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Once again, we had breakfast in bed with banana bread and orange
juice. I opened up the Sunday paper and read an article about
the U.S. Presidential race and how it would affect Australia.
I looked out the window and it was sunny again. But when I looked
again a few minutes later, it was completely overcast. In fact,
it looked very much like it was finally going to rain on us. We
took our jackets and the umbrella from the closet before heading
out.
At 10am we took a taxi to the Sydney Opera House, where we'd start
our day. There were artists showing their wares along the sidewalk.
There weren't too many people yet, but within an hour it became
quite crowded. There were tourists everywhere, taking their pictures
with the Opera House as a backdrop. Also within an hour, the sun
decided to come out. In fact, it became downright hot. Jean and
I hadn't brought our hats with us; they were still in the hotel.
We decided to just buy a couple hats from the street vendors before
we melted under the sun.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Downtown Sydney
We walked around the Opera House, along the water's edge. After
buying our hats we continued into the Royal Botanic Garden. Kind
of like Sydney's answer to Golden Gate Park. We saw the strangest
thing as we walked in. Two large birds were on the ground, eating
perhaps. A bunch of small birds of another species kept swooping
down, looking as if they were taunting the larger birds. The larger
birds never lifted a wing in retaliation, however.
Jean in the garden
Fennel in the herb garden
We stopped in the Herb Garden, where Jean described everything
to me. Every plant I pointed to she had something to say about.
Basil, sage, parsley, you name it. It was all there, grouped by
family. In the center is a large sundial. After walking through
the herb garden we walked down to the HSBC Oriental Garden. Unfortunately,
there wasn't much to see here. A lot of plants we couldn't recognize,
and not presented in any particularly beautiful way. The only
bright spot was the big lily pond with Koi fish.
Lily pond
We had lunch at the outdoor Gardens Restaurant. Sandwiches and
dessert tarts. Birds fluttered around everywhere, picking food
scraps from the ground and from the tables. They were quite aggressive,
coming up to us even as we were eating. Large signs everywhere
warned people not to feed the birds, lest they get even more aggressive
than they already were.
While sitting there, I read an interesting factoid. There are
19 million people in Australia, 4 million of which live in Sydney.
More than 1 in 5 people in Australia live in Sydney!
Royal Botanic Garden
We continued walking toward Mrs. Macquaries Point, but started
to get bored, and we still wanted to walk across the bridge. I
also suddenly realized we'd left the umbrella at the restaurant.
So we turned around and retrieved it. It was still there, right
where we'd left it. On the way back I noticed the interesting
juxtaposition of the Sydney skyscrapers rising above the green
trees of the park. I took a shot with the pond in the foreground.
While I was doing so, some elderly couple dropped a plastic bag
in the water and from all appearances looked as if they were going
to fall in trying to recover it.
Sydney skyline
Suddenly, we heard the sound of...bats! Yes, bats in Sydney. We
looked up and they were hanging from the trees. Not just that
tree, either. That one too, and that one. Everywhere we looked
now we noticed the bats hanging upside down in the trees above
us. They weren't flying around much like they had that night on
the Daintree. But we knew they'd be flying around at night. What
a sight that would be.
Sydney skyscrapers above the garden
After recovering the umbrella we walked toward Macquarie Street,
where we figured we'd catch a taxi. As we walked, we passed by
a wedding party in the garden. We passed fountains and birds and
grasses, but soon enough were back on the street.
We then tried to flag down a taxi to take us to the bridge. We
started waving our hands at a taxi, but stopped when we saw a
passenger in the back. But the taxi driver stopped, anyway. It
looked to us like he was kicking her out, but they assured us
that wasn't the case. After the passenger left, we got in and
told the driver we wanted to go to the other end of the bridge
and walk across, back to the Rocks. He drove us across the bridge.
We passed a sign pointing to the Rocks. I thought to myself that
the sign was for pedestrians crossing the bridge, but the taxi
driver kept driving. He parked at the end of the street and pointed
us in the direction of an alleyway, telling us that was where
we had to go.
