Second week in Australia and I’m loving it. Sam headed up to Brisbane for training purposes and I stayed behind in Sydney to take in a little bit more of the city. On Tuesday morning before Sam had to head for the airport, we went into the city to get a tour of the Opera House. It’s a beautiful building, and very iconic. I don’t remember a lot because it the hour long tour we were given a lot of information, but I can give you a few things. The building was designed by Jorn Utzon. There was an international design competition in 1955 which Utzon entered and ended up winning, and construction started in 1959. His innovative and futuristic design captured the attention of people immediately, and one of the most interesting facts for me was his use of glass as walls. At that time, this was a very new and strange concept, so Uton was really a leader is this architectural style. Originally, the job had a projected time-til-completion of 3 years and costing only $7 million. Yeah, right. When it was formally completed on its opening by Queen Victoria in 1973, it had taken 14 years and cost $102 million. Talk about a mis-budgeting! To get the extra money, the government started an “Opera House Lottery” and, according to our tour guide, the money was all raised in 18 months because of the Aussie’s love of betting. The building is really one inside of another; the interior was built/designed after the iconic exterior was fully formed. Now to be more in the present. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t have been able to go to an opera while I was there, because the month of October is their musical theatre month. There has always been shared time at the Opera House between the ballet and opera companies, each having it’s own season. However, starting 4 years ago, they decided to try and get a different crowd to come to the Opera House and so had a musical run for the month of October. It was a great success and they’ve been continuing that ever since. After our tour, and a nice photo shoot around the outside, Sam and I walked around Pitt Street. Pitt Street is a main street that is popular for shopping, as there is the pedestrian Pitt Street Mall along the road. We detoured from there a little bit to walk over to Hyde Park, which is the oldest public parkland in Australia. It was named after the original Hyde Park in London. While we were there, we went into the ANZAC War Memorial. It was completed in 1934 to recognize the troops that fought for Australia in the first World War. On the inside walls, the places where Australian troops fought are inscribed into the stone and the ceiling is covered in 120,000 gold stars that each representing a military volunteer from New South Wales. In fact, Australia never held a draft for the first world war; every single person in the militia was a volunteer and they had enough people volunteer that they never needed a draft. That’s pretty cool.
After our walk around, Sam got on the train for the airport and I got on the bus to head home. While on the ride, I was looking out the window and noticed that we rode past the Ian Thorpe Aquatic Center. In case you don’t know who Ian Thorpe is, he is a swimmer and was the most successful athlete during the 2000 summer games, winning three gold and two silver medals. In total, he has won 5 gold medals, making him the most successful Australian olympian ever. He has since retired, but I can very distinctly remember watching him win his medals in 2000 and seeing his name reminded me about where I was again. And again, I can’t believe it! Wednesday I went for a very lovely walk around while Morgan was at Uni. I started in Haymarket, which is another suburb of Sydney. Haymarket holds Sydney’s chinatown and many produce markets. The main one is Paddy’s Market, which I walked into and felt right at home; it was exactly like the markets in Hong Kong! From there, I headed towards Darling Harbour. On the way, I ran into the Chinese Friendship Garden and since I was still in my Hong Kong reminiscing mode, I had to go in. I spent the better half of an hour in there, taking it all in. It was beautiful and gave me the perfect opportunity to practice my photography as an art more than a camera documenting my travels. There is a lot of construction going on in Darling Harbour right now, so after traversing that I walked and across the harbour on the pedestrian bridge. I then got a little lost on my way to the Fish Market, but I figured it out. The Fish Market was established in 1945 and is the third largest fish market in the world. It was pretty cool seeing all the fresh fish and there are a few restaurants as well that prepare from the fish that is sold in the market. I had to try something, so I had a cheese baked scallop that was in the shell. It was so good. I had taken a photo of it but it was on my phone that has now died and I don’t have it (I complain about this later). But just know it was really good. And it was $3. I have to say, I really like walking around to explore places. You always run into cool stuff that you wouldn’t think to see normally. For me, that was a wooden boat exhibit put on by the Maritime Museum free to the public. I saw this and went in; it was really cool to see the progression of boat building, moving from tub-like structures to the more thin, torpedo style that is used now. I then continued around the back side of the museum and was able to see many of the ships that they have as a part of the museum sitting in the harbour, including a submarine. Which are huge, by the way. Along the way, I looked down into the water and saw a strange transparent blob. Upon further investigation, I discovered that it was a huge group of jellyfish all clumped together. Very fascinating! After perusing all that, I headed back to meet up with Morgan through Paddy Market and then went for a walk with her to burn off all the bread we ate at home. Thursday was so nice that I couldn’t stay inside. So I headed out to Bondi Beach. I hadn’t been back since the first day here in Sydney so I decided it was worth it. It was very nice; weather and crowds-wise. I got there a little before 1pm, so there weren’t too many people yet. It was starting to get crowded when I left around 5:30pm. I laid out on the beach, fell asleep, did some reading, worked on my tan. Well, maybe more accurately it was working on my burn...I'm a little red now. It was very relaxing. But then I decided I wanted to go look at the Sculptures by the Sea that I had seen being set up the last time I was in Bondi. Plus, it’s a lovely walk. I found this one sculpture that I really loved. It was glass that had been crafted to