Geography – Page 38

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. This month I’m virtually visiting 5 continents in 5 weeks. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Luxembourg in Europe. Last week it was Yunnan China in Asia. This week it’s down under to Perth Australia.

I’m a big fan of Australia and New Zealand from afar. I’ve never been to either. (I’ve never been south of the Equator.) During my upcoming retirement chapter of my life – I definitely wish to somehow someway visit either or both nations for an organized 2-to-3-week tour. I actually want to see and experience Australia and New Zealand over any other destination in the world.

Every time “House Hunters International” (on HGTV) does an episode from either nation I’m glued intently to it – especially the scenery in the background. I get ecstatic when the house hunters are in Perth Australia.

About 25 years ago when I was discovering the Wild Wild World Wide Web (after I weaned myself off of AOL) I used RealAudio (remember that ?) to listen to pop music radio stations from around the world. I ran a pop music web site at the time that was gaining in popularity in Europe (particularly Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany) and Australia and New Zealand. I couldn’t believe that I was creating an electronic product, placing it on the Internet at my very own web site with its own domain name, and people from thousands of miles away and on the other side of the world were interested in it.

One of the many radio stations that I used to listen to from Australia was 96fm out of Perth. It was fun to hear tomorrow’s zany morning show at night here on the U.S. East Coast. Back then (in the late-1990s) pop music in Australia was like a hybrid of both U.S. and U.K. pop music. I remember hearing Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” for many months, and thinking to myself that it should be played on the radio here stateside. Eventually it made it here, and it was a MASSIVESMASH. (That’s an ode to my old web site.)

I learned a lot about Perth listening to the radio, and I even catered my website somewhat to Perth and other cities in Australia and New Zealand, since my fanbase there outnumbered most everywhere else in the world.

Perth is located on the southwest coast of Australia near the 32ND parallel south. Summers are mostly sunny, warm, and dry. Winters are mostly cloudy, cool, and wet. Spring is on its way Perth, and so are many sunny days !

Perth’s skyline from the sea is beautiful. Its metro area is vast along the coast. Over 2 million residents call Perth home. It’s one of the most isolated major cities in the world !

#VisitPerth

From Australia to South America. Next #TravelThursday I’m visiting Santiago Chile. Let’s keep traveling together.

Welcome back to #TravelThursday. This month I’m virtually visiting 5 continents in 5 weeks. Last week I wrote about Luxembourg in Europe. This week it’s eastward to Asia.

Asia is a vast continent that spans over 17.2 million square miles (over 44.5 million square kilometers). That’s almost 9% of the total surface area of the world, and about 30% of the total land area. About 60% of the world’s population lives in Asia.

I’ve only set foot in one small part of Asia, and I actually lived there for a couple of months – in Saudi Arabia during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1991. On the eastern end of the continent my Mom was born in the Philippines in the mid-1940s.

When trying to figure out where I wanted to write about for this edition of #TravelThursday I chose a unique physical location rather than somewhere I’ve been, or somewhere I’d like to visit someday (such as Tokyo, Seoul, or Singapore).

I took my current latitude (roughly 25.5° north), and I extended it to the longitude that is 180° from my current longitude (roughly 80.5° west). That places “the other side of the world” – at 25.5° north latitude and 99.5° east longitude – or in far-southwestern China very near the border with Myanmar. It’s near the village of Maliaotian (or Ma Liao Tian) in the county of Yongping in the autonomous prefecture of Dali Bai in the province of Yunnan.

Yunnan has a population of over 48 million, and the land is mostly mountainous and rural. The capital and largest city of Yunnan is Kunming – also known as Yunnan-Fu – with over 8 million residents. Its new and modern International Airport is actually one of the busiest in the world – serving millions of tourists – particularly from nearby India. It’s known as “The City Of Eternal Spring” and “The Flower City”. It stays mostly cool year-round despite its latitude near the Tropic Of Cancer, as it’s a high mountain valley city (over 6,200 feet above sea level).

From Asia to Australia. Next #TravelThursday I’m visiting my favorite city in Australia that I have a unique 25-year connection to – Perth. I’ve never been there, but I feel like I know the city. I’ll explain next week. Let’s keep traveling together.