Sightseeing in Canberra!
Feb. 2nd, 2004 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skreidleGot up around 8 or 9 on this here Super Bowl Sunday Monday, not caring a whit about the game. By 10, both Jillian and I were ready to go out, so she headed to Tilley's for coffee and I headed to Cycle City. I did this on my bike, which was basically ridable at the time--handlebars slightly off, wheels ever-so-slightly out of true, rear wheel in its highest gear. Got to the shop with no incident, explained myself--first time in for a tuneup, plus some repairs--and was told it'd be ready by afternoon. Nice!
Stopped by an AusPost/cleaners/phone-card-seller, picked up stamps for international postcards, bought a Yes Optus top-up card for my phone, and walked over to Tilley's--right up the street--to fetch Jillian. However, I then discovered that the Yes Optus voucher I'd purchased wouldn't work on my phone, despite it saying YES OPTUS before saying Virgin when it starts up. Fortunately, they credited me the $30 back, and we were off.
First we headed to Questacon, a spiffy science center. As many, it was largely targeted at kids, but had a lot of damn cool stuff. All kinds of fun learning exhibits and toys, a huge Tesla coil, a cheesy earthquaked house, a roller coaster simulator, a dizzying tube of mirrors encircling a walkway, a freefall slide, and a fabulous, huge gravity-driven mechanical billiard ball raceway--ramps, loops, switchbacks, weights, levers, spirals, etc, etc--you've seen 'em, it'll make more sense when I upload the photo later. :D
After checking out about 5/6 of the place, we headed back to Civic around 1 so she could apply for a position at Pancake Parlour--which I hear is run by Scientologists, incidentally, though that's irrelevant--and she was one of about 30 applicants for the three open positions. I checked out the application form, which was one of the least professional forms I'd seen, but I suppose it's a small franchise; I also checked out the math&grammar aptitude test, which was, uh, interesting. We then had lunch at a cafe somewhere else, wherein I had a turkey club--turkey, spanish onion, cream cheese, and cranberry jam on flatbread--not bad.
From there we walked over to Canberra Centre to visit Evil Steve at the tea shop where he works sometimes--impressive selection at that store--and traded gossip with Steve, to the amusement of his coworker. (Tomorrow night, dinner at Steve's!)
We headed toward the Botanical Gardens next, but a spat of rain directed us to the Telstra Tower instead. Small museum at the bottom, one closed observation deck at the bottom, one enclosed observation deck and coffee shop at 58m, one open deck at 64m, plus an expensive restaurant somewhere in the middle. (The tower extends to 195m, but most of it is telecom equipment and concrete. It's also on top of Black Mountain, which is already at 800+m above sea level.)
The rain had moved on, so we then headed to the Botanical Gardens, went through the Rain Forest Gully first--where I found that I couldn't effectively use my camera's Macro mode to photograph a dragonfly--and then assorted other regions and plant types, (and found I couldn't get in a good position to photograph some gorgeous rosellas.) Checked out the bookshop, and headed out.
We then headed back to Lyneham and fetched my bike, which is now in better condition than it was before the accident. Both wheels true, no click in the pedal shaft, handlebars straight, shifter repaired, and new bell--all at no charge! Very nice. :) Thence back to Latebra, and thence to Woolworth's for their groceries--where I realized that they sell eggs off the shelf rather than out of refrigerated cases. This is apparently the norm in Australia, where refrigerated is the norm in the U.S. Curious!
Still at Latebra, where my camera is being used for various odd photos, and dinner is on the way. :)
Stopped by an AusPost/cleaners/phone-card-seller, picked up stamps for international postcards, bought a Yes Optus top-up card for my phone, and walked over to Tilley's--right up the street--to fetch Jillian. However, I then discovered that the Yes Optus voucher I'd purchased wouldn't work on my phone, despite it saying YES OPTUS before saying Virgin when it starts up. Fortunately, they credited me the $30 back, and we were off.
First we headed to Questacon, a spiffy science center. As many, it was largely targeted at kids, but had a lot of damn cool stuff. All kinds of fun learning exhibits and toys, a huge Tesla coil, a cheesy earthquaked house, a roller coaster simulator, a dizzying tube of mirrors encircling a walkway, a freefall slide, and a fabulous, huge gravity-driven mechanical billiard ball raceway--ramps, loops, switchbacks, weights, levers, spirals, etc, etc--you've seen 'em, it'll make more sense when I upload the photo later. :D
After checking out about 5/6 of the place, we headed back to Civic around 1 so she could apply for a position at Pancake Parlour--which I hear is run by Scientologists, incidentally, though that's irrelevant--and she was one of about 30 applicants for the three open positions. I checked out the application form, which was one of the least professional forms I'd seen, but I suppose it's a small franchise; I also checked out the math&grammar aptitude test, which was, uh, interesting. We then had lunch at a cafe somewhere else, wherein I had a turkey club--turkey, spanish onion, cream cheese, and cranberry jam on flatbread--not bad.
From there we walked over to Canberra Centre to visit Evil Steve at the tea shop where he works sometimes--impressive selection at that store--and traded gossip with Steve, to the amusement of his coworker. (Tomorrow night, dinner at Steve's!)
We headed toward the Botanical Gardens next, but a spat of rain directed us to the Telstra Tower instead. Small museum at the bottom, one closed observation deck at the bottom, one enclosed observation deck and coffee shop at 58m, one open deck at 64m, plus an expensive restaurant somewhere in the middle. (The tower extends to 195m, but most of it is telecom equipment and concrete. It's also on top of Black Mountain, which is already at 800+m above sea level.)
The rain had moved on, so we then headed to the Botanical Gardens, went through the Rain Forest Gully first--where I found that I couldn't effectively use my camera's Macro mode to photograph a dragonfly--and then assorted other regions and plant types, (and found I couldn't get in a good position to photograph some gorgeous rosellas.) Checked out the bookshop, and headed out.
We then headed back to Lyneham and fetched my bike, which is now in better condition than it was before the accident. Both wheels true, no click in the pedal shaft, handlebars straight, shifter repaired, and new bell--all at no charge! Very nice. :) Thence back to Latebra, and thence to Woolworth's for their groceries--where I realized that they sell eggs off the shelf rather than out of refrigerated cases. This is apparently the norm in Australia, where refrigerated is the norm in the U.S. Curious!
Still at Latebra, where my camera is being used for various odd photos, and dinner is on the way. :)
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Date: 2004-02-02 06:18 am (UTC):] you will please to be seeing if they have any teas that look like i want them. [no berry flavours unless they have strawberry, cos i've never seen strawberry tea.. but vanilla teas and yum teas and black teas and greenteachamomile and teeeeaaaa]
Re:
Date: 2004-02-03 08:52 am (UTC)