Another View

Shadows and shine: a different angle on the Sydney Opera House.

Ok, so we went to Sydney. This is what we saw.

We stayed at the Raddison on Liverpool St (nice sheets), the balcony smells like the restaurant 8 floors below, the monorail is a stones throw away. There are lives played out across the street. Each window like a TV screen of people watching their TV. We arrive late on Thursday night but the air is full of the static electricity of so many lives in one place, feet constantly moving on the footpath, and constant noise.

There are two Sydney icons to be ticked off. We climbed one of them. This 77 year of bridge with rust like wrinkles shaped this city and still does. The buttresses on either end of the bridge serve no purpose at all other than aesthetic. Each tile was hand carved, the larger ones at the base took one man a week. Hey, this was the depression right?

Icon number 2. The thing about the Sydney Opera House is there are so many ways to see her. From every angle she is something different. In every light she is something different. Just like a well rounded woman.

The Rocks are both sad and fascinating. Sad because it has been made sterile by galleries, cafes and tourists, fascinating because the real gritty history that claws from behind the walls. These bricks all look different - each convict used the them to graffiti their mark.

Of course there was more, dirty hot double decker trains, friends and stalkers, the All Blacks in a dramatic win, good food, ordinary food, ferry rides and lots and lots of walking...