A Vibrant City
Trip Start
Aug 17, 2008
1
22
44
Trip End
Jun 17, 2009
Sydney,
New South Wales,
Australia
Thursday, November 20, 2008
The Opera House itself managed to be a surprised even for G, who considered he read a little bit about Australia in the past. From up close, the tiles that cover the building's famous roof are quite glossy and it reflects the sun quite strongly in any pictures taken at any other time but noon (or on a cloudy day)
01 - OK, here goes the classical picture of Sydney
. The tiles also have a waving pattern that one does not see from the distance (where most of the photos are taken from). The architect who designed it was this Danish guy (he recently died, while we were still in Australia) that everyone thought kind of crazy because his proposed building didn't come anywhere near the original requests of the city council (piece of trivia: if one were to take apart the roof of the Opera House its pieces can be combined in a complete sphere. Pretty cool, hey?). While people liked his "sails in the wind" concept, the project dragged on for years due to delays and budget overruns and, in retrospect, it is amazing to hear how much people were bickering about the costs and esthetics of a building that reached so much to be identified not only with the city but, we can safely say, with a whole country/continent. One other piece of personal impression: from up-close, in spite of its avant-garde design, one can easily detect the Scandinavian traits seen in some Finish and Swedish buildings, mostly churches, that people see in Northern Europe.Relatively close to the Quay is the so called "the Rock", the place where Sydney started. Many of this 18th-19th century neighborhood buildings are very well persevered and restored to their former glory. It is interesting to think that two hundred years ago this whole city was nothing more than a few blocks of streets surrounded by gum trees and whose only communication with the outside world was a two and a half months of journey over perilous sea by tall ships
02 - The Opera House from the water
. What a difference from the city we see today! To celebrate this revelation, we have enjoyed a few nice, cool beers at a beautifully-restored beer garden and toasted in the honor of the first settlers who (willingly or unwillingly) toiled to make Sydney such a beautiful city. One of the most pleasant walks we took in the city was the one at the Botanical Garden. While it is somewhat surprising that such prime real estate (overlooking the harbor and the Opera) survived in its originally intended purpose, it sure provides shelter from the hustle and bustle of the city and an unforgettable array of subtropical vegetation. Seeing the skyline of the city through the luxurious vegetation while sharing the alleys with dozen of types of birds sure made for an unforgettable moment. But beware, some areas are full of numerous (and stinky pooping) fruit bats. So hold your noses (and don't open your mouths while looking up :-) The northernmost part of the garden (and closest to the harbor) used to be the favorite place of one of the earliest governor's wife and, indeed, it provides some really beautiful views over the city. This is where the classical "Bridge and Opera" photo is taken from. By thousands of Asian tourists every day... and us among them.
While in Sydney, we happened to see the semifinals for the Rugby League World Cup
03 - And again
. For those of you might wonder what Rugby League is, it is the smaller brother of the Rugby Union with the rules changed to make it more fluent and less prone to interruptions during the game. While rugby purists (G included) think that this dilutes the spirit of the original of the rugby game, it can, nevertheless, be a lot of fun when you see it played at the level that a semifinal requires. While at the stadium, we acquired all the necessary accessories to look like real fans: World Cup caps, inflatable mascot, green T-shirts (like good Aussie fans) and corn on the knob (see pic; by the way G's beard keeps growing and L calls him the little Taliban. No, not because of his political orientation, but because of his looks ;-) To our disappointment though, the game was really unbalanced, Australia kicking Fiji's butt by a more than 50 points difference. Nevertheless, lots of touch downs and good spirits made it a wonderful night at the game. G's only disappointment was that we didn't happen to be here during the regular Rugby Union season; due to start in March of next year :-(((((Next morning we've decided to "commute to work." No, this doesn't meant that we are ready to come back, just that we've decided to take one of the many ferries that have Circular Quay as their terminus. In this city, many people commute to work regularly by ferry and this makes a lot of sense, given that the Sydney harbor is such a spread-out water system reaching out to some of the most neighborhoods
04 - Snapshot from the old Sydney
. While not necessarily cheap, commuting by ferry is significantly cheaper than driving to the City (where are so many tolls and parking can be very expensive). It definitely brought back memories of our commuting by Metra seeing so many professionals hooked to their laptops, cell phones and blackberries, but we never seen dolphins dancing next to the train back in Chicago. And for sure not in November or December. OK, OK, we didn't want to rub it in, honestly! Just wanted to emphasize our excitement at seeing these beautiful creatures tagging along for a good chunk of our ferry ride.In the evening we took a walk through one of Sydney's many entertainment districts: Kings Cross. It is a wonderful mixture of bars, restaurants, night clubs and shops and, while it did not helped that it was a Monday night (not as many people-watching opportunities), it was quite animated and hitting the happy hour at one of the many bars definitely made us happy (two beers for A$3, anyone?). Even so, we didn't linger on for more than a couple of hours as we still had a full agenda for the next days.
Next morning we stopped at Paddy's Market, a huge (hundreds and hundreds) collection of stands with souvenirs, knick knacks, clothes, whatever one's heart wishes with the only condition to be cheap and made in China
05 - Old Sydney again
. Of course, so much window shopping and listening to one of the street performers that was playing quite good music at half-empty bottles (a happy man, see pic) made us hungry. So we stopped for lunch at one of many restaurants in Chinatown where we had some of the best dim sim and sticky rice ever. We reckon we had more Thai, Chinese and Malayan food in Australia than we had in Singapore, but the ethnic food does seem to be quite good in the big cities.Next stop on the list: the Chinese garden, a beautiful transplantation of a Chinese park in the heart of the city, with amazing Chinese-style bonsai (Penjing), a pond full of golden fish (absolutely huge; see pic), garden pavilions and an authentic-looking tea room. Oh, and did we mentioned the Chinese princes and princesses dresses that one could rent for a photo opportunity? We passed on the opportunity of looking like royalty though, as is was not really compatible with our status of backpackers :-)
But we sure did not want to miss the Sydney aquarium which, in many people's opinion, is one of the best in the world. And we have to agree that it is spectacular. Huge tanks filled with some of the most gorgeous coral reef fish, turtles, manta rays and sharks, glass-walled tunnels that let you walk right through the tanks and watch up-close these wonderful creatures, fresh-water crocodiles (smaller and, supposedly, gentler creatures than their salt water relatives) just feet away, etc. This was for sure one of the trip's highlights, for L sure looked like a kid in the candy store (see pic). The only regret was that we couldn't see the platypuses; apparently that day they were on strike :-)
On our last day we've decided to get into one of the Harbor Bridge pylons and get a 360 degrees view of Sydney's downtown and harbor
06 - Laid back
. On a clear day, it is THE place to get superb photos of the city. One can also learn a lot about the bridge's history and engineering challenges. The story looks a lot like the Australian equivalent of Hoover Dam, since the bridge was built during the Great Depression and provided employment to tens of thousands of Australians. For the people looking for adrenalin (and an empty wallet) there is also an option to climb the arch of the bridge, all the way to its highest point. While without doubt the views must be fantastic, we've decided we could make better use of the $400 required for the tickets and passed on the opportunity (OK, we admit it: the fact that no cameras were allowed on the climb did play a major role for G, too). But we've included a pic of a group doing just that while we were on the pylon.So, after five days exploring and feeling the city we can say that this is one of the nicest and most vibrant cities we have seen so far and let's say we would not mind getting a job offer here.
P.S. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving (and Black Friday ;-) and don't forget to drop us a line now and then. We are particularly interested to hear what deals you got at door busting this year :-)
