Sydney Hotels
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Downtown exploration
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I have been exploring the downtown area of Sydney at a leisurely pace, enjoying the sights, drinking the beer, and enjoying the moments. It is a very scenic downtown and each corner can bring new views of the two biggest icons, and the downtown has a good balance between the towering office buildings, parks, and historic areas.
There seems to be a keen sense of preservation for natural areas and historic sites despite the pressures of development and the crush of people who live here. After being in the small town desert US for the last three years it is a refreshing change to see tons of people more or less getting along, hearing all kinds of languages, and having my choice of ethnic foods.
I headed closer to the Harbour Bridge and visited the Sydney Observatory, which was used to set local noon before the concept of standard time, but which still has a functioning dome telescope through which we saw Andromeda and Venus in the day time- pretty cool. It is situated on a hill with great views of the bridge and inner harbor, and conveniently close to 2 of Sydney's oldest pubs (the Lord Nelson Brewery, which I had to get a beer in, and the Hero of Waterloo).
I walked out onto the bridge for some great views of downtown- and later read that the bridge is the biggest single span steel bridge in the world and the largest arc structure built by man (I think, although that sounds suspect)- who knows these claims can be very specific and I may be screwing up the exact wording. At the base of the Harbour Bridge is a neat area called the Rocks, which has many old single story buildings, skinny winding alleys, and a great feel of early Sydney, along with more of Sydney's 'oldest' bars, restaurants, and shops.
Another day I checked out the Museum of Contemporary Art, which had an exhibit by Tim Hawkinson, whose work I first saw at the Getty. I'm not big into modern art (I think it's usually overrated crap hyped by people trained to be professional bullshitters) but I really like this artist's use of common materials in new ways, his combination of technology (an almost geeky use of machines and/or mathematic principles), and imagination. I snuck this picture of the Moebius Ship which was awesome, and based on the Moebius strip which has one surface the whole way around. Very cool- the Getty also had a large skeleton like construct with a backbone made of rowers. Anyway if you get a chance to see one of his exhibits I would recommend it.
Today I toured the Opera House, a very unique and pleasing building that houses a bunch of stages and various performing areas. Like most successful grand projects, it had many critics, good stories of it's conception,
barely made it off the ground, faced many challenges including the chief architect leaving the project before it was completed- but once done, became an instant icon of the area and seems to fit in perfectly and enhances the natural beauty of the surrounding area. Much like many other sights it is hard for pictures to do it justice. From there the botanical gardens along one side of the downtown- indeed it covers half of what the downtown would be had the planners not had the foresight to set it aside. They hold a huge colony of flying foxes (or fruit bats) that almost cover the tree tops and flora from around the world.
I realize that this kind of sounds like any big city in the US... but it really does have a unique Australian feel to it and is definitely worth a visit. But if you're bored, have a look at this video from the Colbert Report. I really miss The Colbert Report and if you haven't seen it you're missing out! This skit had me almost in tears (it was raining the other day and I was wasting money surfing the internet- copy and paste into your browser): www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=147381
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