During my three-week stay Down Under, I had the pleasure of soaking in all that The Land Down Under had to offer an American family, four souls-save one-visited Australia for the first time, and I was taken aback by the culture, the people, the food, the activities that people had partaken in.

The artistry, the aesthetics, the atmosphere, all speak for themselves. I’ve noticed on major thing in Australia’s urban world. The “malls” differ from the soon-to-be-obsolete shopping malls here in the U.S.. The malls there are basically shopping centres on closed-down streets where the entire width of the roadway for a specific length of street can be used for pedestrian access (think Spadina Street in Toronto, CA), and needless to say, I like the setup that Australia has. The street art, be it sculptures, graffiti (which was rarely seen, BTW), photographers (like myself) shooting virtually from every angle that the Laws of Caesar permit (be it with their phones or cameras-I utilised both), and coming from the States, the Exchange Rate was definitely a high one ranging between 60-70% between the American and Australian dollars!

But I digress (I gotta stop doin’ that !)

Seeing all these iconic buildings-some of which are well over 1-200 years old-being used for modern-day use. Hotels, restaurants, gaming-casinos included-museums. It’s been a year since I’ve last visited Australia, and I’ve made new friends by way of friends we already made on social media years ago. And to this day they ask me “when are you comin’ back, mate?”. Nice to have friends on the other side of the world!

I have so much to share about my time in Australia. Hopefully I’ll do that as I continue to blog about other things as well as my continuing monochrome photoseries. But I’ll leave you with some tidbits (that you may-or may not-know) about The Land Down Under:

Depending on where your leaves from the US: Your flight is anywhere between 13-15 hours, you’ll lose a day arriving, but you’ll regain that day coming back.

In Southeast Australia (where we were), at 0530 (5:30am), it’s broad daylight (in comparison to 9am US)! No bloody joke (as the Aussies would put it)!

Here in the Americas, we eat deer, in Australia, they eat kangaroo (and it’s delicious)!

You can expect to see wallabies and wombats on the road once you leave the inner-cities.

Big spiders-they’re inevitable, including the daddy longlegs

And like the United Kingdom (which I’ve yet to visit), people drive their vehicles on the opposite side of the road, as the steering wheels are also on the opposite side of the dashboard!

More to come, God willing!