0128 Adelaide - Day 1

We left our house in Toronto at 10:30 on Monday night and checked in at the hotel in Adelaide, Australia, shortly after 10 on Thursday morning.  Discounting the 15 1/2 hours time difference, that's still 45 hours worth of flying, waiting at the airports, going to and from the airports, a little side trip in HK to have lunch with family and dozing off in between all these activities.  Despite the long hours, Karen and I both agreed that flying at night and taking a few hours of rest after you arrive at the next stop, is a good way to get your body adjusted quickly ... whatever quickly means!  We slept at 11PM on Thursday night and woke up around 5AM (which is very good for us) and we didn't get up until 7.

Adelaide is a relatively "small" town with 1.3 million people and people we've run into thus far are very friendly and helpful.  After a power nap in the morning, we spent a few hours wandering around Rundle Mall and grabbing lunch.  The Mall is made up of  1000+ shops in a two blocks car free zone in downtown.  Most of the buildings are 2-3 stories tall and are not new - a bit better than downtown Winnipeg/Calgary when we first got to Canada 40+ years ago. It was a relatively mild day (19 Celsius vs high 30s last week) and we had a pleasant stroll through various shops.  We spent quite a bit of time in the quaint old Adelaide Arcade (with glass roofs and all) and talked to the storekeeper in a "button" shop!  I've never seen so many different buttons before, the normal, the glitters, the exotics, and the children's (ice cream cones, fairy tale characters, and much more).  If you sew, this place will be heaven.

2nd floor of Adelaide Arcade

Facade with the original fountain

a modern sculpture in the Mall ... take a closer look and you'll see the photographer too

and I found this button!

Then we t a tram to Glenelg, a town by the shore. It was cloudy and very windy, the beach was almost deserted. Other than a few people surfing, there were not many people around. The surfers were not very good and so it was not interesting to watch. Though the sand looked very fine, we did not feel like exploring the beach as it was very windy and we were tired. There was a children's playground nearby with some interesting setup - a big slide, climbing ropes and such. They had this little hill with three 4' trampolines in it. From afar, you see these children jumping on the ground and wonder what they were doing.  Only when you get closer, you see the trampolines.

Glenelg and the jetty where surfers were jumping off from ...

We picked one of the restaurants on the pier for dinner. We got a seat by the window so we can watch the sunset. Since it is the ocean out there, with the wind and the sun behind clouds most of the time, it was just OK. We had dishes of scallops, shrimps and calamari, plus a Greek salad.  Surprisingly, the grilled calamari was the best.