Sydney... festivals and a longing for the city life

We arrived into Sydney following the freeway up from Goulburn. Along the freeway we learned that the Sydney metropolitan area is very fond of electronic road tolls. After a few detours we were able to steer our way to the few cash tolls. We were running late to get the van back in time but due to the significant amount of coffee and water that we had in the morning, we had to stop before we arrived in Sydney. However, as it turns out that a few of the turn-offs on the freeway that allow access back onto the freeway in one direction. We ended up having to back track 5 km just to get to a road that would let us turn around! We then pulled into the hostel, off loaded our bags and the 2 weeks of goods that we had accumulated because we got used to having a temporary home, which surprisingly enough can be a lot of things. Good for us most of it was food!
Dropping off the van was easy, only a quick clean of the van and we were off. However, another experience in the poor service of Wicked vans was the many hassles trying to get our deposit back. Overall our van was good, it caused us no problems. After talking with many other people who rented with wicked and the general service that we had with them, we would recommend that anyone who is planning on doing the same thing go with one of the other companies, like Juicy, XXX, They may cost 10-30 a day, but we’d say they are probably worth it.
We stayed at the Big hostel just off of Elizabeth street and Hay street. It’s on the South side of Downtown Sydney and East of China town. Great location; right on the free bus line and within walking distance to all of the major sights in downtown Sydney. Nothing in Sydney is cheap, including our accommodation, but we were able to get a private room with a bathroom for $89 a night. For example of some of the other costs, a 2L of coke will set you back ~$4-5, a can of coke can cost up to $3 in some places, coffee is about $4 even at McDonalds, a six pack of beer is $20. All in all we tried to keep our costs down but it wasn’t easy. After getting rid of our van we spent the night just checking out our new neighbourhood and hostel.

Sydney Festival

On day two we went on a four hour walking tour of Sydney, it was a very good way to quickly see most of the sights; Sydney harbour, the opera house, the rocks, century old churches and pubs. Lets just say that walking for 4 hours in the humid summer heat is exhausting – so of course we had to indulge in a restaurant we found right by the hostel called Spice I am. This little gem of a restaurant is a Thai lovers paradise. The food was so amazing. Stuffed, we went back to the hostel for a nap and in the evening went out to see the much hyped Sydney Festival. The festival runs close to 2 weeks and it’s a mix of new theater performances, comedy shows and music concerts. The first night of the festival was free too and we decided to check it out, we were not disappointed. There were 5 stages all over the city that were showing free performances. As soon as we showed up we knew half the city was there as well. The first stage we saw was a variety of acrobatic shows, the second was a huge outdoor music concert and the third which we almost missed was the amazing Indian music box. The last performance was so amazing we both stood in awe, enjoying every moment of the Mangiyar Seduction. You can catch a glimpse of their show on this web link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvKsrqCwyGQ

Walking home after the show, we were thinking that this festival is a lot like the Calgary Stampede in many ways. It draws hundreds of thousands of people in to the events and it is a great excuse for people to let off some steam. As per the Australian norm, things were winding down and people heading home just after 11.
The next day we set aside time to go and visit the travel agents office. We wanted to do some sailing around the Whitsunday islands and also dive on the Great Barrier Reef. Looking at all the information in our Lonely Planet book, we were still a little lost on how we were going to do both of these on our limited time frame and limited budget. However, as we were staying downtown almost everything in the city center was closed as it was Sunday. SO, we continued on our way with a fresh cup of coffee in hand to the Contemporary Arts Museum. The museum is free too, which is always a great plus! You aren’t allowed to bring in any cameras into the museum. There were some interesting pieces on the first two floors, but one of the main exhibits that we both really enjoyed was by an aboriginal woman. She worked in a variety of mediums to show the plight of the Aborigines and she is not afraid to show the darker side of history. One really interesting room was filled with ~4” of corn kernels on the floor. On the walls were a number of photographs of traditional ways of living. To see any of the pictures, you had to take your shoes/flip flops off and walk through the more than ankle deep corn kernels. What she was really trying to say is up to you, but it was very different than any exhibit we have seen yet. That night and like many nights and afternoons for the next few weeks we spent time on the internet doing research for our upcoming trips to India and the Middle East (Jordan/Israel).

