This entry is going to be short and sweet but very long. Huh? We went to see a show at Sydney's Wharf Theater this evening and so got back to the room a bit later than usual. So I'm not going to go on much about the events of the day. However, we did have a very full day and some activities that generated LOTS of pictures. I'm not going to try to explain each picture, I'm just going to throw them at the blog in clumps.
We began the day with Ros and Tony picking us up at the hotel and taking us to Bondi Beach where a wonderful art event is happening right now. It's called "Sculpture by the Sea" and is the work of dozens and dozens of artists exhibited along a seaside walk beginning at Bondi Beach. It's a really big deal here and there was some really nice work on display. I took a bunch of pictures and several of those follow without further comment.
Here's one more I took along that walk that I think is as wonderful a piece of art as the sculptures above.
No man hands did this work though. This is more of nature's handwork.
The sculpture walk pretty well took care of the morning and from there we had to hurry to our next appointment. Today is a very special day in Australia. It is the day of the Melbourne Cup Race and everything in the whole country pretty much stops for the race. Imagine the Kentucky Derby, the Super Bowl and the final game of the World Series all happening at once and you've got an idea of the impact of the Cup Race on Australia.
Our incredibly wonderful hosts, Ros and Tony, were so wonderfully kind to invite us to join them at their club for the race. Like I said, it's a really big deal and quite a delightful affair. Coat and tie required for me, which friends of our hosts graciously provided, and a hat for Fran -- just like Derby Day you see.
Evidence of the affair.
And the hat.
Now wouldn't you think that's enough? But no, from the Race Luncheon, we went back to visit the Opera House one more time. I bet you thought you had seen the last of that Opera House, well au contraire. More shots of that amazing sculpture to help erase that last picture from your memory banks.
The walkway going out to the Opera House is called the Writer's Walk. On it we discovered a connection that links Sydney, Australia with our own town of Saranac Lake.
Then we went to see a show at the Wharf Theater of Sydney.
And after the show, we had to walk back to the hotel past the Opera House at night.
If you look really closely, you can see white specks above the roofs. Those are sea gulls. Hundreds of sea gulls flying in the beams of the lights apparently feasting on the bugs the lights attract. So ends the saga of the Opera House.
OK, OK, I know it's cliched, but we are in Sydney after all and if Sydney is about anything it's about the Opera House. So there's sort of this compulsion to lead off with the totally expected this time.
We left our hotel, pictured here, at a reasonable hour, ie. the sun was well up. The Russell Hotel is a charmingly older hotel smack dab in the middle of the area called the Rocks and just so barely off the harbor. A very convenient location suggested by our friends in Melbourne and a lovely little accommodation.
Our first adventure for the day, after breakfast, was to get on one of the many ferries and head out of the harbor to Manly a nearby town. We then spent the next three hours on a medium sized trek about Manly.
As we explored, we saw some of our first wildlife of the trip, exclusive of the pubs, of course. This is one of a pair of Cockatoos we saw sitting on the ground calmly munching on pine cones.
And a little further along the trail, we found this guy sensibly sunning him/herself on a handy rock. I think a local called it a Tear Drop Lizard. I'm sure Ed will correct me if I'm wrong about that.
This is what part of the coast around Manly looks like. We probably walked between five and six miles and it was well worth it. And, to our delight, the temperatures in Sydney changed yesterday afternoon from 30 degrees to 17 or 18 degrees (all centigrade, of course) and with the stiff breeze we were actually a bit cool at times.
Along the way, we passed this marvelous little section of rock face that really wanted to have it's picture taken. It's not really a picture "of" anything. I just really like the image.
That one was what I would call "found art". Also along a part of the path there were some examples of public art. A couple of those follow.
These are part of a series of nice little metal sculptures that were just rather randomly set in the rocks lining the path.
From Manly we retuned via ferry to Sydney and had to go by the Opera House once again. Sorry. But it's just so THERE and it's really pretty darn impressive.
Back on the ground in Sydney, we ventured through the Botanical Gardens and ended up at the Museum of New South Wales where we found some more critters -- for you critter lovers in the group.
This was in a section of the museum devoted to aboriginal art.
From there we finally staggered homeward on very tired feet. After a period of revival at the hotel we ventured out one more time for a lovely dinner at a place called, Fish on the Rock. One more foodie shot and we'll be done for the night as it's past time to call it a day. So our Monday ends and yours begins. Have a great day.
Fran had a cod dish which she liked a lot and I had a fish dish I've never heard of before. The fish was called Barramundi and it was served whole but deboned and stuffed with prawn and veggies. It was swimming in a slightly spicy coconut and red curry sauce that was extremely tasty. A delicious ending to another very good day.
We have landed in OZ. Pretty much all of yesterday was spent on trains or in airports. And I think you all pretty much know how exciting that is. If there is anything remarkable about it at all it's how homogenous airports are throughout the world -- at least the bigger international ones. Yesterday we flew form Osaka to Guangzhou, China and then on to Sydney. Aside from a few language issues and some variations in food choices, we could just as well have been at JFK, Logan or O'Hare. Didn't get many picture during that day and those I did get aren't worth sharing.
But I do want to back up for just a moment to include a picture from our last night in Japan. This is from where we had dinner before spending the night in the same hotel we spent our first night in Japan in. (The hotel was great because it had all the amenities to include an in-room washer and dryer so we could arrive in Australia with all clean clothes.)
