28.June_Darling Harbor
Sunday, a day off, what to do what to do? Well Emily, Andrew, Gina and Myself decided to go explore some things we had not yet seen, yes, there are still things we have not seen. My choice was Darling Harbor. Designed to be a great place where all the locals would flock to hang out and have a good time, the result was actually much closer to an amusement park. Filled with Asian tourists with cameras stuck to their faces, Americans in sandals and high white socks feeding their large children, and plenty of street performers, it’s really the epitome of the American theme park, right down to the ferris wheel and the cheesy train tram thing that drives around a group of tired, angry looking parents and their wide eyed children. Don’t get me wrong there’s plenty to see and do, and the view across the harbor is nice, but I certainly don’t need to go back. We walked around for a few, just to see everything, expensive harbor bars, a Chinese garden, a couple museums, and heaps of people before heading back across the bridge (a bridge, not the bridge) to the real world.
After that, we set out to find Hyde Park and hopefully a bit more low key place to chill for a smidge. On our way however, we got sidetracked, due in large part to Gina, by a market that Adrian had told us about a few days ago. The marlet is situated in the basement of the David Jones building. Now I know what you're thinking, “A market in the basement?!” “Obsurd” But it was really awesome. They had a bunch of individual counters for different types of food, meets, seafood, vegetables, anti-pasto, pastas, need I go on? Cakes, pies, cookies, olive oil, smoothies, a noodle bar, and my favorite, one entire counter dedicated to sausages. I’d tell you about the different kinds of sausages but you wouldn’t even believe it. So the market was pretty spectacular, though we didn’t purchase anything, we’re planning to go back and buy some things then have a picnic in the park, cute.
Hyde Park_Chess Chaps
Next we made it to Hyde Park, not that it was hard, walk straight from Darling Harbor and you hit the park, but we made it. So this park is supposedly home to a life-size chess set. To me, life size means the size they would be in real life, you know, people the size of people, horses the size of horses, some Harry Potter stuff you know, what a let down. That knight couldn’t even bite my kneecap. On the bright side, the gentleman playing the game of chess were fantastic. I could sit for days photographing them and not capture how intense this game was. It was actually really cool to watch, even if they were a bit smaller than advertised. The rest of the park is nice too, they’ve kindly erected a statue of me naked slaying a Minotaur, a few of the details are off, but the likeness is pretty good.
Across the street from the park is a church, interesting looking but probably built about 300 years after what it was modeled after and plenty of clues to suggest that this is true. Yes mom, I went to church in Australia. I thought you’d be proud. Next we walked down the street to the botanical gardens, meandering through the trees and flowers, careful not to touch any of the native species. Later in the garden we found some bats in a tree, also called flying foxes, which turned out to be terrifying. They were just sleeping in some trees, but I felt as if the end was quite near. Terrifying, I’m telling you.
TERRIFYING!!
So we continue through the park and the sky turns blackish. Oops, didn’t look at the weather, but it turned out that the other side of the sky looked amazing, and then there was a serious rainbow. Words can’t do it justice, but see the photos for a special experience. After that, we tried to see the sun setting by the harbor, sprinting through the park with our bags in tow in the pouring rain, ending up on top of a hill adjacent to the opera house and completely missing the sunset anyhow. Running through the rain however is invigorating. I suggest you try it right now, I’ll wait. So we ended up stuck under a giant tree trying not to get drenched by the pouring rain. It wasn’t so bad.
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