Sydney (4)

I’ve been back in Sydney since Wednesday night (it’s now late Friday night, and I return tomorrow AM to Vancouver). We’ve been staying at the Novotel Darling Harbour, which apart from the setting, is not actually a great hotel (thin towels, noisy, etc). I’ve also been a little less busy these past couple of days, although I’ve also had the advantage of getting to walk around with my dad, rather than by myself.

Yesterday, we took the ferry out to Manley, on the north-shore, right on the Pacific, and walked around, watched some surfers and swimmers, then headed back into town. I walked slowly back to the hotel, while my Dad headed off to give one of his talks. I stopped in at the Museum of Contemporary Art, which I must say, I didn’t particularly like: it was full of pieces that seemed somewhat masterbatory, rather than challenging or questioning. Or maybe I just didn’t get it, which is always, of course, the fear when viewing contemporary art.

The evening was spent in the company of some of my dad’s colleagues at a restaurant called ‘Aqua: dining’, which was situated overlooking an outdoor olympic pool, just under the north side of the harbour bridge, by an abandoned amusement park (Luna Park). It was quite amazing, although over-priced (not that I was paying).

Today, my dad and I did the Coogee to Bondi walk, along the coast, which takes a couple of hours. I then waded into the pacific at Bondui beach, watching some surfers. We’d seen some rather ominous clouds gathering while we were walking, but it stayed dry during our walk. However, just as we were heading off the beach, it started to rain. Within a minute, it was pelting down, in one of those great heavy-rain thunderstorms. The building we were in was actually hit by lightning, which was loud and exciting and scary all at once.

Dinner tonight was at a place called ‘Zenbu’, in Darling harbour, which was a east/west fusion restaurant that had the added schtick of providing complimentary head/neck/shoulder massages at your table – faboo! I could quite easily get used to this fancy-dining lifestyle, where our hosts have easily spent far more than my average month’s food budget in the past couple of days’ meals!

And tomorrow, home again to Vancouver.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: