Davin Reporting!
Today we finally arrived in Sydney, Australia, which was a bit of a relief. The voyage on the Pacific Princess started off decently, but took a bit of a turn for the worse toward the end. We started out by grabbing a breakfast of some cereals, and then left a small additional tip for our steward (in addition to the automatic gratuities charged to our account daily). And so began a long and eventful day...
After collecting our luggage we disembarked the ship and ended up in a long line to clear customs. Unfortunately, we got a bit of a later start than expected and ended up behind a bunch of passengers headed off on shore excursions. The customs officer asked us a lot of question about our jobs– I think she was just curious because we are a bit of an outlier among world travelers. (Kristin interjection: “She asked a LOT of questions, in such detail that I found myself telling her about our inheritance from our Grandmother and Great Aunt. She knew our mom and my husband were left at home to work while we were touring the world, etc. etc. She was very friendly about it, so in the end, I couldn’t tell if we were being scrutinized by her professionally or out of curiosity. I assumed my “obnoxiously friendly and social” personality for this interaction and happily gave her tons of information about our lives. Internally, I felt a bit disconcerted about the depth of this interview!”)
After finally clearing customs we booked a Captain Cook ferry to Circular Quay, which is apparently pronounced “key” even in American (English is a weird language). It was a fairly long walk to the ferry pier, and our luggage is heavier than I would like, but we made it there with plenty of time until the next ferry. As we were waiting for the ferry, yet another cruise ship came in, the Seabourn Odyssey, also on a world cruise.
The ferry ride was pretty scenic. We were given a chance to take a final picture of the Pacific Princess, and then treated to our first views of Darling Harbour, downtown Sydney, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. The ferry dropped us off at Circular Quay, a main transit point in the ferry and train systems.
At Circular Quay we purchased our Opal cards, which are tap-on/tap-off cards used to pay for the public transit system in Sydney (buses, trains and public ferries), and then hopped on the ferry to Kirribilli, just across the harbor from Circular Quay.
From the Kirribilli Wharf it was only a short haul to our hotel, although not nearly as short as I’d have liked. It’s not much fun dragging a large 50+ pound bag up several sets of stairs. We were staying at the Glenferrie lodge, which seemed like a nice place. The negatives are that our room had a shared bathroom, and was quite hot, with no AC.
After unloading our luggage in our room, we walked back across the Harbour Bridge toward downtown Sydney, taking the time to take some pictures and videos of the Opera House and the Sydney sky line. We continued following the pedestrian walkway, which followed along the freeway, and took the elevator down to Circular Quay. Kristin then suggested trying to find some inexpensive food for lunch at a mall food court, and we found one nearby.
Here we were surprised to find a “Mexican” food restaurant. Despite our skepticism, we obviously could not pass on this opportunity, especially after being on bland ship food for the last three weeks. As expected, it was not real Mexican food, but it was still decent. The burrito reminded me a lot of the food you’d get from a Chipotle, and the quesadilla was like something from a DelTacoBell. To accompany our lunch we picked up a Dr. Pepper from a small convenience store, which was an unexpected treat. (Kristin Interjection: “I was curious to see what fast food shops would exist in an Australian food court. Interestingly, they don’t seem to have many chains that are found in every mall– we learned this over time. I much prefer our American style food court which has familiar food chains at each mall within a certain geographic area. One of the options literally advertised itself as “healthy” and had other similar words that I, as an American, consider inappropriate to a food court shop! Yeagh! Who wants to eat healthy at a food court? Not a real American. ;p”
After lunch we proceeded to walk towards the Sydney Botanical Garden. As we began our walk through the botanical gardens, we were fortunate to arrive at Government House only a couple minutes before the last tour of the day! The Government House tour was interesting. The architecture reminded me a lot of what I’ve seen from other historical castles or palaces in Britain. We also got a bit of a background on the system of government in Australia (a Constitutional Monarchy like Britain and Canada). (Kristin Interjection: “I loved Goverment House! It was beautifully decorated. Also, the tour was free! You just showed your passport and they marked down where you were visiting from. This is the actual home of the Governor of Sydney. In the early days of the colony, the Governor had absolute governing authority– he was appointed by the Ruler of Great Britain and he represented the will of the monarchy. Today the Governor plays the role of society’s benefactor by signing in or vetoing the laws passed by the Parliament.”
The botanical gardens were also nice, although not really the sort of thing that interests me that much. I should also mention that the weather in Sydney was fairly hot, which was tolerable, but the humidity was another thing entirely. After living most of our lives in San Diego, humidity is very difficult to get used to.
After exiting the botanical gardens, we crossed an overpass over the freeway and discovered that rush hour traffic exists Down Under, much as it does in the U.S. We continued our walking tour past the outside of the Art Gallery of New South Wales (NSW) and then passed a large sandstone Cathedral– St. Michaels Cathedral. I would say the Cathedral was much the same as any other, except for its sandstone building material. There are a lot of sandstone buildings in Sydney due to that stone being prevalent here, which gives a distinctive look to a lot of the historic architecture. (Kristin Interjection: “It’s also a very distinct color, which makes one building stunning, but a series of them in a row turns into a monotonous cityscape. It is somehow not the same as a series of marble or granite building. Perhaps it is simply due the difference between gray/white and yellow/brown. Light gray/white is a light positive color and white is psychologically linked to purity and cleanliness. Yellow/brown is more imposing as a dark color, and you really can’t avoid the fact that sandstone is, essentially, the color of dirt.”
