canberra at that time. It is quite sad to see all the burnt up trees and pictures of "roasted" animals after the fires. One of the kept koalas in the reserved managed to survive but terribly scarred. Now it is renamed "Lucky" and it is being kept in a little enclosure, still trying to recuperate.

After going to the reserve, we went back to the city and went to the National Museum of Australia on the northern shore of the lake. The building itself is quite "extraordinary" and dramatic in terms of its design and used of materials (though not quite as "dramatic" as our "Durians". The exhibits themselves are quite informative and reflective. I mean, generally, being a state owned museum, i would expect a certain subtle sense of "cover-up" bits of history none to glorious yet, there was an overt attempt to not do that in this museum. Right from the start, during the "Circa" exhibit, where we sat in a rotating auditorium watching short videos centred around the themes "Nation, People and Land", the narrative or quotes were taken from real life people themselves without a sense of "censorship" being in place. There were views, both good and bad about the country which were quite frank and insightful.

Wednesday
Started off early morning to the Australian War Memorial. It is a great fortress like building filled with many amazing relics and dioramas (i.e. 3d models of war scenes) of every war that Australia has been involved in. We took more time than expected walking around the memorial as it was really massive, and i learnt alot more than i ever knew about WWI and WWII. There were also exhibits about more recent wars such as the Gulf war and there were also artworks displayed alongside the war exhibits which made the Memorial a little more different than others. Just outside the War Memorial, is the Anzac Parade, where more sculptures/memorial were placed along the road dedicated to the men and women sacrificed in the various wars.

After visiting the Memorial, we trodded quickly to the National Zoo and Aquarium as we were booked on to the ZooVenture tour at 3.30pm. Have read of the tour on the flight to Canberra and it seemed quite interesting. It was a two hour tour behind the scenes with a guide where a group of ten people had a better chance of knowing the zoo animals and feeding them. It is a little private zoo ran by an australian family. There wasn't alot of animals and functions primarily as a breeding/conservation and animal sanctuary. In fact, some of the animals there were ex-circus animals which had no place to go when the circus disbanded. We met some unusual animals such as the tigons (yes, not a spelling mistake. A tigon is a cross between a male tiger with a female lion. If vice versa, male lion and female tiger, the offspring is called a liger). These were ex-circus cats who were breed natually for novelty value (by the circus folks i guess) though interestingly enough, all male tigons are sterile, hence you can never get two tigons to mate in natural circumstances. We had a chance to feed other big cats such as the lions and tigers with chicken wings through their cages (no, we didn't actually go in the cage since they are WILD animals *duh*). We also fed a sunbear fruits with a fork and let a brown bear licked honey off our fingers (boy, were their tongues long and felt so erm.. warm and slushy). We patted dingos and had a python slither across our shoulders (felt cold and dry). The guide also explained more about each animals habits and behaviour. On the whole, it was a great experience that you don't have every day. Though the zoo was small, it was well landscaped and we could tell that the people working there really enjoying looking after the animals. Our guide knew each animal by name and they actually come when she called!

Thursday
Decided to take it easy for the day as will be flying out to Sydney the next morning. Was supposed to visit both the National Gallery of Australia as well as ScreenSound Australia which collects and preserves films and sound recordings but I was quite tired and felt sick by the time we got out at the Gallery that we decided to give ScreenSound a miss. The National Gallery is definitely bigger than SAM and the collection was quite eclectic though not comprehensive (except the australian artists).

On the whole, Canberra wasn't quite as boring as i thought it would be and there are pretty good museums around. However, the night life leaves much to be desired and like Tasmania, everything seems quiet after 5pm. Ah well, who needs a night life where there is my brother's PS2 readily available in his room? *smiles*