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Jean worked the phone, calling the hotel to pick up our laundry,
making an appointment for a hair cut in the afternoon, and asking
the concierge for the location of an outdoor store where we could
buy stove fuel. The concierge said there weren't any outdoor stores
in Sydney. None. Oh, he was sadly mistaken. Jean found a Paddy
Pallin on Kent Street, which was only a 20 minute walk away.
The Paddy Pallin store was surrounded
by 5 other outdoor stores, including a Patagonia store. We made
a mental note to tell the concierge at the hotel he was sadly
mistaken. We stopped in the other shops, but decided to buy everything
from the Paddy Pallin. They had the best selection and prices.
We picked up stove fuel. I asked one of the people there to help
me pick out a map of the Blue Mountains, our next destination.
I'm glad I did, as he picked out a good one for me.
We walked through a mall and found ourselves in a big food court
where we decided to have lunch. It was packed with the Wednesday
lunch crowd. We had originally made a reservation for a restaurant
called Long Grain, in Surry Hills, but we'd have to take a cab
there and we were hungry. There seemed to be quite a few good
restaurants here. I had a Singapore-style curry noodle dish which
Jean liked so much when she tried it that she ordered one herself.
It turns out we were on the same block as Sydney Town Hall; there
was some big gathering with a stage and giant video screen outside,
but we didn't see what it was all about.
I wandered around trying to find clothes
to wear for the Sydney Opera House, where we'd be going to see
a play on Saturday. I also stopped by an Angus Robertson book
store, where I hoped to find a book on the Cairns area and on
the Blue Mountains. I did find a great book on hiking in the Blue
Mountains, but didn't find any good books on Cairns. What I really
wanted was a book on the magical Daintree River, but I couldn't
find any. I also happened upon an Olympic Store, which sold various
Sydney Olympic souvenirs like t-shirts, stuffed-animals, etc..
The store was nearly devoid of people.
We found a Levi's store. As you might expect, the prices for Levi's
in Australia aren't any better than in the U.S., even with the
exchange rate. About $130 AUD for a pair of Levi's.
One of the things we never could understand was that we saw Burger
King in several places, but we saw a chain called Hungry Jack's
which looked exactly like Burger King. In fact, a sticker on one
of the Hungry Jack's doors said Burger King. Perhaps they're in
the process of changing their brand name in Australia.
We stopped in a Grace Bros., which is like Macy's, and I found
a shirt and pants for me to wear for the play we were seeing the
next day. Afterwards, we went into an HMV store. Unfortunately,
CD's aren't any cheaper in Australia, either. They generally run
$30 AUD for a new CD. They did, however, have bargain CD's starting
as low as $5 AUD. In fact, I found Phil Collins' Greatest Hits
on sale for $5, and Third Eye Blind's latest for $10 AUD. I was
thinking about looking at their DVDs before I remembered I wouldn't
be able to play them in the U.S. because of region coding. They
didn't look much cheaper, anyway.
Jean found a Thai restaurant in one of her magazines. We thought
we'd give it a try, so we took a taxi to King's Cross. Unfortunately,
we discovered that the restaurant had gone out of business just
recently. So we took a taxi back to Chinatown. We walked around
to check out all the restaurants. As it had been the night before,
there was one seafood restaurant which had people overflowing
out the front door. It must have been good, but we didn't want
to deal with the wait. Instead we stopped in a restaurant around
the corner. The waiter kept asking us if we were ready to order
about every 15 seconds. He didn't even bother giving me a menu
until several minutes after he'd given Jean one. And then as soon
as he gave me a menu, he asked us if we were ready to order. Jean
and I felt like he was going to bother us the entire night so
we decided to just leave.
We ended up going to the restaurant across the street -- Fu Lin
Seafood Restaurant. It was clearly more expensive than the other
restaurants, but it was well worth it. We had scallops, peking
duck, and even had that most expensive dish in Chinese restaurants
-- shark fin soup.
While we were there a woman asked us if we wanted our picture
taken. We passed. She went on to the next table. She took their
picture and later returned with a couple of keychains with their
photos -- $10 each.
Perhaps it's because I'm never in San Francisco much, but I felt
like Sydney is a very touristy city. Everywhere we went we saw
lots of tourists -- fancy restaurants, Sydney Opera House, downtown
shopping malls. Maybe we just went to the wrong places, but at
times it seemed like half the people in Sydney are tourists.
Rather than take a taxi, we decided to walk the 8 blocks back
to our hotel. Along the way, we ran into an Internet cafe which
charged just $3 per hour, or $4 for the entire period from 9pm
to 11am. There were even joysticks so people could play network
games. It was packed. In fact, the entire length of George Street
was packed with people, even though it was after 9pm. The shopping
malls may close early (6pm on weekdays, 5pm Saturday, 4pm Sunday),
but this street was up late.
We passed by theaters and a big arcade. Inside, people were gathered
around the latest craze -- Dance Dance Revolution. If you've never
heard of it, it's a video game where the screen lights up with
different configurations for your feet, and you have to jump up
and down on a platform with your feet matching what's on the screen.
Of course there's pulsating music to go along with it.
A block from our hotel we stopped in at a Coles Express grocery
store. We stocked up for our Blue Mountains trip. We stopped by
our car and put the groceries away (none of it perishable) and
went back up to our room to pack. Thankfully, the hotel agreed
to keep one of our bags until we returned 2 days later, so we
packed one to stay and the rest to take with us.
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