national tour

With Malc off to sunny Ottawa, via New Orleans, I have a couple of weekends to spend all by myself. Should I finish unpacking and get our new home in order . . . hmmm I don't think so.

Good thing my friend Khariss brought up the idea of driving up to Canberra for the weekend. Khariss has never been to the national capital and, despite the looming cold winter weather forecast, we decided to go. Accommodation was a bit of the problem because it was school holidays and most of my preferred hotels have all been booked out. We took a risky move and booked ourselves at a hotel I've never heard of before, the Diplomat Hotel. The hotel was actually quite pleasant, it was roomy, clean and unpretentious.

After leaving our bags at the hotel, I was raring to show off my town to Khariss and the first order of business was lunch. And of course, to one of my favourite brunch place in Canberra, Bookplate Cafe at the National Library where I had lamb curry and Khariss had a healthy turkish sandwich.

We then headed off the Parliament House. It was quite strange actually, when I was living in Canberra, I would go to the Parliament House for exercise, walking up and down the side slopes of the building (before the anti-terrorist railing were put up), but this time around, I was a tourist on a guided tour inside the building. Next stop was the National Museum, Malc & I last visited the museum when it first opened and it was good to see new additions to the collection. After the Museum, I took Khariss to Telstra Tower to have a 360 degree view of the city.

Then dinner! Khariss has to eat healthy, so I took her to a vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant, Au Lac (Shop 4/ 39 Woolley St Dickson ACT ph 02 6262 8922). This is one of Malc and my favourite restaurants in Canberra, the dishes are all made of tofu made to look like meat and fish and they really look and taste like the real thing. We ordered carrot and pawpaw salad, steamed buns, fried fish and sauteed vegetables. The fried fish amazingly tasted so like fish and the flesh was also flaky, and there was even a thin film of tofu that looked and tasted like fish skin.

I was planning to show Khariss some of the Canberra nightlife, but it became really cold, so we decided to return to the hotel and watched Wimbledon matches on cable TV.

The next day, we started with breakfast, of course. I took Khariss to one of the more "upmarket" brunch places, Artespresso (31 Giles St Kingston ph 02 6295 8055). A lot of people Malc & I know rave about this place and when we tried it before, we thought the food was okay but the service was a bit snobbish. This time, the food was still okay but the service was non-existent, probably because we came in a bit early and there was only one wait staff.

After breakfast, we headed to the National Gallery where we checked out Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles, and of course the gallery's Monets, Cezannes, Picassos etc. We also spent some time looking at the Indigenous art collection and Asian collection.

Next stop was the Old Parliament House where there was an exhibit of some of the First Ladies' memorabillas. The National Portrait Gallery is also located in the Old Parliament House, so we also checked out the exhibit.

Before heading back to Sydney, I had to show Khariss the city centre, to prove indeed, there is a shopping scene in Canberra. We did a bit of window shopping at the Canberra Centre and bought plates (of all things). For lunch, we went to Hidden Dragon (City Market Shp37a/ Bunda St Canberra ph 02 6248 9896) for some rice fix, I ordered sweet and sour pork and Khariss had steamed chicken.

And before the cold weather became unbearable, we drove back to Sydney promising to come back in September, when the weather is warmer and the flowers at Floriade are in full bloom.