Happy Thanksgiving! I am sad that I missed gobble gobble day in New York. I called my parents and instead of turkey they had fish - sushi that is.
I slept in. It's been a while since I had a good night sleep. It felt really nice. At 10 am, we went to Circular Quay for our historical walking tour with Bounce. We lied and said we were all students to get the discounted rate of AUD25 ($16).
A bit of Sydney history:
Captain Cook found Australia in 1770. Originally Sydney was used to place English convicts. The first fleet arrived in 1788 carrying 1,000 people of which 736 were convicts. In 1842, Sydney became a city. It was also the same year the sewing machine was invented. In 1850 the convict trade stopped in Sydney because the residents didn't want any more convicts. Convicts were still shipped to Victoria until 1880. Sydney gradually shifted from being a convict city to a port city.
Before 1901, when Australia became an independent country, bottles of rum were the currency of trade. Thus workers can either choose to drink their hard earned rum or trade it for food. Also BYO is claimed to be an Australian abbreviation. It was created because most Australians government counterparts made more money, so the policy to stay in Australia government housing was BYO wine and food.
At the starting point of the tour, our guide pointed out an ugly toaster building right by the beautiful opera house. We then walked by the Cadmans cottage, the oldest foundation in Sydney. It was built in 1816 for John Cadman, ex-convict and government coxswain. He was a
convict for stealing a horse. It currently marks where the shore used to come up to. The harbor we now know is all reclaimed land.
The Sydney harbour bridge is magnificent. It's situated at the northeast of circular quay. It was the largest arch bridge when it was built in 1932. It took a total of 8 years to build and during the building process they demolished 800 homes without compensating the residents. Although it was completed in 1932, the debt of £10mn wasn't paid off till 1988. It is painted grey because it was the only paint Australia could afford. The whole bridge weighs 32,000 tons.
It has 6 lanes. Each pylon alone costs £0.5mn and it does not help hold the bridge up. It's just there for aesthetic reasons. The pylon closer to the rock can be climbed for AUD9.
The next destination was a stroll around the Rocks, the area where early settlers settled because the sandstone cliffs protected them. At the Rocks, there's a block called Suez Canal, which was the main sewage line in the old days. It had a natural incline to dump everything down into the harbour. Circular Quay, by the harbour, was created so ships can go right into port to off load their goods.
The Botanical garden is beautiful and clean. It is 33 hectares, and was made for the governor's wife to remind her of the country side in England. There's 3000+ animals and trees in the garden. Most notable is the flying fox, the largest fruit bats in the world.
Then we got some more briefing about the opera house, but I already knew all of it from our detailed backstage tour the previous afternoon. The tour concluded there, and then we went to the opera house to get tickets to see a show. The only tickets available were The Pig Iron People. It's set on a quiet suburban street with not quite enough parking for the residents, The Pig Iron People examines two generations and the way the politics of their time (and the politics of their car parking) have shaped them. The stage is also supposed to be really neat with a hologram back drop. Yea to tickets!
It way past noon when we were looking for a lunch place by the opera house. We sat outside and I had a salmon and veggie kabob. It was delicious.
We then went to the contemporary museum. The most interesting exhibit there was Yinka Shonibare's pieces. He is a British born Nigerian artist. He explores ideas about African contemporary identity and the legacy of European colonialism. His sculptural works often feature headless mannequins clothed in elaborate costumes from the period just before the French revolution, when the European aristocracy controlled vast wealth, land, and power. It was a very interesting display.
After all this culture about Sydney, we needed to do what the locals do - shop. We walked around Market street. Since I needed to get my contacts anyways before the show, I went back to the hostel early while the girls stayed out shopping.
I bumped into Shadi, our Swedish dorm mate, in the room. She was telling me about the good deals she found in Chinatown. Of course, this meant I had to check it out. I knew I was in Chinatown when I whiffed the smell of ginseng, and saw gold jewelry shops and Chinese people everywhere. I wandered into the mall/market building to browse for sales. I found a cheap AUD10 ($7) dress from supre.
I also browsed through the food court and saw canton noodle soup with tons of different options. I was drooling a bit by that point, so I couldn't resist but to have dinner there by myself. I had a flat egg noodle with roast pork, prawns, and wontons. At first they gave me rice noodles, but I wanted and ordered egg noodles, so I asked for a new one. I said, sorry but it's my first canto meal in a long time.
I then walked through the main Chinatown block where they had tons of restaurants. And through Darling Harbour and then to the opera house to meet the girls before the play.
The play was a bit disappointing. It had a lot of aussie humor that we didn't get and the story was ok. The stage hologram was pretty neat though. I thought it was still worth my AUD77 ($51) to say I saw a show at the opera house.
It was late by the time the show ended, so we just took a bus and headed back to our hostel.
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