This is for the cat lovers in the crowd, and I know who you are. The cafe we ate at (katsu don again) had a definite theme. All the dishware and the waiter's shirts had little kitty faces. The bowl above came filled with edema-me-- and don't miss the one on the glass.
OK. So we're now in Sydney after another long flight, but not nearly as long as the flight from JFK to Hong Kong, it's morning and we catch a shuttle to our quaint little hotel right in the harbor district.
This is a stone staircase at the end of the alleyway right outside the entrance to the hotel. I have no idea who the subject is, but it's a fascinating piece of public art.
Our first stop after dropping things at the hotel was to find food, remember who I'm traveling with. Right across the way and just behind the Opera House was this lovely little Oyster Bar. How can you say "no" to that? So we didn't.
And after lunch, well during lunch actually, there was that fantastic sculpture that is a building. Can't wait to see it from some different angles, but I don't think it's going to make it any better or worse. It works from any angle.
It being Sunday, there was a street fair/market going on in this part of town and there were a number of musicians and other artists plying their trade. Here is a gentleman who was doing a pastel creation on a large canvas. There was also a mime doing Charlie Chaplin and a group of aboriginal performers didgeridooing.
Noticed this outside a pub on the way from the harbor area to the market. Considering the given attribution for the quote, I couldn't pass it up. The old fellow on the right would have been hard to pass up too.
A dozen shared oysters don't really make for much of a lunch. So we had to find a way to supplement. T & D shouldn't be at all surprised what kind of supplement it turned out to be. It was really good too. But I actually passed up some gelato.
Another interesting piece of public art. The sculpture ain't half bad either.
Now I found this one amazing. This is an artist holding up one of his creations. They range quite a bit in style, but tend toward somewhat of a Star Wars feeling. Anyway, he works with spray paint and makes the creation of each piece a performance. He has some music playing, actually tends to move and make strokes in time with the music, and takes about ten to twelve minutes to do a piece -- all with spray paint, newspaper and a few objects he places on the paper to define shapes. He doesn't allow pictures to be taken of him making the pieces, but I asked him if I could just get a shot of him and he readily agreed and insisted that we do it so the Australian flag would be in the shot. Ah, the many faces of creativity.
What have we seen the most of in Australia so far? That may be Pubs. Remembering that this country's origins are English, that shouldn't be much of a surprise. Maybe it's just the neighborhood we're in, but you never have to look far for a pub.
We got invited out to dinner tonight by friends of friends. Didn't get any pictures, but it was a delightful dinner and they were wonderful, fun people. We are looking forward to seeing them again.
This is the zen garden at the temple we stayed in for the past two nights. The problem with these zen temple places is that they are the result of a lot of people over a very long period of time taking great care in making them places of beauty. And they've done a good job of it. So it's pretty much impossible to get very far in or around them without finding more stuff to photograph. Of course, I'm sure it's all been photographed before, but it's all fresh to my eyes. As a result, I end up taking waaaayyy too many pictures and when I get around to looking at them to make selections to include in these blog entries I end up with more images than anyone should reasonably be expected to wade through. But, ultimately that's your problem and not mine.
My problem is finding the time to post all of the pictures I've selected as being interesting -- at least to me. And in the final analysis, that may be the deciding factor. How much time will be available to get it all done and still get out there to make more pictures. My god. It's an endless, self-perpetuating cycle. This travel business is exhausting. I need a drink.
Lucky for me, these units seem to abound all over Japan. A refreshing drink is just a few steps away. Interestingly, most of the beverages included are juice mixtures or flavored waters. There's not nearly as much soda available as we see in the US. And the obesity rate is considerably lower here too. Coincidence?
I'm going to slip in few shots here of some of the more "normal" events of our day today. We did make one more temple visit, but I will spare you that.
This shot demonstrates the fun of riding a city bus. One thing there is no lack of in Kyoto, or Japan itself for that matter, is people. We used four different forms of ground transport during our time in Kyoto, train (the most), subway, bus and taxi (the most expensive) and in all but taxis, the crowds were daunting.
Did I mention there were a lot of people around? And the closer you got to a temple, especially the popular ones, the lotter of people there were. From what we saw at this temple today, I can't imagine there were any kids in school anywhere in Japan today.
And where there are people, there has to be food and places to obtain it. In the temple areas restaurants were plentiful and all had to advertise themselves. They do it with a typical Japanese flair.
Mockups of menu items are common, but this display of some rather over-the-top desserts did catch our attention -- for picture taking purposes only, not to be sampled. And I have no idea of what some of those ingredients were. But I must say I have eaten more new food items in the past week than I have done for a very long time. And to be honest, I haven't encountered anything I really didn't like.
OK, so I lied. So shoot me. These are temple shots. But it was a pretty cool temple, aside from the crowds. The most notable things about this temple were the cool breezes high above the city and the much more colorful, almost gaudy, paint job than what we had been seeing on other temples.
A river runs through Kyoto and we crossed a bridge over it. Couldn't help but notice the lone fisherman seated in the middle of the river. Also couldn't help but take a picture of it.
Our visit to Kyoto ended as it began, in Kyoto Station. According to Hiroko, it is the biggest train station in all of Japan. It is immense and very impressive, but not at all in keeping with the historic style and sense one has of the city. It is a monument to Kyoto's new image of itself -- one of modernity and growth. An interesting direction for a city that has been the historic center of Japan for so many centuries.
And as with so many things that involve change, we're never quite sure just how they will turn out. But it's been a fabulous Birthday.
