Note: This photo was taken in 2007 using my point-and-shoot camera during our trip to Australia. I needed to make a short speech on one of my holidays in Spanish. Panic, I have started writing in simple 5th grade English and hoped to translate this piece of writing into Spanish on the way to my class. That did not work out.
I wanted to visit Australia because I love koalas. I love koalas because they are cute. But I read that they can be quite fearsome. Their claws are sharp and some of them carry sexually transmitted diseases. They move slowly. Fortunately there are no leopards or snakes in Australia. Otherwise, koalas are easy targets. They would have been extinct by now.
Koalas are driven to the blink of extinction because of their low sex drive. I wonder if taking the blue pills would help them to procreate better. Koalas love to hug trees, only eat one type of leaves – eucalyptus leaves. I read that eucalyptus leaves are poisonous, like drugs. That is why it takes the koalas a long time to digest. That is why most of the time they look stoned, as though they are high on drug. I like their evolved siblings – wombats. Once upon a time, wombats had collectively decided to diversify their dietary, to live on the ground, and to make love not on trees. This seems to be a more successful strategy. If you look at the butt of a wombat, you may mistake it as a koala. That was why Cynthia got me a wombat soft toy during her first visit to down south when I specifically asked for a koala.
Australia has a lot of sun, very little water. Cynthia and I have visited a national park. When we saw a herd of kangaroos running across a valley, I jumped out of the car in excitement and took out my small point and shoot camera. By the time my camera was ready for action, the kangaroos had disappeared into the charcoal coloured bushes. There had been a recent forest fire due to dry weather. But that did not stop me from admiring the animals of the wild. I was brought up in a city. Most animals I see are served as food on my dining table. I have tried eating kangaroo meat. It is tough. It does not taste like chicken. I have a theory that everything except beef, pork, and fish tastes like chicken – such as snake. In fact, kangaroo meat does not taste like anything at all.
It was Chinese New year. And we visited a casino by a river. Outside the casino there were tents with pigs inside. One pig was black in colour and it got me excited. I thought that all pigs were pink, like in the cartoons. That black swine had big tits, many tits. And she fed milk to piglets of black and of pink. I was moved. I could see racial harmony in Australia down to the animal level.
I love our trip to Australia because I got to drive a car along the Great Ocean Road. Seeing those gigantic rocks by the ocean gave me an urge to paint in oil. I could see rocks in the shape of koalas. I think that is how the Australians name those rocks – 12 Koalas. I tried to count. But I could only find nine. When we drove in Australia, I tended to stop whenever I saw a koala, waiting patiently for it to move. Most of the time, they curled up like a ball and did nothing. I stood up like a statue and did nothing.
Little Penguins are one and a half feet tall, weight about one kilogram. At sunset, we were hiding in the dark together with the rest of the tourist, braving the cold drizzling rain, and waiting for the penguins to arrive at the shore. When the little army of Little Penguins appeared, my heart cried in joy. I was told that the penguins would return to their burrows and procreate. I was happy for them. When we left the park, I did a check underneath the car as advised in order to avoid running over a penguin by mistake. I was disappointed when I saw none. If I did, I would have picked it up and hide it inside the car boot. Little penguins are like chickens, birds that cannot fly. Since its conservation status is “least concern”, I doubt Green Peace would mind if I keep one at home. We were not allowed to take photographs. So we bought a postcard instead.
