Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Canberra ...3 P's (no more)

Canberra is famous for the three P's... "Pornography, Pyrotechnics and Politicians" ...

Well, Canberra can no longer be known famous for the three P's. As it is official, Pyrotechnics (Fireworks) is no longer available to the commercial public - It is Banned.

Over the past weekend we drove down to Canberra to buy some fireworks to celebrate the chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. All chinese people like a big bang during celebrations, and since fire crackers were definitely out of the question we decided to take a 3 hour drive to buy some fireworks from Canberra.

ACT, the supposedly last state of Australia where fireworks are legal, who sells its products & services to all other states (where fireworks are illegal). Sadly, this is no longer the case. I nearly walked through the whole of Fyshwick and all the pyrotechnic stores I found were closed for the year. The only shops open were XXX rated stores and car dealers. It felt so eerie walking through that suburb.

Not only was our three hour drive to Canberra to buy fireworks spent in vain. We also missed out on watching the all-important AFL preliminary finals between West Coast Eagles and the Adelaide Crows. Growing up in Perth, the Eagles are my home team. I spent a whole hour in the heart of Canberra trying desprately to find a local pub which broadcast the game. After questioning a couple of locals, I realised there was only two pubs in the whole city centre of Canberra. The closest one - An Irish pub - didn't even have a TV.

And this we call the Capital City of Australia.

I ransacked my brain of all the possible places that might be broadcasting the game. I finally found a DickSmith store which I know sells electrical goods (therefore must sell some sort of TVs). Unfortunately they were playing some loop-back tape of pre-recorded ads (Dammit !!). After hunting around for a few moments more in the freezing weather (9C), I gave up and started my long trip back to Sydney.

On the way back I called one of my friends back in Sydney to send me periodic updates of the game via SMS to my mobile. (For the record, we won ! Eagles kicked ass !!!)

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