|
| 9:00am |
The alarm went off. |
| 9:04am |
I opted to recognize the Sovereignty of The Alarm, and got up. |
| 9:31am |
We began a flurry of phone calls using
a Global Gossip calling card (1.4c a minute during off-peak hours;
peak in Sydney for calls is apparently 6pm-midnight here). |
| 9:44am |
You'll be pleased to know the parents of Tubby will be providing
return transportation. And his mum had a comprehensive shopping list
for us to add to our current lists. |
| 10:03am |
Calls done, and we're out the door
and off to the large market down in Chinatown, just a few blocks from
the hotel. |
| 10:05am |
And we're out the door a second time. (Someone -- Tubby -- made
out a wonderfully detailed shopping list of opals, trinkets and other
baubles as gifts, then left it behind, causing us a two minute delay.)
On the way, we passed the Civic Tower, which seems to be a fat building
perched on a
narrow base. Neat. |
| 10:08am |
With the recommendation of Frank's
recommendation (the chap who drove us to the hotel yesterday), we
made our way to Paddy's Market, located just along Sussex Street. |
| 10:23am |
An obligatory stop at the cash vending machine (aka "ATM"),
figuring the merchants and vendors of wares would smiles most sincerely
at the sight of hard cash instead of the flash-in-the-pan credit cards. |
| 10:28am |
The first impressions are essentially
that everything here is just
as you'd expect at a flea market sort of sale anywhere else. Except
there's a ton of stuffed wombats, kangaroos and wallabies, along with
more than a few t-shirts. (And worry not; we didn't purchase any of
those things.) |
| 11:33am |
Tubby, Rachel and I had managed to gather up a goodly deal of items
for family and others, and in Rachel's case, friends. |
| 11:48pm |
Wandering along George Street (yes,
there's also streets called Elizabeth, Queen, and King, if you can
connect those dots), we found the Pizza Hut that Tubby at in on 17
September 2002, beginning at 7:07pm. (In retrospect, I muse at
the fact that on that night, so many months ago, Julie really did
know best.) |
| 11:55am |
Except, of course, on their lunch-time interpretation of a chicken
parmesan pizza. As near as I can tell, this is a cheese pizza
with chicken nuggets and parmesan cheese sprinkled on top. But for
AU$9.95 (plus AU$2.99 for a free-refill soda), it wasn't a bad deal. |
| 12:42pm |
We finally left after Tubby put away
five slices of pepperoni pizza, a plate and a half of pasta, two bowls
of Jell-O squares (assorted in both red and green varieties), and
a bowl of soft-serve ice cream that was on the extreme soft side (e.g.,
liquid). I simply nibbled on the garlic bread, and because it's probably
impolite, I won't tell you what Rachel ate. |
| 12:44pm |
Directly next door is BookStar, which has the unfortunate circumstance
of closing, with their final date being Friday, 18 June, at 2pm sharp.
(Why they're closing at 2pm and not 3pm or high noon, I don't know.) |
| 1:19pm |
We exited BookStar several books heavier
for the experience, and much to the annoyance of Qantas, having Tubby
and I expanded into a second piece of checked luggage (one bag of
our clothing and duck care items, the other for crap we bought, wherein
the buying began just a few hours ago). |
| 1:20pm |
Crossing the street, I couldn't help but wonder when games,
e-mail, and ice cream went hand in hand like communism and country
music. |
| 1:27pm |
Buyer's remorse kicked in, although
being shopper types, the remorse was for not buying more. So yes,
we're all back at
Paddy's Market, but with a good idea of what we missed, the shopping
is far more tactical and focused. |
| 1:54pm |
And we're done. Sure, 27 minutes may not sound tactical, but we
did have to cover a lot of ground -- it's not a small market by any
means. On the way out, I couldn't help but be impressed by the
entrance we didn't get to use as an entrance... forced to use
that crappy commoner's entrance along the side alley; honestly. |
| 2:19pm |
We're back in the room to set down
those things purchased at Bookstar and Paddy's Market before continuing
on the shopping expedition. |
| 2:40pm |
On the way to Circular Quay, we passed again through Hyde Park again,
and gave one of the
fountains a gander. (By gander, a mean a look, nothing of the
bird variety.) |
| 2:42pm |
The
front of St. Mary's Cathedral is more or less bathed in shadows,
