Day 17: Adelaide and a relaxing day

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I took the early morning skybus to the airport (5AM). Plane was uneventful flight with Virgin Airlines. I did sleep through the courtesy cookies so I was hungry when I landed. Adelaide like Canberra was not a big tourist city but I had a good friend in the city so that is why I included it on my trip. Stephen was from my Topdeck bus and was one of 10 guys on that bus. Background on Stephen he was one of 2 guys on the bus who had a girlfriend back home and is religious and is just about the nicest guy I have met. My first impressions of him was that he was partier because he has a 5 o'clock shadow beard. As with a lot of the time first impressions aren't always accurate.

Stephen was good enough to pick me up from the Adelaide airport and take me on a tour of the city. I left it to the local on what I should see. We would be going to Mount Lofty first. It is a tall mountain that overlooks the city of Adelaide and gives you a great view. I chatted on the drive up the mountain and I congratulated him on his recent engagement to his girlfriend. I had bought them a gift from Cambodia, a candle in the shape of an elephant. I would be meeting his girlfriend Tiffany for lunch later in the day. Once we got to the top of mountain we wandered around taking pictures and I could see it would be an challenging climb but I added it to a list of climbs I wanted to try someday. I was hungry at this point so we got breakfast at a café on the mountain. The next stop was Adelaide river and we wandered around the city center for awhile. Adelaide is a quiet and relaxing city and I was glad for a slow day after all the running around I had done in the last 2 weeks.

After wandering the city center and stopping by Port Adelaide which has a nice beach before we went to pick up Tiffany. Background on Tiffany she is a Hong Kong native and had been dating Stephen for a few years and they had met at the same church. After getting Tiffany and introductions we went to Adelaide's Chinatown for some sushi. Lunch today was sushi that was delivered on a lazy susan. You pay for whatever you choose to take off the lazy susan. Each bowl was colour coded with what the price would be. It was nice chatting with both Tiffany and Stephen who are both nice people and a good match for each other.

After lunch I was feeling tired so I went back to the hostel to do some laundry and sleep. Stephen had invited me to an Aussie BBQ later that night and would pick me up in the evening. I checked into the Adelaide YHA hostel which was one of a few hostels in town. It was a fairly quiet hostel as people were using it as a rest stop for trips to the rest of Australia or were working in Australia. It was also the only hostel which I didn't have any real conversations with anyone. Oh well it does happen from time to time at hostels. So one of the good things about YHA hostels is that they have good laundry facilities that are not too expensive. I did my laundry and fell asleep on my bed.

Stephen called me when he was getting close and this was what woke me up. I quickly got dressed and went down to meet them. Once again it was nice to be driven around because I had enough of driving on the other side of the road. We drove to Stephen's house he shares with his parents. I have never been to an Aussie BBQ before and was not sure what to expect. As it turns out there was no real difference between Aussie and North American BBQ. It was simply a BBQ in Australia. Oh well I explained to Stephen my confusion about the definition of Aussie BBQ. It was delicious food consisting of beef, chicken and salads of various kinds. I met Stephen family and Tiffany's sister who was studying in Australia. Stephen's family are all nice people and good company. I also found out that Stephen would be getting married in July which was too soon for me to make another trip for his wedding but he was having another ceremony in Hong Kong next year and I said I may be able to make it to that one.

Once again too soon for me it was time for this catchup to end. Stephen gave me a ride back to my hostel and dropped me off. So in conclusion Adelaide is not really a touristy city but if you are looking for a relaxing stop on an Australia trip than this city would work.

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