Canberra

The quiet capital

I had a one-day trip to Canberra yesterday. Half of my 12-hour trip was on the bus with other 55 Chinese tourists. Everything of the tour is made of China: the delayed starting time, the bus, the food, the music and the tourist guide. The language is Chinese so we could understand nothing though the tourist guide kept speaking from the beginning to the end of the tour. We had no way but kept ignoring what the guide said and enjoying Canberra ourselves.

I’m not writing about those Chinese things but Canberra!

The national capital of Australia is much quieter and larger than what I imagine. This time is spring but winter still hesitates to leave the capital so trees look dry and yellow-green. The capital city doesn’t have the noise of cars, motorbikes, music or human voices. During 4 hours, I just saw only 2 green buses and several people walking on the streets.

Canberra is the opposite of Sydney, which is always busy and hurried. I can’t imagine that this is the heart of Australia. And behind those white buildings are the Government, Parliament House, High court and many other departments, agencies and corporations.

I love to drive the car in Yarralumla which is home to many embassies. See the flags and you can tell the name of the country. What impressed me much is the US embassy which is the only one with cold-faced guards and the Chinese embassy which looks romantic like the palace in the 15th century.

Canberra doesn’t look green like Sydney. Maybe, all of its flowers are in the Floriade. Wow, the Floriade draws colourful pictures of red, white, pink, black and yellow tulips, poppy flowers..etc…Despite of the dry and sunny weather of the ‘“bush capital”, the flowers are bright and happy. The flowers wiped out my tiredness and thirst of a hot day. Flowers made me feel relaxed.

It’s a pity that I didn’t have time to visit the National Gallery, National Museum and Australian War Memorial.

I will return to Canberra to discover those cultural destination and find out what can be the noisiest parts of this capital. Certainly, my future trip will be without Chinese things because I want to understand everything in English.