How did this turn into a travel blog? Canberra and Au Lac Vegetarian Restaurant

Last weekend, Steven and I planned a getaway to the capital city of Australia, Canberra. It is a planned city, complete with man-made lake, parliamentary houses, and a ton of national museums and monuments.

There was a lot of map-turning, shoulder-shrugging, and, "Which way do we go?!"

Luckily, if you skip anything, you really aren't missing much. Canberra is, hands-down, the most boring Australian city I have been to yet! On Sunday afternoon, the Parliamentary Triangle was nearly void of people.

So we put on our game faces and brought the ruckus.

The National Gallery:

The National Portrait Museum:

The National Museum of Australia:

And our everybody's favourite, the science museum Questacon.

Here, Giant Squid call the shots.

The first few levels of Questacon are quite tame, because the bottom floor is where all the action is at!

We got to play with puzzles...

No, I wasn't smart enough to solve this puzzle on my own, but neither were the people behind us! YAY for average intelligence!!

Steven rode on the 360 swing and made it all the way around a few times.

We also tested our reflexes against an air hockey robot!

It's hard to make out with all the glare, but the yellow robot to the right is playing the guy in the black t-shirt on the left. The creepy floating figure in red is a Glare Ghost.

I also really liked the National War Memorial. We got there around sunset, about 4:45 PM.

They put on a closing ceremony every day to tell the story of one brave Australian soldier. It was a very unique experience, and we got to hear the Australian national anthem!

Steven and I went for dinner at a popular Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant that got a lot of good online reviews: Au Lac in Dickson (a suburb of Canberra).

In no particular order, we had...

Soy duck wraps - not enough soy, too much wrap.

Eggplant in a clay pot - too simply flavoured for me. I like my eggplant saucy and tasty!

Soy chicken in peanut satay sauce - nothing special about this sauce, really, I think I've had better out of a can.

Fried soy Shanton chicken - average. Not a big fan of mouthfuls of soy meat that aren't especially delicious.

And rice noodles with spring rolls and veggies - my favourite dish of all we ordered. They had some really nice dried radish throughout it, and the vinegary sauce was delicious.

The verdict:

Canberra scores a 8/10 on the "Creepy Big City Where No One Lives Nor Wants to Live" scale.

Au Lac scores a 8/10 on the "Overpriced and Only Slightly Fancier Than At Home Vegetarian Food" scale.