Lovely things in Sydney

July 13, 2012

Sydney is a really an amazing city. Here are some great things we had a chance to experience.

1. It’s all about the water (indirect quote from Colette and Colman). This aerial photo taken on our way out of Sydney shows the harbor, which the city is built around. To the top right are the “Eastern Suburbs” where we stayed, including Bondi, Randwick and Maroubra. BTW I hear Maroubra is very quickly becoming the place to be 🙂 The green land at the far right, by the ocean, is Botany Bay.

Sydney: with “leafy” northern suburbs on the left, harbor, Eastern Suburbs to the right. That’s the Pacific just below the horizon. Look how much development they’ve built around the water.

2. Again, the water. People are very into walking along the coast, which we were familiar with because in Chicago we also enjoy a good walk along the lakefront. The first Saturday we were in Sydney, we walked from Bondi Junction, down the hill to Bondi Beach, then along the coast to Coogee (pronounced Cudgie), where Colman picked us up. We went out to Botany Bay to have a look then back to their place in Maroubra for a curry party where we got to meet Colette and Colman’s super nice friends and taste their great cooking.

The walk was full of delights: we saw whales out in the ocean, got a bit better at handling stairs! man it’s easier walking on Chicago’s flat terrain!, admired the fit nature of the locals as they RAN up and down the stairs, cheered on the surfers, had an excellent lunch + coffee at Tamarama Beach, aka “Glamourama”, and just generally soaked up an amazing winter day in Sydney.

Surfers and swimmers at Bondi Beach
View along the walk from Bondi Junction, down to Bondi Beach then over to Coogee Beach
Lunch at Tamarama Beach, aka Glamourama. We definitely added to the glamour.
Not a bad winter day at all!
Rock pools are contained, often man-made, pools that are naturally filled by ocean water. The pool aspect keeps out sharks but also would provide stiller, warmer water, and I think we should build some in Chicago. It would really warm up the lake water if it were in a small pool like this! Rahm, send somebody on a fact finding junket to Sydney, quick!

3. Charm. Check out these bird cages decorating an alley in The Rocks area.

Super charming bird cage art in The Rocks area

4. Acronyms. Maybe because they didn’t experience the global recession, they had the wherewithal to coin the term “GFC”, Global Financial Crisis. It’s awesome. Let’s all start using it. We loved the CBD, Central Business District, mentioned earlier. Well, kinda in the CBD, there’s a great arcade / mall called the QVB, or Queen Victoria Building. It has some wonderful details, including this clock that is all about Australia, and a cool spiral staircase. AND it makes a person think about the great Kinks song Victoria.

This clock shows the year, month, day and time. Also, it shows the coastline of Australia from lots of angles, and has images, in relief, of Captain Cook doing stuff. Cool.
Really, go all the way to the top floor of the QVB.

6 Comments on “Lovely things in Sydney”

  1. Hey
    We had breakfast down at Coogee today & it was another sparkly blue winter’s day! There were lots of people out running & quite a few swimming too. We were up in the Blue Mountains yesterday – Colman had a training walk for the big 100km charity walk. Funnily I found it weird being there without you guys! Looking forward to that blog entry too!
    Chat soon
    Colette

  4. Bird Cage Art in the Rocks-looks amazing-thats one we seem to have missed on our trails.

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