It's the thought that counts.

One of the funnier things about traveling in China is seeing signs written in English. It's common for a sign in English to have grammatical errors, misspellings or just the complete misuse of a word. The Lonely Planet guide refers to these signs as Chinglish. I find them very endearing and I'm appreciative for the daily random infuse of comedy as well as the attempt to communicate to me, the visitor. I was able to snap a few shots of some good Chinglish we saw along the way.

This one is a bit tough to read but it says, "Do Not Drive Tiredly". We saw this while on a bike ride tour well outside of Beijing.

There's a huge problem with garbage in Beijing because no one knows where to put it.

This one was in our room in Dali. I never realized until I saw this how much we take shower safety for granted in the US. Needless to say, for the rest of the trip I kept an eye out for dangerous Landtowels.

A+ for effort! I'm sure service really is begin there. What's a tovrist?

This one was great. The little picture on the sign shows that it could possibly mean, be careful when swimming but this was clearly not a place for swimming. I think they meant to say, be careful not to fall into the water. Ohh, the glee.

We be walkin' by when we caught this one.

This was my first time at a scenil spot! I was very excited.

Ok, you can't read this one (I know) but it says, "No Smoking In Ben". This one is a favorite of ours since it was in our first hotel room in China. We were privy to the ways of Chinglish early on in our trip!

Another funny thing about China is that the government utility vehicles such as street sweepers and trash trucks would play jingles through a loud speaker to let people know they were coming. Most of the time they are played at super-high volumes. Also, it varied between vehicles whether they would play the same one over and over or cycle between various tunes. The same song over and over got really annoying, especially if your stuck somewhere close and it's sitting in the same spot. They do not turn off the music even if the truck stands still for a while.

The funniest part though is the jingles that they played. I often heard these songs throughout China and one truck in Dali played all four!! . I wrote them down because I didn't want to forget. They were "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", "Happy Birthday", "Fere Jacques" and Three Blind Mice". Why they play these songs (?), I have no clue, but there they were. Hearing them caused me a bit of a mental rubberneck at first. Can you imagine if they played traditional Chinese folk music through speakers on garbage trucks in America? My noodle was bent a little with that one. I found it odd that in a country that has been traditionally closed off from the rest of the world for a long time, Western culture found a place in their everyday life in that way.

A titanic evening...literally.

Who doesn't like to get dressed up? Ok, a lot of people don't....but not us!!

We got oursleves all gussied up last night and went to the Post Graduate Ball held by Uni Melbourne. After months of jeans, sweat pants and attending nothing but classes at school we jumped at the chance to have a formal evening.

The Ball was held at the Melbourne Aquarium and it was a Titanic (as in the ship) theme. With the ticket price we got all the free wine, beer and champagne we could drink. And we did. We didn't go insane mind you but for others I heard that by the end of the night the bathroom stalls were being used for the less famous but more infamous, #3.

Here we are (Halley, Ali, Sarah, Christine and myself) in one of the glass hallways that pass under the huge central fish tank. If you look close you can see a few gilled creatures behind us.

The night was great. I ran into a couple of Environmental friends from school, Liz and Crystal. It was nice to go somewhere and actually recognize someone!

All in all it was a nice night out. We dance, we talked, we looked good and I was happy I finally got to wear one of the suits I had made in Vietnam.

Today I spent the day nursing my hangover, showing off my "pillow-pressed" hairdo and looking forward to the Patriots game later this weekend.

Roadtrip!!!

We finally got outta the city!! All the pictures are on my Australia Photos Shutterfly page at: http://ericinmelbourne.shutterfly.com. (Also look at links section to the right).

Ok, first off, I got to drive on the left had side of the road!! Sweet!! It's been a dream of mine and now I can check that one off as fufilled. My other, slightly lesser, dream of getting into an accident whildst driving on the left also came true as well. We got rear ended at a traffic light at an extremely slow speed.

For those of you that know me, you probably know my driving record can be described as any of the following: long, elabortate, heavy, expensive, funny, sad....etc. It has also been known to create the look of wonder in peoples eyes as they try to deduce whether I'm unlucky or insane. So it didn't bode well with my new and improved image when I get into an accident after the first time driving in 5 months!! It was, in fact though, not a bad accident and not my fault. Luckily it happened at the end of our trip (so we didn't have to think about it the whole time) and we took out full insurance for the rental car (being my first time on the left and all). Happy endings are great.

On to the trip!!

First stop, Airey's Inlet and the Split Point lighthouse. Who doesn't like a lighthouse, huh? Huh? I can't think of anyone. There was a nice walking path with a view of the ocean. Very good. We drive onward......

....to Apollo Bay. We had great weather for the trip other than a little rain while in Apollo Bay. However, said rain provided us with a gorgeous rainbow while at Marriner's Lookout. We could see the full arch of the rainbow with the other end landing in the ocean. No gold though. Driving on...

This was one of many tiny isolated beachs along the Great Ocean Road. This one was accessable by parking next to the guard rail and climbing down a narrow, slippery path. As a result, it was empty, so we had it all to ourselves. There were lots of funky seashells lining the shore of which we collected a few. The waves were really nice and the formations that the sea has carved out in the limestone rocks are amazing! Moving on, reluctantly....

Erskine Falls, in the Angahook-Lorne State Park, is located in a low lying, wet, temporate rain forest. Very calm, pretty and lush. We got a small hike in and finally put our legs to work after a couple of months in the city. Driving on...

......we arrive in Port Campbell by night. We find a really nice Best Western and got a big suite for cheap. In the morning we check out the town which amounts to a handfull of restaraunts, hotels and gift shops. We go for breakfast and sit down at the second place we see. We look at the menu and see that all the choices involve eggs. Not everyone in the group eats eggs so this was a problem. We inquire as to any possible alternatives that are available. The answer was.....toast. Nice. We move on only to find out that this is the case everywhere but one restaraunt. I guess they like their eggs. We ate and moved on....

...to the Twelve Apostles!! very famous here in Australia. Unfortunately we came a couple of months late because one of the coolest one's collapsed. You can see the ruble pile to the left under the hand rail. Very sad. Moving on!!

Ahh, Loch Ard Gorge. Big, blue and beautiful. We pranced around for a while and had some silly fun on the beach. Then.....

...we drove to the Ottway Fly Skywalk in beech Forest. This was really cool. The walk way is up to 150 feet above the ground at points and the fauna was gorgeous. Since we came in the winter there wasn't much wildlife but this place deserves a second visit.

All-in-all the trip was great and we are looking forward to getting back to the Great Ocean Road ASAP. There's still much more to see!!