Tuesday, March 22, 2005

Yesterday was pretty quiet, apart from me spending about 4 hours getting through all the shops in the shopping mall up the road! I picked up some really good bargains too, I think I've got most of the things now that I need to get me through the next few months.
Last night I went to Kaths upstairs for dinner, her nephew had arrived earlier in the day. She cooked Flathead fish, which is an Australian fish, it was delicious.
Today I went into the city again with Richard (Kaths nephew) we started off by going to Darling Harbour and we took a walk through Chinatown, which didn't take long cos it's not very big. Then we got on the monorail and did a circuit of the city, it was good to see it from a higher viewpoint. We got off at the city center as we wanted to go up the Sydney tower, but by the time we got there the weather had taken a turn for the worse so we decided we didn't really want to spend all that money and not be able to see much so we didn't bother with that.
We had some lunch in one of the many food courts before walking down to Circular Quay. By this time it was really raining quite badly, so we thought we would go to the Opera house and do one of the guided tours. Close up the outside of the Opera house was not what I expected, the roof is covered with ceramic tiles (1 million of them) and the buildings are actually all separate above ground level. The tour lasted about an hour, within that time we sat in the concert Hall (the largest interior venue there) before we went in there I was thinking that the inside foyers were not all that impressive, I expected it to be more luxurious, but when we got into the concert hall I was very impressed! It is actually designed primarily for acoustic performances. The floor and the ceilings and all the chairs are made of wood so the acoustics bounce off of it, there is a massive organ at the back with something like over 100 pipes (the biggest of its kind in the world) they have seats all the way around the stage, so you can even sit at the back of the orchestra when they play. I'm definitely going to try and book a ticket to see a performance whilst I'm here, it's just got to be done. After that we walked next door to the opera theatre, that was a lot smaller than I expected, the acoustics there are designed for operatic perfomances. Next was a visit to the Uzton room, which is the first interior designed by the original architect Jorn Uzton (he was kicked of the project just after the shell of the building was completed because of going over budget and over time) he only recently designed this room, and it's only been open for 3 months.
So that was a good rainy day touristy thing to do, we then caught the bus back home. I've now just fed the cat and she promptly threw it all back up again!! I couldn't clean it up myself, everytime I went near it it made me feel bad, so I had to go and ask Kath to help me! I felt a bit silly, but I just couldn't do it, luckily she's used to it cos the kids always get her to clean it up for them!!
I've been invited for dinner again tonight, so I'm just off up there now.
I"ve just listened to the news, they're expecting 125km per hour winds and storms in Sydney tonight, I can't believe this weather...in fact noone can, apparently it hasn't rained here for about 12 months!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Vikki!
So glad you reached Sydney with lots of fun along the way! Sydney sounds like a great city - I'm sure you'll love living there!
Sunshine (well usually) and shopping sound like heaven to me!
We miss you!

Jen and Paul

Anonymous said...

You must try shakespeare's pie shops. Highly recommended. I think they even have options for the sort of people who don't eat meat...

Anonymous said...

Hi Vix...
Have been keeping up with your stories, really enjoying hearing about your travels and what you have been up to:o) Sorry to hear about the weather, (can confirm that it has rained in the past year.. try 10th December our wedding day;o))
Big Hugs
Lisa & Chris xx