(no subject)
Nov. 4th, 2012 10:12 amWell, Sydney has been awesome.
It didn't start too well, since our travel agent managed to print off the wrong address for our hotel, leaving us to wander helplessly in search of 652 George Street - which does not exist. Happily, Beast was able to access free internetz for long enough to google the place, after which it was a simple matter to cross the street and proceed two blocks down. Hah.
After offloading the baggage we set off in search of second breakfast and then started looking about us. There's a lot to see, so we went to the top and got the most spectacular views imaginable from the Sydney Tower. There is *so* *much* water here, it is really pretty.
We've found our way to the Observatory - sadly a bit too much emphasis on 'these people did this thing in this year' and not enough on 'this is how they did it' for my liking, but it was particularly cool to be able to look at a real live solar flare through a telescope. A big one, too. Actually there were two. We visited the Botanic Gardens twice, once on the way from, er, somewhere else, and once when FIL had joined us and we did the 'train' tour of the place, which again led to spectacular views. I have special love for the sight of the trees rising in front of the sudden high-rise shard that is the Central Business District. Such a great contrast.
Hyde Park is also a nice piece of greenery, and we were taken by the way the Town Hall is being worked on and has 'camouflage' in front of the not-yet-done bits which is painted the way it will look. I approve.
We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Australia, both of which contained cool stuff but were hard on the feet. I actually preferred the experience of the Chinese Garden of Friendship, which is a lovely cradle of green and water.
Once FIL had come to join us we rode around the Monorail, and did a Bus Tour of the city, which made it very clear that Sydney is not just a tiny central rectangle after all - we'd tended to spend much of our time going straight up George Street. We also hauled FIL along to the Opera House tour, which was of course fascinating and beautiful; although he admitted to me as we began that he wasn't sure he could see the point in doing an actual tour, he did change his mind.
We took him to a Japanese restaurant on Friday evening, which to my joy turned out to be a 'teppun yaki' (sp?) place where the chef prepares the food in front of the customers. I proved to be the champion at catching things thrown at me, which comprised several bowls (one of them full of fried rice), an egg, and a mouthful of omelette. Go me. The sashimi, which was what I'd had a yen for, was nommy, but FIL didn't really appreciate the cuisine. Nor was he at all happy to fulfil his instructions from a Launceston friend to eat at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown - we found one where (somewhat to our bewilderment, as we've never experienced it before) waitresses circulated with carts full of food, which they urged us to eat. This turned out to be excellent, but FIL is used to sweet and sour pork balls and chop suey so again was unimpressed. A (very good) Caesar salad at Circular Quay was apparently far better than either of these... oh well. Sadly for him, he missed out on the rose petal ice cream *and* the green tea ice cream which I had on Thursday (Beast made a somewhat more conventional selection) from the tiny shop crammed into a corner right next to our hotel.
On Saturday afternoon I left the menfolk to do the Bondi tour and purchase a new phone for FIL while I made my way towards a meeting of the Sydney Slashers, yay! in particular with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eponymous, which was delightful. A healthy volume is achieved in such a situation, so I did rather better when some of the ladies went off to eat... So pleased to have had the chance to meet up with fellow fans. Today the menfolk were scheduled to go and watch the 18-footers race around the harbour, so I pootled along to various shops, petted a lot of yarn, then met eponymous and a new acquaintance from yesterday whose LJ name I have forgotten, and we had a lovely time, which included stationery shopping (it's an addiction! I can't help it!) and watching the most excellent clock in the Queen Victoria Building, which had a display of Important Scenes from English History, culminating in the decapitation of Charles I, which made us all squeak with joy. Best clock ever.
Tomorrow, Launceston. Not looking forward to the flight, as in my experience short flights are very hard on the ears, but at least I get a rest afterwards.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nopseud, you will be pleased to know that eponymous has taken your admonitions to heart and we have been considering storylines for my not-at-all un-doable MTYG mission. :-)
It didn't start too well, since our travel agent managed to print off the wrong address for our hotel, leaving us to wander helplessly in search of 652 George Street - which does not exist. Happily, Beast was able to access free internetz for long enough to google the place, after which it was a simple matter to cross the street and proceed two blocks down. Hah.
After offloading the baggage we set off in search of second breakfast and then started looking about us. There's a lot to see, so we went to the top and got the most spectacular views imaginable from the Sydney Tower. There is *so* *much* water here, it is really pretty.
We've found our way to the Observatory - sadly a bit too much emphasis on 'these people did this thing in this year' and not enough on 'this is how they did it' for my liking, but it was particularly cool to be able to look at a real live solar flare through a telescope. A big one, too. Actually there were two. We visited the Botanic Gardens twice, once on the way from, er, somewhere else, and once when FIL had joined us and we did the 'train' tour of the place, which again led to spectacular views. I have special love for the sight of the trees rising in front of the sudden high-rise shard that is the Central Business District. Such a great contrast.
Hyde Park is also a nice piece of greenery, and we were taken by the way the Town Hall is being worked on and has 'camouflage' in front of the not-yet-done bits which is painted the way it will look. I approve.
We visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Museum of Australia, both of which contained cool stuff but were hard on the feet. I actually preferred the experience of the Chinese Garden of Friendship, which is a lovely cradle of green and water.
Once FIL had come to join us we rode around the Monorail, and did a Bus Tour of the city, which made it very clear that Sydney is not just a tiny central rectangle after all - we'd tended to spend much of our time going straight up George Street. We also hauled FIL along to the Opera House tour, which was of course fascinating and beautiful; although he admitted to me as we began that he wasn't sure he could see the point in doing an actual tour, he did change his mind.
We took him to a Japanese restaurant on Friday evening, which to my joy turned out to be a 'teppun yaki' (sp?) place where the chef prepares the food in front of the customers. I proved to be the champion at catching things thrown at me, which comprised several bowls (one of them full of fried rice), an egg, and a mouthful of omelette. Go me. The sashimi, which was what I'd had a yen for, was nommy, but FIL didn't really appreciate the cuisine. Nor was he at all happy to fulfil his instructions from a Launceston friend to eat at a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown - we found one where (somewhat to our bewilderment, as we've never experienced it before) waitresses circulated with carts full of food, which they urged us to eat. This turned out to be excellent, but FIL is used to sweet and sour pork balls and chop suey so again was unimpressed. A (very good) Caesar salad at Circular Quay was apparently far better than either of these... oh well. Sadly for him, he missed out on the rose petal ice cream *and* the green tea ice cream which I had on Thursday (Beast made a somewhat more conventional selection) from the tiny shop crammed into a corner right next to our hotel.
On Saturday afternoon I left the menfolk to do the Bondi tour and purchase a new phone for FIL while I made my way towards a meeting of the Sydney Slashers, yay! in particular with
eponymous, which was delightful. A healthy volume is achieved in such a situation, so I did rather better when some of the ladies went off to eat... So pleased to have had the chance to meet up with fellow fans. Today the menfolk were scheduled to go and watch the 18-footers race around the harbour, so I pootled along to various shops, petted a lot of yarn, then met eponymous and a new acquaintance from yesterday whose LJ name I have forgotten, and we had a lovely time, which included stationery shopping (it's an addiction! I can't help it!) and watching the most excellent clock in the Queen Victoria Building, which had a display of Important Scenes from English History, culminating in the decapitation of Charles I, which made us all squeak with joy. Best clock ever.Tomorrow, Launceston. Not looking forward to the flight, as in my experience short flights are very hard on the ears, but at least I get a rest afterwards.
nopseud, you will be pleased to know that eponymous has taken your admonitions to heart and we have been considering storylines for my not-at-all un-doable MTYG mission. :-)