Basically, the punk sent us down a narrow alleyway with graffiti
and no way of crossing the bridge. In fact, he'd sent us in completely
the wrong direction. I was happy to have the umbrella handy in
case anyone tried anything. Fortunately it was bright daylight,
about 3 in the afternoon, so we probably had nothing to worry
about.
We walked back and asked someone at the train station underneath
the bridge how we could walk across. He pointed us to the place
we saw the sign. We cursed the taxi driver and walked up the stairs
to begin our walk.
Sydney Opera House
The bridge shakes as cars go across it. Having walked across the
Golden Gate Bridge, I kind of knew what to expect, but Jean was
a bit unnerved by it. One of the other things we noticed about
the bridge is that there's no physical barrier between the two
streams of car traffic coming in opposite directions. At least
on the Golden Gate there are flimsy pylons. On the Sydney Harbour
Bridge, there's not even that -- there's a painted white line
and some electronic signs above the lanes. I wonder how many head-on
collisions there are.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
We walked across and had great views of the Sydney Opera House
on the left. A couple of big cargo ships sailed between dozens
of tiny sail boats like two bulls in a china shop. Above it all
were the skyscrapers of downtown Sydney. Below it all, on either
end of the bridge, people played and relaxed on grassy areas next
to the water.
The bridge is only 502 meters long. When we reached the other
side, I saw out of the corner of my eye something familiar. I
took Jean up the steps so that we could get a clear look at it
-- Mulpha. In the middle of downtown Sydney is a building with
the name "Mulpha" plastered across it. Why is this significant?
I was absolutely sure that the building was in the movie The Matrix,
which was filmed in Australia. Excitedly, I took a picture of
it and looked forward to viewing it on DVD to find out where it
is in the movie. On first glance I couldn't find it in the movie,
only in the trailer. But Jean watched the whole movie again later
and told me it's clearly visible in the scene just before the
Agents are interviewing a drugged-up Morpheus.
Mulpha, just like in The Matrix
There were other Sydney sights in The Matrix. In the last scene,
where he's in the phone booth, the Grace Bros. entrance (the store
where I bought my dress clothes) is visible on the opposite corner.
In the scene with the woman in the red dress, she walks past a
wide fountain. That same fountain is on Martin Place, just outside
the Sydney Westin. Unfortunately, I didn't think of this while
I was there and neglected to take a picture of it.
Anyway, back to reality. We walked off the bridge and into The
Rocks area. This is a bit like Fisherman's Wharf in that it's
next to the water and has lots of touristy shops. But it seems
like more of a local hangout than Fisherman's Wharf, where you'll
only find tourists. We passed someone carrying a corn on the cob
on a stick. That looked good. We soon came upon the booth selling
them. It was hot, with salt, pepper, and melted butter, and it
was really really good. Everyone in the area was eating them.
After we finished our corn, we took a taxi back to our hotel to
rest up before our final night's dinner. We had 7:30pm reservations
at Otto, on Cowper Wharf Road, which circles Woolloomooloo Bay,
which contains a wharf named...Woolloomooloo Wharf. We walked
by a few other restaurants on the wharf before coming to Otto.
There was outside seating under heat umbrellas, but having no
jackets we decided to dine inside. We decided to try some Australian
sparkling wine. It was quite good, but no match for our favorite
wine from Napa. I had a wonderful scallops appetizer and twice-roasted
duck for dinner. Afterwards, I had a pannacatta for dessert. This
was our waiter's first night serving, but he did a pretty good
job. After dinner we headed upstairs and walked through a large
building, some of which serves as a hotel.
On the taxi ride back, we briefly spotted objects circling above
a skyscraper, illuminated by searchlights. I'm pretty sure they
were those bats from the park, now flying around downtown Sydney.
Too bad we couldn't see them from our hotel.
We decided to watch Mission Impossible 2 again on the TV. It didn't
even cross our minds until after we chose it that it was filmed
in Sydney. There are lots of recognizable Sydney scenes (the Opera
House, of course). In the scene with the helicopter, where they're
breaking into the biotech company's building, I'm pretty sure
I saw those same bats, lit up over a skyscraper. I kid you not.
I'll have to buy the DVD when it comes out and take a closer look.
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