The World is Sick

Flux Capacitor… Fluxing.

Okay. So. after having complained excessively about my roommate, I’m back to complain some more. This is an extension of some previous complaints.

Because honestly, it’s surprising and depressing. I have always imagined Australia to be one of the more advanced places to be. It has reputable universities, and is apparently very popular among Singaporeans looking for work, among other things. Thus, I assumed it to be, in terms of technological advancement, fairly well along and stable. Given the number of people who come here for holiday every year, one might also assume that the tourist attractions are well, attractive.

I now know that the entire business of coming to Australia is a scam. The Philippines have faster internet connections and unlimited bandwidth for a small fraction of the cost here. We’re not even talking about Japan and Korea here. A country still in the process of becoming fully developed has a more World of Warcraft-friendly telecommunications infrastructure. Over here, a couple of hours of moderate websurfing and webcomic browsing is enough to use up my daily bandwidth quota. Needless to say, I can’t wait to go back to the 21st century, where watching a BBC documentary on Youtube doesn’t turn an already slow internet connection into a pre-dialup muck.

Oh, and the tourist attractions. Yeah. I went to Ocean World Manly yesterday. Manly is a place, apparently named as such by a captain who felt that the violent and easily aggravated natives who speared him in the shoulder had a manly nature. Just another great, creative name in the long line of great, creative names that includes New England, New South Wales, New York, New… you see what I’m getting at here. Ocean World was a massive disappointment. It cost us $12.50 each to attempt to look at fish through a glass wall that really needs to be cleaned more often. Sure, there were some pretty cool fish. The Port Jackson shark is possibly the coolest living animal I have seen in some time. The Port Jackson has a very interesting jaw and tooth structure, designed for catching and crushing small crustaceans.

I digress. Ocean World Manly was tiny. Possibly smaller than Singapore’s Underwater World. There certainly weren’t many more marine species. One thing that irked me was an exhibit of a freshwater crocodile. What kind of ocean world has freshwater animals? The entire trip to Manly was quite a letdown anyway; the most entertaining thing there was probably how all the store names were prefixed with “Manly”. So, you know, Manly Jewelry Store. Manly Laundy and Dry Cleaning. Manly Yacht Club. Manly Bowling. I think there was even a Manly Sex Shop at one point.

Two disappointing locales in a row smell bad for future visits to places that we have (unfortunately) already bought tickets for. Tourism just sort of loses its charm when you come from a well-developed country and have no interest in experiencing what troglodytes do for fun.