Struth!
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2005
1
24
25
Trip End
Jun 05, 2006
Sydney,
Australia
Sunday, March 26, 2006
My first impression of Sydney, was that it felt very American. The airport shops had an American feel to them, and emerging from the train station near the Town Hall, the skyscrapers remiNded me of New York. This is no bad thing in my opinion, as I like New York and America*, so I immediately warmed to the city.
Dad came to meet us at the train station, a mere 50m from the Meriton Rialto apartment block on Pitt Street, and very nice it was too. After a slow glass of wine and a quick shower, we headed out for dinner.
The next morning, after a nice breakfast at one of many lovely little cafes that line Pitt Street, we ambled through the centre to the Skytower. The view from the top was impressive, but the multi-media extravaganza that our ticket entitled us to was decidedly mediocre.
After this we strolled to Circular Key, and took a ferry out to Watson's bay. This is a very picturesque region of Sydney, a suburb of the city, but with a laid-back holiday village feel. After a pleasant afternoon in the sun, crowned with fresh fish and chips, we headed back to the apartment. We bade farewell to the seniors, who were homeward bound, and caught a taxi to the Wake Up! hostel.
This was big and busy, very much of the type that we had tried to avoid(mostly with success)throughout NZ, but was clean and the room was nice enough. Everything was in bright primary colours, and exclamation marks must be cheaper here than at home, as they were everywhere.
We were still on Pitt Street, but down near the central train station, and on the outskirts of Chinatown where we ate that night at a nice little Thai restaurant.
The next day, making full use of our train/ferry combi-ticket, we steamed out to Manly Bay, on the coast to the north of the city. The bay was particularly manly on this breezy Tuesday as due to the effects of a tropical cyclone further north, the waves were fierce, and no swimming was allowed. The only bodies allowed in the water were "experienced surfers", and there were more than a few brave souls out playing their music.
We explored "The Rocks" later in the day, an area of town with a good reputation for exciting nightlife, but whether we were there at the wrong day of the week or wrong time of year was not clear, but we sadly found it far from rocking, and retreated to a bar near Circular Quay for some Aussie beer or just "beer" as they call it here.
The next day, we did what needs to be done in Sydney: a tour of the Opera House. This was quite a mixed experience.
I'd been looking forward to it for quite some time, as it is one of my top 5 buildings/structures (if you're interested [as Andrea won't be] the others in no particular order are: Emirates Towers, Dubai; Severn Bridge (the old one), South Wales; Chrysler Building, New York; National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Bonus points if you can guess which is the only one I sketched (badly) for my Art GCSE).
The experience was mixed for various reasons. Firstly the positives: The structure itself, up close, was fantastic, and as good as I'd hoped for. It has a lot of intricate details that aren't visible from any distance, eg. the tiling, so it was great to see up close. It was also good to see inside, and the Great Hall is spectacular, so majestic that Andrea said it nearly brought tears to her eyes. Also having got a good view of it from the plane as we approached, I think that it single-handedly (along with its tag-team partner, the Harbour Bridge)transforms the Sydney city skyline (one for Chris Eubank) from a bland one, to one of the worlds most recogniseable.
On the negative side, inside it looks quite dated, and in parts unfinished, with lots of bare concrete, popular in the 60s when architects could still fool themselves that concrete would date well. Particularly ugly was the main opera hall, which was lined with private boxes that looked like hanging concrete bathtubs. All a bit disappointing, especially as parts of it are still being developed "in line with the original vision" leading to more exposed concrete.
This was our last night in Sydney, and we ended it with dinner at one of the Harbourside restaurants, followed by drinks at Lenin, a lively bar on the waterfront.
On our final morning in Sydney, we went for a walk through Hyde Park, and watched some chess players before catching our train to the airport for our flight to Singapore.
* No endorsement of Bush Administration Foreign Policy is implied or should be inferred.