Finally, we reached Hyde Park and took pictures of the Captain Cook statue, the ANZAC memorial, and a memorial of giant bullets to the aboriginal people who died defending Australia in its history of external wars. Kristin was also impressed by the strange Ibis birds which filled the park, begging for people to feed them.
Captain Cook is a big figure in Australia, since he is the first European who explored it. He also explored many other parts of the Pacific, before finally meeting an untimely demise in Hawaii. Incidentally, we just recently snorkeled in Captain Cook cove in Hawaii which is the historic location of his murder.
The ANZAC memorial (Australia & New Zealand Armored Cavalry) commemorates those who fought in WWI. Unfortunately, the ANZAC forces were shipped halfway around the world and straight into the meat grinder at Galipoli in Turkey, where both sides suffered horrendous casualties. While it makes sense to commemorate those who died, I have to admit to being a bit conflicted about the many references to the ANZAC in Australia, since it also commemorates what was ultimately a tragic waste of human life. At some point during our week in Australia, we got the chance to try ANZAC cookies. They were pretty good, and tasted exactly like Sun Harvest’s Oat Granola Bars (per Kristin’s memory of the company’s name and details).
Rounding out the day was a search for the final meal of the day. In our travels that day we had encountered a strange restaurant which was named “Hungry Jacks”, but which had a burger icon which was eerily reminiscent of Burger King. Well, it turns out that Hungry Jack’s is indeed the franchise of Burger King in Australia. It seems that the Burger King name was already taken by a restaurant in Australia, so their franchisee picked the name from one of Burger King’s other trademarks, Hungry Jack pancake mix. Who would have guessed it?
Unwisely, we passed on eating at Hungry Jack’s. For some reason Kristin had the hair-brained idea that the best place to find affordable food would be in another mall food court. (Kristin Interjection: “Hey! It worked this afternoon! Sheesh...”) We arrived at the Westfield mall beneath the sky tower at around 6 PM and proceeded to the food court. Here we were shocked to discover that the mall closed at only 5 PM on every weekday except Thursday when it was open until 9PM, and on the weekend the mall is only open until 6PM! (Kristin Interjection: “How does anyone get their shopping done??? This is very un-American!”) All of the stores were abandoned and many of the food court restaurants were blowing out their food at half price.
Attracted by the half price offer we picked up some odd Chinese food and some Japanese Katsu. The Japanese food was alright, although the rice tasted strange, but the Chinese food was terrible– probably amongst the worst Chinese food I’ve ever eaten. The “terryaki chicken” tasted like nothing but onions, but at least it was barely edible– Kristin couldn’t eat it, but she is obnoxiously picky. However, the “Kung Bao” (apparently the Australian version of Kung Pao) tasted like nothing but peanut sauce and wasn’t the least bit spicy or flavorful. I couldn’t even eat that.
Another problem: the food was all lukecold (not even lukewarm), having just been sitting around for who knows how long. There were even signs stating that you should eat it before a certain time! And while I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here, I can attest that coming out it was no better than going in! (Kristin Interjection: “Oh man, D! ...”[rofl])
To wrap up the day we walked back to Circular Quay to head back to our hotel. Along the way we encountered a Subway, and purchased a sub sandwich to eat, in the process discovering that “bell peppers” or “green peppers” are known as “capsicum”.
In addition, the ordering process at this Subway was rather odd, because we ordered an Italian sub, but the server still expected us to specify everything we wanted on it. Generally, if you order something straight off the menu you only have to specify what you don’t want. Ironically, the people in front of us in line seemed like they had trouble communicating with the workers at this restaurant because they were from Germany, but ironically I wouldn’t say our experience as native English speakers proved much better. Kristin even said to the young German girls, to make them feel better, “See? We both speak English, and we can’t even understand each other!” (Kristin Interjection: “After we finally figured out that we wanted ‘Capsicum’ the server tried to put black pepper on our sandwich saying, “In our country, we call this black pepper.” to which I replied, “Yes. In our country, that is also black pepper. What I was saying was BELL pepper.” and, after I said “Bell” 3-4 more times, he finally understood what I was saying, and thought that our word for ‘capsicum’ was equally weird!”) Ultimately, we saved our subway sandwich for lunch for tomorrow.
To sum things up, I’d say that during our first day in Sydney we saw some interesting things, but the food situation was poor– to say the least. On the plus side, using Hungry Jacks menu pricing for comparison, we determined that the price of food at restaurants here is roughly equal to that in America. Sometimes the food is more expensive, but the current exchange rate means that everything we buy is at 30% discount. That’s not too shabby.
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| Davin with his Chinese Zodiac animal. The 12 zodiac animals are around town due to the Chinese New Year Celebrations! |
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