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After spending a couple days in the Blue Mountains, it was back
to breakfast in bed. If you're ever at the Sydney Westin, the
banana bread is the best deal for breakfast.
Jean and I decided to split up so we could do our own shopping.
My first stop was the Columbia Sportswear store,
where I'd been a couple days ago but hadn't had time to buy anything
before they closed. This time, I found a pair of pants I liked,
but their ATM/credit machine wasn't working. I waited for them
to try to fix it, but eventually had to go downstairs to find
an ATM machine and withdraw some money. ATM's generally work fine;
my bank charges me $3 per transaction in Australia. A relatively
small price to pay for the convenience, though of course I wouldn't
stand for that in the U.S.
The interesting thing about the malls is that they're all connected
by bridges and passageways. You could walk 5 or 6 blocks through
downtown Sydney malls and never go outside. I eventually ended
up in QVB -- the Queen Victoria Building. Built in the 19th century
and now a shopping mall, it contains 5 floors of upscale clothing
and jewelry stores. I hadn't known it at the time, but I had already
been there a couple days earlier, on the bottom floor.
I thought to myself that in Sydney, they don't make their landmarks
into museums -- they actually use them. The QVB building is one
example. The GPO building is another. I know, this is a sweeping
generalization based on a sample of two.
I did find a couple interesting stores in the QVB building. I
found a souvenir shop selling boomerangs, didgeridoos, t-shirts,
stuffed kangaroos and koalas. I also walked by a store selling
lamb's wool. I made a mental note to myself to bring Jean back
to those stores. I also spied a Lisa Ho store; I figured Jean
would like the store since I saw her looking at it in a magazine,
so I mentioned that to her, as well.
I was supposed to meet Jean at 12:30, and I was running out of
time. On my way back I found a big Dymock's book store on George
Street and stopped in for a few moments. I ran out of time, though,
and decided I'd go back after lunch.
Jean and I met at the hotel and went to lunch in one of the mall
food arcades. I mentioned earlier that Australian mall food is
better than American mall food. It's also more varied. In this
one food arcade we saw Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Middle Eastern,
and Italian food. Not to mention boring stuff like sandwiches
and pizza, as well. The thing that I saw that I think is the reason
the food is better is that we weren't being served by just any
teenagers who happened to get a job at the mall. The people working
at the Middle Eastern restaurant were clearly Middle Eastern.
They weren't teenagers, either. I got some Singaporean style noodles
again, and some Chinese food. The food arcade was especially busy
-- it took a while before we were able to find a table. People
were like vultures, hovering over tables as people finished up.
After lunch I brought Jean to the QVB shopping mall. I showed
her the gift shop and we stopped in the lamb's wool place and
bought ourselves a nice rug. Perfect for the living room. We were
worried about being able to carry it back with us on the plane.
We were very impressed to see the clerk roll up the rug and sit
on it repeatedly, getting all the air out, before taping it shut
inside a plastic bag.
Jean and I split up again so we could do more shopping. I spent
my time in Dymock's. I did discover that while books are generally
more expensive in Australia, the software is cheaper. After the
book store I went back to the hotel around 3:45pm. While I was
waiting for Jean I turned on the television. Fox Sports had an
advertisement for the upcoming Raiders - Chargers game. The funny
thing about it was that the ad basically said that the Raiders
were going to run up the score on the hapless Chargers. Tune in
to watch the carnage! In the U.S., normally you'd expect to see
ads talking about how competitive the game will be. They're funny
like that in Australia.
We had dinner reservations at Aria. We had the address, 1 Macquarie
Street, but we weren't quite sure where that was. From looking
at the map, I saw that Macquarie Street was at the end of Martin
Place. We went down to the concierge to ask for directions, but
he was busy. Rather than take a taxi like we should have, we started
walking up Martin Place. We passed by a large video screen; apparently
they were leftover from the Olympics -- they were set up so pedestrians
could stop and watch the action.
After walking for quite a few blocks more than we'd expected to,
we reached Macquarie Street. Unfortunately we discovered that
we were still several long blocks away from 1 Macquarie Street.
So we gave in and decided to hail a taxi.
Aria is at the end of the street, overlooking Sydney Cove, with
a view of the bridge and the opera house. The sun was setting
as I dined on quail and filet mignon. Australians pronounce it
"FILL - it". The quail was quite good. After dinner we had dessert
-- mine was all sorts of chocolate -- chocolate cake, chocolate
cookies, chocolate sauce, topped off with gelato.
While we dined we could see lots of sunset harbor cruises. After
my episode on the QuickCat, however, I wasn't eager to take one.
After dinner we walked to the Sydney Opera House. I hadn't brought
a dressy jacket, and Jean didn't have one either; we were quite
cold. Eventually we made it to the Opera House box office inside,
where they informed us that the theater had its own box office
around the corner. We circled around and found the play house.
We noticed people were all dressed up for the opera, but they
were dressed casually for the play. The theater, called The Studio,
is quite small -- perhaps 200 seats on two levels surrounding
the ground-level stage on three sides. The play we saw was "Bare",
the first full-length play by New Zealand playwright Toa Fraser.
It was performed by just two actors who switched back and forth
between 15 different characters. At first it appears the characters
are all completely unrelated. However, by the end it's all tied
together nicely. The characters are all woven together and it's
quite a good play. Fraser has just completed his second play,
called No. 2.
After the play we took a taxi back to the hotel and started packing.
We still had another night to go, but we wanted to get started
on the daunting task of packing everything we'd bought.
I never thought I'd hear it, but Jean admitted to me that she
was now tired of shopping. We thought about going to the Hunter
Valley the next day, but it's a 2 1/2 hour drive from Sydney.
Five hours of driving on our last full day didn't sound appealing.
So, instead, we decided for a walk in the park. We'd walk through
the Royal Botanic Garden and across the Sydney Harbor Bridge,
and wherever else we decided to go.
I knew that the Paralympics marathon was happening the next day,
causing some streets to be closed. I called the concierge to find
out if the bridge would be closed. It was. It'd be closed in the
morning. So we decided we'd do the park thing in the morning and
then the bridge in the afternoon.
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