Day 26. Sydney

Yesterday (Day 25), I enjoyed my first day in Sydney. I first spent some time on the phone with the airlines and on the Internet to work on rerouting my trip around Tokyo. Not yet resolved, but hoping it will be resolved this morning. It is looking like I will end up in Hong Kong. I had hoped to go somewhere else, as I've already been to Hong Kong, but side flights are either too expensive or not direct, and thus too time consuming.

Then in the afternoon, I walked around darling harbor...with harborview (like harborplace in baltimore), aquarium, some other museums, chinatown, paddys market (not opened on tuesdays), etc

Then I took the three hour, free walking tour of Sydney, which was a great way to get an overview of the city. We started at town hall, then went through the underground shopping plaza (for all of you commercial real estate types, the "westfield" name is all over everything in this city), past Sydney tower...



...over to hyde park...






..and to see the australian coat of arms...



....past other historical landmarks related to the establishment of Australia by the convicts from England, including this anchor/cannon from the first convict ship...



You all know the story of the convicts sent to Australia, right? If not, I read a great historical novel about it years ago--"the fatal shore" by Robert Hughes.

Basically, England couldn't decide what to do with all of their criminals, both serious as well as petty criminals, so they decided to ship them all off to Australia to "get rid of them" and they were the first "settlers" here (besides the aborigines, of course, who had been here for thousands of years--very similar to our American Indian story).

Anyway, we continued down to the area called "the rocks" which was the first "neighborhood" including the first "house" built here...


and on to the circular quay where I had my first glimpse of the opera house....


...and the Sydney Harbor Bridge...



...the two most recognized icons of Sydney.

I was then going to have dinner at the Sydney Tower, which has a revolving restaurant at the top, but the hotel concierge said that the food was horrible and directed me to the "Summit" restaurant instead, which was also a revolving restaurant on the 47th floor of another building. For all of you foodies out there, the chef/owner is internationally known, Michael Moore (not the movie producer).

It was fantastic...and 45 minutes into my dinner, I was looking at that same bridge/opera house view, from a different vantage point. Wow!!

Today, hoping to get my airline ticket resolved, then head out to Manly via a ferry. It's supposed to be the best and least expensive boat ride in the harbor. Then tonight......I have a fifth row seat at the opera house to see Carmen!

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Location:Sydney, Australia