Sydney at the right time of year!!
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2007
1
45
50
Trip End
Nov 11, 2007
Sydney,
Australia
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Spent a great day with Asrin, we have done so much walking today and I am sooo tired and have a blister in the most unusual place!! We walked from Kings Cross where our hostels are which is the backpacker come red light district of Sydney down through the city through Hyde Park and down to the Botanical Gardens which are pretty groovy. There is an awesome view of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge from the gardens across the water. We walked right through the gardens only to be confronted by a whole load of japanese tourists - how do I know they were Japanese, well they all had state of the art digital cameras, there were literally hundreds of them (they always travel in packs, the dreaded phrase "lady you make picture for me?" was uttered - its only dreaded because once you do it for one they all want you to do it and given their numbers that could take some time, thankfully it wasn't uttered to me!) and of course they all speak japanese!
realisation that 'm 28
! I have nothing against them, actually I don't know any Japanese but what I have come to realise is that when you wanna take a picture they will walk in front of your camera and stand right in front of whatever it is that you wanna take a picture of and then they all take turns doing exactly the same things over and over!!!! Anyway due to the number of Japanese and the lack of photo opportunity given their presence we headed back towards the Opera House.I have to admit that I do think that it is a stunning piece of architecture and must be up there with the statute of liberty and the Eiffel Tower for city land marks but I was a little disappointed - Its not white for a start, not quite sure why that should worry me but I thought it was pure white and its not and its not as big as I thought it was gonna be- thats it really but you know its one of those places that you just have to see for yourself and I'm glad I did - the Harbour Bridge goes along those lines too - I'm glad that I saw it and thats as far as it goes although I must admit that both looked pretty impressive lit up tonight and the harbour was a hive of activity.
We had a little bit of retail therapy, well we tried a few things on (guess I have to do that when I'm in another country!) and put them all back and then got some more and when we got bored of picking things up and putting them down again we decided to hop on the train and head to Bondi junction - bearing in mind that I have been in Australia for less than 24 hrs and did not for some reason beknowned only to myself decide to pick up a map when I left the hostel this morning I was under the complete guidance of Asrin who has been to many of these places before and knew of a little place called Double Bay (nobody that I have spoken too has really had anything that good to say about Bondi Beach and apparently it was quite a walk away) so Asrin headed off following directions known only to her and her memory from her last visit here - what was supposedly a 3 minute walk actually turned into a 3 mile hike up and down hills and via various side streets - I actually think that she was lost but she was too stubborn to admit that and credit where it is due she did actually manage to find Double Bay which was stunning
and the contemplation....
. It actually reminded me of the bay area in Marbella and kinda of Ibiza Town with lots of white houses overlooking the bay and lots of yachts. The area is really nice as is Edgecliff which is the suburb next to it - some of the houses are lovely. I commented that its obviously a very upmarket area but Asrin insists that they are not upmarket they are just different and its always good to have another outlook on things I guess.I was so shattered when we finally go back into Kings Cross, we had planned on going to the World Bar which is supposedly a nice bar in terms of Kings Cross but after getting washed, dressed again and going down to see the Harbour by night we finally got to the World bar around 10pm - they don't let you in when you're wearing thongs (the ozzie word for flip flops) and they won;t let you in when you don;t have any ID with you and as I was wearing thongs (and have no other shoes other than hiking boots) and I refuse to carry my passoprt round with me so I can loose it I went to bed at about 10.30pm which was fine with me!...
