Day 01 Sunday 4th Febuary

8:30am
Arrived... All well and good. 7hr flight from singapore and slept for 4 of them, so we have both arrived nice and fresh. Now the final ordeal; queuing. Queue through imigration, queue to get ur bag, queue to get through quarentine. It took over an hour to clear the airport to a taxi... Where we had to... Surprise surprise, queue again.
however... Its 9 in the morning and its stinking hot....i thought ahead and packed tongs (flip flops) and shorts oin my bag.... Something lee only thought about in hindsight.
so 1st impresiosions... It reminds me a little of the us. Hardly any high rises.. And a beutiful vista in the background.. Which are called the adelaide hills.
u can tell its a sunday as the shops on the main road into the city are deserted. Adelaide is ... For want of a better word... Green. Lots of open park spaces are dotted all the way round the place. In fact the whole cbd is surrounded by parkland... As if the city was restricted by a green collar.
lee's spotted a mini garage... And pointed it out. Buildings get more compact and start to tower above... Which signals our entry into the cbd.... I've spotted the hilton, so we must b near our hotel. Sure enough... We are there....

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10:00
left the luggage at the hotel and after a 'brief' change of clothes for us both... We headed out for a stroll around the block. It is hot... Sorry to keep mentioning it... But theres no getting away from it.
again, first impressions being so important... Our stroll revealed quite a bit. Our hotel seems to right next to bars clubs and pubs... Oh and strip clubs as well. Most of them obviously not open... Except 1 which was quite busy (pub that is not strip joint). Lots of english beering it up. We retired to a coffee bar to take in the general atmos.
ice coffee and smoothies all round.
one quick way, i find, to get the general jist of a country is to read their newspaper; it alway sreveals a small insight; reading the sunday mail' (probably their version on the mail on sunday), i'm drawn to find that kylie is back on the market, and that a large whale has been towed away from kangaroo island to keep the sharks from the area. Aparently this happened 4 yrs ago and it created a feeding frenzi amoungst a large number of sharks... Which people boated out to to touch.... The paper states ' this dead whale has been towed away from feeding sharks to protect people from a much more dangerous monster - their own stupidity'. Lee, who is reading a women smag, points out a great editorial about the ozzie bloke who got swollowed by the great white and survived. And more shark news, 'surfer mauled by shark'.... Thankfully this is on the east coast off nsw.

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11;00
The lay of the land and conversing with the locals;
lee has many skills, map reading isn't one of them. Cut a long story short we were trying to get to a st in adelaide and we were heading in the wrong direction.
However, we seemed to be following an older lady, obviously a native; she was savy enought to hav an umbrela with her.... A felix the cat umbrela at that. We conversed at a traffic light and talked about the weather... Its gonna b hot for a couple of days then go down to a cool 26'c...... Ouch...

Went for a walk around the shops, and then up through North side of Adelaide, over the Torrens River and ippast the Adelaide Oval. Its getting very close to midday now and its hitting the high temps... and both of us are getting very hot. Time to get back to the hotel and shower and then get some food.

Above: Victoria Square


Above: Victoria Square... Hilton in background


Above: Victoria Square... looking North


Above: Safety first

Above: Me on torrens river with Adelaide Oval in background (pastie white pom )

Above: Typical tree in Oz

Above: More tree's...

Above: Adelaide Oval

Above: War memorial



Above: Casino and convention centre

14:00
Steping out of the hotel we got a big shock...... It reminded me of our last visit to oz new years eve where it hit 42.5'c. The wind is like a hairdryer, in your face. We've ventured out to the arcades and shops.... Quite important in the decision making process. Its also time for food... Although i think our bodies are a tad confused as to what is going on.....
lee's gone for the sensible choice of ice tea..... I, on the otherhand, hav gone for james boags & sons premium lager... A tasmanian lager, much as the same taste as grolsh... Although probanly brewed quicker.
Adelaide, so far, has not captured the imagination yet. If sydney was london, and melbourn was manchester... At the moment.. Going on 1st impressions.... Adelaide is the cambridge (of the 1990's). Theres lots of parklands, not many high rises, and tons of statues and weired artwork around. Theres also a large amount of weirdo's around... Much like cambridge.. (i remember a homeless bloke who wud stand on mill rd in cambridge and pour cornflakes on his head). Seriously tho... We have only walked around for a few hours and we have seen a myriad nay plethora of weirdo's.... People rumaging through bins or stumbling across the rd talking and gesticulating to themselves.... Then again... We hav our fair share of weirdos just like that in watford.
16:00
Sat in the hotel bar partaking in a great aussie passtime: Watching sport and drinking beer. nz vs oz in the cricket... And there is some interest in it for us pomes... If oz beat nz then england hav to beat nz in the last game. If nz beat oz, it will go down to bonus points (i can't b arsed to explain, i tried to explain it to lee but she just looked at me funny... And anyway only haiko really cares anyway). As u know we went shopping earlier... And we went to woolworths... Yes woolies. Shopping in 'supermarkets' is like going back 20-30 years in the uk. High shelves tightly packed together so u are constantly apologising for getting in the other shoppers way. 70's/80's style also gives us 70s/80s Prices. Suncream is very cheap, so we buy here. Woolworths is differnet to our woolies. For one you can buy alcohol in woolies.. Something the chavs wud love back home.
I also parted with a substantial amount of cash for a gold coast titans shirt (a new rugby league franchise based, funnily enough, on the gold coast).
Note to haiko; if u want one buddy they are $180.
We are also looking at things to do, and we poped down to the tourism office (given that nothing else was open). We've got info on kangaroo island, dolphin tours, and wine cellar tours. Food for thought.
lee is pretty much running on empty.... Which is pretty strange as its me who usually succumbs to the jet lag. But.. Having worked nights before coming and having slept well on the planes over.... I am ready for a few beers and a nice evening out...... Plenty of time yet for that.

Above: weird artwork... in the CBD

Above: Woolworths Liquor store... Thinkthey stole the Rollback slogan off asda...

Above: More weird arty stuff... some pigs (Iron cast I believe). If it was the UK they would have a sign saying 'no pigs were harmed in the making of this piece of art.

Above: New RL Shirt purchase...... for Haiko of course.... This season I will be mostly rooting for the storm and the titans....

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17:00

Lee has large puffy swollen feet...... just thought I'd share! ;-)

Also.. heres the view from our Hotel window.. not the best vista (as we are ocean side looking out west over the sea..(you can't really see it in the pic as its about 7km west of our hotel.. but it is there), but it gives you all a good perspective of the bollocks I'm talking......

19:00
ventured out of the hotel, as lee was starting to drift in & out of consiousness back at the hotel. We have made a short walk to 'china town'.... I'm starting to fade a little as well. My eyes were very heavy back in the hotel room watching the cricket... Hopefully the walk to chinatown, meal, walk back will add a couple of hours, so we will at least stay up til 9..... ish.

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