Curiosities

CURIOSITIES

On every journey we take we run across curiosities. Curiosities are observations that are somewhat unusual for us. The following are curiosities worthy of mention.

While in the Los Angeles we observed a woman on a wheelchair. She was moving through the concourse with no visible means of assisted motion and she was not doing anything to move the chair. A few minutes later we saw a wheelchair moving in the opposite direction unoccupied and unattended. The chairs are some type of “robot chair”. They sense something in front of them and they stop. They proceed when the path is clear. We have no idea how you get to where you want to go but we saw them going somewhere.

Downtown Perth and Brisbane have free buses that continuously transport people through the downtown business areas. Commuters use them all day long when intercity travel is necessary. In the mornings and afternoons students use them to go to and from school. The students are well mannered and eagerly offer their seats to senior citizens.

Crossing the street in every country is a challenge. Intersections with traffic signals all have push to cross walk signals. The intent is for pedestrians to wait for the little green man to light up and then cross. When the little man turns red and is flash’en, you better be dash’en. Don’t think for a minute that all Australians follow this rule. For anyone from a country that does not drive on the left side of the street, it can be catastrophic. Even if your brain is telling you to look left, your eyes are looking right. Some intersections in Brisbane are marked “ Scatter”. At these intersections all signals turn red at the same time and all of the little green men light up. When that happens you can cross in any direction including diagonally. Occasionally you will find a crossing marked in the middle of block but no signal. Here you are allowed to cross at any time and the cars must stop and they really do! Left right confusion is also present when climbing stairs or just walking down the street!

The Ibis is a protected bird species in Australia. The Ibis has long legs (about 12inches) with a beak almost as long as it’s legs. The best place to see an Ibis is at an outdoor eating area or atop a garbage can. Locally it is known as a “Bin Chicken”.

Faucets were an unexpected curiosity in the South Pacific. In America, we have standardized with hot water on the left and cold water on the right. To turn the water on you turn it counterclockwise and to turn the water off you turn it clockwise. Not so here! Sometimes the hot is on the left and sometimes it’s on the right. Sometimes you turn it clockwise to turn it on and sometimes you turn it counterclockwise to turn it on. Sometimes one faucet turns clockwise to turn on and the other faucet turns counterclockwise. Fortunately showers typically had a mixing valve but don’t get too cocky here because sometimes you turn it to the right to make it warmer and sometimes you have to turn it to the left. Best to test the temperature before stepping in.

None of the places we visited had plastic disposable silverware (pardon my American, it’s cutlery here) ; even the airplanes! All of the disposable silverware is made of wood and degradable. The gelato cups in Fiji appeared to be made of paper but they were actually made of bamboo: again degradable.

Games are popular all over the world and Australia is no exception. While browsing the wares in the Dorringo Mountain Rainforest gift shop we spotted “Australia’s Deadly Animals Bingo” game. You gotta love those Aussie’s We can only imagine what the “ Old Maid” game looks like.

Our guide told us that Guadalcanal is an island of “ones”. There is one airport, one runway, one road that crosses the island, one traffic signal, one dog breed (there are other breeds on the island but they must be neutered before they are allowed on the island), one hospital, and one snake (non-poisonous). On an island of “ones” fear not: they have three casinos!

If you ever feel the urge to chew beetle nuts you should be aware of the following. On Guadalcanal, beetle nuts are available pretty much everywhere and can be purchased by the piece or by the kilogram. There is a secret sauce that goes along with this delicacy. To make the sauce you gather bunch of sea shells and grind them into a powder. You now have calcium carbonate. The sauce is kept in a jar that you must carry with you. With a nut and your sauce you must first pop your nut in your mouth and crush the shell with your teeth. Remove the nut from the shell, pop the nut back in your mouth, add a generous scoop of ground up seashell to the nut and chew away. In no time your teeth will be stained a beautiful deep shade of red and ground down to a set of pathetic nubs. The concoction is extremely addictive and everyone knows that you are addicted by your beautiful ground down red teeth.

Australia is a large producer of sugar cane. When the cane is ready to harvest they burn the cane fields. The practice of burning cane fields has been discontinued or banned by most countries of the world. Cane is burned in Australia because it drives or kills the twenty one varieties of poisonous snakes that live in the sugarcane fields.

We had read that the foyer of the Sydney Custom House had a curiosity we needed to check out. There are supposed to be several swastikas and, in fact there are. According to the Custom House, these motifs are fylfots. They are ancient decorative motifs symbolizing good luck. Swastika comes from the Sanskrit word svastika. The German Nazi Party didn’t invent the swastika, they gave it a bad name. They have been on the floor of the Custom House since 1916 but they sure looked like swastikas to us: and what the heck is a fylfot?