The Journey Thus Far
Totally a good thing but, but the days seem long here. Dec 5 was day 2 and we’ve been exploring so much that I feel like we’ve been here for a while, much longer than 2 days. We walked 2.11 miles one way up hill mostly lol, over to the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour. We walked over the bridge and got some photos of the Opera house from a distance. The bushfire is causing some haze and overcast on the city. A waitress told me bushfires happen every year around this time but this one is the worst they’ve seen in many years. We are safe but should be careful if we have any lunge issues such as asthma. As you can see in some of the photos it appears to be a sepia tone. I kept that in the photos on purpose so that it can be seen what we saw with our own eyes. It almost looked like an apocalypse or something.
I was very excited to see the Sydney Opera House. This structure is intriguing to me. Looking at it from a distance was one thing, but to see it up close and personal was amazing. The detail in the sail shaped shells structure is purely just glazed ceramic tiles and its shelled ribbed underbelly. It’s a unique piece of work. If you get a chance, read on how the design came about and the design competition that went along with it. The design of the sails fit perfectly since it sits and is surrounded by the Sydney harbor.
We walked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and sat in on a small video at Pylon Lookout along the way to see how it came about and how was built. Bridges always intrigue me because they are built over water and to see it all go down was just crazy. It took 8 yrs, 1400 workers and 16 deaths (due to construction accidents) to build this bridge. Every NYE, there is a spectacular event that takes place on the bridge. They set off fireworks on the bridges arch at the strike of midnight. How cool would it be to see that first hand. The pedestrian walkway takes about 15-30 mins to cross and we saw lots of people running and walking for exercise. Along some of the fencing of the bridge you can see locks of love riddled about. There weren’t many but it was cool to see.
The harbor itself was pretty busy. There you could pay for ferry rides across the water, dinner on boat, yacht rides… you name it. There were lots of souvenir shops, a McDonald’s, and Hungry Jacks (which is our equivalent to Burger King), and other shops and bars for tourists. There you can also get the train to other parts in Sydney. The train system is definitely something that is confusing if you don’t know where you need to go and transfer to. It was not a straight shot for us to get back to where we came. Although we didn’t know what we were doing entirely, it was a great experience to be had. Either way we found our way back to the condo.
Along our long walks, we stopped at bars and people watched and chatted up with some of the locals. Everyone here is so nice… SUPER nice. I’ve never met a bunch of folk/strangers so nice before in my life. We’ve been seeing a lot of man buns. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t mad at it. In a foreign country, man buns and accents... phew! The thing is that all of the men with man buns are cute as hell too! There aren’t many black men here, but the ones I’ve seen aren’t bad looking. They’ve seemed to be from Africa because of their accents is how I know. Even the black women here are the same. BUT these Australian men... wear man buns.
We made our way across the bridge to North Sydney and we went to Luna Park. Interesting story about this park can be read here. The park was nothing to write home about. It was the feel of what I would assume an old school carnival would be like, back in the day, when they shows with people such as the bearded lady, or siamese twins. Walking into the park you walk right into the mouth of a smiling face. Kinda creepy but exciting at the same time lol. The park is free to get in and walk around but if you wanted to get on any rides (if you dare), it cost a pretty penny. 2 rides cost $22, but if you wanted unlimited rides in the whole park, it was about $50. Naw dawg… so we walked around looking for corndogs and found none. Then I saw a lady eating a big ass stick of cotton candy. Found where it was made and got me some. It was the biggest cotton candy that I had ever had and it is made to order. So fun to watch.
