A Trip Down Under

I went down to Melbourne and Sydney, with my wife, for some 10 days two weeks ago. First stop Melbourne. This is Federation Square. Never mind the history. It serves as a good first place for tourists to go, because ...

... there's a big and very helpful Visitor Centre ...

... with a very nice visual display of major events happening in the various months of this year. Is our Tourist Centre up to standard? Tour bookings, advice, & help can be obtained downstairs. Also souvenirs.

Federation Square is also where the main tour coaches gather (3 companies also have their offices there) so you can book and take day tours. When we build our main bus terminals, couldn't we incorporate these tour services there? The Sydney one is in the basement carpark of the Star Casino Complex.

For complete convenience, there is the Hotel Duke of Wellington across the road! Though I have no idea if the hotel is any good.

This park had the cottage of Captain Cook's parents. You might ask "If he discovered Australia, how was his parent's house here?". This building was taken from England and re-assembled here! This showed that anything can be used to make a place more interesting and touristy.

The Conservatory ...

... with flowers and plants. Can't we have one here; air-conditioned to grow flowers and plants from Mt Kinabalu? We need to make more money from the tourists.

Beautiful parks; so nice that those Falun Gong people were there making a promotional video!

Queen Victoria Market (Melbourne), with many many stalls. Practically ALL tourists to Melbourne make their way there. Can't we have an air-conditioned one here?

I wish my baggage allowance was big enough ...

The ONLY photo I was allowed to take!!! The Rangers claimed that flash photography will damage the penguin's eyesight. Obviously there were visitors who ignored that instruction; but I was law-abiding.

Though, if you were lucky, you might find one under your car!

So my only photo of penguins was of the toy ones mounted on the coach's dashboard.

The Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road. There were never twelve of them. All the history just served to get all the visitors (Australians and foreign tourists) to sit in a coach the whole day!

Though the Giant Eucalyptus trees were pretty impressive. Do we have an area where OUR impressive trees can be shown to visitors?

Do we have an area where visitors can be taken (after paying for the tour) for photo opportunities of major landmarks?

Nicely lighted up landmarks encouraged visitors to pay and make a second visit to the same place!

The Blue Mountains; Its the AIR that's blue. Apparently the light refraction through the eucalyptus oil laden air in the valleys.

You get more visitors and earn more from them if you have ...

... a cable car ...

... and an unnecessary, but thrilling train ride ...

... down a sharp incline (52° but can be increased to 64° by tilting the bench more). When will we have these here at Mt Kinabalu? Isn't that steep slope, on the road to Keningau, across the Crocker Range suitable for something like this?

There are many wildlife parks where you can be close to and even touch some of the animals. Is our Lok Kawi Wildlife Park up to scratch?

My favourite marsupial; A Koala ("Its NOT a bear! PLEASE!" said the Park Ranger). Eat 4 hours then sleep 20 hours each day.

A nice set of salt and pepper shakers ...

... at a restaurant called Two Fat Blokes.

I have nothing against fast food; especially Angus Beef burgers.

Hey, a Daiso in Sydney! Every item $2.80 (Australian dollar though).

We were advised to take the cruise boat back to Darling Harbour from the Olympic Park by buying the tickets on board.

Very nice ride. I bought the tickets from the bar on board, but noticed that no one checked for tickets when the passengers disembarked. I also did not see anyone else buying tickets. Should I have bought those tickets?

My souvenir; a paper mache egg decorated in the aboriginal style. At least it's NOT made in China. I did enjoy my trip despite all those thoughts about what we could do to promote more tourism here.