Wednesday, November 29th 2006 - Bushland

Bushland: The soil in bushland is usally very salty and therefore only specialized plants and animals can survive. Human survival in the bushlands has a whole mythology evolving around it. Probably the best survivor out there are the Aboriginals, who have learnt how to blend in with nature and become a part of it.
Catchment: A region of land where water from rain or snowmelted drained downhills into a body of water, such as river, lake, dam, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean.

It is not the land of George Bush. No it is not. It was Downfall Creek Bushland Centre Bruce drove us to. It is located in the Raven Street Reserve at McDowall, Downfall Creek Bushland Centre is a resource centre for community action and learning in bushland and catchment care. Bruce's house is located just next to it. I was so surprised because having a house near a government park like this was something impossible in Thailand. Unless you are so rich and, that is not enough, you need to be a big brother. This tells us how Thailand's government is really suck. Anyway, we left the office at 4PM, which is actually quite normal here and I liked it, and headed to Bruce's house. Ten minutes after we changed our cloths we walked across the road and there we were, in the Bushland. They have a learning path like any natural park and you can easily see Australian Brush-turkey. I saw 2 walking around didn't pay any attention to us so I did the same. That's why I didn't have any photos of them :(. I shouldn't have done that. After half an hour, it seemed like Bruse had given up and apologised us he couldn't call any Wallaby to show up so I thought we wouldn't see one. While we were walking back Top saw one Wallaby and he pointed us. There he was, looked straight to us and the funny thing was it seemed to me like he was looking at us as we were strangers. If we kept looking at him, he stand still for us to take photos. Once we finished and about to move on, he also moved on. No sooner had we left the first one, the second one appeared. Bruce saw it this time but it was too far for my little camera so I let it go. Then I thought next time it should be my turn to see first but it never happened. When we left the bushland centre, there was a Laughing Kookaburra on a child's play. It was also stand still waiting me taking photos. When I finished I said dismissed and it went. Funny hurr?. O.K. that's all. The photos above from left to right he is, I guessed, Bearded Dragon, Wallaby, Laughing Kookaburra, and the last beautiful one is called Rainbow Lorikeet.

P.S. Links to wikipedia are useful but I actually found the names of them from Australian Birdlife Photos Library.

Tuesday, November 28th 2006

Today I was so bored and restless and when Da told me she had already updated 2 new posted, it was my turn. I felt like writing. It gave me a personal space I can tell my story. It doesn't matter for me if anyone will find my blog and read it. So, today I wanted to tell you about my trip to New Farm on last Saturday.
Because I didn't have a car and now it was summer here I decided to wake up early pretending I was about to going for work on Saturday. Fortunately the weather was hotter than usual, 36 degree celsius, I guessed. I had my breakfast and head out of the apartment directed to New Farm Park. When I got there I was so surprised. It didn't look like a farm nor a park. It looked like a suburban school with some plant areas and those crows easily find in the city. The farmer market wasn't as big as I thought and the price of some products were a bit high, higher than those in WoolWorths. I got a cutting board, I had never thought to have collected it before but now I had. I also tried an Australian cappuccino, $2.5 for an 8oz cup. A cup of Lincee ice-cream. The seller was kind enough to let I tried as many tastes as I liked. The market was quite small so I had 2 times walk around then I walked back. Walking back was so tired because when I walked here, I walked down the hills. So, it was time to walk up. I had to finish this right now because I felt like throw up! I couldn't stand frying oil smell. I was about to sick.

Friday, November 24th 2006 - Furky

Furky is one of my fianc'e's dog. He is Rottweiler, yes, he is. And you might have guessed that he would be very tough but actually he's not! He tough only with another dogs but with people he is very nice. Too nice 'til we afraid that he wouldn't protect the house. And today he is died after he had killed a cobra.
I remembered the first day I went to my fianc'e's house at Samutsakorn. He scared me by hesitatingly jumped and barked at me. But when Da led me into the cage with a snack then we were friend. His companion is also a female Rottweiler. I always tell my fianc'e that her family could count on him but no one believe me. I sense his brave without any proof. Every time we open the house gate we have to be careful because he always runs outside if there is a dog in his sight. And once he almost kill a poor puddle if I and P'Noot didn't follow him. Another hunting chance happened to Da's Aunt's Thai dog. She was killed by Furky and he was shaking after that with guilty, I guessed. So, if anyone want to have a Rottweiler but scared of it, I would tell you it depends on circumstances. But if you do have little children under age of 10, I wouldn't suggest you.
Lest we forget you, Furky!