look like huge blades of grass, probably around 6 feet tall. They were individually made a spread out so you could walk in and around them. They were gorgeous. As I was photographing them, I nearly bumped into this woman and immediately apologized. She smiled and said “Not a problem! If you have any questions just let me know, I’m the artist.” So I asked her a few questions (which is why I know they were made entirely of glass) and chatted with her a bit. I found out she was from Winnipeg, which is where I went in June to watch the women’s World Cup! When I told her I’d been there, she laughed and asked why. Under normal circumstances, I can understand her confusion. But let’s be real, the World Cup is not normal circumstances. She let me photograph her with her work, which was amazing. I would totally tell you her name and more about the piece, but unfortunately the phone in which I had a photo of all that has decided to end its life and I can’t get it. Nope, this is still not where I complain about the phone, I know you've been waiting with baited breath. All I remember is that each blade of grass is on sale for $11,000 apiece. I read that after having touched them. Which is terrifying. On the walk back I was taking photos of all the sandstone around the coast that had formed amazing shapes and brilliant colors. So yes, I was photographing the rocks. I probably looked a little nuts, but at one point an elderly couple stopped behind me, looking at what I was doing, and said "oh isn't that just gorgeous?!" and then also took a photo of it. Serious vindication right there. I had a salmon burger for dinner and then headed back to the house on the bus. The public transit system here is super easy and convenient. They have a phenomenal network of buses, trains and ferries to get you anywhere and everywhere. I only have one complaint: the buses don’t tell you what the next stop is. There’s no signage or scrolling light sign or anything like that. I’ve had to make some guesses, thankfully more right than wrong, but something to prepare for. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for: So I woke up on Friday morning to my phone, connected to my AT&T number, completely dead. It won’t turn on. The LG screen comes on and then nothing, nada, zip, zilch, the screen goes entirely black. It’s fully charged. I had a lot saved on that thing. My music, books, photos, lists of things I wanted to watch/read, but that’s cool. I have no idea how to fix it, it’s ridiculous, I don’t understand, I’m annoyed. It’s annoying. Okay, rant over. But seriously I’m pissed off about it. In order to deal with all my emotions, I decided to go for a nice long run. And the perfect outlet for that was the Bay Run! This is a super popular pathway for exercise in the western suburbs and it’s a short bus ride away from where I’m staying. The path is approximately 8km in length that encircles most of Iron Cove and, to be honest, I’m not sure if I did the whole thing. I got a little confused at this part where you have to cross a river and it wasn’t signposted. But it’s fine. I still went for a run, which counts. And I definitely did most of it. When I started, I noticed that a lot of people were running the opposite direction to me. Which doesn’t matter because you can go either way, but I was thinking that maybe they knew something I didn’t. Then I came around the Bay and the wind hit me like a wall. And I figured it out. Yesterday was nice. I went to a shopping mall, got myself some sushi (which is everywhere and I’m weak against my urge for sushi) and also bought myself a $5 top. Which I really shouldn't have done because I have limited bag space. But oh well :) Today was super hot! And for some reason, during all my travels around the city the public transport was free. Now, I’m not complaining in anyway but I was told that that wasn’t normal. I tried googling it to figure out why this occurred and was unsuccessful. Very strange. But also very nice turn of events. I took the ferry to Sydney Olympic Park. I figured since I’ve seen the Olympic park of every city I’ve been in that has hosted the Olympics, I should keep up that tradition here in Sydney. This means I’ve been to 1936 (Berlin), 1992 (Barcelona), 2000 (Sydney) and 2012 (London). Seems as though I have a pretty big gap there between 1936 and 1992. Might have to work on that. Anyways, I got off the ferry and started walking towards the park through the Millennium Parklands, which is a preserved wetlands that has a lot of biking and walking paths. Once I was in Olympic Park proper, I walked by all the stadiums. It’s so cool to picture what it must have been like. Right near the main stadium was what is called the Forest of Poles. These poles hold the names of all the Olympians and Paralympians representing Australia and gold medal winners, but the part I thought was the most amazing was that the poles also featured the names of every person who helped the Olympics run successfully. That’s from the person who constructed the park to the person who stood at the train station waving to the visitors. The majority of the day to day staff at an Olympic events are volunteers, and it’s quite a time and energy commitment. I got to witness this first hand when I went to London in 2012, and just knowing that every person, no matter how much they had done will forever be remembered. Because even though they weren’t competing, they were still representing Australia. It means a lot to me, and I’m neither Australian nor did I volunteer at these games. The poles are organized alphabetically by last name, so obviously I went to see if there was anyone with my name that volunteered. There were no Anya, Erin, Rhys or Daniel Phillips’ but there were two people names Karen Phillips. So there ya go, mom. And yes I took a photo. From the park, I went back into Circular Quay (the harbour between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House) to catch a ferry back to the house. I sat at the top of the open-aired ferry so I could get some snaps of the Bridge and Opera House from close-er up. It was very breezy on the way home, which was nice since it cooled down the unbelievably hot day. I’m spending tonight with some wine, this blog and TED Talks! If you don’t know what TED Talks are, I’m so sorry. But seriously look them up if you’re interested in learning things. I’ll catch up with you later!
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Meet AnyaHi, Hola, Bonjour, Ciao!
I’m Anya Phillips, a data analyst and travel enthusiast who is always on the lookout for the next adventure! Categories
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