I've been back to south-east Asia but the answer sure ain't there (Cold Chisel)

Ross responded to my last post with the following about his favourite holiday:

Mine was the trip we did when I was 8 to Sydney. So why does that stand out from the crowd? For me it was like taking a native from some long lost tribe and putting them in New York (a la Crocodile Dundee). It was my first trip on a plane (jet too) and the place was so different to home. We had one B&W TV channel in NZ, they had lots in colour. They had all sorts of breakfast cereals (Frosties, Fruit Loops [that was a favorite], Coco Pops etc), milk in cartons (we had glass bottles), Smiths Crisps [still can't get them here but they still have them], Streets ice cream, mum discovered Grissini bread sticks, and we had a soft drink machine in the apartments, wow ! We also did really neat things like the zoo, trip to Bondi beach, Blue mountains, riding the underground train and my all time favorite was that hot doughnut shop in the Wynyard station !!!!.

I remember this holiday pretty well, although I don't remember much about the flight aside from being shocked by the brown landscape as we came in to land in Sydney after the greens of NZ but I very distinctly remember getting off the plane and seeing American soldiers disembarking for their RNR from Vietnam. They looked smart in their green fatigues and crew cuts but they also looked very young.

We stayed in Kings' Cross and walked/used trains a lot to get around. It's weird what lodges in the back of your mind - I remember seeing a gate fold cover of Sgt Peppers and semi wishing I could buy it (I was 10 and still more interested in fancy leather panelled footballs, the Matchbox toy cars and Hot Cars at David Jones than vinyl). I also remember mum insisting we leave the apartment just as a colour version of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine came onto the TV (they had about 5 channels to our one and Ross and I would have stayed in the apartment watching TV all day if we could have). My other (semi-vague) impression is of the wall outside our apartment which I seem to recall was made up of broken bottles embedded into the concrete! This was a startling sight!

The best part of that trip though was undoubtedly that donut machine. As we'd walk down the ramp to the train there would be lots of interesting specialist shops (a joke shop was one) and the smell of freshly made donuts from the donut shop was divine. We'd stop and watch the donuts being made in the window for ages. It was an impossibly exotic sight and watching them was almost as good as eating them. Almost.

I've now completed the great Lost In Space-a-thon. Fairly obvious why season three was the last. They were clearly running out of ideas and retreading both plotlines and monsters from previous seasons was not a way forward. I miss the habit/routine of watching an episode a day but...

Luckily the football seasons have started in America and Europe so I can justify subscribing to Sky again. Arsenal, Rochdale and the Steelers are all off to flyers! The most impressive is Rochdale who are holding their own in League One! Early days I know but so far so good. Arsenal are second behind a rampant Chelsea and the Steelers won their first game in the NFL.

Love and peace - Wozza