AN INSIGHT + WALKING IN A DREAM

AN INSIGHT

Touring any part of Australia consistently revealed highly disciplined citizens. From the train stations to the top of the mountains, cleanliness was very evident. Seemingly always hurrying people didn’t have time to chat, much more to gossip. They spent every free moment to reading a book or doing something worthwhile.

I used to say that the Ten Commandments of God could be summarized into two traffic words…KEEP RIGHT…but not in Australia where traffic rule was Keep Left. So awkward did I feel that every so often I thought my son’s car was going to collide on the oncoming one from the opposite direction. Keep Left was also the rule on climbing stairs and walking though isles. Keep Left being the mirror image implementation of what I was accustomed to, could be very confusing.

There were very few and isolated commercial billboards along the highway. A round the 200 miles that we traveled during our Blue Mountain Tour, I saw only McDonald and one about a piano lesson.

Yet, the absence of the commercial billboards did not lessen the color of the surroundings; in fact, it even enhanced the beauty of nature.

WALKING IN A DREAM
Sept. 8, 2000

After office, together with Mikee, Paul drives us around Vanclaus along Watson’s Bay. It is the residential area of the Rich and the Famous. Anybody who is somebody in Australia live there… and yes, these affluent people own boats and docks. The houses are all magnificently 'architectured' and generally with low decorative fence. Beautiful plants of different variety grow on every backyard.

After admiring almost enviously the houses that only the moneyed people could afford to build we climbed the Sydney Harbour National Park… a winding steps going upwards on top of a huge rock overlooking the ocean. It reminded me of Acropolis in Greece, minus the ruins. We continued watching the big houses along Bondi, another residential area for the affluent and the popular, not very far from Vanclaus. On the left side are clean parks where one could almost fall asleep had the climate been a little kinder.

We stopped at Thai Volunteer, a restaurant that offered delicious food. We met Italian diners. To finish the day in style, we proceeded to the Darling Harbour. Strolling around the harbour is like walking in a dream. It is difficult to describe how I feel seeing all the beautiful things around. No doubt it is called Darling Harbour… it is the lovers, favorite area.

It is sometimes frustrating that I did not have a chance to see the Harbour Aquarium as it was already late for that night but what I have seen could compensate to satisfy my craving for sight and color.

Incidentally it was only at the Darling Harbour where I sighted policemen… three of them in all. At the entrance to the Casino I was politely requested by the security guard to remove my cap. It is ironic that policemen are not visible in Sydney in spite of the Olympics being held there. I learned that the whole city, including the suburbs are monitored technologically and most of the surveillance and police matters are computerized. The use of commercial billboards is also limited, unlike in other countries where this is too common. Even signboards of different establishments and business enterprises were almost of the same sizes.

Discipline is possible because Australia is a Socialist Country under a Monarchial form of Government. Sometimes curtailment of some freedom could do a lot of good. I was told that in Australia there are so many who are too rich and not so many who are too poor. The middle class predominates. More people are more equal to one another unlike in most democratic third world countries like the Philippines, where the rich are truly very rich and the poor are desperately very poor… and they are so many. When equality is less felt, discipline is next to impossible and when discipline is wanting, nothing else work well.