but the side
doors at St. Mary's is far nicer than the side entrance to the
markets. |
| 3:14pm |
We loop around the end of Macquarie Street near the Opera House
and toward the opal shop, and I just can't help with another
picture. But the clouds seemed particularly fluffy today, don't
you think? |
| 3:25pm |
After two very courteous drivers let
us cross George Street to the other side (yes, people actually stop
for pedestrians here... at least on George Street, anyway), I found
myself again in
front of Flame Opals, which is reminiscent of our shopping trips
there on September 21, 2002 (just four days after that fateful run-in
with Julie at Pizza Hut, which like Flame Opals, is located on George
Street here in Sydney). |
| 4:12pm |
Tubby was finally able to commit to his opal purchases, but I must
confess, it took come coaxing and even me
modeling some of the pieces to seal the deal. (Kathy and Kate
were also terribly helpful in getting Tubby to the point of selecting
something that would be lovely to look at, explaining the proper care
of the opal, and so forth. I made sure they each were rewarded with
a FrankPen and our undying gratitude. So, if you're ever in Sydney,
and don't want to settle for the cheap doublets or triplets sold in
the trinket shops, I'd suggest visiting this shop -- the opal jewelry
is 100% opal, and has been since they opened in '73.) |
| 4:32pm |
With our little red bags in hand and
under wing, we walked along toward the underside of the Sydney Harbour
Bridge. Looking up, we saw another crew of bridge
climbers overhead, and a wedding
party out for afternoon photos down below. Such scenery! |
| 4:40pm |
Across the harbour, along the shores of North Shore, stands Luna
Park. I'm sure it's a lovely place, but the giant
clown head at the front just looks scary-evil. Maybe that's the
point (?). |
| 4:45pm |
With sunset being a bit on the early
side, the Opera House found
itself again
in the foreground of some pinkish cotton-candy looking clouds. (Yes,
I know... *again* with the clouds.) |
| 5:25pm |
We managed to get back to the room, albeit slowly, having ambled
there with no particular driving force. Figuring food was good, we
argued about options. |
| 6:32pm |
But not yet hungry, and with Tubby
cursing the laptop that seems to be sending more data than we could
readily explain, we disconnected. (He took a staggering 13 minutes
to document the fact that in a 20 minute call, 26MB of data was being
sent, yet, we didn't have any programs running... I was assured this
would be reported to the proper authorities when he got to the office.) |
| 6:38pm |
So, we popped into Global Gossip, an internet cafe (that also does
phone cards and other things), and he hopped online. Of course, being
four deep in customers, we wandered over to the bulletin board for
a read. Of the ads for cars for sale posted, an alarming number of
them seem to be trying to sell
Ford Falcons. Sure, they're Fords, but why so many? We'll likely
never know. |
| 7:46pm |
Tubby apparently got all wrapped up
in a chat, which delayed our departure, but for reasons not entirely
known to me, he seemed quite delighted with the delay. Go figure. |
| 7:57pm |
Like a rash that you just can't shake, we found ourselves at --
shock -- Pizza Hut, to partake of the buffet that Julie couldn't talk
us into so many months ago. |
| 9:25pm |
We finally left the Pizza Hut. The
replenishment times for some of the selections, and an overall expounding
of Tubby's perspective on interest rates, greatly expanded the dinner
experience. Sadly, I fear his analogy of interest rates to the tides
didn't do much to further clarify his point, but no one seemed involved
enough in the conversation to point that out. |
| 9:43pm |
Thoroughly bored with his ramblings, I instead shuffled off to do
my updates and posting, and ignored everything else. |
| 11:58pm |
And much to my surprise, it's two
hours later. Drat. With any luck, the connection will not be transferring
such an ungodly amount of data, and I can post without spending the
next several hours. But either way, I'm off to make with the Zzzzzz'.
G'night! (Oh, and since tomorrow night is on a train, the updates
for the 12th won't be posted until sometime on the 13th, after we
arrive in Brisbane.) |
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