So, I talked to a guy at a shop in Fremantle and he said that I would have better luck finding my hat if I went in to Perth. I picked up Helen and Louise from the airport and then took Louise to the Hotel where she was staying in Perth. Helen was so happy to get off the plane that she didn’t mind driving around a bit. We found a parking spot and walked down the shopping area to find the hat shop.

Doesn’t this look like main street Disneyland?

We were walking back to the car and I stopped to take this photo. I found the hat. This is a cross between the formal, short-brimmed hat with the Indiana Jones style band, and the traditional western style Australian “cowboy” hat. It’s called “Leisure Time”, but the girl at the shop kept calling it Leshur Tem. Sometimes there’s a slight language barrier.

This is the weekend market in Fremantle. It’s similar to a swap meet where people set up their booths and sell stuff.

…I just need to figure out how this plug thing works!!!

Well, I like to try and buy something interesting from each of the areas that I go to. I’m a fan of Indiana Jones and I was doing some research before I left on my trip. I thought that since I was going out on this adventure that I should have the proper adventure gear. I discovered that the basic model for the Indiana Jones hat is made from an Akubra. The Akubra hat is 100% Australian made. So I thought that while I was here, I should get the right hat for the job. I was in some of the shops in Fremantle and I found this “Authentic” Indiana Jones hat. When I say authentic, what I mean is that it’s a licensed movie product. It’s a wool hat, and it had the right look, but it’s NOT an Australian Akubra. I took this photo so that when I found the Akubras I could pick out a hat that most resembled the licensed hat.

I really enjoyed the building around Fremantle. It reminded me of downtown Flagstaff Arizona.

This is the Roundhouse. It was the landing ground for the settlers.

I tried to stitch together a panoramic shot from the top of the roundhouse.

I went out to dinner with Aubrey and Jan. We were walking down the street looking for a spot to eat when this older lady stopped us. She was obviously the “Mama” of this Italian restaurant. She ushered us in and sat us down and we had a meal. I capped it off with a little cake.

This is not a shot of the restaurant bathroom, but this is a fairly common urinal.

These images are from a short video sequence that I shot. As I moved from left to right the shape of the MC Escher optical illusion illustration are brought to life.

Being in a foreign country is always, well, a bit foreign. Some of the phrases can be quite different.

The idea of a “Yield” sign conjures images of surrender for most of the Aussies that I talked to.

Now, I knew that it was a long trip, but I didn’t realize that the “Land Down Under” was so near to the Elvish kingdom of Rivendel of Middle Earth.

Shortly after arriving in WA (western Australia), I contacted Aubrey Adams. He is one of the Networking Academy instructors that we’re here to work with. I met up with him and his wife Jan and we took a walk around the area of the school.

I thought that this tree was interesting because it’s bark looked like camouflage. Isn’t it wonderful how nature can make it’s own camouflage? Hmmm, wait a second! Isn’t that what camouflage is?!?!?

We walked through one are that was thick with trees and Parrots. They were so loud.

Community-Electric-Bar-B-Que. Need I say more?

So I forgot to document the way that the water drains clockwise (I’ve also come to know that the Aussies refer to our water draining as anti-clockwise), but I did notice this below.

First, the socket looks like the “Scream” painting (Skrik, 1893 is a seminal series of expressionist paintings by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch).

Second, in the land down under, the switch is down for on and up for off.

The toilet has two flush buttons. The one at the top has a line through the middle of it. I never heard a formal explanation for this, so I would assume that it’s a half flush, and the bottom button is a full flush.

I’m not making any comparisons to the bathroom and my breakfast, I was just doubling up the posts.

I walked around in the morning and found a little cafe to have breakfast at ($35.00 just seemed too much for a meal at the hotel). I walked in and they told me that they had a special today and I said that I’d take it. I had decided early on in the trip that I would be eating some odd stuff so I decided to embrace it and try whatever came my way.

This is bruschetta bread with eggs and bacon. Pretty good stuff.

So I got in a bit late and decided to have dinner at the hotel. It was a buffet style dinner for only $35.00 and a mere $4.50 for a glass of lemon-aid. So I had lamb curry and then tried some octopus and some desserts.

It was still a bit early so I hit the streets. It was a Thursday night so I didn’t expect their to be a huge night life, but we had decided to come to stay in Fremantle because it had a night life. What I didn’t know at the time is that the people only come out on the weekend. So I would turn down a street and be the ONLY person out. It was a bit odd.

This is looking off to the right from my balcony.