Sydney and Saturday

I've made it back from Syndey, after a very long and uneventful and did I mention long flight back on Friday. Here are some more pictures:

Hotel:





Bondi Beach...



...and its INCREDIBLY CLEAR WATER:



Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge:











Skyline:

From Milson's Point...


From Mrs Macquary's Park:


The Taronga Zoo:

Ferry ride over to the zoo:




Baby Wallaby:





Koala - he was walking right towards my camera:



Meerkats - by far the animal which captivity seems to have affected the least - they were so curious and seemed so happy:





Tiger - I felt really bad for the tigers. They were obviously not pleased to be there, although I think they had been raised in captivity:



Tiger hissing at zoo visitors:



There was this little section of the zoo that you had to enter two gates to get through, but once you were inside it was a small path through this little kangaroo and wallaby habitat. It was pretty amazing.

Kangaroo:



Wallaby:



There was also this huge bird there which was not shy. Gina asked if it was threatening, and I responded with, "You see a bird that big walking towards you, you don't care what it's thinking. You get out of the way."



Even the wallaby got out of the way when it saw the bird coming - he hopped right in front of me on the path:



View of Sydney from the zoo:



I fell in love with this city. So clean and beautiful and not overcrowded. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love my job.

Steal a koala from Sydney - check.

(Yes, this picture of me is really awful. But look... this photo isn't about Katie. It's about Katie with the koalas!)

Aussie Wasps

The things I go through for my job... I could hear these wasps plotting to attack us. It was a narrow escape.

$ydney, Day One

I left Los Angeles Friday night just before midnight. I’d been trying for a week to figure out how best to prepare for the 17 hour time difference. I decided it would be best to mentally stay on Los Angeles time until I arrived in Sydney, at which point I would just stay awake until a reasonable bedtime and thereby be incredibly sleepy.

I slept fairly solidly for the first seven hours of the flight. Don’t get me wrong – these were not seven hours of good, restful sleep, but they were better than nothing. So when I woke up, it was nearly 8am on Saturday Los Angeles time, which meant it was about 1am Sydney time on Sunday. I decided to stay awake, and I actually felt pretty good. I napped on and off for the rest of the flight, but for the most part, I was awake.

Allow me to say here that Qantas is the best airline I’ve ever flown. Moving on…

Upon arrival in Sydney, I was so excited that I didn’t really care what time it was (it was about 8am Sydney time on Sunday – 3pm Los Angeles time on Saturday). I made my decision firm to live on Sydney time starting then. I went through customs/immigration, got some cash, bought some postcards, hailed a taxi and reached the hotel. Feeling good, I imagined it must be noon by now. Nope. 9:15am.

Since breakfast is included in the cost of my room, I decided to take part in the buffet. I reasoned I should eat at that point, thereby not having to spend a nickel on lunch, and then I’d just eat dinner at a normal time. Breakfast was uneventful and a little too European for my liking (they sure like roasted tomatoes and lunch meat for breakfast), but I managed to find some stuff I like. Satiated, I went upstairs. It must be noon by now! Nope. 10:45am.

I chatted with gina for a bit – she suggested I take a nap. I was very nervous about napping because I really don’t want to be awake all night. I decided I’d go explore the area of Sydney where I am. Of course, I never get the cool skyline view. Here’s the view from my room:





I think this is the town hall:



Kind of construction-y and tame, but I like it nonetheless.

Here’s the heated outdoor pool. It’s fall here, so not too many people are swimming. And by not too many, I mean to say that no one is swimming.



The weather is gorgeous here – the leaves are orange and the sun is shining. Upper 60s. I ventured outside and around the corner and saw what would undoubtedly keep me busy until the evening:







Shopping, shopping, and more shopping. So much shopping. And this is when I thought this area of Sydney should be called $ydney. I don’t even like to shop that much, but when I’m in a city by myself, there’s not really much else to do. And this was so bloody convenient. To my dismay, a lot of the stores were stores like Borders and… um… other stores native to America that I can’t think of right now. But I managed to walk into quite a few stores. After much deliberation, I bought this bag:



As I was heading back to the hotel, I noticed there was an entrance to what looked like an underground mall or something. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before I found myself underground walking through this mall that seemed to never end. I was getting a little claustrophobic and a lot dizzy. I only managed to snap this one shot, but this is what it looked like, for what seemed like miles and miles, and levels and levels:



I managed to make it outside to what I think is the town hall, and I saw this older couple feeding this crazy Australian bird:



Also:





I had to go back into the crazy dizzying mall to get back to the hotel, so I managed to make it through and buy a smoothie on the way. I snapped a few more shots outside – close-up shots of this guy painting the sidewalk:





And these cute kids playing their instruments:



I got back to the hotel, convinced it was about 5pm. Nope – 2:30pm. To pass the time, I went to the gym for an hour, came back to my room, took a long bath, uploaded the photos off the camera, wrote this long blog entry, and it’s now finally 6:00pm, which means I can feasibly order dinner and give myself two more hours before I can finally go to bed, of course not before popping a Vicodin. Please oh please let me be able to sleep.

Lessons from down under.

I just landed in Sydney this morning (Saturday afternoon in USA, Sunday morning in Australia) for my next international adventure. I was thrilled to be coming here for many reasons, but mostly because the country's official language is ENGLISH! Woo hoo!

I haven't explored much yet, but I have perused the hotel's restaurant dinner menu and have decided what I will NOT be ordering:

Kangaroo loin with bush spices

Maybe the first language isn't English, because in English, that sounds disgusting.

Universal language.

Found at the base of a statue in Curaco.

Chicago

...or "How I Love That It's Part of My Job to Take One of the Company's Canon Digital Rebels With Me Whenever I Travel For Work."







I was going to mess with these in Photoshop, but then I realized, I have no real knowledge of Photoshop. I figure I'd just let the Digital Rebel speak for itself in these shots. The pictures aren't perfect, but I still think they're pretty f*cking cool.