On Sunday June 16, after our first Mass ever in the Australian continent the Winartas released us to be under the custody of the Basukis. We knew Philipus and Diana his wife since several years ago where we met in the Internet, to be precise, in Paroki-Net mailing list, at that time the best Indonesian mailing list in the world :-). At one time, after reading so many fabulous stories, he didn't believe that such a writer existed. So he came over to Toronto from London, U.K., to meet me in person. It was only appropriate then that we paid him a visit in his own country of choice, Australia, and stayed for the next 2 nights at their place. The hand-over procedure was done a la Indonesian, over luncheon in a nice Chinese restaurant at Carlingsford in Sydney. The dim-sum chef could compete with any dim-sum restaurant chef in the world, in other words, not bad. Actually, it is not difficult to judge the quality of a restaurant. Just check how many people are lining up. If there's nobody inside, I am sure I can cook a better fried rice than the chef :-). The restaurant was jam-packed and if Sydney has (building) fire code like in TO, they had violated it.

We hinted to the Basukis that the Australian priest who celebrated the Eucharist said, "You don't see Australia until you go to the outback." So, being a fan of my canoeing stories and is aware that only Canadians can make love in a canoe, Philipus took us to the real outback. First we went to an ancient city, relatively of course, called Windsor. There were some differences than our Windsor, Ontario. We could relax there and there was no traffic jam. It's about an hour drive north west of Sydney. We tasted Aussie's genuine ice-cream, not bad but Milan's gelato is still numero uno. From Windsor, we went further north, about 35 km but through winding hilly road to Wisemans Ferry. This is the real outback and we had a 'free show', a real Australian bush fire. You probably had read about the terrible bush fire around Sydney last year. Seeing how vast the area is, you could imagine that it is not easy to douse a bush fire. The famous Hawkesbury River ran along our route. Had we have a week-time, Philipus would have rented a canoe for us, dropped and picked us at the Wisemans Ferry.

One criteria to judge how cultured a society is, is to check their washroom. If you have to pay 2 francs to go pee, you know that money is very important in there :-). I couldn't believe my eyes when I went inside the washroom at that outback place called Wisemans Ferry. It was spotless, cleaner than a McDonald Restaurant's washroom. They have running water plus enough TP, abbreviation for toilet paper that we the Canadian outbackers, I mean campers, use.

If you are a sport freak or watched the last Sydney Olympic, you must have heard about the world-famous Bondi Beach. It is not too far from Botany Bay. We went there on the Monday morning with an intention to go swimming, me only. It was not meant to be. Only surfers were allowed and it wouldn't be fun anyway to swim against several feet high of waves. The sky was overcast and there was a strong wind. It is winter in Australia, so all the surfers wore wet-suit, not fun at all to watch plus there was no beach volleyball match at Bondi. Actually it was really a nice beach, with white and soft sand. I am sure if I come back in the summer, Philipus would take me there again.

Realizing that we had become bored, Philipus told us an interesting story about how well educated are Australian sharks. If you are a Japanese or a Chinese, you don't have to worry about the sharks there. They will only attack and eat white and black guys but will run away if they see that you have squinty eyes. Their teachers must have told them about shark fin soups. No wonder the soups are very pricey in Australia. On Australian quality of education, some of my friends told me that at present, Indonesia's biggest export to Australia is school student :-). If you don't believe me, just go to any campus in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and you would hear kids talking in 'Bahasa Prokem' :-). I am serious, I met so many Indonesian students in Sydney and Melbourne. Well, even Cecilia contributed to the export by having her nephew and niece studying at Melbourne's RMIT.

Those of you who live in big cities know that every city has at least an area where the people live in 'glass houses'. In Toronto it's called The Bridlepath with million dollar houses. Thank God I don't have a friend who lives there because if I happen to be Li Kai Shing's buddy (who has a house there) you would never read my story. Cecilia and I would be playing mahjong with the Lis over private dim-sum. Thus, Philipus drove us sightseeing to an area in Sydney called St. Ives. I doubt he would want to live there because there would be no way he can fulfill his promise to drive me canoeing to Wisemans Ferry. He would be busy entertaining and pampering his friends at his million dollar home. Kidding aside, we couldn't have better hosts hostesses in Sydney than the Winartas and the Basukis. Philipus drove us to the airport in the morning of Tuesday, June 18 after we had a filling Vietnamese hot bread breakfast bought at Botany Bay earlier. Our plane for Auckland departed 30 minutes late at 9:55 AM and I will share with you our New Zealand's journey in the next episode. Good bye mate, till then.