Down Under Day 4: Sydney

A couple days ago, I opined to my brothers that Circular Quay was Sydney's version of SF's Fisherman's Wharf. I was wrong; that (dis?)honor belongs to Darling Harbour, a massive collection of food courts, tourist traps, and a couple of gems.





We briefly considered visiting the Aquarium, but couldn't stomach the $35 entrance tickets right after we'd just been to the zoo. At no point did we consider visiting the wax museum. Lunch was surprisingly generous portions of Chinese food from the lunch special menu at the Dragon Boat restaurant in the Harbourside shopping mall. We followed lunch with a visit to the adjacent Australian National Maritime Museum.

Omar and EJ opted for the conventional $7 entrance ticket granting access to the internal exhibition galleries, which had some pretty interesting exhibits about ships, including indigenous art, water speed record-breaking boats, and a boat made of beer cans:







A lighthouse lens from New Zealand







I think the world is ready for a "6 catfish moon" shirt.







This one is perplexing. The flag has 44 stars. The caption says 48, but also says that the flag dates from 1908...when there were 46 states. Wat?


Unlike the other two, I went for the $25 "big ticket" that also included admission to the ships out in the harbor. Because we were short on time, I skipped the tall ship, but did check out the gun destroyer HMAS Vampire and the submarine HMAS Onslow. Probably the coolest things I've seen so far.



Vampire was nicknamed "the bat"





Torpedo tubes on Onslow



beautiful design on a submarine? Cool. (oxygen generator)

After I got off the boats, we walked across Sydney to have a quick look at King's Cross. I get the sense it may be more interesting after dark. There's a cool fountain, though.




One thing King's Cross was certainly good for was a proliferation of cheap kebab joints, which provided dinner -- the first döner kebab of the trip!




Why didn't we hang out at KX at night? Because we had tickets to the Sydney Symphony, of course. Great sound in the Opera House behind the players, as they performed symphonic dances by Brahms, Dvorak, and Rachmaninoff.