Glendi Greek Festival 2007

ΓΛΕΝΔΙ, φεστιβάλ ελληνικός.

The Glendi greek festival in Adelaide, South Australia is held every year and this year is the 30th anniversary which coincides with the Pan-Hellenic games. The word "glendi" in greek means a really merry party with a lot of eating, singing and dancing and of course happiness.

Here is the poster for this year:

Eating: the whole goat or somethin else was being cooking in the open air

A traditional greek food: pita and of course greek beer MYTHOS

Singing and Dancing: a group of boys playing traditional musical instrument

band: akropolis, nice greek music and songs

Greek dance. They are going to break a new world record for dancing ZOBRA together +1800 people

Dancers in tradional constume

Greek hand-made blanket

The god even Zeus is afraid of: Moirai

Some wrestling

In the evening, the official openning of the glendi festival began and the VIPs gave the speeches. They mentioned a lot about bilateral relations between Greece/Cyprus-Turkey and the marbles from the parthenon now kept in Britain. Hard to understand as I'm not politics fan. After that, some fashion show

There is some knowledge about greek mythology:

Zeus: supreme god

Hera: godness of marrige and married women

Poseidon: god of the sea

Demeter: godness of corn, fruit and agriculture

Apollo: god of the sun, music and poetry

Artemis: godness of the moon, hunting and chastity

Athena: godness of wisdom

Aphrodite: godness of love and beauty

Hermes: god of eloquence and speech

Ares: god of war

Hephaestus: god of fire and the chief workman of the gods

Dionysus: god of wine and merrymaking

Hebe: godness of youth

Hades: god of the underworld

Moreton Island, Queensland

Moreton Is (pronounced as "more-ton" island), a big sand island, is about 40km east of Brisbane. On the island, about 98% is national park. It gave me a unique experience.
Thanks to google map, I found a map of the moreton island: Our activity mainly was on the northern part.

In the very morning, we took the boat to the island

Near the island (in the afternoon)

On the sea shore, some wreck

Then we boarded the 4WD, up and down in the car. a unique experience.

Not so easy to drive in the sand, look out

Also we drive on the beach

There is a desert on the island, we played with the sand-boards

Blue lagoon, a secure place for swimmers, no sharks here

A lighthouse still on the island, but not used anymore

From the hill of the lighthouse, you can see the sand, the sea, the beach and sometimes turtles (black points on the shore)

Also there is a nice place called "honeymoon bay"


3 p.m., we had to take the boat back. But it was a nice day

Gold Coast, Queensland

Gold Coast, Queensland
I didn't know that Gold Coast was such a big city. It took me 1h and more from the south port to the surfers paradise. And I was surprised to see so many buildings just meters near the beach and they are for residencial use.

This is the surfers paradise, famous beach.

When I was in the cruise, I was informed that many rich people has a house here usually worth millions of dollars. And most luxuary houses are equipped with a boat, here is one

One highlight of the city is that she has many nice theme parks: Sea world, Movie world, Dreamworld etc.
WB movie world
Warner Brothers, hollywood on the gold coast. It's an attractive resort for asian people, that's why you can see the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hongkong, Singaporean flag before entering the main gate.

Here we are, the movie world

Inside the movie world, there are a lot of exciting places, like this one, Superman Escape.
I was hesitating there for 30 min, and then I was able to go inside and try, but with eyes closed lol

This is the Ride lethal weapon

Here is the Wild West Falls Adventure Ride

Of course you can see the cartoon characters. I'm lucky to be with my favorite: Bugs Bunny

Here Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird

After the movie world, I went to the sea world, I have to say the transport was a bit messy and it took me 1h30 to get there.
Sea Star fish

Shark Zone! Keep Off

A man riding on two dolphins.

A seal is resting

Big bird

Sea world has his own monorail system, which is the first line in Australia

Brisbane City

Brisbane, Aussie's third largest city. For me, I was there only during the night, so I don't know much about the city, maybe like the other big cities in australia, she has a botanic garden, many tall buildings and one thing worth being mentioned is that Australia Zoo is one hour north of Brisbane, where Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter) was working.
One night, I was walking in the southbank of Brisbane. That was a night place, lots of recreation for citizens, a street beach, museums, restaurants and cinemas.
Here the city of Brisbane is sister city of Kaohsiung, Taiwan

From the southbank, you can still see buildings on the other side of the river

on Queen Mall, a beautiful building, not sure of its name

Church

City Hall

Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains, New South Wales
2 hours' train from Sydney Central, Blue Mountains is a calm place for people to live, even now its disturbed by thousands of tourists.
The morning when we arrived, there was fog.

It just rained, so a lot of water

The three sisters are also surrounded by clouds. As to the name of three sisters: The three sisters were living in an aboriginal tribe, and they fell in love with three brothers in another tribe. But at that time, it was impossible for them to marry. So a war was inevitable, the three brothers wanted to get them by force. And a witch turned them into three peaks in order to protect them. But in the war, he was killed. So the three sisters can never come back to life.

The next day, it was fine.

Here is our walk map: (map from www.explorerbus.com.au Bus service in the tourist area, No 1-30)

We did from 8-12 the first day and from 14 Echo point to 16 the next day. Actually we did a lot of hiking, we went to the three sisters, and then we went down until the valley and then we climbed again the mountain to get to Point 16. It took us about 3 hours and quite exhausting.

Why it is called blue mountains? One answer is that the trees can emit a kind of gas which relects the blue color. But I have two other explanations: one is that the farer mountains look blue; and the second is that when there is a shade, that part looks blue too.

They even have Three Sisters Wine

In the forest and valley

waterfalls

a track in the forest

Also you can try the chocolate gallery: Blue Mountains Chocolate


One anecdote is that we thought the hostel was haunted. When we arrived at the hostel, we found the neighbour is a funeral agency. And our dorm is just next to that. Then at night, we found that the window couldn't be closed: when you closed it, it would go up automatically. This made all of us frightened. At the begining we decided not to sleep but to see what would happen. And we related that to the number of the hostel, 144 in which "4" in asian language means "Die". But later we realised that it was because of the mecanical problem of the windows. lol