Adelaide Trip

So in my 'quest' to visit all of Australia (I've already visited Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart), I decided to give the small city of Adelaide which is located in South Australia a go during my one week mid semester break which ended last Sunday. From what I heard, Adelaide is supposed to be just like Canberra. A quiet, small city with nothing to do. And that I would have seen most of Adelaide if I've taken the city tram from one end to the other.

So when I actually got to Adelaide last Tuesday night, I was actually quite impressed with what Adelaide has. Their airport itself was so much bigger and nicer than Canberra's. A friend of mine, S, who used to attend the same high school and church with me very kindly offered to pick me up from the airport and allowed me to stay at his awesome apartment for the four nights I was there. He came with another friend, W, also from the same high school and church and we went out for supper at about 10pm that night. It was good to be able to catch up with them after not seeing each other for such a long time.

The supper for that night was...

AB or also known as Abortion,
a local specialty that is found only in Adelaide.

From wiki:

The AB is a type of fast food from Adelaide which has been popular with university students since its creation. It is made up of chips, and yiros meat, covered with tomato, barbecue, garlic sauce and tzatziki. Its somewhat grotesque appearance is the source of the name "AB", for "abortion", or "after-birth". It is also known to be sold as an Atomic Bomb or Dog's Breakfast at other Adelaide eateries. It is commonly eaten after or during a night of drinking, or as a hangover food. While $9 is the normal price for an AB, it is merely the minimum possible size: ABs in excess of $350 have reportedly been consumed. Only two North Adelaide take-out cafes currently serve the AB: the North Adelaide Burger Bar and the Blue and White, which are both on O'Connell Street within three storefronts of each other. Both claim to be the inventor of the AB, and both claim to make a superior AB to the other. The main difference is that the Red and White includes tzatziki sauce whilst the Blue and White does not.

Well anyway, this abortion thing is super unhealthy but tastes pretty good.

And on the way back from supper, I realised that there were still a lot of food outlets open with patrons still in them even though it was getting close to 12 on a Tuesday night. Wish I had that in Canberra.

The apartment where my friend stayed in the city

On Wednesday morning, I walked around the city a little and visited Adelaide uni. The roads in the city are all very straight as Adelaide is a planned city. But the funny thing is even though the roads are straight, the same road can have two different names. I later found out from my friend that no street/road can pass over the main street which is called King William Road, named in honour of the King. And therefore, every street would have to end at this road and would have a different name across this King William Road (I've highlighted the main road in red).

Adelaide city map. Click to enlarge.

Staring down King William Road

See how straight the roads are?

Also, while walking around the city, I saw a number of pianos (pic below) along the streets in Adelaide. Apparently anyone can just go up the piano, take a seat, and play to their hearts' content. I think that this is a very cool idea.

I think I counted about 6 pianos in the city. There's probably more that I didn't see.

Adelaide also has two very well known universities. Apparently, a lot of Malaysians study there. They are:

The University of Adelaide

and the University of South Australia

In the evening, my friend took me out to this really popular Vietnamese place for dinner. The food there was pretty good and really authentic. Forgotten to snap pictures there so you'll just have to take my word for it.

The next day, my other friend, W, took me to a small German village, Hahndorf, with two of her friends. It took us about 40 minutes on the bus from the city to get there. The weather was lovely that day with a max temperature of 17 degrees.

The following day, I went to Adelaide's Central Market. In there were lots of different stalls selling all sorts of things. From cheese, to bread, to coffee, to sweets, to middle eastern spices, to italian delicacies and so on. It was nice to walk around and sample some of the things they have over there.

Lots of different kinds of cheese. Tasted a few different kinds and they were so good!

All kinds of bread you can think of


The sweet shop was pretty popular with the kids

After that, I decided to catch the city tram from one end to the other. The ride was about 40 odd minutes roughly. And at the end of the tram line was the beach. It's just so convenient for people there in Adelaide to go to the beach.

The tram

The fare

I can actually see the ocean from the tram stop

The town centre with the building that used to be the City Hall on the left

The beach with pockets of random people sun tanning. I was actually wearing my wind breaker then because it was sooo cold. Don't know how those people can stand it.

A view from the pier.

They had this awesome slides there by the beach. Might go back there during summer to try it out.

In the evening, my friend took me to this place called the Mac Factory where they sold really good macaroons. This place was currently the hyped of the town because it only opened its doors very recently and sold really good macaroons. Each macaroon cost AUD $2. Macaroons are hard to make because it requires a lot of skill. And the Mac Factory has all sorts of flavours ranging from the normal chocolate to flavours such as toasted bread and honey, strawberry mint and so on.

According to wiki, 'A macaroon is a type of light, baked confection, described as either small cakes or meringue-like cookies depending on their consistency. The original macaroon was a "small sweet cake consisting largely of ground almonds" similar to Italian or Moroccan amaretti.'

The different flavoured macaroons

I guess that pretty much summarised by whole my trip. I didn't really get to do a lot as I was also pretty occupied with my assignments while I was there. Anyway, below are just a couple of random pic

Their main railway station in the city

The Torrens River in the city

Adelaide has a lot of old buildings that are really well maintained

One of the many churches over there in Adelaide. Adelaide is known as the city of churches with more than 700 over churches at the last count in 2008.

Inside the church

And because there are no cheap direct flights from Canberra to Adelaide, I had to stop over Melbourne on Monday night and only flew down to Adelaide the day after. And since I was in Melbourne, I took the opportunity to grab myself a good bowl of yummy pork ball noodles at the Coconut House in Melbourne city. It was absolutely delicious.


That's all for now. Am currently in the middle of everything with mid semester tests to study for and lots of assignments to hand in. Take care!