Day 3: Thursday, February 7, 2002
Shopping in Sydney

Bats in Botanical Gardens

It was still drizzly today, but not too bad. So far the rain hadn't gotten in the way too much, since it was mostly off and on. We decided to go to the Botanical Gardens, which is near the Opera House. It was a lovely park with lots of interesting plants. There were lots of bats hanging out in some of the trees. Apparently they population has grown too high and they're trying to reduce them, in part by putting speakers in the trees and playing sounds that annoy the bats. Not sure if it's working. Pests or not, Walendo liked that they were there. After wandering through the park for an hour or so, we made our way back the Harbor, where we had breakfast at the City Extra cafe, one of several right on the harbor. It was pretty good, nothing special.

City Extra Cafe

After that, we took the bus up George Street to Paddy's Market. We'd read that they had 100s of stalls selling all sorts of goods, but when we got to the location, we just found a mall. We wandered through its different levels, and at one point found a bags store with dozens of backpacks. We looked through them, carefully looking for one with all the right features. (Walendo needed to replace the one he had brought cuz the zipper had broken.) Backpack designs have come a long way since my college days. In the end, there were a couple we liked but we didn't buy just yet. Then we went up to the food court where Walendo got his signature cheap Chinese food, which he declared to be good. (I wasn't hungry.)

As we were getting ready to leave, I said that it just didn't seem right that this had been a regular old mall. Both the Rough Guide and Frommer's described it as a marketplace with stalls. So we looked around some more and found that in the basement there were indeed 100s of stalls, lining the entire basement of the place. Jackpot! We grabbed our FRS radios and split up so we could each browse at our own pace but still stay in contact. We both bought t-shirts, Walendo got some tank tops for our trip to Heron Island, I found a cheap portable hairdryer (with an Australian plug) for AU$15 (US$7.50), we got boomerangs for the kids for Xmas, and Walendo got some sheepskin slippers, and probably more. All of this probably cost a total of about US$50 between the two of us. What a deal. We had a great time, just our type of thing.

Walendo shopping for backpacks

Then when we had finished our flurry of buying, we sat outside for a bit and rested our legs. While we sat there, we decided that we should go back to the bags place to get that backpack. We chose one that had enough pockets in the right places and Walendo got it. (It too worked out well through the rest of the trip.) More booty! We transferred everything from his current backpack to the new one, and on we went.

We decided to walk back up George Street rather than taking the bus, just to check it out. Along the way, we came across a movie theater so we decided to see what was playing. Of course, it had finally cleared up, so it was a little silly to go to a movie now, but so be it. We ended up seeing Spy Game with Brad Pitt and Robert Redford. We agreed it was pretty good, better than we'd been expecting. After the movie we walked back to the room and rested a bit before going out for dinner.

La Mela Restaurant

We went to the Rocks area in search of Italian food. We found a place called La Mela that turned out to be quite good. We got pizza and a pasta dish and both were delicious. The restaurant was upstairs and probably had a good view at one point, but now it faced a warehouse-type building, oh well. We could see an Australian flag, and I was curious what the stars represented. We found out later that they are the Southern Cross, a constellation you can see only from the southern hemisphere. Sure doesn't look like a cross to me, but then again, many constellations take some liberties.

After dinner we strolled home via the harbor. It was all lit up and looked very pretty. The Opera House is just so dramatic and beautiful, and the Harbor Bridge adds to it, and of course the harbor itself with the piers sticking out and the nice buildings around it. It struck me as strange that so few cities have such beautiful harbors that are so much the focus of the city, even despite the fact that most cities are on water. SF has Fisherman's Wharf, but that's not the central area it is here and it's not nearly as pretty. Chicago has a nice area near the lake, but again it's not the focus of the city and it's not as nice. New York and London don't do much with their rivers, and although Paris has some nice walks along the river, it's not dramatic like this. Even Seattle doesn't focus the city on the water. Strange. But nice for Sydney.

Tomorrow we meet Gordon and we'll walk up the Harbor Bridge.

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