On the road again

You know the country your in when you see this road sign Or this road sign This sign may be less familiar as to what it is or where you are And this could be anywhere, note the complimentary bottle against the itch Australians being the descendants of the penal colony prisoners sent here since 1788, have their own internal way of dissing each other. Every state (6) and the 2 territories have monikers given to them by their neighboring state citizens. We landed in Melbourne, Victoria where the “Cabbage Patchers” live and when we landed in Port Douglas, Queensland we were surrounded by “Banana Benders”. And this was the live boy we saw. Don’t ask me why not a girl? An Aussie told me: boy This is an emu; we never saw a cassowary. Those two are very very Aussie.  Our first and only sighting of a wallaby Our last visit to Sydney had been not impressed us enough to at first impulse bring us back to Australia, but since our flight to New Zealand landed us in Melbourne, we decided to give...

The Danxia phenomena in Zhangye  From Beijing we flew on an Asia Pass, acquired from Delta’s RTW (Round the World) desk, to the city of Xining on the western side of China, where we had less than 1 hour to ride by taxi 31km/19m to the Xining train station, where we sat in a six person sleeper cabin with 5 ladies and a rambunctious 5,6 or 7 year old child, controlling mama, granny and aunties to hand over cookies, play games and whatever else came to him. Xining railway station, huge despite “small” town in western China Waiting room for train passengers only One of the many gates: this to platform of rail 12 and 13 The Xining train station, as many others in China, consisted of an immense glass covered hall, holding a thousand plus travellers (no farewell wishers allowed) with many gates leading to many train platforms. The gates opened 15 minutes before the train arrival as announced on large screens.  Train arrival, we are allowed to platform 10m early Cabin  staff pers...