Sightseeing Down Under Under Gray Skies

Australia Travelog #3
Sydney CBD - Sun, 24 Dec 2023, 1pm

We got to our hotel around 7:30 this morning. Our room wasn't ready (and wouldn't be ready for several more hours) but the cheerful front desk agent gave us keys that grant access to the club lounge (for free food) and the gym (where we could shower and change). We took the offer on the lounge and went up to the 36th floor for a while to eat... well, I guess, second breakfast. The airline had fed us some crap food around, oh, maybe 4am local time. The food in the lounge was better.



While relaxing in the lounge with non-airplane food we plotted out things we could visit today. Right near us was the Sydney Tower Eye. We could see it out the windows, and I've included a picture (above). We wouldn't do that today, though. "Let's save the aerial view of the city for a day when the weather's nice," I proposed.

What's wrong with the weather today? Well, the partly-sunny view you see in the photo is about the best we'd see all day. It got cloudier shortly after that and rained later in the day. That didn't stop us, though, from going on a self-guided tour around town on foot.



Our sightseeing began immediately as we left the Hilton. (Well, actually it began from the lounge on one of the high floors.) Directly across the street was the Queen Victoria Building. Completed in 1896 to honor Britain's Queen Victoria, it is now a shopping mall.

Hmm, did you notice that the Sydney Tower Eye is a shopping mall, too? The "Westfields" logo on it belongs to a shopping mall chain.

We walked about a mile— excuse me, 1.6km— up George Street to the Circular Quay. It's a station for a few commuter rail lines and several ferries. We stopped for a number of sights between the hotel and there but I won't detail them now as this journal would get too long.



From the harbor near Circular Quay you can see a few of Sydney's famous icons. One is the Sydney Opera House. I've included a photo I captured, above. You can see what kind of a gray day we're dealing with today. Alas we're only in Sydney for a few days so waiting out the crummy weather is not an option.

A little further north of Circular Quay is the Rock Market. That was actually kind of our main destination for the day as it's full of street vendors and Hawk was looking forward to buying some gemstones. Alas, while there are some vendors there selling actual rocks, the name "Rock Market" seems to come from something else. It's a typical street market selling lots of overpriced crap and food.

Just beyond the Rock Market was something I was interested in: a Sydney Harbor Bridge view point.



So, yeah, here's an example of the gap between a 2D representation of things, like a map, and those actual, 3D things. Sure, there's is a great view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge at this (X,Y) point... if you're, say, Z = 100 meters above the ground. 🤣

From the Rock Market and the bridge under-view point we walked back to the hotel, looping around past the botanical garden, St. Mary's Cathedral, and Hyde Park. I'll write about this is another blog because (a) this one's getting long already, and (b) the hotel has just texted me that our room is ready. We've been in the same clothes for 36 hours and we're tired, too. It's time to grab showers and clean clothes... and probably a nap somewhere in between those two.

What if it was Christmas Eve and (almost) noone cared?

Australia Travelog #4
Sydney CBD - Sun, 24 Dec 2023, 2pm

As we've toured around through downtown Sydney today you could barely tell it's Christmas Eve— by US standards, anyway— and that's a good thing. Here's the Christmas displays, trees, and various other festoonery are minimal. We saw just two decorated trees today— and one was at a church. Christmas music was at a minimum, as well. We only heard it playing in obvious tourist traps.

Compare this to Christmas in the US, where the Ghost of Christmas Presents is shoved down your throat for 10 weeks straight. That's really part of why I use the tag Bah Humbug for Christmas. In the US we've taken the wrong lesson from the classic story A Christmas Carol. It's like we've answered the the old question, "What is the true meaning of Christmas?" with no sense of our own irony by rehabilitating Scrooge into the hero. The new meaning of Christmas is spending money and enriching merchants.

Speaking of the true meaning of Christmas, we did visit or historic church. Or, at least, we tried....



St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney is a few block from our hotel. And at this Catholic church, on Christmas Eve, there were guards at all the doors informing there was NO ROOM AT THE INN. Visitors were not welcome.

I don't think I can even spell out the irony of this without going crazy. I'm going to hope it's obvious.

But just in case it's not, here's another hint in the form of more unintentional irony.



This manger scene was one of the few public displays of Christmas stuff we saw in Sydney. At least unlike in the US, where it's a hot-button issue whether displays like this should be sponsored by and positioned in front of government offices, this one's actually on the grounds of a church.

But let's talk about what's going on here. It's the classic nativity scene of baby Jesus. He's surrounded by animals. Because he was born in a barn. Do you know the story of why Jesus was born in a barn?

Uh-huh.

And you don't think guards at the door of the building turning people away on this day, of all days, is just a little ironic?

As we headed back to our hotel just a few blocks away we visited a Jewish synagogue, too. Or, once again, we tried. The synagogue was all closed up for the day. Apparently the members of the temple had all begun their Christmas Eve tradition— of going out to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. 🤣