Sydney Opera House

One good thing about our hostel is that it has a great kitchen. It’s usually very crowded, but they have a good set-up, several fridges and it’s clean. We managed to take advantage of this and cook a lot of our own meals. We really enjoyed being able to eat veggies and meals how we like. For two people who normally sustain themselves on a diet of 60%+ raw and cooked veggies with no sauces, our world trip has been a constant battle for foods we prefer. After our breakfast we were out the door to the travel agent to get some ideas on how to organize the next stages of our trip. An hour and a half later we came out of the travel office with more information but no more of a clear direction on what to do. We each headed off to get our hair cut and to get our passports from the post office. We sent them off in Perth to the Indian Consulate for a tourist Visa. We picked them up with no hassles and ended up eating lunch in a food-court at the bottom of the post office. The food court was a sight to see. People running frantically to get meals, wolf them down and run away back to work. The tables and anything with a square inch of surface area was filled with garbage and half eaten food. It all seemed much more a scene out of Asia than downtown Sydney. After our late lunch we split up and wandered the city, window shopping and exploring.

Sydney bridge!

We were in bed early that night, so that we would be well rested for our day trip to the zoo! We got up early to catch the first ferry out to Taronga Zoo. It’s definitely one of the best zoos that we’ve seen; after our experiences in Asia with the cruel treatment of animals, we had nearly sworn ourselves off of visiting any other zoos. However, we heard that this zoo is renowned for having lots of open spaces and that it’s on the forefront of nature conservation. Most of the animals have large enclosures with natural vegetation and areas where they can go to get away from the hordes of people. Only the giraffe and gorilla cages were too small and barren. All in all we had a great afternoon. One of the highlights for us was the walk-thru enclosure for the kangaroos. This enclosure has a double set of doors that you walk through and then are hit face-to-face with two dozen or so kangaroos of differing varieties. You could literally reach over and touch them, they are so close. The whole trip across Australia and we had to wait until this zoo to actually get a good glimpse of a kangaroo in the daytime!

After the zoo and for the entire next day we lounged around the city, surfed the internet and booked a trip from Airlie beach to sail the Whitsunday islands. In the evening we were off for a cinematic adventure! We made reservations at the GoVinda’s Restaurant and cinema. There was a vegetarian buffet (why does vegetarian often translate to ‘covered in butter/oil or cream sauce”?) followed by a movie. The movie is shown in a theater upstairs from the restaurant. The seats are big comfy beds. We watched a funny movie called “The invention of lying”. It’s definitely worth watching.

Sydney Fish Market

We spent the next day exploring the darling harbour and the Sydney fish market. We wanted to see this iconic Sydney market as it is world renowned for the quantity of seafood that is sold here each year. It is a customary Sydney-sider tradition at Christmas to come down to the market and stock up on all of the fruits of the sea. We wandered from store to store, amazed at the variety and size of some of the creatures. There was even seafood we had never heard of or seen called sea bugs, looks pretty much the same as it sounds, strange. We then settled down to some freshly cooked seafood, a bottle of white wine and some vine Bernard Calibeaut chocolate all for a steal of a price from the local markets. After our feast we were off for our night out at the Opera house. We booked an insider’s tour of the Opera house, followed by a comedy show. It was great to see the inside of such an iconic building (except the carpet which for some reason is purplec .eek… the tour guide said that when Pavarotti came to sing and saw that the reception went through the area with the purple rug he made them change the venue, he stated it was because purple was a bad luck color for Italians…we think it’s because it’s hideous). Right after the tour we got tickets to see an Australian comedian, we didn’t get half the jokes because of the slang or the references to news headlines but even so it was a great night.

We also got tickets the next day for a show called “6 impossible things before dinner” which was a one man illusion show. He challenges what you believe in, whether people can read minds or not and what the rational mind does in the face of an irrefutable demonstration of six very impossible events. Chad even got to be on stage! Each act required audience participation. Random people were chosen to go up on stage, and they were chosen by a foam football that flew around the room. If you caught the ball you got to go up. Three people were chosen, and everyone got to pick their seat and change their seat if they wanted to. Chad sat in seat number 2.Then you had to pick one of three different tests. The illusionist did these tests that the Russians performed during the cold war to see if some people they could recruit were psychic. Chads part in the show was to pick a card, at random. In the end, the performer not only guessed the right card, but also had a piece of paper on the back of the chair that had his guess written on it prior to the show. The guess showed which person would sit in which chair, which of the three tests that person would pick and the results of the test. The last test of the three was to guess a word out of the dictionary, chosen at random! Quite a show! It was an amazing show, the best secrets will stay secrets because if you ever see the show, you should be as amazed and thrilled as we were. We were sad to leave Sydney; it is such an amazing city with so much to offer but on the 17th we flew up up and away to Proserpine to sail and dive in the Whitsundays!

Sydney... festivals and a longing for the city life

Sydney, Australia