The Archive

If you see Sydney, tell him

So it was time to bid farewell to Will, Jas and Wombat 25 (thanks for everything guys, see you in the gite) and move on to Sydney, the biggest city in Australia with 4 and a half million people and the most iconic building in Australia.

The first day’s sightseeing in Sydney is made very easy for any tourist thanks to the opera house.

This building, finished in 1973 after 14 years of construction work (tsk, government project eh?), is like the Eiffel tower. If you go to Paris, you really must must must go and see that. And the Arc de Triomphe I suppose. And the Sacre Coeur I guess. And maybe Notre Dame too.

Ok, it’s nothing like the Eiffel tower. Let’s try again.

It’s like the Blackpool tower. If you’re in town it’s the single, iconic building that you absolutely have to see before you leave.

The building was designed by a Danish architect and budgeted to cost $7million. Guess how much it cost in the end? Go on, have a go.

$102 million.

Makes the Scottish Parliament look like a model of project management doesn’t it?

So, figuring it was better to see this sooner rather than later, we headed for the bay.

Well, not quite, first I met up with my host, Sera Kiwi, and we went for a few beers at her local pub which, I was pleased to discover, is staffed by South Africans. So now you know how we feel, Aussies.

Anyway, we jumped on a bus (just outside Russell Crowe’s favourite pub, apparently. Didn’t see him though, or any flying telephones) which took us all the way to the bay, where we found the Opera bar with a beautiful view of the Harbour, the bridge and the opera house (which was just as well. We’d have been pretty cheesed off if it was called the Opera bar because they played opera in the background).

The bridge, I have to say, was a big disappointment. In truth, although I had heard of this famous span, I couldn’t have picked it out of a ‘usual suspects’ style identity parade of bridges. And now I’ve seen it, I still couldn’t.

Other than being very big, it’s just not very distinctive. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by having Tower Bridge on my doorstep, or maybe it’s just a dull bridge, as Sera informs me it is referred to by the locals as ‘the coathanger’.

The Opera house, on the other hand, delivered in spades. Apparently this amazing structure is designed to put one in mind of the palm fronds that can be found in this area.

It doesn’t of course. What it does put you in mind of is toenail clippings. Seriously, have a look at it and think toenails. I'm right aren't I?

Nevertheless, you have to give it credit for being quite so bold a design and giving Sydney an image that, forever more, filmmakers will shoot footage of from a helicopter in order to tell the audience ‘meanwhile, in Australia…’

The view of the harbour was rather inspiring. But even more so was the cinema that had been set up on the shore, in which the screen is slightly out in the water and the seats looking towards the screen can see, just behind it, the harbour, the bridge and the opera house all standing proud. It’s really quite impressive and you’d have to be a fool to miss going to a cinema like that.

I am a fool. I went to the pub.

Ok, I’ll admit, I’m hoping to go back for a movie. It’s just that they were showing a French film yesterday and I really didn’t fancy an hour and a half of smoking and suspenseful silences…

Marie: Claude. What have you done?
Claude: You know what I have done.
Long, long pause in which Claude and Marie look at each other meaningfully.
Marie: So what does this mean?
Claude: You know what it means.
Long, long pause. More looking.
Me: What’s he done? What does it mean? I don’t get it. (licks mint choc chip Cornetto in agitation)

Oh, a note about pubs. Almost all the pubs I’ve seen here so far have been called the Something Hotel (well, not the Something Hotel, but a variety of words to replace the ‘Something’. You know what I mean).

I’m told this is because a pub could only get a license to sell booze if they also offered accommodation. Consequently, the earlier pubs are all, to this day, called hotels, even though most of them no longer bother to offer a place to stay.

How the fuck you find an actual hotel in amongst all these is a mystery to me, but I bet there are a lot of very confused backpackers wandering around this city.

So we had a bite to eat at the the Woolloomooloo hotel. How good a name is that? Actually Woolloomooloo is an area of Sydney. Obviously the Ordinance Survey people had a load of ‘o’s left over in their Letrasets back in the day.

The result is that this place is also the only 13 letter word that gets you less than ten points in Scrabble.

After this, we swung by the famous pie cart, Harry’s café de wheels. This featured pictures of the many celebrities who had stopped off for a quick hardening of the arteries.

Now I should clarify that by famous, I mean that the guidebook says it was famous. I’d never heard of it. And by celebrities, I mean people I neither recognised or had heard of.

So I suppose all I really did was stop by a kebab van with a load of polaroids blue-tacked to the side.

What a great tourist I am.

Next up was the famous (hmm, I’m going to have to stop bandying that word around I think) Kings Cross area.

Not unlike our own Kings Cross, this is the seedy red light district.

Actually, I’ve just looked it up in Lonely Planet, which describes it as “a bizarre cocktail of strip joints, prostitution, crime and drugs peppered with a handful of classy restaurants, designer cafes, uprmarket hotels and backpacker hostels.”

We went there for the designer cafes, needless to say.

But to get there, we had to run the gauntlet of numerous strip joints. All of these had the regulation dubious man standing outside supposedly tempting us in.

But really, how tempting is ‘Psst. Couples show. Boobies and a bit of dick,’. This is word-for-word what one of these touts offered us?

And are you really likely to go into a strip joint on the advice of a man who looks like he’d been disbarred from the Russian Mafia for looking too unsavoury? At least have a shave man.

I think these guys could learn a lesson from Hong Kong and at least put hot chicks or apparently non-threatening (but actually terrifyingly persistent) little old ladies on the door.

Anyway, we had one drink here and watched the people go by for a while, but it was actually rather disappointing. So after a a short detour to another harbourside development for a last one for the road, we went home.

Still, so far so good for Sydney.

First impressions: It has a much more ‘big city’ feel to it than Melbourne which is surprising as the population is only half a million people or thereabouts bigger. The buildings are higher and the roads less grid-like, which probably contribute to this. Seems nice so far though. I guess we’ll find out more over the next couple of days.

Cheerio everyone, keep smiling.

posted by Peter The Great @ 11:06 PM