Thoth

I’m no Brolga, but this is how I feel around many of my friends.

(I think this bird is an Australian white ibis, much like the African sacred ibis which is associated with the bird-headed Egyptian god Thoth.)

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Central

Like in London, Sydney’s central park is Hyde Park.

Jacarandas! In November! Love it!A statue of Captain Cook. I wonder if he looked this cocky when the Hawaiians killed him. (One theory is that they thought he was an incarnation of their god Lono.)

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Tombstones

Leaving the Royal Botanic Garden, I stumbled on this graveyard of marble. Spooky but cool.  (Later I learned that it’s an art piece titled “Memory is Creation Without End” by Kimio Tsuchiya consisting of bits of demolished buildings.)

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Government

This is the Government House where the Governor of New South Wales lives. But if Sydney has a Bruce Wayne I think he’d reside in a stately manor like this.

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Alien

Some of the flora here and in New Zealand looks positively extra-terrestrial.

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Chair

A view of Mrs Macquarie’s Chair as seen from the shore of the Royal Botanic Garden.

(As if I didn’t have enough trouble keeping the names of Star Wars conceptual artist Ralph McQuarrie and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie straight, now I’ve got to remember Elizabeth and Governor Lachlan Macquarie, too.)

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Sails

The Sydney Opera House. Probably the most iconic building in the Southern Hemisphere.  The seem to alternate between calling the roof “sails” or “shells” (but from some angles I think of them as conquistador helmets.)

The floor of the concert hall is carpeted with vivid purple.  (Yes, Prince performed here.  February 2016.  I looked it up.)These are called “ribs” and are the concrete covered stainless steel which support the shells.The walkway between the Concert Hall and the Theatre is sometimes referred to as “Hurricane Alley” because of the winds that speed through there.The ceramic tiles of the shells are “self cleaning” in that rainwater washes them clean……and the rain is then drained between the floor tiles and then filtered.Although the sails look white from afar, they are actually a mix of white and off-white.The theatre is named after Australian opera actress Joan Sutherland.The netting over the theatre’s orchestra pit was added after a chicken wandered off the edge of a play onto the head of a cellist during a performance.

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Arch

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, looking majestic as fuck.

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Dollarydoos


Hey, some trips you win, some trips you lose.  But for this one, I’m enjoying the exchange rate.

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Scorching

Um, this pizza is going to burn my mouth, isn’t it?

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Viticulture III

Picked up another of these with the label I like so much.

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Ubiquitous

And what did I find inside the Gateway shopping center?  Yet another Din Tai Fung!

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Gateway

I assumed this shopping center at Circular Quay was named after the Aboriginal mutant.

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Harbours

By Circular Quay and the Customs House there is a quill-shaped weathervane over a map of the early Australian settlements.

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Customs

Sydney’s old Customs House, ready for Christmas.

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