Monday, November 20th 2006 - South Bank

I woke up at 6:30 on Saturday 18th which was something unusual for me to get up at that time. However, I was always trying to get up the same time everyday but I had never made it. The problem was when I knew that it was a holiday I felt very tire and that gave me a reason to spend another one or two hours lying on my bed. But today I had a place to go, South Bank -- a bank at the south of Brisbane. Walking down form Bowen to Turbot and turn left; walk straight cross Queen to Ann street and keep down until you reach Brisbane City Hall. Turn left at George street and turn right when you see scattered round objects made from metal like the one in the movie "Event Horizon". Crossing the Victoria bridge and keep left you will find a "man-made" BANK, located at the south of Brisbane. It was nice actually. And the funny thing was even those birds (I didn't know much about bird species but they were by the river, I assumed they were those seagulls) were fooled by this man-made beach. They were walking around people lying in the sun. Children were playing in the "lower" side which was at both side of the "deeper" side in the middle. On the walk way occupied by many kinds of shops and restaurants. I wondered if they made this "bank" after they named it or once they did have a "real" bank but asked no one. I spent three hours there walking around and head back. There was nothing much caught my attention so I would rather stop here. But if you ask me if it worth visiting, my answer is "Yes". At least you would see those seagulls and children happiness. Fathers raise their kids up and down. Laughing were all around. It was just a fine place to spend one if you were alone; longer than that you would miss you family.

Friday November 10th, 2006

After nine hours passed, I called it a day and walking up and down the hills back to where I was staying. I had heard walking a different way once in a while would help mental ability to memorise things and also refreshing our mind. I was quite believe that as new scenes led my eyes to look at, my brain engine runs, responding from my mind, and phisically act as what my mind said. So, I had found that walking from Brunswick, Water, Roger, St. Pauls, and ended up at Bowen streets hadn't had any interesting scenes. There were an Adult's shop, which I might be visiting another day for Jood's souvenir, a backpack, musical, radio station, art gallery, and so on. Leaving my belongings at the apartment and walking to the City, I did stay in the city but the area I was heading to did call the City, within 10 minutes. There was an alley with buildings along it and in the middle they had benches, newspaper boots, which actually they sold almost everything, restaurants, there they were, people I rarely saw. I visited a souvenir shop to see things I would get for those in Thailand. Stopped by a shooping centre decorated the window blocks with kangaroos, wombats, koalas, ostriches, and those represent Australia, clockwise dolls which were nice and interesting. I spent about an hour there and headed back as it was high time I went. The atmosphere in this city was very much like the breaking time of a school. Had you ever been visiting your school when the first term over? It was like that, and when the wind blew those fallen leaves, it could make me cry and spontaneously wanted to have someone around. This feeling brought me to the question of life and dead. How much time do we have? Let's do our best on sharing love and care to the family, partner, and children. Before the time is over.

Brisbane - Australia

After 10 hours and a half I was here in Brisbane -- the capital and a most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland. Australia consists of six states, two major mainland territories, and other minor territories. The states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. My first impression was that its atmosphere was very much like Thailand's NaNa or those areas where elegant people were living. The city was clean and quite, if I had to be here alone for a year I would have forgotten many sounds I was familiar with. The plants here were also, as far as I had seen, same as what we had in Thailand; Leeladwadee, Saradoo, Thianyod, Junk, Prong, Pai, and more. You would hardly find people walk here in Austalia, not because of most of them drive cars, but it's like they had been hidden in some place. There was a tree that I had never seen in Thailand and it's called Jacaranda. Its blue-purple was attracted me when my plane was landing to Brisbane airport. There were planted all around the city even on a road surface. I had not been many places but wandering around where I was staying to get familiar with the city. Most of the shops here close at 6 PM, China town close at 3 PM. I was wondering what was the smallest dollar did they have. Because yesterday I visited three shops to buy stuffs and they all rounded up the price for 1c, also were recorded in the reciepts. I went to Wikipedia and found that their smallest dollar coin was 5c. They might have just rounded the price up for easy calculation, it's just a guess. People here were nice and I don't have any problem so far. The only bad thing I had experienced so far was that my luggage, it's Da's to be honest, was not be able to lock properly. I still had to find a repair shop and I wondered if I need to take a half day off to locate it, because, as I told you before, most of them close at 6 PM. This was good and I liked it, people should have their relax time with families or any other activities. Spending less than eight hour and get a reasonable pay is what I am trying to do but I can't see how I can reach to that point.